Filename: RC1097.TXT
Source: "The Vital Body" by Max Heindel

[PAGE 3499]

   As the ether carries to the sensitive film in the camera an accurate  im-
pression of the surrounding landscape, taking in the minutest detail regard-
less of whether the photographer has observed it or not,  so the ether  con-
tained  in  the  air we inspire carries with it  an  accurate  and  detailed
picture of all our surroundings.  Not only of material things,  but also the
conditions  existing each moment within our aura.   The  slightest  thought,
feeling,  or emotion is transmitted to the lungs,  where it is injected into
the blood.   The blood is one of the highest products of the vital body,  as
it  is the carrier of nourishment to every part of the body and  the  direct
vehicle  of  the  Ego.   The pictures it contains  are  impressed  upon  the
negative atoms of the vital body,  to serve as arbiters of the man's destiny
in the post-mortem state.

   In many women, in whom the vital body is positive, and in advanced people
of  either sex where the vital body has been sensitized by a pure  and  holy
life,  by prayer and concentration, this superconscious memory  inherent  in
the  Life Spirit is occasionally,  to some extent,  above the  necessity  of
clothing  itself in mind stuff and desire matter in order to compel  action.
It  does not always need to incur the danger of being subjected to and  per-
haps overruled by a process of reasoning.   Sometimes,  in the form of intu-
ition  or teaching from within,  it impresses itself directly upon  the  re-
flecting  ether  of  the vital body.  The more readily we learn to recognize

[PAGE 3500]

it and follow its dictates,  the oftener it will speak,  to our eternal wel-
fare.

   By their activities during waking hours the desire body and the mind  are
constantly destroying the dense vehicle.  Every thought and movement  breaks
down tissue.   On the other hand, the vital body faithfully endeavors to re-
store harmony and build up what the other vehicles are tearing down.   It is
not able,  however, to withstand entirely the powerful onslaughts of the im-
pulses  and thoughts.   It gradually loses ground and at last there comes  a
time when it collapses.   Its "points"  shrivel up,  so to say.   The  vital
fluid ceases to flow along the nerves in sufficient quantity;  the body  be-
comes drowsy,  the Thinker is hampered by its drowsiness and forced to with-
draw,  taking the desire body with him.   This withdrawal of the higher  ve-
hicles  leaves  the  dense body interpenetrated by the  vital  body  in  the
senseless state we call sleep.

   Like a wise general, the Ego followed a similar course of action.  It did
not commence its campaign by getting control of one of the glands,  for they
are expressions of the vital body; nor was it possible to get control of the
voluntary muscles, for they are too well garrisoned by the enemy.  That part
of  the involuntary muscular system which is controlled by  the  sympathetic
nervous  system would also be useless for the purpose.   It must get into  a
more direct touch with the cerebro-spinal nervous system.   To do this,  and
secure a base of operations in the enemy's country, it must control a muscle
which is involuntary,  and  yet connected with the voluntary nervous system.

[PAGE 3501]

Such a muscle is the heart.

   The blood is the highest expression of the vital body,  for it  nourishes
the entire physical organism.   It is also, in a sense,  the vehicle of  the
subconscious memory, and in touch with the Memory of Nature, situated in the
highest  division of the Etheric Region.  The blood carries the pictures  of
life from ancestors to descendants for generations,  where there is a common
blood, as produced by inbreeding.

   The  love and unity in the World of the Life Spirit find  their  illusory
counterpart in the Etheric Region,  to which we are correlated by the  vital
body, which latter promotes sex love and sex union.  The Life Spirit has its
seat primarily in the pituitary body and secondarily in the heart,  which is
the gateway of the blood that nourishes the muscles.

   Looking at the matter from an occult standpoint, all consciousness in the
Physical World is the result of the constant war between the desire and  the
vital bodies.

   The tendency of the vital body is to soften and build.  Its chief expres-
sion is the blood and the glands, also the sympathetic nervous system,  hav-
ing obtained ingress into the stronghold of the  desire  body  (the muscular
and the voluntary  nervous systems) when it began to develop the heart  into
a voluntary muscle.

   We ourselves,  as Egos,  function directly in the subtle substance of the
Region of Abstract Thought,  which  we have specialized within the periphery

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of  our individual aura.   Thence we view the impressions made by the  outer
world upon the vital body through the senses, together with the feelings and
emotions generated by them in the desire body, and mirrored in the mind.

