Odyle

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Odyle, also known as Odic force, is the name given in the mid-19th century to a hypothetical vital energy or life force by Baron Carl von Reichenbach. The name was coined from the Norse god Odin in 1845. The Odyle was held to pervade all nature and to manifest itself in magnetism, mesmerism, chemical action, etc.

In the Theosophical literature it was also called "Od". H. P. Blavatsky defined it as follows:

Od (Gr.). From odos, “passage”, or passing of that force which is developed by various minor forces or agencies such as magnets, chemical or vital action, heat, light, &c. It is also called “odic” and “odylic force”, and was regarded by Reichenbach and his followers as an independent entitative force--which it certainly is--stored in man as it is in Nature.[1]

Additional resources

Olcott, Henry S. "The Occult Sciences." The American Theosophist 75.2 (February 1987), 38-46. This was a lecture delivered in Colombo, Ceylon on June 15, 1880 and printed in Theosophy: Religion and Occult Science (London: George Redway, 1885). Among other topics it discusses the Odic force.

Notes

  1. Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, The Theosophical Glossary (Krotona, CA: Theosophical Publishing House, 1973), 238.