The Way of Man by Henry T. Laurency
4. THE PHYSICAL BEING OF THE FIRST SELF
4. THE PHYSICAL BEING OF THE FIRST SELF
1As incarnated in the physical world, man has (like all organisms) two physical envelopes: the organism (49:5-7) and the etheric envelope (49:2-4). Both envelopes are dependent on the first triad physical atom, which provides them with the requisite functional energies. The physical atomic kind (49:1) is the basis of all six molecular kinds, composed of the atomic kind.
2Physical consciousness is the consciousness of the etheric envelope. It is objective and noticeable in the brain. It always makes itself felt in the organism with its etheric envelope just as emotional and mental consciousness in their respective envelopes. Therefore, the etheric envelope is the physical being.
3The terms “physical being”, “emotional being”, mental being”, “causal being” should not be confused with “physical self”, “emotional self”, “mental self”, “causal self”. By “physical being” etc. the envelopes, the matter aspect are intended. By “physical self” is intended the stage of consciousness development attained by the monad – the self.
4The organism is a mechanical robot without consciousness of its own. This becomes evident when the etheric envelope has left the organism, which then is totally unconscious. Also, “death” ensues only then. It is the etheric envelope of the organism that enables the organism to perceive.
5Bodily beauty has an attractive effect that most people “fall for”. Surprisingly, also many so-called esotericians seem to attach importance to the physical form. However, only the quality of the aggregate envelopes is essential. In those envelopes, the stage of development and the percentages of acquired qualities are seen by the knower. What is said here concerns things that no clairvoyants are able to ascertain. Etheric vision reveals defects of the organism.
6Being in incarnation, involved into an organism and thereby into an “animal body”, is for the self its most limited state of consciousness. No wonder that members of the planetary hierarchy face every such sacrifice with an attitude similar to horror. Then being forced to live together with those monstrous beings called human beings is approximately equivalent to a sentence that would relegate highly developed human beings to live with swine in a sty. The stench alone must seem unbearable.
7But experience teaches them also to feel the deepest compassion for human beings, who are at the most difficult stage of development. Also they are amazingly indulgent with human weaknesses. The only things they consider are the individual’s level and prospects of development. They know that the things that men pay regard to, concentrate on, and blame each other for, fall off of themselves when the individual reaches a higher level, and in many cases also under other conditions.
1The organism is a robot, directed by the energies of the etheric envelope which largely have an automatic effect and obey the impulses of emotional consciousness. In addition, the organism is controlled by energies from the causal, triad, and mental envelopes as well as by the stored energies in the three lowest physical molecular kinds (remnants from the previous solar system). It should also be noted that the energies from the envelopes are by nature determined by the envelope departments and the percentages of the various molecular kinds in the envelopes.
2The processes of the organism are largely controlled by etheric energies from the various centres (chakras) of the etheric envelope, energies that are still poorly adapted to their purpose. When these energies can be made to function properly, the organism will be a perfect automaton, “well” and unassailable by disease in any respect.
3Without its etheric envelope the organism is deprived of any kind of sense perception. Every cell of the organism is permeated and enclosed by etheric matter, has its own etheric envelope, which is connected to the network. The sense organs of the organism thus have their centres of perception located in the etheric envelope.
4The organism is in a certain respect similar to an accumulator that in daytime consumes stored-up energy and during sleep is charged again with etheric energies.
5Attention uses up much of the energy of the brain and other parts of the nervous system. If attention is directed to physical things only, then the brain does not receive that replenishment of energies which it receives directly from the causal envelope whenever attention is directed to mental interests.
6Where the three aspects are concerned, the heart represents the motion aspect with energy from the third triad, the brain the consciousness aspect with energy from the second triad, and the spleen the matter aspect with energy from the first triad. Vital energy works through the heart and the circulation of the blood; the consciousness energy, through the brain and nervous system.
7With the form of the human organism, biological evolution has reached its goal (the ideal of form). What remains is to refine the organism and, by using the energies of the etheric envelope, make it unassailable by disease. This also concerns the organisms of the vegetable and animal kingdoms. That work is one of the future tasks of mankind, because it falls wholly within the worlds of man and the pertaining problems are to be solved by mankind. And mankind will be able to solve them when it has mastered hylozoics, the only correct conception of reality in the three lowest atomic worlds (47–49).
1The etheric envelope consists of molecules belonging to the three etheric molecular kinds (49:2-4) held together electromagnetically.
2Etheric matter is dependent on the energies of all higher kinds of matter and is affected by them all in descending order. In the entire cosmos there is no kind of energy that does not appear in some manner in physical etheric matter and in the etheric envelope.
3In respect of energy, the etheric envelope is man’s most important envelope. This fact is understood only at the causal stage. Until then, this fact will at the utmost be a (not very plausible) hypothesis.
4The etheric envelope exists before the organism, which is constructed on the network of the etheric envelope and with etheric energies. Without an etheric envelope no organism can be formed. The quality and functionality of the organism depend on the etheric envelope.
5The organism and the etheric envelope function as one single envelope. The best, least misleading designation thus is “the organism with its etheric envelope”. Where the first self is concerned, the etheric envelope has no independent existence. It is functional as long as the organism subsists, and then it dissolves with the organism cell by cell. Essential selves and still higher selves are in a different condition. They are able to form their own etheric envelopes by means of the first triad physical atom. No man can do that.
