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The blood is one of the most baffling of many mysteries connected with the human body. We know that it is the principal factor in body building from the time of conception until "the silver cord is loosed and the spirit returned unto God who gave it."
In common with all other vehicles of individualized Spirit, the peculiar essence called blood has undergone tremendous changes in its evolutionary career. Nor have these ceased. Even greater changes will take place in the future as man's body gradually outgrows its material expression and puts on immortality. So we must consider the blood as it was constituted in the past, as it is conditioned at present, and as its transmuted state will be in the future.
Within the Earth is stored all the elements to be found in our human organism, including those which constitute the blood. In the very early stages of our earthly evolution, our blood was not red as it is today, but was a white ethereal substance similar to the milky juices of certain plants which are evolutionary relies of that time.
During this period man existed in an etheric condition. His body (if such it can be called) was attached to the etheric envelope of the Earth as an unborn babe is attached to the placenta in the uterus by means of the umbilical cord. During this period-which one may rightly consider a prelude to evolution-the etheric currents of the Earth circulated through etheric embryos suspended in its atmosphere. Occultists call these etheric currents "the Milk of Nature." They still exist in the etheric envelope of our globe and still circulate in and about and through us, but with a difference. When our body organism became definitely physical, the etheric currents specialized within it crystallized into the "mysterious essence" we call blood. This circulates through the human body as the mother-currents circulate through the etheric body of the Earth, whereas magnetic Earth currents now enter our etheric double only. Therefore, in a very special sense the blood is a product of the vital body. It is rich in the life ether which is the primordial Milk of Nature, but its red color is due to another evolutionary innovation which took place at a very early period.
After the Lords of Forms (celestial Beings represented by the constellation Scorpio), assisted by others, had fashioned bodies into something of their present form, the fiery Angels of Mars depolarized the iron in the Earth; and also in the blood stream of human bodies. By means of this Egos could produce internal heat and awaken to a realization of their selfhood. Man's awakening to himself as an Ego was roughly coincident with his being cut off from the nourishing Earth currents. Certain corresponding elements in the blood were then dissolved, and human consciousness became dimly aware of an egoic self, the "I" Blood then became red due to the presence of iron, and with the development of red blood a new creature was born upon the Earth. According to Moses, "the life of the flesh is in the blood." The Law of Moses contains many significant precepts relative to the blood which cannot be fully understood apart from their occult interpretation.
The flowing of sacrificial blood was a mystic part of the earliest forms of religious ritual. To the people of that period this was not the cruelty it is for us today. A human being was greatly advanced in his evolution when his death was accompanied by the flowing of blood, and this he knew intuitively. Moreover, the sacrificial victim understood that his blood flowed back into the great magnetic reservoir of the Earth and continued circulating through the people for whom he voluntarily surrendered his body. He thus entered into the sacrifice in a willing spirit and would gain enormously thereby. He was certain, too, of immediate rebirth. And he could sense angelic Beings of the heaven worlds, so did not feel frightened or alone.
In modern times the accumulated evils of races are precipitated in wars where blood is shed on a vast scale, thus accomplishing the same purpose as blood sacrifices in primitive religions. We cannot hope to avoid such social upheavals and global blood-letting until we purify our minds and emotions and "die daily" by means of voluntary love offerings in a spirit of true fellowship.
The circulatory system displays the celestial wisdom and the aeons of evolution behind it. If all flesh and bone were removed from a body, leaving the blood vessels only, there would still remain the outline of a human figure. The blood circulates through arteries and veins, the arteries carrying pure oxygenated blood from the lungs to every part of the body, refreshing and nourishing it. The veins carry devitalized blood with its impurities back to the heart and lungs for cleansing. Astrologically, arterial blood is ruled by Jupiter and venous blood by Venus. The task of blood purification is truly a labor of love to be performed by the Goddess (Angel) of Love.
The blood is continuously supplying the body with an infusion of oxygen and taking away waste in the form of carbonic gas. Oxygen is body fuel; carbonic acid is its ash or waste.
In addition to the veins and arteries, blood circulates through tiny threadlike capillaries which must be studied with the aid of a microscope. These capillaries form a fine network over every part of the body, penetrating into bone, muscle, skin, and brain. It is via the capillaries that the blood passes its food essence into body tissues by a process called osmosis. One of the most important functions of heart and arteries is to keep a balanced supply of pure food and oxygen continuously passing into the capillaries to maintain the body in good health that it may be an adequate and responsive instrument for giving expression to the creative energies of spirit.
