The average individual little realizes the profound truth of the Bible statement that man is fearfully and wonderfully made. He is indeed an epitome of the universe, and a god in the making.
It is the purpose of this series of studies to examine the human organism in its arcane aspects and to present facts, substantiated in the Holy Scriptures that will reveal somewhat of the body's divine design and celestial relationships. Frequent reference will be made to the seer-physician and prince of medieval alchemists, Paracelsus, whose knowledge and understanding of the construction of the body-temple of man, together with the life processes connected therewith, still remains pre-eminent in the alchemical field. The central motif of his life and works is contained in these words: "Commune with Nature, God's signature, and go within to find the riches of the kingdom of Heaven. This is the path of True Wisdom."
We know of no more admirable foreword to a discussion of occult anatomy than the instructions which Paracelsus gave to his disciples on the three greatest books.
"I am content with three books from which I may learn very great wisdom. The first is the Book of Nature, written not with ink or stylus, but with the fingers of God; wherein are inscribed and registered Heaven, Earth, and all creation therein, through the sacred impress of the Three in One; which volume is called Macrocosmus.
"The second, a small book, which with all its leaves and pieces is taken from the larger work, and this is man himself; the same also is the Microcosmus.
"God has further ordered that man have a twofold magnet, one composed of three elements (his body) and hence also he attracts them to himself. Another one is of the stars by which he attracts the stars. Therefore, the Reason of man bas a magnet which attracts into itself the mind and thoughts of the stars. The third magnet is hidden in the image of God in man's soul.
"The third Book is the Holy Bible, the Holy Writ of the Old and the New Testaments, which explains to us the two preceding Books.
"Generous friends, from these three Books we can, by the grace of God and the Holy Spirit, learn that which will profit us in body and in soul for time and eternity, and avoid many deceitful books of which the world is full."
In a study of occult anatomy we must consider man both prior to his birth in a physical body and subsequent to the dissolution of that body at death. The Spirit is immortal and its activity is ceaseless. It goes on uninterruptedly whether it functions on this plane or on others, in a physical body or in forms of finer texture. Before the Spirit's advent on earth in a physical body it undergoes a long period of preparation, and after leaving spiritual incarnation it experiences an extended time of assimilation of the spiritual fruits of the earth life just past.
No Ego ever comes to birth without the assistance of innumerable celestial Beings whose ministrations to the human race form a romance of incomparable splendor. St. Paul, observing their many and varied activities in the service of man, declared that we are ever encompassed about with clouds of invisible witnesses. Something of an outline of the work of those luminous Ones will be attempted in the following pages of this book.
It was therefore necessary that the patterns of things in the heavens should be purified ... — Hebrews 9:23
The universal formula of creation is stated by St. John in the opening verses of his Gospel: "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God . . . " The Word is formulated of the four alchemical principles of Fire, Earth, Air, and Water; or, in the words of Enoch: "And I gave him a name (ADAM) from the four substances: the East, the West, the North, and the South."
These four streams of force represent the ultimate polarity — Fire and Air being positive or masculine; Earth and Water being negative or feminine. Such are the potencies concentrated in each minute cell in which life has its beginning. Each cell is formed of the masculine principle of life coalesced with the feminine principle of form. The two powers are represented by the longitudinal and horizontal lines that bisect and divide the cell, impressing upon it the signature of the cross which is the signature of the Earth as well as of the human life evolving upon it.
The nucleus of each cell is visible as a spark of light blazing like a miniature star. This is the precipitation of the essence of life, the heart of the Word which may be translated as Love; for the Word, or Cosmic Christ Principle, and Love are interchangeable terms. "And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us." (John 1:14). Hence we may comprehend something of the truly divine origin of the fleshly tabernacle. It is not the part of wisdom to deny or abuse the body; true wisdom reveres, transforms, and glorifies it.
From the beginning of creation, the human family has been enfolded by the archetypal forces of the stars, personified in Revelation as the Seven Spirits before the Throne and the celestial hosts. Before there were any visible bodies in the heavens, these Spirits and angelic hosts sang before God's Throne, even as the human Ego pre-exists in the heavens before incarnation in a physical body.
