élan vital

“ That most wonderful organization, the marvelous structure of bones and muscles, the outward organic frame, is, as it were, the body in a narrower sense, the pre-eminently material constituent of living bodies. The soul of man—here consequently the organic soul—is in the blood and in the five or six organs whose functions are first of all to elaborate the blood and afterward to provide for its circulation—or perhaps by maintaining a perpetual interchange of the breath and the external air, to keep the vital flame constantly burning on the hearth of life within. ”

“ If this portion of the brain indicates a full development, we [pg 155] say of such a temperament that it is VITAL, because the functions of its nerve-centers are favorable to evolution. As degeneration observes conditions, so endurance and development conform to certain laws, and it is the duty of all truthful inquirers, who believe not only in the progress of human intelligence, but in physical improvement from generation to generation, to ascertain and comply with these essential conditions. ”

“ It is a mistake to suppose that the normal state of health is represented by a straight horizontal line, Independently of the well-known causes which raise or depress the standard of vitality, there seems to be—I think I may venture to say there is—a rhythmic undulation in the flow of the vital force. ”

“ These can be developed only by the conscious and voluntary exercise of will, reason and self-control.
From the foregoing it will have become evident that we cannot increase vital force in the body through any artificial means or methods from without, by food, drink or stimulant. What we can and should do, however, is to put the organism into the best possible condition for the liberation and manifestation of life force or vital energy. ”

“ Now the vital force, in which is comprehended the power of nutrition and growth, and generally of motion, is assigned to the carnal spirit, which has great susceptibility of motion, and passes in all directions through the senses and the rest of the body, and through the body is the primary subject of sensations. But the power of choice, in which investigation, and study, and knowledge, reside, belongs to the ruling faculty. But all the faculties are placed in relation to one—the ruling faculty: it is through that man lives, and lives in a certain way. ”

“ All this energy poured into us from the material [Pg 180] and from the spiritual universe around us accumulates in us. It accumulates bodily in vital force, zest, animal spirits, or "pep"; the desire to shout and sing or jump or slap somebody on the back. That is the vital side of our unexpended borrowings, the bodily expression of the fact that we have received more than we can easily take care of. ”

“ But the energies which express themselves in their pursuit—energies vital, primordial, and necessary even to man's physical survival—have all been evolved under the same stress of adaptation of the human creature to its surroundings ”

“ We hope this period will settle the question, Which is the master of health, happiness, and being, — mind or body? Not a blade of grass springs up, or a spray buddeth within the vale, or a leaf unfolds its fair outlines, or a flower starts from its cloistered cell, only as the result of mind. ”

“ The true growth of the human soul is painless, and, knowing this, he turns his transcendental consciousness upon his flesh and heals it. Purified by his long fast, the cell consciousness of his body accepts the new invitation to peace and freedom. Every cell intelligence awakens to the new call, and night and day, works out triumphantly, the plus body. ”

“ But there came an hour, as she approached her third decade, when the purpose to be thus wrought seemed fully accomplished, when from the gates of death, through which she had nearly passed, she was raised almost instantaneously, miraculously, as it seemed, by the agency of a modern exponent of the science of healing, to perfect health and strength, an emancipation which, in the many useful years that have since elapsed, has known no illness, no pain, or exhaustion, although she has come constantly in touch with disease of every kind. ”

“ Will, or imagination, or reason, or feeling, cannot of themselves effect a physical cure. 7 They only act as different agents which, according to the different temperaments of different individuals, can stimulate the life energy to awaken and cure a certain ailment. In a case of paralysis of the arm, if the will or imagination is continuously stimulated, then the life energy will suddenly rush to the diseased nervous channels, curing the tissues and the paralyzed arm. ”

“ If you have sound and capacious lungs, and want them to remain so, be always ready with the mental Soundness maintained. protest against the opposite belief in heredity. Discard all notions about lungs, tubercles, inherited consumption, or disease arising from any circumstance, and you will find that mortal mind, when instructed by Truth, yields to divine power, which steers the body into health, as directly as error can forbid the feet to walk, or impel the hands to steal. ”

“ Those first twenty years of our life we were allowed to sap blood and strength from our surroundings; the last twenty years of our life our surroundings are allowed to sap blood and strength from us. It is Nature’s plan and it is carried out without any feeling. With the same indifferent spirit that she planted in us an eye to see or an ear to hear, she afterward plants a microbe to breed and a cancer to eat. She in herself is both growth and decay. ”

“ Spirit is the Life, Substance, and continuity of all things. We tread on forces. Withdraw them, and creation must collapse. Human knowledge calls them forces of matter; but Divine Science declares that they belong wholly to Mind, are inherent in Mind, and so restores them to their rightful home and classification.
The elements and functions of the physical body and physical world will change, as mortal mind changes in Corporeal changes. its phenomena. What is now considered the best coudition for organic and functional health in the human body will no longer be found indispensable thereto. ”

“ In like manner, all other destructive emotional vibrations ob-struct the inflow and normal distribution of the life forces in and through the organism, while on the other hand the constructive emotions of faith, hope, cheerfulness, happiness and love exert a relaxing, harmonizing influence upon the tissues, blood vessels and nerve channels of the body, thus opening wide the floodgates of the life forces, and raising the discords of weakness, disease and discontent to the harmonics of buoyant health and happiness. ”

