ENQ. What of the latter? How long does the incarnating _Ego_ remain in the Devachanic state? THEO. This, we are taught, depends on the degree of spirituality and the merit or demerit of the last incarnation. The average time is from ten to fifteen centuries, as I already told you. ENQ. But why could not this Ego manifest and communicate with mortals as Spiritualists will have it? What is there to prevent a mother from communicating with the children she left on earth, a husband with his wife, and so on? It is a most consoling belief, I must confess; nor do I wonder that those who believe in it are so averse to give it up. THEO. Nor are they forced to, unless they happen to prefer truth to fiction, however “consoling.” Uncongenial our doctrines may be to Spiritualists; yet, nothing of what we believe in and teach is half as selfish and cruel as what they preach. ENQ. I do not understand you. What is selfish? THEO. Their doctrine of the return of Spirits, the real “personalities” as they say; and I will tell you why. If _Devachan_—call it “paradise” if you like, a “place of bliss and of supreme felicity,” if it is anything—is such a place (or say _state_), logic tells us that no sorrow or even a shade of pain can be experienced therein. “God shall wipe away all the tears from the eyes” of those in paradise, we read in the book of many promises. And if the “Spirits of the dead” are enabled to return and see all that is going on on earth, and especially _in their homes_, what kind of bliss can be in store for them? WHY THEOSOPHISTS DO NOT BELIEVE IN THE RETURN OF PURE “SPIRITS.” ENQ. What do you mean? Why should this interfere with their bliss?