It is obvious, to anyone who cares to pay attention, that present-day occultism is fraught with some unusual controversies and contradictions that do not, rightly, belong to the realm of the esoteric mysteries. The condition of the esoteric world, today, and the struggle for satisfaction that many aspirants find themselves entangled in during their quest for a reputable and productive source of tuition, prompted me to scratch out a few words on the subject … again.

It should be pointed out, as I begin, here, that I am quite aware this paper is not likely to be well received by the bulk of those involved in the realm of popular occultism. This is largely because it is my intention, herein, to point my finger largely at that group of esotericists and to make a very clear my thoughts on the gross misconceptions that this collective has given birth to, fosters and propagates, to the detriment of the ancient mystery tradition. It is deeply important, in my estimation that a clear distinction must be made between the largely impotent and mediocre sub-culture of pop occultism and the true and hidden sacred mystery schools of the western culture. In this way we might, with some hope, help to reduce the great number of casualties that arise from exposure to this rip tide of thinly disguised imposture.

Let us begin, then, by defining the term occultist where it refers to the subject of this paper. I recognize such a person as being an individual who is interested in the study and/or practice of the occult arts and sciences. We might recognize the occult sciences as including astrology, qabala, alchemy, magick (black and white), divination, occult ritual or ceremonial, astral projection, occult literature and history and the phenomena of occult training itself, for example.

Occultists might have an interest in any one of these subjects alone or several together at one time. They may accept some of the sciences while rejecting others. They may simply have an academic interest or a practical one, or both. There is no real pre-requisite that states that an occultist must believe in any particular spiritual doctrine or work with any particular practices at all, and that includes having any form of religious predisposition, or lack thereof.

We might most productively, for the purpose of this discourse, divide the types of occultist into four rough but distinct divisions. By type I specifically refer to degrees of involvement, commitment or interest in occultism. It is necessary to make such a distinction, because, unlike conventional science or art, occultism is perceived as being either one thing or another depending on the individual's personal degree of soul ripeness.

Firstly, we have the non-occultist. I refer to this type so that a comparison might be made between the degrees of the next level and those above it. The non-occultist might, roughly speaking, be one of three kinds. (1)Those who have no idea what the occult is and therefore care less, (2) those who have some idea and care less, and (3) those who believe they know and actively avoid it.

Secondly, there is the new-age contingent. We might define a new-ager as an eclectic individual. He has no bones about taking bits and pieces from many and various respected or nefarious spiritual or psychological sources, mixing and matching them according to his whim. He often believes in some kind of apocalyptic vision, hopes to be saved from it by some exterior agent and generally respects anyone's desire to capitalize on this the entire phenomena. He might be thought of as a lazy occultist, one who thinks that enlightenment is a commodity that can be delivered in bulk or piecemeal by some external agent. The key to this attitude is a desire to work as little for enlightenment as possible. Type two, the new age aspirant, therefore never manages to do more than scratch the surface of actual occultism.

We might add that there is no universally defining doctrine to the new age movement. Although a new age person will often recognize a long existing occult tradition, he has no real interest in, or respect for, such tradition. (This is not really malicious though, but rather the result of an understanding derived from the superficiality of his degree of interest.)

We might also define the new age aspirant as being primarily mystic in his aspiration. That is, his desire is often to quit the physical life and its responsibilities as soon as possible in order to take part in some kind of spiritual utopia where God walks with the faithful.

Type two includes, really, any modern (invented in the last 300 years), spiritual movement that is not based directly on the ancient mystery tradition. Into this category we can include to a degree many modern religious movements, such as wicca and spiritualism.

Thirdly, we have the popular or mainstream occultist. This creature might firstly be defined as understanding quite clearly that the new-ager is a lost cause as far as real success in gaining enlightenment is concerned. That such a person has a superficial and therefore distorted view of spiritual dynamics.

The pop-occultist knows a difference exists between the mediocre vision of the new-ager and the substance described in main-stream serious occult literature. This realisation is often described as being both inborn and logical to the third type. He realizes there is a depth of tradition behind serious occult literature and he feels some kind of kinship with, and possibly respect for, that ancient tradition. We are talking, therefore, about an individual who, although he may start as a type two aspirant, gravitates toward type three status naturally because of some inherent internal condition. We have already described this condition as a degree of soul maturity, usually, we might add, brought on by some degree of serious involvement in spiritual discipline in other incarnations.

