This compilation of material concerning the health and healing of the human organism as considered from the esoteric viewpoint affords those interested in attaining and maintaining health a treasure chest of valuable information. Max Heindel, a trained clairvoyant and investigator of the super-physical worlds, devoted much time and effort to ascertaining the real causes of physical and mental disorders as revealed in the realm of cause, the higher or superphysical planes, and this volume contains the fruits of his labor. It embodies some of the most priceless truths in regard to the origin, functions, and proper care of the vehicles of man to be found on the printed page, and those concerned with the true art of healing will find it an indispensable addition to their libraries.

Christ admonished His disciples: "Preach the Gospel, and heal the sick." Maintaining health, when once gained or regained, requires a knowledge of "the Gospel," or laws of God, and it is therefore in the light of both parts of the command of the Great Teacher that this book is dedicated to the afflicted of humanity. May the contents of its pages, permeated as they are with the love and compassionate understanding of the mystic heart of the author, be the means of bringing new solace and relief to countless aching hearts and suffering bodies, as well as speed the day for the generation of more perfect human vehicles.

Esoteric science teaches that man is a complex being who possesses:

(1) A Dense Body, which is the visible instrument he uses here in this world to fetch and carry; the body we ordinarily think of as the whole man.

(2) A Vital Body, which is made of ether and 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.

(3) A Desire Body, which is our emotional nature. This finer vehicle pervades both the vital and dense bodies. It is seen by clairvoyant vision to extend about sixteen inches outside our visible body, which is located in the center of this ovoid cloud as the yolk is in the center of the egg.

(4) The Mind, which is a mirror, reflecting the outer world and enabling the Ego to transmit its commands as thought and word, also to compel action. The Ego, which is the threefold Spirit which uses these vehicles to gather experience in the school of life.

The dense body was the first vehicle built and has therefore an enormous period of evolution back of it. It is in its fourth stage of development and has now reached a great and marvelous degree of efficiency. It will, in time, reach perfection, but even at present it is the best organized of man's vehicles. It is a wonderfully constructed instrument and should be recognized as such by everyone pretending to have any knowledge of the constitution of man.

The germ of the dense body was given by the Lords of Flame during the first Revolution of the Saturn Period, the first of the Seven Great Days of Manifestation according to the Rosicrucian Teachings. This germ was somewhat developed during the remainder of the first six Revolutions, being given the capacity for developing the sense organs, particularly the ear. Therefore, the ear is the most highly developed organ we possess.

In the first half of the Saturn Revolution of the Sun Period, the second of the Seven Great Days of Manifestation, the Lords of Flame were concerned with certain improvements to be made upon the germ of the dense body. It became necessary to change the germ in such a way as to allow of interpenetration by a vital body, also capability of evolving glands and an alimentary canal. This was done by the joint action of the Lords of Flame and the Lords of Wisdom.

In the first or Saturn Revolution of the Moon Period, the third of the Seven Great Days of Manifestation, the Lords of Wisdom cooperated with the Lords of Individuality to reconstruct the germ of the dense body. This germ had unfolded embryonic sense organs, digestive organs, glands, etc. and was interpenetrated by a budding vital body. Of course, it was not solid and visible as it is now, yet in a crude sort of way it was somewhat organized. In the Moon Period it was necessary to reconstruct it and make it capable of being interpenetrated by a desire body, and also capable of evolving a nervous system, muscle, cartilage, and a rudimentary skeleton. This reconstruction was the work of the Saturn Revolution of the Moon Period. These Moon beings were not so purely germinal as in the previous periods. To the trained clairvoyant they appear suspended by strings in the atmosphere of the fire-fog, as the embryo hangs from the placenta by the umbilical cord. Currents, which provided some sort of nourishment, flowed in and out from the atmosphere through those cords.

When the Earth came out of chaos, at the beginning of the Earth period, it was at first in the dark red stage known as the Polarian Epoch. There humanity first evolved a dense body, the germ of which was given by the Lords of Flame during the First Revolution of the Saturn Period. It was not then at all like our present vehicle, of course. When the condition of the Earth became fiery, as in the Hyperborean Epoch, the vital body was added and man became plant-like, that is to say, he had the same vehicles as our plants have today, and also a similar consciousness, or rather, unconsciousness, to that which we have in dreamless sleep when the dense and vital bodies are left upon the bed.

At that time, in the Hyperborean Epoch, the body of man was like an enormous gas bag, floating outside the fiery Earth, and it threw off plant-like spores, which then grew and were used by other incoming entities. At that time man was double sexed, a hermaphrodite.

In the Lemurian Epoch, when the Earth had somewhat cooled and islands of crust had begun to form amid boiling seas, then also man's body had somewhat solidified and had become more like the body we see today. It was apelike, a short trunk with enormous arms and limbs, the heels projecting backward, and almost no head — at least the upper part of the head was nearly entirely wanting. Man lived in the atmosphere of steam which esotericists called fire-fog, and had no lungs, but breathed by means of tubes. He had the gill-like apparatus still present in the human embryo while passing through the stage of antenatal life corresponding to that epoch. He had no warm, red blood, for at that stage there was no individual Spirit. He had a bladder-like organ inside, which he inflated with heated air to help him leap enormous chasms when volcanic eruptions destroyed the land upon which he was living. From the back of his head there projected an organ which has now drawn into the head and is called by anatomists the pineal gland, or the third eye, although it was never an eye, but a localized organ of feeling. The body was then devoid of feeling, but when man came too close to a volcanic crater, the heat was registered by this organ to warn him away before his body was destroyed.

At that time the body had already so far solidified that it was impossible for man to continue to propagate by spores, and it was necessary that he should evolve an organ of thought, a brain. The creative force which we now use to build railways, steamships, etc., in the outer world, was then used inwardly for the building of organs. Like all forces it was positive and negative. One pole was turned upward to build the brain, leaving the other pole available for the creation of another body. Thus man was no longer a complete creative unit. Each possessed only half the creative force, and it was therefore necessary for him to seek his complement outside himself.

In the latter part of the Lemurian Epoch the form of man was yet quite plastic. The skeleton had formed, but man himself had great power in molding the flesh of his own body, and that of the animals about him.

At this time, when he was born, man could hear and feel, but his perception of light came later. The Lemurian had no eyes. He had two sensitive spots which were affected by the light of the sun as it shone dimly through the fiery atmosphere of ancient Lemuria, but it was not until nearly the close of the Atlantean Epoch that he had sight as we have it today.

His language consisted of sounds like those of Nature. The sighing of the wind in the immense forests which grew in great luxuriance in that super-tropical climate, the rippling of the brook, the howling of the tempest, the thunder of the waterfall, the roar of the volcano — all these were to him voices of the Gods from whom he knew himself to have descended.

Of the birth of his body he knew nothing. He could not see either it or anything else, but he did perceive his fellow beings. It was, however, an inner perception, like our perception of persons and things in dreams, but with this very important difference, that his dream-perception was clear and rational.

But when "their eyes were opened" (as told in the story of the "Fall") and their consciousness was directed outward towards the facts of the physical World, conditions were altered. Propagation was directed, not by Angels, but by man, who was ignorant of the operation of the Sun- and Moon-forces. His consciousness became focused in the Physical World, although things did not appear to his vision with clearly defined outlines until the latter part of the Atlantean Epoch. Still he came by degrees to know death because of the break made in his consciousness when it was shifted to the higher worlds at death and back to the Physical World at rebirth.

However, what has been said about the enlightenment of the Lemurians applies to only a minor portion of those who lived in the latter part of that epoch, and who became the seed for the seven Atlantean Races. The greater part of the Lemurians were animal-like and the forms inhabited by them have degenerated into the savages and anthropoids of the present day.

