It is right that a person should learn only so much of the secrets of nature as correspond to his own degree of development, and for this reason alone do obstacles bar his way to complete knowledge and power. People should not be trusted with the use of fire-arms until they have had enough experience to make it certain that they will not use them mischievously or without care. If a person, without the necessary preparation, were initiated to-day, he would still lack those experiences which, in the normal course of his development, would come to him in the future during other incarnations and would then bring with them the corresponding secrets. At the door of Initiation these experiences must, therefore, be supplied in some other way, and in their place the candidate has to undergo the preliminary teaching. These are so-called "trials" which have to be passed. These trials are now being discussed in various books and magazines, but, owing to the very nature of such discussion, it is not surprising that quite false impressions are received concerning them. For those who have not already gone through the periods of Probation and Enlightenment know nothing of these trials, and consequently cannot appropriately describe them. Certain matters or subjects connected with the higher worlds are produced before the candidate, but he is able to see and hear these only when he can perceive clearly the figures, tones, and colors, for which he has been prepared by the teachings on Probation and Enlightenment. The first trial consists in obtaining a clearer comprehension of the corporeal attributes of what seem to be lifeless things, then of plants, of animals, of human beings (in the way that the average person possesses them). This does not mean what is commonly called "scientific knowledge"; with that it has no connection, but it has to do with intuition. What usually occurs is that the Initiate discloses to the candidate how the objects of nature and the essence of living things reveal themselves to the spiritual and mental hearing and sight. In a certain way these things then lie revealed--naked--before the beholder. Attributes and qualities which are concealed from physical eyes and ears can then be seen and heard. Heretofore they have been enwrapped as in a veil, and the falling away of this veil for the candidate, occurs at what is called the Process of Purification by Fire. The first trial is therefore known as the "Fire-Trial," which will briefly be explained thus: