ISIS UNVEILED
A MASTER-KEY TO THE MYSTERIES OF
ANCIENT AND MODERN
SCIENCE and THEOLOGY
VOLUME I :
SCIENCE
VOL. II :
THEOLOGY.
By
H. P. BLAVATSKY
Scanned and edited using this;
CENTENARY ANNIVERSARY EDITION
BOTH VOLUMES BOUND IN ONE BOOK
A Photographic facsimile reproduction of the Original
Edition first published at New York City, U.S.A., in 1877.
THE THEOSOPHY COMPANY
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA
This electric version of ISIS follows
the pagination and stile of the CENTENARY ANNIVERSARY EDITION
except for the foot notes, instead of breaking up
the foot-notes, that are continued on other pages, do to lack of space on the
pages printed in paper books, we placed all the information for each
foot-note together on the page of its' origin.
Editor Theosophy Co. of Arizona 2005
PUBLISHERS PREFACE
This anniversary edition of ISIS
UNVEILED was first printed fourteen years agoin 1931on the centenary of the
birth of the author, H. P. Blavatsky. The present printing is identical with the
first, being a photographic reproduction of the original edition published in
New York in 1877. J. W. Bouton, the publisher, issued twelve editions of the
work, and while several later editions of ISIS UNVEILED have been printed, none
of themwith the exception of a facsimile edition by Rider of Londoncan be
trusted by those who desire the authentic text of H. P. Blavatskys first great
treatise. These editions were from reset type, with consequent unavoidable
errors, and suffer from attempts at correction or Improvement, and the
addition of extraneous matter; but they are all now out of Print.
The original production of ISIS UNVEILED was encompassed by almost
insurmountable obstacles. All public knowledge of, or even belief in, the actual
existence of perfected Men, the Mahatmas, or Great Souls, had for long centuries
been lost to humanity, both in the Orient and in the Occident. The
Wisdom-Religion, as the accumulated knowledge gained through a of spiritual and
intellectual evolution, was not even dreamed of by mystics of the West, while in
the East the belief everywhere prevailed that the Rishis of old had departed
from this earth at the commencement of its Kaliyuga or Dark Age and would not
return till milenniums hence when a new Golden Age would be inaugurated. Among
the great world religions,
I.
PUBLISHERS PREFACE
priests and laity alike cast longing eyes back ward
to a Savior who had been, or forward to a dim future when a Savior would come.
None of them contained anything but the skeletal remains of a once-living
Spiritual gnosis; in none did anything remain but the broken tablets of the Law;
the letter of the Law could still be painfully spelled, but its spirit was lost.
Modern materialistic science in the West, with its repercussive influence in all
lands, was steadily conquering the domain of human thought as well as of
physical nature: mankind at large was fast losing all faith in immortality, all
interest in other than material existence and material well-being.
Alone, the strange and widespread phenomena miscalled Spiritualism had
attracted a vast attention and almost endless investigation amongst all classes
of men. Here, then, was the only available soil in which to sow the first seeds
of a philosophy which includes the whole of Nature. But of all men,
Spiritualists had least interest in philosophy. They were drunk with phenomena, the
more inviting because easily accessible and because no philosophical, ethical,
moral, scientific or religious preparation was necessary in order to become a
medium or to obtain supposed messages from the dead, as well as other phenomena
inexplicable from any accepted scientific standpoint.
As though all this were not enough, H. P. Blavatsky was a stranger in a strange
land, with a merely colloquial acquaintance with the English language, no
literary experience, no knowledge of the formalities and conventions of
acceptable composition. Of her two closest associates, Colonel H. S. Olcott was
a Spiritualist, who had even less acquaintance with philosophy than she had with
English; William Q. Judge, destined to be her greatest co-worker in future
years, was but twenty-four years of age. The parent theosophical society had
just been formed with a limited membership consisting almost entirely of ardent
Spiritualists. The task set herself by H. P. Blavatsky was of the same nature,
and as formidable, as any ever undertaken by any actual or legendary
philanthropist or savior. ISIS UNVEILED was begun by her in 1874, a bare year
after landing in New York City. Its writing went on in the midst of multifarious
other activities and interruptions, yet was completed and published in the early
autumn of 1877. When the contents of the work are considered and the attendant
circumstances weighed, ISIS UNVEILED offers to the thoughtful mind a spiritual
and intellectual phenomenon of the first magnitude. Without it, the Theosophical
Movement as well as the Theosophical Society would have been still-born. Without
it, her Mission and her Theosophy cannot be understood. Without it, her Secret
Doctrine can no more he grasped than can algebra without a knowledge of
arithmetic. Her writings are not discrete works, any one of which can be studied
apart from the rest, but one
II
PUBLISHERS PREFACE
continuous serial unfoldment of so much of the
Wisdom-Religion as her Masters, from their inclusive point of view, considered
ample for the needs of the greatest minds until 1975, when, contingent upon the
use made of what she provided, the next Messenger may add further material for
future building upon the foundations laid by her. ISIS UNVEILED and The Secret
Doctrine are integral; both are parts of one stupendous whole. To the extent
that they are neglected, that the attention of students and inquirers is
diverted to interpretations, substitutions, and the many misguided and ambitious
later attempts to embellish and improve upon the recorded Theosophy of H. P.
Blavatsky to that extent will the philanthropy of her Masters and herself have
been abused and betrayed by its recipients.
That ISIS UNVEILED in its original publication embodies typographical and other
verbal errors, and is open to ample criticism on the score of its violation of literary
canons, was never denied by its author. What has been missed by its captious
critics is the simple fact that all these errors are so transparent that an
ordinarily intelligent child would observe them for what they are, if intent
upon getting at the meaning of the statements made.
Much subsequent controversy grew up over certain statements in the first volume
of ISIS UNVEILED; in particular over those made on pages 345 to 357 in reference
to reincarnation. From this controversy has sprung a whole mythology of
ignorance, including the legend that at the time of writing ISIS UNVEILED H. P.