6All matter is the carrier of energies, and the same is true of the matter of the etheric envelope. It is the energies that are essential, which fact is expressed in the esoteric saying “all is energy”. The basis is of less importance. Through the etheric envelope pour emotional, mental, causal and still higher energies. The energies are predominantly emotional in 85 to 90 per cent of mankind, mental in 10 to 15 per cent, and causal in less than one per cent. Since the emotional energies find their proper outlet through the solar plexus centre of the etheric envelope, it can be ascertained that the emotions rule; in exceptional people, these are the mentally activated emotions.
7The etheric envelope (49:2-4) normally belongs to the seventh department; and the organism (49:5-7), to the third department. The brain has in this respect a special position, since “the little grey cells”, the receivers of emotional and mental atoms, as a rule belong to the department assigned to the physical envelopes according to the horoscope laid down by the powers of destiny.
8So-called ectoplasm, which spiritualists experiment with, is a part of the matter of the etheric envelope that has been detached from the organism. The planetary hierarchy warns emphatically against all such experiments, since there is a very great risk that the medium inflicts incurable harm on himself.
1It is among the functions of the etheric envelope to form the organism, with its etheric energies (scaled-down energies from higher worlds) keep the organism alive and afford it the ability to move. All the organs of the organism are connected to centres in the etheric envelope.
2Everything in nature is kept alive by the energy vibrations of the etheric envelope. Etheric energies affect monads according to the levels they have reached in the different natural kingdoms. The consciousness content that is above the monad’s level passes it by unnoticed.
3The seed is enclosed by an etheric envelope, and thanks to this envelope the seed is able to grow. In the seed lies hid all the potentiality that is actualized in the plant, the animal, the man. It took a solar system of the first degree to produce seeds or eggs with this potentiality of seed or egg. The first “hen and egg” were the results of the first solar system.
4The etheric envelope makes physical perception and consciousness possible. In man, perception and conception are due to the ability of nervous cells to react to vibrations in the emotional and mental atomic and molecular kinds of cellular substance. Mere organic matter lacks the ability of perception. The fact that such ability exists in the organisms is due to the presence of etheric matter also in the lowest physical molecular kind (49:7).
5It depends on the quality of the etheric envelope how much of the energy from higher envelopes can penetrate down into the organism and the brain, how much of his latent qualities and abilities man can re-acquire. Then of course it also depends on the general circumstances of life and opportunities of re-acquisition. Therefore, many etheric possibilities are never realized.
1The etheric envelope is a network made up of countless threads of etheric matter. These threads (Sanskrit: nadis) consist of etheric molecules held together electromagnetically. The threads cross, and the crossings form so-called centres (Sanskrit: chakras = wheels). The more threads cross in the same place, the bigger is the centre formed.
2There are in all 7 main centres, 21 distributive centres, and 49 lesser centres. All these function as centres of reaction, reception, and distribution for etheric energies of countless kinds.
3There is a relation between the seven kinds of atomic matter of the solar system with their energies and consciousnesses and the seven main centres in the aggregate envelopes of man.
4The etheric envelope centres below the diaphragm are directed by the four higher physical kinds of matter (49:1-4) via the first triad physical atom. The centres above the diaphragm receive energies from worlds 43–46 via the second triad.
5The seven most important centres in man’s etheric envelope are very different in their development. Such differences are primarily due to the individual’s level of development.
6The three lower centres are largely active in all human beings. The four higher centres are activated according as the individual develops consciousness in ever higher emotional and mental molecular kinds. When he has reached organic maturity (at the age of 21 years), all centres are normally as active as they were in his last incarnation. Normally, also emotional and mental molecules in his brain would function as in his previous brain, if they had been brought into the brain through upbringing and education. At this age it is possible for the individual to have re-attained his true level and subsequently to continue his interrupted consciousness development.
7The wheels rotate in all human beings; the more rapidly the higher level of development the individual has reached. At higher stages the spokes are loosened from the rim, rise, being attached to the hub of the wheel, and rotate, they too, with ever increasing rapidity.
8At the stage of barbarism, the solar plexus centre (also called the navel centre) is the most active one. The eyebrow centre rotates very slowly. At the stage of civilization, the solar plexus, throat, and eyebrow centres are increasingly activated. At the stage of culture, the crown, eyebrow, throat, heart, and navel centres rotate with ever increasing rapidity. The more man develops, the more spokes are loosened and increase their rapidity. At the causal stage, all the wheels rotate with enormous speed, and all their spokes are loosened and in full action.
9The heart centre, which is in contact with the third triad, is the incomparably most important of all centres. It is in the heart centre that all threads converge that connect all man’s envelopes and triads. This thread of life (sutratma) is the central one in that network of threads and centres (chakras) that makes up the etheric envelope. One thread goes to the pineal gland, one to the spleen, one to the physical heart, one to the nervous system. The heart centre brings, through the blood, vital energies to all the cells of the organism. The blood corresponds to the sap of plants. “Blood is a peculiar sort of juice,” and this is the explanation. Thus there is nothing mysterious about the blood as Steiner imagined.
10The crown centre is connected with the second triad and the nervous system.
11All vital energies affecting the organism can be wrongly directed through erroneous meditation, and this is particularly true of the two most active centres in the average individual, the navel and sacral centres. There is always a risk of overstimulation with deplorable consequences for the emotional and physical envelopes.
