Besides exhortations to live a moral, simple and contemplative life, these pithy aphorisms allow a glimpse of a bit of the Pythagorean schools' deeper knowledge.Contents:IntroductionThe Golden Verses of PythagorasNotes on the Golden Verses of Pythagoras from the Commentaries of HieroclesThe Golden Sentences of DemocratesThe Pythagorean Sentences of DemophilusThe Similitudes of DemophilusPythagorean Ethical Sentences from Stob?usSelect Sentences of Sextus the PythagoreanPythagorean Sentences from the Protreptics of IamblichusThe Symbols of Pythagoras

    Dr. Silberer was a prominent member of the Vienna School whose untimely death prevented this, his major published work, from receiving the attention it clearly merited.Included is a wealth of material taken directly from alchemical and Rosicrucian sources. Symbolisms of salt, sulphur and mercury; of the prison, the abyss and the grave; of putrefaction and procreation; and of the sun, moon, and planets are carefully analyzed and explained. Passages from the works of Hermes Trismegistus, Flamel, Lacinius, Michael Meier, Paracelsus, and Boehme are cited both as important sources of alchemical doctrine and to substantiate the thesis that alchemy was a spiritual discipline of the highest order, comparable to the Yoga of the East.The entire inquiry is based on a parable from the pages of "Geheime Figuren der Rosenkreuzer," an eighteenth-century alchemical text. After a general exposition of dream and myth interpretation, Dr. Silberer proceeds to a psychoanalytic interpretation of the parable and then gives a detailed account of the traditions and practices of the alchemists, Rosicrucians, and Freemasons. Returning to the parable, he introduces the problem of dual interpretations; for while the psychoanalytic approach focuses on the depths of the impulsive life, the hermetic and mystical leads to the heights of spirituality. The heart of the book is an attempt to reconcile these divergent philosophies and a meditation on the relationship of introversion to mysticism.

    In "Magic Squares and Cubes" W.S. Andrews writes "The study of magic squares probably dates back to prehistoric times. Examples have been found in Chinese literature written about AD 1125 which were evidently copied from still older documents. It is recorded that as early as the ninth century magic squares were used by Arabian astrologers in their calculations of horoscopes, etc. Hence, the probable origin of the term magic, which has survived to the present day." Topics such as magic squares, magic cubes, the Franklin squares, magics and Pythagorean numbers, the theory of reversions, magic circles, spheres, and stars, and magic octahedroids, among other things.