We Were Born Before The Wind

Van Morrison; Into the Mystic

Thus the scientific theories of the ancients, expounded in the Mysteries, as to the origin
of the soul, its descent, its sojourn here below, and its return, were not a mere barren contemplation of the nature of the world,
and of the intelligent beings existing there.
They were not an idle speculation as to the order of the world, and about the soul, but a study of the means for arriving at the great object proposed, the perfecting of the soul; and, as a necessary consequence, that of morals and society. This Earth, to them, was not the Soul's home, but its place of exile. Heaven was its home, and there was its birth-place. To it, it ought incessantly to turn its eyes. Man was not a terrestrial plant. His roots were
in Heaven. The soul had lost its wings, clogged by the viscosity of matter.
It would recover them when it extricated itself from matter
and commenced its upward flight.
--Albert Pike
Morals And Dogma