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The uniting of the subject and the object which is the Great Work and which is symbolized sometimes as the linga-yoni, sometimes as the ankh or crux ansata, the mystic marriage, etc.

Obtaining equilibrium within the duality of consciousness understanding thereby the work of becoming a spiritual being, free from the constraints, accidents, and deceptions of material existence.

Nur Nichts 1st.

The formula of the Great Work, "Solve et Coagula" [Lat., "dissolve and coagulate"], may be thus interpreted; Solve, the dissolution of the Self in the Infinite; Coagula, the presentation of the Infinite in a concrete form to the outer.

Ut Supra __________ Ps 925
Ut infra __________ Ecc 24

via Noosphere … Magick

SEVEN STEPS IN PRACTICAL OCCULTISM

LESSON FOUR

Whatever you do to realize the aim you have formulated must be accomplished through some form of bodily activity.

Does this seem to be a truth so self-evident as to be hardly worth mentioning? Yet experience shows that few persons take it into consideration, or understand all it implies. Nothing is more common than neglect of this principle of the art of living. Hence the need for stressing the importance of this principle in a course of practical instruction.

Thinking is as certainly bodily action as is chopping down a tree. The most important kind of physical activity is thought. In order to make our thinking more effective, we must realize that thinking is a function of the brain, as breathing is a function of the lungs.

Occult Wisdom has always taught -- and not modern psychic research confirms -- that human personality manifests itself in two modes, the material and the non-material. Even while in physical incarnation, human personality has been seen and recognized as functioning also on the non-material or astral planes -- usually during sleep or trance. Again, psychic research has identified specific human personalities functioning both before and after physical death on the non-physical or discarnate planes.

Since these instructions are primarily concerned with obtaining immediate here-and-now results, what follows deals only with the physical means used by human personality in functioning through a human body on the physical plane.

Occult Wisdom unequivocally states that the evolutionary advancement of the individual ego or self must be accomplished right here on the physical plane and not put off for future accomplishment in the discarnate state. The two states, or modes of personality expression, complement and supplement each other. Neglect of the physical state here and now is therefore fatal to advancement.

Your body contains about thirty trillion cells. Their operation is the basis of what you think, say, and do. The fulfilment of your one aim will be accomplished by cell action. The power expressed through thirty trillion cells is what enables you to be what you want to be, do what you want to do, and have what you want to have.

What is this power? Let us being with the cells themselves. Until recently it was believed that cells were made of a special kind of matter. Nobody ever succeeded in isolating even the smallest quantity of this substance in a pure state. Actually, it was only a seeming necessary hypothesis, and to this hypothetical stuff biologists gave the name protoplasm. Experiments now point to the conclusion that there was no need to invent this supposititious primary form of living matter. These experiments go to show that the cells of living organisms are made up of precisely the same chemical elements as those which compose the inorganic bodies of the universe.

SEVEN STEPS: 4

This means there is no special kind of "matter" possessing life, as distinguished from "non-living matter." To be sure, our limited perception, even when augmented by our instruments, have so far failed to identify life as we know it in forms of matter such as steel, glass, stones, etc. Perceptually, and to date, we recognize life, or consciousness, only in chemical compounds in certain carbon-hydrogen chains which the layman describes as plant or animal body structure. But now a few top biologists are beginning to suspect what Occult Wisdom has always taught, namely that life is an expression of consciousness, however illusive and unrecognized, latent in all kinds of matter whether organic or inorganic. And a few modern thinkers hold to the view that wherever form exists, there life or consciousness exists also.

One result of this new tendency in the thinking of some of the younger biologists (most of the older ones are so accustomed to the idea of "protoplasm" that it hurts them to reject it) is that it puts an end to the controversies originating in the question, "Where did life come from?" We need waste no time in trying to answer this question once we understand that the possibility of life is eternally present in the chemical elements themselves.