Blavatsky herself was a Spiritualist medium, as unversed in what she was
conveying as were those for whom she wrote; that she herself at that period did
not believe in reincarnation, and that the Master who instructed her was himself
ignorant on that subject!
There is no doubt that her writing suffered at the hands of editors and
proof-readers, and on this, one of the Masters wrote in January, 1882, to Mr.
A. P. Sinnett, as follows:
By-the-bye, Ill re-write for you pages 345 to 357, Vol. I., of Isis
jumbled, and confused by Olcott, who thought he was improving it!
For the convenience of students, we list in chronological order the subsequent
references made by H. P. Blavatsky to the mistakes in ISIS UNVEILED :
"Seeming Discrepancies, first published in the Theosophist for June, 1882;
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PUBLISHERS PREFACE
" 'Isis Unveiled' and the Theosophist on Reincarnation,
first published in the Theosophist for August, 1882;
C.C.M. and Isis Unveiled, first published in the
Theosophist for September, 1882;
Theories about
Reincarnation and Spirits, first published in the Path for
November, 1886, and republished in Theosophy for April, 1914;
A foot-note to some correspondence, first published in Lucifer for February, 1889, at pages 527-28;
My Books,
first published in Lucifer for May, 1891, and reprinted in Theosophy for June,
1914.
This was the last signed article from the pen of H. P. Blavatsky.
From these articles it will he seen that H. P. Blavatsky gave the widest possible publicity, both to the actual facts covering the mis-
understood passages in ISIS
UNVEILED, and to the nature of her mission and message. That those may be served
for whom the foregoing citations may not he readily accessible, the footnote to
Lucifer for February, 1889, is herewith given:
Since 1882 when the mistake was first found out in Isis Unveiled, it has been
repeatedly stated in the Theosophist, and last year in the Path that the word
planet [ 351, volume I of Isis ] was a mistake and that cycle was meant,
i.e., the cycle of Devachanic rest. This mistake, due to one of the literary
editorsthe writer knowing English more than imperfectly twelve years ago, and
the editors being still more ignorant of Buddhism and Hinduismhas led to great
confusion and numberless accusations of contradictions between the statements in
his and later theosophical teaching.
The paragraph quoted meant to upset the theory of the French Reincarnationists
who maintain that the same personality is reincarnated, often a few days after
death, so that a grandfather can be reborn as his own grand-daughter. Hence the
idea was combated, and it was said that neither Buddha nor any of the Hindu
philosophers ever taught reincarnation in the same cycle, or of the came
personality, but of the triune man who, when properly united, was capable of
running the race forward to perfection. The same and a worse mistake occurs on
pages 346 and (Vol. I). For on the former it is stated that the Hindus dread
reincarnation only on other and inferior planets, instead of what is the
case, that Hindus dread reincarnation in other and inferior bodies, of brutes
and animals or transmigration. while on page 347 the said error of putting
planet instead of cycle and personality, shows the author (a professed
Buddhist) speaking as though
IV
PUBLISHERS PREFACE
Buddha had never taught the
doctrine of reincarnation!! The sentence ought to read that the former life
believed in by Buddhists is not a life in the same cycle and personality, as no
one appreciates more than they do the great doctrine of cycles. As it reads
now, however, namely that this former life believed in by the Buddhists is not
a life on this planet, and this sentence on page 347 just preceded by that
other (paragraph 2 on page 346), Thus like the revolutions of a wheel, there is
a regular succession of death and birth, etcthe whole reads like the raving of
a lunatic, and a jumble of contradictory statements. If asked why the error was
permitted to remain and run through ten editions, it is answered that (a)
the attention of the author was drawn to it only in 1882; and (b) that the
undersigned was not in a position to alter it from stereotyped plates which
belonged to the American publisher and not to her. The work was written under
exceptional circumstances, and no doubt more than one great error may be
discovered in ISIS UNVEILED
The present edition of ISIS UNVEILED contains the photographic facsimile
reproduction not only of the original text, but of the original index. This
latter is immediately followed by a Publishers Note and a Supplemental Index
which, it is hoped, will together with the Publishers Preface, be of material
assistance to serious students of the synthetic Philosophy recorded by H. P. Blavatsky.
With the publication of the present Centenary Anniversary Edition of ISIS UNVEILED
there is completed the task
undertaken by the late Robert Crosbie and his associatesto make available to
students authentic reproductions of all the Theosophical writings of H. P.
Blavatsky, and of her Colleague, William Q. Judge.
THE THEOSOPHY COMPANY
August, 1931
V.
CORRESPONDING SECRETARY OF THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY.
"Cecy est un livre de bonne Foy." MONTAIGNE.
THE AUTHOR
Dedicates these Volumes
TO THE
THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY,
WHICH WAS FOUNDED AT NEW YORK, A.D. 1875,
TO STUDY THE
SUBJECTS ON
WHICH THEY TREAT.
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 Biffι, 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 sanctuaries,
two saddening and ever-recurring questions oppressed our thoughts: Where,
WHO, WHAT is
GOD?
Who ever saw the IMMORTAL
SPIRIT
of man, so as to be able to assure himself of man's immortality?
It was while most anxious to solve these perplexing problems that we came
into contact with certain men, endowed with such mysterious powers and such
profound knowledge that we may truly designate them as the sages of the Orient.
