Masonic, Occult and Esoteric Online Library
Septenary Man
By J.A. Anderson
The Body
THE BODY, or the tabernacle of the clay in which man's soul ^-^ dwells, is the first or the seventh, accordingly as numbered, of the seven Principles or aspects of consciousness into which Theosophy divides the human constitution. Pes office is to relate man's center of consciousness or soul to matter in a condition of molecular activity, or to that rate of vibration which constitutes the fourth Round. Upon this earth, or Globe "D" of theosophic nomenclature, this molecular Round represents the very apotheosis of impermanency of states of consciousness as well as of form. During its cycle, change follows upon change with an almost infi- nite rapidity; integration and disintegration succeed each other with the swiftness of thought, and effect treads upon the heels of cause with a celerity impossible upon higher planes of being and in more stable states of matter. Consequently, the soul has here its greatest opportunities for setting up causes, either good or evil, and for quickly experiencing their effects, and hence of rapidly acquiring knowledge and wisdom.
Therefore, this molecular plane has been rightly termed the great schoolhouse of the soul. As we shall see in the proper connection, the true soul of man is out of all harmonic relation with molecular consciousness. In order, then, that it may reach this, it becomes necessary for it to approach it by utilizing specially prepared molecular avenues. It therefore constructs for itself a body composed of molecules capable of receiving the impressions caused by the contact of other molecules and the molecular forces having here their normal field of activity, and in this manner assimilates molecular consciousness. This is the sole office of the body as such—to bring the soul within the area of molecular activities ; to cause it to become sensitive to, or conscious of, molecular vibrations. It is not the seat /t/ of sensation understanding by sensation the impressions that the soul receives from the senses, or the experience it gets through hearing, seeing, smelling, tasting, and touching or contact.
None of these are located in the physical body, but in an inner or astral one, which will be the subject of the next chapter. That the senses are not seated in the body, is capable of demonstration in many ways, chief among which are the phenomena of hypnotism. In this state it is possible for the will of the hypnotizer to interpose between the subject and his senses, and to inhibit the hearing, seeing, tasting, feeling, or smelling of the latter at will. Thus one, yielding to the hypnotic trance, can be madeto taste water as vinegar, vinegar as water, quinine as sugar, andvice versa; or, in the case of sight, made to see, or prevented from seeing, anything the hypnotizer wills. For example: If forbidden to see a certain person while permitted to see his hat, the result is that the hat is seen floating about in the air, while the subject is quite unconscious of the fact that there is a man wearing it. If the senses were in the body this phenomenon would be impossible, for after the impact of the vibrations of light they would betransferred along the molecules of the optic nerve and impingeupon and set up motion in the molecules of the physical brain, and the will of another—or even of one's self—could not prevent,once it formed upon the retina, the picture of the complete man,hat and all, being transmitted to the brain and there recorded as a conscious experience, if the senses really were in the physicalmolecules of the brain. A physical sequence of a physical eye, aphysical optic nerve, and physical molecules of the brain, cannotbe interrupted except by physical means.
Therefore, when anoutside will interposes between the power of sight, hearing, oreither of the senses, and their objects, it is evident that the centers of sensation are not in the mftlecules of man's physical brain, but must lie more deeply within his being. It will be seen, also, that herein is one of the proofs of the existence of the soul. The human body, then, is built up of countless hosts of molecules synthesized into cells by units of consciousness having their normal existence upon the molecular plane. These latter derive their energy and vitality from those which the " Secret Doctrine" terms " fiery lives"—that is to say, from the almost homogeneous, electrical " world stuff" which represents the dawn of cosmic dif- ferentiation, and whose center of energy is the sun. The infi- nitely active energies of these fiery lives, radiating as that which we recognize as light, heat, electricity, vital force, etc., are inter- cepted and directed or synthesized in order to construct molecular bodies by units of consciousness descending to the molecular plane. The action is similar to that of the millwright who takes advantage of the flowing stream of water to direct it through his turbine wheels to move his machinery. Or it may be, rather, more like the action of the farmer who takes advantage of the generative forces of springtime to sow the seed for his future crops. Force so intercepted and utilized becomes the so-called " latent" energies.
