his does not invalidate the further consideration that
there are other bodies, vestures, or vehicles of consciousness, besides
the gross physical "coat of skin," for the use of the spiritual man,
each being an "appearance" in comparison to the higher vehicle, which is
in its turn an "appearance" to that which is more subtle and less
material or substantial than itself.

Thus, in the descent from the Divine World, the Soul transforms itself,
or clothes itself in forms, or bodies, or vestures, which it weaves out
of its own substance, like to the Powers of the Worlds it passes
through, for every Soul has a different vehicle of consciousness for
every World or Plane.

But the doctrine of the Soter, or Saviour, does not apply until the
Christ-stage or consummation is reached. Following the idea of rebirth,
there is a spiritual life cycle, or life-thread, on which the various
earth-lives are strung, as beads on a necklace, each successive life
being purer and nobler, as the Soul gains control of matter, or the
driver control of the chariot and steeds that speed him through the
experiences of life. As the end of this great cycle approaches, an
earthly vehicle is evolved that can show forth the divine spirit in all
the fulness possible to this world or phase of evolution.

Now as the problem can be viewed from either the internal or external
point of view, we have the mystery of the Soul depicted both from the
side of the involution of spirit into matter and of the evolution of
matter into spirit. If, on the one hand, we insist too strongly on one
view, we shall only have a one-sided conception of the process; if, on
the other, we neglect one factor, we shall never solve the at present
unknown quantity of the equation. Thus the Soul is represented as the
"lost sheep" struggling in the meshes of the net of matter, passing from
body to body, and the Spirit is represented as descending, transforming
itself through the spheres, in order to finally rescue its Syzygy from
the bonds that are about her.

The Soul aspires to the Spirit and the Spirit takes thought for the
Soul; as the Simonians expressed it:

The male (Heaven, i.e., the Nous or Christ, or Spiritual Soul)
looks down from above and takes thought for its co-partner (or
Syzygy); while the Earth (i.e., the Epinoia or Jesus, or Human
Soul) from below receives from the Heaven the intellectual (in the
spiritual and philosophical sense, of course)