In the Atlantean Epoch, which followed the Lemurian, man was very different from anything existent on Earth at the present time. He had a head, but scarcely any forehead, his brain had no frontal development; the head sloped almost abruptly back from a point just above the eyes. As compared with our present humanity, he was a giant; his arms and legs were much longer in proportion to his body than ours. Instead of walking, he progressed by a series of flying leaps, not unlike those of the kangaroo. He had small blinking eyes and his hair was round in section.

The higher vehicles of the early Atlanteans were not drawn into a concentric position in relation to the dense body, as are ours. The Spirit was not quite an indwelling Spirit; it was partially outside, therefore could not control its vehicles with as great facility as though it dwelt entirely inside. The head of the vital body was outside of and held a position far above the physical head. There is a point between the eyebrows and about half an inch below the surface of the skin, which has a corresponding point in the vital body. When these two points come into correspondence, as they do in man today, they form the seat of the indwelling Spirit in the man.

On account of the distance between these two points, the Atlantean's powers of perception or vision was much keener in the inner worlds than in the dense Physical World, obscured by its atmosphere of thick, heavy fog. In the fullness of time, however, the atmosphere slowly became clearer; at the same time, the point spoken of in the vital body came closer and closer to the corresponding point in the dense body, being united to it in the last third of the Atlantean Epoch.

The Rmoahals were the first of the Atlantean Races. They had but little memory and that little was connected with sensations. They remembered colors and tones, and thus to some extent they evolved Feeling. With memory came to the Atlanteans the rudiments of a language. They evolved words and no longer made use of mere sounds, as did the Lemurians, giving names to things.

The Tlavatlis were the second Atlantean Race. Already they began to feel their worth as separate human beings. They became ambitious; the demanded that their works be remembered. Memory became a factor in the life of the community. Thus began ancestor worship.

The Toltecs were the third Atlantean Race. They inaugurated Monarchy and Hereditary Succession, originating the custom of honoring men for the deeds done by their ancestors. Experience came to be highly valued, and memory was developed to a very great degree.

In the middle third of Atlantis we find the beginning of separate nations. In time the Kings became intoxicated with power, and began to use their power corruptly, for selfish ends and personal aggrandizement instead of for the common good.

The Original Turanians were the fourth Atlantean Race. They were especially vile in their abominable selfishness, erecting temples where the Kings were worshiped as Gods.

The Original Semites were the fifth and most important of the seven Atlantean Races, because in them we find the first germ of the corrective quality of thought. Therefore the Original Semitic Race became the "seed-race" for the seven races of the Fifth Epoch. They were the first to discover that "brain" is superior to "brawn." During the existence of this race, the atmosphere of Atlantic commenced to clear definitely, and the previously mentioned point in the vital body came into correspondence with its companion point in the dense body. The combination of events gave man the ability to see objects clearly with sharp, well-defined contours; but it also resulted in loss of the sight pertaining to the inner worlds.

The Akkadians were the sixth and the Mongolians were the seventh of the Atlantean Races. They evolved the faculty of thought still farther, but followed lines of reasoning which deviated more and more from the main trend of the developing life. As the heavy fogs of Atlantis condensed more and more, the increasing quantity of water gradually inundated that continent, destroying the greater part of the population and the evidences of their civilization.

Central Asia was the cradle of the post-Atlantean Races, who descended from the original Semites. Thence have the different races gone out. It is unnecessary to describe them here, as historical researches have sufficiently revealed their main features.

In the Saturn Revolution of the Earth period the dense body was given the ability to form a brain and become a vehicle for the germ of mind which was to be added later. The impulse was given to building the frontal part of the brain. The brain and the nervous systems are the highest expression of the desire body. They call up pictures of the outside world, but in mental image-making, the blood brings the material for the pictures; therefore, when thought is active the blood flows to the head.

In man the brain is the link between the Spirit and the outside world. He can know nothing of the outside world except through the medium of the brain. The sense organs are merely carriers to the brain of impacts from without and the brain is the instrument which interprets and coordinates those impacts. The Spirit, aided by the Angels, built the brain to gather knowledge of the Physical World. When the Ego entered into possession of its vehicles it became necessary to use part of the creative force for the building of a brain and larynx. The Lucifers are the instigators of all mental activity, by means of the part of the sex force that is carried upward for work in the brain. Thus did the evolving entity obtain brain consciousness of the outside world at the cost of half its creative power.

Physiologists note that certain areas of the brain are devoted to particular thought activities, and phrenologists have carried this branch of science still farther. Now, it is known that thought breaks down and destroys nerve tissues. This and all other waste of the body, is replaced by the blood. When, through the development of the heart into a voluntary muscle, the circulation of the blood finally passes under the absolute control of the unifying Life Spirit it will then be within the power of that Spirit to withhold the blood from those areas of the brain devoted to selfish purposes. As a result, those particular thought centers will gradually atrophy.

Brain-knowledge, with its concomitant selfishness, was bought by man at the cost of the power to create from himself alone. He bought his free will at the cost of pain and death; but when man learns to use his intellect for the good of humanity, he will gain spiritual power over life, and in addition, will be guided by an innate knowledge as much higher than the present brain-consciousness as that is higher than the lowest animal consciousness. The brain is, at best, only an indirect way of gaining knowledge and will be superseded by direct touch with the Wisdom of Nature, which man, without any cooperation, will then be able to use for the creation of new bodies.

In the Moon Period it was necessary to reconstruct the dense body to make it capable of being interpenetrated by a desire body, and also capable of evolving a nervous system, muscle, cartilage, and a rudimentary skeleton. This reconstruction was the work of the Saturn Revolution of the Moon Period.

The reconstruction of the dense body in the Saturn Revolution of the Earth Period gave the first impulse to the incipient division in the nervous system which has since become apparent in its subdivisions: the voluntary and the sympathetic. The latter was the only one provided for in the Moon Period. The voluntary nervous system (which has transformed the dense body from a mere automaton acting under stimuli from without, to an extraordinary adaptable instrument capable of being guided and controlled by an Ego from within) was not added until the present Earth Period.

When the division of the Sun, Moon, and Earth took place, in the early part of the Lemurian Epoch, the more advanced portion of humanity-in-the-making experienced a division of the desire body into a higher and a lower part. The rest of humanity did likewise in the early part of the Atlantean Epoch. This higher part of the desire body became a sort of animal soul. It built the cerebrospinal nervous system and the voluntary muscles, by that means controlling the lower part of the threefold body until the link of mind was given.

Part of the involuntary muscular system is controlled by the sympathetic nervous system. The seat of the Human Spirit is primarily in the pineal gland and secondarily in the brain and the cerebrospinal nervous system, which controls the voluntary muscles.

The study of the blood is very deep, far-reaching, and of supreme importance from whatever viewpoint we analyze it. Lucifer was decidedly right when he said that "blood is a most peculiar essence." It builds the physical body from the time the seed atom is deposited in the ovum till the rupture of the silver cord ends material existence, being one of the highest products of the vital body and the carrier of nourishment to every part of the body. It is the direct vehicle of the Ego, having injected into it every thought, feeling or emotion transmitted to the lungs.

In infancy, and up to the fourteenth year, the red marrow-bones do not make all the blood corpuscles. Most of them are supplied by the thymus gland, which is largest in the fetus and gradually diminishes as the individual blood-making faculty develops in the growing child. The thymus gland contains, as it were, a supply of blood corpuscles given by the parents, and consequently the child, which draws its blood from that source, does not realize its individuality. Not until the blood is made by the child does it think of itself as "I," and when the thymus gland disappears, at the age of fourteen, the "I" feeling reaches its full expression, for then the blood is made and dominated entirely by the Ego. The following will make clear the idea and its logic:

It will be remembered that assimilation and growth depend upon the forces working along the positive pole of the vital body's chemical ether. That is set free at the seventh year, together with the balance of the vital body. Only the chemical ether is fully ripe at that time; the other parts need more ripening. At the fourteenth year the life ether of the vital body, which has to do with propagation, is fully ripe. In the period from seven to fourteen years of age the excessive assimilation has stored an amount of force which goes to the sex organs and is ready at the time the desire body is set free.

