Illion's descriptions of the society in the Underground City were fascinating.  He said that sex was not allowed there except when permitted by the ruler, the object being that sexual energy was to be given to a pool to be "channeled" to the higher initiates. Some of the initiates of this "Dark City" were called  "Dispensers of the Divine Wisdom," "Masters of Light," "Disciples of Light," "Saviours of Souls," "Lords of Compassion," "Illuminated Teachers," and so forth. 

Each initiation tied the holder of the title more closely to the head of the Brotherhood, and I think the holders of the highest degrees had no separate personality left at all and were mere "against of the Divine will," heart, body and soul.

In return for their pledging themselves to the "Light" they obtained greater occult powers and spiritual energies on the understanding that all of them would be used only in the interest of the Brotherhood and for no other purpose.[...]

The whole psychical atmosphere of the City seemed to be very strange and had a tendency to develop latent powers in man. [...] The psychical atmospher of the City seemed to render critical and methodical thinking very difficult. It tended to weaken memory, but it seemed to develop the intuitional nature of man to a remarkable degree.

After a certain point, Narbu arrives and Illion comments about him:

He looked very fit. Only the expression of his eyes seemed to have altered a little . They were still beautiful, but had just aslight touch of a glassy appearance which I did not like at all. [...] Narbu informed me than Mani Rimpoche, the Exalted Jewel or Prince of Light, the Ruler of the Holy City, was expected toreturn the following day and it was quite possible that I would be granted the privilege of an audience. [...]

"The next few days would be of vital importance" for me, said Narbu.  No one here had a right to force my hand and I had to decide quite freely whether I wanted to become a member.  I was quite free to come and go as I liked, and so long as I had not taken a pledge I was under no obligation to the Holy Brotherhood.  Then he whispered:

"Many of us here realize of what enormous value you could be to us if you decided to join us of your own free will."  He even hinted at a quick rise in the ranks of the Hierarchy, rapidly succeeding initiations and the possibility of my being entrusted with a "really big job" once I had decided to become a member....the moment you have taken your decision the Prince of Light will assign to you the exalted position in which you will be most useful. 

Well, Illion was not dumb.  He observed and noted things and kept his own counsel.

"I thought that I had always assigned myself my own position and that I had acquired knowledge and priceless experience by doing so, but I could not examine things in the City quite as intelligently as I could have done in a really neutral atmosphere.  I felt as if my capacity to think deeply and freely and to weigh matters coolly was impaired by my very presence in it.  And as I am a man of what occultists call the "lion temperament", although very meek when I want to be meek, everything in me revolted.  I then almost cursed the atmosphere of that city.

I had to think of a passage in the drama Faust, by Goethe, where the devil says to himself after leaving a prospective victim:

"Contempt your capacity to think,
Which is man's greatest power;
Welcome misty things and sorcery
And the spirit of illusion,
Then I shall get you surely enough."

Then I again looked at Narbu and felt ashamed to have entertained such thoughts.  He seemed to feel so sincere about it.  He wanted me to join a Brotherhood working for the good of the world, and gave me freedom to make my choice.  The pendulum swung back once more and I felt a perfect beast to have entertained these thoughts.[...]

All these people were a little proud to have the privilege of working for the world.  They had a rather high opinion of their own spirituality.  Some of them even linked up the Prince of Light with certain highly placed spiritual entities who are what Hindu philosophers call karmic agents and regulate the unloading of karmic reactions on men and nations.  Some of them even seemed to feel that the Holy Ruler could actually influence the destinies of the world by hastening or retarding the outbreak of wars, the evolution of new types of epidemics and the disappearance of older kinds of diseases, as well as the action of other scourges of humanity, including the various catastrophes of Nature.  They seemed to consider the Holy Jewel as a kind of supreme judge dispensing Divine justice, and naturally felt very elated at the thought of standing so near a being who possessed all these powers.

Human intelligence they only held in mediocre esteem.  They seemed to feel that man's mission was to get past the human stage, and that passing beyond the limited matter-of-fact intelligence of man and soaring to intuitive levels was the best method of becoming more "Divine."

Again the pendulum of my disposition towards the City swayed in the opposite direction.  I thought of the devil speaking in Goethes' Faust, but it was enough for me to look once more at Narbu to make the pendulum swing back again.  The longer I stayed in the Holy City the more I seemed to be overcome by a frightful state of indecision and experienced the most acute sense of spiritual anguish.  At times I felt as if the ground disappeared under my feet, that everything was in a state of flux, and as if I were tossed about by conflicting spiritual currents.

