[PAGE 1]                                                     THE VITAL BODY





                         -----------------------------     
                        [ T H E   V I T A L   B O D Y ]
                        [                             ]
                        [                             ]
                        [             BY              ]
                        [                             ]
                        [                             ]
                        [    M A X   H E I N D E L    ]
                        [        [1865-1919]          ]
                         -----------------------------    

 



                          THE ROSICRUCIAN FELLOWSHIP
                                  MT. ECCLESIA
                                  P.O. BOX 713
                      OCEANSIDE, CALIFORNIA, U.S.A., 92054





[PAGE 3]                                                      THE VITAL BODY


                                  FOREWORD

   The Western Wisdom School teaches as its fundamental maxim that "all  oc-
cult development begins with the vital body,"  stated  Max Heindel  initiate
of  the Order of the Rose Cross.   It is therefore with the purpose of  pre-
senting  in a concise and easily understood form all the important  informa-
tion  which the founder of The Rosicrucian Fellowship wrote in  his  various
letters,  lessons,  and books concerning the etheric vehicle that this  com-
piled material is published in book form.  To the layman in occult study, as
well as to the advanced student, it offers much of practical value.

   A  number of earnest students of the Western Wisdom Teachings have  given
unselfishly  and lovingly of their time and efforts in preparing this  mate-
rial for publication,  and it is their prayer that a copy of the volume  may
carry  its message of light and inspiration to every spiritual aspirant  who
is endeavoring to follow the Way of the Christ.


[PAGE 5]                                                     THE VITAL BODY

                                  CONTENTS

Foreword ..................................................3

Introduction...............................................7


                 PART I - PAST EVOLUTION OF MAN'S VITAL BODY

Chapter I
   During Periods and Revolutions.........................11
Chapter II
   During Epochs..........................................21


              PART II - MAN'S VITAL BODY IN PRESENT ARYAN EPOCH

Chapter I
   General Nature and Function............................31
Chapter II
   In Health and Sicknesses...............................57
Chapter III
   In Sleep and Dreams....................................81
Chapter IV
   At Death and in Invisible Worlds.......................92
Chapter V
   On Way to Rebirth.....................................120
Chapter VI
   Of Children...........................................124


[PAGE 6]                                                     THE VITAL BODY

                 PART III - VITAL BODY OF ANIMALS AND PLANTS

Chapter I
   General Nature and Function...........................133


          PART IV - RELATION OF VITAL BODY TO SPIRITUAL DEVELOPMENT

Chapter I

   An Important Factor...................................144
Chapter II
   Effect of Prayer, Rituals, and Exercises..............159
Chapter III
   Ancient Initiation....................................169
Chapter IV
   Positive and Negative Development.....................174

                      PART V - THE VITAL BODY OF JESUS

Chapter I
   As a Vehicle for the Christ...........................190

Bibliography.............................................197


[PAGE 7]                                                      THE VITAL BODY

                                INTRODUCTION

   The Rosicrucian  Philosophy teaches that man is a threefold Spirit,  pos-
sessing  a  mind  by means of which he governs a threefold  body,  which  he
emanated from himself to gather experience.   This threefold body he  trans-
mutes into a threefold soul,  upon which he nourishes himself from impotence
to omnipotence.  The Divine Spirit emanates from itself the dense body,  ex-
tracting as pabulum the Conscious Soul; the Life Spirit emanates from itself
the  vital  body,  extracting as pabulum the Intellectual  Soul;  the  Human
Spirit emanates from itself the desire body,  extracting as pabulum the Emo-
tional Soul.   The vital body is made of ether and pervades th 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.

   It  is  also taught in the Rosicrucian Philosophy that  our  evolutionary
scheme  is  carried  through five of the seven Worlds or  states  of  matter
(Physical,  Desire,  Thought,  World of Life Spirit, and the World of Divine
Spirit) in seven great Periods of Manifestation (Saturn, Sun,  Moon,  Earth,
Jupiter,  Venus,  and Vulcan Periods),  during which the Virgin  Spirit,  or
evolving life, becomes first, a man--then, a God.  We are now in the fourth,
or Earth Period,  which  is  divided  into seven Revolutions, as well as the


[PAGE 8]                                                      THE VITAL BODY

following seven Epochs:  the Polarian, Hyperborean, Lemurian, Atlantean, and
Aryan Epochs, and the New Galilee and the Kingdom of God yet to come.   (See
THE  ROSICRUCIAN COSMO-CONCEPTION,  pages 177-364.)  At the commencement  of
the Saturn Period twelve great Creative Hierarchies were active in the  work
of  evolution.   Two of these Hierarchies did some work to help at the  very
beginning....and  then  withdrew  from limited  existence  into  liberation.
Three more of the Creative Hierarchies followed them at the beginning of the
Earth Period:   the Lords of Flame, the Cherubim, and the Seraphim,  leaving
seven Hierarchies in active service when the Earth Period began:   the Lords
of Wisdom, the Lords of Individuality, the Lords of Form, the Lords of Mind,
the Archangels, the Angels, and the Virgin Spirits.


[PAGE 9]                                                      THE VITAL BODY

                                   PART I

                     PAST EVOLUTION OF MAN'S VITAL BODY



[PAGE 11]                                     DURING PERIODS AND REVOLUTIONS

                                  CHAPTER I

                       DURING PERIODS AND REVOLUTIONS

   THE  EVOLUTION  OF THE VITAL BODY AND THE LIFE SPIRIT OF WHICH  IT  IS  A
COUNTERPART WAS STARTED IN THE SECOND OR SUN PERIOD OF THE SEVEN GREAT  DAYS
OF MANIFESTATION.  IT HAS SINCE BEEN RECONSTRUCTED AND WILL REACH PERFECTION
IN THE JUPITER PERIOD.   IN A FUTURE STAGE MANKIND WILL NO LONGER NEED  THIS
VEHICLE, BUT NEVERTHELESS, ITS QUINTESSENCE WILL BE RETAINED.

   The Life Spirit and the vital body started their evolution in the Sun Pe-
riod and are consequently the particular charges of the Son.

