Submerged Worlds

THERE comes a time in the student’s development when he loses all desire for material things and fear of death, and goes into retreat under the care and observation of an advanced brother. Here he will enter his own submerged self and be suddenly confronted by animal-like entities to which we were once similar; and these he must eradicate from his nature. He will also face those who had tormented him in the past and those he had tormented; for he must now face his past evil as well as good.

He will feel that he has again become an animal without light. But the reason for the severance of this light is that if seen by the darker forces it would arouse their antagonism. Only afterwards does he realise that he still possesses it and can use it.

This world might be called hell; but it is not the hell of orthodox religions. We must study its various densities and atomic structures, its illusions as well as truths; for we are to descend still deeper until we reach the greatest depth of evil and intolerance.

As we review our animal past when we worshipped the forces of evil as our gods, we realise that intolerance affects us on the higher levels also, and that here we can attack the roots of this evil and destroy it.

In these hells we see how we worshipped the blood of our victims and sacrificed them regardless of their sufferings, how we in turn were likewise tormented. So we learn that we cannot inflict sufferings without paying the penalty.

These regions are easily charted, as one can chart places on higher levels, and many books could be written about them.

Unknown to the student, the Architect atom sends an intelligence from the Nous atom, when he is in these lower regions, to protect him from serious affliction upon his return from these depths when these lower conditions may attack him.

This intelligence is the student’s guiding star during his pilgrimage and watches over him, allowing nothing to terrify him beyond that point wherein he would be injured. He is not aware of it until he is called upon to withstand this ordeal of burial in the depths of his lower conditions; it then appears before him, shining and protective.

The beauty of these lower spheres is intensified, for the denizens use their arts for the glorification of their own persons, and appear in an evil loveliness far beyond any ever witnessed in the pageants of the stage. They are robed in the evil of their spheres, and one can sympathise with the ancient anchorites in that they were probably tempted beyond endurance; for this evil encircles one in an atmosphere of intensified mental lust and passion.

The best we can do for those dwelling here is to encourage them and show them how to ascend to a higher state of consciousness. A great Initiate rules and seeks to direct them towards a higher level. He wears an iron band about his forehead and his face is unforgettable. He reminds one of an old Coptic legend about two brothers. One descended into the lower spheres to minister to imprisoned souls. The other came to Palestine to bring light to the darkness in man’s heart. Hermogenes and his twin brother Jesus were the names given in this legend.

Thus one realises that, however low man sinks, there is always an Initiate friend sent to lift him when he aspires to ascend.

Here we meet great instructors who would enslave us and use us, if possible, in this physical world. They often unite into groups and show us their powers over people working on Earth, and how they can control events by impregnating courtesans with their properties of lust and use them for political purposes. Nations who use courtesans in this manner are usually under the elemental sign of a woman.

The elemental properties these magicians use have been cast out from the moon and inserted into the lower portions of their instrument’s bodies. These magicians build up a period of greatness about these courtesans until their purpose has been accomplished. They are then dethroned.

Students can often see these elemental properties about a person; they look like a swarm of bees. One should keep away from such environments; for people can be inflicted with such qualities, as one can catch an impure disease of a Venusian nature.

The magicians of these spheres know all the things of our world, and several organisations have been influenced by them. As we have previously said, certain areas of the world are under the protection of hierarchal beings. The world is also charted and comes under the influence of these magicians; yet they are limited in their power for evil, as the white forces only allow them to operate in order to teach the foolish student to become wise. So that in their future studies they will not practise magic through curiosity.

These magicians have the power to intensify speech, giving it a hypnotic influence. Preachers often feel this, and this is frequently the beginning of a religious revival that often increases sexual attraction. This can be proved by the increase in the birth-rate after the emotions of the people have been stirred. These magicians always seek to bring about sex worship, and children born under such conditions are generally unbalanced; while, later in life, their astral bodies are more easily impressed by the lower entities.

It is well known that where the light is brightest the shadows are darkest, and we have seen, when out of the body, places where a thin wall separated a temple of great holiness from a temple where the greatest evil was worshipped.

When we enter these spheres of intensified intellect we are told that we shall be given great power and their highest secret wisdom if we will but surrender our souls to them. The student is probably aware that there are schools of mental Yoga on earth teaching systems of logic that will eventually impress and direct minds as they wish, and such schools are like the schools of these magicians whose processes of logic will prove that black is white.

