antiquity are agreed that this discipline had succeeded in producing the highest examples not only of the purest chastity and sentiment, but also a simplicity of manners, a delicacy, and a taste for serious pursuits which was unparalleled. This is admitted even by Christian writers (see Justin, xx. 4). . . . Among the members of the school the idea of justice directed all their acts, while they observed the strictest tolerance and compassion in their mutual relationships. For justice is the principle of all virtue, as Polus (ap. Stob., Serm., viii., ed. Schow, p. 232) teaches; 'tis justice which maintains peace and balance in the soul; she is the mother of good order in all communities, makes concord between husband and wife, love between master and servant.

The word of a Pythagorean was also his bond. And finally a man should live so as to be ever ready for death (Hippolytus, Philos., vi.). (Ibid., pp. 263-267.) The treatment of the virtues in the neo-Platonic schools is interesting, and the distinction is clearly made between morality and spiritual development, or as Plotinus put it, "The endeavour is not to be without sin, but to be a God" (Select Works of Plotinus, trans. by Thomas Taylor, ed. 1895, p. 11). The lowest stage was the becoming without sin by acquiring the "political virtues" which made a man perfect in conduct (the physical and ethical being below these), the reason controlling and adorning the irrational nature. Above these were the cathartic, pertaining to reason alone, and which liberated the Soul from the bonds of generation; the theoretic or intellectual, lifting the Soul into touch with natures superior to itself; and the paradigmatic, giving it a knowledge of true being.

Hence he who energizes according to the practical virtues is a worthy min; but he who energizes according to the cathartic virtues is a demoniacal man, or is also a good demon. He who energizes according to the intellectual virtues alone is a God. But he who energizes according to the paradigmatic virtues is the Father of the Gods (Ibid., note on Intellectual Prudence, pp. 325-332).

By various practices the disciples were taught to escape from the body, and to rise into higher regions. As grass is drawn from a sheath the inner man was to draw himself from his bodily casing (Kathopanishad, vi. 17). The "body of light" or "radiant body" of the Hindus is the "luciform body" of the neo-Platonists, and in this the man rises to find the Self.

Not grasped by the eye, nor by speech, nor by the other senses (lit., Gods), nor by austerity, nor by religious rites; by serene wisdom, by the pure essence only doth one see the partless One in meditation. This subtle Self is to be known by the mind in which the fivefold life is sleeping. The mind of all A good spiritual intelligence, as the daimon of Socrates.

creatures is instinct with [these] lives; in this, purified, manifests the Self (Mundakopanishad, III. ii. 8, 9).

Then alone can man enter the region where separation is not, where "the spheres have ceased." In G. R. S. Mead's Introduction to Taylor's Plotinus he quotes from Plotinus a description of a sphere which is evidently the Turîya of the Hindus :—

They likewise see all things, not those with which generation, but those with which essence is present. And they perceive themselves in others. For all things there are diaphanous; and nothing is dark and resisting, but everything is apparent to everyone internally and throughout. For light everywhere meets with light; since everything contains all things in itself and again sees all things in another. So that all things are everywhere and all is all. Each thing likewise is everything. And the splendour there is infinite. For everything there is great, since even that which is small is great. The sun too which is there is all the stars; and again each star is the sun and all the stars. In each, however, a different property predominates, but at the same time all things are visible in each. Motion likewise there is pure; for the motion is not confounded by a mover different from it (p. lxxiii.).

A description which is a failure, because the region is one above describing by mortal language, but a description that could only have been given by one whose eyes had been opened.

A whole volume might easily be written on the similarities between the religions of the world, but the above imperfect statement must suffice as a preface to the study of Theosophy, to that which is a fresh and fuller presentment to the world of the ancient truths on which it has ever been fed. All these similarities point to a single source, and that is the Brotherhood of the White Lodge, the Hierarchy of Adepts who watch over and guide the evolution of humanity, and who have preserved these truths unimpaired, from time to time, as necessity arose, reasserting them in the ears of From other worlds, from earlier humanities, they came to help our globe, evolved by a process comparable to that now going on with ourselves, and that will be more intelligible when we have completed our present study than it may now appear;* and they have afforded this help, reinforced by the flower of our own humanity, from the earliest times until to-day. Still they teach This paper is the Introduction to an exposition of Theosophy on which the author is engaged.

men.

eager pupils, showing the path and guiding the disciple's steps; still they may be reached by all who seek them, bearing in their hands the sacrificial fuel of love, of devotion, of unselfish longing to know in order to serve; still they carry out the ancient discipline, still unveil the ancient mysteries. The two pillars of their Lodge gateway are Love and Wisdom, and through its strait portal can only pass those from whose shoulders has fallen the burden of desire and selfishness.

