SIX

The Spirit’s Influence on the Blood

Man on earth should cherish his body as property entrusted to him, and strive to achieve healthy harmony between spirit and body.

ABD-RU-SHIN, IN THE LIGHT OF TRUTH: THE GRAIL MESSAGE

As we have seen, blood radiation appears to be determined by such physical factors as heredity, diet, and the physical condition of the organs of the body. However, this is only part of the picture. The spirit influences blood radiation in many ways, always changing and adapting it to its present state, giving it attributes corresponding with its own. This constant adaptation of the blood radiation to the current state and will of the spirit is essential because the spirit can only fully experience its earthly incarnation through the physical body. The feelings and wishes of the spirit have to be expressed through the body so that it can gain the desired experiences in the earthly plane. Change to the blood radiation by the spirit is the means to this end, causing corresponding changes at the level of the physical body.

The Evolution of the Human Spirit

Research into the origins of human beings has shown that humans descended from apelike animals. Even though the evolution of humans from creatures similar to large apes is a widely accepted theory, scientists still ask themselves how the qualitative leap from the rudimentary psyche of the great apes to the highly developed one of human beings came about. When we accept that the spirit is not of the same nature as the body, that it is the spirit that is the true nature of human beings, this question is answered. What descended from the apelike animal is the physical body of man, his outermost cloak, his tool, but not his spirit, which is his central driving force. Until the appearance of the first human on Earth, there were only animal souls incarnated in the bodies of the great apes. After the incarnation of the first human spirits, however, this bodily form further developed and ennobled itself under the influence of the spirit. It lost its animal appearance, and a body with human characteristics developed.

Humans, then, descended from apelike animals, but even so, despite certain basic similarities, the fundamental composition of animal and human blood is very different. Being products of bodies of the same origin, we would expect them to be far more similar than they in fact are. Where do the great differences between them come from if the blood characteristics are derived only from the body? In effect, the distinctive properties of blood must not only be considered in relation to the body in question, but they also depend on its animating core, which is the animal soul for the animal body and the spirit for the human body. In accordance with their individual natures, these animating cores then model the blood produced by the body and give it a personal touch.

This personalization of blood is essential, since the human spirit, just as the animal soul, can only act through the intermediary of the blood radiation when this corresponds to its own nature. Even though the blood radiation of those apelike animals permitted a connection for the incarnation of the first human spirits, it also remained no less adapted to the earthly activity of animal souls. The human spirit, whose potential is quite different, could not use the blood radiation the way it was without the possibilities for expressing itself in the world of matter being greatly limited. Therefore, in the beginning, the blood radiation of the apelike animals could not totally meet the needs of the human spirit. This compelled the spirit to gradually modify the blood composition so that it could become “humanized” and thus quite different from animal blood.

Something similar takes place in the course of pregnancy. As discussed in chapter 4, it is during the middle of a pregnancy that the blood of the fetus acquires a composition that allows for the incarnation of the spirit. But even if the spirit is able to connect with the body at this time, the blood and its radiation, just as the body itself, remain products of heredity and do not yet fully correspond to the particular spirit, which must still contribute characteristics of its own. This “personalizing” of the blood comes about in accordance with the law of biological adaptation. In utilizing the body in a certain way, the spirit pushes the body to adapt itself to it. Little by little, the body, as well as the blood, take on the distinctive characteristics of the individual spirit.

What Happens to the Blood after Death?

The role of the human spirit in forming the blood is much more important than the science of physiology would tell us. This becomes clear in a striking way when we examine what happens to the blood when the body dies.

Logically, if it were dependent only on the body, the blood would likewise have to “die” quickly, that is, decompose immediately upon the death of the body. The blood, however, survives up to several days after death.

To understand what happens to the blood after death, one has to understand that physical death is not the death of the spirit. During the days following death, the spirit slowly detaches itself from its cloak, the body, which it used during its sojourn on Earth. Seeing that the spirit was connected to the body through the blood, it is quite natural that it is the blood that dies last, given that it is held longer by the radiation of the spirit. When the spirit becomes totally detached from the body, the blood disappears and the blood vessels then contain no more than remnants of what was in them. Then the process of death is complete, as witnessed by the disappearance of the blood.

If the spirit remains connected to the body for several hours or even days after death, depending on the individual case, this is obviously not due to the radiation of the blood, which is now extremely weak since the body is already cold. To find out what maintains the connection, we must turn to the spirit. In effect, it may not yet be ready to leave the body, even though its body has met its end. The spirit may need a shorter or longer period of time to reorient itself, but not toward the Earth, on which it can no longer remain, but rather toward the next stage of its pilgrimage through Creation.

