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 According to the Christian Scripture, then, it was not the wickedness of the angels who wedded earthly women, but the evil imaginations of the human heart that brought about the punishment of the Deluge. And in this, Genesis is in strict accord with modern theosophy—the only philosophy, so far as I know, which professes to know the Alpha and Omega of occultism. Theosophy lays stress on the punishment which awaits the black sorcerer—the earthly being who uses magical powers for selfish or impure purposes. But Theosophy is not alone in this teaching. All occultism, by whatever name it is called, however imperfect in deductions, learns at last to beware of the occultist who breaks the moral law, or who, whether wilfully or carelessly, through prejudice or through crafty desire to advance his own selfish interests, closes his eyes to the truth. In other words, clear thinking and correct living are the only passport to trustworthiness in an occultist.

I have said that all occultism learns this lesson at last.

It is true that there are many psychical phenomena which at first sight do not seem to require any special exercise of morality on the part of the percipient. Such are the carefully attested phenomena of thought transference and wraith-seeing (especially of the astral form as "double" of people at the point of death or undergoing a sudden shock) which the Society for Psychical Research have collated from a multitude of sources, in the case of the double to the number of some three thousand. The percipients in these instances are probably average sort of folks, no better and no worse than their fellows. Yet they see or hear by means of senses which are still unrecognized by most people, and which are therefore, termed occult; and what they perceived is afterwards proved to be an actual occurrence, often of something taking place miles away. But it is to be observed that the reliable cases collated by the Psychical Research Society are furnished by people who seem to be clear-headed enough, at least, to form definite mental