argues De Mirville, in his work on the Satanic character of the Gods of Egypt.(458) Again, a simple suggestion may throw on this a great light. Are the Orientalists quite sure they have read correctly the “metempsychosis during 3,000 years”? The Occult Doctrine teaches that Karma waits at the threshold of Devachan (the Amenti of the Egyptians) for 3,000 years; that then the eternal _Ego_ is reincarnated _de novo_, to be punished in its new temporary personality for sins committed in the preceding birth, and the suffering for which, in one shape or another, will atone for past misdeeds. And the hawk, the lotus‐flower, the heron, serpent, or bird—every object in Nature, in short—had its symbolical and manifold meaning in ancient religious emblems. The man who all his life acted hypocritically and passed for a good man, but had been in sober reality watching like a bird of prey his chance to pounce upon his fellow‐ creatures, and had deprived them of their property, will be sentenced by Karma to bear the punishment for hypocrisy and covetousness in a future life. What will it be? Since every human unit has ultimately to progress in its evolution, and since that “man” will be reborn at some future time as a good, sincere, well‐meaning man, his sentence to be re‐incarnated as a hawk may simply mean that he will then be regarded metaphorically as such. That, notwithstanding his real, good, intrinsic qualities, he will, perhaps during a long life, be unjustly and falsely charged with and suspected of greed and hypocrisy and of secret exactions, all of which will make him suffer more than he can bear. The law of retribution can never err, and yet how many such innocent victims of false appearance and human malice do we not meet in this world of incessant illusion, of mistake and deliberate wickedness. We see them every day, and they may be found within the personal experience of each of us. What Orientalist can say with any degree of assurance that he has understood the religions of old? The metaphorical language of the priests has never been more than superficially revealed, and the hieroglyphics have been very poorly mastered to this day.(459) What says _Isis Unveiled_ on this question of Egyptian rebirth and transmigration, and does it clash with anything that we say now?