I listened to Narbu while he took part in the conversation.  I felt as if his voice had become still more metallic and hollow.  When I made a few casual remarks I began to pay attention to my own voice, and found, to my astonishment, that it sounded unusually hollow too.  The fine individual touch which a man's personality gives to his voice seemed to be absent.

I listened to the conversation of the people seated in the neighbouring circle.  They were talking on evolution.

People in the City did not seem to talk much about any human topics.  All of them seemed to want to get past the human stage and to be God-like.

One of them envisaged the glory of evolution, life passing from the mineral stage through plants, animals, man and angels up to the archangelic and Divine stages, and every creature automatically becoming a god. 

Glory, in their eyes, seemed to be the automatic and inevitable destiny of man.  They did not seem to be aware of the dreadful alternative of annihilation, of the fact that there is a downward trend of satanic evolution as a counterpart to the upward trend of Divine evolution.

They seemed to feel that the great spiritual struggle was between spirit and matter.  They seemed to utterly ignore the vital fact that there are two different types of spirituality, the upward trend and the [downward] one, and that the real spiritual struggle is one between the two different types of spirituality with matter serving as the battleground.

Has life any meaning, I pondered, if we deprive it of all possibility of self-expression?  What is life minus freedom, variety, and personality?  A meaningliess void!  In the house of the Creator there must be many abodes of thought.  I had always believed that if I love and honour God, love my neighbour and love myself, God would let me do everything I like so long as I respected these three laws. 

Some of the members present expressed spiritual indignation at the many sins committed in the world.  They hoped that the Exalted Jewel would punish all those who caused so much injustice and so much suffereing.  I could not help feeling that practically all of the people present had a slight touch of what may be called spiritual arrogance.  The most arrogant ones seemed to be the most sheepish ones when the conversation centered around the Prince of Light and the Great Holy Teachers.

At this point, Illion suffers a terrifying series of nightmares about a struggle with demons, and some "good angels" came to his defense.  He remarked about the good guys:

The boys in pure white robes still looked very concerned.  All their feelings found a visible impression in their expressive faces.  They stood behind me, but during my nightmare I could see forward and backward at the same time.  The demons, however, had no individual expression in their faces.  They were all alike.  There was no personality about them.  They seemed to mechanically carry out the behests of someone else.

The [good guys] seemed to possess strong individualities.  This very individuality was their best defence against the large army of spiritual dummies."

More events are described, and then he mentions another meal, served in courses of nine dishes. Apparently, the number nine is very dominant in the Holy City. Regarding the food:

The faculty to think clearly diminished after each meal.  Moreover, I felt that my body revolted against the food taken.  I am a man of quick decisions.  After the fourth meal taken in the Holy City it was obvious that the food did not agree with me.  Moreover, every time I had eaten something in the dining-building I felt very strongly that unconscious influences impaired my capacity to think.

Illion decided that even if it is just "paranoia," he wasn't going to take any chances, so he got up very early the next morning and walked to a village some miles distant and buy some food.  When he announced he wasn't going to go to dinner when the robotic slave came to get him for the next meal, a sort of ripple effect occurred with a lot of people coming to inquire about his health. He comments at some length about the "servants" of the city - their blank eyes, robotic behavior, and inability to do anything other than what they are commanded to do.

After getting a supply of food, Illion locked his door and prepared his own meals. He didn't feel the impairment of his capacity to think after eating his simply barley gruel. Nevertheless, he did leave the option open that these impressions could be simply auto-suggestion.

Illion's "audience" with the "Prince of Light" is an interesting description of a sort of "psychic battle."   He refused all the folderol, rituals, etc and threatened to walk out when the servants kept insisting on "following the rules."  He told them:

I notice that the whole reception is intended to be mere ceremony.  I have not come to the City to get something, but in order to assist and cooperate of my own free will with sincere spiritual helpers.  I have no time for ceremonies.  I suggest that one of you puts on that black silk robe and goes through the show on my behalf.  I shall not put it on. This is final.

Well, they let him in anyway. After a bunch more "ceremonial nonsense," he comments:  

Decidedly, all these ceremonies, probably destined to impress people with awe and expectation, were lost on me.  I considered them rather boring and disrespectfully thought of a circus.

