Of Avitchi, the Eighth Sphere, commonly known as Hell, many things must remain hidden in the secret arcanum of the Initiates; but, during the years of a general Judgment like that which the World is now in the midst of, some few particulars may be given out as a warning, if nothing more.

Avitchi is both a locality and a condition. During terrestrial life, one may be in the condition through conjunction with Avitchi, but only the discarnate few gravitate to the locality. To locate the Eighth Sphere, one should first know that our seven-fold world, or globe chain, is a septenary of concentric spheres; the highest and purest being of largest girth, and so ethereal that it penetrates every lower sphere.

Down to the physical, these spheres are of increasing densities. Evidently the sixth sphere penetrates all below, as so in their order do the others, the physical excepted. While the physical earth is the smallest and densest of the seven, a shrunken astral sphere, much smaller than the physical, is hidden far beneath the crust of the world.

In the descent from the apex of the Atmic globe, the lowest arc of man's true orbit never reaches the Eighth Sphere, the outward shapes of whose denizen have so far conformed to their evil minds that no human mother could give them birth. Were our evolution an eight-fold one, that sphere would participate in the scheme of progression. Being outside the scheme, it necessarily is the fit and only abode of actual failures.

Because the heart-center of the highest sphere of the septenary is located at the point which marks the center of Avitchi, it is evident that Divine Love reaches down to the most deplorable conditions. This two-fold condition of heart-centers is duplicated by the heart of man, and that of the universe.

Imprisoned beneath the Earth's crust, the souls in Avitchi (that place of dense and impure astral matter) are not conscious of those material fires which often seek outlet at the surface; but the sulphurous fumes from that vast burning penetrate the Eighth Sphere, thus making it a place of bad odors. In many ways, Swedenborg's conception of the hells does not differ from ours, but, concerning their duration, we take issue with his teachings. If the hells are eternal, why, according to Peter, did Christ preach to the spirits there imprisoned?

In a former teaching we spoke of the non-elect of the Pauline doctrine. Evidently these eventually would gravitate to the Eighth Planet where a more fundamental manifestation of the Christos would reach down and redeem them. When, after his crucifixion, Christ descended to the Eighth Sphere, it was because there alone he could accomplish - though but for a brief period - that more fundamental manifestation. Whom then he aided, and to what degree, is a mystery revealed only to high Initiates.

In respect to the non-elect, let us add a teaching never before made public. After a very large per cent of the above-mentioned failures have gravitated to the Eighth Planet, certain incorrigibles will remain with our planet even when, like the moon, it swings a mere corpse in the sky. This because no manifestation of the Christos possible at this stage of cosmic evolution can reach them.

The dead moon has an Avitchi, and a certain evil luna magnetism is centered therein. Sufferers from acute mania, and the victims of alcohol and drugs, often are in the baleful currents from the Avitchis of both the moon and the earth.

Now what is the fate of the few, fortunately the very few, doomed to remain in the Avitchi of our globe chain? With total loss of self-consciousness, they will pass to a solar system more material in its scheme, or else they must await the death and rebirth of our own ten-fold system of sun and planets. This would mean to them the loss of what, in the Secret Science, is termed seven eternities. But, as compensation, they would, because of certain experiences, be among the foremost in the evolution of an immeasurably remote world period.

H.