Project Gutenberg 2007-08-14 Public domain in the USA. 78 Delafield, John 09018081 Mysticism and its Results: Being an Inquiry into the Uses and Abuses of Secrecy Reading ease score: 58.4 (10th to 12th grade). Somewhat difficult to read. Produced by Barbara Tozier, Keith Edkins and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net "Mysticism and its Results: Being an Inquiry into the Uses and Abuses of Secrecy" by John Delafield is a philosophical treatise written in the mid-19th century. The work investigates the roles that secrecy and mysticism play within various secret societies throughout history, analyzing their impact on society at large. Delafield explores both the beneficial aspects of secrecy in fostering personal development and spirituality, as well as its potential for manipulation and division within communities. The opening of the text establishes a foundational understanding of secrecy, distinguishing between its uses, such as in virtuous private reflection and religious meditation, and its abuses in the form of superstition and tyranny. Delafield emphasizes the importance of historical context in discerning the effects of secrecy through examples from various civilizations, hinting at a deep philosophical inquiry into the essence of truth and its relationship to human experience. He sets the stage for further exploration of how these ideas have manifested in religious and political contexts, suggesting that a detailed analysis of past events may yield crucial insights for the present and future. (This is an automatically generated summary.) en Secret societies HS Text Browsing: Culture/Civilization/Society Browsing: Religion/Spirituality/Paranormal Browsing: Sociology 235467 235482 2024-10-09T15:02:26.322443 2023-09-10T06:27:33.032140 text/html text/html 230010 2021-01-02T21:45:39 text/html; charset=iso-8859-1 89658 2021-01-02T21:45:39 text/html; charset=iso-8859-1 application/zip 202103 2024-10-09T15:02:36.283421 application/epub+zip 202687 2024-10-09T15:02:31.450440 application/epub+zip 151584 2024-10-09T15:02:29.606438 application/epub+zip 513505 2024-10-09T15:02:39.432440 application/x-mobipocket-ebook 488321 2024-10-09T15:02:34.862555 application/x-mobipocket-ebook 280868 2022-09-10T12:32:56.492740 application/x-mobipocket-ebook 192020 191919 2024-10-09T15:02:25.471652 2023-09-10T06:27:32.305131 text/plain; charset=us-ascii text/plain 191563 2021-01-02T21:45:39 text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 75983 2021-01-02T21:45:39 text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 application/zip 191652 2021-01-02T21:45:39 text/plain; charset=us-ascii 75900 2021-01-02T21:45:39 text/plain; charset=us-ascii application/zip 21053 2024-10-09T15:02:39.577390 application/rdf+xml 25920 2024-10-09T15:02:30.184432 image/jpeg 4852 2024-10-09T15:02:29.895427 image/jpeg 197716 2024-10-09T15:02:26.354447 application/octet-stream application/zip Archives containing the RDF files for *all* our books can be downloaded at https://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Gutenberg:Feeds#The_Complete_Project_Gutenberg_Catalog