i04 PARACELSUS 



soul and have no such bodies as are commonly called 

 " material." 



It may be said that the soul is a certain state of 

 activity of the will, and the same may be said of the 

 physical body ; for if we look at the universe as being 

 a manifestation of will in motion, then all forms and 

 objects that we know of, or which we can imagine, 

 are certain vibrations of will. Thus we may look upon 

 physical nature as being constituted of a low order of 

 vibrations ; upon the soul as a higher octave of the same, 

 and of spirit as one higher still. If the physical body 

 dies, the lower octave ceases to sound ; but the higher 

 one continues and will continue to vibrate as long as it 

 is in contact with the highest ; but if the spirit has 

 become separated from it, it will sooner or later cease its 

 activity. Thus if man dies the soul remains, and its 

 higher essences go to form the substance of the body of 

 the paradisaical man, " the man of the new Olymp," and 

 the lower essences of the soul, from which the spirit hap 

 departed, dissolve in the astral elements to which they 

 belong, as the earthly body dissolves in the elements of 

 the earth. 



This dissolution, however, does not take place imme- 

 diately at the time of the separation of the soul from the 

 body, but may require a long time. That which consti- 

 tuted the mind of a man will still continue to exist 

 after the death of the body, although it is not the man 

 itself. " If a man has been true during his life, his spirit 

 will be true after the man's death. If he has been a 

 great astronomer, a magician, or alchemist, his spirit will 

 still be the same, and we may learn a great many things 

 from such spirits ; they being the substance of the mind 

 which once constituted the terrestrial man" {Philos.^ 

 Tract v.). 



There are two deaths or two separations — the sepa- 

 ration of the spirit and soul from the body and the 

 separation of the spirit from the astral sou], or, to 



