Rosicrucian Fellowship Online Magazine Archives
The Blood
The study of the blood is very deep, far-reaching, and of supreme importance
from whatever viewpoint we analyze it. Lucifer was decidedly right when he
said that "blood is a most peculiar essence." It builds the physical body from
the time the seed atom is deposited in the ovum till the rupture of the silver
cord ends material existence, being one of the highest products of the vital
body and the carrier of nourishment to every part of the body. It is the
direct vehicle of the Ego, having injected into it every thought, feeling or
emotion transmitted to the lungs.
In infancy, and up to the fourteenth year, the red marrow-bones do not make
all the blood corpuscles. Most of them are supplied by the thymus gland, which
is largest in the fetus and gradually diminishes as the individual blood-
making faculty develops in the growing child. The thymus gland contains, as it
were, a supply of blood corpuscles given by the parents and consequently the
child, which draws its blood from that source, does not realize its
individuality. Not until the blood is made by the child does it think of
itself as "I," and when the thymus gland disappears, at the age of fourteen,
the "I" feeling reaches its full expression, for then the blood is made and
dominated entirely by the Ego. The following will make clear the idea and its
logic:
It will be remembered that assimilation and growth depend upon the forces
working along the positive pole of the vital body's chemical ether. That is
set free at the seventh year, together with the balance of the vital body.
Only the chemical ether is fully ripe at that time; the other parts need more
ripening. At the fourteenth year the life ether of the vital body, which has
to do with propagation, is fully ripe. In the period from seven to fourteen
years of age the excessive assimilation has stored an amount of force which
goes to the sex organs and is ready at the time the desire body is set free.
This force of sex is stored in the blood during the third of the seven year
periods and in that time the light ether, which is the avenue for the blood
heat, is developed and controls the heart, so that the body is neither too hot
nor too cold. In early childhood the blood very often rises to an abnormal
temperature. During the period of excessive growth, it is frequently the
reverse, but in the hot-headed, unrestrained youth, passion and temper very
often drive the Ego out by overheating the blood. We very appropriately call
this an ebullition or boiling over of temper and describe the effect as
causing the person to "lose his head," or become incapable of thought. That is
exactly what happens when passion, rage, or temper overheats the blood, thus
drawing the Ego outside the bodies. The Ego is outside of its vehicles and
they are running amuck, bereft of the guiding influence of thought, part of
the work of which is to act as a brake on impulse. Only the man who keeps cool
and does not allow excess of heat to drive him out can think properly.
As proof of the assertion that the Ego cannot work in the body when the
blood is either too hot or too cold we will call attention to the well known
fact that excessive heat makes one sleepy, and, if carried beyond a certain
point, it drives the Ego out, leaving the body unconscious. It is only when
the blood is at or near the normal temperature that the Ego can use it as a
vehicle of consciousness.
The burning blush of shame is an evidence of the manner in which the blood
is driven to the head, thus overheating the brain and paralyzing thought. Fear
is a state when the Ego wants to barricade himself against some outside
danger. He then drives the blood to the center and grows pale, because the
blood has left the periphery of the body, and has lost heat, thus paralyzing
thought. In fever the excess of heat causes delirium.
The full-blooded person, when the blood is not too hot, is active in body
and mind, while the anemic person is sleepy. In one the Ego has better
control; in the other, less. When the Ego wants to think it drives blood, at
the proper heat, to the brain. When a heavy meal centers the activity of the
Ego upon the digestive tract, the man cannot think; he is sleepy.
The old Norsemen and the Scots recognized that the Ego is in the blood. No
stranger could become associated with them as a relative until he had "mixed
blood" with them and thus become one of them.
In the descendants of the patriarchal families--Adam, Methuselah, etc., the
blood which coursed through their veins contained the pictures of all that had
happened to their different ancestors, and these pictures were constantly
before the inner vision of each one as they had no outer vision at that time.
At the present time the blood of each individual contains only the pictures of
his own individual experiences and the subconscious mind has access to them.
Up to the time that marriage outside of the family was commenced individuals
were ruled by a Family Spirit (Angel) which entered the blood by means of the
air inspired, and helped each Ego to control its vehicles. When marriage
outside the family began, Egos had arrived at a point in the evolution of
self-consciousness where they could depend on self, and where they were to
cease being God-guided automatons and become self-governing individuals. The
greater the mixture of blood the less the indwelling Ego can be influenced by
the Race or Family Spirits. Unmixed blood gave us ancestral assistance when we
needed it. Mixed blood makes for independence of outside help. A God (creator)
must be independent.
The heat of the blood is the vantage ground of the Ego, and the Lucifer
Spirits from Mars aid in maintaining this heat by dissolving iron, a Mars
metal, in our blood to attract oxygen, a solar element.
The proper heat for the real expression of the Ego is not present until the
mind is born from the macrocosmic Concrete Mind, when the individual is about
twenty-one years old. Statutory law also recognizes this as the earliest age
when the man is deemed fit to exercise a franchise.
