ISIS UNVEILED A MASTER‐KEY TO THE MYSTERIES OF ANCIENT AND MODERN SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY

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

ʺCecy est un livre de bonne Foy.ʺ — MONTAIGNE

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VOL. I – SCIENCE

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Copyright©2006 Theosophy Trust

Easy‐Read® Format by Theosophy Trust

Note- by Blogger

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky

Born	Helena von Hahn August 12, 1831 Yekaterinoslav, Russian Empire (nowDnipropetrovsk, Ukraine)
Died	May 8, 1891 (aged 59) London, United Kingdom
Parents	Peter Alekseevich Hahn

Isis Unveiled is major work by well known author Helena Petrovna Blavatsky. Now on I would like to present her work on ancient knowledge of human race. It will be in separate post since her work so lengthy.

Also I would like to thank Theosophy Trust which made her work freely available on world wide web in electronic format. With great respect to all parties involved in this process I would like to publish it in my blog for discussion. 

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 worldʹs 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

ʺmiracle,ʺ 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 Biffé, that ʺthe 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.ʺ 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 manʹs 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 manʹs

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 manʹs own immortal self. We were taught that this omnipotence comes from the

kinship of manʹs 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 manʹs 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 ʺthe one that is and was and shall beʺ at Saïs; 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. 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;† and Mr. Tyndall, as the mouth‐piece of nineteenth

century science, says, ʺ. . . 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 theoryʺ‡—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.

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* Lightfoot assures us that this voice, which had been used in times past for a testimony from heaven, ʺwas indeed

performed by magic artʺ (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 ʺmagic art.ʺ

† Encyclical of 1864.

‡ ʺFragments of Science.ʺ

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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 Cæsar:

MORITURUS TE SALUTÂT!

New York, September, 1877