The least measure of involvement in occult activity for a mainstream (pop) occultist might be an avid collection and study of relatively serious occult literature. Although this might be the least requirement to be categorized as a pop-occultist we should point out that at the end of the day this activity describes the sum total of the greatest proportion of mainstream occultists … including many of those who claim to be in the next category.

One step up from the mere collection and study of serious esoteric literature comes the act of seeking out and being involved in occult tuition relationships. Nevertheless the occultist belonging to the popular mainstream often carries with him some of the terrible habits of the new-age man. He can be seriously eclectic or alternatively will jump continually from one training system to another trying out bits of each as he goes. In this instance he obviously lacks commitment, and this often because he also lacks an ability to discern between productive training situations and mere facade style groups. This condition is often coupled with a feeling that one might be missing out on some secret or special situation in some other group or school which might be of help, or which might boost personal status in some way. The 'grass must be greener' syndrome that betrays a lack of depth in understanding the real nature of attainment of occult goals.

The pop-occultist often does not own the ability for novel creative thought and will often suffer a frustration in having to trust in the directions, doctrines and philosophies of one or any number of well-known (but not necessarily respectable) occult theorists or theories. In this way it might be noticed that such an individual has not yet managed to separate himself from the herd. While believing that involvement in occultism separates him from the common herd (which to some small degree it does) if we scratch beneath the surface we find that in fact he is a dedicated follower of esoteric fashion and is often motivated by some form of common psychological irritation rather than pure intention and productive goals.

Such individuals will be noticed to enthusiastically place rather limited conditions on what they believe good occult training to be, totally unaware that the search for enlightenment already possesses its own necessary requirements that if not met, will only allow for failure.

Although a good number of mainstream occultists will eagerly join occult groups seeking social interaction (primarily) or tuition there are also a large number that insist that going it alone is the only way. This approach is often born of one of two conditions. The first arises from insecurity, a fear of becoming involved with others, of the kind of intimacy that real tuition requires, or of subjecting oneself to a more learned authority for a necessary period of the journey. The second arises from having had a bad experience with some individual, group or system of philosophy or training. It will often be heard, as argument for the lone path, reasons why being involved with at lest one other searcher, a teacher perhaps, is not good, rather than any positive reason why being alone is more productive. We must point out here though that these situations are very much understandable considering the condition of the popular esoteric environment.

At the top end of the mainstream or popular class we have individuals who have committed themselves to respected mainstream schools. Sometimes they join a single school or sometimes two or three together for long periods of their lives. The most common factor uniting this group of individuals at this end of the third type scale is that after many years of commitment and study they have made very little progress. We find, too, that they have a number of interesting rationales for this (lets admit it) disappointing direction to their esoteric career. But in the end it is usually only one of two factors that are responsible for this outcome. Either the school they committed to is impotent (for whatever reason), or they themselves have never got the point and made the requisite effort in the right areas (usually because of a lack of soul ripeness).

It is important to consider for a moment what these mainstream schools are like, that cater for type three personalities. The schools themselves are in fact not unlike the type three individuals. They are quite public usually, but not necessarily. They focus greatly on the written word as a central authority while often proclaiming that experience is the important factor in gaining success. Their tutors and authorities usually are completely or near completely incapable of demonstrating or passing on constructively the concepts that they teach from their literature. In fact often the self-proclaimed adepts within these schools will focus obsessively and argue over unimportant details in secret teachings in order to (often unconsciously) take their students focus away from the general lack of skill in practical techniques within the college body as a whole.

There is also, interestingly enough, while claiming to be a western tradition school, often a real lack of traditional western methods and terminology in the key philosophies and methods of the school, but instead, in their place, we find techniques and terms corrupted or directly plagiarized from the eastern tradition. Such a situation betrays the low degree of initiation the founders of these schools suffered from at the time they created their systems.

