Transcriber’s Notes

Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected. Variations in hyphenation and accents have been standardised but all other spelling and punctuation remains unchanged.

A variety astrological, alchemical and mystical symbols are used, for the sake of consistency all have been represented by images from the original book.

The anchor of footnote 22 on page 41 was missing. The present location was chosen by the transcriber.

The contents list shows five chapters, with chapter V being entitled The Medicine of the Future. In the body chapter IV is followed immediately by Chapter VI entitled The Physician of the Future. It is assumed that this is a missprint rather than a missing chapter and has been altered accordingly.

OCCULT SCIENCE
IN
MEDICINE

BY
FRANZ HARTMANN, M.D.

(All rights reserved.)

THEOSOPHICAL PUBLISHING SOCIETY
7, Duke Street, Adelphi, London, W.C.
“The Path,” 144, Madison Avenue, New York, U.S.A.
“The Theosophist” Office, Adyar, Madras, India.

1893.

DEDICATED
TO EVERY STUDENT OF MEDICINE

“That which is looked upon by one generation as the apex of human knowledge is often considered an absurdity by the next, and that which is regarded as a superstition in one century, may form the basis of science for the following one.” (Theophrastus Paracelsus.)

PREFACE.

“Nothing designates the character of people so well as that which they find ridiculous.”—Goethe.

It is a fact not entirely unknown to those who have studied nature, that there is a certain law of periodicity, according to which forms disappear and the truths which they contained reappear again, embodied in new forms. Seasons go and come, civilizations pass away and grow again, exhibiting the same characteristics possessed by the former, sciences are lost and rediscovered, and the science of medicine forms no exception to this general rule. Many valuable treasures of the past have been buried in forgetfulness; many ideas that shone like luminous stars in the sky of ancient medicine have disappeared during the revolution of thought, and begin to rise again on the mental horizon, where they are christened with new names and stared at in surprise as something supposed never to have existed before.

Ages of spirituality have preceded the past age of materiality, and other eras of higher spiritual thought are certain to follow. During these preceding ages many eminently valuable truths were known, which have been lost sight of in modern times, and although the popular science of the present, which deals with the external appearances of physical nature, is undoubtedly greater than that of former times, a study of the ancient books on medicine shows that the sages of former times knew more of the fundamental laws of nature than what is admitted to-day.

There is a great science and a little science; one that flies around the spires of the temple of wisdom, another that penetrates into the sanctuary; both are right in their places; but the one is superficial and popular, the other profound and mysterious; the one makes a great deal of clamour and show, the other is silent and not publicly known.

There are progressive and there are conservative scientists. There are those whose genius carries them forward and who dare to explore new realms of knowledge; while the conservative class merely collects what has been produced by others. An explorer must be a scientist; but not every scientist is an explorer. The majority of our modern schools of medicine produce nothing new, but merely deal in goods in whose production they had no share. They resemble the shop of a huckster who knows nothing else but the goods which are in his shop. The shelves are filled with popular theories, fashionable beliefs, patented systems, and occasionally we find an old article that went out of fashion, labelled with a new name and advertised as something new, and the proprietor volubly praises his goods, being as proud of them as if he had made them himself, while he ignores or denounces everything that is not to be found in his shop. But the real lover of truth is not contented to live upon the fruits that have grown in the gardens of others; he gathers the materials he finds, not merely for the purpose of enjoying their possession, but for the purpose of using them as steps to ascend nearer to the fountain of eternal truth.

The present work is an attempt to call the attention of those who follow the profession of medicine to this higher aspect of science and to certain forgotten treasures of the past, of which an abundance may be found in the works of Theophrastus Paracelsus. Many of the ideas advanced therein, old as they are, will appear new and strange; for everyone is familiar only with that which is within his own mental horizon and which he is capable of grasping. The subject treated is so grand, unlimited and sublime, as to render it impossible in a limited work of this kind to deal with it in an exhaustive manner; but we hope that what little has been collected in the following pages will be sufficient to indicate the way to the acquisition of that higher mystic science, and to a better understanding of the true constitution of man.

CONTENTS.

[INTRODUCTION].

PAGE.

Definition of the term “disease.” Law and order. Harmony and discords. Obedience. Man a complex being. Health.

9

[I].

THE CONSTITUTION OF MAN.

Miracles in nature. Development. The seven principles in the constitution of man. The anatomy of the “inner man.” Medicine and religion. Theophrastus Paracelsus. Mysteries. Mystic science and false mysticism. The powers of the soul.

13

[II].

THE FOUR PILLARS OF MEDICINE.

Requisites for the practice of medicine.—Philosophy. Natural sciences. The phenomenal world. The inner temple. Truth. The four kingdoms and the four elements.—Astronomy. Mind. States of consciousness. “Stars” and constellations. The Tatwas. Sun and Moon. Thinking and the thinker.—Alchemy. What alchemy is. Quacks and pretenders. The Three Substances. The creative power. Terrestrial Alchemy. Celestial Alchemy. The Alchemy of the Astral plane.—The Virtue of the Physician. The true physician. Medical science and medical wisdom.

25

[III].

THE FIVE CAUSES OF DISEASE.

Salt, Sulphur and Mercury.—The Ens astrale. The “ether”. Invisible influences. Microbes. The astral plane. Mental diseases.—Ens veneni. Poisons and impurities. Disharmonies, sympathies and antipathies in chemistry. A chemical romance. Sexual impurity. Promiscuous intercourse. Nutriment. Correspondencies between spiritual powers and physical forces.—Ens naturæ. The macrocosm and microcosm. Two beings in one man. Terrestrial and the celestial nature. Generation and incarnation. Heredity. Relationship between internal organs.—Ens spirituale. Consciousness. Spirit and soul. The thought-body. Re-incarnation. Will. Imagination. Arcana. Memory. The astral light.—Ens Dei. God Karma. Science and art.

50

[IV].

THE FIVE CLASSES OF PHYSICIANS.

Five classes.—Naturales. Therapeutics. Earth. Water. Air. Fire. Ether; the one element.—Specifici. Empiricism. The chemistry of life. Principles of light and colour. The astral man.—Characterales. Emotions. Hypnotism. Suggestion. Spiritual powers.—Spirituales. Magic.—Fideles. The power of faith.

74

[V].

THE MEDICINE OF THE FUTURE.

Ancient and modern quackery. Science and wisdom. Spirituality and substantiality. Development. Self-control. Realism and idealism. The realization of the ideal. The physician of the future. Self-knowledge. The true life. The awakening of the soul. Phenomena and noumena. The higher science. Material and spiritual evolution. Intellectuality and spirituality. Periodicity. Circular motion and spiral progress. The self-recognition of truth.

86

INTRODUCTION.

“There are two kinds of knowledge. There is a medical science and there is a medical wisdom. To the animal man belongs the animal comprehension; but the understanding of divine mysteries belongs to the spirit of God in him.” (Theophrastus Paracelsus, “De Fundamento Sapientiæ.”)

A great deal has been written in modern books on pathology about the difficulty of defining the word “disease.” The dictionary calls it “lack or absence of ease, pain, uneasiness, distress, trial, trouble,” &c., but against either of these definitions objections may be raised. James Paget says: “Ease and disease, well and ill, and all their synonyms are relative terms, of which none can be fixed unconditionally. If there could be fixed a standard of health, all deviations from it might be called diseases; but a chief characteristic of living bodies is not fixity, but variation by self-adjustment to a wide range of varying circumstances, and among such self-adjustments it is not practicable to make a line separating those which may reasonably be called healthy from those which may as reasonably be called disease.”

To this occult science answers that such a standard of health exists for us as soon as we recognise the unity and supremacy of the law; that the results of obedience to the law are harmony and health, and the results of disobedience are called discords or disease.

Shakespeare says:—

“The heavens themselves, the planets and this centre

Observe degree, priority and place,

Insisture, course, proportion, season, form,

Office, and custom, in all line of order.”

—(Troilus and Cressida, i. 3.)

If we regard the order, which “is Heaven’s first law,” as the creation of the self-adjustment of accidentally arising circumstances, leaving out of consideration the fundamental Unity of the All and its one purpose, we would then probably find various laws of order in the universe, being essentially different from each other; and it would be difficult to know which of these laws it would be best to follow; but if we recognise in the order that rules all things a manifestation of one eternal law of order and harmony, the function of Supreme Wisdom acting in nature but not being the product of nature, it will remain for us only to know that supreme Law and obey it. The universe is only one, and is ruled by only one source of all laws; but there are many unities within the constitution of this great Unity; they constitute as many selves within Self, whose separate interests are not identical with that of the whole, and therefore the order obeyed by these temporary selves is not the same as that of the eternal whole. Thus the battle for existence, far from being the cause of the order observable in the world, is in fact the cause of the disorder existing therein.

If man, like his divine prototype, were a perfect unity, a manifestation of will and thought identified and one, there would be only one law to obey: the law of his divine nature; he would be forever in harmony with himself; there would be no disharmonious elements in his nature, seeking to create an order of their own, and thereby causing discords and disease; but man is a compound being, there are many elements in his nature, each representing to a certain extent an independent form of will, and the more one of these modifications of will succeeds in departing from the order that constitutes the whole, and to enact, be it intelligently or instinctively, a will of its own, the greater will be the disharmony which it causes within the whole organism and the greater will be the disease.[1] “A house divided against itself will fall.” Disease is the disharmony which follows the disobedience to the law; the restoration consists in restoring the harmony by a return to obedience to the law of order which governs the whole.

