There has recently been still another revival of the talk about the end of the world. Once again newspaper articles are being written and public meetings held, both in America and in Great Britain, where more or less sensational statements are made to the effect that the end of the world is now due, and may be expected at any moment. Ever since the outbreak of the Great War in 1914 the prophets have been exceptionally busy in this direction, and on several occasions groups of people have actually sat up all night waiting for the end.

Now the old adage says that there is no smoke without fire, and it proves itself in the present instance, for behind all this speculation and discussion a great truth undoubtedly does lie, and in this chapter I propose to explain exactly what it is.

The actual fact is that, while it is not true that the end of the world in the ordinary sense of the words is coming upon us, we do indeed stand on the threshold of a new age. One age has now passed away and another age is coming into being, and it is this tremendous change in the unfoldment of the human race that people of all sorts everywhere have been sensing. In other words, humanity is now entering upon a new era in its history, and this means that most of the old ideas in which we were all brought up are now definitely become out of date, and that we shall have to adapt ourselves to a completely new outlook upon life. A completely new outlook, mark you—no mere rearrangement of old ideas into a new pattern, such as the changing of a monarchy into a republic or a republic into a monarchy, the disestablishing of one church and the establishing of a rival one, the swapping of King Log for King Stork, or the changing of Tweedledum for Tweedledee. It means a complete change in all our fundamental values, a completely new way of looking at all human problems—in fact a new age.

Many people are looking about them today with a feeling of consternation at what they see in the world. Old landmarks, like the Austrian Empire, the Czarist Empire, the Hohenzollern Empire, and the Turkish Empire, are swept away within four short years. The ancient Chinese Empire in the East and the Spanish Monarchy in the West have disappeared too. The greatest material boom in recorded history has been followed by the greatest depression. The Governor of the Bank of England has publicly stated that after months of investigation he does not understand the causes of the depression, and that he has no remedy to offer for dealing with it. The orthodox churches were once hardly adequate to meet the needs of a smaller population, and now churchmen complain of the empty pews that face them Sunday after Sunday; and the reason is that the old theological sanctions which once meant so much are no longer taken seriously by the great masses of the people. In fact, it is often said bitterly that nothing is as it was; everything is changed. General Smuts said a year or two ago, “Humanity has once more struck its tents, and is again on the march.”

All this is perfectly correct, as far as it goes, but when once we have the key to the mainspring of human history we shall no longer be either surprised or dismayed at these occurrences. No matter what the next few years may hold—and beyond a doubt they are going to show us some very surprising things—we shall not be either alarmed or grieved if we realize what it is that is really happening.

The history of mankind proceeds in no haphazard or casual way, but through the unfoldment of a number of distinct periods or ages. Each of these periods has its own characteristics, its own lessons to be learned, its own work to be done; and each one is quite fundamentally different in every respect from its predecessor and not a mere improvement or expansion of it. Each of these ages lasts approximately two thousand years; to be more precise, each one is usually about two thousand, one hundred and fifty years long; and the passing from one such age into another is always accompanied by both external and internal storm and stress such as the world has recently been going through. The last change took place a couple of thousand years ago, and the new world that formed itself from that melting pot was the western Christian civilization that we know. This great enterprise having worked itself out and fulfilled its mission, has now drawn to its close, and the new age is already upon us.

In connection with the coming and going of these different ages it is necessary to be familiar with the natural phenomenon known as the Precession of the Equinoxes. It is not necessary that a student should possess any general knowledge of astronomy; it is sufficient to know that as we look out from our globe at the illimitable starry hosts that surround us, the axis of the earth seems to trace out a huge circle in the heavens every twenty-six thousand years or thereabouts. This huge circle, which is known as the Zodiac, falls into twelve parts or sectors, and each part, or “Sign,” as the Ancients called it, marks the passage of time that we occupy in working through one of our “Ages.”

