more than ancient science in regard to the chemical constitution, the
physiological action of poisons and of the pathological effects which
they produce in the animal body; but to explain the order in which a
process takes place is not sufficient to explain why it takes place,
and there is still a wide field open for investigation; for at present
we can only record the fact that certain physical substances have a
destructive action upon the human body; while the same substances with
a little difference in the arrangements of their molecules, are not
only not injurious, but even used as food;[33] that certain substances
have a specific action upon the emotional nature in man, causing an
inclination to certain states of his astral constitution, such as
irritability of temper, anger, cupidity, etc., which they could not
have if no corresponding elements were contained in them; while others
have a specific action upon the mind, such as the fading of memory,
paralysis of the will, excitement of the imagination, all of which they
could not accomplish if no substantial mind principle existed in them.
To material science the universe is a product of mechanical force
created by unconscious matter; to the idealist it is a dream which
has nothing real in it; but seen with the eye of wisdom it is a
manifestation of life, with the potentiality of consciousness contained
in everything. Love and hate exist in minerals as they do in men, only
in another state of consciousness, and a tragedy or comedy might be
written in regard to their family history; describing, for instance,
how the beautiful Princess Sodium fell in love and was married to a
fiery youth called Oxygen, and how the happy union lasted until one day
a jealous knight, named Chlorine, fell in love with her, and although
he himself was married to a flighty woman whose name was Hydrogenia,
he abducted the princess, and there was nothing left for poor Oxygen
but to take the deserted woman and turn to water with her. Such a story
would differ from a similar one enacted in human life only in so far
as the actors in the latter would intelligently and consciously follow
certain laws which are enacted without individual intelligence in the
mineral kingdom. There is only one Consciousness and one law of Harmony
in the world, and according to it accords and discords arise in all the
three kingdoms of nature.
The influence of the light of the truth is a poison to the erroneous
conceptions existing within the mind, and earthly thoughts are
impurities to the mind that aspires to the kingdom of heaven. Evil
desires create evil thoughts and give birth to evil acts; good acts
procreate their species, giving rise to good thoughts and aspirations,
from which good children are born. The sum of men’s individual desires
constitutes the desires of the soul of the world; the sum of the
thoughts and opinions of mankind constitutes the mental atmosphere
by which the world in general, and each locality in particular, is
surrounded; and the state of the mind ultimately expresses itself upon
the outward plane of manifestation. It is not more difficult to poison
a mind with impure thoughts than to poison a body with drugs. Impure
is he who has many diverging desires, pure is the mind having only one
will.
Popular medicine deals only with external effects and physical causes,
occult science goes deeper, seeking for fundamental causes and
final effects, which are of far greater importance than the passing
manifestations taking place in the physical form. Thus, for instance,
a promiscuous sexual intercourse not only causes venereal diseases;
but as during that act a commingling of the inner natures takes place
to a certain extent, a man cohabiting with a depraved woman takes on
some of her characteristics and joins to a certain extent her future
_Karma_ and destiny to his own. The basis of the existence of human
beings is what, for want of a better expression, has been called the
_Will_ (Spirit or Life), and as one body may colour or poison another,
likewise a colouring, and perhaps poisoning, takes place by a blending
of spirit during sexual intercourse; this “spiritual substance” being
the essence of each human being.
“If a woman leaves her husband, she is then not free from him, nor he
from her; for a marital union having once been established, remains a
union for all eternity.” (“De Homunculis.”)
