Lymph Is a Masque for Nymph, an Inferior Goddess

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky · Constitution of Man Series · 16 pages

Two halves joined by a word. The first is physiological: lymphatic cells issuing from nests of adipose tissue squeeze themselves through the epithelium cells to the surface of the intestines, absorb the drops of fat there and travel homeward to the lymphatic canals loaded with their prey — and the faculty this displays, of selecting their special food, assimilating the useful and rejecting the useless and harmful, is called common to all unicellular organisms. That capacity for choice in something with no nervous system is the point being made.

The second half is etymological and mythological. Latin lympha comes from the Greek nymphe, an inferior goddess; the Muses were sometimes called nymphs by the poets, whence anyone in a state of rapture — seer, poet or madman — was said to be caught by nymphs. In India the same figure is the goddess of moisture, fabled to be born from the pores of an aquatic deity. Two darker illustrations follow: that the Jews consulted demons through small golden statues shaped as nymphs which, when invoked, showed them their tasks hour by hour; and the Comte de Gabalis on practical sorcery, where sylphs, gnomes, nymphs and salamanders may be made partakers of immortality by alliance with man — with the observation that certain mediums boast of spirit husbands and wives. A closing section for pledged students states the rule that every principle has its seven aspects and every cell and organ its seven components, while the visible body is not a principle at all but the medium of every principle.

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