dy" becomes equipped with new instruments of perception and new organs of activity, just as, out of indeterminate livin

evoke in men thoughts and feelings. But under ordinary circumstances a man fails to grasp the importance of these sensations. He hurries on too quickly from impression to impression. What is necessary, therefore, is that he should fix his attention intently and quite consciously upon these phenomena. Wherever he observes expansion and flourishing of a certain kind, he must banish everything else from his soul, and entirely surrender himself for a short time to this o

ry quiet and surrenders himself to that which arises in the soul, he will, in due time, experience many wonderful thoughts and feelings, unknown to him before. Indeed, the more one fixes the attention in such a way, alternately upon something growing, expanding, and flourishing, and upon something else that is fading and decaying, the more vivid will these feelings become. And just as natural forces evolve the physic

he greatest occult results. To him who again and again, systematically and with design, surrenders himself to such feelings, a new world is opened. The "Spiritual" world, the so-called "Astral plane," begins to dawn upon him. Blooming and fading are facts which no longer make indefinite impressions on him, as of old, but instead they form themselves into spiritual lines and figures of which he had previously suspected nothing. And these lines and figures have for the different phenomena different forms. A blooming flower, an animal growing, a decaying tree, evoke in his soul definite lines. The astral plane slowly broadens out before him. I

h his external eyes, he will then be not far from the condition which will enable him to behold things that have no phy

ts himself away from the right road. He ought to look out on the sense-world freshly, with healthy senses and quickened observation, and then to give himself up to

her in the physical world. As long as anyone is not truly permeated with this realization, he will not believe that an evil thought projected from his mind may have as devastating an effect upon other thought forms as that wrought upon physical objects by a bullet shot at random. Such a one will perhaps never allow himself to perform a physically visible action which he considers to be wrong, yet he will not shrink from harboring evil though

bring about a deficiency of emotion. On the contrary, if we regulate our inner life in this manner, we shall speedily find ourselves rich in feelings and in genuine creative imagination. In place of a mere chaos of petty feelings and fantastic trains of thought, there appear significant emotions, and thoughts that are fruitful, and it is emotions and thoughts of this kind that lead a man to "orientation in the higher world." He has entered into the ri

eveals also an inward experience of the animal, either of pain or of pleasure. The student is concerned with the latter aspect of the sound. He must concentrate his whole attention upon it, so that the sound reveals to him something that lies outside of his own soul, and, more than this, must merge himself in this exterior thing. He must closely connect his own emotion with the pleasure or pain communicated to him by means of the sound, and must care nothing whether the sound be pleasant or unpleasant to him,

hisper secrets to the student. What hitherto was merely incomprehensible noise to his soul will become by this means a coherent language of Nature. And whereas, hitherto, he heard sound only from the resonance of so-call

ts, as of itself: In the occult schools these things are systematically practiced. For the sake of practice the student is obliged to listen for a certain period to the most contradictory thoughts, and at the same time to suppress all assent, and more especially all adverse criticism. The point is that in such a way not only all intellectual judgment is silenced, but also all sense of displeasure, denial, or even acceptance. The student must be particularly watchful that such feelings, even if they are not upon the surface, do not still remain lurking in the innermost recesses of his soul. He must listen, for example, to the statements of people who in some respects are far beneath him, and, while so doing, suppress every feeling of greater knowledge or of superiority. It is useful for everyone to listen in this way to children, for even the wisest may learn very much from children. So does it come about that we hear the words of others impersonally, completely divested of our ow

rsonal knowledge. Every sentence of the esoteric wisdom which one hears is adapted to direct the senses to that point which must be attained before the soul can experience a real advance. To the practice of all that has been indicated, must be added an ardent study of what the occult teacher gives out to the world. In all occult schools such a study belongs to the probationary period, and he who would employ other methods will attain no goal if he omits the instructio