This “Zodiac” is one of the most interesting of all the symbols that reveal the destiny of mankind. In fact, the Zodiac with its twelve signs, symbolizes the most fundamental thing in the nature of man. It is nothing less than the key to the history of the Human Race, of the psychology of the individual man, and of his regeneration or spiritual salvation. The Bible, which is of course the great fountain of Truth, has the Zodiac running through it from beginning to end. The twelve sons of Jacob who become the twelve tribes of the Old Testament, and the twelve Apostles of the New Testament, are, apart from their historical identity, special expressions of the twelve signs of the Zodiac. The marshalling of the Twelve Tribes of Israel in strict astronomical order in the great encampment of the wilderness is a leading example of this Zodiacal symbolism which the reader can check for himself.

The knowledge of this mysterious thing, the Zodiac, is found all over the world, among all races, and in all ages. Excavations among the most ancient ruins in Asia have revealed representations of the Zodiac. Both the earlier and the later Egyptians understood it well. The Chaldeans were masters of the subject. It was engraved upon the temples of Greece and Rome. The American aborigines in Mexico and Peru were well acquainted with it; the oldest Chinese records speak of it; and it has turned up unexpectedly on forgotten islands in the Pacific. Pythagoras taught it in the olden days, of course; and it was incorporated into the fabric of more than one of the medieval cathedrals. The Great Circle at Stonehenge is really a type of the Zodiac; and the twelve Signs, beautifully executed, form part of the ornamentation of several of the very newest and highest skyscrapers in New York.

Now what is the real significance of the Zodiac which so universally permeates all human culture? It is a curious and most interesting fact that men constantly employ, and thus perpetuate, symbols of whose real meaning they are not consciously aware. Often in this way the profoundest truths are enshrined in what seems to be but a casual ornamentation.

The Zodiac has usually been either ignored, or treated as a mere picturesque decoration, or else it has been degraded into superstition and fortune telling; and so we have now to ask ourselves the question—What is the real significance of the Zodiac? And in order to answer that question we must put another one—What is the real reason of mankind being on the earth at all? What are we here for? What is it all about? Why are we born, and why do we die? Is there a reason or a pattern behind it all? And if so, what is it? And the answer to these questions, no doubt the most fundamental of all questions, is this: That we are here to learn the Truth of Being. That we are here to become self-conscious, self-governed entities, focal points of the Divine Mind, each expressing God in a new way. That is the object of our existence, and the only thing that we have to do to realize it is to get a better knowledge of God, because such knowledge is the answer to every problem. All trouble, all sin, sickness, poverty, accidents, death itself, are due simply to a want of knowledge of God, and, per contra, all health, success, prosperity, beauty, joy and happiness consist in obtaining that knowledge of God. When we are in trouble of any kind it means that for the time being our knowledge of God is inadequate; and recovery means that our knowledge of God has become clearer.

Of course, some individuals progress far more rapidly than the main bulk. These are the leaders and teachers of the race. But the main body of humanity is always steadily, if it may seem a little slowly, growing in its knowledge of God. This is the reality behind what we call progress, or evolution. The passage from savagery to barbarism, and from barbarism on to civilization is really a growth in the knowledge of God. All the things that we see as scientific, artistic, or social advancement; such diverse things as the spread of hygiene, universal and compulsory education, the abolition of slavery, and the emancipation of women; all these things are really but the outer expression of mankind’s increase in the true knowledge of God.

In order to acquire that full understanding of all that God is, that full understanding which will be his complete salvation, man has to learn, piecemeal as it were, to know God in twelve different ways. It takes him a couple of thousand years to learn each of these lessons; and so, we can, if we like, think of our progress around the Zodiac as a series of twelve lessons that we have to learn about God. We have now finished our last lesson, and have already begun our study of the new one.

Each of these lessons has a name which has been allotted to it for convenience. Everything must have a name, but, as many of us know, names when rightly understood are often found to be symbolical of the things for which they stand, and the names of our lessons or “Signs” are no exception to this rule. The name of the last sign, the one which we have just left, was Pisces, or the Fishes. The one before that, which we left over two thousand years ago, was Aries, or the Ram. The one before that was Taurus, or the Bull, and so forth. These names, be it noted, do not in the least refer to the physical shape of the constellations as seen in the sky—much effort has been wasted in the endeavor to trace a far-fetched resemblance to a lion, or a bull, or a centaur, where there is not the very faintest ground for so doing—they refer to the innate character of the lesson that we have to learn at the particular time that is indicated by the Sign.

