Part 9

That which nourishes a thing, goes to make up its substance. The physical body receives its nutriment from the physical plane, the soul is nourished by the influences coming from the soul of the world, the intellect is nourished, grows and expands in the intellectual plane; an ill-fed body becomes diseased; a soul living on morbid desires and inordinate longings becomes depraved, a mind fed with false theories, errors and superstitions becomes dwarfed, perverted and unable to turn its face towards the sunlight of truth. The food for soul and mind is as substantial to them as material food is substantial to the material body; body, soul, and spirit being three states of the eternal One, manifested on three different planes of existence, being governed by only one fundamental law. What the stomach is in the body, the memory is in the mind. Both are related together; a dyspeptic stomach causes a defective memory and an irritable mind; an irritable temperament causes indigestion and forgetfulness; forgetfulness can cause inattention, irritability and dyspepsia. Soul, body and mind are one in man, and disorders existing in one can cause impurities in the other; each passion in man, each superstition in which he firmly believes, is capable of poisoning his body and of producing a certain disease. A belief in salvation made easy renders a man indolent, indolence causes want of self-control, which causes want of resistance to injurious influences in the physical plane. Repeated physical misfortunes may make a man a coward, and his cowardliness prevents him from letting go of a doctrine which he intuitively known to be false. Anger is not only injurious to bodily health, but drives away reason by confusing the mind; wrath causes not only mental but also physical shortsightedness, and hard-hearing is often the only cause of a suspicious character.

Thus innumerable comparisons may be drawn and analogies be found, and cases cited to prove the correctness of this theory, if our space would permit it, and if it were necessary to prove by arguments and facts the truth of the unity of the all, which must be self-evident to everyone taking the trouble to seek for the answer to such questions within himself.

But the highest cannot act upon the lowest without an intermediary link connecting them, the spirit cannot act upon the body without the connecting link of the soul, nor the soul upon the body except by means of the life. We cannot cook a dish of soup for a starving beggar by means of the fire of love; but love moves the will and induces actions which the mind directs, and thus the soup may be cooked after all owing to the power of love or charity. The greatest difficulty in the understanding of occult laws arises from the circumstance that we cannot perceive remote causes or seek to connect them with ultimate effects without being able to see through the intricate network of intermediary causes between the two ends.

III.—ENS NATURAE.

Diseases which have their origin in certain conditions inherent in the constitution of man.

Man is a perfect child of nature. There is not a single essence in his constitution which does not exist in nature; neither is there any substance or power to be found in nature which does not exist in him, either actually or potentially, undeveloped or developed.

“There are many who say that man is a microcosm; but few understand what this really means. As the world is itself an organism with all its constellations, so is man a constellation (organism), a world in itself, and as the firmament (space) of the world is ruled by no creature, so the firmament which is within man (his mind) is not subject to any other creature. This firmament (sphere of mind) in man has its planets and stars (mental states), its exaltations, conjunctions and oppositions (states of feelings, thoughts, emotions, ideas, loves and hates), call them by whatever name you like, and as all the celestial bodies in space are connected with each other by invisible links, so are the organs in man not entirely independent of each other, but depend on each other to a certain extent. His heart is his {symbol}, his brain his {symbol}, the spleen his {symbol}, the liver {symbol}, the lungs {symbol}, and the kidneys {symbol}.” (“Paramirum,” III. 4.)

Man has two kinds of natures. His physical organism is a product of that nature which he received from his terrestrial parents; his mental organisation is the result of a higher and quite different kind of evolution. His terrestrial nature includes not only his visible organism, but also the organisation of his astral form and his mental constitution.

“There are two kinds of flesh. The flesh of Adam (the physical body) is gross earthly flesh; the flesh that is derived from Adam is of a subtle kind. It is not made of gross matter, it penetrates through all walls without requiring doors or holes; nevertheless both kinds of flesh have their blood and bones, and both differ again from the spirit.” (Paracelsus, “De Nymphis.”)

Man having within himself the same essences and powers, and there being only one universal law of evolution, there takes place in him a development similar to, if not identical with, the development in eternal and internal nature. Accords and discords in his nature can grow and swell into harmonies or disharmonies, and constitute the whole man a symphony or cacophony, colouring his whole being and transmitting this to his offspring. A seed of wheat and a seed of barley resemble each other, and nevertheless wheat grows out of one and barley out of the other. The ovum of a human being shows no essential difference from that of a monkey; nevertheless out of the one grows a human being and out of the other a monkey. The nature of man is fully expressed in every part of his organism, and in the sperm of the father is contained not only the quality of this or that part of his nature, but the potentiality of the whole.

The quality of the constitution of a man determines the length of his natural life.

“If a child is born, its firmament (astral body and mind, etc.) is born with it, containing the seven principles, of which each has its own potencies and qualities. What is called ‘predestination’ is only the quality of the powers in man. The weakness or strength of his constitution determines whether his life is to be short or long, according to natural laws; the planets in him run their course whether he has a long or a short life, only in the former case the course of his planets is of a longer, and in the other case of a shorter duration. The quality of the constitution which a man receives at his birth determines the length of his natural life, just as the quantity of sand in an hour glass determines the time when it will have run down.” (“Paramirum,” L. I., Tr. iii., C. 5.)