   They (the Lords of Flame) had previously given the germ of the dense body
and, in the first half of the Saturn Revolution of the Sun Period, were con-
cerned with certain improvements to be made upon it.

   In  the Sun Period the formation of the vital body was to  be  commenced,
with  all thereby implied of capability for assimilation,  growth,  propaga-
tion, glands, etc.

   The  Lords of Flame incorporated in the germ of the dense body  only  the
capability of evolving sense organs.  At the time now under consideration it


[PAGE 12]                                                     THE VITAL BODY

became  necessary to change the germ in such a way as to allow of  interpen-
etration by a vital body,  also capability of evolving glands and an alimen-
tary  canal.   This was done by the joint action of the Lords of Flame,  who
gave the original germ, and the Lords of Wisdom, who took charge of material
evolution in the Sun Period.

   When  the  Lords  of Flame and the Lords of Wisdom  had,  in  the  Saturn
Revolution  of the Sun Period, conjointly reconstructed the  germinal  dense
body, the Lords of Wisdom, in the Second Revolution, started the proper work
of  the Sun Period by radiating from their own bodies the germ of the  vital
body, making it capable of interpenetrating the dense body and giving to the
germ the capability of furthering growth and propagation and of exciting the
sense  centers  of the dense body and causing it to move.   In  short,  they
gave,  germinally,  to the vital body all the faculties which it is now  un-
folding  to  become  a perfect and pliable instrument for  the  use  of  the
Spirit.

   We also note that,  as the first, or Saturn Revolution,  of any period is
concerned  with work in the dense body (because that was started in a  first
Revolution),  so the second,  or Sun Revolution,  of any period is concerned
with  improvements  on the vital body,  because it was started in  a  second
Revolution.

   It  may be said that in the Sun Period man went through the plant  exist-
ence.   He had a dense body and a vital body,  as plants have,  and his con-
sciousness, like theirs, was that of dreamless sleep.


[PAGE 13]                                     DURING PERIODS AND REVOLUTIONS

   Thus  there were two classes,  or kingdoms in the Sun Period,  i.e.,  the
stragglers of the Saturn Period, who were still mineral, and the pioneers of
the  Saturn Period,  who were capable of receiving the germ of a vital  body
and becoming plant-like.

   In the middle of the seventh Revolution of the Sun Period,  the Lords  of
Wisdom took charge of the germinal Life Spirit given by the Cherubim in  the
sixth Revolution of the Sun Period.   They did this for the purpose of link-
ing  it  to the Divine Spirit.   Their greatest activity in  this  work  was
reached  in the Cosmic Night intervening between the Sun and the Moon  Peri-
ods.   In the first dawn of the Moon Period,  as the life wave started  upon
its new pilgrimage,  the Lords of Wisdom reappeared,  bearing with them  the
germinal vehicles of the evolving man.  In the first or Saturn Revolution of
the Moon Period, they cooperated with the "Lords of Individuality,"  who had
special charge of the material evolution of the Moon Period.  Together, they
reconstructed the germ of the dense body,  brought over from the Sun Period.
This  germ had unfolded embryonic sense organs,  digestive  organs,  glands,
etc.,  and was interpenetrated by a budding vital body which diffused a cer-
tain degree of life into the embryonic dense body.   Of course,  it was  not
solid and visible as it is now,  yet in a crude sort of way it was  somewhat
organized and is perfectly distinguishable to the trained clairvoyant  sight
of  the competent investigator who searches the memory of nature for  scenes
in that far-off past.


[PAGE 14]                                                     THE VITAL BODY

   In the second,  or Sun Revolution of the Moon Period,  the vital body was
modified  to render it capable of being interpenetrated by the desire  body,
also of accommodating itself to the nervous system, muscle,  skeleton,  etc.
The Lords of Wisdom, who were the originators of the vital body, also helped
the Lords of Individuality with this work.

   In  the Sixth Revolution of the Moon Period the Cherubim  reappeared  and
vivified the Life Spirit of those who had been left behind in the Sun Period
but had since reached the necessary stage of development,  and also in those
stragglers  of the Sun Period who had now evolved a vital body during  their
plant existence in the Moon Period.

   The  pioneers of the new Life Wave had been going through a low stage  of
plant  existence;  nevertheless the majority of them had evolved  the  vital
body sufficiently to allow of the awakening of the Life Spirit.

   Thus,  the three last named all possessed the same vehicles at the begin-
ning  of the Earth Period,  although only the two first named belong to  our
life  wave,  and have a chance of even yet overtaking us if  they  pass  the
critical  point which will come in the next Revolution of the Earth  Period.
Those who cannot pass that point will be held over until some future  evolu-
tion reaches a stage where they can drop in and proceed with their  develop-
ment in a new human period.   They will be debarred from going forward  with
our humanity because it will be advanced  so far beyond their status that it


[PAGE 15]                                     DURING PERIODS AND REVOLUTIONS

would  prove a serious clog to our progress to drag them along.   They  will
not  be destroyed,  but simply held in waiting for another period of  evolu-
tion.

   At  the  end of the Moon Period these classes possessed the  vehicles  as
they  are classified in Diagram 10 (SEE PAGE 230 OF  THE  COSMO-CONCEPTION),
and started with them in the beginning of the Earth Period.  During the time
which has elapsed since then,  the human kingdom has been evolving the  link
of mind,  and has thereby attained full waking consciousness.   The  animals
have obtained a desire body; the plants a vital body;  the stragglers of the
life  wave which entered evolution in the Moon Period have escaped the  hard
and fast conditions of rock formation and now their dense bodies compose our
softer soils;  while the life wave that entered evolution here in the  Earth
Period forms the hard rocks and stones.

   Thus  we see that at the close of the Moon Period man possessed a  three-
fold body in varying stages of development; and also the germ of the  three-
fold Spirit.   He had dense, vital, and desire bodies, and divine,  life and
human Spirit.  All he lacked was the link to connect them.

