Occult Principles of
Health and Healing
by Max Heindel
(Part 1)
Foreword
This compilation of material concerning the health and
healing of the human organism as considered from the esoteric viewpoint affords
those interested in attaining and maintaining health a treasure chest of
valuable information. Max Heindel, a trained clairvoyant and
investigator of the super-physical worlds, devoted much time and effort to
ascertaining the real causes of physical and mental disorders as revealed in
the realm of cause, the higher or superphysical planes, and this volume
contains the fruits of his labor. It embodies some of the most priceless
truths in regard to the origin, functions, and proper care of the vehicles of
man to be found on the printed page, and those concerned with the true art of
healing will find it an indispensable addition to their libraries.
Christ admonished His disciples: "Preach the Gospel,
and heal the sick." Maintaining health, when once gained or regained,
requires a knowledge of "the Gospel," or laws of God, and it is therefore in
the light of both parts of the command of the Great Teacher that this book is
dedicated to the afflicted of humanity. May the contents of its pages,
permeated as they are with the love and compassionate understanding of the
mystic heart of the author, be the means of bringing new solace and relief
to countless aching hearts and suffering bodies, as well as speed the day
for the generation of more perfect human vehicles.
Esoteric science teaches that man is a complex being who possesses:
(1) A Dense Body, which is the visible instrument he uses here in this
world to fetch and carry; the body we ordinarily think of as the whole man.
(2) A Vital Body, which is made of ether and pervades the visible body
as ether permeates all other forms, except that human beings specialize a
greater amount of the universal ether than other forms. That ethereal body
is our instrument for specializing the vital energy of the Sun.
(3) A Desire Body, which is our emotional nature. This finer vehicle
pervades both the vital and dense bodies. It is seen by clairvoyant vision
to extend about sixteen inches outside our visible body, which is located in
the center of this ovoid cloud as the yolk is in the center of the egg.
(4) The Mind, which is a mirror, reflecting the outer world and enabling
the Ego to transmit its commands as thought and word, also to compel action.
The Ego is the threefold Spirit which uses these vehicles to gather
experience in the school of life.
The dense body was the first vehicle built and has therefore an enormous
period of evolution back of it. It is in its fourth stage of development
and has now reached a great and marvelous degree of efficiency. It will, in
time, reach perfection, but even at present it is the best organized of
man's vehicles. It is a wonderfully constructed instrument and should be
recognized as such by everyone pretending to have any knowledge of the
constitution of man.
The germ of the dense body was given by the Lords of Flame during the
first Revolution of the Saturn Period, the first of the Seven Great Days of
Manifestation according to the Rosicrucian Teachings. This germ was
somewhat developed during the remainder of the first six Revolutions,
being given the capacity for developing the sense organs, particularly the
ear. Therefore, the ear is the most highly developed organ we possess.
In the first half of the Saturn Revolution of the Sun Period, the second
of the Seven Great Days of Manifestation, the Lords of Flame were concerned
with certain improvements to be made upon the germ of the dense body. It
became necessary to change the germ in such a way as to allow of
interpenetration by a vital body, also capability of evolving glands and an
alimentary canal. This was done by the joint action of the Lords of Flame and
the Lords of Wisdom.
In the first or Saturn Revolution of the Moon Period, the third of the
Seven Great Days of Manifestation, the Lords of Wisdom cooperated with the
Lords of Individuality to reconstruct the germ of the dense body. This germ
had unfolded embryonic sense organs, digestive organs, glands, etc. and was
interpenetrated by a budding vital body. Of course, it was not solid and
visible as it is now, yet in a crude sort of way it was somewhat organized.
In the Moon Period it was necessary to reconstruct it and make it capable of
being interpenetrated by a desire body, and also capable of evolving a
nervous system, muscle, cartilage, and a rudimentary skeleton. This
reconstruction was the work of the Saturn Revolution of the Moon Period.
These Moon beings were not so purely germinal as in the previous periods. To
the trained clairvoyant they appear suspended by strings in the atmosphere
of the fire-fog, as the embryo hangs from the placenta by the umbilical
cord. Currents, which provided some sort of nourishment, flowed in and out
from the atmosphere through those cords.
When the Earth came out of chaos, at the beginning of the Earth period,
it was at first in the dark red stage known as the Polarian Epoch. There
humanity first evolved a dense body, the germ of which was given by the
lords of Flame during the First Revolution of the Saturn Period. It was not
then at all like our present vehicle, of course. When the condition of the
Earth became fiery, as in the Hyperborean Epoch, the vital body was added
and man became plant-like, that is to say, he had the same vehicles as our
plants have today, and also a similar consciousness, or rather,
unconsciousness, to that which we have in dreamless sleep when the dense and
vital bodies are left upon the bed.
At that time, in the Hyperborean Epoch, the body of man was like an
enormous gas bag, floating outside the fiery Earth, and it threw off plant-like spores, which then grew and were used by other incoming entities. At
that time man was double sexed, a hermaphrodite.
In the Lemurian Epoch, when the Earth had somewhat cooled and islands of
crust had begun to form amid boiling seas, then also man's body had somewhat
solidified and had become more like the body we see today. It was apelike, a
short trunk with enormous arms and limbs, the heels projecting backward, and
almost no head — at least the upper part of the head was nearly entirely
wanting. Man lived in the atmosphere of steam which esotericists called
fire-fog, and had no lungs, but breathed by means of tubes. He had the
gill-like apparatus still present in the human embryo while passing through
the stage of antenatal life corresponding to that epoch. He had no warm,
red blood, for at that stage there was no individual Spirit. He had a
bladder-like organ inside, which he inflated with heated air to help him
leap enormous chasms when volcanic eruptions destroyed the land upon which
he was living. From the back of his head there projected an organ which has
now drawn into the head and is called by anatomists the pineal gland, or the
third eye, although it was never an eye, but a localized organ of feeling.
The body was then devoid of feeling, but when man came too close to a volcanic
crater, the heat was registered by this organ to warn him away before his
body was destroyed.
At that time the body had already so far solidified that it was
impossible for man to continue to propagate by spores, and it was necessary
that he should evolve an organ of thought, a brain. The creative force which
we now use to build railways, steamships, etc., in the outer world, was
then used inwardly for the building of organs. Like all forces it was
positive and negative. One pole was turned upward to build the brain,
leaving the other pole available for the creation of another body. Thus
man was no longer a complete creative unit. Each possessed only half
the creative force, and it was therefore necessary for him to seek his
complement outside himself.
In the latter part of the Lemurian Epoch the form of man was yet quite
plastic. The skeleton had formed, but man himself had great power in molding
the flesh of his own body, and that of the animals about him.