We never discuss or argue over spiritual things on the higher planes, but the lower spheres bring us in touch with scintillating intellect—not intelligence—that is almost overpowering, and we feel drawn to this magnetism which these sadistic and brilliant schoolmen possess. By argument they will show how beautiful evil is, that the world is ruled by evil, and that eventually we must succumb to their master’s direction.

The student is almost lost in the cruelty of these spheres and is given instruction, which, he is told, would shake the foundations of the mental atmosphere if applied to this physical world. But when he returns to normal conditions the Innermost will give him an antidote to balance him. This will be a sense of justice.

About this time a type of atomic substance brings a consciousness into the student’s mind that has within it the “Precious balm of Gilead.” It reaches far beyond what we would class as good or evil, for it contains, we are told, the source of what could be called the good of evil and the evil of good. But these qualities are equally balanced.

In our Transformation period we are intermittently given this “balm of Gilead,” and some day, when we have evolved beyond our body and its structures, we shall enter this element and be beyond what is called good and evil.

This golden consciousness will then reveal to us our individual path and give us a period of rest, absolute in our own world and to all that is within it. Here we are given that peace and serenity called Nirvana by those Yogis who have breathed in its perfume. And we are greeted and recognised as those who have at last returned from a long pilgrimage of labour and experience.

During the coming century this bliss will be given to many.

In these submerged worlds the student reads his past records and sees when, owing to great evil and sufferings on his part, he began to seek an inner and higher security and prayed for such guidance. This then contacted him with the powers of good who instructed him regarding his daily life.

These Beings came to us in our Lcmurian days; they taught us to build temples wherein they could place their teraphim and through them teach the people.

In those days we had skins like animals, with whom we could communicate as we possessed similar instinctive attributes. We also communicated with our own tribes by the aid of signs and symbols, and could utter sounds that resembled the cries of children and infants. We were also taught the use of sounds by the teraphims who could analyse our desires and project their intelligences into our astral bodies; for, though our mentalities were slowly developing, we could not convey our thoughts save through an astral consciousness. As we evolved we learned to converse by the aid of certain musical sounds.

In these submerged worlds swirling hosts of entities swarm about us and impart to us their atmospheres of misery and pray to us for help. Each entity would like individual attention and question us about the spheres above. They seem hopeless. Their light is shrouded and thay have no power to levitate. They ask us to assist them to carry their thoughts inwardly.

At certain times these entities are driven into another sphere where they are assembled to receive two kinds of instruction: from their own evil intelligences, and from brighter Beings. We often see these higher Beings descend into these lower levels in order to raise the vibrations of these submerged people.

This descent into one’s own past is symbolised in the task of Hercules cleaning the Augean stables.

When the teacher takes the student out of his body and has taught him to travel, he sometimes takes him into these lower realms to assist another student who has misjudged his powers and is in difficulty.

Many people when asleep pass unconsciously into these lower states and minister to those in distress. We have met several friends doing this constantly. We have listened to them in this dim twilight address countless multitudes, hoping that some would get a realisation of truth and aspire inwardly for their own star of deliverance.

Certain great intelligences who govern these lower worlds are past masters in dissimulation, and are interested in such work. Sometimes they will reveal themselves to us and we find them to be disguised saviours.

The student now learns that that which is called hell he himself has created, and only by nullifying and controlling his lower nature can he bask in the sunlight of eternal youth.

To bring the hidden lustre in man to birth he must be polished by the dust of the ages until his inner luminosity shines forth to ennoble a dark world.

In these lower spheres the student is often commanded to do things that will bring sufferings upon those against whom he directs his powers. This will make the student realise that if he is approached by a radiant Being who commands him to do things, this Being must be of an evil nature, who, if challenged, would be forced to reveal his true character. Moreover, he will break promises made to us: and this no Initiate will do.

In these lower spheres we can use the knowledge given us by the sylphs: the power of disintegrating a lower elemental substance, a secret power we often use when visiting the insane whose mental structures have been distorted by the hypnotic force of evil minds. Everyone has some kind of secret vice and through these evil minds direct their attacks. Vanity and self-esteem are the usual weaknesses that they intensify. The impersonal mind escapes such destructive forces; but not the mind arrogant and self-determined.

After the student has been shown the evil of this world, for several months he will feel that there is little to live for, having learned how the mind and body can be debased by animal natures and the seemingly innocent tormented.

This world can show little that can compare with the ingenuity in these lower spheres, where minds have a powerful mastery over others and can only be classed as demons seemingly beyond hope.

The law reads thus: “Man will reflect his own real character into the heavens as well as into the hells. He must choose his own future abiding place.”

