Theos-Talk Archives (July 2005 Message tt00050)

KOSMIC MIND PART II


Among hundreds of accusations against Asiatic nations of degrading
superstitions, based on "crass ignorance," there exists no more serious
denunciation than that which accuses and convicts them of personifying and
even deifying the chief organs of, and in, the human body. Indeed, do not we
hear these "benighted fools" of Hindus speaking of the small-pox as a
goddess--thus personifying the microbes of the variolic virus? Do we not
read about Tantrikas, a sect of mystics, giving proper names to nerves,
cells and arteries, connecting and identifying various parts of the body
with deities, endowing functions and physiological processes with
intelligence, and what not? The vertebræ, fibers, ganglia, the cord, etc.,
of the spinal column; the heart, its four chambers, auricle and ventricle,
valves and the rest; stomach, liver, lungs and spleen, everything has its
special deific name, is believed to act consciously and to act under the
potent will of the Yogi, whose head and heart are the seats of Brahmâ and
the various parts of whose body are all the pleasure grounds of this or
another deity! 

This is indeed ignorance. Especially when we think that the said organs, and
the whole body of man are composed of cells, and these cells are now being
recognised as individual organisms and-- quien sabe --will come perhaps to
be recognized some day as an independent race of thinkers inhabiting the
globe, called man! It really looks like it. For was it not hitherto believed
that all the phenomena of assimilation and sucking in of food by the
intestinal canal, could be explained by the laws of diffusion and
endosmosis? And now, alas, physiologists have come to learn that the action
of the intestinal canal during the act of absorbing, is not identical with
the action of the non-living membrane in the dialyser. It is now well
demonstrated that-- this wall is covered with epithelium cells, each of
which is an organism per se, a living being, and with very complex
functions. We know further, that such a cell assimilates food--by means of
active contractions of its protoplasmic body--in a manner as mysterious as
that which we notice in the independent Amœba and animalcules. We can
observe on the intestinal epithelium of the cold-blooded animals how these
cells project shoots--pseudopodiæ--out of their contractive, bare,
protoplasmic bodies--which pseudopodiæ, or false feet, fish out of the food
drops of fat, suck them into their protoplasm and send it further, toward
the lymph-duct. . . . The lymphatic cells issuing from the nests of the
adipose tissue, and squeezing themselves through the epithelium cells up to
the surface of the intestines, absorb therein the drops of fat and loaded
with their prey, travel homeward to the lymphatic canals. So long as this
active work of the cells remained unknown to us, the fact that while the
globules of fat penetrated through the walls of the intestines into
lymphatic channels, the smallest of pigmental grains introduced into the
intestines did not do so,--remained unexplained. But to-day we know, that
this faculty of selecting their special food--of assimilating the useful and
rejecting the useless and the harmful -- is common to all the unicellular
organisms. 5 

And the lecturer queries, why, if this discrimination in the selection of
food exists in the simplest and most elementary of the cells, in the
formless and structureless protoplasmic drops--why it should not exist also
in the epithelium cells of our intestinal canal. Indeed, if the Vampyrella
recognises its much beloved Spirogyra, among hundreds of other plants as
shown above, why should not the epithelium cell, sense, choose and select
its favorite drop of fat from a pigmental grain? But we will be told that
"sensing, choosing, and selecting" pertain only to reasoning beings, at
least to the instinct of more structural animals than is the protoplasmic
cell outside or inside man. Agreed; but as we translate from the lecture of
a learned physiologist and the works of other learned naturalists, we can
only say, that these learned gentlemen must know what they are talking
about; though they are probably ignorant of the fact that their scientific
prose is but one degree removed from the ignorant, superstitious, but rather
poetical "twaddle" of the Hindu Yogis and Tantrikas. 

