child are represented as floating in a golden atmosphere and
surrounded by a host of genie-heads: conditions which the occult
investigator knows to be in harmony with actual facts.

Among the entities who are, so to speak, "_native_" to that realm of
nature, none are perhaps better known to the Christian world than the
Archangels. These exalted Beings were human at a time in the earth's
history when we were yet plant-like. Since then we have advanced two
steps: through the animal and to the human stage of development. The
present Archangels have also made two steps in progression; one, in which
they were similar to what the angels are now, and another step which made
them what we call Archangels.

Their densest body, though differing from ours in shape, and made of
desire stuff, is used by them as a vehicle of consciousness in the same
manner that we use our body. They are expert manipulators of forces in the
Desire World, and these forces, as we shall see, move all the world to
action. Therefore the Archangels work with humanity _industrially_ and
_politically_ as arbitrators of the destiny of peoples and nations. The
Angels may be said to be _family_-spirits whose mission is to unite a few
spirits as members of a family, and cement them with ties of blood and
love of kin, while the Archangels may be called race and national spirits,
as they unite whole nations by patriotism or love of home and country.
They are responsible for the rise and fall of nations, they give war or
peace, victory or defeat as it serves the best interests of the people
they rule. This we may see, for instance, from the book of Daniel, where
the Archangel Michael (not to be confounded with the Michael, who is
ambassador from the sun to the earth), is called the prince of the
children of Israel. Another Archangel tells Daniel, (in the tenth chapter)
that he intends to fight the prince of Persia by means of the Greeks.

There are varying grades of intelligence among human beings, some are
qualified to hold high and lofty positions entirely beyond the ability of
others. So it is also among higher beings, not all Archangels are fitted
to govern a nation and rule the destiny of a race, people or tribe, some
are not fitted to rule human beings at all, but as the animals also have a
desire nature these lower grades of Archangels govern the animals as
group-spirits and evolve to higher capacity thereby.

The work of the race spirits is readily observa