In the lower order of animals blood is fluid and nucleated. The nuclei,
centers of life, are the vantage ground of a Group Spirit. It regulates their
vital processes and guides them through the nuclei. During the early part of
the gestatory period the blood of the fetus is also nucleated by the life of
the mother, and she regulates the process of body building; but as soon as the
incoming Ego enters the mother's body, it commences to assert its
individuality and resist formation of nucleated blood cells. The old cells
gradually disappear, so that when the silver cord is tied at the time of
quickening and the Ego is drawn into its body, all nuclei have disappeared,
and it is absolute autocrat of its new vehicle, a heritage more precious than
any other earthly possession; and when properly used it is our means of
generating soul power and laying up treasure in heaven. When we abandon this
vehicle to Spirit controls, we seriously hinder our higher evolution and
commit a great sin. Thus the blood is the particular vehicle of the Ego, and
as in the past aeons of development we have crystallized matter in order to
form our dense body, so also it is destined that now we must etherealize our
vehicles in order that we may lift ourselves and the world out of the realms
of materiality and into the spiritual. Naturally, therefore, the Ego aims
first to make the blood gaseous, and to the spiritual sight, this red
unnucleated blood is not a fluid, but a gas. It is no argument against this
assertion that the moment we prick our skin the blood comes out as a liquid.
The moment we open up the try-cock of a steam boiler the gas also condenses
into a liquid, but if we make a model steam engine of glass and look at the
way steam works there we shall see only the piston move backward and forward,
driven by an invisible agent, live steam, and similarly, as the live steam
direct from the boiler is invisible, and gaseous, so also the live blood in
the human body is a gas, and the higher the state of development of any given
Ego, the more ethereal is it able to make the blood.
When, by the vital processes, food has reached the highest alchemical state,
the process of condensation begins and the blood-gas is formed into tissue in
the various organs to replace what has been wasted or destroyed by the
activities of the body. The spleen is the gateway of the vital body; there the
solar force which abounds in the surrounding atmosphere enters in a constant
stream, to aid us in the vital processes, and there also the war between the
desire body and the vital body is waged most fiercely. Thoughts of worry,
fear, and anger interfere with the process of evaporation in the spleen, a
speck of plasm is the result, and this is at once seized upon by a thought
elemental which forms a nucleus and embodies itself therein. Then it commences
to live a life of destruction, coalescing with other waste products and
decaying elements wherever formed, making the body a charnel house instead of
the temple of an indwelling living Spirit. We may therefore say that every
white corpuscle which has been taken by an outside entity is to the Ego a lost
opportunity. The more of these lost opportunities there are in the body, the
less is the body under control of the Ego, therefore we find them present in
larger numbers in all diseases than when the person is in health. It may also
be said that the person of a jovial good nature or one who is devoutly
religious and has an absolute faith and trust in divine providence and love,
will register many less lost opportunities or white corpuscles than those who
are always worrying and fretting.
So it is that the blood is the only part of the body really ours. The
measure in which we control all blood depends upon the Ego's ability to
express itself through the body. It is only through the red corpuscles that
the Ego is able to work. Whenever we allow ourselves to be negative we
manufacture white corpuscles, which are not, as we have seen, "the policemen
of the system," as science now thinks, but destroyers.
When the blood courses through the arteries which are deep in the body, it
is a gas, as has been shown; but loss of heat near the surface of the body
causes it to partially condense, and in that substance the Ego is learning to
form mineral crystals. Science has lately found that the blood of different
people has different crystals, so that it is possible now to tell the blood of
a black man from the blood of a white man; but there will come a day when they
will know a still greater difference; for just as there is a difference in the
crystals formed by different races, so there is also a difference in the
crystals formed by each individual man.
Looking at the matter from another angle, we may note that when blood is
beaten with a stick it separates into three distinct substances: the serum or
water-like substance which comes under Cancer ruled by the Moon (Lunar
Hierarchy); the red coloring matter which is the Martian substance generated
under Scorpio; and most important of all, the fibrin, or stringy matter which
is under the third of the watery signs, Pisces. When the skeleton was outside
our flesh, consciousness was dull as in the crustacea. By getting outside the
bony structure we have gained a much higher grade of consciousness, and by
spiritualizing this inner skeleton through the medium of the blood, we extract
the essence of all we have learned in the past epochs and transform it to
usable soul power in the Jupiter Period. To interfere in this work is a crime
against the soul.
Since woman has the positive vital body, she matures earlier than the male,
and the parts which remain plant-like, such as the hair, grow longer and more
luxuriant. Naturally a positive vital body will generate more blood than the
negative vital body possessed by the male, hence we have in woman a greater
blood pressure, which it is necessary to relieve by the periodical flow, and
when that ceases at the climacteric period there is a second growth in woman,
particularly well expressed in the saying, "fat and forty."
The impulses of the desire body drive the blood through the system at
varying rates of speed, according to the strength of the emotions. Woman,
having an excess of blood, works under much higher pressure than man, and
while this pressure is relieved by the periodical flow, there are times when
it is necessary to have an extra outlet; then the tears of woman, which are
white bleeding, act as a safety valve to remove excessive fluid. Men, although
they may have as strong emotions as women, are not given to tears because they
have no more blood than they can comfortably use.
The blood is now differently constituted from what it was in the earlier
ages of human evolution. The Christ Spirit was seen at the Baptism to descend
upon Jesus' body. Jesus himself, the Spirit, left that body and was given a
mission to serve the churches while his body was being used for direct
teaching by the Christ, and his blood was being prepared as an Open Sesame to
the Kingdom of God.
When anyone is killed, the venous blood with its impurities clings closely
to the flesh, and therefore the arterial blood which flows is distinctly
cleaner than it would otherwise be. Being etherealized by the great Christ
Spirit, the cleansed blood of Jesus overflowed the world, purified the Etheric
Region of selfishness to a great extent, and gave man a better chance to draw
to himself materials which will allow him to form altruistic purposes and
desires.
This article was adapted from "Occult Principles of Health and Healing,"
page 22-30, by Max Heindel, published by The Rosicrucian Fellowship.