for the purpose of overcoming it, is attained by the latter.  The acquisition of improved breechloaders by one modern army confers no absolute superiority if the enemy also becomes possessed of them.  Consequently it will be at once apparent, to those who think on the subject, that much of the training by which what is known as “a powerful and determined nature,” perfects itself for its own purpose on the stage of the visible world, necessitating and being useless without a parallel development of the “gross” and so-called animal frame, is, in short, neutralized, for the purpose at present treated of, by the fact that its own action has armed the enemy with weapons equal to its own.  The force of the impulse to dissolution is rendered equal to the will to oppose it; and being cumulative, subdues the will-power and triumphs at last.  On the other hand, it may happen that an apparently weak and vacillating will-power residing in a weak and undeveloped physical frame, may be so reinforced by some unsatisfied desire—­the Ichcha (wish)—­as it is called by the Indian Occultists (for instance, a mother’s heart-yearning to remain and support her fatherless children)—­as to keep down and vanquish, for a short time, the physical throes of a body to which it has become temporarily superior.

The whole rationale then, of the first condition of continued existence in this world, is (a) the development of a Will so powerful as to overcome the hereditary (in a Darwinian sense) tendencies of the atoms composing the “gross” and palpable animal frame, to hurry on at a particular period in a certain course of Kosmic change; and (b) to so weaken the concrete action of that animal frame as to make it more amenable to the power of the Will.  To defeat an army, you must demoralize and throw it into disorder.

To do this then, is the real object of all the rites, ceremonies, fasts, “prayers,” meditations, initiations and procedures of self-discipline enjoined by various esoteric Eastern sects, from that course of pure and elevated aspiration which leads to the higher phases of Adeptism Real, down to the fearful and disgusting ordeals which the adherent of the “Left-hand-Road” has to pass through, all the time maintaining his equilibrium.  The procedures have their merits and their demerits, their separate uses and abuses, their essential and non-essential parts, their various veils, mummeries, and labyrinths.  But in all, the result aimed at is reached, if by different processes.  The Will is strengthened, encouraged and directed, and the elements opposing its action are demoralized.  Now, to any one who has thought out and connected the various evolution theories, as taken, not from any occult source, but from the ordinary scientific manual accessible to all—­from the hypothesis of the latest variation in the habits of species—­say, the acquisition of carnivorous habits by the New Zealand parrot, for instance—­to the farthest glimpses backwards into Space and Eternity afforded by the “Fire Mist” doctrine, it will be apparent that they all rest on one basis.  That basis is, that the impulse once given to a hypothetical Unit has a tendency to continue; and consequently, that anything “done” by something at a certain time and certain place tends to repeat itself at other times and places.