The key to the cure of diseases is therefore in the understanding of the fundamental law which governs the nature of man, and for this purpose it is necessary that a rational system of medicine should know the constitution of man; not only that of his physical body, which is merely the lower part of the house wherein he dwells; but the whole physical, astral and mental constitution of that being called “Man,” which is still the greatest mystery to science, and of which little more than the anatomy, the physiological functions and the chemical composition of the material organs and substances composing his corporeal form is either known to or taught by our modern academies.

Great progress has been made by modern science in investigating all the minor details of the shell which man occupies during his life upon this planet; but as regards the inhabitant of that house, the inner man, who is neither wholly material nor wholly spiritual, the ancient sages knew more about his true nature than is ever dreamed of in our medical schools, and it will be undoubtedly worth while to examine their views. Moreover, if the outward body of man is, as they teach, only the outward expression of the qualities and functions of a more interior and invisible human organism; then it appears that many bodily diseases, such as are not caused by direct physical injuries, are the results of disorders existing within that inner organism, and as every true physician should seek to know the causes of diseases, and not merely destroy their external effects, such a knowledge of the “causal body” of man, whose visible image is his “phenomenal form,” may open a new field for pathology and therapeutics, from which a rich harvest may be gathered for the benefit of mankind.

I.
THE CONSTITUTION OF MAN.

From times immemorial the sages have taught that we shall never know immortal truth, if we do not discover it within our own selves. Experience has long ago corroborated this theory, for in spite of all progress in scientific researches concerning the nature of Man, and which were carried on by means of researches in the external kingdom of nature, the real constitution of Man and that which constitutes his essential being has not yet been discovered. We know that from the ovum the fœtus, from the fœtus the child, from the child the body of man becomes developed; we know the order in which these processes take place; but we seem to know nothing about the powers that produce them. Such an alchemical trick of nature as to make a man grow out of a cell in which no man is contained would seem absurd, incredible and miraculous, and would be believed by nobody, if it were not a well-known fact, and being of daily occurrence it has ceased to appear surprising, so that it appears now strange if anyone wonders how such a thing is possible.

Horne says: “By a silent, unseen, mysterious process, the fairest flower of the garden springs from a small insignificant seed.” A similar mysterious process takes place in the evolution of the human body. All these processes are evidently the effects of the action of a cause adequate to produce them; to deny this would be identical with affirming the self-evident absurdity, that something could grow out of nothing, and the law of logic furthermore makes it clear that although a physical cause can produce a physical effect, a living body can only be produced by a living power, an intellectual organism by an intelligent being. Whether or not the animal body of man has evoluted from the lower animal kingdom, or whether certain animals are the products of a perversion and degradation of the nature of man, does not concern us at present. What we know is, that no life and intelligence can become manifest in a form unless these powers are contained therein, and we also know that life cannot be created by death nor can intelligence be created by that which has no intelligence.

But if popular science confessedly knows nothing about the origin of the manifestation of life, nothing about what is vaguely termed “soul,” nothing about the nature and origin of the mind (whose functions are required for the purpose of enabling the brain to investigate such things) nothing about the spirit and nothing about the higher constitution of man, whose external expression and symbol is his physical body; it will not be inappropriate to apply to other sources for information and hear what the ancient sages taught concerning the principles that go to make up the constitution of man. The first requisite of a rational and perfect system of a medicine is a thorough knowledge of the whole constitution of man; of the whole, and not merely of a part of his nature.

The ancient Indian sages compared man to a lotus flower, whose home is the water (the world), whose roots draw their nutriment from the earth (material nature), while it raises its head to the light (the spiritual kingdom), from which it receives the power to unfold the powers latent in its constitution.

A great deal has already been said in Theosophical literature about the sevenfold constitution of man: but for the sake of completeness we will delineate it again.

1. Rupa. The physical body, the vehicle of all the other “principles” during life.

2. Prana. Life or vital principle.

3. Linga Sharira. The astral body. The ethereal image or counterpart of the physical body, the “phantom body.”

4. Kama rupa. The animal soul. The seat of animal desires and passions. In this principle is centred the life of the animal and mortal man.

5. Manas. Mind. Intelligence. The connecting link between the mortal and immortal man.

6. Buddhi. The spiritual soul. The vehicle of pure universal spirit.

7. Atma. Spirit. The radiation of the Absolute. (For further explanation see: H. P. Blavatsky, “Key to Theosophy.”)

Goethe says: “A word comes in very conveniently when a conception is absent.” In our material age the very meaning of terms signifying spiritual powers and conditions has become lost and perverted; “God” is supposed to mean an unnatural supernatural being outside of Nature; “Faith” has become credulity and belief in the opinions of others; “Hope” has become personal greed; “Love” is supposed to be selfish desire, etc., etc. It is therefore not surprising if the above terms are incomprehensible to many or misinterpreted by them, for they all represent certain states of consciousness, and no one can know a state of consciousness which he has never experienced. Therein is contained the mystery.

The philosophers of the middle ages symbolised these seven principles by the signs of seven “planets” from which seven cosmic bodies visible in the sky received their names; and if this is understood, it will at once become clear that those who deny the sevenfold division of the planets, only expose their own ignorance and misconceptions. No one can really criticise that which he does not understand; but self-conceit imagines itself to be superior to everything, and thinks itself wiser than all the sages; forgetting that Shakespeare says: “The fool thinks he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.” (As You Like It, V., i.)

The ancients based their science of medicine upon the recognition of a universal, eternal, self-existent, self-conscious cause, the source of universal life, where popular modern medicine recognises only the outcome of a blind force. The secret medicine of the ancients was therefore a religious[2] science, while modern popular medicine recognises no religious element and therefore no real truth. To separate science from religious truth is to put it upon an irrational basis; for “religion” means the relation which man bears to his divine origin. To leave out of sight the source from which he originated is to ignore his true nature and to relegate medicine to the realm of the lowest plane of his existence; namely, that of his most gross and material form. This is exactly the position which modern medicine occupies at present, and there is nothing that can elevate it higher than a recognition of the higher nature in man, and a re-discovery of divine truth. Such a higher knowledge was formerly considered necessary for the purpose of constituting a real physician, and for this reason the practice of medicine was in the hands of those who were born physicians, sages and saints by the power of the true grace of God, while among popular practitioners there are, now as then, many dunces and rascals, having neither spirituality nor morality; for what the modern physician of the materialistic school requires for his success is a certain amount of memorizing of the contents of his books, so as to enable him to pass his examination, and a talent to profit by the credulity of the people.

When the ancients spoke of “seven planets,” they referred to seven spiritual but nevertheless substantial states, of which popular science knows nothing but their external manifestation in the realm of phenomena. It has truly been said that no one ever saw even the earth; that which we see is merely a manifestation or appearance of a spiritual principle called “earth” ♁ The real essence of “matter” is beyond the conception of the terrestrial mind.

Seen from this point of view, the “seven planets” in the constitution of man as well as in the constitution of nature as a whole, represent the following elements, powers, essences, or forms of existence:—

I.

Saturn (Prakriti). Matter; the substance and material element in all things in all the three kingdoms of nature (the physical, astral and spiritual plane). It is invisible and known only by means of its manifestation. It is that which gives fixity and solidity, it is substantiality itself.

II.

Luna, “the Moon” (Linga). The “ethereal or astral” body of man; the kingdom of dreams, fancies, illusions, in which exists only the reflection of the true life and light of the sun; it also represents intellectual speculation without wisdom (recognition of truth), and the forms belonging to that kingdom are as changeable as are the opinions of men.

III.

Sol, “the Sun” (Prana). Life on the physical and spiritual plane (Jiva). The centre of the planetary system.[3] It is that which produces the manifestations or activity of life upon every plane of existence.

Mars (Kama). The passional, emotional, animal element in man and in nature; the seat of desire and self-will; that which becomes manifest as greed, envy, anger, lust and selfishness in all its forms; but which is also a source of strength. There are many diseases caused by the excessive or irregular action of powers belonging to this kingdom; when by combining with

they become of a terrestrial nature.

Mercury (Manas). The Mind; the principle of intelligence manifesting itself as intellectual power in the kingdom of mind; giving in its combination with

rise to earthly thoughts, but in combination with

constituting spiritual knowledge.

Jupiter (Buddhi). The principle which manifests itself as spiritual power, be it for good or for evil. Reason, intuition, faith, firmness, recognition of truth.

Venus (Atma). The principle which in its purity manifests itself as universal divine love, it being identical with divine self-knowledge. If united with

(intelligence) it constitutes wisdom. Acting within the animal plane it produces animal instincts, and upon the physical plane it causes the attractions of opposite polarities, chemical affinities, &c., &c.

All this is said merely to indicate the key to this kind of science; for the combinations in which these principles may enter, and the modifications of their manifestations under different conditions are almost innumerable; neither can this spiritual science be taught to a mind (Manas) unillumined by the light of the higher understanding (Buddhi). The practical study and application of anything requires first of all the possession of the object, and if this is true in regard to physical objects, it is no less true in regard to spiritual principles, whose nature can only be known when their presence is realised within one’s own consciousness. The higher aspects of all of these powers belong to the higher nature of man, and he who desires to know and apply these laws in the practice of medicine, must first of all seek to develop his own higher nature by freeing himself from the elements that govern his lower nature; in other words, he must enter from the animal-human into the human-divine state, to which the true physician belongs.