This force of sex is stored in the blood during the third of the seven year periods and in that time the light ether, which is the avenue for the blood heat, is developed and controls the heart, so that the body is neither too hot nor too cold. In early childhood the blood very often rises to an abnormal temperature. During the period of excessive growth, it is frequently the reverse, but in the hot-headed, unrestrained youth, passion and temper very often drive the Ego out by overheating the blood. We very appropriately call this an ebullition or boiling over of temper and describe the effect as causing the person to "lose his head," or become incapable of thought. That is exactly what happens when passion, rage, or temper overheats the blood, thus drawing the Ego outside the bodies. The Ego is outside of its vehicles and they are running amok, bereft of the guiding influence of thought, part of the work of which is to act as a brake on impulse. Only the man who keeps cool and does not allow excess of heat to drive him out can think properly.

As proof of the assertion that the Ego cannot work in the body when the blood is either too hot or too cold we will call attention to the well-known fact that excessive heat makes one sleepy, and, if carried beyond a certain point, it drives the Ego out, leaving the body unconscious. It is only when the blood is at or near the normal temperature that the Ego can use it as a vehicle of consciousness.

The burnish blush of shame is an evidence of the manner in which the blood is driven to the head, thus overheating the brain and paralyzing thought. Fear is a state when the Ego wants to barricade himself against some outside danger. He then drives the blood to the center and grows pale, because the blood has left the periphery of the body, and has lost heat, thus paralyzing thought. In fever the excess of heat causes delirium.

The full-blooded person, when the blood is not too hot, is active in body and mind, while the anemic person is sleepy. In one the Ego has better control; in the other, less. When the Ego wants to think it drives blood, at the proper heat, to the brain. When a heavy meal centers the activity of the Ego upon the digestive tract, the man cannot think; he is sleepy.

The old Norsemen and the Scots recognized that the Ego is in the blood. No stranger could become associated with them as a relative until he had "mixed blood" with them and thus become one of them.

In the descendants of the patriarchal families — Adam, Methuselah, etc., the blood which coursed through their veins contained the pictures of all that had happened to their different ancestors, and these pictures were constantly before the inner vision of each one as they had no outer vision at that time. At the present time the blood of each individual contains only the pictures of his own individual experiences and the subconscious mind has access to them. Up to the time that marriage outside of the family was commenced individuals were ruled by a Family Spirit (Angel) which entered the blood by means of the air inspired, and helped each Ego to control its vehicles. When marriage outside the family began, Egos had arrived at a point in the evolution of self-consciousness where they could depend on self, and where they were to cease being God-guided automatons and become self-governing individuals. The greater the mixture of blood the less the indwelling Ego can be influenced by the Race or Family Spirits. Unmixed blood gave us ancestral assistance when we needed it. Mixed blood makes for independence of outside help. A God (creator) must be independent.

The heat of the blood is the vantage ground of the Ego, and the Lucifer Spirits from Mars aid in maintaining this heat by dissolving iron, a Mars metal, in our blood to attract oxygen, a solar element.

The proper heat for the real expression of the Ego is not present until the mind is born from the macrocosmic Concrete Mind, when the individual is about twenty-one years old. Statutory law also recognizes this as the earliest age when the man is deemed fit to exercise a franchise.

In the lower order of animals blood is fluid and nucleated. The nuclei, centers of life, are the vantage ground of a Group Spirit. It regulates their vital processes and guides them through the nuclei. During the early part of the gestatory period the blood of the fetus is also nucleated by the life of the mother, and she regulates the process of body building, but as soon as the incoming Ego enters the mothers body, it commences to assert its individuality and resists formation of nucleated blood cells. The old cells gradually disappear, so that when the silver cord is tied at the time of quickening and the Ego is drawn into its body, all nuclei have disappeared, and it is absolute autocrat of its new vehicle, a heritage more precious than any other earthly possession; and when properly used it is our means of generating soul power and laying up treasure in heaven. When we abandon this vehicle to Spirit controls, we seriously hinder our higher evolution and commit a great sin.

Thus the blood is the particular vehicle of the Ego, and as in the past aeons of development we have crystallized matter in order to form our dense body, so also it is destined that now we must etherealize our vehicles in order that we may lift ourselves and the world out of the realms of materiality and into the spiritual. Naturally, therefore, the Ego aims first to make the blood gaseous, and to the spiritual sight, this red unnucleated blood is not a fluid, but a gas. It is no argument against this assertion that the moment we prick our skin the blood comes out as a liquid. The moment we open up the try-cock of a steam boiler the gas also condenses into a liquid, but if we make a model steam engine of glass and look at the way steam works there we shall see only the piston move backward and forward, driven by an invisible agent, live steam, and similarly, as the live steam direct from the boiler is invisible, and gaseous, so also the live blood in the human body is a gas, and the higher the state of development of any given Ego, the more ethereal it is able to make the blood.

When, by the vital processes, food has reached the highest alchemical state, the process of condensation begins and the blood-gas is formed into tissue in the various organs to replace what has been wasted or destroyed by the activities of the body. The spleen is the gateway of the vital body; there the solar force which abounds in the surrounding atmosphere enters in a constraint stream, to aid us in the vital processes, and there also the war between the desire body and the vital body is waged most fiercely. Thoughts of worry, fear, and anger interfere with the process of evaporation in the spleen, a speck of plasm is the result, and this is at once seized upon by a thought elemental which forms a nucleus and embodies itself therein. Then it commences to live a life of destruction, coalescing with other waste products and decaying elements wherever formed, making the body a charnel house instead of the temple of in indwelling living Spirit. We may therefore say every white corpuscle which has been taken by an outside entity is to the Ego a lost opportunity. The more of these lost opportunities there are in the body, the less is the body under control of the Ego, therefore we find them present in larger numbers in all diseases than when the person is in health. It may also be said that the person of jovial good nature or one who is devoutly religious and has an absolute faith and trust in divine providence and love, will register many less lost opportunities or white corpuscles than those who are always worrying and fretting.

So it is that the blood is the only part of the body really ours. The measure in which we control all blood depends upon the Ego's ability to express itself through the body. It is only through the red corpuscles that the Ego is able to work. Whenever we allow ourselves to be negative we manufacture white corpuscles, which are not, as we have seen, "the policemen of the system," as science now thinks, but destroyers.

When the blood courses through the arteries which are deep in the body, it is a gas, as has been shown; but loss of heat near the surface of the body causes it to partially condense, and in that substance the Ego is learning to form mineral crystals. Science has lately found that the blood of different people has different crystals, so that it is possible now to the tell the blood of a Negro from the blood of a white man; but there will come a day when they will know a still greater difference; for just as there is a difference in the crystals formed by the different races, so there is also a difference in the crystals formed by each individual man.

Looking at the matter from another angle, we may note that when blood is beaten with a stick it separates into three distinct substances: the serum or water-like substance which comes under Cancer ruled by the Moon (Lunar Hierarchy); the red coloring matter which is the Martian substance generated under Scorpio; and most important of all, the fibrin, or stringy matter which is under the third of the watery signs, Pisces. When the skeleton was outside our flesh, consciousness was dull as in the crustacea. By getting outside the bony structure we have gained a much higher grade of consciousness, and by spiritualizing this inner skeleton through the medium of the blood, we extract the essence of all we have learned in the past epochs and transform it to usable soul power in the Jupiter Period. To interfere in this work is a crime against the soul.

