The Rosicrucian Mysteries 3

The Rosicrucian Mysteries 3

The World of Thought._ When we have attained the spiritual development necessary to consciously enter the World of Thought and leave the Desire World, which is the realm of light and color, we pass through a condition which the occult investigator calls The Great Silence. As previously stated, the higher Regions of the Desire World exhibit the marked peculiarity of blending form and sound, but when one passes through the Great Silence, all the world seems to disappear and the spirit has the feeling of floating in an ocean of intense light, utterly alone, yet absolutely fearless, since unimbued with a sense of its form or sound, nor past or future, but all is one eternal NOW. There seems to be neither pleasure nor pain and yet there is no absence of feeling but it all seems to center in the one idea:—“_I am_”! The human Ego stands face to face with itself as it were, and for the time being all else is shut out. This is the experience of anyone who passes that breach between the Desire World and the World of Thought, whether involuntarily, in the course of an ordinary cyclic pilgrimage of the soul, which we shall later elucidate when speaking of the post-mortem existence, or by an act of the will, as in the case of the trained occult investigator, all have the same experience in transition.                   ------------------------------------- There are two main divisions in the Physical World: the Chemical Region and the Etheric Region. The World of Thought also has two great subdivisions: The Region of concrete Thought and the Region of abstract Thought. As we specialize the material of the Physical World and shape into a dense body, and as we form the force-matter of the Desire World into a desire body, so do we appropriate a certain amount of mindstuff from the Region of concrete Thought; but we, as spirits, clothe ourselves in spirit-substance from the Region of abstract Thought and thereby we become individual, separate Egos. _The Region of Concrete Thought._ The Region of concrete Thought is neither shadowy nor illusory. It is the acme of reality and this world which we mistakenly regard as the only verity, is but an evanescent replica of that Region. A little reflection will show the reasonableness of this statement and prove our contention that all we see here is really crystallized thought. Our houses, our machinery, our chairs and tables, all that has been made by the hand of man is the embodiment of a thought. As the juices in the soft body of the snail gradually crystallize into the hard and flinty shell which it carries upon its back and which hides it, so everything used in our civilization is a concretion of invisible, intangible mind-stuff. The thought of James Watt in time congealed into a steam engine and revolutionized the world. Edison’s thought was condensed into an electric generator which has turned night to day, and had it not been for the thought of Morse and Marconi, the telegraph would not have annihilated distance as it does today. An earthquake may wreck a city and demolish the lighting plant and telegraph station, but the thoughts of Watt, Edison and Morse remain, and upon the basis of their indestructible ideas new machinery may be constructed and operations resumed. Thus thoughts are more permanent than things. The sensitive ear of the musician detects a certain musical note in every city which is different from that of another city. He hears in each little brook a new melody, and to him the sound of wind in the treetops of different forests give a varying sound. In the Desire World we noted the existence of forms similar to the shapes of things here, also that seemingly _sound proceeds from form_, but in the Region of concrete Thought it is different, for while each form occupies and obscures a certain space here, form is nonexistent when viewed from the standpoint of the Region of concrete Thought. Where the form was, a transparent, vacuous space is observable. _From that empty void comes a sound_ which is the “keynote” that _creates_ and maintains the _form_ whence it _appears_ to come, as the almost invisible core of a gas-flame is the source of the light we perceive. Sound from a vacuum cannot be heard in the Physical World, but the harmony which proceeds from the vacuous cavity of a celestial _archetype_ is “the voice of the silence,” and it becomes audible when all earthly sounds have ceased. Elijah heard it not while the storm was raging; nor was it in evidence during the turbulence of the earthquake, nor in the crackling and roaring fire, but when the destructive and inharmonious sounds of this world had melted into silence, “the still small voice” issued its commands to save Elijah’s life. That “keynote” is a direct manifestation of the Higher Self which uses it to impress and govern the Personality it has created. But alas, part of its life has been infused into the material side of its being, which has thus obtained a certain will of its own and only too often are the two sides of our nature at war. At last there comes a time when the spirit is too weary to strive with the recalcitrant flesh, when “the voice of the silence” ceases. The earthly nourishment we may seek to give, will not avail to sustain a form when this harmonious sound, this “word from heaven” no longer reverberates through the empty void of the celestial archetype, for “man lives not by bread alone,” but by the WORD, and the last sound-vibration of the “keynote” is the death-knell of the physical body. In this world we are compelled to investigate and to study a thing before we know about it, and