   Another  creative  Hierarchy had special care of the three germs  of  the
dense,  vital,  and desire bodies as they were evolving.  They were the ones
who,  under the direction of the higher orders,  actually did the  principle
work on these bodies, using the evolving life as a kind of instrument.  This
Hierarchy is called the "Lords of Form."  They  were now evolved so far that


[PAGE 16]                                                     THE VITAL BODY

they  were given charge of the third aspect of the Spirit in man--the  Human
Spirit--in the coming Earth Period.

   Let us,  therefore,  analyze the matter and see what we have the right to
expect from one who lays claim to being a teacher.   To do this we may first
ask  ourselves,  What is the purpose of existence in the material  universe?
And we may answer that question by saying that it is evolution of conscious-
ness.   During the Saturn Period, when we were mineral-like in our constitu-
tion,  our consciousness was like that of the medium expelled from her  body
by  Spirit  controls at a materializing seance,  where a large part  of  the
ethers composing the vital body has been removed.  The physical body is then
in  a  very  deep trance.   In the Sun Period,  when  our  constitution  was
plant-like,  our consciousness was like that of dreamless sleep,  where  the
desire body,  mind,  and Spirit are outside,  leaving the physical and vital
bodies  upon the bed.   In the Moon Period,  we had a picture  consciousness
like  that which we have in dreams, where the desire body is only  partially
removed from the dense vehicle and the vital body.  Here in the Earth Period
our  consciousness has been enlarged to cover objects outside  ourselves  by
placing  all our vehicles in a concentric position,  as is the case when  we
are awake.

   The Earth Period is pre-eminently the Period of Form,  for here the  form
or matter side of evolution reaches its greatest and most pronounced  state.
Here Spirit is more helpless and suppressed and  Form  is  the most dominant


[PAGE 17]                                     DURING PERIODS AND REVOLUTIONS

factor--hence the prominence of the Lords of Form.

   During this Revolution (the second or Sun Revolution of the Earth Period)
the vital body was reconstructed to accommodate the germinal mind.   The vi-
tal  body was fashioned more in the likeness of the dense body,  so that  it
could  become fitted for use as the densest vehicle during the  Jupiter  Pe-
riod, when the dense body will have become spiritualized.

   The Angels,  the humanity of the Moon Period,  were aided by the Lords of
Form in reconstruction.   The organization of the vital body is now next  in
efficiency to the dense body.   Some writers on this subject call the former
a link,  and contend that it is simply a mold of the dense body,  and not  a
separate vehicle.

   While  not desiring to criticize,  and admitting that this contention  is
justified  by the fact that man,  at his present stage of evolution,  cannot
ordinarily  use the vital body as a separate vehicle--because it always  re-
mains with the dense body and to extract it IN TOTO would cause the death of
the dense body--yet there was a time when it was not so firmly  incorporated
with the latter, as we shall presently see.

   During  those epochs of our Earth's history which have already been  men-
tioned as the Lemurian and the Atlantean, man was involuntarily clairvoyant,
and it was precisely this looseness of connection between the dense and  the
vital bodies that made him so.  (The Initiators of that time helped the can-
didate to loosen the connection still further, as in the voluntary clairvoy-
ant.)


[PAGE 18]                                                     THE VITAL BODY

   Since then the vital body has become much more firmly interwoven with the
dense body in the majority of people, but in all sensitives it is loose.  It
is  that looseness which constitutes the difference between the psychic  and
the  ordinary person who is unconscious of all but the vibrations  contacted
by means of the five senses.  All human beings have to pass through this pe-
riod  of  close  connection of the vehicles and  experience  the  consequent
limitation  of  consciousness.    There  are,  therefore,   two  classes  of
sensitives, those who have not become firmly enmeshed in matter, such as the
majority of the Hindus,  the Indians, etc.,  who possess a certain low grade
of clairvoyance, or are sensitive to the sounds of nature, and those who are
in the vanguard of evolution.   The latter are emerging from the acme of ma-
teriality,  and are again divisible into two kinds, one of which develops in
a passive, weak-willed manner.  By the help of others they re-awaken the so-
lar  plexus or other organs in connection with the involuntary nervous  sys-
tem.  These are therefore involuntary clairvoyants, mediums who have no con-
trol of their faculty.  They have retrograded.  The other kind is made up of
those who by their own wills, unfold the vibratory powers of organs now con-
nected with the voluntary nervous system and thus become trained occultists,
controlling their own bodies and exercising the clairvoyant faculty as  they
will to do.  They are called voluntary or trained clairvoyants.

   In  the Jupiter Period the man will function in his vital body as he  now
does in his dense body; and as no development in nature is sudden,  the pro-
cess of separating the two bodies has  already  commenced.  The  vital  body


[PAGE 19]                                     DURING PERIODS AND REVOLUTIONS

will  then attain a much higher degree of efficiency than the dense body  of
today.   As it is a much more pliable vehicle,  the Spirit will then be able
to  use it in a manner impossible of realization in the case of the  present
dense vehicle.

   The  vital body was started in the Second Revolution of the  Sun  Period,
was reconstructed in the Moon and Earth Periods,  and will reach  perfection
in the Jupiter Period, which is its fourth stage, as the Earth Period is the
fourth stage for the dense body.

   Nothing  in Nature is wasted.   In the Jupiter Period the forces  of  the
dense body will be superimposed upon the completed vital body.  That vehicle
will then possess the powers of the dense body in addition to its own facul-
ties,  and will therefore be a much more valuable instrument for the expres-
sion of the threefold Spirit than if built from its own forces alone.

   Similarly,  Globe D of the Venus Period is located in the  Desire  World,
hence  neither  a dense nor a vital body could be used as an  instrument  of
consciousness.  Therefore the essences of the perfected dense and vital bod-
ies are incorporated in the completed desire body,  the latter thus becoming
a vehicle of transcendent qualities, marvelously adaptable and so responsive
to  the slightest wish of the indwelling Spirit that in our present  limita-
tions it is beyond our utmost conception.

   Yet the efficiency of even this splendid vehicle will be transcended when


[PAGE 20]                                                     THE VITAL BODY

in  the Vulcan Period its essence,  together with the essences of the  dense
and vital bodies,  are added to the mind body,  which becomes the highest of
man's  vehicles,  containing within itself the quintessence of all that  was
best in all the vehicles.   The vehicle of the Venus Period being beyond our
present power of conception,  how much more so is that which will be at  the
service of the divine beings of the Vulcan Period!


