integral
part of those aggregates, and what affects either the individual man or
the group (town or nation), reacts the one upon the other. And in this
instance his struggle for goodness jars upon the whole body of badness
in his environment, and draws its fury upon him. If he is content to go
along with his neighbours and be almost as they are--perhaps a little
better or somewhat worse than the average--no one may give him a
thought. But let it be known that he has been able to detect the hollow
mockery of social life, its hypocrisy, selfishness, sensuality, cupidity
and other bad features, and has determined to lift himself up to a
higher level, at once he is hated, and every bad, bigotted, or malicious
nature sends at him a current of opposing will-power. If he is innately
strong he shakes it off, as the powerful swimmer dashes through the
current that would bear a weaker one away. But in this moral battle, if
the Chela has one single hidden blemish--do what he may, it shall and
will be brought to light. The varnish of conventionalities which
"civilization" overlays us all with must come off to the last coat, and
the inner self, naked and without the slightest veil to conceal its
reality, is exposed. The habits of society which hold men to a certain
degree under moral restraint, and compel them to pay tribute to virtue
by seeming to be good whether they are so or not--these habits are apt
to be all forgotten, these restraints to be all broken through under the
strain of Chelaship. He is now in an atmosphere of illusions--Maya.
Vice puts on its most alluring face, and the tempting passions attract
the inexperienced aspirant to the depths of psychic debasement. This is
not a case like that depicted by a great artist, where Satan is seen
playing a game of chess with a man upon the stake of his soul, while the
latter's good angel stands beside him to counsel and assist. For the
strife is in this instance between the Chela's will and his carnal
nature, and Karma forbids that any angel or Guru should interfere until
the result is known. With the vividness of poetic fancy Bulwer Lytton
has idealized it for us in his "Zanoni," a work which will ever be
prized by the occultist while in his "Strange Story" he has with equal
power shown the black side of occult research and its deadly perils.
Chelaship was defined, the other day, by a Mahatma as a "psychic
resolvent, which eats away all dross and leaves only the pure go