The Spirit of Saturn (kabbalistically the Archangel Cassiel) gave the initial impulse of the Word in the First Day of Creation. Saturn is the architect of the solar system, and his signature is found in the bony structure of the human body, symbol of all that is most firm and most enduring. The Spirit of the Sun (the Archangel Michael, the Christ's representative in the war of light against darkness) is the personified Word, life's all-victorious radiance of the Second Creative Day. The Spirit of the Moon (the Archangel Gabriel) on the Third Day set his seal upon the archetypal patterns of etheric forces which are the matrix of all incarnational cycles. Mars (the Archangel Samael) on the Fourth Day impregnated the human soul with his own dynamic rhythms so that it might desire the change without which progress is impossible. In the Fifth Day, the Spirit of Mercury (the Archangel Raphael) impregnated the mortal intelligence with the capacity of reason so that it might become attuned to spiritual verities. In the Sixth Day, Jupiter will confer the gift of creative imagination and Venus will refine and transmute the soul-essences into usable power; their Archangels are Zachariel and Anael, respectively. The Seventh Day is the culmination of all the six foregoing labors, bringing to its close our great cycle of evolution, when the heavens shall be "rolled together as a scroll."
These Seven Great Days are reflected on a smaller scale in the various subcycles of evolution on the Earth. Three are already past, namely, the Saturn Period correlating to the Polarian Epoch, the Sun Period to the Hyperborean, and the Moon Period to the Lemurian; and a similar recapitulation of past epochs occurs within the cycle of each of the great races.
In the Polarian Epoch the Earth was still a part of the solar nebula. At the close of the Hyperborean Epoch the Earth was expelled from the Sun, and in the beginning of the Lemurian Epoch the Moon was expelled from the Earth.
In the Polarian Epoch, aeons previous to the Earth's separation from the Sun and its projection into space, the life wave which is our present Earth humanity had already evolved a kind of body; not densely physical, it is true, but gaseous and amorphous, with a feeler-like organ protruding from the top of that portion of the form which later developed into the head. After the body had evolved to something like its present human form, the protruding organ withdrew into the head and gradually became the pineal gland. This first "man" was the result of work performed under the supervision of the Hierarchies of Aries, Taurus, and Gemini. The human Spirit was not able to do its work alone and the supervision of the angelic hosts was really an internal guidance, the evolving life being controlled and directed from within, as it then had no free will of its own. The forces of Aries injected the spark of life into the archetypal form produced by Taurus, and the dual-force of Gemini set its androgyne impress upon the vivified archetype in a way which later resulted in the appearance of lungs. The forces of Leo then gave the flery impulse which fashions the heart.
The Second Day, or Hyperborean Epoch, came under the hierarchical supervision of Cancer and Virgo. The archetypal pattern now began to assume a more definite form, and was luminous with an inner shining. The embryonic alimentary canal and glandular system were added, while the lungs became centers of radiant light. It was in this Second or Sun Day that the Archangelic Christ dedicated Himself to the service of the Earth. (It is of interest to note that Christianity sets aside the Sun Day each week for dedication to the Christ.) The heart in this far-off time became the Christ center in man's body under Leo, the sign of the Archangelic Messenger, the Christ Spirit.
The archetypal pattern of this Second Day still retained the androgyne impress when, at its close, the Earth became detached from the Sun.
The work of the Moon Day or Lemurian Epoch came largely under the interior guidance of the Hierarchies of Gemini and Libra. Then, for the first time, the human figure assumed its present outlines. The cerebro-spinal nervous system and the voluntary muscles were then developed. (The sympathetic nervous system had been originated earlier in the Moon Period.) Under the lunar influences the hard, bony skeleton replaced the soft cartilaginous structure of earlier times. The lung-centers became gill-like in structure, as they adapted themselves from the flery fog of Lemuria to the water-laden atmosphere which was to characterize Atlantis. This adaptation occupied the millions of years intervening between the late Lemurian Epoch and the early Atlantean Epoch. It was at the beginning of the Lemurian Epoch that the Moon was detached from the Earth, a change which brought about a corresponding archetypal adaptation; the archetype no longer bore an androgyne impress, but expressed one sex only. The separation of the sexes therefore appears in evolution on this Day. This is biblically the period of Adam and Eve, man and woman.
