Thus a sharp distinction must be drawn between the manifested and the hidden elements in man. For during life, that which is hidden from view has to wage perpetual war on the materials and forces of the mineral world. This indicates the point at which occult science steps in. It has to characterize that which wages the war alluded to, as a principle which is hidden from sense-observation. Clairvoyant sight alone can reveal its workings. How man arrives at awareness of this hidden element, as plainly [pg 018] as his ordinary eyes see the phenomena of sense, will be described in a later part of this book. Results of clairvoyant observation will be given now for the reason already pointed out in the preceding pages, that is, that communications about the way in which the higher sight is obtained can only be of value to the student when he has first become acquainted, in the form of a narrative, with the results of clairvoyant research. For in this sphere it is quite possible to understand things which one is not yet able to observe. Indeed, the right path to higher vision starts with understanding.
Now, although the hidden something which wages war on the disintegration of the physical body can be observed only by the higher sight, it is plainly visible in its effects to the human faculty of judgment which is limited to the manifested world; and these effects are expressed in the form or shape in which mineral materials and forces are combined during life. When death has intervened, the form disappears little by little, and the physical body becomes part of the rest of the mineral world. But the clairvoyant is able to observe this hidden something as an independent member of the human organism, which during life prevents the physical materials and forces from taking their natural course, which would lead to the dissolution of the physical body. This independent principle is called the etheric or vital body.
If misunderstandings are not to arise at the outset, two things must be borne in mind in connection with this account of a second principle of human [pg 019] nature. The word “etheric” is used here in a different sense from that of modern physics, which designates as “ether” the medium by which light is transmitted. In occult science the use of the word is limited to the sense given above. It denotes that which is accessible to higher sight, and can be known to physical observation only by its effects, that is, by its power of giving a definite form or shape to the mineral materials and forces present in the physical body. Again, the use of the word “body” must not be misunderstood. It is necessary to use the words of every day language in describing things on a higher plane of existence, and these terms, when applied to sense-observation, express only what is physical. The etheric body has, of course, nothing of a bodily nature in the physical sense, however ethereal we might imagine such a body to be. As soon as the occultist mentions this etheric or vital body, he reaches the point at which he is bound to encounter the opposition of many contemporary opinions. The development of the human mind has been such that the mention of such a principle of human nature is necessarily looked upon as unscientific. The materialistic way of thinking has arrived at the conclusion that there is nothing to be seen in a living body but a combination of physical substances and forces such as are also found in the so-called inanimate body of the mineral, the only difference being that they are more complicated in the living than in the lifeless body. Yet it is not [pg 020] very long since other views were held, even by official science.
It is evident to any one who studies the works of many earnest men of science, produced during the first half of the nineteenth century, that at that time many a genuine investigator of nature was conscious of some factor acting within the living body other than in the lifeless mineral. It was termed “vital force.” It is true this vital force is not represented as being what has been above characterized as the vital body, but underlying the conception was a dim idea of the existence of such a body. Vital force was generally regarded as something which in a living body was united with physical matter and forces in the same way that the force of a magnet unites itself with iron. Then came the time when vital force was banished from the domain of science. Mere physical and chemical causes were accounted all sufficient.
At the present moment, however, there is a reaction in this respect in some scientific quarters. It is sometimes conceded that the hypothesis of something of the nature of “vital force” is not pure nonsense. Yet even the scientist who concedes this much is not willing to make common cause with the occultist with regard to the vital body. As a rule, it serves no useful purpose to enter upon a discussion of such views from the standpoint of occult science. It should be much more the concern of the occultist to recognize that the materialistic way of thinking is a necessary concomitant phenomenon [pg 021] of the great advance of natural science in our day. This advance is due to the vast improvements in the instruments used in sense-observation. And it is in the very nature of man to bring some of his faculties to a certain degree of perfection at the expense of others. Exact sense-observation, which has been evolved to such an important extent by natural science, was bound to leave in the background the cultivation of those human faculties which lead into the hidden worlds. But the time has come when this cultivation is once more necessary; and recognition of the invisible will not be won by combating opinions which are the logical outcome of a denial of its existence, but rather by setting the invisible in the right light. Then it will be recognized by those for whom the “time has come.”
It was necessary to say this much, in order that it may not be imagined that occult science is ignorant of the standpoint of natural science when mention is made of an “etheric body,” which, in many circles must necessarily be considered as purely imaginary.
Thus the etheric body is the second principle of the human being. For the clairvoyant, it possesses a higher degree of reality than the physical body. A description of how it is seen by the clairvoyant can be given only in later parts of this book, when the sense in which such descriptions are to be taken will become manifest. For the present it will be enough to say that the etheric body penetrates the [pg 022] physical body in all its parts, and is to be regarded as a kind of architect of the latter. All the physical organs are maintained in their form and shape by the currents and movements of the etheric body. The physical heart is based upon an etheric heart, the physical brain, upon an etheric brain, and the physical, with this difference, that in the etheric body the parts flow into one another in active motion, whereas in the physical body they are separated from each other.
Man has this etheric body in common with all plants, just as he has the physical body in common with minerals. Everything living has its etheric body.
The study of occult science proceeds upwards from the etheric body to another principle of the human being. To aid in the formation of an idea of this principle, it draws attention to the phenomenon of sleep, just as in connection with the etheric body attention was drawn to death. All human work, so far as the manifested world is concerned, is dependent upon activity during waking life. But that activity is possible only as long as man is able to recuperate his exhausted forces by sleep. Action and thought disappear, pain and pleasure fade away during sleep, and on re-awaking, man's conscious powers ascend from the unconsciousness of sleep as though from hidden mysterious sources of energy. It is the same consciousness which sinks down into [pg 023] dim depths on falling asleep and ascends from them again on re-awaking.
That which awakens life again out of this state of unconsciousness is, according to occult science, the third principle of the human being. It is called the astral body. Just as the physical body cannot keep its form by means of the mineral substances and forces it contains, but must, in order to be kept together, be interpenetrated by the etheric body, so is it impossible for the forces of the etheric body to illuminate themselves with the light of consciousness. An etheric body left to its own resources would be in a permanent state of sleep.1 An etheric body awake, is illuminated by an astral body. This astral body seems to sense-observation to disappear when man falls asleep; to clairvoyant observation it is still present, with the difference that it appears separated from or drawn out of the etheric body. Sense-observation has nothing to do with the astral body itself, but only with its effects in the manifested world, and these cease during sleep. In the same sense in which man possesses his physical body in common with plants, he resembles animals as regards his astral body.
Plants