[PAGE 21]                                                      DURING EPOCHS

                                 CHAPTER II

                                DURING EPOCHS

   THE  POLARIAN,  HYPERBOREAN,  LEMURIAN,  AND ATLANTEAN EPOCHS WERE  RECA-
PITULATIONS OF THE STAGES THROUGH WHICH THE VIRGIN SPIRITS HAD PASSED.  CON-
SEQUENTLY, THE VITAL BODY UNDERWENT CHANGES DURING THOSE EPOCHS.

   When  man  first  came upon this earth the dense body was  built  in  the
POLARIAN EPOCH, and was vitalized by the interpenetration of a vital body in
the HYPERBOREAN EPOCH.  At that time man was like the Angels, male-female, a
complete creative unit, able to create from himself, by projecting his whole
creative force--which is love.

   When the earth came out of chaos,  it was at first in the dark red  stage
known as the Polarian Epoch.  There humanity first evolved a dense body, not
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.


[PAGE 22]                                                     THE VITAL BODY

   The  Lords  of Form appeared (in the Hyperborean Epoch) with  the  Angels
(humanity  of the Moon Period),  and clothed man's dense form with  a  vital
body.

   As  the Polarian Epoch was really a recapitulation of the Saturn  Period,
it  may be said that during that time man passed through the mineral  state;
he had the same vehicle--the dense body--and a consciousness similar to  the
trance state.   For analogous reasons, the plant state was passed through in
the  Hyperborean  Epoch,  as  man  had  a dense  and  a  vital  body  and  a
dreamless-sleep consciousness.

   By absorbing the crystalloids prepared by plants he evolved a vital  body
during the Hyperborean Epoch and became plant-like both in constitution  and
by nature, for he lived without exertion and as unconsciously as the plants.

   In  the  second,  or Hyperborean Epoch,  a vital body made of  ether  was
added, and man-in-the-making had then a body constituted as are those of the
present plants; he was not a plant but was plantlike.  Cain, the man of that
time,  is  described as an agriculturist; his food was derived  solely  from
vegetation, for plants contain more ether than any other structure.

   Cain is described as an agriculturist.  He symbolizes the man of the Sec-
ond Epoch.  He had a vital body like the plants which sustained him.

   In the second or Hyperborean Epoch,  God said:  "Let there be Light," the


[PAGE 23]                                                      DURING EPOCHS

hot  gas became a luminous firemist as it was in the Sun Period,  and  man's
dense  body was clothed with a vital body and it floated hither and  thither
above the fiery Earth as a large, baggy thing.   Man was then plant-like be-
cause  of having the same vehicles as the plant has now and the Angels  were
his helpers in organizing his vital body, and remain so to the present day.

   This may seem an anomaly,  as the Angels are the humanity of the Moon Pe-
riod,  where man got his desire body.  But is not,  for only in the Moon Pe-
riod did the evolving Earth condense into ether,  such as now forms the sub-
stance  of  our vital body,  and there the humanity  (the  present  Angels),
learned  to  build their densest bodies from etheric materials,  as  we  are
learning to build ours from the solids,  liquids,  and gases of the Chemical
Region.   They became experts at it,  as we will be at building a dense body
by the time the Earth Period is ended.

   In  the Polarian Epoch man had only a poorly organized dense body,  hence
he was as unconscious and immobile as the minerals,  who are now so  consti-
tuted.   In the Hyperborean Epoch his dense body was clothed upon with a vi-
tal body,  and the Spirit hovered outside.  What the effect of such a nature
is we may see by examining the plant, which is similarly constituted now.

   There we see constant repetition,  a building upward of stem and leaf  in
alternating succession, that would go on AD INFINITUM if there were no other
influence.  But as the plant has no separate desire body, the desire body of


[PAGE 24]                                                     THE VITAL BODY

the Earth,  the Desire World,  hardens the plant and checks this intense up-
ward growth in a measure.   The creative force that cannot find its  expres-
sion by making one particular plant grow taller, seeks another channel:   it
builds the flower and imbeds itself in the seed,  so that it may grow upward
anew in another plant.

   In  the Hyperborean Epoch,  where man was similarly situated,  his  vital
body  caused  him to grow to an enormous size.   Acted upon  by  the  Desire
World,  he threw off spore-like seed which were either appropriated  by  an-
other  human  Ego  or used by the nature spirits to  build  bodies  for  the
animals  who were then beginning to emerge from Chaos.   (The  highest  life
wave starts first at the opening of a period and returns last to Chaos;  the
succeeding life waves--animal,  plant,  and mineral--emerge later and  leave
earlier.)

   Thus,  in the Hyperborean Epoch,  when man was similar to the  plants  in
constitution,  his vital body built vertebrae upon vertebrae, and would have
gone on if the individual desire body had not been given him in Lemurian Ep-
och.   That  commenced to harden the structure and checked the  tendency  to
grow taller,  and as a result the cranium,  the flower upon the stem of  the
spinal column, was incipiently formed.

   Thwarted in its effort to build the one form taller,  it became necessary
for  the creative force in the vital body to seek a new channel  whereby  it
might  continue its upward growth in another human being.   Then man  became
hermaphrodite, capable of generating a new body from himself.


[PAGE 25]                                                      DURING EPOCHS

   Then we come to the second, the Hyperborean Epoch,  where man has a dense
and a vital body; that was the plant stage.  His food was the plants, and we
hear of Cain as an agriculturist.   Next comes the Lemurian Epoch,  and  man
gets the desire body.  He has three vehicles, like the animals.

   Then  we have that stage where he is to have food of a nature  that  will
feed all three bodies.  This he gets from living animals, as when Abel was a
shepherd.