Finally Illion gets to meet the "Prince of Light," the head honcho, the big Banana, who tells him:

You are a man of great capacity and you will have to fulfil a great mission in this incarnation.  The next few days will be of vital importance to you.  The experience and portent of a whole series of lives will be crowded for you into the space of hours.  You are called upon to take perhaps the greatest decision you have ever been called upon to make, not only in this life but also in hundreds of previous existences.  No one can force your hand.  You yourself must make your decision in perfect freedom.

In spite of all these platitudes about free will, we notice that the environment seems to be designed to prevent clear thinking!!!! Illion says about the big banana: 

If Narbu was right, I was in the presence of one of the greatest Powers on earth.  ...His voice was refined, strong, and beautiful, but had a slightly metallic sound.  It was very deep too.

He was very tall and had a long white beard.  He looked like a mixture of Pythagoras with slightly Jewish touch and a refined modern Tibetan belonging to the aristocracy of the country.

When our eyes met I had the strange feeling as of something in me fleeing away from him with great eagerness, but it was only an inexplicable reflex and since I had so many conflicting and contradictory spiritual experiences ever since I had come to the Holy City, I paid no further attention to it.

"You have an iron will, " he observed, "but this is not enough.  You sometimes accomplish things because of your boundless energy.  That is not enough.  You must acquire the power to make your environment obey you."  He mentioned two sanscrit words to illustrate the difference between wanting a thing and commanding a thing to come your way. 

He seemed to prompt me to try to put myself on a level with the Creator.  I, on the other hand, knew that my greatest asset in life had been a capacity to live fully, to be a creature - a powerful creature in my own way - but yet a child of the Creator, and I had never tried to be like the Maker by "commanding things to come my way."[...] 

"You could become all-powerful," he observed meaningly."At what price?" I asked. "That you must discover for yourself," he answered.

We talked about his Brotherhood.  He illustrated how impersonal he was.  The individual often disappeared before his eyes.  He then only saw principles at work.  And great principles they were.  Guests did not always realize this.

Sometimes guests come here who have sacrificed everything for doing so and who go hungry for weeks to be able to come here.  Let them be hungry.  It is good for them to be hungry," he said with cold emphasis.[...]

"You are the first person who has ever entered this part of the palace in clothes like this.  I hope you will now realize how little value we really attach to matters of pomp and circumstance."

I sincerely wished I could believe him, but I couldn't.

"I hope you are convinced by now that the Exalted Jewel is a powerful spiritual leader, " [Narbu] observed."Yes," I replied, holding back the opinion that I still had to find out about him the most important fact, viz, whether he served the cause of Light of the cause of Shadow.

The whole evening I had been in the grip of grave doubts as to the real nature of the whole Brotherhood of Light.

It was dark night when we passed the circular wall surrounding the shaft in the centre of the Holy City.

"This shaft must be very deep," I observed.

"How do you know it is a shart?" asked Narbu.

"I have explored it a little," I answered.

He seemed greatly surprised.

"It is immeasurably deep, " he observed, "but no one except the Prince of Light and a few of the highest Initiates who are called Lords of Compassion know where it leads to. Anyone who would find out where it leads to and what it is used for would have to die... There are such secrets."

"Who would kill him?"

"No one. He would die automatically the following night.

Illion had been given permission to attend a temple service by the ruler.  He discovers that they drink real blood in the "communion."  Not only that, but the temple is filled with cases of human bones all around the perimeter.

The walls of the temple were adorned with inscriptions in Tibetan, and I spent quite a few minutes in reading them. [...] One of them read: "Give your soul to the Master and He will show you the light." I thought of a man buying a cat in a bag.

Another one read, "Distrust your brain. Deep understanding is beyond intelligence." This only increased my desire to trust my brain.

Another inscription ran, "Blessed be you who suffer. Come to me and I will give you relief."

And another, "Everything is unreal, only my own words are real>' This inscription, I thought irreverently, was none too modest.

The next morning, Illion went for a walk and was caught in a sudden rain storm. 

Those of my readers who are versed in occultism may know that there is no better "occult disinfectant" than water, and especially water coming down from the sky. It washes away all magnetic currents sent into one's body and into one's clothes by outward agents. Water absorbs magnetic currents with great eagerness. It is an occult purifier par excellence.

The thunderstorm must have "demagnetized" me, if I may use that word, and washed away most of the magical currents which had no doubt been brought to bear on me during the last few days. When I had returned to the City it seemed to me as if my capacity to view things in an absolutely matter-of-fact way had considerably increased.

