tionship, when he is called the son of the Master.

These three stages mark his relationship to his own Master only, not to the
Brotherhood as a whole. The Brotherhood admits a man to its ranks only when
he has fitted himself to pass the first of the great Initiations.

This entry into the Brotherhood of Those who rule the world may be thought
of as the third of the great critical points in man's evolution. The first
of these is when he becomes man--when he individualizes out of the animal
kingdom and obtains a causal body. The second is what is called by the
Christian "conversion", by the Hindu "the acquirement of discrimination",
and by the Buddhist "the opening of the doors of the mind". That is the
point at which he realizes the great facts of life, and turns away from the
pursuit of selfish ends in order to move intentionally along with the great
current of evolution in obedience to the divine Will. The third point is
the most important of all, for the Initiation which admits him to the ranks
of the Brotherhood also insures him against the possibility of failure to
fulfil the divine purpose in the time appointed for it. Hence those who
have reached this point are called in the Christian system the "elect", the
"saved" or the "safe", and in the Buddhist scheme "those who have entered
on the stream". For those who have reached this point have made themselves
absolutely certain of reaching a further point also--that of Adeptship, at
which they pass into a type of evolution which is definitely Superhuman.

The man who has become an Adept has fulfilled the divine Will so far as
this chain of worlds is concerned. He has reached, even already at the
midmost point of the aeon of evolution, the stage prescribed for man's
attainment at the end of it. Therefore he is at liberty to spend the
remainder of that time either in helping his fellow-men or in even more
splendid work in connection with other and higher evolutions. He who has
not yet been initiated is still in danger of being left behind by our
present wave of evolution, and dropping into the next one--the "aeonian
condemnation" of which the Christ spoke, which has been mistranslated
"eternal damnation". It is from this fate of possible aeonian failure--that
is, failure for this age, or dispensation, or life-wave--that the man who
attains Initiation is "safe". He has "entered upon the stream" which now
_must_ bear him on to Adeptship in this present age, though it is st