the meager ghost to walks
of light," and want, on the strength of this feat, to be regarded as
full blown Adepts. "Ceremonial Magic" according to the rules mockingly
laid down by Eliphas Levi, is another imagined _alter ego_ of the
philosophy of the Arhats of old. In short, the prisms through which
Occultism appears, to those innocent of the philosophy, are as
multicolored and varied as human fancy can make them.

Will these candidates to Wisdom and Power feel very indignant if told
the plain truth? It is not only useful, but it has now become
_necessary_ to disabuse most of them and before it is too late. This
truth may be said in a few words: There are not in the West half-a-dozen
among the fervent hundreds who call themselves "Occultists," who have
even an approximately correct idea of the nature of the Science they
seek to master. With a few exceptions, they are all on the highway to
Sorcery. Let them restore some order in the chaos that reigns in their
minds, before they protest against this statement. Let them first learn
the true relation in which the Occult Sciences stand to Occultism, and
the difference between the two, and then feel wrathful if they still
think themselves right. Meanwhile, let them learn that Occultism differs
from Magic and other secret Sciences as the glorious Sun does from a
rush-light, as the immutable and immortal Spirit of Man--the reflection
of the absolute, causeless, and unknowable all,--differs from the mortal
clay--the human body.

In our highly civilized West, where modern languages have been formed,
and words coined, in the wake of ideas and thoughts--as happened with
every tongue--the more the latter became materialized in the cold
atmosphere of Western selfishness and its incessant chase after the
goods of this world, the less was there any need felt for the production
of new terms to express that which was tacitly regarded as obsolete and
exploded "superstition." Such words could answer only to ideas which a
cultured man was scarcely supposed to harbor in his mind. "Magic," a
synonym for jugglery; "Sorcery," an equivalent for crass ignorance; and
"Occultism," the sorry relic of crack-brained, medieval
Fire-philosophers, of the Jacob Boehmes and the St. Martins, are
expressions believed more than amply sufficient to cover the whole field
of "thimble-rigging." They are terms of contempt, and used generally
only in reference to the dross and residues of the Dark Ages and its
pr