After being cleansed in the storm, he goes back and visits the library with his Narbu and talks to him.

While I talked to him I began to listen to the sound of my own voice.  It had a metallic and "coated" touch too.  It was not hoarseness - oh no, it was a much more dreadful thing.

I left Narbu, who was studying a manuscript written in Sanscrit, and went over to a mirror.  When I saw myself I stepped back aghast.  Never before had I seen my eyes, the windows of the soul, gazing so lifelessly.  Where was I?  There was something of the grin of a demon in them.  What did all that mean?

I walked round the circular library building, brilliantly lit by the daylight flooding in through the ceiling.  I examined the pictures on the walls.  There were reproductions of various "Soul Saviours" and "Redeemers" of past ages; there were pictures which seemed to be enlarged reproductions of the "Supreme Jewel" and his foremost lieutenants.

I looked into their eyes.  They were beautiful but gloomy.  All was there, intelligence, power, but no - soul!  Everything in me cried out in one wild agony.  I sat down and put my hands before my face.  I had recognized the nature of all these saviours of souls.  They were - fallen angels! ... and they now live for the purpose of making others share their dreadful fate by dragging them down with them into the abyss.

The Prince of Light was really the Prince of Darkness in disguise!

The few minutes following this realization were the most dreadful of my life.... It was as if the experience of hundreds of incarnations, the suffering of whole existences, was concentrated into the space of a few minutes of spiritual anguish.  So intense was my agony that it must have disturbed the whole psychical atmosphere of the City of the Initiates.  I now positively felt powerful magnetic currents rushing on me from all sides to extinguish this newly acquired spiritual realization.

A door opened and the Prince entered...

"Have you taken your decision?" he asked in a beautiful but dreadfully hollow and metallic voice.

"Yes," I answered firmly."

He blew on mighty breath right into my face."Confounded sorcerer," I thought, "now you reveal your real nature!"

"Step back - in the name of the Creator!"  I almost shouted in a mighty voice.  I think never before had I heard my own voice so full of vigour and soul-power.  My whole being fused into one indissoluble unit, and my whole self lay in that voice.

The Ruler recoiled.  He then briskly turned and left the library.

I suddenly realized that the penalty for recognizing the real nature of such a being must be death.

Now Illion has to get out of there.  In his dashing to get his things so that nothing will be left for them to use in doing their voodoo on him, he accidentally enters the off-limits kitchen.  There he discovers the cooks preparing the meals, slicing and dicing bits of a human corpse laid out on the meat block in the center of the room.

His friend accompanied him to the borders of the city and was sad to see him go. 

"So you are going," said Narbu sadly.

The poor, kind-hearted man!  He thought he was in the city of a Great Light Power, and the thought that I did not want "salvation" made him sad. For a moment I contemplated whether I should tell him bluntly that he really was in the city of the Evil One, but strange to say I felt that I could not.  For spiritual realizations entail enormous spiritual responsibilities.

Even the Powers of Evil have their spiritual mission.  They snatch souls if men themselves give them up.  By his spiritual sins [using the impersonal for the personal], man himself weakens the ties which link him to his soul, and the more he sins spiritually the more he strikes himself with blindness until he can no longer see the difference between "Gods" and the Creator, no matter how high are his occult accomplishments.  The devil tempts, but he can only seize souls that voluntarily yield to his temptation. That is the law of the universe.[...]

There stood Narbu, kind-hearted and only afflicted with a slight dose of spiritual arrogance, but otherwise good at the core.  He wanted to save me, although it was himself who needed salvation, and I could not save him.

Just as the tiniest creature has its mission in the universe, every spiritual force, be it one belonging to the upward trend of life or to the downward, has its mission too.  It is bound by spiritual laws which are inherent to its very nature.  No special oath is required to keep it within these bounds.  No spiritual creature can act in a way contrary to its spiritual nature.

God and devil both go their own way.  And the creature can seize at will the upward or downward trend of life.  The more he sins against his soul the more he will strike himself with blindness.  But once he goes to doom, no one can save him." 

Well, at this point, things get really weird. Illion has decided to try to get back his hermit friend just south of the Gobi desert.

I felt that the Ruler of the Holy City would not feel safe while I lived, and as it was quite impossible for him to have me murdered openly - be it only out of consideration for Narbu, whose eyes might have been opened by such an occurrence - he would no doubt try to kill me by powerful magical operations.