although the facilities for gaining information are in some respects much greater in the Desire World, a certain amount of investigation is necessary nevertheless to acquire knowledge. In the World of Thought, on the contrary, it is different. When we wish to know about any certain thing there, and we turn our attention thereto, then that thing speaks to us, as it were. The sound it emits at once gives us a most luminous comprehension of every phase of its nature. We attain to a realization of its past history; the whole story of its unfoldment is laid bare and we seem to have lived through all of those experiences together with the thing we are investigating. Were it not for one enormous difficulty, the story thus obtained would be exceedingly valuable. But all this information, this life-picture, flows in upon us with an enormous rapidity in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, so that it has neither beginning nor end, for, as said, in the World of Thought, all is one great NOW, Time does not exist. Therefore, when we want to use the archetypal information in the Physical World, we must disentangle and arrange it in chronological order with beginning and ending before it becomes intelligible to beings living in a realm where Time is a prime factor. That rearrangement is a most difficult task as all words are coined with relation to the three dimensions of space and the evanescent unit of time, the fleeting moment, hence much of that information remains unavailable. Among the denizens of this Region of concrete Thought we may note particularly two classes. One is called the powers of darkness by Paul and the mystic investigator of the Western World knows them as Lords of Mind. They were human at the time when the earth was in a condition of darkness such as worlds in the making go through before they become luminous and reach the firemist-stage. At that time we were in our mineral evolution. That is to say: The Human Spirit which has now awakened was encrusted in the ball of mindstuff, which was then the earth. At that time the present Human Spirits were as much asleep as is the life which ensouls our minerals of today, and as we are working with the mineral chemical constituents of the earth, molding them into houses, railways, steam-boats, chairs, etc, etc., so those beings, who are now Lords of Mind, worked with us when we were mineral-like. They have since advanced three steps, through stages similar to that of the Angels and Archangels, before they attained their present position and became creative intelligences. They are expert builders of mind stuff, as we are builders of the present mineral substances and therefore they have given us necessary help to acquire a mind which is the highest development of the human being. According to the foregoing explanation it seems to be an anomaly when Paul speaks of them as evil and exhorts us to withstand them. The difficulty disappears, however, when we understand that good and evil are but relative qualities. An illustration will make the point clear:—Let us suppose that an expert organ builder has constructed a wonderful organ, a masterpiece. Then he has followed his vocation in the proper manner, and is therefore to be commended for the good which he has done. But if he is not satisfied to leave well enough alone, if he refuses to give up his product to the musician who understands how to play upon the instrument; if he intrudes his presence into the concert hall, he is out of place and to be censured as evil. Similarly the Lords of Mind did the greatest possible service to humanity when they helped us to acquire our mind, but many subtle thought influences come from them, and are to be resisted, as Paul very properly emphasizes. The other class of beings which must be mentioned are called Archetypal Forces by the Western School of occultism. They direct the energies of the creative Archetypes native to this realm. They are a composite class of beings of many different grades of intelligences, and there is one stage in the cyclic journey of the Human Spirit when that also labors in, and is part of, that great host of beings. For the Human Spirit is also destined to become a great creative intelligence at some future time, and if there were no school wherein it could gradually learn to create, it would not be able to advance, for nothing in nature is done suddenly. An acorn planted in the soil does not become a majestic oak over night, but many years of slow, persistent growth are required before it attains to the stature of a giant of the forest. A man does not become an Angel by the mere fact of dying and entering a new world any more than an animal advances to be a man by the same process. But in time all that lives, mounts the ladder of Being from the clod to the God. There is no limitation possible to the spirit, and so at various stages in its unfoldment the Human Spirit works with the other nature forces, according to the stage of intelligence which it has attained. It creates, changes and remodels the earth upon which it is to live. Thus, under the great law of cause and effect, which we observe in every realm of nature, it reaps upon earth what it has sown in heaven, and vice versa. It grows slowly but persistently and advances continually. _The Region of Abstract Thought._ Various religious systems have been given to humanity at different times, each suited to meet the spiritual needs of the people among whom it was promulgated, and, coming from the same divine source:—God, all religions exhibit similar fundamentals or first principles. All systems teach that there was a time when _darkness_ reigned supreme. Everything which we now perceive was then non-existent. Earth, sky and the heavenly bodies were uncreate, so were the multitudinous forms which live and move upon the various planets.