The red globules in the blood attract oxygen, and it is these which give the blood its red color. The watery part of the blood in which the globules float is the plasma. This contains substance in dissolution, some of which is retained by the body while the rest is carried away as refuse.
Without the work of oxygenation, the Ego could not occupy a body at all, for it is through absorption of oxygen that the blood is renewed. When blood containing the accumulated poisons of the body flows through the lungs and there contacts oxygen, a process of combustion takes place whereby the poisons are removed and the blood charged with new life.
As previously stated, the blood is the medium through which. the inner man — the Ego, the I-dentity — rules his body in our present state of evolution. To some extent hypnotists and spirit controls push the higher vehicles out of the physical body and incorporate a part of their own desire and mental vehicles into the body of a person so controlled. This has a tendency to nucleate and liquefy the blood, for nuclei in the blood furnish a vantage point for the operations of outside entities, and the liquefaction of the blood makes it less amenable to the control of the indwelling Ego. It is also to be noted that an important work of Initiation concerns the transmuting of the Saturnian skeleton into the Jupiterian body, and any interference with the blood hinders this process since red cells of the blood are actually manufactured in the marrow bones of the skeleton.
The esotericist goes a step farther and adds that the blood assists in the alchemy of spiritualizing the skeleton. When studied clairvoyantly within the body, etheric blood is seen as a refined, vibrating light essence. The higher the attainment of the individual, the more rarefied and luminous become his blood. Early church legends about saints whose blood became white refer to this high state of spirituality, wherein the body becomes radiant by reason of this effulgence.
Every aspirant to inner knowledge must begin his work by purification of the blood. For this reason he learns to sustain his body with a pure and harmless diet, eliminating all food procured at the cost of pain and suffering to animals. He guards his every thought, word and deed, for he learns that his life and environment are pictured in his blood, and that his life is fashioned subconsciously in accordance with these pictures. The misuse of the creative force within man's body, his use of improper foods, and impurity in thought and speech tend to thicken the blood. Man of the coming Age and race will not inhabit so dense and inert a vehicle as he has to work through at the present time. As previously stated, the blood assists in the alchemy of spiritualization and, together with the desire body, in the process of re-creation. According to the divine pattern, man must come to "walk in the Light as He is in the Light." The Supreme Teacher said that only the pure in heart shall enter the Kingdom.
The occult scientist also states that red blood has a particular correlation to a well-developed desire body. The evolution of the desire body began in the Third Creative Day (Moon Period). At this time the circulatory life essence, later to become blood, also made its initial appearance. This essence was white, and it was upon this peculiarly sensitive desire-stuff that the Lucifers began to concentrate their influence by use of the vibratory red ray. This has always been the color used to stimulate desires and to incite passion in both animal and man. It is so used by the Black Magician in serving his own purposes.
In the animal kingdom only vertebrates have red blood. for it is a necessary accompaniment of an individual desire body. The seed atom of the desire body does not come under the control of the Ego until the Ego has learned to manufacture red corpuscles. These little bodies (round in human blood) are about 1/3200 of an inch in diameter. They compose about half the blood content and their office is to attract oxygen through the Fire Forces of Earth and Sun.
White corpuscles are germ centers and owe their origin to destructive or negative thinking. There is only one of these to approximately six hundred red corpuscles. In this we have another example of the love and care of those Great Beings who are aiding us to build bodies that will eventually win immortality.
The red corpuscles of animals contain a nucleated point not found in human blood. This is the center through which the Group Spirit controls its species. During that portion of the prenatal period when the mother's influence is most active, the blood of an infant is also nucleated. This nucleated center disappears at the time of quickening, after which the Ego becomes the controller of its own body. In involuntary mediumship and cases of extreme and prolonged obsession, the blood shows a tendency to become gradually nucleated.
The custom of family intermarriage was for the purpose of making the blood tie between Egos as potent as possible. The similarity of family characteristics and customs kept the blood in approximately the same rhythm, making it easier to impress pictures of ancestral life upon the subconscious mind with the least inaccuracy or distortion. Each succeeding generation thus lived as much in the past as in the present. In this manner family, and later, tribal instincts were fostered, Egos becoming increasingly amenable to Race Spirit influence.
International marriage is the great corrective for racial egotism. It tends to break down barriers of race, habit, and custom, all of which have a crystallizing effect upon the blood. One of the beneficial results of World War II will be expansion of universality through international marriage.
