this direction has the effect of enlarging the life of the soul. Yet here
again certain peculiarities may arise which are of themselves dangerous.
One who accustoms himself to a perpetual disregarding of his judgment,
owing to this or that "premonition," would easily become a shuttle-cock
tossed at the mercy of every kind of undefined impulse; indeed, it is not
a far cry from such habitual indecision to a state of absolute
superstition.

Every superstition is disastrous to the student of occult science. The
possibility of gaining admission, by legitimate means, to the realms of
the spiritual life must depend upon a careful exclusion of all
superstition, phantasy, and dreaming. One who is pleased at having had a
certain experience which cannot be grasped by human reason will not
approach the spiritual world in the right manner. No partiality for the
"inexplicable" will ever make one qualified for discipleship of the
Spirit. Indeed the pupil should utterly discard the notion that a true
mystic is one who is always ready to surmise the presence of what cannot
be explained or explored. The right way is to be prepared to recognize on
all hands hidden forces and hidden beings, yet at the same time to assume
that what is "unexplored" today will be able to be explored when the
requisite ability has been developed.

There is a certain mood of soul which it is important for the pupil to
maintain at every stage of his development. He should not let his urge for
higher knowledge lead him to keep on aiming to get answers to particular
questions. Rather should he continually be asking: How am I to develop the
needed faculties within myself? For when by dint of patient inner work
some faculty develops in him, he will receive the answer to some of his
questions. Genuine pupils of the Spirit will always take pains to
cultivate this attitude of soul. They will thereby be encouraged to work
upon themselves, that they may become ever more and more mature in spirit,
and they will abjure the desire to extort answers to particular questions.
They will _wait_ until such time as the answers come.

Here again, however, there is the possibility of a one-sidedness, which
may prevent the pupil from going forward in the way he should. For at some
moment he may quite rightly feel that _according to the measure of his
powers_ he can answer for himself even questions of the highest order.
Thus at every turn moderation and balance play an essential pa