CHAPTER IV.

(EottBittutum

Our chapter head, "the constitution
of man," may surprise a reader who
has not previously studied the Mys-
tery teachings, or he may imagine that
we intend to give an anatomical dissertation,
but such is not our intention. We have spo-
ken of the earth upon which we live as being
composed of several invisible realms in ad-
dition to the world we perceive by means of
our senses. We have also spoken of man as
being correlated to these various divisions in
nature, and a little thought upon the subject
will quickly convince us that in order to
function upon the various planes of exist-
ence described, it is necessary that a man
should have a body composed of their sub-
stance, or at least have specialized for his
own use, some of the material of each of
these worlds.

We have said that finer matter, called de-
sire stuff and mind stuff, permeates our at-
120

THE CONSTITUTION OF MAN 121

mosphere and the solid earth, even as blood
percolates through all parts of our flesh.
But that is not a sufficient explanation to ac-
count for all facts of life. If that were all,
then minerals, which are interpenetrated by
the world of thought and the world of desire,
would have thoughts and desires as well as
man. This is not the case, so something
more than mere interpenetration must be re-
quisite to acquire the faculties of thought
and feeling.

We know that in order to function in this
world, to live as a physical being among oth-
er, like, beings, we must have a physical body
all our own; built of the chemcial constitu-
ents of this visible world. When we lose it
at death, it profits us nothing that the world
is full of just the very chemicals needed to
build such a body. We cannot then special-
ize them, and therefore we are invisible to
all others. Similarly, if we did not possess
a special body made of ether, we should be
unable to grow and to propagate. That is
the case with the mineral. Had we no sep-
arate individual desire body, we should be
unable to feel desires and emotions, there
would be no incentive to move from one
place to another. We should then be station-

122 THE KOSICRUCIAN MYSTERIES

ary as plants, and did we not possess a mind,
we should be incapable of thought, and act
upon impulse and instinct as animals.

Some one may of course object to this last
statement, and contend that animals do
think. So far as our domesticated animals
are concerned that is partially true, but it
is not quite in the same way that we think
and reason. The difference may perhaps
best be understood if we take an illustration
from the electrical field. When an electric
current of high voltage is passed through a
coiled copper wire, and another wire is plac-
ed in the center of the coils, that wire will
become charged with electricity of a lower
voltage so also the animal, when brought
within the sphere of human thoughts, evolves
a mental activity of a lower order.

Paul, in his writings, also mentions the
natural "body and the spiritual body while the
man himself is a spirit inhabiting those vehi-
cles. We will briefly note the constitution
of the various bodies of man invisible to the
physical sight but as objective to spiritual
sight as the dense body to ordinary vision.

The Vital Body.

That body of ours which is composed of
ether is called the "vital body9' in Western

THE CONSTITUTION OF MAN 123

Mystery Schools, for, as we have already
seen, ether is the avenue of ingress for vital
force from the sun and the field of agencies
in nature which promote such vital activities
as assimilation, growth and propagation.

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

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

The rays of the sun are transmitted either
directly, or reflected by way of the planets
and the moon. The rays directly from the
sun give spiritual illumination, the jrays
received by way of the planets produce intel-
ligence, morality, and soul growth, but the
rays reflected by way of the moon make for
physical growth, as seen in the case of plants
which grow differently when planted in the

124 THE EOSICRUCIAN MYSTERIES

light of the moon from what is the case when
they are planted when the moon is dark.
There is also a difference in plants sown
when the moon is in barren and fruitful signs
of the Zodiac.

The solar ray is absorbed by the human
spirit which has its seat in the center of the
forehead, the stellar ray is absorbed by the
brain and spinal cord, and the lunar ray en-
ters our system through the spleen.

Both solar, stellar and lunar rays are
three-colored, and in the lunar ray which
supplies our vital force, the blue beam is the
life of The Father, which causes germination,
the yellow beam is the life of The Son, which
is the active principle in nutrition and
growth, and the red beam is the life of the
Holy Spirit, which stimulates to action, dissi-
pating the energy stored by the yellow force.
This principle is particularly active in gen-
eration.

The various kingdoms absorb this life-
force differently, according to their constitu-
tion. Animals have only 28 pairs of spinal
nerves. They are keyed to the lunar month
of 28 days and therefore dependent upon a
Groupspirit for an infusion of stellar rays
necessary to produce consciousness. They

THE CONSTITUTION OF MAN 125

are altogether incapable of absorbing the
direct ray of the sun.

Man is in a transition stage, he has 31 pairs
of spinal nerves which keys him to the solar
month, but the nerves in the so-called cauda-
equina — literally: horse-tail — , at the end of
our spinal cord, are still too undeveloped to
act as avenues for the spiritual ray of the
* sun. In proportion as we draw our creative
force upward by spiritual thought we develop
these nerves and awaken dormant faculties of
the spirit. But it is dangerous to attempt
that development except under guidance of
a qualified teacher, and the reader is earnest-
ly warned not to use any method published
in books, or sold, for their practice usually
leads to dementia. The safe method is never
sold for money or any earthly consideration
however large or small; it is always freely
given as a reward of merit. "Ask and ye
shall receive, seek and ye shall find, knock
and it shall be opened", said the Christ. If
our life is a prayer for illumination, the
search will not be uncertain, nor the knock
without response.

