ANTHROPOLOGY 67 



that can hold forms together and prevent their dissolu- 

 tion and their return into chaos. Pure spirit has no 

 personality, but exists impersonal in and as God. Every 

 birth produces a new person, but not a new spiritual ray. 

 The spirit survives, but the personality of man, as such, 

 will be lost. Only those elements belonging to his per- 

 sonality that will be absorbed by the spirit will survive 

 with the latter. The cement that unites the soul with 

 the spirit is love, and the love of God is, therefore, the 

 highest good attainable by mortal man. 



"The animal kingdom is not without reason and 

 intellect, and in many of its arts, such as swimming, 

 flying, &c., even superior to man ; but the Spirit of God 

 is far superior to the reasoning intellect, and by means 

 of this spirituality man may rise above the animal plane. 

 Therefore there is a great difference between the exter- 

 nal and the internal man ; for the intellectuality of the 

 former perishes, while the wisdom of the latter remains" 

 (Be, Fundamento Sapientice). 



The astral Soul-essence of Man is formed by the 

 ethereal or astral influences coming from the souls of the 

 world and of the planets and stars, especially from the 

 soul (or astral body) of the planet whereon he lives. As 

 the soul of each man and of each animal has its peculiar 

 qualities that distinguish it from others, so the soul of 

 each planet, each sun, each world, has its peculiar charac- 

 teristics, and sends out its beneficial or its destructive 

 influences, pervading cosmic space, acting upon the 

 Microcosm of man, and producing finally visible results.^ 

 These astral elements are the organisers of the soul of 

 man. They are the builders of the temple in which the 

 spirit resides, and being energised by them, the soul of 

 man attracts by physiological processes the elements of 



* This is not to be understood as if the astral influences were creating 

 the divine soul of man. Man's spirit is from God ; his astral qualities are 

 developed by the astral influences, and his elementary (physical) body ^W8 

 out of the elements by which it is surrounded. 