Since woman has the positive vital body, she matures earlier than the male, and the parts which remain plant-like, such as the hair, grow longer and more luxuriant. Naturally positive vital body will generate more blood than the negative vital body possessed by the male, hence we have in woman a greater blood pressure, which it is necessary to relieve by the periodical flow, and when that ceases at the climacteric period there is a second 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 periodical flow, there are times when it is necessary to have an extra outlet; then the tears of 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.

The blood is now differently constituted from what it was in the earlier ages of human evolution. The Christ Spirit was seen at the Baptism to descent upon Jesus' body. Jesus himself, the Spirit, left that body and was given a mission to serve the churches while his body was being used for direct teaching by the Christ, and his blood was being prepared as an open sesame to the Kingdom of God.

When anyone is killed, the Venus blood with its impurities clings closely to the flesh, and therefore the arterial blood which flows is distinctly cleaner than it would otherwise be. Being etherealized by the great Christ Spirit, the cleansed blood of Jesus overflowed the world, purified the Etheric Region of selfishness to a great extent, and gave man a better chance to draw to himself materials which will allow him to form altruistic purposes and desires.

It is well known to the esoteric astrologer that the human body has an immense period of evolution behind it and that this splendid organism is the result of a slow process of gradual upbuilding which is still continuing and will make each generation better than the previous until in some far distant future it shall have reached a stage of completion of which we cannot even dream. It is also understood by the deeper students that in addition to the physical body man has finer vehicles which are not yet seen by the great majority of human beings, though all have within them latent a sixth sense whereby they will in time cognize these finer sheaths of the soul.

The esotericist speaks of these finer vehicles as the vital body, made of ether, and the desire body, made of desire stuff, the material whence we draw our feelings and emotions, and with the addition of the sheath of mind and the physical body these complete what may be termed the personality which is the evanescent part distinct from the immortal Spirit that uses these vehicles for its expression. These finer vehicles interpenetrate the dense physical body as air permeates water and have particular dominion over certain parts thereof, because the physical body itself is a crystallization of these finer vehicles in the same manner and upon the same principle that the soft fluids of a snail's body gradually crystallize into the hard and flinty shell which it carries upon its back. For the purpose of this dissertation we may say broadly that the softer parts of our bodies which we commonly call flesh may be divided into two kinds, glands and muscles.

The vital body was started in the Sun Period. Crystallization from that time on in that vehicle has developed what we now call glands and to this day they and the blood are the special manifestations of the vital body within the physical vehicle. Therefore, the glands as a whole may be said to be under the rule of the life-giving Sun and the great benefic, Jupiter. It is the function of the vital body to build and restore the tone of the muscles when tense and tired by the work imposed upon them by the restless desire body, which was started in the Moon Period. The muscles are therefore ruled by the wandering Moon, which is the present vantage point of the Angels, the humanity of the Moon period, and by the impulsive and turbulent Mars, where the so-called "Fallen Angels," the Lucifer Spirits, dwell. That is to say, as a whole, for the student must carefully note that individual glands and particular groups of muscles are under the rulership of other planets as well. It is as when we say that all who live in the United States of America are citizens of that country, but some are subject to the laws of California, others to those of Maine, etc.

We know the Hermetic Axiom, "As above, so below," which is the master key to all mysteries, and as there are upon the Earth, the macrocosm, a great many undiscovered places, so also in the microcosm of the body do we find unknown countries that are a closed book to the scientific explorers. Chief among them has been a small group of the so-called "ductless glands," seven in number, namely:

The Pituitary Body, ruled by Uranus.
The Pineal Gland, ruled by Neptune.
The Thyroid Gland, ruled by Mercury.
The Thymus Gland, ruled by Venus.
The Spleen, ruled by the Sun.
The two Adrenals, ruled by Jupiter.

They have a great and particular interest for esotericists, and they may be termed in a certain sense "the seven roses" upon the Cross of the body, for they are intimately connected with the esoteric development of humanity. Four of them, the thymus gland, the spleen, and the two adrenals are connected with the personality. The pituitary body and the pineal gland are particularly correlated with the spiritual side of our nature and the thyroid gland forms the link between. The astrological rulership is as follows:

The spleen is the entrance gate of the solar forces specialized by each human being and circulated through the body as the vital fluid, without which no being can live. This organ is therefore governed by the Sun. The two adrenals are under the rulership of Jupiter, the great benefic, and exert a calming, quieting and soothing effect when the emotional activities of the Moon and Mars or Saturn have destroyed the poise. When the obstructive hand of Saturn has awakened the melancholy emotions and laid its restraint upon the heart, the adrenals' secretions are carried by the blood to the heart and act as a powerful stimulant in its effort to keep up the circulation, while the jovial optimism struggles against the saturnine worries or against the impulse of Mars, which stirs the desire body into turbulent emotions of anger, rendering the muscles tense and trembling, dissipating the energy of the system. Then the secretion of the adrenals comes to the rescue, releasing the glycogen of the liver in a more abundant measure than usual to cope with the emergency until the equipoise has been again attained, and similarly during whatever other stress or strain. It was the knowledge of this esoteric fact that prompted the ancient astrologers to place the kidneys under the rulership of Libra, the Balance, and in order to avoid confusion of ideas we may say that the kidneys themselves play an important part in the nutrition of the body, being under the rulership of Venus, the Lady of Libra. However, Jupiter governs the adrenals, with which we are now particularly engaged.

Both Venus and her higher octave, Uranus, govern the functions of nutrition and growth, but in different ways and for different purposes. Therefore Venus rules the thymus gland, which is the link between the parents and the child until the latter has reached puberty. This gland is located immediately behind the sternum or breast bone. It is largest in antenatal life and through childhood while growth is excessive and rapid. During that time the vital body of the child does its most effective work, for the child is not then subject to the passions and emotions generated by the desire body after that comes to birth at or about the fourteenth year. But during the years of growth the child cannot manufacture the red blood corpuscles as does the adult, for the unborn, unorganized desire body does not then act as an avenue for the Martian forces which assimilate the iron from the food and transmute it into hemoglobin. To compensate for this lack there is stored in the thymus gland a spiritual essence drawn from the parents, and with this essence provided by their love the child is able to accomplish the alchemistry of blood temporarily until its desire body becomes dynamically active. Then the thymus gland atrophies and the child draws from its own desire body the necessary Martian force. From that time, under normal conditions, Uranus, the octave of Venus, and ruler of the pituitary body, takes charge of the function of growth and assimilation in the following manner.

It is well known that all things, our food included, radiate from themselves continuously small particles which given an index of the thing whence they emanate, its quality included. Thus when we lift the food to our mouth a number of these invisible particles enter the nose and by excitation of the olfactory tract convey to us a knowledge whether the food we are about

to take is suitable for this purpose or not, the sense of smell warning us to discard such foods as have a noxious odor, etc. But besides those particles which attract or repel us from food by their action on the olfactory tract through the sense of smell, there are others which penetrate the Sphenoid bone, impinge upon the pituitary body and start the Uranian alchemistry by which a secretion is formed and injected into the blood. This furthers assimilation through the chemical ether, thus affecting the normal growth and well-being of the human body through life. Sometimes this Uranian influence of the pituitary body is eccentric and therefore responsible for strange and abnormal growths which produce the unfortunate freaks of Nature we occasionally meet.

But besides being responsible for the spiritual impulses which generate the before-mentioned physical manifestations of growth, Uranus, working through the pituitary body, is also responsible for the spiritual phases of growth which aid awakened man in his efforts to penetrate the veil into the invisible worlds. In this work it is, however, associated with Neptune, the ruler of the pineal gland, and it will therefore be necessary, in order to properly elucidate, that we study the functions of the thyroid gland, ruled by Mercury, and of the pineal gland which is under the domination of his higher octave, Neptune, simultaneously.