—All, all, was yet in a fluidic condition and the Universal Spirit brooded _quiescent_ in limitless Space as the One Existence. The Greeks called that condition of homogeneity _Chaos_, and the state of orderly segregation which we now see; the marching orbs which illumine the vaulted canopy of heaven, the stately procession of planets around a central light, the majestic sun; the unbroken sequence of the seasons and the unvarying alternation of tidal ebb and flow;—all this aggregate of systematic order, was called _Cosmos_, and was supposed to have proceeded from Chaos. The Christian Mystic obtains a deeper comprehension when he opens his Bible and ponders the first five verses of that brightest gem of all spiritual lore: the Gospel of St. John. As he reverently opens his aspiring heart to acquire understanding of those sublime mystical teachings he transcends the form-side of nature, comprising various realms of which we have been speaking, and finds himself “in the spirit,” as did the prophets in olden times. He is then in the Region of abstract Thought and sees the eternal verities which also Paul beheld in this, the third, heaven. For those among us who are unable to obtain knowledge save by reasoning upon the matter, however, it will be necessary to examine the fundamental meaning of words used by St. John to clothe his wonderful teaching, which was originally given in the Greek language, a much simpler matter than is commonly supposed, for Greek words have been freely introduced into our modern languages, particularly in scientific terms, and we shall show how this ancient teaching is supported by the latest discoveries of modern science. The opening verse of the gospel of St. John is as follows: “In the _beginning_ was the _Word_, and the _Word_ was with _God_, and the _Word_ was _God_.” We will examine the words: “beginning,” “Word” and “God.” We may also note that in the Greek version the concluding sentence reads: “and God was the Word,” a difference which makes a great distinction. It is an axiomatic truth that “out of nothing, nothing comes,” and it has often been asserted by scoffers that the Bible teaches generation “from nothing.” We readily agree that _translations_ into the modern languages promulgate this erroneous doctrine, but we have shown in _The Rosicrucian Cosmo Conception_ (chapter on “the Occult Analysis of Genesis”), that the Hebrew text speaks of an _ever-existing essence_, as the basis whence all forms, the earth and the heavenly lights included, were first created, and John also gives the same teaching. The Greek word _arche_, in the opening sentence of the gospel of St. John has been translated _the beginning_, and it may be said to have that meaning, but it also has other valid interpretations, vastly more significant of the idea John wished to convey. It means:—an elementary condition,—a chief source,—a first principle,—primordial matter. There was a time when science insisted that the elements were immutable, that is to say, that an atom of iron had been an atom of iron since the earth was formed and would so remain to the end of time. The Alchemists were sneered at as fanciful dreamers or madmen, but since Professor J. J. Thomson’s discovery of the electron, the atomic theory of matter, is no longer tenable. The principle of radio-activity has later vindicated the Alchemists. Science and the Bible agree in teaching, that all that is, has been formed from one homogeneous substance. It is that basic principle which John called _arche_:—primordial matter,—and the dictionary defines Archeology as: “the science of the origin (_arche_) of things.” Masons style God the “Grand Architect,” for the Greek word tektos means builder, and God is the Chief Builder (_tektos_) of _arche_: the primordial virgin matter which is also the chief source of all things. Thus we see that when the opening sentence of St. John’s gospel is properly translated, our Christian Religion teaches that once a virgin substance enfolded the divine Thinker:—God. That is the identical condition which the earlier Greeks called Chaos. A little thought will make it evident that we are not arbitrary in finding fault with the translation of the gospel, for it is self-evident that a word cannot be the beginning, a thought must precede the word, and a thinker must originate thought before it can be expressed as a word. When properly translated the teaching of John fully embodies that idea, for the Greek term _logos_ means both the reasonable thought,—(we also say Logic),—and the word which expresses this (logical) thought.     1) _In the primordial substance was thought, and the thought was     with God And God was the word_,     2) THAT, [The Word], _also was with God in the primal state_. Later the divine WORD; the Creative Fiat, reverberates through space and segregates the homogeneous virgin substance into separate forms.     