Within the third type group we might classify the last section, as described just above, as novice initiates. A good proportion of type three occultists, those in the mainstream, consider, or will consider, themselves as initiates proper and as serious, committed, hardcore occultists. They sometimes muse on the possibility that there may be greater souls than theirs upon the earth with greater success and knowledge. Usually, though, they consider this to be a more rare situation than it actually is, or, possibly one that may have once been true but is now likely non-existent. It is amusing that this belief is sometimes justified by the acclamation that … “as I have been moving in many serious esoteric circles for many years and have never met any of these legendary advanced initiates I seriously doubt their existence.” But the truth is that this is not really the case. And we will soon present an argument as to why this is so. Nevertheless in the supposed absence of any greater individuals we see many mainstream occultists claiming degrees of success and rank obviously far in excess to their actual attainment.

Only the eldest and life long committed students of mainstream esoteric schools might be considered novice initiates, simply because they have been exposed to the realm for such an extended period of time, and because their intentions are often, at least, honest if not wholly productive in the last estimation.

Next we have the fourth type of occultist, the initiate proper. While one does not have to search too hard at all to find himself a mainstream occultist, as they are everywhere thick on the ground, the fourth type is not so easy to find. He will likely move within mainstream circles, have friends within and join groups of popular appeal, but he is obviously, when examined closer, not himself belonging to that genre. He is characterized by certain definite distinctions that may move quite un-noticed by the mainstream crowd. Fore mostly he is a creative and novel thinker. He is innovative. He will stand out in his personal group of esoteric friends as having a very simplistic yet difficult-to-grasp approach to and philosophy concerning esoteric science. He is marked by the undeniable fact that he has a knack of explaining in almost flawless detail the esoteric laws comprising the canon of ancient mystery teaching. At the same time he obviously gets results and can easily help others to get results of a quite definite and often extreme nature. In short, there is an obvious depth and intensity to him that we do not commonly find in aspirants of the previous two types. He is what Gurdjieff calls ... the cunning man.

While often being attached to some mainstream school, or other, type four aspirants have, after their initial introduction to the realm of esotericism, no need for such affiliations other than for cosmetic reasons. They conceive of the path, its actual requirements, their place on the ladder of ascent and the means to rise higher with such ease that mainstream occultism is of little use at all to their journey.

What the mainstream aspirant does not understand about type four is that he is the only occultist making the kind of progress that occult training was originally designed to effect. That type four, the initiate proper, understands the superficial nature of the mainstream, it's tenuous connection with real esoteric science, and the terrible distraction the entire pop occult culture is to the seriously advancing student. No matter what other character traits the type four possesses as an occultist or as an individual, he has one outstanding feature that entitles him alone to the distinction of initiate proper. He is not merely a scholar of things esoteric (and may not be a scholar at all in such matters), nor is he a mere practitioner-by-rote of the practical art. But, instead, he gets results quickly and often in the extreme. And because he understands the nature of the paths actual requirements, also of his own techniques and their results, he knows without doubt that at the end of the day it is results which matter and which define the players from the pretenders and spectators. He knows, from experience, that the seemingly extravagant and legendary claims of the masters of yore were in fact … the claims of those who knew from the stand point of mastery. Demonstrably powerful men with a grasp on the actual nature of reality far beyond that of the modern mainstream occultist.

Having now defined the four general types of occult aspirant we may begin to consider the actual subject of this paper, the status quo of the realm of esoteric training in the western tradition. The condition of the modern occult movement and its schools arises from the existence of these various types, which define, maintain and advertise the various methods of tuition available to the aspirant at mainstream level.

The subject of this discourse is primarily the difference between the condition and activities of the mainstream in occultism and the fourth type, the initiate proper. Therefore we can now dispense with any further consideration of the non-occultist and the new-ager, as having so little to do with serious occultism that it is not worth considering … unless it is that often novice aspirants which belong to type three and four categories often begin their journey as type one or two seekers.