The Fourth or Mars Day was largely under the dominance of Scorpio and Sagittarius and began sometime in the Lemurian Epoch when the Lords of Mind gave the germ of mind — its rudimentary principle — to the vanguard of humanity in whom a division of the desire body had become possible. These pioneers felt impulses and emotions which rose out of their animal nature, yet they vaguely perceived the existence of abstract moral and imaginative qualities. Their embryonic mind was linked with higher desires of which they now became conscious, and Schools of Initiation were organized in order that their progress might be accelerated by careful training, and thus provide teachers and guardians for their less evolved brothers. In the Atlantean Epoch mind was given to the masses of mankind. Thus the work of Third Day pioneers became the work of the masses in the Fourth Day.
Not until the Fifth or Mercury Day do we have a civilization on the Earth such as is familiar to us today. The forming of the archetypal patterns has gradually come more and more into man's own hands, giving him greater power over life and death. As humanity progresses, a minimum of the work is done by the Hierarchies working through and with him. The Lords of Mercury and Mars are most active at this juncture, their planetary forces ruling the hemispheres of the brain: Mercury the right, Mars the left.
The archetypal pattern of our present Fifth Day is under the control of the human Ego. The principal work of this day is the unfoldment of the Ego and the specialization of its creative powers in the forebrain, correlative to the consciously-worked separation of the etheric from the physical body. This includes also an awakening of the ductless glands. This separation, which is now brought about only by rigorous effort, will be incorporated in the archetypes of the Sixth Creative Day, and will then be the normal heritage of every human being.
The influence of Mars working through the brain and voluntary nervous system is responsible for the harvest of sin and bloodshed which humanity reaps today. This must continue until such time as man is ready to yield allegiance to Mercury instead of Mars; when reason, not blind force, shall rule.
The Sixth Creative Day will be primarily guided by Jupiter and Venus. The archetype of this Day will again radiate the luminosity of the Second or Sun Day. The body-pattern, however, will not be a shapeless object, but will be beautiful and symmetrical, so sensitized that it cannot assimilate flesh or even plant foods but will be sustained entirely upon the most ethereal substances. Man will learn once more to derive his sustenance directly from the sunshine and air without intermediaries of any kind, as in the Hyperborean Epoch. The larynx will then be the power organ of the body whereby spiritual generation through the spoken word will make man truly a god, able to create living beings at his own will.
The spiritualized centers within the head, the pineal and pituitary glands, will radiate the transmuted life essence. The heart will be in the center of the body sending forth a continuous aura of divine protection. The pneumogastric nerve which connects the brain and heart will be a thread of spiritual life-force, the symbol of immortality. The principal organs of the body will assume a flower shape, luminous and beautiful, functioning perfectly to the harmonious rhythms of the spiritualized vital body.
This new and perfected body will possess a dual spinal cord through which the forces of the Sun and Moon will flow to produce once more the spiritual equilibrium symbolized by the Philosopher's Stone. St. Paul had studied this sublime picture in the archetypal world when be wrote, "Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the (new) day." (Thessalonians 5:5). It is to this glorified people the Christ will return that they may abide with Him always.
In the Seventh Creative Day God rests! The Word, having perfected all creative and evolutionary development as included in the Earth's archetypal plan, is withdrawn again into the universal heart of God (all good). Its archetypal pattern, fashioned according to the highest emanations of the zodiacal Hierarchies, bears again the androgyne impress: "Made in the image and likeness of God.
The archetypal region is located in the realms of mental substance. The picture patterns of all that an Ego has been and has attained during past incarnational cycles is vividly outlined in mind-stuff. Therefore it is by use of the power inherent in this same mind substance that an individual can gradually alter both his personal and environmental archetypes. Hence the mind is the true occult or inner path of purification and perfection, and is for this reason the most important of all the vehicles of spirit. "Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind," is an admonition of profound esoteric significance.
As the forces of the mighty celestial Hierarchies produce continuous changes in the archetypal patterns of the evolving human body, so the archetypal body of the planet Earth is gradually undergoing transformation. A portion of the lessons learned by the disembodied Spirit in the interim between death and birth is concerned with this work.
