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Occultism Reconsidered. 
[August 
Occultist dissents from both. According to Mr. Sinnett— 
“ The body is the prison of the soul for ordinary mortals. 
We can merely see what comes before its windows ; we can 
take cognisance only of what is brought within its bars. 
But the adept has found the key of his prison, and can 
emerge from it at pleasure. In other words, the adept can 
project his soul out of his body to any place he pleases.” 
Elsewhere we read— “ While his body lives his soul is, so to 
speak, a captive balloon, though with a very long, elastic, 
and imponderable cable.” 
The practical differences resulting from these opposite 
views are immense. Thus to us gross stupid Westerns the 
very idea of asceticism appears absurd. The attempt to get 
more and better work out of our system by suppressing its 
natural functions, by fasting, dirtiness, inaction, and, as far 
as possible, by dispensing with respiration, seems as foolish 
as it would be to try to obtain more duty from a steam- 
engine by neglecting to supply it with fuel and to oil and 
clean it. But if the connection between soul and body be 
such as Mr. Sinnett alleges, it is conceivable — though cer- 
tainly not proved — that what invigorates the one may 
debilitate the other, and inversely. We cannot help adding 
that both history and observation prove the general effects 
of asceticism to be distinctly degrading. 
The doCtrine of metempsychosis is plainly taught. Root 
Hoomi speaks of “ man’s true position in the universe in 
relation to his previous and future births.” 
Spiritual beings other than human are referred to. Some 
are of a lower grade ' “ Those semi-intelligent Forces 
whose means of communicating with us are not through 
spoken words, but through sounds and colours in correlations 
between the vibrations of the two. For sound, light, and 
colour are the main factors in forming those grades of intel- 
ligences, those beings of whose very existence you have no 
conception, nor are you allowed to believe in them, — Atheists 
and Christians, Materialists and Spiritualists, all bringing 
forward their respective arguments against such a belief, — 
Science objecting stronger than any of these to such a 
degrading superstition.” 
But there are more exalted beings, “the higher planetary 
spirits, the only spirits we believe in.” These last words 
are significant. 
A few pages further we read that humanity, “ in this ever- 
lasting isolation and negleCt, has evolved gods unto whom 
it ever cries for help, but is not heard.” Again, and more 
decidedly, Root Hoomi is made to say — “ If we had the 
