Although reïncarnation is the law of nature, the complete trinity of _Atma-Buddhi-Manas_ does not yet fully incarnate in this race. They use and occupy the body by means of the entrance of _Manas_, the lowest of the three, and the other two shine upon it from above, constituting the God in Heaven. This was symbolized in the old Jewish teaching about the Heavenly Man who stands with his head in heaven and his feet in hell. That is, the head _Atma_ and _Buddhi_ are yet in heaven, and the feet, _Manas_, walk in hell, which is the body and physical life. For that reason man is not yet fully conscious, and reïncarnations are needed to at last complete the incarnation of the whole trinity in the body. When that has been accomplished the race will have become as gods, and the godlike trinity being in full possession the entire mass of matter will be perfected and raised up for the next step. This is the real meaning of “the word made flesh”. It was so grand a thing in the case of any single person, such as Jesus or Buddha, as to be looked upon as a divine incarnation. And out of this, too, comes the idea of the crucifixion, for _Manas_ is thus crucified for the purpose of raising up the thief to paradise. It is because the trinity is not yet incarnate in the race that life has so many mysteries, some of which are showing themselves from day to day in all the various experiments made on and in man. The physician knows not what life is nor why the body moves as it does, because the spiritual portion is yet enshrouded in the clouds of heaven; the scientist is wandering in the dark, confounded and confused by all that hypnotism and other strange things bring before him, because the conscious man is out of sight on the very top of the divine mountain, thus compelling the learned to speak of the “subconscious mind”, the “latent personality”, and the like; and the priest can give us no light at all because he denies man’s god-like nature, reduces all to the level of original sin, and puts upon our conception of God the black mark of inability to control or manage the creation without invention of expedients to cure supposed errors. But this old truth solves the riddle and paints God and Nature in harmonious colors. Reïncarnation does not mean that we go into animal forms after death, as is believed by some Eastern peoples. “Once a man always a man” is the saying in the Great Lodge. But it would not be too much punishment for some men were it possible to condemn them to rebirth in brute bodies; however nature does not go by sentiment but by law, and we, not being able to see all, cannot say that the brutal man is brute all through his nature. And evolution having brought _Manas_ the Thinker and Immortal Person on to this plane, cannot send him back to the brute which has not _Manas_.