In that interim, as in earth lives, one may perform his mission conscientiously or evade responsibilities. However the work is done, compensating lines of force extend into the next earth life and each Ego receives its just deserts. One who is born into a beautiful environment, or who is the recipient of Earth's bounty, is receiving the reward of work well done during the heaven — world interval. A barren and desolate environment, or repeated disappointments relative to the outpouring of nature's products, is but the accurate toll of justice for duties evaded or ill-performed in that inter-world period.
"Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap," applies to all planes of life and being.
The archetype is a vibratory mold composed of mental substance. It is activated by the Ego and the strength imparted to it determines the length of the incarnation to follow. When that imparted force is spent, the life of its externalized physical form ceases. The sand in the hourglass has run out.
The archetype may be compared to a hollow mold. Into that mold there is drawn the atoms of which the dense body is composed. The quality and potency of these atoms are determined by the seed atom of the physical body which carries over from one life to another.
In the case of a suicide whose term of life did not terminate in accordance with that of the archetype, the latter continues to vibrate until such time arrives as death would naturally have occurred. During that interim the Ego experiences a painful condition that has been compared to toothache. The archetype is "aching" for the substance which should rightly fill it, but which it cannot again appropriate. Some recollection of the suffering that ensues becomes the deterrent in a succeeding life to a repetition of committing such a wrong against the law of life.
When through concentration a contact is established with the archetype of any form, its inmost secrets become accessible. The archetype reveals its very nature; it veritably speaks to the qualified investigator. Its life's story is revealed through sound and light. It is grasped in its totality, past, present, and future being rolled up into a momentary revelation, since consciousness in the mental world, wherein the archetype exists, transcends this three dimensional world of time and space.
Every nation has its own archetype. This heavenly pattern is fashioned of both the highest ideals and the weaknesses of the nation. It is through the archetype which overshadows a land that the Race Spirit operates in an endeavor to eliminate weakness and to bring the ideal into objective manifestation.
Jerusalem and the Holy Land is an illuminating example of the above statement. Located in the ethers above the physical city in the hills of Judea is the heavenly Jerusalem. This was common knowledge among the early Christians, many of whom possessed the extended sight necessary to verify it for themselves. St. Peter refers in his Epistle to this "upper Jerusalem."
On Sunday, the Sun's Day, it was customary for the various groups of esoteric Christians who were following Our Lord's Way to assemble together and lift themselves in consciousness into ecstatic contemplation of this Holy City. From this practice arose the admonition current among them:
St. John in his Revelation details much of the glorious vision of the heavenly Jerusalem which it was granted to the worthy to behold. (His divine Revelation was received on the Sun's Day.) He describes his vision as follows: "And I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband."
The heavenly archetype includes, therefore, not alone all the minute details of the Earth's geographical structure, but also its flora and fauna, in addition to the human archetypes. Man's archetype is a direct reflection of his state of consciousness (evolution) at any point of time. Likewise, each organ of the physical body is an objectification of its etheric counterpart, and the etheric pattern in its turn a replica of the mental-realm archetype. Powerful inner spiritual forces produced the perfect physical body of the Grecian Golden Age, an era when many illumined Egos walked and communed consciously with the gods. The famed sculptors of that time possessed the ability to investigate and study these heavenly images at first hand, and to reproduce their perfect symmetrical proportions. The modern world has never ceased to marvel over the perfection with which the Greek sculptors portrayed the human body. The secret of their unparalleled sculptural art lay not in an anatomical knowledge, for that did not excel if indeed it equaled that of our own day, but was to be found in their ability to observe the perfect body-image as it exists in the archetypal world.
The forces used by an Ego in fashioning the archetype for another earthly embodiment are both harmonious and destructive in nature according to the fruitage of experience in past incarnations. Weakened and malformed organs are the result of inharmonious vibrations in the archetype, and are shown in squares and oppositions in the star map of the incoming Ego. The constructive or upbuilding forces which go into the fashioning of healthy organs are reflected as benefic aspects.
All objective forms possess an inner life-essence wherein lies hidden the source of their existence. These are created, as we have seen, by the angelic hosts, or celestial Hierarchies as we have designated them. In the case of the human archetypal patterns, the Ego that is preparing for birth assists in the work.