One of such adept-physicians was Theophrastus Paracelsus, the great reformer of medicine of the sixteenth century, who is properly regarded as the father of modern medicine, although his successors are still far from realising the truths which he taught, and will, on the whole, perhaps not grow up to an understanding of his doctrines for centuries to come.[4] He was far in advance not only of the science of his days, but also of that of our present days; for although he may have known less than we do in regard to the phenomenal appearances of the manifestations of life on this planet, he knew a great deal more than our modern science in regard to the causes of these manifestations and in regard to the inner nature of things. He was and still is ridiculed and belittled by those who were and are not capable of understanding him; but he proved the truth of his theories by performing cures which even modern medicine with all its new acquisitions cannot perform.[5] He was the first to abolish a system of unmitigated quackery, based upon mere empiricism, the remnants of which exist even to-day. He was hated and persecuted by the quacks and pretenders of those times, who did a lucrative business, thriving upon the ignorance of the public, as some are doing to-day, and the vilifications and calumnies thrown out against him by such still inspire the opinions of many in regard to his person, although we may safely believe that few of his critics have ever read his books and still fewer have understood them. Numerous biographies have been written about him and his personal habits, and it seems that the majority of his critics have been able to comprehend that when he died he left a pair of leather pantaloons to his heirs; but as to his philosophy, this is a terra incognita, which surpasses their understanding; neither could such a knowledge of the secret sciences be expected from anybody knowing nothing about the fundamental principles in the constitution of man.

Whether Paracelsus obtained his knowledge in the East, as has been claimed, or whether it was revealed to him by his own perception of truth, does not concern us; but there can be no doubt that he knew that sevenfold classification, for we find him speaking of the following seven aspects of man:—

1. The Corpus, or the elementary body of man. (Limbus.)

2. The Mumia, or the ethereal body; the vehicle of life. (Evestrum.)

3. The Archæus. The essence of life. Spiritus Mundi in Nature and Spiritus Vitae in man.

4. The Sidereal body; made up of the influences of the “stars.”

5. Adech. The inner man or the thought-body, made of the flesh of Adam.

6. Aluech. The spiritual body, made of the flesh of Christ; also called “the man of the new Olympus.”

7. Spiritus. The universal Spirit.

There is hardly a page in the philosophical writings of Paracelsus which does not refer to the twofold nature of man, his terrestrial and celestial aspect, and of the necessity of the development of his higher nature and superior (spiritual) understanding.

“Above all, we must pay attention to the fact that there are two kinds of spirit in man. (One originating in nature, the other coming from heaven.) Man ought to be a human being according to the spirit of (divine) life and not according to the (terrestrial) spirit of the Limbus. It is a truth that (the heavenly) man is an image of God, having in him a divine spirit (life). In all other respects he is an animal, having as such an animal spirit. These two are opposed to each other, but one of the two is bound to succumb. Man is destined to be a human being and not an animal, and if he is to be a human being, he must live within the spirit of (immortal) life and do away with the animal spirit.” (“Philosophia Occulta,” Lib. I., Prologue.)

The mysteries of the inner temple of nature are not accessible to the vulgar and the profane, because every being can realise only that which corresponds to its own nature. To penetrate into the realm of truth a true soul is required; an animal can realise only the animal side of existence.

One well known medical authority on a recent occasion said:

“Paracelsus, who pronounced the anatomy of the dead body to be useless,[6] and sought for the basis of life (immortality) as the highest goal of knowledge, demanded ‘contemplation’ (spiritual) before all else, and just as he himself arrived in this way at the metaphysical construction of the Archaeus, so he unchained among his followers a wild and absolutely fruitless mysticism.”[7]

For this unchaining of mysticism, not Paracelsus is to blame, but the incapacity of his followers, whose animal minds were not capable of becoming illumined by the spirit of truth. Whenever the terrestrial mind seeks to grasp the spirit of wisdom, and being unable to rise to the perception of divine truth to drag it down to its own level, a wild and absolutely fruitless and foolish mysticism will be the result. With the same right we may say that the doctrines of Christ filled the world with superstition, causing the crimes of the crusades, the horrors of the inquisition, and sectarian intolerance. It is not the fault of the truth if it is misunderstood.

The vast majority of mankind seek for knowledge for the purpose of deriving from its possession some personal benefit; be it the acquisition of wealth or luxury, the gratification of ambition, the desire to parade before the world as a being in possession of something great, or for the purpose of satisfying a laudable scientific curiosity. But the acquisition of medical wisdom requires a love of the truth, and love means self-sacrifice. The acquisition of wisdom is therefore possible only if the illusive self with all its desires is sacrificed to it. The way to wisdom can be shown; but wisdom can only be taught by wisdom itself; he who loves the realm of illusions cannot see its true light. How many of the would-be followers of Jesus of Nazareth have become Christs, and who can understand the profundity of his thoughts and exercise his divine powers, but he who has become like him? None of the would-be followers of Paracelsus have grown to be like this master, none of the representatives of modern medical science have penetrated deeply into his wisdom.

Popular medical science, being based upon the objective observation of phenomena, knows more about the realm of visible nature (Maya) than was known at the time of Paracelsus; but the reason why this popular medical science, in spite of the aids which it received from chemistry and physiology, is still incapable of performing the cures which were performed by Paracelsus, is because its followers only speculate and draw inferences, while they do not cultivate that spiritual power of soul knowledge which is called “interior contemplation,”[8] but which Paracelsus called the Faith; a faculty which is at present so entirely unknown that even an explanation of the meaning of this term is exceedingly difficult. It is a power which belongs neither to the physical, nor to the animal, nor to the intellectual nature in man, but to the spiritual man (Atma-Buddhi-Manas); to that higher part of his being, which in the vast majority of mankind, however intellectual they may be, has not yet awakened into life, but is still latent, buried in the tomb of materiality into which the light of divine truth cannot penetrate.

“What are ye men in your own powers but nothing? If you wish to obtain strength take it from faith. If you have faith as big as a mustard seed, you will be as strong as the spirits, and although you now appear as men, your faith will make your strength and power equal to the spirits such as were also in Samson. For by means of our faith we become spirits ourselves, and whatever we accomplish that surpasses our (terrestrial) nature is done by the power of faith acting through us as a spirit and transforming us into spirits.” (“De Origin, Morb. Invisib.” Introduction.)

Man, even if he obtains occasionally a glimpse of divine truth, is only too prone to forget it again at the next moment, as the action of his terrestrial mind is stronger in him than that of his spirit, and it seems therefore necessary to be reminded over and over again that the faith of which Paracelsus speaks is not the illusory faith of the brain, the product of speculation, but a power belonging to those few living spirits walking within this sleeping world. As physical powers belong to the physical and terrestrial man, so spiritual powers belong to the spiritual man who must be born before he can know and exercise these powers. As yet there appear to be few even among our eminent scientists and successful practitioners who have become regenerated in the spirit of truth and filled with the light of divine wisdom, and if there are any such, we would ask all the students of medicine to follow their example and by learning the great art of self-control to become masters over their own nature and over the nature of others. Humanity is only one, and the realization of this truth will open a new field for the science of medicine in the future. That part of us which lives within the heart of others is our own truest and “most profound Self.”[9] If this self, which lives in the hearts of others, has awakened to its own consciousness, it will realize its own universal existence and its own power to act within those in whom it lives. Thus the physician, having become self-conscious of his own higher nature, will become a saviour for all the rest of mankind, not only in regard to their moral evils, but also in regard to their physical ills; for the spirit and soul and body of man do not live separately; they are one organic whole, as is the body of humanity, even though the personalities constituting that body are separated from each other by the illusion of form.

II.

THE FOUR PILLARS OF MEDICINE.

The pillars upon which the practice of modern medicine rests, are:—

1. A knowledge of the physical body of man, the arrangements of its organs (anatomy), their physiological functions (physiology) and the visible changes which take place in them when a disease becomes manifest (pathology).

2. A certain amount of acquaintance with physical science, chemistry, botany, mineralogy, etc., in fact with all that embodies a knowledge of the outward relations which the things in this phenomenal world bear to each other and to the body of man, (therapeutics).

3. A certain amount of acquaintance with the views and opinions of modern accepted medical authorities, however erroneous they may be.

4. A certain amount of judgment and aptitude to put the acquired theories into practice.

All this is very well as far as it goes; but it may be seen at once that all the knowledge required of a modern practitioner refers only to the external plane of existence; the animal body of man and its physical surroundings. As to a science of “psychology,” to call that which goes by that name as such at present, is a misnomer; for there can be no science of the soul as long as the existence of a soul (pysche) is not recognized.[10] The invisible, spiritual or causal body within the nature of man is entirely ignored by science, and even if any modern physician personally believes in a soul, he will almost without exception consider this subject as belonging exclusively to the Church, and as something with which science has nothing to do.

Nevertheless, if the term “religion” means the knowledge of the relation which the outward terrestrial man bears to the creative power in him, his own inner Self, which is the seat of not only his spiritual but also the indirect source of his physical life; it would seem that a knowledge of that religion which teaches the nature of this true inner and immortal being, and also the links which connect that higher nature with the physical form, would be an indispensable and most important part of a true science and system of medicine based upon the recognition of truth; and although theory precedes practice, this knowledge should not be merely of that theoretical kind which is only imaginary and not real, and which in persons who are attempting to grasp things which they are not able to realise produces a wild and absolutely fruitless mysticism; but it should be of that kind which through experience constitutes self-knowledge, and which is possible only through the realization of the possession of the ideals one wishes to know.