The new age upon which we have now entered is called Aquarius—the Man with the Water Pot—and the Aquarian Age is going to be a completely new chapter in the history of mankind. The student should be very clear about this. A new age means everything new, and not just a polishing up of the old Piscean ideas which most people make the mistake of regarding as the only possible ideas—the only natural and established order of things—instead of being merely one of an infinite number of possible expressions.

As a matter of fact, we are, within the not very far distant future, going to change everything in the outer world around us. Our political, social, and ecclesiastical institutions, our methods of doing our daily work, our relationships with one another, our manifold instruments of self-expression and self-discovery—all will undergo a change, a radical change, and for the better. A few of these changes have already come about, but the really big changes are yet to be.

Now, concerning these changes, it will be the attitude which the individual adopts toward them which will determine their reaction upon him. If we take up an attitude of resistance to these natural changes, if we, so to say, antagonize them in our own consciousness, if we assume that change must necessarily be bad—which is only another way of saying that all our present arrangements are perfect and unimprovable—then we shall suffer a sense of conflict, and defeat, and loss. We shall go about saying, “the country is going to the dogs”; talk foolishly about “the good old days” (which never existed); and, in fact, take up the stock attitude of obscurantism and reaction. Our soul will become, what was said of a certain university, “a home of lost causes and dead faiths.” And all this will mean, temporarily at least, defeat, failure, and waste.

If, on the other hand, we know the Truth and practice it, we shall sweep forward in the grand march of humanity, learning the new lesson, rejoicing in the new work, and triumphing in its triumphs. If, instead of seeking to hold on to the wreckage of outworn things, we are prepared to march breast forward and, as has been finely said, “greet the unknown with a cheer,” then indeed shall we be loyal servants of God and of our fellow men. The summing up of all wisdom is also the fundamental recipe for happiness, “Set your heart upon God, and not upon things, upon Cause and not upon manifestation, upon Principle and not upon form.” As the old landmarks disappear one by one beneath the rising tide of the new life, we shall go boldly on, knowing that the best is yet to be, and that “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man the things that God hath prepared for them that love Him,” and put Him first.

Each of these Ages or ways of knowing God has a dominant quality or character of its own which distinguishes it from the other eleven. Just as each nation has an indefinable quality which all its natives possess in common, no matter how much they may otherwise differ among themselves, and which marks them off from all other groups of people; just as each of the great religions has its own special character or atmosphere that arises from the particular aspects of Universal Truth upon which it lays stress, so each Age has its own peculiar character arising from the particular aspects of Truth with which it deals. The quality which distinguishes the new Aquarian Age—so distinct in every respect from the late Piscean Age—is called for convenience “Uranus,” and in a general way all the activities and expressions of the Aquarian Age will be Uranian. Now this is interesting because it gives us a broad idea of the sort of thing that we may expect. Uranus is usually spoken of as a disrupter or smasher, but it must be remembered that this does not necessarily, as is too often assumed, imply real destruction. It is well that the less good should be destroyed if this means that the better is given an opportunity of taking its place. Those who understand the Truth of Being are well aware that what we call death and destruction are usually but the prelude to something better and finer. What is the death of Monday but the birth of Tuesday, the death of the old year but the birth of the new one, the pulling down of an old house but the prelude to the building of a newer and better one. And so the New Age, while at first it may seem to be destructive, will, in fact, be destructive only of ideas which, while good and necessary in their own time, have now been outgrown by humanity, and could only remain as a hindrance.

