Everything belonging to the subtle state is very closely connected with the nature of life itself, which is inseparable from heat; and it may be recalled that on this point, as on many others, the conceptions of Aristotle are in complete agreement with those of the East. ~ Rene Guenon, Man and his Becoming
Rene Guenon often used Aristotle as the exemplar in the West of Indian metaphysics. Whether this is the result of a direct influence or from plumbing the same depths is open to debate. More likely, both the East and pagan Antiquity were drawing on a common source, viz., the primordial tradition of the original Indo-European peoples.
We recently outlined the Western tradition on the corporeal soul. Although the soul is the form of the body, it also transcends that function. Guenon mentions that the corporeal state belongs to the human individual. Moreover, there is the subtle state of the individual. Guenon makes clear that the subtle state is not totally coincident with the corporeal state:
The corporeal state [and the subtle state] are strictly and essentially states of the living man. This does not necessarily involve admitting that the subtle state comes to an end at the precise moment of bodily death and simply as a result thereof.
The Western Tradition has an analogous teaching. In his book, Occult Phenomena, Alois Wiesinger describes this subtle state in some detail to explain the experience of preternatural and mystical phenomena. He gives the name spirit-soul to the subtle state to distinguish it from the corporeal soul; this corresponds to the Hermetic distinction between spirit, or pneuma, and soul, or psyche.
As interesting as Fr. Wiesinger’s analysis of occult phenomena is, for our purposes we now restrict ourselves to his description of spirit. Here are some salient points, without further explanation.
- The existence of spirit is not a philosophical hypothesis. The knowledge of it comes from experience beyond the material.
- He points out that this doctrine was taught by the greatest philosophers of mankind, for thousands of years, hence predating Christianity. He points out that this doctrine is either unknown or ignored; the reader is free to offer his own explanation for this curious neglect.
- The activity of spirit proceeds by means of thought and will. The two basic faculties of the spirit are, then, the acts of understanding and the will.
- Unlike the corporeal soul, whose knowing is mediated through the senses, spirit knows directly.
- To recognize an object the spirit must have the thing within itself, that is, the form without its matter. Said differently, the spirit is conscious of the Idea, which it knows directly rather than through a process of abstracting.
- Pure spirits communicate through thought transference. This has consequences for the Occult War. Men believe their thoughts are their own, even though they cannot predict what they will think of one minute from now, and seldom consider the source of thoughts. But thoughts come from the hierarchies of higher beings and angels and demons. That is why ideas can take hold of large populations at the same time. It also explains why certain thoughts tend to lump together in different individuals.
These qualities of spirit exist in man insofar as he is a spiritual being, but usually only virtually since his mind is most often split and concentrated on the body. Fr. Wiesinger criticizes the simplistic explanation that all spiritualist and occult phenomena are evil or attributable to the devil. To the contrary, he explains that these powers of the spirit-soul were part of the primordial state, but were then mostly lost after the Fall. While we cannot describe the powers of the spirit-soul and related phenomena at this time, we will conclude with a description of mystical states and what they reveal about the spirit-soul.
Fr. Wiesinger is a conventional priest and his area of concern is the right hand path, or the way of ecstasy. He first describes Mystical Sleep during which God brings leads the mystic to the Primordial State. It may be helpful to read this in conjunction with Chapter XI of Man and his Becoming where Guenon discusses the states of sleep. He mentions the state of ecstatic trance, which is a state between deep sleep and death, in which the living soul, jivatma, withdraws into the bosom of the Universal Spirit (Atma).
Fr. Wiesinger points out that at the end of a culture, when the mystical sense has been lost, there arise numerous attempts to recover it. Most are misguided, but sometimes they are recovered by “honest striving after a form of self-preparation that was far-seeing, scientific, and wholly in accord with nature.” He specifically mentions Buddha, at the decline of Indian culture, Plotinus at the end of Greek culture, and Rudolf Steiner at the end of Western culture.
Analogous to the three layers of the corporeal soul, there are also three layers of the spirit-soul, corresponding to the Trinity. Once again, theology is in conformance with Hermetic, esoteric, and to an extent, Anthroposophical, teaching. We summarize Fr. Wiesinger in the following chart.
| Procession | Stage of Prayer | |
|---|---|---|
| Holy Spirit | The prayer of quiet | Imagination still retains its freedom. |
| Son | The prayer of union. | Ecstasy |
| Father | The prayer of spiritual marriage |
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