IV. ANTHROPOLOGY.

The Generation of Man.1
“ All that Aristoteles and his followers have writ¬ ten about the generation of man, is not based upon observation or reading within the light of nature ; but consists merely of theories which they have invented and elaborated with a great deal of cunning and trouble. It is merely phantastry and devoid of truth ; for although the light of nature has not re¬ fused them anything, it has also given them nothing. What we teach is not the result of opinion and spec¬ ulation, but of actual experience. Our philosophy has not originated in the realm of the imagination, but is copied from the book of nature itself. We believe that for the terrestrial man there is no nobler enjoyment than to know the laws of nature ; but we reject that kind of smartness and cunning which in¬ vents systems of so-called philosophy, based upon arguments which have no foundation in truth. All that these writers can talk about is the sensual world, such as they perceive with their senses ; but we claim that this world of external appearances is only the fourth part of the actual world ; not that the world were still three times bigger than it appears to
1 For full exposition of the generation of man see “ The Life and the Doctrines of Jacob Boehme.”
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us, but that there are still three-fourths of it of which we are unconscious. We say that there is a world within the water, and that it has its own inhabitants ; and another world within the (element of) the earth ; and there are volcanic people, who live in the fourth part of the world, in the element of the fire.” (“ De Generatio Hominis.”)
“ There are creatures having within themselves the seed for their propagation, such as minerals and plants, and all that has no sensitive spirit ; and there are others endowed with sensation and living without any seed in them, namely, animals and human be¬ ings.” 1
Man is made out of three substances, or seeds, or matrices. His spiritual seed is from God, and God is his matrix ; his astral elements are developed under the influences of the constellation (the astral plane), and his matrix is, therefore, the soul of the world ; his visible body is formed and born out of the elements of the visible world, and the terrestrial world is its mother.
“ If the whole man were made only out of the seed of his parents, he would resemble his parents in every respect. A chestnut tree bears chestnuts, and from each of its fruits can grow nothing else but a chest¬ nut tree ; but the mixture of seeds is the cause that a son may be very unlike his father. The seed {tincture) from the brain of the father and that from the brain of the mother make only one brain in the
'The “seed” evidently refers to the spiritual principle, the re¬ incarnating monad, which, like a ray of light, shines into man, but is not enclosed in his body.
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PARACELSUS.
child, but that tincture among the two which is the strongest will predominate and characterize the child.”
Man receives his spirit and body not from his father and mother, but from God and from nature, acting through the instrumentality of his parents. His soul and body are formed in his mother, but do not originate in her. The three substances or ele¬ ments which go to make up the constitution of man are universal ; man is merely a centre or focus through which they act.
There are beings who live exclusively in only one of these elements, while man exists in all three. Each of these elements is visible and tangible to the beings living therein, and its qualities may be known to its inhabitants. Thus the Gnomes may see all that is going on in the interior of the earthly shell surrounding our planet, this shell being as air for them ; the Undines thrive and breathe in their wateiy world ; the Sylphs live in the air like a fish in the water, and the Salamanders are happy in the element of the fire. A person in whose organization the ele¬ ment of earth preponderates will have great talents for agriculture and mining ; a soul sympathizing es¬ pecially with the watery element will endow the per¬ son with a taste for a seafaring life, etc.
Spirit is perceptible to spiritual existences, and the thoughts of mortals consequently appear visible and material to spirits ; the Soul essence, with its cur¬ rents and forms, may be seen and felt by the Ele- mentals and beings that live in the realm of the soul ; and they are, also, capable of reading such thoughts as are not of a too refined and spiritual character to
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be discerned by them, and to perceive the states of feelings of men by the colours and impressions pro¬ duced in the auras of the latter ; but they cannot per¬ ceive divine and spiritual things. Matter, in the state in which it is known to us, is seen and felt by means of the physical senses ; but to beings who are not provided with such senses, material things are as invisible and intangible as spiritual things are to those who have not developed the power of spiritual perception.
The Spiritual Essence of Man comes from the first emanation of God. It is gifted with divine wisdom and with divine power ; and if the elements constitut¬ ing the normal man become conscious of the posses¬ sion by them of divine gifts, and learn to realize their power and how to employ them, they will be, so to say, superhuman, and may rightly be called divine Beings, or Sons of the Almighty. Whenever a child is conceived, a word proceeds, like a ray from God, which provides the future man with a Spirit. This Spirit, however, is not absorbed immediately by the new-born child, but becomes incarnate gradually, as the man grows and attains reason and intelligence.1 Many men and women live, and marry, and die with¬ out ever coming into full possession of (or without entering into a firm connection with) that divine ray of wisdom that can alone transform them into im¬ mortal human beings ; because, although the powers
1 This is not to be understood as if some spirit in the human shape were waiting to crawl into the body of the child as it grows up, but that the spiritual element gradually develops and becomes active in the child, in proportion as the human instrument through which it desires to act enables it to manifest that activity. Pure sjririt is formless.
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PARACELSUS.
and essences that go to make up their souls may be much more enduring in their form than their physical bodies, still these powers will become exhausted and these essences be decomposed into their elements in due time, and there is nothing that endures to the end except the Spirit of God, that may become man¬ ifest in man by assimilating with the more refined essences of the soul. If no such assimilation takes place — in other words, if the individual during his life does not become wise and good and spiritually enlightened — the divine ray will, at the death of the person, return again to the source from whence it came ; but that individual’s personality 1 will only re¬ main as an impression in the Astral light. There are two kinds of intelligence in man — the human and the animal intelligence. It is only the human (super¬ human) intelligence that can combine and unite itself with the spirit. The lower or animal reason, liow- ever well versed in dogmatic science, logic, and soph¬ istry it may be, and however much learning in regard to the external appearances of things it may possess, will be lost, because it will be repulsed by the spirit, for it is not spiritual. It is the spirit or life alone that can hold forms together and prevent their dis¬ solution and their return into chaos. Pure spirit has no personality, but exists impersonal in and as God. Every birth produces a new person, but not a neAv spiritual ray. The spirit survives, but the person¬ ality of man, as such, may be lost. Only those elements belonging to his personality that will be
1 There is a difference between individuality and personality ; per¬ sonality being a changeable mask which the individual ray produces.
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absorbed by the spirit will survive with the latter. The cement that unites the soul with the spirit is love, and a strong love of the divine is, therefore, the highest good attainable by mortal man.
“ The animal kingdom is not without reason and intellect, and in many of its arts, such as swimming, flying, etc., even superior to man ; but the spirit of God is far superior to the reasoning intellect, and by means of this spirituality man may rise above the animal plane. Therefore there is a great difference between the external and the internal man ; for the intellectuality of the former perishes, while the wis¬ dom of the latter remains.” (“ De Fundamento Sa- pientise.”)
The Soul-essence of Man is formed by the ethereal or astral influences coming from the souls of he world and of the planets and stars, especially from the soul (or astral body) of the planet whereon he lives. As the soul of each man and of each animal has its peculiar qualities that distinguish it from others, likewise the “ soul ” of each planet, each sun, each world has its peculiar characteristics, and sends out its beneficial or its destiuctive influences, pervad¬ ing cosmic space, acting upon the Microcosm of man, and producing finally visible results.1 These astral elements are the organizers of the soul of man. They are the builders of the temple in which the spirit re¬ sides, and being stimulated by them, the soul of man
1 This is not to be understood as if the astral influences were creating the divine soul of man. Man’s spirit is from God ; his astral qualities are developed by the astral influences and his elementary (physical) body grows out of the elements by which it is surrounded.
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PARACELSUS.
attracts by physiological processes the elements of the earth, and forms tissues, muscles, and bones, and becomes visible and tangible to other similarly con¬ stituted beings as the material or animal body of man.1
Man may therefore be looked upon as a twofold being — a visible and an invisible man (or as having a material and a spiritual aspect), linked together by a soul. The form of a corporeal thing is one thing and that which produces the form is another thing ; the form of a thing aiises from the form of the mys¬ tery. If a builder wants to build a house ; the form of the house exists in his mind before he executes the building, even if it is seen by no one except by the builder himself. (“De Podagris II.”) The vis¬ ible man consists of such originally invisible elements as have become visible in his form, the invisible man consists of feelings and thoughts whose origin is in the Macrocosm, and their light is reflected and im¬ presses itself upon matter. Man is therefore the quintessence of all the elements, and a son of the mii verse or a copy in miniature of its Soul, and every¬ thing that exists or takes place in the universe, exists or may take place in the constitution of man. The congeries of forces and essences making up the con¬ stitution of what we call man, is the same as the con¬ geries of forces and powers that on an infinitely larger scale is called the Universe, and everything in the
1 Those anatomists, physiologists, and other scientists, that claim to know all about the constitution of man, because they have studied the organization of his body, and who deny the existence of a soul and a spirit, know only a part — and in fact the most, unimportant part — of the essential constitution of man.
ANTHROPOLOGY.
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Universe reflects itself in man, and may come to liis consciousness ; and this circumstance enables a man who knows himself, to know the Universe, and to perceive not only that which exists invisibly in the Universe, but to foresee and prophesy future events. On this intimate relationship between the Universe and Man depends the harmony by which the Infinite becomes intimately connected with the Finite, the immeasurably great with the small. It is the golden chain of Homer, or the Platonic ring.1
The object of man’s existence is to be a Man , in¬ cluding all that this term implies, i.e., to re-establish the harmony which originally existed between him and the divine state before the separation took place which disturbed the equilibrium, and which caused the first emanation of the divine essence to be at¬ tracted by the third material emanation and to sink into matter. To re-establish this harmony, Man may bring the will of God to perfect expression in his nature ; by learning to know within himself the will of God and being obedient to it, and thereby his own nature and finally even the whole of the Macrocosm may become spiritualized and be rendered paradisia¬ cal. The individual qualities and temperaments of men may be developed to a certain extent, indepen-
1 This doctrine of Paracelsus is indentical with the one taught by the ancient Brahmins and Yogis of the East ; but it may not necessarily be derived from the latter, for an eternal truth may as well be recognized by one seer as by another, in the East as well as in the West, and two or more spiritually enlightened persons may perceive the same truth independently of each other and describe it — each one in his own man¬ ner. The terms — Microcosm and Macrocosm — are identical in their meaning with the Microprosopos and Macroprosopos, or the “ Short- face” and “ Long-face” of the Kabala.
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PARACELSUS.
dent of their surroundings, by the power of the Ens seminis, a formative power (potency) of matter. Adam and Eve (the spiritual dual male and female essence) have received their body through the “ creatures ” (elemental or astral essences), and through the Ens seminis, and through this never-ceasing supply men and women will come into existence until the end of the world. 1 If there wrere no planets and stars, and if there never had been any in existence, nevertheless the children of Adam and Eve would be born and have their particular temperaments. One may be melancholy, another choleric, a third sanguine or bilious, etc. Such qualities of men come from the Ens proprietatis and not from any astral influences, for the temperaments, tastes, inclinations, and talents form no part of the body ; that is to say, they give no complexion, colour, or form to it — they are the attributes of the Ens proprietatis.2
Although, speaking in a general sense, the Micro¬ cosm and the Macrocosm bear to each other a similar
1 This “ end of the world," i.e., of external bisexual generation, will be when man has again found the woman within himself from whom he has become separated by his descending from his spiritual state and becoming gross and material. “ The Lord is not without the woman ; ” that means to say that the paradisiacal Man (the Karana sharira) is still male and female in one ; but man having ceased to be “ the Lord," and become a servant to the animal kingdom in him, has ceased to re¬ cognize the true woman in him, his heavenly bride, and seeks for the woman in that which is external to him. Therefore man cannot enter into his original state of unity and purity except by means of the celes¬ tial marriage (within his soul) such as takes place during the process of spiritual regeneration. (See Jacob Boehme. )
3 What else can this “ Ens proprietatis” mean, but the spiritual monad re-incarnating itself, and being in possession of all the tastes, inclinations, talents, and temperament acquired during its former ex¬ istences as an individual being.
ANTHROPOLOGY.
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relationship as the chicken in the egg bears to its surrounding albumen, nevertheless the action of the Macrocosm upon the Microcosm is only an external condition of life, called by Paracelsus, Digest. No man or any mortal being can exist without the in¬ fluence of the Astra, but they do not come into exist¬ ence through them. A seed thrown into the soil may grow and produce a plant, but it could not ac¬ complish this if it were not acted upon by the sun, nor could the soil itself produce a seed, no matter how long the sun would shine upon it. Paracelsus explains the origin of the qualities of the external conditions of life as being produced by the mutual attractions and interactions existing between the Macrocosmos and the Microcosmos, and by the har¬ mony of both spheres (the upper and lower firma¬ ment), of which either is formed in accordance with the other. The common basis of both — which is, so to say, their common receptacle of germs — is called Limbus. “ Man being formed out of the Limbus, and the Limbus being universal, and therefore the mother of all things, it follows that all things, including man, have the same origin, and each thing is attracted to its original like by reason of this mutual relation¬ ship.1
1 Aboriginal spiritual Man (male and female in one) has been created by the will of God being active within divine wisdom ; but the woman was made out of a “rib” (a power) of man. Therefore man and woman are not equals, except as far as their animal constitution goes. “The matrix from which man originated was the whole world (the limbus ) ; but woman came out of the matrix (the mind) of man. Thus man made unto himself a matrix, the woman, who is now to him as much as a whole world, and the spirit of the Lord is within her, im¬ agining and fructifying her. No one has seen it ; but nevertheless it is
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PARACELSUS.
