Under all circumstances it is important to give warning, and he who will not heed it had better leave untrodden all the steps of occult science. It is necessary that he who would become an occult student should lose none of his attributes as a good and noble man, and one susceptible to all physical truths. Indeed, throughout his apprenticeship he must continually increase his moral strength, his inner purity, and his powers of observation. Let us give an example: During the preliminary practices of Enlightenment, the student must be careful always to be enlarging his sympathy with the animal and human worlds, and his sense of nature's beauty. If he is not careful to do this he continually dulls both sense and feeling; his heart grows cold and his sympathies dwarfed; which lead to perilous results. How enlightenment proceeds, in the sense of the foregoing practices, if one rises from the stone, the plant, and the animal, up to man, and how, after enlightenment, under all circumstances, the gentle hand of the Pilot comes on a certain day, and leads to Initiation--of these things the next chapter will deal in so far as it can and may do so. In our time, the path to occult science is sought after by many. It is sought in various ways, and many dangerous and even objectionable modes are practiced. Therefore it is that those who know of the truth and dangers concerning these things have allowed a greater portion of the occult training and the necessary warning to be published. Only so much is here imparted as this permission allows, and it is necessary that something of the truth should be known in order that it may counteract the great danger of these errors. If nothing be _forced_, there is no danger for him who follows the way already described; only one thing should be noted: no one ought to spend more time or power upon such practices than is at his disposal with due regard to his circumstances and his duties. No one ought suddenly to change anything in the external conditions of his life. If one desires genuine results, one must have patience; one should be able to cease the practice after a few minutes, and then peacefully to continue one's daily work, and no thought of these practices ought to be mingled with the work of the day. He who has not learned to wait, in the best and highest sense of the word, is of no use as an occult student, nor will he ever attain results of much real value.