ENQ. Can you attain the “Secret Wisdom” simply by study? Encyclopædias define _Theosophy_ pretty much as Webster’s Dictionary does, _i.e._, as “_supposed intercourse with God and superior spirits, and consequent attainment of superhuman knowledge by physical means and chemical processes_.” Is this so? THEO. I think not. Nor is there any lexicographer capable of explaining, whether to himself or others, how _superhuman_ knowledge can be attained by _physical_ or chemical processes. Had Webster said “by _metaphysical_ and alchemical processes,” the definition would be approximately correct: as it is, it is absurd. Ancient Theosophists claimed, and so do the modern, that the infinite cannot be known by the finite—_i.e._, sensed by the finite Self—but that the divine essence could be communicated to the higher Spiritual Self in a state of ecstacy. This condition can hardly be attained, like _hypnotism_, by “physical and chemical means.” ENQ. What is your explanation of it? THEO. Real ecstacy was defined by Plotinus as “the liberation of the mind from its finite consciousness, becoming one and identified with the infinite.” This is the highest condition, says Prof. Wilder, but not one of permanent duration, and it is reached only by the very _very_ few. It is, indeed, identical with that state which is known in India as _Samadhi_. The latter is practised by the Yogis, who facilitate it physically by the greatest abstinence in food and drink, and mentally by an incessant endeavour to purify and elevate the mind. Meditation is silent and _unuttered_ prayer, or, as Plato expressed it, “the ardent turning of the soul toward the divine; not to ask any particular good (as in the common meaning of prayer), but for good itself—for the universal Supreme Good” of which we are a part on earth, and out of the essence of which we have all emerged. Therefore, adds Plato, “remain silent in the presence of the _divine ones_, till they remove the clouds from thy eyes and enable thee to see by the light which issues from themselves, not what appears as good to thee, but what is intrinsically good.”[5] ENQ. Theosophy, then, is not, as held by some, a newly devised scheme? THEO. Only ignorant people can thus refer to it. It is as old as the world, in its teachings and ethics, if not in name, as it is also the broadest and most catholic system among all. ENQ. How comes it, then, that Theosophy has remained so unknown to the nations of the Western Hemisphere? Why should it have been a sealed book to races confessedly the most cultured and advanced?