A heavy task lies before us, and beginning on the physical plane we shall climb slowly upwards; but a bird's eye view of the great sweep of evolution and of its purpose may help us, ere we begin our detailed study in the world that surrounds us. A LOGOS, ere a system has begun to be, has in His mind the whole, existing as idea-all forces, all forms, all that in due process shall emerge into objective life. He draws the circle of manifestation within which He wills to energize, and circumscribes Himself to be the life of His universe. As we watch we see strata appearing of successive densities, till seven vast regions are apparent, and in these centres of energy appear whirlpools of matter that separate from each other, until when the processes of separation and of condensation are over -so far as we are here concerned--we see a central sun, the physical symbol of the LOGOS, and seven great planetary chains, each chain consisting of seven golbes. Narrowing down our view to the chain of which our globe is one we see life-waves sweep round it, forming the kingdoms of nature, the three elemental, the mineral, vegetable, animal, human. Narrowing down our view still further to our own globe and its surroundings we watch human evolution, and see man developing self-consciousness by a series of many lifeperiods; then centering on a single man we trace his growth and see that each life-period has a threefold division, that each is linked to all life-periods behind it reaping their results, and to all life-periods before it sowing their harvests, by a law that cannot be broken; that thus man may climb upwards, with each life-period adding to his experience, each life-period lifting him higher in purity, in devotion, in intellect, in power of usefulness, until at last he stands where they stand who are now the Teachers, fit to pay to his younger brothers the debt he owes to them.

ANNIE BESANT,

CAGLIOSTRO.

A STRANGE fascination surrounds the name of CagliostroAdept according to some, charlatan according to others. Few of our readers are likely to have come across the following accounts; the first is taken from some Memoirs of Talleyrand, edited by the Comtesse de O--duc, published in Paris in 1838. The second is from some recollections of the same famous statesman, by his private secretary.

I.

Desperate at the prolonged enmity of the Queen, Prince Louis asked of the Occult Powers a talisman, which should procure for him the Queen's favour. Chance, or better still, the Devil, sent him the fraud who deceived him.

I cannot describe here a very extraordinary personage, who, about 1740, appeared in France for the first time. This was the Count St. Germain. This prince of the Rosy Cross, possessor of very extraordinary secrets, had the confidence and esteem of Louis XV., and the friendship of the Marquise de Pompadour. He had left France a long time before an adroit imitator of him appeared, first at Strasburg, and subsequently at Paris.

The Count of Cagliostro was the fruit of a union of the Grand Master of Malta with the daughter of a sovereign, the Scherif of Mecca or Median. He was brought up by an Adept, a Knight of Malta, the sage Atholtas: he was instructed in Occult Science in Egypt, in the Pyramids and in India, among the Gymnosophists. From there he traversed Italy and all of Germany, Russia, Sweden, Prussia, Denmark, England, Ireland, Scotland, Holland, and finally the Low Countries, whence he came to France.

Everywhere working prodigious miracles or cures, covered with diamonds, carrying with him the retinue of a lord, curing the poor gratis, and opening his purse for their use, he was environed with a dazzling reputation. His young and pretty wife joined him

in these good deeds and incredible cures, and nothing could work better. At Strasburg, the Count of Cagliostro had become very intimate with Prince Louis. He had unveiled for him the great arcana of Nature. He had predicted for him the future. He promised him a colossal fortune, and at last succeeded in causing him to sup with phantoms.

Drawn to Paris by his disciples, his fanatics, and by the Grand Almoner, Cagliostro came there to practise hermetic medicine, supernatural chemistry, and charlatanism.

Talleyrand said :

II.

Cagliostro had arrived from Italy under extraordinary and mysterious circumstances; his coming had been preceded by numerous rumours more strange, more surprising still, and his door was besieged at once by all the rich and idle, the marvel-loving population of Paris. Among the rest I am ashamed to confess that I was one of the most ardent. I was young at the time. Many months had elapsed before I could obtain the audience I so much coveted. Thousands of persons had to pass by right before me, and it was said that immediately on his arrival his books were so filled with the names of the highest and the mightiest that had he been just and received them in turn, the candidates at the bottom of the list would have known their fortune by experience long before he could by any possible means have foretold it. M. de Bouffles had kindly consented to accompany me. It was already dark when we were admitted into the awful presence of the conjurer; not quite dark without doors, yet sufficiently so within to require the aid of tapers. The ante-chamber was filled with impatient applicants. We found the magician in his study. He was just at the moment engaged in dismissing two poor patients to whom he had given advice gratuitously.

As soon as we entered Cagliostro led his guests to the door at the further end of the room, which was veiled by thick tapestry, and opening it without the slightest noise, ushered them through it into the passage beyond, and then closed it with the same attention to silence, returned to the spot where we were standing, and placing his fingers on his lip, pointed towards a still and motionless