   When we obtained our vital bodies in Hyperborea, the Sun, Moon, and Earth
were still united,  and the solar-lunar forces permeated each being in  even
measure so that all were able to perpetuate their kind by buds and spores as
do  certain plants of today.   The efforts of the vital body to  soften  the
dense  vehicle  and keep it alive were not then interfered with,  and  these
primal,  plantlike bodies lived for ages.  But man was then unconscious  and
stationary like a plant;  he made no effort or exertion.   The addition of a
desire body furnished incentive and desire,  and consciousness resulted from
the war between the vital body, which builds, and the desire body, which de-
stroys the dense body.

   Thus dissolution became only a question of time, particularly as the con-
structive energy of the vital body was also necessarily divided, one part or
pole being used in the vital functions of the body,  the other to replace  a
vehicle lost by death.   But as the two poles of a magnet or dynamo are req-
uisite  to manifestation,  so also two single-sexed beings became  necessary
for generation; thus marriage and birth were necessarily inaugurated to off-
set the effect of death.  Death,  then,  is  the price we pay for conscious-


[PAGE 26]                                                     THE VITAL BODY

ness  in  the present world;  marriage and repeated births are  our  weapons
against  the king of terrors until our constitution shall change and we  be-
come as angels.

   The higher vehicles of the early Atlanteans were not drawn into a concen-
tric 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 a
half inch below the surface of the skin,  which has a corresponding point in
the  vital  body.   This point is not the pituitary body,  which  lies  much
deeper  in the head of the dense body.  It might be called "the root of  the
nose."   When these two points in the dense and the vital bodies  come  into
correspondence,  as they do in man today,  the trained clairvoyant sees them
as a black spot,  or rather as a vacant space,  like the invisible core of a
gas flame.   This is the seat of the indwelling Spirit in the man--the  Holy
of Holies in the temple of the human body, barred to all but that indwelling
human  Ego whose home it is.   The trained clairvoyant can see with more  or
less distinctness, according to his capacity and training, all the different
bodies  which  form the aura of man.  This spot alone is  hidden  from  him.
This is the "Isis"  whose veil none may lift.   Not even the highest evolved
being on earth is capable of unveiling the  Ego  of  the  humblest and least


[PAGE 27]                                                      DURING EPOCHS

developed creature.   That,  and that alone upon earth, is so sacred that it
is absolutely safe from intrusion.

   These two points just spoken of--the one in the dense body and its  coun-
terpart in the vital body--were far apart in the men of the early  Atlantean
days,  as they are in the animals of our day.  The head of the horse's vital
body is far outside the head of its dense body.   The two points are  closer
together in the dog than in any other animal except, perhaps,  the elephant.
Whey they come into correspondence we have an animal prodigy, able to count,
spell, etc.

   On  account  of the distance between these two  points,  the  Atlantean's
power  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.   As the two approached  each
other,  man gradually lost touch with the inner worlds.   They became dimmer
as the dense Physical World became clearer in outline.  Finally, in the last
third of the Atlantean Epoch,  the point in the vital body was united to the
corresponding point in the dense body.   Not until then did man become fully
awake in the Physical World;  but at the same time that full sight and  per-
ception in the Physical World were gained,  the capability of perceiving the
inner worlds was gradually lost to most of the people.


[PAGE 28]                                                     THE VITAL BODY

   During  the existence of this Race (the Original Semites) the  atmosphere
of  Atlantis  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  ob-
jects clearly with sharp well-defined contours; but it also resulted in loss
of the sight pertaining to the inner worlds.

   In  the ages that have passed since the Lemurian Epoch humanity has  been
gradually building the cerebro-spinal nervous system, which is under control
of  the will.   In the latter part of the Atlantean Epoch,  this was so  far
evolved  that it became possible for the Ego to take full possession of  the
dense body.   That was the time (previously described) when the point in the
vital body came in correspondence with the point at the root of the nose  in
the dense body and the indwelling Spirit became awake in the Physical  World
but,  so far as the greater part of humanity was concerned,  lost conscious-
ness of the inner worlds.




[PAGE 29]                                        GENERAL NATURE AND FUNCTION

                                   PART II

                   MAN'S VITAL BODY IN PRESENT ARYAN EPOCH


[PAGE 31]                                        GENERAL NATURE AND FUNCTION

                                  CHAPTER I

                         GENERAL NATURE AND FUNCTION

   MANKIND  IS NOW EVOLVING IN THE AYRAN EPOCH.   HIS VITAL BODY  HAS  FUNC-
TIONS,  COLOR,  FORM,  ATOMIC STRUCTURE AND POLARITY.   ITS EXISTENCE CAN BE
PROVED.

   We have seen that man is a very complex organism, consisting of:

   (1)   The dense body, which is his tool in action.
   (2)   The vital body, a medium of "vitality" which makes action possible.
   (3)   The desire body, whence comes desire and which compels action.
   (4)   The mind, a brake on impulse, giving purpose to action.
   (5)   The Ego, which acts and gathers experience from action.

   The purpose of life is to transform the powers latent in the Ego into dy-
namic  energy,  whereby it may perfectly control its different vehicles  and
act as IT pleases.   We know that it does not have full sway now,  or  there
would be no warfare in our breasts,  as we say,  between the Spirit and  the
flesh,  but in reality,  as we should say, between the Spirit and the desire
body.   It is this warfare that develops the spiritual muscle,  as wrestling
builds the physical muscle.  It is easy to bid others do this and that,  but


[PAGE 32]                                                     THE VITAL BODY

to enforce obedience from ONESELF is the hardest task in the world,  and  it
has  been truly said that "the man who conquers himself is greater  than  he
who takes a city."  Goethe, the great initiate poet, gives us the reason why
in the lines:

   FROM EVERY POW'R THAT HOLDS THE WORLD IN CHAINS,
   MAN FREES HIMSELF WHEN SELF-CONTROL HE GAINS.

   In  addition  to the visible body of man which we see with  our  physical
eyes, there are other and finer vehicles that are unseen by the great major-
ity  of mankind.   Nevertheless they are not superfluous appendages  to  the
physical  body,  but are indeed much more important from the fact that  they
are  the springs of all action.  Without these finer vehicles  the  physical
body would be inert, senseless, and dead.