According to Theophrastus Paracelsus the following are the four pillars of medicine:—

I.—Philosophia.

The term “Philosophy” comes from phileo, to love, and sophia, wisdom, and its true meaning is the love of wisdom and the knowledge resulting therefrom; for love itself is knowledge; it is the recognition of self in another form; the love of wisdom is the recognition by wisdom in man of the same principle of wisdom that is manifested in Nature, and from this recognition springs the realisation of the knowledge of truth. True philosophy is therefore not that thing which at present goes by that name, which consists in wild speculations about the mysteries of Nature for the purpose of gratifying scientific curiosity; a system in which there is a great deal of self-love but very little love of the truth, and whose followers, by means of logic and argument, inferences, theories, postulates, hypotheses, inductions and deductions seek, so to say, to break through the back windows in the temple of truth, or to peep through the keyhole for the purpose of seeing the goddess unveiled. This speculative philosophy does not constitute real knowledge. It constitutes that artificial building of philosophy and so-called science, founded upon arguments and opinions, which change their aspect in every century, and of which Paracelsus said that “the things which are looked upon by one generation as the apex of human knowledge are found to be an absurdity by the next, and that which is regarded as a superstition in one century forms the basis of science of the following one.” All information gained by means whose basis is not a love of truth does not constitute immortal knowledge or true theosophy; but serves only for temporal purposes and as ornaments for egotism, springing as it does from the love of the illusion of self and having illusions for its object.

The whole of nature is a manifestation of truth; but it requires the eye of wisdom to see the truth and not merely its delusive appearance. The philosophy of which Paracelsus speaks consists in the power of recognizing the truth in all things independent of any books or authorities, all of which can only serve to show us the way to avoid errors and how to remove the obstacles in our path; but which cannot make us realise that which we do not realise in ourselves. He who is not labouring under a load of misconceptions and erroneous teachings, requires no other book than the book of nature to teach him the truth. There are few who can read the book of nature in the light of nature; because having had their minds filled with perverted images and false views, they have themselves become unnatural, and the light of nature cannot penetrate into their souls; living in the false light of the moonshine of speculation and sophistry, they have lost their receptivity for the light of the truth. Such philosophers live in illusions and dreams but do not know that which is real:

“There is upon this earth nothing more noble and more capable of giving perfect happiness than a true knowledge of nature and its foundation. Such a knowledge produces a valuable physician, but it should be a part of his constitution and not an artificial fabric attached to him like a coat; he must himself be born out of the fountain of that philosophy which cannot be acquired by artificial means.” (See: “De Generatione hominum,” I. Preface.)

A knowledge based upon the opinion or experience of another is merely a belief, but does not constitute real knowledge. Books and lectures may serve to give us advice, but they cannot endow us with the power of knowing the truth; they may serve us as useful guides, but a belief in the statements of others should not be mistaken for self-knowledge, such as arises only from the self-recognition of truth, and which by means of a love of the truth ought to be cultivated above all else.

To this realm of Philosophy belong all the natural sciences referring to external phenomena, in the knowledge of which a great deal of progress seems to have been made since the time of Paracelsus. To this phenomenal science belongs the anatomy, physiology, the chemistry of the physical body and all that concerns the interrelations of the phenomena existing in the grand phantasmagoria of living and corporeal images called the sensual world. But behind this sensual world there is a more interior super-sensual world, ignored by popular science, of which the former is the external expression; the processes taking place in this interior light of nature, mirror themselves in the light of the external world, and those souls whose inner perceptions have become developed in consequence of an awakening of the “inner man,” do not require the observation of external phenomena for the purpose of drawing inferences in regard to their internal causes, because they know the interior causes and processes and also the external appearances which they will produce. Thus there is an external and an internal medical science, a science concerning the astral and a science concerning the physical body of man. The former occupies itself with the patient, the latter, so to say, with the clothes which he wears.

To render this still more plain, let us illustrate it by an example. Let us imagine a magic lantern capable of projecting living and corporeal images upon a living screen. External science occupies itself only with these images, the relations which they bear to each other and the changes taking place between them; but it knows nothing about the slides in the lantern upon which are the types of these visible images, and it entirely ignores the light which causes their projection upon that screen; but he who sees the slides with its pictures and knows the source of the light which produces these shadow pictures does not need to study the shadows for the purposes of drawing inferences and speculating in regard to their causes. Thus there is a superficial science which is at present the object of pride of the world, and a secret science of which next to nothing is publicly known, but which is known to the wise and revealed by one’s own perception of truth.[11]

Truths must be perceived before they can be intellectually grasped, and therefore this greater and higher science cannot be learned in books, nor be taught in lectures at college, it is the result of a development of man’s higher perception, belonging to his higher nature, and characterises the born physician. Without this superior faculty, known in its initial stage as the power of “intuition,” a medical practitioner can find occupation only in the outer yard of the temple, picking up useful grains among the rubbish; but he cannot enter the temple in which nature herself teaches her divine mysteries. The minute details of this rubbish have been studied by modern popular science, whose attention has been so much absorbed thereby that the temple of truth itself has been forgotten and the nature of Life has become a mystery to those who only study its external manifestations.

It will hardly be necessary to say that the above is not intended to discourage the study of phenomena; for those who have not the power of reaching higher will gain nothing by remaining ignorant of external appearances; but it is intended to show that a science referring merely to the phenomena of terrestrial life and ultimate results is not the summit of all possible knowledge; for beyond the realm of visible phenomena there is a far more extensive realm open to all who are capable of entering: the realm of truth, of which only the inverted images are seen in the kingdom of external phenomena.

The natural science of the ancient mystics, owing to their deeper penetration into the so-called supersensual realm, was not limited to the world which we see with our bodily eyes; for they recognised four worlds or planes of existence within each other, each of them having its own forms of life and inhabitants, namely:—

(a.) The physical visible world, being only the reflection of the three higher ones.

(b.) The astral world, or the psychic realm.

(c.) The world of mind, or the spiritual realm.

(d.) The divine state, the kingdom of God, or the celestial world.

As we perceive the existence of a mineral, vegetable and animal kingdom upon the sensual plane,[12] so they, by the faculty of the developed inner sight perceived and described within this world four kingdoms, or four spiritual, and to us invisible, states of existence, which in their outward manifestation are called: Earth, Water, Fire, Air.

“We will show you that we are not the only intelligent beings possessing the world, but that our possessions extend over only one-fourth of it. Not that this world were three times greater than we know it to be; but there are in it still three-fourth parts which we do not occupy, and their inhabitants are not inferior to us in intelligence; the only thing of which we may be proud, is that Christ (the light of divine wisdom) has taken his habitation in us and clothed himself in our form, as he might have chosen another nation (another class of Elementals) for that purpose.” (Paracelsus, “Of the generation of conscious beings in the universal mind,” I. Preface)

All this, however, does not strictly belong to the present purpose of this work, and is merely mentioned so as to make room for the conception that nature is far greater than the limits assigned to it by material science, and that, as a certain philosopher said: “that which is known is only like a grain of sand on the shore of the ocean of the unknown.”

II. Astronomia.

“Astronomy” means the knowledge of the stars, and to the conception of the modern mind it is the science of “celestial bodies,” such as are seen at night on the sky; but to the ancient philosophers all visible things were the symbols and representations of invisible powers, thoughts and ideas, and the expression “Astronomy,” as used by Paracelsus, is, therefore, something quite different from the science of the star-gazers, and refers to the various states of the mind existing in the macrocosm of nature as well as in the microcosm of man. “The very word “celestial” or “heavenly,” refers to something superior to our grossly material nature, and an idea of what are the “stars” with which ancient astronomy and astrology deal, may be formed by studying the signification of the planets referred to in the previous chapter on the Constitution of Man.

The Astronomy of Paracelsus, therefore, does not deal with corporeal, material, visible, cosmic bodies; but with virtutes (virtues) or powers and semina (germs), or essences, all of which are spiritual and substantial; because a power without substance is inconceivable; “power and substance,” “matter and force” being convertible terms, states of one unity, divided only in our conception of the modes of its manifestation. A “star”, in fact, means a state, and a “fixed star” a fixed state of a power in nature; or as it is called in Sanscrit, a Tattwa, which means a state of That or Being, and as all Being is a manifestation of Life or Consciousness, the “stars” are certain states of that universal Life or All-consciousness, in other words, states of the Mind.

“You should know that the constellations of the planets and stars on the sky, with all the firmament, do not cause the growth of our body, our colour, appearance, or behaviour; and have nothing to do with our virtues and qualities. Such an idea is ridiculous; the motion of Saturn interferes with nobody’s life, and makes it neither longer nor shorter, and, even if there had never been a planet called “Saturn” on the sky, there would be people born having saturnine natures. For all that the planet Mars is of a fiery nature, Nero was not its child, and although they are of the same nature (the same kind of energy being manifested in either of them) neither one of them received it from the other.” (“De Ente Astrorum,” Paramirum C. I. 2.)

Perhaps it will not be out of place, for the purpose of facilitating a comprehension of what Paracelsus meant by the term “Astronomy,” to take a glance at the Indian teaching in regard to the Tattwas.

