I have seen those forces in forms, I have faced them and wrestled with them. I am strong because I have struggled. I came back to the world nearly five weeks before war was declared on earth, but war was already declared in the spaces above the earth. As the nations had long been getting ready their forces, so the entities outside were ready and in arms. The demons who met me--for they were demons--had triumph in their eyes. A beginning had been made, a seed of anger sown in the heart of Austria. And the seed was watered in the ground by those who felt that their harvest was approaching. You must understand that evil is co-existent with good so long as the egos of men evolve. The forces of good and the forces of evil are complementary. They are in actual forms, they have acquired egos; their concentration on their work would shame the greatest geniuses among men. But they too are consciously or unconsciously servants of that Cosmic Will whose designs we call the will of God. I have learned much since the days when I entertained you with stories of the newly-dead who had died serenely in their beds and had gone out into the astral world as into an adjoining room. A million souls have gone out recently, shocked, torn, mangled, buffetted by their own hate and the hate of those who sought to destroy them. Pity those who have died even tranquilly during the last eight months. They have passed through a region of torment--those who have passed through. Many have remained below, spun round and round in the whirlpool with those who died by war. Had I not a great purpose, and the conviction of a great mission, in thus revealing the secrets of the other world _at this time_, I should not harrow your feelings by a recital of what I have seen and sometimes taken part in since my return from that journey among the stars. Comfort yourself--if you need comfort--by my assurance that the race is passing through a rite of initiation. Those who have died in the service of an unselfish enthusiasm will in time rebody themselves and reap on the earth the fruits of their service. But not all who have died have been filled with this enthusiasm. Many have hated for hate’s own sake. They are the ones who have failed. Pity them if you must, but it is better not to think about them. They are the willing victims of the demons who sought to bar my way, when I was commanded to return to the world and learn the mysteries of love and hate. Love! Yes, there has been more love born of this war than the earth has known in all the two thousand years of Christianity. For the human race is awake at last, and that it may not go to sleep again is my purpose in once more breaking through the wall that separates me from you. _March 5, 1915._ LETTER II A DWELLER ON THE THRESHOLD THERE was one demon who seemed to be a leader of demons. He was unlike many of the others--more personal, more egocentric.