Mount Ecclesia (dedicated on October 28, 1911) is the location of the international headquarters of the fraternal and service organization

The Rosicrucian Fellowship The Rosicrucian Fellowship (TRF) ("An International Association of Christian Mystics") was founded in 1909 by Max Heindel with the aim of heralding the Aquarian Age and promulgating "the true Philosophy" of the Rosicrucians. It claims to present ...

(TRF), located on grounds in

Oceanside, California Oceanside is a city on the South Coast (California), South Coast of California, located in San Diego County, California, San Diego County. The city had a population of 167,086 at the 2010 United States Census, 2010 census. The city is a popular ...

. It is also the location of its spiritual temple, called ''The Ecclesia'', situated upon the promontory of a high

mesa A mesa is an isolated, flat-topped elevation, ridge or hill, which is bounded from all sides by steep escarpments and stands distinctly above a surrounding plain. Mesas characteristically consist of flat-lying soft sedimentary rocks capped by ...

overlooking the

San Luis Rey River The San Luis Rey River is a river in northern San Diego County, California. The river's headwaters are in the Palomar Mountain Range and Cleveland National Forest, near Palomar Mountain and the Santa Rosa Mountains. The river mouth, on the Pacif ...

Valley and the

Franciscan The Franciscans are a group of related Mendicant orders, mendicant Christianity, Christian Catholic religious order, religious orders within the Catholic Church. Founded in 1209 by Italian Catholic friar Francis of Assisi, these orders include t ...

Mission San Luis Rey de Francia Mission San Luis Rey de Francia ( es, Misión San Luis Rey de Francia) is a former Spanish mission in San Luis Rey, a neighborhood of Oceanside, California. This Mission lent its name to the Luiseño tribe of Mission Indians. At its prime, M ...

. On April 7, 1995, it was added to the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

as the Rosicrucian Fellowship Temple.

Construction

The vision

The-Rosicrucian-Fellowship 3rdNatalChart 1911

Mount Ecclesia was founded after one of the Elder Brothers of the Rose Cross known as "The Teacher" suggested to Max Heindel, Founder of the Rosicrucian Fellowship (8/08/1909), that permanent headquarters be established to support the twin mission of the Organization: to spread the Rosicrucian teachings, (the deeper Esoteric Christian Mysteries); and to heal the sick (according to the spiritual method delineated by the Order of the

Rose Cross The Rose Cross (also called ''Rose Croix'' and Rosy Cross) is a symbol largely associated with the legendary Christian Rosenkreuz; Christian Kabbalah, Christian Kabbalist, Alchemy, alchemist, and founder of the Rosicrucianism, Rosicrucian Order. T ...

). On the winter solstice of 1910 The Teacher gave Max Heindel a spiritual vision of the location through "Jupiter Consciousness/picture consciousness/spiritual vision/telepathy" with the mission to find it and start the work.

Finding the location

After months of unfruitful search along the pacific coast between Los Angeles and San Diego California, the Heindels decided, on April 30, 1911, to go visit the famous

, founded in 1798 in Oceanside by Junipero Serra the Franciscan friar from Spain. On their way there, by horse and buggy, they stumbled on the location matching the vision given earlier by The Teacher and discovered that the land was for sale. Mr. Heindel interrupted the trip to the Franciscan mission to return to the real estate office to buy the land. But the sign on the real estate office door said "Office closed to reopen on Wednesday May 3". On May 3, 1911, they returned with their friend Mr. Patterson to Oceanside to buy the land. Shortly after 3.00 pm (at 3.05 pm) Mr. Heindel signed the deed of purchase and secured it with a down payment. They went home to Ocean Park and the same evening Mr. Heindel named the property Mount Ecclesia.

Groundbreaking

It took them six months to get ready to leave their cottage in Ocean Park. They finally came down to fellowship's new headquarters on the 40 acres (about 16.19 hectares) land of Mount Ecclesia to dedicate it to the "Great Work of the Elder Brothers of the Rose Cross". The dedication ceremony was planned for 12.40 PM on October 28, 1911, in Oceanside California. Mount Ecclesia was launched that day, through a ceremony of ground-breaking which consisted in planting a large Cross with the initials C.R.C. — representing the symbolical name Christian Rose Cross, who is the Head of the Order of the

(

Rosicrucian Rosicrucianism is a spiritual and cultural movement that arose in Europe in the early 17th century after the publication of several texts purported to announce the existence of a hitherto unknown esoteric order to the world and made seeking its ...

