Mankind is asleep, living in a desolate world.

"A man and a woman met one night at a party. They introduced themselves, each supplying their reasons for attending the party. The man smiled and asked her, 'Are you looking for a nice man?'
'I think,' she sighed, 'I'm looking for myself.'
That honest woman expressed a deep yearning to find her true nature. Millions of other human beings on earth are looking for the same thing. That is wisely placing first things first. When you really know who you are, you know all else necessary for a complete life." VH

When man shall learn that thoughts and opinions have an effect and that what he says to his neighbor he is responsible for, just as a person is who speaks against the government, he then is responsible to the laws. When man learns this, he will be careful what he says and how he sows the seeds of disease in healthy minds, as those persons who have sown the seeds of secession in the minds of the loyal. On the Circulation of the Blood I PPQ 1863

"Biblical exegesis" / A Simple Practice / Self-ease / 'What makes your Heart Bloom?'

Matthew Henry ( 1662 – 1714 ) was an English commentator on the Bible and Presbyterian minister.

Many a dangerous temptation comes to us in fine gay colors that are but skin-deep. - Matthew Henry.

Matthew Henry's well-known six-volume Exposition of the Old and New Testaments (1708–1710) or Complete Commentary[Matthew Henry's Commentary], provides an exhaustive verse by verse study of the Bible. covering the whole of the Old Testament, and the Gospels and Acts in the New Testament. After the author's death, the work was finished (Romans through Revelation) by thirteen other nonconformist ministers.

All who seek the roots of life dig in solitude for them.

Carl Henrik Andreas Bjerregaard (1845-1922) was born in Denmark in 1845. Graduating from the University of Copenhagen in 1863, he went on to become a professor of botany. In 1873 he came to America for political reasons in 1873 from his native Denmark (he had been a spy for the Danish army)and in 1879 became Librarian at the Astor Library, which later merged with the Lenox Library to form the Reference Division of the New York Public Library, eventually becoming Chief of its Main Reading Room. His interest in the spiritual life can be seen in the books and articles he wrote. 

While engaged as the chief librarian of the main reading room of the New York City Public Library, C.H.A. Bjerregaard's book "The Inner Life and the Tao-Teh-King" (published by The Theosophical Society in 1913) was reviewed in the February 16, 1913 edition of the New York Times daily newspaper. While cautioning that Bjerregaard's translation of the great Chinese classic was comparable to that of other writers, the N.Y. Times' review notes that Bjerregaard departed from conventional thinking by suggesting that "the only way of [properly] reading the book [was] in the light of mysticism...[as] it [was] not possible to handle it as a Confucian document is handled." As further explained in the N.Y. Times' review, Bjerregaard held the view that there was a "revelation in the Tao-Teh-King of a wonderful life of simplicity in the pre-ethical period -- a life of mystical character...those who followed it did not dream mysticism or theosophy but actually lived the mysteries." 

Of particular interest to note is the contribution C.H.A. Bjerregaard made in scholarly fields that differed from his own. One such example is the "Anthropological & Ethnographic" Introduction that he wrote for Rev. J.G. Wood's "Illustrated Natural History" book published in 1886 by George Routledge & Sons Company. Later, in July of 1900, C.H.A. Bjerregaard published a review of Henrik Isben's play, "When We Dead Awaken" in The Ideal Review with the prefare that "...if the winter season had been before us, I would not review Ibsen's [last] play, "When We Dead Awaken," because the impressions made by it would correspond too well with the dreariness of the cold. But summer is before us and we are full of the rising life and fruitfulness..." (New York City's Moonstruck Dramastore).

Weltmer's Magazine - March 1901 issue - C.H.A. Bjerregaard's essay "The Hypnotic" Here

Selected Content from the March 1905 Edition of The Etude Home Notes An address was delivered before the National Society of Musical Therapeutics, February 2d, by Prof. C. H. A. Bjerregaard, on “The Metaphysics of Music.” Here 

C.H.A. Bjerregaard's published books: 

The Great Mother; a gospel of the eternally feminine.. (1913) 

The Inner Life and the Tao-teh-king (1912) 

Lectures on mysticism and nature worship (1897) 

Sufism : Omar Khayyam and E. Fitzgerald (1915) 

Sufi Interpretations of the Quatrains of Omar Khayyam and Fitzgerald (1902) 

All who seek the roots of life dig in solitude for them. ~ C. H. A. Bjerregaard

DEACONESSES IN EUROPE AND Their Lessons for America BY JANE M. BANCROFT, Ph.D(1890) • Acknowledgments are also due to Mr. Gillett, Librarian of the Union Theological Seminary, and to Mr. C. H. A. Bjerregaard, of the Astor Library, for putting not only the facilities of the library, but their personal assistance, at the service of the writer. Jane M. Bancroft. New York city, June 5, 1889.

Carl Henry Andrew Bjerregaard was regarded as one of the leading advanced thinkers of the country in all esoteric teachings related to mysticism. Following his immigration to the U.S. and prior to his death on January 28, 1922, Carl Henry Andrew Bjerregaard published a great number of lectures, essay, and books that firmly established his standing as a Theosophist.

The Mother of the Metaphysical Movement in England.

The Higher Thought Centre[1], formally established in Kensington in 1900 with Alice M. Callow as its Secretary, has been almost entirely forgotten. It published a journal, Expression, numerous short pamphlets, and a quarterly record of its work “in London and the provinces.” It hosted ongoing lectures on meditation and healing, as well as occasional lecture series by such well-known progressive thinkers as Edward Carpenter[2] and Mrs. Havelock Ellis[3], and served as a centre for visiting Ba’hai and Sufi religious leaders. Like so many of the metaphysical movements of the time, its adherents embraced women’s rights, forming, in 1910, a Women’s Silent League of Freedom to practice silent meditation “to bring about the desired results.” It opened Higher Thought Centres in Canada and Australia, and in 1914 it joined the International New Thought Alliance (although it continued to struggle to differentiate itself from American New Thought).