At this point we can take note of two aspects of Jesus’s miracles of raising the dead, which occur three times in the Bible. First, these miracles took place only a few days after the deaths of the persons, never weeks later, therefore at a point in time when the spirit had not fully detached itself from the body, when the blood had not yet disappeared. If it were any later, a return to life would not have been possible. Second, the accounts of these miracles show us that Jesus’s words were never directed to the body or the blood of the deceased, but rather he called out to their spirits to return into their bodies. It is only the spirit that can restore the blood’s radiation, thus its power and, with it, life to the body.

Let us now take a look at the influence of the spirit on the actual process of separation from the body leading to earthly death (i.e., the process beginning before death). Here, too, the influence of the spirit is the determining factor.

Toward the end of life, with the effects of wear and tear on the physical organs, the body no longer produces as strong a radiation. Its bond with the spirit then begins to loosen. This bond, however, does not depend only on the radiation of the blood; the radiation of the spirit plays a role in this as well. According to the level of maturity of the spirit and the kind of radiation emanating from it, the bond may be broken more or less quickly and more or less easily. In ideal circumstances, the spirit has acquired sufficient wisdom in the course of its incarnation to understand that leaving its physical body means only the end of its earthly life and not the end of its existence as a spirit. It will also begin to understand that it will pursue its life on other planes, that this means progress for it, and that it can prepare for this joyfully. It will even long for this, and as it is sometimes said, the person will be “prepared.”

The radiation issued by a spirit preparing to leave the earthly plane is now directed more toward the heights than toward strengthening the radiation of the blood. When the blood radiation weakens sufficiently, the spirit, whose radiation now plays hardly any role in the connection, will be released. The spirit then easily detaches from the body. A separation of this kind is described as a “natural death,” and like all natural happenings, takes place without suffering. Thus the separation of the spirit from the body can occur quite quickly when the spirit has completed its time on Earth and is inwardly prepared to leave it.

In certain cases, however, the process of separation leading to death extends over weeks, and can even take months or years to complete. This happens when a spirit is afraid to leave its life on Earth, either because the separation is premature or because the dying person believes that with the death of his earthly body, it is all over, and he therefore fears death and tries to resist it by all possible means. The spirit is therefore forced to remain connected to its body. This strong desire causes it to direct its radiation toward the earthly, thereby strengthening the blood radiation and maintaining life in the body. Despite its state of deterioration, the body hangs on beyond any point possible for someone not as strongly bound to the Earth. This results in an agonizing struggle, during which the tired and worn-out body wavers between life and death, finding itself forced to keep on going, through the sheer willpower of the spirit, terrified by what it considers to be its end. The radiation bridge is then so weak that it threatens to break at any moment. We can say with good reason the life of such a person is “hanging by a thread.”

Prolonging Life?

The influence of the spirit on blood radiation also explains the fact that many patients or accident victims survive despite an unfavorable prognosis, while others succumb to relatively mild conditions. With the former the strong desire to live maintains the blood radiation of the person and promotes healing, whereas in the case of the latter, by giving up too quickly, the person deprives her blood radiation of everything the spirit can provide. The will to live, though, is not always enough, because the physical body has its limitations; it was not made to last forever, as is the case with the spirit.

One would tend to expect that a person who follows an unhealthy lifestyle opposed to the physiological needs of the body to die prematurely. In such a case, the spirit has not yet matured sufficiently to leave the Earth plane and the body is already in decline. Nevertheless, a strong will to live can often be successful in making the damaged body last a little bit longer. It can hang on up to a certain point, thanks to the power the spirit can give to the blood radiation, a power that the body itself is no longer able to provide.

Seen from this point of view, life-sustaining measures for patients in a coma appear in a new light. The maintenance of heart and respiratory functions through machines, of blood pressure through drugs, and of nutrition through artificial feeding are not the only explanation for the survival of the ill or injured person. Technology is not able to give a dying person a life longer than that which has been ordained for him through the activity of his spirit.

With treatment one’s life can only be extended to the normal lifespan the person would have had had his life not been threatened by an illness. However, it is impossible that technology can prolong the duration of a human life beyond the time foreseen for the incarnation of that human spirit. The treatments a person receives can only maintain the body-spirit bond and do not give life, because life does not reside in the heart or in the lungs. Being artificially stimulated these organs merely contribute to producing blood radiation, maintaining the connection with the spirit, the actual living core of the body. And it is the spirit, although not consciously in the earthly sense, that maintains life within the body.

