And what we argue in regard to the constitution of the Universe we also affirm to be true regarding man, the Microcosm and epitome of the Universe. He is one of those angels “ascending and descending” on the Ladder of Life. For the purposes of illustration we may borrow a symbol from the astronomer, that of the elliptical orbit of the Earth. Let the Earth represent the spiritual monad which in process of involution has become associated with material conditions of life, and is now an imprisoned soul. It answers to the gravitational pull of the material sun and revolves around it, chained by its material desires, yet enlarging its orbit as it advances in its evolution. The point where the planet passes its quadrature, corresponds to the event of incarnation, its lower apsis being the point of greatest physical vitality. It passes out of the physical at the next quadrature and for the remainder of its orbit continues in the psychic or intermediate state between the higher and lower worlds. At its higher apsis the soul is in its supreme state of elevation, mingling freely with other discarnate souls and those radiant denizens of the higher spiritual world who are there to minister to their spiritual needs. But when the reaction follows and the desire for earth-life again asserts itself, the soul responds to the gravitational pull of the material sun and falls again into incarnation. There comes a time, however, when by its peregrinations in the sphere of the lower world, the soul gains knowledge of real values, and the awakening spirit, shaking free from the bonds of the flesh, answers to the gravitational pull of a higher or more interior Spiritual Sun which occupies the kenofocus of the great ellipse. Such a soul passes directly through the intermediate world into the World of Spirit, and thereafter revolves around the Spiritual Sun, descending only at the lowest point of its orbit into the intermediate world for the purpose of spiritual ministration, its only intercourse with the material world being normally through the world of discarnate souls who are subject to incarnation. The diagram presented on page 124, may assist the reader in following out the scheme. I am not here laying down any final teaching or creed regarding the peregrinations of the Soul, though during a life of inward experience one gets some definite idea of the general plan of these things, but I am taking the position of a symbologist who employs cosmical facts to convey spiritual ideas, as one may use a figure of speech to suggest an analogy or convey an idea pertinent to the theme of conversation. Everything is symbolical, and things have no other meaning than that which we confer upon them, as letters or figures which are used to signal a meaning from one mind to another as by a code agreed upon beforehand, although in themselves these symbols bear no such significance.