Showing results by narrator "Matthew Schmitz" in All Categories

Ascribe the work to Georgius Aurach de Argentina (sometimes Anrach) and date it to 1475. There are versions in Latin, German, French, and Italian, and one in English in the British Library.

This is a compendium of theories of the shape of the Earth, along with a great deal of Earth mystery lore. The Book of Earths includes many unusual theories, including Columbus' idea that the Earth is literally pear-shaped, modern theories that the Earth was originally tetrahedral, and so on.

This was a key work of 17th-century alchemy. It was written in Latin by Jean d'Espagnet as Enchiridion Physicae Restitutae, and the first edition was issued at Paris in 1623.

The Burden of Isis, being the laments of Isis and Nephthys, translated from the Egyptian by James Teackle Dennis, was first published in 1910. This edition is from a reprint in 1918. Includes "The Laments of Isis and Nephthys", "The Chants", and "Hymn to Osiris-Sokar".

The Kybalion is a book originally published in 1908 by "Three Initiates" that purports to convey the teachings of Hermes Trismegistus. A modern Hermetic tract, it has been widely influential in New Age circles since the 20th century. A central concept in the book is that there are "seven Hermetic principles, upon which the entire Hermetic philosophy is based".

The Book of Lambspring is one of the few real-life cases of a centuries-old book on alchemy. Nicolas Barnaud was a French Protestant writer, physician and alchemist, from Crest, in Dauphiné, from which he took the name Delphinas. He was a member of the Monarchomaques. He is associated with a number of mysteries.

Translated as Thus Spake Zarathustra, this book is a work of philosophical fiction written by German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. It was published in four volumes between 1883 and 1885. The protagonist is nominally the historical Zoroaster.

This is a collection of five alchemical tracts written by one of the most famous alchemists who was said to have discovered the Philosopher's Stone. In these writings, Paracelsus attempts to educate the listener about the nature of the Philosopher's Stone and the scientific principles from which we can be assured of its existence and understand how it works. Like all alchemical tracts, the language is very cryptic and allegorical, so as to be unintelligible to the unworthy.

The Six Keys of Eudoxus is a short but important manuscript within alchemy. Ascribed to an ancient philosopher, it dates to the Renaissance and describes a simplistic set of methods by which alkahest and the philosopher's stone can be made.

Heralding from the famed Emerald Tablet, Mead examines the phrase, As Above So Below, and primarily as it pertains to Theosophy.

The Hymns of Hermes examines Hermetic ecstatic hymns, which are songs of a poetic nature used to describe the Gnosis of Hermetic attainment and the ecstatic personal experience of the divine.

The Gods of Pegana is the first book by Anglo-Irish fantasy writer Lord Dunsany, published on a commission basis in 1905. The book is a series of short stories linked by Dunsany's invented pantheon of deities who dwell in Pegana, and was a huge influence on authors such as Lovecraft and Tolkien. This is one of my favorite works of weird fantasy fiction by Lord Dunsany, and is a masterful cosmological piece of indulgent prose that actually contains some sublime wisdom between the lines.

Dreams are part of common experience, yet a mystery that is little understood. Psychologists and others who are ignorant of the human being's true constitution, ranging across several subtle levels, are only groping to learn their significance.

The Story of Aridæus is the most detailed and graphic Vision of Hades preserved to us from classical antiquity, and exceeds in interest even Plato’s Story of Er and Cicero’s Dream of Scipio, not to speak of the less known Visions of Krates and of Zosimus.

In an age where stories flicker across screens in dazzling speed, there is a special kind of magic in returning to the deep, quiet enchantments of old. The Red Fairy Book, first compiled by Andrew Lang in 1890, offers us not merely fairy tales but a tapestry of cultural memory—woven from the folklore of Norse skalds, French peasants, Russian woodsmen, and the fireside storytellers of Iceland and Japan. These are not the softened tales of modern retellings; they shimmer with peril and wonder, cruelty and kindness, cunning and grace.

This remarkable volume brings together the three foundational texts traditionally known as the Books of Enoch. Meticulously presented from the classic translations by esteemed scholars R.H. Charles (for 1 Enoch and 2 Enoch) and Hugo Odeberg (for 3 Enoch), this collection offers listeners an unparalleled glimpse into the vast apocalyptic and mystical traditions of ancient Judaism.

In the hush between monsoon thunder and moonlit stillness, the hills of Assam have always whispered secrets. From the dense forests of Dima Hasao to the stilted villages along the Brahmaputra, ancient names still crawl across the memory of the land—Khoba-Khubi, Baak, Puwali Bhoot, Dainee, Jokhini. These are not merely ghosts, but living testaments to the cosmology of fear, justice, transgression, and survival among the people who have long dwelled in this region. Assamese demonology is not a closed system, but a breathing map of emotion, ethics, and ecology.

"The White Ship" is a horror short story by American writer H. P. Lovecraft. It was first published in The United Amateur (Volume 19) #2, November 1919, and later appeared in the March 1927 issue of Weird Tales. Basil Elton, a lighthouse keeper, engages in a peculiar fantasy in which a bearded man in robes is piloting a mystical white ship which appears when the moon is full. Elton walks across the water on a bridge of moonbeams, joins the bearded man on the ship, and together they explore a mystical chain of islands unlike anything that can be found on Earth.

"The Last Incantation" by Clark Ashton Smith tells the story of Malygris, an aging necromancer who has mastered all forms of magic but is plagued by ennui. In a bid to escape his despair, he attempts to summon his long-lost love, Nylissa, from the dead, only to discover that the reality of her presence does not fulfill his nostalgic desires, leading to a poignant lesson about the passage of time and the nature of memory.

There are Lovecraft stories that roar with cosmic terror — ancient gods, unknowable entities, the madness of knowledge. And then there is What the Moon Brings. This short, haunting piece is not a tale in the traditional sense, but a dream — or rather, a descent. It belongs to that strange and shadowy corner of Lovecraft’s imagination where logic erodes, and we are left adrift in a realm shaped by mood, moonlight, and the whisper of things not quite seen. First published in 1923, What the Moon Brings reads like a surreal reverie drenched in symbolism.