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| Simplified Scientific Christianity |
Q. Into how many Regions is the World of Thought divided?
A. Seven Regions.
Q. Into what two main divisions is the World of Thought divided?
A. Into the Regions of Concrete and Abstract Thought.
Q. What relation does the World of Thought bear to the five Worlds from which man obtains his vehicles?
A. It is the central world. Here spirit and body meet.
Q. What else can you say of the World of Thought?
A. It is also the highest of the three Worlds in which man's evolution is being carried forward at the present time.
Q. What does the Region of Concrete Thought furnish?
A. It furnishes the mind-stuff in which ideas generated in the Region of Abstract Thought clothe themselves as thought-forms.
Q. What is accomplished by the thought-forms?
A. They act as regulators and balance wheels upon the impulses engendered in the Desire World.
Q. What do the three Worlds, in which man is at present evolving, show?
A. They show the Supreme Wisdom of the Great Architect, Whom we reverence by the holy name of God.
Q. By what name is the lowest subdivision of the Region of Concrete Thought known?
A. The Continental Region.
Q. What is found in the Continental Region?
A. The archetypes of physical form, no matter to what kingdom they may belong.
Q. What else, if anything, is found in the Continental Region?
A. The archetypes of continents and the isles of the world.
Q. What modifications are wrought in the Continental Region?
A. Modifications in the crust of the earth.
Q. By what general term are the physical features of the earth, commonly known?
A. The "Laws of Nature."
Q. By whom are these modifications designed?
A. By the Hierarchies in charge of evolution.
Q. What system do these Hierarchies use in making the various modifications of the earth's surface?
A. They plan changes as an architect plans the alteration of a building before the workmen give it concrete expression.
Q. When we speak of the archetypes of all the different forms in the dense world, are they to be thought of as merely models?
A. They are not models nor likenesses of the forms we see about us, but are creative archetypes. They fashion the forms of the Physical World in their own likeness or likenesses.
Q. Does more than one archetype work on certain form?
A. Often many work together, each archetype giving part of itself to build the required form.
Q. What is the second subdivision of the Region of Concrete Thought called?
A. The Oceanic Region. It is best described as flowing, pulsating vitality.
Q. How does the trained clairvoyant see "all life as one?"
A. He sees these forces as a stream of life pulsating through all forms, just as blood pulsates through the body.
Q. Which is the third Region of Concrete Thought?
A. The Aerial Region.
Q. What archetypes are found in the Aerial Region?
A. The archetypes of desires, passions, wishes, feelings and emotions, such as we experience in the Desire World.
Q. How do the activities of the Desire World appear in the Aerial Region?
A. They appear as atmospheric conditions.
Q. What else may be seen in the Aerial Region?
A. The pictures of the emotions of man and beast.
Q. What is the fourth subdivision of the Region of Concrete Thought?
A. The Region of Archetypal Forces.
Q. What is said of this Region?
A. It is the central and most important Region of the five Worlds wherein man's entire evolution is carried on.
Q. Name the divisions or Regions that lie on either side of the Region of Archetypal Forces?
A. On one side are the three higher Regions of the World of Thought, the World of Life Spirit, and the World of Divine Spirit; and on the other side are the three lower Regions of the World of Thought, the Desire World, and the Physical World.
Q. What else can you say of this Region?
A. It is a sort of "crux" -the focusing point- the human mind, where Spirit reflects itself in matter.
Q. In what manner does Spirit work in this Region of Archetypal Forces?
A. It works in a formative manner.
Q. In which Region does the fifth Region reflect itself?
A. In the third Region, which is the nearest the focusing point on the Form side.
Q. And in which Region does the sixth Region reflect itself?
A. In the second Region.
Q. And into which Region is the seventh reflected?
A. Into the first Region.
Q. Where is the Region of Abstract Thought reflected?
A. In the Desire World.
Q. And where is the World of Life Spirit reflected?
A. In the Etheric Region of the Physical World.
Q. And the World of Divine Spirit is reflected where?
A. In the Chemical Region of the Physical World.
Q. Are the seven Worlds placed one above another as shown in the diagram?
A. They are not, but they inter-penetrate one another.
Q. How can you illustrate these relations of the seven Worlds?
A. We may represent the dense earth by a sponge. Then imagine that sand permeates every part of the sponge. let the sand represent the Etheric Region, and let us further imagine the sponge and sand immersed is a spherical glass vessel filled with clear water, and a little larger than the sponge and sand. The water as a whole will represent the Desire World if we thing of the air in the water as representing the World of Thought. Finally imagine the vessel containing the sponge, sand and water place in the center of a larger spherical vessel, then the air in the space between the two vessels would represent that part of the World of Thought which extends beyond the Desire World. By placing another larger spherical vessel outside, we have a representation of the World of Life Spirit.
Q. In order to travel from one planet to another, what is necessary?
A. It is necessary to have a vehicle correlated to the World of Life Spirit under our conscious control.
Q. To what may the various solar systems be compared?
A. To so many separate sponges swimming in a World of Divine Spirit.
Q. What is the highest vehicle of man?
A. The Divine Spirit.
Q. How many Worlds of our planet are at present in the field of evolution?
A. Three, the Physical World, the Desire World, and the World of Thought.
Q. How are these Worlds divided as regards our evolution?
A. They are divided into a number of different kingdoms, at various stages of development.
Q. How many of these kingdoms concern us at the present time and which are they?
A. Four, the mineral, plant, animal and human kingdoms.
Q. In what way are these four kingdoms related to the three Worlds?
A. They are related in different ways, according to the progress these groups of evolving life have made in the school of experience.
Q. What can you say of the dense bodies of all these kingdoms?
A. So far as form is concerned they are all composed of the same chemical substances, the solids, liquids and gases of the Chemical Region.
Q. Is there any difference between the dense body of a man and that of a stone from a chemical standpoint?
A. They are both composed of a chemical compound, but the latter is ensouled by mineral life only.
Q. In speaking of man and mineral from a physical standpoint, are there any differences?
A. There are several differences. man moves, grows and propagates his species, while the mineral in its native state does none of these things.
Q. When we compare man with the plant kingdom, what similarity do we find?
A. Both plant and man have a dense and a vital body and are capable of growth and propagation.
Q. What faculties does man possess that the plant does not?
A. Man feels, has power of motion and the faculty of perceiving things exterior to himself.
Q. When we compare man with the animal, what do we find?
A. We find that both have the faculties of feeling, motion, growth, propagation and sense perception.
Q. What faculties has man that are not possessed by the animal?
A. Man has the faculty of speech, a superior structure of the brain and also hands, which are a very great physical advantage.