   The first of these vehicles we call the vital body because it is the  av-
enue of vitality which leavens the dead lump of the mortal coil in the years
of life, and gives us the power to move.

   When  our present visible body first germinated in the Spirit,  it was  a
thought-form,  but gradually it has become denser and more concrete until it
is now a chemical crystallization.   The vital body was next emanated by the
Spirit  as a thought-form and is in the third stage of concretion  which  is
etheric.

   Besides the dense body which is visible to all of us, there are finer ve-
hicles which interpenetrate this organism and which are the springs to  its


[PAGE 33]                                        GENERAL NATURE AND FUNCTION

activities.   One  is  the vital body, composed of ether  and  concerned  in
building the dense body by the food which we take into the system.   It con-
trols  all  the  vital  functions,  such  as  respiration,  digestion, assi-
milation,  etc.,  and  works  through  the sympathetic nervous system.   An-
other,  still finer vehicle, is called the desire body.  This is the vehicle
of our emotions,  feelings, and desires which expends the energies stored in
the dense body the vital processes through control of the cerebro-spinal  or
voluntary nervous system.   In its activities this desire body is constantly
destroying and breaking down tissue built up by the vital body and it is the
war  between these two vehicles which causes what we call  consciousness  in
the Physical World.  The etheric forces in the vital body act in such a man-
ner that they convert as much of the food as possible into blood,  and  this
is the highest expression of the vital body.

   Propagation  is  a faculty of the vital body which is the shadow  of  the
Life Spirit, the second aspect of the threefold Spirit in man.

   Cherubim  are described as having been put on guard with a flaming  sword
when man was driven out from Eden,  lest he eat of the Tree of Life and  be-
come  immortal,  for they are the great creative Hierarchy which had  charge
over  the  Earth in the Sun Period, when the vital body germinated  and  the
Life Spirit was awakened.

   In our Bible there is a description of the first people upon earth.  They
are called Adam and Eve; but properly interpreted this means the human race,


[PAGE 34]                                                     THE VITAL BODY

which gradually arrogated to itself the power of procreation and thereby be-
came free agents.   Humanity was thus given its freedom and made responsible
to the Law of Consequence,  for it had arrogated to itself the power to cre-
ate new bodies,  and was then separated from the Tree of Life and the  state
which we are now cognizant of as etheric.  When we learn that we have a  vi-
tal  body made of ether,  and that it is the tree of life to everyone of  us
and  furnishes us the vitality whereby we are enabled to make the  movements
of the body, we may understand why the power to recreate and regenerate our-
selves  was taken away from us lest we learn how to vitalize  the  imperfect
dense body;  and we also see why, as stated in the Bible,  there were placed
at the gate of the Garden of Eden Cherubim with flaming swords to guard that
region.

   It  was for a good purpose that this power was taken away.   It  was  not
through malice in order that man should suffer in sorrow and pain,  but  be-
cause  it was only by repeated existences in an inferior body that we  could
learn to build for ourselves such a vehicle as would be fit to  immortalize.
Man  gradually came down from the etheric state to the present solid  condi-
tion.   He could dwell in the etheric state as easily then as he  can  today
dwell  in  the present three elements of the Physical World.   In  the  past
etheric state he contacted internally the life currents that we now  contact
unconsciously.  He was then able to center the energy of the Sun in his body
and draw it in in a manner different from  that at present used.  This power


[PAGE 35]                                        GENERAL NATURE AND FUNCTION

was gradually taken away from him as he entered the more solid state of  the
present.

   That body of ours which is composed of ether is called the VITAL BODY  in
Western Mystery Schools,  for, as we have already seen,  ether is the avenue
of ingress for vital force from the Sun and the field of agencies in  nature
which   promote   such  vital  activities  as  assimilation,   growth,   and
propagation.

   This  vehicle is an exact counterpart of our visible body,  molecule  for
molecule,  and  organ for organ,  with one exception,  which we  shall  note
later.   But it is slightly larger, extending about one and one-half  inches
beyond the periphery of our dense vehicle.

   The  spleen is the entrance gate of forces which vitalize the  body.   In
the  etheric counterpart of that organ solar energy is transmuted  to  vital
fluid  of a pale rose color.   From thence it spreads all over  the  nervous
system, and after having been used in the body it radiates in streams,  much
as bristles protrude from a porcupine.

   During  the daytime the vital body specializes the colorless solar  fluid
which is all about us,  through the organ we call the spleen.   The vitality
permeates the whole body and is seen by the clairvoyant as a fluid of a pale
rose  color,  having been transmuted upon entering the  physical  body.   It
flows  along every nerve,  and when it is sent out by the brain  centers  in
particularly large quantities it moves the muscles to which the nerves lead.

   During the waking state there is a constant  war  between  the vital body


[PAGE 36]                                                     THE VITAL BODY

and the desire body.  The desires and impulses from the desire body are con-
stantly impinging upon the dense body, impelling it to action, regardless of
any damage resulting to the latter instrument,  so that desire is gratified.
It is the desire vehicle that urges the drunkard to fill his system with li-
quor,  so that the chemical combustion of spirit may raise the vibrations of
the  dense body to such a pitch as to make it the willing tool of every  mad
impulse,  wasting  its stored energy with reckless prodigality.   The  vital
body,  on the other hand, has no other interest than the preservation of the
dense vehicle.   By way of the spleen it specializes the colorless solar en-
ergy which pervades space,  and by some strange chemical process  transforms
it into a vital fluid of a beautiful pale rose color, sending it along every
nerve and fiber of the body.  The vital body ever aims to husband the energy
it has stored in the dense body.   It is constantly concerned in  rebuilding
the  tissues  when they are broken down and destroyed by  the  powerful  on-
slaughts of the rampant desire body.

   Four of these colors are quite indescribable,  but the fifth--the  middle
one of the five--is similar to the tint of an newblown peach blossom.  It is
in fact the color of the vital body.

   Man's dense and vital bodies have straightened,  but his higher  vehicles
still retain their ovoid form.

