The Via Christa Library

A library is “a building or room containing collections of books, periodicals, and sometimes films and recorded music for people to read, borrow, or refer to: a collection of books and periodicals held in a library.” Knowledge is defined as “the sum of what is known: the body of truth, information, and principles acquired by humankind.”

Your brain is your mental hardware, but your soul provides the software, which includes the ability to systematize and use whatever you feed it in the way of information. However, all the books in the world, physical or digital, will do you little good if you lack an inquiring mind capable of critically assessing the truth and validity of the knowledge it gains, while remaining open to new data. If you are reading this, you are already adequately equipped to begin walking the Via Christa.

“Your brain is your mental hardware, but your soul provides the software.”
– Linda Mihalic

Edna Lister was dedicated to educating the whole person — heart, mind and soul. Thus, we who are Pioneering Mystics traveling the trail she blazed, advocate being well-educated, and devoted to lifelong learning, especially in the fields of science, psychology, metaphysics, philosophy, and mysticism.

Edna Lister was an avid reader with philosophically eclectic tastes, yet favoring the Idealists including Pythagoras, Plato, the Stoics, Plotinus and the British and American Idealist philosophers. As an idealist herself, she lived her philosophy daily — no ivory tower for her! She loved mysteries, which she claimed sharpened the powers of logic and deductive thinking. Science fiction, she said, was "history, pre-written." She read all the magazines her sons subscribed to, including Popular Science, Popular Mechanics, Amazing Stories, Science Fiction, etc.

She credited her continuing education to her boys, who though born twelve years apart to different fathers, were close and good friends. Her older son, Russell J. Elliott, was a mining engineer, as was his stepfather, Henry T. Abstein, Sr. Their son, Henry T. Abstein, Jr., was an aerospace engineer with Hughes Aerospace Group and Boeing.

“If you are reading this, you are already adequately equipped
to begin walking the Via Christa.” – Linda Mihalic

We have found several reading lists among her students’ papers — authors and books she had suggested. They reveal that she advocated a Classics education at minimum, an experience she had been deprived of as a young woman whose father did not believe women needed higher education.

She was a single working mother from 1924 on, but her dream of being college-educated came true after she met Dr. Thomas Parker Boyd, who sponsored her matriculation (1925-1934) at what is now U.C. Berkley, where he taught. There she studied psychology, a field then in its infancy, and comparative religion, under Dr. Boyd’s mentorship.

An Ideal Library for Ascension

Edna Lister’s Works include books, pamphlets and essays; however, the bulk of her work is found in the thousands of pages of sermon and lecture outlines she created for lecturing, teaching, preaching and public speaking.

Edna Lister. Black Pearls » Read it here »

Edna Lister. A Design for Ascension » Read it here »

Edna Lister. Eternal Youth » Read it here »

Edna Lister. Faith in Action » Read it here »

Edna Lister. Faith the Challenger » Read it here »

Edna Lister. The First Mastery » Read it here »

Edna Lister. Five Important Steps in Ascension » Read it here »

Edna Lister. Five Keys to the Kingdom » Read it here »

Edna Lister. God as Consciousness Appears as Form » Read it here »

Edna Lister. The Gold Standard » Read it here »

Edna Lister. How to Stay UP » Read it here »

Edna Lister. I AM Joy » Read it here »

Edna Lister. Life in a Nutshell » Read it here »

Edna Lister. Time the Adjuster of Life » Read it here »

Edna Lister. The Universal Magna Carta » Read it here »

Edna Lister. Welcome, My Son » Read it here »

Edna Lister. What Is Principle? » Read it here »

Books to Read: Walking the Via Christa will profoundly shift your perception of the truth of reality, and expand your ability to see through the veils of illusion that too often mislead you in this world of mere appearances. The volumes included here cover the various areas of study you may encounter on The Via Christa. They aid in dispelling the surface glamour of what the world calls “reality.” We have included the translated works of many Philosophers of Idealism, Platonism, Neoplatonism, and the Judeo-Christian ethic, the seminal thinkers who have provided the basis of Western thought.

Anonymous. The Ascension of Isaiah » Read it here »

Anonymous. Theologia Germanica, Susanna Winkworth, trans. » Read it here »

Aristotle. Metaphysics, Hugh Tredennick, trans. » Read it here »

Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics, W. D. Ross, trans. » Read it here »

Aristotle. On the Soul (De Anima), W. D. Ross, trans. » Read it here »

Aristotle. Virtues and Vices, H. Rackham, trans. » Read it here »

William W. Atkinson. Reincarnation and the Law of Karma » Read it here »

Charles Bigg. The Christian Platonists of Alexandria » Read it here »

Charles Bigg. Neoplatonism » Read it here »

Bernard Bosanquet. The Kingdom of God on Earth » Read it here »

Bernard Bosanquet. What Religion Is » Read it here »

Bernard Bosanquet. On the Philosophical Distinction Between Knowledge and Opinion
» Read it here »

Bernard Bosanquet. Psychology of the Moral Self » Read it here »

Bernard Bosanquet. On Hegel and German Idealism » Read it here »

Thomas Parker Boyd. The Armor of Light » Read it here »

Thomas Parker Boyd. Being and Doing » Read it here »

Thomas Parker Boyd. Borderland Experiences » Read it here »

Thomas Parker Boyd. Christmas » Read it here »

Thomas Parker Boyd. The Christ Science » Read it here »

Thomas Parker Boyd. The Finger of God » Read it here »

Thomas Parker Boyd. The How and Why of the Emmanuel Movement » Read it here »

Thomas Parker Boyd. The Kabbala of the New Testament » Read it here »

Thomas Parker Boyd. The Law and the Testimony, Daily Meditations » Read it here »

