The Project Gutenberg EBook of Mysticism and its Results, by John Delafield

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Title: Mysticism and its Results
Being an Inquiry into the Uses and Abuses of Secrecy

Author: John Delafield

Release Date: August 14, 2007 [EBook #22314]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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Transcriber's note: A few typographical errors have been corrected: they
are listed at the end of the text.

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MYSTICISM

AND ITS RESULTS;

BEING AN INQUIRY INTO

THE USES AND ABUSES OF SECRECY,

AS DEVELOPED IN THE INSTRUCTION AND ACTS OF SECRET SOCIETIES,
ASSOCIATIONS, OR CONFRATERNITIES, WHETHER SOCIAL,
RELIGIOUS, OR POLITICAL, FROM THE BEGINNING OF HISTORY
TO THE PRESENT DAY, AND THEIR EFFECTS ON
THE MASSES OF MANKIND, THEN AND NOW.

BY JOHN DELAFIELD, ESQ.,

OF MISSOURI,
AUTHOR OF "AN INQUIRY INTO THE ORIGIN OF THE ANTIQUITIES OF AMERICA."

SAINT LOUIS:
PUBLISHED BY EDWARDS & BUSHNELL, NO. 97 FOURTH STREET, TEN BUILDINGS.

* * * * *

1857.

* * * * *

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1857,
BY JOHN DELAFIELD,
in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, in and
for the
District of Missouri.

* * * * *

SAVAGE & McCREA, STEREOTYPERS,
13 Chambers Street, N.Y.

* * * * *

TO MY ALMA MATER,
COLUMBIA COLLEGE, NEW YORK,
This Essay is respectfully Inscribed,
BY THE WRITER.

* * * * *

{5}

PREFACE.

"THE WORD WAS GOD." That "WORD IS TRUTH." Truth can never change, or it
would contradict itself. Past, present, and future, must be governed by
immutable laws. Experience is acquired by the careful study of history, and
the present condition of all things. All is governed now by that same law
of truth, which was from the beginning of the world, and ever shall be.
What serious lessons, then, may be learned by a careful exam