If you are going to read one of the inspired books of the world—_The Imitation of Christ_; _The Golden Verses_ of Pythagoras; _The Light on the Paths_; _The Voice of the Silence_—it is well to preface the reading with a prayer, if that be your habitual way of raising your consciousness to its highest mood, or with the repetition of a mantra, or the soft chanting of some familiar and beloved rhythm, in order to bring yourself into a sympathetic condition. Then read a phrase, re-read, brood over it, savour it mentally, suck out its essence, its life. Thus shall your subtle body become, to some extent at least, attuned to that of the inspired writer, and repeating his vibrations, shall set up in your consciousness the corresponding changes. Priceless is the value of inspired books: they are steps of a ladder set up between earth and heaven, a veritable Jacob’s ladder, on which descend and ascend the angels of God. There remains a third class of books worthy of the attention of the theosophical student, but towards which his attitude should be entirely different from those which he adopts towards the revealed and the inspired. These are books containing the observations of students more advanced than himself, observations carried on upon planes above the physical, observations made by students who are evolving in knowledge of, and in power on, those planes, and have not yet reached the stature of the Perfect Man. There are books such as _The Secret Doctrine and Esoteric Buddhism_, written by disciples, which are not records of the direct observations of students, but are rather transcriptions of the teachings of Masters, into which errors may creep by misunderstandings of those teachings. H. P. Blavatsky herself told us that there were inevitably errors in _The Secret Doctrine_; and as we have in that wonderful book her own descriptions of the pictures shown to her by her Master, there is an opening for possible errors of observation: these are probably not serious, as she was carefully overlooked and aided during the writing. These two books stand apart from the bulk of our literature, the Masters having been largely concerned in their production. The books I have in mind are those written by disciples, using their own normal faculties, faculties still in course of evolution; books relating chiefly to the astral, mental, and buddhic planes, to the constitution of man, to the past of individuals, nations, races, and worlds. We are gradually accumulating a large amount of literature of this kind, a literature of observations by students using superphysical faculties. With regard to this, certain things need to be borne in mind.