Thomas Parker Boyd. The Mental Highway » Read it here »

Thomas Parker Boyd. A New Concept of God on Earth » Read it here »

Thomas Parker Boyd. The Prospectus of Life in the University of Hard Knocks
» Read it here »

Thomas Parker Boyd. The Voice Eternal » Read it here »

F. H. Bradley. Appearance and Reality » Read it here »

F. H. Bradley. Collected Essays, I. » Read it here »

F. H. Bradley. Collected Essays, II. » Read it here »

F. H. Bradley. Essays on Truth and Reality » Read it here »

F. H. Bradley. Ethical Studies: Selected Essays » Read it here »

F. H. Bradley. The Principles of Logic, I. » Read it here »

F. H. Bradley. The Principles of Logic, II. » Read it here »

Stewart Candlish and Pierfrancesco Basile. Francis Herbert Bradley.
» Read it here »

Clement of Alexandria. The Dream of Scipio » Read it here »

Marcus Tullius Cicero. The Stromata (Miscellanies) » Read it here »

Russell Dancy. Speusippus, a Scholarch of the Old Academy » Read about him here »

Russell Dancy. Xenocrates, a Scholarch of the Old Academy » Read about him here »

Theron Q. Dumont. The Solar Plexus or Abdominal Brain » Read it here »

Lloyd Gerson. Plotinus » Read it here »

Paul Guyer and Rolf-Peter Horstmann. Idealism » Read it here »

Manly P. Hall. The Lost Keys of Masonry » Read it here »

Nicholas Herman. The Practice of the Presence of God » Read it here »

Sarah Hutton. The Cambridge Platonists » Read it here »

Sarah Hutton. Lady Anne Conway » Read it here »

W. R. Inge. Christian Mysticism » Read it here »

W. R. Inge. Faith and its Psychology » Read it here »

W. R. Inge. Personal Idealism and Mysticism » Read it here »

Harold H. Joachim The Nature of Truth » Read it here »

W. R. Inge. The Philosophy of Plotinus » Read it here »

Nick Kampouris. The Platonic Academy of Athens » Read about it here »

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. Metaphysics » Read about it here »

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. Monadology » Read about it here »

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. Principles of Nature and Grace » Read about it here »

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. Theodicy » Read about it here »

Brandon C. Look. “Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz” » Read about it here »

Thomas Maguire. An Essay on the Platonic Idea. » Read it here »

Thomas Maguire. Essays on the Platonic Ethics » Read them here »

Thomas Maguire. Lectures on Philosophy » Read them here »

Thomas Maguire. The Parmenides of Plato. » Read it here »

Andrew Moore. Hedonism. » Read it here »

Origen. The Philocalia » Read it here »

Rudolf Otto. The Idea of the Holy » Read it here »

Nickolas Pappas. Plato’s Aesthetics » Read it here »

Plutarch. Moralia, Isis and Osiris » Read it here »

Porphry. Life of Plotinus » Read it here »

Proclus Diadochus The Elements of Theology. E. R. Dodds, translator. » Read it here »

Proclus Diadochus Fragments that Remain of the Lost Writings of Proclus. Thomas Taylor, translator. » Read it here »

Seneca. “On the God Within Us,” Moral letters to Lucilius » Read it here »

Edouard Schuré. Pythagoras and the Delphic Mysteries » Read it here »

A. E. Taylor. Aristotle » Read it here »

A. E. Taylor. Elements of Metaphysics, I. » Read it here »

A. E. Taylor. Elements of Metaphysics, II. » Read it here »

A. E. Taylor. Epicurus » Read it here »

A. E. Taylor. The Faith of a Moralist, I. » Read it here »

A. E. Taylor. The Faith of a Moralist, II. » Read it here »

A. E. Taylor. The Laws of Plato » Read it here »

A. E. Taylor. “The Metaphysical Problem, its Bearing Upon Ethics” » Read it here »

A. E. Taylor. “Mind and Nature” » Read it here »

A. E. Taylor. Philosophical Studies, Part I. » Read it here »

A. E. Taylor. Philosophical Studies, Part II. » Read it here »

A. E. Taylor. “Place of Psychology in the Classification of the Sciences” » Read it here »

A. E. Taylor. Plato » Read it here »

A. E. Taylor. Platonism and Its Influence » Read it here »

A. E. Taylor. Plato: The Man and His Work, I. » Read it here »

A. E. Taylor. Plato: The Man and His Work, II. » Read it here »

A. E. Taylor. The Problem of Conduct, Phenomenology of Ethics » Read it here »

A. E. Taylor. “Self-Realization — A Criticism” » Read it here »

A. E. Taylor. Socrates » Read it here »

Katja Vogt. “Seneca” » Read it here »

William Whewell. The Elements of Morality, I. » Read it here »

William Whewell. The Elements of Morality, II. » Read it here »

William Whewell. Systematic Morality » Read it here »

William Whewell. Foundations of Morals » Read it here »

William Whewell. History of Moral Philosophy » Read it here »

Thomas Whittaker. The Neo-Platonists: A Study in the History of Hellenism
» Read it here »

Eduard G. Zeller. Plato and the Older Academy » Read it here »

Eduard G. Zeller. Plato and the Older Academy » Read it here »

Eduard G. Zeller. Plato and the Older Academy » Read it here »

Other Via Christa Resources

Appendices: Detailed explanations of frequently mentioned topics on The Via Christa
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Bibliography: Books and authors referred to on The Via Christa
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Poems to Inspire the Soul: The poems, plays, essays and other writings quoted on The Via Christa, which bear witness to its uniquely Western moral and ethical base
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Quotes to Ponder: Certain thoughts and writings quoted on The Via Christa, which bear witness to its uniquely Western moral and ethical base
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