THE BRANCHES OF THE DOCTRINE 37

psychological perspective, but, at a relative level, in so
far as it concerns one’s individual nature, knowledge of
oneself necessarily includes a science of the soul. To a
certain extent this science is a cosmology ; above all it
is a discrimination as regards the motives of the soul.

To show how discrimination of the soul is inspired
by cosmological principles, certain very general criteria
of inspiration (al-warid) may be cited by way of illus-
tration. It must, however, first be made clear that
inspiration is here taken, not in the sense of prophetic
" inspiration, but in the sense of the sudden intuition
normally provoked by spiritual practices. This inspira-
tion may have very different sources, but is only valid
when it comes from the centre of man’s being outside
time or from the ““Angel,” in other words from the ray
of Universal Intelligence connecting man to God. Itis
deceptive when it is derived from the psychic world,
whether it comes on the one hand from the individual
psyche, or the subtle medium in which the psyche lives,
or, on the other hand, through the human psyche from
the sub-human world and its satanic pole. Inspiration
which comes from the Angel, and so implicitly from
God, always communicates a new perception which illu-
minates the “I”” and at the same time relativises it by dis-
solving certain of its illusions. When inspiration comes
from the individual psyche it speaks for some hidden
passion and so has something egocentric about it and is
accompanied by some direct or indirect pretentiousness.
As for inspirations which emanate from the satanic pole,
these go so far as to invert hierarchical relationships and