Article selections by Seeta Nath Ghose | Notes by H.P.B.
There are some substances which are naturally highly magnetic, such as cobalt, nickel, oxygen gas and a few other substances. The earth we live in, is also a very great magnetic body. But although in common language some substances in nature are termed magnetic, and some non-magnetic, yet, strictly speaking, there is no substance on our globe which is entirely devoid of magnetic properties. The opinion of the professors of the science of magnetism is, that every substance in nature is more or less magnetic.1 . . .
It has been found by experiments that the human body is a magnetisable object, though far inferior to iron or steel.2 That it is a magnetisable object is a fact that cannot be denied, for in addition to other causes, there is a larger percentage of iron in the blood circulating throughout all the parts of the body. . . .
Now, it is very easy to conceive that if you lie down with your head placed southward and feet northward, the south pole of the earth and your head, which is the north pole of your body, and the north pole of the earth and your feet, which are the two branches of the south pole of your body, being in juxta-position, will attract each other, and thus the polarity of the body natural to it will be preserved. While for the same reason, if you lie down with your head placed northward and feet southward, the similar poles of your body and the earth, being in juxta-position, will repel each other, and thereby the natural polarity of your body will be destroyed or its intensity diminished.3 In the former position, the polarity your body acquires during the day by standing, walking and sitting on the ground, is preserved intact at night during sleep; but in the latter position, the polarity which your body acquires during the day by standing, walking, and sitting on the ground, is altered at night during sleep.
1. Such is also the axiom of occultism.—Ed. [H.P.B.]
2. It is one of the great errors of physical science to so assert; and occult science proves it.—Ed. [H.P.B.]
3. Though Baron Reichenbach recommends strongly the contrary course (i.e., to place your head always north) and the initiated adepts generally do so, yet, since the Baron’s conclusions are based solely upon his experiences with sick sensitives—whose bodies are in a state of magnetic perturbation—and that the physical organism of adepts, owing to long years of peculiar physiological training, can in no way be compared to those of the average mortals (see Elixir of Life)—the explanation given by the distinguished author is perfectly logical and clear. But it is only in cases of perfect health that we must sleep with our heads southward. There are abnormal temperaments and cases of nervous diseases when the opposite is necessary. Perfect knowledge of the magnetic state of human bodies—a state which varies incessantly, can be acquired only by the supplementary study of occult science in addition to the physical.—Ed. [H.P.B.]