According to these doctrines, the Universe is a manifestation of That (existence or being), manifesting itself as Life (Prana) within the universal Akâsa (primordial matter, which, for all practical purposes, may be regarded as the “cosmic ether” of space). Prana manifests itself upon the various planes of existence in various Tattwas or forms of existence, corresponding to the principles in the constitution of man enumerated above. Of these seven Tattwas five are manifested, corresponding to the five senses of the human body, and they are called as follows:—[13]

1. Akasa Tattwa; the one element forming the substantial basis of the other four, and corresponding to that which upon the physical plane becomes ultimately manifested as audible sound.

2. Vayou Tattwa; representing the principle which renders possible the sensation of feeling or “touch,” upon all planes of existence.

3. Taijas Tattwa; that form of existence which represents that state which manifests itself upon all planes as Light.

4. Apas Tattwa; that principle which renders possible the sensation of taste upon all planes of existence.

5. Prithivi Tattwa; that principle which renders possible the sensation of smell upon all planes of existence.

Words are altogether insufficient to give an idea on which to form a conception of things which are beyond our intellectual comprehension as long as they do not live in our own consciousness; but we may look upon the seven Tattwas as represented by seven modes of vibrations of a cosmic ether, differing from each other not only quantitatively, but qualitatively, so that, for instance, Akasa Tattwa has a circular, Vayou Tattwa a spiral movement, etc.; but such a conception is quite inadequate, as we have to do with living forces, with states of the universal life or consciousness, manifesting themselves not only as the causes of the five modes of perception on the physical plane, but also upon the higher planes; enabling man, for instance, not only to feel the touch of an object upon the physical plane, but to feel with his astral sense the presence of an object upon the astral plane, and in his heart the touch of a spiritual power; to see not only physical light with the eyes of his body, but things in the astral light with his astral organs of seeing; to see intellectual truths and ideas with the eye of his intellect in the light of his intellect, and spiritual things with the eye of the spirit. In fact, everything that exists is a manifestation of Tattwas, or “vibrations of ether;” stationary in its aspect as “matter,” progressive in its aspect as “force;” matter is latent energy, force is active substance;[14] everything is life, consciousness, intelligence, dormant or active according to the conditions existing upon the plane upon which it becomes manifest; every substance is mind, and the forms which we see are only the symbols of the thoughts represented therein.

It is not our purpose within the narrow limits of this work to enter into a deeper investigation of this most interesting, sublime, and elevating science, which has been discussed at length in H. P. Blavatsky’s “Secret Doctrine”; we merely touch upon these points for the purpose of calling attention to it, as it represents an aspect and conception of nature immeasurably higher than the one represented by popular science, and therefore attainable only to those whose aspirations reach beyond this grossly material plane.

The “Secret Doctrine” informs us that in the course of evolution, this our planet has only attained its Kâmarupa or animal form of existence, and that the next higher state of Manas (mind) has hardly begun to become developed. This may be the reason why the science of mind is at present in its infancy, and grasped only by those gifted spirits who, like Paracelsus and others of his kind, by nobility of character and spirituality have outstripped the rest of mankind in higher knowledge; forming, so to say, the vanguard of the army, as it proceeds into the regions of the—not absolutely unknowable—but the unknown.

Modern astronomy teaches the science of the bodies of the planets and stars; the Astronomy of Paracelsus speaks of the spiritual forces represented by those planets, the counterparts of which exist in the constitution of man and as every force in nature acts upon its corresponding element in the nature of man, these universal forces produce certain effects upon those elements in man which exist upon the corresponding plane. Thus for instance it requires no argument to prove that the sun is the source of heat and light and life upon this planet, and that the physical body of man as well as that of the earth receives these energies from the radiations coming from the physical body of the sun; this being the corporeal visible centre of a power existing universally, and whose sphere of activity reaches as far as the limits of our solar system. We all live and have our being physically within the sphere of activity and consequently within the physical elements of the sun; in a similar sense we live and have our being spiritually in the spiritual body and substance of Love, and as the sun of the physical world shines upon our body; so the light of divine wisdom is all around us and ready to penetrate into our soul. Thus Paracelsus teaches that the moon corresponds to the astral body of man, and has certain effects upon it, causing certain states which may ultimately become outwardly manifested as certain moral or physical diseases, and similar correspondencies might be shown to exist between the universal powers represented by the visible planets and the corresponding elements existing in the constitution of man; but however important and interesting this subject may be it finds very little attention on the part of popular medical science, which is far too busy in investigating outward effects of a phenomenal character to find time for attending to that which produces all such phenomena and appearances.[15]

If the Astronomy of Paracelsus were understood, it would be found that man, far from creating his own thoughts, merely remodels the ideas that flow into his mind; that “thought-transference,” far from being a strange and rare occurrence, is as common as the transference of heat; that owing to the oneness of humanity we all feel and think within each other and act out each other’s thoughts. We would know better the real causes of crimes, insanity and disease, and find them to be controvertible terms. We might then perhaps also modify our views regarding the supposed free will and the amount of responsibility of man, and know that the power of will is not a myth, and witchcraft and sorcery no more impossible than the magic action of true love.

III.—Alchemy.

Not being masters of Alchemy, we are not capable of teaching the science of this pillar of medicine; neither could any information in regard to the way in which certain mysterious powers are used be of any service to those who, not having developed these powers, are not in possession of them. The following remarks are therefore rather intended to show what Alchemy is not, than to show what it is; for like every term symbolising a spiritual truth, which ever fell into the hands of the vulgar, so this term has been “besmirched with mud and prostituted openly in the market place,”[16] so as to be now almost beyond recognition.

The ancient alchemists used a mysterious language when speaking about mysterious things, nor could any modern alchemist express in plain language things for which our language has no words and common minds no conception. Children often speak more wisely than they know, sages know what they speak, but the half learned speak without knowing. The child receiving gifts from its parents on Christmas eve believes that the Christ has sent these presents, but the grown-up and clever boy becomes sceptical and laughs at that story. In that opinion he may now continue all his life, or he may become still more clever and find that the Christ is divine love, from which the love of his parents originated, inducing them to bestow gifts, and that the story which he believed when a child, was true after all. In the same sense Alchemy is either a truth or a superstition; it merely depends on the definition we give to this term.

Professor Justus von Liebig says: “Alchemy was never anything different from Chemistry,” and to this we agree in so far as both deal with substantial things, having certain affinities, and not with anything existing outside of nature; but while ordinary (physical) chemistry employs merely physical (mechanical) forces for the purpose of composing and decomposing material substances without causing anything new to grow, Alchemy employs the power of life and uses animated forces, establishing conditions under which something visible may grow from something invisible, in the same sense as a tree grows from a seed in the alchemical laboratory of nature. Chemistry and Alchemy are therefore two aspects of one and the same science, the one is the lower, the other the higher part. The chemist who decomposes salt into Na and Cl, and recombines it into NaCl, practises chemistry; the gardener establishing in his hot house the conditions under which the seed of a plant of a lower type is made to develop into a plant of a higher type, and the schoolmaster who makes an intelligent being out of a dunce, are practicing Alchemy, because they produce something more noble than the materials employed, out of the latent potencies contained therein.

Without the alchemy of nature no “physiological chemistry” could take place; without the action of a universally existing life principle, no human form could grow out of an ovum or fœtus, no child develop into a man. The human stomach is an alchemical laboratory in which miracles are performed which no modern chemist can imitate by merely chemical means; milk and bread are transformed into blood and flesh within the living retort of the human body, and wonders performed which modern chemistry in spite of its progress cannot accomplish, because it does not control the organising power of life.

All that popular belief knows of ancient Alchemy is from the misunderstood writings of the ancients, who purposely wrote in a manner incomprehensible to the uninitiated, or from the writings of pretenders and frauds—for at that time there were as many selfish and ignorant people as there are to-day, wasting their time in useless efforts to apply a spiritual science to material purposes, and seeking to employ powers which they did not possess, in the hope of satisfying their curiosity and their greed. Of this kind of “Alchemy,” Paracelsus speaks with the greatest contempt.[17]

For the purpose of practising chemistry physical powers and scientific acquisitions are required; for the purpose of practising alchemy living spiritual powers and wisdom are necessary. Chemistry belongs to the terrestrial man, the higher aspect of Alchemy belongs to the spiritually regenerated man having passed through the MYSTIC DEATH into the resurrection of the true and immortal life.[18]

As there are three kingdoms in nature, intimately connected with each other, the kingdom of physical nature, the kingdom of the soul of the world (the astral plane), and the kingdom of the self-conscious spirit; so there are three aspects of Alchemy, intimately connected with each other, one belonging to the physical, the other to the astral, and the highest to the spiritual aspect of man. H. P. Blavatsky says:

“Everything which exists in the world around us is made up of three principles (substances) and four aspects. (The triple synthesis of the seven principles.) As Man is a complex unity, consisting of a body, a rational soul and an immortal spirit, so each object in nature possesses an objective exterior, a vital soul, and a divine spark which is purely spiritual and subjective. Thus, as with all natural objects, so every science has its three fundamental principles and may be applied through all three or by the use of one of them.”[19]

These three states of existence in the universe were called by the ancient alchemists the Three Substances, and symbolized as Salt, Sulphur, and Mercury.

