Historical Reprints
Philosophical
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This reprint is from the famous mystic teacher and author of 'Secret of All Ages', Manly P. Hall.
From the Introduction: Life is not merely what it seems to be. Hidden from our eyes by the cloak of materiality is a wonderful world which only the eyes of the dreamer can see and the soul of the mystic comprehend. The stony walls of conventionalized -thought and commercalized ideals shut from the view life's noble path. But as the ages pass, some see, some comprehend the greatness of the Divine Plan and the glorious destiny of the human r soul. Sorrow, suffering and loneliness are the great builders of character. Man never becomes truly great until his heart is broken. That is the supreme test.
The claiming for women equality with men, not only in mental capacity, but in civil and ecclesiastical rights, may shock the preconceived opinions of many persons, and will probably subject the individual advancing such views to the charge of fanaticism and false teaching; yet we conceive the claim to be consistent with reason, justice, and the Word of God
WHEN I am in my room looking upon the walls I have painted I see there reflections of the personal life, but when I look through the windows I see a living nature and landscapes not painted by hands.
No class of works is received with more suspicion, I had almost said derision, than that which deals with Science and Religion. Science is tired of reconciliations between two things which never should have been contrasted; Religion is offended by the patronage of an ally which it professes not to need; and the critics have rightly discovered that, in most cases where Science is either pitted against Religion or fused with it, there is some fatal misconception to begin with as to the scope and province of either.
THERE are two principal methods of treating disease. One is the combative, the other the preventive. The trend of modern medical research and practice in our great colleges and endowed research institutes is almost entirely along combative lines, while the individual, progressive physician learns to work more and more along preventive lines. The slogan of modern medical science is, "Kill the germ and cure the disease."
No one can put to words what is wrong with the USA in such simple simplicity and common sense, as does Ambrose Bierce! His writings should be pre-requisites for all bureaucrats and politicians.
These monarchies the philosophers reckon not according to the more potent, but according to the corners of the world, whereof the northern is the last and, indeed, is no other than the Golden Age in which all tyranny, oppression, envy, and covetousness shall cease, when there shall be one prince and one people abounding with love and mercy, and flourishing in peace, which day I earnestly expect.
A book quite appropriate for restudy considering the incompetent government we suffer under in the USA, with the failed GOP Bush nonsense and their Dem enablers.
This is one of a series of four books by this author, researching and enlightening readers on the 'spirit' of man, its role and functions. This book has been compiled with the object of presenting to the student of Occultism a coherent synthesis of all, or nearly all, the information regarding the Etheric Double, and other closely allied phenomena, which has been given to the world through the medium of modern Theosophical and psychical research literature.
Lord Lytton is famous for his book "The Coming Race" that included his vision for an energy called 'VRIL power.' The Third Reich was evidently quite aware of Lytton's visions and theories, as they named some of their experimental craft "VRIL". Many other of Lord Lytton's books are merely dismissed as literature or fiction. Though written in fiction prose, his other mysteries and visions are recorded in his less known works.
To those not familiar with the subject it may be stated that the bulk of its contents is derived from the old Buddhist canon. Many passages, and indeed the most important ones, are literally copied in translations from the original texts. Some are rendered rather freely in order to make them intelligible to the present generation; others have been rearranged; and still others are abbreviated.
The world needs knowledge, but still more imperatively it needs the right use of the knowledge that is at its disposal. For this reason I have been mainly concerned in these pages with indicating what I consider to be the right mental attitude with which to approach certain fundamental questions.
Shrouded in the cloak of philosophy, the question of the existence of God continues to attract attention, and, I may add, to command more respect than it deserves. For it is only by a subterfuge that it assumes the rank of philosophy.
The truth is that affairs of this kind--like all the great issues of human life, Love, Politics, Religion, and so forth, do not, at their best, admit of final dispatch in definite views and phrases. They are too vast and complex for that. It is, indeed, quite probable that such things cannot be adequately represented or put before the human mind without logical inconsistencies and contradictions. But (perhaps for that very reason) they are the subjects of the most violent and dogmatic differences of opinion. Nothing people quarrel about more bitterly than Politics--unless it be Religion: both being subjects of which all that one can really say for certain is--that nobody understands them.
Nothing more strangely indicates an enormous and silent evil of modern society than the extraordinary use which is made nowadays of the word "orthodox." In former days the heretic was proud of not being a heretic. It was the kingdoms of the world and the police and the judges who were heretics.