Charles Webster Leadbeater on Power

"Having myself been a priest of the Church of England, and knowing... the disputes as to whether that Church really has the apostolic succession or not, I was naturally interested in discovering whether its priests possessed this power. I was much pleased to find that they did... I soon found by examination that ministers of what are commonly called dissenting sects did not possess this power, no matter how good and - earnest they might be. Their goodness and earnestness produced plenty of other effects which I shall presently describe, but their efforts did not draw upon the particular reservoir to which I have referred... When the priest is earnest and devoted, his whole feeling radiates out upon his people and calls forth similar feelings in such of them as are capable of expressing them. Also his devotion calls down its inevitable response, as shown in the illustration in ThoughtForms and the downpouring of force thus evoked benefits his congregation as well as himself; so that a priest who throws his heart and soul into the work which he does may be said to bring a double blessing upon his people, though the second class of influence can scarcely be considered as being of the same order of magnitude as the first. Ch. 8"

"There are sacred rivers also — the Ganges, for example. The idea is that some great person of old has magnetised the source of the river with such powder that all the water that henceforth flows out from that source is in a true sense holy water, bearing with it his influence and his blessing. This is not an impossibility, though it would require either a great reserve of power in the beginning or some arrangement for a frequent repetition. The process is simple and comprehensible... what would be beyond the power of the ordinary man might possibly be quite easy to some one at a much higher level."

"You have all heard very often about the qualifications for the Path—too often, I dare say, some of you think But it IS never too often, unless you have achieved, until you have succeeded in putting into practice everything that is written in the books on the subject. There is no mystery about the matter. There is no difficulty in knowing exactly what ought to be done, but of course there is a difficulty in doing it. But the difficulty is all in ourselves, there is no obstacle in your path which is not of your own making. Nevertheless only comparatively few people do succeed in following the directions that are given Why is it that more do not succeed, when so many are really earnestly trying. The reason is that each of us has a powerful personality, and that this personality very often, sadly often, gets in the way."