In order to progress spiritually, man must further develop his vital body.
We are now getting ready for the fast approaching Aquarian Age with its
great intellectual and spiritual development. This requires an awakening of
the dormant vital body, whose keyword is repetition.
The Ego has several instruments: a dense body, a vital body, a desire
body, and a mind. These are its tools and upon their quality and condition
depends how much or how little it can accomplish in its work of gathering
experience in each life. If the instruments are poor and dull there will be
but little spiritual growth and the life will be a barren one, so far as the
Spirit is concerned.
The higher life (initiation) does not commence, however, until the work
on the vital body begins. The means used for bringing that into activity is
Love, or rather Altruism. The former word has been so abused that it no
longer conveys the meaning here required.
The second help which humanity how has is the Religion of the Son — the
Christian religion, the object of which is union with Christ by purification
and control of the vital body.
While the invisible vehicles, especially the vital body, are asleep, man
may pursue a materialistic career; but one this vehicle has been awakened
and has tasted the bread of life, it is like the physical body, subject to
hunger — soul hunger — and its cravings will not be denied save after an
exceedingly hard struggle.
It has been stated here that humanity, the largest part of them at least,
are working today upon their desire bodies, and trying to curb their desires
by means of law. Where esoteric development is to take place, however, where a
man is to become a pioneer, it is the vital body that is to be worked
upon, and the vital body is particular and peculiarly acted upon by
repetition.
It is necessary to work upon and educate the vital body in such a manner
that it may be used in soul-flights. This vehicle, as we know, is composed
of the four ethers. It is by means of this body that we manipulate the
densest of all our vehicles, the physical body, which we usually think of as
the whole man. The chemical and life ethers form a matrix for our physical
bodies. Each molecule of the physical body is embedded in a meshwork of
ether which permeates and infuses it with life.
Through these ethers the bodily functions, such as respiration, etc., are
carried on, and the density and consistency of these matrices of ether
determine the state of health. But the part of the vital body formed of the
two higher ethers, the light ether and the reflecting ether, is what we may
term the soul body; that is to say, it is more closely linked with the
desire body and the mind and also more amenable to the Spirit's touch than are
the two lower ethers. It is the vehicle of intellect, and responsible for
all that makes man, man. Our observations, our aspirations, our character,
etc., are due to the work of the Spirit in these two higher ethers, which
become more or less luminous according to the nature of our character and
habits. Also, as the dense body assimilates particles of food and thus
gains in flesh, so the two higher ethers assimilate our good deeds during
life and thus grow in volume as well.
According to our doings in this present life we thus increase or decrease
that which we brought with us at birth. If we are born with a good
character, expressed in these two higher ethers, it will not be easy for us
to change this because the vital body has become very, very set during
the myriads of years through which we have evolved it. On the other hand, if
we have been lazy and negligent and indulgent in the habits which we call
evil, if we have formed a bad character in past lives, then it is difficult
to overcome because of this set nature of the vital body, and it will
require years of constant effort to change its structure. This is the
reason the Western Wisdom Teaching says that all mystic development begins
with the vital body.
Each time we give ourselves in service to others we add to the lustre of
our soul bodies which are built of ether. It is the Christ ether that now
floats this sphere of ours, and let us remember that if we ever want to work
for His liberation, we must in sufficient numbers evolve our own soul bodies
to the point where they may float the earth. Thus we may take up His burden
and save Him the pain of physical existence.
Apart from the fact that the Eastern School of Esotericism bases its
teachings on Hinduism, while the Western Wisdom School espouses Christianity,
the religion of the West, there is one great fundamental, irreconcilable discrepancy between the teachings of the modern representatives of the East and those of the Rosicrucians. According to the version of Eastern
Esotericism the vital body — which is called linga sharira — is comparatively
unimportant, for it is incapable of development as a vehicle of consciousness.
It serves only as an avenue for the solar force, "prana," and as a link
between the physical body and the desire body, which is called kama rupa, also the "astral body." This, they say, is the vehicle of the
Invisible Helper.
The Western Wisdom School teaches as its fundamental maxim that all esoteric development begins with the vital body, and the writer, as its public representative, has therefore been busy since the inception of our movement trying to gather and disseminate knowledge concerning the four ethers and the vital body. Much information was given in the Cosmo-Conception and
succeeding books, but the monthly lessons and letters give the results of
our researches up to date. We are constantly parading this vital body (vital
in a double sense) before the minds of the students so that by knowing
and thinking about it as well as by reading and heeding the "nice little
sermons" which we use to wrap this information in, they may consciously,
and unconsciously, weave the Golden Wedding Garment. We would advise all
to study these lessons carefully year after year; there may be much dross,
but there is gold among them.
We have here the account of how the stigmata or punctures were produced
in the Hero of the Gospels, though the location is not quite correctly
described, and the process is represented in a narrative form differing widely
from the manner in which these things really happen. But we stand here
before one of the mysteries which must remain sealed for the profane, though
the underlying mystical facts are as plain as daylight to those who know.
The physical body is not by any means the real man. Tangible, solid, and
pulsating with life as we find it, it is really the most dead part of the
human being, crystallized into a matrix of finer vehicles which are
invisible to our ordinary physical sight. If we place a basin of water in
a freezing temperature, the water soon congeals into ice, and when we examine
the ice, we find that it is made up of innumerable little crystals having
various geometrical forms and lines of demarcation. There are etheric lines
of forces which were present in the water before it congealed.
As the water was hardened and molded along these lines, so our physical
bodies have congealed and solidified along the etheric lines of force of our
invisible vital body, which is thus in the ordinary course of life
inextricably bound to the physical body, waking or sleeping, until death
brings dissolution of the tie. But as intuition involves the liberation of
the real man from the body of sin and death that he may soar into the
subtler spheres at will and return to the body at his pleasure, it is obvious
that before than can be accomplished, before the object of initiation can be
attained, the interlocking grip of the physical body and the etheric vehicle
which is so strong and rigid in ordinary humanity, must be dissolved. As
they are most closely bound together in the palms of the hands, the arches
of the feet, and the head, esoteric schools concentrate their efforts upon
severing the connection at these three points, and produce the stigmata
invisibly.
Exoteric Masonry, which is only the husks of the Mystic Order formed by
the Sons of Cain, has in modern times attracted the masculine element with
its positively polarized physical vehicles, and educated them in industry
and statecraft, thus controlling the material development of the world. The
sons of Seth, constituting themselves the Priestcraft, have worked their
spell over the positive vital bodies, of the feminine element to dominate
spiritual development. And whereas, the sons of Cain, working through
Freemasonry and kindred movements, have openly fought for the temporal
power, the Priestcraft has fought as strenuously and perhaps more
effectively by stealth to retain their hold upon spiritual development of
the feminine element.
As mankind advances in evolution, the vital body becomes more permanently
positively polarized, giving to both sexes a greater desire for
spirituality, and though we change from the masculine to feminine in
alternate embodiments, positive polarity of the vital body is becoming more
pronounced regardless of sex. This accounts for the growing tendency towards
Altruism which is even being brought out by the suffering entailed by the
great war we are now fighting (1918), for all agree that the nations are
seeking to obtain a lasting peace where the swords may be made into
plowshares, and the spears into pruning hooks.