To their instructions we lent a ready ear. They showed us that by combining
science with religion, the existence of God and immortality of man's spirit may
be demonstrated like a problem of Euclid. For the first time we received the
assurance that the Oriental philosophy has room for no other faith than an
absolute and immovable faith in the omnipotence of man's own immortal self. We
were taught that this omnipotence comes from the kinship of man's spirit with
the Universal Soul God! The latter, they said, can never be demonstrated but
by the former. Man-spirit proves God-spirit, as the one drop of water proves a
source from which it must have come. Tell one who had never seen water, that
there is an ocean of water, and he must accept it on faith or reject it
altogether. But let one drop fall upon his hand, and he then has the fact from
which all the rest may be inferred. After that he could by degrees understand
that a boundless and fathomless ocean of water existed. Blind faith would no
longer be necessary; he would have supplanted it with KNOWLEDGE. When one sees
mortal man displaying tremendous capabilities, controlling the forces of nature
and opening up to view the world of spirit, the reflective mind is overwhelmed
with the conviction that if one man's spiritual Ego can do this much,
the capabilities of the FATHER
SPIRIT must
be relatively as much vaster as the whole ocean surpasses the single drop in
volume and potency. Ex nihilo nihil fit; prove the soul of man
by its wondrous powers you have proved God! In our studies, mysteries were
shown to be no mysteries. Names and places that to the Western mind have only a
significance derived from Eastern fable, were shown to be realities. Reverently
we stepped in spirit within the temple of Isis; to lift aside the veil of "the
one that is and was and shall be" at Saοs; to look through the rent curtain of
the Sanctum Sanctorum at Jerusalem; and even to interrogate within the crypts
which once existed beneath the sacred edifice, the mysterious Bath-Kol. The
Filia Vocis the daughter of the divine voice
vii PREFACE
responded from the mercy-seat within the veil,* and science, theology,
every human hypothesis and conception born of imperfect knowledge, lost forever
their authoritative character in our sight. The one-living God had spoken
through his oracleman, and we were satisfied. Such knowledge is priceless; and
it has been hidden only from those who overlooked it, derided it, or denied its
existence.
From such as these we apprehend criticism, censure, and perhaps hostility,
although the obstacles in our way neither spring from the validity of proof, the
authenticated facts of history, nor the lack of common sense among the public
whom we address. The drift of modern thought is palpably in the direction of
liberalism in religion as well as science. Each day brings the reactionists
nearer to the point where they must surrender the despotic authority over the
public conscience, which they have so long enjoyed and exercised. When the Pope
can go to the extreme of fulminating anathemas against all who maintain the
liberty of the Press and of speech, or who insist that in the conflict of laws,
civil and ecclesiastical, the civil law should prevail, or that any method of
instruction solely secular, may be approved; and Mr. Tyndall, as the
mouth-piece of nineteenth century science, says, ". . . the impregnable position
of science may be stated in a few words: we claim, and we shall wrest from
theology, the entire domain of cosmological theory" the end is not
difficult to foresee.
Centuries of subjection have not quite congealed the life-blood of men into
crystals around the nucleus of blind faith; and the nineteenth is witnessing the
struggles of the giant as he shakes off the Liliputian cordage and rises to his
feet. Even the Protestant communion of England and America, now engaged in the
revision of the text of its Oracles, will be compelled to show the
origin and merits of the text itself. The day of domineering over men with
dogmas has reached its gloaming.
Our work, then, is a plea for the recognition of the Hermetic philosophy,
the anciently universal Wisdom-Religion, as the only possible key to the
Absolute in science and theology. To show that we do not at all conceal from
ourselves the gravity of our undertaking, we may say in advance that it would
not be strange if the following classes should array themselves against us:
* Lightfoot assures us that this voice, which had been used in times past for a
testimony from heaven, "was indeed performed by magic art" (vol. ii., p. 128).
This latter term is used as a supercilious expression, just because it was and
is still misunderstood. It is the object of this work to correct the erroneous
opinions concerning "magic art."
Encyclical of
1864.
"Fragments of Science."
New York, September, 1877.
PREFACE. . . . v
Dogmatic assumptions of modern
science and theology . . . ix
The Platonic philosophy affords the only middle ground . . . xi
Review of the ancient philosophical systems . . . xv
A Syriac manuscript on Simon Magus . . . xxiii
Glossary of terms used in this book . . . xxiii
The Oriental Kabala . . . 1
Ancient traditions supported by modern research . . . 3
The progress of mankind marked by cycles . . . 5
Ancient cryptic science . . . 7
Priceless value of the Vedas . . . 12
Mutilations of the Jewish sacred books in translation . . . 13
Magic always regarded as a divine science ... 25
Achievements of its adepts and hypotheses of their modern detractors . . . 25
Man's yearning for immortality . . . 37
The servility of society . . .
39
Prejudice and bigotry of men of science . . . 40
They are chased by psychical phenomena . . . 41
Lost arts . . . 49
The human will the master-force of forces . . . 57
Superficial generalizations of the French savants . . . 60
Mediumistic phenomena, to what attributable . . . 67
Their relation to crime . . . 71
CHAPTER III.
BLIND LEADERS OF THE
BLIND.
Huxley's derivation from the
Orohippus . . . 74
Comte, his system and disciples . . . 75
The London materialists . . . 85
Borrowed robes . . . 89
Emanation of the objective universe from the subjective . . . 92
CHAPTER IV.
THEORIES RESPECTING PSYCHIC PHENOMENA.
Theory of de Gasparin . . . 100
of Thury . . . 100
of des Mousseaux, de Mirville . . . 100
of Babinet . . . 101
of Houdin . . . 101
of MM. Royer and Jobart de Lamballe . . . 102
The twins "unconscious cerebration" and "unconscious ventriloquism" . 105
Theory of Crookes . . . 112
of Faraday . . . 116
of Chevreuil . . . 116
The Mendeleyeff commission of 1876 . . . 117
Soul blindness . . . 121
One primal force, but many
correlations . . . 126
Tyndall narrowly escapes a great discovery . . . 127
The impossibility of miracle . . . 128
Nature of the primordial substance . . . 133
Interpretation of certain ancient myths . . . 133
Experiments of the fakirs . . . 139
Evolution in Hindu allegory . . . 153
The debt we owe to Paracelsus .