That the thyroid gland is under the rule of Mercury, the planet of reason, is readily realized when we understand the effect which the degeneration of this gland has upon the mind, as shown in the diseases of Cretinism and Myxedema. The secretions of this gland are as necessary to the proper functioning of the mind as ether is to the transmission of electricity, that is to say, upon the physical plane of existence where the brain transmutes thought into action. Contact with and expression in the invisible worlds depends upon the functional ability of the pineal gland, which is altogether spiritual and is therefore ruled by the higher octave of Mercury, Neptune, the planet of spirituality, which operates in conjunction with the pituitary body ruled by Uranus.

Scientists have wasted much time in speculation upon the nature and function of these two little bodies, the pituitary body and the pineal gland, but without avail, and principally because, as Mephistopheles says so sarcastically to the young man who wants to study science under Faust:

"Who e'er would know and treat of aught alive
Seeks first the living spirit thence to drive;
Then are the lifeless fragments in his hand;
He lacks, alas! the vital spirit band."

No one can really and truly observe the physiological functions of any organ under such conditions as exist in the laboratory, on the operating table, or in the dissection or vivisection chamber. To arrive at an adequate understanding one must necessarily see these organs exercising their physiological functions in the living body, and that can only be done by means of spiritual sight. There are a number of organs which are either atrophying or developing; the former show the path we have already traveled during our past evolution, the latter are finger posts, indicating our future development. But there is still another class of organs which are neither degenerating nor evolving; they are simply dormant (spiritually) at the present time. Physiologists believe that the pituitary body and the pineal gland are atrophying because they find these organs more developed in some of the lower classes of life, such as worms, but as a matter of fact they are wrong in their ideas. Some have also suspected that the pineal gland is in some way connected with the mind, because it contains certain crystals after death, and the quantity was much less in those who were mentally defective than in people of normal mentality. This conclusion is right, but the Seer knows that the spinal canal of the living is not filled with fluid; that the blood is not liquid, and that these organs have no crystals in them when the body is alive.

These assertions are made with full knowledge of the fact that the blood and the spinal essence are liquid when drawn out of the body, living or dead, and the contents of the pituitary body and the pineal gland appear crystalline when the brain is dissected. However, the reason is similar to that which causes steam drawn from a steam boiler to condense immediately upon contact with the atmosphere, and molten metal drawn from a smelter's furnace to crystallize immediately upon withdrawal therefrom.

All these substances are purely spiritual essences when inside the body; they are then ethereal and the substance in the pineal gland, when seen by the spiritual sight, appears as light. Furthermore, when one Seer looks upon the pineal gland of another who is then also exercising his spiritual faculties, this light is of a most intense brilliancy and of an iridescence similar to but transcending in beauty the most wonderful play of the Northern Lights, the Aurora Borealis. It may also be said that the function of this organ seems to have changed in the course of human evolution. During the earlier epochs of our present stay upon the Earth, when man's body was a large, baggy thing into which the Spirit had not yet entered, but was there only as an overshadowing presence, there was an opening in the top and the pineal gland was within it. It was then an organ of orientation, giving a sense of direction. As the human body condensed, it became less and less able to endure the intense heat which prevailed during that time and the pineal gland gave warning when the body was brought too near one of the many craters and active volcanoes which were then erupting the thin Earth crust, thus enabling the Spirit to guide it away from these dangerous places. It was an organ of direction which operated by feeling, but feeling has since been distributed over the skin of the whole body. This is an indication to the esotericist that some day the senses of hearing and sight will also be similarly distributed so that we shall both see and hear with our whole body and thus become still more sensitive in those respects than we are now.

Since then the pineal gland and the pituitary body have become temporarily dormant (spiritually) to make man oblivious to the invisible world while he learns the lessons afforded by the material world. The pituitary body has manifested the Uranian influence sporadically in abnormal physical growth, producing freaks and monstrosities of various kinds, while Neptune working also abnormally through the pineal gland, has been responsible for the abnormal spiritual growth of medicine men, witches, and mediums of spirit controls. When they are awakened to normal activities these two ductless glands will open the door to the inner worlds in a sane and safe manner, but in the meantime the thyroid gland, ruled by Mercury, the planet of reason, holds the secretion necessary to give the brain balance.

In the future the ductless glands are destined to play a prominent role; their development will accelerate evolution greatly, for their effects are mainly mental and spiritual. We are now nearing the Aquarian Age; the Sun is therefore beginning to transmit the highly intellectual vibrations of this sign which accounts for the intuitions, premonitions, and telepathic transmission now so prevalent. In the final analysis these phenomena are due to the awakening of the pituitary body, ruled by Uranus, the lord of Aquarius, and every passing year will make them more manifest.

The Lymphatic System is tubular and somewhat closely associated with the capillaries which connect the Venus and arterial circulations, terminating in the large veins near the heart. The lymph which flows along its channel passes out one way, viz: toward the center of circulation, the heart. It is considered a system of small sewers for the body, simply because it collects the dish water of the tissues after they have all been bathed in the lymph which it carries. If you think of the tubes as drainage canals depleting the tissues of the wash water, you may think of these lymphatic glands as locks along the course of the channels at which the flow of lymph must stop and be filtered on its way to the Venus blood stream.

The glands are located in the bends of the elbows, in the arm pits, in the popliteal spaces, in the groins, thickly scattered throughout the anterior part of the neck (the part in front of the cervical vertebrae), in the abdomen between the folds of the mesentery which suspends the small intestines to the backbone, and in the chest between the lungs, this space being known as the mediastinum.

Every one of the lymphatic vessels passes through one or more of these glands on its way to its destination in the veins. The lymph cells are the only cells in the body that possess no cell wall; they move about like jellyfish in water. When inflammation attacks the human body in any of its types, the lymph is more responsible, for all poisonous liquids pass at once into the lymphatic channels.

The glands are likely to be sickly, owing to the poisonous nature of the lymph which filters through them. The lymphatic system is threefold: it collects lymph from the tissues, chyle from the intestines after it has been manufactured in the process of digestion, and by means of the lymphatic glands manufactures lymph cells which are identical with the white blood corpuscles.

The vital body is the second oldest of our vehicles, having its original germ given by the Lords of Wisdom in the Sun period. In the Sun Revolution of the Moon Period it was modified to render it capable of being interpenetrated by a desire body, also of accommodating itself to the nervous system, muscle, skeleton, etc.

During the Sun Revolution of the Earth Period the vital body was reconstructed to accommodate the germinal mind. It was fashioned at this time more in the likeness of the dense body, its organization at present being next to the dense body in efficiency.

Further reconstruction was done in the Hyperborean Epoch of the Earth Period when the Lords of Form appeared, with the Angels, and clothed man's dense form, then a baggy-shaped object, with a vital body.

The dense body is built into the matrix of the vital body during antenatal life, and with one exception, it is an exact copy, molecule for molecule, of the vital body. All through life the vital body is the builder and restorer of the dense form, its tendency being to soften, as well as to build. Its chief expression is the blood and the glands, also the sympathetic nervous system, having gained ingress into the stronghold of the desire body when it began to develop the heart into a voluntary muscle.

It interpenetrates the dense body and extends beyond its periphery about an inch and a half. In texture the vital body may be crudely compared to one of those picture frames made of hundreds of little pieces of wood which interlock and present innumerable points to the observer. The points of the vital body enter into the hollow centers of the dense atoms, imbuing them with vital force that sets them vibrating at a rate higher than that of the mineral of the Earth which is not thus accelerated and ensouled.

When we analyze the human being, we find that in him all four ethers (the chemical, life, light and reflecting ethers) are dynamically active in the highly organized vital body. By means of the activities of the chemical ether he is able to assimilate food and to grow; the forces at work in the life ether enable him to propagate his species; the forces in the light ether supply the dense body with heat, work on the nervous system and the muscles, thus opening the doors of communication with the outside world by way of the senses; and the reflecting ether enables the Spirit to control its vehicles by means of thought. This ether also stores past experience as memory.