We know that our dense body gravitates towards the center of the Earth,
therefore a change must take place; also Paul tells us that flesh and blood
cannot inherit the Kingdom of Heaven. But he also points out that we have a
soma psuchicon (mistranslated natural body), a soul body, and this is made of ether, which is lighter than air and therefore capable of levitation. This is the Golden Wedding Garment, the Philosopher's Stone, or the Living Stone, spoken of in some of the ancient philosophies as the Diamond Soul, for it is luminous, lustrous, and sparkling — a priceless gem. It was also
called the astral body by the medieval alchemists, because of the ability
it conferred upon the one who had it to transverse the starry regions. But
it is not to be confounded with the desire body which some of the modern
pseudo-esotericists mistakenly call the astral body. This vehicle, the soul
body, will eventually be evolved by humanity as a whole, but during the
change from the Fifth Epoch to the ethereal conditions of the New Galilee,
there will be pioneers who precede their brethren as the Original Semites
did in the change from Atlantis to the current Fifth Epoch Earth. Christ mentioned this class in Matthew, 11th chapter, 12th verse, when He said: "The Kingdom of Heaven
suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force." That is not a
correct translation. It ought to be, "The Kingdom of the Heavens has been
invaded" (the Greek is biaxertai) "and invaders seize on her." Men and women already have learned through a holy, helpful life to lay aside the body of
flesh and blood, either intermittently or permanently, and to walk the skies
with winged feet, intent upon the business of their Lord, clad in the
ethereal wedding garment of the new dispensation.
Repetition is the keynote of the vital body and the extract of the vital
body is the Intellectual Soul, which is the pabulum of the Life Spirit, the
true Christ Principle in man. As it is the particular work of the Western
World to evolve this Christ Principle, to form the Christ within that it may
shine through the material darkness of the present time, reiteration of
ideas is absolutely essential.
A very small impact is made upon the vital body when ideas and ideals
filter into it through the auric envelope, but whatever it gets from study,
sermons, lectures, or reading is of a more lasting nature, and many impacts
in the same direction create impressions which are powerful for good or for
ill according to their nature.
From the Angels she could get no information; they work with the dense
body, but not directly; they use the vital body as transmitter, and cannot
make themselves understood to a reasoning brain-being. They get their
knowledge without reasoning, for they send out their whole love in their
work and cosmic wisdom flows in in return. Man also creates by love, but
his love is selfish; he loves because he desires cooperation in generation;
the other half he selfishly keeps to build his own organ of though, the
brain, and he also uses that half selfishly to think, because he desires
knowledge. Hence he must work and reason to gain wisdom, but in time he
will arrive at a much higher stage than either Angel or Archangel. He will
then have passed beyond the need of the lower creative organs; he will create
by means of the larynx, and be able to "mask the word flesh."
Reason is the product of selfishness. It is generated by the mind given
by the "Powers of Darkness," in a brain built by selfishly keeping half the
sex-force, and promoted by the selfish Lucifers, hence it is "the seed of
the serpent," and although transmuted to wisdom through pain and sorrow, it
must give way to something higher: to intuition, which means teaching from within. That is a spiritual faculty, equally present in all Spirits,
whether functioning for the time being as man or woman, but it expresses
itself most prominently in those incarnated in a female organism, for there
the counterpart of the Life Spirit — the vital body — is male, positive.
Intuition, the faculty of the Life Spirit, may therefore properly be called
"the woman's seed," whence all altruistic tendencies spring, and whereby all
nations are being slowly but surely drawn together in a Universal
Brotherhood of love, regardless of race, sex, or color.
That which is now the physical body was the first vehicle acquired by man
as a thought form; it has undergone an immense period of evolution and
organization until it is now the splendid instrument which serves his so
well here; but it is hard, set, and difficult to act upon. The next vehicle
acquired was the vital body, which has also gone through a long period of development and has condensed to the consistency of ether. The third vehicle, the desire body, has been comparatively lately acquired and is in a state of comparative flux. Lastly, there is the mind, which is only as an unformed cloud, not worthy of the name of vehicle, being as yet but a link between the three vehicles of man and the Spirit.
These three vehicles, the physical, vital, and desire bodies, together
with the link of mind, are the tools of the Spirit in its evolution, and,
contrary to the common conception, the ability of the Spirit to investigate
the higher realms does not depend upon the finest of these bodies as much as
upon the denser. The proof of this assertion is close at hand, and indeed,
anyone who has every seriously tried has had this proof himself. If not, he
may have it forthwith simply by following the directions for changing the
condition of his mind. Let us say that person has formed certain habits of
thought which he does not like. Perhaps after a religious experience he
finds that in spite of all his desires these habits of thought will not
leave him. But if he decides to cleanse his mind so that it shall contain
nothing but pure and good thoughts, he may do this by simply refusing to admit
impure thoughts. He will find that after a week or two his mind is
noticeably cleaner than at the commencement of his effort; that it holds by
preference the religious thoughts he is seeking to generate in it. Even a
most abnormally degenerate mind can be thoroughly cleansed inside of a few
months. This is actual knowledge to many who have tried it, and anyone who
wishes and is sufficiently persistent may have the same experience and enjoy a
clean mind in a very short time.
As much of the vital body as has been worked upon by the Life Spirit,
becomes the Intellectual Soul, and it builds the Life Spirit, because that
aspect of the threefold Spirit has its counterpart in the vital body.
In ordinary life most people live to eat, they drink, gratify the
sex-passion in an unrestrained manner, and lose their tempers on the slightest
provocation. Though outwardly these people may be very "respectable," they
are, nearly every day of their lives, causing almost utter confusion in their
organization. The entire period of sleep is spent by the desire and the
vital bodies in repairing the damage done in the day time, leaving no time
for outside work of any kind. But as the individual begins to feel the needs
of the higher life, control sex force and temper, and cultivate a serene
disposition, there is less disturbance caused in the vehicles during waking
hours; consequently less time is required to repair damage during sleep.
Thus it becomes possible to leave the dense body for long periods during
sleeping hours, and function in the inner worlds in the higher vehicles.
As the desire body and the mind are not yet organized, they are of no use as
separate vehicles of consciousness. Neither can the vital body leave the
dense body, as that would cause death, so it is evident that measures must be
taken to provide an organized vehicle which is fluidic and so constructed
that it will meet the needs of the Ego in the inner worlds as does the dense
body in the Physical World.
The vital body is such an organized vehicle, and if some means could be
found to loosen it from the dense body without causing death, the problem
would be solved. Besides, the vital body is the seat of memory, without
which it would be impossible to bring back into our physical consciousness
the remembrance of super-physical experiences and thus obtain the full
benefit of them.
We remember that the Hierophants of the old Mystery Temples segregated
some of the people into castes and tribes such as the Brahmins and the
Levites, for the purpose of providing bodies for the use of such Egos as
were advanced enough to be ready for initiation. This was done in such a
manner that the vital body became separable into two parts, as were the
desire bodies of all humanity at the beginning of the Earth Period. When
the Hierophant took the pupils out of their bodies he left one part of the
vital body, comprising the first and second ethers, to perform the purely
animal functions (they are the only ones active during sleep), the pupil
taking with him a vehicle capable of perception, because of its connection
with the sense-centers of the dense body; and also capable of memory. It
possessed these capabilities because it was composed of the third and fourth
ethers, which are the mediums of sense-perception and memory.
