“The Mind, which we have agreed to call the Human Soul … is a compound in its highest form, of spiritual aspirations, volitions and divine love; and in its lower aspect, of animal desires and terrestrial passions imparted to it by its associations with its vehicle, the seat of all these. It thus stands as a link and a medium between the animal nature of man which its higher reason seeks to subdue, and his divine spiritual nature to which it gravitates, whenever it has the upper hand in its struggle with the inner animal. … It is thus the mind alone – the sole link and medium between the man of earth and the Higher Self – that is the only sufferer, and which is in the incessant danger of being dragged down by those passions that may be reawakened at any moment.”

– H.P. Blavatsky, “Occultism versus the Occult Arts”