Order) — painted in gilt letters on the trefoils of the three upper arms and with a climbing rose. An excerpt of the first hand description of the mentioned event is as following :

Construction of The Ecclesia

''The Ecclesia'', the Healing Temple, was erected, for the purpose of affording more powerful means for the healing of disease, and dedicated on December 25, 1920. The project for the building of the Temple had started in 1914. Heindel, who died in 1919, didn't live to see the Temple completed in 1920. His wife, Agusta Foss Heindel, remained active in

civic engagement Civic engagement or civic participation is any individual or group activity addressing issues of public concern. Civic engagement includes communities working together or individuals working alone in both political and non-political actions to ...

, promoting the Fellowship and working to beautify Oceanside until her death in 1949. Spiritual

Healing With physical trauma or disease suffered by an organism, healing involves the repairing of damaged tissue(s), organs and the biological system as a whole and resumption of (normal) functioning. Medicine includes the process by which the cells i ...

meetings are held in this

holy Sacred describes something that is dedicated or set apart for the service or worship of a deity; is considered worthy of spiritual respect or devotion; or inspires awe or reverence among believers. The property is often ascribed to objects (a ...

place at a regular time each day by the Probationers who have consecrated their lives to this work. The architect of the building was Lester A. Cramer. As in all the solar

temple A temple (from the Latin ) is a building reserved for spiritual rituals and activities such as prayer and sacrifice. Religions which erect temples include Christianity (whose temples are typically called churches), Hinduism (whose temples ...

s, The Ecclesia

portal Portal often refers to: * Portal (architecture), an opening in a wall of a building, gate or fortification, or the extremities (ends) of a tunnel Portal may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Gaming * ''Portal'' (series), two video games ...

is facing east (the rising sun). In front of the portal stand two

palm tree The Arecaceae is a family of perennial flowering plants in the monocot order Arecales. Their growth form can be climbers, shrubs, tree-like and stemless plants, all commonly known as palms. Those having a tree-like form are called palm trees ...

s. The portal is constituted by a triangular-shaped

pediment Pediments are gables, usually of a triangular shape. Pediments are placed above the horizontal structure of the lintel, or entablature, if supported by columns. Pediments can contain an overdoor and are usually topped by hood moulds. A pedimen ...

upon two round columns. At the centre of the pediment, there is an

equilateral In geometry, an equilateral triangle is a triangle in which all three sides have the same length. In the familiar Euclidean geometry, an equilateral triangle is also equiangular; that is, all three internal angles are also congruent to each othe ...

triangle, symbol of

Trinity The Christian doctrine of the Trinity (, from 'threefold') is the central dogma concerning the nature of God in most Christian churches, which defines one God existing in three coequal, coeternal, consubstantial divine persons: God the F ...

, inscribed by " the eye of God." The

column A column or pillar in architecture and structural engineering is a structural element that transmits, through compression, the weight of the structure above to other structural elements below. In other words, a column is a compression member. ...

s fuse

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

(Ionic, Doric and Corinthian) and

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a letter ...

(Tuscan and composite) styles, each one with a

capital Capital may refer to: Common uses * Capital city, a municipality of primary status ** List of national capital cities * Capital letter, an upper-case letter Economics and social sciences * Capital (economics), the durable produced goods used f ...

crowned by a finial

globe A globe is a spherical model of Earth, of some other celestial body, or of the celestial sphere. Globes serve purposes similar to maps, but unlike maps, they do not distort the surface that they portray except to scale it down. A model globe ...

. There are three steps between the columns leading to the Temple entrance. At the Temple entrance there are two

square In Euclidean geometry, a square is a regular quadrilateral, which means that it has four equal sides and four equal angles (90-degree angles, π/2 radian angles, or right angles). It can also be defined as a rectangle with two equal-length adj ...

pilasters In classical architecture, a pilaster is an architectural element used to give the appearance of a supporting column and to articulate an extent of wall, with only an ornamental function. It consists of a flat surface raised from the main wall ...

, each showing two faces. The round 12-sided building architecture is composed by round

arch An arch is a vertical curved structure that spans an elevated space and may or may not support the weight above it, or in case of a horizontal arch like an arch dam, the hydrostatic pressure against it. Arches may be synonymous with vaul ...

es and narrow round inward windows. Its great

dome A dome () is an architectural element similar to the hollow upper half of a sphere. There is significant overlap with the term cupola, which may also refer to a dome or a structure on top of a dome. The precise definition of a dome has been a m ...

is composed by a

cupola In architecture, a cupola () is a relatively small, most often dome-like, tall structure on top of a building. Often used to provide a lookout or to admit light and air, it usually crowns a larger roof or dome. The word derives, via Italian, from ...

crowned by a golden globe with a

finial A finial (from '' la, finis'', end) or hip-knob is an element marking the top or end of some object, often formed to be a decorative feature. In architecture, it is a small decorative device, employed to emphasize the Apex (geometry), apex of a d ...

