[PAGE 72 cont'd]                                              THE VITAL BODY

But it is with great thankfulness that he records  his  conviction  that  we
need have no fear on that score. Only when people are premeditatively  mali-
cious and vindictive, and persistently harbor a desire and a purpose to  get
even with some one, only when such feelings are hugged,  nursed,  and enter-
tained do they harden the  vital  body  and  cause  the interlocking grip of
these  vehicles. We know from the records of the great war that the rank and
file have no such sentiments against one another, but that enemies  meet  as
friends  whenever  chance brings them into such relationship that  they  may
converse one with another.  So, though war is responsible for the awful mor-
tality  now and will cause deplorable infant mortality in a future  age,  it
will be blameless with regard to the dreadful diseases engendered by  obses-
sion and the crimes suggested by these demoniacal sin bodies.

   Though mental disabilities,  when congenital,  are generally traceable to
abuse of the creative function in a past life, there is at least one notable
exception to this rule,  namely,  cases such as mentioned in THE ROSICRUCIAN
COSMO-CONCEPTION and elsewhere in our literature,  and described as follows:
Where a Spirit,  who has a particularly hard life before, it,  comes down to
rebirth  and  feels upon entering the womb that the panorama of  the  coming
life then shown it marks an existence too hard for it to undergo,  it  some-
times tries to run away from the school of life.  At that time the Recording
Angels  or their agents have already made the connection between  the  vital
body and the sense centers of the brain in the forming foetus; therefore the
effort of the Spirit to escape from the mother's womb is frustrated, but the


[PAGE 73]                                             IN HEALTH AND SICKNESS

wrench that is given by the Ego deranges the connection between the  etheric
and  physical sense centers,  so that the vital body is not concentric  with
the physical, causing the etheric head to extend above the physical cranium.
Thus it is impossible for the Spirit to use the dense vehicle; it is tied to
a  mindless  body which it cannot use,  and the  embodiment  is  practically
wasted.

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

   Insanity is always caused by a break in the chain of vehicles between the
Ego an the physical body.  This break may occur between the brain centers an
the vital body, or it may be between the vital and the desire body,  between
the desire body and the mind, or between the mind and the Ego.   The rupture
may be complete or only partial.

   When  the break is between the brain centers and the vital body,  or  be-
tween  that  and  the  desire  body,  we have the idiots.  When the break is


[PAGE 74]                                                     THE VITAL BODY

between the desire body and the mind,  the violent and impulsive desire body
rules and we have the raving maniac.   When the break is between the Ego and
the mind, the mind is the ruler over the other vehicles and we have the cun-
ning maniac,  who may deceive his keeper into believing that he is perfectly
harmless until he has hatched some diabolical, cunning scheme.   Then he may
suddenly show his deranged mentality and cause a dreadful catastrophe.

   There is one cause of insanity that it may be well to explain,  as it  is
sometimes possible to avoid it.   When the Ego is returning from the  invis-
ible world toward re-embodiment, it is shown the various incarnations avail-
able.   It sees the coming life in its great and general events,  much as  a
moving picture passing before its vision.  Then it is given the choice, usu-
ally,  of several lives.   It sees at that time the lessons it has to learn,
the  fate it has generated for itself in past lives,  and what part of  that
fate it will have to liquidate in each of the embodiments offered.   Then it
makes its choice and is guided by the agent of the Recording Angeles to  the
country and family where it is to live its coming life.

   This  panoramic view is seen in the Third Heaven where the Ego  is  naked
and  feels  spiritually above sordid material considerations.   It  is  much
wiser then than it appears here on earth,  where it is blinded by the  flesh
to an inconceivable extent.   Later, when conception has taken place and the
Ego  draws into the womb of its mother,  on about the eighteenth  day  after
that  event,  it comes in contact with the etheric mold of its new  physical
body which has been made by the Recording Angels to give the brain formation


[PAGE 75]                                             IN HEALTH AND SICKNESS

that will impress upon the Ego the tendencies necessary to work out its des-
tiny.

   There the Ego sees again the pictures of the COMING life, as the drowning
man perceives the pictures of his PAST life --in a flash.   At that time the
Ego is already partially blind to its spiritual nature,  so that is the com-
ing life seems to be a hard one, it will oftentimes shrink from entering the
womb and making the proper brain connections.   It may endeavor to draw  it-
self out quickly and then,  instead of being concentric as the vital and the
dense  bodies should be,  the vital body formed of ether may be  drawn  par-
tially  above the head of the dense body.   It that case the connection  be-
tween  the sense centers of the vital body an the dense body  are  disrupted
and the result is congenital idiocy, epilepsy, St. Vitus dance,  and similar
nervous disorders.

   Insanity  is a rupture in the vehicles between the Ego and  the  physical
body,  and this derangement may occur between the Ego and the mind,  between
the mind and the desire body, or between the desire body and the vital body,
and also between the latter and the dense body.  If the break is between the
dense and the vital body or between that and the desire body,  the Ego  will
be  perfectly sane in the Desire World immediately after death,  because  it
has then discarded the two vehicles which were afflicted.

   Where the break occurs between the desire body and the mind,  the  desire
body is, as a matter of course, still rampant, and often causes the Ego much
trouble during its existence in the Desire World; for the Ego, of course, is


[PAGE 76]                                                     THE VITAL BODY

at no time insane.   What appears as insanity arises from the fact that  the
Ego has no control over its vehicles; the worst of all, obviously,  is where
the  mind itself has become affected and the Ego is tied to the  personality
for a long time until these vehicles are worn away.

   We  have seen that in the waking state the dense body and the vital  body
are surrounded and interpenetrated by an egg-shaped cloud comprising the de-
sire body and the mind.  These vehicles are all concentric, and form so many
links in a chain.   It is the interpolation of one into the other,  so  that
the  sense centers in one are in proper alignment with the sense centers  of
the other, which enables the Ego to manipulate the complex organism and per-
form  in an ordered manner the life processes which we call reason,  speech,
and  action.   If  there  is  a  maladjustment  anywhere  the  Ego  will  be
correspondingly  hampered anywhere the Ego will be correspondingly  hampered
in its expression.  This perfect balance is health, the opposite is disease.

   Disease takes many forms;  one is insanity, and that also is of different
kinds.  Where the connection between the sense centers of the dense body and
the vital body is askew,  where sometimes the head of the vital body  towers
above the dense head instead of being concentric with it,  the vital body is
out of adjustment with both the higher vehicles and the dense body.  Then we
have the docile idiot.   Where the dense and vital bodies are in  adjustment
but  the  break  is  between  the  vital body and the desire body, a similar


[PAGE 77]                                             IN HEALTH AND SICKNESS

condition  obtains,  but when the break is between the desire body  and  the
mind we have the raving maniac, who is more ungovernable that a wild animal,
for that is checked by the Group Spirit.   In that case all the animal  pro-
pensities are followed blindly.

   While  there  are very few who will defend the abuse  of  the  generative
function,  many people who follow spiritual precepts in other  things  still
have the feeling that frequent indulgence of the desire for sexual  pleasure
works no harm;  some even have the idea that it is as necessary as the exer-
cise of any other organic function.  This is wrong for two reasons:   First,
each  creative act requires a certain amount of force which burns up  tissue
that  must be replenished b an extra amount of food.   This strengthens  and
augments  the  chemical ether.   Secondly, as the  propagative  force  works
through the life ether, this constituent of the vital body is also augmented
with each indulgence.   Thus we strengthen the two lower ethers of the vital
ody by sending the creative force downwards for gratification of our  desire
for pleasure;  and their interlocking grip upon the two higher ethers  which
form  the soul body becomes tighter and more powerful as time goes  on.   As
the  evolution of our soul powers and the faculty of traveling in our  finer
vehicles  depends  upon the cleavage between the lower ethers and  the  soul
body,  it is evident that we frustrate the object we have in view and retard
development by indulgence of the lower nature.

   As soon as the vital body has been placed the returning Ego,  clothed  in
its  bell-shaped  covering,  hovers  constantly near the future mother.  She


[PAGE 78]                                                     THE VITAL BODY

alone  does  the  work  upon the new dense body in  the  first  eighteen  to
twenty-one days after fertilization,  then the Ego enters the mother's body,
drawing  the bell-shaped covering down over the fetus.   The opening at  the
bottom closes,  and the Ego is once more incarcerated in the prison house of
the dense body.

   The moment of entrance into the womb is one of great importance in  life,
for  when the incoming Ego first contacts the before-mentioned matrix  vital
body it sees there again the panorama of the coming life which has been  im-
pressed upon the matrix by the Recording Angels in order to? vie it the ten-
dencies required to work out the ripe causation due to be liquidated in  the
coming life.

   At  this time,  the Ego is already so much blinded by the veil of  matter
that  it does not recognize the good end in vie in the same unbiased  manner
as when making its choice in the Region of Abstract Thought, and when a par-
ticularly hard life reveals itself to the vision of the returning Ego at the
moment  of  entering  the womb,  it sometimes happens that  the  Ego  is  so
startled  and frightened that its seeks to rush out again.   The  connection
cannot be severed,  however, but may be strained, so that instead of the vi-
tal  body being concentric with the dense body,  the head of the vital  body
may be above the head of the dense body.  Then we have a congenital idiot.

   As a vampire sucks the ether from the vital body of its victim and  feeds
upon  it,  so perpetual thoughts of regret and  remorse  concerning  certain
things become a desire-elemental which  acts as a vampire and draws the very


[PAGE 79]                                             IN HEALTH AND SICKNESS

life from the poor soul who has shaped it, and by the attraction of like for
like, it fosters continuance of this morbid habit of regret.

   If we indulge in regrets and remorse during every waking hour as some do,
we are outdoing Purgatory, for though the time there is spent in eradication
of evil, the consciousness turns from each picture when it has been torn out
by the force of repulsion.   Here, because of the interlocking of the desire
and vital bodies,  we are enabled to revivify a picture in memory as oft  as
we please,  and while the desire body is gradually dissolved in Purgatory by
the  expurgation of the panorama of life,  a certain small amount  is  added
while we are living in the Physical World,  to take the place of that  which
is ejected by remorse.   Thus,  remorse and regret when continually indulged
in  have the same effect on the desire body as excessive bathing has on  the
vital body.   Both vehicles are depleted of strength by excessive cleansing,
and for that reason it is as dangerous to? the moral and spiritual health to
indulge  indiscriminately in feelings of regret and remorse as its is  fatal
to physical well being to bathe too much.   Discrimination should govern  in
both cases.

   As the force latent in gunpowder and kindred explosive substances may  be
used  to further the greatest objects of civilization or to outdo  the  most
savage acts of barbarism, so also, this emotion of remorse may be misused in
such  a manner that it becomes  a detriment and a hindrance to the  Ego  in-
stead  of  a  help.  When  we  indulge  in  remorse daily and hourly, we are


[PAGE 80]                                                     THE VITAL BODY

actually  wasting a great power which might be used for the most noble  ends
of life,  for the constant indulgence of regret affects the desire body in a
manner similar to that which follows excessive bathing of the physical body.
.  . . . Water has a great affinity for ether and absorbs it most greedily .
.  . . . When we take a bath under normal conditions it removes a great deal
of poisonous miasmatic ether from our vital bodies, providing we stay in the
water  a  reasonable length of time.   After a bath the vital  body  becomes
somewhat attenuated and consequently gives us a feeling of weakness,  but if
we  are in our usual good health and have not stayed in the bath  too  long,
the deficiency is soon made good by the stream of force which flows into the
body through the spleen.   When this influx of fresh ether has replaced  the
poisoned substance carried off in the water,  we feel renewed vigor which we
rightly  attribute to the bath,  though usually without realizing  the  full
facts as here stated.

