"The spirits are the conductors of the magnetism, but they are neither celestial nor infernal spirits, but such as arise from man himself, as the fire does from the flint. A particle of the vital spirit assumes an ideal entity, a form, so to speak, according to the will of man. The spirit that before had been purer than ether, after taking on this form, is now placed between the material and the immaterial. It then takes the direction that the will imparts to it or whither the unerring knowledge innate to the soul sends it for action. Once started, that ideal entity is no more arrested by the barriers of space or time. But it is no demon, nor the action of a demon, but an entirely natural action of our own mind." Van Helmont holds the view that at the bottom of the magnetic virtue of the loadstone and the inanimate things generally there is a sensation, the cause of all sympathy. As the magnetic needle points to the pole, it must know the pole. But how could it know the pole, if it did not sense it. The same, if it turns to an iron-bar you approach, no longer minding the pole, it must neccessarily have sensed the iron before-hand. But the mere sensation would not be sufficient, if there were not the impulse of love also; the loadstone, therefore, must be endowed with a certain imagination. One imagination draws it to the iron, another to the poles; and yet another draws it when preventing a miscarriage, or healing catarrh or colic. The imagination of the amber attracts straw; combined with our mumia the amber draws more intensely than the loadstone draws to the other side, and thus becomes a "zenexton" (amulet). Ought we to wonder that inanimate things possess an imagination? Does not the Spirit of the Lord fill the whole Universe? "There are plants which, when eaten, produce mental derangements, not by destroying the brain or scattering its spirit, but because their foreign and mad imagination overpowers and subjugates ours, for a time or forever. Is not the hydrophobia transferred from the dog to a man? Is it not the raving phantasy imbedded in the saliva of that animal that soon triumphs over the blood after touching it, however slightly, through the open skin. Then the former imagination of all the blood gives way and the foreign hydrophobic imagination is irresistibly forced into it. The awakened and increased magic power of the dog gets the better over the quiet and slumbering imagination of the bitten animals. No animal therefore protects or defends itself against a mad dog; for he exercises a spell against which neither teeth nor horns can prevail. "In the external man then, as well as in the animate creatures around him, there is slumbering a magic force that can be aroused; yea in the whole Universe there is latent a spirit which we call the magnale magnum, and which is the communicator of the sympathetic and antipathetic phenomena and through which the magnetism acts, as through a vehicle, upon distant objects." He says at another place: "The medium of that hidden property by which things act and react upon each other at a distance is the magnale magnum, or great magnetic agent, but it is not a corporeal substance that can be condensed, measured or weighed; it is an ethereal spirit, pure, animate, pervading all things and moving the mass of the Universe. **** It has its like nowhere in Creation; it is no light, but a form married, so to speak, to the air as its helpmate, although not combined with its essence. By this form the influence of the stars is conducted everywhere in a moment, directly and through all obstacles. It expands by heat and contracts by cold. It is most excellent on the mountains." We have here another description, additional to those given some time ago in THE ESOTERIC, of the Astral Light, also called the Astral Fluid. "All Nature is magical, and there is no active force that is not called out magically by the imagination of its own form. *** A seed-grain in its first life nourishes; but when it loses that life its power of reproduction is developed. On the third plane is the magic force that proceeds from the imagintion of the life, the aggregate life, as in animals and the external man. This power is already much higher, but not the highest; although by much practice and strong imagination it can be brought to a high degree of perfection, where it imitates the true magic of the inner man as closely as possible. "Almost every magic power needs awakening. The lowest kind is aroused by heat, as a vapor or a spiritual air, in which the imagination, heretofore immersed in deep sleep, is awakened, and whereby a movement of the vital spirit is induced. The second magic virtue, i. e. the force of magnetism, is aroused by a preceeding touch. The virtue of the third degree, which is the magic power of the animals and the external man, is awakened by a vivid and strong imagination. But the virtue of the blood outside of its vessels, which is yet quiet, is stimulated by the increased imagination of the wound-salve or by subjecting the blood to putrefaction, by which the elements separate, whilst the essences (that do not putrify) as well as the essential imaginations that were latent in the qualities, are put into action. "In whatever objects the imagination is aroused to a strong desire for the spirit of another object, in order to move, draw, expel or repel something, there—and nowhere else - we recognize the magnetism as a natural magic virtue, vouchsafed by God. The "formal" quality is different from the sympathetic and latent qualities in this: the imagination which arouses the latter is not directed to local, but only to alterative motion, i.e. to motion producing a material change. Every magnetism therefore must be sympathetic (or antipathetic): but not all sympathy is magnetic. "It is now easy to understand that an imagination and magnetic desire inheres not only to the blood but also to all the