“I charged thee in the beginning to remember that there is a dual meaning to all labors that a candidate for the initiation must perform. Thou hast already had two births in this body, and art facing the third.” Yermah could not conceal his astonishment. “The first birth was at twelve years and six months, when the sex principle began to assert itself. This acme of sensuous existence culminates at twenty-five years, when intellect has its birth and the mind becomes capable of reasoning. Before that time sensation and instinct have served for individual thought. The new rate of vibration set in motion at the birth of desire is the beginning of discord in the personality. Many times before intellect can assert itself the impetus for a plunge to the downward spiral is overwhelmingly strong.” “What, then, befalls the divine self?” “On the material plane it is the brutalizing process which prevents the divine self from contacting the physical. When this happens the man has really lost his soul. Saturn is the planet correlated to the finding of the Perfect Way. It is the mill of the gods, which grinds out the imperfections of human nature. The three phases of immaculate conception are closely allied to the three re-births which take place in the physical man.” “Eagerness to master this hidden knowledge proves the quality of fellowship,” said Yermah, anxious that Akaza should go fully into details. “The twelve markings of the zodiac contain the arcane wisdom of our order.” Before Yermah could frame a suitable answer to fit in the pause, Akaza continued: “The Ineffable One is a trinity of Necessity, Freedom and Love. An ideal is the result of necessity, and all our ideal conceptions are the outcome of our absolute need. It is in the achievement of freedom that the divine within us labors, and on this is based love. Life is the great vineyard of the father, and all his children must toil in it until the end. When in the process of regeneration man is so far perfected as to see the mysterious beauty of his being, he knows that the trials and labors imposed upon him by the laws of cause and effect are at once a necessity and a blessing, and he will no longer seek to escape them. “There is constant warfare between Desire and Intelligence,” the hierophant continued. “Why must thou struggle to overcome? Because the only difference between an imbecile and a genius is the ability of the spirit or divine self to function on the physical plane of the genius and its utter inability to influence the fool. Thine own conduct in this life determines which of these extremes thou wilt become in the next. Atavism and heredity intensify these tendencies; so does the influence of the planets. But neither the one nor the other can produce them. Thou must do this by the exercise of will power. The union of desire and mind forms the personality. Each attribute is triple—active, passive and equilibrated.” After a slight pause, Akaza went on: