CHAPTER V.

BODY AND SPIRIT.

Man is the ultimate, or fruit of the tree of life.
The lower orders of animate creatures may be termed
the roots, trunk, branches, leaves, etc., — but man
is the fruit. Some say, "he is an epitome of the
universe/* This is a mistaken idea. Men differ
one from another as the lower animals differ, or the
various orders of vegetables. The apple is a species
of fruit, but there are many varieties of apples.
However much men may differ in looks, form, man-
ners and disposition, there is one peculiarity notice-
able in all, viz., the correspondence to the lower
orders. We all resemble, more or less, some variety
of the lower orders ; and the less the resemblance
the further is the removal therefrom. Some have
the tiger, lion, vulture, hawk, eagle, sheep, goat, cat,
lynx, ox, owl, serpent, various kinds of fishes, etc., etc.,
"ad infinitum" predominating. Some by their build
and motions show that they have just come up out
of the water — or, possibly, may be going back into
it. Man is an epitome of those elements through
which he has been evolved. We carry something of
what we have been, along with us, viz., the spirit.

56 THE TEMPLE OF THE ROSY CROSS.

And some, having evolved upward through certain
elements, are an epitome of those elements, but not
of others. Elements are many ; but power is not
based in elements, neither can immortality be predi-
cated therein.

Animals are but vegetables cut loose at the roots ;
man differs from them only in degree. He has all
that they have, and a little more, generally, in some
directions ; but some animals are nearer human than
some men. According to Darwin, man has de-
scended from the ape. According to my understand-
ing there is as much logic in saying that the ape is a
degenerated man. "It is a poor rule that won't
work both ways." If man ascends he also descends.

We make distinctions, in our ignorance, of prin-
ciples, which, in reality, do not exist. If an animal
can evolve into a man, a man may retrograde into
an animal. Progression is no more a law than retro-
gression. If man ever had a beginning, he certainly
must have an end, no matter how long it may be
delayed. If he progress eternally, he certainly can-
not always remain man. Progress means change,
growth to better conditions, and conditions change the
form and nature. If man never had a beginning, he
can never have an end. But, suppose this idea to
be true, and progression without retrogression to be
the law of being, is it not a little strange that man is
no higher in the scale of being after having been
eternally progressing ? Remember, the eternity of
the past is the same as that of the future. Why is

BODY AND SPIRIT, 57

he no greater, if he has always existed and been
always growing ? If he is merely an infant on this
earth, is it logical to conclude that he will remain the
same and still keep on growing eternally ?

The distinctions we make between things are
merely arbitrary. Life is one. Man has no more
right to immortality than the brute. Man, in his
pride and egotism, claims for himself a special crea-
tion and existence after death, but denies it to the
brute. This is not a logical deduction. Man is a
name merely that we give to a manifestation of life
to distinguish it from other manifestations. We
make distinctions to which we give names, which
are very satisfactory to most men. Names are very
satisfactory to children, but he who seeks for prin-
ciples, cares little for names. But in order to con-
vey ideas, and to be understood, and to distinguish
one thing from another, names are important.

" Man/' then, is the name given to the highest type
of life we are acquainted with on this earth, and the
term body is applied to the visible part. But the
real man is an idea — as much so as that represented
by any piece of mechanism.

There can be only owe principle in existence. The
moment you admit two, one bounds and limits the
other. Very suggestive of the positive and negative
poles of a magnet. Laying all speculation aside, we
do not know what "infinity" is, more than we know
what man or anything else is. If we should, at some
time, discover what it is, it would, after all, be only

y

58 THE TEMPLE OF THE ROSY CROSS.

another name added to our vocabulary. I cannot find
a name for "her who is nameless" that third thing —
the mother of power and weakness, of God and of
nature. The loftiest thought cannot go beyond the
realm of things, for thought belongs to things. The
most fertile imagination cannot find a field that does
not exist, in which to revel.

The insane is as real as the sane, although we may
not think it desirable or healthy. Perhaps there are
some who love insanity. Who shall say that the
dividing line between sanity and insanity is a fiction ?
That dividing line — that neutral ground, is the
body — matter.

Science is unable to tell us of all the substances
that compose the human form. There is something
which escapes the closest analysis, or the most subtle
and searching thought. The scalpel fails to find the
spirit ; so science fails to find aught but the dross of
these bodies. There is a something hidden away in
matter that holds each atom in its place ; aye ! and
gives form to all atoms — which is master, and yet a
prisoner ; lord, but yet a servant. There is a some-
thing in matter lying latent which is not heat nor
flame, but which, when let loose, produces heat, flame
and combustion.

