“Is mind in all its attributes. The animal soul, or vehicle of desire, is dominated by the phases and aspects of the moon, Mars and Venus. This is the psychic world. In the body we have the physical (or material) man and the astral prototype. The material man lives as long as the spirit functions through the psychic world into the astral body, which is a part of the physical man.” “In what way dost thou mean to say creative energy contacts the body?” “The astral body is the medium; the psychic, the positive; and the material, the negative polarity which attracts the magnetic current, or spirit. When the astral and physical bodies separate, death, or the loosing of the bands of Orion, in a physical sense, takes place. “The life essence in the body,” the hierophant went on to explain, “is a lateral pulsation, which grows shorter and shorter as the impetus giving it motion in the beginning, is stilled. Its center is the solar plexus; but the divine spark is released through the cardiac plexus, the spiritual prototype of the solar.” “What then becomes of the deathless spirit?” “It returns to its native habitat in space, to assimilate the experiences through which it has just passed. This act has its fitting counterpart on the material plane. As the stomach digests the food it receives, and as the mind assimilates the ideas it conceives, so the divine self utilizes the experiences it gains. As the result of the physical function is bodily health, and that of the mental process is knowledge, so, also, the fruit of the spiritual operation is wisdom. To acquire wisdom, then, is manifestly the prime purpose of human existence.” “Through what labyrinths we have to walk in order to find the Gates of Light!” said Yermah, deeply interested. “Existence is like chaos at first; and I begin to see that this is true on the three planes.” “Certainly. Man has gone too far out in the life of the senses. It is only in his sleep that he perceives the manifestations of spirit. The true student must reëstablish the equilibrium of spirit and matter. Thereby he will obtain the ability to discern which are physical phenomena. He will perceive in the waking state such forms and apparitions as he saw before in dreams, and rise to the viewpoint where he realizes that physical forms are only the coarse and imperfect copies of those higher spiritual pictures presenting themselves to his interior senses.” “Then our dreams are not without significance?” “Their significance lies in the fact that they are the lowest state of spiritual life. In them a man is obliged to tolerate in himself the action of good and bad spiritual forces.” Akaza arose, and picking up a small copper nut-oil lamp from a shelf-like projection of stalactite near at hand, he lighted it and led the way to a dim, shadowy cranny of the room.