As they advanced in spiritual knowledge they found that there were various grades of harmony in the subjective or spiritual world, and each individual on leaving this life gravitated, as it were, to the sphere with which he was in harmony. They divided their sanctuaries into seven degrees to correspond with the harmonies in esoteric nature, and to each degree there were three years of spiritual probation. As harmony results from the analogy of contraries, there were as many degrees of discord as there were of harmonies. The former they designated hell. The material cosmos, that is what we call the external world, was, as it were, middle ground between the two, which they called Hades, into which the soul passed at death, and the spirit was made cognizant of its record while on earth. Physical death, they claimed was merely a change from a physical to a spiritual condition; the soul or spiritual body being formed at the same time that the physical was, but in a very different manner. After death, the soul either ascended or descended, depending not upon gravity, but upon harmony. It will thus be perceived that each degree in the sanctuary required a separate or distinct initiation for each one, which was intended to represent a higher state of moral and intellectual advancement. The last or seventh degree was the one of perfection which brought about illumination, when the subjective world was as much a reality to the inward or subjective consciousness as the outward world is to the objective. When this condition of moral and intellectual unfoldment was obtained, all interest in this life was gone and the spirit longed for separation from its physical casket. The neophyte seeking spiritual knowledge could only attain to the wisdom of the different degrees by advancing morally, so as to be in harmony with the degrees. The knowledge thus obtained was never recorded, but communicated verbally in symbolic language. By this means it was kept a profound secret, and handed down traditionally. The first record we have of the Kabbalah was made by Rabbi Akiba and Rabbi Simeon Ben Jochai; the former compiled _The Sepher Jetzirah_, “Book of Creation,” and the latter, _The Sepherhaz Sohar_, “Book of Light.” The first is regarded by the Kabbalist at the key of the second. The Sohar has never been translated, and as a late Bishop of the Church of England justly states, never will be by a Christian. This is owing to its symbolic character, which can only be interpreted by a Kabbalist. It is in three volumes, in unpointed Hebrew, and consists of a mixture of Armenic and Semetic languages. The Sepher Jetzirah may be procured in three languages, the Hebrew, Latin and German. [Illustration: FIG. A. and FIG. B.]