Rosicrucian Society ™

Plato insisted upon the necessity of a clear definition of terms as a basis of argument and we contend that that is as necessary in discussing the problem of life from the Bible point of view as in arguments from the platonic standpoint. According to the Bible man is a composite being consisting of body, soul and spirit. The two latter are usually taken to be synonymous, but we insist that they are not interchangeable and present the following to support our dictum.

All things are in a state of vibration. Vibrations from objects in our surroundings are constantly impinging upon us and carry[pg 037]to our senses a cognition of the external world. The vibrations in the ether act upon our eyes so that we see, and vibrations in the air transmit sounds to the ear.

We also breathe the ether which is charged with pictures of our surroundings and the sounds in our environment, so that by means of the breath we receive at each moment of our life, internally an accurate picture of our external surroundings.

That is a scientific proposition. Science does not explain what becomes of these vibrations however, but according to the Rosicrucian Mystery teaching they are transmitted to the blood, and then etched upon a little atom in the heart as automatically as a moving picture is imprinted upon the sensitized film, and a record of sounds is engraven upon the phonographic disc. This breath-record starts with the first breath of the newborn babe and ends only with the last gasp of the dying man, and “soul” is a product of the breath. Genesis also shows the connection between breath and soul in the words: “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul” (The same word: nephesh, is[pg 038]translated breath and soul in the above quotation.)

In the post mortem existence the breath-record is disposed of. The good acts of life produce feelings of pleasure and the intensity of attraction incorporates them into the spirit as soul-power. Thus the breath-records of our good acts are the soul which is saved, for by the union with the spirit they become immortal. As they accumulate life after life, we become more soulful and they are thus also the basis of soulgrowth.