Page 24 - Gnosis volume 2

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or applied, everyone admits that it is necessary to be well informed on the subject

before being able to offer a valid opinion on it. In order to talk seriously, one should talk

about what one knows, which presupposes that one has gone through the necessary
preliminary studies.

It is quite a different question with regard to the esoteric domain. Here, one believes

oneself competent without having passed even the elementary stage. One judges
without having developed in oneself the specific means to render judgment. Though

one knows that a fellow human being can be understood and consequently judged, only

by his equal or superior. If this was not the case, the discussions and judgments

pronounced on esoteric ideas and facts, in this instance, can only be compared to the

opinions pronounced by the blind on the subject of colours.
Just as the world around us is invisible to the unborn child until the day of his birth,

the superior planes of Life such as the astral and spiritual worlds are closed to us until

our second Birth. Until then, we can advance only hypothetical arguments, or quote
from the experience of those who have gone through the Second Birth. As to be able to

judge the validity of these facts, we can only do so after having crossed the second

Threshold ourselves. Then - and only then - having donned his spiritual body, in the

words of St-Paul: he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no
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man . And the apostle goes on to explain: But we have the mind of Christ .

22
I Corinthians, II, 15.
23
I Corinthians, II, 16.