Occult science in medicine

by Franz Hartmann

(the intelligence of the brain) goes to the heart and back again to the brain. The fire (heat) takes its origin in the (chemical) activity of the organs (the lungs), but pervades the whole body. The liquor vitæ (essence of life) is universally distributed and moves (circulates) in the body. This ‘humor’ contains many different powers, and cause in him ‘metals’ (virtues or vices) of various kinds.” (“Paramirum,” L. I. Tr. 3.)

In regard to this subject modern medical science says:—

“A wide basis of positive knowledge in regard to this subject does not exist. The physiology of the different departments of the sympathetic system of nerves is now only beginning to shape itself, while on the side of pathology and morbid anatomy there is even still less of definite knowledge. Thus it happens that for the most part only conjectures, often very insecurely based are current, or can be said to exist in regard to the dependence of definite sets of symptoms, or distinct diseases, upon disordered actions or morbid changes occurring in one or other part of the sympathetic system of nerves.” (“H. Charlton Bastian.”)

Both ancient and modern science are right as far as they go; only while modern science pays all of its attention to the forms (organs, nerves, etc.), which are merely the products of certain principles and powers and the instruments for their activity, ancient science deals with these powers themselves, taking only into secondary consideration the visible instruments in and through which they become manifest. Modern science, so to say, studies the muscular movements of a musician, occult science knows the art of music itself. Material science is the servant mixing the paints for the painter; the true physician is the artist who knows how to paint. The one studies the tools which the workman uses; the other sees also the workman himself. These comparisons are not drawn for the purpose of throwing discredit upon modern medical science, nor for the purpose of blaming any modern physician for not employing powers which he does not possess; but for the purpose of indicating that a knowledge of physical phenomena and visible forms is not the limit of all attainable knowledge, and that there exists a higher and more important kind of knowledge, based upon a higher perception, such as is attained only through the higher development of the spiritual character of man; which becomes possible only when earthly presumption and vanity are overcome and when, by stepping up higher, he realises the nothingness of the terrestrial illusion of “self.”

IV.—Ens Spirituale.

Diseases arising from spiritual causes.

“Spirit”—from spiro, to blow—means breath. “Breath means a power, quite distinct from mechanical force, as being endowed with consciousness, life and intelligence. In its aspect as an universal power, it means the breath of God which caused the universe to come from a subjective state into objective existence; in its individual aspect it means the spiritual power dwelling in man.[36]

Spirit is Consciousness in every plane of existence; but from this it does not follow that all the forms in which it dwells necessarily manifest self-consciousness or are even conscious of existence. For the manifestation of perfect spiritual self-consciousness a spiritual organism is required, such as an average man does not possess, if he has not been reborn in the spirit. In the forms of the mineral kingdom the presence of spirit is perceptible by the manifestations of mineral life, in the vegetable kingdom by the manifestations of vegetable life, and in the animal kingdom by those of animal life, for spirit is itself the basis of life in the physical, astral, intellectual and spiritual world; and as the spirit of the universe is the spiritual breath of God, issuing from the centre and returning to it, so is the spirit of man the spiritual power which enters into his constitution, and issues again when the body dies.

“That is a spirit, which is born from our thoughts; immaterial and in the living body. That which is born after our death is the soul.” (“Paramirum,” L. I., C. iv., 2.)