“ If man were not formed in such a manner and out of the whole ring and of all its parts, but if each man were made out of a separate piece of the world essentially distinct from others, he would not be ca¬ pable to receive the influences residing in the whole. But the soul of the great world has the same divis¬ ions, proportions, and parts as the soul of man, and the material body of man receives the material body of Nature in the same sense as the son receives ‘ the blood’ of his father.”
A relationship similar to the one existing between the Macrocosm and the Microcosm exists between man and woman, and between woman and the uterus, and between the uterus and the foetus.
“ The whole of the Microcosm is potentially con¬ tained in the Liquor Vitce, a nerve-fluid comparable to the fluidic brain-substance, and in which is con¬ tained the nature, quality, character, and essence of beings, and which ethereal life-fluid in man may be looked upon as an invisible or hidden man — so to say, his ethereal counterpart or reflection.” (“ De Gene- ratio Hominis.”)
“ From this nerve-aura or liquor vit;e, in the proc¬ ess of the generation of man, the semen separates itself in a manner comparable to the separation of the foam or froth from a fermenting liquid, or as the quintessence (the fifth principle) of all things sepa¬ rates itself from the lower elements. This semen, however, is not the sperma or the visible seminal
in the matrix of woman. Therefore they ought not be used for whoredom ; for the spirit is in them, coming from the Lord and return¬ ing to Him.” (“Paramirum, IV.” )
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fluid of man, but rather a semi-material principle con¬ tained in the sperma, or the aura seminalis, to which the sperma serves as a vehicle.1 The physical sper¬ ma is a secretion of the physical organs, but the aura seminalis is a product (or emanation) of the ‘ liquor vitae.’ It is developed by the latter in the same sense as fire is produced out of wood, in which there is act¬ ually no fire, but out of which heat and fire may pro¬ ceed. This emanation or separation takes place by a kind of digestion, and by means of an interior heat, which diming the time of virility may be produced in man by the proximity of woman, by his thoughts of her, or by his contact with her, in the same man¬ ner as a piece of wood exposed to the concentrated rays of the sun may be made to burn. All the organs of the human system, and all their powers and activ¬ ities, contribute alike to the formation of semen ; and the essences of all are contained in the liquor vitce , whose quintessence is the aura seminalis, and these organs and physiological activities are reproduced in the foetus out of this liquor. They are, therefore, germinally contained in the seminal fluid that is necessary for the reproduction of the human organism. The spiritual semen is, so to say, the essence of the human body, containing all the organs of the latter
1 That which Paracelsus calls the semen or seed of man, is not that which is known as spermatozoa to modern physiologists ; but a semi- spiritual principle to which the sperma merely serves as a vehicle and instrument for propagation ; or, to express it in other words ; the fruc¬ tifying principle does not exist in the sperma , but in the spirit (the will and imagination) of man, or what is also called “ the tincture." The sperma merely serves as a medium, in the same sense as the body of a man is a medium for the manifestation of his interior spirit. (See “ De Gener. Horn.”)
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PARACELSUS.
in an ideal form.” Furthermore, Paracelsus makes a distinction between Sperma cagastricum and Sper¬ ma iliastricum, of which the former is the product of the imagination (thought), and the latter is attracted directly from the “ Mysterium magnum.” 1
“ Woman, however, being nearer to Nature, fur¬ nishes the soil in which the seed of man finds the conditions required for its development. She nour¬ ishes, develops, and matures the seed without fur¬ nishing any seed herself. Man, although bom of woman, is never derived from woman, but always from man. The cause of the mutual interaction of the two sexes is their mutual attraction. The tendencies of man cause him to think and to speculate ; his specu¬ lation creates desire, his desire grows into passion, his passion acts upon his imagination, and his imag¬ ination creates semen. Therefore God has put semen into the imagination of man, and planted into women the desire to be attractive to man. The matrix con¬ tains a strong attractive power, to attract the semen, similar to that of the loadstone to attract iron.’”1
“ The relationship existing between the Macrocosm and Microcosm finds its analogy in the relationship existing between the female body and the uterus. The latter may be looked upon as a Microcosm in a
1 The universal matrix, into which the spiritual monad, having passed through the Devachanic state, finally enters, and from which it is again attracted into new incarnations.
2 Thus the matrix attracts the seed of both persons, mixed with the sperm ; and afterwards it expels the sperm, but retains the seed. Thus the seed comes into the matrix." (u Gebaeruug.”)
“ The matrix," however, does not mean merely the womb of a woman ; the whole body of the woman is a mother, a ' 1 matrix." (“ De morbor. matric.”)
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Microcosm. As the semen of man contains potentially all the organs of the parent body, likewise there are contained potentially in the uterus all the attributes of the female body, the whole of man’s body is po¬ tentially contained in the semen, and the whole of the body of the mother is, so to say, the soil in which the future man is made to ripen, because all the essences and forces of her body centre in the uterus, and there the power of her imagination is especially active. Thus is Man the product of a secondary fluid, while the Macrocosmos is the prod¬ uct of a primordial fluid, and as the Spirit of God in the beginning of creation moved upon the surface of the waters (the soul), likewise the human spirit, being diffused through the whole of man’s organism, moves upon the (seminal) fluid, out of which the human form is developed. That Spirit of God is the vivify¬ ing and spiri tualizing element in the process of pro¬ creation. But the human foetus passes in the uterus through an animal-like existence, receiving the true spirit at a later period. It is then like a fish in the water, and brings an animal nature into the world.”
The fact of the semen being formed of all parts of the body in equal proportion explains why persons may be bom in whom certain organs may be miss¬ ing. If for some cause one part or another of the human organism does not participate in the forma¬ tion of semen, its essence will be missing in the con¬ stitution of the seminal fluid, and cannot reproduce the corresponding part in the matrix.1 If for some
1 It might be objected, that if this were true, a man having lost a leg could beget only one-legged children, but such a superficial reasoning
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PARACELSUS.
\
cause a part of the father’s organism produces a double quantity of semen, a child may be bom hav¬ ing supernumerary members.
“ Whatever the mother imagines and obtains, the seed (spirit) of that thing is attracted to the matrix and thereof grows the child; but the assertions of those astronomers who claim that the stars make a man are erroneous, and we will look upon such claims as a fable and joke to which one may listen during an idle hour. There are many fools in the world and each one has his own hobby.” (“Ge- baerung des Menschen.”)
As the imagination of man is productive of semen, likewise the imagination of the mother exerts a great constructive influence upon the development of the foetus, and upon this fact is based the similarity ex¬ isting between children and parents.1 Twins and other multiple births are caused if the uterus attracts the semen with more than one single draught. The power of attraction which the uterus exercises upon
would be caused by a misunderstanding of the true nature of man. The invisible man is the essential man, the physical body only the outward expression. If the physical body loses a limb, it does not follow that the soul-body loses it likewise ; but if there is a congenital malforma¬ tion, such as supernumerary fingers or toes, they are found in the astral form as well as in the physical body, and such malformations may be reproduced in the child.
1 This creative and formative power of the imagination may be used to advantage for the purpose of producing male or female offspring at will, as has also been proved by experiments made in cattle-breeding. If the desire or passion, and consequently the imagination of the female is stronger than that of the male during coition, male children will be produced. If on such an occasion the imagination of the male is stronger than that of the female, the child will be of the female sex. If the imagination of both parties is equally strong, a “ hermaphrodite ” may be the result.
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the seminal aura is so great that by coming into con¬ tact with the spermatic fluid of animals it may ab¬ sorb it and bring forth monstrosities.1
It may therefore be said that the imagination of the father sets into activity the creative power neces¬ sary to generate a human being, and the imagi¬ nation of the mother furnishes the material for its formation and development ; 'J but neither the father nor the mother is the parent of the essential spiritual man, but the germ of the latter comes from the Mysterium magnum, and God is its father. Parents do not endow their children with reason, although they may furnish the child with a body, in which the principle of reason may or may not be able to act.3 Reason is the natural birthright of every human being ; it is eternal and perfect, and need not be educated in the child, but it may be overpowered and driven out by dogmatism and sophistry. Intellectual acquisi¬ tions are perishable, memory must be educated, and
1 It will perhaps be difficult to state an example to prove this asser¬ tion ; neither has it been disproved. But we must remember that Paracelsus does not merely deal with objective, visible, and tangible bodies, but with the essence of the soul, that may or may not appear in a tangible form.
3 The effects of the mother’s imagination on the development of the foetus are well known to the people. Hare-lip, acephali, moles, etc., may be caused by the effects of a morbid imagination.
3 If a child, as is often the case, manifests the same tastes, talents, and inclinations as those of his father or as other members of the same family, it does by no means necessarily follow that these tastes, etc., have been inherited by it from his parents, and the contrary also often takes place. A similarity of tastes, etc., between the child and his parents would rather go to show that the monad, having developed its ten¬ dencies in a previous incarnation, was attracted to a particular family on account of an already existing similarity of his own tastes with those of its future parents.
7
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it is often lost much quicker in old age or on account of cerebral diseases than it is developed in youth.1 Children may inherit from their- parents the powers to employ their reason, but they do not inherit rea¬ son itself, because reason is an attribute of the Divine Spirit. Man cannot lose his reason, but he can become lost to it, because reason is an universal principle, and cannot be owned or monopolized by any individual man.
“ A man carrying seed in him (having a lewd imagination) uses no reason, he lives only within his lusts and morbid fancies. God has created man that he may live a free being within the light of nature ; therefore the philosopher should remain free in that light and not live in the seed of nature, which is called Allara. God has put the seed into the imagi¬ nation ; but he has given to man a free will, so that he may either allow himself to be carried away by his fancies, or rise superior to what nature denies in him.” (“ Gebaerung.”)
WOMAN AND MARRIAGE.
Woman, in so far as she is a human being, contains, like man, the germs of all that exists in the Macro¬ cosm, and may manifest the same mental character¬ istics as man ; moreover there are males with prepon¬ derating female soul-qualities, and females in whom the male elements are preponderating ; but woman, as such, represents the will (respectively love and
1 Numerous cases are known in which persons of great learning have become simpletons in their old age ; others, where snch persons, in con¬ sequence of a short sickness, lost all their memory, and had to learn to read again, beginning with the ABC.
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desire), and man, as such, represents reason (respect¬ ively the imagination, logic, and speculation) only within the Lord, within either of them, i.e., in their own God, exists true wisdom. Therefore woman, as such, is more given to willing, and is led by her de¬ sires ; while man, as such, is more given to arguing and calculating causes and effects. Woman repre¬ sents the body ; man represents spirit. Man im¬ agines, woman executes. Man creates images ; the woman renders these images substantial. Man with¬ out woman is like a wandering spirit — a shadow with¬ out substance, seeking to embody itself in a corporeal form ; woman is like a flower, a bud opening in the light of the sun; but sinking into darkness when man, her light, departs. The divine man (the angel — the Karana sharira ) is male and female in one, such as Adam was before the woman became separa¬ ted from him. He is like the sun, and his power may be reflected in men and women alike ; but wom¬ an, as such, resembles the moon, receiving her light from the sun, and man without the woman (in him) is a consuming fire.
Originally, man and woman were one, and conse¬ quently their imion could not have been more intimate than it actually was ; but man having become separated from the woman in him, lost his true light. He now seeks for the woman outside of his true self, and wanders about among shadows ; being misled by the will-o’-the-wisps of external illusions. Being fasci¬ nated by the charms of the terrestrial woman, he drinks of the cup of desires which she presents to him, and sinks into a still deeper sleep and forget-
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PARACELSUS.
fulness of the true celestial Eve ; the immaculate vir¬ gin, who once existed within himself. In this way woman is the enemy of man, and revenges herself for having been divorced from him and cast out from her true home within his heart ; but, on the other hand, she is man’s best friend and redeemer ; for man, hav¬ ing lost the paradise in his soul, and having become unconscious of the true light which existed in him be¬ fore he went to sleep in the spirit and awoke in the flesh, would sink into still lower degradation and de¬ scend to still lower hells, if woman did not stand upon the threshold to stop him, and for the true heaven which he lost offer him a terrestrial paradise, illuminated by the illusive light of her earthly love.
The Lord is the same in woman as He is in man ; but males and females are not equals. They are constituted very differently from each other ; not only according to their mental characteristics ; but also in regard to the whole of their bodily substance. Male and female animals are made out of the same stuff ; but woman was not originally created ; she was formed out of a “ rib ” (a spiritual power) of man, and is therefore of a nobler and more refined kind of matter ; such as he possessed before the woman was formed from him.
“ A common boor thinks that the blood of a woman is the same as that of a man ; lint a physician, unless he has been baptized with the blood of a boor, will see the difference between the two.” (“ De morb. matric.”)
Man represents the dark, fiery ■will, woman the light love- will ; man the fire, woman the water. It
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is not tlie divine man who is attracted by any woman ; but the tincture (nature) in him. The fiery element in man seeks for the watery element in woman, and carries the man along. Thus it is neither man nor woman who longs for sexual intercourse, but nature in them.
There is, perhaps, no doctrine which has done more mischief than the misconstructed teaching about affin¬ ities and soul-marriages ; because such a doctrine is willingly accepted by the carnal mind. God did not create souls in halves, nor can Adam find his Eve again unless she grows within his heart. Man will never find his celestial bride unless he looks for her within his internal heaven, within “ the Lord.” Sex¬ ual cohabitation, whether authorized or unauthorized by church or state, is merely an animal function. There is neither absolute good nor absolute evil in marriage. It relates to the parties entering the con¬ tract, and is therefore relative. It may serve for their edification in one case, and for their degrada¬ tion in another. To the semi-animal man it may be a school of education ; but the regenerated man re¬ quires no sexual relationship. The procreation of children is an animal function, and he who is unable or unwilling to exercise it, has no business to marry. If he, nevertheless, enters the connubial bonds, he commits a piece of stupidity, if not a fraud.
