72. Flita. True Story of a Black Magician. The Flower and the Fruit. By Mabel Collins.

Translated from English by members of the Theosophical Society. Sueviaverlag. Jugenheim an der Bergstraße.

It should be said at the outset that it is not easy to put into words what one can feel about this “true story”. For the events narrated are such that they continually transcend into the deep mysteries of life. These are well known to the occultist; but for the majority of our Western readers, the spiritual faculties that would enable an understanding are still dormant. The beginning touches on a secret. At the beginning of her incarnations, at the stage of savagery, Flita killed her lover. And from the killing she gained the power to become a black magician. This is quite appropriate in the occult sense. There is a mysterious connection between the knowledge that leads to power in the bad sense and the forces that end life. Death is connected with egoism for our human evolution through deep-seated laws. In the course of the story, Flita also appears to us as a black magician within the present cultural level. Her knowledge of hidden things makes her a magician. And the fact that the lower forces, the passions of human nature, still rule in her, causes the corruption in her nature. For all occult knowledge is pushed over to the side of evil by these forces. Knowledge, if it is to unfold, needs life. All knowledge that is not imbued with life is empty, shadowy, ineffective. There are two sources from which man can draw life. One of them flows to him when he stands on the summit, where all lower desires have been cast off. All feelings must have taken on a different form there than they have within the instinctual nature of the lower human being. The other source lies in the life of our fellow creatures, regardless of whether they are already really living around us in the physical world or are only pushing their way into life. No one can understand this book without knowing that knowledge that arises from curiosity or the thrill of power draws its strength from beings that are still unborn and want to be born. Those who can see behind the scenes of physical reality know how many beings have to pay for life because people strive for knowledge that only serves their selfishness. Flita's lover must be killed by an astral being; and the black magician draws power from this killing, like a vampire.

As long as knowledge is not superior to all that is base in humanity, it does not live from truth but from illusion. And illusion needs nourishment. It draws this from life. Flita is brought together with Ivan, the Master. But she is not face to face with the true Master. She could only be so if all the lower passions in her nature were stilled. But there is still something of lower love, however refined, in her inclination towards the Master. So she can only face her own illusion of the Master. Her passion has a corrupting tie to the knowledge that flows to her from the higher regions of nature. And she is literally whipped out of the temple where she seeks initiation. The white figures grew in number until they seemed thousands, and with outstretched hands they drove Flita down the steps — down, down, down, however much she tried to resist. She did more; she struggled, she fought, she screamed aloud; first for justice, then for pity. But there was no yielding, no softening in those superhuman faces. Flita fled at last from the odds and their implacability, and then there was a loud shouting of many voices, and a thousandfold sounded the words, “You love him! Go!”

Everyone who is familiar with the laws of astral vision knows the deep truth of this description. However, only those in the know describe it this way, and are only understood by those in the know. — Flita must see it, how Ivan's knowledge, stripped of selfishness, weaves at the whirring loom of time. Like the threads of a fabric, the Master works selflessly on humanity, infinitely exalted above all individual human beings. The final scene is significant. The magician comes to that loneliness at the edge of an abyss, where nothing of the familiar realities penetrates to the soul of man, where the secret of life and also of death is revealed. And she dies at the threshold. She dies as a black magician dies. The nature of error and evil is clearly depicted at the end of the story; but a veil rises before the truth; and on this veil stands - death. - The story only hints at what lies beyond this death. And it is better left unspoken. For with the realization that living against the great laws of the world means death, the other is far from being attained, how life awakens with the work in the sense of these great laws of our planetary existence.

Those who understand the “Enter” at the end will no longer consider the “true story” to be a novel. Before the “preface” stand the words: “This strange story came from a distant land and was brought in a mysterious way.” These words are significant as a guide for the reader. Readers without occult knowledge should refrain from making any judgments and simply let what emanates from the book take effect on them. It is likely to transform many a secret slumbering in the human heart into a mere hint. And sometimes a mere hint is enough to awaken knowledge. It would be useless to give a summary of the book; nor is there at present any possibility of saying more about the things that lie between the words without touching on something that at present the pen is not allowed to touch.