1Mankind may know very little about the various energies of the etheric envelope, for these energies are the key to the ever-abused powers that are counted among the magical ones. In their naive faith in mankind, many occultists at the end of the 19th century had difficulty in understanding this restriction. The 20th century has perhaps made them see that very few individuals have attained the stage of culture and acquired the love of all living beings.
2Those who are told about that love generally confuse it with the prevalent injudicious sentimentality, which is devoid of common sense and has brought about so much misery. Men have still to learn that the higher emotional (attractive) qualities are nothing you simply possess merely because you imitate saints. Self-realization through service of mankind, evolution, and unity is required.
3It is only as a disciple of the planetary hierarchy that the individual receives real knowledge of the etheric envelope and its functions. Through the pertaining methods the disciple learns how to use certain radiatory and magnetic energies and to establish a direct connection between the etheric and causal envelopes.
4Just as all kinds of natural forms, not just organisms, are surrounded by etheric envelopes, so is this the case also with our planet. According to data from the planetary hierarchy, socalled atomic explosions have damaged that protective envelope of our planet. Science will eventually recognize this when it has discovered the existence of the etheric envelope. Warnings against atomic explosions have certainly been voiced, but the politicians thought they knew better. And mankind must take the consequence of these as well as other follies it thinks out.
1In the whole cosmos there is no material form that is not also a form of energy (ultimately a molecule or an atom). There is no energy without a material form. Or, to express the same thing in another way: Matter is always in motion. Energy follows all consciousness expressions. These basic facts have been very little studied. Not even the theosophists clarified them.
2All energy is originally primary or secondary matter. Primary energies convey mechanical functions; secondary, purposive functions. Mechanical energies are directed by beings in higher worlds and are so far purposive despite their fulfilling mechanical functions.
3The seven spirals of the atoms correspond in respect of consciousness and energy to the seven kinds of matter in each world. Of these seven spirals only the lower ones are selfactivated in the normal individual. The higher ones can be activated by energies from higher worlds.
4It is perhaps not a generally known fact that light is matter and sound is energy. The energies of higher worlds are not for human ears to hear.
5Louis de Broglie discovered that light is continuous as well as intermittent. That is correct. Like all kinds of energy light consists of currents of isolated and magnetically coherent material particles (atoms and molecules). Light does not move “forward”. It moves concentrically in waves in three (and more!) dimensions from a certain source.
6Beside light and heat we receive in the physical world from the sun the vitality globules that are necessary to organic life. These can easily be observed as tiny “golden eggs” in the intense sunlight of bright summer days. They do no penetrate the cloud-covers, and so a long absence of the sun entails the observed phenomenon of general “tiredness”. A surplus of these vitality globules can cause sunstroke.
1Magic is the knowledge of the molecular kinds of the etheric envelope and the kinds of energy pertaining to them, of the direction of these energies through mental consciousness, and of the systematic processes that are necessary to this.
2By affecting the material energies of the etheric envelope with mental energies you can have a sovereign control of the three lowest physical molecular kinds. Thereby you can dissolve as well as reshape also the most dense physical matter. This was the ability which the ancients called magic.
3(The “ancients” was the designation the initiates used of their order. In so doing they led the spies of the church on the wrong track, deluding them into believing that the fathers of the church were intended.)
4One quite understands that the knowledge of these matters is not given out to mankind until it has reached the stage of ideality; a mankind that has not become more stabilized in its higher emotional and mental consciousness than that can very swiftly sink down into the kinds of consciousness belonging to the stage of barbarism. One also understands why the planetary hierarchy is intent on not giving much information about the etheric envelope. It has had sufficient experience of the destiny of such knowledge in the hands of a mankind made up of potential bandits (the “unrepenting thief”, in the symbolism of the hierarchy). The knowledge of magic must be reserved for disciples of the planetary hierarchy who have renounced any kind of power for ever.
5Magic must be distinguished from the future scientific discoveries of physical etheric energies, which are exclusively physical applications. Magic is the control of physical energies by mental consciousness; quite another matter and a knowledge reserved for the second self.
1If “a higher being”, a second self, would consider it necessary to physicalize in order to contact an individual in the physical world, then it is sufficient that the first triad forms mental, emotional, and etheric envelopes, and the energies of the etheric envelope shape a visible physical envelope of the lower physical kinds of matter.
2This aggregate envelope, which both white and black magicians can shape out of lower molecular kinds (49:5-7), is so confusingly similar to an organism that only causal vision is able to tell the difference. Shaping as well as dissolution is the work of an instant.
1Of the energies of the etheric world we may know only what can be apprehended subjectively. Only those who have in physical incarnation acquired etheric vision are able to use that faculty, though they have no idea of etheric energies merely because of that. Only causal selves are able to ascertain the objective existence of the etheric world.
2Gnomes, trolls, brownies, dryads, naiads, tritons, sylphs, salamanders, etc., are physical etheric beings belonging to the deva evolution. Some of the names given them refer to the physical natural element they dwell in (earth, water, air, fire), irresponsible beings that develop through play. They shun men, those spiteful beings who destroy everything, also in nature.
3Day and night reign in the etheric world, too, but night does not exist in the higher worlds, just ever brighter light with every higher molecular kind.
