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Books > Religion & Spirituality > Alternative belief systems
Geraldine Cummins's fourth book, The Road to Immortality written in
1932, is a series of communications allegedly from F. W. H. Myers,
the eminent psychologist and psychical researcher, who departed
from the earth plane in1901. Communicating from the 'other side'
Myers gives us a glorious vision of the progression of the human
spirit through eternity. In the Introduction Beatrice Gibbes
described the method of communication employed by Cummins. "She
would sit at a table, cover her eyes with her left hand and
concentrate on "stillness." She would then fall into a light trance
or dream state. Her hand would then begin to write. In one sitting,
Gibbes stated, Cummins wrote 2,000 words in 75 minutes, whereas her
normal compositions were much slower-perhaps 800 words in seven or
eight hours." Gibbes added that she witnessed the writing of about
50 different personalities, all claiming to be 'dead, ' and all
differing in character and style, coming through Cummins' hand.
Communicating through Cummins, Myers stated: "We communicate an
impression through the inner mind of the medium.... Sometimes we
only send the thoughts and the medium's unconscious mind clothes
them in words." Speaking of God Myers explains; The term God means
the Supreme Mind, the Idea behind all life, the Whole in terms of
pure thought, a Whole within which is cradled the Alpha and Omega
of existence as a mental concept. Every act, every thought, every
fact in the history of the Universes, every part of them, is
contained within that Whole. Therein is the original concept of
all. Now considered a classic in afterlife literature, The Road to
Immortality takes us on a journey we may all repeat some day, and
with Myers as our guide, the journey is spectacular.
The Writings of Aleister Crowley 2 presents three essential texts
by the black magick master: White Stains, The Psychology of Hashish
and The Blue Equinox. Each work has been updated for the digital
age with new formatting and punctuation, along with original
footnotes and illustrations.
Since WW II, 'channeling' has largely replaced older styles of
mediumship in the movement loosely known as the New Age. Yet the
two are intimately related. As both historical chronicle and
metaphysical critique, The Spiritist Fallacy, together with its
companion volume, Theosophy: History of a Pseudo-Religion, is a
valuable study of New Age origins. Guenon takes the 'spirit
manifestations' of the Fox sisters in Hydesville, New York (in
1847) as his starting-point, but while accepting the reality of
many such 'manifestations', denies that they represent the spirits
of the departed. He sees them, rather, as fostering belief in a
kind of rarefied materialism, as though the 'spirit of the
deceased' were no more than an invisible, quasi-material body, and
death no more than a 'shedding' of the physical body while the
'spirit' remains otherwise unchanged-a belief widespread today in
popular culture. The author demonstrates how various 'spirit
philosophies' are little more than reflections of their own
milieux-'English spirits' being conservative and denying
reincarnation, 'French spirits' accepting reincarnation and
espousing progressivist or revolutionary ideas, etc. antiquity with
haunted houses suddenly, in the 19th century-and within five years
of their appearance-spawned an international pseudo-religious
movement, speculating that certain magicians (possibly from the
Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor) may have intentionally produced the
Hydesville phenomena by actively projecting hidden influences upon
the passive psyches of their mediums. The mutual influence of
Spiritism and Theosophy, and the adverse affects of 'spirit
entities' upon many mediums, are also covered in considerable
detail. The Spiritist Error is both an expose of 'unconscious
Satanism' and a highly useful critique of the false ideas of the
afterlife which are so prevalent in our time.
This book (hardcover) is part of the TREDITION CLASSICS. It
contains classical literature works from over two thousand years.
Most of these titles have been out of print and off the bookstore
shelves for decades. The book series is intended to preserve the
cultural legacy and to promote the timeless works of classical
literature. Readers of a TREDITION CLASSICS book support the
mission to save many of the amazing works of world literature from
oblivion. With this series, tredition intends to make thousands of
international literature classics available in printed format again
- worldwide.
The doctor said, "Don't try it -you could die on the operating
table." A scary thought, but the alternative was worse
There are over 600 New Religious Movements (NRMs) in Great Britain
alone, and more than 2000 in the United States. A Reader in New
Religious Movements aims to provide an introduction to the main
teachings of a selection of these organizations, focusing on those
which are well-established in the West. The contemporary - and in
some cases controversial -- NRMs covered include The Unification
Church, The International Society for Krishna Consciousness, The
Family, Osho, Soka Gakkai International and the Western Buddhist
Order.
This classic study of the French magician Eliphas Levi and the
occult revival in France is at last available again after being out
of print and highly sought after for many years. Its central focus
is Levi himself (1810-1875), would-be priest, revolutionary
socialist, utopian visionary, artist, poet and, above all, author
of a number of seminal books on magic and occultism. It is largely
thanks to Levi, for example, that the Tarot is so widely used today
as a divinatory method and a system of esoteric symbolism. The
magicians of the Golden Dawn were strongly influenced by him, and
Aleister Crowley even believed himself to be Levi's reincarnation.
The book is not only about Levi, however, but also covers the era
of which he was a part and the remarkable figures who preceded and
followed him the esoteric Freemasons and Illuminati of the late
18th century, and later figures such as the Rosicrucian magus
Josephin Peladan, the occultist Papus (Gerard Encausse), the
Counter-Pope Eugene Vintras, and the writer J.-K. Huysmans, whose
work drew strongly on occult themes. These people were avatars of a
set of traditions which are now seen as an important part of the
western heritage and which are gaining increasing attention in the
academy. Christopher McIntosh's vivid account of this richly
fascinating era in the history of occultism remains as fresh and
compelling as ever.
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