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278 the Ego, and "a superterrestrial and superhuman" "correlating state" corresponding to the dreamy condition.

Let us now turn our attention to the sixth principle. It was originally described as the higher or spiritual intelligence or consciousness in man, and the main seat of consciousness in the "perfect man" ("Fragments," p. 19, Theos., Oct. 1881). It must be noticed that the expression "perfect man" used in this connection does not mean the perfected man or an adept, but a human being who has fully reached the level of humanity in the course of evolutionary progress from the animal kingdom.

According to the original teaching of the "Fragments" the post-mortem career of this principle is something very peculiar. It is stated that if this principle—"spiritual ego"—"has been in life material in its tendencies," it clings blindly to the lower principles and severs its connection with the 7th (p. 19, para. 3). It is further stated that its severance from the 7th principle brings about its dissolution. The author of the "Fragments" writes thus on the subject, "Withdraw the oxygen and the flame ceases. Withdraw the spirit and the spiritual Ego disappears." It is further declared that in such cases the 7th principle passes away "taking with it no fragment of the individual consciousness of the man with which it was temporarily associated." It is also pointed out on the next page that under certain peculiar conditions this principle may remain in combination with the fifth as an elementary. Is Madame H P. Blavatsky prepared to adhere to this original view at present? If so a considerable portion of the subsequent theosophical literature will have to be thrown to the winds. If the spiritual ego, the main seat of consciousness in the so-called "perfect man," is liable to be destroyed whenever the man's tendencies in life happen to be material; if the fifth principle is likewise to be dissolved in Kamaloka, and if the 7th principle carries nothing connected with the individual with it, how is the chain of incarnations kept up and sustained?