Résultats lu par "Matthew Schmitz" dans Toutes les catégories

The Book of Lambspring is one of the few real-life cases of a centuries-old book on alchemy. Nicolas Barnaud was a French Protestant writer, physician and alchemist, from Crest, in Dauphiné, from which he took the name Delphinas. He was a member of the Monarchomaques. He is associated with a number of mysteries.

This is a collection of five alchemical tracts written by one of the most famous alchemists who was said to have discovered the Philosopher's Stone. In these writings, Paracelsus attempts to educate the listener about the nature of the Philosopher's Stone and the scientific principles from which we can be assured of its existence and understand how it works. Like all alchemical tracts, the language is very cryptic and allegorical, so as to be unintelligible to the unworthy.

The Ten Principal Upanishads is a version of the Upanishads translated by Irish-poet W. B. Yeats and the Indian-born mendicant-teacher Shri Purohit Swami. The translation process occurred between the two authors throughout the 1930s, where the book was published in 1938. It is one of the final works of W. B. Yeats.

The Six Keys of Eudoxus is a short but important manuscript within alchemy. Ascribed to an ancient philosopher, it dates to the Renaissance and describes a simplistic set of methods by which alkahest and the philosopher's stone can be made.

The Hymns of Hermes examines Hermetic ecstatic hymns, which are songs of a poetic nature used to describe the Gnosis of Hermetic attainment and the ecstatic personal experience of the divine.

The Gods of Pegana is the first book by Anglo-Irish fantasy writer Lord Dunsany, published on a commission basis in 1905. The book is a series of short stories linked by Dunsany's invented pantheon of deities who dwell in Pegana, and was a huge influence on authors such as Lovecraft and Tolkien. This is one of my favorite works of weird fantasy fiction by Lord Dunsany, and is a masterful cosmological piece of indulgent prose that actually contains some sublime wisdom between the lines.

Frank Hamel's Human Animals (published in 1915) is an infamous and classic treatise on the mythology and the evidence of hybrid humans. This was one of the first popular works on cryptozoology, and a primer for those interested in the many stories and accounts of lycanthropy and other strange evolutionary paradoxes.

Deep in the sweltering jungles of South America, two explorers — Falmer and Thone — stumble upon a forgotten ruin, hidden beneath centuries of tangled growth and silence. Within its shadowed chambers lies an ancient tomb, undisturbed, its secrets sealed in stone and time. But something lingers in the sepulchre. Something old. Something alive. Something that does not sleep. As one of the men becomes obsessed with a strange, unidentifiable seed found within the tomb, the boundary between plant and predator, dream and nightmare, begins to rot and dissolve.

The Crawling Chaos is a haunting, surreal tale born from the collaboration between H.P. Lovecraft and writer Winifred V. Jackson. First published in 1921, this story combines Lovecraft’s eerie prose with a dream that Jackson herself experienced, which served as the story’s foundation. In an interesting twist, the two writers published under pseudonyms, with Jackson as “Elizabeth Berkeley” and Lovecraft as “Lewis Theobald, Jun.”

H.P. Lovecraft often warned us that there are things not meant to be understood—truths too ancient, too vast, or too alien for the human mind to hold. In The Unnamable, he takes that warning a step further: some things cannot even be described. This story, first published in 1925, is part philosophical debate, part ghost story, and part quiet apocalypse.

"The White Ship" is a horror short story by American writer H. P. Lovecraft. It was first published in The United Amateur (Volume 19) #2, November 1919, and later appeared in the March 1927 issue of Weird Tales. Basil Elton, a lighthouse keeper, engages in a peculiar fantasy in which a bearded man in robes is piloting a mystical white ship which appears when the moon is full. Elton walks across the water on a bridge of moonbeams, joins the bearded man on the ship, and together they explore a mystical chain of islands unlike anything that can be found on Earth.

"The Last Incantation" by Clark Ashton Smith tells the story of Malygris, an aging necromancer who has mastered all forms of magic but is plagued by ennui. In a bid to escape his despair, he attempts to summon his long-lost love, Nylissa, from the dead, only to discover that the reality of her presence does not fulfill his nostalgic desires, leading to a poignant lesson about the passage of time and the nature of memory.

There are Lovecraft stories that roar with cosmic terror — ancient gods, unknowable entities, the madness of knowledge. And then there is What the Moon Brings. This short, haunting piece is not a tale in the traditional sense, but a dream — or rather, a descent. It belongs to that strange and shadowy corner of Lovecraft’s imagination where logic erodes, and we are left adrift in a realm shaped by mood, moonlight, and the whisper of things not quite seen. First published in 1923, What the Moon Brings reads like a surreal reverie drenched in symbolism.

There are books that awaken the intellect, books that stir the heart—and then, rarest of all, there are books that shift the fabric of reality, that open quiet doors in the mind through which something older, stranger, and more beautiful begins to seep in. A Dreamer’s Tales is such a book. In this book, Lord Dunsany does not merely tell stories. He conjures realms beneath reason, cities where time is a superstition, and gods born from silence.

Few works in human history have shaped the course of warfare, strategy, and leadership as profoundly as The Art of War by Sun Tzu. Written over 2,500 years ago during China’s Warring States period, this timeless treatise transcends its origins as a military manual, offering wisdom that applies not only to warfare but to politics, business, diplomacy, and personal growth. At its core, The Art of War is a philosophy of strategy—one that emphasizes intelligence, adaptability, and the mastery of conflict through knowledge rather than brute force.

There are books that speak plainly, and then there are those that conceal their truths behind veils of symbol and secrecy. An Open Entrance to the Closed Palace of the King belongs to the latter—a text written not for the casual listener, but for the seeker, the alchemist, the one who dares to unlock nature’s deepest mysteries. Attributed to the enigmatic adept Eirenaeus Philalethes, this work stands as a beacon in the vast sea of alchemical wisdom.

The Festival, written by H.P. Lovecraft in 1923 and first published in Weird Tales in 1925, is a dark and atmospheric tale steeped in ancient rituals, ancestral mysteries, and Lovecraft’s signature cosmic horror. Set in the fictional town of Kingsport, Massachusetts, the story exemplifies Lovecraft’s ability to weave together eerie folklore, haunting landscapes, and an overwhelming sense of dread. The narrative follows an unnamed protagonist who journeys to Kingsport to partake in an ancient Yuletide festival at the invitation of his ancestors.

Narrated by Matthew Schmitz of Altrusian Grace Media, this English prose version of the Ramayana is told in a story form capturing the true and authentic spirit of the original Sanskrit and which makes it easy and enjoyable to listen to. The Ramayana is one of the greatest epics of ancient literature, a monumental work that has transcended the boundaries of time and culture to become a story cherished across generations and geographies.

The Bhagavad Gita is one of the most revered spiritual and philosophical texts in Hindu tradition, forming a part of the great Indian epic, the Mahabharata. It is presented as a dialogue between Lord Krishna and the warrior Arjuna on the battlefield of Kurukshetra, moments before the start of a great war. Arjuna, faced with the dilemma of fighting against his own relatives and teachers, is overcome by doubt and despair. Seeking guidance, he turns to Krishna, who serves as his charioteer and divine teacher.

The Story of Aridæus is the most detailed and graphic Vision of Hades preserved to us from classical antiquity, and exceeds in interest even Plato’s Story of Er and Cicero’s Dream of Scipio, not to speak of the less known Visions of Krates and of Zosimus.