1Consciousness is of two kinds: subjective and objective. Subjective consciousness expresses itself in man as perceptions in the etheric envelope, feelings in the emotional envelope, and thoughts in the mental envelope. At his present stage of development, the “normal individual” (the majority) in physical incarnation is objectively self-conscious only in the three lowest physical molecular kinds (49:5-7). In the three physical etheric molecular kinds (49:2-4) he is just subjectively conscious, which means that he apprehends these kinds of consciousness only as inner, subjective states. He is unaware of the energies streaming through the etheric envelope, perceiving them only when he has a surplus or a shortage of vitality but cannot determine to which kinds of physical matter they belong.
2Only the causal self is a perfect physical self, since he is both subjectively and objectively self-conscious in all physical molecular kinds (49:2-7).
3Organism and etheric envelope make up one unit, a physical unit. Likewise, consciousness in these envelopes makes up one unitary physical consciousness. Physical consciousness has reference only to objective, material physical reality and has nothing to do with anything emotional (sympathetic, attractive, etc.). Etheric vision is no “spiritual” vision but an expansion of the faculty of the eye, its perception of higher kinds of physical vibrations and thereby higher kinds of objective, material things, namely the material forms in the etheric molecular kinds. The various kinds of etheric vision are exact in their domains and enable man to do research in the physical world. Etheric vision makes mistakes as seldom as normal physical vision in the three lower molecular kinds.
4Thus physical etheric objective consciousness should not be confused with emotional objective consciousness (clairvoyance proper), which is able to perceive material forms in the emotional world by means of the emotional consciousness of the solar plexus centre but does not enable man to do research in the scientific sense.
5There are four different kinds of physical etheric objective consciousness, 49:1-4. There are already many people who have innate objective consciousness in the two lower etheric molecular kinds (49:4 and 49:3), and their numbers will gradually swell in the next few centuries. At the present stage of mankind’s development, the first self cannot acquire objective consciousness in either 49:2 or 49:1. Objective consciousness in 49:2 is acquired only by the causal self; and in 49:1, only by the essential self.
6According to esoterics, man has seven “senses” corresponding to the seven chief centres of the etheric envelope. Five of these centres correspond to the senses that man knows of: hearing (in molecular kind 49:5), touch (49:4), vision (49:3), taste (49:2), smell (49:1). The two last ones are unknown to science. Other senses discussed in physiology are of quite another category.
7The seven senses of esoterics are the basic ones and correspond to analogous centres of consciousness and activity in the emotional, mental, and causal envelopes.
1The normal individual is objectively conscious only in the three lower physical molecular kinds (49:5-7). This means that he can study the matter aspect in these states of aggregation. This also implies that higher material worlds do not exist for him, that he takes vibrations from those worlds to be only subjective perceptions in his organism, that he is ignorant of existence, that what philosophers and scientists assert about the reality they cannot study objectively remains fictionalism.
2Philosophers and scientists are physicalists and cannot solve superphysical problems. For too long they have been allowed to disorient seekers after the knowledge of reality.
3Since scientists do not have etheric, emotional, mental, and causal objective consciousness, they are unable to ascertain facts in those worlds. And since they refuse to have anything to do with things they cannot explore themselves, the consequence is that they do not consider the mental system of hylozoics with its description of reality, a description worked out by the then essential self Pythagoras.
4It is an old trick that the scientists use: denying the existence of what they cannot explain. The modern philosophers (semanticists) have apparently found that method worth adopting. Soon enough, both categories of “thinkers” will have agreed to discard all the reality concepts we have received from the planetary hierarchy through esoteric knowledge orders. Certainly philosophy has always been made up of imaginative speculations with arbitrary assumptions, but now philosophers speculate with mere negative statements. They should take care. They will experience many surprises. Many mental selves possessed of etheric objective consciousness will incarnate, and discoveries will be made (photographing the etheric envelope when it leaves the organism) that will make it clear to the rest of the world that philosophical speculation is fictionalism.
5Poul Bjerre, the Swedish pioneer of psychosynthesis, was one of the few scientists who not only realized but also pointed out that the belief of science that it can explore reality is absurd. His argument, in his book Rafst och rattarting, is in agreement with that of the esoterician. He pointed out that it was illusory to talk of “science as it now stands”. The more that is explored, the more problems are seen in constantly increasing, unsurveyable numbers. Presumably, more and more scientists realize this but are silent. They do not want to deprive the injudicious people of their belief in science. It is an evident fact that skepticism gains ground more and more, also in theology. According as reason develops, more and more people must realize that the dogmas are untenable, even when they have not increased their knowledge of reality, even when they have not attained a higher stage of development.
6Science has still not been able to explore more than three sevenths of the matter of the physical world. Science will never reach the physical atom, never be able to explore more than the two lower etheric molecular kinds (49:3,4). The hypotheses and theories of atomic researchers will never agree with reality unless they start from the esoteric descriptions of that reality. They will be forced to do so though probably not before 2025 when they must condescend to examine the matter with the aid of people having etheric vision. Medical science, researching the organism, and psychological science, researching consciousness in the organism, deal with functions that are automatized by etheric energies, but have no idea of the essential in this, namely the energies that have made it possible and still make it possible for organisms to exist.
7The theory of biological mutation, which superseded Spencer’s hypothesis of the hereditariness of acquired qualities and presented biological evolution as the product of chance, shows the limits of possible judgement for biology. Mutation is an effect of the organism’s adaptation to imperceptibly changing material conditions that affect latent qualities, and also an effect of slowly awakening consciousness; these being causes that biologists are unable to ascertain. There is another evolution than the biological one. That is the development of atomic consciousness, which esoterics alone can explain.