When solar energy has been transmuted
in the spleen it traverses the whole nervous
system of the body glowing with a most

126 THE ROSICRUCIAN MYSTERIES

beautiful color of a delicate rosy hue. It
answers the same purpose as electricity in a
telegraph system. We may string wires be-
tween cities, erect telegraph stations, install
receivers and transmitters. We may even
have operators ready at the keys, but until
electric fluid is turned into our wires, the
telegraph keys will refuse to click. So also
in the body, the human spirit is operator, and
from the central station of the brain, nerves
ramify, go through the wEole body to all the
different muscles. When this vitalizing fluid
of which we are speaking traverses the ner-
vous system, the Ego may send his commands
to the muscles and cause them to move but if
the vital fluid for any reason does not flow
into a certain part of the body such as an
arm or a limb, then the spirit is powerless
to move that part of the body and we say that
it is paralyzed.

When we are in health, we specialize solar
energy in such great quantities that we can-
not use it all in the body and therefore it
radiates through the pores of our skin in
straight streams and serves a similar pur-
pose as an exhaust fan. That machine drives
the foul air out of a room or building and
keeps the atmosphere within pure and sweet.

THE CONSTITUTION OF MAN 127

The excessive vital force which radiates from
the body drives out poisonous gases, deleteri-
ous microbes and effete matter thus tending
to preserve a healthy condition. It also pre-
vents armies of disease germs, which swarm
about in the atmosphere, from entering;
upon the same principle that a fly cannot
wing its way into a building through the
exhaust fan. Thus it serves a most benefi-
cent purpose even after it has been utilized
in our body and is returning to the free state.

It is a curious, and most astounding sight
when one first observes how, from exposed
parts of the body such as hands and face,
there suddenly commences to flow a stream
of stars, cubes, pyramids and a variety of
other geometrical forms. The writer has
more than once rubbed his eyes when he first
perceived the phenomenon, for it seemed that
he must be suffering from hallucinations.
The forms observed are chemical atoms
however, which have served their purpose in
the body and are expelled through the pores.

When one has eaten a meal, vital fluid is
consumed by the body in great quantities,
for it is the cement whereby nature's forces
build our food into the body. Therefore the
radiations are weakest during the period of

128 THE KOSICRUCIAN MYSTEBIES

digestion. If the meal has been heavy, the
outflow is very perceptibly diminished, and
does not then cleanse our body as thoroughly
as when the food has been digested, nor are
they as potent in keeping out inimical germs.
Therefore one is most liable to catch cold
or other disease by overeating, a fault which
should be avoided by all who wish to keep
in good health.

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

Though science has not directly observed
this vital body of man, it has upon several
occasions postulated the existence of such a
vehicle as necessary to account for facts in
life and the radiations have been observed
by a number of scientists at different times
and under varying conditions. Blondlot and
Charpentier have called them N-rays after
the city of Nantes where the radiations were
observed by these scientists, others have

THE CONSTITUTION OF MAN 129

named them "The Odic fluid". Scientific
investigators who have conducted researches
into psychic phenomena have even photo-
graphed it when it has heen extracted
through the spleen by materializing spirits.
Dr. Hotz for instance obtained two photo-
graphs of a materialization, through the
German medium, Minna-Demmler. On one a
cloud of ether is seen oozing out through the
left side of the medium, shapeless and with-
out form. The second picture, taken a few
moments later, shows the materialized spirit
standing at the medium's side. Other pho-
tographs obtained by scientists from the
Italian medium, Eusapio Palladino show a
luminous cloud over-hanging her left side.

We said in the beginning of this descrip-
tion that the vital body is an exact counter-
part of the dense body with one exception : it
is of the opposite sex or perhaps we should
rather say polarity. As the vital body nour-
ishes the dense vehicle, we may readily un-
derstand that blood is its highest visible ex-
pression, and also that a positively polarized
vital body would generate more blood than a
negative one. Woman who is physically neg-
ative has a positive vital body, hence she gen-
erates a surplus of blood which is relieved by

130 THE ROSICRUCIAN MYSTERIES

the periodical flow. She is also more prone
to tears, which are white bleeding, than man,
whose negative vital body does not generate
more blood than he can comfortably take care
of. Therefore it is not necessary for him to
have the outlets which relieve excess of blood
in woman.

The Desire Body.

In addition to the visible body and the
vital body we also have a body made of de-
sire stuff from which we form our feelings
and emotions. This vehicle also impels us to
seek sense gratification. But while the two
instruments of which we have already spok-
en, are well organized, the desire body ap-
pears to spiritual sight as an ovoid cloud
extending from sixteen to twenty inches be-
yond the physical body. It is above the
head and below the feet so that our dense
body sits in the center of this egg-shaped
cloud as the yolk is in the center of an egg.

