Theos-Talk Archives (March 1996 Message tl00077)

ISIS UNVEILED

A MASTER-KEY

TO THE

MYSTERIES OF ANCIENT AND MODERN
SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY.

BY

H. P. BLAVATSKY,
CORRESPONDING SECRETARY OF THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY.

"Cecy est un livre de bonne Foy." - MONTAIGNE.

VOL. I. - SCIENCE.


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.


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 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
Sais; 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 -
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.

[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."]

The one-living God had spoken through his oracle - man, 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; [Encyclical of 1864] 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"["Fragments of Science."] - 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 Lilliputian 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:

The Christians, who will see that we question the evidences of
the genuineness of their faith.

The Scientists, who will find their pretensions placed in the
same bundle with those of the Roman Catholic Church for
infallibility, and, in certain particulars, the sages and
philosophers of the ancient world classed higher than they.

Pseudo-Scientists will, of course, denounce us furiously.

Broad Churchmen and Freethinkers will find that we do not accept
what they do, but demand the recognition of the whole truth.

Men of letters and various authorities , who hide their real
belief in deference to popular prejudices.

The mercenaries and parasites of the Press, who prostitute its
more than royal power, and dishonor a noble profession, will
find it easy to mock at things too wonderful for them to
understand; for to them the price of a paragraph is more than
the value of sincerity. From many will come honest criticism;
from many - cant. But we look to the future.  The contest now
going on between the party of public conscience and the party of
reaction, has already developed a healthier tone of thought.  It
will hardly fail to result ultimately in the overthrow of error
and the triumph of Truth. We repeat again - we are laboring for
the brighter morrow.

And yet, when we consider the bitter opposition that we are
called upon to face, who is better entitled than we upon
entering the arena to write upon our shield the hail of the
Roman gladiator to Caesar: MORITURUS TE SALUTAT!*

New York, September, 1877.

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* "We who are about to die salute you" - ed.

.. text scanned, edited and uploaded by Alan Bain
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