It is interesting here to note, even though it has no bearing on the matter of personal training, that this method, first of a long period of purification and later of energizing scientifically, is the one employed by the guiding hierarchy which stands behind world affairs. Steadily They have been working at the task of clarifying world matter, and bringing about world purification on a large scale. This is the first stage of the work and only became generally possible when man became a more truly thinking entity, during the past few centuries, on a wide level. This purification is going on now in all departments of human existence, for humanity now stands, or rather three-fifths of it stands, on the path of probation. Through welfare and uplift movements and the wide spread of sanitation, the work goes forward [589] on the physical plane; through political upheavals which reveal abuses; through economic discontent which is after all a striving to change that which is undesirable so as to give the human unit conditions of living which will lead to thought and from thought to soul control; through religious propaganda and the efforts of the many organizations and groups throughout the world which hold before the minds of men what I might symbolically call "the hope of Heaven" (using the word "Heaven" as a symbol of perfection and of purity), the work of this stage is going steadily forward. So successful has it been that now the filth and impurities which surround the world soul and which keep humanity from its true expression are known and recognized and there is consequently a steady drive towards betterment. All has been brought to the surface, and the result seems appalling and uncontrollable to those who only see the surface. But underneath, the deep river of purity and truth is flowing strong.

One evidence of the success of the world movement towards pure living and the destruction of that which hinders is that the work of the second stage is now in process of initiation. The hierarchy, for the first time in world history, can now work directly with the centers in the body of humanity. Thus we have now the formation of the new Group of World Workers, who, in their totality throughout the world, constitute the heart center and the "center between the eyebrows" of the etheric body of the human family. Through the one, spiritual life can begin to flow in and vitalize all the centers, and through the other, the vision can be seen and the inner worlds sensed and known.