This law is discovered as soon as the disciple endeavors to speak.  For speech is a gift which comes only to the disciple of power and knowledge.  The spiritualist enters the psychic-astral world, but he does not find there any certain speech, unless he at once claims it and continues to do so.  If he is interested in “phenomena,” or the mere circumstance and accident of astral life, then he enters no direct ray of thought or purpose, he merely exists and amuses himself in the astral life as he has existed and amused himself in the physical life.  Certainly there are one or two simple lessons which the psychic-astral can teach him, just as there are simple lessons which material and intellectual life teach him.  And these lessons have to be learned; the man who proposes to enter upon the life of the disciple without having learned the early and simple lessons must always suffer from his ignorance.  They are vital, and have to be studied in a vital manner; experienced through and through, over and over again, so that each part of the nature has been penetrated by them.

To return.  In claiming the power of speech, as it is called, the Neophyte cries out to the Great One who stands foremost in the ray of knowledge on which he has entered, to give him guidance.  When he does this, his voice is hurled back by the power he has approached, and echoes down to the deep recesses of human ignorance.  In some confused and blurred manner the news that there is knowledge and a beneficent power which teaches is carried to as many men as will listen to it.  No disciple can cross the threshold without communicating this news, and placing it on record in some fashion or other.

He stands horror-struck at the imperfect and unprepared manner in which he has done this; and then comes the desire to do it well, and with the desire thus to help others comes the power.  For it is a pure desire, this which comes upon him; he can gain no credit, no glory, no personal reward by fulfilling it.  And therefore he obtains the power to fulfil it.

The history of the whole past, so far as we can trace it, shows very plainly that there is neither credit, glory, nor reward to be gained by this first task which is given to the Neophyte.  Mystics have always been sneered at, and seers disbelieved; those who have had the added power of intellect have left for posterity their written record, which to most men appears unmeaning and visionary, even when the authors have the advantage of speaking from a far-off past.  The disciple who undertakes the task, secretly hoping for fame or success, to appear as a teacher and apostle before the world, fails even before his task is attempted, and his hidden hypocrisy poisons his own soul, and the souls of those he touches.  He is secretly worshiping himself, and this idolatrous practice must bring its own reward.