[47] The length of this “transfer” depends, however, on the degree of spirituality in the ex-personality of the disembodied Ego. For those whose lives were very spiritual this transfer, though gradual, is very rapid. The time becomes longer with the materialistically inclined. [48] “Shifting of _Metaphysical terms_” applies here only to the shifting of their translated equivalents from the Eastern expressions; for to this day there never existed any such terms in English, every Theosophist having to coin his own terms to render his thought. It is nigh time then to settle on some definite nomenclature. X. ON THE NATURE OF OUR THINKING PRINCIPLE. THE MYSTERY OF THE EGO. ENQ. I perceive in the quotation you brought forward a little while ago from the _Buddhist Catechism_ a discrepancy that I would like to hear explained. It is there stated that the Skandhas—memory included—change with every new incarnation. And yet, it is asserted that the reflection of the past lives, which, we are told, are entirely made up of Skandhas, “must survive.” At the present moment I am not quite clear in my mind as to what it is precisely that survives, and I would like to have it explained. What is it? Is it only that “reflection,” or those Skandhas, or always that same Ego, the Manas? THEO. I have just explained that the reincarnating Principle, or that which we call the _divine_ man, is indestructible throughout the life cycle: indestructible as a thinking _Entity_, and even as an ethereal form. The “reflection” is only the spiritualised _remembrance_, during the Devachanic period, of the _ex-personality_, Mr. A. or Mrs. B.—with which the _Ego_ identifies itself during that period. Since the latter is but the continuation of the earth-life, so to say, the very acme and pitch, in an unbroken series, of the few happy moments in that now past existence, the _Ego_ has to identify itself with the _personal_ consciousness of that life, if anything shall remain of it. ENQ. This means that the _Ego_, notwithstanding its divine nature, passes every such period between two incarnations in a state of mental obscuration, or temporary insanity.