• The
CONTENTS
Initial Information and Title Pages
Preface to the
Fifth Edition
(i-lxvii)
Preface
to the Second (Revised) Edition
(lxix-lxxx)
Preface
to the First Edition
(lxxxi-lxxxviii)
Abstract of Argument and Contents (lxxxix- cvii)
Lecture 1st – Introductory (1-37)
Lecture 2nd – The Soul; and the Substance of Existence (38-63)
Lecture 3rd – The Various Orders of Spirits; and How to Discern Them (64-93)
Lecture 4th – The Atonement (94-117)
Lecture 5th – The Nature and Constitution of the Ego (118-144)
Lecture 6th – The Fall (Nº. I) (145-175)
Lecture 7th – The Fall (Nº. 2) (176-209)
Lecture 8th – The Redemption (210-257)
Lecture 9th – God as the Lord; or, the Divine Image (258-302)
Appendices
(305-364)
Index of Subjects and Principal Words (365-405)
Illustrations
Initial Information: In this
site we have the complete Html text of the
Fifth Edition (1923) of The Perfect Way. This work, possibly the most
important one by Anna Kingsford and Edward Maitland, certainly is the most well
known of them. To give an idea of its importance, below we have a few passages
of comments on the book. The first one is from an obituary written by Madame
Helena Blavatsky, with great praise to Anna Kingsford, where we can read:
“She was (…) a leader of spiritual and philosophical thought, gifted with the
most exceptional psychic attributes. In connection with Mr. Edward Maitland, her
truest friend (…) she wrote several books dealing with metaphysical and mystical
subjects. The first and most important was
The The second is a quotation from
Samuel H. Hart, from his essay In Memoriam to the Rev. G.J.R. Ouseley.
There he brings the opinion of Rev. Gideon Jasper Richard Ouseley on
The
Perfect Way. Rev. Ouseley was the author of The Gospel of the Holy Twelve: “We
had a long talk together, but with some difficulty on account of his deafness.
When I told him of my interest in the teaching of
The Perfect Way, he said,
in his opinion it was “the brightest and best of all revelations that had been
given to the World”. In a letter to the magazine
Light
(1882, p. 475) he described
The Perfect Way as “the most
wonderful of all books which have appeared since the Christian era”. But he
despaired of the world ever receiving it, because “the world had always rejected
the Truth; had always crucified Christ and his doctrine, and would it not do so
again?” Of this, however, he was sure; “The Church of the future would be the Finally, the opinion of Baron
Giuseppe Spedalieri about The Perfect Way, quoted
from the Preface to the Second (Revised)
Edition:
“The veteran student of the “divine science,” a reference to whom, as the
friend, disciple, and literary heir of the renowned magian, the late Abbé
Constant (“Eliphas Levi”), will be for all initiates a sufficient indication of
his personality, thus writes to us: – “As with the corresponding
Scriptures of the past, the appeal on behalf of your book is, really, to
miracles: but with the difference that in your case the miracles are
intellectual ones and incapable of simulation, being miracles of interpretation.
And they have the further
distinction of doing no violence to common sense by infringing the
possibilities of Nature; while they are in complete accord with all mystical
traditions, and especially with the great Mother of these, – the Kabbala. That
miracles, such as I am describing, are to be found in
The Perfect Way, in kind and number unexampled, they who
are the best qualified to judge will
be the most ready to affirm.
“And here, apropos of these renowned
Scriptures, permit me to offer you some remarks on the Kabbala as we have it. It
is my opinion: –
“(1)
That this tradition is far from being genuine, and such
as it was on its original emergence from the sanctuaries.
“(2) That when Guillaume Postel – of excellent memory – and his brother
Hermetists of the later middle age – the Abbot Trithemius and others – predicted
that these sacred books of the Hebrews should become known and understood at the
end of the era, and specified the present time for that event, they did not mean
that such knowledge should be limited to the mere divulgement of these
particular Scriptures, but that it would have for its base a new illumination,
which should eliminate from them all that has been ignorantly or willfully
introduced, and should reunite that great tradition with its source by restoring
it in all its purity.
“(3) That this illumination has just been accomplished, and has been manifested
in The
Perfect Way. For in this book we find all that there is of truth in the
Kabbala, supplemented by new intuitions, such as present in a body of doctrine
at once complete, homogeneous, logical and inexpugnable.
“Since the whole tradition thus finds itself recovered or restored to its
original purity, the prophecies of Postel, etc., are accomplished; and I
consider that from henceforth the study of the Kabbala will be but an object of
curiosity and erudition like that of Hebrew antiquities. “Humanity has always and
everywhere asked itself these three supreme questions: – Whence come we? What
are we? Whither go we? Now, these questions at length
find an answer, complete, satisfactory, and consolatory, in
The
Perfect Way.”” (pp. lxxviii-lxxix)
[Fifth edition. John M. Watkins, THE or, The Finding of
Christ ANNA (BONUS)
KINGSFORD AND EDWARD MAITLAND
________________ Fifth Edition, with Additions and
a Biographical
Preface by Samuel Hopgood Hart.
________________ “God hath uttered His voice: and the Earth shall
melt away.” (Ps.
46:7) JOHN M.
WATKINS, ALL RIGHTS
RESERVED.
_______________ 1923. (p.
cvii) “And the Lord God said
unto the serpent . . . I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and
between thy seed and her seed: she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel.” – Gen. iii. 14, 15. “And a great sign
appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun,
and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars.” –
Apoc. xii. 1.
Sections: General Index Present
Section: Index
Next:
Preface to the Fifth Edition