   But  when a person who is not in perfect health makes a habit of  bathing
every day,  perhaps even twice or three times,  an excess of ether is  taken
from the vital body.   The supply entering by way of the spleen is also  di-
minished on account of the loss of tone of the seed atom located in the  so-
lar plexus and the attenuated condition of the vital body.   Thus it is  im-
possible for such people to recuperate between such oft repeated depletions,
and  as  a  consequence  the health of the dense  body  suffers;  they  lose
strength continually and are apt to become confirmed invalids.



[PAGE 81]                                                     THE VITAL BODY

                                 CHAPTER III

                             IN SLEEP AND DREAMS

   THE VITAL BODY IS ACTIVE IN SLEEP AS WELL AS IN THE WAKING STATE AND  MAY
BE ACTED UPON BY THE POWER OF SUGGESTION.  SLEEP MAY BE INDUCED BY HYPNOSIS.

   We have in our body two nervous systems,  the VOLUNTARY and the  INVOLUN-
TARY.  The first named is operated directly by the desire body, and controls
the movements of the body,  tends to break down and destroy,  only partially
restrained in its ruthless task by the mind.  The involuntary system has its
particular  vantage ground in the vital body;  it governs the digestive  and
respiratory organs, which rebuild and restore the dense body.

   It is this war between the vital body and the desire body which  produces
consciousness in the Physical World,  but did not the mind act as a brake on
the  desire body,  our waking hours would be very short,  and so  would  our
lives, for the vital body would soon be overridden in its beneficent offices
by the reckless desire body,  as evidenced in the exhaustion which follows a
fit  of temper,  for temper is a condition where the man has "lost  control"
and the desire body rules unchecked.

   In spite of all its efforts, however,  the vital body slowly loses ground
as the day goes along, the poisons of decaying  tissue accumulate and impede


[PAGE 82]                                                     THE VITAL BODY

the flow of the vital fluid,  its motion become more and more sluggish.   In
consequence the visible body shows signs of exhaustion.   At last the  vital
body,  so to say, collapses, the vital fluid ceases to flow along the nerves
in  sufficient  quantity to maintain the poise of the dense body,  and  that
renders it unconscious and therefore unfit for the use of the Spirit.   That
is sleep.

   So also with the temple of the Ego,  our dense body,  when that has  been
exhausted.  It is then necessary that the Ego, mind, and the desire body va-
cate and give the vital body full sway, that it may restore the tone of  the
dense body;  and thus, when the dense body goes to sleep, there is a separa-
tion.   The Ego and the mind, clothed in the desire body,  draw out from the
vital  body and the dense body,  the two latter remaining on the bed,  while
the higher vehicles hover above or near the sleeping body.

   The process of restoration now beings.   In a fight in the Physical World
the injuries are never all on one side;  the winner always has some lesions.
The fiercer the fight,  and the more evenly the combatants are matched,  the
more lesions go to each.  So with the combating vital and desire bodies, the
desire body wins every time,  yet its victory is always a defeat,  for it is
then forced to leave the battle field and the prize, the dense body,  in the
hands of the vanquished vital body and withdraw to repair its own  shattered
harmony.

   When it withdraws from the sleeping body it enters that sea of force  and
harmony called the Desire World.  Here it lives  over the scenes of the day,


[PAGE 83]                                                IN SLEEP AND DREAMS

but in reverse order, from effects to causes,  straightening out the tangles
of  the day,  forming true pictures to replace the wrong impressions due  to
the limitations of the life in the dense body,  and as the harmonies of  the
Desire World pervade it, and wisdom and truth replace error,  it regains its
rhythm  and its tone,  the time required to restore it varying according  to
how illusive, impulsive, and strenuous had been the life of the day.

   Then,  and then only, does the work of restoring the vehicles left on the
bed commence,  and the restored desire body starts to revive the vital body,
jumping  rhythmic energy into it,  and that in turn starts to work upon  the
dense body,  eliminating the products of decay,  principally by means of the
sympathetic nervous system,  with the result that the dense body is restored
and overflowing with life when the desire body,  mind,  the Ego enter in the
morning and cause it to wake.

   It sometimes happens, however, that we have become so absorbed and inter-
ested in the affairs of our mundane existence that even after the vial  body
has collapsed and rendered the dense body unconscious we cannot make up  our
minds to leave it and commence the work of restoration; the desire body will
cling  like  grim death,  is dragged perhaps only half out by the  Ego,  and
starts to ruminate over the happenings of the day in that position.

   During the waking state,  when the Ego is functioning consciously in  the
Physical  World,  its  various vehicles are concentric--they occupy the same


[PAGE 84]                                                     THE VITAL BODY

space--but at night, when the body is laid down to sleep, a separation takes
place.  the Ego, clothed in the mind and desire body, extricates itself from
the dense body and the vital body, which are left upon the bed.   The higher
vehicles hover above or near.   They are connected to the denser vehicles by
THE SILVER CORD,  a thin, glistening thread which take the shape of two fig-
ure  sixes,  one end being attached to the seed atom in the  heart  and  the
other to the center vortex of the desire body.

   During  sleep the Ego also withdraws from the dense body,  but the  vital
body remains with the dense body and the silver cord is left intact.

   The  Desire World is an ocean of wisdom and harmony.   Into this the  Ego
takes the mind and the desire body when the lower vehicles have been left in
sleep.  There the first care of the Ego is the restoration of the rhythm and
harmony of the mind and the desire body.   This restoration is  accomplished
gradually  as  the harmonious vibrations of the Desire  World  flow  through
them.   There is an essence in the Desire World corresponding to  the  vital
fluid which permeates the dense body by means of the vital body.  The higher
vehicles,  as  it  were,  steep themselves in this  elixir  of  life.   When
strengthened,  they commence work on the vital body, which was left with the
sleeping dense body.  Then the vital body begins to specialize the solar en-
ergy anew, rebuilding  the dense body, using particularly the chemical ether


[PAGE 85]                                                IN SLEEP AND DREAMS

as its medium in the process of restoration.

   In the waking state, the different vehicles of the Ego, the mind,  desire
body,  vital body,  and dense body are all concentric.  They occupy the same
space, and the Ego functions outwardly in the Physical World.  But at night,
during  the dreamless sleep,  the Ego,  clothed in the desire body  and  the
mind, withdraws, leaving the physical and the vital body upon the bed, there
being  no  connection between the higher and lower vehicles,  save  a  thin,
glistening thread,  called the silver cord.   It happens,  however,  that at
times the Ego has been working so interestedly in the Physical World and the
desire body has become so stirred up that it refuses to leave the lower  ve-
hicles  and is only half withdrawn.  Then the connection between  the  sense
centers  of the desire body and the sense centers of the physical brain  are
partly  ruptured.   The Ego sees the sights and scenes of the  Desire  World
which,  in themselves,  are extremely fantastic and illusory,  and they  are
transmitted  to the brain centers without being connected by  reason.   From
this condition come all the foolish and fantastic dreams which we have.

   It happens,  however,  that at times the desire body does not fully with-
draw, so that part of its remains connected with the vital body, the vehicle
of  sense  perception and memory.   The result is that restoration  is  only
partly accomplished and that the scenes and actions of the Desire World  are
brought  into the physical consciousness as dreams.   Of course most  dreams
are  confused  as  the  axis of perception is askew, because of the improper


[PAGE 86]                                                     THE VITAL BODY

relation of one body to another.  The memory is also confused by this incon-
gruous relation of the vehicles and as a result of the loss of the restoring
force, dream-filled sleep is restless and the body feels tired on awakening.

   The  vital body may be said to be built of points which stick out in  all
directions, inward, outward, upward, and downward, all through the body, and
each  little  point goes through the center of one of  the  chemical  atoms,
causing it to vibrate at a higher rate than its natural speed.   This  vital
body interpenetrates the dense body from birth to death under all conditions
except when, for instance, the blood circulation stops in a certain part, as
when  we rest a hand upon the edge of a table for some time and it "goes  to
sleep,' as we say.  Then, if clairvoyant, we may see the etheric hand of the
vital body hanging down below the visible hand as a glove,  and the chemical
atoms  of the hand relapse into their natural slow rate of vibration.   When
we slap the hand to cause it to "wake up," as we say, the peculiar prickling
sensation  we  feel  is caused by the points of the vital  body  which  then
re-enter  the sleeping atoms of the hand and start them into renewed  vibra-
tion.

   The vital body leaves the dense body in a similar manner when a person is
dying.   Drowning persons who have been resuscitated experience  an  intense
agony caused by the entrance of these points, which they feel as a prickling
sensation.

   During the daytime,  when the solar fluid is being absorbed by the man in
great quantities, these points of the vital body are blown out or distended,


[PAGE 87]                                                IN SLEEP AND DREAMS

as it were, by the vital fluid, but as the day advances and poisons of decay
clog the physical body more and more, the vital fluid flows less rapidly; in
the evening there comes a time when the points in the vital body do not  get
a full supply of the life-giving fluid;  they drivel up and the atoms of the
body move more sluggishly in consequence.  Thus the Ego feels the body to be
heavy,  dull,  and tired.  at last there comes a time when, as it were,  the
vital  body collapses and the vibrations of the dense atoms become  so  slow
that the Ego can no longer move the body.  It is forced to withdraw in order
that its vehicle may recuperate.  Then we say the body has gone to sleep.

   Sleep  is not an inactive state,  however; if it were there would  be  no
difference in feeling in the morning and no restorative power in sleep.  The
very word RESTORATION implies activity.

   When  a building has become dilapidated from constant wear and  tear  and
it?  is necessary to renovate and restore it,  the tenants must move out  to
give  the workmen full play.   For similar reasons the Ego moves out of  its
tenement at night.   As the workmen work upon the building,  to make it  fit
for re-occupancy,  so the Ego must work upon its building before it will  be
fit  to re-enter.   And such a work is done by us during the nighttime,  al-
though we are not conscious of it in our waking state.   It is this activity
which removes the poisons from the system, and as a result the body is fresh
and vigorous in the morning when the Ego enters at the time of waking.

   It depends upon the  manner in which we have used our dense bodies in the


[PAGE 88]                                                     THE VITAL BODY

daytime as to how long the desire body requires to perform the work of  res-
toration  of rhythm to the vital body and the dense body.   If we have  used
our  bodies  strenuously  during the previous day,  in  harmonies  will,  of
course,  be correspondingly prominent, and it will take the desire body most
of the night to restore harmony and rhythm.   Thus the man will be tied  to?
his body day and night.   But when he learns skill in action,  controls  his
energy in the daytime, and ceases to waste his strength on unnecessary words
and actions,  when he commences to govern his temper and to stop in  harmony
due  to incorrect observation,  th desire body will not occupied during  the
entire time of sleep in restoring the dense body.   A part of the night  may
be used for work outside.   If the sense centers of the desire body are suf-
ficiently evolved,  as they are with most of the intelligent class,  the man
may and does then slip the cable and soar into the Desire World.   He  takes
in the sights and scenes there, though he does not usually remember them un-
til he has effected a cleavage between the higher and lower parts of the vi-
tal body, as previously explained.

