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After three years of this probationary discipline, the students who had passed these preliminary tests were admitted into the first degree of the School, becoming known as "listeners." The purpose of this degree, according to Iamblichus, was that they "should exercise themselves in hearing, in order that they might be able to speak." For five years, therefore, the students observed silence. Pythagoras knew the power of sound. He taught that the Universe evolves from Sound, and that man creates a universe of his own through the mighty power of his own words. In this degree the students learned to subjugate their tongues, "that being the most difficult of all victories, as those have unfolded to us who instituted the Mysteries."