Ancient Religions

Follow the Aryan race and its ancient history in the unusual reprint

The Talmud is one of the most important holy books of the Hebrew religion and of the world. No English translation of the book existed until the author presented this work.

With Three Hundred and Nine Illustrations : As regards the practical side of Archaeology, it ought to be unnecessary to point out that its usefulness is strictly parallel with the usefulness of public museums. To collect and exhibit objects of ancient art and industry is worse than idle if we do not also endeavour to disseminate some knowledge of the history of those arts and industries, and of the processes employed by the artists and craftsmen of the past.

Many years ago I heard of the existence of this manuscript from a celebrated occultist, since dead; and more recently my attention was again called to it by my personal friend, the well-known French author, lecturer, and poet, Jules Bois, whose attention has been for some time turned to occult subjects. My first-mentioned informant told me that it was known both to Bulwer Lytton and Eliphas Levi, that the former had based part of his description of the sage Rosicrucian Mejnour on that of Abra-Melin, while the account of the so-called observatory of Sir Philip Derval in the Strange Story was to an extent copied from and suggested by that of the magical oratory and terrace, given in the eleventh chapter of the second book of this present work.

The Power of the Dragon is a masterpiece of incredible information based on the esoteric power of the nodes of the moon. Free of mathematical jargon, this book divulges the secrets of what it means to be human. More insights and discernment is induced by the Dragon than in an entire conventional astrological chart.

TODAY the medley of outward life has made a perplexity of inward life. We moderns have ruffled our old incertitudes to an absurd point--incertitudes that are older than theology. Whence are these writings--these emotions--these profound pages of wisdom? You might as well inquire, whence is human nature? The fact is--they are. It isn't as though you can compare this literature with any other, as you might compare the French Romanticists with the Russian school.

I hope that the readers of this book will find in it some little contribution to our knowledge of the history of thought-not of Jewish thought alone, but of human thought. For superstition and magic are universal and uniform in their manifestations, and constitute an important chapter in the progress of man's ideas; those minor variations that appear here and there are but reflections of the infinite variety and ingenuity of the human mind.