Historical Reprints
Religion
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No man should regard the subject of religion as decided for him until he has read The Golden Bough. The Golden Bough is one of those books that unmake history.
I wrote out a translation of the Yî King, embracing both the Text and the Appendixes, in 1854 and 1855; and have to acknowledge that when the manuscript was completed, I knew very little about the scope and method of the book. I laid the volumes containing the result of my labour aside, and hoped, believed indeed, that the light would by and by dawn, and that I should one day get hold of a clue that would guide me to a knowledge of the mysterious classic.
The dogmatic element of religion, which was anciently designated as Astrology, is now known as Theology. All the evidences bearing upon the subject indicate that the founders of the primary form of religion were a sect of philosophers, known as Magi, or wise men
THOUGH for the most part entirely unconscious of it, man passes the whole of his life in the midst of a vast and populous unseen world. During sleep or in trance, when the insistent physical senses are for the time in abeyance, this other world is to some extent open to him, and he will sometimes bring back from those conditions more or less vague memories of what he has seen and heard there.
THE little work, whose original title-page I reproduce exactly as printed in the middle of the seventeenth century, fairly deserves a place in hermeneutic, and therefore hermetic, literature.
The Purpose of this little volume is three-fold. (1) To give those who are interested in the art of Crystal-Gazing a clear and concise method of procedure, not alone in the practice of the work, but also in the preparation of the crystal itself, so that it becomes a true material basis or link with other planes. (2) To show that the Ancient Methods of Working -- if properly understood -- are more scientific than modern ones, since they were designed to insure a definite type of vision and to put the Seer in touch with definite Intelligences of a Higher Order. (3) To point out that there are other Crystalline Spheres besides the crystal ball at first used to contact them; and that eventually the practice may lead to very high results, if the necessary steps are taken to insure success.
The present volume endeavors to treat every aspect of the problem regarding a future life and especially emphasizes a large mass of facts that ought to have cumulative weight in deciding the issue. The facts consist of both spontaneous and experimental experiences, the latter designed not only to add to the force of the evidence, but to suggest more problems than the mere fact of survival. It has not been possible to exhaust any one subject in the field. That would require several volumes.
In the domain of religion and theology, the present age is witnessing a phenomenon of extraordinary character and significance. It is now being demonstrated that scholarly research in the field of Christian history and exegesis is at last beginning to be motivated by the spirit of truth-seeking. The amazing discovery in recent times of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and other documents such as the Gospel of Thomas, has lifted a curtain of secrecy ...
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. TGS has selected some of these books by Lord Lytton to add to their historical reprints catalog.
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. However, Lord Lytton's non-fiction history of Athens is one of the few exhaustive works on this city of mysteries, Athens, Greece.
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.
THE mysteries of the ancients, and the associations in which their doctrines were taught, have hardly been considered in modern times, but with a view to decry and ridicule them. The systems of ancient mythology have been treated as monstrous absurdities, debasing the human reason, conducting to idolatry, and favouring depravity of manners. A TGS reprint from 1820. This little book serves up a lot of information into the background of Freemasonry.
THE following pages are designed to give the reader a bird's-eye view of the salient features in Jewish mysticism rather than a solid presentation of the subject as a whole. The reason for this will be apparent when one thinks of the many centuries of variegated thought that have had to be packed within the small number of pages allotted to the book. It is this very fact, too, that will possibly give the present treatment of the subject a fragmentary and tentative appearance.
A doctrine with more than one point of resemblance to the doctrine of Plato and Spinoza; a doctrine which in its form rises at times to the majestic tone of religious poetry; a doctrine born in the same land, and almost at the same time, as Christianity; a doctrine which developed and spread during a period of more than twelve centuries in the shadow of the most profound mystery, without any supporting evidence other than the testimony of a presumptive ancient tradition, and with no apparent motive than the desire to penetrate more intimately into the meaning of the Sacred Books--such is the doctrine found in the original writings and in the oldest fragments of the Kabbalah
THE objects which Freemasonry was founded to subserve are honorable and laudable; nor is it intended in the following pages to disparage the institution or to undervalue its usefulness. It has, at various times and in several countries, incurred the ill-will of political parties and of religious bodies, in consequence of a belief, on their part, that the organization was not so purely benevolent and philanthropic as its members proclaimed it to be.