Art

of the planet Earth who were then in Babylon and who were gathered there partly by coercion from almost the whole of the planet by the mentioned Persian king, and partly voluntarily on account of the already mentioned famous question of the ‘soul,’ there were several among the beings brought there by coercion who were not, like the majority, learned beings of ‘new formation,’ but who, with a sincerity proceeding from their separate spiritualized parts, strove for High Knowledge only with the aim of self-perfection.

“Owing to their genuine and sincere striving, to the corresponding manner of their existence and to their be- ing-acts, these several terrestrial beings had already, even before their arrival in Babylon, been considered initiates of the first degree by those terrestrial three-brained be- ings worthy to become what are called ‘All-the-Rights- Possessing-Initiates-according-to-the-renewed-rules-of- the-Most-Saintly-Ashiata-Shiemash.’

“And thus, my boy, when I began going to the said club, it became quite clear to me, both from the conversations with them and from other data, that these several terrestrial learned beings who sincerely strove to perfect their Reason had from the beginning kept to themselves in the city of Babylon, and never mixed in any of those affairs with which the general mass of these Babylonian learned beings there of that time very soon became involved.

“These several learned beings kept themselves apart there, not only in the beginning when all the other learned beings who were then in the city of Babylon first opened a central place for their meetings in the very heart of the city, and when for their better mutual support both materially and morally, they founded there a central club for all the learned beings of the Earth; but also later on, when the whole body of learned beings was divided into three separate ‘sections’ and each section had its inde- pendent club in one or another part of the city of Babylon, they identified themselves with none of the said three sections.