One of the most gifted of our modern poets, Angela Morgan, might well have been describing, man's archetypal pattern when she penned these lines:
A study of the archetypal loom will reveal the significance of the Fourth Commandment given by Moses: "Honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee." The terms "father" And "mother" refer also to the constructive and formative principles in Nature. When one learns to attune his life harmoniously to this dual creative force, he is necessarily in harmony with his fellow man, and all his acts are motivated by love and truth, the highest dictates of spirit.
Moses, the great seer, relates his experience in spiritual consciousness when he was shown "the pattern in the Mount." He there saw the Tabernacle with its Holy of Holies, in its deeper significance referring to the glorified or spiritualized body of man himself, which man must learn to build and inhabit in the New Age. Moses repeatedly declares: "I was faithful in all things to the pattern shown me in the Mount." The archetypal pattern which he saw during his forty days' vigil was that of the new post-Atlantean Fifth Root Race, which was then in process of formation under the supervision of the four great Hierarchies called the Lords of Destiny, namely: Taurus, Scorpio, Leo, and Aquarius.
Because of his experience on the Mount, Moses became a lawgiver in a much more profound sense than is generally understood by orthodox religionists. He not only met Jehovah, the Angelic Minister of all race religions, face to face, and received commands regarding the welfare of his people, but he also observed the working of the great Hierarchies. He beheld them weaving the cosmic pattern typified by the Tabernacle in the Wilderness, which sets forth symbolically the method and the direction of spiritual growth for the entire Fifth Root Race. This great privilege Moses earned by his intrinsic worthiness. He possessed a lofty spirituality, a devout humility, a forgetfulness of self, and a readiness to sacrifice himself for the benefit of others. According to infallible occult law, one who is worthy may for a time observe the processes being worked out on the inner planes by the Exalted Ones long before they manifest outwardly, and later he may assist them in their work. Moses incorporated in the Book of Exodus something of the glories revealed to his contemplation during his mystic forty days and forty nights on the Mount.
The form and building of the Ark of the Covenant, its furnishings, the materials and colors employed in each device, contain much esoteric significance which has been interpreted elsewhere.
Like Egypt's great Master, Hermes Trismegistus, Moses thus verified the occult truth that "Things which are above are as things which are below."
Another famed biblical character who adds his testimony relative to the existence of the heavenly patterns is the prophet-seer Ezekiel, who says in his mystical forty-third chapter:
The vision vouchsafed Ezekiel shows a further development of the celestial plan of man's progression. The cosmic skeins are woven in the closest relationship to human needs. It is the unwinding of this scroll which man in his blindness has considered the immutable Laws of Fate. Were he not so spiritually blind he would know that the Lords of Destiny give only the broad outline; man himself is free to fill in the details,
As we have seen, every geographical feature of the earth has its heavenly counterpart. The conditions of the New Age, the type of its people and the manner of their life are "reflected in the sky," and the seer beholds their descent in purity and beauty, "like a bride adorned."
When the human Spirit is released from the bondage of flesh by the processes of death, the first task in which it is engaged is that of clearing the causation generated during the earth life just terminated. This work usually occupies a length of time approximately one-third that of the Earth span. This is the purgatorial region of which the Church teaches.
After the process of purgation has been completed, the Ego is free to ascend into higher realms, there to partake of heavenly bliss and to learn how further to attune itself with the planetary forces. The time spent in these celestial realms depends upon the Ego's advancement. There are two different classes of Egos which come to rebirth quickly: the very material, who have a minimum of spiritual consciousness and therefore return to Earth as speedily as possible, and the very spiritual, who voluntarily sacrifice the bliss of heaven in order to return to Earth on some special mission of mercy and love. It also happens, but only exceptionally, that in order to have the needed environment for its best progress, an Ego is brought to Earth sooner than its "pattern" would ordinarily indicate; and also, on the contrary, an Ego sometimes is retained in the heaven world for a longer period of time, for the same reason. Such Egos are seldom happy in their earthly environment; but their experiences are none the less the most valuable for them at that stage of their development, despite their feeling from birth that the "time is out of joint."
