This Is A New Release Of The Original 1914 Edition.

This Is A New Release Of The Original 1918 Edition.

This Is A New Release Of The Original 1913 Edition.

This Is A New Release Of The Original 1850 Edition.

2014 Reprint of 1897 Edition. Full facsimile of the original edition, not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. The astral plane, also called the astral world, is a plane of existence postulated by classical (particularly neo-Platonic), medieval, oriental and esoteric philosophies and mystery religions. It is the world of the planetary spheres, crossed by the soul in its astral body on the way to being born and after death, and generally said to be populated by angels, spirits or other immaterial beings. In the late 19th and early 20th century the term was popularized by Theosophy and Neo-Rosicrucianism. Leadbeater's account is one of the most enduring. Charles Webster Leadbeater was an influential member of the Theosophical Society, an author on occult subjects and an associate of Annie Besant. Leadbeater went on to write over 69 books and pamphlets that examined in detail the hidden side of life as well as maintain regular speaking engagements. His efforts on behalf of the society assured his status as one of its leading members until his death in 1934.

According to tradition, Lao Tzu wrote the eighty-one short chapters of his Tao Te Ching around the sixth to fourth centuries B.C.E. It became the foundational philosophical work of Taoism, significantly inspired early masters of Zen Buddhism, and, for more than a century, has been widely embraced in the West as an astounding work of universal truths. Through deceptively simple imagery, Lao Tzu gave us a guide to life, both spiritual and physical, that is no less valid today than when it was written more than 2,500 years ago. Claire Sit, the author of The Lord's Prayer: An Eastern Perspective, brings us her translation of the Tao Te Ching and, through her deep study and understanding of that text, examines each chapter and places it in the light of Rudolf Steiner's Anthroposophy. In the process, she shows how-although the path of Tao and that of Anthroposophy seem quite different-they complement each other and share many qualities and, in many ways, illumine the hidden truths each has to offer. As in Anthroposophy, on the path of Tao one looks within to know the world and into the world to know one's self. Just as we can learn much about ourselves by looking outward to the world and to others, we can also better understand the depths of Anthroposophy by penetrating wisdom traditions beyond our own path. Indeed, Lao Tzu and Anthroposophy will generate much food for reflection and meditation for the reader. According to tradition, Lao Tzu wrote the eighty-one short chapters of his Tao Te Ching around the sixth to fourth centuries B.C.E. It became the foundational philosophical work of Taoism, significantly inspired early masters of Zen Buddhism, and, for more than a century, has been widely embraced in the West as an astounding work of universal truths. Through deceptively simple imagery, Lao Tzu gave us a guide to life, both spiritual and physical, that is no less valid today than when it was written more than 2,500 years ago. Claire Sit, the author of The Lord's Prayer: An Eastern Perspective, brings us her translation of the Tao Te Ching and, through her deep study and understanding of that text, examines each chapter and places it in the light of Rudolf Steiner's Anthroposophy. In the process, she shows how-although the path of Tao and that of Anthroposophy seem quite different-they complement each other and share many qualities and, in many ways, illumine the hidden truths each has to offer. As in Anthroposophy, on the path of Tao one looks within to know the world and into the world to know one's self. Just as we can learn much about ourselves by looking outward to the world and to others, we can also better understand the depths of Anthroposophy by penetrating wisdom traditions beyond our own path. Indeed, Lao Tzu and Anthroposophy will generate much food for reflection and meditation for the reader.

Long gone are the days of drinking naturally pure water from flowing rivers and streams. It is already common today for people to use bottled water or home water filtration systems for their drinking water. How have we come to such a predicament, and what can be done about it? Continuing pollution, ever-increasing population and industrial demands, destruction of the rainforests, and overpumping of the ground water are all responsible for the deterioration of water quality. But the underlying reason, as William E. Marks shows in this wide-ranging, thoughtful book, is a lack of understanding of and respect for the nature of water itself.

Marks covers such diverse topics as water's role in the origin of the universe and of life, cosmic rain and water in interstellar space, water in the myths of various peoples and religious traditions, the power of water in the many forms it takes in the natural world, vortex energy and living water, water and the human body, water healing, and a history of water pollution. He offers hope for the future by discussing the work of such visionaries as Theodor Schwenk and Viktor Schauberger. Marks shows us that finally water can only be understood when it is seen as the mediator not only between life and death but also between the physical world and the spiritual world.

This is a new release of the original 1928 edition.

This is a new release of the original 1925 edition.

This is a new release of the original 1933 edition.

