第36章

The third principle is dynamic breathing, which is storing up the oxygen in sufficient quantities, to supply the tissues with sufficient fuel, for combustion.

These three principles, acting in unison, contain the true basis of physical life and a means of long living.Old age is simply the petrifaction of the body through lime, and the incorporating of erroneous thoughts into the organism.

It is the true Alchemy of human existence, and the preventives, in each and every case must contain the spiritual correspondence to the cause they seek to remedy; and, though the followers of Hahnemann base the whole of their procedure of treatment upon their master's fundamental law of "Similia similibus curantur," yet, there may be a few rare cases wherein, this undeviating method would not apply with the required effect.In such a case, the Alchemist would resort to the well-known law of opposites, and base his treatment upon the dogma of "Contraria contrariis curantur," so long the pet theory of the Allopathic school.They work upon the hypothesis that, like attracts like, and, if disease exist, those elements must be administered to set up the vibrations that will produce the polar opposite.If the body was racked with pain, those medicines would not be given that would create or increase similar conditions, but, their antipathy would be introduced into the system or applied locally to extinguish the foe.

So long as mankind remain within the semicrystallized state of soul development, so as to require the aid of external forces to support the human throne within its earthly temple, mercenary troops will exist to supply these supposed supports.

Unquestionably, the astrological law is the true system of medicine, which treats disease by sympathy or by antipathy, according to the nature of the case, and the efficacy of the remedies at hand.This method is the only natural one, and has been thoroughly demonstrated by the numerous "provings of drugs" under Hahnemann's law.

Happily, the time is not far distant when, the incarnated spirit will be able to use its own slumbering forces, and subdue all suffering and symptoms of disease in their very first inception, by virtue of its purer life and the dynamic potencies of its own interior, spiritual thought.Already, mental therapeutics is taking an advanced position among liberal, progressive minds, and nothing demonstrates so clearly and forcibly the grand, alchemical law of life-growth and decay, as the imponderable, invisible forces, which, constitute the materia medica, or remedial agents, of mental, magnetic, and spiritual healing.

Perhaps the most recondite subject connected with the healing art divine is, the modus operandi of medicinal action, upon the human body.A subject so simple and self-evident to the Alchemist, remains a profound mystery to the educated physician of the medical college; so much so that, we are tempted to ask of them: "Can you explain the modus operandi of drugs?" Dr.William Sharp, one of the most advanced physicians of the Homeopathic school, in one of his well- known "Essays on Medicine," says: "In respect to the manner of action of drugs we are in total darkness, and we are so blind that the darkness is not felt.KNOWLEDGE OF THIS KIND CANNOT BE ATTAINED; it is labor lost and TIME wasted to go in search of it.True, hypotheses may be easily conceived; so may straws be gathered from the surface of the stream.But what are either of them worth? There is this difference between them--straws may amuse children, and hypotheses are sure to mislead physicians."It is when the Occult Initiate observes to what helpless conditions the practice of medicine has fallen, that, he would, if be could with any possibility of success, implore the angelic guardian of the human race to open the spiritual sight of men, that they might see, as he sees, the Divine relationship, and spiritual correspondence, of everything in the wide universe to man.

Nature's laws move slowly and imperceptibly, yet surely and exact, and the time will certainly come when man will be forced into consciousness of these laws, whether he will or no.Nature is no respecter of persons, and those who will not move and progress, in harmony with her laws of advancement, must, of necessity, pass out with the old.

Alchemy, as it relates to the healing art, is the most noble in its object and beneficial in its effects, of all the many subdivisions of the sciences, because, it alleviates the pains and morbid afflictions of suffering humanity.We have given quite sufficient of its astrological aspect in the second part of "The Light of Egypt," Vol.I, wherein the four ancient elements are translated into their chemical correspondences of oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen and carbon, which still constitute the four primary elements of the most advanced chemistry to-day.They enter more or less into every organic form and substance, which is known, in various combinations and proportions.The human organism is principally composed of them; so, likewise, is the food that supports physical life, and the air we breathe is but modifications of the same atoms.

As man's constitution embraces a microscopic atom of all the essences and elements, corresponding to the whole; so does the air; and much, that we depend upon our food to supply, can be extracted from the atmosphere by breathing.Every breath we breathe is new life, or death.

Herein is the secret of success or failure, in certain localities, and under certain conditions.If we have iron within us, could we extract or attract iron from Saturn's district? Or, if the element within us could attract gold, could we obtain it from the coal fields?