For occult philosophy is no shadowy system of speculation like any of the hundred philosophies with which the minds of men have been overwhelmed; it is the positive Truth, and by the time enough of it is let out, it will be seen to be so by thousands of the greatest men who may then be living in the world.  What will be the consequence?  The first effect on the minds of all who come to understand it, is terribly iconoclastic.  It drives out before it everything else in the shape of religious belief.  It leaves no room for any conceptions belonging even to the groundwork or foundation of ordinary religious faith.  And what becomes then of all rules of right and wrong, of all sanctions for morality?  Most assuredly there are rules of right and wrong thrilling through every fibre of occult philosophy really higher than any which commonplace theologies can teach; far more cogent sanctions for morality than can be derived at second-hand from the distorted doctrines of exoteric religions; but a complete transfer of the sanction will be a process involving the greatest possible danger for mankind at the time.  Bigots of all denominations will laugh at the idea of such a transfer being seriously considered.  The orthodox Christian—­confident in the thousand of churches overshadowing all western lands, of the enormous force engaged in the maintenance and propagation of the faith, with the Pope and the Protestant hierarchy in alliance for this broad purpose, with the countless clergy of all sects, and the fiery Salvation Army bringing up the rear—­will think that the earth itself is more likely to crumble into ruin than the irresistible authority of Religion to be driven back.  They are all counting, however, without the progress of enlightenment.  The most absurd religions die hard; but when the intellectual classes definitively reject them, they die, with throes of terrible agony, may be, and, perhaps, like Samson in the Temple, but they cannot permanently outlive a conviction that they are false in the leading minds of the age.  Just what has been said of Christianity may be said of Mahomedanism and Brahminism.  Little or no risk is run while occult literature aims merely at putting a reasonable construction on perverted tenets—­in showing people that truth may lurk behind even the strangest theologic fictions.  And the lover of orthodoxy, in either of the cases instanced, may welcome the explanation with complacency.  For him also, as for the Christian, the faith which he professes—­ sanctioned by what looks like a considerable antiquity to the very limited vision of uninitiated historians, and supported by the attachment of millions grown old in its service and careful to educate their children in the convictions that have served their turn—­is founded on a rock which has its base in the foundations of the world.  Fragmentary teachings of occult philosophy seem at first to be no more than annotations on the canonical doctrine.  They may even embellish it