At the present time the blood of each individual contains only the pictures of his own personal experiences, and his subconscious mind has access to them. Up to the time that marriage outside of the family was initiated, individuals were ruled by a family spirit (Angel) which entered the body by means of the air and inspired and helped each Ego to control its vehicles. When marriage outside the family began, Egos had arrived at a point in the self-conscious evolution where they could begin to depend on self, where they were to cease being God-guided automatons and become self-governing individuals. The greater the mixture of blood, the less the indwelling Ego can be influenced by the race or family spirit. Unmixed blood gave us ancestral assistance when it was needed. Mixed blood makes for independence of outside help. The evolving god within must be independent.
Everything in man's environment (the objective world) is pictured in the blood, and subconsciously man fashions his life according to these pictures; that is the reason why familiarity with vice makes one tolerant of it. In primitive man, introspection was very strong. Instead of relying upon his own judgment when he was called upon to meet emergencies, he immediately resorted to the ancestral pictures in his blood and acted according to the collective experience of his tribe.
Unmixed blood expressed the power of ancestral life; mixed blood expresses the power of personal experience, for experiences of former lives express themselves as mental faculties. Unmixed blood and introspection give negative clairvoyance; mixed blood makes positive clairvoyance possible of attainment. When one is taken violently out of the body, the impurities of the lower nature, carried by the venous blood, cling to the Ego. If at this time the blood flows, a distinct cleansing is sensed by the Ego.
The blood and the two nervous systems, the sympathetic and cerebro-spinal, are intimately associated in their esoteric functions. The sympathetic system is the special field of action of the subconscious mind. When egoic consciousness is focused there it perceives the outer world as pictured in the blood, by means of primitive clairvoyance. Through the agency of this inner picture consciousness, focused through the subconscious mind-man originally built his body with its internal organs. The Ego was not then in the body, but it held the body image within its consciousness. It is this ancient ancestral picture-consciousness which has since sunk below the threshold of our waking mind and now constitutes the subconscious mind, as it is known to modern psychology. While the Egoic consciousness was turned inward, man was necessarily unaware of the outer world. All he knew of it was what he saw in the reflecting ether of his own blood stream.
Red blood corpuscles are first formed in the marrow of the bones. In early Lemuria, the "coats of skin" into which man descended were a soft, cartilage-like body. The hard bony framework of the present physical body belonged to a much later stage of evolution.
It was part of the work of the Third Creative Day to organize the planets (then existing in an etheric condition only) so they might be separated from the central Sun at the dawn of the Earth Period. The separation of Mars reduced its influence over the iron in the Earth; and when the planetary Spirit of Mars finally withdrew its influence completely, that metal became available for use by nascent humanity as soon as its evolution permitted. Its use became quite marked in the latter portion of the Lemurian Epoch, when red blood developed.
The solar iron was not wholly identical in nature with iron as we know it today. It differed just as the elements which astronomers detect in the Sun are not identical in condition with the same elements found upon Earth. There was a still greater difference in that early period.
To the occultist, iron and oxygen are the basic fiery elements essential to the highly individualized blood of our present civilization. Behind this blood stretches a long and involved history through many ages and lands, under the aegis of a great and varied host of celestial Intelligences, among which the solar and Martian influences predominated. Iron is the basis of all separate existence or individualization, through the manufacture of red blood. Oxygen is the basis of the delicately balanced organs through which the aerated blood operates. It is considered a solar element by occultists due to its special connection with certain little-known activities in "invisible sunlight."
Thus, at the present time the "heat of the blood is the vantage ground of the Ego, and the Lucifer spirits from Mars dissolve iron in the blood to attract oxygen, a solar element."
The blood is formed by the mesoderm layer of the ovum and is correlated, as previously noted, with the work of the Third Creative Day (Moon Period) where it had its inception. Blood vessels proper appear correspondingly late in an embryo.
Up to approximately the fifteenth year a child's red marrow does not make all the red corpuscles. Most of them are supplied from the thymus gland, which is the largest gland in a fetus but gradually diminishes as the blood-making ability develops in the growing child. The thymus gland contains a supply of red blood corpuscles given by the child's parent. So long as he draws blood from that source, he does not realize his own individuality.
A very young child cannot make its own red corpuscles because its desire body is not sufficiently developed to act as an avenue for the Martian forces which promote assimilation of iron from the blood and its transmission into hemoglobin. To compensate for this lack, there is stored in the thymus gland a spiritual essence, provided by the parents, which enables the child to accomplish the alchemistry of blood processes until its desire body matures and becomes active. When the thymus gland atrophies, usually near puberty, the child draws from its own desire body the necessary martial force with which to manufacture its own blood corpuscles.