All latent energy is but the restricting of the original fire-mist rate of vibration within molecular limits. In the mineral kingdom, this latency may persist for an entire globe Round,* and in the vegetable kingdom, even, during those enor- mous periods represented in such examples as the giant sequoia of California, which botanists assert were living in the (supposed) days of Solomon. But in the animal and human-animal kingdoms the life cycles of entities are shorter; and, while the force of the downward cycle of a reembodying entity is sufficient to control into an orderly sequence the action of the fiery lives, yet, when that cycle begins to wane, the force relaxes, and, from being " builders," these now become "destroyers"; and their energies, no longer controlled by the" elemental"! which synthesizes the human body, are seized upon by the numberless parasites, or " microbes," which infest it, and utilized to finally break up the form which the same energies originally constructed. Except for this action, nature would be but one vast cemetery of "dead" forms, awaiting the termination of the Round. The fact that man is the microcosm of the macrocosm is illus- trated in the progressive steps of his reembodiment.
These show that there are within his being, either actually or potentially, all states of consciousness, all modes of motion, and all the conditions of matter in the universe about him. As the pranic vibration of the fiery lives descends to successive planes, innumerable entities which have been associated with man in past lives awaken to re- newed activity and life. It is the enforced attendance of these entities which constitutes man the microcosm of the macrocosm, and his cycles of objective and subjective life are their relative manvantaras* and pralayas. For, just as a world comes into being out of fire-mist, and descends through all the differing states of matter until it reaches its lowest point in the rocks, and then re- ascends the evolutionary cycle until it loses all form at the cul- mination of the spiritual portion of its arc, carrying in both its upward and downward sweep hosts of entities synthesized by its great Rector, so is the body of man formed by, and the incarnation of, associated entities, with whose evolution he is also especially connected as their chief, or Rector. As the energy of these fiery lives passes downward through ethereal and astral into molecular matter, at each plane the awakened entities clothe themselves with its "matter," until at length they reach the physical, and their reincarnation is accomplished.
Chief of these, and synthesizer of each human body, is that which is known as a " human"elemental. The return of this elemental to incarnation necessitates and involves the construction of the outer, physical form in its entirety, as it is the chief Rector of the body as such, and stands in relation to the true man, or reincarnating ego, much as doesthe Rector of the earth to the Rectors of the "divine" planets. For, as the " Secret Doctrine" states, " The Lha which turns the Fourth is servant to the Lhas of the Seven." And although un- doubtedly the next manvantaric step forward of the process of evolution will bring this entity upon the human plane, at present it is but a single step in advance of other and similar elementals which synthesize the bodies of the animals in the next kingdom below. Some of the higher of these would appear to be at present more fitted to step upward to the human-elemental plane than are those in human form fitted to pass on into completed human beings—so greatly have we failed in our duty of controlling and spiritualizing these our turbulent associates.
Thus, at each step in the process of reincarnating, the human soul is related successively to more and more material "bodies," until these culminate in the grossly physical encasement in which it dwells while in molecular environments. Nature eternally re- peats her processes; and so man, in reincarnating, returns with the " matter," similar to that of Globe D of the first Round as his first " body "; for in each Round all bodies must correspond to and be composed of the "matter" of each particular globe of that Round. Thus his bodies, during the entire first Round, were " fiery"—built up of the very essence of these fiery lives;—and, although these descended through four globes, or increasingly material states, yet Globe " D" only represented the shadowy prototype of its gross materiality in this Round; so that man's body may be fairly classed as " fiery" throughout, so much did this ele- ment predominate.
During the next Round it was, let us say, ethereal, and in the next astral, while in this it is molecular or physical. Each of these Rounds lasts, as we have seen, for almost unthinkable periods; and, as the story of man's physical evolution is completely repeated in his intra-uterine life, so is the entire his- tory of his conscious evolution throughout all Rounds repeated swiftly at each incarnation during this Round. In the descending arc, or the first half of the manvantara of seven Rounds, man is simply entangled in matter. The vibration which changes at the end of each of these, under the will of great creative Dhyan Chohans, necessitates his change of vestment independent of his own volition. But in the ascending arc he will have—must have—rewon his divinity, and must take a conscious part in the controlling and molding of not only his physical habitation but his physical environments—his planet. Similarly, at present his re- incarnating takes place without his self-conscious volition, but the time must speedily come when he must choose. His devachanic* body, then, corresponds to that of the first Round, and as he descends to earth for another life the body of each succeeding Round will be reconstructed and reoccupied, however briefly, until at his completed reincarnation he finds himself in his present physical habitation.