fluids of the body. But in the blood the imagination acts more powerfully than in the other things. (Because it is so easily transferred, it often happens that the habits and other peculiarities of the grandfather reappear in the grandson.) "It is due to the action of the imagination of the blood that the blood caught with a spatula from a wound and mixed with the magnetic salve, reacts magnetically. The imagination, dormant and too inert for action before, is then aroused by the power of the magnetic salve; and finding there a balsamic and healing force, it desires to impart it to its whole i.e. to the body from which it comes, and to remove all foreign tincture by magnetism. The imagination of such blood is re-acting and ecstatic; and the magnetic current that commences in the blood is completed by the healing power of the salve. But the salve does not attract the noxious essence of the wound and so become a Box of Pandora, it only changes in its spirit the blood admixed to it, renders it wholesome and arouses its magnetism. The latter returns to its individual, there to heal in the whole man the bloodspirit akin to itself. It draws the noxious impression out of the wounded man and expels it by the healing power, victorious over the evil, which is partly aroused in the blood, partly ingested into it through the salve. ****" The above translation furnishes a specimen of the form in which the occultists of some hundred years ago expressed themselves with respect to the hidden powers and virtues in nature. But names, says Van Helmont, do not change the facts, and upon these the occultists of all ages agree. In the present time the phenomena of healing and other magic accomplishments are accounted for as produced by "sympathetic vibrations of the subtile substances comprised under the name of the Astral Fluid, and it is very probable that our century will see great discoveries by which these things will be drawn down from the metaphysical realm, to be handled by the men of so-called exact science. Regarding the source of the healing power in nature, the correct view seems to be this, that it resides in the "imagination" of either the remedy,-mineral, vegetable, animal, or the healer, the animal or spiritual man,- as in the different branches of magnetic and mental cure. C. W. THE SCIENCE OF UNDERSTANDING. BY WILLIAM COX. Thirteenth Paper:- The Counteracting Influence of One Sense Upon THE human mind is like the sea. All rivers run to the sea; it is moved upon and reached by highways of water. The mind, like the sea, is moved upon, fed and reached by the rivers of the senses, which are roadways of water: touch, taste, smell, sight, and hearing, are dependent for their normal or perfect action upon a watery condition; without water or moisture there can be no normal action, no health, no integrity of the senses. Sensations are passed to the brain by means of nervous fluids, and not by means of nervous solids. Taste is perfect only when the salivary glands are active, and the water-ducts of the mouth pour forth their liquids. The tongue of an invalid, parched by fever, with all the springs and fountains of the mouth dry, is devoid of the sense of taste. An animal with a dry nose is unable to smell the most pronounced odors. When the water is dried up in the eye, sight becomes dim, and in time disappears. Hearing depends upon moisture. The exquisitely formed bones of the ear are little water-hammers, and the music of sound is struck from a liquid anvil. All the roadways of the senses lead to the intellect by the way of water, as rivers run to the sea. Dryness and all diseased and abnormal conditions prevent clearness of mental perception. Excitement, sorrow, grief, despondency, or any unusual and disturbing influence upon the mind will produce nervous dryness, or heat, and the senses will be rendered imperfect and sometimes impotent. Mind and sense, or brain and nervous roadway, are inter-related and dependent, act and react one upon another, so that the health, vigor and perfection of either depends upon the harmony of all. Over the watery roadways of the senses the ships of sensation and thought are constantly passing and repassing, freighted with their cargoes of good or ill, strength or weakness, truth or error, joy or grief. The influence of the abuse of speech causes nervous dryness, partially paralysing the senses, and gives to the mind disturbed vision, producing pain, grief, melancholy, and even madness. These harmful conditions are often best counteracted by beautiful sights, or pleasant odors, which have a strong tendency to restore a normal nervous action, and ward off and prevent mental sadness or excitement. Mind is made sad or glad from without rather than from within. All corroding and parching influences therefore must be either avoided or counteracted, if peace is to sit serene upon the throne of the mental temple. The hot winds of passion, fear, or slander must not be permitted to blow along the rivers of the senses until they reach the garden of the mind, blighting and burning all the beautiful blossoms of thought. In a former paper was shown the result of the evil influence of the abuse of speech when entering into the seed sown in the soil of the mind, until from germination it finally develops, stage by stage, to the poisonous tree of suspicion and madness, which ends in physical death. This evil influence of the abuse of speech reaches the mind by means of sound, and its effect is often as sudden, surprising, and shocking, as a blow from the forked scimitar of the lightening. A short time since, a man was hurrying along a crowded thoroughfare, when suddenly and unexpectedly a caged parrot screamed. "Stop thief!" The sound, harsh in tone and cruel in meaning, swept like a hot wind along the nervous river of the sense of sound, breathing its blight upon the mind, exciting and distorting it, until the man, maddened