Occultism and Spiritualism

prophetic and other similar dreams. In this regard, they put forward hypotheses as amusing as those of the theologians, inventing for neurons faculties of elongation impossible to observe—and with good reason—and attributing troublesome facts to hallucination or vague coincidences. Thus one understands the vehemence of theologians in seeking to refute, through syllogisms or metaphysical reasoning, the existence of an intermediary proven by physiological facts and admitted by Saint Paul (Corpus, Anima, et Spiritus), by Saint Dionysius the Areopagite, as well as by Saint Thomas. One also understands the eagerness of materialists to deny everything that might demonstrate the existence of planes other than the physical plane and of states of existence for man other than physical life.

Therefore, we shall summarize this important question as best we can from the point of view of the occultists (1).

From the physiological point of view, the first and most important problem that presents itself is that of the relationship between the spiritual principle and the material principle, or the means of union between the soul and the body. This leads us to the definition of the constitution of man as understood by the occultists—a subject on which they have never varied their teachings in any era, so much so that the Egyptians of the XVth Dynasty described the properties and characteristics of the "Ka" or "Luminous Double" exactly as Paracelsus described this "astral body" in the XVIth century of our era, and as Éliphas Lévi studied the "Fluidic Double" in 1863. For occultists, Man is constituted of three principles, harmonized into a general unity. These principles are: 1st, the physical body, considered only as the product and the support of the elements; 2nd, the Astral Body, double-

(1) According to The Science of the Magi and What is Occultism?