It is also useless for a man to resist the claims of nature in him, if he cannot rise superior to that nat¬ ure, and the power for that superiority does not depend on his human will, but comes from the grace of God (in him).
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PARACELSUS.
“ As long as the root is not, with all of its fibres, torn out of the earth ( i.e ., as long as man has not be¬ come regenerated and thereby free from sexual attrac¬ tions) he will be blind and feeble ; the spirit quick ; the fancy strong ; and the temptations so great that he cannot resist, unless he has been chosen for that purpose ; for all things are ordained by God. If He wants you to be married, and to have children from you, then all your pledging yourself to chastity, and your virginity will amount to nothing. If, in such a case, you refuse to marry, you will then fall into whoredom, or something still worse. Thus will God punish your disobedience, and your resistance to the will of God will be your eternal death.” (“ De Homun- culis.”)
In regard to the marriage obligations, Paracelsus says : “ If a woman leaves her husband, she is then not free from him nor he from her ; for a marriage union having once been formed, it remains a union for all eternity. ” This means that by entering wil¬ fully into sexual relationship with another being, we become attached to it in our will, and a partaker of its future Karma. A woman to whom a man is bound by promise and sexual intercourse, becomes, as it were, a part of the man, and cannot be divorced from him by any ceremony or external separation. They constitute, so to say, one mind, and the com¬ ponent parts of the mind, which represent the carnal man, are not separated until the time of the second death.
Sexual intercourse, without love, is merely a kind of onanism with a corporeal form substituted for the
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merely mental image ; but if sanctioned (not sancti¬ fied) by love, it is then a union, not merely of body, but also of soul ; not of the spiritual soul, which needs no such union, it being already one with all other such souls in the substance of Christ, but a union of that which constitutes the lower Manas of man.1
THE CONSTITUTION OF MAN.
According to Paracelsus, the constitution of man consists of seven principles, or, to express it more correctly, of seven modifications of one primordial essence, which are as follows, and to which we add their Eastern terms : 2 3
1. The Elementary Body. (The Physical Body — Stoola
Sharira.)
2. The Archaeus. (Mumia — Vital force — Jiva.)
3. The Sidereal Body. (The Astral body — Linga
Sharira.)
4. The Animal Soul. (The Elementary body — Kama
rupa, Suekshma Sharira.)
5. The Rational Soul. (The Human soul — Karana
Sharira Manas.)
6. The Spiritual Soul. (The Spiritual Soul — Buddhi.)
7. The Man of the new Olympus. (The Spirit — The
Divine Atma — The personal God.)
1 It is not the flesh and hones of a man which form attachments and
make and break promises ; but the internal, carnally minded man ; and this man will be bound by his attachments and promises long after the house in which he has lived (his body) will have ceased to exist. In regard to this subject, Paracelsus regards it as dangerous to give further details.
3 See A. P. Siunett’s “Esoteric Buddhism.”
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PARACELSUS.
In his “ Philosophia Sagax,” and his “ Explana¬ tions of Astronomia,” Paracelsus deals extensively with a description and explanation of these seven qualities. The most important points referring to the higher principles are as follows : — “ The life of man is an astral effluvium or a balsamic impression, a heavenly and invisible fire, an enclosed essence or spirit. We have no better terms to describe it. The death of man is nothing else but the end of his daily labour, or taking away the ether of life, a disappear¬ ance of the vital balsam, an extinction of the natural light, a re-entering into the matrix of the mother. The natural man possesses the elements of the Earth, and the Earth is his mother, and he re-enters into her and loses his natural flesh ; but the real man will be re-born at the day of the resurrection into another spiritual and glorified body.” (“ De Natura Eeram.”)'
In the study of anthropology the consideration of the divine part of man is of supreme importance ; for the animal part of man is not the time man ; neither is the elementary body the man ; for that body without the true man within is merely a corpse. “ Man has two spirits, a divine and an animal spirit. The former is from the breath of God ; the latter from the elements of the air and the fire. He ought to live according to the life of the divine spirit and
1 Speaking of the day of the resurrection, Faracelsus refers to a great mystery, alluded to in St. John’s revelation, and more plainly spoken of by the Eastern Adepts, when at the end of the Seventh Round all the recollections of the various personalities with which the spiritual monad has been connected during its many objective existences, and which have not become exhausted in Kama loca, but have been pre¬ served in the Astral Light, will re-enter the field of consciousness of the spiritual (divine) man.
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not according to that of the animal.” f“De luna- ticos.’V
But the divine, immortal and invisible man cannot be a subject for the investigation of any science, such as deals merely with external and visible things. He can be known to no one except to his own self ; for the law cannot comprehend the high and the finite mind cannot contain the infinite. The study of the divine man is the object of self-knowledge. Physical science deals with the physical and meta¬ physical science with the astral man ; but these sciences are misleading and incomplete, if we lose out of our sight the existence of the divine and eter¬ nal man. (“ De Fimdamento Sapientise.”)
“ Neither the external nor the astral man is the real man, but the real man is the soul in connection with the Divine Spirit. The astral soul is the shad¬ ow (ethereal counterpart) of the body, illumined by the spirit, and it therefore resembles man. It is neither material or immaterial, but partakes of the nature of each. The inner (sidereal) man is formed out of the same Limbus as the Macrocosm, and he is therefore able to participate of all the wisdom and knowledge existing in the latter. He may obtain knowledge of all creatures, angels and spirits, and learn to understand their attributes. He may learn from the Macrocosm the meaning of the symbols (the forms) by which he is surrounded, in the same manner as he acquires the language of his parents ; because his own soul is the quintessence of every¬ thing in creation, and is connected sympathetically with the whole of Nature ; and therefore every
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PARACELSUS.
change that takes place in the Macrocosm may be sensed by the ethereal essence surrounding his spirit, and it may come to the consciousness and compre¬ hension of man.” 1
Mortal man is a spirit, and has two bodies that are intimately connected together, an elementary and a sidereal body. These two bodies go to form one man. When a man dies, his elementary body re¬ turns to the elements of the Earth ; the Earth absorbs the whole of his three lower principles, and nothing remains of the form of the body. The more material parts of the sidereal body undergo a similar decom¬ position. This body is formed of the astral elements, and is not dependent on physical substances. It is subject to planetary influences, and as the elementary body is dissolved into the elements from which it has been taken, likewise the astral form will in due time dissolve into the sidereal elements to which its sub¬ stance belongs. The sidereal body remains near the decaying physical body until it is itself decomposed by the action of the astral influences. The two bodies were partners during life, and are only separated by death. Therefore they naturally remain near each other for a while after death, until they are consumed by their elements, the one in the grave,
1 It ought to be kept in mind, that whenever Paracelsus speaks of the terrestrial or “ earthly ” man, he does not refer to the elementary (physical) body ; but to the carnal part of the mind (the lower manas). Therefore, he says: “The body thinks; but the spirit wills.” The elementary body does not think ; it is merely a corpse, without the “ inner man,” and the shadow of the latter. It is as such of so little importance that it may not be at all missed, if we leave it either during a trance or after its death.
ANTHROPOLOGY.
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the other one in the air.1 The decomposition of the elementary body requires a certain length of time according to its qualities and the qualities of its sur¬ roundings, and likewise the sidereal body may be decomposed slow or quick, according to the coherence of its particles, and according to the quality and strength of the astral influences acting upon it.
The elementary body is corporeal, but the sidereal body is ethereal. The elementary body is visible and tangible, the sidereal body is invisible and intan¬ gible for us, but ‘visible and tangible for those beings that are of a nature similar to its own. The elemen¬ tary body cannot move on its own account from the place where it has been deposited after death ; but the sidereal body (Kama rupa) goes to that place to which it is mostly attracted by its own desires. If there are no particular places to attract it, it will remain near the elementary body ; but if it is attracted to other places it will visit them, and it is therefore especially liable to haunt the residence which the person occupied during his life, being attracted there by its acquired habits and instincts. Being devoid of reason and judgment, it has no choice in such matters, but follows blindly its attractions. The sidereal body may under certain (mediumistic) conditions become visible, and it therefore may be seen at places to which the reflex of its former passions, such as envy, avarice, repentance, revenge, selfisli-
1 If clairvoyance were at present a normal faculty of mankind, and if men could see the astral forms of the dead hovering over the graves and decomposing in the air, graveyards would soon be abolished, and cremation take the place of burial.
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PARACELSUS.
ness, lust, etc., may attract it, and it may remain in such places until it is dissolved and decomposed. If a sensitive person asserts to have seen the spirit of a deceased person, we may believe that he has seen the sidereal body of such a person, but it is wrong to believe that such a ghost or apparition is the real man, because it is nothing else but the sidereal corpse that appears on such occasions. Such astral corpses may be seen like the reflection of a man in a mirror until they disappear, and the form of one may last longer than that of another.1 *
“ The art called Nigromantia (Necromancy) teaches how to deal with such forms. It teaches their habits and instincts, their attributes and qualities, and how we may find out through them the secrets of the persons to whom those shadows belonged. As the image of a man in a large mirror shows the whole of his person and imitates all his movements and actions, likewise by observing the sidereal body of a deceased person, we may obtain information in regard to the former appearance, and the acts and ways of that person, and find out who he was and where he lived.” 3 (“ Philosopliia Sagax,” lib. I : “ Probatio in
Scientiam Nigrom anticam.”)
1 The last thoughts and desires of a dying person, and their intensity, may, to a great extent, determine the locality to which such a sidereal
body may be attracted. Some places have been known to be haunted for a great number of years.
3 It appears from this sentence that the phenomena of “Modern Spiritualism ” are not a new revelation, but were known and explained tliree hundred years ago. “Oh, the soul of poor Galen! If he had remained faithful to truth, his J fanes would not now be buried in the abyss of hell, from whence he wrote me a letter. Such is the fate of all quacks!” (“ Paragranum.” Preface.)
ANTHROPOLOGY.
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Paracelsus ridicules the exorcists, and those who say prayers and read masses for the dead, “because,” he says, “the former attempt to force a sidereal corpse to talk, while, in fact, no corpse can talk, and they can get from it at best a reflection of their own thoughts, and the latter attempt to fetch an inani¬ mate body into a living heaven by their pious inter¬ position.”
In regard to the conjurers, he says : — “ They at¬ tempt to conjure sidereal bodies, and do not know that they are attempting an impossibility, because such bodies have no sense and cannot be conjured. The consequence is, that the devils (cer¬ tain elementals) take possession of such sidereal bodies and play their pranks with the conjurers. Such devils may take possession of a living man, and make a weak man act as they please, and cause him to commit all sorts of foolishness and crimes. But if they can do this with a living soul, how much easier then will it be for them to take possession of a dead soul which has no spiritual power to resist. Therefore, such conjurers do not deal with the spirits of the dead, but with the powers of evil and the fathers of lies.” 1
1 This sentence may seem to throw discredit upon the practices of modern spiritualists, but not all the practices of spiritualists consist in dealing with the sidereal bodies of the dead. Such practices do not deserve the name Spiritualism , but ought to be looked upon as Spiritism , and when the laws upon which our modern Spiritualism and Spiritism are based, it will be easy enough to make a distinction. Spiritualism means a dealing with spiritual intelligences ; Spiritism, a dealing with unintelligent or semi-intelligent invisible forms. A spiritualist enters into the sphere of a spirit ; that is to say, he enters en rapport with a certain mind, and writes or speaks in the spirit of
110
PARACELSUS.
The Elementals are also the beings which may produce so-called “physical manifestations,” cause the appearance and disappearance of objects, throw stones, etc. In a fragment entitled “De sagis et earum operibus ” (On Witches and their Arts), cap. 3, he says : “In regard to such things you ought to know that they are natural, and that no one can justly say otherwise but that Nature produces them, because, if, for instance, a blooming rose is brought in the midst of winter into a country where there are no roses, an ordinary man may think that such a thing took place in contravention to Nature’s laws, but the Magus (the wise), who knows by what proc¬ ess such phenomena are produced, knows that they are produced according to the law of Nature, because such a flower is brought from a country where it has grown in a natural manner, and where there is no winter at that time. Likewise, ice or snow may be brought with the same facility into a warm country in the midst of summer from another country in which it is winter. Ignorant persons should be informed that the Magus creates neither roses or snow, but that he may receive them from places where they already exist.” 1
Intimately connected with the sidereal body is the Evestrum and the Trarames. In regard to these,
the latter, making himself a medium through which the intelligence of the latter may act, and by which means he may obtain great truths. The spiritist expects an invisible entity to enter bodily into his own physical form and submits his body to the will of the invisible stranger.
1 The fact that such material objects are occasionally brought by invisible powers is known to all who have examined the phenomena of Modern Spiritism. The reader will see how modern theosophioal teachings closely agree with those of Paracelsus.
ANTHROPOLOGY.
Ill
Paracelsus says in his “ Philosophia ad Athenien- ses “ To speak of the Evestrum in its mortal and immortal aspects, we may say that everything has an Evestrum, and that it is like a shadow seen upon a wall. The Evestrum comes into existence, and grows with the body, and remains with it as long as a particle of the matter composing the latter exists. The Evestrum originates contemporaneously with the first birth of each form, and everything, whether n be visible or invisible, whether it belongs to the realm of matter or to the realm of the soul,1 has its Evestrum ; but Trarames means an invisible power that begins to be able to manifest itself at a time when the senses of the inner perception become de¬ veloped. The Evestrum indicates future events by causing visions and apparitions, but Trarames causes an exaltation of the senses. Only those who are gifted with great wisdom may understand the true nature of Evestrum and Trarames. The Evestrum influences the sense of sight ; Trarames the sense of hearing. The Evestrum causes dreams foreshadow¬ ing future events ; Trarames communicates with man by causing voices to speak, music to sound that may be heard by the internal ear, invisible bells to ring, etc.2 Whenever a child is bom, there is born with him an Evestrum, which is so constituted as to be able to indicate in advance all the future acts and the events in the life of the individual to whom it
1 According to the teachings of the Eastern Adepts, each of the seven principles of man may again be subdivided into seven, and each soul has therefore a sevenfold constitution. In other words, each of the seven qualities contains also the other six. (See Jacob Boehmo. )
J So-called Antral Bells , known to all practical occultists.
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PARACELSUS.
belongs. If that individual is about to die, his Eves- tnun may indicate the approach of his death by raps or knocks, audible to all, or by some other un¬ usual noise, by the movement of furniture, the stop¬ ping of clocks, the breaking of a picture, the fall of a mirror, or any other omen ; but frequently such omens are neither recognized or noticed, not even imderstood. The Trarames produces manifestations of a more subjective character, and may speak to a person in a way that is audible to him, but inaudi¬ ble to others.” 1
“ The Evestrum of man is born with him, and after the death of the latter, it remains in the earth- sphere,2 and there is still some sympathetic connec¬ tion between the Evestrum and the eternal and im¬ mortal part of man, and it may indicate the state of happiness or misery in which the soul of the person
1 The Evestrum appears to be identical with the Linga shariram, or Astral body of the Eastern occultists. The Trarames is the power which acts on the open sense of hearing of the astral man.
2 They have often been seen and described as the spirits of the dead by mediums and clairvoyants. The “ Evestra ” are merely states of mind, or thoughts, haviug become endowed with a certain amount of will, so as to render them more or less self conscious and as it were in¬ dependent of the person from whom they originate, as is shown in cases where a man would be glad to get rid of some idea by which he is pos¬ sessed ; but cannot drive it away from his mind. Such thoughts may remain impressed on the astral light of a room which that person in¬ habited, and such an image may even become visible and objective. A case is known, where a man became insane and was sent to an insane asylum, where he was kept for over a year. He suddenly became well and went home; but afterward he heard that his “ghost” was still haunting the cell which he had occupied in the asylum, and that it was there raving, overthrowing the furniture, etc. He became curious to see his own “ghost," and in spite of all the warnings of his friends he went back to that cell, saw his “ ghost ” and was again observed by it, so that he died insane.
ANTHROPOLOGY.
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to whom it belongs exists. Such Evestra are usually not the souls of the dead walking upon the earth, but they are the ethereal duplicates of the persons to whom they belonged, remaining until the last par¬ ticle of the matter composing the physical bodies of the latter has been consumed.”
“ All Evestra originate in the Turbo, magna, the collective activity of the universe.1 The Evestra prophetica proceed directly from the Turba magna, the Evestra obumbrata come into existence at the time when the forms to which they belong ap¬ pear. The Evestra prophetica 2 are the harbingers of great events that may concern the well-being of the world. If some such important event is to take place, they will be the forerunners to announce it to the world, so that the latter may be prepared for it, and a person who understands the true nature of such an Evestrum is a seer and prophet. Even the high¬ est God has his Evestrum mysteriale by which his existence and his attributes may be recognized,3 by which everything good may be known, and which may illuminate every mind. Likewise, all the powers of evil, from the lowest to the highest, have their Evestra mysteriales, which may predict future evil, and which shed their bad influence over the world.”
“ Necromantia gives its signs through the Astra, which we also call 1 Evestra.' They mark the bodies
1 The Soul of the Universe. According to Jacob Boehme, it is the awakened life of the inner world, perturbing Nature.
2 Direct emanations of the Universal Mind.
3 The transcendental bodies of the Dhyan-Chohans collectively.
8
114
PARACELSUS.
of the sick and the dying with spots, showing that he will die on the third day ; they mark the hands and fingers of men with yellow spots, foreshowing for¬ tunate events. Through them the dead perform signs and wonders, such as the bleeding of a corpse in the presence of the murderer, and through their power voices are sometimes heard from out of the tombs. Noises and hauntings may thus take place in charnel houses and the dead appear in the cloth¬ ing which they used to wear while living, and various visions are seen in mirrors, stones, water, etc. A great deal might be said about such things ; but it would create fears and superstitions and other evils. This we wish to avoid, and we will therefore say no more about such things which ought not to be publicly known.” (“Signat. Pier. IX.”)
“ There are Evestra in all things,1 and they are all prophesying spirits, whether the bodies to which they belong are rational or irrational, sensitive or without sensation. These Evestra teach Astronomia (natural science) to him who can understand what they say. The character of each thing may be known through its Evestrum, not by making astrological charts, calculating nativities and composing prog¬ nostics — but by looking at it with the understanding, in the same manner as we may look at the image of an object in a mirror or at the shadow of a body on the surface of the water, or upon the earth. The Ens (the eternal cause and character of a thing) is
1 See Professor Denton’s "The Souls of Things.” Every atom and molecule, every ephemeron, must have its Evestrum, whether the com¬ pounds are regarded as organic or inorganic.
ANTHROPOLOGY.
115
reflected in its Evestnun. The form of the latter perishes, but the spirit remains. The number and variety of Evestra are as incalculable as that of the visible and invisible forms to which they belong. The Evestra of human beings know the thoughts of men, guide their instincts, watch over them in their sleep, warn them of dangers and prophesy future events. The Sibyls of the past have read the future in the Evestra, and the Evestra have caused the ancient prophets to speak as it were in a dream.” (“ Philos, ad Athenienses.”)
“ The world of the Evestra is a world 1 of its own, although intimately interlaced and connected with ours. It has its own peculiar states of matter and objects that may be -visible or invisible to its inhabi¬ tants, and yet corresponding to a certain extent to ours. Still, it is a world constituted differently from ours, and its inhabitants may know as little about our existence as we about theirs. The Firmament of the universe 2 is fourfold in its essence, and divided into four planes. One belongs to Matter (Earth), one to Water, one to Ah’, and one to Fire, but the Firma¬ ment in which rests the Evestrum is dispersed. The latter is not the firmament containing our visible stars, but the sphere in which the Nymplise, Undines, Salamanders, Flagse, etc., live. These beings are not dependent on our sphere of existence, but they have a Firmament of their own ; they have their own peculiar conditions, places of dwelling, localities, stars and planets. As there is in our world water and fire, harmonies and contrasts, visible bodies and
1 The Astral Plane. 2 The sphere of the Universal Mind.
116
PARACELSUS.
invisible essences, likewise these beings are varied in their constitution and have their own peculiarities, for which human beings have no comprehension. But the two worlds intermingle and throw their shadows upon each other, and this circumstance causes delusive visions, apparitions, omens and signs, mixing strangely with the two impressions coming from the Evestra Prophetica, and only an intelligence illuminated by wisdom can distinguish the true from the false.” 1
“ The first thing, however, which we ought to do, is, as Christ says, to seek for the Kingdom of God and His justice. If we do this we will require no prophecies ; because all that we need will be given to us.” (“ De Arte Praesaga.”)
Thus, the astral life is most active in man when his physical body is asleep. The sidereal man is then awake, and acts through the Evestrum, causing occa¬ sionally prophetic dreams, which the person after awakening to physical consciousness will remember, and to which he may pay attention. Such dreams may also be caused by other influences, and be delusive ; and man ought therefore neither to reject nor to accept all dreams without discrimination, but always use his reason to distinguish the true from the false. “ But, on the whole, there may be more reliance put into dreams than in the revelations received by the art of Necromancy; because the latter are usually false and deceptive, and although the Elementals,
1 The writings of Paracelsus, such as have been preserved, in regard to the description of the Astral world, are exceedingly confused, and written in a style which renders their meaning almost incomprehensible.
ANTHROPOLOGY.
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using the astral bodies of the dead on such occasions as masks, will give correct answers to questions, and often confirm their assertions with oaths, neverthe¬ less, no implicit confidence or reliance can be put into what they may say, because they do not wish to speak the truth, nor are they able to speak it.”
“ The patriarchs, prophets and saints preferred therefore visions and dreams to any other mode of divination. Balaam was so well versed in the art of calling forth prophetic dreams that he could have them whenever he wanted. He was therefore falsely accused of being a sorcerer ; for the Scriptures do not use any discrimination in such matters, but call every one a sorcerer who has such powers, and uses them to obtain information without being himself a saint. God wills that we shall be like the apostles in purity and simplicity of mind, and that we shall not specu¬ late in hidden and secret things, such as are called supernatural 1 and which may be misused for the pur¬ pose of injuring one’s neighbor in body and soul. The difference between a magus and a sorcerer, is that the former does not misuse his art. If magic (the power of the spiritual will) is misused, it is then sorcery.” (“ Philos, occulta.”)
“ There are two kinds of dreams — natural ones and such as come from the spirit. It is unnecessary to say much about the former, because they are known to all. They may be caused by joy or sadness, by impurities of the blood, by external or internal causes.
1 Those are in error who claim that there is nothing supernatural ; for although all things exist in nature, nature itself is not God. God is above and beyond nature ; not in regard to locality but in regard to His superiority.
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PARACELSUS.
A gambler may dream of cards, a soldier of battles, a drunkard of wine, a robber of theft. All such dreams are caused by the lower principles of such persons, which play with their imagination, heat their blood, and stimulate their phantasy.”
“ But there are supernatural dreams, and they may be messengers from God, that may be sent to us at the approach of some great danger. Such a dream was sent to the Magi of the East at a time when Herodes desired to have the new-boni child killed. Joseph had such a dream, and so did Jacob at the time when he started for Egypt. Ananias, Cornelius, and many others, had similar visions, and such super¬ natural dreams take place sometimes even among the present generation ; but only the wise pay attention to them. Others treat them with contempt, although such dreams are time, and do not deceive.”
“ The dream in the Gabcd plays with that which is in man, and that which the dream shows is the shadow of such wisdom as exists in the man, even if during his waking state he may know nothing about it ; for we ought to know that God has given us all wisdom and knowledge, reason and the power to per¬ ceive the past and the future : but we do not know it ; because we are fooling away our time with outward and temporal things and are asleep in regard to that which is within our own self. If one appears to have more talent thqn another man, it is not be¬ cause he has been especially favoured by God ; but because he has more tlian the other sought for that which God has given to each.” (“ Fraginenta med- ica.”)
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“ There are some persons whose nature is so spir¬ itual, and their souls so exalted, that they can ap¬ proach the highest spiritual sphere at a time when them bodies are asleep. Such persons have seen the glory of God, the happiness of the redeemed, and the torture of the wicked ; and they did not forget their dreams on awakening, but remembered what they had seen unto the end of their days. Such things are possible, and the greatest mysteries may be laid open to the perception of the spirit ; and if we earnestly desire such gifts, and pray with an unrelenting faith to the power of the Supreme, that rests in ourselves, to grant them to us, we may be enabled to see the Hysteria Dei, and to understand them as well as Moses, Jesaiah, and John.”
“ It may happen that the Evestra of persons who have died perhaps fifty or a hundred years ago may appear to us in a dream, and if such an Evestrum comes to us in our dream and speaks with us, we should pay especial attention to what it says ; for such a vision is not a hallucination or delusion, and it is possible that a man is as much able to use his reason during the sleep of his body as when the latter is awake, and if in such a case such an Evestrum ap¬ pears to him, and he asks questions, he will then hear that which is true. A great deal could be said about such Evestra, but it is not proper to say more about them.” 1
“ Through the Evestra we may obtain a great deal of knowledge in regard to good or to evil things, if
1 This means that the thoughts of great minds remain for ages like stars on the mental horizon of the world.
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PARACELSUS.
we ask them to reveal them to us.1 Many persons have had such prayers granted to them. Some people that were sick have been informed during their sleep what remedies they should use, and after using such remedies they became cured. And such things have happened not only to Christians, but also to the heathens, to Jews, Saracenes, Mamelukes, Persians, and Aegyptians ; to good and to bad per¬ sons ; and I cannot therefore believe that such re¬ velations come directly from the Deity, because, there being only one God, all those peoples cannot have separate gods ; 3 but I believe that the universal light of Nature illuminated such disciples, and as that light has no organs of speech, it causes Evestra in the astral spheres of men during the sleep of the latter.” (“ De Caducis.”)
When men are asleep, their bodies are like those of animals or plants, for animals and plants have also their elementary and their sidereal bodies ; but the divine spirit can only become active in man. During sleep the sidereal body, by which man is connected with the inner nature of the Macrocosm, becomes free in its movements, and it may then rise up to the sphere of his ancestors, and converse with the stars ; — that is to say, the processes taking place in the intellectual sphere of the Macrocosm may throw
1 “ Prayer is an exercise of the Divine will in man. If we exert that will in us to rise up to the perception of a grand idea, we will be lifted up to it by the power of this Divine will.
“Everyman having his own personal god in him, called the highest spirit or the Divine Monad, what the author means by “ separate gods” is, that apart from Budhi, or the Divine Soul, its vehicle , these “ spirits” cannot be regarded as separate individualities, but are all portions of the One Supreme Essence.
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tlieir reflections into his soul and come to his inner perception. Dreams, visions, and omens are gifts given to the sidereal man, and not to the elementary body.”