It might be acceptable to state that the focus of the activities and interests of the mainstream (popular occultism) and the fourth type, together, is the occult school system. The greater proportion of occultists in these two groups either belong to, desire to belong to, or value reading literature produced by initiates of esoteric fraternities. So that we might understand exactly what we mean by the term occult school system let us explain. There are two education systems in the world today (generally speaking). The conventional exoteric state recognized education system comprising elementary school, high school, colleges, polytechs, technical institutes and universities, etc. We are all familiar with this structure and dynamics of the particular state recognized education systems in our respective countries. Outside of this form of education, somewhat behind the scenes, and not recognized, but known of by, the state is another form of education which we might call occult, or esoteric, school system. This system is not, as a collective, as organized and authoritative (socially or individually) as the conventional state governed system, but it is older, and much more diverse. It is also not governed over by a single determining temporal authority.

The esoteric or occult school system is comprised of a great variety of philosophies, belief systems, teaching methods and school structures types. Tuition situations range from private one-on-one type relationships, through small informal discussion groups with lecturers to well organized colleges with a well defined hierarchy and grade system, for example. These kinds of institutions often go by such titles as society, fraternity (brotherhood), college, temple or order. There are also a number of different traditions that use these titles, and often with different intentions. There is, for example, the hermetic tradition, witchcraft, rosicrucianism, mysticism, gnosticism, masonic, thelemic, etc, etc.

For persons not familiar with this entire situation it is easiest, we suggest, to simply consider this esoteric education system as being similar to the state governed conventional type, but with different structure (sometimes), tuition methods and different aims. Whereas conventional education is designed to teach the individual to survive in the outer life and become a productive member of society, esoteric education has the intention of teaching the individual to survive on the inner levels and become a productive member of the esoteric community. Whereas the conventional education system is relatively young, the esoteric education system is thousands of years old. Generally speaking it has been using the same methods with the same goals in mind for over 6000 years. Only the outer forms, the types of institutions and their names, have changed in all that time.

Now, before we continue, it is important to point out here that the scenario that is described, from here on out, concerns the western tradition and specifically its hermetic aspect. Although much of what we present here is just as applicable to eastern mysticism and other traditions, the overall condition of occult education being very much the same world wide.

Up until relatively recently, in the west, and I mean till about 300 years ago, the corpus of esoteric collegia, almost entirely, existed and prospered in total secrecy. This was the case almost solely because it was the practice of the authorities on the Christian church to repress, with excessive force, any spiritual beliefs other than those adhering strictly to the rigid doctrines of the catholic Christian church. Nevertheless it was within the Christian monastic tradition that the western occult tradition first entered Europe and developed into that flavour we know recognize as distinctly Anglo-Hermetic.

The original Christian hierarchy and its various institutions were modeled, to a degree, upon the structures used by the older religions and esoteric schools which had flourished in the near and middle east since time immemorial. Therefore the monastic tradition, within Christianity, was a very welcome receptacle for the occult systems that were imported from the near and middle east during the early Christian era. The pious monks of that age who hungered for deeper knowledge of the mysteries of existence eagerly grafted on to their monastic tradition, but in secret, all that they could learn or inherit from their brethren in the east. In some cases this meant small fragments of the ancient mysteries. In other times and places it meant the wholesale import of almost complete esoteric schools from their Coptic and Islamic influenced homes in Arabia and Egypt to the hallowed cloisters of isolated monastic communities in all parts of Christendom.

Repressed by the attitude of the Church of which they were technically a part, these occult arts were preserved, assiduously practiced and taught in hiding within secret brotherhoods or small insignificant confraternities for 100's of years. Exactly what went on behind their closed doors during those dark ages we do not know. But we do have some idea about what these early adepts of the western tradition were interested in, what they studied and how far they developed their skill and understanding. Their two primary interests were what we now refer to as medieval magic and laboratory alchemy. Both heavily mixed up with exoteric and esoteric Christianity.

When we read back now, through the literature left to us from the classic ages of the early development of the western mystery tradition, three things stand out very clearly to the learned and unbiased observer. These early adepts were both very pious about their occultism and they were very skilled in the practical execution of both magic and alchemy. Also, at least within the records they have left us, we see that their understanding of the underlying detailed technical theory of both magic and alchemy was, in most cases, largely lacking. There is no doubt a few authors knew a great deal about how and why these things worked. But overall it was not the how and why that interested them as much as getting results did. This is not to say, though, that occult literature from this early period lacks descriptions of theory, not at all. But such descriptions are often confused, erroneous and conflicting - overall.

