I am not the first mystic who blundered in his quest nor shall I be the last. The very subtlety of its nature, the sad difficulty of getting expert guidance upon it, and the tests snares pitfalls and temptations that stage it, render this a common event. "I made many mistakes," confessed Madame Guyon, and perhaps it was out of these failures that she found her way to final success. In my own case the perils were greater than in most others, simply because I searched so widely and helped so many others so indiscriminately that I exposed myself to the attack of adverse forces almost incessantly. That I survived all this, that I did not lose bodily life or become a bodily wreck, that I have emerged mentally, morally, spiritually, and philosophically stronger out of all these trials was only to be attributed to the saving grace of my Guardian Angel and to nothing else. I have experienced the black depths of occult enmity and endured the harsh menaces of occult hatred. I do not refer here to their pitiful but feeble, their treacherous and vicious human echoes on our plane. They have only my silent contempt. If my nerves are today unshattered, it is because the power that has used my pen has also intervened at the last moment again and again to save my body and mind. All this need not frighten other aspirants on this quest, however, for most of them have not to play the pioneer role that I had to play and are therefore exempt from its special risks.
-- Notebooks Category 12: Reflections > Chapter 5 : The Literary Work > # 155
