Ancient Religions

The Hindus have a treasure trove of psychic, mystical and magical folklore and tradition, seldom covered in main studies.

Hindu and Egyptian Crystal Gazing, Magic Mirror, Astral and Spiritual Sight, Inner Sight, Clairvoyance, Astral Auras, Telepathy

Tao literally means "way" or "road" or "passage," and in more than one sense corresponds to the Sanskrit Dharma. It is one of the key terms in the history of Chinese thought. While Taoism derives its name from this term, Confucius also uses it extensively. With the latter however it has a more moralistic than metaphysical connotation. It is Taoists who use it in the sense of "truth," "ultimate reality," "logos," etc.

During my visit to the Southwest, in the summer of 1885, it was my good fortune to arrive at the Navajo Reservation a few days before the commencement of a Navajo healing ceremonial. Learning of the preparation for this, I decided to remain and observe the ceremony, which was to continue nine days and nights. The occasion drew to the place some 1,200 Navajos. The scene of the assemblage was an extensive plateau near the margin of Keam's Canyon, Arizona.

It is unthinkingly said and often, that America is not old enough to have developed a legendary era, for such an era grows backward as a nation grows forward. No little of the charm of European travel is ascribed to the glamour that history and fable have flung around old churches, castles, and the favored haunts of tourists, and the Rhine and Hudson are frequently compared, to the prejudice of the latter, not because its scenery lacks in loveliness or grandeur, but that its beauty has not been humanized by love of chivalry or faerie, as that of the older stream has been.

I HAVE written this work more for the thoughtful general reader than the antiquary. It is a study of an obscure portion of the intellectual history of our species as exemplified in one of its varieties.

Our age is not, as is sometimes said, an age of positive science and of industrial discoveries alone, but also, and in a very high degree, an age of criticism and of history. It is to history, indeed, more than to anything else, that it looks for the lights which are to guide it in resolving the grave difficulties presented by the problems of the hour, in politics, in organization, and in social and religious life.