Man uses every exterior means of self-preservation, but forgets the interior power he possesses, which was bestowed upon him that he might ‘replenish the earth and subdue it.’  To ‘replenish’ the earth is to give out love ungrudgingly to all Nature,—­to ‘subdue’ the earth, is first, to master the atoms of which the human organisation is composed, and hold them completely under control, so that by means of this mastery, all other atomic movements and forces upon this planet and its encircling atmosphere may be equally controlled.  Much is talked of the ‘light rays’ which pierce solid matter as though it were nothing but clear air—­yet this discovery is but the beginning of wonders.  There are rays which divine metals, even as the hazel wand divines the presence of water,—­and the treasures of the earth, the gold, the silver, the jewels and precious things that are hidden beneath its surface and in the depth of the sea can be seen in their darkest recesses by the penetrating flash of a Ray as yet unknown to any but adepts in the Psychic Creed.  No true adept is ever poor,—­poverty cannot exist where perfect control of the life forces is maintained.  Gladness, peace and plenty must naturally attend the Soul that is in tune with Nature and life is always perpetuated from the joy of life.

“Stand, therefore, O patient Student, erect and firm!—­let the radiating force of the Soul possess every nerve and blood-vessel of the body, and learn to command all things pertaining to good with that strength which compels obedience!  Not idly did the Supreme Master speak when He told His disciples that if their faith were but as a grain of mustard seed they could command a mountain to be cast into the sea, and it would obey.  Remember that the Spirit within your bodily house of clay is Divine, and of God!—­and that with God all things are possible!”

I raised my head from its bent position over the book, and drew a long breath—­something oppressed me with a sense of suffocation, and looking up I saw that I was being steadily closed in, as by a contracting cage.  The little room, draped with its soft purple hangings, was now too small for me to move about, I was pinned to my chair, and the ceiling was apparently descending upon me.  With a shock of horrified memory I recalled the old torture of the ’living tomb’ practised by the Spanish Inquisition, when the wretched victim was compelled to watch the walls of his prison slowly narrowing round him inch by inch till he was crushed to death.  How could I be sure that no such cruelties were used among the mysterious members of a mysterious Brotherhood, whose avowed object of study was the searching out of the secret of life?  I made an effort to rise, and found I could stand upright—­and there straight opposite to me was the entrance to my own room from which I had wandered into this small inner chamber.  It seemed easy enough to get there, and yet—­I found myself hindered by an invisible barrier.  I stood, with my heart beating nervously—­wondering what was my threatening danger.  Almost involuntarily my eyes still perused the printed page of the book before me, and I read the following sentences in a kind of waking dream:—­