64 ROSICRUCIANCOSMO-CONCEPTION
Ther efor e the danger of contracting disease is much greater
when the vital forces are low than when one is in robust
health.
In cases where parts of the dense body are amputated,
only the planetary ether accompanies the separated part. The
separate vital body and the dense body disintegrate
synchronously after death. So with the etheric counterpart of
the amputated limb. It will gradually disintegrate as the
dense member decays, but in the meantime the fact that the
man still possesses the etheric limb accounts for his
assertion that he can feel his fingers or suffers pain in them.
There is also a connection with a buried member,
irrespective of distance. A case is on record where a man felt
severe pain, as if a nail had been driven into the flesh of an
amputated limb, and he persisted until the limb was
exhumed, when it was found that a nail had been driven into
it at the time it was boxed for burial. The nail was removed
and the pain instantly stopped. It is also in accordance with
these facts that people complain of pain in a limb for
perhaps two or three years after the amputation. The pain
will then cease. This is because the disease remains in the
still undetached etheric limb, but as the amputated part
disintegrates, the etheric limb follows suit and thus the pain
ceases.
Having noted the relations of the four kingdoms to the
Etheric Region of the Physical World, we will next turn our
attention to their relation to the Desire World.
Here we find that both minerals and plants lack the
separate desire body. They are permeated only by the
planetary desire body, the Desire World. Lacking the
separate vehicle, they are incapable of feeling, desire, and
emotion, which are faculties pertaining to the Desire World.