Thee and Thou in me. In possessing Thee, I have all that I want. Use me as Thou wilt." (Mysterium, lxvi.)

By conquering the terrestrial desire and entering into submission to Christ, we shall attain the internal power over external nature, first over our own and afterwards over outside" nature, the latter being, after all, also within God, our own divine self.

"If you rule merely externally (by external means) over all creatures, you are then with your will in an animal quality, and your rule is of an external kind, dealing only with forms. Your desire will then be carried into the animal essence, which will infect and capture you, and you will receive animal qualities. But if you leave that which merely relates to forms, you will become superior to it, and able to rule over all creatures within the foundation wherefrom they have been created." (Supersensual Life, viii.)

"If you allow nothing to enter your desire, you will then be free from all things and possess power over all. You have then nothing within your receptivity, and are as nothing to all things, and all things will be nothing to you, in the same sense as God rules over all things and sees them all; but there is nothing that comprehends Him." (Supersensual Life, ix.)

"By your own power you cannot attain such a tranquillity that no creature can touch you. You must give yourself completely into the life of our Lord Jesus Christ, and surrender to Him all your own willing and desiring, so that you desire nothing without Him. Then will you be in this world and in its qualities, as far as your body is concerned. With your will you will be at the foot of the Cross of Christ, and with your will you will walk in heaven, at the goal from whence all creatures come, and to which they all return." (Supersensual Life, ix.)

The celestial body is formed by means of the terrestrial body. There is no regeneration after the body has died.

"The soul proper is nothing corporeal; but the body in the tincture grows either celestial or infernal. It is not a tangible body in an external aspect, but a power

"After this life there is no regeneration, for the four elements with their principles have departed."* (Threefold Life, i. 1.)

CHAPTER XIV.

DEATH AND ETERNAL LIFE.

"The mystic death is the beginning of eternal life."

MAN is a product of three worlds. His spirit is of God, his soul from the constellation of the astral elements, his body from the elements of the terrestrial plane. In each of these aspects he partakes of the attributes of the principle from which he has originated. As a spirit he is, and has been, and will always be, immortal; and is even now in heaven, from which he has never departed. As a product of the astral plane, he is subject to the conditions existing therein, while his physical form must dissolve again into the elements to which it belongs. With whatever of these three states man identifies himself, that state will be his own.

"God willed to become manifest in all three principles, but the order did not remain as it was originally instituted. The middle went into the exterior, and the exterior into the middle. This is not the order of eternity, and therefore the external and the inner principles must become separated." (Threefold Life, xviii. 3.)

"The life which we receive in the body of our mother is merely from the power of the sun, the stars, and the elements, which not only organize the body of the child and endow it with life, but which also bring it to light and nourish and nurse it during the whole term of its life. They likewise distribute to it fortune and misfor

* A personality that has not become regenerated in the spirit during its earthly career will not be regenerated after its death; but the spiritual monad, the Karana Sarira, that survives, may overshadow (become reincarnated in) a new personality and begin therein again the process of regeneration.

It is

(Three Principles, xiv. 4.) "Behold what you are. Dust of the earth; a corpse. Your life is subject to the stars and elements. they who rule you according to their qualities, and they endow you with talents and arts; but when their period and constellation under which you have been conceived and born is ended, then they will forsake you." (Menschwerdung, xi. 6.)

"The corporeal essences return to the earth; the elemental spirit, the air, returns to the air; the water and blood are received by the terrestrial water and earth, and there remains nothing of the external man. He has then ceased to exist. He had a beginning and he had an end." (Threefold Life, xviii. 8.)

"At death the four elements separate from the one element. Then the tincture, together with the shadow of that which constituted the man, goes into the ether and remains within the root of that element from which the four elements were born, and from which they emanated." (Three Principles, xix. 14.)