. . 163
Mesmerism its parentage, reception, potentiality . . . 165
"Psychometry" . . . 183
Time, space, eternity . . . 184
Transfer of energy from the visible to the invisible universe . . . 186
The Crookes experiments and Cox theory . . . 195
Attraction and repulsion
universal in all the kingdoms of nature . . . 206
Psychical phenomena depend on physical surroundings . . . 211
Observations in Siam . . . 214
Music in nervous disorders . . . 215
The "world-soul" and its potentialities . . . 216
Healing by touch, and healers . . . 217
"Diakka" and Porphyry's bad demons . . . 219
The quenchless lamp . . . 224
Modern ignorance of vital force . . . 237
Antiquity of the theory of force-correlation . . . 241
Universality of belief in magic . . . 247
Do the planets affect human
destiny? . . . 253
Very curious passage from Hermes . . . 254
The restlessness of matter . . . 257
Prophecy of Nostradamus fulfilled . . . 260
Sympathies between planets and plants . . . 264
Hindu knowledge of the properties of colors . . . 265
"Coincidences" the panacea of modern science . . . 268
The moon and the tides . . . 273
Epidemic mental and moral disorders . . . 274
The gods of the Pantheons only natural forces . . . 280
Proofs of the magical powers of Pythagoras . . . 283
The viewless races of ethereal space . . . 284
The "four truths" of Buddhism . . . 291
Meaning of the expression "coats
of skin" . . . 293
Natural selection and its results . . . 295
The Egyptian "circle of necessity" . . . 296
Pre-Adamite races . . . 299
Descent of spirit into matter . . . 302
The triune nature of man . . . 309
The lowest creatures in the scale of being . . . 310
Elementals specifically
described . . . 311
Proclus on the beings of the air . . . 312
Various names for elementals . . . 313
Swedenborgian views on soul-death . . . 317
Earth-bound human souls . . . 319
Impure mediums and their "guides" . . . 325
Psychometry an aid to scientific research . . . 333
Pere Felix arraigns the
scientists . . . 338
The "Unknowable" . . . 340
Danger of evocations by tyros . . . 342
Lares and Lemures . . . 345
Secrets of Hindu temples . . . 350
Reincarnation . . . 351
Witchcraft and witches . . . 353
The sacred soma trance . . . 357
Vulnerability of certain "shadows" . . . 363
Experiment of Clearchus on a sleeping boy . . . 365
The author witnesses a trial of magic in India . . . 369
Case of the Cevennois . . . 371
Invulnerability attainable by
man . . . 379
Projecting the force of the will . . . 380
Insensibility to snake-poison . . . 381
Charming serpents by music . . . 383
Teratological phenomena discussed . . . 385
The psychological domain confessedly unexplored . . . 407
Despairing regrets of Berzelius . . . 411
Turning a river into blood a vegetable phenomenon . . . 413
Vampirism its phenomena
explained . . . 449
Bengalese jugglery . . . 457
The rationale of talismans . . .
462
Unexplained mysteries . . . 466
Magical experiment in Bengal . . . 467
Chibh Chondor's surprising feats . . . 471
The Indian tape-climbing trick an illusion . . . 473
Resuscitation of buried fakirs . . . 477
Limits of suspended animation . . . 481
Mediumship totally antagonistic to adeptship . . . 487
What are "materialized spirits"? . . . 493
The Shudala Madan . . . 495
Philosophy of levitation . . . 497
The elixir and alkahest . . . 503
Joan. Advance our waving colors on the walls! King Henry VI. Act IV.
"My life has been devoted to the
study of man, his destiny and his happiness."
J. R.
BUCHANAN,
M.D., Outlines of Lectures on Anthropology.
IT
is nineteen centuries since, as we are told, the night of Heathenism and
Paganism was first dispelled by the divine light of Christianity; and
two-and-a-half centuries since the bright lamp of Modern Science began to shine
on the darkness of the ignorance of the ages. Within these respective epochs, we
are required to believe, the true moral and intellectual progress of the race
has occurred. The ancient philosophers were well enough for their respective
generations, but they were illiterate as compared with modern men of science.
The ethics of Paganism perhaps met the wants of the uncultivated people of
antiquity, but not until the advent of the luminous "Star of Bethlehem," was the
true road to moral perfection and the way to salvation made plain. Of old,
brutishness was the rule, virtue and spirituality the exception. Now, the
dullest may read the will of God in His revealed word; men have every incentive
to be good, and are constantly becoming better.
This is the assumption; what are the facts? On the one hand an unspiritual,
dogmatic, too often debauched clergy; a host of sects, and three warring great
religions; discord instead of union, dogmas without proofs, sensation-loving
preachers, and wealth and pleasure-seeking parishioners' hypocrisy and bigotry,
begotten by the tyrannical exigencies of respectability, the rule of the day,
sincerity and real piety exceptional. On the other hand, scientific hypotheses
built on sand; no accord upon a single question; rancorous quarrels and
jealousy; a general drift into materialism. A death-grapple of Science with
Theology for infallibility "a conflict of ages."
At Rome, the self-styled seat of Christianity, the putative successor to
the chair of Peter is undermining social order with his invisible but
omnipresent net-work of bigoted agents, and incites them to revolutionize Europe
for his temporal as well as spiritual supremacy. We see him who calls himself
the "Vicar of Christ," fraternizing with the anti-Christian Moslem against
another Christian nation, publicly invoking the blessing of God upon the arms of
those who have for centuries withstood, with
fire and sword, the pretensions
of his Christ to Godhood! At Berlin one of the great seats of learning
professors of modern exact sciences, turning their backs on the boasted
results of enlightenment of the post-Galileonian period, are quietly snuffing
out the candle of the great Florentine; seeking, in short, to prove the
heliocentric system, and even the earth's rotation, but the dreams of deluded
scientists, Newton a visionary, and all past and present astronomers but clever
calculators of unverifiable problems. *
Between these two conflicting Titans Science and Theology is a bewildered
public, fast losing all belief in man's personal immortality, in a deity of any
kind, and rapidly descending to the level of a mere animal existence. Such is
the picture of the hour, illumined by the bright noonday sun of this Christian
and scientific era!
Would it be strict justice to condemn to critical lapidation the most humble
and modest of authors for entirely rejecting the authority of both these
combatants? Are we not bound rather to take as the true aphorism of this
century, the declaration of Horace Greeley: "I accept unreservedly the
views of no man, living or dead"? Such, at all events, will be our
motto, and we mean that principle to be our constant guide throughout this work.