2013 Reprint of 1906 Edition. Full facsimile of the original edition, not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. Three Volumes bound into one. Volume contents are: Vol. 1. Prolegomena. -- Vol. 2. Sermons. -- Vol. 3. Excerpts and fragments This work exemplifies all that is best in Mead's dedicated, scholarly, but eminently readable studies of the spiritual roots of Christian Gnosticism and, more generally, of personal religion in the Greco-Roman world. His work encompassed much more than this; Mead was equally at home with Sanskrit texts, Patristic literature, Buddhist thought, and the problems of contemporary philosophy and psychical research. He devoted his intellectual energy to the complex interplay of Gnosticism, Hellenism, Judaism, and Christianity. This three volume set presents his insights into the formation of the Gnostic world-view and establishes him as an outstanding translator of these Hermetic books, and as the first modern scholar of Gnostic tradition.

Being deeply interested in Dr. Steiner's work and teachings, and desirous of sharing with my English-speaking friends the many invaluable glimpses of Truth which are to be found therein, I decided upon the translation of the present volume. It is due to the kind co-operation of several friends who prefer to be anonymous that this task has been accomplished, and I wish to express my hearty thanks for the literary assistance rendered by them also to thank Dr. Peipers of Munich for permission to reproduce his excellent photograph of the author. The special value of this volume consists, I think, in the fact that no advice is given and no statement made which is not based on the personal experience of the author, who is, in the truest sense, both a mystic and an occultist. If the present volume should meet with a reception justifying a further venture, we propose translating and issuing during the coming year a further series of articles by Dr. Steiner in continuation of the same subject, and a third volume will consist of the articles now appearing in the pages of The Theosophist, entitled "The Education of Children." Max Gysi.

2013 Reprint of 1950 Third Edition. Full facsimile of the original edition, not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. Volume One Only. The books of Alice A. Bailey, written in cooperation with a Tibetan teacher between 1919 and 1949, constitute a continuation of the Ageless Wisdom--a body of esoteric teaching handed down from ancient times in a form which is always suitable to each period. Intended to precede and condition the coming era, the Alice A. Bailey writings offer an unparalleled spiritual approach to such subjects as the teaching on Shamballa and the Path of spiritual evolution; the spiritual Hierarchy; the new discipleship and training in meditation as a form of service; the teaching on the seven rays and the new psychology of the soul; the teaching on esoteric astrology; and the new world religion, which emphasizes the common thread of truth linking all the major world faiths. Five volumes have been written under the overall title of "A Treatise on the Seven Rays." This sequence of books is based on the fact, the nature and the quality of the seven basic streams of energy pervading our solar system, our planet and all that lives and moves within its orbit. Of the specialized subjects presented in these books, two volumes are concerned with esoteric psychology - the first in relation to basic energy patterns and structures; the second particularly applied to the soul and the personality of man and to the working out of the Plan for humanity. Psychology is defined in Webster's Dictionary as "the science of mind," at one time considered a branch of metaphysics. Today we are more inclined to include all the conditioning subjective factors as psychological in nature - mental and emotional impulses and soul contact, to whatever degree it exists. These subjective influences constitute the whole psychological background to a man's attitudes and behaviour, and create the faculty of spiritual response. The "psyche" is, after all, the human soul, the centre of consciousness. Esoteric psychology begins with a consideration of the human being as a soul, manifesting in the form of a personality, consisting of mental, emotional and etheric/physical substance, and more or less in contact and control, depending on the stage of evolution in the personality consciousness. From the point of view of esoteric psychology, evolution is the evolution of consciousness, by which the imbedded fragment of the soul within the personality progressively identifies its spiritual source and becomes at-one with it. The seven differentiated streams of ray energy play a significant role in this evolutionary process. A blend of five energies in a human being determine his goals, his problems, his available qualities and energy resources, and the correct method by which - according to his dominant ray influence - he may unfold his consciousness and make spiritual progress. In this volume of Esoteric Psychology many of these distinctive ray qualities and methods are given as quotations, or interpretations, of "The Old Commentary" put into poetic and symbolic words. The seven rays are shown as the Seven Creative Builders, each one imbued with purpose and power, functioning together as a synthesis in occult obedience to the purposes of our Solar Logos. Such a detailed and comprehensive study of the ray energies influencing our planetary life and all kingdoms in nature is of inestimable value to the aspirant consciously preparing himself to become of planetary service as he learns to serve and to unite with his fellowmen.

1921. Four lectures delivered by Besant, the Founder/President of the Theosophical Society at its Forth-fifth Annual Convention held at Adyar. The lecture topics include: an introductory or foundational talk; Evolution of Our Solar System, according to Religion, Science, and the Akashic Record; A Solar System Evolving: Chains and Rounds, Manus and Bodhisattvas; and a summary. See other works available by this author from Kessinger Publishing.