   All things are in a state of vibration.   Vibrations from objects in  our
surroundings are constantly impinging upon us and carry to our senses a cog-
nition of the external world.  The vibrations in the ether act upon our eyes
so that we see, and vibrations in the air transmit sounds to the ear.

   The  Sun works in the vital body and is the force which makes  for  life,
and wars against the death-dealing Moon force.

   As when reflected in a pond, the images of trees appear inverted, the fo-
liage seeming to be the deepest down in the water,  so the highest aspect of
the  Spirit (the Divine Spirit) finds its counterpart in the lowest  of  the
three bodies (the dense body).  The next highest Spirit (the Life Spirit) is
reflected in the next lowest body (the vital body).   The third Spirit  (the
Human Spirit) and its reflection,  the third body (the desire body),  appear
closest of all to the reflecting mirror, which is the mind,  the latter cor-
responding to the surface of the pond--the reflecting medium in our analogy.

   In the same way that the planetary vital and desire bodies interpenetrate
the  dense  material  of  the  Earth,  so  the  vital and desire bodies  in-

[PAGE 3503]

terpenetrate the dense body of plant, animal, and man.

   A  vital body made of ether pervades the visible body as ether  permeates
all other forms, except that human beings specialize a greater amount of the
universal ether than other forms.   That ethereal body is our instrument for
specializing the vital energy of the Sun.

   The vital body which is eventually transformed, transmuted,  and spiritu-
alized into soul is of the opposite sex.   It is formed organ for organ  ex-
actly like the dense physical body with this one exception,  and this eluci-
dates  many  facts otherwise unexplainable.  The faculties inherent  in  the
vital body are growth,  propagation, assimilation,  and memory.   The woman,
having the positive vital body, is matured earlier than the male,  the parts
which remain plant-like,  such as, for instance, the hair,  grows longer and
more luxuriant, and naturally a positive vital body will generate more blood
than  the negative vital body possessed by the masculine,  hence we have  in
woman a greater blood pressure,  which it is necessary to relieve by the pe-
riodic flow,  and when that ceases at the climacteric period there is a sec-
ond  growth  in woman,  particularly well expressed in the saying  "fat  and
forty."

   The  impulses  of the desire body drive the blood through the  system  at
varying rates of speed,  according to the strength of the emotions.   Woman,
having  an excess of blood,  works under much higher pressure than man,  and
while  this  pressure is relieved by the periodic flow, there are times when

[PAGE 3504]

it  is necessary to have an extra outlet;  then the tears of a woman,  which
are  WHITE BLEEDING,  act as a safety valve to remove the  excessive  fluid.
Men,  although they may have as strong emotions as women,  are not given  to
tears because they have no more blood than they can comfortably use.

   Being  positively polarized in the Etheric Region of the Physical  World,
the sphere of woman has been the home and the church where she is surrounded
by  love and peace,  while man fights the battle of the strong for the  sur-
vival of the fittest, without quarter in the dense Physical World,  where he
is positive.

   Thus woman became the pioneer in culture,  being the first to develop the
idea of "a good life,"  of which she became the esteemed exponent among  the
ancients and in that respect she has nobly led the vanguard ever since.   Of
course,  as all Egos incarnate alternately as male and female,  there is re-
ally no pre-eminence.  It is simply that those who for the time being are in
a  dense  body of the feminine gender have a positive vital  body,  and  are
therefore  more responsive to spiritual impacts than when the vital body  is
negative as in the male.

   Woman has the positive vital body and as a result is intuitively in touch
with the spiritual vibrations of the universe.   She is more idealistic  and
imaginative,  taking a great interest in all the things which make  for  THE
MORAL  UPLIFTMENT  of  the race,  and as it is only by  the  moral  and  the
spiritual  growth  that humanity can advance at this time, she is really the

[PAGE 3505]

prime factor in evolution.   It would be of an enormous benefit to the  race
if she were given an equal right with man in every particular.   For not un-
til then can we hope to see reforms brought about that will really unite hu-
manity.   We see that by analogy if we will look into the home,  where woman
is really the central pillar around which both husband and children cluster.
According to her ability she makes the home what it is, she is the cementing
influence  and the peacemaker.   The father may pass out by death or  other-
wise,  the children may leave, while the mother remains,  the home is there;
but when the mother is taken away by death, the home is at once broken up.