Exactly in the same way that the liberated Spirit during the hours of sleep studies its own body processes, the better to exert control over them and so be able to live a fuller and more useful life during the day, so also the Spirit after death learns to cooperate with cosmic creative forces, that is, the angelic Hierarchies, in order to build a better body and environment for its next Earth incarnation.
It is the soul evolution of each Ego which determines its particular place in the Cosmic Plan and this in turn determines the kind of instruction it receives from its angelic teachers in heaven. One who has built an inferior mental structure while on Earth cannot transcend this limitation merely by reason of dying. However, the Ego is not at the mercy of its mortal intellect. It is the Ego which creates the intellect, and neither intelligence nor intellectual capacity is a fixed quality, but can change for better or worse during the course of a single lifetime. If it were not so evolution would be impossible. Nor is the process of evolution stopped at death. The Ego goes on from the point at which it stood at death. Everything must be worked through in heaven and Purgatory, as well as here on Earth, and no one can receive more than he has earned on any plane of manifestation.
In the interval between death and birth the Ego learns under the Saturn Ray how to think abstractly and how to conserve and project mental force. The Mars Ray teaches the dynamic qualities of mind and the constructive use of the power of desire. That this knowledge when brought down to Earth is so often used negatively is due to the personality having clouded the pure understanding of spirit gained in its heavenly home; but all this can be truly re-collected through meditation.
Under the Mercury Ray, man learns the use of the factual or concrete mind, and the modes of logic. Hermes Psychepompos was the Guide of Souls, with Hermes in the role of conductor of the souls through the Underworld. This is a most significant point in Grecian esotericism, and reminds us of the occult maxim that logic, or reason, is the best guide on all planes of being. The neophyte will do well to cultivate the rational faculty and never allow logic to be unseated by psychic phenomena of an exciting nature. It is our Elder Brothers from Mercury (typified in Hermes, or the Archangel Raphael) who teach the receptive Ego the proper use of mental concentration and picturization, and how to create, retain, or project mental images for purposes of demonstration in the earthly environment. Through the Venus Ray, the Lords from Venus (human like ourselves, as also are the Lords from Mercury) teach the Ego how to garner the soul-essences of life and assimilate them, so that the egoic Glory manifests an added luminosity. The Archangel of Venus, known as Anael, corresponds to Eros, the god of love in Grecian mythology. Eros was represented as a beautiful young man who, as Cupid, personifies the Divine Child or Love principle to be awakened within all mankind.
To all that the Ego has garnered of spiritual wisdom and experience, the archangelic Sun Force adds its own universal Power, and this becomes the Ego's central source of inspiration. The Jupiter Ray bears the impress of the spiritual forces to be released during coming ages. Only a portion of its power is now active. Uranus and Neptune work only with those advanced Initiate-egos who have passed through the portals of Initiation.
Every occultist or metaphysician knows that it is difficult to translate the happenings of spiritual realms into the language of the physical world. We may, however, give some small indication of those realms by saying that if it were possible for normal human sense to cognize them they would appear somewhat like vast layers of light vibrating at varying degrees of density. Within these immense strata of pulsating light-essence, the Spirits inhabiting them have the appearance of radiant scintillant sparks raying out the various colors of the spectrum. Every Ego, and every Angel, always carries the color of its individual Spirit Ray. In the highest and most attenuated realms, the color and musical note are simultaneously discernible.
The work of the Ego preparing for incarnation in these realms is purely mental. It works in mind-substance, which is far more solid and real than the dense matter familiar to our present poorly organized senses in the body. The mind-substance, by the use of the twin spirit powers of Will and Imagination, is organized along lines of force which make a definite pattern, according to the state of life and being of the Ego which does the work. The higher the realm, the clearer and more powerful are the lines of force, for their potency increases with their ethereality. These lines of force, which at lower levels are seen as magnetic rain or streams of magnetism, also bear the colors which correspond to their inherent quality. Altruistic impulses reveal beautiful tones of blue and gold. Personal motives without thought of others impregnate the forces with darker hues and the lines are uneven, which results in the distortion of the archetypal image.
