If we believe the Bible it is only the physical or third man-- the house in which we have lived while on the earth, and in this particular incarnation--that dies, the soul and mind continuing to live on under conditions in which there is no further need for a house or means of contact with environment.

Now it is essential that this third man be in good condition at all times, for he is the only means of expression of the second man, just as the second man is the only means of expression of the first man, the individual.

The intelligence of the second man, or the instinct or subconscious supervision of the first man, should be sufficient to keep this third man in order, and would be were the man in a normal environment, untouched by custom or habits; but the trouble is that this man has formed habits that largely govern his actions at all times, and when these habits have gradually led him into wrong methods of refuelling his machine, he is up against the problem of either changing these or suffering frequent readjustments. He gets his internal works so badly mussed up and badly clogged with debris that this third man is not in condition to express adequately the higher possibilities that the second man wishes.

You are no doubt familiar with the parable in the Bible of the man who left his house and went into a far country, and when he returned he found it empty, swept and furnished anew; but he took unto himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, or than he had formerly been, and the last state of that man was worse than the first.

It is even so with our triune man, for during acute illness of severe character when he nearly approaches the end, he leaves the body and travels into a far country, during the delirium of a severe typhoid or pneumonia, perhaps, and when he returns to his house, he verily finds it empty, swept clear of waste and newly garnished. Yet, what does he do? Even as the foolish man in the parable, for he celebrates his return to health by a jollification that reduces him to a still worse state than before; not always, but too often.

If he would but seize on this opportunity as a new start he would be in wonderfully better case than before his departure to the far country.

Cases might be recited literally by the thousands to prove that the last state is better than the first for a time, but ultimately the last state is worse than the first, always from a return to the causes that made the first state bad.

If this parable was not meant to illustrate man in his triune relationship to himself it at least furnishes a splendid parallel, for it is even so to this very day.

Truly if one part suffers all the other parts also suffer, and if the physical man suffers so does the second or mental man, and through the suffering of these two the higher self also suffers.

Only a nearly normal body can adequately express the wishes of the mind, as only a mind freed from the handicap of an abnormal body fully expresses the higher aspirations of the first man, the soul.

There is a law of the great mass law of compensation, or a tenet of this great law, that provides that in so far as one body acts on another, in just so far is this reacted on by the other; that is, action and reaction are always equal.

If it is true that the spiritual man is reflected on the mental state, as we all know to be the case; if it is true that the mental state is reflected on the physical, as we all know to be the case, as where the physical man is literally wrecked by mental stresses, then it must be true that the reaction is equal the other way around.

It must be true that the physical man reacts on the mental and the mental on the spiritual, else this great law is a myth.

It is true, as we can verify by watching the effect on the mind of purely physical states, instances of which must easily occur to any one.

Now do you see the connection between an inferior physique and crime?

Keep in mind that action and reaction are ALWAYS equal, and you will never forget that the state of the body reflects on the state of the mind, just as surely as vice versa.

Now here is where this arrangement of a trinity of individual and yet unanimous entities works out wholly in favor of the man.

We have the physical state absolutely under our own control and will to do with as we choose, else we would not be men and women, and working through this controllable physical man we can achieve every sort of mental and spiritual regeneration as we choose.

We can choose to treat the body in such a way as to bring it to a normal perfect working machine, a fit temple for the mind and spirit, and we can steadfastly stick to this till we have proved it.

It is pitiable to watch the struggles of a conscientious young man who very much wishes to be good, yet whose bodily desires are making of his fight a tragedy, when all the time the thing that stands in his way is a very imperfect body, one that carries waste of such character as to impose continually on his mental and spiritual parts a handicap that is all but insuperable. He should go into a far country and stay a while; then when he returns he should accept the improved conditions with thanks and seek to improve still further on them, instead of returning to even worse conditions than before.

All the desires of life are the result of habit or training, with the two exceptions of feeding and the sex relation, which are common to all animate life, and these being fundamental to the species are to be respected as necessary parts of our existence, the things by which the race perpetuates itself.

Only in these two things are we free to consider ourselves privileged to follow desire, but (and here's the rub) these very fundamental desires are the surest to undo us if they too are allowed to fall into habit.

Habit should be rigidly separated from both of these vital functions, for we should take nourishment when we need it, not when habit dictates the hour or the menu, and the sex relation is wholly for the propagation of the species, not something to be gratified ad libitum.