FOOTNOTES:[1]It may thus be more clearly stated to the physiologist: The creative principle of the child lies, before birth, not in that which after birth will continue to live on with him, which indeed now is only dependence, the product, but in that which at birth will remain behind and be cast off, like the body of man in death (placenta cum puniculo umbilicali, velamentis ovi eorumque liquoribus): out of its activity emerges, as its continuation, the young human being.[In the embryonic period it seemed to the child that the placenta was its body, and it was actually its special embryonic body, useless in another stage, and rejected as refuse at the moment of birth. Our body in human life is like a second envelope which is useless to the third life, and for this reason we reject it at the moment of our second birth. Human life as compared with the celestial is truly embryonic.Eliphas Levi.]The translator.[2]Many biblical parallels similar to this are placed together in Zend-Avesta III. p. 363, and “drei Motiven und Gründen des Glaubens,” p. 178.[3]Whether one attributes nervous energy to a chemical or an electrical process, one must still regard it, if not simply as the play of the vibration of minutest atoms, yet as in the main excited or accompanied by this, whereby the imponderable has a larger part than the ponderable. Vibrations, however, can only apparently expire by extending themselves into their environment, or if indeed they disappear for a time through translation of their living strength into so-called elasticity, yet, according to the law of the conservation of energy, they await a revival in some other form.[4]Even in this world, at the approach of death (by narcotics, in imminent drowning, or in exaltation) there occur flashes of recognition of the spiritual meaning of things, examples of which are recorded in Zend-Avesta III. s. 27, and (cases of threatened drowning) in Fechner’s Centralblatt für Naturwiss. und Anthropologie, 1853, s. 43 u. 623.[5]This empirical law of the relation between body and soul consists in the fact that consciousness everywhere ceases, if the bodily activity upon which it depends sinks below a certain degree of strength, which is called the threshold. Now in proportion as it extends itself more widely, can it the more easily, on account of the accompanying weakness, fall below this level. As the total consciousness has its threshold, which makes the dividing line between sleeping and waking in the whole man, so, too, is it with the details of consciousness, whence it comes that during waking now this, now that idea presents itself or sinks out of sight, according as the particular activity upon which it depends rises above or sinks below the special threshold. (Compare “Elem. der Psychophysik,” Kap. X, XXXVIII, XXXIX, and XLII.)[6]Concerning this, compare “Elemente der Psychophysik,” Kap. XXXVII, and “Atomenlehre,” Kap. XXVI.[7]In order not to permit an apparent contradiction of the above-mentioned speculation to the psychophysical doctrine of the combined-threshold (upon which the most enlightening word is in Wundt’s philos. Stud., IV, s. 204 u. 211), note the following: If the psychophysical life-wave (to continue the use of this concise expression) of man, made up of components of the most manifold sort, should spread out into a world which contained only different components, then, indeed, must it be assumed that it, in its extension, would fall below the combined-threshold here under consideration. Since, however, the psychophysical undulatory sea of the universe, among its other components, comprehends also such as are like to those of the human life-wave, and indeed of the most varying height or intensity, therefore such as already rise above or come near the level of the combined-threshold and are only raised still higher by the similar ones which join them, so is the result of the above speculation placed on a somewhat more solid basis. (Note to the third edition.)[8]Indisputably this law, analogous to the so-called law of the conservation of energy in the physical realm, is in some way connected with it through the fundamental relation of spirit to body, without the connection being clearly established, or shown to be derivable psychophysically from the physical law, since the essence of psychophysical energy itself is not clearly defined. The law must therefore be inferred from facts such as are above mentioned; and, without being exactly and fully proved, it acquires thereby a probability which qualifies it to serve as a basis for such views as are here in question.[9]In scientific terms one can say: Consciousness is everywhere; it is awake when and wherever the bodily energy underlying the spiritual, the so-called psychophysical, exceeds that degree of strength which we call the threshold. (Compare p.80, note.) According to this, consciousness can be localized in time and space. The highest point of our psychophysical activity wavers, as it were, from one place to another, wherewith the light of consciousness changes its place, only that during this life it fluctuates back and forth within our body simply, indeed, within a limited part of this body, and in sleep sinks quite below the threshold, above which, on waking, it rises again.(Compare on this point. “Elemente der Psychophysik,” II. Kap. 40 und 41.)
