Exerpts From A MUST-Own Book:

The Secret Teachings Of All Ages by Manly P. Hall

[An absolute MUST-HAVE for your Library, folks. Spend the $40.00. Never want for Philosophic fodder again. This book, besides a dictionary, is THE ONE I would chose were I allowed ONLY ONE BOOK FOR THE REST OF ETERNITY. Those of you who know me, know that those are NOT light words. And that is an understatement if ever one were uttered. Here-- read for yourself.
Oh- I let stand the use of the word "man" versus the more modern (and, to me, much more acceptable and inclusive--as was meant, I'm sure) "humankind", dates the author (the book was penned as a reflection of the shallowness of materialism, solely, seen post-1929 stock market crash...). Don't let that detract from the CONTENT, please!!! --Cygnus]

"According to the secret doctrine, man, through the gradual refinement of his vehicles and the ever-increasing sensitiveness resulting from that refinement, is gradually overcoming the limitations of matter and is disentangling himself from his mortal coil. When humanity has completed its physical evolution, the empty shell of materiality left behind will be used by other lifewaves as stepping-stones to their own liberation. The trend of man's evolutionary growth is ever towards his own essential Selfhood. At the point of deepest materialism, therefore, man is at the greatest distance from Himself. According to the Mystery teachings, not all the spiritual nature of man incarnates in matter. The spirit of man is diagrammatically shown as an equilateral triangle with one point downward. This lower point, which is one-third of the spiritual nature but in comparison to the dignity of the other two is much less than a third, descends into the illusion of material existence for a brief space of time. That which never clothes itself in the sheath of matter is the Hermetic Anthropos-- the Overman-- analogous to the Cyclops or guardian daemon of the Greeks, the angel of Jacob Bohme, and the Oversoul of Emmerson, "that Unity, that Oversoul, within which every man's particular being is contained and made one with all other."

At birth only a third part of the Divine Nature of man temporarily dissociates itself from its own immortality and takes upon itself the dream of physical birth and existence, animating with its own celestial enthusiasm a vehicle composed of material elements, part of and bound to the material sphere. At death this incarnated part awakens from the dream of physical existence and reunites itself once more with its eternal condition. this periodical descent of spirit into matter is termed the wheel of life and death, and the principles involved are treated in length by the philosophers under the subject metempsychosis. By initiation into the Mysteries and certain processes known as operative theology, this law of birth and death is transcended, and during the course of physical existence which is asleep in form is awakened without the intervention of death-- the inevitable Initiator-- and is consciously reunited with the Anthropos, or the overshadowing substance of itself. This is at once the primary purpose and the consummate achievement of the Mysteries: that man shall become aware of and be consciously reunited with the divine source of himself without tasting of physical dissolution."

[Cygnus won't chop this with his words, save to ask if anyone would like to see regular excerpts from the tome. I had intent to quote from the chapter titled "The Mysteries Of Isis", but the book opened to this page and the passage threw itself to my eyeballs... et VOILA!

I'll do a review, overall, of the book this weekend.
Until then...

Hale and Farewell, Folks...

Cygnus]