s petals are but slackly held together," the period
when man reaches the greatest physical development
of his cycle. It is then that in the distance a great
glittering is seen, before which many drop their
eyes bewildered and dazzled, though now and then
one is found brave enough to gaze fixedly on this
glittering, and to decipher something of the shape
within it. "Poets and philosophers, thinkers and
teachers, all those who are the 'elder brothers of the
race'--have beheld this sight from time to time,
and some among them have recognized in the bewildering
glitter the outlines of the Gates of Gold."

Those Gates admit us to the sanctuary of man's
own nature, to the place whence his life-power
comes, and where he is priest of the shrine of life.
It needs but a strong hand to push them open, we
are told. "The courage to enter them is the courage
to search the recesses of one's own nature without
fear and without shame. In the fine part, the
essence, the flavor of the man, is found the key
which unlocks those great Gates."

The necessity of killing out the sense of separateness
is profoundly emphasized as one of the most
important factors in this process. We must divest
ourselves of the illusions of the material life. "When
we desire to speak with those who have tried the
Golden Gates and pushed them open, then it is very
necessary--in fact it is essential--to discriminate,
and not bring into our life the confusions of our
sleep. If we do, we are reckoned as madmen, and
fall back into the darkness where there is no friend
but chaos. This chaos has followed every effort of
man that is written in history; after civilization has
flowered, the flower falls and dies, and winter and
darkness destroy it." In this last sentence is indicated
the purpose of civilization. It is the blossoming
of a race, with the purpose of producing a certain
spiritual fruit; this fruit having ripened, then the
degeneration of the great residuum begins, to be
worked over and over again in the grand fermenting
processes of reincarnation. Our great civilization
is now flowering and in this fact we may read the
reason for the extraordinary efforts to sow the seed
of the Mystic Teachings wherever the mind of man
may be ready to receive it.

In the "Mystery of Threshold," we are told that
"only a man who has the potentialities in him both
of the voluptuary and the stoic has any chance of
entering the Golden Gates. He must be capable of
tes