Oh my God, Divine Principle is an amazing book. It explains the purpose in life, how to know God, what went wrong, How to go back to God etc. in such a clear way. It has totally changed my life. I couldn't put it down. Until then I was struggling with life but it cleary helped me. Sun Myung Moon has discovered an amazing truth through his revelations from God. I hope everone reads this book!!!!!

Oh my God, Divine Principle is an amazing book. It explains the purpose in life, how to know God, what went wrong, How to go back to God etc. in such a clear way. It has totally changed my life. I couldn't put it down. Until then I was struggling with life but it cleary helped me. Sun Myung Moon has discovered an amazing truth through his revelations from God. I hope everone reads this book!!!!!

I started reading out of a mild curiosity about the man who wrote "Monstrous Regiment of Women". By the end I was fascinated and appalled...Ridley has a lot of respect for the reader's intelligence, and doesn't stint on the ghastly details that made some people (at last) revolt against theocracy in Elizabethan England. Tends to remind Americans just how much we are "missing" , the cure for nostalgia over those days.

Palmerston, he evoked an era of gunboat diplomacy. WHy? Because he understood the British empire rested on its ability to deter aggression and his gutsy vindictive nature of sending the royal navy anywhere it took to protect the honor of England. With the exception of churchill, Palmerston was a great defender of empire, uniquly british. THis is a must read for anyone wanting to understand how America should be acting in the face of terror. Palmerston was the ultimate pre-emptionist.

This is a Wonderful Book, although it burst my Bubble a few years ago. I consider this book to be a *very* important addition to any Occultist or Esoteric Freemason's library.

In 1991, I joined "The Brotherhood of Light," based in CA, (currently going by the name of "The Church of Light") and I thought I had joined a prestigious Occult organization. Their history was documented back to T.H. Burgoyne and the organization was "reformed" by C.C. Zain (aka Elbert Benjamine), but prior to this time period, they claimed lineage from "The Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor."

The BofL newsletters had pictures of Max Theon, etc., and the organization was supposedly founded upon "The Light of Egypt, Vol. I & II," by T.H. Burgoyne, after a period of time in-which they were supposedly named "The Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor." However, "The Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor: Initiatic and Historical Documents of an Order of Practical Occultism," by Joscelyn Godwin, et al, disputes the CofL/BofL connection to "The Hermetic Brotherhood of Light."
With all this Pedigree stuff, I thought I was a member of a Big Deal occult organization.... then, when the internet age hit, I was utterly baffled by the fact that NO ONE took the CofL/BofL seriously.....
....until, I read this book!
Basically, all the bizarre and nonsensical aspects of the organization I had Previously held afiliation with suddenly made-sense.
"The Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor: ....," by Joscelyn Godwin, et al, really opened my eyes and saved me a lot of money.
Luckily, I had not sunk much money into the organization--a very small amount, in fact, due to scepticism on a local level.
I strongly recommend this book to Occult Practitioners and Esoteric Freemasons. Waite's "Encyclopaedia of Freemasonry" is also very enlightening in regards to these organizations and "T.H. Burgoyne" and "Max Theon."
Apparently, Mr. T.H. Burgoyne was quite a shyster !
This historical account of "The Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor" really helped me out, prevented numerous headaches, and saved me a lot of money.
It seems that "T.H. Burgoyne's" motto of "Omnia Vincit Veritas" was rather self-defeating.

This book really goes back to the beginnings of occultism. I would suggest reading
Paschal Beverly Randolph: A Nineteenth-Century Black American Spiritualist, Rosicrucian, and Sex Magician (Suny Series in Western Esoteric Traditions)
first, however; as you will get more out of it if you have a context to put it in.
Enjoy!

The Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor has become "en vogue" lately among certain circles of occultists and occult historians. This book, unlike others written by persons of questionable academic reputation, gives a complete and unbiased account of the HBL, its structure, system, and personalities.

