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

"It is simply ridiculous and absurd to require from every investigator who comes forward as a witness to the marvels of the day and psychological phenomena the diploma of a master of arts and sciences. The experience of the past forty years is an evidence that it is not always the minds which are the [...]

"The materializing mediums - at least so far as our observation extends - are no more uneducated than many peasants and mechanics who at different times have, under supernal influences, given profound and sublime ideas to the world. The history of psychology teems with examples in illustration of this point, among which that of Boehme, [...]

"There is good evidence, that of Mr. Crookes for one, to show that many "materialized" spirits talk in an audible voice. Now, we have shown, on the testimony of ancients, that the voice of human spirits is not and cannot be articulated; being, as Emanuel Swedenborg declares, "a deep suspiration." Who of the two classes [...]

"Perhaps, among the whole body of spiritualist writers of our day, not one is held in higher esteem for character, education, sincerity, and ability, than Epes Sargent, of Boston, Massachusetts. His monograph entitled The Proof Palpable of Immortality, deservedly occupies a high rank among works upon the subject. With every disposition to be charitable and [...]

"Everything in this world has its time, and truth, however based upon unimpeachable evidence, will not root or grow, unless, like a plant, it is thrown into soil in its proper season. "The age must be prepared", says Professor Cooke; and some thirty years ago this humble work would have been doomed to self-destruction by [...]

"Porphyry, whose works - to borrow the expression of an irritated phenomenalist - "are mouldering like every other antiquated trash in the closets of oblivion", speaks thus of these Diakka - if such be their name - rediscovered in the nineteenth century: "It is with the direct help of these bad demons, that every kind [...]

"The forgoing sketches are sufficient to show why we hold fast to the wisdom of the ages, in preference to any new theories that may have been hatched from the occurrences of our later days, respecting the laws of intermundane intercourse and the occult powers of man. While phenomena of a physical nature may have [...]

"But, as we have said before, there are real and God-like healers, who, notwithsatnding all the malice and skepticism of their bigoted opponents, have become famous in the world's history. Such are the Cure d'Ars, of Lyons, Jacob, and Newton. Such, also, were Gassner, the clergyman of Klorstele, and the well-known Valentine Greatrakes, the ignorant [...]

"If a diseased person - medium or not - attempts to heal, his force may be sufficiently robust to displace the disease, to disturb it in the present place, and cause it to shift to another where shortly it will disappear; the patient, meanwhile, thinking himself cured. But, what if the healer be morally diseased? [...]

"But if the patient has no faith, what then? If he is physically negative and receptive, and the healer strong, healthy, positive, determined, the disease may be extirpated by the imperative will of the operator, which, consciously or unconsciously, draws to and reinforces itself with the universal spirit of nature, and restores the disturbed equilibrium [...]