Even attacks of this kind become more difficult when the distacne separating the magician from his enemy increases, and as I had no desire to fight these currents more than was absolutely necessary, I intended to [travel as fast as possible] and take a rest upon my arrival in the abode of the wise hermit.

While fleeing cross-country, Illion witnesses a bizarre event at dawn where two processions met in the wilderness. One was a group of Tibetan "corpse cutters," or "undertakers," carrying bodies on stretchers, which met a group of servants from the Holy City.

The people coming from the City had arrrived. I recognized them by their resplendent black robes. They were Masters in the Occult Brotherhood. They knelt down near the lifeless bodies and then magical operations were started to "resuscitate" them. [...]

After strenuous "work" greatly varying in duration, three of the lifeless bodies had begun to move and walked on towards the City mechanically, like so many robots, led on by one of the Masters. Were the lifeless bodies really dead before the resuscitation practices were started? If so, it was dreadful to imagine what kind of servants had cleaned my room and prepared the food in the Holy City!

Five other lifelss bodies where the resuscitation practices had failed to take effect were carried on towards the Holy City. [...] Those which were past hope may have been sent to the kitchen and their bones to the temple.

Illion really can't believe what he has seen, so after all of these people left, he emerged from his hiding place and went over to where they had been doing their operations to examine the ground for footprints and physical signs of their activity. After inspecting the very material marks of the event, he traveled on trying to figure out what he had witnessed and experienced. He understood that he had entered the City in a disinterested spirit to help and not in order to get something. He then writes:

Great fires, like other turmoils in life, may destroy the weak, but they purify the strong and make him still stronger. More and more I began to be aware of the fact that life, including life on spiritual planes, was not an affair of peaceful contemplation and quiet worship, but a dreadful turmoil, a grim fight, and a bitter struggle.

Had I met this procession three days earlier carrying lifeless bodies on stretchers it might have opened my eyes at once. I might have immediately realized the real nature of the Brotherhood and thus missed the greatest experience of my life. [...]

The following day I visited one of the monasteries. [...] I had a good look at the Tibetan butter idols. There were idols in the monastery entirely composed of butter mixed with coloured earth. They, of course, stood in the shadow, since the afternooons in the summer are dreadfully warm. I had to smile once more when thinking of the fact that idols fight shy of shunshine, since the latter had a tendency to melt them. Was it not symbolical, I thought, that idols could only exert their influence in the shadow and not in bright sunshine! Elaborate ceremonies were performed by the lamas. An abundant supply of human bones had been used for making censers and other objects used for divine service.

I thought of the Holy City. The same spirit seemed to reign in the monastery, although in a greatly diluted manner.

The lamas also spoke of the necessity to believe blindly in the contents of their 333 holy books. Just like the members of the Brotherhood in the City, I thought. There, too, the most sublime gift of man - his intelligence - had to be discarded and transcended. [...]

They continually spoke, too, of "salvation", of "saving" one's soul by giving it up to the Divine. Many, perhaps most, of the conversations at which I had been present in the City - in the dining-building and elsewhere - had a distinct parallel in the sermons of the lamas. The Prince catered for the elect, the lamas for the multitude, I thought, but I failed to see any fundamental difference between the two.

Were not nearly all these poor people in the [position where] they wanted to be "saved" and tried to "save" others? And while they were looking for "salvation" their poor beings disintegrated more and more. Their soul-consciousness decreased. [...]

I spent a few hours studying the mechanism of meditation which I have described in an earlier book, and then left the monastery with much sadness in my heart.

I walked on as fast as I could. [...] I was only about 150 miles from the abode of the wise hermit whose brother I had met south of the Gobi Desert. I had asked the latter whether great spiritual teachers lived on the way so that I might visit them when passing the respective districts. He had [...] talked about a great spiritual teacher to whom I might listen. He lived on a high mountain which I would pass a few days before reaching the district where several hermits, including his brother lived.

"Does he serve light or darkness?" I had asked him.

"I cannot tell you that, " he had replied. "You must discover it for yourself."

"Is it not your spiritual duty to warn me of demons who many easily appear in the disguise of angels, as occasionally happens in Western countries?" I had asked further.

"No," he had said. "Even if I realized their nature myself, it is a man's highest spiritual duty to respect another man's spiritual freedom. [...] You must discover things for yourself. You are going to Tibet. You have to take the risks, not I." [...]

