the opposite idea, that the man who has power over matter is necessarily highly unfolded as regards the spirit. It is true, of course, that the founders of religion were men surrounded with clouds of phenomena, and the reason for that is the one I have just stated: that to the truly spiritual man matter is an obedient servant; to use a quotation from an Indian book: "The truly spiritual man all the siḍḍhis stand ready to serve." Now it was necessary for the founding of religions and for the teaching of many of the doctrines of religions which had to do with worlds invisible to the physical eye, that the man who first promulgated these doctrines should be a man who had a first-hand acquaintance with the conditions they described. For you must remember that in every religion there are two sides to its teaching: the side of the spiritual truths known only to the unfolded divine consciousness; the side of the existence of other worlds than this, and of the conditions existing in those worlds--important to men, as they have to pass into those worlds after death, important to men also, as much of the symbolism, the rites and ceremonies, are connected with what we may roughly call occult science. As the Buḍḍha said when speaking of worlds beyond the physical: "If you want to know your way to a village and particulars about the village, you ask a man who lives there and who has gone along the roads leading to it: and so you do right to come to me when you want to know about the Ḍevas and about the invisible worlds, for I know those worlds and I know the way thereto." So that looking back to these great spiritual Teachers and Revealers of the unseen, we find they are always men of first-hand knowledge. That first-hand knowledge was shared by Their immediate followers, who carried on the teaching of the system after the Teacher had withdrawn. And it matters not what religion you take, living or dead, you will find it equally true, that phenomena were common in the earlier days of the teaching of that religion.