“ The day of the corpora is the night for the spi- ritus. When the corpora cease their labour, the spirits (in man) begin their work. When the body of man rests, his spirit begins to become active, and when the latter ceases, the former resumes its work. Therefore is the waking of the body the sleep of the spirit, and the spirit’s sleep a waking for the body. They will not sleep or operate toge¬ ther; one acts, while the other reposes.” (“Philo- soph.,” v.)
“But dreams may be pure or impure, wise or fool¬ ish, rational or irrational, according to the position which man occupies in his relation to the light of Nature. Prophetic sights are caused by the circum¬ stance that man has a sidereal body, related to the substance of the Universal Mind, and the former confabulates with the latter whenever the attention of the sidereal body is not needed by the require¬ ments of the physical body. That is to say, all that takes place in the outer world is mirrored forth in the inner world, and appears as a dream. The ele¬ mentary body has no spiritual gifts, but the sidereal body possesses them all. Whenever the elementary body is at rest, asleep or unconscious, the sidereal body is awake and active, because the latter needs neither rest nor sleep ; but whenever the elementary body is fully awake and active, the activity of the sidereal body mil then be restrained, and its free
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PARACELSUS.
movements be impeded or prevented, like those of a man who is buried alive in a tomb.” 1
“ The quality of the dreams will depend on the harmony that exists between the soul and the Astrum (Universal Mind). To those who are self-conceited and vain of their imaginary knowledge of exterior things, having no real wisdom, nothing can be shown, because the perverted action of their own minds opposes the harmonious action of the Universal Mind and repulses it. The spheres of their souls become narrow and contracted, and cannot expand towards the whole. They rest self-satisfied, buried in the shadow of their own ignorance, and are inac¬ cessible to the light of Nature. Their attention is fully absorbed by the smoke of the candle-wick of their material reason, and they are blind to the light of the spiritual sun. The activity of the Universal Mind can only come to the consciousness of those whose spheres of mind are capable of receiving its impressions. Those who make room for such im¬ pressions will receive them. Such impressions are passing in and out of the sphere of the individual mind, and they may cause visions and dreams, hav-
1 “ The spirit educates the body (the internal the external man), and may seduce it to commit sins, for which the body has to suffer ; but the body can neither instruct nor seduce the spirit. The body eats and drinkB, but the nourishment of the spirit is faith. The body perishes, the spirit is eternal. The body is subdued by the spirit, but not the spirit by the body. The body is dark, the spirit light and transparent. The body is subject to disease ; the spirit remains well. Material things are dark to the body, but the spirit sees through everything. The body (mind) speculates ; the spirit (the will) acts. The body is ITumia , the spirit is balsam. The body belongs to death, the spirit to life. The body as of the earth ; the spirit from heaven and God.” (“Phil tract.,” iv. )
ANTHROPOLOGY.
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ing an important meaning, and whose interpretation is an art that is known to the wise.” (“ Phil. Sagax.”)
“Thus one spirit may teach another dining the sleep of the body ; for spirits deal with each other and teach each other their art. A foreign spirit can¬ not enter into a corpus which does not belong to him ; it is bound to its own body. Therefore, the body of man must learn from its own spirit and not from a foreign one; but his spirit must leam from other spirits, for it cannot always have everything out of its own self.” (“Philos.,” v.)
DEATH.
The word “ Death ” implies two meanings : 1. Ces¬ sation of the activity of Life; 2. Annihilation of Form. Form is an illusion, and has no existence in¬ dependent of Life ; it is only an expression of life, and not productive of the latter. It cannot cease to live because it never lived before, and the death of a form is only the cessation of the eternal power of life in one form of manifestation of its activity preceding its manifestation in some other form. But Life it¬ self cannot die or be annihilated, because it is not bom of a form. It is an eternal power, that has always existed and always will exist. The annihila¬ tion of a particle of life would be a loss to the Uni¬ verse that could not be replaced. Life is a function of God,1 and will always exist as long as God lives.
Before we can expect to die, we must first come to life. Life cannot cease to be active in a form as long
1 The seventh principle.
124
PARACELSUS.
as it has not become active therein. There are two kinds of life in man ; the divine and the natural life. If the natural life ceases to be active in man, the man dies, and he will then be conscious only of the life of his spirit; but if the divine life has not be¬ come active in him during his natural life, it will not become so by means of his death. No mortal man can become immortal by dying ; he must have gained (become conscious of) eternal life during his terres¬ trial existence before he can expect to retain that life after the death of his body. “Wliat is death? It is that which takes the life away from us. It is the separation of the immortal from the mortal part. It is also that which awakens us and returns to us that which it has taken away.” (“Paramirum,” ii.)
“Each form is an embodiment of certain principles or qualities. If there were for instance no heat, nothing could become hot. If there were no wisdom, no man could become wise; if there were no art, there would be no artists. If the principles from which men and animals derive their qualities did not exist, there could be no men or animals in whom such qualities are made manifest. These principles (forms of will) remain, although the forms in which they have been manifested for the time being, decay. If a wise man dies, his wisdom still continues to be and may be communicated to another person.” (“De Fund. Sap.”)
All forms are subject to annihilation; they are only illusions, and as such they will cease to exist when the cause that produced them ceases to act. The body of a king or a sage is as useless as that
ANTHROPOLOGY.
125
of an animal after tlie life whose product it was, has ceased to act. A form can only maintain its ex¬ istence as long as the action of life upon the sub¬ stance of the form continues. Bnt life is an eter¬ nal and perfect power ; it can be brought into con¬ tact, but it cannot be united with physical matter. It can only be attracted to physical matter by the power of the spirit, and if the spirit ceases to attract it, life will depart from matter, and the form will be dissolved into its elements. Nothing can be¬ come united with eternal and perfect life except that which is eternal and perfect. That which is good and perfect can continue to live ; that which is evil and imperfect will be transformed. If all the ele¬ ments constituting a man were good, if his whole emotional and intellectual constitution were perfect, such a man would be wholly immortal. If there is nothing good in him, he will have to die and to be wholly transformed. If a part of him is good and another part evil, the good portion will live and the evil one will perish. Omne bonum perfection a Deo / imperfection a diablo.
“ The divine man does not die ; but the animals in him are subject to dissolution. Man will have to render accoimt for his acts; not so the animals. An animal is only an animal and not a man ; but the true man is an image of God. Animal man is that what the animal in him makes of him, and if a man is not really a man in regard to his wisdom, he is not a man but an animal.” (“De Fundament. Sapientiae.”)
“The spirit of man comes from God, and when the body dies the spirit returns to God. The body comes
126
PARACELSUS.
from nature and returns to it. Thus everything re¬ turns to its own. prima materia. If God is not con¬ scious in us, how can we expect to be conscious in God? Who can see by alight which does not shine?” (“De Morb. In vis.,” iv.)
“No man becomes raised in the flesh of Adam, and Eve (the Manas), but in the flesh of Christ (the At- ma-Buddhi) ; therefore that which is not in the flesh of Christ cannot be redeemed.” (“De Fund. Sap. fragm.”)
Everything that exists is a manifestation of life. Stones and metals have a life as well as plants, ani¬ mals, or men ; only the mode of the manifestation dif¬ fers on accoimt of the organic structure of the parti' cles of which they are composed. A fly, for instance, has the same life as a stone, because there is only One Life, but in a fly it manifests itself otherwise than in a stone, and while the shape of the former may exist for thousands of years, the latter may live only a few days.
The elements, which are used by the power of life for the purpose of manifesting itself, are as inde¬ structible as life itself, but they continually change their states, they are continually undergoing transfor¬ mations, they are continually calcinated, sublimated, dissolved, decomposed, distilled, coagulated, and tinctured in the alchemistical laboratory of Nature.
Each form has a certain period during which it may exist as a form, and the length of this period is predetermined by the number which is a constitu¬ ent factor in the organization of form, and which springs from life itself, because life is a conscious
ANTHROPOLOGY.
127
power, ancl does nothing at random, but everything according to its own inherent law, and if the form should be prematurely destroyed, life will neverthe¬ less be active in the astral soul of the form, which cannot be destroyed until the time for its natural dissolution has arrived. The outer form is only caused by the action of life upon the astral form, and if the exterior form is broken, the inner form still continues to exist, and may under certain conditions be brought again into contact with the remnants of the broken form, and thereby the latter may be re¬ vived again. If a thing dies a natural death, such a revival is impossible ; but if the death has been pre¬ mature, such a revival may take place, if the vital or¬ gans of the person or animal have not been irrevoca¬ bly destroyed.
But even in the latter case there still exists a close sympathetic relationship between the remnants of the body and the living astral form, and this rela¬ tionship continues to exist until the period of the natural life of the individual has expired, or until the substances composing his body have been entirely dissolved into their elements.1 The remnants of such bodies, the corpses of persons that have com¬ mitted suicide or died by the hands of an executioner, have therefore great occult powers. They do not contain life, but the balsam of life,3 and it is very fortunate that this fact is not publicly known, be¬ cause if evil-disposed persons knew these things, and the use that can be made of the latter, they
1 Spirit-communications from suicides go to conlirm this fact.
1 The vehicle of life (the astral body).
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PARACELSUS.
might use them for sorceries and evil purposes, and inflict much suffering upon others.1
If we would bum a tree, and enclose the ashes and the smoke and the vapour and all the elements that made up the tree, into a great bottle, and plant a liv¬ ing seed of that tree into the ashes, we might resur¬ rect the same kind of a tree again out of its ashes, because there would be a centre of life, to which all the elements that were before necessary to form that tree could be again attracted to form another tree of the same kind, having all the characteristics of the former ; but if there were no seed, there would be no tree, because the character of the tree is neither in the ashes nor in the vapour nor in the smoke, but in the Mysterium magnum, the eternal storehouse of life, from which it may be attracted again by a seed, and be made to live in a new form endowed with greater virtues and powers than the ones it possessed before.
All this goes to show not only the indestructibility of “ matter,” but also that of “ mind.” The loill- spirit of a person retains its own qualities after the death of the person ; but this will-spirit is not the person itself. The person’s personality consists of
1 The Eastern esoteric doctrine teaches the same : The astral form, or Caballi, of suicides, or of one who died an unnatural premature death, cannot be dissolved or die “ a second death,” but will linger and wander in the earth’s atmosphere (Kama loka) for the period that was allotted to its body’s life, save accidents. The astral bodies (spirits, so called) of suicides are those who appear nine times out of ten in spiritual seances, when they will assume any celebrated name, or even the ap¬ pearance of certain well-known persons, whose images are well im pressed in the aura around those present. They are the most dangerous of all the Elementaries.
ANTHROPOLOGY.
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that combination of personal qualities which are rep¬ resented in his form, and if that form, be it on the physical or on the astral plane, is dissolved, there is then an end of that personality, and only the will- spirit remains. But the divine spirit of man, having attained self-consciousness in God and substance in the body of Christ, or to express it in other words ; that part of the Manas which has become illumined by the light of the Atma-Buddhi, will continue as a self-conscious and self-luminous entity in the life of eternity.1
Thus there is something incorruptible and eternal, and something corruptible and temporal in man, and he may use his free will to identify himself either with the one or the other. If he identifies himself with nature, he will have to be transformed by her. If he identifies himself with the divine spirit, he will remain that which he is. There is no death to be feared except that which results from becoming un¬ conscious of the presence of God.
1 Jacob Boehme says : “ Death is a breaking up of the three king¬ doms in man. It is the only means by which the spirit is enabled to enter into another state and to become manifest in another form. When the spirit dies relatively to its selfhood (personality) and its self-will becomes broken in death, then out of that death grows another will, not according to that temporal will, but according to the eternal will.” (“Signat.,” xvi., 51.)
8
Y. PNEUMATOLOGY.
The orthodoxy of the Middle Ages looked upon angels and devils and departed human spirits as be¬ ing personal invisible entities. They personified the powers of good and of evil, and made of them cari¬ catures and monsters that flitted from place to place, attempting to subjugate the souls of men or to bring them within their power. The governmental insti¬ tutions during those times were those of oligarchy, and the poor were dependent on the favours of the rich. The power of the Church was supreme, and the dictates of the clergy suffered no disobedience. Servility and the craving for personal favours were the order of the day, and this state of mind necessar¬ ily influenced and modified the religious conceptions of the people. The Supreme Spirit of the Universe became degraded in their eyes to a personal tyrant, into whose favour they attempted to wheedle them¬ selves by penitences, supplications, and by means of the intercessions of priests, who were supposed to be his favourites. Everything that could not be reconciled with existing prejudices and opinions was attributed to the devil ; and the horrors of the in¬ quisitions, religious persecutions, and witch-trials are too well known to require to be recalled to the memory of the reader.
PNEUMATOLOOT.
131
“ Pneurna or “soul,” means a semi-material spirit, an essence or form wliicli is neither “material” in the common acceptation of this term, nor pure spirit. It is (like everything else in the universe) a form of will, and may be with or without any intelligence. Usually it means the connecting link between spirit and body ; but there are beings who belong entirely to the realm of the soul and have no such bodies as are commonly called “ material.”
It may be said that the soul is a certain state of activity of the will, and the same may be said of the physical body ; for if we look at the universe as be¬ ing a manifestation of will in motion, then all forms and objects that we know of, or which we can imag¬ ine, are certain vibrations of will. Thus we may look upon physical nature as being constituted of a low order of vibrations ; upon the soul as a higher octave of the same, and of spirit as one higher still. If the physical body dies, the lower octave ceases to sound ; but the higher one continues and will con¬ tinue to vibrate as long as it is in contact with the highest ; but if the spirit has become separated from it, it will sooner or later cease its activity. Thus if man dies the soul remains, and its higher essences go to form the substance of the body of the paradisiacal man, “ the man of the new Olymp” (Devachan), and the lower essences of the soul, from which the spirit has departed, dissolve in the astral elements to which they belong, as the earthly body dissolves in the elements of the earth.