That which nourishes a thing, goes to make up its substance. The
physical body receives its nutriment from the physical plane, the soul
is nourished by the influences coming from the soul of the world, the
intellect is nourished, grows and expands in the intellectual plane;
an ill-fed body becomes diseased; a soul living on morbid desires and
inordinate longings becomes depraved, a mind fed with false theories,
errors and superstitions becomes dwarfed, perverted and unable to turn
its face towards the sunlight of truth. The food for soul and mind is
as substantial to them as material food is substantial to the material
body; body, soul, and spirit being three states of the eternal _One_,
manifested on three different planes of existence, being governed by
only one fundamental law. What the stomach is in the body, the memory
is in the mind. Both are related together; a dyspeptic stomach causes a
defective memory and an irritable mind; an irritable temperament causes
indigestion and forgetfulness; forgetfulness can cause inattention,
irritability and dyspepsia. Soul, body and mind are one in man, and
disorders existing in one can cause impurities in the other; each
passion in man, each superstition in which he firmly believes, is
capable of poisoning his body and of producing a certain disease. A
belief in salvation made easy renders a man indolent, indolence causes
want of self-control, which causes want of resistance to injurious
influences in the physical plane. Repeated physical misfortunes may
make a man a coward, and his cowardliness prevents him from letting go
of a doctrine which he intuitively known to be false. Anger is not only
injurious to bodily health, but drives away reason by confusing the
mind; wrath causes not only mental but also physical shortsightedness,
and hard-hearing is often the only cause of a suspicious character.
Thus innumerable comparisons may be drawn and analogies be found, and
cases cited to prove the correctness of this theory, if our space would
permit it, and if it were necessary to prove by arguments and facts the
truth of the unity of the all, which must be self-evident to everyone
taking the trouble to seek for the answer to such questions within
himself.
But the highest cannot act upon the lowest without an intermediary
link connecting them, the spirit cannot act upon the body without the
connecting link of the soul, nor the soul upon the body except by
means of the life. We cannot cook a dish of soup for a starving beggar
by means of the fire of love; but love moves the will and induces
actions which the mind directs, and thus the soup may be cooked after
all owing to the power of love or charity. The greatest difficulty in
the understanding of occult laws arises from the circumstance that we
cannot perceive remote causes or seek to connect them with ultimate
effects without being able to see through the intricate network of
intermediary causes between the two ends.
III.—ENS NATURAE.
_Diseases which have their origin in certain conditions inherent in the
constitution of man._
Man is a perfect child of nature. There is not a single essence in
his constitution which does not exist in nature; neither is there any
substance or power to be found in nature which does not exist in him,
either actually or potentially, undeveloped or developed.
“There are many who say that man is a _microcosm_; but few understand
what this really means. As the world is itself an organism with all
its constellations, so is man a constellation (organism), a world
in itself, and as the firmament (space) of the world is ruled by
no creature, so the firmament which is within man (his mind) is
not subject to any other creature. This firmament (sphere of mind)
in man has its planets and stars (mental states), its exaltations,
conjunctions and oppositions (states of feelings, thoughts, emotions,
ideas, loves and hates), call them by whatever name you like, and as
all the celestial bodies in space are connected with each other by
invisible links, so are the organs in man not entirely independent of
each other, but depend on each other to a certain extent. His heart
is his {symbol}, his brain his {symbol}, the spleen his {symbol},
the liver {symbol}, the lungs {symbol}, and the kidneys {symbol}.”
(“Paramirum,” III. 4.)
Man has two kinds of natures. His physical organism is a product of
that nature which he received from his terrestrial parents; his
mental organisation is the result of a higher and quite different kind
of evolution. His terrestrial nature includes not only his visible
organism, but also the organisation of his astral form and his mental
constitution.
“There are two kinds of flesh. The flesh of _Adam_ (the physical body)
is gross earthly flesh; the flesh that is _derived from Adam_ is of
a subtle kind. It is not made of gross matter, it penetrates through
all walls without requiring doors or holes; nevertheless both kinds
of flesh have their blood and bones, and both differ again from the
spirit.” (_Paracelsus_, “De Nymphis.”)
