At his request she wrote to me to enquire how I was faring, but mentioned no names, and I, not realising the significance of the incident, returned a non-committal answer.
He heard my story and told me to leave the matter in his hands, which I did.
This is a queer enough story of coincidence, but the sequel is even queerer.
After leaving Colonel Y., I enquired once more of the Unseen whether I should take any further steps.
The reply came through that for the present I was to do nothing, but that I would be told when further action was to be taken.
I learnt afterwards that X.
had left the country a few days after my interview with Colonel Y.
Nothing happened for about five months, and then one evening when I was sitting over my fire in the dusk I distinctly heard the Inner Voice telling me that now was the time to make a move in the matter of X., and that I was to go to Mr.
Z.
and tell my story.
Now Mr.
Z.
was a very eminent person indeed, whom I knew of as being an advanced occultist, but whom I had never met.
I replied to the interior voice that for me to approach Mr.
Z.
was impossible, I should merely be shown the door, and that unless they could open up the way from their end, I did not see how it was to be done.
The answer came through very clearly that the way would be made plain.
And it was.
A couple of days later a visitor was announced, an old friend whom I only saw occasionally, and after the usual greetings and exchange of news, he said, “I should very much like you to meet a friend of mine who I think would be interested in your work.
May I take you to see him?
His name is Mr.
Z.” Needless to say I agreed.
When I came to the appointed meeting, I said to Mr.
Z., after I had been introduced, “ I have got a message for you,” thinking I might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb.
He listened attentively, and when I mentioned the name of the Indian, my friend who was present, exclaimed, “It is a curious thing that you should be moving in this matter at the present moment.
X.
landed in England a couple of days ago.” It will be noted that as soon as X.
left England, I was instructed to hold my hand, and as soon as he returned after an absence of five months, I was instructed to commence action again.
Unless we are prepared to pull the long arm of coincidence clean out of its socket, we must conclude that some directing intelligence was at work.
This is but one among many instances in my experience.
Limitations of space forbid me to mention any more.
In addition to the Occult Police, who function solely on the Inner Planes, there also exist certain groups of occultists who have banded themselves together for the purpose of combating Black Occultism.
I suppose they give themselves different names, but I do not know what these are; I have always heard them referred to generically as the Hunting Lodges.
Upon various occasions I have skirmished on their flanks and looked on at some lively forays.
I imagine them to be organised in conjunction with the Occult Police, and they certainly possess means of obtaining information which point to co-operation from the Inner Planes.
They appear to possess alliances in unexpected quarters and to be able to pull a remarkable number of strings.
What psychic weapons they use I do not know, but upon the physical plane they appear to rely largely upon newspaper exposes, and upon keeping undesirables on the move, never allowing them to settle down and organise.
Knowing what I do of their methods, I have from time to time recognised their sign-manual in various transactions for which decent citizens have every reason to be grateful.
Pronoia — the doctrine that the divine actively orders the unfolding of the cosmos and human affairs toward intelligible ends, against pure chance or blind necessity.
The passage explicitly argues against coincidence, concluding that a 'directing intelligence' orchestrated events to protect the narrator and combat black occultism.
A channel of guidance received internally as a distinct voice or clear reply, addressable and answerable in dialogue, whose source — the practitioner's own higher consciousness, or an external discarnate or non-human intelligence — may be genuinely unknown to the one who receives it. Distinct from higher_self (one possible but not certain source of this voice, not the channel itself) and gnosis_direct_knowledge (unmediated apprehension of ultimate truth, not a two-way dialogic exchange with an addressable interlocutor).
The narrator repeatedly receives instructions from an 'Inner Voice' or the 'Unseen' regarding when to act and whom to contact.
An informal, decentralised network of occultists — operating partly through inner-plane guidance and partly through organised physical-plane fraternities that hunt and disband harmful lodges — that polices the occult field against criminal or malevolent use, acting on inner-voice direction and coincidence-engineering rather than any single headquarters or centralised human command. Distinct from secret_societies (an institution that holds esoteric knowledge collectively, not one organised specifically around enforcement against occult wrongdoing) and left_hand_path (the malevolent orientation this network exists to counter, not the countering network itself).
The text explicitly names the 'Occult Police' as entities functioning on the Inner Planes to maintain order.
Organized, persisting groups — fraternities, orders, lodges — that maintain esoteric knowledge or practices as an institution distinct from public religion or mainstream society, holding 'the keys' collectively rather than through any one master-disciple pair. Distinct from esoteric_lineage (a genealogical chain of individual transmission, not an institution) and hidden_sayings (the concealment of a teaching's meaning, independent of whether any organized body holds it).
The text describes 'Hunting Lodges' and the 'Occult Police' as organized groups of occultists banding together to combat Black Occultism.