Each atom of matter, each molecule and every life cell, of which man is composed, has a soul of its own. And it is claimed that beside the individual cell souls, man not only has a communal soul in his brain, but a soul in his Solar Plexus. After a frog is beheaded, if a drop of acid is placed on his body, he will wipe it off with his foot. The development of animals out of frogs and men out of animals was held by Anaximenes 600 B. C., and the evolution of species was an accepted doctrine before the flood. In the Hindu books it is written: “When the world had issued out of the darkness, the subtle, elementary principles produced the vegetal seed, which animated first the plants, from the plants life passed into fantastical bodies which were born in the waters, then through a series of forms and various animals it reached man.”—Bhagavata. Kapella, an Aryan sage, denied the existence of a first cause, claiming that everything in nature found itself developed only in consequence of material fatal forces. The ancient Kabalists said: “A stone becomes a plant, a plant a beast, a beast a man, a man a spirit, and the spirit a god.” CHAPTER XII. Magic and Devil Worship. Elephas Levi claimed that the attraction and repulsion of the atoms is caused by the astral light. “There exists an agent which is material and spiritual, a universal plastic medium, a common receptacle of the vibrations of motions and the images of forms, a fluid and a force. By means of this force all nervous apparatuses secretly communicate with each other, thence come sympathy and antipathy, thence dreams and second sight. The existence and use of this force is the great secret of practical magic. The astral light attracts, repels, vivifies and destroys all things under the influence of powerful wills. It can be directed by the leaders of souls. By means of this agent we can correspond instantaneously from one end of the earth to the other, discern what is taking place at the antipodes, heal or hurt at a distance. The Gnostics called it the burning body of the Holy Ghost. Life is produced by the action of the astral light on the ether or matter. In man it forms the astral body, it is the first envelope of the soul, and it is by combining with the most subtil fluids that it forms this etherized body or phantom. The astral body is nourished by the astral light, as the physical body is nourished by the earth. The astral light is saturated with souls, which it releases in the incessant generation of existences, and whose imperfect wills can be dominated and employed by stronger ones. The elementary spirits are like children, they torment those who concern themselves about them. It is these that produce the raps on the walls and furniture.”—Mysteries of Magic, 65.