At this time, when he was born, man could hear and feel, but his
perception of light came later. The Lemurian had no eyes. He had two
sensitive spots which were affected by the light of the sun as it shone dimly
through the fiery atmosphere of ancient Lemuria, but it was not until
nearly the close of the Atlantean Epoch that he had sight as we have it
today.
His language consisted of sounds like those of Nature. The sighing of
the wind in the immense forests which grew in great luxuriance in that
super-tropical climate, the rippling of the brook, the howling of the
tempest, the thunder of the waterfall, the roar of the volcano — all these
were to him voices of the Gods from whom he knew himself to have descended.
Of the birth of his body he knew nothing. He could not see either it or
anything else, but he did perceive his fellow beings. It was, however, an
inner perception, like our perception of persons and things in dreams, but
with this very important difference, that his dream-perception was clear and
rational.
But when "their eyes were opened" (as told in the story of the "Fall")
and their consciousness was directed outward towards the facts of the
physical World, conditions were altered. Propagation was directed, not by
Angels, but by man, who was ignorant of the operation of the Sun- and
Moon-forces. His consciousness became focused in the Physical World,
although things did not appear to his vision with clearly defined outlines
until the latter part of the Atlantean Epoch. Still he came by degrees to
know death because of the break made in his consciousness when it was
shifted to the higher worlds at death and back to the Physical World at
rebirth.
However, what has been said about the enlightenment of the Lemurians
applies to only a minor portion of those who lived in the latter part of that
epoch, and who became the seed for the seven Atlantean Races. The greater
part of the Lemurians were animal-like and the forms inhabited by them have
degenerated into the anthropoids of the present day.
In the Atlantean Epoch, which followed the Lemurian, man was very different from anything existent on Earth at the present time. He had a head, but scarcely any forehead, his brain had no frontal development; the head sloped almost abruptly back from a point just above the eyes. As compared with our present humanity, he was a giant; his arms and legs were much longer in
proportion to his body than ours. Instead of walking, he progressed by a
series of flying leaps, not unlike those of the kangaroo. He had small
blinking eyes and his hair was round in section. Their hair was straight, glossy,
black and round in section.
The higher vehicles of the early Atlanteans were not drawn into a
concentric position in relation to the dense body, as are ours. The Spirit
was not quite an indwelling Spirit; it was partially outside, therefore
could not control its vehicles with as great facility as though it dwelt
entirely inside. The head of the vital body was outside of and held a
position far above the physical head. There is a point between the
eyebrows and about half an inch below the surface of the skin, which has a
corresponding point in the vital body. When these two points come into
correspondence, as they do in man today, they form the seat of the indwelling
Spirit in the man.
On account of the distance between these two points, the Atlantean's powers
of perception or vision was much keener in the inner worlds than in the dense
Physical World, obscured by its atmosphere of thick, heavy fog. In the
fullness of time, however, the atmosphere slowly became clearer; at the same
time, the point spoken of in the vital body came closer and closer to the
corresponding point in the dense body, being united to it in the last third
of the Atlantean Epoch.
The Rmoahals were the first of the Atlantean Races. They had but little
memory and that little was connected with sensations. They remembered colors
and tones, and thus to some extent they evolved Feeling. With memory came
to the Atlanteans the rudiments of a language. They evolved words and no
longer made use of mere sounds, as did the Lemurians, giving names to
things.
The Tlavatlis were the second Atlantean Race. Already they began to feel
their worth as separate human beings. They became ambitious; the demanded
that their works be remembered. Memory became a factor in the life of the
community. Thus began ancestor worship.
The Toltecs were the third Atlantean Race. They inaugurated Monarchy and
Hereditary Succession, originating the custom of honoring men for the deeds
done by their ancestors. Experience came to be highly valued, and memory
was developed to a very great degree.
In the middle third of Atlantis we find the beginning of separate
nations. In the time the Kings became intoxicated with power, and began to
use their power corruptly, for selfish ends and personal aggrandizement
instead of for the common good.
The Original Turanians were the fourth Atlantean Race. They were
especially vile in their abominable selfishness, erecting temples where
the Kings were worshiped as Gods.
The Original Semites were the fifth and most important of the seven
Atlantean Races, because in them we find the first germ of the corrective
quality of thought. Therefore the Original Semitic Race became the
"seed-race" for the seven races of the Fifth Epoch. They were the first to
discover that "brain" is superior to "brawn." During the existence of this
race, the atmosphere of Atlantic commenced to clear definitely, and the
previously mentioned point in the vital body came into correspondence with
its companion point in the dense body. The combination of events gave man
the ability to see objects clearly with sharp, well-defined contours; but
it also resulted in loss of the sight pertaining to the inner worlds.
The Akkadians were the sixth and the Mongolians were the seventh of the
Atlantean Races. They evolved the faculty of thought still farther, but
followed lines of reasoning which deviated more and more from the main trend
of the developing life. As the heavy fogs of Atlantis condensed more and
more, the increasing quantity of water gradually inundated that continent,
destroying the greater part of the population and the evidences of their
civilization.
Central Asia was the cradle of the Fifth Epoch Races, who descended from the
original Semites. Thence have the different races gone out. It is
unnecessary to describe them here, as historical researches have sufficiently
revealed their main features.
In the Saturn Revolution of the Earth period the dense body was given the
ability to form a brain and become a vehicle for the germ of mind which was
to be added later. The impulse was given to building the frontal part of
the brain. The brain and the nervous systems are the highest expression of
the desire body. They call up pictures of the outside world, but in mental
image-making, the blood brings the material for the pictures; therefore,
when thought is active the blood flows to the head.
In man the brain is the link between the Spirit and the outside world.
He can know nothing of the outside world except through the medium of the
brain. The sense organs are merely carriers to the brain of impacts from
without and the brain is the instrument which interprets and coordinates
those impacts. The Spirit, aided by the Angels, built the brain to gather
knowledge of the Physical World. When the Ego entered into possession of
its vehicles it became necessary to use part of the creative force for the
building of a brain and larynx. The Lucifers are the instigators of all
mental activity, by means of the part of the sex force that is carried
upward for work in the brain. Thus did the evolving entity obtain brain
consciousness of the outside world at the cost of half its creative power.
Physiologists note that certain areas of the brain are devoted to
particular thought activities, and phrenologists have carried this branch
of science still farther. Now, it is known that thought breaks down and
destroys nerve tissues. This and all other waste of the body, is replaced by
the blood. When, through the development of the heart into a voluntary
muscle, the circulation of the blood finally passes under the absolute
control of the unifying Life Spirit it will then be within the power of
that Spirit to withhold the blood from those areas of the mind devoted to
selfish purposes. As a result, those particular thought centers will
gradually atrophy.