8The esotericians have five proofs that their system is in agreement with reality. In Laurency they are presented in The Knowledge of Reality. These proofs are for esotericians fully convincing, and more so than the philosophers’ and scientists’ “proofs” of such hypotheses and theories as are not exclusively based on facts that are physically ascertainable.
1In order to forestall a confusion of concepts, races (fourth and fifth root-race) and individuals should be distinguished. The fourth root-race is called the “emotional” and the fifth the “mental” root-race, notwithstanding the fact that many mental selves are incarnated into the fourth root-race and many emotional selves into the fifth root-race.
2The Negroes belong to the fourth root-race. Some occultists assert that they are of the third root-race, but they are wrong. The third root-race is made up of the pygmy races, etc., which, just as the anthropoid apes, will be extinct within ten thousand years.
3It should be pointed out that the first root-race was wholly etheric, developed simultaneously with plant-life on our planet, and preceded the development of animal life.
4The sixth sub-race of the fifth root-race is in formation. It will not be born on some certain continent, but individuals of it already exist in all civilized nations.
5The sixth root-race will “be born” from the sixth sub-race of the fifth root-race, not (as Leadbeater proclaimed) in seven hundred years hence but only in several thousand years.
1Heavy sleep is the sign that the emotional envelope (with higher envelopes) has left the organism with its etheric envelope. There are two outlets for the emotional envelope: the solar plexus centre in the case of spiritists and the crown centre in their case who are able to put themselves into what yogis call samadhi, the liberation from the physical envelopes. Where most people are concerned, the emotional envelope stays close to the organism in a kind of half-dreamy state. In the case of emotionally “awakened” people, it can move about freely in the emotional world.
2Certain individuals (so-called mediums) are able to lend their organisms with their etheric envelopes to other emotional selves, a frequent phenomenon in spiritist circles. These emotional selves (human beings in the emotional world) do not know more than what they have learnt in physical life and what they possibly have learnt from other people in the emotional world, and this fact should clarify the value of their communications.
3Dreams can be received from all man’s envelopes and they can have the most variegated causes. The theories of psychoanalysts about dreams are products of the ineradicable tendency of life ignorance to manufacture theories. Dreams can be due to phenomena in the organism, etheric envelope, emotional envelope, mental envelope, and the subconsciousness of the triad. Only causal selves are able to ascertain the cause in each particular case. The connection between the envelopes is not severed when the emotional envelope during sleep has left the organism.
1One of Augoeides’ many functions is to attach the heart centre of the emotional envelope to that of the etheric envelope at the moment of birth. The emotional envelope is by then already enclosed by the mental envelope and the incarnating part of the causal envelope (the triad envelope). The etheric envelope must be formed before the organism, for the organism is constructed on the energy threads (nadis) of the etheric envelope. From this it does not follow, however, that the growth of the foetus proceeds as intended. If the foetal development has not in all respects gone according to the law of reaping (the forces of nature do not always work as intended), then Augoeides may at birth refuse to attach the thread of life (sutratma) to the heart centre of the etheric envelope, and the child is still-born.
2There are still too few data from the planetary hierarchy on the genesis of the etheric envelope. We know that where individuals at higher stages are concerned the authorities of incarnation shape the etheric envelopes of those individuals carefully, with an especial view to the law of destiny (the individual’s consciousness development), and that the horoscope is established in all details. This does not apply for those at lower stages, however, who are to have all kinds of experience, which should imply that higher authorities are not concerned with either the etheric envelopes or the horoscopes of those individuals. A reasonable guess is that the individual’s Augoeides is trusted with those tasks. This problem is by no means unimportant; it is relevant in the discussion of abortion. There are indications of such cases where the organism is so misshapen that the individual cannot in any way learn from the incarnation. Such a case seems to implicate the right to spare the individual a meaningless incarnation.
3The present over-production of human foetuses has an undesirable effect. The atomic chain (the superphysical molecular kinds in the cells of the foetus) has the effect of attracting and often rousing monads that are slumbering in their causal envelopes, enticing them to incarnation, particularly such monads as have an instinctive desire to be physically conscious again. This has the result that those monads incarnate much earlier than otherwise would be the case. The choice of a foetus will then be a matter of chance and the result of the incarnation will not be what it could have been if Augoeides would have made his choice.
4All higher selves (also the highest, 43-selves) within the solar system can incarnate into an organism. It is only cosmic selves (42-selves and higher) who have an envelope of physical atomic matter as their lowest possible envelope.
1Against our modern enormous scientific authorities the esoterician maintains (vainly, of course) that science cannot decide when a man is truly dead. Still they do not seem to know that a man is not “dead” merely because he has ceased breathing and his heart has ceased beating. He is “dead” only when his etheric envelope has finally left the organism and the thread of life (the sutratma) has been severed, the thread connecting the heart centre of the etheric envelope with the heart centres of the higher envelopes. Then not even a cosmic self is able to resuscitate that man. But as long as the etheric envelope has not left the organism, man is fully aware of what is happening around him, for example, hears everything said, although he is unable to react in any way.
