The disciple reverses the entire situation and falls a victim (prior to the third initiation) to the terrific inflow of soul energy - the energy of the second aspect - coming to him from: [116]

1. His own soul, with which center of energy fusion is rapidly taking place.
2. His group or the Ashram with which he, as an accepted disciple, is affiliated.
3. His Master, with Whom he has spiritual relation and to Whose vibratory influence he is ever susceptible.
4. The Hierarchy, the energy of which can reach him through the medium of all the three above factors.

To these conditions the mystic is not so prone unless he is rapidly becoming the practical mystic or occultist. This is a definite transitional cycle between the mystical attitude and that more definite position which the occultist assumes. I shall not therefore deal with the diseases to which mystics fall heir, except that I would like to point out one interesting fact: The mystic is ever conscious of duality. He is the seeker in search of light, of the soul, of the beloved, of that higher something which he senses as existing and as that which can be found. He strives after recognition of and by the divine; he is the follower of the [117] vision, a disciple of the Christ, and this conditions his thinking and his aspiration. He is a devotee and one who loves the apparently unattainable - the Other than himself.

Next, I would point out that the lowest expression of the mystical condition, and one with which we are becoming increasingly familiar, is that which is called a "split personality"; when this condition is present, the personal lower self expresses itself through a basic condition of duality and two persons express themselves, apparently, instead of the integrated personality-soul. This necessarily creates a dangerous psychological condition and one which warrants trained scientific handling. That is largely lacking at this time, as so few trained psychologists and psychiatrists recognize the fact of the soul. I mention this as it is of value today, and will be increasingly so in the later years when it will be necessary to trace and comprehend the analogies existing in the human consciousness to great unexplored areas of awareness. The split personality and the mystic are two aspects of one whole - the aspect which is right, and along the line of high spiritual unfoldment, and the aspect which is a reflection and a distortion of that grade of development which precedes that of trained occultist. There are many conditions prevalent in humanity [118] at this time which can be subjected to the same reasoning, and one of the modes of healing which will be worked out later is the discovery of the higher correspondences to the lower difficulties and diseases, and the recognition that they are but distortions of a great reality. This leads to the transference of the attention of the one under the care of the healer to that recognized higher aspect.

The spiritual technique, however, is entirely different. The personality problem and the process of delving into [119] the subconscious are ignored, because the conditions which are undesirable are regarded as the result of lack of soul contact and of soul control. The patient (if I might so call him) is taught to take his eyes, and consequently his attention, away from himself, his feelings, his complexes and his fixed ideas and undesirable thoughts, and to focus them upon the soul, the divine Reality within the form, and the Christ consciousness. This could well be called the process of scientific substitution of a fresh dynamic interest for that which has hitherto held the stage; it brings into functioning activity a cooperative factor whose energy sweeps through the lower life of the personality and carries away wrong psychological tendencies, undesirable complexes, leading to erroneous approaches to life. This eventually regenerates the mental or thought life, so that the man is conditioned by right thinking under the impulse or the illumination of the soul. This produces the "dynamic expulsive power of a new affection"; the old idées fixes, the old depressions and miseries, the hindering and handicapping ancient desires - these all disappear, and the man stands free as a soul and master of his life processes.