   In the natural sleep the Ego, clothed in the mind and desire body,  draws
outside the physical body and usually hovers over the body,  or at any  rate
remains close to it,  connected by the silver cord, while the vital body and
the dense body are resting upon the bed.

   It is then possible to influence the person by instilling into his  brain
the thoughts and ideas we wish to communicate.  Nevertheless, we cannot then


[PAGE 89]                                                IN SLEEP AND DREAMS

get him to do anything or to entertain any idea except that which is in line
with his natural proclivities.   It is impossible to command him to do  any-
thing  and to enforce obedience,  the same as it is when he has been  driven
out  by  the passes of the hypnotist,  for it is the brain which  moves  the
muscles,  and during the natural sleep his brain is interpenetrated  by  his
own  vital body and he is in perfect control of himself,  while  during  the
hypnotic  sleep the passes of the hypnotist have driven the ether  of  which
its  vital body is composed out of the brain,  down to the shoulders of  the
victim, where it lies around his neck and resembles the collar of a sweater.
The  dense brain is then open to the ether from the hypnotist's vital  body,
which  displaces that of the proper owner.   Thus IN THE HYPNOTIC SLEEP  THE
VICTIM HAS NO CHOICE WHATEVER A TO THE IDEAS HE ENTERTAINS OR THE  MOVEMENTS
HE MAKES WITH HIS BODY,  but in the ordinary sleep he is still a free agent.
In fact,  this method of suggestion during sleep is something which  mothers
will find extremely beneficial in treating refractory children,  for if  the
mother will sit by the bed of the sleeping child, hold its hand, speak to it
as she would speak when it is awake, instill into his brain ideas of such  a
nature as she would wish it to entertain,  she will find that in the  waking
state many of these ideas will have taken root.  Also in dealing with a per-
son who is sick or is addicted to drink, if the mother, nurse, or others use
this method, they will find it possible to instill hope and healing, materi-
ally furthering recovery or aiding self-mastery.


[PAGE 90]                                                     THE VITAL BODY

   This  method may of course be used for evil,  but we cannot refrain  from
publishing  it,  as we believe that the good which can be done in  this  way
will much more than offset the few cases where some misguided person may use
it for the wrong purpose.

   Looked at from the standpoint of one life,  such methods as for  instance
those employed by the healers of the Immanuel movement, are undoubtedly pro-
ductive of an immense amount of good.  The patient is seated in a chair, put
into  a sleep,  and there he is given certain so-called  "suggestions."   He
rises and is cured of his bad habit; from being a drunkard he becomes a  re-
spectable citizen who cares for his wife and family, and upon the face of it
the good seems to be undeniable.

   But looking at it from the deeper standpoint of the occultist,  who views
this life as only one in many, and looking at it from the effect it has upon
the invisible vehicles of man, the case is vastly different.   When a man is
put  into a hypnotic sleep,  the hypnotist makes passes over him which  have
the effect of expelling th ether from the head of his dense body and substi-
tuting  the  ether  of the hypnotist.   the man is then  under  the  perfect
domination of another;  he has no free will, and,  therefore,  the so-called
"suggestions"  are in reality COMMANDS which the victim has no choice but to
obey.  Besides, when the hypnotist withdraws his ether and wakens the victim
he is unable to remove all the ether he put into him.  To use a simile, as a
small part of the magnetism infused into an electric dynamo before it can be
started for the first time  is left behind and remains as residual magnetism


[PAGE 91]                                                IN SLEEP AND DREAMS

to  excite  the fields of the dynamo every time it is started  up,  so  also
there remains a small part of the ether of the hypnotist's vital body in the
medulla  oblongata of the victim,  which is a club the hypnotist holds  over
him all his life,  and it is due to this fact that suggestions to be carried
out  at  a period subsequent to the awakening of the victim  are  invariably
followed.



[PAGE 92]                                                     THE VITAL BODY

                                 CHAPTER IV

                      AT DEATH AND IN INVISIBLE WORLDS


   AT DEATH,  THERE IS A CLEAVAGE OF THE VITAL BODY AND THE HIGHER PARTS EN-
TER THE INVISIBLE WORLDS.  ITS SEED ATOM IS RETAINED BY THE EGO WHEN PASSING
THROUGH  THE HEAVEN WORLDS TO BE USED AS A NUCLEUS FOR THE VITAL BODY  OF  A
FUTURE EMBODIMENT.

   This  life on Earth lasts until the course of events foreshadowed in  the
wheel  of  life,  the horoscope,  has been run;  and when the  Spirit  again
reaches the realm of Samael,  the Angel of Death,  the mystic eighth  house,
the silver cord is loosed, and the Spirit returns to God who gave it,  until
the  dawn  of another life-day in the School of Earth beckons it  to  a  new
birth   that  it  may  acquire  more  skill  in  the  arts  and  crafts   of
temple-building.

   By the fact of death if has been possible for the Angels to teach  human-
ity  between death and a new birth how to build a gradually improving  body.
Had  man  learned in that far past how to renew his vital body,  as  he  was
taught to generate a dense vehicle at his own pleasure, then death would in-
deed have been an impossibility and man would have become as immortal as the
gods.   But  he  would then have immortalized  his  imperfections  and  made
progress  an  impossibility.  It  is the renewal of this vital body which is


[PAGE 93]                                   AT DEATH AND IN INVISIBLE WORLDS

expressed in the Bible as "eating of the Tree of Life."   At the time of his
enlightenment  concerning  generation man was a spiritual being  whose  eyes
were  not yet blinded by the material world,  and he might have learned  the
secret of vitalizing his body at will, thus frustrating evolution.   Thus we
see that death, when it comes naturally, is not a curse but our greatest and
best friend,  for it frees us from an instrument from which we can learn  no
more;  it takes us out of an environment which we have outgrown, that we may
learn  to build a better body in an environment of wider scope in  which  we
can make more progress toward the goal of perfection.

   During  life the collapse of the vital body at night terminates our  view
of the world about us,  and causes us to lose ourselves in the  unconscious-
ness of sleep.  When the vital body collapses just subsequent to death,  and
the  panorama of life is terminated,  we also lose consciousness for a  time
which varies according to the individual.  A darkness seems to fall upon the
Spirit.   Then  after a while it wakes up and begins dimly to  perceive  the
light  of the other world,  but is only gradually accustomed to the  altered
conditions.   It is an experience similar to that which we have when  coming
out of a darkened room into sunlight, which blinds us by its brilliancy, un-
til the pupils of our eyes have contracted so that they admit a quantity  of
light bearable to our organism.

   When the  man passes out a death, he takes with him the mind, desire body
and vital body, the latter being  the storehouse of the pictures of his past


[PAGE 94]                                                     THE VITAL BODY

life.  And during the three and one-half days following death these pictures
are etched into the desire body to form the basis of the man's life in  Pur-
gatory  and  the  First Heaven where evil is expurgated  and  the  good  as-
similated.   The experience of the life itself is forgotten, as we have for-
gotten the process of learning to write, but have retained the faculty.   So
the  cumulative extract of all his experiences in Purgatory and the  various
heavens,  are  retained by the man and form his stock in trade in  the  next
birth.   The pains he has sustained speak to him as the voice of conscience,
the good he has done gives him a more and more altruistic character.

   No matter how long we may keep the Spirit from passing out,  however,  at
last  there  will  come a time then no stimulant can hold it  and  the  last
breath is drawn.  Then the silver cord, of which the Bible speaks, and which
holds the higher and the lower vehicles together, snaps the heart and causes
that organ to stop.   That rupture releases the vital body,  and that,  with
the  desire  body and mind,  floats above the visible body for from  one  to
three  and one-half days while the Spirit is engaged in reviewing  the  past
life,  an  exceedingly important part of its post-mortem  experience.   Upon
what review depends its whole existence from death to a new birth.

   All ancient people,  whether in the East or in the West,  know much about
birth  and  death which has been forgotten in modern times,  because  second
sight was more prevalent then.  To  this day, for instance, many peasants in


[PAGE 95]                                   AT DEATH AND IN INVISIBLE WORLDS

Norway assert ability to see the Spirit passing out of the body at death, as
a  long narrow while cloud,  which is, of course,  the vital body;  and  the
Rosicrucian teaching--that the deceased hover around their earthly abode for
some time after death,  that they assume a luminous body and are sorely  af-
flicted  by the grief of dear ones--was common knowledge among  the  ancient
Northmen.   When the deceased King Helfe of Denmark materialized to  assuage
the grief of his widow, and she exclaimed in anguish,  "The dew of death has
bathed his warrior body," he answered:

         'TIS THOU, SIGRUNA
         ART CAUSE ALONE,
         THAT HELGE IS BATHED
         WITH DEW OF SORROW
         THOU WILT NOT CEASE THEY GRIEF,
         NOR DRY THE BITTER TEARS.
         EACH BLOODY TEAR
         FALLS ON MY BREAST,
         ICY COLD.  THEY WILL NOT LET ME REST.

   When she (the author of THE MINISTRY OF ANGELS) was about eighteen  years
of age,  a girl friend called Maggie was suddenly taken very ill and died in
her arms.  Immediately after her heart had ceased to beat, she says, "I dis-
tinctly saw ascend from her body something in appearance like smoke or steam
as  it rises from a kettle in which water is boiling.   The  emanation  rose
only a little distance and there resolved itself into a form like that of my
friend who had just died.  This  form,  shadowy  at first, gradually changed


[PAGE 96]                                                     THE VITAL BODY

until  it become well defined and clad in a pearly white,  cloud-like  robe,
beneath which the outlines of the figure were distinctly visible.   The face
was that of my friend,  but glorified with no trace upon it of the spasm  of
pain which had seized her just before she died."

   This is just as we have taught:  at the moment of death,  when the silver
cord  has been ruptured in the heart, the vital body rises out  through  the
sutures in the skull and hovers a few feet above the body.

   When  a Spirit is passing out of the body,  it takes with it  the  desire
body,  the mind,  and the vital body, and the vital body is at that time the
storehouse  for the pictures of the past life.   These are then etched  into
the  desire  body during the three and one-half days  immediately  following
death.   Then the desire body becomes the arbiter of man's destiny in Purga-
tory and the First Heaven.   The pains caused by expurgation of evil and the
joy caused by the contemplation of the good in life are carried over to  the
next life as conscience to deter man from perpetuating the mistakes of  past
lives  and to entice him to do that which caused him joy in the former  life
more abundantly.

   At the moment of death when the seed atom in the heart is ruptured  which
contains  all  the experience of the past life in a panoramic  picture,  the
Spirit leaves its physical body,  taking with it the finer bodies.   It then
hovers  over the dense body which is now dead,  as we call if,  for  a  time
varying from a number of hours to three and one-half  days.  The determining


[PAGE 97]                                   AT DEATH AND IN INVISIBLE WORLDS

factor as to the time is the strength of the vital body,  the vehicle  which
constitutes the soul body spoken of in the Bible.  There is then a pictorial
reproduction of the life,  a panorama in reverse order from death to  birth,
and  the pictures are etched upon the desire body through the medium of  re-
flecting ether in this vital body.   During this time  the  consciousness of
the Spirit is concentrated in the vital body, or at least it should be,  and
it  has  therefore no feeling about this matter.   The picture that  is  im-
pressed upon the vehicle of feeling and emotion, the desire body, is the ba-
sis of subsequent suffering in the life in Purgatory for evil deeds,  and of
enjoyment in the First Heaven on account of the good done in the past life.

