Spiritus Quid Et Anima

There are 2 kinds of flesh:

1. The flesh from Adam

This is a coarse flesh. It is earthen and is nothing else but a flesh that can be bound and grasped like wood or a stone.

2. The flesh which is not from Adam.

This is a subtile flesh and can not be bound nor grasped, for it is not made from earth.

The flesh from Adam is the man from Adam. He is coarse like the earth which is compact. Therefore, man cannot go through a wall. He must make a hole to slip through, because nothing recedes before him.

But walls recede before the flesh that is not from Adam. It means that such flesh does not require doors nor holes. It goes through intact walls and does not break anything*.

They are both flesh, blood, bone and so on, whatever belongs to a man, and in their whole nature they are like man’s. But they are different in that they have a double origin like 2 cousins.

They are in equal way like a spirit and like man*.

The spirit goes through all walls. Nothing locks him out.

Man, however, cannot. He is locked out by the bolt or the lock.

Just as you can differentiate between a spirit and a man, so you shall recognize the people about whom I am writing but with the difference that they are separated from the spirits by having blood and flesh and bones.

They bear children. They talk, eat, drink and walk. These things Elementals do but spirits do not.

Hence, they are like the spirits in speed, like man in gestures, figure and eating.

And so they are people who have the character of spirits and also that of man, and both are one in them.

Although they are both spirit and man, yet they are neither one nor the other. They cannot be men, since they are spirit- like in their behaviour. They cannot be spirits, since they eat and drink, have blood and flesh.

Therefore, they are a creation of their own, outside the two, but of the kind of both, a mixture of both.

They are like:

• a composite remedy of 2 substances which is sour and sweet, and yet does not seem it, or
• two colors mixed together which become one and yet are two.

Although they are spirit and man, yet they are neither.

Man has a soul, the spirit not.

The spirit has no soul, but man has one. This creature, however, is both, but has no soul, and yet is not identical with a spirit.

For, the spirit does not die, but this creature dies.

And so it is not like man, it has not the soul. It is a beast, yet higher than a beast.

It dies like a beast and the animal body has no soul either, only man. That is why it is a beast.

But they talk, laugh like man. This is why they are more like men than like beasts, but are neither man nor beast.

They are to man like a monkey which is the animal resembling man most in gestures and actions. And as a pig has man’s anatomy, being inside like man, yet a pig and not a man-in the same way these creatures are to man as monkeys and pigs, and yet better than they.

They are in everything like men, but without soul.

They are better than man, for they are like the spirits which nobody can lift.

Christ died and was born for those who have a soul, that is who are from Adam, and not for those who are not from Adam, for they are men but have no soul.

These things are not daily before our eyes but very rarely. We see them only in order that we may know of their existence. They exist, and yet appear to us as in a dream.

They are separated from us because they are not from Adam and do not participate in the same earth from which Adam was made. But God has decreed that we may see them miraculously, which has a particular meaning to be discussed in the last treatise.

They have children which are of their kind, not ours.

They are witty, rich, clever, poor, dumb like we who are from Adam.

They resemble us in every way. Just as one says: man is the image of God, that is, he has been made after his image-in the same way one can also say: these people are the image of man and made after his image.

Man is not God although he is made like him, but only as an image.

The same here: they are not men because they are made after his image, but remain the same creatures as they have been created, just as man remains the same as God has created him.

Thus he wants every creature to remain at the place where it has been created.

As man cannot boast that he is God, but a creation of God, thus made by God, and God wants it thus-in the same way these people cannot boast that they have a soul like man, although they look like him. Just as man cannot boast that he is God although he is made after him and exists.

Thus man lacks that he is not God. And the wild people lack the soul. Therefore they cannot say that they are men. And so the one lacks God, the other the soul. Thus God alone is God, and man alone is man.

And so they are men and people, die with the beasts, walk with the spirits, eat and drink with men.

Like the beasts they die, so that nothing is left; and neither water nor fire harms them, like the spirits, and nobody can lock them up, like the spirits, but they reproduce like men and therewith share his nature. They have man’s diseases and his health but their medicine is not from the earth from which man is made, but from the element in which they live.

They die like men, but are dead like the beasts.

Their flesh rots like other flesh and their bones like other men’s bones and nothing remains of it. Their customs and behaviour are human, as is their way of talking, with all virtues, better and coarser, more subtile and rougher.

The same applies to their figures: they are very differ- ent, like men. In food they are like men, eat and enjoy the product of their labor, spin and weave their own clothing. They know how to make use of things, have wisdom to govern, justice to preserve and protect. For although they are beasts, they have all the reason of man, except the soul. Therefore, they have not the judgment to serve God, to walk in his path, for they have not the soul.

The beast from inborn nature seeks a just course toward itself, and so do they, but they have the highest reason, above all other animals.

Just as man, above all creatures, is closest to God on earth in intelligence and faculties, so they are, among all animals, closest to man and so close that they are called people and men and are held and taken for such, so that there is no difference except in their spirit-like way and in the lack of soul-a queer and marvellous creature, to be considered above all others.