An overview of the various occultic traditions of the world.
From the preface:
Do not look to find in this volume a history of occultism, or a methodical monograph on the subject. To such a work one would need to devote whole volumes, which would of necessity be filled with a great measure of that very rubbish which I wish above all to spare the reader. I have no other aim than to tell as simply as possible what I have learned in the course of some years that were spent in these rather discredited and unfrequented regions.
Contents:
- Prologue
- India
- Egypt
- Persia
- Chaldea
- Greece before Socrates
- The Gnostics and the Neoplatonists
- The Cabala
- The Alchemists
- The Modern Occultists
- The Metapsychists
- Conclusions
About the author (from Wikipedia):
Maurice Polydore Marie Bernard Maeterlinck (29 August 1862 – 6 May 1949) was a Belgian playwright, poet, and essayist who was Flemish but wrote in French. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1911 “in appreciation of his many-sided literary activities, and especially of his dramatic works, which are distinguished by a wealth of imagination and by a poetic fancy, which reveals, sometimes in the guise of a fairy tale, a deep inspiration, while in a mysterious way they appeal to the readers’ own feelings and stimulate their imaginations”. The main themes in his work are death and the meaning of life. His plays form an important part of the Symbolist movement.
