For some people the every day ordinary life is a more or less unconscious process of initiation by means of the Fire-Trial. These persons are those who have passed through a wealth of developing experiences, and who find that their self-confidence, courage, and fortitude have been greatly augmented in a normal way--who have learned to bear sorrow and disappointment, from the failure of their undertakings, with greatness of mind, and especially with quiet and unbroken strength. Those who have gone through such experiences are often initiates, without knowing it, and it needs but little to open for them the spiritual hearing and sight--to make them clairvoyant. For it must be noted that a genuine Fire-Trial is not merely intended to satisfy the curiosity of the candidate. He would learn, undoubtedly, many unusual things, of which others, devoid of such experiences, can have no idea; but yet this knowledge is not the end nor aim, but merely the path to the end. The real aim and object is this--that the candidate shall acquire for himself, through this knowledge of the higher worlds, a greater and truer self-confidence, a higher and nobler courage, and a perseverance, an attitude of mind, altogether different from what he could have obtained in the lower world. After the Fire-Trial a candidate may turn from the school; but because he has gone thus far he will accomplish his ordinary life work, greatly strengthened in all his spiritual and physical relations, and in his next incarnation he will continue to seek further initiation and advancement. In his present life, at all events, he will prove himself a more useful member of society, will be of greater service to humanity than he was before, and in whatever position he may find himself, his firmness, prudence, and favorable influence over his fellows will have greatly increased. After coming out of the Fire-Trial, if he should wish to continue in the occult school, he then has to be instructed in a certain writing-system which is used by those in the school. Occult teachings are written in this occult writing-system, because what is really occult can neither be perfectly spoken of in words of our ordinary speech, nor set forth in the ordinary ways of writing. Those who have learned much from the Initiates can but partially translate the teachings of Occultism into terms of ordinary speech.