the result is known. With the vividness of poetic fancy Bulwer Lytton
has idealized it for us in his "Zanoni," a work which will ever be
prized by the occultist while in his "Strange Story" he has with equal
power shown the black side of occult research and its deadly perils.
Chelaship was defined, the other day, by a Mahatma as a "psychic
resolvent, which eats away all dross and leaves only the pure gold
behind." If the candidate has the latent lust for money, or political
chicanery, or materialistic scepticism, or vain display, or false
speaking, or cruelty, or sensual gratification of any kind the germ is
almost sure to sprout; and so, on the other hand, as regards the noble
qualities of human nature. The real man comes out. Is it not the
height of folly, then, for any one to leave the smooth path of
commonplace life to scale the crags of Chelaship without some reasonable
feeling of certainty that he has the right stuff in him? Well says the
Bible: "Let him that standeth take heed lest he fall"--a text that
would-be Chelas should consider well before they rush headlong into the
fray! It would have been well for some of our Lay Chelas if they had
thought twice before defying the tests. We call to mind several sad
failures within a twelve-month. One went wrong in the head, recanted
noble sentiments uttered but a few weeks previously, and became a member
of a religion he had just scornfully and unanswerably proven false. A
second became a defaulter and absconded with his employer's money--the
latter also a Theosophist. A third gave himself up to gross debauchery,
and confessed it, with ineffectual sobs and tears, to his chosen Guru.
A fourth got entangled with a person of the other sex and fell out with
his dearest and truest friends. A fifth showed signs of mental
aberration and was brought into Court upon charges of discreditable
conduct. A sixth shot himself to escape the consequences of
criminality, on the verge of detection! And so we might go on and on.
All these were apparently sincere searchers after truth, and passed in