The 2013 digitization of the vast Hartlib Papers archive highlighted the pressing need for a comprehensive modern study of Samuel Hartlib (1600–1662), a central figure in seventeenth-century intellectual life. Though educated in Eastern Europe, Hartlib spent his adult life in London, where he became a prolific correspondent and chronicler. His Ephemerides, spanning 1634 to 1660, and his extensive correspondence with leading thinkers across Britain and Protestant Europe offer an unparallele...

The alchemist and physician known as Paracelsus (1493–1541) appears to have dwelt in a completely different intellectual world from Sir Isaac Newton (1642–1727). Newton's work lies in the lofty era of the Enlightenment and the modern world, while that of the enigmatic Paracelsus conjures up the superstitious lore of the Dark Ages. The rise of science and the decline of magic unfolded over many generations, and as this fascinating book shows, there existed remarkable elements of continuity ...

The devas are a mighty kingdom of spirits, the next above humanity, just in the same way as the animal kingdom is the next one below it. You may think of them as great and glorious angels, but of course they are of many different kinds, and different degrees of evolution. None of them are so low down as to have physical bodies such as we have.Charles Webster Leadbeater was an influential member of the Theosophical Society, author on occult subjects and co-initiator with J. I. Wedgw...

Physical immortality is not a possibility, for that which has a beginning must also have an end, and birth, growth, decay and death are the rules of the physical universe...

You ask what is the cause of sleep-walking...

We must distinguish carefully between obsession and insanity. The latter is a break in the connection between the ego and his vehicles, while the former is the ousting of the ego by some other entity. Only a weak ego would permit obsession an ego, I mean, who had not much hold upon his vehicles. It is not as a rule true that children are more easily obsessed than adults, because though it is true that the hold of the ego upon its bodies is less strong in childhood, it is also true that the...

The brotherhood of man is a fact in nature; those who deny it are simply those who are blind to it, because they shut their eyes to actualities which they do not wish to acknowledge. We need waste little time over those who deny it; nature itself will refute their heresy. More subtly dangerous are those who misunderstand it, and their name is legion...-Charles Webster Leadbeater was an influential member of the Theosophical Society, author on occult subjects and co-initiator with J...

It is difficult to say anything on the question of prayer that would be universally applicable, because there are such very different kinds of prayer and they are addressed to beings who differ very widely in evolution....-Charles Webster Leadbeater was an influential member of the Theosophical Society, author on occult subjects and co-initiator with J. I. Wedgwood of the Liberal Catholic Church.Originally a priest of the Church of England, his interest inspiritualism cause...

In this classic work of clairvoyant investigation first published in 1913, Charles Leadbeater reveals those hidden aspects of the physical world that, once seen, imbue life with greater significance, happiness, and meaning. Normally glimpsed by only a few, these hidden realms consist of the fourth dimension, the higher world, and the plan and purpose of existence. Leadbeater shows how all three influence our daily lives, in a remarkable work of exploration that can be enjoyed by anyone who...

Few words are needed in sending this little book out into the world. It is the fifth of a series of Manuals designed to meet the public demand for a simple exposition of Theosophical teachings. Some have complained that our literature is at once too abstruse, too technical, and too expensive for the ordinary reader, and it is our hope that the present series may succeed in supplying what is a very real want. Theosophy is not only for the learned; it is for all. Perhaps among those who in t...

Symbology is a very interesting study. To a certain type of mind everything expresses itself in symbols, and to some people they are of the greatest possible help...-Charles Webster Leadbeater was an influential member of the Theosophical Society, author on occult subjects and co-initiator with J. I. Wedgwood of the Liberal Catholic Church.Originally a priest of the Church of England, his interest inspiritualism caused him to end his affiliation with Anglicanism in favour o...

WE have in the LOGOS of our solar system as near an approach to a personal (or rather, perhaps, individual) God as any reasonable man can desire, for of Him is true everything good that has ever been predicated of a personal deity...-Charles Webster Leadbeater was an influential member of the Theosophical Society, author on occult subjects and co-initiator with J. I. Wedgwood of the Liberal Catholic Church.Originally a priest of the Church of England, his interest inspiritu...