The Ens Naturæ therefore refers to those beginnings in man’s constitution which are the result of the quality of his body, soul and mind as he received them from nature, and includes all inherited physical diseases, qualities of temperament and mental peculiarities; for the earthly part of the mind (Káma Manas) belongs to terrestrial nature and its tendencies are inherited; while the spiritual part of the mind (Manas Buddhi) is not inherited from the parents, but belongs to the spiritual man whose parent exists in eternity.

This class includes all internal diseases originating from disorders arising among the interaction of the physiological functions of the organs of the body, or of the interaction between these and those of the soul (the emotions) and mind (thoughts).

This system of Paracelsus includes the whole realm of modern physiology and pathology; but it penetrates deeper, for it investigates the functions of soul and mind, and follows the development of an evil desire or thought until it ultimately finds its expression in an external manifestation of visible pathological states. To enter into the details of this field of pathology is not possible within the limits of this book.

There is no indication that the sympathies and antipathies, in other words the physiological relations existing between the different organs in the human body, are better known at the present time than they were at the time of Paracelsus: on the contrary, he speaks of the currents of the life-principle taking place between these organs, while modern anatomy speaks only of nerves, which are in regard to the “life-fluid” what electric wires are in regard to electricity.

“The heart sends its spirit (will power) through the whole of the body, as the sun his power to all the planets and earths; the {symbol} (the intelligence of the brain) goes to the heart and back again to the brain. The fire (heat) takes its origin in the (chemical) activity of the organs (the lungs), but pervades the whole body. The liquor vitæ (essence of life) is universally distributed and moves (circulates) in the body. This ‘humor’ contains many different powers, and cause in him ‘metals’ (virtues or vices) of various kinds.” (“Paramirum,” L. I. Tr. 3.)

In regard to this subject modern medical science says:—

“A wide basis of positive knowledge in regard to this subject does not exist. The physiology of the different departments of the sympathetic system of nerves is now only beginning to shape itself, while on the side of pathology and morbid anatomy there is even still less of definite knowledge. Thus it happens that for the most part only conjectures, often very insecurely based are current, or can be said to exist in regard to the dependence of definite sets of symptoms, or distinct diseases, upon disordered actions or morbid changes occurring in one or other part of the sympathetic system of nerves.” (“H. Charlton Bastian.”)

Both ancient and modern science are right as far as they go; only while modern science pays all of its attention to the forms (organs, nerves, etc.), which are merely the products of certain principles and powers and the instruments for their activity, ancient science deals with these powers themselves, taking only into secondary consideration the visible instruments in and through which they become manifest. Modern science, so to say, studies the muscular movements of a musician, occult science knows the art of music itself. Material science is the servant mixing the paints for the painter; the true physician is the artist who knows how to paint. The one studies the tools which the workman uses; the other sees also the workman himself. These comparisons are not drawn for the purpose of throwing discredit upon modern medical science, nor for the purpose of blaming any modern physician for not employing powers which he does not possess; but for the purpose of indicating that a knowledge of physical phenomena and visible forms is not the limit of all attainable knowledge, and that there exists a higher and more important kind of knowledge, based upon a higher perception, such as is attained only through the higher development of the spiritual character of man; which becomes possible only when earthly presumption and vanity are overcome and when, by stepping up higher, he realises the nothingness of the terrestrial illusion of “self.”

IV.—ENS SPIRITUALE.

Diseases arising from spiritual causes.

“Spirit”—from spiro, to blow—means breath. “Breath means a power, quite distinct from mechanical force, as being endowed with consciousness, life and intelligence. In its aspect as an universal power, it means the breath of God which caused the universe to come from a subjective state into objective existence; in its individual aspect it means the spiritual power dwelling in man.

Spirit is Consciousness in every plane of existence; but from this it does not follow that all the forms in which it dwells necessarily manifest self-consciousness or are even conscious of existence. For the manifestation of perfect spiritual self-consciousness a spiritual organism is required, such as an average man does not possess, if he has not been reborn in the spirit. In the forms of the mineral kingdom the presence of spirit is perceptible by the manifestations of mineral life, in the vegetable kingdom by the manifestations of vegetable life, and in the animal kingdom by those of animal life, for spirit is itself the basis of life in the physical, astral, intellectual and spiritual world; and as the spirit of the universe is the spiritual breath of God, issuing from the centre and returning to it, so is the spirit of man the spiritual power which enters into his constitution, and issues again when the body dies.

“That is a spirit, which is born from our thoughts; immaterial and in the living body. That which is born after our death is the soul.” (“Paramirum,” L. I., C. iv., 2.)

“The spirit is not born from reasoning, but from the will.” (Ibid. 3.)

“Spirit,” in other words, is a form of Will endowed with thought; a spiritual power, neither good nor evil in itself; but which becomes good or evil according to the purpose for which it is employed. Its functions are willing, imagining, and remembering.

A great deal has been written about the power of will and imagination in Nature, by means of which the types existing in the memory of the universal mind continually find re-expression in physical visible forms; in this place we have to deal only with the qualities of these three functions, and the effects which they produce in the body of man.