312 ROSICRUCIANCOSMO-CONCEPTION
steps in evolution which must be taken, otherwise there will
be no progress for the spirits reborn in them. But, though
necessary steps, they are also extremely dangerous ones, and
are therefore the cause of grave concern to the Leaders of
mankind. They call these sixteen Races “the sixteen paths to
destruction,” because while in previous Epochs the changes
came after such enormous intervals that it was easier to get
the majority of the entities in line for promotion, it is
different with the Races. They are comparatively
evanescent; therefor e extra care must be taken that as few of
the spirits as possible become enmeshed in the fetters of
Race.
This is exactly what happened to the spirits reborn in the
Jewish Race-bodies. They attached themselves so firmly to
the Race that they are drawn back into it in successive
births. “Once a Jew, always a Jew” is their slogan. They
have entirely forgotten their spiritual nature and glory in the
material fact of being “Abraham's seed.” Therefore they are
neither “fish nor flesh.” They have no part in the advancing
Aryan Race and yet they are beyond those remnants of the
Lemurian and Atlantean peoples which are still with us.
They have become a people without a country, an anomaly
among mankind.
Because of their bondage to the Race-idea, their one-
time Leader was forced to abandon them, and they became
“lost.” That they might cease to regard themselves as
separate from other peoples, other nations were stirred up
against them at various times by the Leaders of humanity
and they were led captive from the country where they had
settled, but in vain. They stubbornly refused to amalgamate
with others. Again and again they returned in a body to their
arid land. Prophets of their own Race were raised up who