Part 11

THE FIVE CLASSES OF PHYSICIANS.

There being five causes of disease, and as each disease ought to be treated with reference to its cause, there may be distinguished five distinct modes of treatment, which, however, must not be confounded with five different systems such as anyone may choose at his own pleasure, for each of these modes requires the possession of certain distinct natural qualifications, of which the higher are at present only rarely to be found. While the science of the lower methods, such as prescribing drugs, using hot or cold water, or applying any other physical forces, may easily enough be taught to anybody in possession of an ordinary amount of intelligence, the real art of medicine requires higher gifts and talents, which cannot be acquired in any other way than according to the law of spiritual evolution, by the higher development of the inner man. A physician in possession of the powers conveyed by wisdom may also acquire a knowledge of the medical views and technicalities which form the stock in trade of the lower orders of physicians; but a physician of a lower order cannot practise the art of the higher order without becoming initiated into that order by means of the development of the power required for it.

This will make it clear that the quality of the physician himself is of as much importance as the system which he practises, and Paracelsus distinguishes five classes of physicians: the three lower classes seeking for their resources in the material plane; the two higher classes employing remedies belonging to the supersensual plane; but he also says that, owing to the unity of nature, either one of these classes of physicians may accomplish cures in either one of the five fields, and that no physician ought to change around from one system to another; but each ought to stick to that “sect” to which he naturally belongs.

These five classes of physicians he describes as follows:

1. Naturales; such as employ physical remedies, acting as opposites; which means, using physical and chemical means, heat against cold, etc., etc. (Allopaths).

2. Specifici.—Those who employ certain remedies which experience has shown to act as specifica (Empirics, Homœopaths).

3. Characterales.—Such as employ the powers of the mind; acting upon the will and imagination of the patient (Mental healers, Mind cure, Mesmerism, &c.).

4. Spirituales.—Those who are in possession of spiritual powers, using the magic power of their own will and thought (Magic, Psychometry, Hypnotism, Spiritism, Sorcery).

5. Fideles.—Those through whom “miraculous” works are performed in the power of the true faith (Adepts).

To which of these five “sects” or faculties a physician belongs, he ought to be thoroughly versed and experienced in that department, having not merely a superficial but a thorough knowledge of it.

“In whatever faculty one desires to acquire a degree and obtain success, he should, besides regarding the soul and the diseased body of the patient, exert himself to obtain a thorough knowledge of that department, and be taught more by his own intuition and reason than by what the patient can tell him; he ought to be able to recognise the cause and origin of the disease which he treats, and his knowledge ought to be unwavering and not subject to doubts.” (“Paramir.,” I., Prolog.)

There are, therefore, in each of these classes three grades to be distinguished, namely: (1) those who possess the full requirements of their art; (2) those who have attained only mediocrity; (3) dunces, pretenders and frauds; to which belong the vast array of licensed and unlicensed quacks, such as thrive upon the ignorance and credulity of the people and by means of their poisons and drugs “kill annually more persons than war, famine and the plague combined.” But neither of these five classes of physicians should regard their own system as the only true one, and reject the others or consider them useless; for in each is contained the full and perfect power to cure all diseases that come from either of the five causes, and each will be successful if such is the will of the Law.

I.—NATURALES.

To this class belongs the vast army of what is to-day usually termed “regular practitioners,” meaning those who move in the old ruts of official medical science, from the more or less progressive physician down to the vendor of drugs. The remedies which they employ belong to the three kingdoms of physical nature, and according to the elements which they represent, may be divided as follows:

1. Earth.—This includes all mineral, vegetable, and animal substances that may be required for medical purposes, drugs, herbs, and their preparations, chemical agents, &c.

2. Water.—To this belongs the water cure, hot and cold baths, and whatever may be connected with it.

3. Air.—The therapeutic results which can be accomplished by means of inhaling certain gases and vapours are at present comparatively little known, except in so far as changes of climate are resorted to for such purposes. The employment of such things as pure air, sunlight, etc., is far too simple to find full appreciation of its value by a generation whose mode of thinking is too complicated to enable them to perceive simple truths, and is therefore considered to belong rather to “hygiene” than to “therapeutics.”

4. Fire.—To the agents belonging to this class may be counted any kind of energy, heat and cold, sunlight and the actions of its variously coloured rays, physical electricity, mineral magnetism, etc., all of which have thus far received very little attention from modern medicine; while the ancients employed such remedies for the cure of many diseases.

5. Ether.—The one element and its action is thus far hardly theoretically admitted by modern science and practically almost unknown. Only very recently a great step of progress in this direction has been made by the discovery of the therapeutic action of the solar ether, and by the employment of an apparatus for the employment of its radiations.

