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THE ETHERIC BODY AND PRANA
The Nature of the Etheric Body
In days to come it will be realized that the health of man is dependent upon the health of all allied evolutions, and upon the cooperative action and full expression of the matter of the planet and of the planetary elemental who is himself a composite manifestation of the physical elementals of all manifested nature.
In the study of the Etheric body and prana lies the revelation of the effects of those Rays of the sun which we will call "solar pranic emanations." These solar pranic emanations are the produced effect of the central heat of the sun approaching other bodies within the solar system by one of the three main channels of contact, and producing on the bodies then contacted certain effects differing somewhat from those produced by the other emanations.
Emanative prana does little in connection with form-building; that is not its province, but it conserves the form through the preservation of the health of its component parts. Other Rays of the sun act differently, upon the forms and upon their substance. Some perform the work of the Destroyer of forms, and others carry on the work of cohering and of attracting; the work of the Destroyer and of the Preserver is carried on under the Law of Attraction and Repulsion. Some Rays definitely produce accelerated motion, others produce retardation.
The ones we are dealing with here - pranic solar emanations - work within the four Ethers, that matter which (though physical) is not as yet objectively visible to the eye of man. They are the basis of all Physical plane life considered solely in connection with the life of the Physical plane atoms of matter, their inherent heat and their rotary motion. These emanations are the basis of that "Fire by Friction" which demonstrates in the activity of matter.
Finally, in the study of the Etheric body and prana comes comprehension of the method of logoic manifestation, and therefore much of interest to the metaphysician, and all abstract thinkers. The Etheric body of man holds hid the secret of his objectivity. It has its correspondence on the archetypal plane, the plane we call that of the divine manifestation, the first plane of our solar system, the plane Adi.
Its Purpose and Description
The Etheric body has been described as a network, permeated with fire, or as a web, animated with golden light. It is spoken of in the Bible as the "golden bowl." It is a composition of that matter of the Physical plane which we call Etheric, and its shape is brought about by the fine interlacing strands of this matter being built by the action of the lesser Builders into the form or mould upon which later the dense physical body can be molded.
Under the Law of Attraction, the denser matter of the Physical plane is made to cohere to this vitalized form, and is gradually built up around it, and within it, until the interpenetrating is so complete that the two forms make but one unit; the pranic emanations of the Etheric body itself play upon the dense physical body in the same manner as the pranic emanations of the sun play upon the Etheric body. It is all one vast system of transmission and of interdependence within the system. All receive in order to give, and to pass on to that which is lesser or not so evolved. Upon every plane this process can be seen.
Thus the Etheric body forms the archetypal plane in relation to the dense physical body. The thinker on his own plane stands, in relation to the physical, as the Logos to His system. In the synthesis of thought it might be expressed thus: The thinker on the Astral plane, the plane of desire and of necessity, stands to the physical body as the Logos on the cosmic Astral plane stands to His system.
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