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

"Diodorus, of Sicily, Herodotus, and Sanchoniathon, the Phoenician - the oldest of historians - tell us that these Mysteries originated in the night of time, centuries and probably thousands of years prior to the historical period. One of the best proofs of it we find in a most remarkable picture, in Raoul-Rochette's Monuments d' Antiquite [...]

"Professor Carpenter vaunts the advanced philosophy of the present day which "ignores no fact however strange that can be attested by valid evidence"; and yet he would be the first to reject the claims of the ancients to philosophical and scientific knowledge, although based upon evidence quite "as valid" as that which supports the pretensions [...]

"Unfortunately, human skepticism is a stronghold capable of defying any amount of testimony. And to begin with Mr. Huxley, our men of science accept of but so much as suits them, and no more. "Oh shame to men! devil with devil damn'd Firm concord holds - men only disagree Of creatures rational...." How can we [...]

"So much for the opinions of the English scientists. The Americans have not done much better. In 1857, a committee of Harvard University warned the public against investigating this subject, which "corrupts the morals and degrades the intellect." They called it, furthermore, "a contaminating influence, which surely tends to lessen the truth of man and [...]

"We are told, in behalf of science, that she accepts no other mode of investigation than observation and experiment. Agreed; and have we not the records of say three thousand years of observation of facts going to prove the occult powers of man? As to experiment, what better opportunity could have been asked than the [...]

"The ancients made the wick of their perpetual lamps from another stone also, which they called Lapis Carystius. The inhabitants of the city of Carystos seemed to have made no secret of it, as Matthaeus Raderus says in his work that they "kemb'd, spun, and wove this downy stone into mantles, table-linen, and the like, [...]

"Dr. Grew, in his description of the curiosities in Gresham College (seventeenth century), believes the art, as well as the use of such linen, altogether lost, but it appears that it was not quite so, for we find the Museum Septalius boasting of the possession of thread, ropes, paper, and net-work done of this material [...]

"St. Augustine, who attributes the whole of these arts to the Christian scapegoat, the devil, is flatly contradicted by Ludovicus Vives, who shows that all such would-be magical operations are the work of man's industry and deep study of the hidden secrets of nature, wonderful and miraculous as they may seem. Podocattarus, a Cypriote knight, [...]

"Asbestos , which was known to the Greeks under the name of Ασβεστος, or inextinguishable, is a kind of stone, which once set on fire cannot be quenched, as Pliny and Solinus tell us. Albertus Magnus describes it as a stone of an iron color, found mostly in Arabia. It is generally found covered with [...]

"There are some peculiar preparations of gold, silver, and mercury; also of naptha, petroleum, and other bituminous oils. Alchemists also name the oil of camphor and amber, the Lapis asbestos seu Amianthus, the Lapis Carystius, Cyprius, and Linum vivum seu Creteum, as employed for such lamps. They affirm that such matter can be prepared either [...]