But the sphere of activity for the natural physician is not limited to the extent of the merely physical plane. If he goes a step higher he may employ not only the products of life, but the activity of life itself, in a higher form. The sources from which he receives the physical remedies are the physical products of nature; the sources from which he draws living powers are living organisms. To this department belongs the employment of “animal magnetism;” the transfer of life (Mumia); the transplantation of diseases and similar things thoroughly described by Paracelsus, Cornelius Agrippa and others, but which for our present official medical science do not exist.

Even those who employ only gross material principles also employ, without being conscious of it, the higher principles contained therein; for every physical substance, to whatever kingdom in nature it may belong, is an expression of not only one of the four elements, but of all four, and contains all the higher principles. Thus, for instance, it has been shown that the action of certain drugs corresponds to that of the colours which they exhibit in the solar-spectrum; each state of matter also corresponds to a certain state of electric tension; each particle of food proves the presence of the life principle in it by being nutritious; each poisonous drug acting upon the mind, shows thereby that the mind principle therein is in a high state of activity. There is no “dead matter” in the universe; each thing is a representation of a state of consciousness in nature, even if its state of consciousness differs from ours, and is therefore beyond the reach of our recognition; everything is a manifestation of “Mind,” even if does not exhibit any intelligent functions, or what we are capable of recognising as such.

For the comprehension of these things, the position adopted by modern natural science is altogether insufficient, and such a philosophical knowledge is required as shall constitute the first pillar in the temple of medicine. There is a vast field still unexplored by modern medical science, and if things which were known to the ancients are not known at present, it is not because such sciences have never existed, but because they have ceased to be understood owing to the materialising tendency of this age.

II.—SPECIFICI.

To this class belong all physicians who under certain circumstances employ certain remedies, of which they know from experience that under similar circumstances similar remedies have proved successful. This system may therefore be called “Empiricism,” and it constitutes the greatest part of modern therapeutics; for what little is known to-day of the physiological and therapeutic actions of medicine on the whole the result of observation, and not of a knowledge of the fundamental laws of nature which cause medicines to act as they do.

Heat is a specific remedy for cold, and moisture for dryness; but even the very opposite remedies often have the same specific effect. Thus, for instance, the pain caused by an inflammation, and the inflammation itself, may be cured by cold as well as by hot applications to the inflamed part; for in one case the walls of the blood vessels contract, diminishing the quantity of the blood rushing to them, while in the other case these vessels dilate, rendering the rush of blood painless and easy. The specific action of chemicals is due to their chemical affinities (harmonies). Thus the invigorating action resulting from the inhalation of fresh air is caused by the affinity which Oxygen has for the Carbon in the blood, and by the life principle of the air upon the life principle in the body. Thus the tubercle-bacilli in the lungs may be destroyed by the specific action of certain gases, which, inhaled, form certain chemical compounds with certain elements contained in these micro-organisms, and thereby cause their destruction. Everything in the universe takes place for a certain reason and has a certain specific action depending on certain conditions. If we know the laws and conditions, experience becomes a science; but where our science is blind, experience can be our guide.

Like knows like. The physical senses only recognise physical things; but all visible things are an expression of soul, and what can we know about the Soul of Things, if we do not know that soul which is our own? There can be no motion, where there is no emotion to produce it, either directly or indirectly. All motions are manifestations of energy; energy is a manifestation of consciousness; consciousness is a state of the mind; mind is a vehicle for the manifestation of spirit; spirit is the “Breath” by which the world was created.

If the colours of the Tattwas and their nature were studied, a new field for medical science would open. It would become possible to explain why a raving maniac kept in a room of blue light will become quieted, and a melancholy person improve in a room filled with red or yellow rags; why a steer will become excited at the sight of red, and a mob infuriated by the sight of blood. Where the laws in consequence of which certain effects occur are unknown, we can only register the facts. If we recognise a truth by experience we can make use of it, leaving it to sceptical science to arrive at its recognition by hobbling along on its crutches of external observation and inference.

These inferences are often drawn from wrong premises; effects mistaken for causes; drugs administered where the sources of the diseases exist in moral and mental conditions upon which drugs have no effect, etc., etc. The application of specific remedies therefore requires not merely a knowledge that this or that remedy has effected such and such cures, but also a knowledge of the circumstances in which it will produce such effects again. The real Arcanum is the understanding of the relation existing between cause and effect. To those shortsighted practitioners who behold in every disease nothing but the manifestation of a purely physical or chemical cause, and to whom “mind,” “soul” and “spirit” are terms without meaning or merely physiological functions of unconscious matter, the Arcana of such cures will ever remain unknowable mysteries; for they can be known only to those who understand the organization of the inner nature of man. The phenomena caused by life are incomprehensible as long as life is regarded as a product of forms without life; but he who is able to see in every living thing a manifestation of the One Life pervading all nature, a function of universal will, has already entered the precincts of that higher science, which cannot be explained by words, if it is not known to the heart.