The quotation on p. 56 relates, moreover, only to psychic or spiritual Magic. The practical teachings of Occult Science are entirely different, and few are the strong minds fitted for them. As to ecstasy, and such like kinds of self‐illumination, this may be obtained by oneself and without any teacher or initiation, for ecstacy is reached by an inward command and control of Self over the physical Ego; as to obtaining mastery over the forces of Nature, this requires a long training, or the capacity of one born a “natural Magician.” Meanwhile, those who possess neither of the requisite qualifications are strongly advised to limit themselves to purely spiritual development. But even this is difficult, as the first necessary qualification is an unshakable belief in one’s own powers and the Deity within oneself; otherwise a man would simply develop into an irresponsible medium. Throughout the whole mystic literature of the ancient world we detect the same idea of spiritual Esoterism, that the personal God exists within, nowhere outside, the worshipper. That personal Deity is no vain breath, or a fiction, but an immortal Entity, the Initiator of the Initiates, now that the heavenly or Celestial Initiators of primitive humanity—the Shishta of the preceding cycles—are no more among us. Like an under‐current, rapid and clear, it runs without mixing its crystalline purity with the muddy and troubled waters of dogmatism, an enforced anthropomorphic Deity and religious intolerance. We find this idea in the tortured and barbarous phraseology of the _Codex Nazaræus_, and in the superb Neoplatonic language of the Fourth Gospel of the later Religion, in the oldest _Veda_ and in the _Avesta_, in the _Abhidharma_, in Kapila’s _Sânkhya_, and the _Bhagavad Gîtâ_. We cannot attain Adeptship and Nirvâna, Bliss and the “Kingdom of Heaven,” unless we link ourselves indissolubly with our Rex Lux, the Lord of Splendour and of Light, our immortal God within us. “Aham eva param Brahman”—“I am verily the Supreme Brahman”—has ever been the one living truth in the heart and mind of the Adepts, and it is this which helps the Mystic to become one. One must first of all recognise one’s own immortal Principle, and then only can one conquer, or take the Kingdom of Heaven by violence. Only this has to be achieved by the higher—not the middle, nor the third—man, the last one being of dust. Nor can the second man, the “Son”—on this plane, as his “Father” is the Son on a still higher plane—do anything without the assistance of the first, the “Father.” But to succeed one has to identify oneself with one’s divine Parent. The first man is of the earth, earthy; the second [inner, our higher] man is the Lord from heaven.... Behold, I show you a mystery.(107)