3) _Every thing has come into existence because of that prime     fact_, [The Word of God], _and no thing exists apart from that     fact._     4) _In that was Life._ In the alphabet we have a few elementary sounds from which words may be constructed. They are basic elements of expression, as bricks, iron and lumber are raw materials of architecture, or as a few notes are component parts of music. But a heap of bricks, iron and lumber, is not a house, neither is a jumbled mass of notes music, nor can we call a haphazard arrangement of alphabetical sounds a word. These raw materials are prime necessities in construction of architecture, music, literature or poetry, but the contour of the finished product and the purpose it will serve depends upon the arrangement of the raw materials, which is subject to the constructor’s design. Building materials may be formed to prison or palace; notes may be arranged as fanfare or funeral dirge; words may be indited to inspire passion or peace, all according to the will of the designer. So also the majestic rhythm of the Word of God has wrought the primal substance: _arche_, into the multitudinous forms which comprise the phenomenal world, according to His will. Did the reader ever stop to consider the wonderful power of a human word. Coming to us in the sweet accents of love, it may lure us from paths of rectitude to shameful ignominy and wreck our life with sorrow and remorse, or it may spur us on in noblest efforts to acquire glory and honor, here or hereafter. According to the inflection of the voice a word may strike terror into the bravest heart or lull a timid child to peaceful slumber. The word of an agitator may rouse the passions of a mob and impel it to awful bloodshed, as in the French Revolution, where dictatorial mandates of mob-rule killed and exiled at pleasure, or, the strain of “Home, Sweet Home” may cement the setting of a family-circle beyond possibility of rupture. Right words are true and therefore free, they are never bound or fettered by time or space, they go to the farthest corners of the earth, and when the lips that spoke them first have long since mouldered in the grave, other voices take up with unwearying enthusiasm their message of life and love, as for instance the mystical “Come unto me” which has sounded from unnumbered tongues and brought oceans of balm to troubled hearts. Words of Peace have been victorious, where war would have meant defeat, and no talent is more to be desired than ability to always say the right word at the auspicious time. Considering thus the immense power and potency of the human word, we may perhaps dimly apprehend the potential magnitude of the Word of God, the Creative Fiat, when as a mighty dynamic force it first reverberated through space and commenced to form primordial matter into worlds, as sound from a violin bow moulds sand into geometrical figures. Moreover, _the Word of God still sounds_ to sustain the marching orbs and impel them onwards in their circle paths, the Creative Word continues to produce forms of gradually increasing efficiency, as media expressing life and consciousness. The harmonious enunciation of consecutive syllables in the Divine Creative Word mark successive stages in evolution of the world and man. When the last syllable has been spoken and the complete word has sounded, we shall have reached perfection as human beings. Then Time will be at an end, and with the last vibration of the Word of God, the worlds will be resolved into their original elements. Our life will then be “hid with Christ in God,” till the Cosmic Night:—Chaos,—is over, and we wake to do “greater things” in a “new heaven and a new earth.” According to the general idea Chaos and Cosmos are superlative antitheses of each other. Chaos being regarded as a past condition of confusion and disorder which has long since been entirely superseded by cosmic order which now prevails. As a matter of fact, Chaos is the seed-ground of Cosmos, the basis of all progress, for thence come all IDEAS which later materialize as Railways, Steamboats, Telephones, etc. We speak of “thoughts as being conceived by the mind,” but as both father and mother are necessary in the generation of a child, so also there must be both _idea_ and _mind_ before a _thought_ can be conceived. As semen germinated in the positive male organ is projected into the negative uterus at conception, so ideas are generated by a positive Human Ego in the spirit-substance of the Region of abstract Thought. This idea is projected upon the receptive mind, and a conception takes place. Then, as the spermatozoic nucleus draws upon the maternal body for material to shape a body appropriate to its individual expression, so does each idea clothe itself in a peculiar form of mindstuff. It is then a thought, as visible to the inner vision of composite man, as a child is to its parent. Thus we see that ideas are embryonic thoughts, nuclei of spirit-substance from the Region of abstract Thought. Improperly conceived in a diseased mind they become vagaries and delusions, but when gestated in a sound mind and formed into rational thoughts they are the basis of all material, moral and mental progress, and the closer our touch with Chaos, the better will be our Cosmos, for in that realm of abstract realities truth is not obscured by matter, it is self-evident. Pilate was asked “what is Truth,” but no answer is recorded. We are incapable of cognizing truth in the abstract while we live in the phenomenal world, for the inherent nature of matter is illusion and delusion, and we are constantly making allowances and corrections whether we are conscious of the fact or not. The sunbeam which proceeds for 90 millions of miles in a straight line, is refracted or bent as soon as it strikes our dense atmosphere, and according to the angle of its refraction, it _appears_ to have one color or another. The straightest stick appears crooked when partly immersed in water, and the truths which are so self-evident in the Higher worlds are likewise obscured, refracted or twisted out of all semblance under the illusory conditions of this material world. “The truth shall set you free,” said Christ, and the more we