Occult Science in Medicine

DEDICATED

TO EVERY STUDENT OF MEDICINE

That which is looked upon by one generation as the apex of human knowledge is often considered an absurdity by the next, and that which is regarded as a superstition in one century, may form the basis of science for the following one. (Theophrastus Paracelsus.)

PREFACE.

Nothing designates the character of people so well as that which they find ridiculous.—Goethe.

IT IS A FACT NOT ENTIRELY unknown to those who have studied nature, that there is a certain law of periodicity, according to which forms disappear and the truths which they contained reappear again, embodied in new forms. Seasons go and come, civilizations pass away and grow again, exhibiting the same characteristics possessed by the former, sciences are lost and rediscovered, and the science of medicine forms no exception to this general rule. Many valuable treasures of the past have been buried in forgetfulness; many ideas that shone like luminous stars in the sky of ancient medicine have disappeared during the revolution of thought, and begin to rise again on the mental horizon, where they are christened with new names and stared at in surprise as something supposed never to have existed before.

Ages of spirituality have preceded the past age of materiality, and other eras of higher spiritual thought are certain to follow. During these preceding ages many eminently valuable truths were known, which have been lost sight of in modern times, and although the popular science of the present, which deals with the external appearances of physical nature, is undoubtedly greater than that of former times, a study of the ancient books on medicine shows that the sages of former times knew more of the fundamental laws of nature than what is admitted to-day.

There is a great science and a little science; one that flies around the spires of the temple of wisdom, another that penetrates into the sanctuary; both are right in their places; but the one is superficial and popular, the other profound and mysterious; the one makes a great deal of clamour and show, the other is silent and not publicly known.

There are progressive and there are conservative scientists. There are those whose genius carries them forward and who dare to explore new realms of knowledge; while the conservative class merely collects what has

been produced by others. An explorer must be a scientist; but not every scientist is an explorer. The majority of our modern schools of medicine produce nothing new, but merely deal in goods in whose production they had no share. They resemble the shop of a huckster who knows nothing else but the goods which are in his shop. The shelves are filled with popular theories, fashionable beliefs, patented systems, and occasionally we find an old article that went out of fashion, labelled with a new name and advertised as something new, and the proprietor volubly praises his goods, being as proud of them as if he had made them himself, while he ignores or denounces everything that is not to be found in his shop. But the real lover of truth is not contented to live upon the fruits that have grown in the gardens of others; he gathers the materials he finds, not merely for the purpose of enjoying their possession, but for the purpose of using them as steps to ascend nearer to the fountain of eternal truth.

The present work is an attempt to call the attention of those who follow the profession of medicine to this higher aspect of science and to certain forgotten treasures of the past, of which an abundance may be found in the works of Theophrastus Paracelsus. Many of the ideas advanced therein, old as they are, will appear new and strange; for everyone is familiar only with that which is within his own mental horizon and which he is capable of grasping. The subject treated is so grand, unlimited and sublime, as to render it impossible in a limited work of this kind to deal with it in an exhaustive manner; but we hope that what little has been collected in the following pages will be sufficient to indicate the way to the acquisition of that higher mystic science, and to a better understanding of the true constitution of man.

CONTENTS.

INTRODUCTION.

PAGE.

Definition of the term disease. Law and order. Harmony and discords. Obedience. Man a complex being. Health.

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I.

THE CONSTITUTION OF MAN.

Miracles in nature. Development. The seven principles in the constitution of man. The anatomy of the inner man. Medicine and religion. Theophrastus Paracelsus. Mysteries. Mystic science and false mysticism. The powers of the soul.

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II.

THE FOUR PILLARS OF MEDICINE.

Requisites for the practice of medicine.—Philosophy. Natural sciences. The phenomenal world. The inner temple. Truth. The four kingdoms and the four elements.—Astronomy. Mind. States of consciousness. Stars and constellations. The Tatwas. Sun and Moon. Thinking and the thinker.

—Alchemy. What alchemy is. Quacks and pretenders. The Three Substances. The creative power. Terrestrial Alchemy. Celestial Alchemy. The Alchemy of the Astral plane.—The Virtue of the Physician. The true physician. Medical science and medical wisdom.

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III.

THE FIVE CAUSES OF DISEASE.