If the spirit has fulfilled its time on Earth, nothing can hold it down on the physical plane. However, if its time has not yet come, the combined action of the spirit’s radiation and the radiation of the blood can allow a person to benefit from medical treatment and thus permit the person to extend his stay on Earth. If this bridge is firm enough, the person will awaken from the coma and regain consciousness. However, if the bridge is weak, a certain connection will be maintained, but not sufficient to bind the spirit closely to the body. The body will continue to function but the spirit will be more or less unconscious in the earthly sense. This is what can happen in the case of deep comas, where the bond is so weak that simply switching off the machines leads to stopping the heart and respiratory functions, resulting in the death of the body.

Since humans cannot maintain life but can only maintain the body’s ability to produce blood radiation, the dream of all those who have had their body frozen with a view toward being brought back to life at a later date, when technology and medicine will be more advanced, can never be realized. The human body is not a machine that can be plugged into an electrical outlet. Technology and drugs can only contribute to strengthening an already existing bond; they cannot develop a new one. After decades or centuries in a deep freeze, the bond no longer exists.

Let us suppose some treatment could successfully reestablish the bond. Then another insurmountable hurdle would emerge: during the intervening decades (or centuries), the spirit would have had to continue its development and would be changed. Its former body could then no longer serve it as a tool because it would no longer be suited to it. To return to Earth, such a spirit would necessarily have to go through incarnation into a new body and birth.

Sleep and the Activity of the Spirit

The influence of the spirit on the radiation of the blood can also be seen when we look at what happens during sleep. During the day, through our activities, toxins are produced by the body that spill into the blood, changing its composition. The resulting blood radiation induces fatigue and sleep. The spirit begins to lose interest in the activity of the body; attention and concentration decrease, and there is a tendency to relax and let go. As these urges become stronger, sleep soon overtakes the tired person.

During sleep the body rests and the brain becomes inactive. But the spirit has no need of sleep. During the five or six REM (rapid eye movement) phases that are part of an ordinary sleep cycle, the spirit reaches full activity. Seen from the outside, the body is dreaming, but these dreams are, in reality, phases of special activity on the part of the spirit, in which neither the body nor the brain play a part.

These dreaming phases are indispensable for the spirit. In these moments, when it is freed from the weight of the earthly body, it is much easier to connect with its plane of origin and to gather spiritual power from the source. “To His beloved the Lord giveth in sleep,” says the Bible (Psalm 127). And not only the spirit, but the body too benefits from this power because of the resulting stronger radiation.

If we systematically deprive someone of REM sleep by awakening him as soon as this phase commences (which can easily be done with the help of an EEG), and we repeat this procedure night after night, the person’s state of health quickly deteriorates because the radiations of the spirit are no longer sufficient to maintain a normal bond, even though the body and the brain have had all the rest they need.

When a person lies down and his blood radiations promote sleep, the spirit can yield to this impulse and let sleep take over, or it can refuse the invitation to sleep and stay awake. The most extreme fatigue can be overcome and kept away if the spirit so wishes, because it can change the blood radiation at any moment. Danger or fear can also contribute to maintaining a state of wakefulness, not because fear stimulates the brain, but because the spirit, in reacting to it, changes the blood radiation. In this way of thinking, insomnia is due to a blood radiation that prevents the required loosening of the spirit from the body, either because something physical has had some effect on the blood composition (liver problems, lack of minerals, taking stimulants, etc.), or because the radiation of the spirit is maintaining a blood radiation unfavorable for falling sleep (obsessive thoughts, worries, fears). Sedatives can change the blood radiation to promote sleep, but they do not promote REM sleep; in fact, they shorten these restorative phases.

The spirit also influences the blood radiation upon awakening. In effect, at the end of a full night’s sleep, the blood radiation is no longer the same as that which led to sleep. Thanks to the period of rest, it has again become normal. The spirit can then easily reconnect with it after awakening if it wishes to do so. If this is not its wish, it can strongly resist the gradual regaining of consciousness and may decide to continue in a state of semiconsciousness or decide to fall back to sleep and not open itself to the outside world.

If there is an abrupt awakening in the middle of the night while the connection between spirit and body is very loose, readjusting the blood radiation takes longer than a natural morning awakening. If we shake the sleeper, she does not react at first. Then she becomes aware of being shaken, but without knowing where she is or what is happening. Gradually, as the radiation changes, she regains consciousness, even though she may still be unable to move. Her level of consciousness gradually increases, and as soon as the blood radiation has sufficiently changed, she can move. From this moment on, awakening proceeds quickly because the spirit can begin to act on the blood radiation, while up to this point it was mainly the body, after being shaken, that acted on it.

