In his intuition, therefore, the occult student possesses something which shows him the pure, clear reality of the psycho-spiritual world. And if he applies this recognized test to all that meets his observation in the realm of psycho-spiritual realities, he will be well able to distinguish appearance from reality. He may also feel sure that the application of this law provides just as effectually against delusions in the spiritual world as does the knowledge in the physical world that an _imaginary_ piece of red-hot iron cannot burn him. It is obvious that this test applies only to our own experiences in the supersensible world, and not to communications made to us which we have to apprehend by means of our physical understanding and our healthy sense of truth. The occult student should exert himself to draw a distinct line of demarcation between the knowledge he acquires by the one means, and by the other. He should be ready on one the hand to accept communications made to him regarding the higher worlds, and should seek to understand them by using his powers of judgment. When, however, he is confronted by an “experience,” which he may so name because it is due to personal observation, he will first carefully test the same to ascertain whether it possesses exactly those characteristics which he has learned to recognize by means of infallible intuition. ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ The meeting with the Guardian of the Threshold being over, the occult student will have to face other new experiences, and the first thing that he will become aware of is the inner connection which exists between this Guardian of the Threshold and that soul-power we have already characterized, when describing the cleavage of personality, as being the seventh power to resolve itself into an independent entity. This seventh entity is, indeed, in certain respects no other than the double, or Guardian of the Threshold itself, and it lays a particular task upon the student. Namely, that which he is in his lower self and which now appears to him in the image, he must guide and lead by means of the new-born higher self. This will result in a sort of battle with this double, which will continually strive for the upper hand. Now to establish the right relationship to it, to allow it to do nothing except what takes place under the influence of the new-born ego, this is what strengthens and fortifies man’s forces.