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The Soul and its Mechanism - The Theory of the Etheric Body
In taking on density, energy takes on, or descends into, seven degrees or planes. Man exemplifies three. He has his physical body, his emotional mechanism and his mind-body, and consequently functions on three planes, or is awake on three, the physical, the emotional and the mental. He is on the threshold of the recognition of a fourth and higher factor, the Soul, the Self, and will next awaken to that realization. The three higher planes require no comment in this elementary discussion. In addition to seven planes, each plane has seven subplanes. We shall discuss only the seven subplanes of the lowest or physical plane. Three subplanes of the physical are known to every schoolboy, - the solid, liquid and gaseous, for example, ice, water and steam. In addition there are four subtler planes, or rather four different types of ether. These four are coexistent with each of the three well known subplanes, and interpenetrate them. The physical body of man is no exception. It, too, has its etheric counterpart, its etheric body. This is positive, while the dense physical body is negative. The etheric body is the cohesive factor, and maintains the physical body in life and being. The etheric counterpart, whether of man or of any physical thing, is of the universal substance, of universal life, and of universal energy. It partakes of all of these. But it is not self-sufficient or independently existing. It draws upon the reservoir [59] of universal energy, and in it the etheric counterpart lives and moves and has its being. Energy is thus functioning through the etheric. This is true of man also. The universal energy functions through his etheric body. And as man exists on seven planes, so the etheric body has seven points of contact with energy, - but as only three planes are active, and four dormant, so only three force centers are fully developed and four as yet undeveloped. Of this, more later. In harmonizing the two schools, the question naturally arises, does Western Science corroborate the Eastern theory? No less a scientist than Sir Isaac Newton accepts the universal medium of ether without question. In the last paragraph of his Principia, he says: "And now we might add something concerning a certain most subtle spirit which pervades and lies hid in all gross bodies; by the force and action of which spirit the particles of bodies mutually attract one another at near distances, and cohere if contiguous; and electric bodies operate to greater distances, as well repelling as attracting the neighboring corpuscles; and light is emitted, reflected, refracted, inflected, and heats bodies; and all sensation is excited, and the members of animal bodies move at the command of the will, namely by the vibrations of this spirit, mutually propagated along the solid firmaments of the nerves, from the outward organs of sense to the brain, and from the brain into the muscles. But these are things that cannot be explained in few words, nor are we furnished with that sufficiency of experiments which is required to an accurate determination and [60] demonstration of the laws by which this electric and elastic spirit operates." - Burtt, Edwin Arthur, Ph.D., Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Physical Science, p. 275. Thus it can be argued from the above that Newton recognized the facts of the etheric body, underlying all forms, including the human.
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