Brain-knowledge, with its concomitant selfishness, was bought by man at
the cost of the power to create from himself alone. He bought his free will
at the cost of pain and death; but when man learns to use his intellect for
the good of humanity, he will gain spiritual power over life, and in
addition, will be guided by an innate knowledge as much higher than the
present brain-consciousness as that is higher than the lowest animal
consciousness. The brain is, at best, only an indirect way of gaining
knowledge and will be superseded by direct touch with the Wisdom of Nature,
which man, without any cooperation, will then be able to use for the creation
of new bodies.
In the Moon Period it was necessary to reconstruct the dense body to make
it capable of being interpenetrated by a desire body, and also capable of
evolving a nervous system, muscle, cartilage, and a rudimentary skeleton.
This reconstruction was the work of the Saturn Revolution of the Moon
Period.
The reconstruction of the dense body in the Saturn Revolution of the
Earth Period gave the first impulse to the incipient division in the nervous
system which has since become apparent in its subdivisions: the voluntary
and the sympathetic. The latter was the only one provided for in the Moon
Period. The voluntary nervous system (which has transformed the dense body
from a mere automaton acting under stimuli from without, to an extraordinary
adaptable instrument capable of being guided and controlled by an Ego from
within) was not added until the present Earth Period.
When the division of the Sun, Moon, and Earth took place, in the early
part of the Lemurian Epoch, the more advanced portion of
humanity-in-the-making experienced a division of the desire body into a
higher and a lower part. The rest of humanity did likewise in the early
part of the Atlantean Epoch. This higher part of the desire body became a
sort of animal soul. It built the cerebrospinal nervous system and the
voluntary muscles, by that means controlling the lower part of the threefold
body until the link of mind was given.
Part of the involuntary muscular system is controlled by the sympathetic
nervous system.
The seat of the Human Spirit is primarily in the pineal gland and
secondarily in the brain and the cerebrospinal nervous system, which controls
the voluntary muscles.
The study of the blood is very deep, far-reaching, and of supreme
importance from whatever viewpoint we analyze it. Lucifer was decidedly
right when he said that "blood is a most peculiar essence." It builds
the physical body from the time the seed atom is deposited in the ovum till
he rupture of the silver cord ends material existence, being one of the
highest products of the vital body and the carrier of nourishment to every
part of the body. It is the direct vehicle of the Ego, having injected into
it every thought, feeling or emotion transmitted to the lungs.
In infancy, and up to the fourteenth year, the red marrow-bones do not
make all the blood corpuscles. Most of them are supplied by the thymus
gland, which is largest in the fetus and gradually diminishes as the
individual blood-making faculty develops in the growing child. The thymus
gland contains, as it were, a supply of blood corpuscles given by the parents,
and consequently the child, which draws its blood from that source, does not
realize its individuality. Not until the blood is made by the child does it
think of itself as "I," and when the thymus gland disappears, at the age of
fourteen, the "I" feeling reaches its full expression, for then the blood is
made and dominated entirely by the Ego. The following will make clear the
idea and its logic:
It will be remembered that assimilation and growth depend upon the forces
working along the positive pole of the vital body's chemical ether. That is
set free at the seventh year, together with the balance of the vital body.
Only the chemical ether is fully ripe at that time; the other parts need
more ripening. At the fourteenth year the life ether of the vital body,
which has to do with propagation, is fully ripe. In the period from seven
to fourteen years of age the excessive assimilation has stored an amount of
fore which goes to the sex organs and is ready at the time the desire body
is set free.
This force of sex is stored in the blood during the third of the seven
year periods and in that time the light ether, which is the avenue for the
blood heat, is developed and controls the heart, so that the body is neither
too hot nor too cold. In early childhood the blood very often rises to an
abnormal temperature. During the period of excessive growth, it is
frequently the reverse, but in the hot-headed, unrestrained youth, passion
and temper very often drive the Ego out by overheating the blood. We very
appropriately call this an ebullition or boiling over of temper and describe
the effect as causing the person to "lose his head," or become incapable of
thought. That is exactly what happens when passion, rage, or temper
overheats the blood, thus drawing the Ego outside the bodies. The Ego is
outside of its vehicles and they are running as much, bereft of the
guiding influence of thought, part of the work of which is to act as a brake
on impulse. Only the man who keeps cool and does not allow excess of heat
to drive him out can think properly.
As proof of the assertion that the Ego cannot work in the body when the
blood is either too hot or too cold we will call attention to the well-known
fact that excessive heat makes one sleepy, and, if carried beyond a certain
point, it drives the Ego out, leaving the body unconscious. It is only when
the blood is at or near the normal temperature that the Ego can use it as a
vehicle of consciousness.
The burnish blush of shame is an evidence of the manner in which the
blood is driven to the head, thus overheating the brain and paralyzing
thought. Fear is a state when the Ego wants to barricade himself against
some outside danger. He then drives the blood to the center and grows pale,
because the blood has left the periphery of the body, and has lost heat,
thus paralyzing thought. In fever the excess of heat causes delirium.
The full-blooded person, when the blood is not too hot, is active in body
and mind, while the anemic person is sleepy. In one the Ego has better
control; in the other, less. When the Ego wants to think it drives blood,
at the proper heat, to the brain. When a heavy meal centers the activity
of the Ego upon the digestive tract, the man cannot think; he is sleepy.
The old Norsemen and the Scots recognized that the Ego is in the blood.
No stranger could become associated with them as a relative until he had
"mixed blood" with them and thus become one of them.
In the descendants of the patriarchal families — Adam, Methuselah, etc.,
the blood which coursed through their veins contained the pictures of all
that had happened to their different ancestors, and these pictures were
constantly before the inner vision of each one as they had no outer vision
at that time. At the present time the blood of each individual contains
only the pictures of his own individual experiences and the subconscious mind
has access to them. Up to the time that marriage outside of the family was
commenced individuals were ruled by a Family Spirit (Angel) which entered
the blood by means of the air inspired, and helped each Ego to control its
vehicles. When marriage outside the family began, Egos had arrived at a point
in the evolution of self-consciousness where they could depend on self, and
where they were to ease being God-guided automatons and become
self-governing individuals. The greater the mixture of blood the less the
indwelling Ego can be influenced by the Race or Family Spirits. Unmixed
blood gave us ancestral assistance when we needed it. Mixed blood makes for
independence of outside help. A God (creator) must be independent.
The heat of the blood is the vantage ground of the Ego, and the Lucifer
Spirits from Mars aid in maintaining this heat by dissolving iron, a Mars
metal, in our blood to attract oxygen, a solar element.