This is, in fact, that part of the vital body which the aspirant retains
from life to life, and immortalizes as the Intellectual Soul.
Since Christ came and "took away the sin of the World" (not of the
individual), purifying the desire body of our planet, the connection between
all human dense and vital bodies has been loosened to such an extent that,
by training, they are capable of separation as above described. Therefore
initiation is open to all.
The finer part of the desire body, which constitutes the Emotional Soul,
is capable of separation in most people (in fact, it possessed that capability
even before Christ came) and thus when, by concentration and the use of the
proper formula, the finer parts of the vehicles have been segregated for use
during sleep, or at any other time, the lower parts of the desire and vital
bodies are still felt to carry on the processes of restoration in the dense
vehicle, the mere animal part.
That part of the vital body which goes out is highly organized, as we
have seen. It is an exact counterpart of the dense body. The desire body
and the mind, not being organized, are of use only because they are
connected with the highly organized dense body. When separated from it
they are but poor instruments, therefore before man can withdraw from the
dense body, the sense-centers of the desire body must be awakened.
The aspirant to the higher life cultivates the faculty of becoming
absorbed at will in any subject he chooses, or rather not a subject usually,
but a very simple object, which he imagines. Thus when the proper condition
or point of absorption has been reached where his senses are absolutely
still, he concentrate his though upon the different sense-centers of the
desire body and they start to revolve.
We should be very thankful for the material instrument which we have, for
that is the most valuable of all our vehicles. While it is perfectly true
that our physical body is the lowest of all our vehicles, it is also a fact
that this vehicle is the most finished of our instruments, and without that
the other vehicles would be of little use to us at this time. For while
this splendidly organized instrument enables us to meet the thousand and one
conditions here, our higher vehicles are practically unorganized. The vital
body is formed organ for organ as our dense physical body, but until it has
been trained by esoteric exercises it is not a fit instrument to function in
alone. The desire body has only a number of sense centers which are not
even active in the great majority of people, and as for the mind, it is an
unformed cloud with the great majority. We should aim today to spiritualize
the physical instrument, and we should realize that we must train our higher
vehicles before they can be of use. For the great mass of people that will
take a long, long time. Therefore, it is best to do the duty that is close
to our hands. Then we hasten the day when we shall be able to use the
higher vehicles, for that day depends upon ourselves.
We have all become so much more impregnated with materialism than we
realize, and it hinders us in our quest. As students of transcendental
philosophy, we have accustomed ourselves to regard individual and
intermittent life in an ethereal body possible for attainment for the few,
but that the whole human race may live permanently for a whole epoch in the
air! Truly, it made me hold my breath when I realized that the Bible means
exactly what it ways when it states that we shall meet the Lord in the air and be with Him for the Age.
When Christianity shall have fully spiritualized the vital body a still
higher step will be the Religion of the Father, who as the highest Initiate
of the Saturn Period will help man to spiritualize the dense body which was
started in the Saturn Period. Then even brotherhood will be transcended;
there will be neither me nor thee, for all will be consciously One in God,
and man will have been emancipated by the help of Angels, Archangels, and
higher Powers.
II. Effect of Prayer,
Rituals, and Exercises
Prayer, rituals, and exercises are of value in spiritualizing the vital body.
If, by continual prayer, we obtain forgiveness for the injuries we have
inflicted upon others and if we make all the restitution possible, purify
our vital bodies by forgiving those who have wronged us, and eliminate all
ill feeling, we save ourselves much postmortem misery, besides preparing the
way for Universal Brotherhood, which is particularly dependent upon victory
of the vital body over the desire body. In the form of memory, the desire
body impresses upon the vital body the idea of revenge. An even temper amid
the various annoyances of daily life indicates such a victory, therefore the
aspirant should cultivate control of the temper, as it includes such a
victory, therefore the aspirant should cultivate control of the temper, as
it includes work on both bodies. The Lord's Prayer includes this also,
for when we see that we are injuring others, we look about and try to find
the cause. Loss of temper is one of the causes and it originates in the
desire body.
Most people leave physical life with the same temperament they bring into
it, but the aspirant must systematically conquer all attempts of the desire
body to assume mastery. That can be done by concentration upon high ideals,
which strengthens the vital body and is much more efficacious than the common
prayers of the Church. The esoteric scientist uses concentration in preference
to prayer, because the former is accomplished by the aid of the mind, which is
cold and unfeeling, whereas prayer is usually dictated by emotion. Where it
is dictated by a pure unselfish devotion to high ideals prayer is much higher
than cold concentration. It can never be cold, but bears upon the pinions
of Love the outpourings of the mystic to the Deity.
The next highest, the Life Spirit, prays to its counterpart, the Son, for
its counterpart in the lower nature, the vital body: "Forgive us our
trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us."
The prayer dealing with the needs of the vital body is "Forgive us our
trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us."
The vital body is the seat of memory. In it are stored the subconscious
records of all the past events of our life, good or ill, including all
injuries inflicted or sustained and benefits received, or bestowed. We
remember that the record of the life is taken from those pictures immediately
after leaving the dense body at death, and that all the sufferings of post-
mortem existence are the results of events these pictures portray.
The vital body being the storehouse of the panorama of our life, our own
sins and the wrong we have suffered at the hands of others are there
inscribed, hence the fifth prayer, "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive
those who trespass against us," enunciated the needs of the vital body, and
be it noted that this prayer teaches the doctrine of the remission of sins
in the words, forgive us, and the Law of Consequence in the words, as we forgive, making our own attitude to others the measure of our emancipation.
That (The Rosicrucian Prayer) is the kind of a prayer that lifts, that
ennobles a man, and the more a man or woman cultivates that attitude of
mind, and entertains those lofty aspirations, the more he or she is lifting
the two higher ethers out of the vital body. The churches say, "pray, pray,
pray," and they are well within the esoteric teaching, for in that way the vital
body is being worked upon by the constant repetition of lofty aspirations.
That is the way everything acts that has only a vital body; so when we
wish to act upon the vital body we must do it by this method of repetition.
We have the four ethers present in our vital body and the two lower ethers
take care of the physical functions, as we remember particularly from the
lecture on Spiritual Sight and Insight. We saw there that the two higher
ethers had to be taken out when we wanted to function in the higher worlds;
and this repeated impact is what makes the division between the two lower
and the two higher ethers possible. That is where the churches are still
factors in spiritual development, because they tell the devotee that he must
pray without ceasing. But we are not to pray unselfishly, and in harmony
with the Universal Good. When we pray for rain and our neighbor for dry
weather chaos must prevail, if prayers were to be granted. Neither let us
imagine that God is to be bargained with, as would seem to be the conception
of some who are loudest at prayer meetings. There is a certain spiritual
attitude attained which the mystic knows so well when he enters into his
closet.
Law is a curb on the desire nature, but where esoteric or rather spiritual
advancement is contemplated, the spiritualization of the vital body must
also be accomplished. And that is attained by means of art and religion, in oft-repeated impacts, for the keynote of the vital body is repetition, as we
can see by looking at the plants which have only a dense body and a vital
body. There stem and leaf follow each other in upward succession; the
plants keep growing them alternately. It was the vital body that built the
vertebrae of the human spine one after the other by constant repetition.