Q. What else has man evolved that places him above the other kingdoms?
A. Man has also evolved a definite language in which to express his feelings and his thoughts.
Q. Where must we go to find the causes which give to one kingdom that which is denied to another?
A. We must go to the Invisible Worlds.
Q. What is first necessary to function in any of the Invisible Worlds?
A. We must first possess a vehicle made of its material.
Q. What must we have to function in the dense Physical World?
A. It is necessary to have a dense body adapted to our environment.
Q. If we did not have a dense body, what would be the result?
A. We would be what is commonly called ghosts and be invisible to most physical beings.
Q. What must we have to function in the Etheric Region?
A. A vital body to express life and grow or externalize the other qualities peculiar to this Region.
Q. What kind of a vehicle is necessary to show feeling and emotion?
A. It is necessary to have a vehicle composed of the material of the Desire World.
Q. What is necessary to render thinking possible?
A. A mind formed of the substance of the Region of Concrete Thought.
Q. Why is it that the mineral cannot grow, propagate or show sentient life?
A. Because it does not possess a vital body.
Q. As an hypothesis necessary to account for other known facts, what does material science hold forth?
A. Material science holds that in the densest solid, as in the rarest and most attenuated gases, not two atoms touch each other, that the atoms float in an ocean of ether.
Q. What does the esoteric scientist know relating to the atoms above referred to?
A. He knows that it is true of the Chemical Region and that the mineral does not possess a separate vital body of ether; and as it is the planetary ether alone which envelops the atoms of the mineral, that makes the difference described.
Q. Then what is necessary to express the qualities of a particular realm?
A. It is necessary to have a separate vital body, desire body, etcetera, to express the qualities of a corresponding realm.
Q. Then why is it that the mineral cannot feel, propagate or think?
A. Because it lacks a separate vehicle to function in the different realms. It is inter-penetrated by the planetary ether only and is, therefore, incapable of individual growth.
Q. Which of the four states of ether is active in the mineral?
A. The chemical ether; and it is due to this fact that chemical forces are active in minerals.
Q. What is the difference between the vital bodies of plants and the vital bodies of animal and man?
A. In the vital bodies of plants only the chemical and life ethers are fully active.
Q. Why is it that the faculties of sense-perception and memory cannot be expressed by the plant kingdom?
A. Because the light ether is partially latent or dormant and the reflecting ether is lacking.
Q. What ethers are active in the vital body of the animal?
A. The chemical, life and light ethers.
Q. What faculties do these ethers produce?
A. The chemical ether generates assimilation and growth; the life ether generates propagation, and the light ether generates internal heat and sense-perception
Q. Which ether is inactive in the animal?
A. The fourth or reflecting ether, hence the animal has no thought or memory.
Q. When we analyze the human being, what do we find regarding the four ethers?
A. We find that all four ethers are dynamically active in the highly organized vital body.
Q. By the activities of these various ethers, what is the human being able to do?
A. By the activities of the chemical ether he assimilates and grows; by the life ether he is enabled to propagate his species, and the forces in the light ether supply the dense body with heat and stimulate the senses. The reflecting ether the spirit to control its vehicle by means of thought.
Q. What else does the reflecting ether do?
A. It also stores past experiences as memory.
Q. What position does the vital body of the plant, animal and man take with reference to the dense body?
A. The vital body extends beyond the periphery of the dense body, as the Etheric Region extends beyond the dense body of a planet.
Q. To what distance does the vital body extend beyond the dense body, and how does it appear?
A. The vital body of man extends about an inch and a half beyond the dense body. It is very luminous and about the color of a new blown peach blossom.
Q. By what class of persons is it often seen, and how does it affect them?
A. By persons having very slight involuntary clairvoyance; but such persons are not aware that they see anything unusual.
Q. How is the dense body built during antenatal life?
A. It is built into the matrix of the vital body, and it is an exact copy of the vital body, molecule for molecule.
Q. How may this condition be illustrated?
A. As the lines of force in freezing water are avenues of formation for ice crystals, so the lines of force in the vital body determine the shape of the dense body.
Q. What is the work or function of the vital body?
A. All through life the vital body is the builder and restorer of the dense form. Were it not for the etheric heart, the dense heart would break quickly under the constant strain we put upon it. The vital body is continually fighting against the death of the dense body.
Q. In one of the answers above, it was stated that the dense body. What exception, if any, is there to this statement?
A. The exception is that the vital body of a man is female or negative, while that of a woman is male or positive.
Q. Why is it that a woman gives way to her emotions?
A. Her positive vital body generates an excess of blood and causes an enormous internal pressure.
Q. What are the safety-valves for this condition?
A. The periodical flow and, on special occasions, the tears, which are "white bleeding."
Q. Why is man able to suppress his emotions more easily than woman?
A. Because his negative vital body does not generate more blood than he can comfortably control.
Q. Which of the vehicles of humanity, except under certain circumstances, is the last to leave the dense body?
A. The vital body, which does not leave the dense body until the death of the latter.
Q. After death, what do the chemical forces proceed to do?
A. To restore the matter to its primordial condition by disintegration, so that it may be available for the formation of other forms.
Q. Then to what is disintegration due?
A. To the activity of the planetary forces in the chemical ether.
Q. Why is this conditions so?
A. The chemical forces of the dense body are no longer held in check by the evolving life.
Q. To what may the texture of the vital body to compared?
A. To one of those picture frames made of hundreds of little pieces of wood which interlock and present innumerable points to the observer. Each point is a prism.
Q. What do these points of the vital body do?
A. They enter into the hollow centers of the dense atoms.
Q. What causes the prickly pain and tingling sensation in the dense body at times?
A. When these points of the vital body enter into the dense atoms, they imbue them with vital force that sets them vibrating at a rate higher than that of the mineral of the earth, which is not thus accelerated and ensouled.
Q. Does the vital body ever partially leave the dense body, and what is the result?
A. It does, and the part affected, say the hand or foot, "goes to sleep," as it is called.
Q. What sometimes happens to the head of the vital body in a case of hypnosis?
A. The head of the vital body divides and hangs outside of the dense head, one half over each shoulder, or lies around the neck like the collar of a sweater.
Q. Why is there an absence of the prickly sensation at awakening in such cases?
A. Because, during the hypnosis, part of the hypnotist's vital body has been substituted for that of the victim.
Q. What effect does anesthetics have on the vital body?
A. The vital body is partially driven out, along with the higher vehicles, and if the application is too strong and the life ether is driven out death ensues.
Q. What is the difference between a materializing medium and an ordinary man or woman?
A. In the ordinary man or woman the vital body and the dense body are quite firmly interlocked, while the medium they are loosely connected.
