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

"It is a well-known fact to both mediums and spiritualists, that the more the former is passive, the better the manifestations; and every one of the above-mentioned phenomena requires a conscious predetermined will. In cases of levitation, we should have to believe that this self-generated force would raise the inert mass off the ground, direct [...]

"Before we fairly proceed on our analysis of such views we must remind the reader that we find ourselves placed between two extreme opposites represented by two parties - the believers and unbelievers in this agency of human spirits. Neither seem capable of deciding the point raised by Mr. Cox; for while the spiritualists are [...]

"In Mr. Crookes' Notes of an Enquiry into the Phenomena called Spiritual, on p. 101, this gentleman quotes Mr. Sergeant Cox, who having named this unknown force, psychic, explains it thus: "As the organism is itself moved and directed within the structure by a force - which either is, or is not controlled by - [...]

""Facts are stubborn things", remarks Mr. A. R. Wallace, in his preface to Miracles and Modern Spiritualism. Therefore, as facts must be our strongest allies, we will bring as many of these forward as the "miracles" of antiquity and those of our modern times will furnish us with. The authors of the Unseen Universe have [...]

"The probability of falsification by such men having been defined so clearly by a man of science, we feel free from the necessity of discussing the question in connection with the names of Van Helmont and his illustrious but unfortunate master, the much slandered Paracelsus. Deleuze, though finding in the works of the former many [...]

"In a recent address at Nashville, Tennessee, Professor Huxley laid down a certain rule with respect to the validity of human testimony as a basis of history and science, which we are quite ready to apply to the present case. "It is impossible", he says, "that one's practical life should not be more or less [...]

""It may throw some light to observe, that Van Helmont, as well as Paracelsus, took water for the universal instrument (agent?) of chymistry and natural philosophy; and earth for the unchangeable basis of all things - that fire was assigned as the sufficient cause of all things - that Seminal impressions were lodged in the [...]

"Professor Sterry Hunt says in one of his lectures: "The alchemists sought in vain for a universal solvent; but we now know that water, aided in some cases by heat, pressure, and the presence of certain widely-distributed substances, such as carbonic acid and akaline carbonates and sulphides, will dissolve the most insoluble bodies; so that [...]

"The objection that might be made by Professor Cooke, in behalf of modern science, to the hermetic expressions, would equally apply to the Egyptian hieratic writings - they hide that which was meant to be concealed. If he would profit by the labors of the past, he must employ the cryptographer, and not the satirist. [...]

"Is Professor Cooke, so eminent in modern chemistry, equally proficient in the knowledge of what the alchemists did or did not know? Is he quite sure that he understands the meaning of the alchemical diction? We are not. But let us compare his views as above expressed with but sentences written in plain and good, [...]