speech fell from His lips, and many of the educated classes flocked to hear the wonderful young orator and preacher.  He seemed to have an intuitive insight into the minds of His hearers, and His appeals reached their hearts as personal calls to righteousness, right thinking and right living.  From this time on His ministry assumed the character of an active propaganda, instead of the usual quiet mission of the Mystic.

And here began that remarkable series of wonder workings or “miracles” which He evidently employed to attract the attention of the public and at the same time to perform kindly and worthy acts.  Not that He used these wonder-workings as a bid for sensational interest or self-glory—­the character of Jesus rendered such a course impossible—­but He knew that nothing would so attract the interest of an Oriental race as occurrences of this kind, and He hoped to then awaken in them a real spiritual interest and fervor, which would rise far above the demand for “miracles.”  In adopting this course Jesus followed the example of the holy men in India, with whose works He was personally familiar, owing to His sojourn in that land.

And, then let us say, that advanced occultists see nothing “supernatural” nor incredible in these “miracles” of Jesus.  On the contrary, they know them to be the result of the application of certain well established natural laws, which, while almost unknown to the masses of people, are still known and occasionally made use of by the advanced occultists of all lands.  Skeptics and unbelievers may sneer at these things, and many faint-faith Christians may wish to apologize or “explain” these wonderful happenings, but the advanced occultist needs no “explanations” nor apologies.  He has more faith than the church-goer, for he knows of the existence and use of these occult powers latent in Man.  There is no material effect or phenomenon that is “supernatural”—­the Laws of Nature are in full operation on the material plane and cannot be overcome.  But there are among such Natural Laws certain phases and principles that are so little known to the average mind that when they are manifested Nature’s Laws seemed to be transcended, and the result is called “a miracle.”  The occult tradition tells us that Jesus was a past-master in the knowledge and application of the occult forces of nature, and that even the wonders that He wrought during His Jewish ministry were but as child’s play when compared with those that He might have manifested had He seen fit to do so.  In fact, it is believed that some of His greatest wonder-workings have never been recorded, for He always impressed upon His chosen followers the advisability of refraining from laying too much stress on these things.  The “miracles” recorded in the Gospels were only those which were most widely known among the people.  The greater-wonders were deemed too sacred for common gossip.