Lucifer: A Theosophical Magazine. Volume I. September 1887-February 1888.Various
Religion
Lucifer: A Theosophical Magazine. Volume I. September 1887-February 1888.
Various
Theosophy -- Periodicals
Any fairly considerable acquaintance with the literature of occult
research—including in that broad designation records of any
supermaterial phenomena—will put any man in a position in which he
must either believe in the existence of the invisible world, or
discover that he is an irrational being, whose “convictions” are
merely acts of submission to the decrees of the multitude. And
then, for most of those who perceive that they must believe, or
who find that they cannot continue to disbelieve, some personal
contact with some phases of the invisible world will probably
follow in the sequence of events; because, once _believing_—once
saturated with a complete conviction that there are other planes
of Nature—these will present themselves to the mind as so
interesting, that it becomes worth while to take trouble in order
to get the gratification of beholding their phenomena in some way
or other; and then success will sooner or later be attained. While
people merely think “there _may be_ an invisible world, let us try
if we can find it out,” they are easily baffled by failure. They
draw one or two covers “blank” and retire from the effort
declaring “there is nothing to be discovered; it is all a
delusion.” The man who has read and assimilated what he has read
is, as we have said above, saturated with a conviction on the
subject. His state of mind remains unaffected by personal failure;
and still impelled by the fascination of the idea, he will try
again and again till he succeeds. When anyone says, “I _wish_ I
could see something out of the common way, but I never have any
luck in such things,” the answer is: “Then you certainly do not
wish _much_.” Probably such people do not wish enough to take the
trouble merely to study. What they wish is that conclusive
phenomena demonstrating the existence of the invisible world
should always be on view at some London theatre, where inquirers
might go without liability to disappointment, when other
engagements permitted.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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