   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  op-
posite  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 gen-
erate 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 Angels,  who  were  the  humanity  of the Moon Period, WORK WITH MAN,

[PAGE 3506]

ANIMAL,  AND PLANT,  for in the Moon Period the universe was of the  consis-
tency of "ether" and the vital bodies of the three kingdoms named are formed
of that material.   The Angels are, therefore, properly helpers in the vital
functions such as assimilation,  growth, and propagation,  and in their work
with humanity they are family spirits.   They case the increase in the  fam-
ily, in man's cattle, and in the yield of his fields.

   Since this ancient time the lunar Angels have taken charge principally of
the moist,  aqueous vital body composed of the four ethers and concerned  in
the  propagation and nourishment of the species,  while the Lucifer  Spirits
are singularly active in the dry and fiery desire vehicles.  The function of
the vital body is to build and sustain the dense body, while that of the de-
sire body involves destruction of the tissues.   Thus,  there is a  constant
war  going  on between the desire and vital bodies,  and it is this  war  in
heaven that causes our physical consciousness on earth.

   Strange as the statement may seem, it is nevertheless true that the great
majority  of mankind are partially asleep most of the time,  notwithstanding
the fact that their physical bodies may seem to be intensely occupied in ac-
tive  work.   Under ordinary conditions the desire body in the case  of  the
great majority is the most awake part of composite man, who lives almost en-
tirely in his feelings and emotions, but scarcely ever thinks of the problem
of existence beyond what is necessary to keep body and soul together.   Most
of this class have probably never given the  great questions of life, Whence

[PAGE 3507]

have we come, why are we here, and whither are we going? any serious consid-
eration.   Their vital bodies are kept active repairing the ravages  of  the
desire  body upon the physical vehicle, and purveying the vitality which  is
later dissipated in gratifying the desires and emotions.

   It  is this hard-fought battle between the vital and desire bodies  which
generates consciousness in the Physical World and makes men and women so in-
tensely  alert  that,  viewed from the standpoint of the Physical  World  it
seems to give the lie to our assertion that they are partially asleep.  Nev-
ertheless,  upon examination of all the facts it will be found that this  is
the case,  and we may also say that this state of affairs has come about  by
the design of the great Hierarchs who have our evolution in charge.

   This  destruction is constantly going on and it is not possible  to  keep
all the destroyers out,  nor is such the intention.   If the vital body  had
uninterrupted sway,  it would build and build, using all the energy for that
purpose.   There would be no consciousness and thought.   It is because  the
desire body checks and hardens the inner parts that consciousness develops.

   The  threefold Spirit cast a threefold shadow into the realm  of  matter,
and  thus the DENSE BODY was evolved as a counterpart of the Divine  Spirit,
the VITAL BODY as a replica of the Life Spirit,  and  the DESIRE BODY as the

[PAGE 3508]

image of the Human Spirit.  Finally, and most important of all,  the link of
MIND  was formed between the threefold Spirit and its threefold body.   This
was the beginning of individual consciousness, and marks the point where the
involution  of Spirit into matter is finished and the  evolutionary  process
whereby the Spirit is lifted out of matter begins.   Involution involves the
crystallization of Spirit into bodies,  but evolution depends upon the  dis-
solution of the bodies, the extraction of the soul-substance from them,  and
the alchemical amalgamation of this soul with the Spirit.

   There are a number of ways to prove the existence and reality of the  vi-
tal body....In the first place,  there is the camera.   Perhaps you can find
in  your town among the Spiritualists one able to take  Spirit  photographs.
Though  there are tricks well known to photographers whereby  such  pictures
may be produced, it is nevertheless a fact that under conditions where there
was  absolutely  no fraud,  photographs have been taken of people  who  have
passed into the beyond.   They have been able to clothe themselves in ether,
the material whereof the vital body is constructed,  and which is visible to
the eye of the lens.   The writer himself was once caught by the camera when
he traveled in his vital body from Los Angeles to San Pedro to see a  friend
off on a steamer.   It so happened that he came between this friend and  the
camera of another friend who was just taking a snapshot of the ship, and the
likeness was so good that it was recognized by a number of people.

   Then  we  have  the  phenomenon  of dogs following certain persons by the

[PAGE 3509]

scent obtained from clothing they have worn.   This clothing is  impregnated
by the ether from the vital body, which latter protrudes about an inch and a
half  beyond the periphery of the dense body.   Hence also at every step  we
take the earth is penetrated by this invisible, radiating fluid.  But it has
been found that blood hounds following the fleeing criminal were baffled and
lost the scent because the fugitive had put on skates and made his way  over
the ice.   This raised him above the ground so that the  vital body protrud-
ing  below  his feet did not impregnate the ice and therefore there  was  no
scent  whereby the bloodhounds could trace him.   Similar results have  been
obtained by a person walking on stilts from the place of his crime.