Man having within himself the same essences and powers, and there
being only one universal law of evolution, there takes place in him
a development similar to, if not identical with, the development in
eternal and internal nature. Accords and discords in his nature can
grow and swell into harmonies or disharmonies, and constitute the whole
man a symphony or cacophony, colouring his whole being and transmitting
this to his offspring. A seed of wheat and a seed of barley resemble
each other, and nevertheless wheat grows out of one and barley out of
the other. The _ovum_ of a human being shows no essential difference
from that of a monkey; nevertheless out of the one grows a human being
and out of the other a monkey. The nature of man is fully expressed in
every part of his organism, and in the sperm of the father is contained
not only the quality of this or that part of his nature, but the
potentiality of the whole.[34]
The quality of the constitution of a man determines the length of his
natural life.
“If a child is born, its _firmament_ (astral body and mind, etc.) is
born with it, containing the seven principles, of which each has its
own potencies and qualities. What is called ‘_predestination_’ is
only the quality of the powers in man. The weakness or strength of
his constitution determines whether his life is to be short or long,
according to natural laws; the planets in him run their course whether
he has a long or a short life, only in the former case the course
of his planets is of a longer, and in the other case of a shorter
duration. The quality of the constitution which a man receives at his
birth determines the length of his natural life, just as the quantity
of sand in an hour glass determines the time when it will have run
down.” (“Paramirum,” L. I., Tr. iii., C. 5.)
The _Ens Naturæ_ therefore refers to those beginnings in man’s
constitution which are the result of the quality of his body, soul
and mind as he received them from nature, and includes all inherited
physical diseases, qualities of temperament and mental peculiarities;
for the earthly part of the mind (_Káma Manas_) belongs to terrestrial
nature and its tendencies are inherited; while the spiritual part
of the mind (_Manas Buddhi_) is not inherited from the parents, but
belongs to the spiritual man whose parent exists in eternity.[35]
This class includes all internal diseases originating from disorders
arising among the interaction of the physiological functions of the
organs of the body, or of the interaction between these and those of
the soul (the emotions) and mind (thoughts).
This system of Paracelsus includes the whole realm of modern physiology
and pathology; but it penetrates deeper, for it investigates the
functions of soul and mind, and follows the development of an evil
desire or thought until it ultimately finds its expression in an
external manifestation of visible pathological states. To enter into
the details of this field of pathology is not possible within the
limits of this book.
There is no indication that the sympathies and antipathies, in other
words the physiological relations existing between the different
organs in the human body, are better known at the present time than
they were at the time of Paracelsus: on the contrary, he speaks of
the currents of the life-principle taking place between these organs,
while modern anatomy speaks only of nerves, which are in regard to the
“life-fluid” what electric wires are in regard to electricity.
“The heart sends its spirit (will power) through the whole of the
body, as the sun his power to all the planets and earths; the {symbol}
(the intelligence of the brain) goes to the heart and back again
to the brain. The fire (heat) takes its origin in the (chemical)
activity of the organs (the lungs), but pervades the whole body. The
_liquor vitæ_ (essence of life) is universally distributed and moves
(circulates) in the body. This ‘humor’ contains many different powers,
and cause in him ‘metals’ (virtues or vices) of various kinds.”
(“Paramirum,” L. I. Tr. 3.)
In regard to this subject modern medical science says:—
“A wide basis of positive knowledge in regard to this subject does not
exist. The physiology of the different departments of the sympathetic
system of nerves is now only beginning to shape itself, while on
the side of pathology and morbid anatomy there is even still less
of definite knowledge. Thus it happens that for the most part only
conjectures, often very insecurely based are current, or can be said
to exist in regard to the dependence of definite sets of symptoms, or
distinct diseases, upon disordered actions or morbid changes occurring
in one or other part of the sympathetic system of nerves.” (“H.
Charlton Bastian.”)