Q. Has this condition always been so and will it continue to be so?
A. It has not always been so, and the time will come again when the vital body may normally leave the dense vehicle, but that is not normally accomplished at present.
Q. What happens when a medium allows his or her vital body to be used by entities from the Desire World?
A. The vital body generally oozes from the left side, through the spleen, which is it particular "gate," then the vital forces cannot flow into the body as they do normally.
Q. To what conditions does this state usually lead?
A. The medium becomes greatly exhausted. Some of them resort to stimulants to counteract the effect, and in time become incurable drunkards.
Q. What vital force surrounds us and how is it absorbed?
A. The vital force of the sun surrounds us as a colorless fluid and it is absorbed by the vital body through the etheric counterpart of the spleen, wherein it undergoes a curious transformation of color. It becomes pale rose-hued and spreads along the nerves all over the dense body.
Q. To what is this vital force compared?
A. To a telegraph system. Though there be wires, instruments and telegraph operators all in order, if the electricity is lacking no messages can be sent.
Q. What parts of the human system are compared to the telegraph system?
A. The Ego, the brain and the nervous system. They may be in perfect order, but if the vital force is lacking to carry the message of the Ego through the nerves to the muscles, the dense body will remains inert.
Q. What happens when part of the dense body becomes paralyzed?
A. The vital body has become diseased and the vital force can no longer flow. In such cases, in most sicknesses, the trouble is with the finer invisible vehicles.
Q. What do the most successful physicians use in conscious or unconscious recognition of this fact?
A. They use suggestion, which works upon the higher vehicles, as an aid to medicine. The more a physician can imbue his patient with faith and hope the speedier the recovery.
Q. Describe the vital body of a person in good health?
A. The vital body specializes a superabundance of vital force, which after passing through the dense body, radiates in straight lines in every direction from the periphery thereof, as the radii of a circle do from the center.
Q. Describe the vital body of a person in ill health?
A. In ill health the vital body is not able to draw to itself the same amount of force, and in addition the dense body is feeing upon it. Then the lines of the vital fluid, which pass out from the body, are crumpled and bent, showing the lack of force behind them.
Q. Why is the danger of contracting disease greater when the vital forces are low than when one is in robust health?
A. In health the great force of these radiations carries with it germs and microbes which are inimical to the health of the dense body, but in sickness, when the vital force is weak, these emanations do not so readily eliminate disease germs.
Q. In case of the amputation of parts of the dense body, do any of the ethers accompany the separated part?
A. Only the planetary ether. The etheric counterpart of the amputated limb will gradually disintegrate as the dense member decays.
Q. How is the person, from whom the limb was amputated, affected, and give an instance?
A. The fact that the person still possesses the etheric limb accounts for the assertion that he can feel his fingers or suffers pain in them.
Q. Is there any connection with a buried member irrespective of distance? Give an instance.
A. There is a connection. A case is one record where a man felt a severe pain as if a nail had been driven into the flesh of an amputated limb, and when the limb was exhumed, it was found that a nail had been driven into it at the time it was boxed for burial. The nail was removed and the pain instantly stopped.
Q. Do minerals and plants have a desire body?
A. Both minerals and plants lack the separate desire body. They are permeated only by the planetary desire body, the Desire World.
Q. Are minerals and plants capable of feeling desire and emotion?
A. Lacking the separate vehicle of the Desire World, they are incapable of these faculties.
Q. Is there any feeling connected with the breaking of a stone?
A. The stone does not feel pain, but the esoteric scientist knows that there is no act, great or small which is not felt throughout the universe.
Q. What is it that feels the pain when a stone is broken or a plant torn up by the roots?
A. The Spirit of the earth feels it, because it is the Earth's desire body which permeates the stone and the plant. This Earth is a living, feeling body.
Q. What forms are included in the desire body of the Earth?
A. All forms which are without separate desire bodies through which their informing spirits may experience feeling.
Q. How does the planetary Desire World affect animal and man?
A. The planetary Desire World pulsates through the dense and vital bodies of animal and man in the same way that it penetrates the mineral and plant.
Q. In addition to the planetary Desire World, what do animal and man have?
A. Animal and man have separate desire bodies, which enable them to feel desire, emotion and passion.
Q. Is there any difference between the desire bodies of animal and man?
A. The desire body of the animal is built entirely of the material of the denser regions of the Desire World, while, even in the lowest of human races, a little on the matter of the higher regions enters into the composition of the desire body.
Q. With what are the feelings of animals and the lowest human races almost entirely concerned?
A. With the gratification of the lowest desires and passions, which find their expressions in the matter of the lower Region of the Desire World.
Q. What enters into the composition of the desire bodies of the great majority of mankind?
A. The materials of both the lower and the higher Regions. None are so bad that they have not some good trait; very few are so good that they do not use some of the materials of the lower Regions.
Q. In what way do the vital and desire bodies inter-penetrate the dense body of plant, animal and man?
A. In the same way that the planetary vital and desire bodies inter-penetrate the dense material of the Earth.
Q. Is the desire body of man shaped like his dense body during life?
A. It is not so shaped, but after death it assumes that shape.
Q. What is the appearance of the desire body during life?
A. It has the appearance of a luminous ovoid which, in waking hours, completely surrounds the dense body, as the albumen does the yolk of an egg. It extends from twelve to sixteen inches beyond the dense body.
Q. What is located in the desire body?
A. There are a number of sense-centers, but, in the great majority of people, they are latent.
Q. To what does the awakening of these sense centers correspond?
A. To the opening of the blind man's eyes in our former illustration.
Q. What can you say of the matter in the human desire body?
A. It is in an incessant motion of inconceivable rapidity. There is in it no settled place for any particle, as in the dense body. The matter that is at the head one moment may be at the feet in the next and back again.
Q. Are there organs in the desire body, as in the dense and vital bodies?
A. There are no organs in the desire body as the dense and vital bodies, but there are centers of perception, which, when active, appear as vortices, always remaining in the same relative position to the dense body, most of them about the head.
Q. Are these vortices well defined in all people?
A. In the majority of people they are mere eddies and are of no use as centers of perception.
Q. May these centers be awakened in all people?
A. They may, but different methods produce different results.
Q. In the involuntary clairvoyant, developed along improper, negative lines, what is observed?
A. These vortices turn from right to left, or in the opposite direction of the hands of a clock.
Q. In the desire body of the properly trained, voluntary clairvoyant, how do these vortices appear?
A. They turn in the same direction as the hands of a clock, glowing with exceeding splendor, far surpassing the brilliant luminosity of the ordinary desire body.