   Then there is the case of the magnetic healer who draws from his  patient
the diseased parts of the vital body which are then replaced by fresh ethers
that allow the life forces to course through the diseased physical organ and
thereby affect a cure.   If the magnetic healer is not careful to throw  off
the black,  jelly-like, miasmatic, etheric fluid which he has drawn into his
own body,  he in turn will become ill,  and if there were no such  invisible
fluid as we speak of,  the phenomena of the patient's recovery and the  mag-
netic healer's illness could not take place.

   Finally,  we may say that if you can find the conditions and are to go to
the  trouble,  there is one way and one condition under which a  very  large
number  of  people  are  able to see the vital body for themselves.  This is

[PAGE 3510]

most  easily  accomplished in southern countries where the dead  bodies  are
buried  quickly after demise.   Select a time as close to the Full  Moon  as
possible.   Then watch the papers for funeral notices and go to the cemetery
in  the  evening  following  the funeral of  someone  who  has  died  within
twenty-four hours.   You will then probably see above the newly made  grave,
flickering in the moonlight,  the filmy form of the vital body which remains
there and decays synchronously with the body in the grave.  This may be seen
at  any time by the seer,  but it is dense enough to be visible to  ordinary
people only on the first night after the funeral.   If you do not see it  at
first,  walk  around  the grave and look steadfastly at  it  from  different
angles.   Then you will probably get the most convincing occular  proof  for
your friend.

   Though science has not directly observed this vital body of man,  it  has
upon several occasions postulated the existence of such a vehicle as  neces-
sary 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  re-
searches  into psychic phenomena have even photographed it when it has  been
extracted through the spleen by materializing Spirits.   Dr.  Hotz,  for in-
stance, obtained two photographs of a materialization through the German me-
dium, Minna-Demmler.  On  one  a  cloud  of ether is seen oozing out through

[PAGE 3511]

the left side of the medium,  shapeless and without form.   The second  pic-
ture,  taken a few moments later, shows the materialized Spirit standing  at
the medium's side.   Other photographs obtained by scientists from the Ital-
ian  medium  Eusapio Palladino show a luminous cloud over-hanging  her  left
side.

                           IN HEALTH AND SICKNESS:

   THE VITAL BODY PLAYS AN IMPORTANT PART IN HEALTH AND IN SICKNESS.   IT IS
AFFECTED BY AMPUTATION, ACCIDENTS, ANAESTHETICS, DROWNING, SHOCK, REGRET AND
REMORSE.   WHEN IT IS NOT IN A CONCENTRIC POSITION, IN RELATION TO THE EGO'S
OTHER VEHICLES, INSANITY AND IDIOCY MAY RESULT.

   If  strict attention is paid to hygiene and diet,  the dense body is  the
one  principally affected,  but at the same time there is also an effect  on
the  vital body and the desire body for,  as purer and better materials  are
built  into the dense body,  the particles are enveloped in  pure  planetary
ether and desire-stuff also.  Therefore the planetary parts of the vital and
desire bodies become purer.   If attention is paid to food and hygiene only,
the personal vital and desire bodies may remain almost as impure as  before,
but it has become just a little easier to get into touch with the good  than
if gross food were used.

   On the other hand if,  despite annoyances,  an equable tempter is  culti-
vated, also literary and artistic tastes, the vital body will produce an ef-
fect of daintiness and fastidiousness in physical matters and will also  en-
gender ennobling feelings and emotions in the desire body.

[PAGE 3512]

   Seeking to cultivate the emotions also reacts upon the other vehicles and
helps to improve them.

   The building tendencies of the vital body,  which is the vehicle of love,
are not so easily watched, but observation proves that contentment lengthens
the  life of any one who cultivates this quality,  and we may safely  reason
that a child conceived under conditions of harmony and love stands a  better
chance of life than one conceived under conditions of anger, inebriety,  and
passion.

   The  vital body is born at about the age of seven,  or the time when  the
child cuts its second teeth.

   There are certain important matters which can be taken care of only  dur-
ing the appropriate period of growth,  and the parent should know what these
are.   Though  the organs have been formed by the time the  child  comes  to
birth, the lines of growth are determined during the first seven years,  and
if  they are not properly outlined during that time,  an  otherwise  healthy
child may become a sickly man or woman.

