Question: According to an article in a recent medical journal, girl babies
seem to have a greater power of resistance with respect to the inimical
influences which ravage the ranks of infants during the first years of life.
It is stated: "Speaking generally, it may perhaps be said that the boy reacts
more violently to disease than the girl, is more easily knocked over than the
latter, does not recuperate as quickly when the illness takes a favorable
turn, and does not offer as much resistance when suffering from chronic
ailments." Can you explain this? (Vol. II, #2 8)
Answer: To the occultist versed in the Western Wisdom Teachings concerning the
polarity of the vital body the seeming anomaly is easily accounted for, with
many other facts known to the medical profession, but not explained by them.
Man, who has the positive physical body, has a negative vital (etheric)
body. Thus he is not able to resist disease as well as woman, who has a
negative physical body, but a positive vital vehicle. For that reason woman is
able to endure a siege of sickness that would kill a man twice her weight and
apparent vitality. She suffers more keenly than man, but bears pain with more
fortitude. When the favorable turn comes, her positively polarized vital body
seems to suck in, as with a million mouths, the solar energy. It swells and
begins almost immediately to radiate the streamers so characteristic of
health, with the result that the physical body recuperates apace.
On the other hand, when a man has been brought very low by sickness and the
turn of the tide sets in, his negatively polarized vital body is like a
sponge. It will absorb all the solar energy it can get, but the avidity
noticeable in the vital body of the woman is lacking. Therefore, he lingers a
long while in the shadow of death, and as it is easier to give up than fight,
he succumbs oftener.
There is also another reason for greater mortality among boy babies.
Students of the Higher Philosophy are acquainted with the law governing infant
mortality, namely, that when the Ego which passes out at death is very much
disturbed by the loud and hysterical lamentations of relatives, the turmoil
incident to death through railway accidents, fires, wars, and the like, it
cannot concentrate its attention on the panorama of life which then passes in
review, much as a picture film thrown on a screen.
This panorama should be etched into the desire body to form the basis of
feelings of pain or pleasure in Purgatory and the First Heaven, the pain being
transmuted to conscience to warn the Ego in future lives not to commit again
the mistakes of the past. The pleasure felt on account of good deeds in life
generates virtue to spur the Ego on to better things in later lives. When the
Ego is seriously disturbed in its concentration on the life panorama, the
etching does not work on the feelings as it should, and thus the life
experience would be lost did not the higher Powers interfere and let it die in
infancy when next it comes to rebirth. The subtle vehicles are not born at the
same time as the physical body. The fruits of the former life are then
incorporated into them, after death in infancy, and in a few years the Ego
seeks a new embodiment and lives its normal span of time on Earth.
Under this arrangement an enormous number of children are predestined to die
in infancy, for wars and wakes over the dead, with lamentations, have deprived
millions of Egos of peace at the time of death. This present war (WWI) will
add more millions. Thus infant mortality must continue to grieve our hearts
until we learn the science of death and how to help the passing Ego as we have
learned to care for the incoming babe. We, with our small and finite minds,
have already learned to use the lines of least resistance to attain our ends.
We have studied the conservation of energy, and we may be sure that the great
Divine Hierarchs who have charge of evolution make use of similar methods with
greater efficiency. Hence, as babies must die for the reasons given, what more
natural than to let as many as those predestined take a male body with a
negative vital body which will more easily succumb to the rigors of physical
existence?
It is not to be denied, however, that a great many deaths in infancy are due
to lack of understanding of the complex constitution of a human being which
includes subtler vehicles than the one seen and commonly believed to
constitute the whole organism. Although the vital body of an infant is still
comparatively unorganized at the time of birth, the ether which is to be used
for its completion is within the aura, ready to be assimilated, and if anyone
in its surroundings happens to be weak and anemic, an unconscious vampire, he
or she draws from the unassimilated store of ether of the infant much more
easily than from that of an adult whose vital body if fully organized.
Naturally the weak person draws more easily ether that is negatively
polarized, as in the case of the boy baby, than the positive ether of the girl
baby. Hence also in this way the greater mortality of boy babies is to be
accounted for, together with man, deaths not due to the law as stated.
If this were known and believed a long step would have been taken to save
infants, for precautions could then be adopted. In the first place, infants
should sleep in a crib as far from the mother as she can reach, so that her
aura does not mingle with that of the child. A weak mother should not nurse
her child, but obtain, if possible, milk fresh and warm from healthy well fed
cows, or better still, goats, for fresh milk is supercharged with the ether of
the animal and has a vital energy not appreciated by the chemist who makes a
merely physical analysis of its chemical constituents. And last, but not
least, massage of the spleen and stimulation of the splanchic nerves,
carefully and conservatively practiced will aid the etheric counterpart of
that organ in its activity of specializing the solar energy upon which the
vital processes are as dependent as the lungs are on air.
Fate or Free Will?
Question: Can we by force of will control the aspects shown in our horoscope?
Have we any right thus to change the destiny brought over from our last life?
(Vol. II, #30)
Answer: Can we by force of will control the aspects in our horoscope? That is
a pretty big question, but we may say that if the aspects in one's horoscope
can't be controlled, and we have to do thus and so, then we might as well lie
down and take our medicine and drift along. If fate rules and we are helpless
on the sea of life, what in the world would be the use of studying astrology?
But thank God, there is one factor that is not shown in the horoscope, and
that is the will of man. That is what makes all the difference.
Let us suppose that two people have the same aspects coming on in their
horoscopes; they may have been born close to the same time and may get
horoscopes that are very much alike in some respects. They have the same sign
rising and the same planets are in conjunction. Suppose they have the same
afflictions coming on to one of the major planets, and one sits down and says,
"I can't help it. Here it is. I have simply got to go through with it. There
is no use fighting." And the other would say, "I am not going to submit. I am
going to stand up in my boots and fight." The mental attitude of the latter
would change events entirely for him.
That is why we never can predict with absolute certainty. In ninety-nine
cases out of a hundred we can predict with certainty because most people drift
with the tide, but that is just the reason for studying astrology. By means of
the stellar science we know what is coming, and if we see something evil, we
can say, "I know there is a certain influence coming and I am not going to
submit to it." We have seen, however, so many, many cases where people are
ruled by their stars in spite of all. We have told people a certain influence
would come up and that they would act rashly to their great hurt if they
weren't careful, and at the very moment predicted they would go and do just
the very thing they have been warned against.
However, there is this great comfort; the stars impel but they cannot
compel. That is the basis upon which we should work with the stars to bring
out all the good of our horoscope. When we see the good aspects coming,
something that makes for soul growth, try to work with it by all means. People
are too often prone to let good aspects take care of themselves, as well as
the evil. Whether we are going to take up our part, is something that can't be
foretold.
Have we any right to change destiny brought over? Certainly, that is what we
are supposed to do. In a former life we drifted into a certain stellar
position, and we had to bring it over with us. Now we are here just for the
purpose of learning to guide ourselves and rule our stars, and that is just
what the science of astrology is given to us for. We must all try to do the
best we can with this knowledge, otherwise it may become a curse. There are
people who constantly watch their horoscopes with the attitude of: "I am going
to be sick and I can see death is certain," etc. If that is the way they are
going to use it, it is better not to study astrology.
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