Q. Of what use are these centers?
A. They furnish man with means for the perception of things in the Desire World he sees and investigates as he wills.
Q. How do these centers operate in the involuntary clairvoyant?
A. They turn counter-clockwise and are like a mirror, which reflects what passes before it. Such a person is incapable of reaching out for information. The reason for this will be explained in a later section, but the above is one of the fundamental differences between a medium and a properly trained clairvoyant.
Q. Are these two types of clairvoyants easily distinguished?
A. It is impossible for most people to distinguish between the two.
Q. What infallible rule, regarding this faculty can be followed by any one?
A. No genuinely developed seer will ever exercise this faculty for money or its equivalent, nor will he use it to gratify curiosity, but only to help humanity.
Q. What additional rule is a safe and sure guide?
A. Those demanding money for the exercise of or for giving lessons in these things never have anything worth paying for. No one capable of teaching the proper method for the development of this faculty will ever charge so much a lesson.
Q. In the far distant future, what will happen to man's desire body?
A. Man's desire body will become as definitely organized as are the vital and dense bodies.
Q. When that stage is reached, what power will be developed?
A. We will have the power to function in the desire body, as we now do in the dense body.
Q. Where is the desire body rooted?
A. The desire body is rooted in the liver, as the vital body is in the spleen.
Q. In what creatures do the currents of the desire body flow outward from the liver?
A. In all warm blooded creatures.
Q. In comparison with other creatures, what can you say of those that have warm blood?
A. The are the highest evolved and have feelings, passions and emotions, which reach outward into the world of desire.
Q. How does this desire stuff manifest itself?
A. It is continually wailing out in streams, or currents, which travel in curved lines to every point of the periphery of the ovoid and then return to the liver through a number of vortices, much the same as boiling water is continually wailed outward from the source of heat and returning to it after completing its circle.
Q. Why can plants not show life and motion?
A. Because they are devoid of the impelling, energizing principle found in more highly developed organisms.
Q. What is the condition of creatures that have no red blood?
A. Where there is vitality and motion, but no red blood, there is no separate desire body.
Q. In what stage of transition are such creatures?
A. They are simply in the transition from plant to animal and move entirely in the strength of the group-spirit.
Q. What can you say of the desire body of cold-blooded animals, which have a liver and red blood?
A. They have a separate desire body and the group-spirit directs the currents inward, because the separate spirit, of creatures such as fish and reptiles, is entirely outside of the dense body.
Q. When does the individual spirit commence to direct to currents outward, and we see the beginning of passionate existence and warm blood.
Q. What is it that causes the animal or the man to display desire and passion?
A. It is the warm, red blood in the liver of the organism sufficiently evolved to have an indwelling spirit which energizes the outgoing currents of desire stuff.
Q. In the case of an animal, why is the spirit not yet entirely indwelling?
A. It does not become so until the points in the vital body and the dense body come into correspondence, as explained in The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception.
Q. For what reason is the animal not yet a "liver?"
A. Because it does not live as completely as does man, not being capable of as fine desires and emotions and not being as fully conscious.
Q. What can you say of the mammalia of today?
A. They are on a higher plane than was man at the animal stage of his evolution, because they have warm, red blood, which man did not have at that stage.
Q. How is this difference in evolution accounted for?
A. By the spiral path of evolution, which also accounts for the fact that man as a higher type of humanity than the present Angels were in the human stage.
Q. When will the present mammalia be a purer and better type of humanity than we are now?
A. In the Jupiter period.
Q. What will be the condition of some of our present humanity in the Jupiter Period?
A. There will be some who will be openly and avowedly wicked, so much so that they will not then be able to conceal their passions as is now possible, but will be unabashed about their evil-doing.
Q. What is to be noted in this exposition of the connection between the liver and the life of the organism?
A. It is to be noted that in the English, German, and Scandinavian languages the same word signifies the liver, an organ of the body, and also "one who live."
Q. Which of the four kingdoms are correlated to the World of Thought?
A. The mineral, plant and animal kingdoms.
Q. Do any of the animals have the faculty of thinking?
A. Some animals think, but they are the highest domesticated animals which have come in close touch with man for generations.
Q. What illustration can you give of this condition?
A. A highly charged wire will induce a weaker current of electricity in a wire brought close to it; or a man of strong morals will arouse a like tendency in a weaker nature, while one morally weak will be overthrown if brought within the influence of evil characters. All we do, or say, reflects itself in our surroundings, and this is why the highest domestic animals think. Man's thought vibrations have "induced" in them a similar activity of a lower order.
Q. What is the great and cardinal difference between the human and the other kingdoms?
A. Man is an individual. The animals, plants and minerals are divided into species. They are not individualized in the same sense that man is.
Q. Is not mankind divided into races, tribes and nations?
A. Mankind is so divided, but that is not the point. For instance, if we wish to study the characteristics of any species of the lower animals, all that is necessary is to take any member of a selected species for that purpose. When we learn the characteristics of the species to which it belongs. All members of the same animal tribe are alike.
Q. Do the above facts hold true in regard to human beings?
A. They do not. If we want to know the characteristics of Negroes, it would be necessary to examine each individually, because that which was a characteristic of the single individual does not apply to the race collectively.
Q. Can the biography of an animal be written as we would write that of a man, and why?
A. It can not, because there is in each man an individual, indwelling spirit which dictates the thoughts and actions of each human being; while there is only one group spirit common to all the different animals or plants of the same species.
Q. Where are the group-spirits of the three lower kingdoms located?
A. They are variously located in the higher Worlds, as will be shown when we investigate the consciousness of the different kingdoms.
Q. What is necessary to remember in regard to crystallization of forms?
A. It is necessary to remember and clearly understand what has been said about all the forms that are in the visible world having crystallized from models and ideas in the inner Worlds.
Q. Can you give an instance or illustration of this point?
A. As the juices of the soft body of the snail crystallize into the hard shell which it carries upon its back, so the Spirits in the higher Worlds have crystallized out from themselves the dense, material bodies of the different kingdoms.
Q. Are the so-called, "higher" bodies emanations from the dense body?
A. Although the "higher" bodies are so fine and cloudy as to be invisible, they are not by any means emanations from the dense body, but the dense vehicles of all kingdoms correspond to the shell of the snail, which is crystallized from its juices, the snail representing the Spirit, and the juices of its body in their progress towards crystallization representing the mind, desire body and vital body.
Q. From what source and for what purpose were these various vehicles emanated?
A. They were emanated by the spirit from itself for the purpose of gaining experience through them.
Q. What is it that moves the dense body where it will?
A. It is the spirit that moves the dense body and not the body that controls the movements of the Spirit.
Q. What is the key to the different states of consciousness in the various kingdoms?
A. The more closely the spirit is able to enter into touch with its vehicle the better can it control and express itself through that vehicle and vice versa.
