away from the main
trip covered in these lessons.

I trust that my students will find the pleasure and satisfaction in
studying these lessons that I have in writing them.

SWAMI PANCHADASI.

LESSON I.

THE ASTRAL SENSES.

The student of occultism usually is quite familiar with the crass
individual who assumes the cheap skeptical attitude toward occult matters,
which attitude he expresses in his would-be "smart" remark that he
"believes only in what his senses perceive." He seems to think that his
cheap wit has finally disposed of the matter, the implication being that
the occultist is a credulous, "easy" person who believes in the existence
of things contrary to the evidence of the senses.

While the opinion or views of persons of this class are, of course,
beneath the serious concern of any true student of occultism, nevertheless
the mental attitude of such persons are worthy of our passing
consideration, inasmuch as it serves to give us an object lesson regarding
the childlike attitude of the average so-called "practical" persons
regarding the matter of the evidence of the senses.

These so-called practical persons have much to say regarding their senses.
They are fond of speaking of "the evidence of my senses." They also have
much to say about the possession of "good sense" on their part; of having
"sound common sense"; and often they make the strange boast that they have
"horse sense," seeming to consider this a great possession. Alas, for the
pretensions of this class of persons. They are usually found quite
credulous regarding matters beyond their everyday field of work and
thought, and accept without question the most ridiculous teachings and
dogmas reaching them from the voice of some claimed authority, while they
sneer at some advanced teaching which their minds are incapable of
comprehending. Anything which seems unusual to them is deemed "flighty,"
and lacking in appeal to their much prized "horse sense."

But, it is not my intention to spend time in discussing these
insignificant half-penny intellects. I have merely alluded to them in
order to bring to your mind the fact that to many persons the idea of
"sense" and that of "senses" is very closely allied. They consider all
knowledge and wisdom as "sense;" and all such sense as being derived
directly from their ordinary five senses. They ignore almost completely
the intuitional phases of the mind, and are unaware of many of the higher
pro