Only a few miles separated me from the mountain on which the great spiritual Teacher lived.

My hermit friend had told me that he refused to bear any title, that he lived very simply without making any effort at being simple, that he had no special circle of disciples or followers, and that he always stressed the necessity that people should follow the light of their own intelligence and not allow themselves to be influenced by anyone else. [...] Needless to say, I was rather inclined to consider him as a sincere teacher, although I reserved my opinion until I had actually met him and his followers.

He was known by the name of Gentle Friend. [...] I was told that the Teacher had nothing special to say to visitors, but if I was interested in his teaching there was no objection to my listening to a few of his lectures. [...] If I wanted to come next morning I should be welcome. I could live in any of the unoccupied dens I liked to choose, and if I had not food and fuel enough I could get some barley-meal and dried yak-dung in the house.

Decidedly, I began to like this place. Everything seemed to be so simple, matter-of-fact, and unobtrusive.[...]

The little crowd was keenly interested in abstract problems. While we were walking up to the [house] for the lecture they discussed the problems of good and evil, light and shadow, with great animation. For them it seemed good and evil did not exist at all. There was no such thing as "bad", one of them observed, and all the others agreed to it. Everything was a mere reflection of ourselves.

"The Teacher started his lecture by directing attention to the utter futility of conscious spiritual guidance. ... Spirituality could not be given, he said, and stressed the word several times. It was always there. Man had to take it by perfecting himself, and the way to this perfection was reached by introspection, that is to say, by understanding oneself and by discovering the real value of things.

The longer he talked the better I liked him. There seemed to be so much common sense and sincerity about this man.

During the lecture enormous rats seemed to play a kind of football match on the roof of the house. They greatly disturbed the talk by doing so, but the Gentle Friend and most of his listeners loved animals - ALL animals - and did not allow anyone to fight of chase rats or any other creature. Non-resistance to everything, as I learned a little later, was the keynote of their whole existence, and this non-resistance included a passive attitude to animals of any kind.

I respectfully disagreed with the Gentle Friend in this respect. There were obviously two realms of animals in nature. If I was kind to a horse or a dog and in exceptional cases even to a bear or a squirrel, the kindness would be justified. But ho about kindness to parasites, to snakes, to crocodiles or sharks? The latter animals belonged to a different branch of life. No amount of love, kindness, and non-resistance would ever disarm a shark or a louse, I thought.

Was it not a crime then to eat, because the food taken by the Gentle Friend and our circle could have fed many more rats? Surely many of them were hungry, for rats and other parasitic animals always multiply a little faster than the food supply available for them could justify, so that they always need more food.

Life is a struggle. In this struggle, a just and equitable balance CAN be kept between man and animals of the non-parasitic type, but the animals belonging to the descending branch of life, such as gnats, mosquitoes, rats, mice, flies, etc., must be FOUGHT.

I wondered whether the Gentle Friend would also object to disinfection during epidemics out of kindness to germs of disease if he happened to come to the West!

However, apart from this disregard for the elementary fact of polarity in life which led to this absurd kindness to rats, I quite agreed with him as to most of what he had said about spiritual matters and the necessity for man to be independent from visible guidance in spiritual matters.

The Teacher gave a second lecture in the afternoon.

He began by taking a strong stand against acetiscism and fasting to obtain spiritual results. I again heartily agreed with him. He then took up the subject of magic, and said it was not only spiritual error, but a veritable crime. The only way to salvation, he went on, was through the disappearance of ignorance, stupidity.

Man must discard his separate spiritual existence, observed the Gentle Friend with great vigour. And this result is reached by instrospection, that is to say, by giving up what I consider the most Divine thing in man, his WILL.

The idea struck me that to try to be "like God" by entirely destroying one's I- consciousness amount to committing spiritual suicide. Annihilation could not be the supreme goal of life. Just as in material things, as much egotism is justified as is absolutely necessary to maintain our separate existence, it is the duty of the creature to maintain its individuality also in the realm of spirituality, otherwise life would have no meaning.

I profoundly disagreed with the Gentle Friend in this respect, although most of the things he had said in the earlier part of his lecture had been perfectly acceptable.

He then went on discussing 1. I-consciousness, 2. group consciousness, 3. Divine consciousness.

He said that in prehistoric times man was not yet individualized. Man then identified himself with the clan to which he happened to belong. Today man had reached the stage of individual I-consciousness and the next step for him was to go from individual I-consciousness to Divine consciousness.

