“The second way is the way of the monk. This is the way of FAITH, the way of religious feeling, religious sacrifice. Only a man with very strong religious emotions and a very strong religious imagination can become a ‘monk’ in the true sense of the word. The way of the monk also is very long and hard. A monk spends years and tens of years struggling with himself, but all his work is concentrated on the second room, on the second body, that is, on feelings. Subjecting all his other emotions to one emotion, that is, to FAITH, he develops unity in himself, will over the emotions, and in this way reaches the fourth room. But his physical body and his thinking capacities may remain undeveloped. In order to be able to make use of what he has attained, he must develop his body and his capacity to think. This can only be achieved by means of fresh sacrifices, fresh hardships, fresh renunciations. A monk has to become a yogi and a fakir. Very few get as far as this; even fewer overcome all difficulties. Most of them either die before this or become monks in outward appearance only. Fragments: Two

“On the way of the monk a man has a teacher, and a part of his duty, a part of his work, consists in having absolute FAITH in the teacher, in submitting to him absolutely, in obedience. But the chief thing on the way of the monk is FAITH in God, in the love of God, in constant efforts to obey and serve God, although, in his understanding of the idea of God and of serving God, there may be much that is subjective and contra­dictory. Fragments: Two

“Then the fourth way differs from the other ways in that the principal demand made upon a man is the demand for understanding. A man must do nothing that he does not understand, except as an experiment under the supervision and direction of his teacher. The more a man understands what he is doing, the greater will be the results of his efforts. This is a fundamental principle of the fourth way. The results of work are in proportion to the consciousness of the work. No ‘FAITH’ is required on the fourth way; on the contrary, FAITH of any kind is opposed to the fourth way. On the fourth way a man must satisfy himself of the truth of what he is told. And until he is satisfied he must do nothing. Fragments: Two

“In exactly the same way there exists the religion of man number one, that is to say, a religion consisting of rites, of external forms, of sacrifices and ceremonies of imposing splendor and brilliance, or, on the contrary, of a gloomy, cruel, and savage character, and so on. There is the religion of man number two; the religion of FAITH, love, adoration, impulse, enthusiasm, which soon becomes transformed into the religion of persecution, oppression, and extermination of ‘heretics’ and ‘heathens.’ There is the religion of man number three; the intellectual, theoretical religion of proofs and arguments, based upon logical deductions, considerations, and interpretations. Religions number one, number two, and number three are really the only ones we know; all known and existing religions and denominations in the world belong to one of these three categories. What the religion of man number four or the religion of man number five and so on is, we do not know, and we cannot know so long as we remain what we are. Fragments: Four

“Questions have often been asked at these lectures as to what is ‘black magic’ and I have replied that there is neither red, green, nor yellow magic. There is mechanics, that is, what ‘happens,’ and there is ‘doing.’ ‘Doing’ is magic and ‘doing’ can be only of one kind. There cannot be two kinds of ‘doing.’ But there can be a falsification, an imitation of the outward appearance of ‘doing,’ which cannot give any objective results but which can deceive naive people and produce in them FAITH, infatuation, enthusiasm, and even fanaticism. Fragments: Eleven

“This is why in true work, that is, in true ‘doing,’ the producing of infatuation in people is not allowed. What you call black magic is based on infatuation and on playing upon human weaknesses. Black magic does not in any way mean magic of evil. I have already said earlier that no one ever does anything for the sake of evil, in the interests of evil. Everyone always does everything in the interests of good as he understands it. In the same way it is quite wrong to assert that black magic must necessarily be egoistical, that in black magic a man strives after some results for himself. This is quite wrong. Black magic may be quite altruistic, may strive after the good of humanity or after the salvation of humanity from real or imaginary evils. But what can be called black magic has always one definite characteristic. This characteristic is the tendency to use people for some, even the best of aims, without their knowledge and understanding, either by producing in them FAITH and infatuation or by acting upon them through fear. Fragments: Eleven

“In properly organized groups no FAITH is required; what is required is simply a little trust and even that only for a little while, for the sooner a man begins to verify all he hears the better it is for him. Fragments: Eleven

