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sented by sulphur. The mysterious salt is the other material spoken of in the above acconnt, and it is the azoth that begins to glitter in the composition. This has a profound significance, and gives a clue to the solution of that perplexing problem—the nature and origin of consciousness. Isis points out that myriads of souls were thus formed, and that they were authorized to take part in the creation of the material world and the lower organisms, and were forbidden to transgress certain limits assigned to their action. In course of time, however, they rebelled, and with a view of imprisoning them in organisms and thereby curtailing their power and freedom, God convened a meeting of the celestials and asked them "What they could bestow upon the race about to be born?" Sun, Moon, Kronos (Saturn), Zeus (Jupiter), Aries (Mars), Aphrodite (Venus), and Hermes (Mercury) responded to this call and promised to invest human nature with various qualities, intellectual and emotional, good and bad, peculiarly appertaining to the nature of the donors; and Hermes constructed organisms out of the existing material for the monads to inhabit. Thus was formed the man before his fall. With the transition from simple self-consciousness to the plane of mind and its varied activities there came then a change of Upadhi also, from a mere centre of force to an astral body. While the spiritual monad is evolved by God himself, the latter Upadhi is represented at the work of subordinate powers.
There yet remained one more step of descent into matter. The souls perceived the change in their condition and bewailed their fate; hopes of a better and happier future were held out to them, and it was further pointed out that if any of them should merit reproach they would be made to inhabit abodes destined to them in mortal organisms. In spite of this warning the necessity for a further degradation of the spiritual monad soon arose. Man as an astral being was in a transition stage; and this condition was not such as could be permanently maintained. Mental faculties acting without any weight of responsibility to control and restrain their
