It should be very clearly remembered by all readers of this volume that it is a book which may appear to have some little philosophy in it, but very little sense, to those who believe it to be written in ordinary English.  To the many, who read in this manner it will be—­not caviare so much as olives strong of their salt.  Be warned and read but a little in this way.

There is another way of reading, which is, indeed, the only one of any use with many authors.  It is reading, not between the lines but within the words.  In fact, it is deciphering a profound cipher.  All alchemical works are written in the cipher of which I speak; it has been used by the great philosophers and poets of all time.  It is used systematically by the adepts in life and knowledge, who, seemingly giving out their deepest wisdom, hide in the very words which frame it its actual mystery.  They cannot do more.  There is a law of nature which insists that a man shall read these mysteries for himself.  By no other method can he obtain them.  A man who desires to live must eat his food himself:  this is the simple law of nature—­which applies also to the higher life.  A man who would live and act in it cannot be fed like a babe with a spoon; he must eat for himself.

I propose to put into new and sometimes plainer language parts of “Light on the Path”; but whether this effort of mine will really be any interpretation I cannot say.  To a deaf and dumb man, a truth is made no more intelligible if, in order to make it so, some misguided linguist translates the words in which it is couched into every living or dead language, and shouts these different phrases in his ear.  But for those who are not deaf and dumb one language is generally easier than the rest; and it is to such as these I address myself.

The very first aphorisms of “Light on the Path,” included under Number I, have, I know well, remained sealed as to their inner meaning to many who have otherwise followed the purpose of the book.

There are four proven and certain truths with regard to the entrance to occultism.  The Gates of Gold bar that threshold; yet there are some who pass those gates and discover the sublime and illimitable beyond.  In the far spaces of Time all will pass those gates.  But I am one who wish that Time, the great deluder, were not so over-masterful.  To those who know and love him I have no word to say; but to the others—­and there are not so very few as some may fancy—­to whom the passage of Time is as the stroke of a sledge-hammer, and the sense of Space like the bars of an iron cage, I will translate and re-translate until they understand fully.