Spirit Orders, Matter Obeys

Paracelsus, Franz Hartmann (Tr.) · Mystic Verse and Insights Series · 3 pages

Three pages of passages from Paracelsus, taken from Franz Hartmann's The Life of Philippus Theophrastus Bombast, of Hohenheim, Known by the Name of Paracelsus, with page references keyed to the site's own edition in the Buddhas and Initiates Series. The frontispiece is Charles Le Brun's study of the relation between human physiognomy and that of a brute.

The formula that gives the file its title is given in full at the outset, and it is a chain of four terms rather than two: spirit orders, matter obeys, imagination directs, body executes. The whole world is described as being like a man and a woman, having its own anima and its spiritus imaginationis, only far stronger than a man's — so that spirit orders and the will obeys, thought directs, and the soul or body executes and produces, whether intellectually or without intelligence. The second half treats imagination as a physical force with a reach. The mind is called a field into which the imagination of man throws the seeds of desire, and the mind of man is said to modify the universal mind, which in turn brings about changes in the atmosphere, winds, rains, storms, hail and lightning. The mechanism offered is a symmetry between the two organisms: astral currents created by the imagination of the macrocosm act on the microcosm, and the currents produced by the imagination and will of man act on external nature — reaching very far, because the power of the imagination reaches as far as thought can go. Physiological processes in living bodies are attributed to their life currents, and meteorological processes in nature to the life currents of nature as a whole, each acting on the other consciously or unconsciously.

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