of lights. The inner portal and the Temple's interior is ornamented with

alchemical Alchemy (from Arabic: ''al-kīmiyā''; from Ancient Greek: χυμεία, ''khumeía'') is an ancient branch of natural philosophy, a philosophical and protoscientific tradition that was historically practiced in China, India, the Muslim world, ...

and

astrological Astrology is a range of divinatory practices, recognized as pseudoscientific since the 18th century, that claim to discern information about human affairs and terrestrial events by studying the apparent positions of celestial objects. Dif ...

symbols. It is a solar temple dedicated to the coming

Age of Aquarius The Age of Aquarius, in astrology, is either the current or forthcoming astrological age, depending on the method of calculation. Astrologers maintain that an astrological age is a product of the earth's slow precessional rotation and lasts for 2 ...

. On June 29, 1920 (from 11:55 A. M. until 12:02 P. M.), the

vision Vision, Visions, or The Vision may refer to: Perception Optical perception * Visual perception, the sense of sight * Visual system, the physical mechanism of eyesight * Computer vision, a field dealing with how computers can be made to gain un ...

of an event of Spiritual nature at ground's site was reported as following: On July 23, 1920 (at noon), during the laying of the

cornerstone The cornerstone (or foundation stone or setting stone) is the first stone set in the construction of a masonry foundation. All other stones will be set in reference to this stone, thus determining the position of the entire structure. Over time ...

in the north-eastern corner of the temple, the purpose of The Ecclesia was stated in accordance to the commands of

Christ Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label=Hebrew/Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other Names and titles of Jesus in the New Testament, names and titles), was ...

, namely, "Preach the gospel and heal the sick":

Spiritual and healing services

Nearly since its inception the Fellowship has been providing ''the service of

spiritual healing Energy medicine is a branch of alternative medicine based on a pseudo-scientific belief that healers can channel "healing energy" into a patient and effect positive results. Practitioners use a number of names including various synonyms for m ...

''; the first service took place on June 23, 1914. On December 25, 1938, the Rosicrucian Fellowship opened a Sanitarium building which was used for a number of years to treat patients with non-contagious diseases. Currently, the healing applications are received by the Fellowship's centers worldwide or directly by the healing department at Mount Ecclesia. Over the years, the group built a number of structures on the property, including an administration building in 1913, a

chapel A chapel is a Christian place of prayer and worship that is usually relatively small. The term has several meanings. Firstly, smaller spaces inside a church that have their own altar are often called chapels; the Lady chapel is a common ty ...

in 1914, a

guesthouse A guest house (also guesthouse) is a kind of lodging. In some parts of the world (such as the Caribbean), guest houses are a type of inexpensive hotel-like lodging. In others, it is a private home that has been converted for the exclusive use o ...

and healing center in 1938, and a business office and

cottage A cottage, during Feudalism in England, England's feudal period, was the holding by a cottager (known as a Cotter (farmer), cotter or ''bordar'') of a small house with enough garden to feed a family and in return for the cottage, the cottager ...

s in the 1960s and 1970s. Max Heindel, the founder of the Rosicrucian Fellowship, had a dream, yet to be concretized, of a beautiful Grecian theatre envisioned to be built in the canyon below the chapel and in which performances would be given of plays with a spiritual message and

occult The occult, in the broadest sense, is a category of esoteric supernatural beliefs and practices which generally fall outside the scope of religion and science, encompassing phenomena involving otherworldly agency, such as magic and mysticism a ...

truths such as the great dramas of

Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...

and other inspired classics; as well as of the Fellowship's own splendid

orchestra An orchestra (; ) is a large instrumental ensemble typical of classical music, which combines instruments from different families. There are typically four main sections of instruments: * bowed string instruments, such as the violin, viola, c ...

composed of permanent students, that it would perform in the theatre works of master composers, particularly those of

Beethoven Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 177026 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. Beethoven remains one of the most admired composers in the history of Western music; his works rank amongst the most performed of the classical ...

and

Wagner Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( ; ; 22 May 181313 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most op ...

whom he knew to be high musical Initiates, and also that classes in initiatory music would be taught there. The Fellowship runs its own

printing press A printing press is a mechanical device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a printing, print medium (such as paper or cloth), thereby transferring the ink. It marked a dramatic improvement on earlier printing methods in wh ...

, established by Max Heindel in 1912, which is an area of great activity with hundreds of products being produced: printing the

ephemerides In astronomy and celestial navigation, an ephemeris (pl. ephemerides; ) is a book with tables that gives the trajectory of naturally occurring astronomical objects as well as artificial satellites in the sky, i.e., the position (and possibly vel ...

