The Road to Initiation
The article: The Road to Initiation
Chapter 29
What it is that reveals a false prophet or false spiritual authority
But it is naturally not all religiously vain beings that show such boundless, unappeased vanity.
But their delusion about their spiritual greatness is nevertheless revealed as an indomitable desire to play a leading role in religious or occult endeavours or movements, be it lecturing, writing and teaching, despite the fact that their qualifications are highly imperfect or inadequate.
That their idealism, like that of a false "Christ", is not entirely genuine is evident in the way that the focus of their exertions is self-worship.
Their religious and "occult" exertions, their writings, lectures and talks are rather slander, persecution and derogatory criticism of other religious and occult movements – or in other words, are badly camouflaged envy of, and indignation or anger towards, these movements and their leaders and founders, and particularly towards those who have rejected their "occult" collaboration, and who they feel have failed to appreciate them – than it is real objective criticism and absolute unselfish idealism.
The developed being sees all this immodesty as their total ignorance of the ABC of true "occultism" or its first tender prerequisites; it sees that the driving force in their "occult" manifestations or "idealism" is injured vanity.