turn our aspirations from material acquisitiveness and seek to lay up treasure above, the more we aim to rise, the oftener we “get in the spirit,” the more readily we “shall know truth” and reach liberation from the fetter of flesh which binds us to a limited environment, and attain to a sphere of greater usefulness. Study of philosophy and science has a tendency to further perception of truth, and as science has progressed it has gradually receded from its erstwhile crude materialism. The day is not far off when it will be more reverently religious than the church itself. Mathematics is said to be “dry,” for it doesn’t stir the emotions. When it is taught that “the sum of the angles of a triangle is 180 degrees,” the dictum is at once accepted, because its truth is self-evident and no feeling is involved in the matter. But when a doctrine such as the Immaculate Conception is promulgated and our emotions are stirred, bloody war, or heated argument, may result, and still leave the matter in doubt. Pythagoras demanded that his pupils study mathematics, because he knew the elevating effect of raising their minds above the sphere of feeling, where it is subject to delusion, and elevating it towards the Region of abstract Thought which is the prime reality. In this place we are dealing with worlds in particular, and will therefore defer comment upon the remainder of the first 5 verses of St. John’s gospel:     “_And Life became Light in man,_     5) _and Light shines in Darkness._” We have now seen that the earth is composed of three worlds which interpenetrate one another so that it is perfectly true when Christ said that “heaven is within you” or, the translation should rather have been _among you_. We have also seen that of these three realms two are subdivided. It has also been explained that each division serves a great purpose in the unfoldment of various forms of life which dwell in each of these worlds, and we may note in conclusion, that the lower regions of the Desire World constitute what the Catholic religion calls _Purgatory_, a place where the evil of a past life is transmuted to good, usable by the spirit as conscience in later lives. The higher regions of the Desire World are the _first Heaven_ where all the good a man has done is assimilated by the spirit as _soul_ power. The Region of concrete Thought is the _second Heaven_, where, as already said, the spirit prepares its future environment on earth, and the Region of abstract Thought is the _third Heaven_, but as Paul said, it is scarcely lawful to speak about that. Some will ask: is there then no hell?—No! _The mercy of God_ tends as greatly towards the principle of GOOD as “_the inhumanity of man_” towards cruelty, so that he would consign his brother men to flames of hell during eternity for the puerile mistakes committed during a few years, or perhaps for a slight difference in belief. The writer has heard of a minister who wished to impress his “flock” with the reality of an eternity of hell flames, and to demonstrate the fallacy of a heretical notion entertained by some of his parishioners that when sinners come to hell they burn to ashes and that is the end. He took with him an alcohol lamp and some asbestos into the pulpit and told his audience that God would turn their souls into a substance resembling asbestos. He showed them that though the asbestos were heated red hot it did not decompose into ashes. Fortunately the day of the hell preacher has gone by, and if we believe the Bible which says that “in God we live and move and have our being,” we can readily understand that _a lost soul would be an impossibility_, for were one single soul lost, then logically a part of God Himself would be lost. No matter what our color, our race or our creed, we are all equally the children of God and in our various ways we shall obtain satisfaction. Let us therefore rather look to Christ and forget Creed.     _Creed or Christ?_     No man loves God who hates his kind,       Who tramples on his Brother’s heart and soul.     Who seeks to shackle, cloud or fog the mind       By fears of Hell has not perceived our goal.     God-sent are all religions blest;       And Christ, the Way, the Truth and Life,     To give the heavy-laden rest,       And peace from Sorrow, Sin and Strife.     At his request the Universal Spirit came       _To all the churches_, not to one alone.     On Pentecostal morn a tongue of flame       Round _each_ apostle as a halo shone.     Since then, as vultures ravenous with greed,       We oft have battled for an empty name,     And sought by Dogma, Edict, Creed,       To send each other to the flame.     Is Christ then divided? Was Cephas or Paul       Nailed to the deathly tree?     If not—then why these divisions at all?       Christ’s love doth embrace you and me.     His pure sweet love is not confined       By creeds which segregate and raise a wall;     His love enfolds, embraces _Humankind_       No matter what ourselves or Him we call.     Then why not take Him at His word?       Why hold to creeds which tear apart?     But one thing matters, be it heard,       That brother-love fill every heart.     