In Search of the Miraculous

around us or to other people and having in fact no interest whatever; on the constant

waste of the force of 'attention'; and so on, and so on.

"In beginning to struggle with all these habitual sides of his life a man saves an

enormous amount of energy, and with the help of this energy he can easily begin the

work of self-study and self-perfection.

"Further on, however, the problem becomes more difficult. Having to a certain

extent balanced his machine and ascertained for himself that it produces much more

energy than he expected, a man nevertheless comes to the conclusion that this energy

is not enough and that, if he wishes to continue his work, he must increase the amount

of energy produced.

"The study of the working of the human organism shows this to be quite possible.

"The human organism represents a chemical factory planned for the possibility of a

very large output. But in the ordinary conditions of life the output of this factory never reaches the full production possible to it, because only a small part of the machinery is used which produces only that quantity of material necessary to maintain its own

existence. Factory work of this kind is obviously uneconomic in the highest degree.

The factory actually produces nothing—all its machinery, all its elaborate equipment,

actually serve no purpose at all, in that it maintains only with difficulty its own

existence.

"The work of the factory consists in transforming one kind of matter into another,

namely, the coarser matters, in the cosmic sense, into finer ones. The factory receives,

as raw material from the outer world, a number of coarse 'hydrogens' and transforms

them into finer hydrogens by

means of a whole series of complicated alchemical processes. But in the ordinary

conditions of life the production by the human factory of the finer 'hydrogens,' in

which, from the point of view of the possibility of higher states of consciousness and

the work of higher centers, we are particularly interested, is insufficient and they are

all wasted on the existence of the factory itself. If we could succeed in bringing the

production up to its possible maximum we should then begin to save the fine

'hydrogens.' Then the whole of the body, all the tissues, all the cells, would become

saturated with these fine 'hydrogens' which would gradually settle in them,

crystallizing in a special way. This crystallization of the fine 'hydrogens' would

gradually bring the whole organism onto a higher level, onto a higher plane of being.

"This, however, cannot happen in the ordinary conditions of life, because the

'factory' expends all that it produces.

" 'Learn to separate the fine from the coarse'—this principle from the 'Emerald

Tablets of Hermes Trismegistus' refers to the work of the human factory, and if a man

learns to 'separate the fine from the coarse,' that is, if he brings the production of the fine 'hydrogens' to its possible maximum, he will by this very fact create for himself

the possibility of an inner growth which can be brought about by no other means.

Inner growth, the growth of the inner bodies of man, the astral, the mental, and so on,

is a material process completely analogous to the growth of the physical body. In

order to grow, a child must have good food, his organism must be in a healthy

condition to prepare from this food the material necessary for the growth of the

tissues. The same thing is necessary for the growth of the 'astral body'; out of the

various kinds of food entering it, the organism must produce the substances necessary

for the growth of the 'astral body.' Moreover, the 'astral body' requires for its growth

the same substances as those necessary to maintain the physical body, only in much

greater quantities. If the physical organism begins to produce a sufficient quantity of

these fine substances and the 'astral body' within it becomes formed, this astral

organism will require for its maintenance less of these substances than it required

during its growth. The surplus from these substances can then be used for the

formation and growth of the 'mental body' which will grow with the help of the same

substances that feed the 'astral body,' but of course the growth of the 'mental body'

will require more of these substances than the growth and feeding of the 'astral body.'

The surplus of the substances left over from the feeding of the 'mental body' will go

to the growth of the fourth body. But in all cases the surplus will have to be very

large. All the fine substances necessary for the growth and feeding of the higher

bodies must be produced within the physical organism, and the physical organism is

able to produce them provided the human factory is working properly and

economically.

"All the substances necessary for the maintenance of the life of the organism, for

psychic work, for the higher functions of consciousness and the growth of the higher

bodies, are produced by the organism from the food which enters it from outside

"The human organism receives three kinds of food