It is the sun who preserves and nourishes all creatures; and, even as the Ideal World, which environs the sensible world, fills this last with the plenitude and universal variety of forms, so also the sun, enfolding all in his light, accomplishes everywhere the birth and development of creatures.... “_Under his orders is the choir of the Genii, or rather the choirs, for there are many and diverse, and their number corresponds to that of the stars. Every star has its Genii, good and evil by nature, or rather by their operation, for operation is the essence of the Genii...._ All these Genii _preside over mundane affairs_,(442) they shake and overthrow the constitution of states and of individuals; they _imprint their likeness on our souls_, they are present in our nerves, our marrow, our veins, our arteries, and _our very brain‐ substance_.... At the moment when each of us receives life and being, he is taken in charge by the Genii [Elementals] who preside over births,(443) and who are classed beneath the astral powers [superhuman astral Spirits]. Perpetually they change, not always identically, but revolving in circles.(444) They permeate by the body two parts of the soul, that it may receive from each the impress of his own energy. But the reasonable part of the soul is not subject to the Genii; it is designed for the reception of [the] God,(445) who enlightens it with a sunny ray. Those who are thus illumined are few in number, and from them the Genii abstain: for neither Genii nor Gods have any power in the presence of a single ray of God.(446) But all other men, both soul and body, are directed by Genii, to whom they cleave, and whose operations they affect.... The Genii have then the control of mundane things and our bodies serve them as instruments.”(447) The above, save a few sectarian points, represents that which was a universal belief, common to all nations, till about a century or so back. It is still as orthodox in its broad outlines and features among Pagans and Christians alike, if one excepts a handful of Materialists and men of Science. For whether one calls the Genii of Hermes and his “Gods,” “Powers of Darkness” and “Angels,” as in the Greek and Latin Churches; or “Spirits of the Dead,” as in Spiritualism; or, again, Bhûts and Devas, Shaitan or Djin, as they are still called in India and Mussulman countries—_they are all one and the same thing_—ILLUSION. Let not this, however, be misunderstood in the sense into which the great philosophical doctrine of the Vedântists has been lately perverted by Western schools.