278 PARACELSUS 



faith is spiritual consciousness, but a belief based upon 

 mere opinions and creeds is the product of ignorance, 

 and a superstition." ^ 



Keincarnation 



" The body which we receive from our parents, and 

 which is built up from the nutriments it draws directly 

 and indirectly from the earth, has no spiritual powers, 

 for wisdom and virtue, faith, hope, and charity, do not 

 grow from the earth. These powers are not the pro- 

 ducts of man's physical organisation, but the attributes 

 of another invisible and glorified body, whose germs are 

 laid within man.^ The physical body changes and dies, 

 the glorified body is eternal. This eternal man is the 

 real man, and is not generated by his earthly parents. 

 He does not draw nutriment from the earth, but from 

 the eternal invisible source from which he originated. 

 Nevertheless the two bodies are one, and man may be 

 compared to a tree, drawing his nutriment from the 

 earth, and from the surrounding air. The roots extend 

 into the earth, and seek their nutriment in the dark, but 



^ This is the curse of all dabblers in the divine mysteries, that when 

 they begin to believe that there is something superior to the merely animal 

 man, this belief opens the door for superstition and idolatry ; for, having 

 no knowledge of the power of the divine will within their own self, they 

 are devoid of the true faith, which is divine self-confidence. They there- 

 fore put their trust, not in the one true God, but in the gods which they 

 have created within their own imagination. They seek in outward things 

 for that which they cannot find within their own empty shells. They 

 neglect their duties as men and revel in dreams wherein there is nothing 

 real. Some put their faith in doctors and priests, others in herbs and roots, 

 still others in magic spells and incantations ; but the wise know that the 

 first step on the road to spiritual unfoldment is the fulfilment of one's 

 duties as a man ; for no god can grow out of a man unless the man has 

 become truly that which he ought to be. In this fulfilment of one's duty 

 and becoming true to one's nature as man rests the germ of true happi- 

 ness, and from this germ is evolved the regenerated man in whom heaven 

 exists and who lives through eternity. 



^ Where should that germ come from, if it had not existed before, and 

 how did it attain its divine qualities ? 



