emain sealed. This is the
merciful law. The "medium," or "spiritualist,"
who rushes into the psychic world without
preparation, is a law-breaker, a breaker of
the laws of super-nature. Those who break
Nature's laws lose their physical health; those
who break the laws of the inner life, lose their
psychic health. "Mediums" become mad, suicides,
miserable creatures devoid of moral
sense; and often end as unbelievers, doubters
even of that which their own eyes have seen.
The disciple is compelled to become his own
master before he adventures on this perilous
path, and attempts to face those beings who
live and work in the astral world, and whom
we call masters, because of their great knowledge
and their ability to control not only
themselves but the forces around them.

The condition of the soul when it lives for
the life of sensation as distinguished from that
of knowledge, is vibratory or oscillating, as
distinguished from fixed. That is the nearest
literal representation of the fact; but it is only
literal to the intellect, not to the intuition.
For this part of man's consciousness a different
vocabulary is needed. The idea of "fixed"
might perhaps be transposed into that of "at
home." In sensation no permanent home can
be found, because change is the law of this
vibratory existence. That fact is the first one
which must be learned by the disciple. It is
useless to pause and weep for a scene in a
kaleidoscope which has passed.

It is a very well-known fact, one with which
Bulwer Lytton dealt with great power, that
an intolerable sadness is the very first experience
of the neophyte in Occultism. A sense of
blankness falls upon him which makes the
world a waste, and life a vain exertion. This
follows his first serious contemplation of the
abstract. In gazing, or even in attempting to
gaze, on the ineffable mystery of his own higher
nature, he himself causes the initial trial to
fall on him. The oscillation between pleasure
and pain ceases for--perhaps an instant of
time; but that is enough to have cut him loose
from his fast moorings in the world of sensation.
He has experienced, however briefly, the
greater life; and he goes on with ordinary
existence weighted by a sense of unreality, of
blank, of horrid negation. This was the nightmare
which visited Bulwer Lytton's neophyte
in "Zanoni"; and even Zanoni himself, who
had learned great truths, and been entrusted
with great powers, had not actually passed