122 OCCULT PRINCIPLES OF HEALTH & HEALING
the dense body the suffering resulting from the
ungoverned action of the desire body.
Looking at the matter from an occult standpoint,
all consciousness in the Physical World is the result of
the constant war between the desire and vital bodies.
The tendency of the vital body is to soften and
build. Its chief expression is the blood and the glands,
also the sympathetic nervous system, having obtained
ingress into the stronghold of the desire body (the
muscular and the voluntary nervous systems) when it
began to develop the heart into a voluntary muscle.
The tendency of the desire body is to harden, and it
in turn has invaded the realm of the vital body, gaining
possession of the spleen and making the white blood
corpuscles, which are not “the policemen of the
system” as science now thinks, but destroyers. It uses
the blood to carry these tiny destroyers all over the
body. They pass through the walls of arteries and veins
whenever annoyance is felt, and especially in times of
great anger. Then the rush of forces in the desire body
makes the arteries and veins swell and opens the way
for the passage of the white corpuscles into the tissues
of the body, where they form bases for the earthy
matter which kills the body.
Given the same amount and kind of food, the
person of serene and jovial disposition will live longer,
enjoy better health, and be more active than the person
who worries or loses his temper. The latter will make
and distribute through his body more destructive white
corpuscles than the former. Were a scientist to analyze
the bodies of these two men, he would find that there