ACQUIRINGFIRST-HANDKNOWLEDGE 455
juices. It should be sipped, as we sip tea or coffee. It will
then form many small globules in the stomach, which are
easily assimilated. Properly used, it is one of the best
possible articles of diet. Citrus fruits are powerful
antiseptics, and cereals, particularly rice, are antitoxins of
great efficiency.
Having now explained, from the purely material point of
view, what is necessary for the dens e b ody, we will cons ider
the subject from the occult side, taking into consideration
the effect on the two invisible bodies which interpenetrate
the dense body.
The particular stronghold of the desire body is in the
muscles and the cerebro-spinal nervous system, as already
shown. The energy displayed by a person when laboring
under great excitement or anger is an example of this. At
such times the whole muscular system is tense and no hard
labor is so exhausting as a “fit of temper.” It sometimes
leaves the body prostrated for weeks. There can be seen the
necessity for improving the desire body by controlling the
temper, thus sparing 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 the vital bodies.
The t endency of the vital b ody is t o s oft en and bu ild. 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