ered with a new
skin, so our astral, vital body--the fourth of the seven (having
attracted and assimilated to itself the second) and which is so much
more ethereal than the physical one--may be made to harden its particles
to the atmospheric changes. The whole secret is to succeed in evolving
it out, and separating it from the visible; and while its generally
invisible atoms proceed to concrete themselves into a compact mass, to
gradually get rid of the old particles of our visible frame so as to
make them die and disappear before the new set has had time to evolve
and replace them. We can say no more. The Magdalene is not the only
one who could be accused of having "seven spirits" in her, though men
who have a lesser number of spirits (what a misnomer that word!) in
them, are not few or exceptional; they are the frequent failures of
nature--the incomplete men and women.*

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* This is not to be taken as meaning that such persons are thoroughly
destitute of some one or several of the seven principles--a man born
without an arm has still its ethereal counterpart; but that they are so
latent that they cannot be developed, and consequently are to be
considered as non-existing.--Ed. Theos.
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Each of these has in turn to survive the preceding and more dense one,
and then die. The exception is the sixth when absorbed into and blended
with the seventh. The "Phatu" * of the old Hindu physiologist had a
dual meaning, the esoteric side of which corresponds with the Tibetan
"Zung" (seven principles of the body).

We Asiatics, have a proverb, probably handed down to us, and by the
Hindus repeated ignorantly as to its esoteric meaning. It has been
known ever since the old Rishis mingled familiarly with the simple and
noble people they taught and led on. The Devas had whispered into every
man's ear--Thou only--if thou wilt--art "immortal." Combine with this
the saying of a Western author that if any man could just realize for an
instant, that he had to die some day, he would die that instant. The
Illuminated will perceive that between these two sayings, rightly
understood, stands revealed the whole secret of Longevity. We only die
when our will ceases to be strong enough to make us live. In the
majority of cases, death comes when the torture and vital exhaustion
accompanying a rapid change in our physical conditions becomes so
intense as to weaken, for one single instant, our "clutch on life," or