Consider the state of mind of the chick at the moment when he has become fully formed and ready for a free and independent life; but just before the shell has broken. How delightfully comfortable the inside of that shell feels. How warm, how snug, how safe. How terrifying to a nervous chick must be the prospect of being thrown out into a wide, cold, unknown, seemingly infinite world. Yet, because he is now mature and ready for the great adventure, the warm shell which has been so necessary and so comforting to him up to that moment, would, if he attempted to remain in it, very soon smother and destroy him. He has outgrown that phase, and out he must go, willing or not. A brave chick, on the contrary, one who has faith in the essential goodness of life, and the innate friendliness of things, goes out into the new world conquering and to conquer. Here Uranus comes, as a smasher indeed but it is as the smasher of a prison, and the liberator of a captive soul.

Humanity is now very much in the position of the chick who has outgrown his old environment, and must boldly step out into something new and strange and grand.

Uranus is also spoken of as a symbol of democracy and freedom, and at other times it is referred to as standing for autocracy; and this seeming contradiction has puzzled many; but the actual truth is that Uranus stands neither for democracy nor autocracy as such, but for individuality. Now the free expression of individuality must mean true democracy in the sense that every human soul shall have an equal opportunity for self-expression as the thing that God intended it to be, and, on the other hand, as the master of its own fate and the captain of its own soul, it becomes the autocrat of its own life, answerable to God alone and unrestricted in its development by any tyrannical outside interference. That is Uranus.

We have actually been in the Aquarian Age for a number of years already, but it is only now that we are beginning to feel the full effects of the change. Nature knows nothing of sudden jerky transitions. With her all is gradual, and so each New Age steals slowly upon the human consciousness, and more than one generation goes by before the changes become easily observable. We must remember that in a period lasting about twenty-one hundred and fifty years, half a century or a century does not mean so much as one might suppose at first sight. Today the introductory period technically known as the “cusp” is over, and we are now in the full tide of Aquarian life. As we look about us in the world we are at once struck by the number of Aquarian manifestations everywhere in being. The new inventions, for instance, that have transformed the world since the childhood of middle-aged people, are nearly all Aquarian-Uranian in character. Electricity, which in its various forms, as electric light and traction, the telegraph and the telephone, and now the radio, has done so much to make the new world different from the old one—electricity is essentially Uranian. Every application of electricity, for instance, is the individualization at a particular point of manifestation—lamp, motor, bell, microphone, and so forth—of a general current. And everyone who has experimented however slightly, with an electric current knows that when wrongly handled it is exceedingly sudden and violent in its reactions—a disrupter or wrecker. Yet, when employed constructively and intelligently, it does more than any other material thing to liberate the human soul from the fetters of drudgery and physical limitations. The telephone abolishes distance and is man’s first partial demonstration over the space limitation. The electric light indoors and out-of-doors has been the finger of God in promoting education, cleanliness, sanitation, and all other good things that wither in darkness and flourish in light. Electric traction, when it is given a fair chance, will empty our city slums and restore our people to God’s countryside. The radio is rapidly breaking down many of the artificial barriers that formerly divided man from man. Within each nation it is destroying social prejudices right and left by giving a correct standard of speech to all classes, and already the change wrought by this is quite noticeable. Internationally the radio laughs at frontiers, and, thanks to its efforts, it will no longer be possible, however much reactionary authorities may desire it, to isolate any body of human beings from the common stock of human knowledge and human progress. The Inquisition would have been powerless against the radio broadcast and a receiving set in every home.

Next to electricity the internal combustion engine in the form of the automobile and the airplane has probably done most to change the face of the world, and this too is essentially Uranian-Aquarian. Consider how fundamentally individual a thing an automobile is, as compared say with the railroad train. Indeed, one could hardly get a more complete expression of the distinction between mass compulsion and free individuality than in considering the difference between taking a prescribed journey to a prescribed time-table in a train and the untrammeled exploring of the countryside in a car. Internationally the airplane has simply abolished military frontiers. Military authors are still writing in terms of strategic frontiers, but statesmen know to their secret consternation that they are gone.