“ Then the white corpuscles that are in our blood, and the growing life-stuff or protoplasm which is in our flesh and bones, and all this wonderful and mysterious life that is in us, take us in hand to mend us up. The same power that made us, and that keeps us alive, heals also our hurts. By and by, if we take care of ourselves, we are once more as good as new. ”

“ Just as an organism which has been modified and thereby gained a superiority over others, has by this modification been selected for survival—the selection being only another aspect of this modification—so one tissue, or one organ, which has surpassed another in the struggle of growth, will thereby have become selected. Natural Selection, or survival of the fittest, therefore, is simply the metaphorical expression of the fact that any balance of the forces which is best adapted for survival will survive. ”

“ Our Master asked: “How can one enter into a strong man's house and spoil his goods, except he first bind the Parabolic confirmation. strong man?” In other words: How can I heal the body, without beginning with mortal mind, which directly controls it? When disease is once destroyed in mind, the fear of it is gone, and therefore it is thoroughly cured. Mortal error is “the strong man,” which must be held in subjection before its influence upon health and morals can be touched. This error conquered, we can despoil “the strong man” of his goods, — namely, sin and disease. ”

“ With this spiritual uplifting came also physical health.
All my life had been spent in semi-invalidism, and I seemed destined to a life of suffering. In three weeks after beginning Science and Health, to my joyful surprise I found myself a well man, sound physically, and uplifted spiritually. Life was being lived from a new basis, the old things of personal sense were passing away and all things becoming new. ”

“ In healing, as we have previously said, imagination, will, faith, reason and feeling all stimulate the disturbed Life Energy, which can actually internally electrify the diseased body cells and restore them to their original healthy condition.Hence those that want to 27 scientifically heal ought to know the laws of visualizing and controlling this Life Energy. In healing others, one has to have control over his Life Energy and project a current into his patient's body which stimulates and harmonizes the disturbed Life Energy of the patient by the power of will or imagination. ”

“ In organic evolution the weak, the sick, the helpless, the unfit in anyway, perish, and ought to perish, because this is the most efficient way of strengthening the blood or physical nature of the species, and thus of carrying forward evolution. In human evolution (which occurs at an advanced stage) the weak, the helpless, the sick, the old, the unfit in anyway, are sustained, and ought to be sustained, because sympathy, love, pity, strengthen the spirit and moral nature of the race. ”

“ This force is influenced and modified in its action, when exercised in the regulation of nutrition, growth, and reproduction of tissues, by the passions and emotions of the mind. All the secretions and functions of the body are more or less susceptible of being accelerated, retarded or modified by the psychical relations of mind and matter. ”

“ For organic endurance, which is really what we mean by health, does not consist in muscular development or in the bloom of an exuberant constitution, but rather in an indwelling power, in dynamically persistent and tenacious struggle and adaptation, in the capacity of self-preservation, of self-affirmation, which is the specific essence of spiritual being. ”

“ SANITARIUMS IN SPIRIT LIFE. I think it will be interesting to you to learn something of the sanitariums of spirit life, where the grown people—those who while in the body were weak and struggling in spirit, whose natures were but partially unfolded, whose higher qualities of being were stunted or warped in growth, and who, through lack of opportunity, power, and favorable conditions generally were unable to grow in grace, beauty, and sweetness of spirit—gain health, strength, vigor, and power. ”

“ Having received the endeavor, it proceeds as of itself to effect that endeavor on its own plane. This endeavor must necessarily be an effort to gather materials in a corresponding form or to constitute an organism, like the body, for affection to dwell in, and through which affection may operate and accomplish its endeavor. Then when the organism for affection, which the body is, is formed, composed of the senses, the brain, heart, lungs, stomach, and the other organs, the same endeavor abides in these organs, and gifts them with the power to perform their functional uses. ”

“ Very certainly, disease is the outcome of personal neglect, in past or present; but the nature of the question is a sign significant that the laity are awakening to the truth that the healing power of nature rests wholly in the generation and conservation of latent reserve energy. ”

“ Believing I had made a most important discovery in physiology, one that would revolutionize the dietetic treatment of the sick, if not ultimately abolish it, my visits to the sick became of unsurpassed interest, I watched every possible change as an unfolding of new life, seeing the physical changes only as I would see the swelling buds evolve into the leaves or flowers, reading the soul- and mind-changes in the more radiant lines of expression. ”

“ Many a man in lumber camps or in distant island fisheries or on board fishing vessels, far beyond the hope of reaching a physician in time for him to be of service, has done things of this kind. We can be quite sure that the will to accomplish for himself what seemed necessary to save his life lessened his pain, made it ever so much more bearable and generally proved the power of the human will over even these physical manifestations in the body that are commonly supposed to be quite beyond any interference from the psychical part of nature. ”

“ Abounding health and strength—wholeness—is the natural law of the body. The Life Force of the body, acting always under the direction of the subconscious mind, will build, and always does build, healthily and normally, unless too much interfered with. It is this that determines the type of the cell structure that is continually being built into the body [Pg 53] from the available portions of the food that we take to give nourishment to the body. ”

“ The birth, growth, and development of plant and animal depend upon them, the sustenance and nurture.
All our food-substances are almost wholly made up of these elements.
No force, power, or energy can be produced without their presence.
Our muscular strength, our nervous force, our very thoughts, our imagination, as well as digestion, respiration, circulation of the blood, depend on these elements.
Our sensations, our pleasures, our pains, depend upon them. All the excitement and depression in life are dependent on them. ”