“In summarizing the main themes of this introduction to the Liber 777, let us state that happiness is in proportion to the state of happiness that each person maintains within himself or herself, with other humans, and with nature. The more aware we are that our well-being depends on this harmony, the more we will feel the necessity and desire to maintain it in our human relationships and natural surroundings.”

Like many cults, AMORC builds its questionable rituals and belief systems around a series of seemingly rational propositions. In the Mandamus section, the prospective Rosicrucian recruit is met with the message that your happiness is dictated by your ability to retain both internal and external harmony at all times. The text goes on to explain how this concept of harmony covers everything from physical fitness and diet to your relationships with other people and even the flora and fauna that surround you.

To a truth-seeker, the idea that the key to their spiritual fulfillment lies in balance of all these activities is an appealing one. At this point, the reader is not being offered limitless mystical power, nor indeed are they being offered some esoteric path to cosmic enlightenment. Instead, the society claims that it can help you reach a far more personal goal; the same objective that both religion and psychology look to service – emotional comfort.

According to Jon-Patrik Pedersen, a psychologist at the California Institute of Technology, comfort is one of the most powerful motivators for human behavior. When we are met with stress and anxiety many of us seek out people and practices that can help us to soothe these often volatile emotions. By promising a complete solution for these insecurities, groups such as AMORC position themselves perfectly to fulfill this innate need. But unlike a therapist, a cult recruiter will promise far more than just techniques to regulate these tendencies, they will claim that their teachings can help to purge these negative emotions permanently.

“As for the emotions, it is important to know that feelings based on anger, pride, jealousy, and spitefulness ect., are quite harmful to our emotional well-being and consequently to our physical equilibrium. Even without going to the extremes we have just mentioned feelings of fear, anxiety and distress—are equally damaging to the general harmony that should prevail”

In fact nothing could be further from the truth. While avoiding unpleasant thoughts and feelings might provide momentary relief from your problems. In the long run, suppressing negative emotions leads to far deeper psychological problems. Just think of how many people replace healthy coping mechanisms with alcohol or drugs and end up with severe addictions in the process. Furthermore, when you’re always looking to anticipate and suppress bad feelings you often end up with a reflexive case of anticipatory anxiety where you can develop an irrational fear of any negativity. Often, this fear becomes far more stressful than dealing with the original stressor head-on. The act of denying your natural feelings is an exercise in self-deception by constantly telling yourself that you aren’t feeling awful when you quite obviously are, you are training yourself to believe that your perceptions are wrong.

Whether by accident or design, AMORC’s claims also mask one of the most integral purposes of negative emotions. These are evolutionary instincts that signify a need to re-evaluate and question our current experience. In other words, these emotions can be instrumental in allowing us to escape harmful or even dangerous situations, if you are to treat every situation with a cheerful indifference then you may be discarding a critical survival tool. Of course, if you are being asked to trust wholeheartedly in a secretive system of esoteric beliefs, then placidity may be quite a helpful trait.