Q. How many vehicles has the mineral?
A. One, a dense body.
Q. In which Region and to which World is this vehicle correlated?
A. The Chemical Region of the Physical World.
Q. How many vehicles has the plant and what are they?
A. Two, a dense body and a vital body.
Q. In which Regions of the Physical World are these vehicles located?
A. In the Chemical and Etheric Regions.
Q. What are the vehicles of the animals?
A. A dense body, a vital body and a desire body.
Q. To which worlds are these vehicles correlated?
A. The Physical World and the Desire World.
Q. How many vehicles has man, and what are they?
A. Four vehicles, a dense body, a vital body, a desire body, and a mind.
Q. To which Region and World is the mind correlated?
A. To the Region of Concrete Thought of the World of Thought.
Q. Where is the separate Ego segregated?
A. Within the Universal Spirit in the Region of Abstract Thought.
Q. How many vehicles does man possess?
A. Man possesses a complete chain of four vehicles correlating him to all divisions of the three Worlds.
Q. Which vehicle does the animal lack?
A. The mind.
Q. How many vehicles does the plant lack?
A. Two, the mind and the desire body.
Q. What vehicles does the mineral lack?
A. The mineral lacks three links in the chain of vehicles necessary to function in a self conscious manner in the Physical World, viz.: the mind, the desire body and the vital body.
Q. What are the reasons for these various deficiencies?
A. The Mineral Kingdom is the expression of the latest stream of evolving life; the Plant Kingdom is ensouled by a life wave that has been longer upon the path of evolution: the life wave of the Animal Kingdom has a still longer past; while the life now expressing itself in the human form. Man has behind it the longest journey of all the four Kingdoms.
Q. What effect will time have on the three lower kingdoms?
A. The three life-waves, which now animate the three lower kingdoms, will reach the human stage, and man shall have passed to higher stages of development.
Q. To what plane has the Ego, the thinker, descended?
A. Into the Chemical Region of the Physical World.
Q. What has man attained in this Region?
A. Here he has marshaled all his vehicles, thereby attaining the state of waking consciousness. he is learning to control his vehicles.
Q. Which organs are not yet fully evolved?
A. The organs of the desire body and the mind.
Q. At the present time, what does the mind do?
A. It is simply a link, a sheath for the use of the Ego as a focusing point. it is the last of the vehicles that have been built.
Q. As regards density, in which direction does the spirit work?
A. The spirit works gradually from finer into coarser substance.
Q. Which body was built first?
A. The dense body was built first and has now come into its fourth stage of density.
Q. To what stages have the other vehicles now attained?
A. The vital body is in its third stage and the desire body in its second, hence it is still cloud-like and the sheath of mind is filmier still.
Q. These vehicles not having evolved any organs as yet, how are they made vehicles of consciousness?
A. The Ego enters into the dense body and connects these organless vehicles with the physical sense-centers and thus attains the waking state of consciousness in the Physical World.
Q. How do these higher vehicles become of value at the present time?
A. By their connection with the splendidly organized mechanism of the desire body.
Q. What mistake do people frequently make when they come into the knowledge that there are higher bodies?
A. They grow to despise the dense vehicles and to speak of it as "low" and "vile"-turning their eyes to heaven and wishing that they might soon be able to leave this earthly lump of clay and fly about in their "higher vehicles." These people do not realize the difference between "higher" and "perfect."
Q. In what sense is the dense body the lowest vehicle?
A. In that it is the most unwieldy, correlating man to the world of sense with all the limitations thus implied.
Q. To which stage of evolution has the dense body attained?
A. It has attained the fourth stage of development, and it has now reached a great and marvelous degree of efficiency.
Q. Has the dense body reached a stage of perfection?
A. It has not, but at the present it is the best organized of man's vehicles and in time will reach perfection.
Q. In which stage of evolution is the vital body?
A. In the third stage of evolution. It is less completely organized than the dense body.
Q. At what stage of organization is the desire body and the mind?
A. They are almost entirely unorganized and, as yet, are mere clouds. In the very lowest of human beings, these vehicles are not even definite ovoids; they are more or less undefined in form.
Q. What should be recognized by anyone pretending to have any knowledge of the constitution of man?
A. They should recognize that the dense body is a wonderfully constructed instrument.
Q. Can you give an example of this wonderful constitution?
A. Take, for instance, the femur. This bone carries the entire weight of the body. The outside is built of a thin layer of compact bone, strengthened on the inside by beams and cross-beams of cancelated bone, in such a marvelous manner that the most skilled builder or construction engineer could never accomplish the feat of building a pillar of equal strength with so little weight.
Q. What other bones are built in a similar manner?
A. The bones of the skull, using the least possible material and obtaining the maximum of strength.
Q. Why is the wise man grateful for his dense body?
A. Because he knows that it is the most valuable of his present instruments and, consequently, takes the best possible care of it.
Q. In its descent into matter, how far has the animal spirit advanced?
A. To the Desire World only. It has not yet evolved to the point where it can "enter" a dense body.
Q. What condition or state does this impose on the animal?
A. It causes the animal to have no individual indwelling spirit, but is directed from without by a group-spirit.
Q. Are the vital body and the desire body of an animal entirely within its dense body?
A. They are not, especially where the head is concerned.
Q. Can you give an example of this condition?
A. The etheric head of a horse projects far beyond and above the dense physical head. When the etheric head draws into the head of the dense body, that horse can learn to read and work examples in elementary arithmetic.
Q. What fact is due to this peculiarity among domesticated animals?
A. The fact that horses, dogs and eats and other domesticated animals sense the Desire World, though not always realizing the difference between it and the Physical World.
Q. What illustration can you give of the above fact?
A. A horse will shy at the sight of a figure invisible to the driver; a cat will go through the motions of rubbing itself against invisible legs.
Q. What does the cat see under such circumstances?
A. The etheric legs, or the ghost, but does not realize that there are no dense legs available for frictional purposes.
Q. How does the dog show that he see something that he does not understand?
A. The dog, wiser than the horse or eat, will often sense that there is something he does not understand about the appearance of a dead master whose hands he cannot lick. He will howl mournfully and slink into a corner with his tail between his legs.
Q. What is "animal instinct" and "blind instinct?"
A. There is no such vague, indefinite thing as "blind instinct." There is nothing "blind" about the way the group-spirit guides its members.
Q. Is it possible to communicate with these spirits of the animal species?
A. The trained clairvoyant, when functioning in the Desire World, can communicate with the group-spirits and finds them much more intelligent than a large percentage of human beings.