2The process of death is by no means the simple procedure that ignorance thinks, but instead a troublesome one. In addition it can be rather unpleasant, as appears from the instructions given to facilitate the separation from the two physical envelopes. It takes time before the centres of the etheric envelope have been freed from the attachment to the glandular system of the organism, the centres of the emotional envelope from the coalescence with those of the etheric envelope, and physical consciousness has ceased functioning. The only fully sure sign of death is that decomposition has begun. As a rule it takes twelve hours for the emotional envelope with higher envelopes to pull out the etheric envelope from the organism. In extreme cases it takes 36 hours or even longer. Suicides in particular may keep their etheric envelope in their organism up to a week and thus be aware of what is said of and done with them. Blavatsky warned the people around her in New York not to bury her even though she would appear dead for fourteen days. Her emotional envelope with higher envelopes were occupied with “other business” (interesting things for curiosity to fantasize about!).
3The only right personal attitude to one’s own transition from the physical to the emotional world is to look forward to the entry with joyous expectation. We are met by those who have truly loved us and whom we have longed to see again (except those who have already passed to the mental world).
1The esoterician is taught (often to his great surprise) that his physical life is the most important part of his incarnation.
2Man’s physical life is essential to the extent that the self is prepared for eventually understanding reality and the meaning of life, which first of all is a prerequisite of acquiring causal consciousness.
3Physical life is the only important life for the four lowest natural kingdoms. Only in the physical world do the pertaining individuals develop their consciousness. Only in the physical world is man (the normal individual) objectively conscious and can objectively study a part of physical reality. Only in the physical world is he able to liberate himself from the emotional illusions and mental fictions that he is dependent on in the emotional and mental worlds between incarnations. Only in the physical world can he acquire the qualities and abilities that are required for entering into the next higher kingdom, the fifth. There is no limit to man’s incarnations until he has succeeded in this. It is not a matter of “living his life over again”. He has in each new incarnation a new first self (a new triad envelope and new envelopes of incarnation), which does not know anything of any previous incarnation. He is as though he were quite another individual in each life.
4The periods of rest between incarnations are meant for man to renew his strength before his next incarnation. Consciousness life in the emotional and mental worlds is largely a working up of illusions and fictions that man imbibed during physical life. That life is from the viewpoint of knowledge on the whole worthless, but it affords to the self the possibility of further activation of molecular kinds in his envelopes already activated. You are in great error if you think that your incarnation is meant for amusements and a lazy life. When life is at its best, it is work and toil.
5Physical life is the essential life, since only in the physical world can all qualities and abilities be acquired, can man (thanks to his faculty of objective consciousness) liberate himself from emotional illusoriness and mental fictitiousness. However, if this work of development for some reason is impossible, then physical existence is without meaning for the monad.
6Therefore it is a serious mistake to strive after prolonging physical life under all circumstances, for example in the case of individuals in whom the connection between the crown centres of the envelopes is definitively severed and who as a consequence only can vegetate. Regrettably, men’s mistakes about laws of nature and laws of life often have such consequences that their development is obstructed or even stopped for some time. Overpopulation, resulting in hunger and wars, is just one example. Child mortality was the method of nature itself to preserve the balance and hinder overpopulation. With our technological and medical resources we have often suspended the balance of nature, and our civilization has often had a destructive effect.
7The only true hell is the physical world. It is in this world each individual must acquire all the necessary qualities and become his own “saviour” (from more incarnations). It is in this world that he must acquire causal consciousness and become a second self. It is in the physical world that “the kingdom of god” shall be realized. Therefore, the physical world is the incomparably most important world also for individuals of the fifth and sixth natural kingdoms. At each acquisition of consciousness in a new atomic kind all qualities must demonstrate their efficiency in physical matter. Therefore, at the ascension to a higher world physical incarnation is necessary. This does not at all mean that mankind may know about that incarnation. Anonymity is a protection against mankind at its present stage of development.
1The effects of the law of reaping in the esoterician’s physical life can result in handicaps: invalidity, disease, unreceptive brain, ugliness, destitution, a low social and cultural standard. In addition there can be uncongenial surroundings: parents, brothers and sisters, friends, social intercourse, teachers. But also in the directly opposite case, “favours”. Without a knowledge of reincarnation and of the law of sowing and reaping, these “iniquities of life” remain inexplicable. But we can never know how far back in past ages we contracted these handicaps or favours. We can only know that we must reap some time, last but not the least bad reaping, the final liquidation, as causal selves.
2It should also be observed that we can never cast the blame on our parents and heredity from them. We have the parents we must have for our reaping. It is stupid to say, “I haven’t asked to come here”. For that is precisely what you have done.
3Many kinds of disease, not least the ones that befall the nervous system, in “aspirants”(a common term for “seekers”) are due to the fact that increasing emotional and mental energies, pouring through the etheric envelope, do not get an outlet through the right centres and the glandular system of the organism. Thus disease need not be an indication of a bad sowing. (One more contribution to the correction of the general misconception of karma, or the law of reaping. Far from all cases of disease are self-caused. Man as a member of mankind must share the collective responsibility for collective mistakes as to laws of nature and laws of life.) When the esoteric knowledge some time has been generally accepted as a working hypothesis, the requisite facts about the envelope centres and the pertaining energies will be given out and many cases of disease will thereby be cured or prevented.
1In respect of their causes diseases can be divided into three categories: disease originating from the surrounding world or nature, from heredity, or from psychological factors. And all three ultimately depend on bad sowing, individual or collective (possibly planetary) sowing.
