The subjects which engage the attention of the speculative occultist are The Creator, or creative power; World Building, and the order and design of the earth and its spirit spheres; Man, and his relations to the Creator, the earth, and his fellow-man.
Descent of Spirit into matter, and its growth through embryotic stages, during which period it is first elemental, then animal, then man.
Ascent of Spirit out of matter, and its progress through future stages of growth as planetary and solar spirits.
Besides these purely theoretical subjects are suggestions concerning the best methods of communing with spiritual existences, and of receiving information from lower and higher states than man. These, together with some mental exercises and practices, form the main themes of consideration in the colleges of speculative occultism. Spirit Communion, together with Astronomy, Astrology, Mathematics, Geometry, Music, Anatomy, Physiology, Psychology, and Psychometry, are all kindred branches of study which must engage the attention of the true occultist.
PRACTICAL OCCULTISM.
Practical Occultism consists, first, of a perfect mastery of the individual’s own spirit. No advance whatever can be made in acquiring power over other spirits, such as controlling the lower or supplicating the higher, until the spirit within has acquired such perfect mastery of itself, that it can never be moved to anger or emotion—realizes no pleasure, cares for no pain; experiences no mortification at insult, loss, or disappointment—in a word, subdues every emotion that stirs common men’s minds.
To arrive at this state, severe and painful as well as long continued discipline is necessary. Having acquired this perfect equilibrium, the next step is power. The individual must be able to wake when he pleases and sleep when he pleases; go in spirit during bodily sleep where he will, and visit—as well as remember when awake—distant scenes.
He must be enabled by practice, to telegraph, mentally, with his fellow associates, and present himself, spiritually, in their midst.
He must, by practice, acquire psychological control over the minds of any persons—not his associates—beneath his own calibre of mind. He must be able to still a crying infant, subdue fierce animals or angry men, and by will, transfer his thought without speech or outward sign to any person of a mental calibre below himself; he must be enabled to summon to his presence elementary spirits, and if he desires to do so (knowing the penalties attached), to make them serve him in the special departments of Nature to which they belong.
He must, by virtue of complete subjugation of his earthly nature, be able to invoke Planetary and even Solar Spirits, and commune with them to a certain degree.