We require no such separation and we tell the students that if the School succeeds in deepening their spiritual life in widening their horizon and in increasing their mental perception it is up to them to work it out in the church, society, organization or group, the home or community in [197] which their lot is cast. Because of this we have active students who are members of the various theosophical organizations, each of which regards itself as the only true one. We have students belonging to four different groups of Rosicrucians. We have church members, Catholic and Protestant, Christian Scientists, Unity people and members of almost every possible organization which has a spiritual or religious basis. We take people who have no beliefs at all but who are willing to accept an hypothesis and attempt to prove its worth. The Arcane School is therefore non-sectarian, non-political, but deeply international in its thinking. Service is its keynote. Its members can work in any sect and any political party provided that they remember that all paths lead to God and that the welfare of the one humanity governs all their thinking. Above everything else, this is a school in which a student is taught that the souls of men are one.

It is a school wherein true, occult obedience is developed. This occult obedience involves no obedience to me or any other head of the School or to any human being. No oaths of allegiance or personal pledges to any individual are requested or exacted from students in the Arcane School. They are taught, however, prompt obedience to the dictates of their own soul. As the voice of that soul gets increasingly familiar it will eventually make them members of the Kingdom of God and bring them face to face with Christ.

So in 1923 we started a school that was non-doctrinal, [198] non-sectarian and based on the Ageless Wisdom that has come down to us from the very night of time. We started a school which had a definite purpose and a specific objective - a school which was inclusive and not exclusive and that oriented its students toward a life of service as the road of approach to the Hierarchy instead of the road of selfish, spiritual self-culture. We determined that the work should be hard and stiff and difficult so the non-intelligent would be eliminated. One of the easiest things in the world to do is to start a self-interest occult school and it is being done all the time, but we wanted nothing of that kind.

The next six years, from 1924 to 1930, are somewhat monotonous. As I look over them I am profoundly conscious [199] of a cycle in which day after day, week after week, month after month, I did the same thing as I continued to develop the Arcane School. I was continuously writing school papers and articles. I was eternally seeing people by appointment and by 1928 I was often seeing people every twenty minutes right through the day. I never flattered myself that this was because I was such a wonderful person. It was largely because I made no charge.

These were the years in which every kind of psychologist was lecturing up and down the land. Every type of psychoanalyst was giving appointments and charging heavily for them. I never made any charge and my days were full of seeing people who had some problem or other and hoped I could solve it. There was one woman in New York at that time who charged $500 for a half hour appointment and she had a waiting list. I'll guarantee that she never gave as useful advice as I gave for nothing.