The pathway, wide enough
for six people abreast, led by labyrinthine dells to the pagoda of the
sorcerer, which stood in the centre of the garden. The mazes of the
pathway were so numerous that none save the initiated, when once in
the labyrinth, could find their way out again.

It was a weird experience to find myself walking between the master
twin-souls of that subterranean paradise, exploring its many
mysteries.

We arrived in due time at the entrance to a mighty temple at the
further side of the labyrinth, whose bronze door suddenly opened to
receive us, and the sorcerer bade me enter.

Passing through a pillared porch we entered a wide and lofty space
lit by tall windows and a roof of many-colored domes of glass that
threw wonderful lights on the polished aquelium floors of the
building. The light that shone through window and dome was produced by
myriads of electric incandescent lamps that glowed in recesses of the
rock behind each window. This was the inmost shrine of the sorcerer.

As I walked toward the centre of the mysterious temple the sorcerer
inquired if creative magic was cultivated on the outer sphere.

I informed the sorcerer that necromancy, divination, magic,
clairvoyance, esotericism, and theosophy were things known and
practised in many countries. "But," I added, "the idea there is that
of self-abnegation and miracles are only to be performed by ascetics
who practise the most rigid austerities. Men who desire to possess
occult power live in complete solitude, subjecting themselves to cruel
mortifications. They abstain from all fellowship with their kind, they
try to live even without food. They absolutely mourn existence,
avoiding all contact with everything earthly. They hope by renouncing
all the actions of life to enter more and more into the spiritual
existence. They believe they can build up an enormous soul out of the
ruins of the body."

"Do you find that such a method produces a high development of
creative power, love, justice, conscience, truth, temperance, order,
and benevolence?" said the grand sorcerer.

"I cannot say," I replied, "that the devotees to whom I refer are
conspicuous for those qualities, certainly not for a highly active
state of such qualities. Their abnegation develops fanaticism, which
is intemperance itself, and fills them with hate toward those outside
their creed. The starvation of every appetite of pleasure withers up
the appreciation for every form of hum