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

"How natural that a philosophy which could engender such a caste of didactic incubi, should express through the pen of one of its most garrulous essayists, the following sentiments:   "This is a sad, a very sad age, full of dead and dying faiths; full of idle prayers sent out in vain search for the [...]

"And now, if we are permitted to ask in the name of common-sense, why should Christian mystics be taxed with credulity or the spiritualists be consigned to Bedlam, when a religion embodying such revolting absurdity finds disciples even among Academicians? - when such insane rhapsodies as the following can be uttered by the mouth of [...]

"The Positivists of America have joined hands in their untiring efforts to overthrow Spiritualism. To show their impartiality, though, they propound such novel queries as follows: "...how much rationality is there in the dogmas of the Immaculate Conception, the Trinity and Transubstantiation, if submitted to the tests of physiology, mathematics, and chemistry?" And they "undertake [...]

"In 1864, M. Paul Janet, a member of the institute, pronounced a discourse upon Positivism, in which occur the following remarkable words:   "There are some minds which were brought up and fed on exact and positive sciences, but which feel nevertheless, a sort of instinctive impulse for philosophy. They can satisfy this instinct but [...]

"In short, Positivism proposes to itself to destroy Theology, Metaphysics, Spiritualism, Atheism, Materialism, Pantheism, and Science, and it must finally end in destroying itself.   De Mirville thinks that according to Positivism, "order will begin to reign in the human mind only on the day when psychology will become a sort of cerebral physics, and [...]

""Positivism", perorates one of them, "is an integral doctrine. It rejects completely all forms of theological and metaphysical belief; all forms of supernaturalism, and thus - Spiritualism. The true positive spirit consists in substituting the study of the invariable laws of phenomena for that of their so-called causes, whether proximate or primary.   On this [...]

"It really would be losing time to quote any more of these paradoxical dissertations. Comte attained to the apotheosis of absurdity and inconsistency when, after inventing his philosophy, he named it a "Religion". And, as is usually the case, the disciples have surpassed the reformer - in absurdity.   Supposititious philosophers, who shine in the [...]

"In the opinion of the Romish clergy, who labour under a chronic nightmare of the devil, Comte offers his "woman of the future" to the possession of the "incubi." In the opinion of more prosaic persons, the Divinity of Positivism, must henceforth be regarded as a biped broodmare.   Even Littre, made prudent restrictions while [...]

"It would be vain to seek, either through the tedious circumlocution of the six volumes of hid Cours de Philosophie Positive, or in that parody on priesthood, in the form of a dialogue - The Catechism of the Religion of Positivism - any idea suggestive of even provisional remedies for such evils. His disciples suggest [...]

"Plato, in the fifth book of the Republic, suggests a method for improving the human race by the elimination of the unhealthy or deformed individuals, and by coupling the better specimens of both sexes. It was not to be expected that the "genius of our century", even were he a prophet, would squeeze out of [...]