Passages similar to: Secret Teachings of All Ages — The Human Body in Symbolism
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Western Esoteric
Secret Teachings of All Ages
The Human Body in Symbolism (15)
While all the Mysteries recognized the heart as the center of spiritual consciousness, they often purposely ignored this concept and used the heart in its exoteric sense as the symbol of the emotional nature, In this arrangement the generative center represented the physical body, the heart the emotional body, and the brain the mental body. The brain represented the superior sphere, but after the initiates had passed through the lower degrees they were instructed that the brain was the proxy of the spiritual flame dwelling in the innermost recesses of the heart. The student of esotericism discovers ere long that the ancients often resorted to various blinds to conceal the true interpretations of their Mysteries. The substitution of the brain for the heart was one of these blinds.
The Primordial Spirit and the Conscious Spirit (3)
ANSWER: How could the true thought in the square inch be moved? If it really moves, it is not well. For when ordinary men die, then it moves, but that is not...
(3) When men are set free from the womb the primordial spirit dwells in the square inch (between the eyes), but the conscious spirit dwells below in the heart. This lower leshly heart has the shape of a large peach: it is covered by the wings of the lungs, supported by the liver, and served by the bowels. This heart is dependent on the outside world. If a man does not eat for one day even, it feels extremely uncomfortable. If it hears something terri ying it throbs; if it hears something enraging it stops; if it is faced with death it becomes sad; if it sees something beautiful it is dazzled. But the Heavenly Heart in the head, when would it have been in the least moved? Dost thou ask: Can the Heavenly Heart not be moved? Then I answer: How could the true thought in the square inch be moved? If it really moves, it is not well. For when ordinary men die, then it moves, but that is not good. It is best indeed if the Light has. already forti ied itself in a spirit-body and its life-force gradually penetrated the instincts and movements. But that is a secret which has not been revealed for thousands of years.
I explain: A living body is illuminated by soul: each organ and member participates in soul after some manner peculiar to itself; the organ is...
(23) I explain: A living body is illuminated by soul: each organ and member participates in soul after some manner peculiar to itself; the organ is adapted to a certain function, and this fitness is the vehicle of the soul-faculty under which the function is performed; thus the seeing faculty acts through the eyes, the hearing faculty through the ears, the tasting faculty through the tongue, the faculty of smelling through the nostrils, and the faculty of sentient touch is present throughout, since in this particular form of perception the entire body is an instrument in the soul's service.
The vehicles of touch are mainly centred in the nerves- which moreover are vehicles of the faculty by which the movements of the living being are affected- in them the soul-faculty concerned makes itself present; the nerves start from the brain. The brain therefore has been considered as the centre and seat of the principle which determines feeling and impulse and the entire act of the organism as a living thing; where the instruments are found to be linked, there the operating faculty is assumed to be situated. But it would be wiser to say only that there is situated the first activity of the operating faculty: the power to be exercised by the operator- in keeping with the particular instrument- must be considered as concentrated at the point at which the instrument is to be first applied; or, since the soul's faculty is of universal scope the sounder statement is that the point of origin of the instrument is the point of origin of the act.
Now, the faculty presiding over sensation and impulse is vested in the sensitive and representative soul; it draws upon the Reason-Principle immediately above itself; downward, it is in contact with an inferior of its own: on this analogy the uppermost member of the living being was taken by the ancients to be obviously its seat; they lodged it in the brain, or not exactly in the brain but in that sensitive part which is the medium through which the Reason-Principle impinges upon the brain. They saw that something must be definitely allocated to body- at the point most receptive of the act of reason- while something, utterly isolated from body must be in contact with that superior thing which is a form of soul of that soul apt to the appropriation of the perceptions originating in the Reason-Principle.
Such a linking there must be, since in perception there is some element of judging, in representation something intuitional, and since impulse and appetite derive from representation and reason. The reasoning faculty, therefore, is present where these experiences occur, present not as in a place but in the fact that what is there draws upon it. As regards perception we have already explained in what sense it is local.
But every living being includes the vegetal principle, that principle of growth and nourishment which maintains the organism by means of the blood; this nourishing medium is contained in the veins; the veins and blood have their origin in the liver: from observation of these facts the power concerned was assigned a place; the phase of the soul which has to do with desire was allocated to the liver. Certainly what brings to birth and nourishes and gives growth must have the desire of these functions. Blood- subtle, light, swift, pure- is the vehicle most apt to animal spirit: the heart, then, its well-spring, the place where such blood is sifted into being, is taken as the fixed centre of the ebullition of the passionate nature.
Chapter 25: Of the whole Body of the Stars and of their Birth or Geniture; that is, the whole Astrology, or the whole Body of this World. (108)
For the brain sitteth in the severe birth or geniture, and in its own body it is the meek power of the heart, and signifieth the new birth, which is n...
(108) For the brain sitteth in the severe birth or geniture, and in its own body it is the meek power of the heart, and signifieth the new birth, which is new regenerated in the midst or centre of the austereness of death and wrath, in its heaven, and presseth forth through death into life.
Chapter 25: Of the whole Body of the Stars and of their Birth or Geniture; that is, the whole Astrology, or the whole Body of this World. (105)
III. Thirdly, thou canst not deny that the brain in the head in a creature is the power of the heart; for from the heart all powers rise up into the...
(105) III. Thirdly, thou canst not deny that the brain in the head in a creature is the power of the heart; for from the heart all powers rise up into the brain, from whence, in the brain, the senses of the heart exist. The brain in the head taketh its original from the power of the heart. Now observe:
The Primordial Spirit and the Conscious Spirit (6-7)
Thought-earth is the Heavenly Heart of the middle house (intuition). Spirit-fire is used for effecting, thought-earth for substance, and seed-water...