Q. How does the group-spirit marshal the various flocks of birds?
A. It gathers its flocks of birds in the fall and compels them to migrate to the south, neither too early nor too late to escape the winter's chilly blast, and it directs their return in the spring, causing them to fly at just the proper altitude which differs for the different species.
Q. What does the group-spirit do for the beaver?
A. It teaches the beaver to build its dam across a stream at exactly the proper angle. It considers the rapidity of the flow and other circumstances, precisely as a skilled engineer would do.
Q. What other instances of the wisdom of the group-spirit can you mention?
A. It directs the building of the hexagon cell of the bee with such geometrical nicety; it teaches the snail to fashion its house in an accurate, beautiful spiral, and the ocean mollusk the art of decorating its iridescent shell.
Q. What do all these activities of the group-spirit show us?
A. Wisdom, wisdom everywhere, so great that one is filled with amazement and reverence.
Q. Why does man, who has had a much longer period of evolution than the animal, have to be taught to build dams and geometries, all of which the group-spirit does without being taught?
A. The answer to this question has to do with the descent of the Universal Spirit into matter of ever-increasing density in the higher Worlds, where its vehicles are fewer and finer, it is in closer touch with cosmic wisdom which shines out in a manner inconceivable in the dense Physical World, but as the spirit descends, the light of wisdom becomes temporarily more and more dimmed, until in the densest of all the worlds, it is held almost entirely in abeyance.
Q. What illustration can you give that makes this point more clear?
A. In some vocations, such as bank teller, the delicate touch of the hand becomes so sensitive that it is able to distinguish a counterfeit from a genuine coin in a way so marvelous that one would almost think the hand were endowed with individual intelligence.
Q. In what is the greatest efficiency of the hand shown?
A. In the production of music — producing the most beautiful soul-stirring melodies, and telling of the sorrows, the joys, the hopes, the fears and the longings of the soul in a way that nothing but music can do.
Q. to what is the descent of the Spirit into matter compared?
A. To a musician putting on first one pair of gloves, then two and three pairs, and attempting to play as he would with unhampered hands. So it is with the Spirit, every step down, every descent into coarser matter is to it what the putting on of a pair of gloves would be to the musician.
Q. What is the purpose of man's evolution here?
A. To enable him to find his focus in the Physical World, where at present the light of wisdom seems obscured.
Q. How ill time affect the wisdom of man?
A. When we have "found the light" the wisdom of man will shine forth in his actions and far surpass the wisdom expressed by the group-spirit of the animal.
Q. What distinction must be made in regard to the group-spirit?
A. A distinction must be made between the group-spirit belongs to a different evolution and is the guardian of the animal spirits.
Q. Of what is the dense body composed?
A. It is composed of numerous cells, each having separate cell- consciousness, thought of a very low order.
Q. To what are these cells subjected?
A. Although these cells form part of our body, they are subjected to and dominated by our consciousness.
Q. In what does an animal group-spirit function?
A. In a spiritual body which is its lowest vehicle.
Q. Of what does this vehicle consist?
A. It consists of a varying number of virgin spirits imbued, for the time being, with the consciousness of the group-spirit.
Q. What does the group-spirit do for the virgin spirits?
A. It directs the vehicles built by the virgin spirits in its charge, caring for them and helping them to evolve their vehicles.
Q. Does the group-spirit evolve as its wards evolve?
A. It evolves in a manner similar to that in which we grow and gain experience, by taking into our bodies the cells of the food we eat, thereby also raising their consciousness by enduing them with ours for a time.
Q. Of what does the spirit of the separate animal form a part?
A. It forms a part of the vehicle of a self-conscious entity belonging to a different evolution - the group-spirit.
Q. How does the group-spirit dominate the actions of the animals?
A. It dominates their actions in harmony with cosmic law, until the virgin spirits in its charge shall have gained self- consciousness and become human.
Q. What do the animals gain by coming under the domination of the group-spirit?
A. They will gradually manifest wills of their own, thereby gaining more and more freedom from the group-spirit and becoming responsible for their own actions.
Q. How long will the group-spirit continue to influence them?
A. It will influence them as a race, tribe, community, or family spirit until each individual has become capable of acting in full harmony with cosmic law.
Q. When will the Ego become entirely free and independent of the group-spirit?
A. Not until such time as the group-spirit ceases to influence the individual. The Ego will then enter a higher phase of evolution.
Q. What does the position occupied by the group-spirit in the Desire World give to the animal?
A. A consciousness different from that of man, who has a clear, definite, waking consciousness.
Q. How does man see things in comparison with the higher domestic animals?
A. Man sees things outside of himself in sharp, distinct outlines. The higher domestic animals, such as the dog, horse, cat and elephant, see objects in somewhat the same way, though perhaps not so clearly defined.
Q. How do other animals see things?
A. Other animals have an internal "picture consciousness" similar to the dream state in man.
Q. When such an animal is confronted by an object, what impression is made?
A. A picture is immediately perceived within, accompanied by a strong impression that the object is inimical or beneficial to its welfare.
Q. If the feeling is one of fear, how does it affect the animal?
A. It is associated with a suggestion from the group-spirit how to escape the threatened danger.
Q. How is the group-spirit able to guide the dense bodies of its charges by suggestion?
A. The negative state of consciousness renders it easy, as the animals have no will power of their own.
Q. As man's will develops in the process of evolution, how will it be affected?
A. He will become non-amenable to outside suggestion and free to do as he pleases regardless of suggestion from others.
Q. What is the chief difference between man and the other kingdoms?
A. The other kingdoms act according to law and the dictates of the group-spirit (which we call instinct) while man is becoming more and more a law unto himself.
Q. Why do all animals of the same species look nearly alike?
A. Because they emanate from the same group spirit.
Q. What makes the difference in appearance as well as in character of human beings?
A. Among the fifteen hundred millions of human beings who people the earth no two look exactly alike, not even twins when adolescent, because the stamp that is put upon each by the indwelling individual spirit makes the difference.
Q. What other illustration can you give of the difference between man and the other kingdoms?
A. All oxen thrive on grass and all lions eat flesh, while "one man's meat is another man's poison," is another illustration of the all-inclusive influence of the group-spirit as contrasted with the Ego.
Q. What have doctors noted in regard to medicines?
A. Doctors have noted with perplexity that medicine acts differently on different individuals, while the same medicine will produce identical effects on two animals of the same species.
Q. Man alone being able to follow his own desires, does it follow that he makes no mistakes?
A. That man's mistakes are many and grievous is granted and it might seem better if he were forced into the right way, but if this were done, he would never learn to do right.
Q. Why is man left to choose his own course?
A. Because lessons of discrimination between good and evil cannot be learned unless he is free to choose his own course and has learned to eschew the wrong.