The Aquarian Age, in fact, is to be the age of personal freedom. It is no mere coincidence that its arrival marks the emancipation of women as a sex, and that in the present age the children too have at last been conceded rights as individuals, and are no longer regarded simply as the personal property of their parents.

We have seen that what are called the Twelve Signs of the Zodiac really signify twelve different ways of knowing God. Most thinking people have already given up the old childish way of thinking of God as just a big superior kind of man, and as the Aquarian Age advances the great bulk of mankind will gradually outgrow that limitation too. The truth is that actually God is All in All: Infinite Mind, Life, Truth, and Love. God is Infinite Intelligence, Unfathomable Wisdom, Unspeakable Beauty. In repeating these words, we get, of course, a hopelessly inadequate realization of what they must really mean, and the true nature of God in its fullness is so immense and wonderful and undreamed of by us, that in practice it takes the human race not thousands, but millions of years to reach its full comprehension. Even to grasp the fact that God is Incorporeal Mind, perfect Principle, has taken us literally hundreds of thousands of years; and we shall not all reach even this point for some time to come yet. And when we have grasped that stupendous reality, the Truth about God still opens out in front of us to Infinity.

Just as each Age is a special lesson that humanity has to learn about God, so in each Age there is a special outstanding teacher who teaches the lesson of that Age, and demonstrates it in a complete and unmistakable manner. The great Race Teacher of the Age of Aries was Abraham. Abraham raised the standard of the One God, perfect, not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. Abraham when he received his enlightenment came straight out from idolatry and, forestalling Moses, said, in effect—Know, O Israel the Lord thy God is One God—Thou shalt have no other gods before Him—Thou shalt not make unto thyself graven images.

How tremendous a step forward this was in the history of humanity, can only be appreciated by those who have investigated the old civilizations, with their welter of competing gods, and their futile, grotesque, and sometimes obscene idolatries. An old tradition tells that the immediate family of Abram (as he then was) were actually manufacturers and sellers of idols, and so, in coming out for the One purely Spiritual God, he was obliged to break with his own immediate people. It may well have been so, for is it not the maker of images who is most likely, given an honest heart, to become the iconoclast.

Abraham, having launched the new Age, that of Aries or the Ram, passed into history, and his work went on with the usual ebb and flow characteristic of human activity. Now it should be noted that that Age is called symbolically the Age of the Ram or Sheep, and that all through the Bible sheep are used to symbolize thoughts, and that the great outstanding lesson of the Bible is that we have to watch our thoughts, because whatever we think with conviction will come to us sooner or later. It is important to note in this connection how many of the great saints and heroes of the Bible were at one time shepherds. Jacob, Moses, David, Cyrus the Mede (“His Anointed”), and many of lesser importance all served an apprenticeship in the keeping of sheep—the right control of thought. And of the many titles that have been given to our Lord himself, he would probably have preferred that of the Good Shepherd. Did he not say, “The Good Shepherd gives his life for his sheep.” In all this we see the influence of the Ariean lesson working itself out in the race thought. Egypt, in the Bible, stands for materialism, sin, sickness, and death (“Out of Egypt have I called my son”) and very significantly we are told that the Egyptians harbored an undying enmity and hatred for a shepherd. All this, of course, is not to be taken literally as a reflection upon the people who lived in the Nile valley, and were no worse, if no better, than other men, but as a symbolical description of the working out of natural laws. It is an interesting fact that right down to the present day in the Jewish synagogues where the Ariean Age still lingers, the Ram’s horn remains as a living symbol.

The Age which followed the Ariean Age, and from which we have recently emerged, and which might well be called the epoch of orthodox Christianity, is known as the Age of Pisces or the Fishes. The great leader and prophet of that Age was, of course, Jesus Christ, and we know that in the early days of Christianity he was symbolized among his followers as a fish. The cross, the great emblem of Christianity in later times, was not used in the first days. People were then a little ashamed to think of the Master in connection with a Roman gibbet. In the catacombs of Rome and elsewhere we find inscriptions of the early Christians in which Jesus is referred to as the fish. This had the further advantage of throwing their persecutors off the scent. Actually, the cross as a symbol of physical matter and physical limitation, is far, far older than Christianity; but that is by the way. Suffice it to say that the Age of Pisces was constantly being announced in symbols by all sorts of people, many of whom realized not at all what it was that they were doing. The great medieval church, for instance, centered her authority, for practical purposes, in the bishop, and the distinguishing symbol of a bishop is, of course, the mitre. And what is the mitre but a fish’s head worn as a headdress. Jesus said, “I will make you fishers of men,” and actually his first disciples were fishermen, just as the Old Testament leaders were shepherds.