“You must understand that a man should have, first, a certain preparation, certain luggage. He should know what it is possible to know through ordinary channels about the ideas of esotericism, about hidden knowledge, about possibilities of the inner evolution of man, and so on. What I mean is that these ideas ought not to appear to him as something entirely new. Otherwise it is difficult to speak to him. It is useful also if he has at least some scientific or philosophical preparation. If a man has a good knowledge of religion, this can also be useful. But if he is tied to religious forms and has no understanding of their essence, he will find it very difficult. In general, if a man knows but little, has read but little, has thought but little, it is difficult to talk to him. If he has a good essence there is another way for him without any talks at all, but in this case he has to be obedient, he has to give up his will. And he has to come to this also in some way or other. It can be said that there is one general rule for everybody. In order to approach this system seriously, people must be disappointed, first of all in themselves, that is to say, in their powers, and secondly in all the old ways. A man cannot feel what is most valuable in the system unless he is disappointed in what he has been doing, disappointed in what he has been searching for If he is a scientist he should be disappointed in his science If he is a religious man he should be disappointed in his religion If he is a politician he should be disappointed in politics If he is a philosopher he should be disappointed in philosophy If he is a theosophist he should be disappointed in theosophy If he is an occultist he should be disappointed in occultism And so on But you must understand what this means I say for instance that a religious man should be disappointed in religion This does not mean that he should lose his FAITH On the contrary, it means being ‘disappointed’ in the teaching and the methods only, realizing that the religious teaching he knows is not enough for him, can lead him nowhere All religious teachings, excepting of course the completely degenerated religions of savages and the invented religions and sects of modern times, consist of two parts, the visible and the hidden To be disappointed in religion means being disappointed in the visible, and to feel the necessity for finding the hidden and unknown part of religion To be disappointed in science does not mean losing interest in knowledge It means being convinced that the usual scientific methods are not only useless but lead to the construction of absurd and self contradictory theories, and, having become convinced of this, to begin to search for others To be disappointed in philosophy means being convinced that ordinary philosophy is merely — as it is said in the Russian proverb — pouring from one empty vessel into another, and that people do not even know what philosophy means although true philosophy also can and should exist To be disappointed in occultism does not mean losing FAITH in the miraculous, it is merely being convinced that ordinary, accessible, and even advertised occultism, under whatever name it may pass, is simply charlatanism and self decep­tion and that, although somewhere something does exist, everything that man knows or is able to learn in the ordinary way is not what he needs So that, no matter what he used to do before, no matter what used to interest him, if a man has arrived at this state of disappointment in ways that are possible and accessible, it is worth while speaking to him about our system and then he may come to the work But if he continues to think that he is able to find anything on his former way, or that he has not as yet tried all the ways, or that he can, by himself, find anything or do anything, it means that he is not ready I do not mean that he must throw up everything he used to do before This is entirely unnecessary On the contrary, it is often even better if he continues to do what he used to do But he must realize that it is only a profession, or a habit, or a necessity In this case it is another matter, he will then be able not to ‘identify’ “There is only one thing incompatible with work and that is ‘professional occultism,’ in other words, professional charlatanism All these spiritualists, healers, clairvoyants, and so on, or even people closely connected with them, are none of them any good to us. And you must always remember this and take care not to tell them much because everything they learn from you they might use for their own purposes, that is, to make fools of other people. Fragments: Twelve

“I have already said before that sacrifice is necessary,” said G. “Without sacrifice nothing can be attained. But if there is anything in the world that people do not understand it is the idea of sacrifice. They think they have to sacrifice something that they have. For example, I once said that they must sacrifice ‘FAITH,’ ‘tranquillity,’ ‘health.’ They understand this literally. But then the point is that they have not got either FAITH, or tranquillity, or health. All these words must be taken in quotation marks. In actual fact they have to sacrifice only what they imagine they have and which in reality they do not have. They must sacrifice their fantasies. But this is difficult for them, very difficult. It is much easier to sacrifice real things. Fragments: Thirteen

“One of the most central of the ideas of objective knowledge,” said G., “is the idea of the unity of everything, of unity in diversity. From ancient times people who have understood the content and the meaning of this idea, and have seen in it the basis of objective knowledge, have endeavored to find a way of transmitting this idea in a form comprehensible to others. The successive transmission of the ideas of objective knowledge has always been a part of the task of those possessing this knowledge. In such cases the idea of the unity of everything, as the fundamental and central idea of this knowledge, had to be transmitted first and transmitted with adequate completeness and exactitude. And to do this the idea had to be put into such forms as would insure its proper perception by others and avoid in its transmission the possibility of distortion and corruption. For this purpose the people to whom the idea was being transmitted were required to undergo a proper preparation, and the idea itself was put either into a logical form, as for instance in philosophical systems which endeavored to give a definition of the ‘fundamental principle’ or from which everything else was derived, or into religious teachings which endeavored to create an element of FAITH and to evoke a wave of emotion carrying people up to the level of ‘objective consciousness.’ The attempts of both the one and the other, sometimes more sometimes less successful, run through the whole history of mankind from the most ancient times up to our own time and they have taken the form of religious and philosophical creeds which have remained like monuments on the paths of these attempts to unite the thought of mankind and esoteric thought. Fragments: Fourteen