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The Need For Lofty Ideals

There is, however, another aspect to occult science as well as its scientific side, and that is the realm of inner experience which experimentation opens up. The gateway into the Unseen can be found by the practical application of its principles, and those who care to fulfill the conditions and take the risk may adventure therein. The powers that the ancient rituals invoked still remain, and are not very far to seek for those who combine knowledge, faith, and courage.

If, however, we desire to essay this adventure, we should remember that the ancient rituals were used as part of a religious system, and that no initiate of the ancient Mystery schools would ever have dreamed of experimenting with them to satisfy his curiosity or love of the marvelous. He approached them with reverence, after strict discipline of character and severe tests of fitness. It was when the lofty ideals fell into abeyance that black magic began.

If we want to penetrate into the deeper issues of occultism, it is not enough that we should approach it out of intellectual curiosity. This will reveal us no more than its outer form. The Occult Path is not so much a subject of study as a way of life. Unless the element of devotion and sacrifice be present, the key will not turn in the lock that opens the door of the Mysteries. Unless we approach the Sacred Science as did the initiates of old, we shall not find in it what they found.

Divine Union

It is not enough that we work for its secrets as men work for the prizes of their profession; we must live for it as men [and women] live for a spiritual ideal. There is only one motive that will take us safely through the labyrinth of astral experience - the desire for light on the path of spiritual development that ends in Divine union. This was the goal of the Mysteries in their noblest form, and it is only by seeking the same goal that we shall be able to enter into them in their higher aspect.

Occult science is a very potent thing, and many people are protected in their researches therein by their own ineptitude. Did they succeed in some of the operations they undertake, their natures, unpurified and undisciplined, would be shattered by the result. It is only because no power comes through that no disaster follows. If we desire to safely to investigate the Mysteries, we must first approach them under their nobler aspect, as part of a system of spiritual regeneration, and only after we have submitted to their discipline and offered the dedication of the lower self to the purposes of the Higher, and had that dedication accepted, can we safely study the magical aspects of occultism which usually attract the unenlightened.

Our intellectual questionings can only find their resolution in spiritual illumination. Occult science, rightly understood, is the link between psychology and religion; it gives the means of a spiritual approach to science, and a scientific approach to the spiritual life. The experiences to which it admits us, rightly understood, form a stairway from rational brain-consciousness, dependent on the five physical senses, to the direct apprehensions of spiritual intuition.

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