i82 PARACELSUS 



the conditions under which it acts, as it may be pure 

 or impure, healthy or poisoned, by other influences. 

 The animal organism attracts it from its surroundings 

 and from the nutriments which enter into its form ; 

 it assimilates it, and loses it again. "The Archaeus, 

 or Liquor Vitae, constitutes the invisible man. The 

 invisible man is hidden in the visible one, and is formed 

 in the shape of the outer one as long as it remains 

 in that outer one. The inner man is, so to say, the 

 shadow or the counterpart of the material body. It is 

 ethereal in its nature, still it is substance ; it directs the 

 growth and the formation and dissolution of the form in 

 which it is contained ; it is the noblest part in physical 

 man. As a man's picture is reflected in a mirror, so 

 the form of the physical man is reflected in the invisible 

 body" -^ {Be Generatione Hominis). 



" The Archaeus is an essence that is equally distri- 

 buted in all parts of the human body, if the latter is 

 in a healthy condition ; it is the invisible nutriment 

 from which the visible body draws its strength, and the 

 qualities ot each of its parts correspond to the nature 

 of the physical parts that contain it. The Spiritus 

 Yitae takes its origin from the Spiritus Mundi. Being 

 an emanation of the latter, it contains the elements of 

 all cosmic influences, and is therefore the cause by 

 which the action of the stars (cosmic forces) upon the 

 invisible body of man may be explained" {De Virihus 

 Menfibrorum). 



" The Archaeus is of a magnetic nature, and attracts 

 or repels other sympathetic or antipathetic forces be- 

 longing to the same plane. The less power of resistance 

 for astral influences a person possesses, the more will 

 he be subject to such influences. The vital force is 

 not enclosed in man, but radiates around him like a 

 luminous sphere, and it can be made to act at a dis- 

 tance. In those semi-material rays the imagination of 



* It is the Pranamaya of Sankaracharya. 



