Category: Isis Unveiled, Volume II: H. P. Blavatsky (1877)

“Apollonius, a contemporary of Jesus of Nazareth, was, like him, an enthusiastic founder of a new spiritual school. Perhaps less metaphysical and more practical than Jesus, less tender and perfect in his nature, he nevertheless inculcated the same quintessence of spirituality, and the same high moral truths. His great mistake was to confine them too [...]

“While the mythical birth and life of Jesus are a faithful copy of those of the Brahmanical Christna, his historical character of a religious reformer in Palestine is the true type of Buddha in India. In more than one respect their great resemblance in philanthropic and spiritual aspirations, as well as external circumstances is truly [...]

“After reading the following philosophical aphorisms, who can believe that Jesus and Paul had never read the Grecian and Indian philosophers? Sentences from Sextus, the Pythagorean, and other Heathen: 1. “Possess not treasures, but those things which no one can take from you.” 2. “It is better for a part of the body which contains [...]

“In the notes taken by a traveler – whose episode with the monks on Mount Athos we have mentioned elsewhere – we find that, during his early life, Jesus had frequent intercourse with the Essenes belonging to the Pythagorean school and known as the Koinobi. We believe it rather hazardous on the part of Renan [...]

“How little Jesus had impressed his personality upon his own century, is calculated to astound the inquirer. Renan shows that Philo, who died toward the year 50, and who was born many years earlier than Jesus, living all the while in Palestine while the “glad tidings” were being preached all over the country, according to [...]

“Deep researches would show”, says Renan, “that nearly everything in Christianity is mere baggage brought from the Pagan Mysteries. The primitive Christian worship is nothing but a mystery. The whole interior police of the Church, the degrees of initiation, the command of silence, and a crowd of phrases in the ecclesiastical language, have no other [...]

“There never was a great religious reform that was not pure at the beginning. The first followers of Buddha, as well as the disciples of Jesus, were all men of the highest morality. The aversion felt by the reformers of all ages to vice under any shape, is proved in the cases of Sakya-muni, Pythagoras, [...]

““Haeretics” are accused of crimes in which the Church has more or less openly indulged even down to the beginning of our century. In 1233, Pope Gregory IX., issued two bulls against the Stedingers “for various heathen and magical practices”, and the latter, as a matter of course, were exterminated in the name of Christ [...]

“As we have already shown, it is only Epiphanius whom we find giving such minute details as to the Masonic “grips” and other signs of recognition among the Gnostics. He had once belonged to their number, and therefore it was easy for him to furnish particulars. Only how far the worthy Bishop is to be [...]

“The sin was merely – marriage. John was a “virgin”; several of the Fathers assert the fact on the authority of tradition. Even Paul, the most liberal and high-minded of them all, finds it difficult to reconcile the position of a married man with that of a faithful servant of God. There is also “a [...]