This dissolution, however, does not take place im¬ mediately at the time of the separation of the sold from
132
PARACELSUS.
tlie body, but may require a long time. That which constituted the mind of a man (the astro) still con¬ tinue to exist after the death of the body, although the astrum is not the person to which the astrum be¬ longed. If a man has been true during his life, his spirit will be true after the man’s death. If he has been a great astronomer, a magician or alchemist, his spirit will still be the same, and we may learn a great many things from such spirits ; they being the rem¬ nants of the mind which once constituted the ter¬ restrial man. (“ Philos.,” Tract, v.)
There are two deaths or two separations. The separation of the spirit and soul from the body and the separation of the spirit from the soul, or, to ex¬ press it more correctly, of the spiritual from the merely intellectual and animal soul. If a person dies a natural death (i.e., from old age), his passions having died out during his life, his selfish will hav¬ ing become weak and his mind like that of a child, putting its confidence in his father, his spirit and soul will, at the time of his death, become free from material bonds and be attracted to the body of Christ.1
“ Such a soul is the flesh and blood of Christ and Christ is her Master. She does not enter into com¬ munication with mortals, because she has no desire
1 Boehme says : ‘ ‘ When the soul has passed through death, it is
then in the essence of God. It remains with the works which it has produced here, and in this state it will behold the majesty of God and see the angels face to face. In the unfathomable world where the soul is, there is no end or object which that soul would have to attain. Where the carrion is, there will the eagles assemble.” (All that the soul desires will come to it.) — (“Forty Questions,” xxi. 3.)
PNEUMATOLOGY.
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for anything earthly. She does not ‘ think ’ or spe¬ culate about terrestrial things, or worry herself about her relatives or friends. She lives in a state of pure feeling, bliss, and enjoyment.” 1
Such is the fate of those who die a natural death in God ; but the conditions of those who die prema¬ turely without being regenerated, either by theii own hands or in consequence of some accident, dif¬ fer greatly ; because although their souls have bet come forcibly separated from their bodies, the spirit does not therefore necessarily leave the soul, but may remain with it until another separation takes place. They remain in such cases human beings like any others ; only, with this difference, that they do not possess a physical body, and they remain in such a state until the time arrives when, according to the law of Nature and their own predestination (Karma), their physical death should have taken place. At that time the separation of their higher and lower principles takes place. Up to that time they possess their astral bodies. Such bodies are invisible to us, but they are visible to them, and have sensation and perceptive faculties3 and they perform in their
1 Boehme says: “The majority of souls depart from their terres¬ trial forms without the body of Christ (divine love) ; but being con¬ nected therewith only by a small thread.” Such souls having but little spirituality will not exist in such glorious bliss as those whose spiritu¬ ality has been unfolded upon the earth and who loved God above all.
2 Sensation is an attribute of life. If life resides in the astral body, the astral body will have sensation, and as long as that body is connected sympathetically with the dead physical body, it may even feel any injury inflicted upon the latter. The physical body, if it is inanimate, has no sensation ; the latter belongs to the inner man. Wherever the centre of consciousness is established, there is sensa-
134
PARACELSUS.
thoughts that which they have been in the habit of performing during life, and believe that they are per¬ forming it physically. They still remain in the earth sphere, and Paracelsus calls them Caballi, Lemures, etc. They are still in full possession of their earthly desires and passions : they attempt to satisfy them, and are instinctively attracted to persons in whom they find corresponding desires and passions, and to such places where they may hope to satisfy them, by entering into sympathy with such persons (me¬ diums), and they are therefore often inclined to in¬ stigate such mediumistic persons to the commission of crimes and immoralities ; neither can they avoid doing so, because, by losing their physical bodies, they have also lost the necessary amount of energy and will-power to exercise self-control and to employ their reasoning faculties. They often haimt the places where they used to spend their time during life ; 1 * 3 thus attempting to find relief from their burning thirst after the gratification of their desires. Wherever their thoughts attract them, there they will go. If they have committed some crime, they may be bound by repentance to that place where it was perpetrated ; if they have a treasure buried, care for their money may hold them there ; hatred, or desire for revenge may tie them to their enemies ; s
1 Books might be filled with reliable accounts of haunted houses, and instances in which such ghosts have been seen are exceedingly numer¬ ous. Some persons, that may not be able to see them, may feel them
instinctively, or even physically, like a cold wind, or like a current of electricity passing through the body.
3 Chinamen and Hindus have been known to kill themselves for the purpose of revenge, so that their souls may cling to their enemies and
PNEUMA TOLOOY.
135
love may turn them into vampires, ancl connect them with the object of their passion, provided that there are some elements in the latter which will attract them ; because the astral body of an evil person cannot influence the mind of a pure person, neither during life nor after death, unless they are mutually connected by some similarity in their mental organ¬ izations.1
“ Under certain circumstances, such human enti¬ ties may become visible or manifest their presence in some manner. They may appear in bodily shape, or remain invisible and produce sounds and noises — such as knocks, laughing, whistling, sneezing, howl¬ ing, groaning, sighing, walking, trampling, throwing stones and moving articles of furniture or other ob¬ jects, and all this may be done by them for the pur¬ pose of calling the attention of the living, so that they may obtain an opportunity to enter into com¬ munication with them.” 2
trouble their minds or drive them to suicide. It is also well proven that wars are often followed by numerous suicides occurring in the vic¬ torious army.
1 Such a case of vampirism is personally known to me. A young man killed himself on account of his passion for a married lady. The latter loved him, but did not encourage his advances on account of her matrimonial obligations. After his death, his astral form became at¬ tracted to her, and as she was of a mediumistic temperament, he found the necessary conditions to become partly materialized. It required a long-continued effort until she finally became rid of the Incubus. If our practitioners of medicine were better acquainted with occult facts, many “ mysterious ” cases that come under their observation might be¬ come clear to them, and they would obtain a deeper insight into some causes of mania, hysteria, hallucination, etc.
3 Fragment, “ De animabus mortuorum.” A great part of this frag¬ ment has been lost. All such spirits are the products of imagination and will. If a person has an evil imagination, he creates a corre-
136
PARACELSUS.
But not all the appearances of supramundane or submundane visitors are caused by the apparitions of the ghosts or astral bodies of suicides or victims of accidents, nor by the astral corpses and the Eves- tra of the dead ; but there are other invisible entities that may haunt the houses of mortals, and may be¬ come occasionally visible and tangible to the physical senses, if the conditions necessary for such a purpose exist.
One of these classes is made up of beings called “phantasmata.” These ghost-like beings are “noc- tiurnal spirits,” having reasoning capacities similar to those of man. They seek to attach themselves to men, especially to such as have very little power of self-control, and over whom they may gain power. There are a great many kinds of such spirits, good as well as evil ones, and they love to be near man. In this they are comparable to dogs, who are also fond of the company of men. But man can profit nothing from their company. They are empty shadows, and are only an encumbrance to him. They are afraid of red corals, as dogs are afraid of a whip ; but the brown corals attract them.” (“ Herbarius Theophras- ti : De Corallis.”)1
eponding form in his mind and if he infuses that form with his wall, he has then created a “spirit.”
1 Paracelsus recommends the wearing of red corals as a remedy against melancholy. They are said to be ruled by the influence of the sun, while those of brown colour are under the influence of the moon. The red ones are disagreeable not only to Phantasmata, but also to Monsters, Incubi, Succubi, and other evil spirits ; but the browui corals are agreeable to, and attract them. I know of some cases of melancholy, depression of mind, hypochondria, etc., that have been successfully treated by the wearing of red corals, while other articles
PNETJMATOLOGY.
137
“Some people believe that such spirits can be driven away with holy water and by the burning of incense ; but a genuine holy water cannot be had so long as no man is found who is holy enough to be able to invest water with an occult power, and the odour of incense may sooner attract evil spirits than drive them away : because evil spirits are attracted by things that are attractive to the senses, and if we wish to drive them away it would be more reasonable to employ disagreeable odours for such a purpose. The time and effective power against all evil spirits is the will. If we love the source of all good with all our heart, mind, and desire, we may be sure never to fall into the power of evil ; but priestly ceremo¬ nies — the sprinkling of water, the burning of incense, and the singing of incantations — are the inventions of clerical vanity, and they therefore take their origin from the source of all evil. Ceremonies have been instituted originally to give an external form to an internal act ; but where the internal power to perform such acts does not exist, a ceremony will be of no avail except to attract such spirits as may love to mock at our foolishness.” (“Philos. Occulta.”)
Another class consists of the Incubi and Succubi, of which rabbinical traditions speak in an allegorical manner as having been created by the spilling of the seed of Adam (the animal man) while engaged with Lilith, his first wife (meaning a morbid imagination). Paracelsus says in his book, “ De Origine Mor-
employed for the same purpose had no effect, and the cure could there¬ fore not be attributed merely to the belief of the patient. The igno¬ rant will find it easier to ridicule 6uch things than to explain them.
138
PARACELSUS.
borum Invisibilium,” lib. iii. : “ Imagination is the cause of Incubi and Succubi and fluidic Larvae. The Incubi are male and the Succubi female beings. They are the outgrowths of an intense and lewd im¬ agination of men or women, and after they take form they are carried away. They are formed of the Sperma found in the imagination of those who com¬ mit the unnatural sin of Onan in thought and desire. Coming, as it does, from the imagination alone, it is no true sperma, but only a corrupted salt (essence). Only a seed that enters the organs which Nature provided for its development can grow into a body.1 If seed is not planted into the proper soil it will rot. If sperma does not come into the proper matrix, it will not produce anything good, but something use¬ less. Therefore the Incubi and Succubi grown out of corrupted seed, without the natural order of things, are evil and useless; and Thomas of Aquinas has made an error by mistaking such a useless thing for a perfect one.”
“This sperma, coming from the imagination, is bom in Amove Hereos. This means a kind of a love in which a man may imagine a woman, or a woman a man, to perform the connubial act with the image created in the sphere of his mind. From this act
1 It is here not the question of merely visible and tangible things, but of the products of the mind, which are also substantial, and which may become visible and tangible under certain conditions.
“ The invisible body as well as the terrestrial body act each in its own way. That which the visible body performs is done with its hands ; the inner man works by means of his imagination and will. The works of the former appear to us real ; those of the latter like shadows." i“Morb. Invisib.,’’ iii.)
PNEUMATOLOGT.
139
results the expulsion of a useless ethereal fluid, im¬ potent to generate a child, but capable of bringing Larvae into existence. Such an imagination is the mother of a luxurious unchastity, which, if continued, may render man impotent and woman sterile, because much of the true creative and formative power is lost by the frequent exercise of such a morbid imagi¬ nation. This is frequently the cause of moles, abor¬ tions, miscarriages, and malformations. Such cor¬ rupted sperma may be taken away by spirits that wander about at night, and who may carry it to a place where they may hatch it out. There are spirits that may perform an “actus ” with it, as may also be done by witches, and, in consequence of that actus, many curious monsters of horrible shapes may come into existence.” (“De Orig. Morb. Invis.”)
“ If such monsters are bom from a powerful, con¬ scious imagination, the same consciousness will also be created in them. The spirits of night may use all that is born from such sperma according to their pleasure, but they can rise nothing of a human character or possessing true spirit.” “Amor liereos is a state of the invisible body, and is caused by an overheated imagination, stimulated to such an extent as to eject sperma, out of which Incubi and Succubi may grow. In ordinary pollutionibus noc- turnalis, the body loses sperma without any effort of the imagination, and the spirits of night can there¬ fore not use it for their purposes.”
“If women who have passed beyond the age of fer¬ tility and are unchaste and of a vivid imagination, they may also call such things into existence. If jjersons
140
PARACELSUS.
of either sex have lewd desires and an active imagi¬ nation, or if they are passionately in love with an¬ other person of the opposite sex, and unable to obtain the object of their desire and fancy, then an Incubus or Succubus may take the place of the absent object, and in this way sorcerers may call Succubi, and witches Incubi, into existence.”’ “ To prevent such unfortunate occurrences, it is necessary to be chaste, honest, and pure, in thought and desire, and whoever is unable to remain so, should not remain singled Imagination is a great power, and if the world knew what strange things may be produced by the power of the imagination, the pub¬ lic authorities would cause all idle persons to go to work and to employ their time in some useful manner, and they would take care of those who are
1 Mediaeval occult literature and that of Modern Spiritualism con¬ tain many examples of Incubi and Succubi, some having appeared visibly and tangibly ; others, though unseen, were touched and felt. Such cases are at the present day much more numerous than is com¬ monly believed, but they can only “materialize” if the necessary conditions are given. They are therefore only felt during a state of sickness, and after the recovery of the patient they disappear, because they cannot draw the elements necessary for materialization out of a healthy constitution. Such Incubi and Succubi are therefore the products of a physically and morally diseased state. The morbid imagination creates an image, the will of the person objectifies it, and the nerve aura can render it substantial to sight and touch. Moreover, having once been created, they attract to themselves corresponding influences from the soul of the world.
* Animal instincts cannot be suppressed, and the “flesh” cannot be “ mortified,” except by awakening a higher psychical activity in the place of the lower ones, or by an exaltation of the spiritual nature over the animal principle in man. Abstinence in acts is useless for spiritual development, unless it is followed by abstinence in thought. Enforced celibacy does not make a priest ; a true priest is a saint, and saints are persons who have outgrown their carnal desires.