All through the Bible, and throughout the old occult tradition in general, the fish stands as a symbol of wisdom, and wisdom is then understood as the technical term for the knowledge of the Allness of God and of the power of prayer. Notice that the fish lives in the depths of the waters (the human soul) from which it has to be, so to say, fished out, and it is silent and non-assertive. It has to be sought with patience and gentleness. It is not to be hunted down violently as is a wolf.

The Aquarian Age is the age of the Man with the Water Pot (“Seek ye a man bearing a pot of water”)—and who is the man with the water pot? Why, the gardener, of course, and so the interpretative symbol of the New Age is to be the Gardener. Man having graduated as a Shepherd, and as a Fisherman, now becomes a Gardener, and this title nicely expresses the kind of work that he has to do in his new rôle. We have now reached the stage when the lesson of the need for thought control having been learned, and the Santa Sophia or Holy Wisdom having been contacted and appreciated, the two things must be united mentally in our everyday practice.

Modern science is making some of its greatest strides in the realm of psychology, so that indeed psychology may today be called the handmaid of metaphysics, and psychology is insisting more and more that the conscious and the subconscious minds stand almost exactly in the relationship of gardener and garden. The gardener sows his seed in the soil that he has prepared; he waters the ground and, as far as possible, he selects a site upon which the sun will shine; but he does not try to make the seed grow. He leaves that to Nature. So, in spiritual treatment or Scientific Prayer, we speak the Word, but we leave it to the Divine Power to make the demonstration. “I have planted; Apollos watered; but God gave the increase.” The dominant note of the New Age is to be Spiritual development and Spiritual demonstration.

At this stage the question naturally presents itself—Who is, or who is to be, the great teacher and prophet of our new Aquarian Age? Well, it seems that there is no lack of candidates for the position. All over the world sundry people are laying claim to this high office, or their followers are claiming it for them. No time need be wasted over this sort of thing. Did not the Master warn us that false Christs would arise who would deceive, if it were possible, the very elect.

The wonderful fact is that now, after all these thousands and thousands of years of upward striving, we have at last reached the stage where humanity is ready to do without personal prophets of any kind, and to contact the Living God at first hand for itself. Never until now has this been possible for the mass of the people. Individuals from time to time have reached this stage, but never until now has it been possible for the great majority. Always they have had to have some concrete symbol. First of all, a coarse and palpable idol such as was denounced by Abraham and Moses, and afterward by Mohammed. Later when they had passed beyond that stage, they still demanded a man to worship, or even a book, something tangible and concrete to lay hold of mentally. But now, chiefly owing to the work that Jesus did in the race mind nineteen hundred years ago, it has become possible for all men and women, if they will, to grasp the idea of the Impersonal Christ Truth; to grasp the truth that their own Indwelling Christ—the Inner Light of the Quakers—is always with them to inspire, to heal, to strengthen and comfort, and illumine. Jesus said, unless I go away the Holy Spirit cannot come, meaning that as long as he was with them they would cling to his personality instead of finding the Infinite, Incorporeal God for themselves; and this is very largely what the orthodox churches have always done.

