it is this ancient atlantean lore which lies behind the vegetarian's insistence upon the necessity for a vegetarian diet - which gives force and truth to this injunction - it is the failure to conform to this wise rule which has brought about the misinterpretations of the astral and akashic records by many of the psychics of the present time and has given rise to the wild and incorrect reading of past lives - only those who have been for ten years strict vegetarians can work thus in what might be called the record aspect of the astral light - when they add to their purified astral and physical bodies the light of reason and illumination of the focused mind (which is very rarely found) then they become accurate interpreters of astral phenomena - their link with the vegetable kingdom is then very close and unbreakable and that link or binding chain will lead them through the door to the scene of their investigations

but unless the goal of a vegetarian diet is this field of service the arguments for its following and for that form of diet are usually futile and of no real moment - from the standpoint of the eternal verities what a man eats or wears are seen in a connotation very different to that of the one-pointed fanatic

knowledge of previous incarnations becomes available when the power to see thought-images is acquired

only those mentally polarized and with the mind under control can regain this knowledge if they so wish - the power to see thought-images only comes through mind control and the mind can only be controlled by the real or spiritual man - it might be asked here what therefore do those people see who are emotional and not mental when they claim to know who they are and to relate the past lives of their friends - they are reading the akashic records and because their mental control and equipment are not adequate they cannot discriminate nor ascertain accurately what they see

the akashic record is like an immense photographic film registering all the desires and earth experiences of our planet - those who perceive it will see pictured thereon:

1. the life experiences of every human being since time began
2. the reactions to experience of the entire animal kingdom
3. the aggregation of the thought-forms of a kamic nature (based on desire) of every human unit throughout time - herein lies the great deception of the records - only a trained occultist can distinguish between actual experience and those astral pictures created by imagination and keen desire
4. the planetary dweller on the threshold with all that appertains to that term and all the aggregations of forms which are to be found in its environment

the trained seer has learnt to dissociate that which pertains to his own aura and the aura of the planet (which is in actuality the akashic record) he can distinguish between those records which are:

1. planetary
2. hierarchical or pertaining to the work of the twelve creative hierarchies as they bring to concretion the plan of the logos
3. imaginative forms - the result of the desire-thought activity of the myriads of men animated by desire for some form of experience or other
4. the historical record pertaining to races nations groups and families in their two great divisions on the physical plane and on the astral
5. it should be borne in mind that every human being belongs to a physical family which constitutes his link with the animal kingdom and also belongs to an astral family - through that affiliation on the upward arc he is linked with his egoic group and on the downward arc with the vegetable kingdom
6. the astrological record or the forms taken on the astral plane under the influence of the planetary forces - these are in two great groups
   1. those forms or pictures in the akasha produced by the inflow of solar force via the planets
   2. those forms or pictures which are produced by the inflow of cosmic force from one or other of the signs of the zodiac - that is - from their corresponding constellations

these points are enumerated to show how impossible it is that the majority of the claims regarding past incarnations can be true - they are the result of a vivid imagination and the assumption that the flashes of astral sight which reveal glimpses of the akashic film give that which pertains to the one who sees - this is not the case any more than the people and activities seen out of any window in a big city reveal to the onlooker his own relatives friends and pursuits