PNE UMA TOL OGT.
141
unable to control their own imagination, in order that such evil results should be avoided.” (“Morb. In vis.,” iv.)
“The so-called Dragon is an invisible being, which may become visible and appear in a human form and cohabit with witches. This is accomplished by means of the sperma which is lost by onanists, for¬ nicators, and prostitutes in acte venereo,' and which such spirits use as a corpus to obtain for themselves a human form, because the whole of the human form is typified in the sperma, and if such spirits use the sperma of a certain person, it is as if one man puts on the coat of another man ; and then they have the form of that person and resemble him in all his parts and details.” J (“De Fertilitate,” Tract, ii.)
“Another such hideous monster is the Basilisc, created by Sodomy, and also the Aspis and Leo. There are innumerable bastard forms, ha, If man, half spiders or toads, etc., inhabiting the astral plane; belonging to the “serpent which is to have his head crushed by the heel of Christ.” (“Fragm.”)
“If such forms are sufficiently dense to become visible, they appear like a coloured shadow or mist. They have no life of their own, but they borrow it from the person who called them into existence, just as a shadow is cast by a body; and where there is no body, there can be no shadow. They are often
1 This is the kind of “spirit” created by the followers of P. B. Randolph according to the instructions given in his book called “ Eulig.”
3 They cannot, however, become visible, unless they can draw some of the astral essence from the person or persons in whose presence they desire to appear ; in other words, persons must be mediumistic to produce such manifestations of form.
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generated by idiots, immoral, depraved, or diseased persons, wlio lead irregular and solitary lives, and who are addicted to bad habits. The coherence of the particles composing the bodies of such beings is not very strong, and they are afraid of draughts of air, light, fire, sticks, and weapons. They are a sort of airy appendix to the body of their parents, and there is sometimes such an intimate connection between them and the body of their progenitors, that if an injury is inflicted upon the former, it may be transmitted to the latter. They are parasites drawing vitality out of the persons to whom they are attracted, and they may exhaust the vitality of the latter very soon, if such persons are not very strong.” 1
“ Some such beings influence men according to their qualities ; they watch them, increase and deepen their faults, find excuses for their mistakes, cause them to wish for the success of evil actions, and gradually absorb their vitality. They fortify and support the imagination in the operations of sorcery, they sometimes utter false prophecies and give out misleading oracles. If a man has a strong and evil imagination, and wishes to injure another, such beings are always ready to lend a helping hand for the accomplishment of his purpose.” Such beings
1 Paracelsus gives here a very good description of some of the modern spirit-materialization. The “ airy appendix ” (astral form) usually comes out of the left side of the medium, in the region of the spleen. Mediums need not necessarily be depraved persons, but there must be some fault in their organization, else the combination of their principles would be too strong to part with some of their astral substance. Materializing mediums may be very good people, but solitary lives and vicious habits may lead to the development of such mediumship, which may prove to be very injurious in the end.
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may render their victims insane, if the latter are too weak to resist their influence. “ A healthy and pure person cannot become obsessed by them, because such Larvae can only act upon men if the latter make room for them in their minds. A healthy mind is a castle that cannot be invaded without the will of its master ; but if they are allowed to enter, they excite the passions of men and women, they create cravings in them, they produce bad thoughts which act in¬ juriously upon the brain ; they sharpen the animal intellect and suffocate the moral sense. Evil spirits obsess only those human beings in whom the animal nature is preponderating. Minds that are illumi¬ nated by the spirit of truth cannot be possessed ; only those who are habitually guided by their own lower impulses may become subjected to their influence. Exorcisms and ceremonies are useless in such cases. Praying 1 and abstinence from all thoughts that may stimulate the imagination or excite the brain are the only true remedies.” (“ De Ente Spirituals ”) “ The cure of obsession is a purely psychical and moral act. The obsessed person should use true prayer and abstinence, and after that a strong-willed person should will such spirits to depart.” (“ Pliilosophia Occulta.”)"
1 By “ praying” is meant the exercise of the spiritual will.
“ Oh you stupid and foolish priest, who knows absolutely nothing ; be¬ cause you imagine to be able to drive away evil spirits with sweet smell¬ ing incense, such as is enjoyed by good and evil spirits alike. If in¬ stead of your incense you were to take assafcetida, then might you succeed in driving away the evil spirits and the good ones besides.” (“ Philos. Occult.”)
“ It often happens that bodily diseases are the cause of morbid desires. A disease of the skin (pruritus vaginae or scroti) may cause erotic desires ;
144
PARACELSUS.
The reason why we cannot see such astral entities is because they are transparent as air. We cannot see the air unless we produce a smoke in it, and even in that case we do not see the air itself, but the smoke that is earned by the air. But we may feel the air when it moves, and we may also occasionally feel the presence of such entities, if they are dense enough to be felt. Moreover, the purpose of our senses is to perceive the objects that exist on the plane for which those senses are adapted, and therefore the physical senses exist for the purpose of seeing physical things, and the senses of the inner man are made to see the things of the soul. When the outer senses are in¬ active, the inner senses may awaken to life, and we may see the objects on the astral plane as we see things in a dream. There are also some poisons by which the organic activity of the body may be sup¬ pressed for a time, and the consciousness of the inner man be rendered more active, and which may there¬ fore enable us to see the things on the astral plane. But such poisons are destructive of reason, and very injurious to the health. In fevers, deliriums, etc., such things may also be seen. Some of them may be the creations of the mind of the patient, others may have been created by the morbid imagination of another person, as described above.1
a displacement of the womb, an erosion, ulcer, or inflammation of the os uteri cause mental depression and hysteria ; piles may cause melan¬ choly, etc. etc. ; but all such causes are, in their turn, the effects of pre¬ vious causes that may have a psychical origin, and they establish the conditions by which elementary influences may act.
1 Experiments that have been made in London, with the inhalation of various ethers, chloroform, nitrous oxide gas, and hydrocarbonates,
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But if such entities are invisible under normal con¬ ditions to a human being, they may be well enough perceived by a human Elementary consciously exist¬ ing on their plane, and what is still more : Depraved human characters may, after death, take themselves the forms of animals and monsters, to which they were brought to resemble by their evil thoughts. Form is nothing but an appearance representing a character, and the character shapes the form. If the character of a person is thoroughly evil, it will cause the astral form to assume a hideous form. Therefore the souls of the depraved may appear in animal shapes.1
Pure spirit lias no form : it is formless, like the sunshine. But as the sunshine causes the elements of matter to grow into plants, likewise the soul-sub¬ stances may be formed into beings having shapes, through the action of the spiritual rays. There are good spirits and spirits of evil ; planetary spirits and
have had the effect of producing such “ hallucinations.” Before these gases were known, fumigations of poisonous substances were used for such purposes. The receipts for the materials used for such fumiga¬ tions were kept very secret, on account of the abuse that might have been made of such a knowledge, and in consequence of which a person may be even made insane. One of the most effective fumigations for the purpose of causing apparitions were, according to Eckartshausen, made of the following substances : — Hemlock, Henbane, Saffron, Aloe, Opium, Mandrake, Salanum, Poppy-seed, Assafoetida, and Parsley. The fumigations to drive away evil spirits were made of Sulphur, Assa- fcetida, Castoreum, and more especially of Hypericum and Vinegar. Carbolic acid was not known at that time.
1 This is confirmed by Swedenborg in his description of “Hell,” and also by Jacob Boehme. The animal soul of the departed takes the form and shape of that animal whose character predominated in his constitution.
10
146
PARACELSUS.
angels. There are the spirits of the four elements, and there are many thousand different kinds.1
“ Each child receives at the time of its birth a familiar spirit or genius, and such spirits sometimes instruct their pupils even while the latter are in their earliest youth. They often teach them to do very extraordinary things. There is an incalculable num¬ ber of such genii in the universe, and we may leam through them all the mysteries of the Chaos in con¬ sequence of their connection with the Mysterium magnum. Such familiar spirits are called Flagce .” 3
There are several kinds of Flag®, and there are two
1 There is a never-ending chain of births and transformations taking place in the world, of causes (spirits) as in the world of effects (forms). The lives of some such entities extend over enormous periods of time ; others have only a short individual existence. According to the Brah- minical teachings there are seven main classes of spirits, some of them having innumerable subdivisions : — 1. Arupa Devas (formless spirits), planetary spirits — the intelligent sixth principle of the planet whose product they are. 2. Rupa Devas (having forms). High planetary spirits. Dhyan-Chohans. 3. Pisachas and Mohinis — Male and female Elementaries, consisting of the astral forms of the dead, that may be obsessed by Elementals, and cause Incubi and Succubi. 4. Mara rupas : forms of desire or passion. Souls doomed to destruction. 5. Asuras : Elementals (Gnomes, Sylphs, Undines, Salamanders, etc.). They will develop into human beings in the next Manvantara (cycle of evolution). 6. Beasts. Elementals having animal forms, monstrosities. 7. Raksasas or demons. Souls of sorcerers and of men with great intelligence, but with evil tendencies. Criminals for the advancement of science, dog¬ matists, sophists, vivisectionists, etc., furnish material for the develop¬ ment of such “devils.” The Asuras are often called Devas, and are worshipped in many places of India. They are the guardian spirits of certain places, gardens, houses, etc., and have temples of their own. There are many thousand varieties. See “ Isis Unveiled.”
3 They are evidently a different class of “familiar spirits” than the “invisible guides ” mentioned above. The spirit which each child receives at its birth, and who attends to the person during his terrestrial life, is his own spiritual self, the “ Karana sharira.”
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ways by which we may obtain knowledge through them. One way is by their becoming visible and able to talk with us ; the other way is by their exer¬ cising an invisible influence upon our mind. The art of Nectromancy 1 enables man to perceive interior things, and there is no mystery concerning any human being that may not be found out by that art, and the Flag* may be made to reveal it either by persuasion or by the strength of one’s will, for the Flagae obej the will of man for the same reason as a soldier obeys the will of the commander, or an inferior obeys that of his superior, although the latter may be physically stronger than the former. The Flagae can be made to appear visibly in a mirror of Beryll, in a piece of coal or a crystal, etc., and not only the Flagae them¬ selves, but the persons to wThom they belong, may be seen, and all their secrets be known. And if it is not practicable to cause them to become visible, such secrets may be found out by a communication of thought or by signs, allegorical visions, etc. By the assistance of these Flagae hidden treasures may be found and closed letters may be read, and everything may be seen, no matter how much it may be hidden from sight, for the opening of the interior sight re¬ moves the veil of matter. Things that have been buried may thus be found, stolen goods be recovered, etc. The Flagae may reveal their secrets to us in our dreams, the good as well as the evil. He who obtains knowledge from the spirit obtains it from his father ; he who knows the Elementals knows himself ; he who understands the nature of the elements understands
1 Nectromancy is not to be confounded with Neoromancy.
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PARACELSUS.
how the Microcosm is constructed. The Flagse are the spirits that instructed mankind in arts and sci¬ ences in ancient times, and without them there would be no science or philosophy in the world.” 1 *
“ In the practice of divination by sortilegium, etc., the Flagae guide the hand. Such arts are neither from God nor from the devil, but they are from the Flagae. The ceremonies that are customarily used on such occasions are mere superstition, and have been invented to give to such occasions an air of so¬ lemnity. Those who do practise that art are often themselves ignorant of the laws that control it, and they may attribute the results obtained to the cere¬ monies, and mistake their tomfooleries for the essen¬ tial thing.” 3
In regard to the reliance that may be put into the revelations of invisible beings, Paracelsus says : “ Evil spirits love to lead men into error, and there¬ fore their prophecies are usually unreliable and their predictions based upon trickery. God made spirits mute, so that they may not tell everything so plainly
1 The whole of the universe is an expression of consciousness, and there are, therefore, innumerable states of conscious and intelligent
will in the world, some in visible and others in invisible forms. Some shapeless, like currents of air ; others undefined, like mists or clouds ; others solid, as rocks ; some impermanent ; others permanent, like the stars.
3 The rationale on which divination, geomancy, the practice of the divining-rod, etc., is based, is that by means of such practices a knowl¬ edge in regard to certain things, such as already exists in the spirit of man, may come to the understanding of the intellect of the personal¬ ity. The inner man cannot, under all circumstances, communicate his knowledge to the external man, because the consciousness of the two is not identical ; but the spirit may influence the nerve aura of the per. son and control the muscles of his body, and thus guide his hands.
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to man that tlie latter does not need to use his reason to avoid making mistakes. The spirits should not instruct man, but they do not always obey that com¬ mand. Therefore they are often silent when their talk is mostly needed, and they frequently speak false when it is of the utmost importance to know the truth.” This is the cause that so many things that have been told by spirits have been proved lies and illusions, and some spirits lie a great deal more than others. But it may happen that perhaps out of a dozen predictions made by such spirits one accident¬ ally comes out true, and ignorant people will in such cases pay no attention to the fact that the other eleven predictions were false, but they will be ready to be¬ lieve everything that such spirits may say. Such spirits often teach those persons who deal with them to perform certain ceremonies, to speak certain words and names in which there is no meaning, and they do all such things for their own amusement, and to have some sport at the expense of credulous persons. They are seldom what they pretend to be ; they ac¬ cept names, and one will use the name of another, or they may assume the mask and the ways of acting of another. If a person has such a spirit, belonging to a better class, he may make a good fortune-teller ; but one who has a lying spirit will hear nothing but lies ; and, on the whole, all these spirits surpass each other in deception and lies.” (“ Philosophia Sagax.”)1
1 Those who have some experience in modern spiritualism will recog¬ nize the truth of this description. Spiritualists should not act upon the advices of spirits, if such advices are against their own reason, and scientists should not rely on the opinions of others if such opinions are against their own common sense.
