All Religions have an esoteric basis beneath their exoteric form, and it is this which has so largely disappeared. Religions as they are do not satisfy the needs of human aspiration, for they leave out so large a part of what vitally concerns man. They are confined chiefly to ethical principles, but tell us nothing about the nature of the universe or the nature of man. Falling thus behind the age, they have allowed to grow up competing influences, such as natural science and abstract philosophy; and so we find the field of knowledge, which should be one, divided into compartments, either independent of each other or else conflicting.

The false antithesis between morals and knowledge, religion and science, righteousness and culture, has been one of the great banes of religion. A unification of the field of knowledge is much desired; a uniform law by which to live; a solid basis for ethics, morals, conduct, instead of dogmas which we cannot believe, or speculation and fads and cults innumerable. A man's real religion is what he lives by--whatever he may profess. Thus the real unification of religions is found, not by trying to force an external union, or by eliminating from them all points of difference and thus leaving a weak residue, but by getting back to the esoteric basis of religions and showing the common parentage of them all; in short, by reviving a knowledge of the ancient Wisdom-Religion--or Theosophy.

1. The Birth (at Bethlehem)
2. The Baptism (in Jordan)
3. The Transfiguration (on Mount Carmel)
4. The Crucifixion (on Mount Golgotha)
5. The Resurrection and Ascension

Through these five stages on the Way, we follow the Master from Bethlehem to Calvary. These experiences are both symbolic and actual, setting guideposts along the way of the disciple. They exemplify the experience of the human soul through the five stages of its spiritual journey and can be invaluable to individual man facing the vast span of the same five-fold experience.