Projected into the Desire World these currents indicate the anger and passion sent out by man upon the Earth. These forces are particularly heavy, and strongly impel the Egos which become caught in their currents. The Desire World is a network of such rays. They form, as it were, patterns of force, and each one of the various Mystery Schools has its own representative pattern. So also do the Black Brotherhoods. It is these lines of force in the Desire World which enable those knowing how to use them to vampirize other Egos, stealing from them their life-essence and destroying their health, or even causing their death as in the tales of witchcraft and sorcery which have come down from ancient times.
Again the lines appear etherically in the vital body, and finally in the dense body itself. On each plane the lines of force become denser and more slow-moving as they descend, hence, less potent for either good or ill.
Since the thought-forms of the mental realms control our physical world, it is evident that the heaven world experience is not wholly dissimilar to our earth life. Purgatory and heaven show a similarity to the civilizations on earth. The heaven world of a Christian is not like the heaven of other faiths, nor are the conditions in the inner world the same now as they were in ancient times, yet the same kind of work goes on at all times. Today, for example, the instructions being given in the heaven world deal largely with Universality, Oneness, Fellowship, and Brotherhood in preparation for the New World Order belonging to the coming Aquarian Age. These precepts would have been useless if given to the masses a century ago. The more advanced Egos are already receiving instructions on forces which will prolong both youth and life. These will not, however, be known to the masses before the latter half of the Aquarian Age.
In the World of Thought, the music of the spheres is a universally experienced fact of nature, All form is the product of sound, and the lines of force we have spoken of are in fact musical vibration and audible to the spiritual ear. When the Ego becomes sufficiently infused with the desire for rebirth, the rhythm of the music in which it lives, moves, and has its being changes, and it is enwrapped in harmonic measures which bear it downward toward the Earth plane. Downward is a relative term and means esoterically to draw toward ever denser matter.
The song of the zodiacal Hierarchies wafts the incoming Ego on wings of melody toward the new environment which eventually will mean birth into a physical body, and we have shown in preceding paragraphs, the Ego has itself helped prepare that environment according to the soul powers it developed in former earth lines.
Illumined Egos upon returning into earth life bring with them the memory of that exalted ceremonial which accompanies the preparation for human re-embodiment. Maeterlinck touches fancifully upon it in his mystic adventure play, "The Blue Bird."
This Ceremonial of Preparation is really the actual work of preparing the specific archetype of the body to be worn by the reincarnating Ego under the rhythmic emanations of the twelve zodiacal Hierarchies and their planetary agents. Although the principal work is done through and with the Hierarchy of Cancer, under Neptune the etheric archetype is formed and under the Moon is fashioned its physical duplicate. The archetype is infused with the life force of the Ego for whom it is built, and is attuned to the earth rhythms by the Hierarchy of Scorpio (the Lords of Form) and the Hierarchy of Sagittarius (the Lords of Mind).
The momentum of the celestial pattern is adapted to the intended life-span, although this span may be lengthened or shortened due to later events and circumstances connected with the Ego's earthly experience. As long as the archetype vibrates, life in the physical body will endure. It is the rhythmic music of the archetype which attracts and places the physical body atoms. The note of the archetype is given to it by the individual who is building it. It can be no higher or lower in pitch than the soul note of that Ego. If the Spirit has lost its clear spiritual vision through its encasement in the outer personality, the archetypal lines may become distorted and a misshapen physical body will be the result. Every act, thought, and feeling of the past has set its impress there for harmony or inharmony. it is these forces which are built into the Spirit's starry archetype (the horoscope) as benefic or malefic aspects.
It is only as one comes to these holy mysteries of the Ceremonial Preparation for Birth and realizes the vast unification of the powers of heaven and earth in connection therewith, that he fully appreciates the biblical statement that "man is fearfully and wonderfully made."
The forces of the feminine Cancer, together with her mystic ruler, the Moon, are active at the time of conception. Simultaneously, her opposite pole of Capicorn with its Saturnian planetary force, is crystallizing into shape the coming physical body.
The Hierarchy of Libra with its Venusian Love Ray gives the pattern for the desire body, while its opposite pole Aries endows it with the powers of life and motion.
The Lords of Leo through the spiritual Sun set the impress of divinity upon the heart, and the opposite polarity of Aquarius and Uranus holds that divine pattern whereby the heart is to become the sacred body center — the Sacred Heart in very truth — or the transfigured body — temple of the future.
