in public lectures, their own life-long work and philosophy as a fraud. What kind of spirits must they be who prompted them, I ask you? ENQ. But is your inference a correct one? THEO. What would you infer if the best pupils of a particular school of singing broke down from overstrained sore throats? That the method followed was a bad one. So I think the inference is equally fair with regard to Spiritualism when we see their best mediums fall a prey to such a fate. We can only say:—Let those who are interested in the question judge the tree of Spiritualism by its fruits, and ponder over the lesson. We Theosophists have always regarded the Spiritualists as brothers having the same mystic tendency as ourselves, but they have always regarded us as enemies. We, being in possession of an older philosophy, have tried to help and warn them; but they have repaid us by reviling and traducing us and our motives in every possible way. Nevertheless, the best English Spiritualists say just as we do, wherever they treat of their belief seriously. Hear “M.A. Oxon.” confessing this truth: “Spiritualists are too much inclined to dwell exclusively on the intervention of external spirits in this world of ours, _and to ignore the powers of the incarnate_ Spirit.”[54] Why vilify and abuse us, then, for saying precisely the same? Henceforward, we will have nothing more to do with Spiritualism. And now let us return to Re-incarnation. FOOTNOTES: [49] Being of “an _asbestos_-like nature,” according to the eloquent and fiery expression of a modern English Tertullian. [50] During the _Mysteries_, it is the Hierophant, the “Father,” who planted the Vine. Every symbol has Seven Keys to it. The discloser of the _Pleroma_ was always called “Father.” [51] _Zohar_ XL., 10. [52] _Codex Nazarœus_, Vol. III., pp. 60, 61. [53] Ibid., Vol. II., p. 281. [54] _Second Sight_, “Introduction.” XI. ON THE MYSTERIES OF RE-INCARNATION. PERIODICAL REBIRTHS. ENQ. You mean, then, that we have all lived on earth before, in many past incarnations, and shall go on so living? THEO. I do. The life-cycle, or rather the cycle of conscious life, begins with the separation of the mortal animal-man into sexes, and will end with the close of the last generation of men, in the seventh round and seventh race of mankind. Considering we are only in the fourth round and fifth race, its duration is more easily imagined than expressed. ENQ. And we keep on incarnating in new _personalities_ all the time? THEO. Most assuredly so; because this life-cycle or period of incarnation may be best compared to human life. As each such life is composed of days of activity separated by nights of sleep or of inaction, so, in the incarnation-cycle, an active life is followed by a Devachanic rest.