Every soul that knows its history is aware, also, that its movement, unthwarted, is not that of an outgoing line; its natural course may be likened to that in which a circle turns not upon some external but on its own centre, the point to which it owes its rise. The soul's movement will be about its source; to this it will hold, poised intent towards that unity to which all souls should move and the divine souls always move, divine in virtue of that movement; for to be a god is to be integral with the Supreme; what stands away is man still multiple, or beast. Is then this "centre" of our souls the Principle for which we are seeking? We must look yet further: we must admit a Principle in which all these centres coincide: it will be a centre by analogy with the centre of the circle we know. The soul is not a circle in the sense of the geometric figure but in that it at once contains the Primal Nature and is contained by it , that it owes its origin to such a centre and still more that the soul, uncontaminated, is a self-contained entity. In our present state- part of our being weighed down by the body, as one might have the feet under water with all the rest untouched- we bear- ourselves aloft by that- intact part and, in that, hold through our own centre to the centre of all the centres, just as the centres of the great circles of a sphere coincide with that of the sphere to which all belong. Thus we are secure. If these circles were material and not spiritual, the link with the centres would be local; they would lie round it where it lay at some distant point: since the souls are of the Intellectual, and the Supreme still loftier, we understand that contact is otherwise procured, that is by those powers which connect Intellectual agent with Intellectual Object; this all the more, since the Intellect grasps the Intellectual object by the way of similarity, identity, in the sure link of kindred. Material mass cannot blend into other material mass: unbodied beings are not under this bodily limitation; their separation is solely that of otherness, of differentiation; in the absence of otherness, it is similars mutually present. Thus the Supreme as containing no otherness is ever present with us; we with it when we put otherness away. It is not that the Supreme reaches out to us seeking our communion: we reach towards the Supreme; it is we that become present. We are always before it: but we do not always look: thus a choir, singing set in due order about the conductor, may turn away from that centre to which all should attend: let it but face aright and it sings with beauty, present effectively. We are ever before the Supreme- cut off is utter dissolution; we can no longer be- but we do not always attend: when we look, our Term is attained; this is rest; this is the end of singing ill; effectively before Him, we lift a choral song full of God.

Further, there is a movement of soul, circular indeed,--the entrance into itself from things without, and the unified convolution of its intellectual...

Thus the Soul is generated between both the Centers, between the Center of God, (understand [between the Center] of the Heart or Light of God, where...

Since the superior (or spiritual) center is in the midst of the other two, its analogue in the physical body is the heart--the most spiritual and...

Behold, thou reasonable Soul, to thee I speak, and not to the Body, thou only apprehendest it:- When the Birth is thus continually generated, then...

According to another concept of the ancient wisdom, all bodies--whether spiritual or material--have three centers, called by the Greeks the upper...

The Soul of Man, which God has breathed into him, is out of the Eternal Father; yet understand it right; there is a Difference [to be observed, you...

And so the Soul of Man is out of the same Balance in the Angle of the recomprehended Will, towards the Light, and also in the first Will in itself, in...

And he had the Touch of the Center of the Abyss [viz.'] the eternal Source a behind him, as a Band, and before him, the Heart and Light of God, as a G...

Now therefore the Soul stands in two Gates, and touches the two Principles, viz. the eternal Darkness, and the eternal Light of the Son of God, as...

Then the fourth Form in the Center of the Soul broke forth there where the Spirit of the Soul was created, [viz.] between the fourth and fifth Form...

It is necessary, therefore, to admit a thing of this kind in partial souls. For such as is the life which the soul received, prior to its insertion...

For the Soul which is out of the first Principle (out of the Band of the Eternity) was breathed into the Element of the Body, to [be] the Image of God...

Now when I write here concerning the midst or centre, that the fountain of the divine birth or geniture is in the midst or centre, the meaning is not...

The connascent perception, therefore, of the perpetual attendance of the Gods, will be assimilated to them. Hence, as they have an existence which is...

But my meaning is, that it peculiarly connects the soul with the self begotten and self-moved God, and with the all-sustaining, intellectual, and all-...

Farther still, to the former that which is highest and that which is incomprehensible pertain, and also that which is better than all measure, and is...

Thus also we know, that the Soul is a Spirit, generated out of God the Father, in the Throne and Entrance out of the recomprehended [or reconceived]...

But the Soul of Man, which is enlightened with the holy Spirit of God, (which in the second Principle proceeds from the Father and the Son in the holy...

Man's Image born of a Woman, here in this Life, is in a threefold Form, and stands in three Principles [or Beginnings;] viz. the Soul, that has its...

The general meaning of this section is that the protection of the centre is important for the circular course of the light. The last section dealt...