   These were the main facts which the writer was able personally to observe
about death at the time when the Teachings were first given to him and  when
he was introduced by the help of the Teacher to the panoramic  reproductions
of life when persons were going through the gate of death,  but the investi-
gations  of later years have revealed the additional fact that there is  an-
other process going on during these important days following death.

   A cleavage takes place in the vital body similar to that made by the pro-
cess  of  initiation.   So much of this vehicle as  can  be  termed  "soul,"
coalesces with the higher vehicles and is the basis of consciousness in  the
invisible worlds after death.  The lower part,  which is discarded,  returns
to the physical body and hovers over the grave in the great majority of  the
cases,  as stated in THE ROSICRUCIAN COSMO-CONCEPTION.  This cleavage of the
vital body is not the same in all persons but depends upon the nature of the


[PAGE 98]                                                     THE VITAL BODY

life lived and the character of the person that is passing out.   In extreme
cases this division varies very much from normal.   This important point was
brought  out in many cases of supposed Spirit obsession which have been  in-
vestigated from Headquarters; in fact it was these cases which developed the
far-reaching  and astounding discoveries brought out by our most recent  re-
searches into the nature of the obsession from which the people who appealed
to  us were suffering.   As might be expected,  of course,  the division  in
these  cases showed a preponderance of evil,  and efforts were them made  to
find out if there was not also another class of people where a different di-
vision with a preponderance of good takes place.  It is a pleasure to record
that this was found to be the case, and after weighing the facts discovered,
balancing one with another,  the following seems to be a correct description
of the conditions and their reasons:

   The vital body aims to build the physical,  whereas our desires and  emo-
tions tear down.   It is the struggle between the vital body and the  desire
body which produces consciousness in the Physical World,  and which  hardens
the  tissues so that the soft body of the child gradually becomes tough  and
shrunken in old age,  followed by death.   The morality or immorality of our
desires and emotions acts in a similar manner on the vital body.   Where de-
votion to high ideals is the mainspring of action,  where the devotional na-
ture has been allowed for years to express itself freely and frequently, and
particularly  where  this has been accompanied by the  scientific  exercises
given  Probationers  in  The Rosicrucian Fellowship,  the  quantity  of  the
chemical  and  life  ethers  gradually  diminishes  as  the animal appetites


[PAGE 99]                                   AT DEATH AND IN INVISIBLE WORLDS

vanish,  and  an  increased  amount  of  the  light  and  reflecting  ethers
takes their place.  As a consequence, physical health is not as robust among
people  who follow the higher path as among people whose indulgence  of  the
lower nature attracts the chemical and life ethers, in proportion to the ex-
tend and nature of their vice,  to the partial or total exclusion of the two
higher ethers.

   Several  very  important consequences connected with  death  follow  this
fact.   As it is the chemical ether which cements the molecules of the  body
in their places and keeps them there during life, when only a minimum of ma-
terial is present,  disintegration of the physical vehicle after death  must
be very rapid.

   At  death a separation takes place;  the seed atom is withdrawn from  the
apex of the heart along the saturnine pneumogastric nerve,  through the ven-
tricles  and out the skull (Golgotha);  all the atoms of the vital body  are
liberated from the cross of the dense body by the same spiral motion,  which
unscrews each prismatic atom of ether from its physical envelope.

   This  process  is attended with more or less violence  according  to  the
cause  of death.   An aged person whose vitality has been slowly ebbing  may
fall asleep and wake up on the other side of the veil without the  slightest
consciousness  of how the change took place;  a devout and religious  person
who  has been prepared by prayer and meditation on the beyond would also  be
able to make an easy egress;  people who freeze to death meet with what  the
writer believes to be the easiest of accidental deaths, drowning being next.

   But when a person is young and healthy, especially  if  of an irreligious


[PAGE 100]                                                    THE VITAL BODY

or atheistic turn of mind,  the prismatic ether atom is so tightly  entwined
by the physical atom that a considerable wrench is required to separate  the
vital  body.   When the separation of the physical body from the higher  ve-
hicles has been accomplished and the person is dead,  as we say,  the  light
and  reflecting ethers are separated from the prismatic atom.   It  is  this
stuff,  as described in the COSMO-CONCEPTION,  which is molded into pictures
of the past life and etched into the desire body,  which them begins to feel
whatever there was of pain or pleasure in the life.   The part of the  vital
body composed of the prismatic chemical and life ethers then returns to  the
physical  body,  hovering above the grave and  disintegrating  synchronously
with it.

   The higher vehicles--vital body,  desire body and mind--are seen to leave
the  desire  body with a spiral movement, taking with them the soul  of  one
dense  atom.   Not the atom itself,  but the forces that played through  it.
The results of the experiences passed through in the desire body during  the
life  just ended have been impressed upon this particular atom.   While  all
other  atoms  of the desire body have been renewed from time to  time,  this
permanent atom has remained.   It has remained stable,  not only through one
life,  but it has been a part of every desire body ever used by a particular
Ego.   It  is  withdrawn at death only to reawaken at the  dawn  of  another
physical life,  to serve again as the nucleus around which is built the  new
desire  body to be used by the same Ego.   It is therefore called  the  SEED
ATOM.   During life the seed atom is situated in the left ventricle  of  the
heart,  near  the  apex.  At  death  it  rises  to  the  brain by way of the


[PAGE 101]                                  AT DEATH AND IN INVISIBLE WORLDS

pneumogastric  nerve,  leaving the desire body,  together  with  the  higher
vehicles, by way of the sutures between the parietal and occipital bones.

   When  the higher vehicles have left the desire body they are  still  con-
nected with it by a slender,  glistening,  silvery cord shaped much like two
figure sixes reversed, one upright and one horizontally placed, the two con-
nected at the extremities of the hooks.

   One end is fastened to the heart by means of the seed atom, and it is the
rupture of the seed atom which causes the heart to stop.  The cord itself is
not  snapped  until the panorama of the past life,  contained in  the  vital
body, has been reviewed.

   Care should be taken, however, not to cremate or embalm the body until at
least  three days after death,  for while the vital body is with the  higher
vehicles,  and they are still connected with the desire body by means of the
silver cord,  any post-mortem examination or other injury to the dense  body
will be felt,  in a measure,  by the man.   Cremation should be particularly
avoided  in the first three days after death,  because it tends to  disinte-
grate the vital body,  which should be kept intact until the panorama of the
past life has been etched into the desire body.

   The silver cord snaps at the point where the sixes unite,  half remaining
with the desire body and the other half with the higher vehicles.   From the
time the cord snaps the desire body is quite dead.

   In  the beginning of 1906 Dr.  McDougall made a series of experiments  in
the Massachusetts General Hospital, to determine, if possible,  whether any-
thing  not ordinarily visible left the body at death.   For this purpose  he
constructed a pair of scales capable of registering differences of one-tenth


[PAGE 102]                                                    THE VITAL BODY

of an ounce.

   The  dying person and his bed were placed on one of the platforms of  the
scale,  which was then balanced by weights placed on the opposite  platform.
In  every  instance it was noted that at the precise moment when  the  dying
person  drew the last breath,  the platform containing the  weights  dropped
with a startling suddenness, lifting the bed and the body, thus showing that
something invisible,  but having weight,  had left the body.   Thereupon the
newspapers  all  over the country announced in glaring  headlines  that  Dr.
McDougall had "weighed the soul."

   Occultism hails with joy the discoveries of modern science,  as they  in-
variably corroborate what occult science has long taught.   The  experiments
of  Dr.  McDougall showed conclusively that something invisible to  ordinary
sight left the body at death,  as trained clairvoyants had seen,  and as had
been  stated  in  lectures and literature for many  years  previous  to  Dr.
McDougall's discovery.

   But this invisible "something: is not the soul.  There is a great differ-
ence.   The reporters jump at conclusions when they state that the scientist
have "weighed the soul."  The soul belongs to higher realms and can never be
weighed  on  physical  scales,  even though they  registered  variations  of
one-millionth part of a grain instead of one-tenth of an ounce.

   It was the vital body which the scientists weighted.  It is formed of the
four ethers and they belong to the Physical World.

   As  we  have  seen, a certain amount of this ether is "superimposed" upon


[PAGE 103]                                  AT DEATH AND IN INVISIBLE WORLDS

the  ether which envelopes the particles of the human body and  is  confined
there during physical life,  adding in a slight degree to the weight of  the
desire  body of plant,  animal,  and man.   In death it escapes;  hence  the
diminution in weight noticed by Dr.  McDougall when the persons with whom he
experimented expired.

   This  feature  of life after death is similar to that which  takes  place
when one is drowning or falling from a height.  In such cases the vital body
also leaves the desire body and the man sees his life in a flash, because he
loses  consciousness at once.   Of course the silver cord is not broken,  or
there could be no resuscitation.

   When the endurance of the vital body has reached its limit,  collapses in
the way described when we were considering the phenomenon of sleep.   During
physical life,  when the Ego controls its vehicles, this collapse terminates
the waking hours;  after death the collapse of the vital body terminates the
panorama and forces man to withdraw into the Desire World.   The silver cord
breaks at the point where the SIXES unite,  and the same division is made as
during sleep, but with this important difference, that though the vital body
returns to the desire body, it no longer interpenetrates it, but simply hov-
ers  over it.   It remains floating over the grave,  decaying  synchronously
with the dense vehicle.  Hence, to the trained clairvoyant, a graveyard is a
nauseating sight and if only more people could see it as he does, little ar-
gument  would  be  necessary  to induce them  to  change  from  the  present
unsanitary method  of  disposing  of the dead to the more rational method of


[PAGE 104]                                                    THE VITAL BODY

cremation, which restores the elements to other primordial condition without
the objectionable features incident to the process of slow decay.

   In leaving the vital body the process is much the same as when the desire
body is discarded.   The life forces of one atom are taken,  to be used as a
nucleus for the vital body of a future embodiment.  Thus,  upon his entrance
into the Desire World, the man has the seed atoms of the dense and the vital
bodies, in addition to the desire body and the mind.

   When a man dies, he at once seems to swell out in his vital body;  he ap-
pears to himself to grow into immense proportions.   This feeling is due  to
the fact,  not that the body really grows, but that the perceptive faculties
receive so many impressions from various sources, all seeming to be close at
hand.

   When the man dies and loses his dense and vital bodies there is the  same
condition as when one falls asleep.  The desire body, as has been explained,
has no organs ready to use.  It is now transformed from an ovoid to a figure
resembling the desire body which has been abandoned.   We can easily  under-
stand  that  there must be an interval of unconscious resembling  sleep  and
them the man awakes in the Desire World.  If not infrequently happens,  how-
ever, that such people are, for a long time, unaware of what has happened to
them.   They do not realize that they have died.   They know that  they  are
able to move and think.  It is sometimes even a very hard matter to get them
to believe that they are really "dead."  They realize that something is dif-
ferent, but they are not able to understand what it is.


