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OCCULT POWERS
once. People say, what is the use of being moral ? They are mistaken as to the object of morality ; they think that the result of a moral act ought to be some
thing tangible, something of physical good or worldly benefit, but morality should be practised for its own
sake. It is the very life of the soul, and the other life is the death of the soul, there ought to be no other reason given for the practice of moratity. The moral acts have their results. We could give this reason, but that ought not to be the object of any person. If these things are understood, the occult pow. ers will come of themselves without anything more being necessary, but they will not be the object of the life of the person. They may come and go, but the moral nature of the soul ought not to change. The object is not to obtain the occult powers and manifest them, but to manifest the soul's powers in such a direction that it will not be allowed to stray and become lost. These powers are not anything that come to the soul from outside, they are not an addition to it. If the soul is immortal, then any addition to it is a change in the soul, and it is not of one kind at one time and of another kind at another time. The theory which we advance can be explained by the illustration of a piece of gold are in which there are a thousand particles of impurity and a hundred particles of gold, and we say that there are impurities there, and we therefore refine these away, and when the impurities are gone, the nature of the gold is not changed, but it
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