2Disease may originate from any one of many previous incarnations. The “germ of disease” has then been present in some one of the skandhas that accompany the triad through the incarnations, and has only now had the opportunity to be activated.
3The law of sowing and reaping (cause and effect) is a law working in the smallest details. Any measures of “rational management” of the organism which we omit by ignorance or indifference or inability will be imposed on us in some future incarnation, then demanding much greater care than was necessary before, greater because we can no longer do this automatically but must devote our conscious and methodical effort to this care and so remedy our omission. However, not all diseases and troubles are the outcome of a bad sowing in the past or of physical heredity. Much of it we have contracted through our unwise way of life in this incarnation.
4As men take care of their organisms it is small wonder that the physical so-called elemental (actually he is a physical etheric being since he belongs to evolution) detests that imbecile who has encroached on his domain and causes him so much additional trouble in his job to get it all to work properly.
5For the esoterician there is moreover his understanding of additional causes of disease. Thoughts are material things with energy, and energy is the cause of effects. Particularly efficient in this respect are such ideas as are in accord with reality, precisely the esoteric ideas. If their energies are not given a purposive outlet in expedient activity, then they can affect the organism with disease of various kinds.
6People who are at or near the stage of barbarism are generally much healthier than those who have emotional and mental problems. Emotional and mental energies influence the etheric envelope and thereby the organism and usually take the wrong course, which has a disturbing effect on the otherwise frictionless functions of the physical organism.
7The custom of burying human corpses with all their germs of disease, as well as the custom of manuring the earth with human excrements, has had the effect that the earth is thoroughly poisoned. Nowadays also the water is poisoned since faeces are flushed out into lakes. Plants assimilate germs of disease and pass them on, and fish as well. When, some time in the future, science has realized this fact, cremation will be made compulsory and human waste be neutralized in special factories. Cultivated earth with its germs of disease will be disinfected. Many hundreds of years later we may expect that the diseases brought to us through the vegetable life will be eradicated.
8“So thoroughly poisoned is mankind by the three basic diseases, cancer, syphilis, and tuberculosis (syphilis and tuberculosis existed already in Lemurians, the third root-race), that the basic cause of all disease is in these three latent tendencies in the organism.” (D.K.) This is of course a fact that science is totally unable to ascertain.
9There are among occultists so many false notions of the causes of organismal disease, of which kinds of higher selves are immune to disease, etc. Therefore, it should be pointed out that only essential selves are free from any kind of disease, though not causal selves.
10Esoteric therapy can be said to include homeopathy, light (colour), and sound therapy. All these methods are right in principle but are still at the experimental stage.
11Old so-called household remedies, which in olden days were used to cure all manner of disease and which have been preserved down the generations, most often consisted in using the medical resources of the vegetable kingdom. That knowledge originally came from the planetary hierarchy. It is once more repeated that all true knowledge is found in the planetary hierarchy and has reached mankind from there.
12Esoteric healing presupposes causal consciousness, which among other things also implies the ability to judge the nature of the disease, its location in the etheric envelope (which centres are engaged) and organism, the ability to judge what energies should be used, and the ability to follow the process of elimination.
13Esoteric healing should not be confused with the emotional fantasies of occultists. You cannot heal sick people through “intensive affirmation of divine power” or with “currents of love”.
14It is the energies of the second triad that, via the causal envelope, energize the three units of the first triad and “keep it all going”. If the second triad energies are not used expediently by the first triad, frictions arise which have the effect that the energy currents take the wrong course. Then the centres of the etheric envelope do not receive the right energies or any energies at all. Disease is the result when the organism cannot properly face “hostile” attacks from without but falls victim to them.
15Too little attention has been paid to the energies of the various envelopes and too much attention has been directed to the consciousness aspect alone. The energy aspect is at least equally important, however. Energies pour down into the lower envelopes from the higher ones and ultimately into the centres of the etheric envelope and into the blood, the nervous and glandular systems of the organism. It is in the centres of the etheric envelope that energies are divided for distribution. Until man is able to objectively observe and subjectively perceive these material energies, he will not be able to direct the energies purposively to their proper areas of activity, and so they often take the wrong course, which causes disease in the organism. The higher the level or the more vitalized departments in the envelopes, the stronger are the energies and the greater their effects. It has often been wondered why “highly developed individuals” must be afflicted with all manner of disease. They do not possess the knowledge of the energies and the insight of how to use the energies. The disciple is taught how to consume his mental and emotional energies in the right way and not through violent aspiration and activation draw down energies that he will not use rightly. The energies cannot be stored in the accumulators of the cells more than to a certain amount. The surplus seeks an outlet according to the law of least resistance and breaks through where it meets with the least resistance and where there are dispositions to weakness.
16Innate general weakness is due to some abnormal condition of the connection between the organism and the etheric envelope. It is the business of medical science to discover the etheric envelope, the etheric energies, and the connecting link between the etheric envelope and the organism. Judging by the apparently irremediable dogmatic adherence to erroneous old views, it will take some time before these discoveries are made. Doctors refuse to listen to esotericians, and the masses follow Science.
1The problem of diet is a problem that has many aspects. It is an individual problem, since no diet (not even a vegetarian diet) suits all. It is a collective problem for all mankind. Diet is not merely a physical and a nutritional problem. For disciples it is also a superphysical and a psychological problem, part of the question of how higher consciousness is activated. The problem of diet is still unsolved, and its solution must be the business of the science of the future. It is mainly a problem that human beings are able to solve and therefore must solve by experimenting.