And memory, for instance, which is one of the faculties of the vital body,
is strengthened and developed by constant iteration and reiteration.
When the Protestants left the Catholic Church they truly left many of the
abuses behind, but they also left almost everything of value. They
abandoned the ritual which everyone may know and understand regardless of
poor enunciation upon the party of the preacher. Knowing the ritual, the
laity could send their thoughts in the same direction as the thought of the
priest who as reading, and thus an enormous volume of identical spiritual
thought was massed together and projected upon the community for good or evil.
Those who go to a Catholic church understanding the ritual are still today
able to unite their thoughts in spiritual conclave and keep within memory
that which has been gone through. Thus they are every time adding a little
to the spiritualization of their vital bodies, while the Protestant church
members have been affected only in their emotional natures, and that effect
is soon thrown out. The Bible tells us to pray without ceasing, and many
have scoffed saying that if God is omniscient He knows whereof we have need
without our prayer, and if He is not, He can most likely not be omnipotent,
and therefore our prayers are not granted, so that it is useless to pray.
But that command was indited from a knowledge of the nature of the vital body,
which needs that repetition in order that it may be spiritualized.
Before a ritual can have its maximum effect, however, those who are to
grow thereby must become attuned to it. This involves work on their vital
bodies while those vehicles are still in the making.
It is a matter of esoteric knowledge that birth is a fourfold event, and
that birth of the physical body is only one step in the process. The vital
body also undergoes a development analogous to the intrauterine growth of
the dense body. It is born about the seventh year of life. During the next
seven years the desire body is ripened and comes to birth at about the
fourteenth year, when adolescence is reached, and the mind is born at
twenty-one, when the age of manhood and womanhood commences.
These esoteric facts are well known to the Catholic Hierarchy, and while
the Protestant ministers work upon the emotional nature, which is ever seeking
something new and sensational without realizing the futility of the
struggle and the fact that it is this most rampant vehicle that drives
people from the churches in search of something more new and more
sensational, the esoterically informed Catholic Hierarchy concentrates its
effort upon the children. "Give us the child up to its seventh year and it is
ours forever," they say, and they are right. During these important seven
years they impregnate the plastic vital bodies of their charge with their
views by means of repetition. The repeated prayers, the time and tune of the
various chants, and the incense, all have a powerful effect on the growing
vital body.
Thus all efforts to elevate humanity by work upon the unstable desire
body are and must always prove futile. This the esoteric schools of all ages
have recognized and they have therefore addressed themselves to the changing
of the vital body by working with its keynote, which is repetition. For
that purpose, they have written various rituals suited to humanity at the
different stages of its development and in that way they have fostered soul
growth, slowly but surely, and regardless of whether man was aware that he
was being worked upon in that manner or not. The Ancient Atlantean Mystery
Temple, which we speak of as the Tabernacle in the Wilderness, had certain
rites prescribed in the mount by the Divine Hierarch who was their
particular teacher. Certain rites were performed during week days. Other
rites were used on the Sabbath, and again other rites at the times of the
new moons and on the great solar festivals. Nor was it within the province
of any one from the high priest down, to alter this ritual, under pain of
penalty of death.
During sleep the currents of the desire body flow, and its vortices move
and spin with enormous rapidity. But as soon as it enters the dense body
its currents and vortices are almost stopped by the dense matter and the
nerve currents of the vital body which carry messages to and from the brain.
It is the object of this exercise to still the dense body to the same degree
of inertia and insensibility as in sleep, although the Spirit within is
perfectly awake, alert and conscious. Thus we make a condition where the
sense centers of the desire body can begin to revolve while inside the dense
body.
The latter (concentration an retrospection) will prove barren of result,
unless accompanied by constant acts of love, for love will be the keynote of
the coming age as law is of the present order. The intense expression of
the former quality increases the phosphorescent luminosity and density of
the ethers in our vital bodies, the fiery streams sever the tie to the mortal
coil, and the man, once born of water upon his emergence from Atlantis, is
now born of the spirit into the kingdom of God. The dynamic force of his love
has opened a way to the land of love, and indescribable is the rejoicing
among those already there when new invaders arrive, for each new
arrival hastens the coming of the Lord and the definite establishment of the
Kingdom.
It is a mystic maxim that "all spiritual development begins with the vital
body." This is next in density to our dense body. Its keynote is
repetition, and it is the vehicle of habits, hence somewhat difficult to
change or influence, but once a change has been effected and a habit
acquired by repetition, its performance becomes automatic to a certain
extent. This characteristic is both good and bad in respect to prayer, for
the impression registered in the ethers of this vehicle will impel the
aspirant to faithful performance of his devotions at stated times, even
though he may have lost interest in the exercise and his prayers are mere
forms. If it were not for this habit-forming tendency of the vital body,
aspirants would wake up to their danger as soon as the real love began to
wane, and it would then be easier to retrieve the loss and keep on the
Path. Therefore the aspirant should carefully examine himself from time to
time to see if he still has wings and power wherewith swiftly and surely to
lift himself to his Father in Heaven. The wings are two in number; love and aspiration are their names, and the irresistible power which propels
them in intense earnestness. Without these and an intelligent understanding
to direct the invocation, prayer is only a babble; properly performed it is
the most powerful method of soul growth known.
In Eastern Teachings, it is
customary to raise this vibratory pitch of the spiritual aspirant's atom so that the vital body, which is the medium of esoteric growth, may to a certain extent be liberated
from the deadening force of the physical atom. This result is attained by
means of breathing exercises, which in time accelerate the vibration of the
atom, and allow the spiritual growth necessary to the individual to take
place.
Years ago, when the writer started on the Path and was inbued with the
characteristic impatience common to ardent seekers after knowledge, he read
of the breathing exercises published by Swami Vivekananda and commenced to
follow directions, with the result that after two days the vital body had
been pulled out of the physical. This produced a sensation of walking on
air, of being unable to get the feet down on solid ground; the whole body
seemed to be vibrating at an enormous pitch. Common sense then came to the
rescue. The exercises were stopped, but it was fully two weeks before the
normal condition of walking on the ground with a firm step was experienced,
and before the abnormal vibrations ceased.
The vital body is like a mirror or, rather, like the film of a moving
picture; it pictures alike the world without according to our faculty of
observation, and the ideas of the indwelling Spirit from within according to
the clarity and training of the mind. Devotion and discrimination,
otherwise emotion and intellect, decide our attitude toward these pictures,
and their balanced action leads to a well rounded development. When evolved
to a certain point they inevitably bring about a process of purification.
The man will realize that in order to attain the goal he must lay aside
whatever clogs the wheels of progress. A good mechanic aims to have the best
tools and keep them in perfect order, for he knows their value in producing
good work. Our bodies are tools of the Spirit, and in proportion as they
are clogged they hinder its manifestation. Discrimination teaches us what
hinders, and devotion to the higher life helps to eliminate undesirable
habits or traits of character by superseding mere desire.
In ancient times, certain ceremonies were performed in the temples to bring about the cleavage of the vital body.
In the ancient Mystery Temples the main truths now taught by The Rosicrucian Teachings concerning the vital body were given to the aspirant to initiation. He learned that this vehicle was composed of the four
ethers: the chemical ether, which is necessary to assimilation; the life
ether, which furthers growth and propagation; the light ether, which is the
vehicle of sense perception; and the reflecting ether, which is the
receptacle of memory.
