The result of what Steiner calls "occult science" is thus described in a striking passage of one of his own works: "This is the change which the occult student observes coming over himself--that there is no longer a connection between a thought and a feeling or a feeling and a volition, except when he creates the connection himself. No impulse drives him from thought to action if he does not voluntarily harbour it. He can now stand completely without feeling before an object which, before his training, would have filled him with glowing love or violent hatred; he can likewise remain actionless before a thought which heretofore would have spurred him to action as if by itself," etc. I can imagine no clearer exposé of the dangers of occultism than this. Weishaupt had said: "I cannot use men as I find them; I must form them." Dr. Steiner shows how this transformation can be accomplished. Under the influence of so-called occult training, which is in reality simply powerful suggestion, all a man's native impulses and inhibitive springs of action may be broken; the pupil of the occultist will no longer react to the conceptions of beauty or ugliness, of right or wrong, which, unknown to himself, formed the law of his being. Thus not only his conscious deeds but his sub-conscious processes pass under the control of another. If this is indeed the method employed by Dr. Steiner and his adepts there would certainly seem to be some justification for the verdict of M. Robert Kuentz that "Steiner has devised occult exercises which render the mind incapable (rendent l'esprit anéanti), that he attacks the individual by deranging his faculties (il détraque les facultés)."[725] What is the real motive power behind such societies as the Stella Matutina and again behind Steiner? This remains a mystery, not only to the outside world but to the "initiates" themselves. The quest of the Hidden Chiefs, undertaken by one intrepid pilgrim after another, seems to have ended only in further meetings with Steiner. Yet hope springs eternal in the breast of the aspirant after occult knowledge, and astral messages spurred the Fratres to further efforts. One of these contained the exhortation: "Go on with Steiner, which is not the ultimate end of search, and we will come into contact with many serious students who will lead us to the real master of the Order, who will be so overpoweringly impressive as to leave no room for doubt."