There is but one thing that the world has need to know;       There is but one balm for all our human woe     There is but one way that leads to heaven above;       That way is human sympathy and love. CHAPTER IV. THE CONSTITUTION OF MAN Our chapter head, “the constitution of man,” may surprise a reader who has not previously studied the Mystery teachings, or he may imagine that we intend to give an anatomical dissertation, but such is not our intention. We have spoken of the earth upon which we live as being composed of several invisible realms in addition to the world we perceive by means of our senses. We have also spoken of man as being correlated to these various divisions in nature, and a little thought upon the subject will quickly convince us that in order to function upon the various planes of existence described, it is necessary that a man should have a body composed of their substance, or at least have specialized for his own use, some of the material of each of these worlds. We have said that finer matter, called desire stuff and mind stuff, permeates our atmosphere and the solid earth, even as blood percolates through all parts of our flesh. But that is not a sufficient explanation to account for all facts of life. If that were all, then minerals, which are interpenetrated by the world of thought and the world of desire, would have thoughts and desires as well as man. This is not the case, so something more than mere interpenetration must be requisite to acquire the faculties of thought and feeling. We know that in order to function in this world, to live as a physical being among other like beings, we must have a physical body all our own, built of the chemical constituents of this visible world. When we lose it at death, it profits us nothing that the world is full of just the very chemicals needed to build such a body. We cannot then specialize them, and therefore we are invisible to all others. Similarly, if we did not possess a special body made of ether, we should be unable to grow and to propagate. That is the case with the mineral. Had we no separate individual desire body, we should be unable to feel desires and emotions, there would be no incentive to move from one place to another. We should then be stationary as plants, and did we not possess a mind, we should be incapable of thought, and act upon impulse and instinct as animals. Some one may of course object to this last statement, and contend that animals do think. So far as our domesticated animals are concerned that is partially true, but it is not quite in the same way that we think and reason. The difference may perhaps best be understood if we take an illustration from the electrical field. When an electric current _of high voltage_ is passed through a coiled copper wire, and another wire is placed in the center of the coils, that wire will become charged with electricity _of a lower voltage_. So also the animal, when brought within the sphere of human thoughts, evolves a mental activity of a lower order. Paul, in his writings, also mentions _the natural body_ and the _spiritual body_ while the man himself is a spirit inhabiting those vehicles. We will briefly note the constitution of the various bodies of man invisible to the physical sight but as objective to spiritual sight as the dense body to ordinary vision. _The Vital Body._ That body of ours which is composed of ether is called the “_vital body_” in Western Mystery Schools, for, as we have already seen, ether is the avenue of ingress for vital force from the sun and the field of agencies in nature which promote such vital activities as assimilation, growth and propagation. This vehicle is an exact counterpart of our visible body, molecule for molecule, and organ for organ, with one exception, which we shall note later. But it is slightly larger, extending about one and one-half inches beyond the periphery of our dense vehicle. The spleen is the entrance gate of forces which vitalize the body. In the etheric counterpart of that organ solar energy is transmuted to vital fluid of a pale rose color. From thence it spreads all over the nervous system, and after having been used in the body it radiates in streams, much as bristles protrude from a porcupine. The rays of the sun are transmitted either directly, or reflected by way of the planets and the moon. The rays directly from the sun give spiritual illumination, the rays received by way of the planets produce intelligence, morality, and soul growth, but the rays reflected by way of the moon make for physical growth, as seen in the case of plants which grow differently when planted in the light of the moon from what is the case when they are planted when the moon is dark. There is also a difference in plants sown when the moon is in barren and fruitful signs of the Zodiac. The solar ray is absorbed by the human spirit which has its seat in the center of the forehead, the stellar ray is absorbed by the brain and spinal cord, and the lunar ray enters our system through the spleen. The solar, stellar and lunar rays are three-colored, and in the lunar ray which supplies our vital force, the blue beam is the life of The Father, which causes germination, the yellow beam is the life of The Son, which is the active principle in nutrition and growth, and the red beam is the life of the Holy Spirit, which stimulates to action, dissipating the energy stored by the yellow force. This principle is particularly active in generation. The various kingdoms absorb this life-force differently, according to their constitution. Animals have only 28 pairs of spinal nerves. They are keyed to the lunar month of 28 days and therefore dependent upon a Groupspirit for an infusion of stellar rays necessary to produce consciousness. They are altogether incapable of absorbing the direct ray of the sun. Man is in a transition stage, he has 31 pairs of spinal nerves which keys him to the solar month, but the nerves in the so-called cauda-equina—literally horse-tail—, at the end of our spinal cord, are still too undeveloped to act as avenues for the spiritual ray of the sun. In proportion as we