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(10) And I have chose the Gate of Knowledge of the Light, and will follow after the Impulse and Knowledge of the Spirit, though my fleshly Body should be brought to beggary, or quite fall to the Ground. I regard none of these Things, but will say with the royal Prophet David, Though my Body and Soul should faint and fail, yet thou O God art my Salvation, my Comfort, and the Refuge of my Heart. [Psalm 73.26.]

(6) "Hearken, therefore, that I may discourse with you concerning the soul according as I have said: The five great rulers of the great Fate of the æons and the rulers of the disk of the sun and the rulers of the disk of the moon breathe into that soul, and there cometh out of them a portion of my power, as I have just said. And the portion of that power remaineth within the soul, so that the soul can stand. And they put the counterfeiting spirit outside the soul, watching it and assigned to it; and the rulers bind it to the soul with their seals and their bonds and seal it to it, that it may compel it always, so that it continually doeth its mischiefs and all its iniquities, in order that it may be their slave always and remain under their sway always in the changes of the body; and they seal it to it that it may be in all the sin and all the desires of the world.

(31) All creatures are enslaved to thought; I send myself on an embassy to thought, And, at will, spring back again from thought. I am as the bird of heaven and thought as the fly, How can the fly lend a helping hand to me? Whoso has in him a spark of the light of Omnipotence, However much he eats, say ' Eat on;' 'tis lawful to him." To the spiritual man the "inner voice" is its own evidence, and needs no other proof. "If you are a true lover of my soul,

(19) And, thus, think from thyself, and bid thy soul go unto any land, and there more quickly than thy bidding will it be. And bid it journey oceanwards; and there, again, immediately 'twill be, not as if passing on from place to place, but as if being there. And bid it also mount to heaven; and it will need no wings, not will aught hinder it, nor fire of sun, nor auther, nor vortex-swirl, nor bodies of the other stars; but, cutting through them all, it will soar up to the last Body [of them all]. And shouldst thou will to break through this as well, and contemplate what is beyond - if there be aught beyond the Cosmos; it is permitted thee.

(70) I take Heaven to witness that I perform here what I must do; for the Spirit drives me to it, so that I am wholly captivated therewith, and cannot be freed from it, whatever may befal me hereafter, or ensue upon it. The Holy Gate.

(1) "You will not dismiss your Soul lest it go forth..." .

For wheresoever it go, it will be in some definite condition, and its going forth is to some new place. The Soul will wait for the body to be completely severed from it; then it makes no departure; it simply finds itself free.

But how does the body come to be separated?

The separation takes place when nothing of Soul remains bound up with it: the harmony within the body, by virtue of which the Soul was retained, is broken and it can no longer hold its guest.

But when a man contrives the dissolution of the body, it is he that has used violence and torn himself away, not the body that has let the Soul slip from it. And in loosing the bond he has not been without passion; there has been revolt or grief or anger, movements which it is unlawful to indulge.

But if a man feel himself to be losing his reason?

That is not likely in the Sage, but if it should occur, it must be classed with the inevitable, to be welcome at the bidding of the fact though not for its own sake. To call upon drugs to the release of the Soul seems a strange way of assisting its purposes.

And if there be a period allotted to all by fate, to anticipate the hour could not be a happy act, unless, as we have indicated, under stern necessity.

If everyone is to hold in the other world a standing determined by the state in which he quitted this, there must be no withdrawal as long as there is any hope of progress.

(95) But unto me is opened the Gate of my Mind, so that I can see and discern it, else it would indeed remain concealed with, and hidden to me, till the Day of the Resurrection from the Dead; yea, it has been concealed from all Men, since the Beginning of the World; but I submit my Will to God's Will, let him do what he pleases.

(3) For my Part, I will obediently perform the Command of the Spirit, only have thou a Care, and suffer not thyself to be shut up by, or in an open Door; for here the Gates of Knowledge stand open to thee. And