The correspondence of man's cycles of objective and (relatively) subjective life to manvantarasf and pralayas will now be apparent. When " death" occurs, it disembodies all the hosts of entities incarnated in his physical body, and brings upon them an enforced pralaya, or rest. With certain of these, the pralaya must persist until he reincarnates again, for they are karmically bound to one microcosm alone. Others of a lower order seek other bodies at once, even though they may be reattracted to the same ego at a subsequent incarnation. At any rate, the so-called " death" process sweeps inward until the hour strikes for each entity associ- ated with any microcosm, or body. When the time comes for reincarnation, the ego sweeps downward, awakening from this their pralaya all the numberless hierarchies of lower entities which are to ensoul the " matter" of his body. Descending from fiery matter, these, as we have seen, build for themselves, utilizing the energy of the fiery lives, the ethereal and then the astral forms of former Rounds, and at length reach the physical plane. Here certain entities incarnate as molecules, and, of these, entities a little higher construct cells. Each cell of the human body is a distinct entity, as even science admits. Entities, still higher, synthesize these cells into organs; and finally the human-elemental the highest of all, and the next to reach the human stage—synthesizes the whole of the body into an avenue fit for the soul to use in its approach to this world.
Man's body, physically, differs in no wise from those of the animals. Each of these has its dis tinct center of consciousness; and this center, or " soul" of the animal, synthesizes in many instances a body just as complex as is the body of man, and which is, in certain directions, more perfect than his. The great distinction is that in the animal body is an animal " elemental," or one an entire manvantara* behind the human, while in the human body is a " human-elemental," progressed a manvantara farther. The animal elemental—with the exception of certain apes—will not be ready to pass into the human stage for two manvantaras; the human elemental can do so in the next. The consciousness of the body is _b_elow the plane of self-con- sciousness. As self-consciousness marks the impress of a human soul, and as the consciousness of the body is composed of these innumerable elemental centers of synthesizing consciousness not yet having reached the human stage, it must therefore be below the self-conscious plane. This is the true reason why we are not conscious of the functions of digestion, of waste and repair, growth, and such things. All are done under the supervision of the ele- mentals in our bodies, and we know nothing of them unless they become abnormal in their action, and even then our conscious- ness of them is faint and often quite absent. But it is perfectly possible, as the microcosm of the macrocosm, for man to transfer his consciousness to these cells; and instances of his doing so, and thus controlling them, are to be found in those Indian Yogis who pierce their flesh with knife-thrusts which immediately heal, etc. Likewise, Christian Scientists at times cure diseases by centering, and—as most Theosophists believe—degrading, the higher, divine consciousness into the performance of purely physical functions which are the normal duties of entities far below the human plane. Disease can often be cured when the will is suffi- ciently developed by thus transferring the divine, creative consciousness to the physical plane; but the process is in the highest degree abnormal, and must react injuriously in this or succeeding incarnations.
The process of so-called death may be more specifically described thus: When the "hour" strikes, death begins with the body, and as the soul casts off" its successive vestments, it may be said to pass through several. The first of these frees it from the physical cells and the lowest astral body, or Linga Sharira. It now clothes itself for a more or less extended period with a higher astral form, known as the Body of Desires, or Kama Rupa. This after a time it abandons, and remains clothed with its devachanic body until the time comes for it to reincarnate. Another death consists in its reincarnation, or birth here into material existence. These successive deaths are referred to in many scriptures. Even in the Christian Bible we are taught to beware of the "second death," meaning death upon the astral plane. It refers to the possibility of the loss of the human soul through getting enmeshed in the lower Principles, or Quaternary, which nor- mally perish after the death of the body (to be discussed later on).
The dissolution of the body is brought about by other and for- eign "lives," or "microbes," when the " fiery lives" abandon it. Our bodies, in common with those of all organized beings, are in- fested with parasites, both within and without, which are capable of destroying, and will destroy it, after the fiery lives, and with them its "vitality," have departed. But this destruction is the work of parasites. It has been stated in theosophical writings that man is built up of" microbes." Here we must avoid confusing the general use of the word "microbe," from micro (small), and bios (life), with its technical use in biology and other sciences. In the " Secret Doctrine" it is used in its general sense of "little lives," and we are specially warned against the very confusion which has arisen by the statement that the smallest microbe known to science is as an elephant to a flea compared with these. The microbes of science are all parasites, and abnormal occupants of the human body. This is built up of cells, and cells are not microbes in the scientific use of the term. The success of embalming and preserving mummies depends upon the destruction of these parasites which infest the human body. Their thorough destruction after death will preserve it through countless ages.