by passion, turned like a fury upon the bird to destroy it. Thus a harsh sound disturbs and wounds the mind as if it had been struck with the sharp-edged sword, yet the man may have been guiltless of the crime screamed in his ears by the bird. The action of any one sense is counteracted by the action of other senses. If through the sense of sound an evil influence reaches the mind, it can be counteracted by the action of other senses; it may be counteracted by a good influence through the sense of sight, or smell, or both; and if both, the curative effect will be the more complete and healthful. A man had promised his wife numerous gifts. The anticipated joy of receiving the presents from his generous hand filled her with delight; the prospect of being able to give them caused the man equal pleasure. In an unfortunate speculation he became bankrupt, and his property passed into the hands of creditors. Penniless and powerless, with the thought of his promise knocking at the door of his soul, he became despondent, his tongue became parched, his stomach irregular and insufficient in action. The cloudy vapors of dyspepsia dulled the polished mirror of his mind. He saw nothing, felt nothing, believed nothing, clearly or rightly. Mentally abnormal and distorted, all things assumed a ghastly hue, or came to him in questionable or forbidding shapes. The bravery of health fled from him, and the cowardice of disease filled his mind with thought of self-destruction. Thus brooding, his ear was struck by the rushing waters, and as quick as thought he started across field and lane in the direction of the sounding water, intent upon suicide. As he neared the object of his flight, his eye rested upon a small white flower, beautiful as a ray of sunlight, with polished leaves as of pearl, and marvellous beauty of form. In all his life he had seen nothing like it. As if touched by the wand of magic, his mind grew clearer, a smile crept to his lips, and stooping he reached forth his hand to pluck the blossom. It required effort to pull it from the soil in which it grew, the stem was tough and he could not break it; still he pulled, and yielding at last he secured it; the roots were black and unsightly, nothing of the plant presented aught of loveliness save the fair flower upon the stem. "How like my intended rash act and my salvation from it, is this flower!" he said. "Into the soil of my mind the black roots of an evil purpose had stuck deep, the plant of crime was growing with the hard tough stem, and yet above the roots and upon the stem the sweet flower of goodness blossomed and only waited my gathering. Above the soil of evil the buds of goodness blossom, from the blackest, and filthiest soil spring sweet giving blossoms of fragrance. Growth arises from the tomb of decay. The white spotless E spiritu sanctu, or flower of the Holy Ghost, peeps from between the black jagged rocks of the awful chasm. Lilies, fairer than the light of dawn, lie upon the brackish waters of India's seas, and the Hindoo maiden plucks them, and decks her brow for the bridal." The man thus turned from his purpose of self-destruction, retraced his steps, and with his face turned towards home, and his soul joyful at his deliverance, he determined to go to his loved wife and confess his rashness and madness, entreat her forgiveness, and with reason and hope renewed, begin the battle of life again. Still gazing at the little flower and hastening homeward, he was startled by the cry of "Help! Help!" 66 Looking up he saw a man with a face of ghastly whiteness and eyes blazing with the fire of maddened passion, frantically rushing from a house; a frightened woman, screaming, clung with a death-like grip to his garments; after her, sobbing bitterly, came three or four wondering and fearstricken children. Help! Help!" screamed the woman. He who but a moment before had plucked the flower "safety" from the nettle "danger," ran to the fleeing man and, seizing him, placed the wondrous blossom beneath his nose. The frenzied man, checked by the unusual and unlooked for action, clutched the flower, gazed with admiration upon it, inhaled its perfume, sighed, smiled, and exclaimed, "My soul, this is good! where did you get it?" "Yonder in the field," was the answer; 66 near the brink of the precipice I plucked it: go there and seek, and you too may find the flower, to cheer, bless and save you." So saying he left the man, with wife and children clustered about, and hurriedly continued his steps homeward, with the wondrous blossom. On reaching home, his wife rushed to him and gasped "Oh husband, what is the matter? where have you been?" Evading the question, he showed her the pearly flower, told her of its talismanic power and its magic sweetness and soothing influence upon the soul when sad and hopeless, and of the beauty and efficacy of its brightness, bringing peace and gladness to the mind when the clouds of sorrow flit. Taking it from his hand and smelling of its rich subtle fragrance, the joyed wife asked the name of the singularly beautiful and strangely sweet flower. "I know not its name, I only know it as my salvation, and the dearest treasure, save you, dear wife, vouchsafed to me through all my life. You remember, after our marriage we placed a piece of our wedding-cake beneath our pillows on which we slept. We will to-night place the flower beneath us while we sleep, and in the morning let us say what dreams, if any, may have visited us." When morning came the wife said : "I saw in my dream a sweet face, with eyes of wondrous meaning, and from its mouth came a voice in stilly softness, beautiful, full of tenderness and assurance, saying, "Be of good cheer and guard the flower of all the blossoms in the garden of life; it is the sweetest and most comforting, a balm exhaling sorrows: keep it, treasure it; you may call it "Mollie. We will keep it in our home," replied |