CHAPTER III

On the Four Kinds of Immortality

There are four kinds of immortality. The first is the immortality of all matter. The body disintegrates, but it is not annihilated; it steps once again into the eternal cycle of nature and continues on its road of disassimilation and assimilation. The body has no death because in the absolute sense there is no death, since nothing exists that does not attempt to assimilate its surroundings. (Here we refer to our exposition: there is greater or lesser aliveness corresponding to stronger or weaker assimilation capability, and there is nothing that is absolutely dead.)

The body, though in a process of decomposition, still attempts to assimilate its surroundings, even if in a weak way.

This immortality is not an individual one: but from a philosophical view, in which life is thought to be a whole that has fallen into parts (individuals), the further crumbling into single cells is nothing else but the identical process of breaking up, only carried a step further.

It seems as if the individual has a private consciousness, whereas the cells of disintegrated matter have no communal life; the basis of such an antithesis will be seen when we consider the other forms of immortality. In the absolute sense, there is no such thing as private consciousness.

The second immortality is that of the seed. Single cells of the organism are able to escape disintegration. They are left to us by our forefathers and we give this heritage from generation to generation in perpetuity. Sperm and egg are the carriers of life, of character and of propagation.

Through the vigorous assimilation drives inherent in them, these germs create new bodies in a continuous chain of renewal; these bodies experience themselves as perishable individuals; the germs, however, remain immortal.

On the other hand, these germs which possess such great assimilation strength and therefore enormous energy as well, simultaneously serve also as an object for the surrounding assimilation drives of nature.

That is why the germ is not unchangeable. Poisons destroy it. The germ is in constant flux, but it has such a high assimilation drive (and concomitant vitality), that it withstands most onslaughts of other assimilation substances and, besides the immortality of matter, possesses the potential immortality of continued propagation.

In any case, until old age, the body’s own cells are incapable of defeating the assimilation power of germ cells and are exploited by the germ cells for their growth. But if one sacrifices the germ cells to the other cells of the body (Steinach operation), that is, if one frees the body of its power of assimilation, then the body frees itself from a strong assimilator and the tissues enlarge their lifespan. Under conditions that are not too poor, germ plasm remains eternally alive and does not lose its vast capacity for assimilation. And the fact that organized life exists on earth proves that such adequate conditions are actually present.

The third immortality is that of creativity. What was created by a living being remains perpetually alive in the indestructible chain of origins and consequences. An effect that has apparently passed leaves its traces behind. In an even clearer way every effect that imprints its form or its power on what has been created remains immortal.

A being’s power of assimilation is immortal in his work: in a stone sculpture carved by him, in a composition noted down by him, in poetry written by him. And from the point of view of assimilation doctrine, this immortality should not be appreciated merely as poetic expression, but rather as real perpetual life of a being’s assimilation drive, a being that has created.

Then what is life? Assimilating. A work is the product of assimilation which can affect both mind and body through further assimilation, and therefore to be understood as being truly alive. (But it does not possess the second not?, apparently, the fourth capacity for immortality, and thereby differentiates the vitality of the creator from the vitality of the created).

The fourth immortality is that which finds its direction in psychic energy and its interaction of assimilations.

Thinking is not isolated - within, each individual organism. (See Uber die Energetik der Psyche, Zeitschrift für Neurologie und Psychiatrie, Volume 133). Thinking is an energetic process which affects everything around it, particularly the thought centers of other beings.

Therefore no man can be sure about the true origin of his thoughts, nor will he ever know where his thinking will be transplanted by assimilation power o Thus thinking is a capacity which belongs to many simultaneously. A common unconscious originates through the transplanting of unconscious concepts from one brain into many others in space, as also at a time when the brain is no longer able to create psychic energy

The thought is altered in every new brain. Pear, apple and nut draw their nourishment from identical matter, but produce different fruits. Thus psychic matter from different brains is modified in a variety of forms; the assimilation power of thought is ever alive and active. This is the fourth immortality.

There is nothing that does not change its form. Everything is transitory and immortal.