The proper heat for the real expression of the Ego is not present until
the mind is born from the macrocosmic Concrete Mind, when the individual is
about twenty-one years old. Statutory law also recognizes this as the
earliest age when the man is deemed fit to exercise a franchise.
In the lower order of animals blood is fluid and nucleated. The nuclei,
enters of life, are the vantage ground of a Group Spirit. It regulates
their vital processes and guides them through the nuclei. During the early
part of the gestatory period the blood of the fetus is also nucleated by
the life of the mother, and she regulates the process of body building, but
as soon as the incoming Ego enters the mothers body, it commences to assert
its individuality and resists formation of nucleated blood cells. The old
cells gradually disappear, so that when the silver cord is tied at the time
of quickening and the Ego is drawn into its body, all nuclei have
disappeared, and it is absolute autocrat of its new vehicle, a heritage more
precious than any other earthly possession; and when properly used it is
our means of generating soul power and laying up treasure in heaven. When
we abandon this vehicle to Spirit controls, we seriously hinder our
higher evolution and commit a great sin.
Thus the blood is the particular vehicle of the Ego, and as in the past
aeons of development we have crystallized matter in order to form our dense
body, so also it is destined that now we must etherealize our vehicles in
order that we may lift ourselves and the world out of the realms of
materiality and into the spiritual. Naturally, therefore, the Ego aims
first to make the blood gaseous, and to the spiritual sight, this red
unnucleated blood is not a fluid, but a gas. It is no argument against this
assertion that the moment we prick our skin the blood comes out as a
liquid. The moment we open up the try-cock of a steam boiler the gas also
condenses into a liquid, but if we make a model steam engine of glass and
look at the way steam works there we shall see only the piston move backward
and forward, driven by an invisible agent, live steam, and similarly, as
the live steam direct from the boiler is invisible, and gaseous, so also the
live blood in the human body is a gas, and the higher the state of
development of any given Ego, the more ethereal is it able to make the
blood.
When, by the vital processes, food has reached the highest alchemical
state, the process of condensation begins and the blood-gas is formed into
tissue in the various organs to replace what has been wasted or destroyed by
the activities of the body. The spleen is the gateway of the vital body;
there the solar force which abounds in the surrounding atmosphere enters in a
constraint stream, to aid us in the vital processes, and there also the war
between the desire body and the vital body is waged most fiercely.
Thoughts of worry, fear, and anger interfere with the process of evaporation
in the spleen, a speck of plasm is the result, and this is at once seized
upon by a thought elemental which forms a nucleus and embodies itself
therein. Then it commences to live a life of destruction, coalescing with
other waste products and decaying elements wherever formed, making the body a
charnel house instead of the temple of in indwelling living Spirit. We may
therefore say every white corpuscle which has been taken by an outside entity is to the Ego a lost opportunity. The more of these lost opportunities there
are in the body, the less is the body under control of the Ego, therefore
we find them present in larger numbers in all diseases than when the person
is in health. It may also be said that the person of jovial good nature or
one who is devoutly religious and has an absolute faith and trust in divine
providence and love, will register many less lost opportunities or white
corpuscles than those who are always worrying and fretting.
So it is that the blood is the only part of the body really course. The
measure in which we control all blood depends upon the Ego's ability to
express itself through the body. It is only through the red corpuscles that
the Ego is able to work. Whenever we allow ourselves to be negative we
manufacture white corpuscles, which are not, as we have seen, "the
policement of the system," as science now thinks, but destroyers.
When the blood courses through the arteries which are deep in the body,
it is a gas, as has been shown; but loss of heat near the surface of the
body causes it to partially condense, and in that substance the Ego is
learning to form mineral crystals. Science has lately found that the blood
of different people has different crystals; but there will
come a day when they will know a still greater difference; for there is
also a difference in the crystals formed by each individual man.
Looking at the matter from another angle, we may note that when blood is
beaten with a stick it separates into three distinct substances: the serum
or water-like substance which comes under Cancer ruled by the Moon (Lunar
Hierarchy); the red coloring matter which is the Martian substance generated
under Scorpio; and most important of all, the fibrin, or stringy matter
which is under the third of the watery signs, Pisces. When the skeleton was
outside our flesh, consciousness was dull as in the crustacea. By getting
outside the bony structure we have gained a much higher grade of
consciousness, and by spiritualizing this inner skeleton through the medium
of the blood, we extract the essence of all we have learned in the past
epochs and transform it to usable soul power in the Jupiter Period. To
interfere in this work is a crime against the soul.
Since woman has the positive vital body, she matures earlier than the
male, and the parts which remain plant-like, such as the hair, grow longer
and more luxuriant. Naturally positive vital body will generate more blood
than the negative vital body possessed by the male, hence we have in woman a
greater blood pressure, which it is necessary to relieve by the periodical
flow, and when that eases at the climacteric period there is a second growth
in woman, particularly well expressed in the saying, "fat and forty."
The impulses of the desire body drive the blood through the system at
varying rates of speed, according to the strength of the emotions. Woman,
having an excess of blood, works under much higher pressure than man, and
while this pressure is relieved by the periodical flow, there are times when
it is necessary to have an extra outlet; then the tears of woman, which are
white bleeding, act as a safety valve to remove the excessive fluid. Men,
although they may have as strong emotions as women, are not given to tears
because they have no more blood than they can comfortably use.
The blood is now differently constituted from what it was in the earlier
ages of human evolution. The Christ Spirit was seen at the Baptism to
descent upon Jesus' body. Jesus himself, the Spirit, left that body and was
given a mission to serve the churches while his body was being used for
direct teaching by the Christ, and his blood was being prepared as an open sesame to the Kingdom of God.
When anyone is killed, the Venus blood with its impurities clings closely
to the flesh, and therefore the arterial blood which flows is distinctly
leaner than it would otherwise be. Being etherealized by the great Christ
Spirit, the cleansed blood of Jesus overflowed the world, purified the
Etheric Region of selfishness to a great extent, and gave man a better
chance to draw to himself materials which will allow him to form altruistic
purposes and desires.
It is well known to the esoteric astrologer that the human body has an
immense period of evolution behind it and that this splendid organism is the
result of a slow process of gradual upbuilding which is still continuing and
will make each generation better than the previous until in some far distant
future it shall have reached a stage of completion of which we cannot even
dream. It is also understood by the deeper students that in addition to the
physical body man has finer vehicles which are not yet seen by the great
majority of human beings, though all have within them latent a sixth sense
whereby they will in time cognize these finer sheaths of the soul.
