Library

We publish a series of e-books in association with our sister organization, The Temple of Earth. Our selections are designed to promote rational thinking and poetic principles. Download, read and enjoy!

All books come in two formats: microsoft word (.doc), and adobe acrobat (.pdf) They are laid out lengthwise in two-page spreads for easy reading and economical printing. To read pdf you need Acrobat Reader.

Poetics by Aristotle

Aristotle's Poetics aims to give an account of poetry. Aristotle does this by attempting to explain poetry through first principles, and by classifying poetry into its different genres and component parts.
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Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Nietzsche

First published in 1886 at Nietzsche's own expense, Beyond Good and Evil was not initially considered important. In it, Nietzsche denounced what he considered to be the moral vacuity of 19th century thinkers. He attacked philosophers for what he considered to be their lack of critical sense and their blind acceptance of Christian premises in their considerations of morality and values. Beyond Good and Evil is a comprehensive overview of Nietzsche's mature philosophy.
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Thus Spake Zarathustra
by Friedrich Nietzsche

A 19th-century literary masterpiece, tremendously influential in the arts and in philosophy, uses the Persian religious leader Zarathustra to voice the author’s views, including the introduction of the controversial doctrine of the Übermensch, or "superman," a term later perverted by Nazi propagandists. A passionate, quasi-biblical style is employed to inspire readers to become more than they have been and to transcend the limitations of conventional morality. A provocative work that remains a fixture of college reading lists.
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History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science by John William Draper

"The antagonism we thus witness between Religion and Science is the continuation of a struggle that commenced when Christianity began to attain political power. A divine revelation must necessarily be intolerant of contradiction; it must repudiate all improvement in itself, and view with disdain that arising from the progressive intellectual development of man."
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Lectures on Evolution
by Thomas Henry Huxley

Thomas Henry Huxley F.R.S. (May 4, 1825 - June 29, 1895) was a British biologist, known as "Darwin's Bulldog" for his defence of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution.

His Lectures on Evolution, delivered in New York City in September of 1876, was reported extensively in newspapers, particularly because in addition to presenting evidence supporing the theory of evolution, it also argued that the scheme of creation in Milton (and therefore in Moses) was bunk.
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The Idea of Progress by J.B. Bury

Bury regarded history as a methodological science, though involving factors sufficiently fortuitous to discourage inference of general laws or of didactic guidance. His skepticism, however, was limited; in general, he represented the Victorian generation and its ultimate faith in the growth of reason and its capacity to elucidate the European past and make intelligible the present. His History of Freedom of Thought probably best expresses his conception of history as the record of man's rational struggles and progress.
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Laughter by Henri Bergson

Bergson's thinking typifies a peculiarly Gallic tendency to rationalize the apparently ephemeral and subjective (in this case, humor), discussing it in exquisitely rarefied language in order to assert that which defies common sense (a funny hat is not funny, laughter expresses no emotion, no one laughs alone) but partakes nonetheless of a logical inevitability. Laughter, first published in 1911, clearly draws upon the early years of European modernism, yet also prefigures the movement in some ways. In recognizing the comic as it embodies itself in a "rigid," absentminded person, locked into repetitious, socially awkward behavior, Bergson--even as he looks backward, primarily to Molière--seems to be spawning the sophisticated visual and physical comedy of Chaplin, Keaton, and Lloyd.
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Principles of Philosophy by Rene Descartes

Descartes intended the Principles of Philosophy to be his magnum opus, the synthesis of all his theories in physics and philosophy. The book, therefore, is full of information, but it is conveniently divided up into four easily digestible parts. Each of the parts is constructed as a collection of logically connected principles, conveniently numbered and titled.
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The Power of Concentration
by Theron Q. Dumont

This book has already helped readers the world over in achieving the seemingly impossible by learning how to control the mind's most creative potential and put it to use for accomplishing anything that you put your mind to. In twenty easy-to-grasp and practical lessons the book reveals the technique used to bring the mind under your control and turning into an effective tool to help you succeed in every endeavor you undertake.
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Problems of Philosophy
by Bertrand Russell

The Problems of Philosophy, one of the most popular works in Russell's prolific collection of writings, has become core reading in philosophy. Clear and accessible, this little book is an intelligible and stimulating guide to those problems of philosophy which often mistakenly lead to its status as too lofty and abstruse for the lay mind.
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Religion of the Samurai by Kaiten Nukariya

Nukariya’s classic focuses on Northern (Mahayana) Buddhism, and Zen Buddhism in particular. It includes a wealth of detail as well as very lucid explanations of Zen Buddhist concepts.
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On the Improvement of the Understanding by Baruch Spinoza

Spinoza expressed his resolve to: "...inquire whether there might be some real good having power to communicate itself, which would affect the mind singly, to the exclusion of all else; whether, in fact, there might be anything of which the discovery and attainment would enable me to enjoy continuous, supreme, and unending happiness." He found, for himself, that the "chief good" is "knowledge of the union existing between the mind and the whole of nature."
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The Varieties of Religious Experience
by William James

When William James went to the University of Edinburgh in 1901 to deliver a series of lectures on "natural religion," he defined religion as "the feelings, acts, and experiences of individual men in their solitude, so far as they apprehend themselves to stand in relation to whatever they may consider the divine." "The divine can mean no single quality, it must mean a group of qualities, by being champions of which in alternation, different men may all find worthy missions."
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The Golden Bough by Sir James Frazer

The Golden Bough describes our ancestors' primitive methods of worship, sex practices, strange rituals and festivals. Disproving the popular thought that primitive life was simple, this monumental survey shows that savage man was enmeshed in a tangle of magic, taboos, and superstitions. Revealed here is the evolution of man from savagery to civilization, from the modification of his weird and often bloodthirsty customs to the entry of lasting moral, ethical, and spiritual values.
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