It was in the month of July, 1842, that I was released, by order of Pope Gregory, from my first imprisonment in the dungeons of the Inquisition. On this occasion, one of the Dominican monks who serve the office of Inquisitor, inquired of me, with a malicious look, whether I, also, intended, one day, to write an account of the Inquisition, as a well-known author had done before me, with respect to Spielberg, in his celebrated work, "Le mie prigioni." Perceiving at once the object of this deceitful interrogation, which was only to afford a pretext for renewing my incarceration, at the very moment when liberty was before me, I smiled at my interlocutor...

Star Begotten is a 1937 novel by H. G. Wells. It tells the story of a series of men who conjecture upon the possibility of the human race being altered, by genetic modification, by Martians to replace their own dying planet. The book readdresses the idea of the existence of Martians, which Wells had written about in The War of the Worlds (1898). The dialogue of Star Begotten makes brief references to Wells's earlier novel, referring to it as having been written by "Jules Verne, Conan Doyle, one of those fellows".

I say the Catholic "conscience" of history--I say "conscience"--that is, an intimate knowledge through identity: the intuition of a thing which is one with the knower--I do not say "The Catholic Aspect of History." This talk of "aspects" is modern and therefore part of a decline: it is false, and therefore ephemeral: I will not stoop to it.

THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER As seen on The Joe Rogan Experience! A groundbreaking dive into the role psychedelics have played in the origins of Western civilization, and the real-life quest for the Holy Grail that could shake the Church to its foundations. The most influential religious historian of the 20th century, Huston Smith, once referred to it as the "best-kept secret" in history. Did the Ancient Greeks use drugs to find God? And did the earliest Christians inherit the same, secret tradition? A profound knowledge of visionary plants, herbs and fungi passed from one generation to the next, ever since the Stone Age? There is zero archaeological evidence for the original Eucharist – the sacred wine said to guarantee life after death for those who drink the blood of Jesus. The Holy Grail and its miraculous contents have never been found. In the absence of any hard data, whatever happened at the Last Supper remains an article of faith for today’s 2.5 billion Christians. In an unprecedented search for answers, The Immortality Key examines the archaic roots of the ritual that is performed every Sunday for nearly one third of the planet. Religion and science converge to paint a radical picture of Christianity’s founding event. And after centuries of debate, to solve history’s greatest puzzle. Before the birth of Jesus, the Ancient Greeks found salvation in their own sacraments. Sacred beverages were routinely consumed as part of the so-called Ancient Mysteries – elaborate rites that led initiates to the brink of death. The best and brightest from Athens and Rome flocked to the spiritual capital of Eleusis, where a holy beer unleashed heavenly visions for two thousand years. Others drank the holy wine of Dionysus to become one with the god. In the 1970s, renegade scholars claimed this beer and wine – the original sacraments of Western civilization – were spiked with mind-altering drugs. In recent years, vindication for the disgraced theory has been quietly mounting in the laboratory. The constantly advancing fields of archaeobotany and archaeochemistry have hinted at the enduring use of hallucinogenic drinks in antiquity. And with a single dose of psilocybin, the psychopharmacologists at Johns Hopkins and NYU are now turning self-proclaimed atheists into instant believers. But the smoking gun remains elusive. If these sacraments survived for thousands of years in our remote prehistory, from the Stone Age to the Ancient Greeks, did they also survive into the age of Jesus? Was the Eucharist of the earliest Christians, in fact, a psychedelic Eucharist? With an unquenchable thirst for evidence, Muraresku takes the reader on his twelve-year global hunt for proof. He tours the ruins of Greece with its government archaeologists. He gains access to the hidden collections of the Louvre to show the continuity from pagan to Christian wine. He unravels the Ancient Greek of the New Testament with the world’s most controversial priest. He spelunks into the catacombs under the streets of Rome to decipher the lost symbols of Christianity’s oldest monuments. He breaches the secret archives of the Vatican to unearth manuscripts never before translated into English. And with leads from the archaeological chemists at UPenn and MIT, he unveils the first scientific data for the ritual use of psychedelic drugs in classical antiquity. The Immortality Key reconstructs the suppressed history of women consecrating a forbidden, drugged Eucharist that was later banned by the Church Fathers. Women who were then targeted as witches during the Inquisition, when Europe’s sacred pharmacology largely disappeared. If the scientists of today have resurrected this technology, then Christianity is in crisis. Unless it returns to its roots. Featuring a Foreword by Graham Hancock, the NYT bestselling author of America Before.

This hardbound edition of Yarker's classic opus is not merely another facsimile edition. It has been completely reformatted, yet retains a look and feel that is comparable to the original 1909 edition, right down to the blue cloth binding and gold stamped spine. From Alchemy to Zoroaster, and everything in between, The Arcane Schools continues to be one of the most comprehensive and authoritative works concerning the history and migration of the Western Mystery Tradition. Students of Freemasonry, Rosicrucianism, and Theosophy will find this to be an indispensable addition to their collection.

Still considered essential reading for serious thinkers on religion more than a century and a half after it was written, this seminal work of modern theology, first published in 1845, presents a history of Catholic doctrine from the days of the Apostles to the time of its writing, and follows with specific examples of how the doctrine has not only survived corruption but grown stronger through defending itself against it, and is, therefore, the true religion. This classic of Christian apologetics, considered a foundational work of 19th-century intellectualism on par with Darwin's Origin of Species, is must reading not only for the faithful but also for anyone who wishes to be well educated in the fundamentals of modern thought.

By denying evil we do harm. By denying darkness we obscure the light. Over a period of almost two millennia, the Christian Church has oppressed and brutalized millions of individuals in an attempt to control and contain spirituality. The Dark Side of Christian History reveals in painstaking detail the tragedies, sorrows and injustices inflicted upon humanity by the Church. This expose is a compelling and passionate cry for human dignity and spiritual freedom. Book jacket.

Gibbon offers an explanation for why the Roman Empire fell, a task made difficult by a lack of comprehensive written sources, though he was not the only historian to tackle the subject. Most of his ideas are directly taken from what few relevant records were available: those of the Roman moralists of the 4th and 5th centuries.

A comparative examination and interpretation of religious violence in the Graeco-Roman world and Late Antiquity.

In this New York Times–bestselling study, the co-author of Holy Blood, Holy Grail explores further mysteries surrounding Jesus Christ. What if everything we have been told about the origins of Christianity is a lie? What if a small group had always known the truth and had kept it hidden . . . until now? What if there is evidence that Jesus Christ survived the crucifixion? In Holy Blood, Holy Grail Michael Baigent and his co-authors Henry Lincoln and Richard Leigh stunned the world with a controversial theory that Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene married and founded a holy bloodline. The book became an international publishing phenomenon and was one of the sources for Dan Brown’s novel The Da Vinci Code. Now, with two additional decades of research behind him, Baigent’s The Jesus Papers presents explosive new evidence that challenges everything we know about the life and death of Jesus. Praise for The Jesus Papers “An explosive book.” —The Today Show “Fascinating.” —CNN’s American Morning