Three distinct representations of the Universe, in its three distinct aspects, are impressed upon our thoughts by the Esoteric Philosophy: the _Pre‐existing_, evolved from the _Ever‐existing_, and the _Phenomenal_—the world of illusion, the reflection, and shadow thereof. During the great mystery and drama of life, known as the Manvantara, real Kosmos is like the objects placed behind the white screen upon which shadows are thrown. The actual figures and things remain invisible, while the wires of evolution are pulled by unseen hands. Men and things are thus but the reflections, _on_ the white field, of the realities _behind_ the snares of Mahâmâyâ, or the Great Illusion. This was taught in every philosophy, in every religion, ante‐ as well as post‐diluvian, in India and Chaldea, by the Chinese as by the Grecian Sages. In the former countries these three Universes were allegorized, in exoteric teachings, by the three Trinities, emanating from the central eternal Germ, and forming with it a Supreme Unity: the _initial_, the _manifested_, and the _creative_ Triad, or the Three in One. The last is but the symbol, in its concrete expression, of the first _ideal_ two. Hence Esoteric Philosophy passes over the necessarianism of this purely metaphysical conception, and calls the first one, only, the Ever‐Existing. This is the view of every one of the six great schools of Indian philosophy—the six principles of that unit body of Wisdom of which the Gnôsis, the _hidden_ Knowledge, is the seventh.