"The probation will be sufficiently severe to deter persons seeking to gratify curiosity from trying to enter. No trifler could stand the test. There will be a number of degrees. Extremely few will be able to enter the highest, as eligibility to it requires eradication of every human fault and weakness. Those strong enough to pass through this become adepts." The Masonic Fraternity, with its 33d degree and its elaborate initiations, will have to look to its laurels, as soon as the Theosophical College of Mystery is in good running order. Everyone loves mysteries, especially when they are of the Egyptian kind. Cagliostro, the High Priest of Humbug, knew this when he evolved the Egyptian Rite of Masonry, in the eighteenth century. Speaking of Freemasonry, it is interesting to note the fact, as stated by Colonel Olcott in "Old Diary Leaves," that Madame Blavatsky and her coadjutors once seriously debated the question as to the advisability of engrafting the Theosophical Society on the Masonic fraternity, as a sort of higher degree,--Masonry representing the lesser mysteries, modern Theosophy the greater mysteries. But little encouragement was given to the Priestess of Isis by eminent Freemasons, for Masonry has always been the advocate of theistic doctrines, and opposed to the pantheistic cult. At another time, the leaders of Theosophy talked of imitating Masonry by having degrees, an elaborate ritual, etc.; also pass words, signs and grips, in order that "one _occult_ brother might know another in the darkness as well as in the _astral_ light." This, however, was abandoned. The founding of the Temple of Magic and Mystery in this country, with ceremonies of initiation, etc., seems to me to be a palingenesis of Mme. Blavatsky's ideas on the subject of occult Masonry. 8. Conclusions. The temple of modern Theosophy, the foundation of which was laid by Madame Blavatsky, rests upon the truth of the Mahatma stories. Disbelieve these, and the entire structure falls to the ground like a house of cards. After the numerous exposures, recorded in the preceding chapters, it is difficult to place any reliance in the accounts of Mahatmic miracles. There may, or may not, be sages in the East, acquainted with spiritual laws of being, but that these masters, or adepts, used Madame Blavatsky as a medium to announce certain esoteric doctrines to the Western world, is exceedingly dubious. The first work of any literary pretensions to call attention to Theosophy was Sinnett's "Esoteric Buddhism." Of that production, William Emmette Coleman says: