s it does in
human tissue, it passes no digested food away. The human neophyte, at a
certain stage of his development, is in a somewhat analogous condition,
with this difference or differences, that he does excrete, but it is
through the pores of his skin, and by those too enter other etherealized
particles of matter to contribute towards his support.* Otherwise, all
the food and drink is sufficient only to keep in equilibrium those
"gross" parts of his physical body which still remain to repair their
cuticle-waste through the medium of the blood. Later on, the process of
cell-development in his frame will undergo a change; a change for the
better, the opposite of that in disease for the worse--he will become
all living and sensitive, and will derive nourishment from the Ether
(Akas). But that epoch for our neophyte is yet far distant.

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* He is in a state similar to the physical state of a fetus
before birth into the world.--G.M.
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Probably, long before that period has arrived, other results, no less
surprising than incredible to the uninitiated will have ensued to give
our neophyte courage and consolation in his difficult task. It would be
but a truism to repeat what has been again alleged (in ignorance of its
real rationale) by hundreds and hundreds of writers as to the happiness
and content conferred by a life of innocence and purity. But often at
the very commencement of the process some real physical result,
unexpected and unthought of by the neophyte, occurs. Some lingering
disease, hitherto deemed hopeless, may take a favourable turn; or he may
develop healing mesmeric powers himself; or some hitherto unknown
sharpening of his senses may delight him. The rationale of these things
is, as we have said, neither miraculous nor difficult of comprehension.
In the first place, the sudden change in the direction of the vital
energy (which, whatever view we take of it and its origin, is
acknowledged by all schools of philosophy as most recondite, and as the
motive power) must produce results of some kind. In the second,
Theosophy shows, as we said before, that a man consists of several men
pervading each other, and on this view (although it is very difficult to
express the idea in language) it is but natural that the progressive
etherealization of the densest and most gross of all should leave the
others literally more at liberty. A troop of horses may be blocked by a
mob and have much di