Fortunately for the world, these forces are divided into two opposing camps that wage war against each other. When one side has been able to hold the other in subjection, the victors slowly begin to approach the higher levels and in time appear in the atmosphere of the world. As multitudes pour forth this causes the defeated to rise again, and when a war ends on this earth it is because these atoms have to return to their lower spheres in order to retain their power over others.

Those leaders of a warlike nature governed by the Secret Enemy’s atoms lose the intensity of direction they formerly possessed, are thus defeated.

In these depths can be seen a warlike nation with its great generals seeking to inspire war upon earth as well as in their own spheres; for there is never a truce between these demoniacal forces, and when approaching them we register their evil within our own structures, shudder in realisation of what war truly is as practised and understood by these gigantic forces of the underworld.

A dim twilight overshadows these regions, and they have a pattern world as in the higher spheres. In their museums are the latest developments in aerial and submarine armaments, including instruments dealing with astral and mental warfare. These models are minute, and could be placed in a wineglass. The reason for this is that the human mind can grasp them in their entirety if they are small.

On these lower planes are schools of trained observers who concentrate upon these images in order to visualise them. They then impress them into the sensitive membranes of the inventor’s mind. When one observer gets tired another immediately takes his place, in order that the pressure should be constant.

These methods are also used on the higher planes; for good has to combat evil and invent instruments that will nullify its opponent’s effects.

The Secret Enemy is using poison gas as one of its greatest inventions, not only for use against man but also against agriculture. In every field of scientific investigation the enemy seeks for mediums.

Here we can witness man’s folly in creating enmity between nations and what methods are used to produce sudden outbreaks. Politicians are frequently used for these purposes.

The reader will now probably realise why Yogis seek release from further incarnations in this world.

The Initiates send us this welcome message: “In this new age many will follow the Law and keep it.” This means that many will attune themselves to the energy of the Dayspring of Youth, and a nation’s wealth will consist in its moral attainments; for they will have to choose their own paths: whether for good or evil, and history teaches us that they who take the wrong path are destroyed by Nature’s upheavals.

In these submerged worlds we watch these brilliant and intense minds combine into a collective energy for the purpose of bringing disharmony into industry and commerce. These minds are great students and past masters in the laws of wealth. They devise ways and means of increasing a man’s wealth in order that they can later use it as an instrument of destruction.

Plato has said: “The best government is that government that does the most for its poorest individuals.” In the great international congress that we see assembling in the future great ideals will become laws, and several nations will unite to advance the prosperity of all within their boundaries. The nation that will seek to promote its growth at the expense of the weaker will in time be placed in a similar position.

In a book by an Initiate I have read: “As men will gather about their own doorways they will be placed within their own council chambers and be made to read their own laws.” This means that when man is inwardly developed he will discover his own place and position in Nature. We also read: “As long as man is blinded by his own passions and desires so long will he be held prisoner.”

The student now descends into still greater densities in order to recover his lost knowledge. Here he beholds the Great Intelligence who offers him its powers and reveals its truths. He shudders at its range of domination. It awakens within him memory of natural magic and his evil possessions of those days; for though he has suffered the penalty in his past evil he still possesses such atoms. Here he has to accomplish a difficult task, to nullify their mentality so that they can no longer operate within the lower centres of his physical body.

It is done in this manner: we first secure the information these atoms possessed and seek inwardly for the power to purify their atmospheres. But in seeking guidance we evoke their opposition, and this brings swarms of evil entities that hover and cling about us during this period, and these we also attempt to levitate to a higher plane.

When we bring light to our lower atoms they will serve us. Yogis call them the Informers; for they become instruments that will inform us about the operations of our Secret Enemy.

At this time we encounter their overlords, who to terrify us with their nocturnal atmospheres seemingly shout their desires with a deadening thud of positive power upon our Silver Shields; though behind them we feel secure.

BLACK MAGICIAN

When we encounter a magician, we use our own powers of magic in order to relieve them, for a time, from their mental agony—for these magicians suffer intensely however great their powers—and in gratitude they ask our pardon for having interfered in our work. We seek to heal their minds and raise them into clearer atomic atmosphere.

Thus do we learn a new law: that we can raise people from one vibration to another that will momentarily relieve them of their misery. We also find that whilst doing this work we are removing similar conditions from our own lower bodies.

This kind of work lasts some time, and it depend upon our service to others how long we are to continue in such work before we are freed from the strata of our lower nature.

In these hells appear people clad and engaged in similar occupations as when on earth. This is of an illusionary nature though very real to them. Here we see great agony; for people of a like nature are brought together and their earthly habits are exposed for all to see. The naturally secretive mind cannot hide, and as it realises this its sufferings increase.

The student witnesses the criminal mind brooding over its deeds, and countless beings who have to be classified and driven into compact sections under the guidance of Light Bringers whose work is to increase the growth of inner realisations. Many surprising things occur in the criminal sections, and one often meets people whom one knew when they were alive.

Priests, who have been destructive on earth, are also found here, as well as those who have given their souls into the keeping of others. Their features are moulded by the atmosphere of these places: elongated, fishlike eyes, and emaciated faces that always glance at one sideways as though fearing discovery.

Those who break physical laws are placed apart from those who break spiritual laws, and each type has its own particular odour. These two kinds are very destructive and can shelter themselves within the astral fluid of a medium’s body. When using such for public work they can intensify the imagination of the audience and lead their minds into abnormal ranges of thought.

The religious section—though intensely intellectual and only meeting their own kind—live in such dullness that eventually they are forced to seek inwardly for the greater light that will bring them into incarnation. We have often seen noble priests clothed in their vestments surrounded by these types who try to argue against their teachings. They are helpers whom we aid whenever possible.

The method of conversation with these submerged people is through telepathy, and we are told that in the deeper states we have to use the ancient vowel sounds about which we have previously spoken.

No evil entity can attach itself to us unless we attract it by thought or by being negative in our actions. The negative medium, easily evoking these lower conditions, causes her astral body to become infected with these parasital forms that drain her vitality; these sap her life force and account for her abnormal appetite.

This shows the necessity for a clean body and mind and good health. Sick and sensitive people have more to contend with than is realised: for they attract the larvae of these submerged states.

In the new age we shall be afflicted with mental disorders, and because of this the Silver Shield must be developed in order to become immune from unnatural conditions. Surgeons and doctors of the future will have to develop themselves to understand such; for there are few in the Western area who can minister with understanding to these strange cases that are already beginning to manifest, as few of them have opened their third eye that perceives what the normal ones cannot register, though we have met some clean-minded doctors who are unconsciously clairvoyant and instinctively recognise such cases.

The student will now begin to analyse the forces of evil that work on earth, and he will often be in communication with adepts living in remote parts of the world. Here he will learn a system of Yoga that will hasten his lower development, and he will realise that he is being watched by many eyes; for, if he has been faithful, they will exert a united pressure to advance him as rapidly as possible. Western Yoga, being a method of quick development owing to the fact that we have not the leisure of the East, and there being so few workers in the West, it is necessary to prepare numbers of adepts in time for the manifestation of the Great Initiate, who has come, though he has not revealed himself. And, just as the great Nazarene had His seventy secret disciples who awaited His coming, so are there a number being prepared and awaiting in the West.

In the future humanity will be given information, now hidden, about the lamas, priests and prophets who had secluded themselves in order to aid man in his development. We will then learn that these great souls are a united power who advance the spiritual and moral welfare of the world. And the student must always be alert to receive communications from China, Tibet and other parts of the world; particularly from America, where there are a number of them. He easily receives such messages from these great distances; for thought exceeds electricity in swiftness.

Some of these teachers and their pupils may seem strange to us; for they do not conform to our methods of life, and at first may appear very simple-minded and childlike; yet within their own range of vibration they far excel those who are called cultivated and educated according to the standards of Harvard and Oxford.

It will probably interest the reader to know that neither the student nor his teacher know of their destined end until three months or a short time before.

The deeper the student enters his interior worlds and their opposition, the more latent becomes his so-called personality; for the knowledge he gains will not endow him with those qualities that the business man seeks to acquire, and one of the great arts of a Yogi is to withdraw his personality, though his words will remain for ever in one’s mind. This power can be so far developed that he can almost eradicate memory of his personal appearance. This means that Yogis can manipulate their atmospheres so that the mind does not register their vibrations. This is a peculiar form of invisibility; though not dematerialisation. From experience we have known a teacher to appear at a great crisis and afterwards suddenly vanish.

As we enter the lower states we do not at first respond to their atomic conditions, our minds are apt to be confused, and our astral and mental bodies take on the appearance of the moon’s elemental period, giving them an elongated shape, and we resemble the work of some of our modern sculptors who have been able to reach back to their primitive ancestry and attract atomic substances of such ages.

If we analyse the trend of thought silently working in the youth of to-day, we shall find rebellion against the so-called academic expression in art. For these men have awakened within themselves these faint echoes of a far-away past beyond form and its different attributes, and as they work from remote pasts, so do we hope that they will work from remote futures wherein the atomic substances of the sun will manifest.