I again could not help disagreeing. How could critically minded people swallow such an idea? Prehistoric man was group conscious. Modern man is not yet fully I-conscious. Again and again he is drawn back into the clan and family spirit, that is to say, he is alternately group conscious and I-conscious. So the trend of evolution in modern man is from group-consciousness towards FULL I-consciousness.

And now the Gentle Friend proposed that man, whose I-consciousness is just emerging from group consciousness - [not even fully grown spiritually ] - should jump back to a state of "total" consciousness which existed prior to group- consciousness!

I again thought of the fact that he recommended people to put themselves on a level with the Creator. Once more I realized a short moment of acute spiritual anguish when I realized that this man, too, served the purpose of the fallen angels, and wondered whether he was a mere tool or whether he himself was conscious of his decidedly destructive mission.

How beautiful had been most of these two lectures! There had been so much truth in them, and yet they were only nearly true. The word "almost" in spiritual matters is an ominous one. The Evil One is Almost God, and in this little word "almost" lies all the dreadful difference.

Perhaps the Gentle Friend did not realize himself what he was doing. This prospect was slight, but it existed. There are cases of this kind in spiritual life. It occasionally happens that sincere people are struck with spiritual blindness and serve the cause of darkness while they honestly believe they serve the cause of light. [...]

That day he lectured on nothingness, on becoming like "nothing," and the "happiness" one derived from becoming like nothing.

So there we were!

What motive did he recommend for seeking a non-egocentrical conception of life?

Happiness! The search for happiness!

Not a word about the intense suffering of a man who feels one with all the joys and sorrows of the world. All he recommended was an escape from life, "nothingness," and subsequent happiness, viz. the very height of selfishness.

Before he withdrew I looked at him fully for the last time. There was nothing in his eyes, voice, or bearing that could have provided any clue as to whether he really believed in the destructive things he had said or whether he was a mere tool. He may have been the latter. In most cases, apostles who are themselves deceived are very dangerous. It is easier to deceive people if the deceiver believes in his own message.

I realized how dreadfully clever and adaptable the Evil One is, and in how many different and cleverly disguised ways he carries on his soul-snatching activities. There is the appeal of weath and power and the snare of excessive care for the needs of the body. Many people sell their souls to get them. Then there is the appeal of spiritual distinctions and paradises. ... And for people who cannot be caught by either of the two, there are subtle philosophical systems. Decidedly the devil's shop is a well-stocked on; he caters for all possible tastes, and his snares are everywhere. [...]

At top speed I left the mountain where the Pied Piper plays the tune of simplicity to catch souls. When I sat down to take my lunch [...] I pulled out a piece of paper and wrote down the following sketch:

Once upon a time there were clever philosophers. They did not believe in the Creator.

"We follow our own light, " they said. And in all matters they only relied on the light of introspection. Then they came across the Devil.

"What a monster!" said one of them. "What a comfort to know that nothing is real and everything is a mere reflection of ourselves!"

"You are right," put in a second philosopher. "Everything is subjective; nothing is objective."

Then the Devil opened his mouth and swallowed them.

When they arrived inside the Devil's body the clever philosophers said with a superior smile: "Is it not obvious that we were right? The monster has disappeared."

Illion's goal at this point was to return to the region inhabited by most of the wise hermits who stand for the Creator and who isolated themselves in these districts, not to get selfish bliss, but who sacrifice themselves in their work to counteract the psychic currents set loose by the various Saviours and hosts of fallen angels incarnated in Tibet. Illion mentions that there may even be a few such people in the Western world, veritable guardian angels of humanity who counteract the pernicious workings of Darknss masquerading as Light.

In the final leg of his journey, Illion nearly dies from exposure and was saved in the nick of time by the Wise Hermits.

The hermits - who were no "soul-snatchers" this time, but strong and powerful individuals who were intensely personal and yet actted impersonally - took great care of me. [...] Ever since I had left the Underground City a strange cadaveric smell had clung to me. The hermits noticed the smell, which they said may have been due to magical operations by which a portion of the vitalizing principle of my physical body had been drawn away by black sorcerers and then decomposed by magical practices for the purpose of killing me. They said that since their practices had not succeeded in murdering me, my enemies had probably killed themselves in the effort. [...]

