Q. What is genius, and how is it produced?
A. Let us take several specimens of the species, and try to find some one thing common to all which is not found in other species.
Q. Is there any such thing?
A. Yes: all geniuses have the habit of concentration of thought, and usually need long periods of solitude to acquire this habit. In particular, the greatest religious geniuses have all retired from the world at one time or another in their lives, and begun to preach immediately on their return.
Q. Of what advantage is such a retirement? One would expect that a man who so acted would find himself on his return out of touch with his civilization, and in every way less capable then when he left.
A. But each claims, though in different language, to have gained in his absence some superhuman power.
Q. Do you believe this?
A. It becomes us ill to reject the assertions of those who are admittedly the greatest of mankind until we can refute them by proof, or at least explain how they may have been mistaken. In this case each teacher left instructions for us to follow. The only scientific method is for us to repeat their experiments, and so confirm or disprove their results.
Q. But their instructions differ widely!
A. Only so far as each was bound by conditions of time, race, climate and language. There is an essential identity in the method.
Q. Indeed!
A. It was the great work of the life of Frater Perdurabo to prove this. Studying each religious practice of each great religion on the spot, he was able to show the Identity-in-diversity of all, and to formulate a method free from all dogmatic bias, and based only on the ascertained facts of anatomy, physiology, and psychology.
Q. Can you give me a brief abstract of this method?
A. The main idea is that the Infinite, the Absolute, God, the Over-soul, or whatever you may prefer to call it, is always present; but veiled or masked by the thoughts of the mind, just as one cannot hear a heart-beat in a noisy city.
Q. Yes?
A. Then to obtain knowledge of That, it is only necessary to still all thoughts.
Q. But in sleep thought is stilled?
A. True, perhaps, roughly speaking; but the perceiving function is stilled also.
Q. Then you wish to obtain a perfect vigilance and attention of the mind, uninterrupted by the rise of thoughts?
A. Yes.
Q. And how do you proceed?
A. Firstly, we still the body by the practice of Asana, and secure its ease and the regularity of its functions by Pranayama. Thus no messages from the body will disturb the mind.
Secondly, by Yama and Niyama, we still the emotions and passions, and thus prevent them arising to disturb the mind.
Thirdly, by Pratyahara we analyse the mind yet more deeply, and begin to control and suppress thought in general of whatever nature.
Fourthly, we suppress all other thoughts by a direct concentration upon a single thought. This process, which leads to the highest results, consists of three parts, Dharana, Dhyana, and Samadhi, grouped under the single term Samyama.
Q. How can I obtain further knowledge and experience of this?
A. The A∴A∴ is an organization whose heads have obtained by personal experience to the summit of this science. They have founded a system by which every one can equally attain, and that with an ease and speed which was previously impossible.
The first grade in Their system is that of