X PREFACE 



of the Adepts show that he may be a god. Modern 

 science invests him with the power to lift his own 

 weight; ancient science invests him with the power to 

 control the destiny of the world. Modern science allows 

 him to live for a very limited number of years ; ancient 

 science teaches that he has always existed, and will never 

 cease to exist if he desires to live. Modern science deals 

 with the instrument that the real man uses as long and 

 as often as he comes into relationship with the world of 

 phenomena, and she mistakes that instrument for the 

 man ; the Adepts show us the true nature of the essential 

 man, to whom one earthly existence is nothing more than 

 one of the many incidents of his eternal career. 



There is an invisible universe within the visible one, a 

 world of causes within the world of effects. There is force 

 within matter, and the two are one, and are dependent 

 for their existence on a third, which is the mysterious 

 cause of their existence. There is a world of soul within 

 a world of matter, and the two are one, and caused by 

 the world of spirit. And within these worlds are other 

 worlds, visible and invisible ones. Some are known to 

 modern science ; of others she does not even know that 

 they exist ; for, as the material worlds of suns and planets 

 and stars, the worlds of animate and inanimate beings, 

 from man, the lord of creation, down to the microscopic 

 world with its countless inhabitants, can only be seen by 

 him who is in the possession of the powers necessary for 

 their perception, likewise the world of the soul and the 

 realms of the spirit can only be known to him whose 

 inner senses are awakened to life. The things of the 

 body are seen through the instrumentality of the body, 

 but the things of the soul require the power of spiritual 

 perception. 