[PAGE 105]                                  AT DEATH AND IN INVISIBLE WORLDS

   When  the  moment  arrives  which marks the completion  of  life  in  the
Physical  World,  the usefulness of the desire body has ended,  and the  Ego
withdraws from it by way of the head, taking with it the mind and the desire
body,  as it does every night during sleep,  but now the vital body is  use-
less,  so that too is withdrawn, and when the "silver cord" which united the
higher to the lower vehicles snaps, it can never be repaired.

   We remember that the vital body is composed of ether,  superimposed  upon
the dense bodies of plant,  animal, and man during life.   Ether is physical
matter, and therefore has weight.  The only reason why the scientists cannot
weight it is because they are unable to gather a quantity and put it upon  a
scale.   But when it leaves the dense body at death a diminution  in  weight
will take place in every instance, showing that something having weight, yet
invisible, leaves the dense body at that time.

   The "silver cord" which units the higher and lower vehicles terminates at
the  seed-atom  in the heart.   When material life comes to an  end  in  the
natural manner the forces in the seed-atom disengage themselves,  pass  out-
ward along the pneumogastric nerve,  the back of the head and along the sil-
ver  cord,  together with the higher vehicles.   It is this rupture  in  the
heart  which  marks  physical  death,  but the connecting silver cord is not
broken at once, in some cases not for several days.



[PAGE 106]                                                    THE VITAL BODY


   In lecture No. 3 we say that the vital body is the storehouse of both the
conscious and subconscious memory;  upon the vital body is branded indelibly
every  act and experience of the past life,  as the scenery upon an  exposed
photographic plate.  When the Ego has withdrawn it from the dense body,  the
whole life,  as registered by the subconscious memory,  is laid open to  the
eye of mind.   It is the partial loosening of the vital body which causes  a
drowning  person  to see his whole past life,  but then it is  only  like  a
flash, preceding unconscious; the silver cord remains intact, or there could
be  no  resuscitation.   In the case of a Spirit passing out at  death,  the
movement is slower; the man stands as a spectator while the pictures succeed
one another in the order from death to birth, so that he sees first the hap-
penings  just prior to death,  the the years of manhood or womanhood  unroll
themselves;  youth,  childhood,  and infancy follow,  until it terminates at
birth.   The man, however, has no feeling about them at that time.   The ob-
ject is merely to etch the panorama into the desire body,  which is the seat
of feeling,  and from that impress the feeling will be realized when the Ego
enters the Desire World,  but we may note here that the intensity of feeling
realized depends upon the length of time consumed in the process of etching,
and  the attention given thereto by the man.   If he was undisturbed  for  a
long period by noise and hysteria,  a deep,  clear-cut impress will be  made
upon  the  desire  body.  He  will  feel  the  wrong  he  did more keenly in


[PAGE 107]                                  AT DEATH AND IN INVISIBLE WORLDS

Purgatory  and  be  more abundantly strengthened in his  good  qualities  in
Heaven,  and though the experience will be lost in a future life,  the feel-
ings will remain, as the "still, small voice."  Where the feelings have been
strongly indented upon the desire body of an Ego,  this voice will speak  in
no vague and uncertain terms.  It will impel him beyond gainslaying, forcing
him to desist from that which caused pain in the life before, and compel him
to yield to that which is good.  Therefore the panorama passed BACKWARD,  so
that the Ego sees first the effects, and then the underlying causes.

   As to what determines the length of the panorama, we remember that it was
the collapse of the vital body which forced the higher vehicles to withdraw,
so after death, when the vital body collapses, the Ego has to withdraw,  and
thus  the panorama comes to an end.   The duration of the panaroma  depends,
therefore,  upon  the time the person could remain awake only a  few  hours,
others  can endure for a few days, depending on the strength of their  vital
body.

   When the Ego has left the vital body,  the latter gravitates back to  the
dense body,  remaining hovering above the grave,  decaying as the dense body
does,  and it is indeed a noisome sight to the clairvoyant to pass through a
cemetary and behold all those vital bodies whose state of decay clearly  in-
dicates  the state of decomposition of the remains in the grave.   If  there
were more clairvoyants,  incineration would soon be adopted as a measure  of
protection to our feelings, if not for sanitary reasons.


[PAGE 108]                                                    THE VITAL BODY

   Our latest investigations indicate that where a man spiritualizes his ve-
hicles,  the constitution of the vital body, made of ether,  is most materi-
ally  changed.   In the ordinary man there is always a preponderance of  the
two  lower ethers--the chemical and life ethers--which have to do  with  the
upbuilding and propagation of the physical body,  and a minimum of light and
reflecting ethers,  which are concerned with sense perception and the higher
spiritual  qualities.   After death the body of the ordinary man is laid  in
the  grave  and  the  vital body hovers about  two  feet  above  the  mound,
gradually  disintegrating.   The dense  body  disintegrates  simultaneously.
However,  when we say it decays,  we really mean that it becomes  much  more
alive  than it was while man inhabited it,  for each little molecule is  now
taken charge of by a separate, individual life.  It begins to associate with
its neighbors;  the unity of an individual life is superseded by a community
of many lives.

   Therefore  we  speak of such decaying corpses as alive with  worms.   The
denser and the more gross this vehicle is,  the longer time it will  require
for disintegration, because the vital body hovering above the tenacious mag-
netic hold that keeps the dense molecules in check.   The two higher  ethers
vibrate  at  a  much more rapid rate than the lower,  and  where  a  man  by
spiritual thoughts has massed around him a great volume of this ether, which
then composes his vital body,  the vibrations of the dense body also  become
more intense.   Consequently, when the man leaves his body at death there is
little or nothing of the vital body left behind to  keep  the  components of


[PAGE 109]                                  AT DEATH AND IN INVISIBLE WORLDS

the  physical body in check.   The disintegration is therefore  very  rapid.
This  we  cannot  easily  prove because very  few  people  are  sufficiently
spiritual to make the difference noticeable, but you will recall that in the
Bible it is said of certain characters that they were translated.  Also, the
the body of Moses was so vibrant that it shone, and this body was not found,
etc.

   These were cases where the body was rapidly returned to the elements, and
when  the Christ's body was laid in the grave its disintegration took  place
almost instantaneously.

   However,  so long as the archetype of the physical body persists,  it en-
deavors to draw to itself physical materials which it then shapes  according
to  the  form  of the vital body.  Thus it is difficult  for  the  Invisible
Helper who passes out of his body to refrain from materializing.  The moment
his will to keep away from himself all physical impediments is relaxed,  ma-
terials  from  the surrounding atmosphere attach themselves to him  as  iron
filings are drawn to a magnet,  and he becomes visible and tangible to what-
ever extent he desires.  Thus he is enabled to do actual physical work wher-
ever  it is necessary,  no matter if he be thousands of miles away from  his
body.   Therefore the Spirits who pass away from this earth life are  unable
to  materialize  save through a medium where they extract her  living  vital
body,  drape themselves therewith and thus attract the  physical  substances
necessary to make themselves visible to the sitters.


[PAGE 110]                                                    THE VITAL BODY

   During life and in the waking state of consciousness, the vehicles of the
Ego are all together and concentric,  but at death the Ego,  clothed in  the
mind and desire body,  withdraws from the dense body, and as the vital func-
tions  are at an end,  the vital body also is taken out of the  dense  body,
leaving  it inanimate upon the bed.   One little atom in the heart is  taken
out and the rest of the body disintegrates in due course.   But at that time
there is an extremely important process going on,  and those who attend  the
passing  Spirit in the death chamber should be very careful that the  utmost
quiet  reigns there and in the whole house,  for the pictures of  the  whole
past  life which have been stored in the vital body are passing  before  the
eye of the Spirit in a slow and orderly progression, IN REVERSE ORDER,  from
death back to birth.   This panorama of the past life lasts from a few hours
to three and one-half days immediately following death is this:  During that
time  the  panorama of the past life is being etched upon  the  desire  body
which  will  be  man's vehicle while he stays in  Purgatory  and  the  First
Heaven,  where he is reaping the good or ill that he has sown,  according to
the deeds done in the body.


[PAGE 111]                                  AT DEATH AND IN INVISIBLE WORLDS

   Now,  where the life has been full of events and the man's vital body  is
strong,  a longer time will be given to this etching than  under  conditions
where  the vital body is weak,  but DURING ALL THAT TIME THE DENSE  BODY  IS
CONNECTED  WITH THE HIGHER VEHICLES BY THE SILVER CORD AND ANY HURT  TO  THE
DENSE  BODY  IS FELT IN A MEASURE BY THE SPIRIT,  so  that  embalming,  post
mortem examinations and cremation are all felt.  Therefore,  these should be
avoided  during the first three and one-half days after the time  of  death,
for when the panorama has been fully etched into the desire body,  then  the
silver cord is broken,  the vital body gravitates back to the dense body and
there  is no more connection with the Spirit,  which is then free to  go  on
with its higher life.

   When the body is buried,  the vital body disintegrates slowly at the same
time as the dense body,  so that when,  for instance,  an arm has decayed in
the  grave,  the etheric arm of the vital body which hovers over  the  grave
also disappears, and so on until the last vestige of the body is gone.   But
where  cremation  is performed the vital body disintegrates at once,  an  as
that is the storehouse of the pictures of past life, which being etched upon
the desire body to form the basis of life in Purgatory and the First Heaven,
this would be a great calamity where cremation is performed before the three
and one-half days are past.  Unless help were given, the passing of the work
that is done by the Invisible Helpers for humanity.   Sometimes they are as-
sisted by nature spirits and others detailed by the Creative Hierarchies  or
leaders  of  humanity.  There  is  also  a loss where one is cremated before


[PAGE 112]                                                    THE VITAL BODY

the  silver cord has broken naturally,  the imprint upon the desire body  is
never as deep as it would otherwise have been,  and this has an effect  upon
future  lives,  for the deeper the imprint of the past life upon the  desire
body,  the keener the sufferings in Purgatory for the ill committed and  the
keener  also  the pleasure in the First Heaven which results from  the  good
deeds of the past life.   It is these pains and pleasures of our past  lives
that create what we call conscience, so that where we have lost in suffering
we  lose also the realization of wrong which is to deter us in future  lives
from committing the same mistakes over and over again.   Therefore,  the ef-
fects of the premature cremation are very far reaching.

   A  phenomenon similar to the panorama of life usually takes place when  a
person is drowning.   People who have been resuscitated speak of having seen
their whole life IN A FLASH.   That is because under such conditions the vi-
tal body also leaves the dense body.   Of course there is no rupture of  the
silver  cord,  or  life could not be  restored.   Unconsciousness  following
quickly in drowning, while in the usual post-mortem review the consciousness
continues  until  the vital body collapses in the same manner that  it  does
when we go to sleep.  Then consciousness ceases for a while and the panorama
is terminated.  Therefore also the time occupied by the panorama varies with
different  persons,  according  to whether the vital  body  was  strong  and
healthy, or had become thin and emaciated by protracted illness.  The longer
the time spent in review, and the more  quiet and peaceful the surroundings,


[PAGE 113]                                  AT DEATH AND IN INVISIBLE WORLDS

the deeper will be the etching which is made in the desire body.  As already
said,  that has been a most important and far-reaching effect,  for then the
sufferings which the Spirit will realize in Purgatory on account of bad hab-
its  and misdeeds will be much more keen that if there is only a slight  im-
pression,  and in future life the still small voice of conscience will  warn
so  much  more insistently against mistakes which caused sufferings  in  the
past.