Among the many phenomenal outgrowths of our century, the strange creed of
the so-called Spiritualists has arisen amid the tottering ruins of self-styled
revealed religions and materialistic philosophies; and yet it alone offers a
possible last refuge of compromise between the two. That this unexpected ghost
of pre-Christian days finds poor welcome from our sober and positive century, is
not surprising. Times have strangely changed; and it is but recently that a
well-known Brooklyn preacher pointedly remarked in a sermon, that could Jesus
come back and behave in the streets of New York, as he did in those of
Jerusalem, he would find himself confined in the prison of the Tombs.
What sort of welcome, then, could Spiritualism ever expect? True enough, the
weird stranger seems neither attractive nor promising at first sight. Shapeless
and uncouth, like an infant attended by seven nurses, it is coming out of its
teens lame and mutilated. The name of its enemies is legion; its friends and
protectors are a handful. But what of that? When was ever truth accepted a
priori? Because the champions of Spiritualism have in their fanaticism
magnified its qualities, and remained blind to its imperfections, that gives no
excuse to doubt its reality. A forgery is impossible when we have no model to
forge after. The fanaticism of Spiritualists is itself
* See the last chapter of this volume, p. 622.
"Recollections of a Busy Life," p. 147.
Henry Ward Beecher.
xi BEFORE THE VEIL.
a proof of the genuineness and
possibility of their phenomena. They give us facts that we may investigate, not
assertions that we must believe without proof. Millions of reasonable men and
women do not so easily succumb to collective hallucination. And so, while the
clergy, following their own interpretations of the
Bible, and science its
self-made Codex of possibilities in nature, refuse it a fair
hearing, real science and true religion are silent, and
gravely wait further developments.
The whole question of phenomena rests on the correct comprehension of old
philosophies. Whither, then, should we turn, in our perplexity, but to the
ancient sages, since, on the pretext of superstition, we are refused an
explanation by the modern? Let us ask them what they know of genuine science and
religion; not in the matter of mere details, but in all the broad conception of
these twin truths so strong in their unity, so weak when divided. Besides, we
may find our profit in comparing this boasted modern science with ancient
ignorance; this improved modern theology with the "Secret doctrines" of the
ancient universal religion. Perhaps we may thus discover a neutral ground whence
we can reach and profit by both.
It is the Platonic philosophy, the most elaborate compend of the abstruse
systems of old India, that can alone afford us this middle ground. Although
twenty-two and a quarter centuries have elapsed since the death of Plato, the
great minds of the world are still occupied with his writings. He was, in the
fullest sense of the word, the world's interpreter. And the greatest philosopher
of the pre-Christian era mirrored faithfully in his works the spiritualism of
the Vedic philosophers who lived thousands of years before himself, and its
metaphysical expression. Vyasa, Djeminy, Kapila, Vrihaspati, Sumati, and so many
others, will be found to have transmitted their indelible imprint through the
intervening centuries upon Plato and his school. Thus is warranted the inference
that to Plato and the ancient Hindu sages was alike revealed the same wisdom. So
surviving the shock of time, what can this wisdom be but divine and eternal?
Plato taught justice as subsisting in the soul of its possessor and his
greatest good. "Men, in proportion to their intellect, have admitted his
transcendent claims." Yet his commentators, almost with one consent, shrink from
every passage which implies that his metaphysics are based on a solid
foundation, and not on ideal conceptions.
But Plato could not accept a philosophy destitute of spiritual aspirations;
the two were at one with him. For the old Grecian sage there was a single object
of attainment: REAL KNOWLEDGE. He considered those only to be genuine
philosophers, or students of truth, who possess the knowledge of the
really-existing, in opposition to the mere seeing; of
xii
BEFORE THE VEIL.
the
always-existing, in opposition to the transitory; and of that which
exists
permanently, in
opposition to that which waxes, wanes, and is developed and destroyed
alternately. "Beyond all finite existences and secondary causes, all laws,
ideas, and principles, there is an INTELLIGENCE or
MIND [nou'"
, nous , the spirit],
the first principle of all principles, the Supreme Idea on which all other ideas
are grounded; the Monarch and Lawgiver of the universe; the ultimate substance
from which all things derive their being and essence, the first and efficient
Cause of all the order, and harmony, and beauty, and excellency, and goodness,
which pervades the universe who is called, by way of preλminence and
excellence, the Supreme Good, the God (
ὁ qeς"
) 'the God over all' (
ὁ epi pasi qeς"
)." * He is not
the truth nor the intelligence, but "the father of it." Though this eternal
essence of things may not be perceptible by our physical senses, it may be
apprehended by the mind of those who are not wilfully obtuse. "To you," said
Jesus to his elect disciples, "it is given to know the mysteries of the Kingdom
of God, but to them [ the
polloi^ ] it is not given; . .
. therefore speak I to them in parables [or allegories]; because they seeing,
see not, and hearing, they hear not, neither do they understand."
The philosophy of Plato, we are assured by Porphyry, of the Neoplatonic
School was taught and illustrated in the MYSTERIES. Many have questioned and
even denied this; and Lobeck, in his Aglaophomus, has gone to the
extreme of representing the sacred orgies as little more than an empty show to
captivate the imagination. As though Athens and Greece would for twenty
centuries and more have repaired every fifth year to Eleusis to witness a solemn
religious farce! Augustine, the papa-bishop of Hippo, has resolved such
assertions. He declares that the doctrines of the Alexandrian Platonists were
the original esoteric doctrines of the first followers of Plato, and describes
Plotinus as a Plato resuscitated. He also explains the motives of the great
philosopher for veiling the interior sense of what he taught.
* Cocker: "Christianity and Greek Philosophy," xi., p. 377.
Gospel according to Matthew, xiii. 11, 13.