It is the " Fire " the ancient Magi worshiped. It
is not magnetism, nor the astral fluid, neither is it
light, nor electricity ; for these are but effects of its
freedom. There is a spark lying dormant in matter,
which, when aroused by friction, decomposes all

y

BODY AND SPIRIT. 59

forms. If set in motion gently and by degrees, it
refines matter and causes growth, attracting and re-
pelling matter. If struck out by violence, it produces
conflagrations and destruction. Worlds are sustained
and destroyed by this spark of fire. It is a useful
servant to man, but when it gets beyond his control
it is a cruel and remorseless master. This Fire is
. the Spirit.

It is in all things, and is the life thereof. In fact,
things are but forms of spirit condensed. Life is a
liberation of spirit. All matter evolves from itself an
aura, peculiar to its condition. This aura is produced
by the gentle motion of things, in growth and in
death. All atoms are in motion, for spirit is cease-
lessly active.

Swedenborg says there is a sphere belonging to and
surrounding all things. It is more perceptible in
some things than in others. Baron Reichenbach
instituted a series of experiments with various metals
and stones which he submitted to sensitive persons in
a darkened chamber, and has written a work in which
he claims the same thing as true, so far as tested by
him. This aura I term spirit, or a result of the
action of that hidden fire, which has been worshiped
in ancient days as God, in honor of which the eternal
altar-fires were kept burning, and men bowed down
to the sun and worshiped Him as the most perfect
symbol of fire, or God.

All matter is undergoing change, and this change
is growth, and growth is life, and life is the freeing

60 THE TEMPLE OF THE ROSY CROSS.

of fire or spirit. All matter is in a state of combus-
tion ; some forms slowly, others with great intensity.
This combustion may not be perceptible to our dull
senses, but that only proves our blindness. Growth
is the throwing off effete matter and taking on new.
This is exactly the case with violent combustion. A
burning pile throws off heat, smoke and flame, and
draws to itself the atmosphere, which, rushing in,
combines to increase the conflagration. This rushing
in is but the baptism of matter with fire, which can-
not exist without that influx.

The body may be likened to a furnace : it must be
fed with fuel ; and the atmosphere must meet that
fuel in the system, or no fire is kindled and no heat
generated. The lungs are the bellows which fan
the fires of life. The pores of the body are escape
pipes.

The atmosphere is the aura or spirit of the earth,
and all things on the earth live by inhaling it. Thus
it may be seen that the spirit of one thing may sup-
port another. Spirit absorbs spirit by combination,
the same as fire absorbs the atmosphere.

The body may be likened to a horse-shoe magnet,
or a combination of them. The legs are suggestive
of one ; the arms of another. We are, in fact, a com-
bination of magnetic motors — or, possibly, a galvanic
pile. May not our food furnish the alkali, the atmos-
phere the acid, the union of which sets free the spirit
(fire) of food, causing motion, heat, combustion,
growth and life ? May not the liver correspond to

BODY AND SPIRIT. 6 1

the zinc, and the lungs to the copper plates of a
battery? Connected by acids and alkalis in the
system, a current is evolved, which dissolves and
decomposes food as fire does wood. The fire thus
set free from food becomes the aura (spirit) of the
organism in which it was set free. Thus our spirits
are made up in part from that which we eat. There
can be no combustion without the union of matter
and atmosphere. That union is the fusion or blend-
ing of all forms into one, and that one is formless,
viz., fire or spirit.

Power resides in the formless. In the imponder-
ables there is freedom, and without freedom there is
no power manifested. To a spirit in bondage there
is the darkness of matter, but a spirit set free is living
light, an immortal fire, whieh consumes matter as the
light of a lamp consumes oil. God is Fire, for
" God is a Spirit, and they who worship Him must
worship in spirit and in truth."

Matter is but fire that is quenched. All it needs
is baptizing with a spark from God, and it begins to
burn and glow with life as embers in a furnace glow
with light. There is not an atom in the body that is
not vibrating with the electric or magnetic fires which
animate all things. It is, indeed, burning with a
lurid and weird intensity truly amazing. And we
might behold the grand and sublime spectacle if it
were not for the obtuseness of our dull and material-
istic senses. If once beheld, we would no longer
wonder at the vast amount of fuel required daily to
support this ethereal flame called life.

62 THE TEMPLE OF THE ROSY CROSS.

The light emitted by these walking furnaces —
these torches, these living machines — varies in in-
tensity and volume, according to the nature and
quality of the matter in combustion. Some lights
are electric, radiating far and near ; so it is with some
men. Others, again, are small, and emit a soft, mild
light. Others, again, give out only a spark ; but
most bodies are so undeveloped that the fires of life
smoulder, and emit nothing but a fitful gleam now
and then, amid vast volumes of smoke.

This light emitted by all living beings — nay, by all
things mundane and supermundane — is the spirit.
It is the spirit of matter in combustion which con-
stitutes the aura of plants, animals and men. The
laws of combustion are the laws of the universe, and
they are the laws of magnetism, — action and reaction,
attraction and repulsion, an outgoing and incoming
current — this is all.