The aspirant was thoroughly instructed in the functions of the two lower
ethers as compared with the two higher. He knew that all the purely animal
functions of the body depended upon the density of the two lower ethers and
that the two upper ethers composed the soul body — the vehicle of service in
the invisible world. He aspired to cultivate this glorious garment by
self-abnegation, curbing the propensities of the lower nature by will power,
just as we do today.
But some, who were overzealous to attain, no matter how, forgot that it
is only by service and unselfishness that the Golden Wedding Garment,
composed of the two higher ethers, is grown. They thought the esoteric
maxim, "Gold in the crucible, dross in the fire; light as the winds, higher
and higher," meant only that so long as the dross of the lower nature was
expelled, it did not matter how it was done. And they reasoned that as the
chemical ether is the agent of assimilation, it could be eliminated from the
vital body by starving the physical body. They also thought that as the
life ether is the avenue of propagation, they could by living celibate lives
starve it out. They would then have only the two higher ethers, or at least
these would be much larger in volume than the two lower.
To that end they practiced all the austerities they could think of, fasting
among others. By this unnatural process the body lost its health and became
emaciated. The passional nature, which sought gratification by exercise of
the propagative function, was stilled by castigation. It is true that in
this horrible manner the lower nature seemed to be subjected; and it is also
true that when the bodily functions were thus brought to a very low ebb,
visions, or rather hallucinations, were the reward of these people; but true
spirituality has never been attained by defiling or destroying "the temple
of God," the body, and fasting may be as immoral as gluttony.
There can be no doubt concerning the power of holy water prepared by a
strong and magnetic personality. It takes on or absorbs the effluvia from
his vital body, an the people who use it become amenable to his rule in a
degree commensurate to their sensitiveness. Consequently the Brazen Lavers
in the ancient Atlantean Mystery Temples, where the water was magnetized by
divine Hierarchs of immeasurable power, were a potent factor in guiding the
people in accordance with the wishes of these ruling powers. Thus the
priests were in perfect subjection to the mandates and dictates of their
unseen spiritual leaders, and through them the people were made to follow
blindly. It was required of the priests that they wash their hands and feet
before going into the Tabernacle proper. If this command was not obeyed,
death would follow immediately on the priest entering the Tabernacle. We
may therefore say that as the keyword of the Brazen Altar was
"justification," so the central idea of the Brazen Laver was "consecration."
When death came Moses' face shone and Buddha's body became alight. They
all reached the stage when the Spirit begins to shine from within — but they
they died.
The Race Spirit took special care of certain sects of people, for example
the Levites among the Jews, who were destined specially for priesthood and
they were herded around the temples and were specially bred to be the
forerunners and teachers of their brethren. Their system of mating and
regulation of the sex life of these special protégées produced a more lax
connection between the vital body and the dense body which was necessary in
order that initiation might take place and help man to advance. As long as
the Race Spirit works with us we are under the law, we are only
overcoming the influence of the desire body; therefore, Paul says well,
that the law was until Christ — not until Christ came 2,000 years ago, but
"until Christ be formed in you." When we release ourselves from the toils of
the desire body and live up to the vibrations of the vital body, we become
imbued by the Christ Spirit. Then and only then do we rise out of the
national, the separating principle. Then do we become capable of being
brothers to men.
When Parsifal started to go with Gurnemanz to the Castle of the Grail, he
asked Gurnemanz: "Who is the Grail?" "That tell we not, but if thou hast
been of him bidden, From thee the truth will not stay hidden. The search
but severs from him wider when he himself is not its guider." That means
that in the olden times, in the time before Christ came, only a chosen few
could follow the path of initiation. Nobody could seek that path — nobody
could get beyond the point where the rest of humanity were — safe a few chosen
ones, such as were the priests and the Levites. These were brought to the
temples, and there herded together. They were married to one another in a
certain way; certain people were mated with a definite end in view,
namely, that they might develop the proper laxity between the vital body and
the dense body that is necessary to initiation. A separation has to take
place in order that we may lift the two higher ethers out, and leave the
other two. That could not be done with the ordinary humanity. They were
yet much in bondage to the desire body. They must wait until a later time.
As ether is the avenue of vital, creative forces, and as Angels are such
expert builders of ether, we may readily understand that they are eminently
fitted to be warders of the propagative forces in plant, animal, and man.
All through the Bible we find them thus engaged: Two Angels came to Abraham and announced the birth of Isaac, they promised a child to the man who had obeyed God. Later these same Angels destroyed Sodom for abuse of the creative force. Angels foretold to the parents of Samuel and Samson, the birth of these giants of brain and brawn. To Elizabeth came the angel (not Archangel) Gabriel and announced the birth of John. Later he appeared also to Mary with the message that she was chosen to bear Jesus.
IV. Positive and
Negative Development
Spiritual development may be positive, as in Adepts, Initiates, and Invisible Helpers; or negative, as in the case of mediumship.
The vital body of every Initiate is always positively polarized, as that
makes it better and more receptive instrument for the vibrations which come
from the Life Spirit, whose counterpart the vital body is.
It is sometimes asked why Initiates are always men. They are not; in the
lower degrees there are many women, but when an Initiate is able to choose
his sex he usually takes the positive masculine body, as the life which
brought him to initiation has spiritualized his vital body and made it
positive under all conditions, so that he has then an instrument of the
highest efficiency.
There are women Initiates, and sometimes even Initiates of the Greater
Mysteries take upon themselves a feminine body for the sake of a special
work which they desire to accomplish. It is true, however, that those who
have advanced so far that they have a choice regarding sex usually prefer a
male body, an the reason is not far to seek. Woman has a positive vital
body but a negative dense body and is, therefore, somewhat at a disadvantage
in the world as at present constituted. Striving for the higher ideals and
living the higher life, we spiritualize the vital body and transmute it into
soul which is always positive — a power usable regardless of sex — and when
the Initiate wears a masculine body also, he is thoroughly positive in the
Physical World and has a better chance for advancement than when using a
feminine vehicle.
Hence one who lives upon a flesh diet must replenish his food supply very
often; such material would therefore be unsuitable for the purpose of building
a body that has to wait for some time before the Adept enters it. Food
consisting of vegetables, fruits, and nuts, particularly when these are ripe
and fresh, is interpenetrated by a great deal of the ether which composes
the vital body of the plant. These are much easier to subdue and to
incorporate into the polity of the body, also they stay much longer there
before the individual cell life can assert itself. Therefore the Adept who
wishes to build a body ready to wear before he leaves the old one, naturally
builds it of fresh vegetables, fruits, and nuts, taking them into the body
which he uses daily where they become subjected to his will, a part of
himself.
Regarding the effect from the esoteric standpoint of this polarization, we
may learn much from certain customs in so-called secret societies. As you
know, such organizations always place at the door a guard who is instructed
to deny admittance to anyone not supplied with the proper password and
signs, and that words very well so far as the people are concerned who
function only in their physical body. But the so-called secrets of these
organizations are not in any sense secrets to those who are able to enter
their places of assembly in their vital bodies. It is otherwise in a true
esoteric order such as, for instance, the Rosicrucians. No guard is on duty
at the door of the Temple when the Mystic Midnight Mass is said each night
of the week. The door is wide open to all who have learned to speak the
open sesame. But that is not a spoken password; the initiate who desire to
attend must know how to attune his soul body to the particular rate of
vibration maintained on that night. Furthermore, this vibration differs on
the various nights of the week so that those who have learned to attune
themselves to the vibration maintained on Saturday night when the first
degree meets are as effectually barred from entering the Temple with those who
carry on the work Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, etc., as any ordinary person.