, ''the books'' (with millions spread worldwide), most of ''the course materials'' sent to the members, the periodical ''Echoes from Mount Ecclesia'' (which became the ''Rays from The Rosy Cross'' in July 1915), the

pamphlet A pamphlet is an unbound book (that is, without a hard cover or binding). Pamphlets may consist of a single sheet of paper that is printed on both sides and folded in half, in thirds, or in fourths, called a ''leaflet'' or it may consist of a ...

s (in six languages) that are distributed freely to people and many other various things, such as flyers,

brochure A brochure is originally an Information, informative paper document (often also used for advertising) that can be folded into a template, pamphlet, or Folded leaflet, leaflet. A brochure can also be a set of related unfolded papers put into a po ...

postcard A postcard or post card is a piece of thick paper or thin cardboard, typically rectangular, intended for writing and mailing without an envelope. Non-rectangular shapes may also be used but are rare. There are novelty exceptions, such as wood ...

poster A poster is a large sheet that is placed either on a public space to promote something or on a wall as decoration. Typically, posters include both typography, textual and graphic elements, although a poster may be either wholly graphical or w ...

s, etc., that are necessary for the diffusion of ''the Rosicrucian Christian teachings'', the Gospel of the coming

. The organization generated so much mail that the

federal government A federation (also known as a federal state) is a political entity characterized by a union of partially self-governing provinces, states, or other regions under a central federal government (federalism). In a federation, the self-governin ...

built the city's first

post office A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letters and parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post offices may offer additional serv ...

on Seagaze Drive in 1936 to keep up with the demand. The historic district of Mount Ecclesia, home to the Rosicrucian Fellowship, is noted for its singular

architecture Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing building ...

and the preservation of nature grounds and

garden A garden is a planned space, usually outdoors, set aside for the cultivation, display, and enjoyment of plants and other forms of nature. The single feature identifying even the wildest wild garden is ''control''. The garden can incorporate both ...

s, offering a unique meditative walking experience. Accommodation and

vegetarian Vegetarianism is the practice of abstaining from the consumption of meat (red meat, poultry, seafood, insects, and the flesh of any other animal). It may also include abstaining from eating all by-products of animal slaughter. Vegetarianism m ...

meals are also provided during the winter and summer school activities.

Financial model

The Rosicrucian Fellowship observes the basic condition, set by its founder

Max Heindel Max Heindel (born Carl Louis von Grasshoff, July 23, 1865 – January 6, 1919) was a Danish American Christian occultist, astrologer, and mystic. Early infancy He was born in Aarhus, Denmark, into the noble family von Grasshoff, which was con ...

, that no price, membership dues or fees, should be put on its teachings, and never to ask for money for membership, for information, for education, nor for

healing With physical trauma or disease suffered by an organism, healing involves the repairing of damaged tissue(s), organs and the biological system as a whole and resumption of (normal) functioning. Medicine includes the process by which the cells i ...

. The Fellowship has always balanced along the edge of the subsistence level with its funding and maintenance being achieved through the voluntary giving of members and friends, legacies, book-sale profits, housing rentals and cafeteria income and with the assistance of

volunteer Volunteering is a voluntary act of an individual or group freely giving time and labor for community service. Many volunteers are specifically trained in the areas they work, such as medicine, education, or emergency rescue. Others serve ...

workers. By setting the example and through self-

discipline Discipline refers to rule following behavior, to regulate, order, control and authority. It may also refer to punishment. Discipline is used to create habits, routines, and automatic mechanisms such as blind obedience. It may be inflicted on ot ...

, Mount Ecclesia seeks : «to unite and harmonize each with the others by teaching a religion that is both scientific and artistic, and to gather all churches into one great Christian Brotherhood.» The Rosicrucians do not seek temporal power. They seek to serve God by helping their suffering fellowmen. A place of training for the work is beautifully attained in Mount Ecclesia, and now THE ECCLESIA, the TEMPLE OF HEALING, is being built by the loving free-will offerings of friends who give not money alone but personal service and prayers. This method of building is a little new and somewhat slow in these days, as it is not permitted to call out to the world for funds or labor. Each offering must come as a result of the inner promptings of the HEART. Christ's stronghold.

Gallery

References

External links

Tour of Mount EcclesiaThe Rosicrucian Fellowship
on ''Sandiegotribune.com'' {{National Register of Historic Places Properties of religious function on the National Register of Historic Places in California National Register of Historic Places in San Diego County, California Temples in California Esoteric Christianity Rosicrucianism Religious buildings and structures in San Diego County, California Oceanside, California Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in California