"In the previous manual an attempt was made to describe to some extent the astral plane — the lower part of the vast unseen world in the midst of which we live and move unheeding. In this little book must be undertaken the still harder task of trying to give some idea of the stage next above that — the mental plane or the heaven-world, often spoken of in our Theosophical literature as that of Devachan or Sukhâvatí. Although, in calling this plane the heaven-world, we distinctly intend to imply that it contains th..."

"Nor Aught nor Nought existed; yon bright sky Was not, nor heaven's broad roof outstretched above. What covered all? what sheltered? what concealed? Was it the water's fathomless abyss? There was not death -- yet there was nought immortal, There was no confine betwixt day and night; The only One breathed breathless by itself, Other than It there nothing since has been. Darkness there was, and all at first was veiled In gloom profound -- an ocean without light -- The germ that still lay covered in the husk ..."

"TO most English readers the "Imitation of Christ" is the representative of mediaeval German mysticism. In reality, however, this beautiful little treatise belongs to a period when that movement had nearly spent itself. Thomas a Kempis, as Dr. Bigg has said,[i] was only a semi-mystic. He tones down the most characteristic doctrines of Eckhart, who is the great original thinker of the German mystical school, and seems in some ways to revert to an earlier type of devotional literature. The "Imitation" may perhaps be d..."

"Judaism developed a very rich demonology, which was often fed by the various cultures which surrounded the Jewish communities throughout the world. Many early accounts of demons bear a striking resemblance to Egyptian and Persian ideas, while creatures borrowed from French and German folklore were recognized or adopted in the Middle Ages...."

"Before I retell any part of the Gnostic myth, let me just explain why I have included the Gnostic cosmogony in Dark Mirrors of Heaven. I had found it interesting reading, comparing what most people are familiar with the Genesis and the Gospels. The texts of the Nag Hammadi Library is very different to anything encounter to the Bible. It is controversial, yet it is very enlightening and thought provoking. The Gnostic churches were trying to explain that there was far more to Jesus' teaching than what is found in ..."

"Unlike Mohammed, unlike the Buddha, there is no reliable body of sayings or teachings of Jesus which represent his own views beyond reasonable doubt. The four gospels are only four out of dozens that were whittled down by the formation of the church canon, and by censorship and physical destruction of rival texts. With no authoritative statements from Jesus himself, the field lay wide open for a dizzying range of interpretations. The first centuries of Christianity saw a luxuriant flowering of sects which all us..."