Symbolism Was Largely a Reaction Against Naturalism and Realism

Symbolism was largely a reaction against naturalism and realism, anti-idealistic styles which were attempts to represent reality in its gritty particularity, and to elevate the humble and the ordinary over the ideal. Symbolism was a reaction in favour of spirituality,...

The Sphere of Earth as Seen from Space

The title Whole Earth Catalog came from a previous project by Stewart Brand. In 1966, he initiated a public campaign to have NASA release the then-rumored satellite photo of the sphere of Earth as seen from space, one of the...

The Esoteric Tradition Deals in Imagery and Symbols

For one thing, the esoteric tradition deals in imagery and symbols, the meanings of which are often complex and multiple, and which elude the left brain’s demand for clarity and definiteness; they are more attuned to what McGilchrist calls the...

Source: The Secret Teachers of the Western World  by Gary Lachman

Their Varied Meanings Are Only To Be Discovered by Reflection and Study

The symbols and ceremonies of Masonry have more than one meaning. They rather conceal than disclose the Truth. They hint it only, at least; and their varied meanings are only to be discovered by reflection and study. Truth is not...

Source: Morals and Dogma  by Albert Pike

A Conspiracy of Love

Months later, while outlining a not-yet-titled book about the emerging social alternatives, I thought again about the peculiar form of this movement: its atypical leadership, the patient in-tensity of its adherents, their unlikely successes. It suddenly struck me that in...

Source: The Aquarian Conspiracy  by Marilyn Ferguson

Those Who Are the Most Captivated by Its Spell

The study of cosmology shows how our relationship to the universe and our fellow humans is inextricably conditioned by our underlying belief systems and mythologies. As every thoughtful person realizes, the life of each civilization-and every individual-is influenced by underlying...

Source: Jesus Christ, Sun of God  by David Fideler

One of the Central Pillars of the Esoteric Tradition

Indeed, imagination, linked to the right brain, is one of the central pillars of the esoteric tradition. As the historian of esotericism Antoine Faivre writes, imagination is “a kind of organ of the soul, thanks to which humanity can establish...

Source: The Secret Teachers of the Western World  by Gary Lachman

Links in This Vast Chain Extending Round the Whole Globe

I might point to the fact that, although the meetings of our society are of necessity enshrouded with the veil of secresy, which circumstance, in seasons of excitement and peril, the designing and malicious would have converted into matter of...