The reason for the rudimentary state of
this vehicle is, that it has been added to the
human constitution more recently than the
bodies previously mentioned. Evolution of
form may be likened to the manner in which

THE CONSTITUTION OF MAN 131

the juices in the snail first condense into flesh
and later become a hard shell. When our
present visible body first germinated in the
spirit; it was a thought-form, but gradually
it has become denser and more concrete until
it is now a chemical crystallization. The
vital body was next emanated by the spirit
as a thought-form and is in the third stage of
concretion which is etheric. The desire body
is a still later acquisition. That also was a
thought form at its inception, but has now
condensed to desire stuff, and the mind,
whish we have only recently received, is still
but a mere cloudy thought form.

Arms and limbs, ears and eyes are not
necessary to use the desire body, for it can
glide through space more swiftly than wind
without such means of locomotion as we re-
quire in this visible world.

When viewed by spiritual sight, it appears
that there are in this desire body a num-
ber of whirling vortices. We have already
explained that it is a characteristic of desire
stuff to be in constant motion, and from the
main vortex in the region of the liver, there
is a constant outwelling flow which radiates
towards the periphery of this egg-shaped
body and returns to the center through a

132 THE BOSICRUCIAN MYSTERIES

number of other vortices. The desire body
exhibits all the colors and shades which we
know and a vast number of others which are
indescribable in earthly language. Those
colors vary in every person according to his
characteristics and temperament and they
also vary from moment to moment as pass-
ii g moods, fancies or emotions are experi-
enced by him. There is however in each
one a certain basic color dependent upon
the ruling star at the moment of his birth.
The man in whose horoscope, Mars is pecu-
liarly strong usually h;is a crimson tint in
his aura, where Jupiter is the strongest
planet the prevailing tint seems to be a bluish
tone, and so on with the other planets.

There was a time in the earth's past his-
tory when i nor natation was not yet complete,
and human beings of that time lived upon
islands here and there, amid boiling seas.
They had not yet evolved eyes or ears, but
a little organ : the pineal gland, which anato-
mists have called the third eye, protruded
through the back of the head and was a local-
ized organ of feeling, which warned the man
when he came too near a volcanic crater and
thus enabled him to escape destruction. Since
then the cerebral hemispheres have covered

THE CONSTITUTION OF MAN 133

the pineal gland, and instead of a single or-
gan of feeling, the whole body inside and out
is sensitive to impacts, which of course is
a much higher state of development.

In the desire body every particle is sensi-
tive to vibrations similar to those which we
call sight, sounds and feelings and every par-
ticle is in incessant motion rapidly swirling
about so that in the same instant it may be at
the top and bottom of the desire body and im-
part at all points to all the other particles a
sensation of that which it has experienced
thus every particle of desire stuff in this
vehicle of ours will instantly feel any sensa-
tion experienced by any single particle.
Therefore the desire body is of an exceeding-
ly sensitive nature, capable of most intense
feelings and emotions.

The Mind.

This is the latest acquisition of the human
spirit, and in most people who have not yet
accustomed themselves to orderly, consecu-
tive thought, it is a mere inchoate cloud dis-
posed particularly in the region of the head.
When looking at a person clairvoyantly there
appears to be an empty space in the center
of the forehead just above and between the

134 THE ROSICRUCIAN MYSTERIES

eyebrows. It looks like the blue part of a gas
flame. That is mind stuff which veils the hu-
man spirit, or Ego, and the writer has been
told that not even the most gifted seer can
penetrate that veil which is said to have been
spoken of in ancient Egypt as "the veil of
I sis" which none may lift and live, for be-
hind that veil is the Holy of Holies, the tem-
ple of our body, where the spirit is to be left
secure from all intrusion.

To those who have not previously studied
the deeper philosophies the question may oc-
cur: But why all these divisions; even the
Bible speaks only of soul and body, for most
people believe soul and spirit to be synony-
mous terms. We can only answer that this
division is not arbitrary but necessary, and
founded upon facts in nature. Neither is it
correct to regard the soul and the spirit as
sysnonymous. Paul himself speaks of the
natural body which is composed of physical
substances : solids, liquids, gases and ethers ;
he mentions a spiritual body, which is the
vehicle of the spirt composed of the mind and
desire body, and the spirit itself, which is
called Ego in Greek or "I" in English.

That term "I" is an appelation which can
only be made by the human spirit of itself.

THE CONSTITUTION OF MAN 135

We may all call a dog, dog; or we may call
a table, table, and any one else may apply
the same name to the dog and to the table,
but only a human being can be called "I"
and only he, himself can apply that most ex-
clusive of all words : "I" for this is the badge
of self -consciousness, the recognition by the
human spirit of itself as an entity, separate
and apart from all others.

Thus we see that the constitution of man
is more complex than appears upon the sur-
face, and we will now proceed to note the
effect upon this multiplex being of various
conditions of life.