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the last attempt in this direction, — failed most signally some 20 years ago in London. It was the secret school for the practical teaching of magick, founded under the name of a club, by a dozen of enthusiasts under the leadership of Lord Lytton's father. He had collected together for the purpose, the most ardent and enterprising as well as some of the most advanced scholars in mesmerism and "ceremonial magick," such as Eliphas Levi, Regazzoni, and the Kopt Zergvan-Bey. And yet in the pestilent London atmosphere the "Club" came to an untimely end. I visited it about half a dozen of times, and perceived from the first that there was and could be nothing in it. And this is also the reason why, the British T.S.does not progress one step practically. They are of the Universal Brotherhood but in name, and gravitate at best towards Quietism — that utter paralysis of the Soul. They are intensely selfish in their aspirations and will get but the reward of their selfishness.

Nor did we begin the correspondence upon this subject. It was Mr. Sinnett who, of his own motion addressed to a "Brother" two long letters, even before Mad. B. had obtained either permission or promise from any of us to answer him, or knew to whom of us to deliver his letter. Her own chief


Notes: 

Some 20 years ago. Scholar Joscelyn Godwin wrote: "Twenty years before 1881 would be 1861, the year in which Eliphas Levi performed the evocation of Apollonius in the presence of Bulwer- Lytton."

Quietism is a devotional contemplation and abandonment of the will as a form of Christian mysticism.