For all practical purposes, the microcosm, our own individual world, is the only world we are condemning or denouncing, in fact, is the only world we have the slightest business to condemn or denounce...let us consider whether we have the power to judge, not the world as a whole, but any other individual whatsoever, in the world beside ourselves...we are always dealing with ourselves and our inseparable shadows, not with a foreign world....the whole point is this: that our own state of mind for the time being is strong enough to tinge the whole of the world with its colours....Bear constantly in view this fact, then, that the world we are judging is our own individual world...I want to make it quite clear that I am not taking up the cudgels in defence of that terrible bugbear "Idealism," nor doing battle with what the Philosophy of Common Sense prides itself upon denominating "Realism." My sole object is to emphasise a fact which we are very apt to ignore, and which it is of the utmost importance to remember. The world we are condemning or praising is not the world at large, but the world within ourselves...

Applied to the human organism, the aim is to transmute gross muscular energy into fine nerve energy. This is the idea of Plato in the "Republic," in which is embodied the Greek Ideal...By creating an "ideal" within our mental sphere we can approximate ourselves to this "Ideal Image," till we become one and the same with it ...Man's conception of heaven is the ideal or perfect state of consciousness which can express itself only, in the ideal or perfect form and appearance...If "heaven" is the goal of humanity, as it undoubtedly is, we might just as well turn our eye in that direction now and here, by paying all the attention we can to the laws of the human form, and endeavouring to get as near as we can to the ideal..."The Rider on the White Horse" portrays the evolution of a new race upon the earth with new ideals, new methods, and new conditions, which will transcend the civilisations of the past...

For thousands of years, cure of disease by Transference of Nerve-Energy has been a well-authenticated fact in the experience of mankind. It was practised in the temples of Egypt and India long before the Christian era, and though it fell more or less into disuse at various times and places, it never in any age was entirely unknown to the few. In modern times the man who brought it into prominent notice was MESMER, from whom is derived the term "Mesmerism." Mesmer propounded, or rather formulated, the theory of a Universal Fluid, which in reality corresponds in conception to the scientific doctrine of Conservation of Energy, and applied it with astonishing success to the alleviation of pain and the cure of disease...

The term "Personal Magnetism" has been rather extensively used within the last few years, but there are many objections to it, though from a popular standpoint it does fairly well. Reichenbach, coined the term Od or Odyle, but this does not, somehow or other, carry sufficient weight to render it an ideal word. Unquestionably the best term of all is that used, and so far as I know coined, by Lytton in The Coming Race. It expresses, with precision, nerve-energy and will-force combined in the developed individual. The word itself suggests the very noblest and highest ideas connected with mankind. The Romans used the words "vir" and "virilis" in a very different sense from "homo." The latter signified a mere man pure and simple, while the former expressed a lofty conception of the genus homo. The word vir or vri has the same signification, more or less, in all the Aryan languages, e.g., in MacDonell's Sanskrit Dictionary, the following is given: Vi-rá, m. (vigorous: √ vi) man, esp. man of might, hero, champion, chief, leader; Vir-yá, n. Manliness, valour, power, potency, efficiency, heroic deed, manly vigour; Vra-tá, n. (willed, √ vri, perh. old p.p.) will, command, law, ordinance, dominion. The term "vril," therefore, naturally signifies the height of dominion attained by cultivation of man's latent power, and, as such, is the best that could possibly have been devised...

I had been studying as well as teaching the science of breathing for years before I realised the actual significance of the cranial air-chambers in respiration and the immense part they played in human evolution. I had read most of the books published on breathing, especially the textbooks of Physiology containing chapters devoted to respiration. In not a single one had I ever come across a passage bearing upon the importance of the cranial sinuses. And -- perhaps a feature more curious than the silence of the text-books -- in not a single piece of poetry or a romance in which wonderful visions are portrayed is there to be found any reference to the potentiality of the cranial sinuses. The reader meets with ideally beautiful women, majestic super-men, but no hint is dropped as to the process of their evolution...

For the practical purposes of Ars Vivendi breathing, all that is really required to understand is that in addition to going down to the chest, the air also goes up to the region of the forehead. The frontal sinuses are roughly marked by the eyebrows; the sphenoidal (perhaps the most important) are just behind the eyes; the others are located at the root and sides of the nose. These little cavities are small in size compared with the chest, and the volume of tidal air going in and out of them is insignificant compared with the volume going in and out of the lungs; but they contain the essence of the life of the whole system, and they regulate and control the development of the human being physically, mentally and morally...

The principal factor is the inability of the sinuses to open out in the normal manner, as they were intended by Nature to do in normal growth of body and mind. Just as one child does not thrive physically through lack of sufficient air in the body as a whole, so another child does not thrive mentally through lack of sufficient air in the cranial sinuses as they open out in normal growth...

The method I have found most successful both in personal treatment and by correspondence is to direct the student to imagine a V placed in the centre of the forehead between the eyes, and to start breathing as silently as possible and without strain or effort with mouth closed, from the centre of the nostrils, roughly the bridge of the nose, upwards to V. The out-breathing to be done in the same manner with mouth closed, and with as little noise as possible. By degrees, as the nostrils become clearer, and the breathing habitually more easy and copious, the V will seem to be more pronounced. This is the beginning of a higher stage of evolution, corresponding somewhat faintly to the halo of light represented in art as surrounding the head of "saints." It is an actual mental illumination brought about by chemical action of the oxygen in the air inspired. At this stage, V reveals itself as symbolical of the very highest conceptions of man, such as Vitality, Vision, Will, stamped upon the human brow. It is "the white stone on the forehead," the abode of the spirit in man. In Sanskrit literature, Shiva or Spirit dwells in the forehead. Swedenborg and all the mystics arrive at the same conclusion. The sign V placed in the Ars Vivendi manner, unites in one plain but comprehensive symbol the universal aspiration of the human race....

There is no chance working at random, producing a genius here and a dunce there. The signs are written at the root of the nose for all who can read them, marking unerringly the narrow-minded, the broad-minded, the dull-witted, the degenerate, the weak-willed, the intellectual, leading up to the eagle eye which takes in a situation at a single glance...

The portraits of Napoleon in early life show this trait unmistakably. The formation of forehead and root of nose reveal plainly his ability to freshen and clear the brain. ...

In the Hebrew alphabet the letter vau symbolises light and brilliance. Fabre d'Olivet, a French author, commenting upon its signification, says that it is the universal convertible sign expressing the deepest mystery of creation, and linking together the light of the physical senses with the inner spiritual light...

There is only one way of doing it and that is growing a new eye, capable of receiving and interpreting the rays of the inner light as the physical eye receives and interprets the rays of the physical light...

The Ars Vivendi principle of breathing up to the V in the forehead is the direct road towards the Light which shineth in Darkness, and is therefore the final and universal religion embracing all nations, all sects and all creeds in a comprehensive unity of Inspiration and Aspiration, for God is Light and God is Spirit, and they who worship must worship in the Light of the Holy Spirit of Breathing and Truth.

-- Ars Vivendi, by Arthur Lovell