   In everything that lives, the vital body radiates streamers of light from
the force that has spent itself in building the dense body.   During  health
they carry away all poisons from the body and keep it clean.  Similar condi-
tions  prevail  in  the vital body of the earth,  which is  the  vehicle  of
Christ.   The poisonous and destructive forces generated by our passions are
carried away by the life forces of the Christ, but every evil thought or act
brings Him its own proportion of pain,  and  therefore becomes a part of the

[PAGE 3513]

Crown of Thorns--the crown because the head is always thought of as the seat
of consciousness.   We should realize that every single evil act of ours re-
acts upon the Christ in the manner stated and adds another thorn of  suffer-
ing.

   Minerals cannot be assimilated because they lack a vital body, which lack
makes it impossible for man to raise their vibratory rate to his won  pitch.
Plants  have a vital body and no self-consciousness,  hence are most  easily
assimilated and remain with man longer than cells of animal flesh,  which is
permeated by a desire body.   The vibratory rate of the latter is high,  and
much  energy is required in assimilation; its cells also quickly escape  and
make it necessary for the flesh eater to forage often.

   Sickness  shows  itself first in the desire body and in the  vital  body,
which become thinner in texture and do not specialize the vital fluid in the
same  proportion as usual during health.  Then the dense physical  body  be-
comes sick.   When recovery takes place the higher vehicles show improvement
before the manifestation of health is apparent in the Physical World.

   When  a seer examines one who is about to become ill,  he will find  that
the vital body is actually becoming more attenuated, and when it has reached
a  point  of tenuity where it can no longer support the physical  body,  the
latter  commences  to manifest signs of what we call disease.   Again,  some
time before we see physical recovery,  the vital body gradually becomes more

[PAGE 3514]

dense in structure; then the period of convalescence commences.

   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  com-
plications set in so easily.

   Man, who has the positive physical body, has a negative vital body.  Thus
he  is  not  able to resist disease as well as woman,  who  has  a  negative
physibody,  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 appar-
ent 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  character-
istic 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 no-
ticeable 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

[PAGE 3515]

fight, he succumbs oftener.

   When one looks with the spiritual sight at a person who is diseased,  the
patient's  vital body looks thin and emaciated in proportion to the  ravages
made by the disease.   There are no radiating lines from it as when the body
is  in health,  but a sickly emanation which curls up in eddies and  spirals
that  hang close to the dense body.   Instead of being pinkish-purple it  is
usually  a dull grey in most places, and the part that is particularly  dis-
eased is enveloped in something which resembles a mass of black jelly.  That
is  what we might call the vibrations of disease,  and at the time when  the
person receives a magnetic healing treatment it is this black poisonous mass
which  is absorbed into the hands of the healer.   When he or she throws  it
off by a vigorous movement of the arms it sinks to the floor.   Then if  the
patient  happens  to step close to that place where it lies he or  she  will
reabsorb it.   Therefore,  it has always been the writer's practice to throw
these emanations either out of the window or into a fireplace where they may
be burned.  Then they can do no harm.

   So  long  as an organ is diseased it generates this  poison  stuff  which
hangs  about  it and prevents the currents of the vital body  from  coursing
through it.  What a magnetic healer does is simply to cleanse this organ for
the  time being and thus he opens the way for the influx of life-giving  and
health-promoting currents.   The relief is usually only temporary,  for  the
weak and diseased organ continue to generate the poison "miasma," as we call
it, so that shortly it requires  another  cleansing  by the magnetic healer.

[PAGE 3516]

This  continues until the vital currents finally become sufficiently  strong
to  over-master and throw off the poison stuff and cleanse the  organ  them-
selves.  Then health returns.

   The  osteopathic physician goes at the matter from the opposite angel  by
manipulation  of the nerves which are avenues for the vital currents.   This
strengthens these currents and they being to scatter the miasma in the  dis-
eased part of the body.  However, it usually requires a number of treatments
from him also before health is restored, because the poison miasma blocks up
the nerves again shortly after he has ceased his manipulations.   Therefore,
it would seem to the writer,  though he has never tried it,  that a combina-
tion  of the two methods:   opening up the nerve currents and  strengthening
them by means of osteopathic treatments,  at the same time removing the poi-
son  miasma by magnetic healing,  being careful either to burn or  otherwise
dispose of the effluvia,  ought to facilitate the treatment of disease  won-
derfully.