   Never  since the world was has there been such universal sorrow as  there
is at the present time (1914).  But besides this,  we must not forget we are
now laying up for ourselves a great deal of future suffering;  for,  as  has
been  explained in the Rosicrucian literature,  it is impossible  for  these
people who are now so ruthlessly and suddenly torn away from their bodies to
review their past life,  and thus the etching of the life panorama does  not
take  place as it should.   Therefore these Egos will not reap the fruit  of
their  present existence as they should in Purgatory and the  First  Heaven.
They will come back minus this experience at some future time;  and it  will
be necessary, in order that they may regain what they have lost, to let then
die  in childhood so that they may have the new desire body and  vital  body
imprinted with the essence of their present life.

   We  saw that when the Ego had finished its day in the school of life  the
centrifugal  force at Repulsion caused it to throw off its dense vehicle  at
death,  then the vital body, which is the next coarsest.   Next in Purgatory
the coarsest desire stuff accumulated by  the  Ego  as  embodiment  for  its


[PAGE 114]                                                    THE VITAL BODY

lowest desires was purged by this centrifugal force.   In the higher  realms
only  the force of Attraction holds sway and keeps the good  by  centripetal
action, which tends to draw everything from the periphery to the center.

   In  the  Second Heaven as much of the vital body as the Life  Spirit  had
worked upon,  transformed,  spiritualized,  and thus saved from the decay to
which  the rest of the vital body is subject,  will be amalgamated with  the
Life Spirit to insure a better vital body and temperament in the  succeeding
lives.

   When  we left the Ego in its pilgrimage through the invisible worlds,  we
had reached the point where it entered the Third Heaven after discarding the
dense body at death, the vital body shortly afterwards, the desire body upon
leaving Purgatory and the First Heaven, and finally before leaving the  Sec-
ond  Heaven  it also left the sheath of mind behind,  and then  entered  the
third Heaven absolutely free of encumbrance.  All the discarded vehicles de-
cay,  only the Spirit persists,  laving for a while in the  great  spiritual
reservoir of force which we call the Third Heaven,  in order to fortify  it-
self for the next rebirth into Earth-life.

   The vital body is composed of four ethers.  The two lower ethers are par-
ticular  avenues of growth and propagation.   In the vital body of a  person
whose  chief concern is with the physical life,  who lives as it  were,  en-
tirely for the sensual enjoyment, these two ethers predominate, whereas in a
person who is rather indifferent to the material enjoyment of life, but  who


[PAGE 115]                                  AT DEATH AND IN INVISIBLE WORLDS

seeks to advance spiritually, the two higher ethers form the bulk of the vi-
tal body.   They are then what Paul calls the SOMA PSUCHICON,  or soul body,
which  remains  with man during his experiences in Purgatory and  the  First
Heaven  where the essence of the life lived is extracted.   This extract  is
the soul, whose two chief qualities are conscience and virtue.   The feeling
of  conscience is the fruit of mistakes in past earth lives,  which will  in
future  guide the Spirit aright and teach it how to avoid similar  missteps.
Virtue is the essence of all that was good in former lives,  and acts as  an
encouragement to keep the Spirit ardently striving upon the path of  aspira-
tion.   In the Third Heaven this amalgamates thoroughly with the Spirit  and
becomes  a part thereof.   Thus in the course of his lives man becomes  more
soulful,  and  the  soul  qualities of conscience  and  virtue  become  more
strongly operative as guiding principles of conduct.

   But there are some people who are of such an evil nature that they  ENJOY
life spent in vice and degenerate practices, a brutal life,  and who delight
in  giving  pain.   Sometimes they even cultivate the occult arts  for  evil
purposes  so  that they may have a greater power over their  victims.   Then
their fiendish, immoral practices result in hardening their vital body.

   In  such extreme cases where the animal nature has been paramount,  where
there has been no soul expression in the preceding earth life,  the division
in the vital body spoken of before cannot take place at death,  for there is
no dividing line.  In such a case, if the vital body  should  gravitate back


[PAGE 116]                                                    THE VITAL BODY

to  the dense body and there gradually disintegrate,  the effect of  a  very
evil life would not be so far-reaching,  but unfortunately there is in  such
cases  an  interlocking grip of the vital and desire bodies  which  prevents
separation.   We have seen that where a man lives mostly in the  higher  na-
ture,  his spiritual vehicles are nourished to the detriment of  the  lower.
Conversely,  where his consciousness us centered in the lower  vehicles,  he
strengthens them immeasurably.  It should be understood that the life of the
desire body is not terminated by the departure of the Spirit;  it has a  re-
sidual life and consciousness.   The vital body is also able to sense things
in a slight measure for a few days after death in ordinary cases (hence  the
suffering causes by embalming, post-mortem examinations,  etc.,  immediately
after  death),  but where a low life has hardened and endued it  with  great
strength  it has a tenacious hold on life and an ability to feed  on   odors
and liquors.   Sometimes, as a parasite, it even vampirizes people with whom
it comes in contact.

   Such beings are therefore one of the greatest menaces to society  imagin-
able.   They  have sent countless victims to prison,  broken up  homes,  and
causes an unbelievable amount of unhappiness.   They always leave their vic-
tims to prison, broken up homes, and causes an unbelievable amount of unhap-
piness.   They always leave their victims when the latter have come into the
clutches of the law.   They gloat over their victims'  sorrow and  distress,
this being a part of their fiendish scheme.   There are other classes  which
delight  in posing as "angels"  in spiritualistic seances.   They also  find
victims there and teach them immoral practices.  The so-called "Poltergeist"
which enjoys breaking dishes, upsetting tables, knocking hats over the heads


[PAGE 117]                                  AT DEATH AND IN INVISIBLE WORLDS

of  the delighted audience,  and similar horseplay,  is also in this  class.
The strength and density of the vital body of such beings make it easier for
them  to give physical manifestations than for those who have passed  beyond
into the Desire World,  in fact,  the vital bodies of this class of  Spirits
are so dense that they are nearly physical, and it has been a mystery to the
writer that some of the people who are taken in by such entities cannot  see
them.   Were they once discovered,  one look at their evil,  sneering  faces
would very soon dispel the delusion that they are angels.

   Wherever  a person dies who has fostered malice and hatred in his  heart,
these interlock the desire and vital bodies and make him a more serious men-
ace  to the community than anyone can imagine who has not investigated  this
subject.

   Earthbound Spirits,  such as previously mentioned, gravitate to the lower
regions of the Desire World which interpenetrate the ether,  and are in con-
stant and close touch with those people on earth most favorably situated for
aiding  them  in their evil designs.  They usually stay in  this  earthbound
condition for fifty,  sixty,  or seventy-five years,  but extreme cases have
been  found  in which such people so remain for centuries.   So far  as  the
writer has been able to discover up to the present time,  there seems to  be
no  limit  to what they may do or how soon they will let go.   But  all  the
while they are piling up for themselves an awful load of sin,  nor can  they
escape  suffering therefore,  for the vital body reflects and etches  deeply
into the desire body a record of their misdeeds,  and  when  at last they do


[PAGE 118]                                                    THE VITAL BODY

let go and enter the purgatorial existence,  they meet the retribution which
they well deserve.  This suffering is naturally lengthy in proportion to the
time  they have continued their nefarious practices after the death  of  the
dense  body--another proof that "Though the mills of God grind  slowly,  yet
they grind exceeding small."

   The  red  cloud of hate is lifting, the black veil of  despair  is  gone,
there are no volcanic outbursts of passion in either the living or the dead,
but so far as the writer is able to read the signs of the times in the  aura
of  the  nations,  there is a settled purpose to play the game to  the  end.
Even in homes bereaved of many members, this seems to hold good.   There  is
an  intense longing for the friends beyond,  but no hatred for  the  earthly
foe.   This  longing  is shared by the friends in the unseen  and  many  are
piercing  the veil,  for the intensity of their longing is awakening in  the
"dead" the power to manifest by attracting a quantity of ether and gas which
often is taken from the vital body of a "sensitive" friend, as materializing
Spirits use the vital body of an entranced medium.  Thus the eyes blinded by
tears  are  often opened by a yearning heart so that loved ones now  in  the
spirit world are met again face to face,  heart to heart.   This is Nature's
method  of cultivating the sixth sense which will eventually enable  all  to
know that man is an immortal Spirit and continuity of life a fact in nature.

   At every death the tears that are shed serve to  dissolve  the  veil that


[PAGE 119]                                  AT DEATH AND IN INVISIBLE WORLDS

hides,  the invisible world from our longing gaze.   The deep-felt  yearning
and the sorrow at the parting of loved and loving ones on both sides of  the
veil are tearing this apart, and at some not far distant day the accumulated
effect  of  all this will reveal the fact that there is no death,  but  that
those who have passed beyond are as much alive as we.   The potency of these
tears,  this sorrow, this yearning is not equal in all cases,  however,  and
the effects differ widely according to whether the vital body has been awak-
ened  in any given person by acts of unselfishness and service according  to
the occult maxim that all development along spiritual lines begins with  the
vital body.  This is the basis, and no superstructure can be built until the
foundation has been laid.



[PAGE 120]                                                    THE VITAL BODY

                                  CHAPTER V

                              ON WAY TO REBIRTH

   WHEN  AN  EGO IS ON ITS WAY TO REBIRTH THE SEED ATOM OF  THE  VITAL  BODY
GATHERS NEW MATERIAL.  THE POLARITY OF THIS MATERIAL DETERMINES ITS SEX DUR-
ING THE COMING LIFE.

   The seed atom of the vital body is next aroused into activity,  but  here
the process of formation is not so simple as in the case of the mind and the
desire  body,  for it must be remembered that those  vehicles  were  compar-
atively unorganized,  while the vital body and the dense body are more orga-
nized and very complicated.   The material, of a given quantity and quality,
is  attracted in the same manner and under the operation of the same law  as
in the case of the higher bodies,  but the building of the new body and  the
placement  in the proper environment is done by four great Beings of  immea-
surable  wisdom,  which are the Recording Angels,  the "Lords  of  Destiny."
They  impress the reflecting ether of the vital in such a way that the  pic-
tures of the coming life are reflected in it.   It (the vital body) is built
by  the inhabitants of the heaven world and the elemental spirits in such  a
manner as to form a particular type of brain.  But mark this,  the returning
Ego itself incorporates therein the quintessence of its former vital  bodies


[PAGE 121]                                                 ON WAY TO REBIRTH

vital bodies and in addition to this also does a little original work.  This
is done that in the coming life there may be some room for original and  in-
dividual expression, not predetermined by past action.

   The  vital body,  having been molded by the Lords of Destiny,  will  give
form to the dense body, organ for organ.  This matrix or mold is then placed
in  the womb of the future mother.   The seed atom for the dense body is  in
the  triangular head of one of the spermatozoa in the semen of  the  father.
This  alone makes fertilization possible and here is the explanation of  the
fact  that  so  many times sex-unions are  unfruitful.   The  chemical  con-
stituents  of  the seminal fluid and the ova are the same at all  times  and
were  these  the only requirements,  the explanation of  the  phenomenon  of
unfertility,  if sought in the material, visible world alone,  would not  be
found.   It becomes plain, however, when we understand that as the molecules
of  water freeze only along the lines of force in the water and manifest  as
ice  crystals instead of freezing into a homogeneous mass,  as would be  the
case  if there can be no dense body built until there is a vital  body  into
which to build the material,;  also there must be a seed atom for the  dense
body,  to act as gauge of the quality and quantity of the matter which is to
be built into that dense body.  Although at the present stage of development
there is never full harmony in the materials of the body, because that would
be a perfect body, yet the discord must not be so great as to be  disruptive


[PAGE 122]                                                    THE VITAL BODY

of the organism.

