Magic White and Black - Eighth American Edition

FRANZ HARTMANNMAGICWHITE AND BLACKorTHE SCIENCE OF FINITE AND INFINITE LIFE Containing Practical Hints for Students of Occultism. Everything that exists upon the Earth has its ethereal counterpart above the Earth and there is nothing however insignificant it may appear in the world which is not depending on something higher so that if the lower part acts its presiding higher part reacts upon it . (...) Nature is a magician every plant animal and every man is a magician who uses his powers unconsciously and instinctively to build up his own organism or in other words every living being is an organism in which the magic power of the spirit in nature acts and if a man should attain the knowledge how to control this power of life and to employ it consciously instead of merely submitting unconsciously to its influence then he would be a magician and could control the processes of life in his own organism and perhaps in that of other beings.Now the question is: Can any man obtain such a power as to control the processes of life? The answer to this question depends on what you mean by the term man. If you mean by man an intellectual animal such as we meet every day in the streets then the answer is No - for the majority of the men and women of our present generation including our greatest scientific lumens know absolutely nothing about their own inner nature or about the universal power of the One Life and many of them have not even made up their minds whether or not they will believe in the existence of their own soul. They can neither see it nor feel it objectively and therefore they do not know what to make of it.But if you mean by man that intelligent principle which is active within the organism of man and which constitutes him a human being and by whose action he becomes a being very distinct from and superior to animals in human or animal form then the answer is Yes - for the divine power which acts within the organism of man is the same and identical power which acts within the centre of nature. It is an internal power of man and belongs to man’s true self and if man once knows all the powers which belong to his essential constitution and knows how to use them then he may enter from the passive into the active state and employ these powers himself...