Salt, Sulphur and Mercury.—The Ens astrale. The ether. Invisible influences. Microbes. The astral plane. Mental diseases.—Ens veneni. Poisons and impurities. Disharmonies, sympathies and antipathies in chemistry. A chemical romance. Sexual impurity. Promiscuous intercourse. Nutriment. Correspondencies between spiritual powers and physical forces.—Ens naturæ. The macrocosm and microcosm. Two beings in one man. Terrestrial and the celestial nature. Generation and incarnation. Heredity. Relationship between internal organs.—Ens spirituale.

Consciousness. Spirit and soul. The thought-body. Re-incarnation. Will. Imagination. Arcana.

Memory. The astral light.—Ens Dei. God Karma. Science and art.

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IV.

THE FIVE CLASSES OF PHYSICIANS.

Five classes.—Naturales. Therapeutics. Earth. Water. Air. Fire. Ether; the one element.—Specifici. Empiricism. The chemistry of life. Principles of light and colour. The astral man.— Characterales. Emotions. Hypnotism. Suggestion. Spiritual powers.—Spirituales. Magic.— Fideles. The power of faith.

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V.

THE MEDICINE OF THE FUTURE.

Ancient and modern quackery. Science and wisdom. Spirituality and substantiality. Development. Self-control. Realism and idealism. The realization of the ideal. The physician of the future. Self- knowledge. The true life. The awakening of the soul. Phenomena and noumena. The higher science. Material and spiritual evolution. Intellectuality and spirituality. Periodicity. Circular motion and spiral progress. The self-recognition of truth.

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INTRODUCTION.

There are two kinds of knowledge. There is a medical science and there is a medical wisdom. To the animal man belongs the animal comprehension; but the understanding of divine mysteries belongs to the spirit of God in him. (Theophrastus Paracelsus, "De Fundamento Sapientiæ.")

A great deal has been written in modern books on pathology about the difficulty of defining the word "disease. The dictionary calls it lack or absence of ease, pain, uneasiness, distress, trial, trouble, &c., but against either of these definitions objections may be raised. James Paget says: Ease and disease, well and ill, and all their synonyms are relative terms, of which none can be fixed unconditionally. If there could be fixed a standard of health, all deviations from it might be called diseases; but a chief characteristic of living bodies is not fixity, but variation by self-adjustment to a wide range of varying circumstances, and among such self-adjustments it is not practicable to make a line separating those which may reasonably be called healthy from those which may as reasonably be called disease."

To this occult science answers that such a standard of health exists for us as soon as we recognise the unity and supremacy of the law; that the results of obedience to the law are harmony and health, and the results of disobedience are called discords or disease.

Shakespeare says:—

"The heavens themselves, the planets and this centre Observe degree, priority and place,

Insisture, course, proportion, season, form, Office, and custom, in all line of order."

—(Troilus and Cressida, i. 3.)

If we regard the order, which is Heaven’s first law, as the creation of the self-adjustment of accidentally arising circumstances, leaving out of consideration the fundamental Unity of the All and its one purpose, we

would then probably find various laws of order in the universe, being essentially different from each other; and it would be difficult to know which of these laws it would be best to follow; but if we recognise in the order that rules all things a manifestation of one eternal law of order and harmony, the function of Supreme Wisdom acting in nature but not being the product of nature, it will remain for us only to know that supreme Law and obey it. The universe is only one, and is ruled by only one source of all laws; but there are many unities within the constitution of this great Unity; they constitute as many selves within Self, whose separate interests are not identical with that of the whole, and therefore the order obeyed by these temporary selves is not the same as that of the eternal whole. Thus the battle for existence, far from being the cause of the order observable in the world, is in fact the cause of the disorder existing therein.

If man, like his divine prototype, were a perfect unity, a manifestation of will and thought identified and one, there would be only one law to obey: the law of his divine nature; he would be forever in harmony with himself; there would be no disharmonious elements in his nature, seeking to create an order of their own, and thereby causing discords and disease; but man is a compound being, there are many elements in his nature, each representing to a certain extent an independent form of will, and the more one of these modifications of will succeeds in departing from the order that constitutes the whole, and to enact, be it intelligently or instinctively, a will of its own, the greater will be the disharmony which it causes within the whole organism and the greater will be the disease.[1] A house divided against itself will fall. Disease is the disharmony which follows the disobedience to the law; the restoration consists in restoring the harmony by a return to obedience to the law of order which governs the whole.

The key to the cure of diseases is therefore in the understanding of the fundamental law which governs