OCCULT SIGNIFICANCE OF BLOOD

is presented to the instreaming oxygen is a kind of poison to the organism—a kind of destroyer and demolisher—but through the absorption of the oxygen the blue-red blood The author refers to deoxygenated venous blood as "blue-red." becomes transmuted by a process of combustion into red, life-giving fluid. This blood that finds its way to all parts of the body, depositing everywhere its particles of nourishment, has the task of directly assimilating the materials of the outer world, and of applying them, by the shortest method possible, to the nourishment of the body. It is necessary for man and the higher animals first to absorb such foodstuffs into their blood; then, having formed the blood, to absorb the oxygen from the air into it, and to build up and maintain the body by means of it.

One gifted with a knowledge of souls Likely a reference to an initiate or spiritual researcher. has not without truth remarked: “The blood with its circulation is like a second being, and in relation to the man of bone, muscle, and nerve, acts like a kind of exterior world.” For, as a matter of fact, the entire human being is continually drawing his sustenance from the blood, and at the same time he discharges into it that for which he has no use. A man’s blood is therefore a true double The "double" or "Doppelgänger" here refers to a physiological mirror of the self. ever bearing him company, from which he draws new strength, and to which he gives all that he can no longer use.