This volume offers a strong treatment of what enlightenment is and is not, and of the principles that underlie its arisal. Examining claims of "union with God", it addresses forcefully the fallacy of equating even the highest degree of individual human illumination with the universal intelligence in which individual realisation is rooted. Paul Brunton carefully distinguishes stages of enlightenment in the spiritual hierarchy of mystics, saints, messengers, prophets, sages, and avatars.