Question: The Western Wisdom Teachings state that the faculty of space
perception is connected with the delicate adjustment of the three semi-circular
canals in the ear, pointing to the three dimensions of space. Logical thought
and mathematical ability are in proportion to the accuracy of their
adjustment.
It seems that the perception of the fourth dimension has been arrived at by
mathematicians of a very high degree. Can you tell me if there is any change
in the arrangement of these semi-circular canals, or what is the process that
leads up to the fourth dimension consciousness?
It would seem that nature spirits and elementals have this fourth
dimensional consciousness which is a higher degree of consciousness than that
which we now possess, and possibly the bee or the Elberfeld horses. Will you
please supply the missing link? What makes man or humanity superior to these
beings, and what is the arrangement of these semi-circular canals in the case
of the bees and these gifted horses? (Vol. II, #65)
Answer: To the majority of mankind figures are exceedingly tedious, for we are
used to living an outward life among other people and friends where we give
expression to our desires, feelings, and emotions. The more these are stirred
the more interested we find life, and contrariwise, the things that do not
cause a ripple of emotion are held to be dull and uninteresting. Therefore,
the majority do not take to mathematics or anything else that will sharpen the
mind without at the same time arousing the emotional nature.
We know that God geometrizes, that all the processes of nature are founded
upon systematic calculation which argues the great Mastermind. When God as the
great Architect of the universe has built the whole world upon mathematical
lines, we may know that consciously or unconsciously the mathematician is
reaching out in a direction in which eventually he will find himself face to
face with God, and this in itself argues an expansion of consciousness. When
we consider the fact that each of the semi-circular canals is in fact a
supersensitive spirit level adjusted so as to indicate to our consciousness
the motion of our body through the length, breadth, or depth of space we may
easily understand that their actual adjustment is necessary to space
perception. If they are true, then the space perception of the person is
perfect, and if he takes up the study of mathematics, then his theories will
agree with what he sees in the world as actual facts. This in some high minds
engenders an actual love of figures so that they may rest such a mind instead
of being a source of fatigue as they are to most people. The love of figures
may arouse in such a person the latent spiritual faculties, but not through
any change in the semi-circular canals. These are bony structures and not
easily changed during the lifetime. There is no doubt, however, that one who
has a taste for music or mathematics will later build these canals more
accurately in the Second Heaven between death and a new birth.
With respect to the consciousness of the elementals or nature spirits, you
are quite correct in assuming that they have what may be called a fourth
dimensional consciousness. In addition to the height, width, and length, which
are the dimensions of space in the physical world, there is what we may call
"throughness" in the ethers. With the etheric sight you may look into a
mountain, and if you have an etheric body such as the nature spirits possess,
you may also walk through the hardest granite rock. It will offer no more
obstruction than the air does to our progress here. In fact, not so much, for
here we are hindered by winds. However, even among nature spirits there are
different entities and a corresponding variation of consciousness.
The bodies of the gnomes are made of the chemical ether principally, and
therefore they are of the earth earthy. That is, one never sees them fly about
as do the sylphs. They can be burned in fire. They also grow old in a manner
not so greatly different from the human beings.
The undines which live in the water and the sylphs of the air are also
subject to mortality, but their bodies being composed of the life and light
ethers, respectively, makes them much more enduring. Thus while it is stated
that the gnomes do not live more than a few hundred years, the undines and
sylphs are said to live for thousands, and the salamanders whose bodies are
principally built of the fourth ether are said to live many thousands of
years. The consciousness which builds and ensouls these bodies, however,
belongs to a number of divine hierarchs who are gaining additional experience
in that manner; and the forms which are built of matter and thus ensouled have
attained a degree of self-consciousness during these long existences. They
have a sense of their own transitory existence and it is to their rebellion
against this state of things that the war of the elements, notably fire, air,
and water is due. Fancying that they are being held in bondage, they seek
liberation from the leash by force, and having no sense to guide themselves,
run amuck in a destructive manner which at times brings about great
catastrophes.
