Occultism and Spiritualism

...to make use of comparisons, not for the purpose of demonstration, but to illuminate a question.

Let us begin by establishing a comparison intended to shed some light upon the subject.

Man is compared to a carriage team, wherein the vehicle represents the physical body, the Horse, the Astral Body, and the Driver, the Spirit. This image allows one to clearly grasp the role of each principle. The vehicle is inert by its very nature and corresponds closely to the physical body as conceived by the occultist. The driver commands the direction by means of the reins, without participating in the direct traction; such is the role of the Spirit. Finally, the Horse, joined to the vehicle by the shafts and to the Driver by the reins, moves the entire system without concerning itself with the direction.

This image clearly indicates the character of the Astral Body, the true horse of the organism, which moves but does not direct. It remains for us to see whether this comparison corresponds to a real entity, and whether there truly exists within us a Motive Principle distinct from the Directing Principle. It is to Physiology and Anatomy that contemporary occultists have turned in order to prove the assertions of their ancestors on this subject.

There exists within us a nervous system of organic life, placed under the almost exclusive dominion of the Great Sympathetic Nerve and acting upon organs of a special constitution (smooth-fiber organs). This system moves everything within the organism, from the finest of the arteries to the intestine during sleep. In the waking state, the striated muscles add the action of the Brain—the seat of the Spirit—to this process; thus, the Driver of the organism demonstrates that his role is quite distinct from that of the horse, represented by the Great Sympathetic, served by its plexuses and its multiple vasomotor nerves. As soon as we sleep, cerebral functions cease, and the system of organic life alone continues its action: it digests food, manufacturing chyle and lymph; it circulates the blood and distri—