"This Hierarchy is composed of Those Who have triumphed over matter, and Who have achieved the goal by the very self-same steps that individuals tread today. These... have wrestled and fought for victory and mastery upon the physical plane, and struggled with the miasmas, the fogs, the dangers, the troubles, the sorrows and pains of everyday living. They have trodden every step of the path of suffering, have undergone every experience, have surmounted every difficulty, and have won out... Their apprehension of the freedom that comes through... the purificatory fires, suffices to give Them a firm hand, an ability to persist even when the form may seem to have undergone a sufficiency of suffering, and a love that triumphs over all setbacks, for it is founded on patience and experience. These Elder Brothers of humanity are characterised by a love which endures, and which acts ever for the good of the group; by a knowledge which has been gained through a millennia of lives, in which They have worked Their way from the bottom of life and of evolution well nigh to the top; by an experience which is based on time itself and a multiplicity of personality reactions and interactions; by a courage which is a result of that experience, and which, having itself been produced by ages of endeavour, failure, and renewed endeavour, and having in the long run led to triumph, can now be placed at the service of the [human] race-"