necessity of withdrawal to that isolated and guarded region where the
most advanced adepts can pursue their contemplative existence without
fear of interruption, and prepare their _karma_, or, in other words, the
molecules of their fifth principle, for the ineffable bliss of
appropriate development in _devachan_--a place, or rather "state,"
somewhat resembling Purgatory with a dash of heaven in it; or even for
the still more exquisite sensation which arises from having no sensations
at all, and which characterises _nirvana_, or a sublime condition of
conscious rest in Omniscience.

That I am not drawing upon my imagination in alluding to this mysterious
region, or imposing upon the credulity of my readers, I will support my
assertion by the high authority of Mr Sinnett, or rather of his Guru; and
here I may remark incidentally, that after a long experience of Gurus, I
have never yet met one who would consciously tell a lie.

"From time immemorial," says Mr Sinnett's Guru, "there has been a
certain region in Thibet, which to this day is quite unknown to and
unapproachable by any but initiated persons, and inaccessible to the
ordinary people of the country, as to any others, in which adepts have
always congregated. But the country generally was not in Buddha's
time, as it has since become, the chosen habitation of the great
brotherhood. Much more than they are at present, were the _mahatmas_
in former times distributed throughout the world.

"The progress of civilisation engendering the magnetism they find so
trying, had, however, by the date with which we are now dealing--the
fourteenth century--already given rise to a very general movement
towards Thibet on the part of the previously dissociated occultists.
Far more widely than was held to be consistent with the safety of