With the same right as the modern chemist symbolizes his chemical substances by means of letters; such as O for oxygen, H for hydrogen, N for nitrogen, C for carbogen,[20] etc., which symbols are incomprehensible to those who do not know what they mean; the ancient alchemists expressed the nature of spiritual essences, powers and principles with which they dealt by certain alchemical signs, such as

for Salt, or the substantial principle in all things;

for Sulphur, or the energies contained therein; and for

Mercury, or the principle of intelligence latent in everything, whether manifested or not; but the living essences or states in the universe which become manifested upon these three planes they symbolized by the signs of the planets, as has already been specified above. These principles are eternal; but their manifestations differ according to the plane upon which they become manifest. Thus, for instance, love is eternal, manifesting itself in the kingdom of God as divine self-consciousness; upon the astral plane as affection, desire and passion; upon the physical plane as gravitation, attraction, chemical affinity, etc. The power is always the same; but its action appears different under different conditions.

“Above all a physician should know that man exists in three substances. That of which he is made has three aspects. Those three make up the whole man, and they are the man himself and he is they, and out of these three substances he receives all his good and evil concerning his physical body. Thus each thing exists in these three substances, and the three together constitute a body, and there is nothing added to it but the life. If you can see these true substances, you then have the eye by means of which a physician ought to be able to see. To see the exterior only is in the power of everybody; but to see within the interior and discover what is hidden, is an art that belongs to the physician.” (“Paramirum,” Lib. I. s.b.)

Those who have thus far followed our line of reasoning will now be ready to acknowledge that an understanding of this superior science, the acquisition of whose knowledge requires a life-time spent by a superior mind, and whose practice involves the evolution of superior faculties, is not to be obtained by a few hours’ perusal of a book on Alchemy, and that only those who are practical alchemists are entitled to judge it. Alchemy, far from being an “exploded humbug,” is in fact the noblest object for which all humanity and civilization strives. It is the realization of the highest ideal, a feat which cannot be accomplished by anything less than that ideal itself. H. P. Blavatsky says:—

“When there appeared on earth men endowed with a superior intelligence, they allowed this supreme power (the divine spark) to have full and uncontrolled action, and from it they learnt their first lessons. All that they had to do was to imitate it. But in order to reproduce the same effects by an effort of individual will, they were obliged to develop in their human constitution a (creative) power called Kriyasakti in occult phraseology.”

We should be extremely happy to make the acquaintance of a modern man of science who obeys divine law to such an extent as to let the power of God (the Holy Ghost) have full control over his thoughts, will, and desires. Such a person without selfish desires, without ambition or vanity, without any greed for money or fame, acting as an instrument of divine love, would be a rare specimen of humanity; but unfortunately such a saint and sage will hardly be found in our present generation; for a thousand links tie the human animal to the region of his desires, and how could he who is bound by a thousand chains to the Moon employ the energy of the Sun, whose influence he will not permit to enter his nature, and which therefore cannot nourish his body and grow into a power in him. Gold and silver may form an alloy; but they never become identical with each other. Thus their spiritual representatives, Divine Wisdom and the carnal intellect, will never be one and the same, although the light of wisdom will throw its reflection upon the terrestrial mind.

As stated before, there are three aspects of Alchemy:—

Terrestrial Alchemy. This in its lower aspect includes the whole science of chemistry with all the discoveries that may be made in the future. This alchemy still recognizes four elements[21], and the fifth, the one element, from which the four take their origin; in other words four states of matter and a fifth one (partly recognised by science); namely, the solid (substantial), liquid, fluidic, and ethereal state[22]. These are described as follows:—

a.

(Earth.) That which gives substantiality to all things, whether solid, liquid, gaseous, ethereal or spiritual. (Solidity or Stability.)

b.

(Water.) That state which moves and renders things liquid on either plane of existence. (Motion).

c.

(Air.) That which enables things to assume a gaseous form. (Extension.)

d.

(Fire.) That which endows them with force. (Energy.)

e.

(Ether.) This fifth element, in which the attributes of all the other states have their basis, will be the principal object for scientific research in the coming centuries, and is in fact the first and the one element.

These elements represent themselves as the Tattwas enumerated in the preceding chapter, and correspond to them as follows, if we adopt the above line of order:—

a. Prithivi. Solidity. (Earth.)

b. Apas. Movement. Bulk. (Water.)

c. Vayu. Extension. (Air.)

d. Taijas. Energy. Intensity. (Fire.)

e. Akâsa. The one Tattwa forming the basis of the rest. (Sound.)[23]

The limitation of space in these pages, no less than the insufficiency of our experience in regard to this subject, forbids us to enter into a closer investigation of the relations existing between this aspect of Alchemy and physical chemistry; but we have reason to affirm, that we are on the eve of great discoveries, which will to a certain extent revolutionize the popular chemistry of the present day.

Celestial Alchemy.—Even if it were within our power to describe the secrets of celestial alchemy, by means of which the universe was created and which includes the regeneration of man and the attainment of conscious immortality, and if this could be done publicly without profaning those mysteries, the explanation would probably be comprehensible only to those who, knowing it already, do not require it. Those who wish to investigate this subject for the love of wisdom will find the whole process fully described symbolically in “The Secret Symbols of the Rosicrucians of the 16th and 17th Century,”[24] a book easily comprehensible if studied by the light of wisdom, but unintelligible for the carnal mind, that sees all truths perverted. Some explanations have also been attempted in the book entitled “In the Pronaos of the Temple.”[25] We will only say that there the Three Substances appear as the Three Beginnings; the first manifestation of the Unity as a Trinity, and the Seven Tattwas as the seven primitive spirits,[26] or “living breaths” issuing from the bosom of Parabrahm.[27]

The Universe is the Macrocosm, and Man the Microcosm, and as the first great Cause is the creator of the world and the cause of all evolution, so is individual man the creator in his own interior and external world, capable of causing certain superior states in his mind by the power of his will in obedience to the law, and to create forms by means of his thoughts, while the condition of his interior state will in time produce corresponding effects and transmutation in his physical body. Well will it pay him to devote all his time to this practice of Alchemy and obtain the pure gold of wisdom from the inferior metals represented by his animal passions. These passions are the capital lent to him by nature to make them into “silver and gold,” while he lives upon this earth: they are the steps upon which he can climb up to immortality and find his own true divine Self.

To practise this kind of Alchemy he will require no books, no furnaces and no tools; for he is himself the alembic, the fire and the substance to be ennobled. There, in his silent laboratory and with doors closed against all vain and carnal desires and selfish thoughts, he may mortify his terrestrial nature by gaining the victory of self-control, so that his higher nature may become liberated from animal bonds by entering into the resurrection from the tomb of ignorance into the light of self-knowledge. To accomplish this he will have to purify his mind and let his soul become animated by the power of the spirit of truth; that which is inert in him must become sublimated in the fire of divine love, so as to rise to heaven in the shape of holy aspirations, while the smoke of sophistry, dogmatism, false science and self-righteousness must be permitted to pass out through the chimney, to return no more. In this way will he be able to find the way of combining

with

and thus to make it into substantial gold that will last through eternity.

The above will be sufficient to give a hint in regard to the character of Alchemy and its relation to chemistry. Between these two aspects there is a third one, namely, what may be called “Astral Alchemy.”

The Alchemy of the Astral Plane.—As the lower Alchemy requires for its practice the faculties of the physical body, and the celestial Alchemy the energy of the spirit having become a power in the body of man: so the practice of Alchemy in dealing with that which belongs to the astral plane requires the evolution of consciousness and perception in the astral organism of man; for in the majority of those who live on the physical plane, the astral form is as unconscious of its surroundings upon the plane to which it belongs, and as ignorant of their nature, as a babe is ignorant of the meanings of things in this world. It is, however, not our purpose to enter into this subject, as this would bring us into the almost inexhaustible realm of spiritism, hypnotism, witchcraft and sorcery: all of which things are superstitions if believed in by those who know nothing about their laws, but realities for those who know the laws by which such phenomena take place.[28] The key to the understanding of these phenomena is in the realization of the truth that the Universe is a manifestation of power upon the three planes of existence. The spiritual plane has its seven states of existence, representing self-conscious intelligent powers, thrones and dominions, angels and archangels, all of these being manifestations of the primordial cause called God. The physical plane has its seven states of existence, represented as powers in which consciousness is still latent. In the middle region, the astral plane, we also find again seven states of existence in the form of living forces attaining consciousness in the organization of man. There the “seven planets” manifest themselves either for good or for evil according to the nature of the person in whom they become manifest. Thus, for instance, that universal element which is symbolized as

will become manifested in man as universal love or as selfishness according to his condition. If

rules his

he will have self-control; but if his

rules his love, he will give way to his lusts. If the element of

in him rules his

, his intelligence will be of a terrestrial nature belonging to the spirit of the earth; but if his intelligence is master over his earthly elements, he will be capable of high aspirations. If the element of

rules his

, he will employ his intellect for the purpose of satisfying his greed, but if

is the master of his

he will be of a noble character.