Life appears, or becomes manifest, whenever, and wherever, certain combinations of chemical elements are arranged in certain structural patterns. Some structures are adapted to the manifestation of life. These are organisms, vegetable and animal. Other structures cannot manifest their latent livingness to our perceptions. These are the forms of "inorganic" matter. Organic and inorganic forms, however, are composed of the same elements. This is an old doctrine. What is new is its recent confirmation by laboratory research.

Every cell, then, is made of various chemical elements. These elements, and the water in which they are mixed, are composed of smaller structures called atoms. The substance of every atom in the universe is identical with the substance of every other atom. The difference between an atom of gold and an atom of lead is nothing but a difference in the number and interrelation of units within the structure of the atoms.

The real substance of every atom is identical with what is sometimes called "radiant energy," "light," "electro-magnetism." These are different names for one thing. Thus the substance of the cells of your body is really light-power. Furthermore, the energy which manifests itself in the activity of these cells in the result of the light-power's flow through the cells, and the function of every one of the cells is a result of this flow of the light-power.

This light-power is also the real substance of everything else in the universe. Whatever exists is a mode of it. This is the power at work in the chemical reactions of inorganic substances. The same power finds expression in the activities of plants and animals. When it works through a human body, and especially through a human brain, it produces the characteristic phenomena of human personality.

Such is the conclusion toward which modern scientific thinking is pointing as the result of thousands of experiments in many fields of research. This conclusion is the same as the first premise of the occult school whence the teachings of the B.O.T.A. are derived. Yet the Inner School goes farther. It holds that since it is evident to trained observers that the same radiant energy which builds up the structure of inorganic forms builds also the bodies, and carries on the functions, of plants, animals and men, this light-power must be also the Life-power, since mental and physical activities of living beings are included among its forms of manifestation.

The Life-power is at once the substance and the working force in every cell of your body. Yet this power is not limited to those cells. Neither is it limited to the various structures composing your environment. Hence Eliphas Levi wrote: "It is distributed throughout infinity; it is the substance of heaven and earth."

The Life-power builds all physical structures, including the cells of your body, out of Itself. The physical universe is not the outcome of the Life-power's action upon another "something" called "matter." The one real something in the universe is the single conscious energy of Life-power.

"Consciousness" may be said to be one pole of this single reality, and, as we use it, the term "consciousness" means "Spirit." In this course, the term "energy" designates the "working power." All forms and objects in the world around us are particular expressions of this working power which is the only reality behind what is usually called "matter." By acting upon itself, the Life-power causes all forms of force to come into being and produces all varieties of structure.

When the Life-power works through the cells of your liver, those cells secrete bile or make sugar. When it works through your muscles, they contract and the process of contraction causes many complex chemical and electrical changes. When the same power operates through your brain cells, and other centers of your nervous system, the result is the manifestations of certain states of consciousness and the expression of the powers of human personality connected with those mental states.

Biologists agree that it has taken millions of years to bring the human organism to its present state of development, and that this process is by no means at an end. A great brain specialist, Dr. Frederick Tilneym says that in ages to come man will develop brain centers which will enable him to exercise powers we cannot even dream of now.

According to the teaching we have received, and are giving you in this course, many things Dr. Tilney expects to occur in the distant future have already occurred again and again. In every generation we have lived men and women who were able to exercise unusual mental and physical powers. They live today, and one purpose of this course is to add to their number. Their unusual command over themselves, their influence on their fellow-men, and their extra-ordinary control of the forces of nature was, and is, the result of a higher order of brain development than that of most persons.

Furthermore, there is in existence an elaborate system of practices incorporated in the Tarot and Qabalah, which have been worked out by these unusual men and women. The object of this system of human training is so to modify the human body that any one who will do the work may exercise powers like those manifested by the persons to whom we are indebted for our knowledge of this system of training.

The physical transformations effected by this work are partly chemical and partly structural. That is to say, the object of some of these practices is to bring about changes in the composition of the blood, the lymph, and the glandular secretions. Other phases of the work are designed to alter the constitution of groups of cells in the brain and in the nervous system.