of dissolution which others endure from a brief moment to a few hours.  The highest Adept is, in fact, dead to, and absolutely unconscious of, the world; he is oblivious of its pleasures, careless of its miseries, in so far as sentimentalism goes, for the stern sense of duty never leaves him blind to its very existence.  For the new ethereal senses opening to wider spheres are to ours much in the relation of ours to the Infinitely Little.  New desires and enjoyments, new dangers and new hindrances arise, with new sensations and new perceptions; and far away down in the mist—­both literally and metaphorically—­is our dirty little earth left below by those who have virtually “gone to join the gods.”

And from this account too, it will be perceptible how foolish it is for people to ask the Theosophist to “procure for them communication with the highest Adepts.”  It is with the utmost difficulty that one or two can be induced, even by the throes of a world, to injure their own progress by meddling with mundane affairs.  The ordinary reader will say:  “This is not god-like.  This is the acme of selfishness.” ....  But let him realize that a very high Adept, undertaking to reform the world, would necessarily have to once more submit to Incarnation.  And is the result of all that have gone before in that line sufficiently encouraging to prompt a renewal of the attempt?

A deep consideration of all that we have written, will also give the Theosophists an idea of what they demand when they ask to be put in the way of gaining practically “higher powers.”  Well, there, as plainly as words can put it, is the path .... can they tread it?

Nor must it be disguised that what to the ordinary mortal are unexpected dangers, temptations and enemies also beset the way of the neophyte.  And that for no fanciful cause, but the simple reason that he is, in fact, acquiring new senses, has yet no practice in their use, and has never before seen the things he sees.  A man born blind suddenly endowed with vision would not at once master the meaning of perspective, but would, like a baby, imagine in one case, the moon to be within his reach, and, in the other, grasp a live coal with the most reckless confidence.

And what, it may be asked, is to recompense this abnegation of all the pleasures of life, this cold surrender of all mundane interests, this stretching forward to an unknown goal which seems ever more unattainable?  For, unlike some of the anthropomorphic creeds, Occultism offers to its votaries no eternally permanent heaven of material pleasure, to be gained at once by one quick dash through the grave.  As has, in fact, often been the case many would be prepared willingly to die now for the sake of the paradise hereafter.  But Occultism gives no such prospect of cheaply and immediately gained infinitude of pleasure, wisdom and existence.  It only promises extensions of these, stretching in successive arches obscured by