All this is merely said to hint at the sublimity of alchemical science and call attention to the universal truth; that every principle, in whatever plane of existence it may exist, is not a product of the form in which it develops and manifests itself; but that the form is the field for its development and manifestation; in the same sense as the universal sunlight is not a product of the bodies upon which it shines, but the bodies are instruments for the development and manifestation of the qualities of light. Thus the life, consciousness, will, virtue, passion, or any other spiritual, emotional, or physical state of a man is not the product of his form, but a manifestation of a universal life principle becoming manifested in him according to the conditions presented by his constitution. Life is only one, manifesting itself in animals as animal life, in plants as vegetable life, etc. Consciousness is only one, manifesting itself as true self-consciousness in spiritual beings, and as instincts in the lower animal kingdom. Love is only one and universal, otherwise it could not manifest everywhere the same qualities; it does not belong to one individual or one country; it is born in heaven; but it becomes manifest upon the earth in men, animals, plants and minerals, under different aspects according to the conditions which it finds. Everything is a manifestation of one primordial Unity revealing itself in a threefold aspect. Man himself is nothing more than a manifestation of the universal power that called him into existence and built up his bodily form. He is not his body nor his mind; but the expression upon a lower plane of a higher individual state of being; one of the letters that constitute the great alphabet of humanity. Being continually deluded by the illusion caused by the apparent isolation of his form and its separation from other forms of existence, he imagines himself to be something essentially separated from other beings, and thus he forgets his own universal nature. Only when man begins to realise what he himself in reality is, can he begin to attain real knowledge in regard to three kingdoms of Nature. The object of science is said to be the recognition of truth, but it is also self-evident that no true science can exist as long as the truth is not recognised and even rejected; for nothing less than by the power of truth in man can the truth be known. No man can have self-knowledge of anything which is not within himself.

It will be clear that this subject is so vast as to render it impossible, in a work of this kind, to do more than merely skim over the surface, and a thousand things have to remain unsaid which ought to be explained; but it is not our purpose to enter into the details of the science of the Astronomy of Life or the Chemistry of Life, or to discuss at length the highest problems of Occult Philosophy. The object of the present work is merely to remove existing misconceptions, and to throw out seeds, which, if they fall upon a fruitful ground, will grow and bear fruits, such as ripen not in the outer shell of Nature, but within her inner temple, in the higher regions of thought.

IV. The Virtue of the Physician.

“Virtue” means power; it is said to be derived from vir, Man, and means manly power, efficacy, strength. Man being somewhat more than a physical body or an animal, it means a superior, spiritual, substantial power, such as becomes manifested as nobility of character, purity of heart, clearness of mind, strength of will, firmness of decision, quickness of perception, penetration of thought, benevolence, kindness, honesty, truthfulness, unselfishness, modesty. This virtue is something infinitely superior to the common “virtuosity,” which consists in an outward appearing of being virtuous and pious for fear of exposure and dread of criticism, and it is also infinitely superior to what is called “morality” by the moralists; a thing praised as the highest attainable object; but being in fact nothing more than a conforming to certain customs and views. There is not necessarily any self-sacrifice in practising morals, but it is more often a means for gratifying one’s vanity. The word “moral” comes from mores, manners. What is according to the manners and customs in one country, and therefore regarded as “moral” there, is immoral in another place where different manners exist. A morality without spirituality is of no real value. The same may be said of “ethics,” derived from ēthos, custom, and which seems to be one of the terms that have been invented for the purpose of creating confusion, and avoiding calling spiritual things by their right names.

The virtue which, according to Paracelsus, is the fourth pillar of the temple of Medicine, has nothing to do with shams; it means the power resulting from being a man in the true sense of this term and being in possession of not merely the theories regarding the treatment of Disease but of the power to cure them oneself.

There are at present thousands of medical practitioners, whose only merit is and ever will be, that they have succeeded in passing an examination and obtaining the title M.D.; but the title “doctor” means merely an academical degree; the diploma merely certifies that the examiners believe the student to have fulfilled all that the regulations require, and although such a title may involve the right to poison and kill without being punished for it, the conferring of such a degree does not constitute a physician. The true physician as well as the real priest is ordained by God. Paracelsus says in substance as follows:—

“He who can cure disease is a physician. Neither emperors nor popes, neither colleges nor high schools can create physicians. They can confer privileges and cause a person who is not a physician to appear as if he were one; they can give him permission to kill, but they cannot give him the power to cure; they cannot make him a real physician if he has not already been ordained by God. The true physician does not brag about his cleverness or praise his medicines or seek to monopolize the right of robbing the patient; for he knows that the work must praise the master, and not the master the work. There is a knowledge which is derived from man, and another knowledge which is derived from God through the light of nature. He who has not been born to be a physician will never succeed. A physician should be faithful and charitable. He who loves only himself and his own pocket will be of little benefit to the sick. Medicine is much more an art than a science. To know the experience of others is useful to a physician; but all the learning of books cannot make a man a physician, unless he is one by nature. Medical wisdom is only given by God.” (Comp. “Paragranum,” i. 4.)

This virtue which constitutes the true physician cannot be created by colleges, nor can it be conferred by anyone personally upon himself. No one can confer upon himself a thing which he does not possess, or without the aid of any higher influence make himself better than that which he is; because, as has been explained above, the power exercised by any form is not the creation of the form, but an eternal principle, entering into objective existence in forms and becoming manifested in and through them by its own power. Neither truth nor wisdom can be manufactured; they exist independently of all opinions, observations, speculation, and logic; they may be hidden from our sight like the sun on a rainy day; but as the sun is independent of our being aware of his presence, so the truth exists eternally whether or not it is acknowledged by us. If the whole generation of mankind at present walking this earth should turn into idiots, the truth would not therefore cease to be, but would become manifested again as wisdom in a more enlightened age.

Nothing can rise to heaven but what has descended from it, we can only by overcoming that which is false render ourselves receptive for that which is true. Eckhart says:—“Divine Wisdom is to God what the sunlight is to the sun; it is one with Him, a necessary activity, a never dying fountain, having its source in the heart of God.”

This brings us back again to a religious basis (if we are permitted to use this ill-treated and misunderstood term), and to the necessity that he who makes it his profession to employ the laws of nature and treat the body of man should know the position which man occupies in nature and the position which nature occupies in regard to the origin from which it originates.

This science requires not mere words, but self-knowledge. Wisdom can only be taught by Wisdom itself; but a science based upon a recognition of truth disperses the clouds which prevent the light of the truth from entering into the heart and becoming incorporated and manifested in man.

III.

THE FIVE CAUSES OF DISEASE.

If we inquire from modern medical science: What are the causes of diseases? we shall probably be answered:

1. Age. 2. Heredity. 3. Intermarriage. 4. Sex. 5. Temperament. 6. Climate and locality. 7. Town or country. 8. Hygienic conditions. 9. Occupation. 10. Air. 11. Previous disease. 12. Mental and moral conditions. 13. External physical conditions. 14. Poisons. 15. Temperature. 16. Diet. 17. Epidemic disease, contagion, malaria, parasites and growths.[29]

We will forbear to pass any remarks upon this classification of the causes of diseases, which merely enumerates certain conditions in which diseases may arise, and we will pass on to the classification of the causes of diseases given by Paracelsus; but as this subject has already received attention in a previously published work on the doctrines of Paracelsus[30], the following is intended merely to supply additional food for thought.

Paracelsus says:

“All diseases have a beginning in either of the three substances;[31] Salt, Sulphur, or Mercury; which means that they may take their origin either within the kingdom of matter, within the realm of the soul, or in the sphere of the spirit. If body, soul and mind are in perfect harmony with each other, no disharmony exists; but if a cause of discord arises in either one of these three planes, it communicates itself to the rest.”

Before proceeding further we will inquire about the nature of these three Substances:

Salt

, Sulphur

, and Mercury

, which may be translated as Matter, Energy and Intelligence. They are in fact not three essentially different things, but only three modes of activity of one and the same thing; for everything is substantial, each contains a latent or active force, in each is the potentiality of consciousness, if it has not already become manifested therein. Everything exists, therefore, by reason of these “three substances,” and if we for the sake of forming some idea of their nature look at the world as a manifestation of electricity (which must necessarily be substantial, as there could be no force without substance), we may compare them as follows:

to electric resistance.

to the tension of electromotive force.

to the intensity of the current.

No one would ever think of these three measures as being separate entities, which like “substance, energy and intelligence” are merely three aspects or conceptions of one universal life; but these distinctions are necessary for the purpose of forming a conception.

“Nothing can be thoroughly known without a knowledge of its beginning. Man is placed into three substances, in each of which he has a beginning; and each thing has its substance, its number and measure (constituting their harmony). From (the state of) these three substances originate all causes, origins, and also the understanding of diseases. These three substances, Sulphur, Mercurius, Sal, give to everything its corporeality, each substance having its own qualities. If these qualities are good (in harmony with each other) there will be no disease but if they enter into opposition to each other, disease (disharmony) will be the result. (Paracelsus, “Paramirum,” Lib. I., 1, 2, and 3).”

Within these three kingdoms disorders may arise from either of the following five causes of disease:

1. From the Ens astrale; namely from surrounding conditions in external nature.

2. From the Ens veneni; meaning from poisons and impurities.

3. From the Ens naturæ; including causes inherited from the parents.

4. From the Ens spirituale; especially those caused by an evil will or morbid imagination.

5. From the Ens Dei; to which belong the ills arising from evil Karma acquired during this or a previous incarnation; in other words, the result of divine justice.

We will now attempt to define the meaning of these five beginnings.

I.—Ens Astrale.[32]

Diseases arising from external influences; whether from physical nature or from deeper causes; the planet upon which we live being itself an astrum (star), having a physical and ethereal body, a life, a soul, a mind and a spirit.

“The stars on the sky do not form a man. Man grows out of two beginnings; the Ens seminis (the male sperm) and the Ens virtutis (the reincarnating spiritual monad). He has therefore two natures, a corporeal and a spiritual nature, and either of these two requires its digest (matrix and nutriment). As the womb of the mother is the world surrounding the child, from which the fœtus receives its nutriment, so is terrestrial nature from which the terrestrial body of man receives the influences acting in his organism. The Ens astrale is a thing which we do not see, but which contains us and everything that lives and has sensation. It is that which contains the air, and from which and in which live all the elements, and which we symbolize as M (Mysterium), (“Paramirum,” Lib. I.)

