And when he died, at the ripe age of one hundred and twelve years, and his will was removed from them, they still remained in a state of semi-animation in the lower regions of the astral world. Then, a century or more afterwards, when the great war wave broke over Europe, and the evil hosts of the unseen came clamoring for their prey and their satisfaction, these old astral monsters awoke out of their sleep and joined themselves to them, and the whole neighborhood which the evil magician had cursed became an infected place, from the exhalations of those beings whose _raison d’être_ had been a man’s hatred of the people who had disturbed him in his selfish labors. I am not going to describe the process by which he had created them and laid an evil spell upon a whole neighborhood, for I am determined not to bestow upon a selfish world any knowledge that it can use to make more trouble in future. But I want you to realize that Serbia is really a dangerous place. That is why it was chosen as the focusing point for the evil onslaught of war. The people of Serbia are brave and innocent of all this astral evil which has come upon them. They were used because the evil forces _could get at them_ through this region already under a curse from of old. The time has come when the men of the new race must know that there are things to be avoided in the astral world. If certain teachers had told less, this warning might not be necessary; but the world has acquired already so clear a perception that there is another world within and outside their own, that their natural curiosity must be protected by warnings not to fool with the unseen, until they have acquired such a selfless devotion to their fellow-beings that they may explore it without being themselves infected by the poison of the snake that nestles there among the flowers. The old magician has passed on into that sphere where selfish scholars pursue their investigations unhampered by the limitations of gross matter; but the full responsibility for his actions in those Serbian hills when he was last on earth will wait for him at the door of rebirth. When he comes to the world again it will be in a body which is itself a victim of all the plagues which he let loose there, in the determined effort to protect _himself_ against others who had as good a right there as he had. Stay out of Serbia till it has been cleansed of plague, you whose work is not connected with the specialty of plague-destruction. But those doctors and other scientists who are devotedly going thither to save the race from the horror that threatens it--to them shall be accorded all the honors and glories of war _and_ of peace, for they have consented, their higher selves have consented, that they be used in the service of the world.