they are formed from the substance of the
astral body.(29)

Very definite kinds of meditation act upon the astral body in such manner
that certain psycho-spiritual organs, the so-called "lotus flowers," are
developed. Any proper meditation undertaken with the view of attaining to
imaginative cognition has its effect upon one or another of these
organs.(30)

A regular course of training arranges and orders the separate exercises to
be practised by the occult student, so that these organs may either
simultaneously or consecutively attain their suitable development, and on
this process the student will have to bring much patience and perseverance
to bear. Those, indeed, who are possessed of no more than the average
amount of patience with which man, under ordinary conditions of life is
endowed, will not reach very far. For it takes a long--often a very long
time indeed--before these organs have reached a point at which the occult
student is able to use them for observing things in the higher worlds. At
this point comes what is known as "illumination," in contradistinction to
the "preparation," or "purification," which consists in the practices
undertaken for the formation of these organs. (The term "purification" is
used because in order to reach certain phases of inner life, the pupil
cleanses himself through the corresponding exercises, of that which
belongs to the world of sense observation.)

It is, however, quite possible that before actual illumination, the
student may get repeated "flashes of light" from a higher world. These he
should receive gratefully. Even these can make him a witness of the
spiritual realms. Yet he must not falter should this never be vouchsafed
him during his entire period of preparation, and should its consequent
duration seem all too long to him. Indeed, those who yield to impatience
"because they can as yet see nothing," have not yet acquired the right
attitude toward the higher worlds. Those alone will be in a position to
grasp this who can view the exercises they undertake as an object in
themselves. For this practice is in truth a working on something
psycho-spiritual, namely, on their own astral body; even though they do
not "see," they can "feel" that they are working on the psycho-spiritual
plane. Only when we have a preconceived idea of what we "wish to see," are
we unable to experience this feeling. In that case we may consider as
nothing what is, in reality, of immeasurable impo