The chemical and life ethers form a matrix for our physical bodies. Each molecule of the physical body is embedded in a meshwork of ether which permeates and infuses it with life. Through these ethers the bodily functions, such as respiration, etc., are carried on, and the density and consistency of these matrices of ether determine the state of health.

The atoms of the chemical and life ethers gathered around the nuclear seed atom located in the solar plexus are shaped like prisms. They are all located in such a manner that when the solar energy enters our body through the spleen, the refracted ray is red. This is the color of the creative aspect of the Trinity, namely, Jehovah, the Holy Spirit, who rules Luna, the planet of fecundation. Therefore the vital fluid from the Sun which enters the human body by way of the spleen becomes tinged with a pale rose color, often noted by Seers when it courses along the nerves as electricity does in the wires of an electric system. Thus charged, the chemical and life ethers are the avenues of assimilation which preserve the individual, and of fecundation which perpetuates the race.

During life each prismatic vital atom penetrates a physical atom and vibrates it. To form a picture of this combination, imagine a pear-shaped wire basket having walls of spirally curved wire running obliquely from pole to pole. This is the physical atom; it is shaped nearly like our Earth, and the prismatic vital atom is inserted from the top, which is widest and corresponds to the north pole of our Earth. Thus the point of the prism penetrates the physical atom at the narrowest point, which corresponds to the south pole of the Earth, and the whole resembles a top swinging, swaying, and vibrating. In this manner our body is made alive and capable of motion.

The light and reflecting ethers are avenues of consciousness and memory. They are somewhat attenuated in the average individual and have not yet taken definite form; they interpenetrate the atom as air interpenetrates a sponge, and they form a slight auric atmosphere outside each atom.

It has been determined by physical science that the atoms in our dense body are constantly changing so that all the material which composes our present vehicle at this moment will have disappeared in a few years, but it is common knowledge that scars and other blemishes perpetuate themselves from childhood to old age. The reason for this is that the prismatic ether atoms which compose our vital body remain unchanged from the cradle to the grave. They are always in the same relative position — that is to say, the prismatic ether atoms which vibrate the physical atoms in the toes or in the fingers do not get to the hands, legs, or any other part of the body, but remain in exactly the same place where they were placed in the beginning. A lesion of the physical atoms involves a similar impression on the prismatic ether atoms. The new physical matter molded over them continues to take on shape and texture similar to those which originally obtained.

The foregoing remarks apply only to the prismatic atoms which correspond to solids and liquids in the Physical World, because they assume a certain definite shape which they preserve. But in addition each human being at this stage of evolution has a certain amount of light and reflecting ether, which are the vehicles of sense perception and memory, intermingled in his vital body. We may say that the light ether corresponds to the gases of our Physical World; perhaps the best description that can be given of the reflecting ether is to call it hyperetheric. It is a vacuous substance of a bluish color resembling in appearance the blue core of a gas flame. It appears transparent and seems to reveal everything that is within it, but nevertheless it hides all the secrets of nature and humanity. In it is found one record of the memory of Nature. The light and reflecting ethers are of an exactly opposite nature to that of the stationary prismatic ether atoms. They are volatile and migratory. However much or little a man possesses of this material, it is an accretion, a fruitage, derived from his experiences in life. Inside the body it mingles with the blood stream and when it has grown by service and sacrifice in life's school so that it can no longer be contained within the body it is seen on the outside as a soul body of gold and blue.

Blue shows the highest type of spirituality, therefore it is smallest in volume and may be compared to the blue core of the gas flame, while the golden hue forms the larger part and corresponds to the yellow light which surrounds the core in the gas ring. The blue color does not appear outside the dense body save in the very greatest of saints — only yellow is usually observable there. At death this part of the vital body is etched into the desire body with the life panorama which it contains. The quintessence of all our life experience is then eventually impressed upon the seed atom as conscience or virtue which urges us to avoid evil and to do good in a coming life. Thus the quality of the seed atom is altered from life to life. The quintessence of good extracted from the migratory part of the vital body in one life determines the quality of the prismatic stationary ether atoms in the next life. The highest in one life becomes the lowest in the next and thus we gradually climb the ladder of evolution towards divinity.

From the foregoing it will be evident that the vital body is a vehicle of habit; all parents know that during the first seven years of childhood when this vehicle is in course of gestation that children form one habit after another. Repetition is the keynote of the vital body and habits depend upon repetition. It is different with the desire body, the vehicle of feelings and emotions which are always changing from moment to moment; though it has been said that the ether which forms our soul body is in constant motion and mingles with the blood stream, that motion is relatively slow compared to the rapidity of the current of the desire body; we may say that the ether moves like a snail compared with light.

When the Ego is on its way to rebirth through the Region of Concrete Thought, the Desire World, and the Etheric Region, it gathers a certain amount of material from each. The quality of this material is determined by the seed atom, on the principle that like attracts like. The quantity depends upon the amount of matter required by the archetype built by ourselves in the second Heaven. From the quantity of prismatic ether atoms that are appropriated by a certain Spirit, the Recording Angels and their agents build an etheric form which is then placed in the mother's womb and gradually clothed with physical matter which then forms the visible body of the new born child.

Only a small portion of the ether appropriated by a certain Ego is thus used, and the remainder of the child's vital body, or rather the material from which that vehicle will eventually be made, is thus outside the dense body. For that reason the vital body of a child protrudes much farther beyond the periphery of the dense body than does that of an adult. During the period of growth this store of ether atoms is drawn upon to vitalize the accretions within the body until, at the time when the adult age is reached, the vital body protrudes only from one to one and a half inches beyond the periphery of the dense body.

The Western Wisdom School teaches as its fundamental maxim that "all esoteric development begins with the vital body." The part of the vital body formed of the two higher ethers, the light ether and the reflecting ether, is what we may term the soul body; that is to say, it is more closely linked with the desire body and the mind and also more amenable to the Spirit's touch than are the two lower ethers. It is the vehicle of intellect, and responsible for all that makes man, man. Our observations, our aspirations, our character, etc., are due to the work of the Spirit in these two higher ethers, which become more or less luminous according to the nature of our character and habits. Also, as the dense body assimilates particles of food and thus gains in flesh, so the two higher ethers assimilate our good deeds during life and thus grow in volume as well. According to our doings in this present life we thus increase or decrease that which we brought with us at birth. This is the reason the Mystic Christian Teaching says that all mystic development begins with the vital body.

In the third Revolution of the Moon Period the Lords of Individuality radiated from themselves the substance which they helped the unconscious, evolving man to appropriate and build into a germinal desire body. They also helped him to incorporate this germinal desire body in the compound vital body and dense body which he already possessed. This work was carried on all through the third and fourth Revolutions of the Moon Period.

The antagonistic "lower will" or will of the body, is an expression of the higher part of the desire body. When division of the Sun, Moon, and Earth took place, in the early part of the Lemurian Epoch, the more advanced portion of humanity-in-the-making experienced a division of the desire body into a higher and a lower part. The rest of humanity did likewise in the early part of the Atlantean Epoch.

This higher part of the desire body became a sort of animal soul. It build the cerebrospinal nervous system and the voluntary muscles, by that means controlling the lower part of the threefold body until the link of mind was given. Then the mind "coalesced" with the animal soul and became co-regent.