(6) Thought-earth is the Heavenly Heart of the middle house (intuition). Spirit-fire is used for effecting, thought-earth for substance, and seed-water for the foundation. Ordinary men make their bodies through thoughts. The body is not only the 7 ft. tall outer body. In the body is the anima. The anima, having produced consciousness, adheres to it. Consciousness depends for its origin on the anima. The anima is feminine (yi i), the substance of consciousness. As long as this consciousness is not interrupted, it continues to beget from generation to generation, and the changes of form of the anima and the transformations of substance are unceasing.
(7) But, besides this, there is the animus in which the spirit shelters. The animus lives in the daytime in the eyes; at night it houses in the liver. When living in the eyes, it sees; when housing itself in the liver, it dreams. Dreams are the wanderings of the spirit through all nine Heavens and all the nine Earths. But whoever is dull and moody on waking, and chained to his bodily form, is fettered by the anima. Therefore the concentration of the animus is effected by the circulation of the Light, and in this way the spirit is protected, the anima subjected, and consciousness annulled. The method used by the ancients for escaping from the world consisted in burning out completely the slag of darkness in order to return to the purely creative. This is nothing more than a reduction of the anima and a bringing to perfection of the animus. And the circulation of the Light is the magical means of limiting the dark powers and gaining mastery of the anima. Even if the work is not directed toward bringing back the creative, but confines itself to the magical means of the circulation of the Light, it is just the Light that is creative. By means of its circulation, one returns to the creative. If this method is followed, plenty of seed-water will be present of itself; the spirit-fire will be ignited, and the thought-earth will solidify and crystallize. And thus can the holy fruit mature. The scarabseus rolls his ball and in the ball there develops life as the effect of the undivided effort of his spiritual concentration. If now an embryo can grow in manure, and shed its skin, why should not the dwelling place of our Heavenly Heart also be able to create a body if we concentrate the spirit upon it?
Chapter 25: Of the whole Body of the Stars and of their Birth or Geniture; that is, the whole Astrology, or the whole Body of this World. (98)
Now the heart signifieth the sun, which is the beginning of life in the outward body of this world. Now, while the body stands in the mobility or...
(98) Now the heart signifieth the sun, which is the beginning of life in the outward body of this world. Now, while the body stands in the mobility or life, thou canst not say that the animated or soulish birth goeth away or departeth from the heart.
The way leads from the sacrum upward in a backward- flowing manner to the summit of the creative, and on through the house of the creative; then it...
(19) The way leads from the sacrum upward in a backward- flowing manner to the summit of the creative, and on through the house of the creative; then it sinks through two stories in a downward- lowing way into the solar plexus, and warms it. Therefore it is said: Wandering in Heaven, one eats the spirit-power of the receptive. Because the true power goes back into the empty place, in time, power and form become rich and full; body and heart become glad and cheerful. If, by the work of the turning of the Wheel of the Doctrine, this cannot be achieved, how otherwise should one be able to enter upon this Far Journey? What it amounts to is this: The crystallized spirit lows back to the spirit-fire, and by means of the greatest quiet, one fans the " fire in the middle of the water which is in the middle of the cave. Therefore it is said: And the deeper secret within the secret: the Land that is nowhere, that is the true home.
Chapter 14: Of the Birth and Propagation of Man. The very Secret Gate. (1)
IF we consider now the Springing up of the Life, and in what Place of the Body it is where the Life is generated, then we shall rightly find the...
(1) IF we consider now the Springing up of the Life, and in what Place of the Body it is where the Life is generated, then we shall rightly find the whole Ground of Man, and there is nothing so secret in Man but that it may be found. For we must needs say, that the Heart is the Place, wherein the noble Life is generated, and the Life again penetrates the Heart.
Chapter 2: An Introduction, shewing how men may come to apprehend The Divine, and the Natural, Being. And further of the two Qualities. (53)
So heaven is the heart in nature, wherein all the powers are, as in the stars and elements, and it is a soft, supple and meek matter of all powers, as...
(53) So heaven is the heart in nature, wherein all the powers are, as in the stars and elements, and it is a soft, supple and meek matter of all powers, as the brain in man's head is.
Chapter 25: Of the whole Body of the Stars and of their Birth or Geniture; that is, the whole Astrology, or the whole Body of this World. (113)
And it is rightly the brain in the corporeal government of this world, from whence the senses and the reason are generated, also all meekness and wisd...
(113) And it is rightly the brain in the corporeal government of this world, from whence the senses and the reason are generated, also all meekness and wisdom in natural things; but the right and holy spirit in man is generated in the hidden heaven in the water of life.
Chapter 2: An Introduction, shewing how men may come to apprehend The Divine, and the Natural, Being. And further of the two Qualities. (40)
The heart in man signifieth the heat or the element of fire, and it is also the heat; for the heat in the whole body has its original in the heart.
(40) The heart in man signifieth the heat or the element of fire, and it is also the heat; for the heat in the whole body has its original in the heart.
And the house of the hidden heart generateth also such a spirit as stands hidden, in the body, to the spirit of the house of flesh, as also to the spi...
(76) And the house of the hidden heart generateth also such a spirit as stands hidden, in the body, to the spirit of the house of flesh, as also to the spirit of the astral birth or geniture; just as the heart of God in the seven spirits of God stands hidden in the spirits in the deep of this world, and does not kindle them, till after this enumeration or account of time is out.