The dual mind-forces separated under Gemini become spiritualized and unified under the opposite pole of Sagittarius. The mental powers are stimulated by Virgo and Mercury and fostered spiritually by the opposite pole of Pisces and Jupiter, while the etheric pattern is held by Virgo and inspired with spiritual radiance of the Piscean influence of Neptune, co-ruler with Jupiter of the constellation Pisces.
Taurus, the Lord of Karmic reaping, impregnates man-in-the-making with the Venusian forces of love and harmony; the opposite pole of Scorpio with the martial forces of inharmony and disintegration. The physical body and the earth plane are the battleground of these two forces. The oftener man dies the better he lives. Each interval between death and birth on the inner plane places the human Spirit in closer attunement with its own inherent god-power, and makes possible its increasing manifestation. These celestial experiences also awaken within man the realization that birth and death are but incidents in the eternal progress of the immortal Spirit.
Eventually when the Spirit is sufficiently strong, Venus (harmony and love) will overcome Mars (sex and death) in the world and the words of St. Paul will be realized: "Death will be swallowed up in victory."
Truly, in the words of Paracelsus, "There is a star behind every process going on in man. All the forces of heaven have their corresponding activity in the parts of the body that are expressive of their powers."
It is man's celestial pattern that determines the form and feature of his body in every particular — its height, color of eyes and hair, the temperament, and racial characteristics in general. In the invisible archetype lie the hidden causes of all that manifests in the visible form. The archetype bears the imprint of the most important events of the life to come: notably birth, marriage, death, or Initiation — if the Ego be so far advanced.
Every race and nation in and through which the Ego has functioned leaves its indelible imprint upon the Spirit, and the essence of these experiences are in turn impressed upon the archetypes of future bodies. These ethereal prototypes may be likened to mirrors in which every thought and emotion are pictured.
We are today what we made ourselves yesterday. If we do not like the results we can change them by altering the pattern after which we are fashioned and to which we are attuned. In other words, we can remake our lives. "Behold, I make all things new," said the Christ. This, too, is our own prerogative. More than that, it is the prerequisite for attaining citizenship in the New Age as Christed men and women.
We have said that the heart is the Sun of the body. As the life is renewed, spiritually important transformations take place in this organ. The archetype is more intimately associated with the heart than with any other part of the body, and consequently its animating impulses pass in and out of the body through this central contact. These life forces increase or decrease in accordance with man's mode of life, as evidenced in the story of "the good king Hezekiah" whose life was prolonged in order that he might complete a great work for his people. The dial upon which the hand was turned back as related in II Chronicles, is but another description of the life processes of the archetype, which may be altered and the years of life extended, provided the Ego has occupied himself in so constructive a manner that he is prepared to render to a number of people some high and useful service.
The archetypal life line is not to be changed for personal benefit or to give additional opportunities to the individual Ego, but in order that lie may use his acquired gifts in a larger mission for others. Note that it was a grave crisis in Israel requiring such wise leadership as Hezekiah could give that caused his life to be prolonged.
The archetype is a thought-form, hence amenable to the power of thought. This fact it is which gives to man the opportunity to make himself in the image and likeness of God, for man is truly " the little image of the great form. " By careful, constructive thought, man may build for himself here and now a temple that will reflect at all times His holy Presence. "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he." Jacob Boehme, the illumined mystic, writes concerning the invisible origin of the visible man:
"Out of the anguishing chamber of the body of the earth, out of the spirits of God are rising the stars which kindle the body of this world. Out of this body, the fruit or seed generateth itself which is Fire, Air, Water, and Earth.
"Man's house of flesh is also such a house as the dark deep of this world is (chaos), wherein the seven spirits of God generate themselves. The body taketh its food from the seed of the seven spirits of God in the body of the great deep which is Fire, Air, Water, and Earth.
"As in the deep of this world through the kindling (vibration) of the stars, a seed is generated out of the dark deep, so in like manner, in man's house of flesh there is generated a seed according to the eternal birthright of the seven or fountain spirits and in this seed there are three distinct things (will, wisdom, activity), according to the Trinity in the Deity."
— Corinne Heline