Q. If man did right only, what would be the result?
A. If he did right only and had no chance to do otherwise, he would be an automaton and not an evolving God.
Q. What is man learning by his mistakes?
A. As the builder learns by his mistakes, so man, by means of his blunders and the pain they cause him, is attaining to a higher wisdom than the animal.
Q. Why does an animal act wisely?
A. Because it is impelled to action by the group-spirit.
Q. Will the animal ever become human?
A. In time the animal will become human, will have liberty of choice and will make mistakes and learn by them as we do now.
Q. Where does the group-spirit of the plant kingdom have its lowest vehicle, and to what does it correspond?
A. In the Region of Concrete Thought. It is two steps removed from its dense vehicle, consequently, plants have a consciousness corresponding to that of dreamless sleep.
Q. And where does the group-spirit of the mineral kingdom have its lowest vehicle?
A. In the Region of Abstract Thought, and it is, therefore, three steps removed from its dense vehicle, hence it is in a state of deep unconsciousness similar to the trance condition.
Q. What is man and how does he work?
A. Man is an individual, indwelling spirit, an Ego separate from all other entities, directing and working on one set of vehicles from within.
Q. And how are plants and animals directed?
A. They are directed from without by a group-spirit having jurisdiction over a number of animals or plants in our Physical World.
Q. How are the relations of plant, animal and man to the life currents in the earth's atmosphere represented?
A. They are symbolically represented by the cross.
Q. Why is the mineral kingdom not represented by the cross?
A. Because it possesses no individual vital body, hence cannot be the vehicle for currents belonging to the higher realms.
Q. What esoteric truth did Plato often give out?
A. Plato, who was an Initiate, said "The World-Soul is crucified.
Q. What does the lower limb of the cross indicate?
A. It indicates the plant with its root in the chemical mineral soil.
Q. Where are the group-spirits of plants?
A. They are at the center of the earth, in the Region of Concrete Thought, which inter-penetrates the earth, as do all the other Worlds.
Q. How do the group-spirits come in contact with the plant?
A. Streams or currents flow from the group-spirits in all directions to the periphery of the earth, passing out through the length of the plant or tree.
Q. What are some of the difference between man and plant?
A. The plant takes its food through the root; man takes his food through the head. The plant stretches its generative organs towards the sun; man turns his towards the center of the earth. The plant is sustained by the spiritual currents of the group-spirit in the center of the earth by way of the root; the highest spiritual influences come to man from the sun, which sends its rays through man from the head downwards. Man is the inverted plant.The plant inhales the poisonous carbon-dioxide exhaled by man and exhales the life-giving oxygen used by him.
Q. How is the animal symbolized in the cross?
A. By the horizontal limb of the cross, which is between the plant and the man. Its spine is in horizontal position and through it play the currents of the animal group-spirits which encircle the earth.
Q. Why can an animal not remain in an upright position?
A. Because in that position the currents of the group-spirit could not guide it, and if it were not sufficiently individualized to endure the spiritual currents which enter into the vertical human spine, it would die.
Q. What must a vehicle for the expression of an individual Ego have?
A. It must have three things, -an upright walk, that it may come into touch with the spiritual currents; and upright larynx, for only such a larynx is capable of speech, and, owing to the solar currents, it must have warm blood.
Q. Which of these is of the most importance to the Ego?
A. The latter, the warm blood, which will be logically explained and illustrated in a later section.
Q. What is the effect of this action?
A. Then the thought is able to act on the etheric brain and propel the vital force through the appropriate brain centers and nerves to the voluntary muscles which perform the necessary action. Thus the force of the thought is expended and the image remains in the ether of the vital body as memory of the act and the feeling that caused it.
Q. If Repulsion, the centripetal force, is aroused, what is the result?
A. There will be a struggle between the spiritual force (the will of man) within the thought-form and the desire body. This is the battle between conscience and desire - the higher and the lower nature.
Q. What will the spiritual force then endeavor to do?
A. It will seek to cloth the thought-form in the desire-stuff needed to manipulate the brain and muscles.
Q. What will this action cause the force of Repulsion to do?
A. It will endeavor to scatter the appropriated material and oust the thought.
Q. If the spiritual energy is strong, what will result?
A. It may force its way through to the brain centers and hold its clothing of desire-stuff while manipulating the vital force, thus compelling action, and will then leave upon the memory a vivid impression of the struggle and the victory.
Q. If the spiritual energy is exhausted before action has resulted, what will be the effect?
A. It will be overcome by the force of Repulsion and will be stored in the memory, as are all other thought-forms when they have expended their energy.
Q. if the thought-form meets the withering feeling of Indifference, will it be able to compel action?
A. it depends upon the Spiritual energy contained in it whether it will be able to compel action, or simply leave a weak impression upon the reflecting ether of the vital body after its kinetic energy has been exhausted.
Q. Where no immediate action is called for by the mental images, what may be done with them?
A. They may be projected directly upon the reflecting ether, together with the thought occasioned by them, to be used at some future time.
Q. What is the spirit, working through the mind, able to do with the store-house of conscious memory?
A. It has instant access to the store-house of conscious memory and may at any time resurrect any of the pictures found there, endow them with new spiritual force and project them upon the desire body to compel action.
Q. Each time such a picture is used, how is it affected?
A. It will gain in vividness, strength and efficiency and will compel action along its particular line more readily than on previous occasions, because it cuts grooves and produces the phenomenon of thought gaining or growing upon us by repetition.
Q. What is another or third way of using a thought-form?
A. When the thinker projects it toward another mind to act as a suggestion, to carry information, as in thought transference; or it may be directed against the desire body of another person to compel action, as in the case of a hypnotist influencing a victim at a distance.
Q. How will the thought-form then act?
A. It will then act in precisely the same manner as if it were the victim's own thought.
Q. When the work designed for such a projected thought-form has been accomplished or its energy expended, what becomes of it?
A. It gravitates back to its creator, bearing with it the indelible record of the journey.
Q. How is the record of its success or failure recorded?
A. It is imprinted on the negative atoms of the reflecting ether of its creator's vital body, where it forms that part of the record of the thinker's life and actions which is sometimes called the sub-conscious mind.
Q. Why is this record more important than the memory to which we have conscious access?
A. Because the latter is made up from imperfect and illusive sense-perceptions, constituting the voluntary memory or conscious mind.
Q. How does the involuntary or sub-conscious mind come into being?
A. It comes into being in a different way, altogether beyond our control at present, for instance, as the ether carries to the sensitive film an accurate impression of the surrounding landscape, so the ether contained in the air we inspire carries with it an
accurate and detailed picture of all our surroundings.