draw our creative force upward by spiritual thought we develop these nerves and awaken dormant faculties of the spirit. But it is dangerous to attempt that development except under guidance of a qualified teacher, and the reader is earnestly warned not to use any method published in books, or sold, for their practice usually leads to dementia. The safe method is never sold for money or any earthly consideration however large or small; it is always freely given as a reward of merit. “Ask and ye shall receive, seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened”, said the Christ. If our life is a prayer for illumination, the search will not be uncertain, nor the knock without response. When solar energy has been transmuted in the spleen it traverses the whole nervous system of the body glowing with a most beautiful color of a delicate rosy hue. It answers the same purpose as electricity in a telegraph system. We may string wires between cities, erect telegraph stations, install receivers and transmitters. We may even have operators ready at the keys, but until electric fluid is turned into our wires, the telegraph keys will refuse to click. So also in the body, the human spirit is operator, and from the central station of the brain, nerves ramify, go through the whole body to all the different muscles. When this vitalizing fluid of which we are speaking traverses the nervous system, the Ego may send his commands to the muscles and cause them to move but if the vital fluid for any reason does not flow into a certain part of the body such as an arm or a limb, then the spirit is powerless to move that part of the body and we say that it is paralyzed. When we are in health, we specialize solar energy in such great quantities that we cannot use it all in the body and therefore it radiates through the pores of our skin in straight streams and serves a similar purpose as an exhaust fan. That machine drives the foul air out of a room or building and keeps the atmosphere within pure and sweet. The excessive vital force which radiates from the body drives out poisonous gases, deleterious microbes and effete matter thus tending to preserve a healthy condition. It also prevents armies of disease germs, which swarm about in the atmosphere, from entering; upon the same principle that a fly cannot wing its way into a building through the exhaust fan. Thus it serves a most beneficent purpose even after it has been utilized in our body and is returning to the free state. It is a curious and most astounding sight when one first observes how, from exposed parts of the body such as hands and face, there suddenly commences to flow a stream of stars, cubes, pyramids and a variety of other geometrical forms. The writer has more than once rubbed his eyes when he first perceived the phenomenon, for it seemed that he must be suffering from hallucinations. The forms observed are chemical atoms however, which have served their purpose in the body and are expelled through the pores. When one has eaten a meal, vital fluid is consumed by the body in great quantities, for it is the cement whereby nature’s forces build our food into the body. Therefore the radiations are weakest during the period of digestion. If the meal has been heavy, the outflow is very perceptibly diminished, and does not then cleanse our body as thoroughly as when the food has been digested, nor is it as potent in keeping out inimical germs. Therefore one is most liable to catch cold or other disease by overeating, a fault which should be avoided by all who wish to keep in good health. During ill health the vital body specializes but little solar energy. Then, for a time, the visible body seems to feed upon the vital body as it were, so that the vehicle becomes more transparent and attenuated at the same rate as the visible body exhibits a state of emaciation. The cleansing odic radiations are almost entirely absent during sickness, therefore complications set in so easily. Though science has not directly observed this vital body of man, it has upon several occasions postulated the existence of such a vehicle as necessary to account for facts in life and the radiations have been observed by a number of scientists at different times and under varying conditions. Blondlot and Charpentier have called them N-rays after the city of Nantes where the radiations were observed by these scientists, others have named them “The Odic fluid”. Scientific investigators who have conducted researches into psychic phenomena have even photographed it when it has been extracted through the spleen by materializing spirits. Dr. Hotz for instance obtained two photographs of a materialization through the German medium, Minna-Demmler. On one a cloud of ether is seen oozing out through the left side of the medium, shapeless and without form. The second picture, taken a few moments later, shows the materialized spirit standing at the medium’s side. Other photographs obtained by scientists from the Italian medium Eusapio Palladino show a luminous cloud over-hanging her left side. We said in the beginning of this description that the vital body is an exact counterpart of the dense body with one exception: it is of the opposite sex or perhaps we should rather say polarity. As the vital body nourishes the dense vehicle, we may readily understand that blood is its highest visible expression, and also that a positively polarized vital body would generate more blood than a negative one. Woman who is physically negative has a positive vital body, hence she generates a surplus of blood which is relieved by the periodical flow. She is also more prone to