The S[=u]fi neophyte is directed to place himself in the hands of his _sheikh_ "as a corpse in the hands of the washer"; and all the great saints of Islam have been the inspiring centres of more or less organized groups.
History teaches us, in fact, that God most often educates men through men.

We most easily recognize Spirit when it is perceived transfiguring human character, and most easily achieve it by means of sympathetic contagion.

Though the new light may flash, as it seems, directly into the soul of the specially gifted or the inspired, this spontaneous outbreaking of novelty is comparatively rare; and even here, careful analysis will generally reveal the extent in which environment, tradition, teaching literary or oral, have prepared the way for it.
There is no aptitude so great that it can afford to dispense with human experience and education.

Even the noblest of the sons and daughters of God are also the sons and daughters of the race; and are helped by those who go before them.

And as regards the generality, not isolated effort but the love and sincerity of the true spiritual teacher--and every man and woman of the Spirit is such a teacher within his own sphere of influence--the unselfconscious trust of the disciple, are the means by which the secret of full life has been handed on.