   The spleen is the gate of the solar forces,  but the transmutation of the
solar  energy to a pale rose-colored fluid takes place in the solar  plexus,
where the prismatic seed-atom of the vital body is located.

   With  respect to what takes place after the spleen has been  removed,  it
will help us to recall that the physical body accommodates itself so far  as
possible  to altered conditions.   If a wound in a certain part of the  body
makes it impossible for the blood to flow in the normal channels,  it  finds
another set of veins by which it may take its circuit.  But  an  organ never

[PAGE 3517]

atrophies  so long as it can serve any useful purpose.   It is similar  with
the vital body composed of the ethers.  When an arm or a limb has been ampu-
tated,  the etheric counterpart of that member is no longer required in  the
economy of the body, therefore it gradually wastes away.  But in the case of
an  organ  like the spleen where the etheric counterpart  has  an  important
function as gateway for the solar energy,  naturally no such  disintegration
will take place.

   It  should  also  be remembered that wherever disease  manifests  in  the
physical  vehicle  that part of the vital body has first  become  thin,  at-
tenuated, and diseased, and it was its failure to supply the necessary vital
energy  that  caused the manifestation of physical symptoms of  ill  health.
Conversely, when health returns, the vital body is the first to pick up, and
this convalescence is then manifested in the dense body.  Therefore,  if the
physical  spleen is diseased,  it is a foregone conclusion that the  etheric
counterpart is also in subnormal health,  and the wisdom of removing the or-
gan is doubtful.   However, if it is done, the body will seek to accommodate
itself to the new conditions and the etheric counterpart of the spleen  will
continue to function as before.

   The natural tendency of the desire body is to harden and consolidate  all
it comes into contact with.  Materialistic thought accentuates this tendency
to such an extent that it very often results,  in succeeding lives,  in that
dread disease, consumption, which is a hardening of the lungs.  These should
remain  soft  and  elastic.  It  also sometimes happens that the desire body

[PAGE 3518]

crushes  the  vital body in the next life,  so that it fails  altogether  to
counteract  the hardening process,  and then we have quick consumption.   In
some cases materialism makes the desire body brittle,  as it were;  then  it
cannot perform its proper hardening work on the dense body,  and as a result
we have rachitis,  where the bones soften.  So we see what dangers we run by
entertaining materialistic tendencies:   either hardening of the soft  parts
of the body, as in consumption, or softening of the hard, bony parts,  as in
rachitis.   Of course not every case of consumption shows the sufferer was a
materialist in a former life, but it is the teachings of occult science that
such a result often follows materialism.

   In the case of one who is really nearly ready for initiation,  the  pitch
of vibration is higher than that of the average man or woman.   Therefore he
does  not  need breathing exercises to ACCELERATE this  pitch,  but  certain
spiritual exercises suited to him individually which will advance him on the
proper path.

   If such a person at this critical period meets someone who ignorantly  or
unscrupulously gives him breathing exercises, and if he follows the instruc-
tions  accurately  in the hope of getting quick results,  he will  get  them
quickly but in a manner he has not looked for,  since the vibratory rate  of
the atoms in his body will in a very short time become accelerated to such a
pitch  that it will seem to him as if he were walking on air;  then also  an
improper cleavage of the vital body may take place,  and either  consumption
or insanity follows.

[PAGE 3519]

   When anaesthetics are used the vital body is partially driven out,  along
with the higher vehicles,  and if the application is too strong and the life
ether  is driven out,  death ensues.   This same phenomenon may also be  ob-
served in the case of materializing mediums.  In fact the difference between
a  materializing medium and an ordinary man or woman is just this:   In  the
ordinary man or woman the vital body and the dense body are,  at the present
stage of evolution,  quite firmly interlocked, while in the medium they  are
loosely connected.   It has not always been so, and the time will again come
when  the vital body may normally leave the dense vehicle,  but that is  not
normally  accomplished at present.   When a medium allows his or  her  vital
body  to be used by an entity from the Desire World who wishes to  material-
ize,  the vital body generally oozes from the left side--through the spleen,
which is its particular "gate."   Then the vital forces cannot flow into the
body as they do normally, the medium becomes greatly exhausted,  and some of
them resort to stimulants to counteract the effects, in time becoming incur-
able drunkards.

