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    "num": 2,
    "slug": "01-chapter-xii",
    "title": "Chapter XII.",
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    "words": 2061,
    "text": "## Chapter XII.\n\nEVOLUTION OF FORMS. 49\n\nforms enduring for a time and then disintegrating.\nThe outpoured life, or Monad, evolved through\nthese kingdoms and reached in due course the physi-\ncal plane, where it began to draw together the ethers\nand hold them in filmy shapes, in which life-currents\nplayed and into which the denser materials were\nbuilded, forming the first minerals. In these are\nbeautifully shown — as may be seen by reference to\nany book on crystallurgy — the numerical and geo-\nmetrical lines on which forms are constructed, and\nfrom them may be gathered plentiful evidence that\nlife is working in all minerals, although much\n\"cribbed, cabined, and confined.\" The fatigue to\nwhich metals are subject is another sign that they\nare living things, but it is here enough to say that\nthe occult doctrine so regards them, knowing the\nalready-mentioned processes by which life has been\ninvolved in them. Great stability of form having\nbeen gained in many of the minerals, the evolving\nMonad elaborated greater plasticity of form in the\nvegetable kingdom, combining this with stability of\norganization. These characteristics found a yet\nmore balanced expression in the animal world, and\nreached their culmination of equilibrium in man,\nwhose physical body is made up of constituents of\nmost unstable equilibrium, thus giving great adap-\ntability, and yet which is held together by a combin-\ning central force which resists general disintegra-\ntion even under the most varied conditions.\n\nMan's physical body has two main divisions: the\ndense body, made of constituents from the tbre^\n\nTHK AN-CIENT WISDOM.\n\nlower levels of the physical plane, eolids, liquids,\nand gases; and the eiheric double, violet-gray or\nblue-gray in color, interpenetrating the dense body\nand composed of materials drawn from the four\nhigher levels. The general function of the physical\nbody is to receive contacts from the physical world,\nand send the report of them inwards, to serve as\nmaterials from which the conscious entity inhabit-\ning the body is to elaborate knowledge. Its etheric\nportion has also the duty of acting as a medium\nthrough which the life-currents poured out from the\nsun can be adapted to the uses of the denser particles.\nThe sun is the great reservoir of the electrical, mag-\nnetic, and vital forces for our system, and it pours\nout abundantly these streams of life-giving energy.\nThey are taken in by the etheric doiibles of all\nminerals, vegetables, animals, and men, and are by\nthem transmuted into the various life-energies\nneeded by each entity.* The etheric doubles draw\nin, specialize, and distribute them over their physical\ncounterparts. It has been observed that in vigorous\nhealth much more of the life-energies are trans-\nmuted than the physical body requires for its own\nsupport, and that the surplus is rayed out and is\ntaken up and utilized by the weaker. What is tech-\nnically called the health aura is the part of the\netheric double that extends a few inches from tha\n\n•When thus appropriated the life is called Pr&na, and it be-\ncomes the life-breath of every creature. Pr^na. is but a name\nfor the universal life while it Is taken in by an entity and is\nsupporting its separated life.\n\nMAKING OF PHYSICAL BODY* 5 1\n\nwhole surface of the body and shows radiating lines,\nlike the radii of a sphere, going outwards in all di^\nrections. These lines droop when vitality is dimin-\nished below the point of health, and resume their\nradiating character with renewed vigor. It is this\nvital energy,* specialized by the etheric double,\nwhich is poured out by the mesmerizer for the res-\ntoration of the weak and for the cure of disease, al-\nthough he often mingles with it currents of a more\nrarefied kind. Hence the depletion of vital energy\nshown by the exhaustion of the mesmerizer who\nprolongs his work to excess.\n\nMan's body is fine or coarse in its texture accord-\ning to the materials drawn from the physical plane\nfor its composition. Each subdivision of matter\nyields finer or coarser materials ; compare the bodies\nof a butcher and of a refined student ; both have solids\nin them, but solids of such different qualities. Fur-\nther, we know that a coarse body can be refined, a\nrefined body coarsened. The body is constantly\nchanging; each particle is a life, and the lives. come\nand go. They are drawn to a body consonant with\nthemselves, they are repelled from one discordant\nwith themselves. All things live in rhythmical vibra-\ntions, all seek the harmonious and are repelled by\ndissonance. A pure body repels coarse particles be-\ncause they vibrate at rates discordant with its own ; a\ncoarse body attracts them because their vibrations\naccord with its own. Hence if the body changes its\nrates of vibration, it gradually drives out of it the con-\nstituents that cannot fall into ^he new rhythm, and\n\n52 THE ANCIENT WISDOM.\n\nfills Up their places by drawing in from external na-\nture fresh constituents that are harmonious. Nature\nprovides materials vibrating in all possible ways,\nand each body exercises its own selective action.\n\nIn the earlier building of human bodies this selec-\ntive action was due to the Monad of form, but now\nthat man is a self-conscious entity he presides over\nhis own building. By his thoughts he strikes the\nkeynote of his music, and sets up the rhythms that\nare the most powerful factors in the continual\nchanges in his physical and other bodies. As his\nknowledge increases he learns how to build up his\nphysical body with pure food, and so facilitates the\ntuning of it. He learns to live by the axiom of\npvirification; \" Pure food, a pure mind, and constant\nmemory of God.\" As the highest creature living on\nthe physical plane, he is the vicegerent of the Logos\nthereon, responsible, so far as his powers extend, for\nits order, peace, and good government; and this duty\nhe cannot discharge without these three requi-\nsites.