During the life of man his desire body is not shaped like his dense and vital bodies. After death it assumes that shape. During life it has the appearance of a luminous ovoid which, in waking hours, completely surrounds the dense body, as the albumen does the yolk of an egg. It extends from twelve to sixteen inches beyond the dense body in the ordinary individual. The matter in the human desire body is composed of material from the Desire World and is in incessant motion of inconceivable rapidity. There is in it no settled place for any particle, as in the dense body. The matter that is at the head one moment may be at the feet in the next and back again. There are no organs in the desire body, as in the dense and vital bodies, but there are centers of perception, which, when active, appear as vortices, always remaining in the same relative position to the dense body. In the majority of people they are mere eddies and are of no use as centers of perception. They may be awakened in all, however, but different methods produce different results. The desire body is rooted in the liver, and is born at about the fourteenth year in the being.

In the involuntary clairvoyant developed along improper, negative lines, these vortices turn from right to left, or in the opposite direction to the hands of a clock — counter-clockwise.

In the desire body of the properly trained voluntary clairvoyant, they turn in the same direction as the hands of a clock — clockwise, glowing with exceeding splendor, far surpassing the brilliant luminosity of the ordinary desire body. These centers furnish him with means for the perception of things in the Desire World and he sees, and investigates as he wills, while the person whose centers turn counter-clockwise is like a mirror, which reflects what passes before it.

In a far distant future man's desire body will become as definitely organized as are the vital and dense bodies. When that stage is reached we shall all have the power to function in the desire body as we now do in the dense body.

In the Atlantean Epoch of the Earth Period the Lords of Mind radiated from themselves into our being the nucleus of material from which we are now seeking to build an organized mind. It was given to man to give purpose to action, but as the Ego was exceedingly weak and the desire nature strong, the nascent mind coalesced with the desire body; the faculty of Cunning resulted and was the cause of all the wickedness of the middle third of the Atlantean Epoch.

The mind, being the last of man's vehicles built, is not yet even a body. It is simply a link, a sheath for the use of the Ego as a focusing point. It is however, the most important instrument possessed by the Spirit, and its special instrument in the work of creation. We, ourselves, as Egos, function directly in the subtle substance of the Region of Abstract Thought, which we have specialized within the periphery of our individual aura. Thence we view the impressions made by the outer world upon the vital body through the senses, together with the feeling and emotions generated by them in the desire body, mirrored in the mind.

From these mental images we form our conclusions, in the substance of the Region of Abstract Thought, concerning the subjects with which they deal. These conclusions are ideas. By the power of will we project an idea through the mind, where it takes concrete shape as a thought form by drawing mind stuff around itself from the Region of Concrete Thought. The image may be projected in one of three directions:

(1) It may be projected against the desire body in an endeavor to arouse feeling which will lead to immediate action.

(2) Where no immediate action is called for by the mental images of impacts from without, these may be projected directly upon the reflecting ether, together with the thoughts occasioned by them, to be used at some future time.

(3) It may be projected toward another mind to act as a suggestion, to carry information, etc. When the work designed for such a thought form has been accomplished, or its energy expended in vain attempts to achieve its object, it gravitates back to its creator, bearing with it the indelible record of its journey.

At our present stage of evolution we say that the mind is born at the age of twenty-one, but the prime of mentality is not reached until about the forty-ninth year.

The mind is the focusing medium whereby the ideas wrought by the imagination of the Spirit are projected upon the material universe. First they are thought forms only, but when the desire to realize the imagined possibilities has set the man to work in the Physical World, they become what we call concrete "realities."

At the present time, however, the mind is not focused in a way that enables it to give a clear and true picture of what the Spirit imagines. It is not one-pointed. It gives misty and clouded pictures. Hence the necessity of experiment to show the inadequacies of the first conception, and bring about new imaginings and ideas until the image produced by the Spirit in mental substance has been reproduced in physical substance.

At the best, we are able to shape through the mind only such images as have to do with Form, because the human mind was not started until the Earth Period, and therefore is now in its form, or "mineral" stage, hence in our operations we are confined to forms, to minerals. We can imagine ways and means of working with the mineral forms of the three lower kingdoms, but can do little or nothing with living bodies. We may indeed graft living branch to living tree, or living part of animal or man to other living part, but it is not life with which we are working; it is form only. We are making different conditions, but the life which already inhabited the form continues to do so. To work with life is beyond man's power until his mind has become alive.

In the Jupiter Period the mind will be vivified to some extent and man can then imagine forms which will live and grow, like plants.

In the Venus Period, when his mind has acquired "Feeling," he can create living, growing, and feeling things.

When he reaches perfection, at the end of the Vulcan Period, he will be able to "imagine" into existence creatures that will live, grow, feel, and think.

Disease is really a fire, the Invisible Fire which is the Father endeavoring to break up the crystallized conditions which we have gathered in our bodies. We recognize fever as a fire, but tumors, cancers, and all other diseases are really also the effect of that invisible fire, which endeavors to purify the system and free it from conditions which we have brought about by breaking the laws of Nature.

Again, we may say that disease is a manifestation of ignorance, the only sin, and healing is a demonstration of applied knowledge, which is the only salvation. Christ is an embodiment of the Wisdom Principle, and in proportion as the Christ is formed in us we attain to health. Therefore, the healer should be spiritual and endeavor to imbue his patient with high ideals so that we may eventually learn to conform to God's laws which govern the universe, and thus attain permanent health in future lives as well as now.

The Old Testament opens with the account of how man was led astray by the false light of the Lucifer Spirits, giving birth to all the sorrow and suffering in the world; it closes with the promise that the Sun of Righteousness shall rise, with Healing in its wings. And in the New Testament we find the Sun of Righteousness, the True Light, come to save world, and the first fact that is stated in regard to Him is that He is of Immaculate Conception.

Now this point should be thoroughly understood, that it is the Luciferian taint of passion which has brought sorrow, sin, and suffering into the world. When the creative power is used for sense gratification, whether in solitary or associated vice, with or without legal marriage, that is the sin which cannot be forgiven; it must be expiated. Humanity as a whole is now suffering for that sin. The debilitated bodies, the sickness that we see around us has been caused by centuries of abuse, and until we learn to subdue our passions there can be no true health among the human race.

Prior to the impregnation of the desire body with this demoniac principle, conception was immaculate and a sacrament. Men walked in the presence of the Angels then, pure and unashamed. The act of fertilization was as chaste as that of the flower. Therefore when the mischief has been wrought, immediately the messenger, or Angel, girded them with leaves to impress upon them the ideal which they must learn to live, namely, that of the plant. Whenever we are able to perform the act of generation in a pure, chaste, and passionless manner as the plant does, an immaculate conception takes place and a Christ is born, capable of healing all the suffering of humanity, capable of conquering death and establishing immortality, a true light to lead humanity away from the will-o'-the-wisp of passion; through self-sacrifice to compassion.

This then is the great ideal toward which we are striving: to cleanse ourselves from the taint of egoism and self-seeking. Therefore we look upon the emblem of the Rose Cross as an ideal. The seven red roses typify the cleansed blood; the white rose shows the purity of life; and the golden radiating star symbolizes that inestimable influence for health, helpfulness and spiritual uplift which radiates from every servant of humanity.

Until the Christ life illumines us from within we do not comprehend, neither do we follow, the laws of Nature, and consequently we contract diseases by our ignorant contravention of these laws. As Emerson put it, a man who is sick is a scoundrel in the act of being found out; he has broken the laws of Nature. That is why it is necessary that the gospel of Christ should be preached; that every one of us should learn to love our God with our whole heart and our whole soul and our brother as ourselves, for all our trouble in the world, whether we recognize it or not, comes from the one great fact of our selfishness. If the alimentative function is deranged, what is the reason? Is it not that we have overtaxed our system because we have been angered, and exhausted our nervous force by trying to get someone to serve our selfish ends, and we feel resentful because we have not succeeded? In every case selfishness is the prime cause of most diseases; selfishness is the supreme besetting sin of ignorance.