When the discerning eye gazes at the modern works of such men, it will see that they have arrived at the realisation of things unnoticed by this age.

In the lower spheres as well as in the higher we find an intensity of expression that in the future will pass into the artistic expression of the world. Beauty is not called beauty here, but the symbol of what the Innermost desires us to respond to; it is the expression of the Reality manifesting through form.

The student will often seek among artists and sculptors those who have developed their Silver Shields: unfortunately he will meet but few who possess this development, and therefore that light comes from the Innermost.

In the middle period of the new age those artists who have missed their vocations and had to work for material things—not being able to express themselves creatively—will be given freedom to express themselves.

When evil artists work they sometimes unconsciously draw on a source that is beyond good or evil, and for this their evil genius punishes them.

Artists and sculptors are often natural Yogis; for when they lose themselves in their work they follow a natural direction wherein are three atoms that bring to a Yogi that state of unconscious bliss—a form of Nirvana—and at such moments a Rembrandt or a Velazquez will place into a work that substance that will make it a masterpiece and control the minds of those who study it. Whistler acknowledged that it was the last twenty minutes of unconscious work that made the portrait of his mother, placed in the Luxembourg Museum, a masterpiece. In such works we find that the imprint of the brush was seemingly done without effort, with precision and surety, making these pictures beyond price.

The world has treated our artists without regard to their sensitivity, and tries to corral them into their own planes of thought. Commercial and industrial minds have often enslaved geniuses in order, as they say, “To make a commercial bargain.”

When the works of great artists are analysed, it is frequently found that they worked on a scientific foundation, and many of their discoveries were far ahead of their time. Claude Monet, whose theories of colour were first ridiculed and afterwards proved scientifically correct, is an instance. Michael Angelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Rembrandt and others can also be cited.

The student will discover that no physical or mental creation is ever lost, and he will find in the higher and lower worlds museums wherein they are still exhibited. Here we see bad as well as good art, and one is surprised at the evil creations left by the abnormal and perverted artists of Rome and Atlantis. Amid such creations the student is left alone, and he registers within his lower nature similar qualities possessed by these works. He would often wish to destroy these things created by ignorant and low minds; for they influence young artists with inferior atoms, who then multiply the productions of these evil works.

The Secret Enemy constantly attempts to interfere with those stimulated by the higher planes that give the artist a clarity of perception, and distorts their minds till they lose their contact and original purpose. Therefore an artist should not reveal his work until it is completed, as the Secret Enemy will use his friends to criticise and dishearten him. Some of the world’s greatest masterpieces have been destroyed in this way by the intrusion of an outsider. Coleridge’s unfinished poem “Kubla Khan” is one classic instance.

The Secret Enemy will attempt to impress creative types with the element of laziness, and those within its power talk with great authority about the arts but produce very little. Hard physical work is needed for all kinds of artists; for a sound body—as we have previously said—gives one a positive mind, and the weaklings of the artistic professions are seldom energised by their inner and higher systems.

We hope that these teachings will help youth to attain wisdom during their youth and strength—for art is an ideal carried to its completion—and youth frequently wastes its supreme moments dallying by the wayside.

There are different sciences taught by different systems of Yoga, and some deal with these submerged worlds. Students are taught to evoke these conditions and govern them, also clarify the atmospheres of people who have attracted them.

In all this work the student must not follow his inclinations but seek inwardly for right direction. He must not seek personal power; but if he is faithful he will in time be placed where he can aspire for power over Nature and serve her impersonally. Just as the carpenter has to learn his trade and the use of his tools, so must the student serve his apprenticeship under more advanced associates of his school.

The Western mind is a very busy one, lacking the tranquillity of the Eastern mind, and the Western Yogi must work out his salvation from within and not from without.

Passing into the lower spheres is like being buried; for the student enters an atmosphere foreign to his nature, and it takes him some time to awaken to it and remember his previous experiences in this denser region and the evil he did there. Yet, though this is all seemingly real, he knows inwardly that it is illusory.

The student meets an Instructor in these inner planes who asks him why he is there and what is his relationship to them. The student will then slowly realise that he possesses elements of an animal and evil nature, yet will also feel a binding cord connecting him to his Innermost, and this will give him a strong feeling of protection and faith. Then as he rises back to this physical world he will feel that he is constantly being reborn. In short: descent means death; ascent birth.

When people die they are still imprisoned in their astral shells. This is the fluidic substance that registers their passions and desires, and these elements hold them earthbound; for a thin cord connects them to their decomposing bodies. This is the apparition that haunts graveyards, and it takes considerable time before the soul can break from this astral connection.

In the early days of Christianity the elders or priests were able to pass out of their bodies and minister to a follower at the moment of death; they would penetrate the three belts of illusion—Purgatory—that encircle the earth, break this astral cord by a process of levitation or by a chant of a mantric quality, and take him to a place of awakening where he would be looked after by helpers of that plane. This is not always heaven, but those spheres that reflect the released soul’s true character.

Many may wonder why people are buried near a church. The origin of this custom was that the tolling of the bell vibrated on the astral cord and snapped it. The ceremony of the Mass for the Dead was also to release the soul. Students are sometimes sent into churchyards to sever these cords through intense concentration, also to master fear.

Fear is one of the things the student must conquer; for in the lower spheres he will be brought face to face with things of a terrible nature, as the Secret Enemy uses fear as one of its weapons and will attack the student with apparitions similar to the Dweller on the Threshold.

The elemental forces easily reading our true nature will often seek to terrorise us if we walk into their territory. This is why so many sensitive people are afraid of the dark and do not like to walk at night through woods. The Yogi registers these conditions, analyses them, pauses a moment, then sends all his love into such places. The reader should try these experiments when he feels this fear. He will then find that this fear will be suddenly withdrawn, and when he again enters such a place he will feel a welcome coming to him; for he is recognised as one who would not destroy but love Nature. Gardens will also respond to one who sends them love.

The student is also instructed how to take entities that haunt places back to their own spheres; for they have generally been evoked from their normal conditions and must be assisted back. It is this desire for help that causes them to sometimes appear before a person. Magicians frequently use lower elementals to shock the mind of a sensitive.

Some old families who have been prominent in the history of a nation often have a composite elemental force of evil overshadowing them, and it sometimes takes many centuries to dispel such forces. In the old days magicians who had been ill-treated knew how to manipulate elemental powers in the form of hereditary curses.

There is more black magic going on today than people are aware of, and there are many organisations that worship evil deliberately and seek to destroy anything of a spiritual nature.

The people in the lower states who still cling to their worldly appetites are seemingly helpless; for they have not left a pressure of love behind them to elevate them to higher spheres, and love is one of the white magician’s most powerful instruments to aid the evolution of man, and the love souls leave behind them is an immeasurable force that will assist them to regain their inner possessions. Some races knowing this teach their children to keep them in remembrance and pray for them. Those who do so should not seek to attract them back to the world, but should send them aspiration to rise higher.

The average man believes that when he dies he will have rest from all labour and enjoy himself; but he will find life active there as here. The atheist who does not believe in life after death finds himself within a shell that holds him prisoner for centuries.

When a person dies he is met by an angel who has recorded all his past inner and outer deeds, and he reviews and must judge and balance these deeds alone. This will cause him to gravitate to his own level. At the same time his Advocate will impress him to place his case in his hands and will seek to gain the notice of the Innermost and place the man’s case before It. And if he earnestly seeks forgiveness he will be given justice tempered with mercy.

The Angel of Death does not possess the nature of the Secret Enemy, though he appears in a neutral grey garment, and he assists and guides the soul protectively through the densities of the physical atmosphere. The sensitive feels its presence by a rustling of wings in the air. This will undoubtedly sound imaginative, nevertheless it is true.

This Being is not elemental but belongs to a different order of intelligence that has accompanied each individual from a remote evolution. This angel was given us as a sign: that we are never without help from our Creator. It possesses the elements of all our natures and of the Reality.

There are different kinds of death just as there are different kinds of life. What is death for one person can sometimes be life to another. When one who is far above his fellows in development dies, his cast-off atmospheres can stimulate those possessing lower atomic structures. We breathe fine as well as foul matter, just as dead leaves nourish new life. This is why the relics of a saintly person are supposed to heal the body and illuminate the mind.

The realisation that comes to us when we are conscious of our Innermost’s presence makes us look upon our physical and mental worlds from different angles, and we realise why we have incarnated in this age. This gives us the courage to pay off our karmic debts and inwardly seek for our release. Our Yoga practice gives us that determination to increase our inner relationship and work as our Innermost desires regardless of our surroundings.

This is why we have spoken so much about our lower animal spheres in order that the student should seek and aspire inwardly for his Silver Shield and bring to birth his own inner and secret power so that he might be beyond his own time and place.