The esotericist speaks of these finer vehicles as the vital body, made of
ether, and the desire body, made of desire stuff, the material whence we
draw our feelings and emotions, and with the addition of the sheath of mind
and the physical body these complete what may be termed the personality
which is the evanescent part distinct from the immortal Spirit that uses
these vehicles for its expression. These finer vehicles interpenetrate the
dense physical body as air permeates water and have particular dominion over
certain parts thereof, because the physical body itself is a crystallization
of these finer vehicles in the same manner and upon the same principle that
the soft fluids of a snail's body gradually crystallize into the hard and
flinty shell which it carries upon its back. For the purpose of this
dissertation we may say broadly that the softer parts of our bodies which
we commonly call flesh may be divided into two kinds, glands and muscles.
The vital body was started in the Sun Period. Crystallization from that
time on it that vehicle has developed what we now call glands and to this
day they and the blood are the special manifestations of the vital body
within the physical vehicle. Therefore, the glands as a whole may be said to
be under the rule of the life-giving Sun and the great benefic, Jupiter. It
is the function of the vital body to build and restore the tone of the
muscles when tense and tired by the work imposed upon them by the restless
desire body, which was started in the Moon Period. The muscles are therefore
ruled by the wandering Moon, which is the present vantage point of the
Angels, the humanity of the Moon period, and by the impulsive and turbulent
Mars, where the so-called "Fallen Angels," the Lucifer Spirits, dwell. That
is to say, as a whole, for the student must carefully note that individual
glands and particular groups of muscles are under the rulership of other
planets as well. It is as when we say that all who live in the United
States of America are citizens of that country, but some are subject to the
laws of California, others to those of Maine, etc.
We know the Hermetic Axiom, "As above, so below," which is the master key
to all mysteries, and as there are upon the Earth, the macrocosm, a great
many undiscovered places, so also in the microcosm of the body do we find
unknown countries that are a closed book to the scientific explorers. Chief
among them has been a small group of the so-called "ductless glands," seven
in number, namely:
The Pituitary Body, ruled by Uranus.
The Pineal Gland, ruled by Neptune.
The Thyroid Gland, ruled by Mercury.
The Thymus Gland, ruled by Venus.
The Spleen, ruled by the Sun.
The two Adrenals, ruled by Jupiter.
They have a great and particular interest for esotericists, and they may be
termed in a certain sense "the seven roses" upon the Cross of the body, for
they are intimately connected with the esoteric development of humanity. Four
of them, the thymus gland, the spleen, and the two adrenals are connected
with the personality. The pituitary body and the pineal gland are
particularly correlated with the spiritual side of our nature and the
thyroid gland forms the link between. The astrological rulership is as
follows:
The spleen is the entrance gate of the solar forces specialized by each
human being and circulated through the body as the vital fluid, without
which no being can live. This organ is therefore governed by the Sun. The
two adrenals are under the rulership of Jupiter, the great benefic, and exert
a calming, quieting and soothing effect when the emotional activities of the
Moon and Mars or Saturn have destroyed the poise. When the obstructive hand
of Saturn has awakened the melancholy emotions and laid its restraint upon
the heart, the adrenals' secretions are carried by the blood to the heart
and act as a powerful stimulant in its effort to keep up the circulation,
while the jovial optimism struggles against the saturnine worries or against
the impulse of Mars, which stirs the desire body into turbulent emotions of
anger, rendering the muscles tense and trembling, dissipating the energy of
the system. Then the secretion of the adrenals comes to the rescue,
releasing the glycogen of the liver in a more abundant measure than usual
to cope with the emergency until the equipoise has been again attained,
and similarly during whatever other stress or strain. It was the knowledge
of this esoteric fact that prompted the ancient astrologers to place the kidneys
under the rulership of Libra, the Balance, and in order to avoid confusion of
ideas we may say that the kidneys themselves play an important part in the
nutrition of the body, being under the rulership of Venus, the Lady of Libra.
However, Jupiter governs the adrenals, with which we are now particularly
engaged.
Both Venus and her higher octave, Uranus, govern the functions of
nutrition and growth, but in different ways and for different
purposes. Therefore Venus rules the thymus gland, which is the link between
the parents and the child until the latter has reached puberty. This gland
is located immediately behind the sternum or breast bone. It is largest
in antenatal life and through childhood while growth is excessive and
rapid. During that time the vital body of the child does its most effective
work, for the child is not then subject to the passions and emotions generated
by the desire body after that comes to birth at or about the fourteenth
year. But during the years of growth the child cannot manufacture the red
blood corpuscles as does the adult, for the unborn, unorganized desire body
does not then act as an avenue for the Martian forces which assimilate the
iron from the food and transmute it into hemoglobin. To compensate for this
lack there is stored in the thymus gland a spiritual essence drawn from the
parents, and with this essence provided by their love the child is able to
accomplish the alchemistry of blood temporarily until its desire body becomes
dynamically active. Then the thymus gland atrophies and the child draws
from its own desire body the necessary Martian force. From that time, under
normal conditions, Uranus, the octave of Venus, and ruler of the pituitary
body, takes charge of the function of growth and assimilation in the following
manner.
It is well known that all things, our food included, radiate from
themselves continuously small particles which given an index of the thing
whence they emanate, its quality included. Thus when we lift the food to our
mouth a number of these invisible particles enter the nose and by excitation
of the olfactory tract convey to us a knowledge whether the food we are
about to take is suitable for this purpose or not, the sense of smell warning
us to discard such foods as have a noxious odor, etc. But besides those
particles which attract or repel us from food by their action on the
olfactory tract through the sense of smell, there are others which penetrate
the sphenoid bone, impinge upon the pituitary body and start the uranian
alchemistry by which a secretion is formed and injected into the blood. This
furthers assimilation through the chemical ether, thus affecting the normal
growth and well-being of the human body through life. Sometimes this Uranian
influence of the pituitary body is eccentric and therefore responsible for
strange and abnormal growths which produce the unfortunate freaks of Nature
we occasionally meet.
But besides being responsible for the spiritual impulses which generate
the before-mentioned physical manifestations of growth, Uranus, working
through the pituitary body, is also responsible for the spiritual phases of
growth which aid awakened man in his efforts to penetrate the veil into the
invisible worlds. In this work it is, however, associated with Neptune, the
ruler of the pineal gland, and it will therefore be necessary, in order to
properly elucidate, that we study the functions of the thyroid gland, ruled
by Mercury, and of the pineal gland which is under the domination of his
higher octave, Neptune, simultaneously.
