Thou hast to study the voidness of the seeming full, the fullness of the seeming void. O fearless Aspirant, look deep within the well of thine own heart, and answer. Knowest thou of Self the powers, O thou perceiver of external shadows?

If thou dost not—then art thou lost.

—The Voice of the Silence

Our destiny, it is said, is "written in the stars"—and that is true in more than one sense. Astrology and horoscopy at one time were really a science and an art; today only a broken shell without the kernel remains, wholly unreliable in the hands of amateurs and a danger to the public in the hands of the mercenary, the fraud or the charlatan. Alchemy in ancient Egypt, as astrology in ancient Chaldea, were practised rightly; both were known also in ancient India. Knowledge of both has, however, disappeared today, and what remains speaks but of the glory that is gone.

In these days it is useless to run to an astrologer; this is not yet so generally accepted in India as is the fact that it is a waste of time to run to some self-styled alchemist with a piece of silver, because he promises to transmute it into gold. Very rarely do we hear of some gullible person falling prey to an alchemist; much more common is the practice of consulting the astrologer. Such a practice is not only useless; it has also its dangerous side.

Consulting astrologers, palmists, clairvoyants and spiritualistic medums, and going by what they predict or prescribe, weakens human resourcefulness and self-confidence, and hinders self-effort. It is a demoralizing process. Many are misled because in all these practices there is a basic element of truth. Astrology was a science once, though it is not one now; clairvoyance is a real spiritual power of clear-seeing, but those who possess it do not boast about it, nor use it debasingly; palmistry is one of the minor occult arts, but knowledge of it is not easily acquired, nor may it be sold by one who possesses it; mediums do perform phenomena, but what the phenomena are and how they happen is not known either to them or to the poor sitters who are fooled by them.

Superstition dies hard; wshen crass religious superstition is overcome, people fall into psychic claptrap; they refuse to consult a priest, but they do not mind visiting a palmist or an astrologer "Educated" men and women laugh at "old wives' tales" of the evil eye and the black art, but swallow without examination the phenomenon of the sleep produced by the hypnotizer! They reject the idea of praying to God, but readily mutter: "Every day, in every way, I am getting better and better." They exclaim "Nonsense!" to the suggestion of propitiating a bhut, but they think it all right to consult a medium. What is the difference between the modern priest and the modern astrologer? None—both have to be paid. Is not the hypnotizer using the power of the evil eye? He is. Why distinguish between "O God! give me health" and "Every day, in every way, I am getting better and better"? If the spooks that come to spiritistic séances are not bhuts and ghosts, and often worse still, pisachas and vampires, what are they? Bhuts do not become "spirits" because they are so named; as well hope to transform stinking manure by calling it a fragrant rose! Why do people fall from one kind of superstition into another? Every time the cause is ignorance, avidya.

And yet, knowledge is available on what is true and what is false in all three spheres of spiritual, mental and psychic forces. In the two volumes of Isis Unveiled, H.P.B. has examined every kind of abnormal phenomenon—described and defined each type and explained it. Also, reliable information is available in Chapters XVI and XVII of The Ocean of Theosophy by W. Q. Judge. A reflection on the following items will lead the reader to the further explanations which are available on the above-cited books:

1. There is no miracle in Nature; nothing happens by chance; everything occurs in accordance with Law.
2. Man, the thinker, is the crown of visible evolution, and when he becomes an Adept of the Good Law he is the King of the whole of Nature. Man possesses all powers existing in Nature, some of which have become manifest, while others are still latent.
3. The greatest power of man is Kriyashakti, that is, the power to create by Thought-Will-Imagination.
4. Creating rightly, man becomes an Adept in Beneficent Magic which is Divine Wisdom; creating wrongly, that is, selfishly, he becomes a devilish Black Magician, a Brother of the Shadow.
5. Nature has two sides, both of which influence man and are influenced by him. They are the light and the dark sides of Nature.
6. By his thinking man attracts to himself creatures of light or of darkness. He has the power to choose which to attract. Right resolve and right thought lead him to choose well. By right knowledge he becomes their master; by wrong living, their slave.
7. Man himself is Spirit—Embodied Spirit—the mediator between Deity and the whole of the human race.

Man himself is the Alchemist, who in the crucible of Right Knowledge transmutes the iron of his lower nature into the gold of the higher.

Man himself is the Astrologer, who casts his horoscope by the right exercise of Will. "A wise man rules his stars; a fool obeys them."

The admonition and the sterling advice contained in the following quotation from Isis Unveiled (II, 635) need to be reflected upon:

We would have all to realize that magical, i.e., spiritual powers exist in every man, and those few to practise them who feel called to teach, and are ready to pay the price of discipline and self-conquest which their development exacts.

Many men have arisen who had glimpses of the truth, and fancied they had it all. Such have failed to achieve the good they might have done and sought to do, because vanity has made them thrust their personality into such undue prominence as to interpose it between their believers and the whole truth that lay behind. The world needs no sectarian church, whether of Buddha, Jesus, Mahomet, Swedenborg, Calvin, or any other. There being but ONE Truth, man requires but one church—the Temple of God within us, walled in by matter but penetrable by anyone who can find the way; the pure in heart see God.

The trinity of nature is the lock of magic; the trinity of man the key that fits it. Within the solemn precincts of the sanctuary the SUPREME had and has no name. It is unthinkable and unpronounceable; and yet every man finds in himself his god.

Not only is man more than an animal because there is the god in him, but he is more than a god because there is the animal in him.

Once force the animal into his rightful place, that of the inferior, and you find yourself in possession of a great force hitherto unsuspected and unknowsn. The god as servant adds a thousandfold to the pleasures of the animal; the animal as servant adds a thousandfold to the powers of the god. And it is upon the union, the right relation of these two forces in himself, that man stands as a strong king, and is enabled to raise his hand and lift the bar of the Golden Gate....

That is the whole secret. That is what makes man strong, powerful, able to grasp heaven and earth in his hands. Do not fancy it is easily done. Do not be deluded into the idea that the religious or virtuous man does it! Not so. They do no more than fix a standard, a routine, a law by which they hold the animal in check....

You forget, you who let your animal self live on, merely checked and held within certain bounds, that it is a great force, an integral portion of the animal life of the world you live in. With it you can sway men, and influence the very world itself, more or less perceptibly according to your strength. The god, given its right place, will so inspire and guide this extraordinary creature, so educate and develop it, so force it into action and recognition of its kind, that it will make you tremble when you recognise the power that has awakened within you.

But this power can only be attained by giving the god the sovereignty. Make your animal ruler over yourself, and he will never rule others.

—Through the Gates of Gold