6o PARACELSUS 



higher modes for its manifestation , while many of our 

 modern speculative philosophers look upon the intelligent 

 principle of life as non- existing, and upon life as being 

 merely a manifestation of chemical and physical activity 

 of dead matter in an incomprehensible and causeless state 

 of development.-^ They see only one half of the truth. 



No animal ever grew to be a man, but the divine 

 man, becoming incarnated in human-like animal forms, 

 caused these forms to become the human beings, such 

 as we know them at present upon our earth. 



"According to the biblical account, God created the 

 animals before He created man. The animal elements, 

 instincts, and desires existed before the Divine Spirit 

 illuminated them and made them into man. The animal 

 soul of man is derived from the cosmic animal elements, 

 and the animal kingdom is therefore the father of the 

 animal man. If man is like his animal father, he re- 

 sembles an animal ; if he is like the Divine Spirit that 

 lives within his animal elements, he is like a god. If 

 his reason is absorbed by his animal instincts, it becomes 

 animal reason ; if it rises above his animal desires, it 

 becomes angelic. If a man eats the flesh of an animal, 

 the animal flesh becomes human flesh ; if an animal eats 

 human flesh, the latter becomes animal flesh. A man 

 whose human reason is absorbed by his animal desires 

 is an animal, and if his animal reason becomes enlightened 

 by wisdom he becomes an angel." 



" Animal man is the son of the animal elements out of 



1 The true doctrine has also been taught by Jacob Boehme, an unedu- 

 cated shoemaker but ilhiminated seer, from whom all of our great philo- 

 sophers have borrowed ideas. He says : " The constellation is the outspoken 

 Word. It is the instrument through which the holy, eternally speaking 

 Word speaks and produces objective forms. It is like a great harmony 

 of many voices and musical instruments. They are interacting powers, 

 wherein the essence of sound (Aka^^ha) is the substance, and this is taken 

 up by the Fiat and causes corporeity. This substance is the astral spirit. 

 In it the elements become coagulated (corporified), and thus forms are 

 born, comparable to the hatching of an %%g brooded over by a hen" 

 {Myster. Magn., xi, 26). 