There was, some time since, the body of an elephant washed out of an ice floe in Russia, which must have been there since the gla cial period, and yet the flesh was found untouched by decomposition. Mummies, buried from three to five thousand years since, have portions of the body just as well preserved as though they had been buried only yesterday. Mummification really consists in the destruction of the numerous parasites which infest the human body, and its protection from subsequent invasion by others. Even in life, when the vitality is lowered, these parasites begin to attack the tissues, and multiply at such a rate that they soon trans- form certain portions of the body into a mass of disease, in which the microbes (parasites) run riot, and cause the dissolution of the whole body unless they are controlled. The death of the body, then, is brought about by the withdrawal from it of the "fiery lives," and its disintegration—quite another thing—through the agency of the microbes which live upon us, and whose attacks we resist during life, because the vitality of the cells, resulting from the presence of the fiery lives, keeps them at bay. Whence come our bodies physically? Up and through the ani- mal kingdom, undoubtedly, but not from the present animals nor from a common ancestor, even. It is evident that, as the " Secret Doctrine" states, physical man leads the animal kingdom in this Round, for if animals preceded him they ought to be further progressed in evolution than he.
The fact that he is farther advanced plainly shows that he came upon this world first, allowing, as we must, common and mutual evolutionary forces afterwards. The «' Secret Doctrine," indeed, teaches that he descended from an apelike ancestor; but that ancestor was an astral one, and belonged to the third Round, or that which preceded this.* The centers of consciousness of our physical bodies, known as Lunar Pitris, arrived at the "human-elemental" stage, upon the moon, and came to the earth and* constructed for themselves fiery bodies during the first Round. Descending to the ethereal, or second Round, these bodies assumed its qualities, and were formed of ethereal substance. Coming to the astral, or third Round, they built for themselves huge, ape-like bodies of astral matter, which astral bodies, repeated briefly in the third race of this Round, con stitute all the ape-like ancestor man has ever had. During the third Round, his form, being built on subconscious planes and of astral matter, became a kind of huge prototype of that which it afterwards assumed when it descended into the molecular matter of this, the fourth Round. The human-elementals, or Lunar Pitris, which synthesized these forms, came over from the moon when that planet passed into pralaya, and in this manner duringthe first three and one-half Rounds slowly built up our human bodies into their present shape.
At the fourth Round only, these human-animal bodies became capable of receiving and responding to impressions from the Higher Ego, or thinking Soul, and thus enabled the true man to come upon the earth. For man is not the human-elemental, associated with him as the constructor and synthesizer of his body, but the Ray of Manas from the divine Higher Ego, as the result of this incarnation. The physical cells of which the human body is constructed are the seat of purely physical heredity. The impression of this heredity upon them causes the resemblance to parents. The cells from each parent meet and blend in a most intimate fusion, and their different sources bestow upon them a certain power of vari- ation which causes the child to evolve in the direction of one or the other, and thus affords opportunity for this, which is a necessary portion of evolution. If man came from one parent, he would resemble that parent quite accurately, and each child would be an almost exact reproduction of its parent.
But when the origin is from two parents, variation is necessary and is thus provided for. It is, then, along this, the line of physical heredity, that all these resemblances in form and feature, and even in psychic traits, reaches man. The physical is one of the three streams of heredity flowing into man. The other two will be discussed when their sources are being studied. If man be the microcosm of the macrocosm, there ought to be exhibited, in his physical organism, evidences of a septenary law, and this is found to be true. His tissues are of seven kinds, pointing to seven distinct hierarchies of entities in its construction. Each of these hierarchies may again be subdivided, making thus forty-nine variants upon the primary seven. These seven tissues are: the neuroglic, connective, areolar, white fibrous, elastic, gelatinous, adenoid, and adipose. The body has seven forms of epithelium: the squamous, spheroid, columnar, transitional, endothelial, and special.
