And the Magi, having performed their rites and ceremonies, departed from Bethlehem. But they did not forget the Child--they preserved a careful watch over his movements, until they saw him again. Saw Him again? you ask? _Yes, saw him again!_ Though the Gospels say naught of this, and are silent for a period of many years in the Life of Jesus, yet the records and traditions of the Mystics of the East are filled with this esoteric knowledge of these missing years, as we shall see as we proceed. Left behind by the Magi, but still under their loving care, the Child waxed strong and grew in mind and body. But the Magi, being warned by higher intelligences in a vision, did not return to the wily and crafty Herod, but "departed unto their own country another way." (_Matt. 2:12._) And Herod waited in vain for their return, and finally discovering their escape wrathfully ordered the massacre of all male children that had been born in Bethlehem and its suburbs of two years of age and under. He calculated the two years from the witnessing of the "star" by the Magi. Matthew 2:16 states the story of the fixing of the time as follows: "And slew all the male children that were in Bethlehem, and all the borders thereof, from two years old and under, _according to the time which he exactly learned of the wise men_." Herod sought to kill the feared Messiah--the King of the Jews, who threatened to drive him from his earthly throne--by killing all the male infants in Bethlehem that had been born since the astrological indication as stated by the Magi. But this plot failed, for Joseph had been warned by "an angel in a dream" (which mystics teach was the Astral Form of one of the Magi) and was told to take the mother and child and flee into Egypt, and to stay there until the death of Herod. And so Joseph, Mary, and Jesus then fled from the wrath of Herod, and stole silently away to Egypt. And the Occult traditions have it that the expenses of the journey of this poor carpenter and his family--that journey into strange lands, hurried, and without the chance to earn money along the way--was accomplished by the means of the Gold that the Magi had offered to Jesus, and which they had insisted upon his parents storing away for His use. And so the gold of these Occult Mystics saved the founder of Christianity from massacre. And how poorly has Christianity repaid the debt, when one thinks of the persecutions of the Oriental "heathen" by the so-called Christians of all times!