Hang a gold coin on the positive pole of a galvanic
battery in a solution, and a piece of brass or copper
on the negative pole in the solution, but not in contact
with the coin, and the result is, the positive galvanic
current dissolves the gold and carries it over to the
negative, where it is deposited upon the piece of
brass. Electro-magnetic physicians know that they
can increase the vital powers of any portion of the
system by the application of the negative electrode
thereto ; and that they can reduce the action of any
part by the application of the positive.

Thus it is demonstrated that matter is dissolved

BODY AND SPIRIT. 63

and carried from one part of the system to another,
where it may be deposited, or even carried out of the
body. Now, we know that the female principle is
the productive, or the principle wherein matter is
combined into forms of life, and that the masculine
is the principle from which such life or matter comes
in solution, as the gold from the positive electrode.

Every human being is a magnet, which evolves a
positive force from itself, which dissolves and appro-
priates to the body material of various kinds from
food, and conveys it to renew the decaying tissues,
while it also repels and eliminates that which is
devitalized.

But the negative principle or force is not evolution-
ary but receptive, in which the positive deposits its
burden of spirit. Thus is the body constantly renewed
by a process little thought of, viz. : that of impregna-
tion and gestation. All motion is magnetic ; and this
is only another name given to the manifestation of fire
— combustion. All things are in a state of combus-
tion — some gently : this is growth and progress ;
others with intensity, as a conflagration, in which the
body is reduced to ashes, and the life of it back " to
God who gave it."

If attraction overbalance repulsion there is a slow
combustion, a smouldering of the fire, in which other
forms of matter appear (charcoal for instance). This
is exactly the case with nature ; the half -extinguished
fires of life preserve the form for a space of time.
But notice the slow and certain change of form from

64 THE TEMPLE OF THE ROSY CROSS.

infancy to old age, showing that repulsion is master
after all. If repulsion over-balance attraction there
is a rapid conflagration, and forms of matter disappear
in smoke, vapor, heat and flame, to nothing — '-not
even to the blue sky."

It is to attraction that childhood owes its ruby
cheeks and lips, and its exuberance of life. The
immortal fires sparkle in its eye, and glow in its soft
and rounded flesh through which it shines, ere shame
has come to crimson the cheek and brow with a more
lurid light, with a more intense combustion, in which
the forms of youth change rapidly.

To repulsion we owe the lustreless eye, pallid
cheek, the gray hairs and wrinkles of age ; aye ! the
death of the body comes through excess of repulsion.
A proper balance is a marriage of these forces, in
which more things are generated than has yet been
dreamed of.

The aura or spirit obeys the same laws. The
positive is the seminal principle, which combines with
the negative, thus forming new blood, new tissue, new
vigor.

Violent combustion is destructive to forms of
matter, but the compounds resulting therefrom are
of incalculable value to mankind. The ashes of wood
are a compound resulting from combustion, but how
much of its chemical properties come from that in-
visible fire or spirit which resides in a negative state
in the air we breathe and burn, is not known.

The body is condensed aura or spirit, which liber-

BODY AND SPIRIT. 6$

ated by motion, flows around it as light flows from a
candle, passing out positive and returning negative.
The condition of the matter (body) in combustion
determines the brilliancy and power of the light.

Of the constituent elements of the body, science
says there are many, and goes on to name them.
But, gentlemen, with all respect for your knowledge,
your analyses and tests, your acids and crucibles, I
must say I question your conclusions. Why? Be-
cause a dead body is not the same as a living one.
The moment it is dead it is in another condition ; the
elements are changed and continue to change till
there is nothing left of them. Analyze a dead
bone, (you cannot analyze a live one), and you get
compounds to which you give names; but names
prove nothing. In your crucible, retort and receiver
the spirit of the universe is adding itself to your
work ; in fact, it is doing the work itself. You do
not know how much of your own spirit enters into
combination with the elements you are manipulating.
Then why such a parade of knowledge ? We do not
yet know the first letter of the alphabet of science.

Take a tub of earth and weigh it ; then in it plant
a seed. After a time you will have a tree ; remove
the tree, and again weigh the tub of earth, and see
how much less it weighs. You will find that the
tree is made up almost entirely from the atmosphere ;
which, indeed, is the spirit of the earth. Forms are
a condensation of the invisible.

The earth is none the less for having produced

66 THE TEMPLE OF THE ROSY CROSS.

inanimate and animate things. A mother is not made
less by child-bearing. The light of a lamp is not
lessened by lighting other lamps. The human brain
is not reduced by giving thought and ideas to the
world, but its capacity is increased thereby. It is
said that " man is like a candle : when the light goes
out he is no more." I do not agree to this. Light
is an effect of combustion ; so is the manifestation
called life. But light is greater than oil, as spirit
is greater than matter, or as motives are greater
than acts.

THE MIND. 6?