The first law of a Novitiate or an Initiate is to OBEY", and unless we want to do this and obey faithfully the teachings to those who know, we had better let things alone and take our chances with the great evolving masses who take life as it comes—easy, safe and slow.
There is not a single symptom of body, mind, emotion or revelation which cannot at once be reduced to normal by a single cup of coffee or tea. After one has fasted a while he will be disgusted with his own weakness and at the "hold" a little food has upon him. It will fire his spiritual pride when he finds that the very slough of despair and the valley of physical prostration, a little like a cup of coffee, tea or milk will make him feel a normal man, which without, he had not the soul power to be. The real divinity within us comes to laugh at our frail dust "damning us ever to decay and death when at our center burns the flame of God."
The method of the physical fast is very simple. Just stop eating: Eat one meal every other day for ten days. In the last two days of the fast do not drink any water, or at least only enough to keep from real thirst. The Fast is not penance,—it is a joy, and thirst that one can easily combat will do the work of empting the blood vessels. Get a big thirst, but do not push it to the point of suffering.
Why do we eat one meal every other day instead of fasting continuously? Because this is the way to fast and not destroy any of the normal functions of the body. Thus the destruc-
