1. The Occult Path is not a way of Renunciation, but a way of Fulfillment; it is not a breaking away from the path of human destiny, but a concentration and sublimation of that destiny. Each soul which takes that Path lives through its own experience every phase and aspect of manifested existence and equlibrates it spiritualizes it, and absorbs its essence.

"It is better that a ripening of the spirit should be achieved so that it parts with its fleshy desires naturally by outgrowing them, rather than do violence to the instincts of nature. It is not the suppression but the outgrowing of desires that we should seek; ripe fruit part readily from the stem, and the man who has learned the lessons that life teaches will pass on without repining. An incomplete, abortive experience of life is not a good foundation for illumination."

2. A mystic is simply an introvert occultist, and the occultist an extrovert mystic. Both aim at the same goal, though they seek it by different methods. The difference between them is of temperament, not of ideal. When the scientific temperament approaches the Unseen, it chooses the Occult path of development, and when the artistic temperament approaches the Unseen, it chooses the Mystic path; one progresses through right knowing, and the other through right feeling, and both meet in the end.

The mystic seeks a state of feeling in which he shall be at one with God, and the occultist seeks a state of knowing in which she/he shall have a complete realization of truth; both of these can know God, but neither can know God in His entirety.

The highest development is attained when the mystic has the knowledge and technique of an occultist, or when the occultist is at heart a mystic. The mystic can then express the teachings of the spirit in terms of the intellect and so render them available for those who have no higher consciousness than that of mind; and the occultist who share in the things of the spirit will have that element of devotion in his nature which is so often lacking in those in whom the intellect is dominant.

Esotericism, without a touch of mystic rapture, would be as drab as a culture that had no place for the beautiful; but a spiritual culture which is purely mystical has little relation to the problems of humanity and no message for the common man.

Therefore it is that in the Lesser Mysteries the neophyte whose temperament leans toward occultism is made to follow the Mystic Way, and the mystic is forced on to the Occult Path; it is not until the Greater Mysteries are reached that neither is permitted to follow his natural bent. This is done to ensure balanced development.

3. The world Initiate, as used in these pages, means one in whom the Higher Self has coalesced with the personality and actually entered into incarnation in the physical body. An Initiate, therefore, is one whose Higher Self it is that looks out at us through his eyes. The personality is reduced to a set of habit-complexes of living, leaving the Higher Self free to carry on its work with the minimum demands upon its attention from the physical plane.

The discipline of the Path in its earlier stages is directed primarily to the production of a definite type of character. ……There is a simplicity of life and a serenity of demeanor. The initiate is entirely unperturbed amid catastrophe and horror.

This harmonised, free-moving poise is the inevitable result of the discipline to which he subjects himself, for he learns control of the emotion and desirelessness. ……He loves simplicity, cleanliness, and quiet, but if he cannot obtain them, he walls himself up in a shell of his own thoughts and maintains his equanimity undisturbed.

The true initiate never makes himself conspicuous by eccentricities; he desires to avoid the attention of the outside world and to come and go about his affairs as unobtrusively as possible.

Among his immediate associates, and especially his pupils, the adept usually inspires the greatest devotion and affection, but on the rare occasions when he comes in contact with the outer world, he is often reckoned cold and forbidding. This aloofness is very characteristic of the occultist; his attitude towards life is so different from that of his companions, his way of thought so alien from theirs, that intercourse is rendered difficult and he takes refuge in silence to avoid misunderstanding.

…He travels too fast for the average humanity, and they resent it; but of those souls who delight in great adventure he is the chosen companion and beloved friend.