where time is not. Because there is an escape from time in
proportion as space dimensions are added to, and assimilated by,
consciousness, any development involving this element of space
conquest (and evolution is itself such a development) involves time
annihilation also. To be in a state of desire is to be conditioned
by a limitation, because one can desire only that which one has not
or is not. The extinction of a desire is only another name for the
transcending of a limitation--of all desires, of all limitations. If
these limitations are of space they are of time also; therefore is
the "approach to the Eternal" through the "extinction of all desire."
Christ said, "Him that overcometh will I make a pillar of the temple
of my God, and he shall go no more out"--go out, that is, into
incarnation--into "time, besprent with seven-hued circumstance."

Such are the testimonies of the world-saviors regarding the means
and end of liberation. Below them on the evolutionary ladder stand
the mystics, earth-bound, but soul-free; below them, in turn, yet
far above common humanity, stand the men of genius, caught still in
the net of passion, but able, in their work, to reflect something of
the glory of the supernal world. Let us consider, in the next two
chapters, each of these in turn.

IX THE MYSTICS

HERMES TRISMEGISTUS

The mystic, however far removed he may be from Nietzsche's ideal of
the Superman, nevertheless represents superhumanity in the domain of
consciousness. By means of quotations, taken almost at random from
the rich literature of mysticism, the author will attempt to show
that the consciousness of the mystic involves the awareness of
dimensionally higher worlds. The first group of quotations is culled
from certain of the Sacred Books of Hermes Trismegistus.

"_Comprehend clearly_" (says Hermes to Asclepios) "_that this
sensible world is enfolded, as in a garment, by the supernal world_."

We think of our three dimensional space, "the sensible world," as
_immersed_ in higher space; "enfolded as in a garment," therefore.
And we think of the objects of our world as having extension in a
dimensionally higher region, that "supernal world" in which the
phenomena of this sensible world arise. For:

"_Celestial order reigns over terrestrial order: all that is done
and said upon earth has its origin in the heights, from which all
essences are dispensed with measure and equilibrium: nor is there
anything wh