As the secret life of the western mystery tradition evolved eventually aspects of it came to the light of the public world. The event of the printing press helped this process greatly. By the dawn of the 1700's we see a great deal of occult subject matter openly published for the ready consumption of the literate section of the public. Much of the source material we have available to us now on both the subject of medieval magic and alchemy stems from the 15th and 16th centuries in fact. It is important, though, to consider the nature of such publications and the quality of information published in them if we are to understand how they have influenced modern western occultism.

It is generally understood and accepted that in the ages when the occult arts were being taught in secret that students apprenticed to groups or individuals were first inducted into training they took oaths of secrecy. For very good reason, and not simply to avoid retribution from the church, the masters of the western tradition insisted on keeping the deeper serious knowledge and practices concealed from the public eye. Those who had developed their skills to the extreme end of the spectrum through the study of occultism and who had attained certain extreme degrees of enlightenment had decided and thereafter insisted that the only way to safely and productively pass on this knowledge was under a veil of secrecy behind closed doors. And I repeat, although this veil had exoteric practical benefits, such as keeping students off the gallows and out of the torture chamber, its primary purpose was esoteric. For we know today, as well as they did in the early years of the monastic tradition, that even in the ancient cultures of Egypt and Mesopotamia, were occultism would have been quite easy accepted socially, the high initiates of the ancient colleges still insisted on secrecy.

Now, taking it for granted that some smaller portion of practitioners of occult knowledge obtained their education without having to take any oath of secrecy, the great volume of esoteric literature which was produced from these early times would lead us to surmise that much of it was revealed by persons who had to break their oath of silence in order to expose such knowledge. This being likely we have to ask ourselves how reliable the greater portion of this information must then be? If not a complete fabrication, is the particular work, or even the bulk of this type of literature accurate or complete? How much of it is deliberately deceptive or misleading and how deeply does the deception or inaccuracy flow?

Whatever the case may be there is no doubt that the esoteric systems which are most popular today, the mainstream of occult lore, knowledge and practice, are based on various degrees of the acceptability of validity of the overall picture and specific instruction presented in the medieval and post medieval written materials.

What we are told about the intentions, methods and philosophies of the occult arts, and the nature of the western tradition, today, largely stems from a certain few modern individuals interpretations of the meaning of literature that was produced at a time when the once very secret tradition was first being exposed through questionable sources with questionable intentions or by well meaning persons or groups in a format designed to promote confusion (the liberal use of metaphor, analogy and cypher.)

This is a very important claim. Basically, what I am saying here is that many, many mainstream, popular, occult schools or systems (that might also be taught one-on-one or informally) are not the product of an informed education obtained from the core of a tradition orally and through practical demonstration by experienced experts to properly prepared students, but indeed are simply fabricated by modern entrepreneurs based on surviving literature, of a questionable nature, almost entirely.

In order to carry off a non-traditional (non-esoteric) approach to establishing schools and methodology, certain conditions must be encouraged by the inventors of these modern systems. Firstly, they must either outright lie about their apostolic succession (if you like), by trying to convince new students that their training is validated by some traditional process, sign or technique. Or they must provide some kind of convincing argument against the assumed validity of proper (real secret tradition) training methods. Or both. In many modern esoteric colleges this matter has been dealt with by perpetuating the concept that a school or group is considered valid as long as it has a charter from some other school, group or individual that is generally considered regular, legal or proper. This preposterous situation has developed out of freemasonry where that institution, for good reason, established the concept of the authority of a charter or warrant as a means of proving 'regular' (legit) lodges. Therefore, today, a situation has arisen whereby we are encouraged to believe, by those individuals who delight in establishing or inventing new schools or systems of training, that the possession of a charter is proof that the system they possess, or the tutors teaching their system, will produce viable results.

