Philosophical

Plain speaking is necessary in any discussion of religion, for if the freethinker attacks the religious dogmas with hesitation, the orthodox believer assumes that it is with regret that the freethinker would remove the crutch that supports the orthodox. And all religious beliefs are "crutches" hindering the free locomotive efforts of an advancing humanity.

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 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.

The Past may be forgotten, but it never dies. The elements which in the most remote times have entered into a nation's composition endure through all its history, and help to mould that history, and to stamp the character and genius of the people.

I beg the reader, laying aside all prejudice or preconceived opinion, and neither believing nor disbelieving what he reads, to simply try it-that is to test it in his own person to what degree he can influence his will, or bring about subsequent states of mind, by the very easy processes laid down. If I could hope that all opinion of my book would be uttered only by those who had thus put it to the test, I should be well assured as to its future.

Qabalah is the strange and mystical Jewish mysticism that dazzles the mind of truthseekers in every generation. The source of most Abrahamic religions can be seen through the Qabalah, though the righteousness of its teachings are lost in those same religions.