an entity and will fight back for its survival taking every opportunity to

highlight any negative scene or emotion with its presence just at a time
when the disciple is shifting his focus from the outer world to the inner. It
is finally replaced with the birth and steady growth of the "Angel of the
Shining Presence", representing structures in Atma, Buddhi and Manas
being progressively built into the aura through the assiduous efforts of the
disciple in meditation and through his services to mankind and his devotion
to the study of the occult classics. This is the background for the would-be-
initiate. It involves the replacement of old codes of conduct, preconceived or
established ideas that tyrannised the mind of the disciple from his earliest
years and which have been consolidated by his religion and his
education. The individual's Dweller is but part of the gigantic Dweller on
the Threshold of awareness of MANKIND. He draws from the collective
phobias, idiosyncracies and thoughtforms of mankind. In destroying his
own dweller, he performs an act of service to mankind for in so doing he
has also reduced the potency of that huge planetary entity anchored to the
lowest planes of the astral world. This dweller is part of the collective
unconscious described by Professor Carl Jung.*

Dr. Francis Merchant gives a fine exposition of the more esoteric aspects of the
Dionysian philosophy as practised in Greece.

This small country has given the world a multitude of highly significant
myths. Prometheus.. Jason, Hercules, Theseus, Oedipus -- all these names
arouse meaningful associations. There is one Greek divinity, however,
who is rather infrequently discussed although his symbol is greatly
honored in modern society. I speak of Dionysus, who is commonly known
as Bacchus, the god of wine. His modern followers seem to know little of
the god to whom they pay homage.

Only a few stray incidents about Dionysus have come down to us. He
was the son of Jupiter; the wine and the corn were sacred to him. Those
who participated in the rites he instituted attained through ecstasy a
sense of oneness with divinity. King Midas is also as ">ciated with this
god. Having befriended Dionysus, the King was-told to ask for
anything he wanted. He expressed the

* Psychology of Discipleship, pp. 1547.

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