To this subjective consciousness, which is the _first_ degree, is, after a time, added that of clairaudience. This is the _second_ degree or stage of development. The sensitive--when not naturally made so by psychological training--now audibly hears, but is still unable to discern; and is incapable of verifying his impressions, and one who is unprotected the tricky powers of the air but too often delude with semblances of voices and speech. But the guru’s influence is there; it is the most powerful shield against the intrusion of the _bhutná_ into the atmosphere of the vatou, consecrated to the pure, human, and celestial Pitris. The _third_ degree is that when the fakir or any other candidate both feels, hears, and sees; and when he can at will produce the _reflections_ of the Pitris on the mirror of astral light. All depends upon his psychological and mesmeric powers, which are always proportionate to the intensity of his _will_. But the fakir will never control the Akasa, the spiritual life-principle, the omnipotent agent of every phenomenon, in the same degree as an adept of the third and highest initiation. And the phenomena produced by the will of the latter do not generally run the market-places for the satisfaction of open-mouthed investigators. The unity of God, the immortality of the spirit, belief in salvation only through our works, merit and demerit; such are the principal articles of faith of the Wisdom-religion, and the ground work of Vedaism, Buddhism, Parsism, and such we find to have been even that of the ancient Osirism, when we, after abandoning the popular sun-god to the materialism of the rabble, confine our attention to the _Books of Hermes_, the thrice-great. “The THOUGHT concealed as yet the world in silence and darkness.... Then the Lord who exists through Himself, and _who is not to be divulged to the external senses of man_; dissipated darkness, and manifested the perceptible world.” “He that can be perceived only by the spirit, that escapes the organs of sense, who is without visible parts, eternal, the soul of all beings, that none can comprehend, displayed His own splendor” (_Manu_, book i., slokas, 6-7). Such is the ideal of the Supreme in the mind of every Hindu philosopher. “Of all the duties, the principal one is to acquire the knowledge of the supreme soul (the spirit); it is the first of all sciences, _for it alone confers on man immortality_” (_Manu_, book xii., sloka 85). And our scientists talk of the Nirvana of Buddha and the Moksha of Brahma as of a complete annihilation! It is thus that the following verse is interpreted by some materialists. “The man who recognizes the _Supreme Soul_, in his own soul, as well as in that of all creatures, and who is equally just to all (whether man or animals) obtains the happiest of all fates, that to be finally _absorbed_ in the bosom of Brahma” (_Manu_, book xii., sloka 125).