This book is essential reading for Those interested in the realities of the spiritual world. It is an overview of the world's religious views and Their points of agreement. For Those who have begun Their awakening, it is essential reading. Its bibliography alone is worth having. I read it when i was 17 and thought it full of misty-headed nonsense interspersed with noble but doomed aspirations; I reread it when i was 50 and found th That book had grown much wiser in the interim. This book Describes reality! Consider the Following quote: "The lust-dieted man 'slaves the ordinance of Heaven' - that is to say, he subordinates the laws of Nature and the Spirit to his own cravings The result is that 'he does not feel' and. THEREFORE makes himself incapable of Knowledge His ignorance is voluntary Ultimately,. if he can not see, it is' cause 'he will not see.' Search voluntary ignorance Inevitably has its negative reward nemesis follows hubris -. Sometimes in a spectacular way, as When the man self-blinded (Macbeth, Othello, Lear) falls into the trap Which his own ambition or possessiveness or petulant vanity has prepared for him; sometimes in a less obvious way, as, in the cases where power, prosperity and reputation endure to the end * but at the cost of an ever-increasing imperviousness to grace and enlightenment, to ever completer inability to escape, now or hereafter from the stifling prison of selfness and separateness. How profound can be the spiritual ignorance by which search 'enslavers of Heaven's ordinances' are punished is Indicated by the behavior of Cardinal Richelieu on his death-bed. The priest who attended him urged The Great Man to prepare his soul for its coming ordeal by forgiving all his enemies. "I have never had any enemies," the Cardinal replied with the calm sincerity of an ignorance Which long years of intrigue and avarice and ambition had rendered as absolute as had been his Political power, 'save only Those of the State.' Like Napoleon, but in a different way, he was 'feeling heaven's power,' Because He had refused to feel charity and THEREFORE refused to know the whole truth about his own soul or anything else. "In addition, the author uses beautifully concise and Precise language.
