Theoretical and Practical Occultism

Book excerpt: While the study of theoretical Occultism is harmless, and may do good, practical Occultism, being the “Science of Good and Evil,” is fraught with perils and pitfalls. The student of Occult Arts, who is not intellectually or ethically fit, will be unable to discern the Right from the Left Path. He will bring on himself and his family unexpected woes and sorrows, never suspecting whence they come. Only Absolute Unity, physical and metaphysical, can provide safe passage to the other shore. Whoever indulges, after having pledged himself to Occultism, in the gratification of a worldly love or lust, must feel an almost immediate result: that of being irresistibly dragged from the impersonal divine state down to the lower plane of matter.