The disabilities which affect humanity may be divided into two large classes: Mental and Physical. The mental troubles are particularly traceable to the abuse of the creative function, when they are congenital, with one exception which we shall note later. The same holds true in case of impairment of the faculty of speech. This is reasonable and easy to understand. The brain and the larynx were built with half of the creative force by the Angels, so that man who, prior to the acquisition of these organs, was bisexual and able to create from himself alone, lost that faculty when these organs were created and is now dependent upon the cooperation of another of opposite polarity or sex in order to generate a new vehicle for an incoming Spirit.

When we use spiritual sight to look at man in the Memory of Nature during the time when he was yet in the making, we find that wherever there is now a nerve, there was first a desire current; that the brain itself was made of desire substance in the first place and also the larynx. It was desire that first sent a motive impulse through the brain and created these nerve currents, that the body might be moved and obtain for the Spirit whatever gratification was indicated by desire. Speech, also, is used for the purpose of obtaining a desired object or end. Through these faculties man has obtained a certain mastery over the world, and if he could just flit from one body to another, there would be no end to his abuse of his power for gratifying every whim and desire. But under the Law of Consequence he takes with him into a new body, faculties and organs similar to those which he left behind in the one preceding.

When passion has wrecked the body in one life, it is stamped upon the seed atom. In the next descent to rebirth it is therefore impossible for him to gather sound material with which to build a brain of stable construction. He is then usually born under one of the common signs, and usually also, the four common signs are on the angles; for through these signs passionate desire finds it difficult to express itself. Thus the powerful impulse which formerly ruled in his brain and which might be used for the purpose of rejuvenescence is absent; he lacks incentive in life and therefore he becomes helpless — a log upon the ocean of life — often insane.

But the Spirit is not insane; it sees, knows, and has a keen desire to use the body, though that may be an impossibility, for often it cannot even send a correct impulse along the nerves. The muscles of face and body are therefore not under the control of its will. This accounts for the lack of coordination which makes the maniac such a pitiable sight. And thus the Spirit learns one of the hardest lessons in life, namely, that it is worse than death to be tied to a living body and unable to find expression through it because the desire force necessary to accomplish thought, speech, and motion has been spent in unrighteous living in a previous life and left the Spirit without the necessary energy to operate its present fleshly instrument.

Though mental disabilities, when congenital, are generally traceable to abuse of the creative function in a past life, there is at least one notable exception to this rule: Where a Spirit, who has a particularly hard life before it, comes down to rebirth and feels upon entering the womb that the panorama of the coming life then shown it marks an existence too hard for it to undergo, it sometimes tries to run away from the school of life. At this time the Recording Angels or their agents have already made the connection between the vital body and the sense centers of the brain in the forming fetus; therefore the effort of the Spirit to escape from the mother's womb is frustrated, but the wrench that is given by the Ego deranges the connection between the etheric and physical sense centers, so that the vital body is not concentric with the physical, causing the etheric head to extend above the physical cranium. Thus it is impossible for the Spirit to use the dense vehicle; it is tied to a mindless body which it cannot use, and the embodiment is practically wasted.

We also find cases where a great shock later in life causes the Spirit to endeavor to run away with the invisible vehicles. As a result a similar wrench is given to the etheric sense centers in the brain, and the shock deranges the mental expression. Everybody has probably felt a similar sensation on receiving a fright; a surging as of something endeavoring to get out of the dense body; that is the desire and vital bodies, which are so swift in their action that an express train is as a snail by comparison. They see and feel the danger and are frightened before the scare is transmitted to the inert and slow physical body in which they are anchored, and which prevents their escape under ordinary strain.

But at times, as said, the fright and shock are sufficiently severe to give them such an impulse that the etheric sense centers are deranged. This most frequently happens to persons born under common signs, which are the weakest in the zodiac. However, as a ligament that has been stretched and torn may gradually regain comparative elasticity, so also, in these cases, it is easier to restore the mental faculties than in those cases where congenital insanity, brought over from past lives, has caused inadequate connection.

With regard to physical abnormalities and deformities, the rule seems to be that as the physical indulgence of passion reacts on the mental state, so the abuse of the mental powers in one life leads to physical disability in later existences. An esoteric maxim says, "A lie is both murder and suicide in the Desire World." The teachings of the Elder Brothers given in The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception explain that whenever an occurrence takes place, a certain thought form generated in the invisible world makes a record of the incident. Every time the event is talked about or commented upon, a new thought form is created which coalesces with the original and strengthens it, provided they are both true to the same vibration. But if an untruth is told concerning what happens, then the vibrations of the original and those of the reproduction are not identical; they jar and jangle, tearing each other to pieces. If the good and true thought form is sufficiently strong, it will overcome and break down the thought forms based upon a lie, and the good will overcome the evil but where the lies and malicious thoughts are the stronger, they may overcome the true thought form of the occurrence and thus demolish it. Afterwards they will jar among themselves, and all will in turn be annihilated. All things, in the ultimate, work together for good.

Thus a person who lives a clean life, endeavoring to obey the laws of God and striving earnestly for truth and righteousness, will create thought-forms about him of a corresponding nature; his mind will run in grooves that harmonize with truth; and when the time comes in the second heaven to create the archetype for his coming life, he will readily, intuitively, by force of habit from the past life, align himself with the forces of right and truth. These lines being built into his body, will create harmony in the coming vehicles, and health will therefore be his normal portion in the coming life. Those who, on the other hand, have in the past life taken a distorted view of things, displayed a disregard for truth, and exercised cunning, extreme selfishness, and a disregard for the welfare of others, are bound in the second heaven to see things in an oblique manner also, because that is their habitual line of thought. Therefore, the archetype built by them will embody lines of error and falsity; and consequently, when the body is brought to birth, it will exhibit a weakness in various organs, if not in the whole bodily organization.

Again we warn students not to draw quick conclusions from these tentative rules. It is not our intention to imply that everyone that has a seemingly healthy body has been a paragon of virtue in his past life, and he who suffers from one disability or another has been a scapegrace or good-for-nothing. None of us are able to tell at the present time "the whole truth and nothing but the truth." We are deceived because our senses are illusive. A long street seems to narrow in the distance, when, as a matter of fact, it is just as wide a mile away as where we are standing. The sun and the moon seem much larger when near the horizon than when at the zenith; but, as a matter of fact, we know that they do not gain in size by descending toward the horizon, nor lose by ascending into the mid-heaven. Thus we are constantly making allowances for and correcting sense illusions; similarly, with everything else in the world. What seems to be true is not always so, and what is true today regarding conditions of life may change tomorrow. Therefore it is impossible for us to know truth in the ultimate under the evanescent and illusory conditions of physical existence.

It is only when we enter the higher realms, and particularly into the Region of Concrete Thought, that the eternal verities are to be perceived; hence we must necessarily make mistakes again and again, even despite our most earnest efforts always to know and tell the truth. On that account it is impossible for us to build a thoroughly harmonious vehicle. Were that possible, such a body would really be immortal, and we know that immortality in the flesh is not the design of God. Paul says that "flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God."

But we know that even today only a very small percentage are ready to live as near the truth as they see it, to confess it and profess it before men by service and by righteous and harmless living. We can only understand that such must have been few and far between in the by-gone days, when man had not evolved the altruism that came to this planet with the advent of our Lord and Savior, Christ Jesus. The standards of morality were much lower then, and the love of truth almost negligible in the greater part of humanity, who were engrossed in their endeavors to accumulate as much wealth or gain as much power or prestige for themselves as possible. They were therefore naturally inclined to disregard the interests of others, and to tell a lie seemed in no way reprehensible and sometimes even appeared meritorious. The archetypes were constantly full of weaknesses, and the organic functions of the body today are interfered with to a serious degree as a result, particularly as the Western bodies are becoming more high strung and more sensitive to pain on account of the Spirit's growing consciousness.

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• Reference: Rosicrucian Principles of Health and Healing, by Max Heindel
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