Historical Reprints
Mysteries
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All authors, from the Father of History downwards, have generally agreed in considering the pyramids of Egypt as magnificent and regal sepulchres; and the sarcophagi, etc., of the dead have been found in them when first opened for the purposes of plunder or curiosity.
THE prominent civilized nations--the Babylonians and Egyptians, the Hebrews and Hindus, the Persians, the Greeks and the Romans, as well as the Teutons and others--all began at an early stage to glorify their national heroes--mythical princes and kings, founders of religions, dynasties, empires, or cities--in a number of poetic tales and legends.
Throughout all past time, credulity and superstition have constantly and strongly competed with the art of medicine.
Naturally, there clusters about the sun a rich mine of folk-lore. The prominence of the orb of day, its importance in the maintenance and the development of life, the mystery that has ever enveloped it, its great influence in the well-being of mankind, have secured for the sun a history of interest equalled by none, to which every age and every race have contributed their pages.
THE science of Heraldry has faithfully preserved to modern times various phases of some of those remarkable legends, which, based upon a study of natural phenomena, exhibit the process whereby the greater part of mythology has come into existence.
WE may never know precisely when or where or how the legend of the unicorn began. It pervades recorded time and may be dimly visible even in the clouds that hover just above history's sunrise.
The Dragons leading up to the steps of the temples and palaces of the Manchu emperors, and the superb dragon-screen guarding the approach to one of the royal palaces, are but two of the innumerable examples of the universal former belief in these mythical animals, and of the still prevailing beliefs among the common people of China.
FROM remotest times, back even to the birth of humanity, Precious Stones and Talismans have been held in high estimation by all nations; the former, primarily because of their beauty, and the latter on account of their virtues, as transmitters of good luck and to avert misfortune.
The name of the village of Salem is as familiar to Americans as that of any provincial town in England or France is to Englishmen and Frenchmen; yet, when uttered in the hearing of Europeans, it carries us back two or three centuries, and suggests an image, however faint and transient, of the life of the Pilgrim Fathers, who gave that sacred name to the place of their chosen habitation.
Now this masterpiece is in a larger 12 point font, instead of it's original 8 point font. The entire theory of the book is diametrically opposed to the modern method of thinking, for it is concerned with subjects openly ridiculed by the sophists of the twentieth century. Its true purpose is to introduce the mind of the reader to a hypothesis of living wholly beyond the pale of materialistic theology, philosophy, or science.
This is, I believe, the first serious attempt to link together many lives of many persons in consecutive order, and they throw much light on the workings of Karma and the Law of Reincarnation. They remind one of a saying in the Hebrew Scriptures; "I will bring my sons from far, and my daughters from the ends of the earth." History of 70,000 years brought forward by 2 of the greatest writers in theosophy.
In Africa the natives still dig round about the modern gum-trees to find the buried treasure that oozed from other trees which stood on the same spot in the forests of the far-off past. The Natural Genesis contains the second half of A Book of the Beginnings, and completes the author's contribution to the new order of thought that has been inaugurated in our own era.
The 'end of the world' is the end of an aeon, age or cycle of Time, and we have seen the prophecy fulfilled in the rare lunar and planetary conjunction which occurred on the 3rd of March. It now remains for scientific astronomy to determine the length of this particular cycle of Time and define its relationship to the period of precession.
To some persons, the utility of such a work may not be obvious. It may be asked What interest has the present age, in a mew of the errors and prejudices of the Pagan Britons?
Whilst some of the reasons which render the study of the Grail legends so fascinating, because so problematic, will probably always remain in force, others will vanish before the increase of knowledge.