Anyhow, our professor of physiology falls foul of the materialistic theories
of diffusion and endosmosis. Armed with the facts of the evident
discrimination and a mind in the cells, he demonstrates by numerous
instances the fallacy of trying to explain certain physiological processes
by mechanical theories; such for instance as the passing of sugar from the
liver (where it is transformed into glucose) into the blood. Physiologists
find great difficulty in explaining this process, and regard it as an
impossibility to bring it under the endosmosic laws. In all probability the
lymphatic cells play just as active a part during the absorption of
alimentary substances dissolved in water, as the peptics do, a process well
demonstrated by F. Hofmeister.6 Generally speaking, poor convenient
endosmose is dethroned and exiled from among the active functionaries of the
human body as a useless sinecurist. It has lost its voice in the matter of
glands and other agents of secretion, in the action of which the same
epithelium cells have replaced it. The mysterious faculties of selection, of
extracting from the blood one kind of substance and rejecting another, of
transforming the former by means of decomposition and synthesis, of
directing some of the products into passages which will throw them out of
the body and redirecting others into lymphatic and blood vessels--such is
the work of the cells. "It is evident that in all this there is not the
slightest hint at diffusion or endosmose," says the Basle physiologist. "It
becomes entirely useless to try and explain these phenomena by chemical
laws." 

But perhaps physiology is luckier in some other department? Failing in the
laws of alimentation, it may have found some consolation for its mechanical
theories in the question of the activity of muscles and nerves, which it
sought to explain by electric laws? Alas, save in a few fishes--in no other
living organisms, least of all in the human body, could it find any
possibility of pointing out electric currents as the chief ruling agency.
Electrobiology on the lines of pure dynamic electricity has egregiously
failed. Ignorant of "Fohat" no electrical currents suffice to explain to it
either muscular or nervous activity! 

But there is such a thing as the physiology of external sensations. Here we
are no longer on terra incognita, and all such phenomena have already found
purely physical explanations. No doubt, there is the phenomenon of sight,
the eye with its optical apparatus, its camera obscura. But the fact of the
sameness of the reproduction of things in the eye, according to the same
laws of refraction as on the plate of a photographic machine, is no vital
phenomenon. The same may be reproduced on a dead eye. The phenomenon of life
consists in the evolution and development of the eye itself. How is this
marvellous and complicated work produced? To this physiology replies, "We do
not know"; for, toward the solution of this great problem-- 

Physiology has not yet made one single step. True, we can follow the
sequence of the stages of the development and formation of the eye, but why
it is so and what is the causal connection, we have absolutely no idea. The
second vital phenomenon of the eye is its accommodating activity. And here
we are again face to face with the functions of nerves and muscles--our old
insoluble riddles. The same may be said of all the organs of sense. The same
also relates to other departments of physiology. We had hoped to explain the
phenomena of the circulation of the blood by the laws of hydrostatics or
hydrodynamics. Of course the blood moves in accordance with the
hydrodynamical laws: but its relation to them remains utterly passive. As to
the active functions of the heart and the muscles of its vessels, no one, so
far, has ever been able to explain them by physical laws. 

The underlined words in the concluding portion of the able Professor's
lecture are worthy of an Occultist. Indeed, he seems to be repeating an
aphorism from the "Elementary Instructions" of the esoteric physiology of
practical Occultism:-- 
The riddle of life is found in the active functions of a living organism,7
the real perception of which activity we can get only through
self-observation, and not owing to our external senses; by observations on
our will, so far as it penetrates our consciousness, thus revealing itself
to our inner sense. Therefore, when the same phenomenon acts only on our
external senses, we recognize it no longer. We see everything that takes
place around and near the phenomenon of motion, but the essence of that
phenomenon we do not see at all, because we lack for it a special organ of
receptivity. We can accept that esse in a mere hypothetical way, and do so,
in fact, when we speak of "active functions." Thus does every physiologist,
for he cannot go on without such hypothesis; and this is a first experiment
of a psychological explanation of all vital phenomena. . . . And if it is
demonstrated to us that we are unable with the help only of physics and
chemistry to explain the phenomena of life, what may we expect from other
adjuncts of physiology, from the sciences of morphology, anatomy, and
histology? I maintain that these can never help us to unriddle the problem
of any of the mysterious phenomena of life. For, after we have succeeded
with the help of scalpel and microscope in dividing the organisms into their
most elementary compounds, and reached the simplest of cells, it is just
here that we find ourselves face to face with the greatest problem of all.
The simplest monad, a microscopical point of protoplasm, form less and
structureless, exhibits yet all the essential vital functions, alimentation,
growth, breeding, motion, feeling and sensuous perception, and even such
functions which replace "consciousness"--the soul of the higher animals! 

The problem--for Materialism--is a terrible one, indeed! Shall our cells,
and infinitesimal monads in nature, do for us that which the arguments of
the greatest Pantheistic philosophers have hitherto failed to do? Let us
hope so. And if they do, then the "superstitious and ignorant" Eastern
Yogis, and even their exoteric followers, will find themselves vindicated.
For we hear from the same physiologist that-- 

A large number of poisons are prevented by the epithelium cells from
penetrating into lymphatic spaces, though we know that they are easily
decomposed in the abdominal and intestinal juices. More than this.
Physiology is aware that by injecting these poisons directly into the blood,
they will separate from, and reappear through the intestinal walls, and that
in this process the lymphatic cells take a most active part. 

If the reader turns to Webster's Dictionary he will find therein a curious
explanation at the words "lymphatic" and "Lymph." Etymologists think that
the Latin word lympha is derived from the Greek nymphe, "a nymph or inferior
Goddess," they say. "The Muses were sometimes called nymphs by the poets.
Hence (according to Webster) all persons in a state of rapture, as seers,
poets, madmen, etc., were said to be caught by the nymphs." 

The Goddess of Moisture (the Greek and Latin nymph or lymph, then) is fabled
in India as being born from the pores of one of the Gods, whether the Ocean
God, Varuna, or a minor "River God" is left to the particular sect and fancy
of the believers. But the main question is, that the ancient Greeks and
Latins are thus admittedly known to have shared in the same "superstitions"
as the Hindus. This superstition is shown in their maintaining to this day
that every atom of matter in the four (or five) Elements is an emanation
from an inferior God or Goddess, himself or herself an earlier emanation
from a superior deity; and, moreover, that each of these atoms--being
Brahmâ, one of whose names is Anu, or atom--no sooner is it emanated thanit
becomes endowed with consciousness, each of its kind, and free-will, acting
within the limits of law. Now, he who knows that the kosmic trimurti
(trinity) composed of Brahmâ, the Creator; Vishnu, the Preserver; and Siva,
the Destroyer, is a most magnificent and scientific symbol of the material
Universe and its gradual evolution; and who finds a proof of this, in the
etymology of the names of these deities,8 plus the doctrines of Gupta Vidya,
or esoteric knowledge--knows also how to correctly understand this
"superstition." The five fundamental titles of Vishnu--added to that of Anu
(atom) common to all the trimurtic personages--which are, Bhutâtman, one
with the created or emanated materials of the world; Pradhanâtman, "one with
the senses;" Paramâtman, "Supreme Soul"; and Atman, Kosmic Soul, or the
Universal Mind--show sufficiently what the ancient Hindus meant by endowing
with mind and consciousness every atom and giving it a distinct name of a
God or a Goddess. Place their Pantheon, composed of 30 crores (or 300
millions) of deities within the macrocosm (the Universe), or inside the
microcosm (man), and the number will not be found overrated, since they
relate to the atoms, cells, and molecules of everything that is. 

This, no doubt, is too poetical and abstruse for our generation, but it
seems decidedly as scientific, if not more so, than the teachings derived
from the latest discoveries of Physiology and Natural History. 

Lucifer, April, 1890 

========================
 
1 Vide "Secret Doctrine," vol. i, pp. 2 and 3.

2 From a paper read by him some time ago at a public lecture.

3 L. Cienkowsky. See his work Beitraege zur Kentniss der Monaden, Archiv f.
mikroskop, Anatomie. 

4 Loc. Cit, Pfluger's Archiv. Bd. II, S. 387.

5 From the paper read by the Professor of physiology at the University of
Basle, previously quoted.

6 Untersuchungen ueber Resorption u. Assimilation der Naehrstoffe (Archiv.
f. Experimentalle Pathologie und Pharmakologie, Bd. XIX, 1885). 

7 Life and activity are but two different names for the same idea, or, what
is still more correct, they are two words with which the men of science
connect no definite idea whatever. Nevertheless, and perhaps just for that,
they are obliged to use them, for they contain the point of contact between
the most difficult problems over which, in fact, the greatest thinkers of
the materialistic school have ever tripped. 

8 Brahmâ comes from the root brih, "to expand," to "scatter"; Vishnu from
the root vis or vish (phonetically) "to enter into," "to pervade" the
universe, of matter. As to Siva--the patron of the Yogis, the etymology of
his name would remain incomprehensible to the casual reader. 


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