The creative life force, which later manifests as sex, begins to be stored in the blood between the ages of seven and fourteen These are most important and crucial years in the life of a child, for this great force can later become a consuming fire or it can be transmuted into dynamic soul power and soul light. Advanced Egos usually show definite signs of marked growth between the ages of seven and fourteen, thus evidencing work in previous lives with the spiritualization of this life essence.
Great sages of all ages have been unanimous in their declarations concerning the occult significance of the blood. Empedocles, in 480 B. C., stated that the "blood is life." Goethe, with true Initiate knowledge, put similar words into the mouth of Faust when, having made an incision in his hand, he watched the blood flow. "O, man! thus escapes man's liquid fire."
The Bible, vast treasury of occult lore that it is, contains numerous references to the profound mystic significance of the blood. For example: "And the priests shall sprinkle the blood upon the altar of the Lord at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, and burn the fat for a sweet savour unto the Lord. And they shall no more offer 'their sacrifice unto devils, after whom they have gone a whoring. This shall be a statute for ever unto them throughout their generations ... For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an antonement for the souls" (Leviticus 17: 6, 7, 11).
The "sacrifice of devils" has reference to evil practices common among those skilled in secret arts at the time the records were written. Since the blood is life itself, it holds a power that can be used for good or evil. On the occasion of the Last Supper and when passing the cup or holy grail, the Master taught its sacred use: "This cup is the new testament in my blood, which is shed for you." Also, "I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God shall come."
Leviticus contains much hidden teaching in relation to the occult significance of the blood. The origin of the Covenant of the Blood dates back to the Lemurian Race. Its first mystic ceremonial was observed at the time of the separation of the sexes into male and female forms; at this time there was a "fall" in the substance and texture of blood. The Blood Rite commemorated the change from the androgynous state of man's being into the dual sex state of the present time. This Rite was a part of the ceremonial of the earliest Mystery Temple teachings.
After puberty the thyroid gland becomes the body's blood arbiter. This minute gland, situated in the throat, regulates the blood rhythms of the body. Esoterically, this small organ is the link between the lower and higher self (personality and Spirit). The causes underlying many baffling maladies will some day find their true diagnosis in this fact. William Harvey, who in 1628 first discovered and publicized the truth about blood circulation, gave as a general diagnosis of all disease: "Health means a free circulation. Disease means an impeded circulation." The illumined healer of the future will study circulatory rhythms of the blood relative to the soul growth and the moral and spiritual development of the patient. Initial soul rhythms which govern blood circulation have their origin in the heart, and this organ will ultimately become the chief light of the body, both physically and spiritually.
The straggler Angel, Lucifer, really signifies temptation by means of heat in the blood. The liver is the seat of the desire body. Lived spelled backwards is devil. For this reason Lucifer is often depicted in the red robe, horns, and tail of the traditional devil.
The Grecian legend of Prometheus bound to the rock with vultures gnawing at his liver is another illustration of the power of the desire nature (centered in the liver) to cause suffering.
So long as the skeleton was on the outside of the body, consciousness was centered in the sympathetic nervous system; but when the skeleton became embedded in the body, consciousness turned outward and became centered in the cerebro-spinal nervous system. Desire currents then swept outward from the liver, and red blood turned the will of the Ego inward upon itself, while his vision focused without.
The human Ego has now evolved to a much higher state and has learned to fashion its physical temple on a solid bony structure possessing semi-fluid red marrow. Red corpuscles, as previously noted, are supplied during prenatal life and in early childhood by the thymus gland and later they are manufactured in the red marrow of the bones. These minute red corpuscles of the human being are un-nucleated. Thus, they bear the signature of the Ego's attainment of individuality. They know no master save their own Ego. To be subjected to the power of an alien (as in hypnotism and obsession) is one of the most terrible of fates, and demands the heaviest of all punishments for the offending agent.
The physical work of these red corpuscles — which are circular in shape and so flexible that they fold together and pass through almost infinitesimal openings — is to carry oxygen from the lungs and to distribute it to all parts of the body. This they can do because iron attracts oxygen.
Lymph is blood plasma which passes through the walls of the capillaries. It bathes cells and carries away that which they do not need, then joins the great drainage system whereby blood is returned to the heart. Lymph has its own circulatory system which begins with minute capillaries into which it passes by filtration. These capillaries unite into larger vessels termed lymphatics and empty into veins that unite to form the vena cava.
