The famous Roman Stoic philosopher, poet and statesman, educator of Nero himself, Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4 BC – 65 AD) remains today one of the most widely read authors. His moral philosophy has not lost its relevance and remains in demand in the modern world against the background of religious decline and shaky moral foundations. The heart of his philosophy is the ethics, to which all phenomena are subject. Seneca teaches the reader how to live with dignity if one has nothing to believe in and no one to rely on. His works are not just the science of endurance in the face of pain, but also a spiritual therapy. Seneca has a wide audience of admirers, and a deluxe edition in a luxurious leather binding is a universal gift for a thoughtful reader.

Édouard Schuré (1841 – 1929), a French writer, philosopher, and music expert, author of novels, plays, as well as historic, poetic, and philosophic works, created his major work “The Great Initiates” to share his thoughts on the possibility and need of reconciliation between science and religion as related to esotery. In his work, he considers the matters of conflicts between religion and science, aberrant concepts of truth and progress, unity of the theory of mysteries and unconscious progression of science toward theosophy. Schuré described the way that ancient philosophers and old masters have followed in pursuit of truth: Ramah, Krishna, Hermes, Moses, Orpheus, Pythagoras, Plato, and even Jesus Christ.

This work is dedicated to the author’s lady friend Margaret Albana Mignaty.

There are fairy tales for adults, and an immortal classical example of that is Little Zaches, nicknamed Zinnober by the German writer Ernst Theodore Amadeus Hoffmann (1776 – 1822). Full of irony, the book tells the story of the author’s epoch, it describes the ugliness of absolutism, loyalty of contemporaries, bare lawlessness. The protagonist is grotesquely ridiculous, ugly and stupid, but the merciful fairy Rosabelverde endowed him with a unique ability. Whatever good happens in the presence of Zaches – it is always attributed to him, and any shameful thing done by him goes to someone else’s account. Everyone bows to Zaches, he rises as high as to become a minister. But the magician Prosper Alpanus turns up to help a young student Balthazar to remove the spell and expose the truth to ordinary people.