1. Whitsuntide—Festival of the Liberation of the Human Spirit

Those spiritual movements of modern times which lead to a perception of the spiritual world in clear day consciousness—not in trance or under hypnosis—are the ones which lead to an understanding of such important symbols as this. The clear consciousness, which only the spirit can set free, is what unites us in the Theosophical Society. Not the word alone, but the spirit gives it its meaning. The spirit which emanates from the great Masters, which flows through a few people only who are able to say: ‘I know they are there, the great Adepts, who are the founders of our spiritual movement—not our society’[^21]—this spirit flows into our present civilisation and bestows on it the impulse for the future.