   The vital force from the Sun, which surrounds us as a colorless fluid, is
absorbed  by the vital body through the etheric counterpart of  the  spleen,
wherein  it undergoes a curious transformation of color.   It becomes  place
rose-hued  and spreads along the nerves all over the dense body.   It is  to
the  nervous system what the force of electricity is to a telegraph  system.
Though there be wires, instruments, and telegraph operators all in order, if
the electricity is lacking no message can be sent.  The Ego,  the brain, and

[PAGE 3520]

the nervous system may be in seemingly perfect order,  but if the vital body
be  lacking  to  carry  the message of the Ego through  the  nerves  to  the
muscles,  the dense body will remain inert.   This is exactly  what  happens
when  part of the dense body becomes paralyzed.   The vital body has  become
diseased and the vital force can no longer flow.  In such cases,  as in most
sickness, the trouble is with the finer invisible vehicles.  In conscious or
unconscious  recognition  of this fact, the most successful  physicians  use
suggestion--which  works  upon the higher vehicles--as an aid  to  medicine.
The more a physician can imbue his patient with faith and hope, the speedier
disease will vanish and give place to perfect health.

   During  health  the vital body specializes in  super-abundance  of  vital
force, which, after passing through a dense body, radiates in straight lines
in  every direction from the periphery thereof, as the radii of a circle  do
from  the center;  but during ill health,  when the vital body  becomes  at-
tenuated,  it is not able to draw to itself the same amount of force and  in
addition  the dense body is feeding upon it.   Then the lines of  the  vital
fluid which pass out from the body are crumpled and bent,  showing the  lack
of force behind them.  In health the great force of these radiations carries
with  it  germs and microbes which are inimical to the health of  the  dense
body; but in sickness, when the vital force is weak, these emanations do not
so  readily  eliminate disease germs.  Therefore the danger  of  contracting
disease is much greater when the vital forces are low than when on is in ro-
bust health.

[PAGE 3521]

   In cases where parts of the dense body are amputated,  only the planetary
ether accompanies the separated part.  The separate vital body and the dense
body  disintegrate synchronously after death.  So with the etheric  counter-
part  of the amputated limb.   It will gradually disintegrate as  the  dense
member delays, but in the meantime the fact that the man still possesses the
etheric limb accounts for his assertion that he can feel his fingers or suf-
fer  pain in them.   There is also a connection with a buried member,  irre-
spective of distance.   A case is on record where a man felt a severe  pain,
as  if  a nail had been driven into the flesh of an amputated limb,  and  he
persisted until the limb was exhumed, when it was found that a nail had been
driven into it at the time it was boxed for burial.  Th nail was removed and
the pain instantly stopped.   It is also in accordance with these facts that
people complain of pain in a limb for perhaps two or three years after ampu-
tation.   The pain will then cease.   This is because the disease remains in
the still undetached etheric limb,  but as the amputated part disintegrates,
the etheric limb follows suit and the  pain ceases.

   It  is also patent to all who have to do with victims of  accidents  that
they do not suffer as keenly just after the accident as later;  this is  be-
cause the vital body at the time of the accident is uninjured, and therefore
the  whole effect of the accident is not felt until this vehicle has  become
attenuated  and  unable to support the vital processes.   Thus we  see  that
there are changes in the ether of the human being; and according to the mys-
tic axiom, "As above, so below," and  vice-versa,  there are also changes in

[PAGE 3522]

the  planetary ether which constitutes the vital body of the  Earth  Spirit.
As the conscious memory of recent events which is strong in the human  being
gradually fades, also also the etheric record, which is the lowest aspect of
the Memory of Nature, fades in time.

   When  a falling body has attained a certain velocity,  the higher  ethers
leave the dense body,  and the falling man becomes insensible.   As the body
reaches the ground,  it is mangled but the poor man may regain consciousness
when  the ether has reorganized itself.   He will then begin to suffer  from
the  physical  consequences of the fall.  if the fall  continues  after  the
higher ethers have left,  the increased velocity dislodges the lower ethers,
and the silver cord is all that remains attached to the body.   This is rup-
tured at the moment of impact with the ground,  and the seed atom passes  on
to the breaking point, where it is held in the usual way.

   From  these  facts we came to the conclusion that it is  the  normal  air
pressure which holds the vital body within the dense.   When we move with an
abnormal velocity, the pressure is removed from some parts of the body and a
partial vacuum is formed,  with the further result that the ethers leave the
body  and  flow into this vacuum.   The two higher ethers,  which  are  most
loosely bound,  are the first to disappear and leave the man senseless after
they have produced the panorama of life in a flash.   Then if the fall  con-
tinues to increase the air pressure in front of the body and the vacuum  be-
hind,  the more closely bound lower ethers are also forced out, and the body
is dead before it reached the ground.

