Chapter I: Front Matter

Transcriber’s Notes

Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected. Variations in hyphenation have been standardised but all other spelling and punctuation remains unchanged with the exception of Greek and Hebrew which have been extensively corrected. The corrections are listed at the end of the book. The index appears only in Volume 2 of this work. A copy was added to this volume for the convenience of readers.

Italics are represented thus _italic_, bold thus ~bold~ and superscripts thus y^{en}.

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._

FOURTH EDITION.

NEW YORK:

J. W. BOUTON, 706 BROADWAY.

LONDON: BERNARD QUARITCH.

1878.

COPYRIGHT, BY
J. W. BOUTON.
1877.

TROW’S
PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING CO.,
PRINTERS AND BOOKBINDERS,
_205-213 East 12th. St._,
NEW YORK.

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.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PAGE
PREFACE v

BEFORE THE VEIL

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

Volume first.

_THE “INFALLIBILITY” OF MODERN SCIENCE._

CHAPTER I.

OLD THINGS WITH NEW NAMES.

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

CHAPTER II.

PHENOMENA AND FORCES.

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

CHAPTER V.

THE ETHER, OR “ASTRAL LIGHT.”

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

CHAPTER VI.

PSYCHO-PHYSICAL PHENOMENA.

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

CHAPTER VII.

THE ELEMENTS, ELEMENTALS, AND ELEMENTARIES.

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

CHAPTER VIII.

SOME MYSTERIES OF NATURE.

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