Category: Isis Unveiled: H. P. Blavatsky (1877)

"Salverte is of the opinion that before Franklin discovered his refined electricity, Numa had experimented with it most successfully, and that Tullus Hostilius was the first victim of the dangerous "heavenly guest" recorded in history. Titus Livy and Pliny narrate that this prince, having found in the Books of Numa, instructions on the secret sacrifices [...]

""What better illustrates the theory of cycles than the following fact? Nearly700 years B.C., in the schools of Thales and Pythagoras, was taught the doctrine of the true motion of the earth, its form, and the whole heliocentric system. And in 317 A.D., we find Lactantius, the preceptor of Crispus Ceasar, son of Constantine the [...]

"A curious argument, indeed. If the size and grandeur of public monuments are to serve our posterity as a standard by which to approximately estimate the "progress of civilization" attained by their builders, it may be prudent, perhaps, for America, so proud of her alleged progress and freedom, to dwarf her buildings at once to [...]

"Champollion, who passed almost his entire life in the exploration of archeological remains, gives vent to his emotions in the following descriptions of Karnak: "The ground covered by the mass of remaining buildings is square; and each side measures 1,800 feet. One is astounded and overcome by the grandeur of the sublime remnants, the prodigality [...]

"The French and Prussian savants, as well as other Egyptologists, agree as to the emplacement, and identified its noble ruins. Moreover, they confirm the account given of it by the old historian. Herodotus says that he found therein 3,000 chambers; half subterranean and the other half above ground. "The upper chambers", he says, "I myself [...]

""Every craftsman can behold, in Egyptian monuments, the progress of his art 4,000 years ago; and whether it be a wheelwright building a chariot, a shoemaker drawing his twine, a leather-cutter using the self-same form of knife of old as is considered the best form now, a weaver throwing the same hand-shuttle, a whitesmith using [...]

"Professor John Fiske, in his onslaught on Dr. Draper's History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, set his pen against the doctrine of cyclical progression, remarking that "we have never known the beginning or the end of a historic cycle, and have no inductive warrant for believing that we are now traversing one." He chides [...]

"Dr. Rebold, a French archeologist of some renown, gives his readers a glimpse of the culture which prevailed 5,000 (?) years B.C., by saying that there were at that time no less than "thirty of forty colleges of the priests who studied occult sciences and practical magic." A writer in the National Quarterly Review (Vol. [...]

"In the Egyptian section of the Dresden, or Berlin Museum, we forget which, is a drawing which represents a workman ascending an unfinished pyramid, with a basket of sand upon his back. This has suggested to certain Egyptologists the idea that the blocks of the pyramids were chemically manufactured in loco. Some modern engineers believe [...]

"The date of the hundreds of pyramids in the Valley of the Nile is impossible to fix by any of the rules of modern science; but Herodotus informs us that each successive king erected one to commemorate his reign, and serve as his sepulchre. But, Herodotus did not tell all, although he knew that the [...]