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detectable to human senses in the common range. Apropos of which we quote Dr. Donald H. Andrews of
Johns Hopkins University, who said in a speech: "If you turn out the lights and stand in the dark, you do not
appear to be glowing; yet if you stand in front of an infrared television camera in complete darkness the
television screen will show you as a glowing form, beaming with light which radiates out from you as a result
of the vibrations of your atoms. This is an established physical fact."
It is now some ten years since a professor attached to Chicago University, Dr. Bernard Strehler, and another
attached to the national Laboratory at Oak Ridge, Dr. William Arnold, discovered that green plants give off a
faint red light, much as fireflies do, and then produced in the laboratory a substance which seems to be the
same as that which in the plant emits the red glow. the red light cannot be seen with the naked eye, they
pointed out, but something producing it must be there. They added: "These findings were made possible by
the study of fireflies and luminous bacteria. it is now thought that there is a close relationship between light
emission which releases energy and photosynthesis, which stores energy....Even more surprising is the fact
that the same chemical compounds which are responsible for light emission in fireflies and the luminous
bacteria often causing lighted fish at night, are involved in photosynthesis."
Only in warm-blooded animals and in humankind does the "cold" Fire of space tale on heat which is felt as
such to human sensory equipment.
The heat aspect of the Life Ether in the human body is really a property conferred by the activity of forces
operating in the positive pole of the Light Ether, with which we are concerned in our next set of lessons. For
just as we have not been able wholly to separate the Chemical Ether from the Life Ether, so wee cannot
wholly separate the Life Ether from the Light Ether. All of the ethers react and interact one with the other.
As color is associated with sunlight in the common range of vision, so color is associated with the body
magnetism to the etheric vision. the five colors specialized by the ethers, which stand between violet and red
in a color circle, are not found in the solar spectrum as known to ordinary vision; they do not occur in the
rainbow, which is refracted sunlight. These are the colors running from beyond-violet, through mid-purple,
to magenta or peach- blossom color, to below-red. But though these colors are not found in the solar
spectrum, they are true primary colors in the Desire World, and the peach-blossom color is the color of the
Life Force as seen in the Life Ether in the human body. Max Heindel says that this color is not always
described in identical terms by those who see it. He himself calls it pink-blue" or "pinkish-purple." It is the
expression of the Universal Life Spirit, as noted before, and since it is LIFE ether it appears only in plants,
animals, and man not in the mineral kingdom. Ordinarily the color of the vital body is called a "rosy hue."
The Chemical Ether is characterized by blue or indigo, deepening to mid- purple or near-black.
7 THE LIFE ETHER AND COSMIC FIRE 17
 Etheric Vision and What It Reveals
Other colors may also appear in these two lower ethers but those mentioned are basic.
When the solar ether pours through the spleen and is refracted in the seed atom of the vital body in the solar
plexus, it pours through the body so that every atom of the body, both physical and etheric, receives its
stimulation. The excess force then radiates outward in rose-colored lines. Mr. Heindel's first thought when
studying the ethers was that this force took on its rosy hue by refraction through each prismatic ether atom:
later he decided the change occurred in the solar plexus seed atom, and a cluster of atoms around it.
(COSMO-CONCEPTION, p. 10) He had not completed his researches at the time of his sudden death in
January, 1919.
SUMMARY
Now let us turn once more to the view of the vital body available to the etheric sight of the occult scientist.
Necessarily the vital body atom is seen in conjunction with the physical atom, with which the etheric atom is
tightly entwined. To picture the physical and etheric atom of the body, imagine a pear-shaped wire basket
having walls of spirally curved wire running obliquely from pole to pole. This is the physical part of the
atom. It is shaped nearly like our Earth and the prismatic vital body atom is inserted at the top, which is
widest, and corresponds to the positive pole of the earth. Since the vital prism is inserted at the top, the point
of the prism extends toward the bottom of the "basket," which is termed the negative pole. The whole atom,
thus interpenetrated, resembles a top swinging, swaying, and vibrating, in a note which is set by the archetype
and the Sounding Flame in the medulla oblongata.
This suggests that the "prism" is part of the atomic nucleus (of which little was known during Max Heindel's
lifetime), while the "wire basket" would be, perhaps, the spiraling paths of electrons traveling in the magnetic
vortices determined by the Life Ether. Note that this atom is not disc-shaped but pear-shaped, as it is now
thought the Earth globe may really be, with the wide part at the South Pole.*
The etheric prisms expand when life force is rushing through them; they contract ("shrivel up") in fatigue and
the lines of force are crumpled and bent, forcing the Ego to withdraw in sleep. On page 138 of
ROSICRUCIAN MYSTERIES Max Heindel comments that "when the vital body collapses, as it were, the
little streams of force which permeate each atom seem to shrivel up, and the Ego is forced to abandon its
body to the restorative powers of sleep." He also mentions certain forces which circle the atom and the earth
from pole to equator. (THE VITAL BODY p. 42).
To the etheric vision, points of the etheric prisms are seen sticking out in every direction. But just as physical
vision varies, so also etheric vision varies from person to person, and although all see much the same thing, it
is seen in varying degrees of sharpness and clarity. Students should therefore
*Max Heindel specifically designates this as the common physical atom; but modern occult writers point out
that it is perhaps not the hydrogen atom, but an "etheric" atom which is really sub-atomic.
Of the so-called "ultimate physical atom" Max Heindel says: "If we are so far developed that we are able to
leave our dense physical body and take soul flight into interplanetary space, we shall find that THE
ULTIMATE PHYSICAL atom is spherical in shape like our earth; it is a ball." (ROSICRUCIAN
MYSTERIES p. 8-9). [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]