2Nutritionists should already have ascertained that animal diet does not refine the organism, that we agree best with vegetarian food, that meat, fish, and eggs are not at all necessary for the individual, unless his digestive organs have been impaired through heredity or unsuitable food in childhood. The many cells that daily pass from the organism must be replaced with new ones. That is why a well rounded diet is necessary. You cannot feed only on fruits, for instance. One-sided diet entails deficiency diseases.
3Salt and sugar should be avoided, particularly salt, as it gives rise to various depository diseases in the organism (renal and biliary calculi, rheumatism of various kinds). Common salt (sodium chloride) is totally worthless as food-stuff, is even harmful as it expels essential nutritive salts. Salt is useful only for purposes of preservation to counteract the corruption of food (meat, etc.). Sugar affects the skeleton, especially the teeth, disposes for bone fractures, etc. Anyone who wants to look after his health should study nutrition, not all manner of “good advice” in cookery books., etc.
4The problem of right diet has always been a problem for aspirants to discipleship. D.K. considers that this problem takes up too much attention and hinders anyone who is serious about his life from thinking of more important things. It is quite another matter that meat is forbidden for disciples. But most disciples probably have many incarnations left before that problem comes to the fore. One thing is certain. It is infinitely more important to acquire good qualities than to become a vegetarian. Vegetarianism is no merit in itself nor anything that the esoteric teacher considers when choosing a disciple.
5D.K. gives to the esoterician the following list of recommended food: milk, honey, whole wheat bread (“Graham”), all kinds of vegetables that have grown in sunshine, fruit (especially oranges), bananas, nuts, unpolished rice, potatoes.
6The problem of diet also has aspects that are beyond the resources of mankind to ascertain. These include problems belonging under the law of reaping, the law of activation, and the law of self-realization.
7In the childhood of mankind men were defenceless victims of wild beasts. According to the law of reaping the animal kingdom thereby contracted a collective debt to the human kingdom. By eating meat mankind unwittingly contributes to settling the debt of the animal kingdom. That this still goes on is due to the fact that the loss of human lives during millions of years amounted to astronomical figures and that a causal envelope equals a whole animal group-soul. When the debt will some time be settled, meat-eating will cease by itself and man’s food will be entirely vegetarian. Until then, everybody should eat what suits him best. Meat-eaters thus do not incur any “liability”.
8It is quite another problem that meat coarsens the organism: makes it susceptible of lower vibrations. Anyone who wants to refine his organism in order to make it more receptive to higher kinds of energies therefore should keep to a strict vegetarian diet. Of course this facilitates self-realization with all its implications for acquisition of consciousness in ever higher kinds of consciousness.
9When a man becomes a vegetarian, his organism begins to be “regenerated”. The old cells, “poisoned” by meat, fish, tobacco, alcohol, etc., are replaced with new ones, which are extremely sensitive to the old diet and irritated by it, which can give rise to new diseases. Even eggs should be avoided by people who are not fully healthy.
10People have wondered why Blavatsky ate meat. If you have once acquired higher atomic consciousness, your diet no longer influences your receptivity to higher energies. The organism she had inherited required an animal diet.
1The matters of the etheric envelope are closely related to what we call electricity.
2Homeopathic medicines have effect upon the etheric envelope, activating the corresponding etheric energies, thus indirectly the organism. Until the existence of the etheric envelope has been recognized, the dogmatic medical mentality will go on rejecting these the only right medicines.
3Only this discovery is not sufficient, however. Another one is also necessary, and that is the discovery of the motion aspect of existence, the esoteric teaching of the energies and the energy resources of the various molecular kinds, a problem of which science knows nothing.
4A ponderable dose of arsenic affects the organism. But an imponderable and chemically unobservable dose beginning with one millionth part of a gram, D6, has an effect on the etheric envelope. The higher the potency, the stronger the effect. Generally, higher potencies than that of one hundred thousand are not produced. Formerly, however, there were those who manufactured the million potency and asserted that its effect was the strongest one (very probable, since the higher vibrations or frequencies of the etheric envelope are inconceivable to us).
5The skin is pervaded by nervous fibres that conduct electricity. When coming into contact with the skin, homeopathic medicines can be discharged as can suddenly happen with electric batteries in the corresponding case.
6A higher potency is produced from a lower one through a long shaking (preferably by means of an electric shaking machine). For instance, you put a heaped spoonful of D6 pills along with pure sugar pills into a 100 gram bottle so that you fill it to two thirds. Then you add a teaspoonful of pure spirits and shake the bottle. After about half an hour the bottle will contain D7 pills, which will be processed in the same manner to obtain D8 pills, etc., in infinitum. The same bottle must not be used for the manufacturing of different potencies. It is unavoidable that science regards the whole procedure as superstition and humbug. Science will understand it only when it is able to ascertain the existence of the etheric envelope and the transference of latent energy.
Endnote by the translator into English
4.17.4 “When life is at its best, it is work and toil.” The Bible, Psalms, 90:10. This is the traditional Swedish rendering of this well-known passage.
The above text constitutes the essay The Physical Being of the First Self by Henry T. Laurency. The essay is part of the book The Way of Man by Henry T. Laurency. Copyright © 1999 by the Henry T. Laurency Publishing Foundation.