After the death of the physical form man remains still a being of twofold aspect; namely, as a celestial spirit, according to the divine principle in him (of which he may or may not be conscious); and secondly, as a supersensual, but nevertheless material being, according to his astral body. Each of these essences now gravitates to the plane to which it belongs according to its qualities. From this double but opposite tendency results the rupture or division of the soul and the judgment.

When a person in this world dies, he then comes before the angel who in his sword carries death and life, the love and the wrath of God. There his soul has to pass through the judgment at the portals of Paradise. If she has been captured by the wrath of God she will not be able to pass through the door, but if she is a child of the virgin and born of the seed of the (celestial) woman, she will then pass through. Then will the angel cut away from her nature that which has been generated by the serpent, and the soul will then serve God in His holy temple in Paradise, waiting

there for the resurrection of her (celestial) body."* (Mysterum, xxv. 2.)

During his terrestrial existence man can remain consciously in the three worlds, and by the power of the will with which he is endowed penetrate into either one or the other; but after the separation of the soul from the body has taken place, he can continue to exist as an individuality only in one of these worlds, either within the realm of divine light or within the power of the fire; because together with his physical body he loses the power of self-government. He can then no longer follow his own will, but has to go where he gravitates.

"There are three principles in the constitution of man, either of which he may unfold during his terrestrial existence; but after the body is disorganized, he then lives only in one principle and cannot evolve the other. In eternity he must remain in that state of consciousness which he has acquired here." (Three Principles, Supplement, x.)

"There are not three separate souls in man, but only one. This soul stands in three principles; namely, the realm of the wrath, the realm of the love of God and the kingdom of this world. When the air of the external kingdom of this world deserts the soul, then will she become manifest in either the dark realm of fire or in the holy kingdom of light, which is the kingdom of the love-fire, the power of God. To whatever plane she has surrendered herself during her earthly existence, therein she remains after the external kingdom has departed from her." (Mysterium, xv. 24.)

During his terrestrial life man may live either in heaven or hell, or come out of one of these states and

* It will hardly be necessary to state that this is not to be taken in an external and superficial sense, as if the soul were waiting for the resurrection of that physical body which has then already been decomposed and passed into other organisms according to its constituting elements; but, like all other writings of occult nature, this has to be taken in an internal spiritual meaning, which we must seek to grasp with the spirit rather than with the skeptical brain. It refers to the unfoldment of the third principle, which remains latent in the soul during that state.

enter the other, because he can then govern his will by means of his intellect; but after the death of the body the function of the brain necessary for that purpose exists no longer, and then the soul is not able to change her will. She therefore becomes absorbed entirely into that principle which has obtained ruling power within her own nature. For this reason, it is of paramount importance for man to seek to unfold during his terrestrial life the love of God, ie., the appreciation of the ideal and the will to realize all that is noble and good within his soul, so that it will act as his guiding star in eternity.

"Man is in this world already in heaven or hell, wherever he corporeally may be. If his spirit is in harmony with God, he is then spiritually in heaven and his soul is in God. If he spiritually dwells in the wrath, he is then already in hell and in company of all the devils." (Aurora, xx. 86.)

“Here in the life of the soul is the balance. If she is evil, she can be reborn in love; but when the balance breaks and the angel has turned, then will she be in that principle which is prevailing in her." (Forty Questions, xxiii. 10.)

"During her terrestrial life the soul can change her will, but after the death of the body there remains nothing within her power by which she can change her will." (Tilk. i. 267.)

"Whatever the soul during her terrestrial life receives within her will, and wherewith she becomes entangled, that she will take in her will with her after the death of the body, and she can no more rid herself of it, because she has then nothing but that wherein she has entered, and which now constitutes her very self. But during terrestrial life she may destroy that wherein she has become entangled in her will.' (Threefold Life, xii. 25.)

If during terrestrial life the will of the soul has become anti-Christian-that means to say, perverted into an evil spirituality-then will the evil nature of the soul likewise be perverted and anti-Christian, and this perverted essence will manifest itself in the other life as a shape and a power for evil.

"In so far as a person remains in a will foreign to