The first time our consciousness was directed towards the Light was shortly after we had become endowed with mind and had entered definitely upon our evolution as human beings in Atlantis, the land of the mist, deep down in the basins of the earth, where the warm mist emitted from the cooling earth hung like a dense fog over the land. Then the starry heights of the universe were never seen, nor could the silvery light of the moon penetrate the dense, foggy atmosphere which hung over that ancient land. Even the fiery splendor of the sun was almost totally extinguished, for when we look in the Memory of Nature pertaining to that time, it appears very much as an arc lamp on a high pole looks to us when it is foggy. It was exceedingly dim, and had an aura of various colors, very similar to those which we observe around an arc light. But this light had a fascination. The ancient Atlanteans were taught by the divine Hierarchs who walked among them, to aspire to the light, and as the spiritual sight was then already on the wane (even the messengers, or Elohim, being perceived with difficulty by the majority), they aspired all the more ardently to the new light, for they feared the darkness of which they had become conscious through the gift of mind. Then came the inevitable flood when the mist cooled and condensed. The atmosphere cleared, and the “_chosen people_” were saved. Those who had worked within themselves and learned to build the necessary organs required to breathe in an atmosphere such as we have today, survived and came to the light. It was not an arbitrary choice; _the work of the past consisted of body building_. Those who had only gill clefts, such as the foetus still uses in its prenatal development, were as unfit physiologically to enter the new era as the foetus would be to be born were it to neglect to build lungs. It would die as those ancient people died when the rare atmosphere made gill clefts useless. Since the day when we came out of ancient Atlantis our bodies have been practically complete, that is to say, no new vehicles are to be added; but from that time and from now on _those who wish to follow the light must strive for soul growth_. The bodies which we have crystallized about us must be dissolved, and the quintessence of experience extracted, which as “soul” may be amalgamated with the spirit to nourish it from impotence to omnipotence. Therefore, the Tabernacle in the Wilderness was given to the ancients, and the _light of God descended upon the Altar of Sacrifice_. This is of great significance: The ego had just descended into its tabernacle, the body. We all know the tendency of the primitive instinct towards selfishness, and if we have studied the higher ethics we also know how subversive of good the indulgence of the egotistic tendency is; therefore, God immediately placed before mankind the Divine Light upon the Altar of Sacrifice.