If a person becomes irritable when pulled out of sleep and takes a long time to fully awaken, she may say something like, “Let me pull myself together” or “Let me come to.” These responses illustrate the process accurately: the body first has to bring back the spirit by changing its blood radiation, and then the spirit has to return to the body by realigning the wavelength of its radiations with those of the body.

The Spirit, Blood Radiation, and the State of Mind

The spirit changes as a result of being confronted with the great variety of situations a person encounters throughout earthly life and having to react to them. The blood radiation is transformed as a result. These transformations do not manifest as changes of blood groups or other biological characteristics of the blood, but rather in more subtle modifications of its composition. Although very subtle, the changes can nevertheless be perceived: they are the varying expressions of our spirit, what we call our “state of mind.”

When we feel peaceful and serene, that is, when our spirit is calm and content, our blood radiates in the same way. Those around us can also sense our calm state even before we translate it into words or deeds. We remain in this relaxed state until our spirit is confronted by something new. The spirit may then decide to react differently and thereby change the blood radiation. The new radiation might express anger or discontent, but whatever the emotion, it will continue until the state of the spirit changes once again.

It can happen that as a result of a lack of vigilance on our part, the blood radiation changes without our being aware of it. We suddenly wonder why we are feeling troubled after feeling so calm just a few moments ago. It is only in retracing the course of events that we are able to discover what it was that disturbed us and caused the change in the state of our spirit and hence in our blood radiation. Once the change in the blood radiation has taken place, it colors every perception of the spirit. If somebody is unhappy for whatever reason, his blood will radiate unhappiness. If he does nothing to change the state of his spirit, if he makes no effort to change and simply holds on to this state of unhappiness, his blood will continue to radiate in the same way. Such a person will be unhappy with everything because that is how his blood is radiating. The smallest things upset him, even those things that just a little while earlier did not affect him at all. He is not satisfied with anything because his spirit is surrounded by a discontent that is being maintained by his blood radiation. The spirit can then only feel and see the world through the “eyeglasses” of its dissatisfaction and not as it really is. When violent or negative feelings stir a person’s spirit, then evil, thoughtless, or unjust acts can be committed without the person being aware of their impact, because rage and hatred have blinded him.

Conversely, someone who has good blood radiation sees everything in a positive light. Her entire attitude leads her to take on and experience life in this way. In addition, she will be better able to withstand problems and adversity and may even see such obstacles as a challenge to do better.

The Free Will of the Spirit

The moods that underlie our radiations may appear to control the spirit, but this is not at all the case. The spirit retains its free will at all times. While it is true that blood radiation plays a part, it only colors the perceptions of the spirit and predisposes it to feel and act in a certain way. The spirit is never forced to do anything because it is always free to make its own decisions independently.

If a person is filled with hatred, it will seem to him that hate is the only possible emotion in the situation confronting him. But in reality it is the person who has decided to color all things with hate and who has produced the corresponding blood radiation. He only has to let go of his hatred to obtain an undistorted view of reality. This will obviously require some effort on his part. He will have to overcome the difficult climate he has created for himself and, mindful of his state of mind, make an effort to change.

We know that our state of mind influences our blood. Many expressions, found in different languages, bear witness to this: A disagreement makes for “bad blood” between people. If someone is terrified his “blood runs cold.” If a person is in a rage, his “blood boils.” The blood is said to “turn to water” if we lose courage. There is “good blood” between friends.

When blood “boils” it no longer has a normal composition and radiation. The negative consequences of this, as we have seen, affect the spirit, but also affect the body. That certain organs become diseased because of a situation in which there is “bad blood” should not surprise us. The effects of strong emotions on the body are well known. Fear of taking an exam, for instance, can cause sweating, diarrhea, or an urge to urinate. If temporary emotions can bring about such effects, what then are the effects of hate, anger, and unhappiness when they are allowed to persist over years or for an entire lifetime?

It is true that the reverse can also occur: A diseased organ changes the composition of the blood and the ensuing disturbed radiations can influence the perceptions of the spirit. Because of a diseased body, the spirit feels sadness, irritability, or fear, because such is the coloring of the impressions mediated by the unhealthy blood. Moreover, we can see that a person changes when she falls ill and that she returns to her usual demeanor upon recovery.

The influence of illness on blood radiation, however, is still not strong enough to be able to enslave the spirit. Here too it retains its free will. If it wishes, with constant effort it can modify the blood radiation. This is made easier if the spirit can receive external help for changing its blood radiation. This can be done in a variety of ways, but the most direct way is through the food we eat—a subject we will take up in the next chapter.