That the thyroid gland is under the rule of Mercury, the planet of
reason, is readily realized when we understand the effect which the
degeneration of this gland has upon the mind, as shown in the diseases
of of Cretinism and Myxedema. The secretions of this gland are as necessary
to the proper functioning of the mind as ether is to the transmission of
electricity, that is to say, upon the physical plane of existence where
the brain transmutes thought into action. Contact with and expression in
the invisible worlds depends upon the functional ability of the pineal
gland, which is altogether spiritual and is therefore ruled by the octave of
Mercury, Neptune, the planet of spirituality, which operates in
conjunction with the pituitary body ruled by Uranus.
Scientists have wasted much time in speculation upon the nature and
function of these two little bodies, the pituitary body and the pineal
gland, but without avail, and principally because, as Mephistopheles says so
sarcastically to the young man who wants to study science under Faust:
"Who e'er would know and treat of aught alive
Seeks first the living spirit thence to drive;
The are the lifeless fragments in his hand;
He lacks, alas! The vital spirit band."
No one can really and truly observe the physiological functions of any
organ under such conditions as exist in the laboratory, on the operating
table, or in the dissection or vivisection chamber. To arrive at an
adequate understanding one must necessarily see these organs exercising their
physiological functions in the living body, and that can only be done by
means of spiritual sight. There are a number of organs which are either
atrophying or developing; the former show the path we have already traveled
during our past evolution, the latter are finger posts, indicating our
future development. But there is still another class of organs which are
neither degenerating nor evolving; they are simply dormant (spiritually) at
the present time. Physiologists believe that the pituitary body and the
pineal gland are atrophying because they find these organs more developed in
some of the lower classes of life, such as worms, but as a matter of fact
they are wrong in their ideas. Some have also suspected that the pineal
gland is in some way connected with the mind, because it contains certain
crystals after death, and the quantity was much less in those who were
mentally defective than in people of normal mentality. This conclusion
is right, but the Seer knows that the spinal canal of the living is not
filled with fluid; that the blood is not liquid, and that these organs
have no crystals in them when the body is alive.
These assertions are made with full knowledge of the fact that the blood
and the spinal essence are liquid when drawn out of the body, living or
dead, and the contents of the pituitary body and the pineal gland appear
crystalline when the brain is dissected. However, the reason is similar to
that which causes steam drawn from a steam boiler to condense immediately
upon contact with the atmosphere, and molten metal drawn from a smelter's
furnace to crystallize immediately upon withdrawal therefrom.
All these substances are purely spiritual essences when inside the body;
they are then ethereal and the substance in the pineal gland, when seen by
the spiritual sight, appears as light. Furthermore, when one Seer looks
upon the pineal gland of another who is then also exercising his spiritual
faculties, this light is of a most intense brilliancy and of an iridescence
similar to but transcending in beauty the most wonderful play of the Northern
Lights, the aurora borealis. It may also be said that the function of this
organ seems to have changed in the course of human evolution. During the
earlier epochs of our present stay upon the Earth, when man's body was a
large, baggy thing into which the Spirit had not yet entered, but was there
only as an overshadowing presence, there was an opening in the top and the
pineal gland was within it. It was then an organ of orientation, giving a
sense of direction. As the human body condensed, it became less and less
able to endure the intense heat which prevailed during that time and the
pineal gland gave warning when the body was brought too near one of the many
raters and active volcanoes which were then erupting the thin Earth crust,
thus enabling the Spirit to guide it away from these dangerous places. It
was an organ of direction which operated by feeling, but feeling has since
been distributed over the skin of the whole body. This is an indication to
the esotericist that some day the senses of hearing and sight will also be
similarly distributed so that we shall both see and hear with our whole body
and thus become still more sensitive in those respects than we are now.
Since then the pineal gland the pituitary body have become temporarily
dormant (spiritually) to make man oblivious to the invisible world while he
learns the lessons afforded by the material world. The pituitary body has
manifested the Uranian influence sporadically in abnormal physical growth,
producing freaks and monstrosities of various kinds, while Neptune working
also abnormally through the pineal gland, has been responsible for the
abnormal spiritual growth of medicine men, witches, and mediums of Spirit
controls. When they are awakened to normal activities these two
ductless glands will open the door to the inner worlds in a sane and safe
manner, but in the meantime the thyroid gland, ruled by Mercury, the planet
of reason, holds the secretion necessary to give the brain balance.
In the future the ductless glands are destined to play a prominent role;
their development will accelerate evolution greatly, for their effects are
mainly mental and spiritual. We are now nearing the Aquarian Age; the Sun
is therefore beginning to transmit the highly intellectual vibrations of
this sign which accounts for the intuitions, premonitions, and telepathic
transmission now so prevalent. In the final analysis these phenomena are
due to the awakening of the pituitary body, ruled by Uranus, the lord of
Aquarius, and every passing year will make them more manifest.
The Lymphatic System is tubular and somewhat closely associated with the
capillaries which connect the Venus and arterial circulations, terminating
the large veins near the heart. The lymph which flows along its channel
passes out one way, viz: toward the center of circulation, the heart. It
is considered a system of small sewers for the body, simply because it
collects the dish water of the tissues after they have all been bathed in
the lymph which it carries. If you think of the tubes as drainage
canals depleting the tissues of the wash water, you may think of these
lymphatic glands as locks along the course of the channels at which the flow
of lymph must stop and be filtered on its way to the Venus blood stream.
The glands are located in the bends of the elbows, in the arm pits, in
the popliteal spaces, in the groins, thickly scattered throughout the
anterior part of the neck (the part in front of the cervical vertebrae), in
the abdomen between the folds of the mesentery which suspends the small
intestines to the backbone, and in the chest between the lungs, this space
being known as the mediastinum.
Every one of the lymphatic vessels passes through one or more of these
glands on its way to its destination in the veins. The lymph cells are the
only cells in the body that possess no cell wall; they move about like
jellyfish in water. When inflammation attacks the human body in any of
its types, the lymph is more responsible, for all poisonous liquids pass at
once into the lymphatic channels.
The glands are likely to be sickly, owing to the poisonous nature of the
lymph which filters through them. The lymphatic system is threefold: it
collects lymph from the tissues, chyle from the intestines after it has been
manufactured in the process of digestion, and by means of the lymphatic
glands manufactures lymph cells which are identical with the white blood
corpuscles.
The vital body is the second oldest of our vehicles, having its original
germ given by the Lords of Wisdom in the Sun period. In the Sun Revolution
of the Moon Period it was modified to render it capable of being
interpenetrated by a desire body, also of accommodating itself to the nervous
system, muscle, skeleton, etc.
During the Sun Revolution of the Earth Period the vital body was
reconstructed to accommodate the germinal mind. It was fashioned at this
time more in the likeness of the dense body, its organization at present
being next to the dense body in efficiency.