150
PARACELSUS.
“ Man is an instrument through which all the three worlds — the spiritual, the astral, and the elementary world — are acting. In him are beings from all these worlds, reasonable and unreasonable, intelligent and unintelligent creatures. A person without any self- knowledge and self-control is made to act according to the will of these creatures ; but the true philoso¬ pher acts according to the will of the Supreme, the Creator, in him. If the masters to which man obeys are foolish, their servants will also act foolishly. It is true that everyone thinks that he is the mas¬ ter and that he does what he pleases ; but he does not see the fool within him, who is his master, and in whom he becomes a fool himself.” (“ De Mete- oris.”)
There is another class of spirits, the Saganse or Elemental Spirits of Nature. Paracelsus says about their bodies : “ There are two kinds of flesh. One that comes from Adam and another that does not come from Adam. The former is gross material, visible and tangible for us ; the other one is not tangible and not made from earth. If a man, who is a descendant from Adam, wants to pass through a wall, he will have first to make a hole through it ; but a being which is not descended from Adam needs no hole or door, but may pass through matter that appears solid to us, without causing any damage to it. The beings not descended from Adam, as well as those descended from him, are organized and have substantial bodies ; but there is as much difference between the substance composing their bodies as there is between Matter and Spirit. Yet tho Ele-
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mentals are not spirits, because they have flesh, blood, and bones ; they live and propagate offspring ; they eat and talk, act and sleep, etc., and conse¬ quently they cannot be properly called “ spirits.” They are beings occupying a place between men and spirits, resembling men and women in their organiza¬ tion and form, and resembling spirits in the rapidity of their locomotion. They are intermediary beings, or Composita, formed out of two parts joined into one ; just as two colours mixed together will appear as one colour, resembling neither one nor the other of the two original ones. The Elementals have no higher principles ; they are therefore not immortal, and when they die they perish like animals. Neither water nor fire can injure them, and they cannot be locked up in our material prisons. They are, how¬ ever, subject to diseases. Their costumes, actions, forms, ways of speaking, etc., are not very unlike those of human beings; but there are a great many varieties. They have only animal intellects, and are incapable of spiritual development.” (“Lib. Phi¬ los.,” ii.)
“ These spirits of nature are not animals ; they have a reason and language like man ; they have minds; but no spiritual soul. This may appear strange and incredible ; but the possibilities of nature are not limited by man’s knowledge of them, and the wisdom of God is unfathomable. They have chil¬ dren, and these children are like themselves. Man is made after the image of God, and they may be said to be made after the image of man ; but man is not God, and the elemental spirits of nature are not huj
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PARACELSUS.
man beings, although they resemble man. They are liable to sickness and they die like animals. Their habits resemble those of men ; they work and sleep ; they eat and chink and make their clothing, and as man is nearest to God, so are they nearest to man.” (“Lib. Philos.,” i.)
“ They live in the four elements : the Nymphm in the element of water, the Sylphes in that of the air, the Pigmies in the earth, and the Salamanders in fire. They are also called Undime, Sylvestres, Gnomi, Vulcani, etc. Each species moves only in the element to which it belongs, and neither of them can go out of its appropriate element, which is to them as the air is to us, or the water to fishes ; and none of them can live in the element belonging to another class. To each elemental being the element in which it lives is transparent, invisible, and respir¬ able, as the atmosphere is to ourselves.”
The four classes of nature spirits do not mix with each other ; the Gnomes have no intercourse with the Undines or Salamanders, nor the Sylvestres with either of these. As a fish lives in the water, it being its element, so each being lives in its own element. For instance, the element wherein man breathes and lives is the air; but to the Undines the water is what the air is to us, and if we are surprised that they are in the water, they may also be surprised because we are in the air. Thus the element of the Gnomes is the earth, and they pass through rocks and walls and stones like a spirit ; for such things are to them no greater obstacles than the air is to us. In the same sense the fire is the air wherein the Sala-
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manders live ; but the Sylvestres are the nearest re¬ lated to us ; for they live in the air like ourselves ; they would be drowned if they were under water, and they would suffocate in the earth and be burned in the fire ; for each being belongs to its own Chaos and dies if transported into another one. If that Chaos is gross, the beings living in it are subtle, and if the Chaos is subtle, the beings are gross. Therefore we have gross bodies, so that we can pass through the air without being blown down, and the Gnomes have subtle forms, so as to be able to pass through the rocks. Men have their leaders and authorities ; bees and ants their queens, geese and other animals have their leaders also, and so also have the spirits of nature their kings and queens. The animals receive their clothing from nature ; but the spirits of nature prepare it themselves. The omnipotence of God is not limited to His taking care only of man ; but is abundantly able to take care also of the spirits of nature and of many other things of which men know nothing. They see the sun and the sky the same as we, because each element is transparent to those who live therein. Thus the sun shines through the rocks for the Gnomes, and the water does not hinder the Undines to see the sun and the stars ; they have their summers and winters, and their “ earth ” bears them fruits; for each being lives on that element whereof it has grown.” (“ Lib. Philos.,” ii.)
“ As far as the personalities of the Elementals are concerned, it may be said that those belonging to the element of water resemble human beings of either sex ; those of the air are greater and strong-
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PARACELSUS.
er ; 1 the Salamanders are long, lean, and dry ; the Pig¬ mies are of the length of about two spans, but they may extend or elongate their forms until they appear like giants. The Elementals of air and water, the Syl- phes and Nymphs, are kindly disposed towards man ; the Salamanders cannot associate with him on account of the fiery nature of the element wherein they live, and the Pigmies are usually of a malicious nature. The latter ones are building houses, vaults, and strange-looking edifices of some certain semi-material substances unknown to us. They have some kind of alabaster, marble, cement, etc. ; but these substances are as different from ours as the web of a spider is different from our linen. Nymphs have their resi¬ dences and palaces in the element of water ; Sylphs and Salamanders have no fixed dwellings. On the whole, the Elementals have an aversion against self- conceited and opinionated persons, such as dogma¬ tists, scientists, drunkards, and gluttons, and against vulgar and quarrelsome people of all kinds ; but they love natural men, who are simple-minded and child¬ like, innocent and sincere, and the less there is vanity and hypocrisy in a man, the easier will it be for him to approach them; but otherwise they are as shy as wild animals.”
Man lives in the exterior elements, and the Ele¬ mentals live in the interior elements. They have dwell¬ ings and clothing, manners and costumes, languages and governments of their own, in the same sense as
1 Semi -animal man may be looked upon as an elemental of the air, originating from a union of the Dhyan-Chohans (Sons of Wisdom) with daughters of the Giants. (See Bible, Genesis vi. 4.)
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the bees have their queens and herds of animals their leader. They are sometimes seen in various shapes. Salamanders have been seen in the shapes of fiery balls, or tongues of fire running over the fields or appearing in houses. Nymphs have been known to adopt the human shape, clothing, and manner, and to enter into a union with man. There are certain localities where large numbers of Elemen- tals live together, and it has occurred that a man has been admitted into their communities and lived with them for a while, and that they have become visible and tangible to him.1
“ The angels are invisible to us ; but nevertheless an angel may appear to our spiritual sight, and likewise man is invisible to the spirits of nature, and what the Undines know of us is to them merely what fairy tales are to us. The Undines appear to man, but not man to them. Man is gross in the body and subtle in the Chaos ; therefore they may enter his Chaos (astral plane) and appear to him and remain with him, marry and bear children with him. Thus an Undine may marry a man and keep house with him, and her children will be human
1 It is not credible that a person has entered with hiB physical body into the Venus mountain or Untersberg, or any other such renowned places of which popular tradition speaks. Neither have the witches and sorcerers of the Middle Ages been at the witch-sabbath in their physical bodies, and it seems equally improbable that a person should ever have entered physically the abodes of disembodied adepts. But the physical body of a man is not the man ; it is only his external shadow, and wherever man’s consciousness is, there will he be present himself. But while he is there, he does not miss his exterior body, of which he has no more use than of a part of his clothing purposely laid away, and on reawakening to physical consciousness he may well believe that he had been to such a place in his physical form.
156
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beings and not Undines, because they receive a hu¬ man soul from the man, and, moreover, the Undine herself thereby receives the germ of immortality. Man is bound to God by means of his spiritual soul, and if an Undine becomes united to man, she will thereby become bound to God. As an Undine with¬ out her union with man dies like an animal likewise man is like an animal if he severs his union with God.”
“ Therefore the Nymphs are anxious to become united with man ; they seek to become immortal through him. They have a mind and intellect like man ; but not the immortal soul, such as we have obtained through the death of Christ. But the spirits of the earth, the air, and fire, seldom many a human being. They may, however, become attached to him and enter his service. It must not be sup¬ posed that they are airy nothings or merely ghosts or appearances ; they are of fiesli and blood, only subtler than man (i.e., of the substance of mind).
“ The Nymphs sometimes come out of the water and may be seen sitting on the shore near their dwelling, and they as well as the Gnomes have a language like man ; but the spirits of the woods are more rough and speak nothing, although they are able to speak and are clever. The Nymphs appear in human form and clothing ; but the spirits of fire are of a fiery shape. They are usually not to be found in the company of men ; but they come to cohabit with old women, such as are witches, and they are sometimes obsessed by the devil. If any man has a Nymph for a wife, let him take care not to offend her while she
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is near the water, as in such a case she will return into her element ; 1 and if anyone has a Gnome for a servant, let him be faithful to him, for each has to be dutiful to the other ; if you do your duty to him, he will do his duty to you. All this is in the di¬ vine order of things and will become manifest in hie time ; so that we will then be able to see that which seems now almost incredible.” (“Lib. Phi¬ los.,” ii.)
In the legends of the saints the Elemental spirits of Natrn’e are often alluded to as “ devils,” a name which they do not deserve ; because there are good as well as bad Elementals ; but, although they may be very selfish, they have not developed any love for absolute evil, because they have only mortal souls, but no spiritual essence to make them immortal.
Besides the astral spirits in man and the Elemental spirits of Nature, there are many other spirits bom within the soul (the will and imagination of nature) ; and as the mind of man may create monsters, and man may paint their images on canvas, or sculpture them in stone or wood, likewise the universal power of will creates monsters in the astral light, and they may throw their shadows forth in the physical world of appearances, by becoming objective in corporeal bodies upon the earth. Some of them are short-lived and others will live unto the day of the dissolution of all things. “We all know that a man may change his character in the course of his life, so that he
1 “If any one marrieB a water nymph, and she deserts him, he ought not to take another wife, for the marriage has not been dissolved. If he marries another woman he will shortly die.” (“ De Nymph.”)
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PARACELSUS.
may ultimately become a very different person from wliat he was before ; and thus every creature having a will can change and become supernatural or unnat¬ ural, i. e., different from that which normally belongs to its nature. Many of the headlights of the church, who now strut about with jewels and diamonds will be dragons and worms when the human body in whom they are now masquerading will have dis¬ appeared at the time of their death.” (“Lib. Phi¬ los.,” iv.)
“There are the Syrenes ; but they are merely a kind of monstrous fishes; but there are also two more kinds of spirits, related to the Nymphs and Pigmies, namely, the Gigantes (giants) and the Dwarfs. This may not be believed; but it ought to be remembered that the beginning of divine knowl¬ edge is that the light of nature illumines man, and that in this light he knows all things in nature by means of the light of the inner man. The Giants and Dwarfs are monsters, being related to the Sylvestres and Gnomes in the same sense as the Syrens are related to the Undines. They have no (spiritual) souls, and may sooner be compared to monkeys than to human beings. Such spirits are ofteu the guardians of hidden treasures.”
“Such things may be denied by the worldly wise ; biit at the end of the world, when all things will be revealed, then will also come forward the so-called ‘doctors’ and ‘professors,’ who were great in their ignorance ; then will it be seen which ones were those who were learned in the foundation of nature or merely learned in empty talk. Then we mil know
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those who have written according to truth and those who taught according to their own fancy ; and each one will receive what he deserves. There will then be no doctors and no magisters, and those who are now making a great deal of noise will then be very silent ; but those who have received the true under¬ standing will be happy. Therefore I recommend my writings to be judged at that time when all things will become manifest and when each one will see the light as it was revealed to him.
“The evil spirits are, so to say, the bailiffs and executioners of God (the Law). They have been called into existence by the influences of evil, and they work out their destiny. But the vulgar have a too high estimate of their powers, especially of the power of the devil. The devil has not enough power to mend broken old pots, much less to enrich a man. He — -or it — is the poorest thing that can be thought of, and poorer than any being that can be found in the four elements.1 There are a great many inventions, sciences, and arts that are ascribed to the agency of the (personal) devil ; but before the world grows much older, it will be found that the devil has nothing to do with such things, that the devil is nothing and knows nothing, and that such things are the results of natural causes. True science can accomplish a great deal ; the Eternal Wisdom of the existence of all things is without a time, without a
1 The " devil ” is evil spiritual will. The devil has no power over man, but if man allows a devil within himself to grow, then will the great Devil aid the little devil to grow and nourish it with his own substance. (See “ The Doctrines of Jncob Boehme.”)
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PARACELSUS.
beginning, and without an end. Things that are considered now to be impossible will be accom¬ plished ; that which is unexpected wall in future prove to be true, and that which is looked upon as super¬ stition in one century wall be the basis for the ap¬ proved science of the next.” (“ Philosophia Occulta.”)