tears, which are white bleeding, than man, whose negative vital body does not generate more blood than he can comfortably take care of. Therefore it is not necessary for him to have the outlets which relieve excess of blood in woman. _The Desire Body._ In addition to the visible body and the vital body we also have a body made of desire stuff from which we form our feelings and emotions. This vehicle also impels us to seek sense gratification. But while the two instruments of which we have already spoken, are well organized, the desire body appears to spiritual sight as an ovoid cloud extending from sixteen to twenty inches beyond the physical body. It is above the head and below the feet so that our dense body sits in the center of this egg-shaped cloud as the yolk is in the center of an egg. The reason for the rudimentary state of this vehicle is, that it has been added to the human constitution more recently than the bodies previously mentioned. Evolution of form may be likened to the manner in which the juices in the snail first condense into flesh and later become a hard shell. When our present visible body first germinated in the spirit, it was a thought-form, but gradually it has become denser and more concrete until it is now a chemical crystallization. The vital body was next emanated by the spirit as a thought-form and is in the third stage of concretion which is etheric. The desire body is a still later acquisition. That also was a thought form at its inception, but has now condensed to desire stuff, and the mind, which we have only recently received, is still but a mere cloudy thought form. Arms and limbs, ears and eyes are not necessary to use the desire body, for it can glide through space more swiftly than wind without such means of locomotion as we require in this visible world. When viewed by spiritual sight, it appears that there are in this desire body a number of whirling vortices. We have already explained that it is a characteristic of desire stuff to be in constant motion, and from the main vortex in the region of the liver there is a constant outwelling flow which radiates towards the periphery of this egg-shaped body and returns to the center through a number of other vortices. The desire body exhibits all the colors and shades which we know and a vast number of others which are indescribable in earthly language. Those colors vary in every person according to his characteristics and temperament and they also vary from moment to moment as passing moods, fancies or emotions are experienced by him. There is however in each one a certain basic color dependent upon the ruling star at the moment of his birth. The man in whose horoscope Mars is peculiarly strong usually has a crimson tint in his aura, where Jupiter is the strongest planet the prevailing tint seems to be a bluish tone, and so on with the other planets. There was a time in the earth’s past history when incrustation was not yet complete, and human beings of that time lived upon islands here and there, amid boiling seas. They had not yet evolved eyes or ears, but a little organ: the pineal gland, which anatomists have called _the third eye_, protruded through the back of the head and was a _localised organ of feeling_, which warned the man when he came too near a volcanic crater and thus enabled him to escape destruction. Since then the cerebral hemispheres have covered the pineal gland, and instead of a single organ of feeling, the whole body inside and out is sensitive to impacts, which of course is a much higher state of development. In the desire body every particle is sensitive to vibrations similar to those which we call sight, sounds and feelings and every particle is in incessant motion rapidly swirling about so that in the same instant it may be at the top and bottom of the desire body and impart at all points to all the other particles a sensation of that which it has experienced thus every particle of desire stuff in this vehicle of ours will instantly feel any sensation experienced by any single particle. Therefore the desire body is of an exceedingly sensitive nature, capable of most intense feelings and emotions. _The Mind._ This is the latest acquisition of the human spirit, and in most people who have not yet accustomed themselves to orderly, consecutive thought, it is a mere inchoate cloud disposed particularly in the region of the head. When looking at a person clairvoyantly there appears to be an empty space in the center of the forehead just above and between the eyebrows. It looks like the blue part of a gas flame. That is mind stuff which veils the human spirit, or Ego, and the writer has been told that not even the most gifted seer can penetrate that veil which is said to have been spoken of in ancient Egypt as “_the veil of Isis_” which none may lift and live, for behind that veil is the Holy of Holies, the temple of our body, where the spirit is to be left secure from all intrusion. To those who have not previously studied the deeper philosophies the question may occur: But why all these divisions; even the Bible speaks only of soul and body, for most people believe soul and spirit to be synonymous terms. We can only answer that this division is not arbitrary but necessary, and founded upon facts in nature. Neither is it correct to regard the soul and the spirit as synonymous. Paul himself speaks of _the natural body_ which is composed of physical substances: solids, liquids, gases and ethers; he mentions _a spiritual body_, which is the vehicle of the spirit composed of the mind and desire body, and _the spirit itself_,which is called Ego in Latin or “I” in English.