Further reconstruction was done in the Hyperborean Epoch of the Earth
Period when the Lords of Form appeared, with the Angels, and clothed man's
dense form, then a baggy-shaped object, with a vital body.
The dense body is built into the matrix of the vital body during
antenatal life, and with one exception, it is an exact copy, molecule for
molecule, of the vital body. All through life the vital body is the builder
and restorer of the dense form, its tendency being to soften, as well as to
build. Its chief expression is the blood and the glands, also the
sympathetic nervous system, having gained ingress into the stronghold of the
desire body when it began to develop the heart into a voluntary muscle.
It interpenetrates the dense body and extends beyond its periphery about
an inch and a half. In texture the vital body may be crudely compared to
one of those picture frames made of hundreds of little pieces of wood which
interlock and present innumerable points to the observer. The points of the
vital body enter into the hollow centers of the dense atoms, imbuing them
with vital force that sets them vibrating at a rate higher than that of the
mineral of the Earth which is not thus accelerated and ensouled.
When we analyze the human being, we find that in him all four ethers (the
chemical, life, light and reflecting ethers) are dynamically active in the
highly organized vital body. By means of the activities of the chemical
ether he is able to assimilate food and to grow; the forces at work in the
life ether enable him to propagate his species; the forces in the light
ether supply the dense body with heat, work on the nervous system and the
muscles, thus opening the doors of communication with the outside world by
way of the senses; and the reflecting ether enables the Spirit to control
its vehicles by means of thought. This ether also stores past experience as
memory.
The chemical and life ethers form a matrix for our physical bodies. Each
molecule of the physical body is embedded in a meshwork of ether which
permeates and infuses it with life. Through these ethers the bodily
functions, such as respiration, etc., are carried on, and the density and
consistency of these matrices of ether determine the state of health.
The atoms of the chemical and life ethers gathered around the nuclear
seed atom located in the solar plexus are shaped like prisms. They are all
located in such a manner that when the solar energy enters our body through
the spleen, the refracted ray is red. This is the color of the creative
aspect of the Trinity, namely, Jehovah, the Holy Spirit, who rules Luna, the
planet of fecundation. Therefore the vital fluid from the Sun which enters
the human body by way of the spleen becomes tinged with a pale rose color,
often noted by Seers when it courses along the nerves as electricity does in
the wires of an electric system. Thus charged, the chemical and life ethers
are the avenues of assimilation which preserve the individual, and of
fecundation which perpetuates the race.
During life each prismatic vital atom penetrates a physical atom and
vibrates it. To form a picture of this combination, imagine a pear-shaped
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 widest and
corresponds to the north pole of our Earth. Thus the point of the prism
penetrates the physical atom at the narrowest point, which corresponds to
the south pole of the 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 avenues of consciousness and memory.
They are somewhat attenuated in the average individual and have not yet
taken definite form; they interpenetrate the atom as air interpenetrates a
sponge, and they form a slight auric atmosphere outside each atom.
It has been determined by physical science that the atoms in our dense
body are constantly changing so that all the material which composes our
present vehicle at this moment will have disappeared in a few years, but it
is common knowledge that scars and other blemishes perpetuate themselves
from childhood to old age. The reason for this is that the prismatic ether
atoms which compose our vital body remain unchanged from the cradle to the
grave. They are always in the same relative position — that is to say, the
prismatic ether atoms which vibrate the physical atoms in the toes or in the
fingers do not get to the hands, legs, or any other part of the body, but
remain in exactly the same place where they were placed in the beginning. A
lesion of the physical atoms involves a similar impression on the prismatic
ether atoms. The new physical matter molded over them continues to take on
shape and texture similar to those which originally obtained.
The foregoing remarks apply only to the prismatic atoms which correspond
to solids and liquids in the Physical World, because they assume a certain
definite shape which they preserve. But in addition each human being at
this stage of evolution has a certain amount of light and reflecting ether,
which are the vehicles of sense perception and memory, intermingled in his
vital body. We may say that the light ether corresponds to the gases of our
Physical World; perhaps the best description that can be given of the
reflecting ether is to call it hyper-etheric. It is a vacuous substance of a
bluish color resembling in appearance the blue core of a gas flame. It
appears transparent and seems to reveal everything that is within it, but
nevertheless it hides all the secrets of nature and humanity. In it is
found one record of the memory of Nature. 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 accretion, a fruitage, derived from his
experiences in life. Inside the body it mingles with the blood stream and
when it has grown by service and sacrifice in life's school so that it can no
longer be contained within the body it is seen on the outside as a soul body
of gold and blue.
Blue shows the highest type of spirituality, therefore it is smallest in
volume and may be compared to the blue core of the gas flame, while the
golden hue forms the larger part and corresponds to the yellow light which
surrounds the core in the gas ring. The blue color does not appear outside
the dense body save in the very greatest of saints — only yellow is usually
observable there. At death this part of the vital body is etched into the
desire body with the life panorama which it contains. The quintessence of
all our life experience is then eventually impressed upon the seed atom as
conscience or virtue which urges us to avoid evil and to do good in a coming
life. Thus the quality of the seed atom is altered from life to life. The
quintessence of good extracted from the migratory part of the vital body in
one life determines the quality of the prismatic stationary ether atoms in
the next life. The highest in one life becomes the lowest in the next and
thus we gradually climb the ladder of evolution towards divinity.
From the foregoing it will be evident that the vital body is a vehicle of
habit; all parents know that during the first seven years of childhood when
this vehicle is in course of gestation that children form one habit after
another. Repetition is the keynote of the vital body and habits depend upon
repetition. It is different with the desire body, the vehicle of feelings
and emotions which are always changing from moment to moment; though it has
been said that the ether which forms our soul body is in constant motion and
mingles with the blood stream, that motion is relatively slow compared to
the rapidity of the current of the desire body; we may say that the ether
moves like a snail compared with light.
When the Ego is on its way to rebirth through the Region of Concrete
Thought, the Desire World, and the Etheric Region, it gathers a certain
amount of material from each. The quality of this material is determined by
the seed atom, on the principle that like attracts like. The quantity
depends upon the amount of matter required by the archetype built by
ourselves in the second Heaven. From the quantity of prismatic ether
atoms that are appropriated by a certain Spirit, the Recording Angels and
their agents build an etheric form which is then plead in the mother's womb
and gradually clothed with physical matter which then forms the visible body
of the new born child.
Only a small portion of the ether appropriated by a certain Ego is thus
used, and the remainder of the child's vital body, or rather the material
from which that vehicle will eventually be made, is thus outside the dense
body. For that reason the vital body of a child protrudes much farther
beyond the periphery of the dense body than does that of an adult. During the
period of growth this store of ether atoms is drawn upon to vitalize the
accretions within the body until, at the time when the adult age is reached,
the vital body protrudes only from one to one and a half inches beyond the
periphery of the dense body.