[PAGE 3523]

   It  was found by examining a number of people in normal health that  each
of  the prismatic atoms composing the lower ethers radiated from itself  the
lines of force which set spinning the physical atom in which it is inserted,
enduing  the whole body with life.   The united trend of all these units  of
force  is toward the periphery of the body,  where they constitute what  has
been called the "Odic Fluid," also designated by other names.   When the air
pressure from without is lowered by residence in a high altitude, a tendency
to nervousness becomes manifest because the etheric force from within rushes
outward unchecked;  and were the man not able to shut off the outflow of so-
lar energy in part by an effort of will to overcome the difficulty,  no  one
could live in such places.

   Now  comes the crux of our explanation.   Ether is physical  matter,  and
while  people  shot with small arms in a minor engagement may  sometimes  be
seen  walking  away  somewhat dazed but nevertheless  conscious,  the  awful
detonations of the big guns used so extensively have the effect of  throwing
the  prismatic ether atoms topsy-turvy, and shattering (not scattering)  the
auric  envelope  of  light  and reflecting ethers  which  is  the  basis  of
sense-perception and memory.   Until this resolves itself into its  original
relativity,  the man remains in a stunned,  comatose condition  which  often
lasts  for weeks.   Under such conditions this fine etheric stuff  does  not
lend  itself to the formation of pictures of the past life--it is  congealed
to a certain extent.

[PAGE 3524]

   During  accidents by drowning or asphyxiation the person feels very  clam
and restful after the first struggle, though he realizes his peril in a mea-
sure.   The vital body is extracted before the silver cord has parted, so it
retains the properties of attracting matter from the Physical World.  There-
fore,  people who died by drowning and asphyxiation, have been seen by their
relatives many thousand miles away perhaps for an instant,  lifelike in  the
extreme.   An inclination or desire to be with their friends from whom  they
were separated had been in their minds for a long time,  perhaps,  and being
themselves free from the fetters of the body, they are at once borne thither
upon the wings of desire.  Arrived in the place, the vital body attracted to
itself sufficient of the particles of the atmosphere to?  be visible to  the
person visited.  Then perhaps at that moment the silver cord broke,  the vi-
tal body collapsed and the vision was gone.

   There are a considerable number of cases of phantasms of the living.  All
that is required is that the body should be in a very deep state of sleep or
unconsciousness,  such as usually occurs when the person is near the door of
death.  It may be in the act of drowning, or when induced by the fall from a
horse,  automobile,  or similar conditions, or after receiving a blow on the
head,  or on the sickbed, when the physical body is very emaciated and frail
and  close to dissolution.   Then most of the ether constituting  the  vital
body  may  be  drawn  out  of the physical  vehicle,  which  is  left  in  a
trance-life condition that may last only a few minutes,  but  as space is no

[PAGE 3525]

barrier in the invisible worlds,  the desire of the person thus  momentarily
liberated may carry him to the ends of the world and cause him to appear  to
some loved one many thousands of miles from the place where his body is  ly-
ing.

   It  is  much easier for such a Spirit to materialize than for  those  who
have left the body at death,  because with these phantasms of the living the
silver cord is still intact--connection with the seed atom in the heart  has
not been broken.

   Indiscriminate breathing exercises do not effect this cleavage,  but tend
to  lift th whole vital body out of the dense body.   Thus,  in some  cases,
connections  between etheric sense centers and brain cells are  ruptured  or
strained and insanity results.   In other instances the line of cleavage oc-
curs between the life ether and the chemical ether, and as life ether is the
cementing material in assimilation and the particular avenue for specializa-
tion of solar energy, this rupture results in consumption.   Only proper ex-
ercises bring about the right cleavage.   When purity of life has turned the
unused sex force generated in the life ether upwards through the heart, that
force  takes  care  of the limited amount of  circulation  necessary  during
sleep.   Thus  physical functions and spiritual development are  carried  on
side by side along proper and harmonious lines.

   The  writer  was at one time quite apprehensive of the effect  which  war
might  have in respect to locking the desire and vital bodies  together  and
bringing  to  birth  legions  of  monsters  to  afflict  future generations.

Continued with file "RC1098.TXT"

End of File