   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


[PAGE 37]                                        GENERAL NATURE AND FUNCTION

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 ether atoms which  cor-
respond to solids and liquids in the Physical World,  because they assume  a
certain definite shape which they preserve.  But in addition each human  be-
ing  at  this stage of evolution has a certain amount of the light  and  re-
flecting ethers, which are the vehicles of sense perception and memory,  in-
termingled in his vital body.   We may say that the light ether  corresponds
to the gases in our Physical World; perhaps the best description that can be
given of the reflecting ether is to call it hyper-etheric.   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.


[PAGE 38]                                                     THE VITAL BODY

   The light and reflecting ethers are of an exactly opposite nature to that
of the stationary prismatic ethers 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  ex-
perience 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.

   When we analyze the human being,  we find that in him all four ethers are
dynamically active in the highly organized vital body.   By means of the ac-
tivities  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


[PAGE 39]                                        GENERAL NATURE AND FUNCTION

Spirit to control its vehicles by means of thought.   This ether also stores
past experience as memory.

   The vital body of plant, animal, and man, extends beyond the periphery of
the dense body as the Etheric Region, which is the vital body of the planet,
extends beyond its dense part, showing again the truth of the Hermetic axiom
"as above,  so below."   The distance of this extension of the vital body of
man  is about an inch and a half.  The part which is outside the dense  body
is  very luminous and about the color of a new-blown peach blossom.   It  is
often  seen  by persons having very slight  involuntary  clairvoyance.   The
writer has found,  when speaking with such persons, that they frequently are
now aware that they see anything unusual and do not know what they see.

   The  dense  body  is  built into the matrix of  this  vital  body  during
ante-natal life,  and with one exception, it is an exact copy,  molecule for
molecule,  of the vital body.   As the lines of force in freezing water  are
the avenues of formation for ice crystals,  so the lines of force in the vi-
tal body determine the shape of the dense body.   All through life the vital
body  is the builder and restorer of the dense form.   Were it not  for  the
etheric heart the dense heart would break quickly under the constant  strain
we put upon it.  All the abuses to which we subject the dense body are coun-
teracted,  so  far  as  lies in its power,  by  the  vital  body,  which  is
continually fighting against the death of the dense body.

   The exception  mentioned  above is that the vital body of a man is female


[PAGE 40]                                                     THE VITAL BODY

or  negative,  while that of a woman is male or positive.   In that fact  we
have the key to numerous puzzling problems of life.   That woman  gives  way
to  her emotions is due to the polarity noted,  for her positive vital  body
generates  an excess of blood and causes her to labor under an enormous  in-
ternal  pressure  that would break the physical casement were not  a  safety
valve  provided in the periodical flow,  and another in the tears which  re-
lieve the pressure on special occasions--for tears are "white bleeding."

   Man may have and has as strong emotions as woman,  but he is usually able
to  suppress them without tears,  because his negative vital body  does  not
generate more blood than he can comfortably control.

   Unlike  the  higher vehicles of humanity, the vital body does  not  ordi-
narily  leave  the  dense  body until the death of  the  latter.   Then  the
chemical forces of the dense body are no longer held in check by the  evolv-
ing life.  They proceed to restore the matter to its primordial condition by
disintegration so that it may be available for the formation of other  forms
in the economy of nature.  Disintegration is thus due to the activity of the
planetary forces in the chemical ether.

   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 vital body presents  millions  of
points to the observer.   These points enter into the hollow centers of  the
dense atoms, imbuing them with  vital  force  that  sets them vibrating at a


[PAGE 41]                                        GENERAL NATURE AND FUNCTION

rate higher than that of the mineral of the earth which is not thus acceler-
ated and ensouled.

   When a person is drowning, or falling from a height, or freezing, the vi-
tal body leaves the dense body,  the atoms of which become temporarily inert
in  consequence,  but at resuscitation it re-enters the dense body  and  the
"points"  are again inserted in the dense atoms.   The inertia of the  atoms
causes them to resist the resumption of vibration,  and that is the cause of
the intense prickly pain and the tingling sensation noted at such times, but
not ordinarily, for the same reason that we become conscious of the starting
or stopping of a clock, but are oblivious to its tick when it is running.

   There  are  certain cases where the vital body partly  leaves  the  dense
body,  as when a hand "goes to sleep."   Then the entire etheric hand of the
vital  body  may be seen hanging below the dense arm like a glove,  and  the
points  cause  the peculiar pricking sensation felt when  the  etheric  hand
re-enters the dense hand.   Sometimes in hypnosis the head of the vital body
divides  and hangs outside the dense head,  one half over each shoulder,  or
lies around the neck like the collar of a sweater.   The absence of  prickly
sensation  at  awakening in cases like this is because during  the  hypnosis
part of the hypnotist's vital body had been substituted for that of the vic-
tim.

   The atoms of the chemical and life ethers gather around the nuclear  seed
atom located in the solar plexus are shaped like prisms.   They are all  lo-
cated in such a manner that when the solar energy  enters  our  body through


[PAGE 42]                                                     THE VITAL BODY

the spleen, the refracted ray is red.  This is the color of the creative as-
pect 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 fecun-
dation which perpetuate the race.

   During life each prismatic vital atom penetrates a physical atom and  vi-
brates  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 cor-
responds to the north pole of the earth.

   Thus the point of the prism penetrates the physical atom at the narrowest
point,  which corresponds to the south pole of our earth,  and the whole re-
sembles a top swinging,  swaying, and vibrating.  In this manner our body is
made  alive  and capable of motion.   (It is noteworthy that  our  earth  is
similarly permeated by a cosmic body of ether, and that those manifestations
which  we note as Aurora Borealis and Aurora Australis are etheric  currents
circling  the earth from pole to equator as currents in the  physical  atoms
do.)

   The light and reflecting ethers are avenues of consciousness and  memory.
They  are  somewhat  attenuated  in  the average individual and have not yet


[PAGE 43]                                        GENERAL NATURE AND FUNCTION

taken definite form;  they interpenetrate the atom as air interpenetrates  a
sponge, and they form a slight auric atmosphere outside each atom.

   If we had said that the vital body is built of prisms instead of  points,
it  would  have been better,  for it is by refraction through  these  minute
prisms  that the colorless solar fluid changes to a rosy hue as observed  by
other writers beside the author.