The second condition that is encouraged by these mainstream ‘authorities’ in magick and alchemy is that some degree of intellectual apprehension and the lip-service practice of esoteric subject matter is all that is required to be considered adept. Scholarly debate, playing with semantics and obscure and questionably helpful cyphers, codes and symbolisms have taken first place above actual results. The by-rote execution of often complicated rituals willy-nilly or ad-infinitum is considered as a mark of being experienced in the practical aspects of magick, rather than just an armchair scholar, with little account given at all to the importance of the results originally expected from such work.

The production of realistic magickal results has now given way to academia and a simple be seen to be doing religious observance of ritual. It never seems to enter the minds of those who are directing the vessel of mainstream western occultism that magick without reliable and legendary magickal results is not magick at all. Instead day by day we are encouraged to accept the most mediocre of results we obtain from the most extreme practices mainstream occultism has to offer are the gold at the end of the rainbow. The extreme superhuman attainments that our adept forefathers in the secret arts insisted we should expect from the proper application of occult training are now denied and described as analogies, metaphors and extravagances by the modern mainstream self proclaimed elite. These elite, who by their behaviour, insist that we recognize a master of occultism by the number of titles he bears and the cut of his magickal robe.

This situation has been carried, now, in our time, to such an extreme, where we now have individuals, who see themselves as occultists riding upon the cutting edge of esoteric technology, who deny the possibility of enlightenment, reject the existence of non-physical existence and consider themselves to be the only God there is. In the cold light of day such statements might seem ludicrous, but are nevertheless on the increase and taken very seriously by the new elite. An elite who have a magick without any magick, who have turned the sacred ancient mysteries into a new religion for the new millennium. As the old conventional religions thrash their last death throws before the eyes of the complacent modern world, they are being replaced, ever so subtly, by a new cycle of religion, reborn from the ashes of the old, stolen from the off casts of the hidden schools of esoteric science, with, in the true tradition of the old religions, politics and finance as their first concerns.

So much for pop-occultism. Let us look, now, at what remains of the true, invisible, colleges that have carried on the ancient tradition unhindered and almost forgotten behind the scenes. What is it that they know, that they do, that sets them part from the mainstream and qualifies this last, fourth way, as the real bastion of occultism?

The first pre-requisite for a fourth type school is that it remains hidden from the outer world. The masters of the ancient mysteries, as we have said previously, have insisted since the beginning that their knowledge, activities and training were preserved and propagated behind a veil of silence. It is taken for granted that individuals of schools that cater for type three occultists, the mainstream, will vehemently disagree with this, they who believe that an esoteric group can only survive and remain valid as long as it is 'out there' where aspirants can see it and therefore apply for tuition. Such beliefs, though, are based on the concept that occult schools must make use of mundane channels in order to attract students. The underlying belief here is that magick does not in fact work. That schools cannot rely on the soul's and the universe's inherent magickal properties, and good training, to bring out this esoteric potential, to ensure that ripe students will make contact with experienced tutors in order to fulfill their esoteric destinies.

It is rather obvious, though, even to the casual observer, that most mainstream schools adhere to this 'public face' attitude because they are obsessed with a need for quantity of students rather than quality. For it is logical that any occult group that maintains a veil of secrecy about its whereabouts and activities will likely have a very limited number of members. So we see that the mainstream occultist, when making a choice about which orders are of most use as candidates for his membership, he will often consider size to be a defining factor. The bigger or more popular the group, the better it must be? Again this attitude stems from an ignorance or misunderstanding of basic magickal dynamics.

A schools effectiveness or usefulness is not displayed by excessive numbers of members. In fact exactly the opposite is true. The more effective an esoteric school, the more likely it is to have very few members, whether it is public or hidden. This might seem, on the surface, to be a contrary statement. But every advanced occultist knows that the truth is contrary to popular opinion.

Why would this be so then? The answer is simple. It has to do with the truth concerning the nature of the struggle for enlightenment. At this point in our discussion we must make clear the fact that a fourth type school, those which cater for the initiate proper, are established for and are concerned about one primary aim in their training process. That aim is in aiding their students in attaining enlightenment. In attaining a vision of, and life in, the complete self, from which provides complete knowledge and experience of the nature of the function and process of life.