FOOTNOTES:
[1]It may thus be more clearly stated to the physiologist: The creative principle of the child lies, before birth, not in that which after birth will continue to live on with him, which indeed now is only dependence, the product, but in that which at birth will remain behind and be cast off, like the body of man in death (placenta cum puniculo umbilicali, velamentis ovi eorumque liquoribus): out of its activity emerges, as its continuation, the young human being.[In the embryonic period it seemed to the child that the placenta was its body, and it was actually its special embryonic body, useless in another stage, and rejected as refuse at the moment of birth. Our body in human life is like a second envelope which is useless to the third life, and for this reason we reject it at the moment of our second birth. Human life as compared with the celestial is truly embryonic.Eliphas Levi.]The translator.
[1]It may thus be more clearly stated to the physiologist: The creative principle of the child lies, before birth, not in that which after birth will continue to live on with him, which indeed now is only dependence, the product, but in that which at birth will remain behind and be cast off, like the body of man in death (placenta cum puniculo umbilicali, velamentis ovi eorumque liquoribus): out of its activity emerges, as its continuation, the young human being.
[In the embryonic period it seemed to the child that the placenta was its body, and it was actually its special embryonic body, useless in another stage, and rejected as refuse at the moment of birth. Our body in human life is like a second envelope which is useless to the third life, and for this reason we reject it at the moment of our second birth. Human life as compared with the celestial is truly embryonic.
Eliphas Levi.]
The translator.
[2]Many biblical parallels similar to this are placed together in Zend-Avesta III. p. 363, and “drei Motiven und Gründen des Glaubens,” p. 178.
[2]Many biblical parallels similar to this are placed together in Zend-Avesta III. p. 363, and “drei Motiven und Gründen des Glaubens,” p. 178.
[3]Whether one attributes nervous energy to a chemical or an electrical process, one must still regard it, if not simply as the play of the vibration of minutest atoms, yet as in the main excited or accompanied by this, whereby the imponderable has a larger part than the ponderable. Vibrations, however, can only apparently expire by extending themselves into their environment, or if indeed they disappear for a time through translation of their living strength into so-called elasticity, yet, according to the law of the conservation of energy, they await a revival in some other form.
[3]Whether one attributes nervous energy to a chemical or an electrical process, one must still regard it, if not simply as the play of the vibration of minutest atoms, yet as in the main excited or accompanied by this, whereby the imponderable has a larger part than the ponderable. Vibrations, however, can only apparently expire by extending themselves into their environment, or if indeed they disappear for a time through translation of their living strength into so-called elasticity, yet, according to the law of the conservation of energy, they await a revival in some other form.
[4]Even in this world, at the approach of death (by narcotics, in imminent drowning, or in exaltation) there occur flashes of recognition of the spiritual meaning of things, examples of which are recorded in Zend-Avesta III. s. 27, and (cases of threatened drowning) in Fechner’s Centralblatt für Naturwiss. und Anthropologie, 1853, s. 43 u. 623.
[4]Even in this world, at the approach of death (by narcotics, in imminent drowning, or in exaltation) there occur flashes of recognition of the spiritual meaning of things, examples of which are recorded in Zend-Avesta III. s. 27, and (cases of threatened drowning) in Fechner’s Centralblatt für Naturwiss. und Anthropologie, 1853, s. 43 u. 623.
[5]This empirical law of the relation between body and soul consists in the fact that consciousness everywhere ceases, if the bodily activity upon which it depends sinks below a certain degree of strength, which is called the threshold. Now in proportion as it extends itself more widely, can it the more easily, on account of the accompanying weakness, fall below this level. As the total consciousness has its threshold, which makes the dividing line between sleeping and waking in the whole man, so, too, is it with the details of consciousness, whence it comes that during waking now this, now that idea presents itself or sinks out of sight, according as the particular activity upon which it depends rises above or sinks below the special threshold. (Compare “Elem. der Psychophysik,” Kap. X, XXXVIII, XXXIX, and XLII.)
[5]This empirical law of the relation between body and soul consists in the fact that consciousness everywhere ceases, if the bodily activity upon which it depends sinks below a certain degree of strength, which is called the threshold. Now in proportion as it extends itself more widely, can it the more easily, on account of the accompanying weakness, fall below this level. As the total consciousness has its threshold, which makes the dividing line between sleeping and waking in the whole man, so, too, is it with the details of consciousness, whence it comes that during waking now this, now that idea presents itself or sinks out of sight, according as the particular activity upon which it depends rises above or sinks below the special threshold. (Compare “Elem. der Psychophysik,” Kap. X, XXXVIII, XXXIX, and XLII.)