Therefore, "The Path of Preparation" precedes "The Way of Initiation."
Persistence, Devotion, Observation, and Discrimination are means of
attainment, for by these the vital body is sensitized. By persistence and
devotion the chemical and the life ethers become capable of taking care of
vital functions in the dense body during sleep. A cleavage takes place
between those two ethers and the two higher, the light ether and the
reflecting ether. When the latter two have been sufficiently spiritualized by
observation and discrimination, a simple formula given by the Teacher enable
the disciple to take them out with his higher bodies at will. He is
thus equipped with a vehicle of sense perception and memory. Whatever
knowledge he possesses in the material world is then available in the
spiritual realms, and he brings back to the physical brain, memories of his
experience while without the dense body. This is necessary in order to
function outside the dense body with full consciousness of both the Physical
World and the Desire World, for the desire body is unorganized as yet, and
did not the vital body leave its imprint on the desire body at death, we
could have no consciousness in the Desire World during post-mortem existence.
There are various grades of spiritual sight. One grade enables a man to
see the ordinarily invisible ether with the myriads of beings that invest
that realm. Other and higher variants give him the faculty to see the
Desire World and even the World of Thought while remaining in the physical
body.
But these faculties, though valuable when exercised under full control of
the human will, are not sufficient to read the "Memory of Nature' with
absolute accuracy. To do this and to make the necessary investigations in
order that one may understand how the "Web of Destiny" is made and unmade,
it is necessary to be able at will to step from the physical body and
function outside in that soul body which we have spoken of as composed of
the two higher ethers, this being also invested with the desire body and the
mind. Thus the investigator is in full possession of all his faculties, he
knows all that he knew in the Physical World, and has the ability to bring
back into the physical consciousness the things which he has learned
without. When he has this ability he must also learn to balance himself, to understand the things which he sees outside, for mark this: It is not enough
to be able to step outside the body into another world and to see things
there; we do not by that fact become omniscient any more than we understand
what everything is used for and how everything works here in this Physical
World because we live here from day to day and year to year. It requires
study and application to become thoroughly familiar with the facts of the
invisible world as it does with the facts of the world in which we are now
living in our physical bodies. Therefore the book, the "Memory of Nature,"
is not read easily at the first attempt, or at the second either, for just
as it takes a child time to learn how to read our ordinary books here, so
also, it requires time and effort to decipher this wonderful scroll.
Those who have the true spirituality do not fee saved one day, in the
seventh heaven of ecstasy, and the next feel themselves down in the dumps
and miserable sinners that can never be forgiven; for their religion is not
based upon the emotional nature which feels these things, but is rooted in
the vital body which is the vehicle of reason, set and persistent in the
path it has once chosen. As new forms are propagated through the second
ether of the vital body, so the higher self, the Christ within, is formed
through this same vehicle of generation, the vital body, in its higher
aspects embodied in the two upper ethers.
But as a child that is born into the world requires nourishment, so also
the Christ that is born within is a babe and requires to be nourished to the
full stature of manhood. And as the physical body grows by a continual
assimilation of material from the Chemical Region, the solids, liquids, and
gases, so also, as the Christ grows, will the two higher ethers grow in volume
and form a luminous cloud around the man or woman sufficiently discerning to
set his or her face heavenward; it will invest the pilgrim with light so
brilliant that he walks in the light, as a matter of actual fact. By the
exercises given in the Western Mystery School of the Rosicrucians, it
becomes possible in time to detach the two higher ethers, and the man may then
step away from his physical body, leaving it for a time invested and
vitalized only by the two lower ethers; he is then what we call an
Invisible Helper.
You will remember that Christ gave not the cup to the multitude but to
His disciples who were His messengers and servants of the Cross. At the
present time those who drink from the cup of self-abnegation that they may
use their force in the service of others, are building that organ (an
etheric organ in the throat and head) together with the soul body which is
the Wedding Garment. they are learning to use it in a small way as
Invisible Helpers when they are out of their bodies at night, for then they
are taught to speak the word of power which removes disease and builds
in healthy tissue.
There is another class of people in whom the connection between the dense
and the vital bodies is more or less loose, so that the ether of their vital
bodies vibrates at a higher rate then in the first class mentioned. These
people are therefore more or less sensitive to the spiritual world.
This class of sensitive may again be divided. Some are weak characters,
dominated by the will of others in a negative manner, as mediums, who are
the prey of disembodied Spirits desirous of obtaining a physical body when
they have lost their own by death.
The other class of sensitive are strong positive characters, who act only
from within, according to their own will. They may develop into trained
clairvoyants, and be their own masters instead of slaves of a disembodied
Spirit. In some sensitives of both classes it is possible to extract part
of the ether which forms the vital body. When a disembodied Spirit obtains a
subject of that nature, it develops the sensitive as a materializing medium.
The man who is capable of extracting his own vital body by an act of will,
becomes a citizen of two worlds, independent and free. Such are usually known as Invisible Helpers.
No Spirit can work in any world without a vehicle made of the material of
that world. To function in the Physical World, to fetch and carry, we must
have a dense body and a vital body; both are made of various grades of
physical matter, solids, liquids, gas, and ether. We may obtain such
vehicles in the ordinary way, by going through the womb to birth, or we may
extract ether from the body of a medium and temporarily use that to
materialize, or we may use the fumes of incense.
This remnant of the hypnotist's vital body is also the storehouse for
commands to be carried out at a future time, involving the performance of a
certain act, on a certain day, at a certain hour. When the time arrives the
impulse is released like the spring of an alarm clock, and the victim must
carry out the command, even to murder, yet has no idea that he is influenced
by someone else. Therefore, hypnotism is the greatest crime on earth and
the greatest danger to society.
It is sometimes contended that hypnotism may be used benevolently for the
cure of drunkenness and other vices, and it is readily admitted that, viewed
solely from the material standpoint, that appears to be true. But from the
viewpoint of esoteric science it is far otherwise. Like all other desires,
the craving for liquor is in the desire body, and it is the duty of the Ego
to master it by will power. That is why he is in the school of experience
called life, and no man can do his moral growing for him, any more than he
can digest another's dinner for him. Nature is not to be cheated; each must
solve his own problems, overcome his own faults by his own will. If,
therefore, a hypnotist overpowers the desire body of a drunkard, the Ego in
the drunkard will have to learn its lesson in a future life, if he dies
before the hypnotist. But if the hypnotist dies first the man will inevitably
turn to drink again, for then the part of the hypnotist's vital body which
held the evil desire in check gravitates back to its source, and the cure is
nil. The only way permanently to master a vice is by one's own will.
The modus operandi of the invisible manipulator is simply to push the
higher vehicles out of the lower bodies of the unresisting medium, step in
himself and take control. When he leaves, he also takes part of the
medium's vital body to use as a key or lever next time.