The consciousness of the gnomes is too dull to take the initiative, but they
not infrequently become accomplices of the other nature spirits by opening
passages which favor explosions in the rock. However, this has no connection
at all with the Elberfeld horses or kindred animal prodigies. These are the
wards of their respective Group Spirits and it is probably the last time they
will seek embodiment in an animal form. When that happens, such Spirits are
relegated to Chaos where they must wait during the Cosmic Night for their less
gifted brothers until the time when it is possible to begin their human
evolution in the Jupiter Period.
The Memory of Nature
Question: How do the records in the Memory of Nature appear to the spiritual
vision? That is, how are the acts of a person in a former life represented?
(Vol. II, #66)
Answer: That depends upon where you read the Memory of Nature. There are, in
the reflecting ether, pictures of all that has happened in the world, at least
several hundred years back, perhaps in some cases much more. And they appear
almost as the pictures on a screen, with this difference, that the scene
shifts backward. Thus if we wish to study the life of Luther or Calvin in
the memory of Nature we may by concentration call up any certain points in
their lives and start there, and we may hold that scene wherewith we start, or
any other scene, as long as we desire, by simply willing so to do. However, we
shall find that the picture rolls backward, so if we start with the scene
where Luther is said to have thrown the ink bottle against the wall to oust
his Satanic Majesty, and if we want to know what happened after that, we shall
find ourselves foiled in our purpose. We will then have presented to us all
the scenes that went before, and in order to get the information we want we
must start at a point later in time than that event. Then the scenes will roll
backward in orderly sequence until we come to the episode with the ink bottle,
and we may later reconstruct the whole picture in the progressive manner
which obtains in ordinary everyday physical life.
But if we read in the Memory of Nature in the next higher realm where it is
kept, namely, the highest subdivision of the Region of Concrete Thought, we
obtain a vastly different view in quite another manner. By concentrating our
thought upon Luther we shall there call up in our mind at one flash the whole
record of his life. There will be neither beginning nor end, but we shall
obtain at once the aroma or essence of his whole existence. Neither will this
picture or thought or knowledge be outside ourselves, so that we stand as
spectators and look at the life of Luther, but the picture will be, so to
speak, within ourselves, and we shall feel ourselves as if we were actually
Luther. This picture will speak to our inner consciousness and give us a
thorough understanding of his life and purpose, not to be gained by an
exterior view. We shall know whatever he knew, for the time being. We shall
feel whatever he felt, and though there will be no audible word spoken, we
shall obtain a perfect understanding of what the man was from the cradle to
the grave. Every thought, no matter how secret, and every act, no matter how
well concealed, will be known to us with all the motives and everything that
led up to the event, and thus we shall obtain a most thorough understanding of
the life of Luther, so intimate that probably not he himself, during life,
realized himself as perfectly as we shall then.
Now it would seem that having obtained such an intimate and thorough
knowledge of Luther, Calvin, Napoleon, or any other man or event in history,
or before the date when history was written, we should be able to write books
that would explain all these things in the most wonderful manner. Anyone who
has tried to read in the Memory of Nature as kept in that high region will
testify with the writer (Max Heindel) that they have felt just that way when
they left their investigation and returned to their ordinary brain
consciousness. But, alas and alack! Thought must be manifested through the
brain and to be intelligible to others it must be translated into sentences
consecutively unfolding the ideas to be conveyed, and no one who has not felt
this limitation on coming back from the Heaven World with such valuable
information can realize the chagrin and despair which one feels when he
endeavors to do this. In that highest subdivision of the Region of Concrete
Thought, all things are included in an eternal here and now; there is neither
time nor space, beginning nor end, and to arrange that which is there seen,
heard, and felt, into consecutively arranged ideas is next to impossible. It
simply seems to refuse to filter through the brain. We who have seen and heard
know what we have seen and what we have heard, but we are unable to utter it.
There is no human language or tongue that can translate these things in an
adequate manner and give to another anything but the faintest feeling, the
most attenuated shadow of the glorious reality.
There is still another record of the Memory of Nature in the World of Life
Spirit, which is said by the Elder Brothers of humanity to cover events from
the earliest dawn of our present manifestation and to be so sublime and
wonderful that we have no word that will give even the slightest idea thereof.
There are a number of misguided people who deceive themselves and others into
thinking that they are able to read this record, but the fact is, according to
the Elder Brothers, that only they and other Hierarchs of the other Mystery
Schools, together with the Adepts who have graduated from these institutions,
are able to do so.
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