isis unveiled: chapter chapter VIII (our place among infinities)

"Why, then, accuse the ancient biographers of such men as Pythagoras and Appolonius of Tyana of either willful misrepresentation or absurd superstition? When we realize that the majority of those who are so skeptical as to the magical powers possessed by the ancient philosophers, who laugh at the old theogonies and the fallacies of mythology, [...]

isis unveiled: chapter chapter VIII (our place among infinities)

"Scholastic skeptics, as well as ignorant materialists, have greatly amused themselves for the last two centuries over the absurdities attributed to Pythagoras by his biographer, Iamblichus. The Samian philosopher is said to have persuaded a she-bear to give up eating human flesh; to have forced a white eagle to descend to him from the clouds, [...]

isis unveiled: chapter chapter VIII (our place among infinities)

"Magic", says Psellus, "formed the last part of the sacerdotal science. It investigated the nature, power, and quality of everything sublunary; of the elements and their parts, of animals, all various plants and their fruits, of stones and herbs. In short, it explored the essence and power of everything. From hence, therefore, it produced its [...]