When a materializing medium is used by Spirits for the purpose of showing
themselves to an audience, they first extract the vital body, or as much
thereof as they dare, from the medium, leaving the dense body in the cabinet
in a fearful shrunken state. That is dreadful for people unused to such
phenomena to see. With this vital body — which, by the way, has been
photographed by scientists, as the camera will register rays that are
invisible to the eye — they produce the desired phenomena readily, because it
is a living thing and attracts matter greedily so long as it has not
collapsed in the manner that it does shortly after death. They interpolate
physical atoms of the surrounding atmosphere after making a matrix (mold) of
the vital body of the medium, and thereby shape a body into any form that
suits the Spirit materializing to take upon itself. The vital body of a
medium may be used by any number of Spirits during a séance, each one
clothing itself in the plastic substance and filling out with atoms from the
surrounding atmosphere, even borrowing from the sitters who very often feel
much exhausted upon leaving a seance room.
In the case of the materializing medium, we may say that the influence is
always injurious. The materializing Spirit entrances the victim and then
draws the ether of the vital body out through the spleen, for the difference
between the materializing medium and the ordinary person is the fact that
the connection between the vital body and the dense body is exceedingly lax,
so that it is possible to withdraw this vital body to a very great extent.
The vital body is the vehicle whereby the solar currents which give us
vitality are specialized. Deprived of the vitalizing principle, the body of
the medium at the time of a materialization sometimes shrinks to almost
one-half its usual size; the flesh becomes flabby and the spark of life
burns very low. When the séance is over and the vital body replaced, the
medium is awakened and in normal consciousness. He then experiences a feeling
of the most terrible exhaustion and sometimes, unfortunately, resorts to drink
to revive the vital forces. In that case, of course, the health will very
soon suffer and the medium will become a total wreck. At any rate,
mediumship should be avoided, for apart from this danger to the instrument
there are other and far more serious considerations in connection with the
more subtle bodies, and particularly in connection with the after-death
state.
Roughly speaking, we may say that humanity today is divided into two
classes — those in whom the connection between the vital body and the dense
body is very close, and another class where the connection is more loose.
The former class is the ordinary person who is engaged in material pursuits
and is altogether out of touch with the spiritual worlds. The latter class
is the so-called sensitives, and is again divided into two classes. One
class is actuated by the will from within and is positive. From this class
comes the trained clairvoyant and the Invisible Helper. The other class is
negative ad is amenable to the will of others. From this class mediums are
recruited.
When the connection between the vital body and the dense body of a man is
somewhat lax, he will be sensitive to spiritual vibrations, and if positive
he will by his own will develop his spiritual faculties, live a spiritual
life, and in time receive the teaching necessary to become a trained
clairvoyant and a master of his faculty at nay and all times, free to exercise
it or not, as he pleases.
If a person has this slight laxity between the vital and dense bodies,
and is of a negative temperament, he is liable to become the prey of
discarnate Spirits, as a medium. Where the connection between the vital and
dense bodies is very lax, so that it may be withdrawn, an the man is
positive, he may become an Invisible Helper, capable of taking the two
higher ethers away from his dense body at will and using them as a vehicle
for sense perception and memory. He can then function consciously in the
spiritual world and bring back a recollection of everything he has done
there, so that, for instance, when he leaves his body at night he takes up
the life in the invisible world in a fully conscious manner, as we do here
when we wake up in the morning after sleep and perform our various duties in
the visible world. When a person has this lax connection between the vital
body and the dense body and is of a negative temperament, the Spirits which
are earth-bound and seek to manifest here may withdraw his vital body by
way of the spleen and temporarily use the ether of which it is composed to
materialize spirit forms, returning the ether to the medium after the séance
is over.
It is these elementals who are the originators of many of the
spiritualistic phenomena, where more intelligence is displayed than can be
accounted for by the action of soul-less shells, particularly at
materializations. Though shells may take part, phenomena are always directed
by a being with intelligence. The difference between a materializing medium
and an ordinary person is that the connection between the dense body and the
vital body is more lax in the medium, so that from the latter a part of the
vital body can be withdrawn, and also some of the gases and even liquids of
the medium's dense body may be used to form the bodies of apparitions. This
withdrawal and the process of clothing the shells is generally performed by
the elemental who extracts the vital body of the medium out through the
spleen. As a rule, the body of the medium shrinks horribly in
consequence. When the dense body is thus deprived of its vital principle,
it becomes terribly exhausted, and unfortunately the medium often seeks to
restore the equilibrium by strong drink, becoming a confirmed drunkard.
God is the Grand Architect of the Universe and the Initiates of the White
Schools are also archetektons, builders from the primordial essence in their
beneficent work for humanity. These Invisible Helpers require a nucleus
from the patient's vital body, which is, as students of The Rosicrucian
Teachings know, given to them in the effluvia from the hand, which
impregnates the paper when the patient makes application for health and
healing. With this nucleus of the patient's vital body they are able to
draw upon virgin matter for whatever they need to restore health by building
up and strengthening the organism.
The Black Magicians are despoilers, actuated by hatred and malice. They
also need a nucleus for their nefarious operations, and this they obtain
most easily from the vital body at spiritualistic or hypnotic séances, where
the sitters relax, put themselves into a negative frame of mind, drop their
jaws, and sink their individualities by other distinctly mediumistic
practices. Even people who do not frequent such places are not immune,
for there are certain products of the vital body which are ignorantly
scattered by all and which may be used effectively by the Black Magicians.
Chief in this category are the hair and finger nails. Practitioners of voodoo magic use the placenta for similar evil purposes. One particularly
evil man, whose practice were exposed a decade ago, obtained from boys the
vital fluid which he used for his demoniac acts. Even so innocent a thing
as a glass of water placed in close proximity to certain parts of the body of
the prospective victim, while the Black Magician converses with him can be
made to absorb a part of the victim's vital body. This will give the Black
Magician the requisite nucleus, or it may be obtained from a piece of
the person's clothing. The same invisible emanation contained in the
garment, which guides the bloodhound upon the track of a certain person,
will also guide the magician, white or black, to the abode of that person
and furnish the magician with a key to the person's system whereby the former
may help or hurt according to his inclination.
Part V
The Vital Body
of Jesus
I. As A Vehicle
For The Christ
The vital body of Jesus is very highly developed and was used by the Christ during His three year ministry.
We know that at death, or at any time when we have to leave this Physical
World, we give up our dense body, and our vital body, because they belong to
the Physical World. And so Jesus, when he had come to the age of thirty,
when he had made his instrument fit for the use of the Great Being, gladly,
willingly gave it away. He left it at the Baptism as he would have stepped
out at death, that the Christ might step in, and that was seen to descend
upon him a a dove.
Christ, as an Archangel, had learned to build down to the desire body,
but he vital body and the dense body He had never learned to build. The
Archangels had worked on humanity from without before, as Group Spirits do;
but that was not enough. The help had to come from within. That was made
possible by the combination of Christ and Jesus, and therefore it is true,
in the very highest sense, in the most literal sense, when Paul says:
"There is but one mediator between God and man — Christ Jesus, the
righteous."