   Other new and important discoveries have also been made; for instance, we
know  now  that the silver cord is grown anew in each life,  that  one  part
sprouts  from  the seed atom of the desire body in the great vortex  of  the
liver,  that the other part grows out of the seed atom of the dense body  in
the  heart,  that both parts meet in the seed atom of the vital body in  the
solar  plexus,  and that this union of the higher and lower vehicles  causes
the quickening.  Further development of the cord between the heart and solar
plexus during the first seven years has an important bearing on the  mystery
of  child-life,  likewise  its fuller growth from the  liver  to  the  solar
plexus,  which takes place during the second septenary period, and is a con-
tributory cause of adolescence.  Completion of the silver cord marks the end
of child-life,  and from that time the solar energy which enters through the
spleen  and is tinted by refraction through the prismatic seed atom  of  the
vital body located in the solar plexus,  commences to give a distinctive and
individual coloring to the aura which we observe in adults.


[PAGE 44]                                                     THE VITAL BODY

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

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


[PAGE 45]                                        GENERAL NATURE AND FUNCTION

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

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

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


[PAGE 46]                                                     THE VITAL BODY

Such a muscle is the heart.

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

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

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

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

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


[PAGE 47]                                        GENERAL NATURE AND FUNCTION

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

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

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

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

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


[PAGE 48]                                                     THE VITAL BODY

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

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

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

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


[PAGE 49]                                        GENERAL NATURE AND FUNCTION

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

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

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

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


[PAGE 50]                                                     THE VITAL BODY

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

   We  said in the beginning of this description that the vital body  is  an
exact  counterpart of the dense body with one exception:   it is of the  op-
posite  sex,  or perhaps we should rather say polarity.   As the vital  body
nourishes  the dense vehicle,  we may readily understand that blood  is  its
highest visible expression,  and also that a positively polarized vital body
would  generate  more blood than a negative one.   Woman who  is  physically
negative has a positive vital body, hence,  she generates a surplus of blood
which is relieved by the periodical flow.  She is also more prone to  tears,
which are white bleeding,  than man, whose negative vital body does not gen-
erate more blood than he can comfortably take care of.   Therefore it is not
necessary  for  him  to have the outlets which relieve excess  of  blood  in
woman.

   The Angels,  who  were  the  humanity  of the Moon Period, WORK WITH MAN,


[PAGE 51]                                        GENERAL NATURE AND FUNCTION

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

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

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


[PAGE 52]                                                     THE VITAL BODY

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

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

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

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


[PAGE 53]                                        GENERAL NATURE AND FUNCTION

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

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

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


[PAGE 54]                                                     THE VITAL BODY

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

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

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


[PAGE 55]                                        GENERAL NATURE AND FUNCTION

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

   Though science has not directly observed this vital body of man,  it  has
upon several occasions postulated the existence of such a vehicle as  neces-
sary to account for facts in life and the radiations have been observed by a
number  of  scientists  at different times  and  under  varying  conditions.
Blondlot  and Charpentier have called them N-rays after the city of  Nantes,
where  the radiations were observed by these scientists,  others have  named
them  "the  Odic fluid."   Scientific investigators who have  conducted  re-
searches  into psychic phenomena have even photographed it when it has  been
extracted through the spleen by materializing Spirits.   Dr.  Hotz,  for in-
stance, obtained two photographs of a materialization through the German me-
dium, Minna-Demmler.  On  one  a  cloud  of ether is seen oozing out through


[PAGE 56]                                                     THE VITAL BODY

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



[PAGE 57]                                                     THE VITAL BODY

                                 CHAPTER II

                           IN HEALTH AND SICKNESS

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

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

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


[PAGE 58]                                                     THE VITAL BODY

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

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

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

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

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


[PAGE 59]                                             IN HEALTH AND SICKNESS

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

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

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

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


[PAGE 60]                                                     THE VITAL BODY

dense in structure; then the period of convalescence commences.

   During  ill  health the vital body specializes but little  solar  energy.
Then,  for a time,  the visible body seems to feed upon the vital body as it
were,  so  that the vehicle becomes more transparent and attenuated  at  the
same rate as the visible body exhibits a state of emaciation.  The cleansing
odic radiations are almost entirely absent during sickness,  therefore  com-
plications set in so easily.

   Man, who has the positive physical body, has a negative vital body.  Thus
he  is  not  able to resist disease as well as woman,  who  has  a  negative
physibody,  but a positive vital vehicle.   For that reason woman is able to
endure a siege of sickness that would kill a man twice her weight and appar-
ent vitality.   She suffers more keenly than man,  but bears pain with  more
fortitude.   When the favorable turn comes,  her positively polarized  vital
body  seems  to suck in,  as with a million mouths,  the solar  energy.   It
swells and begins almost immediately to radiate the streamers so  character-
istic of health, with the result that the physical body recuperates apace.

   On the other hand,  when a man has been brought very low by sickness  and
the turn of the tide sets in,  his negatively polarized vital body is like a
sponge.  it will absorb all the solar energy it can get, but the avidity no-
ticeable in the vital body of the woman is lacking.   Therefore he lingers a
long  while  in  the  shadow  of  death, and as it is easier to give up than


[PAGE 61]                                             IN HEALTH AND SICKNESS

fight, he succumbs oftener.

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

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


[PAGE 62]                                                     THE VITAL BODY

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

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

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

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


[PAGE 63]                                             IN HEALTH AND SICKNESS

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

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

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


[PAGE 64]                                                     THE VITAL BODY

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

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

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


[PAGE 65]                                             IN HEALTH AND SICKNESS

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

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


[PAGE 66]                                                     THE VITAL BODY

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

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


[PAGE 67]                                             IN HEALTH AND SICKNESS

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

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


[PAGE 68]                                                     THE VITAL BODY

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

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

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


[PAGE 69]                                             IN HEALTH AND SICKNESS

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

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


[PAGE 70]                                                     THE VITAL BODY

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

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


[PAGE 71]                                             IN HEALTH AND SICKNESS

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

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

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

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


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