There are seven hundred lymph-nodes situated in various parts of the body. These vary from the size of a pinhead to that of an olive seed. They may be termed the policemen of the body for they are on continuous guard duty to keep the human organism free from all forms of harmful bacteria.
The blood must infuse several billion body cells twice a minute throughout physical existence. The arteries which carry blood from the heart contract and expand with its every beat. It is estimated that in fifty years the arteries have contracted and expanded three billion times.
The great aorta is an inch in diameter. This divides into innumerable branches, ultimating in capillaries so minute that thousands of them are required to contain the blood of the aorta.
In the spleen are manufactured the white corpuscles. From there they gain direct entry into the blood, the normal proportion between white and red corpuscles being one white to about six hundred red. These white corpuscles are created when the desire body has gained influence over certain organs belonging to the etheric double, of which the spleen is one. Hence, the more a person yields to violent emotions the more rapid is the increase of white corpuscles in his body. The physical danger is that an excess of white corpuscles may interfere with the oxygen and iron supply of the blood (hemoglobin) with anemia or leukemia as a result. Psychologically the danger is even greater. If an individual habitually gives way to anger or other forms of passion-in other words, if he loses control of himself — then these white corpuscles are liable to become nuclei in which outside elements can imbed themselves and open the way for spirit control and obsession. In the light of this knowledge Max Heindel spoke of the white blood corpuscles as "lost opportunities."
The work of white blood corpuscles, science notes, is perhaps the most complicated process taking place within the human organism. A white corpuscle swallows a bacterium whole and then breaks it into bits in a way which parallels the digestive process in miniature. It then selects such elements as it requires (similar to absorption) and moves away or rejects those it does not require (analogous to excretion).
In recent experiments, a Philadelphia physician, Dr. Edmond J. Farris, has discovered that a change does take place in the blood stream during times of stress, fear, and excitement. In experimentation with sudden and unusual noises the lymphocyte count* (one of the white corpuscles) rose sharply. "Blood curdling," he declares, "is not fantasy, but fact."
In the coagulation of blood taken from a human body the highly individualized work of the Ego may be observed. In its coagulated state, the blood of every individual is seen to be different from that of every other person. Upon its minute particles are inscribed the "soul signature" of the Ego to whom it belongs. It has been said that every drop of blood contains a picture of all the past, and that in it the future is being prepared.
Science has made tremendous discoveries about "blood interpreting" in the past few decades. It is now possible to detect disease, racial characteristics, paternity and many other things. Later, blood analysis will be extended to include pictures of past lives and an outline of future events.
The blood registers every thought and emotion, for during every moment of waking, thinking or feeling, life is transmitted from the surrounding ethers to the lungs by breath, and there makes its impress upon the blood. It is an occult maxim that he who controls the blood controls the man. Herein is the basis of Mephistopheles' power over Faust. As the latter signed his name in his blood, he also signed away his prerogative of free-will, man's highest God-given right. The modern analogue of Goethe's famous drama is The Devil and Daniel Webster, given a screen production under the title All That Money Can Buy.
The blood is at present the most highly individualized factor in the human body. Man was assisted by hosts of celestial Beings in the building of every bodily organ; the blood alone is the product of his own individual labor. As already observed, when a child has dissolved nucleated blood furnished by his parent and has begun to manufacture his own blood, he begins to realize his individual and independent existence. He becomes "I," and the sacred mysteries of his own innermost being reveal themselves to him alone. The blood is the most complete expression of this "I" Its development, further individualization, purification, and eventual transmutation are entirely dependent upon the will of the Ego. In this fact is found the reason for the extreme caution necessary in the performance of blood transfusions.
Medical Science has developed an elaborate system of blood typing to facilitate blood transfusion from one individual to another.
A transfusion usually produces a clotting of the red corpuscles, termed agglutination, due to the fact that the fluid part (serum) of one blood type contains a substance which reacts to something in the corpuscles of the other blood. There are two agglutinable substances designated as A and B, and four general blood types. Of these,
Group 1 contains neither A nor B; Group 2 contains A; Group 3 contains B; Group 4 contains A and B.
The serum agglutinates whichever of the substances the cells do not contain. Such agglutination will occur within twenty minutes or not at all. The blood of persons belonging to the same group are compatible. Extreme care must be taken that the blood of donor and recipient are not antagonistic.
The four blood groups are found to occur in different proportions in different races, corresponding to the four alchemical principles of Fire, Earth, Air, and Water, which mark the progression of every race and individual. All diseases and healers come under these same groupings and will eventually be so tabulated and classified.
