The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 3 of 4 The Synthesis of...

It is not true that a man powerful in evil can suddenly be converted and become as powerful for good. His vehicle is too defiled, and he can at best but neutralize the evil, balancing up the bad Karmic causes [pg 585] he has set in motion, at any rate for this incarnation. You cannot take a herring barrel and use it for attar of roses: the wood is too soaked through with the drippings. When evil impulses and tendencies have become impressed on the physical nature, they cannot at once be reversed. The molecules of the body have been set in a Kâmic direction, and though they have sufficient intelligence to discern between things on their own plane, i.e., to avoid things harmful to themselves, they cannot understand a change of direction, the impulse to which is from another plane. If they are forced too violently, disease, madness or death will result.