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

"Dr. Peisse, of Paris, wrote in 1863, the following: "One word, a propos, of alchemy. What must we think of the Hermetic art? Is it lawful to believe that we can transmute metals, make gold? Well, positive men, esprits forts of the nineteenth century, know that Mr. Figuier, doctor of science and medicine, chemical analyst [...]

"The philosophical cross, the two lines running in opposite directions, the horizontal and the perpendicular, the height and breadth, which the geometrizing Deity divides at the intersecting point, and which forms the magical as well as the scientific quaternary, when it is inscribed within the perfect square, is the basis of the occultist. Within its [...]

"Tradition declares that on the dead body of Hermes, at Hebron, was found by an Isarim, an initiate, the tablet known as the Smaragdine. It contains, in a few sentences, the essence of the Hermetic wisdom. To those who read but with their bodily eyes, the precepts will suggest nothing new or extraordinary, for it [...]

"A learned Theosophist, a practicing physician of this country, one who has studied the occult sciences and alchemy for over thirty years, has succeeded in reducing the elements to their primal form, and made what is termed "the pre-Adamite earth." It appears in the form of an earthly precipitate from pure water, which, on being [...]

"Speaking of Kashmere, Marco Polo observes that they have an astonishing acquaintance with the devilries of enchantment, insomuch that they make their idols to speak. To this day, the greatest magian mystics of these regions may be found in Kashmere. The various religious sects of this country were always credited with preternatural powers, and were [...]

"Marco Polo tell us that in some mountains of Tibet, which he calls Chingintalas, there are veins of the substance from which Salamander is made: "For the real truth is, that the salamander is no beast, as they allege in our parts of the world, but is a substance found in the earth." Then he [...]

"This question of transmutation, this alkahest or universal solvent, which comes next after the elixir vitae in the order of the three alchemical agents? Is the idea so absurd as to be totally unworthy of consideration in this age of chemical discovery? How shall we dispose of the historical anecdotes of men who actually made [...]

"Our greatest wonder is, that the very men who view the human body simply as a "digesting machine" should object to the idea that if some equivalent for metalline could be applied between its molecules, it should run without friction. Man's body is taken from the earth, or dust, according to Genesis; which allegory bars [...]

""Fifty years ago", says the venerable Mr. de Lara, "a Hamburg paper, quoting from an English one an account of the opening of the Manchester and Liverpool Railway, pronounced it a gross fabrication; capping the climax by saying, 'even so far extends the credulity of the English'"; the moral is apparent. The recent discovery of [...]

"It is a dogma of science that perpetual motion is impossible; it is another dogma, that the allegation that the Hermetists discovered the elixir of life, and that certain of them, by partaking of it, prolonged their existence far beyond the usual term, is a superstitious absurdity. And the claim that the baser metals have [...]