The chakras. A monograph

reason for the order in which this line touches them. The symbolism of the running dog is not explained, so we are left at liberty to interpret it as we will.

The author gives us later an illustration of the man regenerated by the Christ, who has entirely crushed the serpent, but has replaced the Sun by the Sacred Heart, which drips gore most gruesomely.

The interest of the picture to us, however, is not in the author's interpretations, but in the fact that it shows beyond the possibility of mistake that at least some of the mystics of the seventeenth century knew of the existence and position of the seven centres in the human body.

Further evidence of early knowledge about these force-centres exists in the rituals of Freemasonry, the salient points of which come down to us from time immemorial. The monuments show that these points were known and practiced in ancient Egypt, and they have been handed down faithfully to the present day. Masons find them among their secrets. By utilizing them, they actually stimulate certain of these centres for the occasion and the purpose of their work, though they generally know little or nothing of what is happening beyond the range of normal sight. Obviously, explanations are impossible here, but I have mentioned as much of the matter as is permissible in The Hidden Life in Freemasonry.

CHAPTER II

THE FORCES

An ornamental drop cap letter 'T' decorated with floral flourishes begins the first paragraph of the chapter.

The Deity sends forth from himself various forms of energy. There may well be hundreds of which we know nothing, but some few of them have been observed. Each of those seen has its appropriate manifestation at every level which our students have yet reached. For the moment, let us think of them as they show themselves in the physical world. One of them exhibits itself as electricity, another as the serpent-fire, another as vitality, and yet another as the life-force, which is quite a different thing from vitality, as will presently be seen.

Patient and long-continued effort is needed by the student who would trace these forces to their origin and relate them to one another. At the time when I collected the answers to questions asked during previous years at the roof meetings at Adyar into the book The Hidden Side of Things, I knew of the manifestation on the physical plane of the life-force, of kundalinī serpent-fire, and of vitality, but I did not yet know of their relation to the Three Outpourings. Consequently, I described them as entirely different and separate from them. Further research has enabled me to fill the gap, and I am glad now to have the opportunity of correcting the misstatement which I then made.

There are three principal forces flowing through the chakras, and we may consider them as representative of the three aspects of the Logos the Divine Word or Creative Deity. The energy which we find rushing into the bell-like mouth of the chakra, and setting up in relation to itself a secondary circular force, is one of the expressions of the Second Outpouring. This comes from the Second Aspect of the Logos, which is that stream of life sent out by Him into the matter already vitalized by the action of the Third Aspect of the Logos in the First Outpouring. It is this which is symbolized when it is said in Christian teaching that the Christ is incarnate of (that is, takes form from) the Holy Ghost and the Virgin Mary.

That Second Outpouring has long ago subdivided itself to an almost infinite degree. Not only has it subdivided itself, but it has also differentiated itself, or at least it seems to have done so. In reality, this is almost certainly only the māyā illusion