Specialized blood pathology enumerates four principal groups which may be tabulated in this fourfold relationship:
Blood transfusion always produces a karmic tie between donor and recipient. The "blood banks" established to meet present emergencies upon far-flung battlefields will have a powerful effect in dissolving barriers between races and nations and will tend toward the binding of all peoples into one vast fellowship under Christ Jesus.
After receiving several transfusions from the same individual many persons have evidenced characteristics similar to those of the donor. Certain donors, on the other hand, have had interesting contacts with individuals to whom they have given blood, at the time when the latter passed from the physical world.
All beings lower in the evolutionary scale than anthropoid apes will die if human blood is injected into their veins; they cannot endure its higher potencies. All animal blood is nucleated and, as before stated, these nuclei form the basis of control by the animal Group Spirit.
As humanity progresses in individualization the time will come when blood transfusion will no longer be possible. Initiates who earn their powers through lives of pure and self-sacrificial living will be the first to pass beyond the possibility of blood transfusion.
In the very nature of its work, the blood is an expression of the universality of spirit. It knows no limitation or divisional operations but gives itself freely and equally to all parts of the body. If it restricted itself, or withheld its flow from certain organs and gave preference to others, the entire body would soon manifest chaos and dissolution. Equality and Oneness are its operational keynotes.
Generation is always associated with the shedding of blood; regeneration with the transmutation of blood. All the world is enmeshed in the former but few as yet have any concept of the latter, although it is the central mystery of the secret teaching given by the Master to His Disciples at the Last Supper. He said, "This cup is the new testament in my blood, which is shed for you."
The blood is essentially a fire element and, as we have seen, it comes under the influence of Mars and the Sun-Mars representing the lower desire nature, and the Sun, the Spirit. The more spiritual a person becomes, the more etherealized is the blood. Material or negative thinking, heavy foods, alcohol, and indulgence of the sense life lower the vibratory rate of the body and liquefy the blood.
Medical science is just entering upon important discoveries in connection with blood crystals. The higher the individualization of a person, the more distinct are the patterns of his blood crystals. The time will come when not only secrets of heredity or concealed tendencies will be discoverable in the blood, but also lines of progression extending from past lives. Medical science will yet come to understand the occult verity that the blood is the seat or home of the Ego. Paracelsus declares that "The mere looking at externals is a matter for clowns, but the intuition of internals is a secret which belongs to physicians."
The red of Mars is slow to be changed into the golden transparency of the Sun. To lift and transmute the power of Mars is the work of our present evolution. Difficult indeed is the path and arduous the labor. "The path is so narrow," writes Esdras, "that leads unto this blessed place (of transmutation) that but one man can walk on the same; on one side is Fire and on the other is Water."
Only by high thinking and pure living may an aspirant to the holy Mysteries come to understand the process of changing blood heat into blood light. This the Christ taught Peter, James, and John on the Day of Transfiguration. It was also part of the initiatory process by which Elijah was translated into heaven in a chariot of fire and light.
Blood may be divided into three parts: serum, comes under the astrological signature of Cancer; red matter, Scorpio; and fibrin, Pisces. This makes clear the meaning of Boehme's statement that "there would be no blood if the Tincture of Fire and Light were not in Water" for it is the fiery Hierarchs of Mars and the Sun, operating in the field of the Water Hierarchs of Cancer, Scorpio, and Pisces which create the mysterious substance we know as blood.
Blood is the most powerful agent involved in the intricate process of bodily regeneration. Here, as in all other departments of spiritual work, regeneration is concerned with the proper blending of Fire and Water. Oxygen, a solar element, is a constructive fire force. Alcohol is also a fire product, but belongs to the destructive fire forces. The effects of alcohol on the blood are serious and far-reaching, for it not only precipitates impurities and weaknesses here and now, but its malefic influence extends into future embodiments. The "taint of alcohol" sets a mark upon egoic powers that will require long ages for its full eradication. The wave of alcoholism sweeping the world today tends to generate a materialism so dense that the words of John will be fulfilled: "And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehendeth it not."
Oxygen, the constructive fire element, is of first importance in sustaining life. Man could not live many minutes without it. As oxygen is the prime element in our present Earth Period, so blood is the special vantage ground of the Spirit at this stage. When the blood has been transmuted into golden light essence, oxygen will be superseded by another and more rarefied Sun element. Blood that is saturated with alcohol is not susceptible to this spiritual alchemy, nor will the unregenerated be able to breathe in the new element. As a consequence, destruction will again overtake many Earth dwellers even as it did in the days of Noah-though not through a deluge, but from the new element that is even now descending upon Earth and infiltering the air with its fiery substance.