   When the impregnation of the ovum has taken place, the desire body of the
mother  works upon it for a period of from eighteen to twenty-one days,  the
Ego  remaining  outside in its desire body and mind sheath,  yet  always  in
close touch with the mother.   Upon the expiration of that time the Ego  en-
ters the mother's body.   The bell-shaped vehicles draw themselves down over
the  head  of the vital body and the bell closes at the bottom.   From  this
time the Ego broods over its coming instrument until the birth of the  child
and the new earth life of the returning Ego commences.

   It is stated in THE ROSICRUCIAN COSMO-CONCEPTION that the vital body of a
woman is positive and the vital body of a man is negative.   When the agents
of the Recording Angles are assisting an Ego to come to birth, the matter of
sex  has  already been determined,  either by the law of  alternation  or  a
modification of that law by specific circumstances in the individual life of
the  Spirit,  and  the Ego is then helped to draw to  itself  as  sufficient
amount  of  the  different kinds of ether as required  by  its  development.
These  materials are all of certain polarity,  either positive or  negative.
When a matrix made solely from positive etheric atoms is placed in the  womb
of the prospective mother,  these atoms will unerringly drawn to  themselves
negative physical atoms, and the resultant child body becomes female in con-
sequence.  If, on the other hand, the matrix which is placed in the mother's


[PAGE 123]                                                 ON WAY TO REBIRTH

womb  is composed of negative etheric atoms,  it will attract  the  positive
dense  atoms with the result that the male sex organ is most  developed  and
the sex therefore masculine.  Life, like electricity, requires both positive
and negative expression, otherwise it cannot manifest.

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

   The  silver  cord which has grown from the seed atom of the  desire  body
(located  in  the heart) since conception,  is welded to the part  that  has
sprouted from the central vortex of the desire body, (located in the liver),
and  when the silver cord is tied by the seed atom of the vital  body,  (lo-
cated  in the solar plexus),  the Spirit dies to life in  the  supersensible
world, and quickens the body it is to use in its coming Earth life.


[PAGE 124]                                                    THE VITAL BODY

                                 CHAPTER VI

                                 OF CHILDREN

   A CHILD'S VITAL BODY AT BIRTH IS UNORGANIZED.   UP UNTIL ABOUT THE AGE OF
SEVEN, WHEN THE INDIVIDUAL VITAL BODY IS BORN, IT DRAWS FROM THE MICROCOSMIC
VITAL BODY.

   In  the period immediately following birth the different vehicles  inter-
penetrate one another, as, in our previous illustration, the sand penetrates
the  sponge and the water both sand and sponge.   But,  though they are  all
present,  as in adult life, they are merely present.  None of their positive
faculties  are active.   The vital body cannot use the forces which  operate
along  the positive pole of ethers.   Assimilation,  which works  along  the
positive  pole  of the chemical ether, is very dainty during  childhood  and
what  there  is of it is due to the macrocosmic vital body,  the  ethers  of
which  act  as  a womb for the child's vital body until  the  seventh  year,
gradually  ripening it during that period.   The propagative faculty,  which
works along the positive pole of the life ether, is also latent.   The heat-
ing  of the body--which is carried on along the positive pole of  the  light
ether--and  the  circulation of the blood are due to the  macrocosmic  vital
body,  the ethers acting on the child and slowly developing it to the  point
where it can control these functions itself.  The forces working  along  the


[PAGE 125]                                                       OF CHILDREN

negative pole of ethers are so much the more active.   The excretion of sol-
ids, carried on along the negative pole of the chemical ether (corresponding
to the solid subdivision of the Chemical Region), is too unrestrained, as is
also the excretion of fluid,  which is carried on along the negative pole of
the  life  ether (corresponding to the second or fluid  subdivision  of  the
Chemical  Region).   The  passive sense perception,  which  is  due  to  the
negative  forces  of the light ether,  is also exceedingly  prominent.   The
child is very impressionable and it is "all eyes and ears."

   Although  the vital body of an infant is still comparatively  unorganized
at  the time of birth,  the ether which is to be used for its completion  is
within the aura,  ready to be assimilated, and if anyone in its surroundings
happens to be weak and anemic, and unconscious vampire, he or she draws from
the  unassimilated store of ether of the infant much more easily  than  from
that  of an adult whole vital body is fully organized.   Naturally the  weak
person draws more easily ether that is negatively polarized,  as in the body
of a boy baby, than the positive ether of the girl baby.  .  .Massage of the
spleen and stimulation of the splanchic nerves, CAREFULLY AND CONSERVATIVELY
PRACTICED will aid the etheric counterpart of that organ in its activity  of
specializing  the solar energy upon which the vital processes are as  depen-
dent as the lungs are on air.

   We usually think that when a child is born it is born and that is the end
of it; but as during the period of gestation the dense body is shielded from


[PAGE 126]                                                    THE VITAL BODY

the  impact of the outside world by being placed within the protecting  womb
of  the mother until it has arrived at sufficient maturity to meet the  out-
side  conditions,  so are also the vital body,  desire body,  and mind in  a
state  of gestation and are born at later periods because they have not  had
as long an evolution behind then as the dense body and, therefore,  it takes
a longer time for them to arrive at a sufficient state of maturity to become
individualized.  The vital body is born at the seventh year, when the period
of excessive growth marks its advent.

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

   From  the first to the seventh year the vital body grows and  slowly  ma-
tures  within  the  womb of the macrocosmic vital body and  because  of  the
greater  wisdom of this vehicle of the macrocosm,  the child's body is  more
rounded and well-built in later life.

   While the macrocosmic vital body guides the growth of the child's body it
is  guarded  from  the  dangers  which  later  threaten  it  when the unwise


[PAGE 127]                                                       OF CHILDREN

individual vital body takes unchecked charge.   This happens in the  seventh
year,  when the period of excessive, dangerous growth begins,  and continues
through the next seven years.   During this time the macrocosmic desire body
performs the function of a womb for the individual desire body.

   Were the vital body to have continual and unrestrained sway in the  human
kingdom, as it has in the plant, man would grow to an enormous size.   There
was  a time in the far distant past when man was constituted like  a  plant,
having only a dense body and a vital body.   The traditions of mythology and
folk  lore all over the world,  concerning giants in olden times  are  abso-
lutely true,  because then men grew as tall as trees,  and for the same rea-
son.

   The  vital body of the plant builds leaf after leaf,  carrying  the  stem
higher  and higher.   Were it not for the macrocosmic desire body  it  would
keep in in that way indefinitely,  but the macrocosmic desire body stops  in
at a certain point and checks further growth.   The force that is not needed
for further growth is then available for other purposes and is used to build
the  flower  and the seed.   In like manner the human vital body,  when  the
dense body comes under its sway,  after the seventh year,  makes the  latter
grow very rapidly,  but about the fourteenth year the individual desire body
is  born  from the womb of the macrocosmic desire body and is then  free  to
work on its dense body.   The excessive growth is then checked and the force
theretofore  used for that purpose becomes available for  propagation,  that
the  human  plant  may  flower  and bring forth.  Therefore the birth of the


[PAGE 128]                                                    THE VITAL BODY

personal desire body marks the period of puberty.   From the period that at-
traction  toward  the  opposite sex is felt,  being  especially  active  and
unrestrained  in the third septenary period of life--from the fourteenth  to
the twenty-first year, because the restraining mind is still unborn.

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

   By the seventh year the vital body of the child has reached a  perfection
sufficient to allow it to receive impacts from the outside world.   It sheds
its protective covering of ether, and commences its free life.   And now the
time begins in which the educator may work on the vital body and help it  is
in the formation of memory,  conscience, good habits,  and a harmonious tem-
perament.  AUTHORITY and DISCIPLESHIP are the watchwords of this epoch, when
the child is to learn the meaning of things.   In the first epoch it  learns
that things are,  but must not be bothered about their meaning,  except what
it  picks up of its own accord, but  in  the  second  epoch  from  seven  to


[PAGE 129]                                                       OF CHILDREN

fourteen years,  it is essential that the child should learn the meaning  of
them,  but should learn to take things on the autority of parents and teach-
ers,  memorizing their explanations,  rather than reasoning for itself,  for
reason  belongs to a later development,  and though he may do so of his  own
accord, with profit, it is harmful at this period to force him to think.

   It must not be imagined,  however,  that when the little body of a  child
has been born,  the process of birth is completed.   The dense physical body
has  had  the longest evolution,  and as a shoemaker who has worked  at  his
trade  for a number of years is more expert than an apprentice and can  make
better shoes,  and QUICKER, so also the Spirit which has built many physical
bodies produces them quickly,  but the vital body is a later acquisition  of
the human being.   Therefore we are not so expert in building that  vehicle.
Consequently  it takes longer to construct that from the materials not  used
up  in making the lining of the archetype,  and the vital body is  not  born
until the seventh year.

   When the vital body is born at the age of seven a period of growth begins
and  a  new motto,  or relation rather,  is established between  parent  and
child.   This may be expressed in the two words AUTHORITY and  DISCIPLESHIP.
In this period the child is taught certain lessons which it takes upon faith
in  the  authority of its teachers,  whether at home or at  school,  and  as
memory  is a faculty of the vital body it can now memorize what is  learned.
It is therefore eminently teachable;  particularly because it is unbiased by


[PAGE 130]                                                    THE VITAL BODY

preconceived opinions which prevent most of us from accepting new views.  At
the end of this second period, from about twelve to fourteen, the vital body
has been so far developed that puberty is reached.

   Children  who die before the seventh year have been born only so  far  as
the dense and vital bodies are concerned and are not responsible to the  Law
of Consequence.   Even up to twelve or fourteen years the desire body is  in
process of gestation,  as will be more fully explained in the next  lecture,
and  as that which has not been quickened cannot die,  the dense  and  vital
bodies alone go to decay when a child dies.   It retains its desire body and
mind  to  the next birth.   Therefore it does not go around the  whole  path
which  the Ego usually traverses in a life cycle,  but only ascends  to  the
First Heaven to learn needed lessons, and after a wait of from one to twenty
years it is reborn, often in the same family as a younger child.



[PAGE 131]                                                    THE VITAL BODY


                                  PART III
                      VITAL BODY OF ANIMALS AND PLANTS




[PAGE 133]                                       GENERAL NATURE AND FUNCTION

                                  Chapter I
                         GENERAL NATURE AND FUNCTION

   ANIMALS  AND PLANTS HAVE A VITAL BODY,  TOO.   ALTHOUGH THIS  VEHICLE  IS
LACKING IN THE MINERAL, THE DISINTEGRATION OF HARD ROCK,  ETC.,  AFFECTS THE
VITAL BODY OF THE EARTH.