This Ens Astrorum is therefore evidently the Akâsa, which forms the basis of all material things in physical nature, and if the close relation between man’s physical nature and the physical nature surrounding him were better known, it would become more comprehensible how the states of the all-penetrating ether, changes in temperature, heat and cold, electric and magnetic conditions in nature, come to affect the physical nature of man, acting internally by inducing corresponding changes in his microcosm, even if he is protected against the direct action of rain, storm, moisture, cold, heat, etc., etc. A sudden change of conditions in the outside air can affect a patient imprisoned in a room where no such change is perceptible, and a cloudy day produce a melancholy effect even upon a blind person. There are no end of diseases which for want of a better explanation are attributed to “catching cold,” etc., while in fact it is the existence of certain conditions in the all-pervading ether, which induces similar conditions in the body of the patient. Thus, for instance, changes of the moon, or the position of the moon, or the magnetic currents of the earth, produce certain effects in certain persons, even if these persons know nothing about these laws, for it is a fact well known to the ancients, but which has almost been lost sight of by modern medicine, that man, apart from the order in which his organs are arranged, is essentially a counterpart of nature, an image of the world on a smaller scale, a microcosm within the macrocosm. An atmospheric pressure in outside nature produces an atmospheric pressure in him; if nature rejoices in the sunlight of spring, his heart rejoices with it; if storms rage on the outside, similar storms may be aroused in him, etc., etc. He is, in fact, only a laboratory in which the universal forces of nature are performing their work. To this chapter also belong all miasmas and contagious influences, with all the bacteriæ, microbes, amœbæ, bacilli, etc., etc., which are the pride of modern discoverers, but whose characteristics, if not the forms of their bodies, were well known to Paracelsus, who describes them under the names of Talpa, Matena, Tortilleos, Permates, etc. He says:

“God has caused living creatures to exist in all the elements, and there is nothing empty of life. That which becomes manifested in the visible kingdom has come into existence by being generated in the upper regions. Without such a generation above, it could not have become manifested below.” (“Lib. Meteorum,” I. 4.)

Since the modern discovery of the cholera, tubercle bacilli, and other micro-organisms spreading contagious diseases, it has been the opinion of many, that the presence of such microbes was the only and fundamental cause of such diseases; but still more recent investigations have shown such that the presence of these microbes does not constitute the whole cause; for they have been with impunity introduced into the human organism, and have also been found to exist in persons who had fully recovered from such a disease. This surely shows that there must be an influence causing the microbes to come into existence, after which they can spread and multiply if the conditions are favourable, and the fundamental cause of such epidemics is therefore not the presence of the microbes, this being merely a symptom, but the influences which cause them to come into existence, producing states of which the bodies of these organisms are a product and expression and which appears to proceed from causes situated deeper than visible physical nature, if we do not mistake the form for the “spirit” of which the form is the symbol.

“Human science knows how to philosophize about the things that come within its external observation; but Wisdom shows what is contained in the Prima Materia, which is a greater and higher knowledge than that of the Ultima Materia (the physical plane).” (“Meteorum,” I. 4.)

This “higher region,” from which such injurious influences originate, causing the growth of miasmas and microbes, is the “astral plane,” or the soul of the world, and as the evil states in the soul of the world are caused by the evil states of the human mind, it becomes comprehensible how epidemic diseases, pestilence and plague, no less than wars, are the ultimate results of disharmonies and depraved spiritual states in the soul of humanity. The greatest truth if seen through a perverted mind appears distorted as a caricature and superstition; it can be seen in its own light, only if properly understood.

The astral plane is the plane of desires, emotions, and passions; that is to say, the plane of those influences (forms of the universal will), which become manifested as desires, emotions, and passions in the animal organism, and if we were to enter this subject, it would bring us within the realm of the supersensual but nevertheless actual kingdom of living elemental powers belonging to the soul of the world. If our eyes were opened to the perception of thoughts, it would be seen how a continual thought-transference is taking place among individual minds, influencing and determining their actions, even if they are not aware of it, causing not only individual moral diseases, insanities, obsessions and crimes, but whole epidemics of such kinds. There is an immense field for investigation for the psychologist; not for that kind of “psychologists” who imagine that insanity is under all circumstances a disturbance of the functions of the brain from physical causes, but for those who can realise that the functions of the brain may be disturbed by the disordered action of the mind; for although in many cases of brain disease it is as difficult to determine whether the disorder of the mind or that of the brain existed first, as it would be to answer the question, which existed first, the hen or the egg? nevertheless a lesion of the tissues of the brain does not take place without a cause, and this cause in the majority of such cases comes from the sphere of the emotions and thoughts.

If there is no mind, there can be no mental disease. If mind is something (even if it were, as some imagine, the product of the physiological function of the brain), it must be something substantial, and being something substantial, it is able to produce substantial effects; moreover, its actions show a certain order and harmony, which go to prove that mind has an organisation. If this order and harmony be disturbed, discord, disease, insanity will be the result. Without the presence of mind nothing would come into existence; without the consciousness in the All, no brain would be able to manifest consciousness, and this is what Paracelsus means when he says:—

“Whatever exists upon this earth, also exists in the firmament (space). God does not make clothes for men, but he gives them a tailor. (Forms do not grow by accident; but they are the ultimate result of the action of the constructive power in nature.) The essence of things is hidden in space; existing invisibly in the firmament, and impressing itself upon material substances, when it becomes visible by entering within our sphere of perception.” (“Meteorum,” I. 4.)

Thus we have in the Ens Astrale a field in which exist the causes of numerous kinds of diseases; the thorough understanding of which requires a still deeper penetration into the secrets of nature and a higher conception of its constitution than is at present presented by the natural sciences of this day.

II.—Ens Veneni.

Diseases originating from poisonous actions and impurities in all three planes of existence.

Nothing is poisonous or impure if it stands by itself, only if two things whose natures are incompatible with each other come into contact, can a poisonous action take place or an impure condition be produced.

“Everything is in itself perfect and good. Only when it enters into relation with another thing does relative good and evil come into existence. If anything enters into the constitution of man, which is not in harmony with its elements, the one is to the other an impurity, and can become a poison.” (“Paramirum,” II. 1.)

There is no doubt that modern chemistry, physiology and pathology teach more than ancient science in regard to the chemical constitution, the physiological action of poisons and of the pathological effects which they produce in the animal body; but to explain the order in which a process takes place is not sufficient to explain why it takes place, and there is still a wide field open for investigation; for at present we can only record the fact that certain physical substances have a destructive action upon the human body; while the same substances with a little difference in the arrangements of their molecules, are not only not injurious, but even used as food;[33] that certain substances have a specific action upon the emotional nature in man, causing an inclination to certain states of his astral constitution, such as irritability of temper, anger, cupidity, etc., which they could not have if no corresponding elements were contained in them; while others have a specific action upon the mind, such as the fading of memory, paralysis of the will, excitement of the imagination, all of which they could not accomplish if no substantial mind principle existed in them.

To material science the universe is a product of mechanical force created by unconscious matter; to the idealist it is a dream which has nothing real in it; but seen with the eye of wisdom it is a manifestation of life, with the potentiality of consciousness contained in everything. Love and hate exist in minerals as they do in men, only in another state of consciousness, and a tragedy or comedy might be written in regard to their family history; describing, for instance, how the beautiful Princess Sodium fell in love and was married to a fiery youth called Oxygen, and how the happy union lasted until one day a jealous knight, named Chlorine, fell in love with her, and although he himself was married to a flighty woman whose name was Hydrogenia, he abducted the princess, and there was nothing left for poor Oxygen but to take the deserted woman and turn to water with her. Such a story would differ from a similar one enacted in human life only in so far as the actors in the latter would intelligently and consciously follow certain laws which are enacted without individual intelligence in the mineral kingdom. There is only one Consciousness and one law of Harmony in the world, and according to it accords and discords arise in all the three kingdoms of nature.

The influence of the light of the truth is a poison to the erroneous conceptions existing within the mind, and earthly thoughts are impurities to the mind that aspires to the kingdom of heaven. Evil desires create evil thoughts and give birth to evil acts; good acts procreate their species, giving rise to good thoughts and aspirations, from which good children are born. The sum of men’s individual desires constitutes the desires of the soul of the world; the sum of the thoughts and opinions of mankind constitutes the mental atmosphere by which the world in general, and each locality in particular, is surrounded; and the state of the mind ultimately expresses itself upon the outward plane of manifestation. It is not more difficult to poison a mind with impure thoughts than to poison a body with drugs. Impure is he who has many diverging desires, pure is the mind having only one will.

Popular medicine deals only with external effects and physical causes, occult science goes deeper, seeking for fundamental causes and final effects, which are of far greater importance than the passing manifestations taking place in the physical form. Thus, for instance, a promiscuous sexual intercourse not only causes venereal diseases; but as during that act a commingling of the inner natures takes place to a certain extent, a man cohabiting with a depraved woman takes on some of her characteristics and joins to a certain extent her future Karma and destiny to his own. The basis of the existence of human beings is what, for want of a better expression, has been called the Will (Spirit or Life), and as one body may colour or poison another, likewise a colouring, and perhaps poisoning, takes place by a blending of spirit during sexual intercourse; this “spiritual substance” being the essence of each human being.