The most profound and important event in the entire world's history was the flowing of blood on Calvary. In preparation for this supreme event the Master taught the Twelve that "This cup is the new testament in my blood." Man can comprehend this "new testament" only when he enters upon regenerated life.
The beginnings of this sublime transmutation were effected by the Master when He shone as the Sun on the Mount of Transfiguration. The processes involved in this transmutation were taught by Him to His most advanced Disciples, Peter, James, and John, during the agony in the Garden. The drops of sweat and the flowing of blood refer to the before-mentioned blending of the inner essences of Fire and Water, a process consummated on Golgotha. With the flowing of blood on Calvary a tremendous spiritual power passed into the center of the Earth. This power has been operating ever since to further forces working for the establishment of a new and regenerated order.
Flowing of blood tends to cleanse an Ego from the taint of egotism which has been engendered throughout long ages of material existence in which man has come to feel himself as separate from the rest of the universe. Christ came that egotism might be changed into altruism and the sense of separateness be replaced by a spirit of universality. Such are the effects flowing from the sacrificial blood shed on Calvary. The ultimate fruitage of that sacrifice will be the fulfillment of the prophetic vision that beheld the time when men would "beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruninghooks."
It is in commemoration of this little understood mission of Christ that the early Church established the Feast of the Precious Blood, a mystery which was known for millennia before Christ but which had to await His coming for its fulfillment. It is significant that this feast occurs in July when the Sun is in Cancer, the home of the Cherubim, guardians of the sacred life essence. The Archangels, of whom Christ is chief, occupy the opposite sign of Capricorn. Assisted by Angels, they guide man in the use of this holy life force. It will be remembered that it was the Cherubim who expelled man from the edenic state because of his misuse of the divine creative substance.
"Many talk of the Lion, few know it." The waters of Eiternal Life flow from the wounds of the Lion of Judah. Blending of the White and the Red was demonstrated on Calvary and in the Garden of Gethsemane where Christ first shed His sacred blood in His divine agony. The soul of the world is red through generation. It must be made white through regeneration. The Christ came to earth to inaugurate this glorious work. The elect, those who make themselves worthy, follow in His steps. Few realize the magic power stored in blood that is pure, and what marvels can be accomplished thereby. In only one way can the purity leading to that power be attained and that is by "living the life. "
Paracelsus gave the following instructions to his disciples: " Take blood shut up in the pelican (self-sacrifice) until the third part of the pelican is filled (three preliminary steps). Then shut in the retort and seal hermetically (inner work connected with the magic of transmutation). In this way you will arrive at the magistry (mystery) of blood as we have taught in the book Concerning Preparation.. "
The rites of both white and black magic are founded upon the alchemical changes which take place in the blood. The White Brother builds up power by transmuting his own blood; the Black Brother, by the use of another's. It is in the practice of black magic that we discover the origin of the sacrifice of virgins before temple altars and the massacre of the innocents in revenge of the Holy Birth in the time of Herod. It was to gain possession of the highly magnetized blood of the pure and holy John the Baptist that Herodias caused him to be beheaded. She was a skilled Black Magician belonging to one of Egypt's powerful cults of evil, and wished to use the powers concentrated in the blood (or life) of this holy man in order to prolong her youth and beauty.
Man is a universe in miniature; the heart is his sun and the seven principal organs are his planetary chain. Ethereal life from the Sun circulates through this planetary system as blood from his heart circulates through his body. The solar circulation requires eleven years, the interval which shows an increase in Sun spots. Sun spots indicate the presence in the Sun of certain so-called "stragglers" of the Second Creative Day (the Sun Period). However, they are glorious archangelic Spirits, holy and radiantly beautiful, and seem dark only by contrast with their more advanced brethren, even as the Sun spots themselves are more brilliant than anything we can conceive of on Earth and appear dark only by contrast with the rest of the solar orb. Similarly, in an individual aura, the karma of each Ego leaves its impress upon the etheric heart. This constitutes the "sun spot" of the aura, and may he seen by one possessing extended vision.
Paracelsus writes that "There are many wonderful virtues in the blood exceeding all belief. Blood exists out of the best root and most potent fountain of the heart. In this can exist no defect, for it has conditions according to the nature of the heart, and is the costly treasure of the whole nature with all that is therein."
The heart is one of the most perfect of all bodily organs and the one most intimately sensitive to spiritual thought. It is destined for a marvelous evolution in the next two or three millennia.