Man is a microcosm, an analogical holographic representation of the universal. If it is man's purpose to understand the universal plan in order to align his personal cause with that greater cause, then he must begin by attempting to know himself. The individual cannot, hermetic science insists, even begin to understand the true nature of his own being unless he is allowed to contemplate himself in his entirety. The problem is, then, that the average person entering in through the threshold to the mystery tradition to begin his occult education has both an imperfect and incomplete knowledge of the conscious worldly part of himself – and almost no knowledge at all of the half of himself of which he is unconscious. Here, then, is the student’s first struggle, to reclaim a vision of his entire being complete in one unit.

The inexperienced student has little idea of just what kind of difficulty this will involve. Besides shying away from a clear honest vision of his exterior self he will discover that that half of himself that resides in his unconscious is hidden from him because he is mortally afraid of it. The average student in fact has no desire or intention at all of completing his vision of himself by awakening his unconscious. Once he makes the decision, consciously or unconsciously, to avoid understanding the unconscious and to integrate it, he removes himself, completely, from the intimate company of type four initiate. He relegates himself, thus-wise, by his actions, to the realm of popular occultism and it's satisfaction with possessing an incomplete knowledge and a partial truth, essentially a lie, about the self.

We can say, now, most definitely, that the attribute least required of the initiate crossing the line between type three and type four is his acceptance of the need to overcome his worst fears and venture deep into the unconscious. That he has tasted the pain and the powerful desire to give up the struggle in the face of the dweller upon the threshold, and he has accepted these struggles as a natural part of his journey from which he will not shrink or behave like a coward. It is not enough, in order to be a type four aspirant, to insist that one will brave this struggle. Often those who seem to own those character traits that will allow success with this battle will fall earliest in an attempt to advance. Therefore it is only trial and the commitment and unswerving dedication that arises from self confrontation which marks the passage from type three to type four.

Of course, we have heard many a time, by those who are entranced by the mediocrity of the mainstream (believing it to be potent and meaningful), that indeed they have braved such struggles and have survived them. Therefore they feel they can speak with the authority of a type four initiate about the true nature of reality. But such persons quickly and most obviously show none of the personality traits possessed by an individual who has had a vision of the totality of their being, even for a moment. Instead their philosophy remains that of the half blind and their behaviour that of they who remain in fear and ignorance.

Lastly, having come this far, let us consider for a moment the motive behind the need for the schools catering for the needs of the type four individual to remain hidden. It is a well-known fact, had by any individual who has braved the descent into the unconscious in search of completeness, that very quickly, once one enters this downward sloping path, one looses the ability to be objective and rational about even the most common place things. The retrogressive forces in the soul take advantage of this mild and temporary state of insanity and attempt to drive the student away from the path of success back into the world of common things. In 90% of cases they succeed. In about 70% of these failed cases the reason would easily be because the student has refused experienced guidance and has attempted to face the shadow nature alone, unaided and uninformed. Under such conditions one could do no better than fail early and miserably. The shadow is a creature of great power and great age. Its knowledge of our behaviour, in the early stages of the struggle, is vastly greater than our own. It is a trifle for it to overcome our strongest desires to succeed with the greatest of ease.

For this reason our adept forefathers established the mystery schools. Fraternities founded with the purposes of providing aid to like-minded brethren in the battle against the darkness. Hidden Brotherhoods whose purpose was to establish a private and safe sanctuary wherein the fragile flowering soul can unfold without the concern of being battered by the harshness of the mundane world. The entire dynamic of the confrontation with the unconscious is of such a delicate nature that it is likely that it will not succeed unless the best conditions are established and maintained. Of course there are those who will insist that the scenario we have described here is either unreal, non-existent or only one of several methods that might be used to attain to the summit of esoteric human endeavour. To such persons all I can say is that the ancient masters of esoteric wisdom, who searched deep and far for knowledge of the nature of being and the path of reclamation of divinity, never found an alternate route. If they did, they never wrote about it, created mythic allegories about it, or any records of such a process have never survived either physically, orally or astrally.

As the alchemical sages of the classic period asserted … “there is only one subject, one path, one vessel and the goal is one.” That … “nothing can be reborn into a higher life if first it does not die and putrefy in darkness and in the bowels of the earth.”