"The evolutionary process demands a number of planets, corresponding to the seven principles. On each of these planets a long series of lives is required before a full circuit is made."
"How wildly exciting!" cried Miss Van Tromp. Yamama smiled, indulgently. Then he said:
"Before reaching the perfection attainable, every soul must pass through many minor circuits. We are said to be in the middle of the fifth circuit of our fourth round, and the evolution of this circuit began about a million years ago."
"It knocks the Ferris Wheel silly," I overheard Edgerton mutter to himself, and I felt an unaccountable anger at his flippancy.
"I should so like to ask you a question," faltered Miss Van Tromp, and Yamama bowed his inspired head, resignedly.
"How soon do we come back after we die?"
"When a man dies," answered the adept, in his low, soft, musical voice, "his ego holds the impetus of his earthly desires until they are purged away from that higher self, which then passes into a spiritual state, when all the psychic and spiritual forces it has generated during the earthly life are unfolded. It progresses on those planes until the dormant physical impulses assert themselves, and curve the soul around to another incarnation, whose form is the resultant of the earlier lives."
"That's easy," muttered Edgerton, at my shoulder.
"I've often felt that way," exclaimed Van Tromp, gazing ecstatically at Yamama.
"Are you making converts?" asked Mrs. Edgerton.