THE QUESTION OF PONTIUS PILATE
cramped self, a full-fledged wizard, an extra-cosmic god, with no grudge against any one or any world, into the all-pervasive, all-absorbing, all-knowing. You become, indeed, as omnipotent and wonder-working as a hero or heroine of the Movies. Why then be but a walking protoplasm, why keep your soul in a vitalized cell, when a Manuel on Soul Culture: What It Is and How It Is Done can turn you into an exalted apotheosized ape? Apotheosis for a dollar! Nothing cheaper on or off the earth. With pincers of practical logic the wires that are held by Destiny are, not drawn, but neatly cut, and you are severed from the Tyrant forever. You become a free being, an infinite Mind, a divine Personality. The detachment from the senses, or the protoplasmic definiteness, or the vitalized cell they call the soul, is absolute; and you plunge thereupon clean into the Invisible, where you are certain to lose your tail.
But if you are of those who sneer at the Manuels of Enchantment or scoff at the
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