"The accusations of atheism, the introducing of foreign
deities, and corrupting of the Athenian youth, which were made against Socrates,
afforded ample justification for Plato to conceal the arcane preaching of his
doctrines. Doubtless the peculiar diction or 'jargon' of the alchemists was
employed for a like purpose. The dungeon, the rack, and the fagot were employed
without scruple by Christians of every shade, the Roman Catholics especially,
against all who taught even natural science contrary to the theories entertained
by the Church. Pope Gregory the Great even inhibited the grammatical use of
Latin as heathenish. The offense of Socrates consisted in unfolding to his
disciples the arcane doctrine concerning the gods, which was taught in the
Mysteries and was a capital crime. He also was charged by Aristophanes with
introducing the new god Dinos into the
republic as the demiurgos or artificer, and the lord of the solar universe. The
Heliocentric system was also a doctrine of the Mysteries; and hence, when
Aristarchus the Pythagorean taught it openly, Cleanthes declared that the Greeks
ought to have called him to account and condemned him for blasphemy against the
gods," ("Plutarch"). But Socrates had never been initiated, and hence divulged
nothing which had ever been imparted to him.
As to the
myths, Plato declares
in the Gorgias and the Phζdon that they were the vehicles of
great truths well worth the seeking. But commentators are so little en
rapport with the great philosopher as to be compelled to acknowledge that
they are ignorant where "the doctrinal ends, and the mythical begins." Plato put
to flight the popular superstition concerning magic and dζmons, and developed
the exaggerated notions of the time into rational theories and metaphysical
conceptions. Perhaps these would not quite stand the inductive method of
reasoning established by Aristotle; nevertheless they are satisfactory in the
highest degree to those who apprehend the existence of that higher faculty of
insight or intuition, as affording a criterion for ascertaining truth.
Basing all his doctrines upon the presence of the Supreme Mind, Plato taught
that the nous, spirit, or rational soul of man, being "generated by the
Divine Father," possessed a nature kindred, or even homogeneous, with the
Divinity, and was capable of beholding the eternal realities. This faculty of
contemplating reality in a direct and immediate manner belongs to God alone; the
aspiration for this knowledge constitutes what is really meant by philosophy
the love of wisdom. The love of truth is inherently the love of
good; and so predominating over every desire of the soul, purifying it and
assimilating it to the divine, thus governing every act of the individual, it
raises man to a participation and communion with Divinity, and restores him to
the likeness of God. "This flight," says Plato in the Theζtetus,
"consists in becoming like God, and this assimilation is the becoming just and
holy with wisdom."
The basis of this assimilation is always asserted to be the preλxistence of
the spirit or nous. In the allegory of the chariot and winged steeds,
given in the Phζdrus, he represents the psychical nature as composite
and two-fold; the thumos, or epithumetic part, formed from the substances of the
world of phenomena; and the qumoeidev"
thumoeides, the essence of which is linked to the eternal world. The
present earth-life is a fall and punishment. The soul dwells in "the grave which
we call the body," and in its incorporate state, and previous
to the discipline of education, the noetic or spiritual element is "asleep."
Life is thus a dream, rather than a reality. Like the captives in the
subterranean cave, described in The Republic, the back is turned to the
light, we perceive only the shadows of objects, and think them the actual
realities. Is not this
xiv
BEFORE THE VEIL.
the idea of Maya, or
the illusion of the senses in physical life, which is so marked a feature in
Buddhistical philosophy? But these shadows, if we have not given ourselves up
absolutely to the sensuous nature, arouse in us the reminiscence of that higher
world that we once inhabited. "The interior spirit has some dim and shadowy
recollection of its antenatal state of bliss, and some instinctive and proleptic
yearnings for its return." It is the province of the discipline of philosophy to
disinthrall it from the bondage of sense, and raise it into the empyrean of pure
thought, to the vision of eternal truth, goodness, and beauty. "The soul," says
Plato, in the Theζtetus, "cannot come into the form of a man if it has
never seen the truth. This is a recollection of those things which our soul
formerly saw when journeying with Deity, despising the things which we now say
are, and looking up to that which REALLY IS. Wherefore the nous,
or spirit, of the philosopher (or student of the higher truth) alone is
furnished with wings; because he, to the best of his ability, keeps these things
in mind, of which the contemplation renders even Deity itself divine. By making
the right use of these things remembered from the former life, by constantly
perfecting himself in the perfect mysteries, a man becomes truly perfect an
initiate into the diviner wisdom."
Hence we may understand why
the sublimer scenes in the Mysteries were always in the night. The life of the
interior spirit is the death of the external nature; and the night of the
physical world denotes the day of the spiritual. Dionysus, the night-sun, is,
therefore, worshipped rather than Helios, orb of day. In the Mysteries were
symbolized the preλxistent condition of the spirit and soul, and the lapse of
the latter into earth-life and Hades, the miseries of that life, the
purification of the soul, and its restoration to divine bliss, or reunion with
spirit. Theon, of Smyrna, aptly compares the philosophical discipline to the
mystic rites: "Philosophy," says he, "may be called the initiation into the true
arcana, and the instruction in the genuine Mysteries. There are five parts of
this initiation: I., the previous purification; II., the admission to
participation in the arcane rites; III., the epoptic revelation; IV., the
investiture or enthroning; V. the fifth, which is produced from all these, is
friendship and interior communion with God, and the enjoyment of that felicity
which arises from intimate converse with divine beings. . . . Plato denominates
the epopteia, or personal view, the perfect contemplation of things
which are apprehended intuitively, absolute truths and ideas. He also considers
the binding of the head and crowning as analogous to the authority which any one
receives from his instructors, of leading others into the same contemplation.
The fifth gradation is the most perfect felicity arising from hence, and,
according
to Plato, an assimilation to divinity as far as is possible to human beings."*
Such is Platonism. "Out of
Plato," says Ralph Waldo Emerson, "come all things that are still written and
debated among men of thought." He absorbed the learning of his times of Greece
from Philolaus to Socrates; then of Pythagoras in Italy; then what he could
procure from Egypt and the East. He was so broad that all philosophy, European
and Asiatic, was in his doctrines; and to culture and contemplation he added the
nature and qualities of the poet.
The followers of Plato generally adhered strictly to his psychological
theories. Several, however, like Xenocrates, ventured into bolder speculations.
Speusippus, the nephew and successor of the great philosopher, was the author of
the Numerical Analysis, a treatise on the Pythagorean numbers. Some of
his speculations are not found in the written Dialogues; but as he was
a listener to the unwritten lectures of Plato, the judgment of Enfield is
doubtless correct, that he did not differ from his master. He was evidently,
though not named, the antagonist whom Aristotle criticised, when professing to
cite the argument of Plato against the doctrine of Pythagoras, that all things
were in themselves numbers, or rather, inseparable from the idea of numbers. He
especially endeavored to show that the Platonic doctrine of ideas differed
essentially from the Pythagorean, in that it presupposed numbers and magnitudes
to exist apart from things. He also asserted that Plato taught that there could
be no real knowledge, if the object of that knowledge was not carried
beyond or above the sensible.
But Aristotle was no trustworthy witness. He misrepresented Plato, and he
almost caricatured the doctrines of Pythagoras. There is a canon of
interpretation, which should guide us in our examinations of every philosophical
opinion: "The human mind has, under the necessary operation of its own laws,
been compelled to entertain the same fundamental ideas, and the human heart to
cherish the same feelings in all ages." It is certain that Pythagoras awakened
the deepest intellectual sympathy of his age, and that his doctrines exerted a
powerful influence upon the mind of Plato. His cardinal idea was that there
existed a permanent principle of unity beneath the forms, changes, and other
phenomena of the universe. Aristotle asserted that he taught that "numbers are
the first principles of all entities." Ritter has expressed the opinion that the
formula of Pythagoras should be taken symbolically, which is doubtless correct.
Aristotle goes on to associate these numbers with the "forms" and
"ideas" of Plato. He even declares that Plato said:
* See Thomas Taylor: "Eleusinian and Bacchic Mysteries," p. 47. New York: J. W.
Bouton, 1875.
"forms are numbers," and that
"ideas are substantial existences real beings." Yet Plato did not so teach. He
declared that the final cause was the Supreme Goodness to ajgaqovn. "Ideas
are objects of pure conception for the human reason, and they are attributes of
the Divine Reason."* Nor did he ever say that "forms are numbers." What
he did say may be found in the Timζus: "God formed things as they first arose according to forms
and numbers."
It is recognized by modern science that all the higher laws of nature assume
the form of quantitative statement. This is perhaps a fuller elaboration or more
explicit affirmation of the Pythagorean doctrine. Numbers were regarded as the
best representations of the laws of harmony which pervade the cosmos. We know
too that in chemistry the doctrine of atoms and the laws of combination are
actually and, as it were, arbitrarily defined by numbers. As Mr. W. Archer
Butler has expressed it: "The world is, then, through all its departments, a
living arithmetic in its development, a realized geometry in its repose."
The key to the Pythagorean dogmas is the general formula of unity in
multiplicity, the one evolving the many and pervading the many. This is the
ancient doctrine of emanation in few words. Even the apostle Paul accepted it as
true. " Ex
autouΖ, kai dij autou', kai ei" auto;n ta; paΖnta " Out of him and
through him and in him all things are. This, as we can see by the following
quotation, is purely Hindu and Brahmanical:
"When the dissolution Pralaya had arrived at its term, the great Being
Para-Atma or Para-Purusha the Lord existing through himself, out of whom and
through whom all things were, and are and will be . . . resolved to emanate from
his own substance the various creatures" (Manava-Dharma-Sastra, book
i., slokas 6 and 7).
The mystic Decad 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 = 10 is a way of expressing this idea. The
One is God, the Two, matter; the Three, combining Monad and Duad, and partaking
of the nature of both, is the phenomenal world; the Tetrad, or form of
perfection, expresses the emptiness of all; and the Decad, or sum of all,
involves the entire cosmos. The universe is the combination of a thousand
elements, and yet the expression of a single spirit a chaos to the sense, a
cosmos to the reason.
The whole of this combination of the progression of numbers in the idea of
creation is Hindu. The Being existing through himself, Swayambhu or Swayambhuva,
as he is called by some, is one. He emanates from himself the creative
faculty, Brahma or Purusha (the divine male), and the one becomes Two;
out of this Duad, union of the purely intel-
* Cousin: "History of Philosophy," I., ix.
xvii
BEFORE THE VEIL.
earth around the sun, and of the
heliocentric system.* But we have good evidence that the latter system
was taught in the Mysteries, and that Socrates died for atheism, i.e.,
for divulging this sacred knowledge. Herakleides adopted fully the Pythagorean
and Platonic views of the human soul, its faculties and its capabilities. He
describes it as a luminous, highly ethereal essence. He affirms that souls
inhabit the milky way before descending "into generation" or sublunary
existence. His dζmons or spirits are airy and vaporous bodies.
In the Epinomis is
fully stated the doctrine of the Pythagorean numbers in relation to created
things. As a true Platonist, its author maintains that wisdom can only be
attained by a thorough inquiry into the occult nature of the creation; it alone
assures us an existence of bliss after death. The immortality of the soul is
greatly speculated upon in this treatise; but its author adds that we can attain
to this knowledge only through a complete comprehension of the numbers; for the
man, unable to distinguish the straight line from a curved one will never have
wisdom enough to secure a mathematical demonstration of the invisible, i.e.,
we must assure ourselves of the objective existence of our soul (astral
body) before we learn that we are in possession of a divine and immortal spirit.
Iamblichus says the same thing; adding, moreover, that it is a secret belonging
to the highest initiation. The Divine Power, he says, always felt indignant with
those "who rendered manifest the composition of the
icostagonus," viz., who delivered the method of inscribing in a sphere the
dodecahedron.
