The Three-fold Constitution of Man
The following diagram and accompanying explanations will serve to
illustrate "Three Planes of Being," the corresponding "Three-fold
Constitution of man," and their analogy tothe artist and his
instrument.
The Three-fold Constitution of Man
~Planes of Being~
~Three-fold Constitution of Man~
~Analogy~
Psychical or Moral
Soul
Music, Laws of Harmony
Mental
Mind
Player
Material
Bodies
(Physical and Spiritual)
Violin
Man lives and functions on three distinct planes of being: the
physical-material and spiritual-material, the mental and the soul
(psychical or moral) planes.
He may be diseased upon any one or more of these planes. The true
physician must look for causes of disease and for methods of
treatment upon all three planes of being.
The purely materialistic physician concentrates all his study and
effort upon the physical-material plane of being. To him, mental,
spiritual, psychical, and moral phenomena are merely chemical and
physiological actions and reactions of brain and nerve substance. He
has nothing but contempt and derision for the man who believes in or
knows of a spiritual body or a soul.
He is like an artist who says: "My violin is all there is to music.
The musician's art consists in keeping his instrument in good
condition. Technique and the laws of harmony are a matter of
imagination and of superstitious belief."
On the other hand, mental healers, Christian Scientists and faith
healers concentrate all their efforts upon either the mental or the
soul plane, frequently making no distinction between the two. In the
treatment of disease, they ignore the conditions and needs of the
physical body, and some of them even deny its existence.
These metaphysicians are like the artist who devotes all his time
and energy to the study and practice of technique, counterpoint and
harmony, neglecting his instrument and taking no heed whether its
mechanism is out of order or its interior filled with rubbish. His
knowledge of the laws of harmonics and his execution may be ever so
perfect; but with his instrument out of tune and out of order he
will produce discords instead of harmony.
The true artist realizes that MIND, the player, must study SOUL, the
harmonics; and that the mind must also have its instrument, the
BODY, in perfect condition in order to interpret perfectly and
artistically the harmonies of the symphony of life. Likewise, the
Nature Cure physician will look for causes of disease and for means
of cure upon the material, mental and psychical planes of being.
Thus will higher civilization and greater knowledge lead back to the
natural simplicity of primitive races, where physician and priest
are one.
After all, physical health is the best possible basis for the
attainment of mental, moral and spiritual health. All building
begins with the foundation. We do not first suspend the steeple in
the air and then build the church under it. So also, the building of
the temple of human character should begin by laying the foundation
in physical health.
We have known people who had attained high intellectual, moral and
spiritual development and then suffered utter shipwreck physically,
mentally and in every other way, because ignorantly they had
violated the laws of their physical nature.
There are others who believe that the possession of occult knowledge
and the achievement of mastership confer absolute control over
Nature's forces and phenomena on the physical plane. These people
believe that a man is not a master if he does not miraculously heal
all manner of disease and raise the dead.
If such things were possible, they would overthrow the Laws of Cause
and Effect and of Compensation. They would abolish the basic
principles of morality and constructive spirituality. If it is
possible in one case to heal disease and to overcome death through
the fiat of the will of a master, then it must be possible in all
cases. If so, then we can ignore the existence of Nature's laws,
indulge our appetites and passions to the fullest extent, and when
the natural results of our transgressions overtake us, we can go to
a healer or master and have our diseases instantly and painlessly
removed, like a bad tooth.
I say this with all due reverence for, and faith in, the efficacy of
true prayer and with full knowledge of the healing power of
therapeutic faith, but I do not believe that God, or Nature, or a
master or metaphysical formulas can or will make good in a
miraculous way for the inevitable results of our transgressions of
the natural laws that govern our being.
If such miraculous healing were possible and of common occurrence,
what occasion would there be for the exercise of reason, will and
self-control? What would become of the scientific basis of morality
and constructive spirituality?
All this leads us to the following conclusions:
"If there is in operation a constructive principle of Nature on the
ethical, moral and spiritual planes of being, with which we must
align ourselves and to which we must conform our conscious and
voluntary activities in order to achieve self-completion,
self-content, individual completion and happiness, then this
constructive principle must be in operation also in our physical
bodies and in their corelated physical, mental and emotional
activities. If the constructive principle is active in the physical
as well as in the moral and spiritual realms, then the established
harmonic relationship of the physical to the constructive law of its
being must constitute the morality of the physical; and from this it
follows that the achievement of health on the physical plane is as
much under our conscious and voluntary control as the working out of
our individual salvation on the higher planes of life."
To recapitulate:
First, our well-being on all planes and in all relationships of life
depends upon the existence, recognition and practical application of
the great fundamental laws and principles just explained.
Second: Physical health, as well as moral health, is of our own
making. We are personally responsible not only for our own physical
and mental health, but we are also morally responsible for the
hereditary tendencies of our offspring toward health or disease.
Third: The attainment of physical health through compliance with
Nature's laws is just as much a part of the Great Work as our
ethical, moral and psychical development.
The Unity and Continuity of the Law
That which we call God, Nature, the Creator or the Universal
Intelligence is the great central cause of all things and the
vibratory activities produced by or proceeding from this central or
primary cause continue through all spheres of life, in like manner
as the light waves of the sun, moon and fixed stars penetrate
through the intervening spheres of life to our plane of earth.
Therefore all powers, forces, laws and principles which manifest on
our plane proceed and continue from the innermost Divine to the most
external plane in physical nature. This explains the continuity,
stability and correspondence on all planes of being of that which we
call Natural Law. In other words, "Natural Law is the established
harmonic relationship of effects and phenomena to their causes and
of all particular causes to the one great primary cause of all
things."