A warning must also be addressed to those who, through their capacity for a higher understanding if not through the degree of, knowledge to which they have actually attained, seem destined to become elements of a possible elect. There is no doubt that the force of modernism, which is truly ” diabolic ” in every sense of the word, strives by every means within its power to prevent these elements, to-day isolated and scattered; from achieving the cohesion that is necessary if they are to exert any real influence on the general mentality. It is therefore for those who have already more or less completely become aware of the end towards which their efforts should be directed to stand firm against the difficulties, whatever they may be, that arise in their path and threaten to turn them aside. Those. who have not yet reached the point beyond which an infallible guidance makes it impossible henceforth to stray from the true path, remain always in danger of the most serious deviations ; they need to display the utmost prudence ; we may even go further and say, that it should be carried to the point of distrust, for the ” adversary,” who up to this point has not yet been definitely overcome, can take on the most varied lot and, at times, the most unexpected forms. It happen, that those who think they have escaped from modern materialism fall a prey to things which, while seemingly opposed to it, are really of the same order ; and in view of the turn of mind of modern Westerners, a special warning needs to be uttered against the attraction that more or less extraordinary phenomena may hold out for them ; it is this attraction that is to a large extent responsible for all the errors of ” neo-spiritualism ” and it is to be foreseen that the dangers it represents will grow still worse, for the forces of darkness that keep alive the present confusion find in it one of their most potent instruments. It is even probable that we are not very far from the time referred to by the prophecy of the Gospel to which we have already alluded to elsewhere . For false Christs and false prophets shall rise, and shall shew signs and wonders, to seduce, if it were possible, even the elect.” The ” elect ” here referred to is the elect in the fullness of its real meaning, according to the sense in which we have invariably used the word, those who, in virtue of the inner ” realization ” they have achieved, can no longer be seduced ; but this is not the case with those who, as yet, possess in themselves only, the possibilities of knowledge, and who are therefore, properly speaking, only the ” called “; and this is why the Gospels say that “MANY ARE CALLED BUT FEW ARE CHOSEN.” We are entering upon a period when it will be extremely difficult to ” separate the chaff from the grain and carry out effectively what theologians call the ” testing of the spirits ” owing to disordered manifestations that will only grow stronger and more frequent, and also owing to the want of true knowledge on the part of those whose normal function should be to guide the rest, but who to-day are too often nothing but ” blind guides.” We shall see then whether the subtleties of dialectic avail anything in such circumstances, and whether any philosophy, even were it the best possible, can have the strength to prevent the ” infernal powers ” from being let loose ; this also is an illusion against which some people need to guard, for it is too often supposed, in ignorance of what pure intellectuality really is, that a merely philosophical knowledge, which even in the best of cases is a bare shadow of true knowledge, can put everything to rights and lead back the contemporary mentality from its deviation ; in the same way, there are those who think they can find in modern science itself a means of raising themselves to the higher truths, whereas this science is in fact founded on the negation of these truths. All these illusions are so many influences leading people astray, and by means of them many of those who sincerely desire to react against the modern outlook are reduced to impotence, since, having failed to find the essential principles without which all action is absolutely vain, they have been swept aside into blind alleys from which there is no hope of escape. CRISIS OF THE MODERN WORLD CONCLUSIONS