TGS Publishing

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.

INFIDEL! The name has been bestowed on me by several Christian gentlemen as a reproach, but to my ears it has a quaint and not unpleasing sound. Infidel! "The notorious infidel editor of the Clarion" is the form used by one True Believer. The words recurred to my mind suddenly, while I was taking my favourite black pipe for a walk along "the pleasant Strand," and I felt a smile glimmer within as I repeated them.

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.

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 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.

Mind is the active agent, the creator, and matter, the opposite energy, is the plastic substance of creation. The two spring simultaneously into existence, the first impressing and shaping the second according to its original or archetypal ideas. Hence all material creation is formed over the patterns of heavenly or spiritual ideation. Divine thoughts may be said to be the molds into which the energies of divine will pour the fluid essence of substance in order to shape the universe projected in mind and purpose.

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 ...