the
threshold where fear and hope, despair and
joy seem at one moment absolute realities, at
the next mere forms of fancy.

This initial trial is often brought on us by
life itself. For life is after all, the great
teacher. We return to study it, after we have
acquired power over it, just as the master in
chemistry learns more in the laboratory than
his pupil does. There are persons so near the
door of knowledge that life itself prepares
them for it, and no individual hand has to
invoke the hideous guardian of the entrance.
These must naturally be keen and powerful
organizations, capable of the most vivid pleasure;
then pain comes and fills its great duty.
The most intense forms of suffering fall on
such a nature, till at last it arouses from its
stupor of consciousness, and by the force of its
internal vitality steps over the threshold into a
place of peace. Then the vibration of life loses
its power of tyranny. The sensitive nature
must suffer still; but the soul has freed itself
and stands aloof, guiding the life towards its
greatness. Those who are the subjects of Time,
and go slowly through all his spaces, live on
through a long drawn series of sensations, and
suffer a constant mingling of pleasure and of
pain. They do not dare to take the snake of
self in a steady grasp and conquer it, so becoming
divine; but prefer to go on fretting through
divers experiences, suffering blows from the
opposing forces.

When one of these subjects of Time decides
to enter on the path of Occultism, it is this
which is his first task. If life has not taught
it to him, if he is not strong enough to teach
himself and if he has power enough to demand
the help of a master, then this fearful trial,
depicted in Zanoni, is put upon him. The
oscillation in which he lives, is for an instant
stilled; and he has to survive the shock of
facing what seems to him at first sight as the
abyss of nothingness. Not till he has learned
to dwell in this abyss, and has found its peace,
is it possible for his eyes to have become
incapable of tears.

II

"BEFORE THE EAR CAN HEAR, IT MUST
HAVE LOST ITS SENSITIVENESS."

The first four rules of "Light on the Path"
are, undoubtedly, curious though the statement
may seem, the most important in the whole
book, save one only. Why they are so important
is that they contain the vital law, the very
creative essence of the astral man. And it is
only in the astral (or self-illuminated)