I intensely realized that the more man approaches full individualization, the more he is conscious of his duties to the Creator, the rising branch of life, and himself. [...] The province of man is action. In this world of matter, which is really the battleground for a formidable struggle of two different spiritualities, the few wise men of Tibet who are great and dynamic personalities intensely personal, yet acting impersonally, represent a kind of bodyguard of the Creator which holds in check the other camp of methodically working "annihilators" and "soul snatchers."

I could feel their thoughts. They possesed the power to rule over the forces of Nature, but their very nature prevented them from using those powers unless it was absolutely necessary in the service of the Creator.

After having read the presentation of excerpts from T. Illion's book: Darkness Over Tibet, I hope that the reader is sufficiently intrigued to purchase a copy to enjoy the details. Keep in mind what the C's have said: "It is a disguise for conveying truths of a spiritual nature as well as a depiction of 4th density realities." And let me now share a quote from another reader:

It seems to be a fact that there are people out there who spend their time like busy bees, actively working on slamming anything that actually holds some important truths. There are many of these types in egroups that discuss metaphysical things. There are varying degrees of awareness in those that do this, some are merely conduits of attack through their muddled thinking and have attachments that influence their behaviour, others are very conscious of what they are doing. The term for this is often called "damage control."

As you are no doubt aware, a lot of this goes on around the UFO subject and there are groups such as The Aviary, with high ranking Gov. and Intell. connections whose very reason for existence is to spread disinformation, confuse and distort the public's perception of the metaphysical realities which we are being presented with.

People such as Dan Winter, Vincent Bridges, Drunvalo Melchizedek, and others have been discovered to be nothing but sophisticated con-men who are selling snake oil (stuff that actually takes people away from the truth and encourages STS alignment) wrapped in New Age fluffy packages of saving the planet through love n' light types of operations.

You are doing a lot of work on the Cassiopaea site to uncover the methodologies of such types and patterns are emerging. A new language is developing as we discover and begin to understand the meanings behind such words as "cointelpro" and "psychopath" - those who act as matrix agents to promote the agenda of what seems to be a behind the scenes 4d game plan.

Yes it seems a minefield for a while, but many of us are scanning the terrain like Sherlock Holmes looking for clues. Hitler once said something about the bigger the lie, the more likely people were to believe it and that most people are pretty honest and could not imagine others doing something they would not do, so it was easy to manipulate them. It looks like we have been manipulated big-time by STS 4D beings and their 3D agents, those being the ones who consciously align themselves with the Darkness in order to promote an STS agenda that suits them, where they have high positions in hierarchical "save the world/new age/new world order" types of organisations.

People like Most and Winter are involved in "fixing the earth grid" and ritual magic in order to bring in saviour type entities, based on Enochian/sacred geometry stuff. Of course it's claimed that it is all about angels and light beings who are supposed to be on our side, but manifestations of such seem to have been, throughout history, a very sophisticated set-up in order to deceive us. 4th Density STO beings do not interfere and ones such as the C's do not present themselves as saviours but encourage us to use our minds to think this whole thing through.

We've all been conned in different ways, and a lot of sacred cows are getting knocked off their pedestals as we uncover the real truth of our history and the uncomfortable truths about just what has been set up for us. [a reader who wishes to remain anonymous]

It was not long after the Quantum Future School examined the work of Illion in Darkness Over Tibet that we discovered the work of Boris Mouravieff and his descriptions of Adamic and pre-Adamic humanity. This then led to the C's revelation regarding Organic Portals. In retrospect, we realize that we were being prepared for a concept that is crucial to our understanding of the Evolution of Humanity as well as the background for the current state of the World at this period in history when all the Signs point to a coming dissolution...

Let me now close this sharing - a sharing process that certain individuals are attempting to destroy - with the C's comment that we began with:

07-03-99
Q: (A) A related question concerning our internet activities which have been going on for some time, and we do it because we feel that it is necessary, but we don't really know or understand what is the real purpose of what we are doing. Some people are reading our pages and writing letters, and then they disappear or they are discouraged, or they do nothing on their own. We are expending a lot of time on this publishing of information, but without clear understanding of what we are supposed to accomplish by this. (L) At this point, it is not accomplishing a whole lot except drawing down fire on our heads! (A) Right!
A: You should rejoice! From the fire comes light. Patience pays. You are on the right track. Fear not, have we steered you wrong a lot lately?

From the Fire Comes Light.

See also:

That Old 'BLACK MAJIC' Doesn't Have Me In Its Spell - How About You?

Enochian Aliens The Stargate Conspiracy Adventures 24 The New Jerusalem