he Spiritualists do not know what they are really doing. Their
investigations are likely to result in course of time either in wicked
sorcery or in the utter spiritual ruin of thousands of men and women.*

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* We share entirely in this idea.--Ed. Theos.
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The views I have herein expressed have been often illustrated by our
ancient writers by comparing the course of a man's life or existence to
the orbital motion of a planet round the sun. Centripetal force is
spiritual attraction, and centrifugal terrestrial attraction. As the
centripetal force increases in magnitude in comparison with the
centrifugal force, the planet approaches the sun--the individual reaches
a higher plane of existence. If, on the other hand, the centrifugal
force becomes greater than the centripetal force, the planet is removed
to a greater distance from the sun, and moves in a new orbit at that
distance--the individual comes to a lower level of existence. These are
illustrated in the first two instances I have noticed above.

We have only to consider the two extreme cases.

When the planet in its approach to the sun passes over the line where
the centripetal and centrifugal force completely neutralize each other,
and is only acted on by the centripetal force, it rushes towards the sun
with a gradually increasing velocity, and is finally mixed up with the
mass of the sun's body. This is the case of a complete adept.

Again, when the planet in its retreat from the sun reaches a point where
the centrifugal force becomes all-powerful, it flies off in a tangential
direction from its orbit, and goes into the depths of void space. When
it ceases to be under the control of the sun, it gradually gives up its
generative heat, and the creative energy that it originally derived from
the sun, and remains a cold mass of material particles wandering through
space until the mass is completely decomposed into atoms. This cold
mass is compared to the fifth principle under the conditions above
noticed, and the heat, light, and energy that left it are compared to
the sixth and seventh principles.

Either after assuming a new orbit or in its course of deviation from the
old orbit to the new, the planet can never go back to any point in its
old orbit, as the various orbits lying in different planes never
intersect each other.

This figurative representation correctly explains the ancient
Brahmanical theory on the subject. It is merely a bran