The Western Wisdom School teaches as its fundamental maxim that "all
esoteric development begins with the vital body." The part of the vital body
formed of the two higher ethers, the light ether and the reflecting ether,
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. It is the vehicle of intellect, and
responsible for all that makes man, man. Our observations, our aspirations,
our character, etc., are due to the work of the Spirit in these two higher
ethers, which become more or less luminous according to the nature of our
character and habits. Also, as the dense body assimilates particles of food
and thus gains in flesh, so the two higher ethers assimilate our good deeds
during life and thus grow in volume as well. According to our doings in
this present life we thus increase or decrease that which we brought with us
at birth. This is the reason the Western Wisdom Teaching says that all mystic development begins with the vital body.
In the third Revolution of the Moon Period the Lords of Individuality
radiated from themselves the substance which they helped the unconscious,
evolving man to appropriate and build into a germinal desire body. They
also helped him to incorporate this germinal desire body in the compound vital
body and dense body which he already possessed. This work was carried on
all through the third and fourth Revolutions of the Moon Period.
The antagonistic "lower will" or will of the body, is an expression of
the higher part of the desire body. When division of the Sun, Moon, and
Earth took place, in the early part of the Lemurian Epoch, the more advanced
portion of humanity-in-the-making experienced a division of the desire body
into a higher and a lower part. The rest of humanity did likewise in the
early part of the Atlantean Epoch.
This higher part of the desire body became a sort of animal soul. It
build the cerebrospinal nervous system and the voluntary muscles, by that
means controlling the lower part of the threefold body until the link of
mind was given. Then the mind "coalesced" with the animal soul and became
co-regent.
During the life of man his desire body is not shaped like his dense and
vital bodies. After death it assumes that shape. During life it has the
appearance of a luminous ovoid which, in waking hours, completely surrounds
the dense body, as the albumen does the yolk of an egg. It extends from
twelve to sixteen inches beyond the dense body in the ordinary individual.
The matter in the human desire body is composed of material from the Desire
World and is in incessant motion of inconceivable rapidity. There is in it
no settled place for any particle, as in the dense body. The matter that is
at the head one moment may be at the feet in the next and back again. There
are no organs in the desire body, as in the dense and vital bodies, but
there are centers of perception, which, when active, appear as vortices,
always remaining in the same relative position to the dense body. In the
majority of people they are mere eddies and are of no use as centers of
perception. They may be awakened in all, however, but different
methods produce different results. The desire body is rooted in the liver,
and is born at about the fourteenth year in the being.
In the involuntary clairvoyant developed along improper, negative lines,
these vortices turn from right to left, or in the opposite direction to the
hands of a clock — counter-clockwise.
In the desire body of the properly trained voluntary clairvoyant, they
turn in the same direction as the hands of a clock — clockwise, glowing with
exceeding splendor, far surpassing the brilliant luminosity of the ordinary
desire body. These centers furnish him with means for the perception of
things in the Desire World and he sees, and investigates as he wills, while
the person whose centers turn counter-clockwise is like a mirror, which
reflects what passes before it.
In a far distant future man's desire body will become as definitely
organized as are the vital and dense bodies. When that stage is reached
we shall all have the power to function in the desire body as we now do in
the dense body.
In the Atlantean Epoch of the Earth Period the Lords of Mind radiated
from themselves into our being the nucleus of material from which we are now
seeking to build an organized mind. It was given to man to give purpose to
action, but as the Ego was exceedingly weak and the desire nature strong,
the nascent mind coalesced with the desire body; the faculty of Cunning
resulted and was the cause of all the wickedness of the middle third of the
Atlantean Epoch.
The mind, being the last of man's vehicles built, is not yet even a body.
It is simply a link, a sheath for the use of the Ego as a focusing point.
It is however, the most important instrument possessed by the Spirit, and
its special instrument in the work of creation. We, ourselves, as Egos,
function directly in the subtle substance of the Region of Abstract Thought,
which we have specialized within the periphery of our individual aura.
Thence we view the impressions made by the outer world upon the vital body
through the senses, together with the feeling and emotions generated by them
in the desire body, mirrored in the mind.
From these mental images we form our conclusions, in the substance of the
Region of Abstract Thought, concerning the subjects with which they deal.
These conclusions are ideas. By the power of will we project an idea
through the mind, where it takes concrete shape as a thought form by drawing
mind stuff around itself from the Region of Concrete Thought. The image may
be projected in one of three directions:
(1) It may be projected against the desire body in an endeavor to
arouse feeling which will lead to immediate action.
(2) Where no immediate action is called for by the mental images of
impacts from without, these may be projected directly upon the reflecting
ether, together with the thoughts occasioned by them, to be used at some
future time.
(3) It may be projected toward another mind to act as a suggestion, to
carry information, etc. When the work designed for such a thought form has
been accomplished, or its energy expended in vain attempts to achieve its
object, it gravitates back to its creator, bearing with it the indelible
record of its journey.
At our present stage of evolution we say that the mind is born at the age
of twenty-one, but the prime of mentality is not reached until about the
forty-ninth year.
The mind is the focusing medium whereby the ideas wrought by the
imagination of the Spirit are projected upon the material universe. First
they are thought forms only, but when the desire to realize the imagined
possibilities has set the man to work in the Physical World, they become what
we call concrete "realities."
At the present time, however, the mind is not focused in a way that
enables it to give a clear and true picture of what the Spirit imagines. It
is not one-pointed. It gives misty and clouded pictures. Hence the
necessity of experiment to show the inadequacies of the first conception,
and bring about new imaginings and ideas until the image produced by the
Spirit in mental substance has been reproduced in physical substance.
At the best, we are able to shape through the mind only such images as
have to do with Form, because the human mind was not started until the Earth
Period, and therefore is now in its form, or "mineral" stage, hence in our
operations we are confined to forms, to minerals. We can imagine ways and
means of working with the mineral forms of the three lower kingdoms, but can
do little or nothing with living bodies. We may indeed graft living branch
to living tree, or living part of animal or man to other living part, but it
is not life with which we are working; it is form only. We are making
different conditions, but the life which already inhabited the form
continues to do so. To work with life is beyond man's power until his mind
has become alive.
In the Jupiter Period the mind will be vivified to some extent and man
can them imagine forms which will live and grow, like plants.
In the Venus Period, when his mind has acquired "Feeling," he can create
living, growing, and feeling things.
When he reaches perfection, at the end of the Vulcan Period, he will be
able to "imagine" into existence creatures that will live, grow, feel, and think.
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