Partial Contents: Scenery: seven subdivisions, degrees of materiality, characteristics of astral vision, the aura, etheric double, records of astral light; Inhabitants: human, the adept or chela, psychically developed person, black magician, the dead, ordinary person after death, the shell, the suicide, victim of sudden death, black magician after death; Nature Spirits; Elementals formed consciously; Phenomena: churchyard ghosts; apparitions of the dying, haunted localities, bell ringing, fairies, communicating entities, clairvoyance, precipitation of letters, transmutation, repercussion.

Charles Webster Leadbeater was an ordained Anglican priest who left his Church to follow the spiritual disciplines and teachings of the Theosophical Society. In 1883 he traveled to India and underwent strict spiritual training, including Kundalini Yoga, a discipline that vivifies the chakras and opens the third eye. Leadbeater endeavoured to communicate these spiritual revelations to the general public in a series of books, of which 'The Devachanic Plane' remains an enduring classic. The work describes all aspects of Devachan - the astral 'Heaven World' - its characteristics, its language, and the human, non-human and artificial inhabitants that exist there. Essential reading for all students of the Occult.

Gertrude Reif Hughes, an anthroposophist of many years, offers her insights for practicing important exercises, verses, and meditations given by Rudolf Steiner to his esoteric students.

Each individual portrayed in this book may, beyond his unique nature, be considered representative of one or several aspects of human nature and human striving, and for the obstacles such striving must encounter. Goethe displays the struggle for universal moral, scientific, and artistic values throughout lifetimes, bridging and linking whole ages. Nietzsche is perhaps the representative of the new faculty of inspiration and the challenge to complement it by intuition. Oscar Wilde represents the stage of soul development at which insight into the worthlessness of vanity and ambition dawns with the power of a purifying tempest. Kafka represents those millions of people who are drawn toward the threshold of the spiritual world but lack the courage to cross it. Eckstein, the great friend of Steiner's youth, is representative of the tendency to withhold esoteric knowledge from the majority of human beings and to keep it as a possession of "the privileged few," an attitude that still prevails in certain occult streams. Rudolf Steiner worked to make esoteric truths public and showed ways toward a radically new knowledge of the spirit and a new mobility of thought.

For many a year men have been discussing arguing, enquiring about certain great basic truths - about the existence and the Nature of God, about His relation to man, and about the past and future of humanity. So radically have they differed on these points, and so bitterly have they assailed and ridiculed one another's beliefs, that there has come to be a firmly-rooted popular opinion that with regard to all these matters there is no certainty available - nothing but vague speculation amid a cloud of unsound deductions drawn from ill-established premises. And this in spite of the very definite, though frequently incredible, assertions made on these subjects on behalf of the various religions.

Seven answers are given to this question, of which the following by Eub. U. (Eusebio Urban, a nom de plume of W. Q. Judge) appears as the 6th and has special reference to the 5th immediately preceding Mr. Judge's answer, a statement by "B.F.D." which reads: "B.F.D. -- I sometimes think that zealous Theosophists, in a creditable anxiety to promote general charity, go a little too far in their assertion of fraternal duty. They speak as if anything is pardonable because done by another man, who, because a man, is a brother. Yet it would seem that the basis of Brotherhood is equal rights and mutual affection, and to these I have the same claim as any other man. He is no more privileged to violate my rights than I to violate his, and I am therefore entitled to the same protection as is he. Hence it cannot be the fact that I am any more bound to look leniently on unfraternal aggressions by him upon me, than I should be upon like acts by me upon him. In other words, it is as much my duty to restrain him from outrage upon myself, as myself from outrage upon him. Theosophy cannot, and does not, teach that all protective appliances are to be thrown down, and that the way is to be freed for every attack by the greedy or the selfish. We must be careful, in our zeal for charity, to remember that justice is the antithesis, not to charity, but to injustice."

A Lecture Delivered In The Albert Hall, Leamington, By Annie Besant.

From the author's archive of rare archival Theosophical documents, he has produced several books on the early history of Theosophy. This is Volume 5 in the Krotona Series. It will be of particular interest to some because its archival documents reveal Theosophical conversations from the period when Krishnamurti broke away from the organization of Theosophy. We also witness first-hand the ongoing founding and building of Krotona and the first Star Camp. We become privy to the internal conversation of the Esoteric School and communications between Annie Besant, Leadbeater, Jinarajadasa, Arundale, Warrington and others as their world is drastically changing with Krishnamurti's dissolving of the Order of the Star and his venture on a pathless truth.

Lachman brings us an in-depth look at Blavatsky, objectively exploring her unique and singular contributions toward introducing Eastern and esoteric spiritual ideas to the West during the 19th century, as well as the controversies that continue to colour the discussions of her life and work.