It has been said that objective consciousness is the result of a conflict between the desire nature and the life impulses of the etheric double, each striving for supremacy. In the plant kingdom the etheric vehicle, with its vital forces, is predominant, so the plant has no individual consciousness such as man has. It is the battle of desire which awakens consciousness of the outer world. This desire was originally stimulated by dynamic angelic forces outside the human sphere of evolution, and their energetic impulses led to the loss of Eden.
It has been observed by esoteric investigators that, physiologically, this conflict between desire and life for dominion over the physical body is evidenced by the fact that the desire body has invaded the spleen, gateway to the etheric body, and that the life or etheric principle has set up its stronghold in the heart, the organ most intimately connected with the blood, wherein the Ego dwells. Thus, the life principle is enthroned in the heart and blood stream, and operates to eject selfish desires which taint the blood with egotism.
Originally the heart was entirely controlled by the desire body, for it is an involuntary organ; but with the building of the voluntary nervous system, the heart is gradually being transformed into a voluntary muscle. This the Initiate has already accomplished, which accounts in part for his immunity to disease and his power to indefinitely prolong physical life. This will eventually become the heritage of all mankind, for when the heart has been brought under the complete control of the Spirit, the blood, which contains the essence of life, can be withheld from brain areas involved in destructive activities and sent into areas now generally dormant, but which, when thus vivified, confer immortality and the esoteric powers following thereupon.
The work of Initiation must always be accompanied by purification of the blood, for if the blood remains impure spiritual consciousness is distorted and the vibratory rhythms of the entire chain of vehicles is lowered, thus opening the way for the ingress of undesirable entities of the lower Desire World.
Rudolph Steiner, the eminent occultist, writing of the circulatory systems and in particular of the blood, states that their "rhythms depend upon the mysterious connection between breathing and movements of the heart."
In the Hippocratic Collection of 340 B. C., The Treatise on the Heart contains the following item of special interest to the esotericist: "The heart is the home of the blood and in the left ventricle some subtle change of blood into spirit takes place." The occultist understands that the left ventricle of the heart contains the individual record of life, presided over by each person's guardian angel. This record becomes the arbiter of his after-life experience.
H. P. Blavatsky, writing of the wonders of the heart, says that "The heart is the King of the Body and its most important organ. Even if the head be severed from the trunk, the heart will continue to beat for half an hour. If wrapped in cotton wool and put in a warm place, the pulsations will continue for some hours."
In the heart is a spot that is the last to die — a spot, marked by a tiny violet light, which is the seat of life. This is also the first point of life in a fetus. The following definition of occult anatomy by Paracelsus embraces the deeper meanings of the subject and indicates that these are possible of apprehension by a mind illumined by the Spirit: "The man is then dismembered and analyzed and thereby we see what is bone and what is flesh, arteries, etc: also, where these be situated in the body. Yet this is the last thing and the other is more, being that which shall cause new life in man (alluding to the first means of life) through transmutation wherein may be learned what is blood; of Salt, Sulphur, and Mercury is it composed.
"Also what is the heart; of which kind of Mercury and of what kind of Salt and whatsoever there be in the entire body; and this is the true anatomy. Thus is the foundation of the Beginning and therefore must the physician be born.
"But this kind of birth be hard to comprehend, also 'tis a difficult matter whereof to hold speech with them that will not quiet their fancies, and who would trust to their heads rather than walk in the way of wisdom."
Again, Paracelsus writes: "All things are contained in all things ... The spleen follows the course of Saturn. The gall is in nature like Mars. By reason of senses do the kidneys unfold. Venus brings forth the fruits of the body. As Mercury, so do the lungs work. Jupiter runneth his spirit in the blood particularly in sleep to moderate all violence. As to the other stars ye should remember that they are also in the body."
Modern esotericists declare that the blood is formed in the marrow of the bones under Saturn. Jupiter rules the red arterial blood that carries nourishment to all parts of the body. Venus rules the venous blood which brings the impure blood back to the heart to be cleansed. The Sun rules the heart, the central seat of the blood. Mars rules the iron in the red blood and attracts oxygen, the solar element. Mercury rules the lungs which are the focal point of blood oxygenation. The serum (watery substance) is ruled by the Moon and Cancer. The fibrin (stringy substance) is ruled by Jupiter and Pisces. The iron, or red coloring matter, is ruled by Mars and Scorpio. Or once more to quote Paracelsus, "There is a star behind every process going on in man. All the forces of heaven have their corresponding activity in those parts of the body that are expressive of their powers."
— Corinne Heline
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