The idea that "numbers" possessing the greatest virtue, produce always
what is good and never what is evil, refers to justice, equanimity of temper,
and everything that is harmonious. When the author speaks of every star as an
individual soul, he only means what the Hindu initiates and the Hermetists
taught before and after him, viz.: that every star is an independent planet,
which, like our earth, has a soul of its own, every atom of matter being
impregnated with the divine influx of the soul of the world. It breathes and
lives; it feels and suffers as well as enjoys life in its way. What naturalist
is prepared to dispute it on good evidence? Therefore, we must consider the
celestial bodies as the images of gods; as partaking of the divine powers in
their substance; and though they are not immortal in their soul-entity, their
agency in the economy of the universe is entitled to divine honors, such as we
pay to minor gods. The idea is plain, and one must be malevolent indeed to
misrepresent it. If the author of Epinomis places these fiery gods
higher than the animals, plants, and even mankind, all of which, as earthly
creatures, are assigned
* "Plato und die Alt. Akademie."
One of the five solid
figures in Geometry.
by him a lower place, who can
prove him wholly wrong? One must needs go deep indeed into the profundity of the
abstract metaphysics of the old philosophies, who would understand that their
various embodiments of their conceptions are, after all, based upon an identical
apprehension of the nature of the First Cause, its attributes and method.
Again when the author of Epinomis locates between these highest and
lowest gods (embodied souls) three classes of dζmons, and peoples the universe
with invisible beings, he is more rational than our modern scientists, who make
between the two extremes one vast hiatus of being, the playground of blind
forces. Of these three classes the first two are invisible; their bodies are
pure ether and fire (planetary spirits); the dζmons
of the third class are clothed with vapory bodies; they are usually invisible,
but sometimes making themselves concrete become visible for a few seconds. These
are the earthly spirits, or our astral souls.
It is these doctrines, which, studied analogically, and on the principle of
correspondence, led the ancient, and may now lead the modern Philaletheian step
by step toward the solution of the greatest mysteries. On the brink of the dark
chasm separating the spiritual from the physical world stands modern science,
with eyes closed and head averted, pronouncing the gulf impassable and
bottomless, though she holds in her hand a torch which she need only lower into
the depths to show her her mistake. But across this chasm, the patient student
of Hermetic philosophy has constructed a bridge.
In his Fragments of Science Tyndall makes the following sad confession: "If you ask me whether
science has solved, or is likely in our day to solve the problem of this
universe, I must shake my head in doubt." If moved by an afterthought, he
corrects himself later, and assures his audience that experimental evidence has
helped him to discover, in the opprobrium-covered matter, the "promise and
potency of every quality of life," he only jokes. It would be as difficult for
Professor Tyndall to offer any ultimate and irrefutable proofs of what he
asserts, as it was for Job to insert a hook into the nose of the leviathan.
To avoid confusion that might easily arise by the frequent employment of
certain terms in a sense different from that familiar to the reader, a few
explanations will be timely. We desire to leave no pretext either for
misunderstanding or misrepresentation. Magic may have one signification to one
class of readers and another to another class. We shall give it the meaning
which it has in the minds of its Oriental students and practitioners. And so
with the words Hermetic Science, Occultism, Hierophant, Adept, Sorcerer,
etc.; there has been little agreement of late as to their meaning. Though
the distinctions between the terms are very often
insignificant merely ethnic
still, it may be useful to the general reader to know just what that is. We give
a few alphabetically.
ΖTHROBACY, is the Greek name for walking or being lifted in the air;
levitation, so called, among modern spiritualists. It may be either
conscious or unconscious; in the one case, it is magic; in the other, either
disease or a power which requires a few words of elucidation.
A symbolical explanation of ζthrobacy is given in an old Syriac manuscript
which was translated in the fifteenth century by one Malchus, an alchemist. In
connection with the case of Simon Magus, one passage reads thus:
"Simon, laying his face upon the ground, whispered in her ear, 'O mother Earth,
give me, I pray thee, some of thy breath; and I will give thee mine; let me
loose, O mother, that I may carry thy words to the stars, and I will return
faithfully to thee after a while.' And the Earth strengthening her status, none
to her detriment, sent her genius to breathe of her breath on Simon,
while he breathed on her; and the stars rejoiced to be visited by the
mighty One."
The starting-point here is the recognized electro-chemical principle that bodies
similarly electrified repel each other, while those differently electrified
mutually attract. "The most elementary knowledge of chemistry," says Professor
Cooke, "shows that, while radicals of opposite natures combine most eagerly
together, two metals, or two closely-allied metalloids, show but little affinity
for each other."
The earth is a magnetic body; in fact, as some scientists have found, it is
one vast magnet, as Paracelsus affirmed some 300 years ago. It is charged with
one form of electricity let us call it positive which it evolves
continuously by spontaneous action, in its interior or centre of motion. Human
bodies, in common with all other forms of matter, are charged with the opposite
form of electricity negative. That is to say, organic or inorganic bodies, if
left to themselves will constantly and involuntarily charge themselves with, and
evolve the form of electricity opposed to that of the earth itself. Now, what is
weight? Simply the attraction of the earth. "Without the attractions of the
earth you would have no weight," says Professor Stewart;* "and if you had
an earth twice as heavy as this, you would have double the attraction." How
then, can we get rid of this attraction? According to the electrical law above
stated, there is an attraction between our planet and the organisms upon it,
which holds them upon the surface of the ground. But the law of gravitation has
been counteracted in many instances, by levitations of persons and inanimate
objects; how account
* "The Sun and the Earth."
for this? The condition of our
physical systems, say theurgic philosophers, is largely dependent upon the
action of our will. If well-regulated, it can produce "miracles"; among others a
change of this electrical polarity from negative to positive; the man's
relations with the earth-magnet would then become repellent, and "gravity" for
him would have ceased to exist. It would then be as natural for him to rush into
the air until the repellent force had exhausted itself, as, before, it had been
for him to remain upon the ground. The altitude of his levitation would be
measured by his ability, greater or less, to charge his body with positive
electricity. This control over the physical forces once obtained, alteration of
his levity or gravity would be as easy as breathing.
The study of nervous diseases has established that