[6]Concerning this, compare “Elemente der Psychophysik,” Kap. XXXVII, and “Atomenlehre,” Kap. XXVI.
[6]Concerning this, compare “Elemente der Psychophysik,” Kap. XXXVII, and “Atomenlehre,” Kap. XXVI.
[7]In order not to permit an apparent contradiction of the above-mentioned speculation to the psychophysical doctrine of the combined-threshold (upon which the most enlightening word is in Wundt’s philos. Stud., IV, s. 204 u. 211), note the following: If the psychophysical life-wave (to continue the use of this concise expression) of man, made up of components of the most manifold sort, should spread out into a world which contained only different components, then, indeed, must it be assumed that it, in its extension, would fall below the combined-threshold here under consideration. Since, however, the psychophysical undulatory sea of the universe, among its other components, comprehends also such as are like to those of the human life-wave, and indeed of the most varying height or intensity, therefore such as already rise above or come near the level of the combined-threshold and are only raised still higher by the similar ones which join them, so is the result of the above speculation placed on a somewhat more solid basis. (Note to the third edition.)
[7]In order not to permit an apparent contradiction of the above-mentioned speculation to the psychophysical doctrine of the combined-threshold (upon which the most enlightening word is in Wundt’s philos. Stud., IV, s. 204 u. 211), note the following: If the psychophysical life-wave (to continue the use of this concise expression) of man, made up of components of the most manifold sort, should spread out into a world which contained only different components, then, indeed, must it be assumed that it, in its extension, would fall below the combined-threshold here under consideration. Since, however, the psychophysical undulatory sea of the universe, among its other components, comprehends also such as are like to those of the human life-wave, and indeed of the most varying height or intensity, therefore such as already rise above or come near the level of the combined-threshold and are only raised still higher by the similar ones which join them, so is the result of the above speculation placed on a somewhat more solid basis. (Note to the third edition.)
[8]Indisputably this law, analogous to the so-called law of the conservation of energy in the physical realm, is in some way connected with it through the fundamental relation of spirit to body, without the connection being clearly established, or shown to be derivable psychophysically from the physical law, since the essence of psychophysical energy itself is not clearly defined. The law must therefore be inferred from facts such as are above mentioned; and, without being exactly and fully proved, it acquires thereby a probability which qualifies it to serve as a basis for such views as are here in question.
[8]Indisputably this law, analogous to the so-called law of the conservation of energy in the physical realm, is in some way connected with it through the fundamental relation of spirit to body, without the connection being clearly established, or shown to be derivable psychophysically from the physical law, since the essence of psychophysical energy itself is not clearly defined. The law must therefore be inferred from facts such as are above mentioned; and, without being exactly and fully proved, it acquires thereby a probability which qualifies it to serve as a basis for such views as are here in question.
[9]In scientific terms one can say: Consciousness is everywhere; it is awake when and wherever the bodily energy underlying the spiritual, the so-called psychophysical, exceeds that degree of strength which we call the threshold. (Compare p.80, note.) According to this, consciousness can be localized in time and space. The highest point of our psychophysical activity wavers, as it were, from one place to another, wherewith the light of consciousness changes its place, only that during this life it fluctuates back and forth within our body simply, indeed, within a limited part of this body, and in sleep sinks quite below the threshold, above which, on waking, it rises again.(Compare on this point. “Elemente der Psychophysik,” II. Kap. 40 und 41.)
[9]In scientific terms one can say: Consciousness is everywhere; it is awake when and wherever the bodily energy underlying the spiritual, the so-called psychophysical, exceeds that degree of strength which we call the threshold. (Compare p.80, note.) According to this, consciousness can be localized in time and space. The highest point of our psychophysical activity wavers, as it were, from one place to another, wherewith the light of consciousness changes its place, only that during this life it fluctuates back and forth within our body simply, indeed, within a limited part of this body, and in sleep sinks quite below the threshold, above which, on waking, it rises again.
(Compare on this point. “Elemente der Psychophysik,” II. Kap. 40 und 41.)