Résultats lu par "Matthew Schmitz" dans Toutes les catégories

Dion Fortune is acknowledged as one of the most knowledgeable and level-headed writers on esoteric matters. In Sane Occultism, she is adamant that magic and occult studies, though often dealing with unseen forces, must still be grounded in reason, and she explains how claims of psychic ability and past lives can, and should, be verified. The book covers a vast swath of topics, from meditation and psychism, through numerology and astrology, to such "black" occult practices as psychic vampirism, blood sacrifice, and other aspects of the Left-Hand Path.

This book having worth enough in itself needs not my commendation, this author in his lifetime being an eminent physician and most able philosopher as the discourse itself can best testify. The author builds on good principles, so that his theory is as true as it is plausible; and I presume he aimed at nothing more, leaving all particulars and their application to the industry of his listeners. He is sometimes pleased to descend to examples, but to such only as are natural, and they indeed are good to teach but hard to imitate. We see not all that nature does.

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. 

Focusing on often-forgotten moments in history, Manley P. Hall proposes that there was a Great Plan put forth 1000 years before our nation’s founding. Humanistic and mystical organizations wished for the continent to be the location for an experiment in self-government and religious freedom. As one of the leading esoteric scholars of the 20th century, Hall offers an intriguing view of our past, discussing everything from the symbolism of the Great Seal of the US to the prophecy announced at George Washington’s birth.

Clark Ashton Smith was a poet, sculptor, painter, and author of fantasy, horror, and science fiction short stories. It is for these stories and his literary friendship with H. P. Lovecraft, from 1922 until Lovecraft's death in 1937, that he is mainly remembered today.

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.

Dreams are part of common experience, yet a mystery that is little understood. Psychologists and others who are ignorant of the human being's true constitution, ranging across several subtle levels, are only groping to learn their significance.

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.

Dated to the late 18th century, the book is divided into 12 sections representing the 12 zodiacal signs. The veiled content is said to refer to an allegorical initiation, detailing many Kabbalistic, alchemical, and masonic mysteries.

The subject of my discourses I have called "The Laws of the Higher Life", because so many people in dealing with religion that has to do with the Higher Life seem inclined to remove it from the realm of law, bringing it into some strange region of arbitrary whim and results without endeavor, of failure without weakness.

Five fantastical tales from the mind of H. P. Lovecraft that center around a theme of illicit substances: some used to transcend the veil of reality, some used to keep one's sanity in check. All of the stories are quite psychedelic and unreal, quite mystical, and quite frightening.

One of the best-known Arthurian stories—adapted many times into verse, prose, games, and film. It recounts an adventure undertaken by King Arthur’s famous nephew, Sir Gawain, who is brave and the model of knightly grace. When a mysterious knight in green armor issues a challenge to the Round Table, the gallant Gawain volunteers to do battle for his king, beginning an adventure that explores chivalric tradition, loyalty, and the virtue of forgiveness, as well as alchemical symbolism and the psychological process of individuation.

The Sibylline Oracles are a collection of oracular utterances written in Greek hexameters ascribed to the Sibyls, prophetesses who uttered divine revelations in a frenzied state.

The central concept of analytical psychology is individuation—the psychological process of integrating the opposites, including the conscious with the unconscious, while still maintaining their relative autonomy. Jung considered individuation to be the central process of human development.

Ascribe the work to Georgius Aurach de Argentina (sometimes Anrach) and date it to 1475. There are versions in Latin, German, French, and Italian, and one in English in the British Library.

This is a compendium of theories of the shape of the Earth, along with a great deal of Earth mystery lore. The Book of Earths includes many unusual theories, including Columbus' idea that the Earth is literally pear-shaped, modern theories that the Earth was originally tetrahedral, and so on.

The Mirror of Alchemy is a short alchemical manual, known in Latin as Speculum Alchemiae. Translated in 1597, it was only the second alchemical text printed in the English language. Long ascribed to Roger Bacon, the work is more likely the product of an anonymous author who wrote between the 13th and the 15th centuries.

Songs of Kabir is a book from 1915 consisting of 100 poems of Kabir, the 15th century Indian poet and mystic, translated to English by Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore.

This was a key work of 17th-century alchemy. It was written in Latin by Jean d'Espagnet as Enchiridion Physicae Restitutae, and the first edition was issued at Paris in 1623.

The Book of Revelation holds many secrets, and can be interpreted in many ways from an unlimited amount of perspectives.