The following was received from Madame Blavatsky, by Thomas H. Evans, deceased, of Washington, D. C, and sent by him to us for publication in The Occult Word:
"I am always delighted to be brought into relation with a new seeker after truth, and only wish I had hours enough in the day to take each by the hand and lead him the long journey through that ends at the door of Esoteric Wisdom. But it has been decreed, from time immemorial, that each one must be his own sufficient pilot and body-guard so far as visible things are concerned. The 'Kingdom of Heaven,' which I need not tell you is but the dominion of man's immortal spirit over the inner force of the Universe, must be taken by violence. I am sorry to be compelled to tell you, that the prize of Wisdom and Power must be won through danger, trial, temptation, the allurements of sense and all the besetments of this world of matter which they counterpoise, hence antagonist of spirit. Broad, smooth and flower-sprinkled is the way to the world's rewards; narrow, hard, sorrow beset the path to the Temple of Truth.
Do not take the above, pray, for literary flourishes, or an attempt to throw a mysterious coloring over our correspondence. What I say is simple and naked truth. As I read your letter, it appears to me that you have reason for encouragement. Your aspirations are warm and proper, your reading in the right direction, and I see in your poetry that the Inner-man has more to do with it than the mere physical brains of the writer. You need to keep on and never turn a glance backward. Your greatest need you have yourself stated; it is Will-Power. There never was either Adept of White Magic, or Sorcerer of the Goethic Art without that. Magic is impossible without it.
. . . To help those who need it is the object of all my life and my most sacred duty. Pray lay aside all ideas of conventionality as regards sex and acquaintance. The true Occult is sexless — or rather androgynous. He lives in the Spirit, he merely exists in the fleshy capsule that covers him, indifferent whether it be called man or woman by those who only see it externally."
FOOTNOTE:
1. Reprinted from The Occult Word, December, 1885, published and edited by Mrs. Josephine W. Cables, Rochester, N. Y. (return to text)