“a” influences

…influences created within life by life itself. This is the first variety of influence by which man is surrounded…distributed equally…As in the case of all radiant energy in nature, their effect is inversely proportional to the square of the distance; thus man is subject most of all from [“A” influences] from those immediately around him. He is pulled every instant by the way they act at that moment.

[…]

…each [“A” influence] is counterbalanced, neutralized in some other part by another [“A” influence] by equal in force and diametrically opposed, so if we had left them to effectively neutralize is each other the resultant force would have been equal to zero. This means that in their ensemble “A” influences are illusory in nature, although the effect of each one of them is real, so that the exterior man takes them for reality.

Boris Mouravieff, Gnosis, Vol.I, 1961/1989 Praxis Press.

To attack the “A” influences frontally would be to repeat the experience of Don Quixote – charging the windmills. Thousands and thousands of well intentioned people have perished without profit by making this error of conception, inspired by the Devil: believing in the possibility of the impossible. The “World” is incomparably stronger than the isolated individual, as long as he remains an exterior man.

[…]

…exterior influences cannot act on the individual, except by the mediation of similar elements which form part of his interior world: the interior world of the individual is also subject to “A” and “B” influences. The accumulation of the latter within him forms the magnetic centre which in some way forms a new centre of consciousness.

Boris Mouravieff, Gnosis, Vol.I, 1961/1989 Praxis Press.

“A” influences offer a whole gamut of variations starting with seduction in its classical manifestations: money, women, ambition. If we resist these successfully, then prelest [temptations] takes more and more refined forms, parallel to the “B” influences, one might say. These forms vary infinitely because they are related to personal cases. Among the most refined nuances on the emotional plane we can find considerations full of nobility, charity and compassion. On the intellectual plane we find considerations relating to the ‘well understood’ benefit of esoteric work. These influences, which are parallel to the “B” influences, but of an “A” nature, must be uncovered by subtle attentiveness, and a firm unambiguous attitude must be taken towards them.

Boris Mouravieff, Gnosis, Vol.I, 1961/1989 Praxis Press.