   When we consider plant, animal, and man in relation to the Etheric Region
we note that each has a separate vital body in addition to being  penetrated
by the planetary ether which forms the Etheric Region.   There is a  differ-
ence,  however,  between the vital bodies of the plants and the vital bodies
of animal and man.  In the vital body of the plant only the chemical and the
life ethers are fully active.  Hence the plant can grow by the action of the
chemical  ether and propagate its species through the activity of  the  life
ether  of the separate vital body which it possesses.   The light  ether  is
present,  but  is partially latent or dormant and the  reflecting  ether  is
lacking.  Therefore it is evident that the faculties of sense-perception and
memory,  which are the qualities of these ethers, cannot be expressed by the
plant kingdom.

   Turning our attention to the vital body of the animal we find that in  it
the  chemical,  life,  and light ethers are dynamically active.   Hence  the
animal has the faculties of assimulation and growth, caused by activities of


[PAGE 134]                                                    THE VITAL BODY

the  chemical  ether  and the faculty of propagation by means  of  the  life
ether--these being the same as in plants.  But in addition,  consequent upon
the action of the third or light ether,  it has the faculties of  generating
internal heat and of sense-perception.  The fourth ether, however,  is inac-
tive in the animal, hence it has no thought nor memory.   That which appears
as such will be shown later to be of a different nature.

   The separate Ego is definitely segregated within the Universal Spirit  in
the Region of Abstract Thought.   It shows that only man possesses the  com-
plete  chain  of  vehicles correlating him to all  divisions  of  the  three
worlds.   The animal lacks one link of the chain--the mind;  the plant lacks
two links--the mind and the desire body;  and the mineral lacks three  links
in the chain of vehicles necessary to function in a self-conscious manner in
the Physical World--the mind, the desire, and the vital bodies.

   When an animal is to be born, the Group Spirit,  helped by nature spirits
and Angels,  fashion the vital body of the coming animal,  which is then de-
posited  in the womb of the mother and the seed atoms are deposited  in  the
semen of the male; then gestation takes place and an animal is born.   With-
out the presence of the seed atom and the matrix vital body no dense  animal
body can be formed.  Similar conditions govern fecundation in the case of an
egg,  or a plant seed.   They are like the female ova--they are so many  OP-
PORTUNITIES.   If an egg is put into an incubator or under a hen,  the Group
Spirit  sends  forth  the  requisite  life,  accepting  the  opportunity for


[PAGE 135]                                       GENERAL NATURE AND FUNCTION

embodiment.   If a seed is dropped in the soil, that also is fertilized when
the  proper conditions have been made for its development,  but not  before.
When an egg is crushed, cooked, or in other ways disqualified for its primal
designation,  or where a seed is stored for years perhaps, there is no life,
and consequently we do no wrong when we use these products for food.   It is
even  beneficial  to plants when the ripe fruits are removed,  because  then
they cease to take sap from the tree unnecessarily.

   The  animal has no "individual"  Spirit yet,  but has a  so-called  Group
Spirit,  which informs all the members of a species.   The separate  animals
have three bodies--a dense, a vital, and a desire body--but lack one link in
the chain:  mind.  Hence animals do not ordinarily think, but as we "Induce"
electricity  in a wire by bringing it close to another which is charged,  so
in  a similar way by contact with man a semblance of thought has  been  "in-
duced" in the higher domestic animals, such as the dog, horse, and elephant.
The other animals obey the prompting (which we call instinct) of the  animal
Group Spirit.   They do not see objects in such clear outlines as does  man;
in  the lower species in the animal consciousness resolves itself  more  and
more into an internal "picture-consciousness," resembling man's dream state,
except  that their pictures are not confused,  but convey perfectly  to  the
animal the promptings of Group Spirit.

   The  animal Spirit has in its descent reached only the Desire World.   It
has  not  yet  evolved  to  the  point  where  it  can "enter" a dense body.


[PAGE 136]                                                    THE VITAL BODY

Therefore  the animal has no individualized indwelling Spirit,  but a  Group
Spirit,  which directs it from without.  The animal has the dense body,  the
vital body,  and the desire body,  but the Group Spirit which directs it  is
outside.   The vital body and the desire body of an animal are not  entirely
within  the  dense body,  especially where the head is concerned.   For  in-
stance,  the etheric head of a horse projects far beyond and above the dense
physical head.   When,  as in rare cases it happens,  the etheric head of  a
horse draws into the head of the dense body,  that horse can learn to  read,
count,  and work examples in elementary arithmetic.   To this peculiarity is
also due the fact that horses, dogs, cats,  and other domestic animals sense
the Desire World,  though not always realizing the difference between it and
the Physical World.   A horse will shy at the sight of a figure invisible to
the driver;  a cat will go through the motions of rubbing itself against in-
visible legs.   The cats sees the ghost, however,  without realizing that it
has no dense legs available for frictional purposes.   The dog,  wiser  than
cat  or horse,  will often sense that there is something he does not  under-
stand about the appearance of a dead master whose hands it cannot lick.   It
will  howl  mournfully and slink into a corner with its  tails  between  its
legs.

   Dr.  McDougall  also  tried his scales in  weighing  dying  animals.   No
diminution was found here, though one of the animals was a large St. Bernard
dog.   That  was  taken to indicate that animals have no  souls.   A  little
later,  however,  Professor La V. Twining, head of the Science Department of
the  Los  Angeles  Polytechnic  School,  experimented with mice and kittens,


[PAGE 137]                                       GENERAL NATURE AND FUNCTION

which he enclosed in hermetically sealed glass flasks.   His scales were the
most  sensitive procurable and were enclosed in a glass case from which  all
moisture had been removed.   It was found that all the animals observed lost
weight at death.   A good sized mouse, weighing 12.886 grams,  suddenly lost
3.1 milligrams at death.

   A kitten used in another experiment lost one hundred milligrams while dy-
ing  and at its last gasp it suddenly lost an additional  sixty  milligrams.
After that it lost weight slowly, due to evaporation.

   Thus the teaching of occult science in regard to the possession of  vital
bodies  by  animals was also vindicated when sufficiently fine  scales  were
used,  and the case where the rather insensitive scales did not show diminu-
tion  in the weight of the St.  Bernard dog shows that the vital  bodies  of
animals are proportionately lighter than in man.

   The Angels are particularly active in the vital bodies of the plants, for
the stream of life ensouling that kingdom started its evolution in the  Moon
Period,  when the Angels were human,  and they worked with the plants as  we
are now working with our minerals.  There is therefore a particular affinity
between Angels and plant Group Spirit.  Thus we can account for the enormous
assimilation,  growth,  and fecundity of the plants.   Man also grew  to  an
enormous  size  in the second or Hyperborean Epoch,  where the  Angeles  had
principal charge.   So does the child in its second septenary epoch of life,
because  then  the  Angels  have full sway, and at the end of that epoch, at


[PAGE 138]                                                    THE VITAL BODY

fourteen,  the child has reached puberty and is able to reproduce its  kind;
also due to the work of the Angels.

   They  were the molds which drew to themselves the dense material  forming
the plant-bodies of the present day and also of the plant-forms of the past,
which are embedded in the geological strata of our Earth globe.

   These  ethereal plant forms were aided in their formation when  the  heat
came  from the outside,  after the separation of the Earth from the Sun  and
Moon.   That heat gave them the vital force to draw to themselves the denser
substance.

   The vital body is the most important principle of the plant,  it is  that
which makes the plant grow stem and long in alternating succession,  so that
the plant grows taller and taller;  but there is no variety,  the plant goes
on repeating all the time.  Stem, leaf, and branch--ever the same.

   The plants have only a dense body and a vital body;  hence they can  nei-
ther  feel  nor  think.   They lack desire body and mind,  and  therefore  a
greater  gap exists between the plant and its Group Spirit than between  the
animal and its Group Spirit;  hence the consciousness of the plants is  cor-
respondingly dimmer, resembling our state of dreamless sleep.

   The  mineral has only a dense body.  It lacks three links to  connect  it
with its Group Spirit.   It therefore is inert and its unconscious resembles
that of the dense human body  in  the  "trance" state when the human spirit,


[PAGE 139]                                       GENERAL NATURE AND FUNCTION

the Ego, has passed correspondingly beyond it.

   In conclusion, let us note that the three worlds in which we live are not
separated by space.  They are all about us, as light and color,  imbedded in
the physical matter;  as lines of cleavage in the mineral.  If we let a dish
of  water freeze,  and examine it under a microscope,  we shall see the  ice
crystals divided off from one another by lines.   These were present  though
unseen in the water as lines of force,  invisible until the proper condition
brought them out.   So one world lies imbedded in the next above,  unseen to
us  until  we provide the proper conditions;  but when we have  fitted  our-
selves, Nature, who is ever ready to unfold to us her wonders, expresses ar-
dent  joy  over  every one who has a helper in  evolution  thus  attains  to
citizenship in the invisible realms.

   As  we saw in Lecture No.  3,  the plants have a dense and a vital  body,
which enables them to do this work; their consciousness we also saw,  was as
a deep,  dreamless sleep.  Thus it is easy for the Ego to overpower the veg-
etable  cells and keep then in subjection for a long time,  hence the  great
sustaining power of the vegetables.

   To  function in any world,  and express the qualities peculiar to it,  we
must first possess a vehicle made of its material.   In order to function in
the dense Physical World,  it is necessary to have a dense body,  adapted to
our  environment.   Otherwise  we should be ghosts,  as  they  are  commonly
called, and be invisible to most physical beings.  So  we  must have a vital


[PAGE 140]                                                    THE VITAL BODY

body  before we can express life, grow,  or externalize the other  qualities
peculiar to the Etheric Region.

   When  we examine the four kingdoms in relation to the Etheric Region,  we
find that the mineral does not possess a separate vital body, and at once we
see the reason why it cannot grow, propagate, or show sentient life.

   As  an  hypothesis necessary to account for other known  facts,  material
science  holds  that  in the densest solid, as in the rarest  and  most  at-
tenuated gas,  no two atoms touch each other;  that there is an envelope  of
ether around each atom;  that the atoms in the universe float in an ocean of
ether.

   As sensation in animals and men is due to their separate vital bodies, so
the feeling of the Earth is particularly active in this sixth stratum, which
corresponds  to the World of Life Spirit.   To understand the pleasure  felt
when mining operations are disintegrating the hard rock,  and the pain  when
deposits  gather,  we must remember that the Earth is the dense  body  of  a
Great Spirit,  and to furnish us with an environment in which we could  live
and  gather  experience,  it had to crystallize this body into  its  present
solid condition.

   The  vital  body  of  the  plant is composed  only  of  the  two  densest
ethers--the  CHEMICAL  ETHER and the LIFE ETHER--which enable the  plant  to
grow and propagate,  but it lacks the two higher ethers--the LIGHT ETHER and
REFLECTING ETHER.  Hence it has no sensation or memory of what passes around


[PAGE 141]                                       GENERAL NATURE AND FUNCTION

it.   Therefore, amputation of a limb will not be felt by the plant,  and in
the case of the cliff which is blasted,  only the CHEMICAL ETHER is present,
so that the crystals will have no feelings at all.  Still, it would be wrong
to infer that there is no feeling in either of these cases,  for though  the
plants and the minerals have no individual means of feeling, they are envel-
oped  and interpenetrated by the ethers and the Desire World of the  planet,
and  the PLANETARY SPIRIT FEELS everything, on the same principle  that  our
finer, having no INDIVIDUAL desire body, cannot feel, but we, the indwelling
Spirits inhabiting the body, feel any hurt done to the finger.


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