And so the Great World Teacher of the new age is not to be any man or woman, or any textbook, or any organization, but the Indwelling Christ, that each individual is to find and contact for himself. There is a simple test by which anyone can tell a true teacher from a false one. It is this: If he points you to his own personality; if he makes special claims for himself; if he says that he has received any special privileges from God that are not equally accessible to the whole human race anywhere; if he attempts in his own name or in that of an organization to establish under any pretense a monopoly of the truth about God, then, however imposing his credentials, however pleasing his personality may be, he is a false teacher, and you had better have nothing to do with him. If, on the contrary, he tells you to look away from himself, to seek the Presence of God in your own heart, and to use books, lectures, and churches only as a means to that one end, then, however humble his efforts may be, however lacking his own demonstration may seem, he is nevertheless a true teacher and is giving you the Bread of Life.

It takes humanity about twenty-six thousand years to go through this class of twelve lessons about God, which we call the Zodiac. But of course, we have been through that class many times already—remember that the race is far older than most people think—and we shall have to go through it many times more, but each time we go through the same lessons at a much higher level, garnering a different quality of knowledge, for it is not an endless circle, but an upward reaching spiral.

Now this change through which the world is going at the present time, which is covering the front pages of the newspapers with sensations, and filling the hearts of men with fear and misgivings, this change, as it happens, is much more than the mere passing from one Sign or Age to another, such as happened in passing from Aries into Pisces, from Taurus into Aries, from Gemini into Taurus, and so on. Actually our present change is the greatest that the human race has made for about fifty-two thousand years. That is to say, we have been twice around the Zodiac since we last made such a giant step forward as the present one. Not since the mass of humanity became capable of using the abstract mind (it is quite true that precious few of them ever use it now, but they all could if they wanted to and were trained for it) has it gained such an increase in Power. It is now possible for everyone if he so wishes to contact the Spiritual Power which lies all around us, which is God, always ready at a moment’s notice to help us in any way we may need.

This means that while the race as a whole moves forward relatively slowly on the path of spiritual development, there is now no reason at all why any individual who really desires it should not cut out all intermediate steps and make the Great Demonstration at his own pace, irrespective of any material circumstances of time, or Zodiac, or anything else whatever. The qualities he will need for success are a single-minded pursuit of Truth and the wholehearted practice of the highest that he knows at the moment.

So now we see that the Zodiac is really one of the great cosmic symbols, perhaps the greatest of them all, a diagram of the unfoldment of the human soul, and not the mere physical fact of the Precession of the Equinoxes. Not just a kind of circular railroad track for fortune-telling, but one of the deepest mysteries of the soul.

The question of when the great changes herein referred to will take place is naturally one that does not admit of a precise answer. It may, however, be said with confidence that what will appear to us as the most revolutionary and far-reaching upheavals in the circumstances of human life will be all over and done with in from twenty to twenty-five years from now; and that some very striking and important changes are already under way and will become perhaps startlingly apparent within the next few years.

These changes will hardly go through without a certain amount of disturbance and temporary chaos, as we have seen; but we know that Man as a race will emerge with flying colors, purified, strengthened, and emancipated. But what of the individual? Well, individuals may have a bad time in certain cases, but your personal fate will depend upon one thing, and one thing only—the condition in which you keep your consciousness. If you maintain an attitude of mental peace and goodwill toward all; if you really root out of your own heart every atom of hostility and condemnation for your brother man, no matter who he may be, then you will be safe. As Jesus promised: “Nothing shall by any means hurt you.” You will pass through the hottest fires unmoved and unscathed. But, if you allow yourself to be drawn, if only by mental acquiescence, into any current of hatred against anybody, against any nation, or any race, or any class or any religious sect, or any other person or body of people, under any pretense whatsoever; then you will have forfeited your protection and you will have to take the consequences. If you allow yourself to be carried away by any political, religious, or newspaper campaign of hatred, no matter how self-righteously it may be camouflaging itself, then you will be laying yourself open to any destructive tendencies that may be going. It is for you to choose, knowing that as you do choose, so it will be done unto you.

Of course, the only real protection in any kind of danger is the knowledge of Scientific Prayer, or the Practice of the Presence of God; and so have not we who understand this Truth and how to apply it in practice, a sacred duty and responsibility to do all that lies in our power to spread that knowledge now as widely and as quickly as possible.

EMMET FOX