ds planted and reared with toil in a former birth. So
also the powers of the psychic man may be inborn, a delusive harvest
from seeds of delusion.

Psychical powers may be gained by drugs, as poverty, shame,
debasement may be gained by the self-same drugs. In their action, they
are baneful, cutting the man off from consciousness of the restraining
power of his divine nature, so that his forces break forth exuberant,
like the laughter of drunkards, and he sees and hears things delusive.
While sinking, he believes that he has risen; growing weaker, he thinks
himself full of strength; beholding illusions, he takes them to be true.
Such are the powers gained by drugs; they are wholly psychic, since
the real powers, the spiritual, can never be so gained.

Incantations are affirmations of half-truths concerning spirit and
matter, what is and what is not, which work upon the mind and slowly
build up a wraith of powers and a delusive well-being. These, too, are
of the psychic realm of dreams.

Lastly, there are the true powers of the spiritual man, built up and
realized in Meditation, through reverent obedience to spiritual law, to
the pure conditions of being, in the divine realm.

2. The transfer of powers from one venture to another comes through
the flow of the natural creative forces.

Here, if we can perceive it, is the whole secret of spiritual birth,
growth and life Spiritual being, like all being, is but an expression of
the Self, of the inherent power and being of Atma. Inherent in the Self
are consciousness and will, which have, as their lordly heritage, the
wide sweep of the universe throughout eternity, for the Self is one
with the Eternal. And the consciousness of the Self may make itself
manifest as seeing, hearing, tasting, feeling, or whatsoever perceptive
powers there may be, just as the white sunlight may divide into
many-coloured rays. So may the will of the Self manifest itself in the
uttering of words, or in handling, or in moving, and whatever powers
of action there are throughout the seven worlds. Where the Self is,
there will its powers be. It is but a question of the vesture through
which these powers shall shine forth. And wherever the consciousness
and desire of the ever-creative Self are fixed, there will a vesture be
built up; where the heart is, there will the treasure be also.

Since through ages the desire of the Self has been toward the natural
world, wherein the Self sought to mirror him