Showing results by narrator "Matthew Schmitz" in All Categories

The lectures here presented in book form were first written in twenty lectures and delivered during the month of November, 1908, in Columbus, Ohio, by Max Heindel. He also mimeographed them and distributed copies to all who attended his lectures in that city, and in other cities. After his lectures in Seattle, Washington, a friend, Mr. William M. Patterson, traveled with him to Chicago, Illinois, where he not only financed the publishing, but also assisted Mr. Heindel in proofreading both The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception and these Twenty Lectures.

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 thirteenth and the fifteenth centuries.

Clark Ashton Smith (January 13, 1893-August 14, 1961) was an American writer and artist. He achieved early local recognition, largely through the enthusiasm of George Sterling, for traditional verse in the vein of Swinburne.

Fifty-One Tales is a collection of fantasy short stories by Irish writer Lord Dunsany, considered a major influence on the work of J. R. R. Tolkien, H. P. Lovecraft, Ursula K. Le Guin and others.

Brought to you by Altrusian Grace Media and human-narrated by Matthew Schmitz. Tales from Three Hemispheres by Lord Dunsany is a collection of brief, dreamlike fantasy tales that move between myth, satire, exotic imagined lands, and strange philosophical visions. The stories often feel like fragments of ancient legend or half-remembered dreams, where gods, kings, travelers, prophets, cities, and impossible landscapes appear in a style that is elegant, ironic, and otherworldly.

Graves presents a historical and comparative analysis of the concept of Satan in various religious traditions. It explores the origins of the devil figure, tracing its roots in ancient mythologies and religious beliefs. The Biography of Satan challenges conventional religious interpretations and sheds light on the diverse and evolving perceptions of evil and temptation throughout human history.

The Nameless City by H. P. Lovecraft follows a lone traveler who ventures into an ancient, half-buried ruin deep in the Arabian desert, a place older than human history and shunned by legend. Drawn by curiosity, he explores its strange low-built corridors and underground passages, where he discovers carvings and relics revealing a forgotten reptilian civilization that flourished long before mankind.

The Buddhist Catechism by Henry S. Olcott is a concise instructional guide to the core teachings of Buddhism, presented in a question-and-answer format meant to clarify the religion for both beginners and students. First published in the late 19th century, it outlines fundamental Buddhist ideas such as the life and example of the Buddha, the Four Noble Truths, karma, rebirth, ethical conduct, meditation, and the goal of nirvana, while emphasizing reason, self-discipline, compassion, and the non-theistic nature of Buddhist thought.

Twenty Drawings is a brief but evocative art volume first published in 1919 that gathers twenty of Kahlil Gibran’s drawings, presented with an introductory essay by Alice Raphael. Rather than telling a conventional story, the book offers a visual meditation on beauty, the human form, spirituality, longing, and the dreamlike union of Eastern and Western artistic sensibilities that shaped Gibran’s work.

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.

Brought to you by Altrusian Grace Media and human-narrated by Matthew Schmitz. In A Mithriac Ritual, G.R.S. Mead presents and comments on a text he treats as an unusually revealing witness to the inner religious life of the Mithraic mysteries, moving beyond general history to examine a ritual of ascent, invocation, visionary transformation, and cosmic symbolism.

In “The Green Meadow,” an isolated narrator awakens in a strange, alien landscape between a sinister green forest and a distant, luminous meadow across blue water, with only fragments of memory and an overwhelming sense of cosmic dread. As the piece of land beneath him breaks away and drifts across the sea, he senses that the forest harbors hostile, sentient forces, while the radiant meadow exerts a terrible fascination and eerie promise of safety.

In “The Hoard of the Wizard-Beast,” the official Yalden discovers that the treasury of the strange city of Zeth has been emptied by corruption, and on the advice of the dubious oracle Oorn he is sent to recover the legendary treasure of the monstrous sorcerer Anathas, who dwells in the dreaded Cave of Three Winds. Armed with magical protections and driven by duty, greed, and youthful ambition, Yalden survives a hazardous journey across an alien wasteland and reaches the wizard-beast’s lair, where he finds an immense hoard of jewels and relics beyond a floor of blazing coals.

The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories is the third book by Anglo-Irish fantasy writer Lord Dunsany, considered a major influence on the work of J. R. R. Tolkien, H. P. Lovecraft, Ursula K. Le Guin, and others. It was first published in hardcover by George Allen & Sons in October 1908, and has been reprinted a number of times since. Issued by the Modern Library in a combined edition with A Dreamer's Tales as A Dreamer's Tales and Other Stories in 1917.

"The Crawling Chaos" is a short story by American writers H. P. Lovecraft and Winifred V. Jackson, first published April 1921 in the United Cooperative. As in their other collaboration, "The Green Meadow", the tale was credited to "Elizabeth Berkeley" (Jackson) and "Lewis Theobald, Jun" (Lovecraft). Lovecraft wrote the entire text, but Jackson is also credited since the story was based on a dream she experienced.

"The golden tractate" (Aureus) by Hermes Trismegistus is a classic text of Hermetic and ancient Philosophy about natural and divine magic; it will strongly influence the later Alchemic literature. The Golden Tractate of Hermes, first created in the Renaissance and rendered into English in 1850, is one of a number of texts from its era attempting to explain alchemy, along with the works of Pontanus and Artephius.

The Turba Philosophorum, also known as Assembly of the Philosophers, is one of the oldest European alchemy texts, translated from the Arabic, like the Picatrix. It is considered to have been written c. 900 A.D.

These marvelous narratives may seem vastly fantastic to the modern mind, but to every shade of Christianity in those days, they were entirely credible. - from The Hymn of Jesus. Are These The Lost words of Jesus? One of the greatest thinkers on the origins of Christianity and a renowned expert on Gnostic and Hermetic literature presents, in this snug volume first published in 1907, the lost teachings of Jesus.

This is an ancient alchemy manuscript. Artephius (Artefius) (c. 1150) is a writer and alchemist to whom a number of alchemical texts are ascribed. Alchemical pseudepigraphy makes it difficult to identify who the historical Artephius may have been. His identity remains an open question. As The Secret Book of Artephius was respected and mentioned by Roger Bacon many times, Artephius' writing and alchemy is dated to around 1150.

Northcote Thomas provides an lengthy study of the history and practice of crystal gazing. He covers techniques for scrying utilizing a crystal sphere as an aid in clairvoyance and obtaining visions. A chapter on the incantation or "call" is included. In additional to practical techniques, the work covers the crystal ball's history. Thomas spends two chapters in an in depth discussion of Egyptian scrying. An early work on the subject, originally published in 1905.