Many of the mystics show a desire to revert to the Esoteric Christianity dear to Saint John, the disciple whom Jesus loved; or to that of Mani, whose doctrine--unjustly distorted by his detractors--was concerned with direct initiation and final mergence in the Divinity. But it is not easy to progress against the stream of the centuries, and with the Catharists of Hungary, the Albigenses of Provence, and the Templars massacred in the name of St. Augustine--that ancient Manichean who became the worst enemy of his fellow-believers--Esoteric Christianity seemed to have died out. Nevertheless the desire for it has never been destroyed, and continues to inspire the teachings of all those who revolt against dogmas that tend to restrict the soul's activities instead of widening them. Logically, all viable religious evolution is a departure from the Christianity which has moulded our present-day thought and morality and is the centre of all our hopes. But every new revival has to reckon with it. Madame Blavatsky, for instance, made Gautama Buddha--the king's son who became a beggar by reason of his immense compassion for mankind--the central pivot of her esotericism, which was Buddhist rather than Christian in essence; but Annie Besant, the spiritual leader of modern Theosophy, has returned to Christianity and acknowledges the divinity of the Son of Man. This symbolic example should reassure Christian believers, showing how even those who depart from Christianity contribute, in spite of themselves, to its continuous growth.