The Way of Power | Page 8

in spite of the physical disability, not because of it; and had their bodies been in the same efficient working order as (say) the reflectors of an astronomical instrument they would have had clearer and more coherent results, less disturbed with the storms and vibrations which interrupt connection. It is a fact proved by age-long experience that the body embruted and degraded by intemperate living and misuse of the sensual pleasures completely blocks the way to the evolution of intellectual and psychic growth:
The Lord let the house of a brute to the soul of a man,
And the man said, "Am I your debtor?"
And the Lord--"Not yet; but make it as clean as you can,
And then I will let you a better."
In other words, to work without the co-operation of the body is to be perpetually standing on tip-toe in an unnatural attitude which deflects attention to itself. Also, happy people are much more likely to do the best work in psychic science. Misery has a driving force which sometimes wrings fine intellectual and artistic work out of men as an escape-valve from its pressure, and because ill-health is misery a man like Lombroso can point to certain brain and body cripples who have had what he calls genius. But for the highest forms of art, serene and sunny consciousness of peace and power is the atmosphere for the most enduring work, and this applies a thousandfold to psychic wisdom, where, historically, are seen immortal results attained by those who have made the body a clear window through which the inward light can shine.
Therefore health of the body, which includes that transmitter the brain, is of immense importance for people who wish to attain high results in the study of the psychic, commonly called the occult, and it is plain wisdom to neglect no means of attainment, especially the fundamental one of a body trained to co-operation instead of hindrance.
To those who have experienced this advantage it is really like watching a dance of lunatics to see how people apparently otherwise competent to pursue the business of life treat their bodies. Women who consider the possession of physical beauty the chief business of life as means to the only end they are capable of understanding destroy it as it were wilfully, withering its brief blossom by every means in their power. They eat foods fatal to the circulation and mechanism of the body, coarsening their skins till all the raddling and rouging in the world only accentuates the mischief, dulling the luster of their eyes and hair, driving their bodies into the rebellion of excessive fat or leanness at ages when they should still be beautiful as figures on a Greek frieze. Men to whom pellucid clearness of brain is wealth or power, vital to all their hopes and interests, cloud it with nicotine and alcohol, darken it with gross and mistaken feeding. Since the brain is part of the body and the nervous system is the first to cry out against such usage one may safely say that men and women suffering from the results of such folly are very ill qualified to run the world's business. When Carlyle wrote that every sick man was a scoundrel he was with characteristic violence overstating a case which does not need strengthening, and there is something to be said for the point of view in Butler's brilliant "Erewhon" where people suffering from physical disability are brought before a jury to be judged and condemned accordingly. The Roman who spoke of "a healthy mind in a healthy body" knew what he was talking of. And with Carlyle I marvel at what men suffer, not at what they lose.
In the study of the Occult a healthy body and clear brain are even more necessary than in the affairs of daily life, because in that strange world we are explorers. It is ours, yet unknown to us, forgotten, uncharted, in some ways dangerous. Though the world is really our own we are as little at home in it at first as the long-lost heir when he returns to his kingdom and finds the scepter strange and alarming in hands used to the spade. And it is largely because they have often lacked this physical calm and poise that we are apt to call those men mad who have penetrated behind the deceptive Looking Glass of our senses and with half-dazed eyes brought back word of the strange conditions beyond. They are very strange because in the world of reality the values are not ours, our great things are small, our small things great and all our logic baffled. But the pioneer need not necessarily be unbalanced. Take an historical example of what is probably the greatest pioneering fact in the history of psychics; the one