Doctrines of the Fraternitas Saturni / 39
order the FS provides a definite initiatory path and curriculum which is particular unto itself. Despite the recognition of the initiate's lonely path, the FS tries to provide a magical environment in which the individual can most clearly find his or her way to the Guardian of the Threshold—and beyond. The cultivation of solitude is a primary task of the Saturnian brother or sister. As the initiate has chosen a pathway to higher knowledge through the Saturnian sphere, he has naturally isolated himself from the mass of humanity. By so doing he has also liberated himself from a vast number of the influences of the masses, influences that are detrimental to his initiatory progress. The initiate's need for this spiritually undifferentiated humanity becomes less and less as his progress accelerates. So despite his solitude (and more to the point, because of it) he is happy as a self-contained individual. Because he stands more and more outside the standards of common human measurements and evaluations, the Saturnian brother has progressively less spiritual need of common human society. The solitude is a joyous one, mainly because the initiate is always conscious of, and focused on, his initiatory aims. 20 This cultivation of magical and initiatory solitude, when applied to the FS as a body, manifests as an elitist philosophy. As a link in the self-contained Chain of Brotherhood, the initiate is not only able to overcome in perfect serenity all difficulties that might arise in life, but also to put behind him all the doctrines and dogmas of the outmoded religions of the masses—Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, etc. He knows