Both ancient and modern science are right as far as they go; only while
modern science pays all of its attention to the forms (organs, nerves,
etc.), which are merely the products of certain principles and powers
and the instruments for their activity, ancient science deals with
these powers themselves, taking only into secondary consideration the
visible instruments in and through which they become manifest. Modern
science, so to say, studies the muscular movements of a musician,
occult science knows the art of music itself. Material science is the
servant mixing the paints for the painter; the true physician is
the artist who knows how to paint. The one studies the tools which
the workman uses; the other sees also the workman himself. These
comparisons are not drawn for the purpose of throwing discredit upon
modern medical science, nor for the purpose of blaming any modern
physician for not employing powers which he does not possess; but for
the purpose of indicating that a knowledge of physical phenomena and
visible forms is not the limit of all attainable knowledge, and that
there exists a higher and more important kind of knowledge, based
upon a higher perception, such as is attained only through the higher
development of the spiritual character of man; which becomes possible
only when earthly presumption and vanity are overcome and when, by
stepping up higher, he realises the nothingness of the terrestrial
illusion of “self.”
IV.—ENS SPIRITUALE.
_Diseases arising from spiritual causes._
“Spirit”—from _spiro_, to blow—means breath. “Breath means a
power, quite distinct from mechanical force, as being endowed with
consciousness, life and intelligence. In its aspect as an universal
power, it means the breath of God which caused the universe to come
from a subjective state into objective existence; in its individual
aspect it means the spiritual power dwelling in man.[36]
_Spirit is Consciousness in every plane of existence_; but from this
it does not follow that all the forms in which it dwells necessarily
manifest self-consciousness or are even conscious of existence. For
the manifestation of perfect spiritual self-consciousness a spiritual
organism is required, such as an average man does not possess, if he
has not been reborn in the spirit. In the forms of the mineral kingdom
the presence of spirit is perceptible by the manifestations of mineral
life, in the vegetable kingdom by the manifestations of vegetable life,
and in the animal kingdom by those of animal life, for spirit is itself
the basis of life in the physical, astral, intellectual and spiritual
world; and as the spirit of the universe is the spiritual breath of
God, issuing from the centre and returning to it, so is the spirit of
man the spiritual power which enters into his constitution, and issues
again when the body dies.
“That is a spirit, which is born from our thoughts; immaterial and
in the living body. That which is born after our death is the soul.”
(“Paramirum,” L. I., C. iv., 2.)
“The spirit is not born from reasoning, but from the will.” (_Ibid._
3.)
“Spirit,” in other words, is a form of _Will_ endowed with thought; a
spiritual power, neither good nor evil in itself; but which becomes
good or evil according to the purpose for which it is employed. Its
functions are willing, imagining, and remembering.
A great deal has been written about the power of will and imagination
in Nature, by means of which the types existing in the memory of the
universal mind continually find re-expression in physical visible
forms;[37] in this place we have to deal only with the qualities of
these three functions, and the effects which they produce in the body
of man.
In the previous three divisions of this chapter we have had under our
consideration causes of diseases originating in the terrestrial part of
the human constitution; this and the following deals with his spiritual
part.
“There are two subjects in man, one is a material, the other a
spiritual being (thought-body), impalpable, invisible, subject to its
own diseases (discords); one belonging to the material, the other to
the spiritual world, each having its own states of consciousness,
perception and memory, its own associations with beings of its kind.
Nevertheless, both are one during this life, and the spirit influences
the body; but not the body the spirit. Therefore if the spirit is
diseased, it is of no use to doctor the body; but if the body is
diseased, it can be cured by administering remedies to the spirit.”
(_Lib._ “Paramir.,” I., iv., 4 and 7.)
This spiritual part, or the thought-body of man, is the vehicle for the
reincarnating spirit, when the spiritual individuality evolves a new
personality upon the earth. For the purpose of understanding what is
said in the following division of this chapter, it will be necessary to
understand the theory of _Reincarnation_, of which we can only present
an outline within the space of this work. H. P. Blavatsky says that
which reincarnates is:
“_The Spiritual thinking Ego, the permanent principle in man, or
that which is the seat of the Manas._ _It is not_ ATMA, _or even_
ATMA-BUDDHI, _which is the individual or divine man, but_ MANAS; _for
Atman is the Universal All, and becomes the Higher Self of man only
in conjunction with_ BUDDHI, _its vehicle, which links_ IT _to the
individuality (or the divine Man)_.”[38]
The resurrection of the physical body is a modern superstition in which
none of the ancient philosophers or real Christians ever believed.[39]
_Will._
“Will” comes from _willan_, desire; but is quite distinct from that
selfish desire which is the result of the fancies of the brain; the
true will is a strong power which comes from the centre, the heart, and
in its highest aspect it is that creative power which called the world
into existence. All the voluntary and involuntary actions in nature and
in the organism of man originate in the action of will, whether or not
we are conscious of it.
