10. Non-Occult Dangers Of The Black Lodge-e

Needless to say, the correspondence was sent straight to the authorities. The problems which we have considered in this chapter are not peculiar to occult fraternities, but are common to any organisation which does not discriminate as to its members. The organisations which advertise must perforce take all comers and sort them out in the light of subsequent experience, and some of these experiences can be very queer indeed. One cannot blame an organisation that picks up an occasional black sheep, one only takes exception if it retains an accumulation of them. A lodge of dubious whiteness can be readily recognised by the type of people who belong to it, who may best be described as the seedy adventurer type with a sprinkling of smart society folk who often have a taste for crude flavours in the way of sensation. The really Black Lodges are as carefully guarded as the high-grade White Lodges, and no outsider can gain entrance to them. The serious student of Black Occultism is out for knowledge and magical experiment and he is not going to waste his time on a tyro. Those who choose to graduate into a Black Lodge after serving their apprenticeship in the Outer Court of a White Lodge do so with their eyes open, and experience must be their teacher. One cannot feel that they deserve much sympathy if the experience is a painful one. The person I am out to help is the person who is a victim, not the one who is hoist with his own petard. The man or woman who, rejecting the steady grade of the Way of Initiation, chooses to go up with rocket had better come down with the stick. Any request for a large sum of money should always be regarded as a danger signal. It is one of the strictest conditions of initiation that occult knowledge may never be sold or used for gain. I know of an occultist who charges £300 for one of the initiations he confers; and he will give it to anyone who has got £300. In my opinion, the person who pays out £300 for such a purpose deserves the kind of initiation he is going to get. It is also a bad sign when an occultist makes free with signs and wonders before the uninitiated. No genuine adept ever does this. The person who reads your past incarnations, describes your aura, rolls up his eyes, twitches, and gives you a message from your Master as soon as he is introduced, is a person to be avoided. The more I see of the occult movement, the more I am amazed at the things people can say and do and “get away with.” The average person is out of his depth when he deals with psychic matters. He usually goes through three phases. Firstly, he thinks it is all superstition and fraud. Secondly, his scepticism being breached, he will believe anything. Thirdly, if he ever gets as far as thirdly, he learns discrimination, and distinguishes between the Black Fraternities, the White Fraternities and Fatuous Fraternities.