Did I say irresponsible? Only a madman is irresponsible for his acts. Let me say rather deluded, for not all deluded souls are mad. The hand that slew the Austrian Archduke was used, as others have been used, by the forces working against progress. Pity that man also, and let the law of cause and effect deal with him as it must, for there is no favoritism in that court and no appeal to a higher jurisdiction. I returned to Germany. It will be necessary in this writing to call spades, spades. If I hurt anybody’s feelings, I am not writing to hurt anybody’s feelings. Facts are facts, and no specious pleading can change them. I returned to Germany. I listened to war counsels. I _heard_ orders given, for by a special hardening of my astral ears I can hear what is spoken in the world of men and hear very distinctly. My astral body is a well-lubricated though tenuous machine that answers to the lightest touch of my will. But do not jump to the conclusion that all astral bodies are like mine. Remember that I am the pupil of a great Master, and that his purposes are not _his_ purposes but those of the law of progress which he serves. I saw again the monster of which I wrote you in my second letter. They speak truth who say that the German Emperor _did_ hesitate to touch the spring which should open the doors of hell. The War Lord had a certain pride in his record as a Peace Lord, and he shivered at the responsibility that faced him while gloating in that responsibility, which further exalted his already self-exalted ego. Pity him too, but do not sentimentalize over him. Will is free. In yielding his will to the evil genius he was exercising free will. But those eyes of his were wet in the night and he _did_ pray to the Force he calls his God. The name of God was not only on his lips but in his inner thoughts. God is a word that means many things to many persons. There were also in that conclave of evil spirits many who were not attached to individual men. There were vast elemental beings. When Lytton wrote, in one of his occult novels, of a gigantic foot which stepped through a gap in the magic circle drawn by a black magician in the primeval wilderness, he referred to a fact in Nature. Nature! You with your narrow sight have no idea of the meaning of the term. All your studies have not taught you even the alphabet that Nature uses. Learn that alphabet. Begin to study that language. Study chemistry, biology, electricity, and study the mysteries of the vibrations of matter on as many planes as you can consciously reach. The knowledge of the future lies there. Man has only begun the conquest of Nature. Any expression of hate which you ever beheld in the material world was only a weak replica of the hate that was let loose upon the earth when the hour struck last year, the hour when the orbits of certain planetary bodies blended their influences and allowed a free passage for beings who are generally more limited in their freedom of movement.