“You do not know a tithe of the real power of the will.”
(_Paracelsus_, “Paramir.,” I., iv., 8.)
Upon the physical plane the will acts, so to say, unconsciously,
carrying out blindly the laws of nature, causing attractions,
repulsions, guiding the mechanical, chemical and physiological
functions of the body without man’s intelligence taking any part in
the process. Man is himself a manifestation of will, and the will
(spirit) in him can perform many things without depending on the
intellectual activity of the brain; all of which is left unexplained
by modern physiology, although it cannot deny the facts. Thus an
experienced pianist does not require to determine first which movement
he should give to the muscles of his fingers before striking a key; but
he does this instinctively after his spirit has been educated to it.
Rope-walking, gymnastic feats and acts of all kinds are the products
of a trained will, and would be impossible without that. They may be
superintended by the intellect, but are not guided by it. Its sphere of
action is limited to that of the body in which it dwells.
In its higher aspect the will is a conscious power, manifesting itself
as emotions, virtues and vices of various kinds. Its sphere of action
extends as far as the sphere of the influence of the individual mind.
Thus the will of a superior person exercises an influence over his
inferiors, a teacher over his pupils, a general over his army, a sage
over the world.
In its highest aspect the will manifests itself as a self-conscious
power, capable of acting far beyond the limits of the corporeal form
from which it issues, constituting, so to say, an independent organized
spiritual being acting under the guidance of the intelligence of the
person from whom it is born. Strange as this assertion may appear, it
is nevertheless true, and the now accepted phenomena of “hypnotism”
have opened the door to the understanding of such phenomena.[40] An
investigation into this subject would bring us within the realm of
magic, spiritism, witchcraft, sorcery, etc., etc., which does not
belong to our present purpose, and which has been treated in a previous
work.[41]
As an evil will is the cause of many diseases, so is a good will a
great remedy for curing them. While two fools hypnotizing each other
will produce a mixture of folly, the magic power of the self-conscious
benevolent will of an enlightened physician is able to arouse the
confidence and restore health in many cases where all the remedies of
the pharmacopœia are of no avail, and the cultivation of this power is
therefore of supreme importance, even more so than a knowledge of all
the details in regard to the action of drugs. Science and wisdom should
be cultivated together, but not the former at the expense of the latter.
_Imagination._
“Imagination” means the power of the mind to form _images_; from the
shadowy images of a dream up to the corporeal and living images formed
by the power of an Adept. This faculty, which was well known to the
ancient sages who were in possession of it, is almost entirely ignored
by popular medical science, which in spite of its recent discoveries
of what is now called “suggestion,” does not yet seem to suspect the
extent of its power. It is a power whose application cannot be taught
to those who do not possess it, and there are very few who have this
power developed; for our present generation is of a pre-eminently
_adamic_ (terrestrial) and impotent kind; leading a dream-life, and
being itself composed of dreams, its imagination is as feeble as a
dream. The real power of active and effective imagination belongs to
the spiritual inner man, who in the vast majority of mankind has not
yet awakened to life. Only when men and women have entered into the
true life—in other words, when the spirit in them will have become
self-conscious—will they be able to possess and to exercise spiritual
powers, such as constituted the _Arcana_ of Theophrastus Paracelsus, on
which there has been so much speculation in modern literature and yet
so little really known—the stumbling block and fruitful source of error
for so many of our modern _surface_ observers.[42]