It is one of our illusions that the body which we inhabit is alive. As a
matter of fact it is nothing of the sort. At least there is such a very
small portion of this body which can really be said to be alive that our
statement is practically true. The larger portion is absolutely asleep if
not entirely dead. That is a fact well-known to science, and something that
reason must teach us is so. That is because our spiritual power is so weak
that it cannot furnish this vehicle with life to a sufficient extent. In
the measure that we fail thus to vitalize the body, it seems like a heavy
clod of clay, which we must laboriously drag along with us, until after a
few years it crystallizes to such an extent that it is impossible for us any
longer to keep up the vibratory motion. Then we are forced to leave the
body and it is said to die. A slow process of disintegration takes place to
restore the atoms to their original free state.
Contrast now that state of affairs when one of these same earth bodies is
taken possession of by a powerful Spirit like that of Christ. You will find
an analogy in the case of a man being resuscitated from drowning. There the
vital body has been extracted, and the vibratory action of the physical atoms
has ceased almost, if not altogether. Then when the vital body is again
caused to permeate the physical body it begins to prod every atom into
action and vibration.
This attempt to awaken the sleeping atoms causes the intensely
disagreeable prickling sensation which persons who have been resuscitated
from drowning describe, and this sensation does not cease until the physical
atoms have attained a rate of vibration one octave below that of the vital
body. Then they are insensate and nothing is felt save as we ordinarily
feel.
Take now the case of Christ entering the dense body of Jesus. There the
atoms were moving at a speed much lower than the vibratory forces of the
Christ Spirit. Consequently the acceleration had to take place, and during
the three years' ministry this marked acceleration of the vibration of these
atoms would have shattered the body had not the powerful will of the Master
assisted by the skill of the Essences held it together. Had the atoms been
asleep at the time when the Christ left the body of Jesus, the same as our
atoms are asleep when we leave our bodies, a long process of purification
would have been required to disintegrate the body. They were, however, as
we said, highly sensitized and alive, and therefore it was impossible to
keep them in bondage when the Spirit had fled. In future ages when we learn
to keep our bodies alive we shall not change atoms and, therefore, bodies so
often. Nor when we do, will it take so long as at present to complete the
process of purification. The tomb was not hermetically sealed, and would
not offer obstruction to the passage of atoms.
This (rapid disintegration of the physical body of spiritual people) the
writer has not been able to verify because it is difficult to find men of
high spiritual proclivities who have passed out recently, but it would seem
that this is so from the fact recorded in the Bible that the body of Christ
was not found in the tomb when the people came to look for it. As we have
said before in relation to this matter, the Christ spiritualized the body of
Jesus so highly, made to so vibrant, that it was almost impossible to keep
the particles in place during His ministry. This was a fact known to the
writer by the teachings of the Elder Brothers and by what investigation he
has made of the subject in the Memory of Nature, but the bearing of this
fact upon the general subject of death and the after-existence was not known
until lately.
Upon the death of the dense body of Christ Jesus, the seed atom was
returned to the original owner, Jesus of Nazareth, who for some time
afterward, while functioning in a vital body which he had gathered
temporarily, taught the nucleus of the new faith which Christ had left behind.
Jesus of Nazareth has since had the guidance of the esoteric branches which
sprang up all over Europe.
Upon the death of the dense body of Jesus, the seed atoms were returned
to the original owner. During the there years' interval between the
Baptism, where he gave up his vehicles, and the Crucifixion, which brought
the return of the seed atoms, Jesus gathered a vehicle of ether, as an
Invisible Helper gathers physical matter whenever it is necessary to
materialize all or part of the body. However, material not matched with the
seed atom cannot be permanently appropriated. It disintegrates as soon as the
will power assembled in it is withdrawn, and this was, therefore, only a
makeshift. When the seed atom of the vital body was returned, a new body was
formed, and in that vehicle Jesus has been functioning since, working
with the churches.
In 1st These. 5:23, Paul states that man's whole being consists of
Spirit, soul, and body. When we shed the dense body finally as Christ did,
we shall function in a body called soma psuchicon (soul body) in 1st Cor.
15:44. This is the "vital body" in our literature, a vehicle made of ether,
capable of levitation, and of the same nature as the body which Christ used
after the Crucifixion. This vehicle is not subject to death in the same
sense a our physical body, and it is eventually transmuted to Spirit as
taught in our literature and as required by 1st Cor., 15th chapter.
Thus we see that it is a property of the vital body to attract to itself
physical matter, and it is much easier for one who leaves the body
unconsciously to allow the physical particles to flow into his soul body than
to keep them away. The soul body, of course, is not subject to death,
decay, or collapse. Therefore it is very easily understood that the Christ
could use that vehicle to go through the walls into the room where the
Disciples were gathered and there draw about Him the necessary material to
show Himself in a physical vehicle which was disintegrated the moment He
wanted to leave. However, it is noteworthy that it is the disintegration
that calls forth an effort and not attraction of physical matter.
Our Elder Brothers have placed the vital body of Jesus in a sarcophagus
of glass to protect it from the gaze of the curious or profane. They keep
this receptacle in a cavern deep in the earth, where no uninitiated can
penetrate. To make assurance doubly sure, however, vigilant watchers keep
constant guard over their precious charge; for were that vehicle destroyed,
Christ's only avenue of egress would be cut off, and He would have to remain a
prisoner in the earth until the Cosmic Night dissolves its chemical elements
into chaos. Thus the mission of Christ as Savior would have failed; His
suffering would be greatly prolonged, and our evolution would be enormously
retarded.
Christ was free to choose His vehicle of entrance into the Earth where He
is now confined, but once having chosen the vehicle of Jesus, He is bound to
leave by the same way. Were that vehicle destroyed, Christ must remain in
the cramping surroundings till Chaos dissolves the Earth. This would be a
great calamity, and therefore, the vehicle He once used is most jealously
guarded by the Elder Brothers.
In the meantime Jesus has been the loser of all the soul growth
accomplished during his thirty years on earth prior to the Baptism and
contained in the vehicle given the Christ. This was and is a great sacrifice
made for us, but like all good deeds, it will rebound to a greater glory in
the future. This vehicle will be used by Christ when He comes to establish
and perfect the Kingdom of God, and it will be so spiritualized and
glorified that when it is again restored to Jesus at the time when Christ
turns the Kingdom over to the Father it will be the most wonderful of all
human vehicles.
Of course, the Earth Spirit is not to be thought of as larger man, or as
having physical form other than the Earth itself. The vital body of Jesus,
in which the Christ Spirit was focused prior to its actual ingress into the
earth, has the ordinary human form; it is preserved and is shown to the
candidate at a certain point in his progression. Some day in the far future
it will again house the benevolent Christ Spirit upon His return from the
center of the earth, when we shall have become etheric, and when He is ready
to ascend to higher spheres, leaving us to be taught of the Father, whose
religion will be higher than the Christian religion.
New we come to a point involving an important cosmic law which underlies
various spiritualistic phenomena and also supports the unique principle of
The Rosicrucian Teachings (and the Bible), that Christ will not return in a
dense body but in a vital body. It also shows why He must return.
Before A.D. 33 Jehovah guided our planet in its orbit and mankind on the
path of evolution from without. On Golgotha, Christ entered the earth which he now guides from within, and will until a sufficient number of our humanity have evolved the soul power necessary to float the earth and guide our younger brothers. This requires ability to live in vital bodies, capable of levitation. The vital body of Jesus through which Christ entered the earth is His only avenue of return to the Sun. Hence the Second Advent will be in Jesus' vital body.
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