There are seven great systems which enter into its construction: the osseous, muscular, nervous, circula- tory, reproductive, glandular (including the digestive), and integumentary ( including the respiratory). There are jseven layers of the skin: epidermis (cuticle), rete mucosum (pigment), papillae, corium, fat cells, fibrous, and areolar layers. There are seven functions of the skin: limiting, common sensation, heat, cold, pressure, cooling ( perspiration), and protective (hair). There are seven divisions of the eye: cornea, aqueous humor, iris, cili- ary ligament, lens, vitreous humor, and retina. There are seven layers of the retina: columnar (Jacob's membrane), granular (composed of three distinct layers), nervous layer ( consisting of two), and membrana limitans. There are seven divisions of the brain: the medulla oblongata, pons Varolii, crura cerebri, corpora quadrigemina, optic thalami, cerebellum, and cerebrum. There are seven functions of the nervous system: the olfactory, optic, auditory, gustatory, common sensation, and correlating or vegetative. There are seven divisions of the ear : the auditory canal, tympanum, ossicles, semicircular canals, vestibule, cochlea, membranous labyrinth. The blood goes through seven distinct processes in clotting, and in numerous other ways man's physical construction indicates its septenary source.
As he is yet in the active process of evolution, there are also very often divisions of five, especially in the chemistry of his body. In fact, such divisions are very numerous throughout man's organism, instances of which are the five senses, five nerves of special sense, five layers of the cornea, etc. The great lesson to be learned from a study of the body as a Principle, however, is that it inhibits or prevents the conscious functioning of the soul. On its own divine plane—to put it only from a merely mechanical standpoint—the soul uses modes of motion which enable -it to record conscious sensations, due to etheric vibrations thousands of times more rapid than those it uses here. In molecular matter, it can see only so many things in a moment. If they pass too rapidly, they are blurred. If it retreat inward, towards its own proper habitation, the vibrations may be almost infinitely more rapid, and it will record them every one, and life, therefore, becomes proportionately fuller and grander. How puerile, then, and how weak is consciousness upon this plane, compared to that of the true home of the soul! How the body limits our senses, and cripples our wings!
As we descend from these diviner planes, each new state of matter draws a still heavier veil, so to say, over the eyes of the soul, and it becomes more and more blinded until it reaches the very acme of dullness, and fancies this the only plane of existence, and imagines itself separated from all other human beings. Yet, if it lay off but one of its veils, or "Principles," as in dream, it can pass through experiences in a few moments which would take years in the waking condition. If one could leave his body but for a few minutes, instead of passing into a condition of nothingness, or of losing that which we term life, he would enter upon a life indescribably more vivid. So far from anything having been destroyed or lost, the soul would realize that it had passed into a higher, more perfect state was functioning upon planes much more subtle—approaching much nearer to the real source of life and being. If this be the result of the change from the molecular to the astral state of matter, how much more will consciousness expand as the soul approaches the center of conscious existence, where consciousness and life are* real Let us, then, remember that each of our fellow-men is a divine soul, whose consciousness is limited, whose senses are dulled, whose diviner characteristics are almost destroyed by the gross body it thus temporarily occupies, and we shall then see the rea- son and the necessity for the exercise towards each other of human sympathy and charity.
The character which seems to us so vile is not that of the true soul, but is caused by the body with which it is associated. The qualities which so offend us are but the " qualities" of Matter, in the coils of which the true soul is struggling. These desires arise because they are derived from a plane of existence in which desire is normal—a state whose conscious entities are naturally filled with desire. Man synthesizes these entities into his body, and they transmit their own desires to him; and he, mistaking them for his own, yields to them.
There is a beautiful story told in one of Charles Reade's novels of a prisoner confined in a dungeon, where there was such a perfect exclusion of light that it was impossible for him to have any conception of the passage of time. One could fancy that in a few minutes an hour, or even a' day, had passed. So great was the suffering that many came out of it insane. When this prisoner was confined in this dark cell, the chaplain of the prison, knowing the awful effect that such confinement had upon the mind and reason, went to it and rapped upon the outside, in order to let the poor occupant know that on the other side of the walls was a sympathizing, compassionate, human soul. And he tells how the sense of this compassion enabled the prisoner to preserve his rea- son, and also to pass his period of confinement without suffering. This is similar to the condition of the human soul in these bodies. Therefore, each one of us should constitute himself a compassionate sentinel, standing upon the outside, tapping upon the thick walls of human hearts, letting each know that they have human sympathy, and so feel the hope and trust springing from this. If we remember that each human soul is a divine prisoner, these things which so offend us now will fade away. We will realize that it is not the true person who is doing evil, but only one who has lost control of the passionate body with which he is associated, and our task will be to teach that person to regain his self-control, and thus help to make the whole of humanity happier, nobler, and more divine.
