who does not see this closes his eyes to
the problems which obviously spring up everywhere out of the facts of the
sense-world. He refuses to recognize certain questions and problems, and
therefore thinks that all questions can be answered through facts within
reach of sense perception. The questions which he is willing to ask are
all capable of being answered by the facts which he is convinced will be
discovered in the course of time. Every genuine occultist admits this. But
why should one, when he asks no questions, expect answers on certain
subjects? The occult scientist says that to him such questioning is
natural, and must be regarded as a wholly justifiable expression of the
human soul. Science is surely not to be confined within limits which
prohibit impartial inquiry.

The opinion that there are bounds to human knowledge which it is
impossible to pass, compelling man to stop short of the invisible world,
is thus met by the occult scientist: he says that there can exist no doubt
concerning the impossibility of penetrating into the unseen world by means
of the kind of cognition here meant. One who considers it the only kind
can come to no other opinion than that man is not permitted to penetrate
into a possibly existing higher world. But the occult scientist goes on to
say that it is possible to develop a different sort of cognition, and that
this leads into the unseen world. If this kind of cognition is held to be
impossible, we arrive at a point of view from which any mention of an
invisible world appears as sheer nonsense. But to an unbiased judgment
there can be no basis for such an opinion as this, except that its
adherent is a stranger to that other kind of cognition. But how can a
person form an opinion about a subject of which he declares himself
ignorant? Occult science must in this case maintain the principle that
people should speak only of what they know, and should not make assertions
about anything of which they are ignorant. It can only recognize every
man's right to communicate his own experiences, not every man's right to
declare the impossibility of what he does not, or will not, know. The
occult scientist disputes no one's right to ignore the invisible world;
but there can be no real reason why a person should declare himself an
authority, not only on what he may know, but also on things considered
unknowable.

To those who say that it is presumption to penetrate into unseen regions,
the occult