OCCULT SIGNIFICANCE OF BLOOD

(The term is used here in the same sense as it is applied by physical science.) This etheric or vital body, as it is sometimes called, far from being a figment of the imagination, is as distinctly visible to the developed spiritual senses of the occultist as colors are perceptible to the physical eye. This etheric body The "etheric body" is described in Theosophy as the first energetic layer of the human aura, responsible for vitality and growth. can actually be seen by the clairvoyant. It is the principle which calls inorganic materials into life; it summons them from their lifeless condition and weaves them into the thread of life’s garment. Do not imagine that this body is, to the occultist, merely something he adds in thought to what is lifeless. That is what the natural scientists try to do! They try to complete what they see through the microscope by inventing a concept they call the life-principle.

Now, such a standpoint is not taken by theosophical research. This research has a fixed principle. It does not say:

“Here I stand as a seeker, just as I am. All that there is in the world must conform to my present point of view. What I am unable to perceive has no existence!”

This sort of argument is about as sensible as if a blind man were to say that colors are simply matters of fancy. The man who knows nothing about a matter is not in a position to judge it; rather, the judgment belongs to him into whose experience the matter has entered.

etheric body The non-physical "double" of the body that sustains life., vital body, occultist One who studies hidden or "occult" spiritual realities., clairvoyant, life-principle, theosophical research A spiritual philosophy seeking to understand the underlying laws of the universe.