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Isis Unveiled, Volume 1 — H ISIS UNVEILED: A MASTER-KEY TO THE MYSTERIES OF ANCIENT AND MODERN SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY H. P. BLAVATSKY CORRESPONDING SECRETARY OF THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY "Cecy est un livre de bonne Foy." — MONTAIGNE. VOL. I. — SCIENCE. Blavatsky's first major work on theosophy, examining religion and science in the light of Western and Oriental ancient wisdom and occult and spiritualistic phenomena. Theosophical University Press Online Edition. Electronic version ISBN 1-55700-135-9. This edition may be downloaded for off-line viewing without charge. For ease of searching, no diacritical marks appear in the electronic version of the text. CONTENTS PREFACE (pages v - viii) BEFORE THE VEIL (pages ix - xlv) Dogmatic assumptions of modern science and theology / The Platonic philosophy affords the only middle ground / Review of the ancient philosophical systems / A Syriac manuscript on Simon Magus / Glossary of terms used in this book ———————— Volume First: THE "INFALLIBILITY" OF MODERN SCIENCE. CHAPTER 1: OLD THINGS WITH NEW NAMES (pages 1 - 38) The Oriental Kabala / Ancient traditions supported by modern research / The progress of mankind marked by cycles / Ancient cryptic science / Priceless value of the Vedas / Mutilations of the Jewish sacred books in translation / Magic always regarded as a divine science / Achievements of its adepts and hypotheses of their modern detractors / Man's yearning for immortality CHAPTER 2: PHENOMENA AND FORCES (pages 39 - 73) The servility of society / Prejudice and bigotry of men of science / They are chased by psychical phenomena / Lost arts / The human will the master-force of forces / Superficial generalizations of the French savants / Mediumistic phenomena, to what attributable / Their relation to crime CHAPTER 3: BLIND LEADERS OF THE BLIND (pages 74 - 99) Huxley's derivation from the Orohippus / Comte, his system and disciples / The London materialists / Borrowed robes / Emanation of the objective universe from the subjective CHAPTER 4: THEORIES RESPECTING PSYCHIC PHENOMENA (pages 100 - 125) Theory of de Gasparin / [[Theory]] of Thury / [[Theory]] of des Mousseaux, de Mirville / [[Theory]] of Babinet / [[Theory]] of Houdin / [[Theory]] of MM. Royer and Jobart de Lamballe / The twins — "unconscious cerebration" and "unconscious ventriloquism" / Theory of Crookes / [[Theory]] of Faraday / [[Theory]] of Chevreuil / The Mendeleyeff commission of 1876 / Soul blindness CHAPTER 5: THE ETHER, OR "ASTRAL LIGHT" (pages 126 - 162) One primal force, but many correlations / Tyndall narrowly escapes a great discovery / The impossibility of miracle / Nature of the primordial substance / Interpretation of certain ancient myths / Experiments of the fakirs / Evolution in Hindu allegory CHAPTER 6: PSYCHO-PHYSICAL PHENOMENA (pages 163 - 205) The debt we owe to Paracelsus / Mesmerism — its parentage, reception, potentiality / "Psychometry" / Time, space, eternity / Transfer of energy from the visible to the invisible universe / The Crookes experiments and Cox theory CHAPTER 7: THE ELEMENTS, ELEMENTALS, AND ELEMENTARIES (pages 206 - 252) Attraction and repulsion universal in all the kingdoms of nature / Psychical phenomena depend on physical surroundings / Observations in Siam / Music in nervous disorders / The "world-soul" and its potentialities / Healing by touch, and healers / "Diakka" and Porphyry's bad demons / The quenchless lamp / Modern ignorance of vital force / Antiquity of the theory of force-correlation / Universality of belief in magic CHAPTER 8: SOME MYSTERIES OF NATURE (pages 253 - 292) Do the planets affect human destiny? / Very curious passage from Hermes / The restlessness of matter / Prophecy of Nostradamus fulfilled / Sympathies between planets and plants / Hindu knowledge of the properties of colors / "Coincidences" the panacea of modern science / The moon and the tides / Epidemic mental and moral disorders / The gods of the Pantheons only natural forces / Proofs of the magical powers of Pythagoras / The viewless races of ethereal space / The "four truths" of Buddhism CHAPTER 9: CYCLIC PHENOMENA (pages 293 - 337) Meaning of the expression "coats of skin" / Natural selection and its results / The Egyptian "circle of necessity" / Pre-Adamite races / Descent of spirit into matter / The triune nature of man / The lowest creatures in the scale of being / Elementals specifically described / Proclus on the beings of the air / Various names for elementals / Swedenborgian views on soul-death / Earth-bound human souls / Impure mediums and their "guides" / Psychometry an aid to scientific research CHAPTER 10: THE INNER AND OUTER MAN (pages 338 - 378) Pere Felix arraigns the scientists / The "Unknowable" / Danger of evocations by tyros / Lares and Lemures / Secrets of Hindu temples / Reincarnation / Witchcraft and witches/ The sacred soma trance / Vulnerability of certain "shadows" / Experiment of Clearchus on a sleeping boy / The author witnesses a trial of magic in India / Case of the Cevennois CHAPTER 11: PSYCHOLOGICAL AND PHYSICAL MARVELS (pages 379 - 416) Invulnerability attainable by man / Projecting the force of the will / Insensibility to snake- poison / Charming serpents by music / Teratological phenomena discussed / The psychological domain confessedly unexplored / Despairing regrets of Berzelius / Turning a river into blood a vegetable phenomenon CHAPTER 12: THE "IMPASSABLE CHASM" (pages 417 - 461) Confessions of ignorance by men of science / The Pantheon of nihilism / Triple composition of fire / Instinct and reason defined / Philosophy of the Hindu Jains/ Deliberate misrepresentations of Lempriere / Man's astral soul not immortal / The reincarnation of Buddha / Magical sun and moon pictures of Thibet / Vampirism — its phenomena explained / Bengalese jugglery CHAPTER 13: REALITIES AND ILLUSION (pages 462 - 514) The rationale of talismans / Unexplained mysteries / Magical experiment in Bengal / Chibh Chondor's surprising feats / The Indian tape-climbing trick an illusion / Resuscitation of buried fakirs / Limits of suspended animation / Mediumship totally antagonistic to adeptship / What are "materialized spirits"? / The Shudala Madan / Philosophy of levitation / The elixir and alkahest CHAPTER 14: EGYPTIAN WISDOM (pages 515 - 574) Origin of the Egyptians / Their mighty engineering works / The ancient land of the Pharaohs / Antiquity of the Nilotic monuments / Arts of war and peace / Mexican myths and ruins / Resemblances to the Egyptian / Moses a priest of Osiris / The lessons taught by the ruins of Siam / The Egyptian Tau at Palenque CHAPTER 15: INDIA THE CRADLE OF THE RACE (575 - 628) Acquisition of the "secret doctrine" / Two relics owned by a Pali scholar / Jealous exclusiveness of the Hindus / Lydia Maria Child on Phallic symbolism / The age of the Vedas and Manu / Traditions of pre-diluvian races / Atlantis and its peoples / Peruvian relics / The Gobi desert and its secrets / Thibetan and Chinese legends / The magician aids, not impedes, nature / Philosophy, religion, arts and sciences bequeathed by Mother India to posterity v — PREFACE. ----------------------- THE work now submitted to public judgment is the fruit of a somewhat intimate acquaintance with Eastern adepts and study of their science. It is offered to such as are willing to accept truth wherever it may be found, and to defend it, even looking popular prejudice straight in the face. It is an attempt to aid the student to detect the vital principles which underlie the philosophical systems of old. The book is written in all sincerity. It is meant to do even justice, and to speak the truth alike without malice or prejudice. But it shows neither mercy for enthroned error, nor reverence for usurped authority. It demands for a spoliated past, that credit for its achievements which has been too long withheld. It calls for a restitution of borrowed robes, and the vindication of calumniated but glorious reputations. Toward no form of worship, no religious faith, no scientific hypothesis has its criticism been directed in any other spirit. Men and parties, sects and schools are but the mere ephemera of the world's day. TRUTH, high-seated upon its rock of adamant, is alone eternal and supreme. We believe in no Magic which transcends the scope and capacity of the human mind, nor in "miracle," whether divine or diabolical, if such imply a transgression of the laws of nature instituted from all eternity. Nevertheless, we accept the saying of the gifted author of Festus, that the human heart has not yet fully uttered itself, and that we have never attained or even understood the extent of its powers. Is it too much to believe that man should be developing new sensibilities and a closer relation with nature? The logic of evolution must teach as much, if carried to its legitimate conclusions. If, somewhere, in the line of ascent from vegetable or ascidian to the noblest man a soul was evolved, gifted with intellectual qualities, it cannot be unreasonable to infer and believe that a faculty of perception is also growing in man, enabling him to descry facts and truths even beyond our ordinary ken. Yet we do not hesitate to accept the assertion of Biffe, that "the essential is forever the same. Whether we cut away the marble inward that hides the statue in the vi — PREFACE. block, or pile stone upon stone outward till the temple is completed, our NEW result is only an old idea. The latest of all the eternities will find its destined other half-soul in the earliest." When, years ago, we first travelled over the East, exploring the penetralia of its deserted
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