3] Restoration During Sleep:

   During the daytime, when the solar fluid is being absorbed by the dense body in great quantities, the points of the vital body are blown out or distended, as it were, by the solar fluid, but as the day advances and poisons of decay clog the physical body more and more, the vital fluid flows less rapidly. In the evening there comes a time when the points in the vital body do not receive a full supply of the life-giving fluid; they shrivel up and the atoms of the body move more sluggishly in consequence. Thus the Ego feels the body to be heavy, dull, and tired. At last there comes a time when the vital body collapses and the vibrations of the dense atoms become so slow that the Ego can no longer move the body. Then we say the body has gone to sleep. During sleep the vital body rebuilds and restores the dense body through the medium of the solar energy and the chemical and life ethers. These first and second ethers work on the dense body to harmonize and revive it while the desire body is taken with the Ego and the sheath of mind into the Desire World. The healthier one is, the more easily this restoration process is accomplished.

Why is sleep necessary? (The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception, pages 93-94.)

   The atoms of the chemical and life ethers are shaped like prisms. During life each prismatic vital atom penetrates a physical atom and causes it to vibrate. To form a picture of this combination, imagine a pearshaped wire basket having walls of spirally curved wire running obliquely from pole to pole. This is the physical atom; it is shaped nearly like our earth, and the prismatic vital atom is inserted from the top, which is the widest and corresponds to the north pole of the Earth. Thus the point of the prism penetrates the physical atom at the narrowest point, which corresponds to the south pole of our Earth, and the whole resembles a top swinging, swaying, and vibrating. In this manner our body is made alive and capable of motion.

   The light and reflecting ethers are of an exactly opposite nature to that of the stationary prismatic ether atoms. They are volatile and migratory. However much or little a man possesses of this material, it is an accumulation, derived from his finer experiences in life. When it grows by service and sacrifice in life's school it is seen on the outside as a soul body of gold and blue.

Compare the atoms of the higher ethers with those of the two lower.

   The part of the vital body formed of the two higher ethers, the light and reflecting ethers, is what we may term the soul body; that is to say, it is more closely linked with the desire body and the mind and also more amenable to the spirit's touch than are the two lower ethers. As the dense body assimilates particles of food and gains flesh, so the two higher ethers assimilate our good deeds during life and thus grow in volume as well. According to our action in this present life we thus increase or decrease that which we brought with us at birth.

What is the soul body?

   Those who have true spirituality have their religion rooted in the vital body, set and persistent in the path it has once chosen. As new forms are propagated through the second ether of the vital body, so the Higher Self, the Christ within, is formed through this same vehicle of generation, the vital body, in its higher aspects embodied in the two upper ethers. But as a child that is born into the world requires nourishment, so also the Christ that is born within is a babe and requires to be nourished by acts of loving service. As the Christ grows, the two higher ethers grow in volume and form a luminous cloud around the man or woman sufficiently discerning to set his or her face Heavenward. By the exercise of concentration it becomes possible in time to detach the two higher ethers, and the man may then step away from his physical body, leaving it for a time invested and vitalized only by the two lower ethers. He is then what we call an Invisible Helper, and his work may be done consciously. Probationers and Disciples, who live a pure life and are sincere and loyal, also work as Invisible Helpers, though their work may be done unconsciously, depending upon the degree of their development.

[Recommended reading: The Work of Invisible Helpers, by Amber M. Tuttle]

What is an Invisible Helper?

1] The desire body enables animal and man to fell desire, emotion and passion.

2] Man's desire body is a luminous ovoid, extending from 12 to 16 inches beyond the dense body. In it are 7 sense centers which in the majority of people are mere eddies. In the negatively developed person they turn from right to left, or counter-clockwise. In the properly trained voluntary clair-voyant these centers turn from left to right, or clockwise.

3] Man becomes an individual when his own Spirit, freed from the Group Spirit, enters his body and begins to assume command of his thoughts and actions.

4] A Group Spirit is a Being of a higher life wave than man which guides the evolution of members of the lower kingdoms, thereby also furthering its own evolution.

5] The animal Group Spirit belongs to a higher life wave (the Archengelic) than man, and is therefore in closer touch with cosmic wisdom. It is not so enmeshed in the material world as man and is consequently capable of displaying greater wisdom than he. This animal Group Spirit guides the activities of the animal, the latter apparently showing a greater wisdom than man.

6] The lower limb of the cross indicates the plant with its roots in chemical mineral soil. The animal is symbolized by the horizontal limb. Man is represented by the upper limb.

7] An upright walk, an upright larynx, and warm blood are the requisites for the expression of an individual ego.