uct which will help
them to grow into a purer morality.

Looking, then, at these facts concerning religion, considering its
object, its means, its origin, the nature and varying needs of the
people to whom it is addressed, recognising the evolution of spiritual,
intellectual, and moral faculties in man, and the need of each man for
such training as is suitable for the stage of evolution at which he has
arrived, we are led to the absolute necessity of a varied and graduated
religious teaching, such as will meet these different needs and help
each man in his own place.

There is yet another reason why esoteric teaching is desirable with
respect to a certain class of truths. It is eminently the fact in
regard to this class that "knowledge is power." The public promulgation
of a philosophy profoundly intellectual, sufficient to train an already
highly developed intellect, and to draw the allegiance of a lofty mind,
cannot injure any. It can be preached without hesitation, for it does
not attract the ignorant, who turn away from it as dry, stiff, and
uninteresting. But there are teachings which deal with the constitution
of nature, explain recondite laws, and throw light on hidden processes,
the knowledge of which gives control over natural energies, and enables
its possessor to direct these energies to certain ends, as a chemist
deals with the production of chemical compounds. Such knowledge may be
very useful to highly developed men, and may much increase their power
of serving the race. But if this knowledge were published to the world,
it might and would be misused, just as the knowledge of subtle poisons
was misused in the Middle Ages by the Borgias and by others. It would
pass into the hands of people of strong intellect, but of unregulated
desires, men moved by separative instincts, seeking the gain of their
separate selves and careless of the common good. They would be attracted
by the idea of gaining powers which would raise them above the general
level, and place ordinary humanity at their mercy, and would rush to
acquire the knowledge which exalts its possessors to a superhuman rank.
They would, by its possession, become yet more selfish and confirmed in
their separateness, their pride would be nourished and their sense of
aloofness intensified, and thus they would inevitably be driven along
the road which leads to diabolism, the Left Hand Path, whose goal is
isolation and not union. And they would not only thems