s darkening still;
Folly for wisdom, guilt for innocence;
Anguish for rapture, and for hope despair.

And once being mistaken and having acted on their mistakes, most men
shrink from realizing their error, and thus descend deeper and deeper
into the mire. And, although it is the intention that decides primarily
whether _white_ or _black_ magic is exercised, yet the results even of
involuntary, unconscious sorcery cannot fail to be productive of bad
Karma. Enough has been said to show that _sorcery is any kind of evil
influence exercised upon other persons, who suffer, or make other
persons suffer, in consequence_. Karma is a heavy stone splashed in the
quiet waters of Life; and it must produce ever widening circles of
ripples, carried wider and wider, almost _ad infinitum_. Such causes
produced have to call forth effects, and these are evidenced in the just
laws of Retribution.

Much of this may be avoided if people will only abstain from rushing
into practices neither the nature nor importance of which they
understand. No one is expected to carry a burden beyond his strength and
powers. There are "natural-born magicians"; Mystics and Occultists by
birth, and by right of direct inheritance from a series of incarnations
and aeons of suffering and failures. These are passion-proof, so to say.
No fires of earthly origin can fan into a flame any of their senses or
desires; no human voice can find response in their souls, except the
great cry of Humanity. These only may be certain of success. But they
can be met only far and wide, and they pass through the narrow gates of
Occultism because they carry no personal luggage of human transitory
sentiments along with them. They have got rid of the feeling of the
lower personality, paralysed thereby the "astral" animal, and the
golden, but narrow gate is thrown open before them. Not so with those
who have to carry yet for several incarnations the burden of sins
committed in previous lives, and even in their present existence. For
such, unless they proceed with great caution, the golden gate of Wisdom
may get transformed into the wide gate and the broad way "that leadeth
unto destruction," and therefore "many be they that enter in thereby."
This is the Gate of the Occult arts, practised for selfish motives and
in the absence of the restraining and beneficent influence of
Atma-Vidya. We are in the Kali Yuga and its fatal influence is
a thousand-fold more powerful in the Wes