Q. What objects or details are covered by this impression?
A. It covers material things as well as the conditions existing each moment within our aura. The slightest thought, feeling or emotion is transmitted to the lungs, where it is injected into the blood.
Q. What can you say of the blood as to its relation to the vital body?
A. The blood is one of the highest products of the vital body, as it is the carrier of nourishment to every part of the body and the direct vehicle of the Ego. The pictures it contains are impressed upon the negative atoms of the vital body to serve as arbiters of
the man's destiny in the postmortem state.
Q. To what does the memory, or so-called mind, relate?
A. To the experience of this life, both conscious and subconscious. It consists of impressions of events on the vital body.
Q. May these impressions be changed or eradicated?
A. Yes, and the change or eradication depends upon the elimination of these impressions from the ether of the vital body, as noted in the explanation concerning the forgiveness of sins, which will be dealt with a little later on.
Q. What is the super-conscious memory?
A. It is the store-house of all faculties acquired and knowledge gained in previous lives, though perhaps latent in the present life. This record is indelibly engraved on the life-spirit.
Q. How does the super-conscious memory manifest itself?
A. It manifest ordinarily, though not to the full extent, as conscience and character which ensoul all thought-forms, sometimes as counselor, compelling action with resistless force, even contrary to reason and desire.
Q. In what people is the super-conscious memory inherent to such an extent that it is above the necessity of clothing itself in mind-stuff and desire matter in order to compel action?
A. In many women and in advanced people of either sex where the vital body has been sensitized by a pure and holy life and by prayer and concentration. In such people it does not always need to incur the danger of being subjected to and perhaps overruled by a
process of reasoning.
Q. How is it sometimes manifested?
A. In the form of intuition or teaching from within, it sometimes impresses itself directly upon the reflecting ether of the vital body; and the more readily we learn to recognize it and follow its dictates the oftener it will speak, to the promotion of our eternal welfare.
Q. What is it that is constantly destroying the dense vehicle?
A. The activities during waking hours of the desire body and the mind. Every thought and movement breaks down tissue.
Q. And what is it that endeavors to restore harmony and build up what the other vehicles are tearing down?
A. The vital body. It is not able, however, to entirely withstand the powerful onslaughts of the impulses and thoughts.
Q. What is the ultimate result of these onslaughts on the vital body?
A. It gradually loses ground and at last there comes a time when it collapses.
Q. What condition does this produce in the vital body?
A. Its "points" shrivel up; the vital fluid ceases to flow along the nerves in sufficient quantity; the body becomes drowsy; the Thinker is hampered and forced to withdraw, taking the desire body with him.
Q. In what condition does this leave the dense body?
A. This withdrawal of the higher vehicles leaves the dense body inter-penetrated by the vital body in the senseless state we call sleep.
Q. Is sleep an inactive state?
A. It is not, contrary to what people generally suppose.
Q. If sleep were an inactive state, what would be the result?
A. The body would be no different on awaking in the morning than when it went to sleep at night; its fatigue would be just as great.
Q. Then what is the condition during sleep?
A. Sleep is a period of intense activity and the more intense it is the greater its value, for it eliminates the poisons resulting from tissue destroyed by the mental and physical activities of the day.
Q. How are the tissues rebuilt and the rhythm of the body restored?
A. The Desire World is an ocean of wisdom and harmony. Into this the Ego takes the mind and the desire body when the lower vehicles have been left in sleep. The restoration of the rhythm and the harmony of the mind and the desire body is accomplished gradually
as the harmonious vibrations of the Desire World flow through them. There is an essence in the Desire World corresponding to the vital fluid which permeates the dense body by means of the vital body. The higher vehicles, as it were, steep themselves in this elixir of
life. When strengthened, they commence work on the vital body, which was left with the sleeping dense body. Then the vital body begins to specialize the solar energy anew, rebuilding the dense body, using particularly the chemical ether as its medium in the
process of restoration.
Q. Then what does the activity of the different vehicles do during sleep?
A. It forms the basis for the activity of the following day.
Q. Without the formation of this basis, what would be the result?
A. There would be no awakening from sleep, for the Ego was forced to abandon his vehicles because their weariness rendered them useless. If the work of removing that fatigue were not done, the bodies would remain asleep, as sometimes happens in a natural
trance.
Q. Why is sleep better than doctor or medicine in preserving health?
A. It is because of this harmonizing, recuperative activity. Mere rest is nothing in comparison with sleep. It is only while the higher vehicles are in the Desire World that there is a total suspension of waste and an influx of restoring force.
Q. Then why does rest, relaxation, not accomplish that which sleep does?
A. During waking rest, although the vital body is not hampered in its work by tissue being broken down by active motion and tense muscles, still it must contend with the wasting energy of thought and it does not receive the outside recuperative force from the
desire body as during sleep.
Q. Does it sometimes happen that the desire body does not fully withdraw and remains partly connected with the vital body, and if so what is the result?
A. It does sometimes happen, and the result is that restoration is only partly accomplished and that the scenes and actions of the Desire World are brought into the physical consciousness as dreams.
Q. Why is a dream-filled sleep, a restless sleep, causing the body to feel tired on awakening?
A. Most dreams are confused, because the axis of perception is askew and because of the improper relation of one body to another. The memory also is confused by this incongruous relation of the vehicles, consequently a restless night and a tired awakening result.
Q. What brings the threefold soul into being?
A. During life the threefold spirit, the Ego, works on and in the threefold body, to which it is connected by the link of mind, bringing as a result the threefold soul into being.
Q. What is the soul?
A. It is the spiritualized product of the different bodies.
Q. What is man?
A. Man is a threefold spirit, possessing a mind by means of which he governs a threefold boy, which he emanated from himself to gather experience. He transmutes this threefold body into a threefold soul, upon which he nourishes himself from impotence to omnipotence.
Q. How does the mirror of mind increasingly contribute to spiritual growth?
A. The ideas which it transmits to and from the spirit polish it to greater brightness, sharpening and intensifying its focus to a single point, making it perfectly flexible and bringing it under the control of the spirit.
Q. What promotes the growth of the Conscious Soul?
A. The activity of the spirit in the dense body, which results in right action.
Q. What causes the growth of the Intellectual Soul?
A. The memory of actions done in the dense body - the desire feelings and emotions of the desire body, and the thoughts and ideas in the mind.
Q. How is the Emotional Soul formed?
A. by the highest desires and emotions of the desire body.
Q. What is the mission of the threefold soul?
A. It enhances the consciousness of the threefold spirit.
Q. What does the Emotional Soul do?
A. It adds to the efficiency of the Human Spirit, which is the spiritual counterpart of the desire body.
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Contemporary Mystic Christianity |
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