Max Heindel - born Carl Louis von Grasshoff in Aarhus, Denmark on July 23, 1865 - was a Christian occultist, astrologer, and mystic. He died on January 6, 1919 at Oceanside, California, United States. Heindel left home at the age of sixteen to learn engineering at the ship-yards of Glasgow, Scotland. As Chief Engineer he traveled extensively, and found himself working on a large passenger steamer of the Cunard Line plying between America and Europe. From 1895 to 1901, he was a consulting engineer in New York City. During this time he married, the marriage being terminated by the death of his wife in 1905. A son and two daughters were born of this marriage. After attending lectures by the theosophist C.W. Leadbeater, he joined the Theosophical Society of Los Angeles, of which he became vice-president in 1904 and 1905. He began the study of astrology, which gave him the key to unlocking the mysteries of man's inner nature. He met his future wife Augusta Foss around this time. Overwork and privation brought him severe heart trouble in 1905, and for months he lay at the point of death. Upon his recovery he was more keenly aware of the needs of humanity. He spent much of the time during this illness out of his body, consciously working and seeking for the truth as he might find it on the invisible planes. From 1906 to 1907 he started a lecture tour, in order to spread his occult knowledge. Heindel reports to have been visited by a Spiritual being that identified himself as an Elder Brother of the Rosicrucian Order, an Order in the inner worlds formed in the year 1313 and having no direct connection to physical organizations which call themselves by this name. Later, he found out that during a previous visit of the Elder Brother, he was put to a test to determine his worthiness to be messenger of the Western Wisdom Teachings, and only then he was given instruction how to reach the etheric Temple of the Rose Cross, and how at this Temple he was in direct communication with and under the personal instructions of the Elder Brothers of the Rose Cross.