Complete and concise, contains several useful documents including sources for high degree OTO materials, this book is a must-have in the library of any serious occultist.

This book uses a catchy poem to keep the reader/listener's attention. Great for "just learning to read" and young readers!

An excellent gift for any little petal carrying angel!

This is the most wonderful children's book - my children loved it.

In light of recent documentary discoveries in a number of European archives, I had high hopes that this volume would further the body of research into the Rosicrucian movement. Ultimately, it did, but in ways I did not anticipate.

There are some essential works here (Joscelyn Godwin's excellent meditation on Michael Maier and Rafael T. Prinke's article on Michael Sendivogius immediately spring to mind: both of which demonstrate the varities of meaning Rosicrucianism took on to those who sought to perpetuate the movement in different contexts) but also much filler. Too many of the contributions collected in this volume re-state a body of knowledge familiar to all students of the subject. Due to the original format of these contributions (i.e., speeches) this knowledge is -understandably- not communicated in a particularly useful fashion.

Having said that, this volume is worth its price of entry. However the content is certainly a mixed bag.
Lastly, the translations of the Rosicrucian manifestos contained in this volume are those of Thomas Vaughan's mid 17th century edition of the Fama and Confessio .

Before the 'New Age' there was the "Rosicrucian Enlightenment". At the beginning of the 17th century, a new awakening was heralded throughout Europe, announcing the universal reform of all known areas of human activity - religion, science, art, and society were to become one being. The chief proponents of this great awakening were the mysterious "Rosicrucians". Nearly 400 years after the first seeds of this movement were planted, over 100 students, authors, and scholars of traditional Western esotericism, of which Rosicrucianism is the foremost exponent, gathered in the medieval town of Czesky Krumolv in the Czech Republic, to discuss, explore, and in someway, reopen the 'Vault of Christian Rosencreutz' once again.

"The Rosicrucian Enlightenment Revisited" contains nine essays on the early Rosicrucian movement presented at this landmark conference sponsored in part by The New York Open Center, and copies of the first two Rosicrucian Manifestoes, the "Fama" and the "Confessio". It is a great read and ideal for anyone interested in what is truly the heart and soul of Western esotericism - the Rosicrucian Enlightenment.

This is my favorite book. I've been through three different copies: a now out-of-print Classics Club copy, the Loeb Classics Library copy with the original Latin facing the English text, and this Penguin edition. The Penguin is by far the worst of those three. Among its faults is the fact that it's translated into prose, which makes for an easier read but in the end dumbs down the text and reduces it in beauty; and while the footnotes are sometimes informative, most of them I find insulting to both the reader's and Lucretius's intelligence. Go with the Loeb, or some other edition; chances are it's better than this one.

Lucretius, the Epicurean poet of the first century BC, was immortalized for his work "On the Nature of the Universe," which is a brilliant manifestation of Epicurius' atomic theory by a means of hexametrical verse tinged with lucid philosophy. This work has stood for so long as a classic monument of Latin poetry not only since it contains such a bounty of sweet verse and song, but also for the simple fact that Lucretius' work was the most modern for its time. This furthermore allowed "On the Nature of the Universe" to hold the reins of superiority--with regards to its modernity of course--for many subsequent generations. Lucretius' stark conviction that the world is not controlled by the gods, that man is solely in control of his destiny on earth, and that the soul perishes with the body, no doubt aroused the conservative sentiments of the time; and for this reason the work endures due to the epic and timeless battle between Science and Religion. For anyone interested in the Greco-Roman Classics, poetry, or just good literature, Lucretius' masterpiece will be an excellent choice.

Lucretius's arguments for his atomic theory and the "swerve" are paragons of lucidity. It's a good thing I had physics in school, I was very nearly converted anyway. The section dealing with love is one of the most beautiful things I have ever read. I wholeheartedly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys reading elegant ideas beautifully expressed, or beautiful ideas elegantly expressed.