\n\nThe physical body, thus composed of elements\ndrawn from all the subdivisions of the physical\nplane, is fitted to receive and to answer impressions\nfrom it of every kind. Its first contacts will be of\nthe simplest and crudest sorts, and as the life within\nit thrills out in answer to the stimulus from with-\nout, throwing its molecules into responsive vibra-\ntions, there is developed all over the body the sense\nof touch, the recognition of something coming into\ncontact with it. As specialized senae-organs are d?-\n\nfefeNSfi ORGANS DEVELOP, 5^\n\nveloped to receive special kinds of vibrations, tiie\nvalue of the body increases as a future vehicle for a\nconscious entity on the physical plane. The more\nimpressions it can answer to, the more useful does\nit become ; for only those to which it can answer\ncan reach the consciousness. Even now there are\nmyriads of vibrations pulsing around us in physical\nnature from the knowledge of which we are shut out\nbecause of the inability of our physical vehicle to\nreceive and vibrate in accord with them. Unimag-\nined beauties, exquisite sounds, delicate subtleties,\ntouch the walls of our prison house and pass on un-\nheeded. Not yet is developed the perfect body that\nshall thrill to every pulse in nature as the aeolian\nharp to the ze'phyr.\n\nThe vibrations that the body is able to receive it\ntransmits to physical centres, belonging to its highly\ncomplicated nervous system. The etheric vibrations\nwh?.ch accompany all the vibrations of the denser\nphysical constituents are similarly received by the\netheric double, and transmitted to its corresponding\ncentres. Most of the vibrations in the dense matter\nare changed into chemical, heat, and other forms of\nphysical energy ; the etheric give rise to magnetic\nand electric action, and also pass on the vibrations\nto the astral body, whence, as we shall see later,\n.*hey reach the mind. Thus information about the\ntsxtemal world reaches the conscious entity en-\nthroned in the body, the Lord of the body, as he\nis sometimes called. As the channels of informa-\ntion develop and are exercised, the conscious entity\n\nTHE AS'Cir.NT WISDOM.\n\ngrows by the materials supplied to bis thought by\nthem, but so little is man yet developed that even\nthe etheric double is not yet sufficiently harmonized\nto regularly convey to the man impressions received\nby it independently of its denser comrade, or to im-\npress them on his brain. Occasionally it succeeds\nin doing so, and then we have the lowest fonn of\nclairvoyance, the seeing^ of the etheric doubles of\nphysical objects, and of things that have etheric\nbodies as their lowest vesture.\n\nMan dwells, as we shall see, in various vehicles,\nphysical, astral, and mental, and it is important to\nknow and remember that as we are evolving upwards,\nthe lowest of the vehicles, the dense physical, is that\nwhich consciousness first controls and rationalizes.\nThe physical brain is the instrument of conscious-\nness in waking life on the physical plane, and con-\nsciousness works in it — in the undeveloped man —\nmore effectively than in any other vehicle. Its po-\ntentialities are less than those of the subtler vehicles,\nbut its actualities are greater, and the man knows\nhimself as \" I\" in the physical body ere he finds\nhimself elsewhere. Even if he be more highly de-\nveloped than the average man, he can only i;how as\nmuch of himself down here as the physical organism\npermits, for consciousness can manifest on the physi-\ncal plane only so much as the physical vehicle can\ncarry.\n\nThe dense and etheric bodies are not normally\nseparated during earth life; they normally function\ntogether, as the lower and higher strings of a single\n\nDREAM. CONSCIOUSNESS. 55\n\ninstrument when a chord is struck, but they also\ncarry on separate though co-ordinated activities.\nUnder conditions of weak health or nervous excite-\nment the etheric double may in great part be ab-\nnormally extruded from its dense counterpart ; the\nlatter then becomes very dully conscious, or en-\ntranced, according to the less or greater amount of\nthe etheric matter extruded. Anaesthetics drive out\nthe greater part of the etheric double, so that con-\nsciousness cannot affect or be affected by the dense\nbody, its bridge of communication being broken.\nIn the abnormally organized persons called medi-\nums, dislocation of the etheric and dense bodies\neasily occurs, and the etheric double, when ex-\ntruded, largely supplies the physical basis for \" ma-\nterializations.\"\n\nIn sleep, when the consciousness leaves the phys-\nical vehicle which it uses during waking life, the\ndense and etheric bodies remain together, but in the\nphysical dream-life they function to some extent in-\ndependently* Impressions experienced during wak-\ning life are reproduced by the automatic action of\nthe body, and both the physical and etheric brains\nare filled with disjointed fragmentarj^' pictures, the\nvibrations as it were, jostling each other, and caus-\ning the most grotesque combinations. Vibrations\nfrom outside also affect both, and combinations often\nset up during waking life are easily called into ac-\ntivity by currents from the astral world of like na-\nture with themselves. The purity or impurity of\nwaking thoughts will largely govern the pictures\n\n56 THE ANCIENt WlSDOKt.\n\narising in dreams, whether spontaneously set up of\ninduced from without.\n\nAt what is called death, the etheric double is\ndrawn away from its dense counterpart by the es-\ncaping consciousness ; the magnetic tie existing be-\ntween them during earth life is snapped astmder,\nand for some hours the consciousness remains en-\nveloped in this etheric garb. In this it sometimes\nappears to those with whom it is closely bound up,\nas a cloudy figure, very dully conscious and speech-\nless — the wraith. It may also be seen, after the\nconscious entity has deserted it, floating over the\ngrave where its dense counterpart is buried, slowly\ndisintegrating as time goes on.\n\nWhen the time comes for rebirth, the etheric\ndouble is built in advance of the dense body, the\nlatter exactly following it in its ante-natal develop-\nment. These bodies may be said to trace the limi-\ntations within which the conscious entity will have\nto live and work during his earth life, a subject that\nwill be more fully explained in Chapter IX., on\nKarma.",
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