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

"On no subject within the wide range of human knowledge, has the world been more blinded or deceived with such persistent misrepresentation, as on that of antiquity. Its hoary past and its religious faiths have been misrepresented and trampled under the feet of its successors. Its hierophants and prophets, mystae and epoptae, of the once [...]

"Before the shrine of Jupiter Ammon were suspended tinkling bells, from the sound of whose chiming the priests gathered the auguries; "A golden bell and a pomegranate...round about the hem of the robe", was the result with the Mosaic Jews. But in the Buddhistic system, during the religious services, the gods of the Deva Loka [...]

"If we would find the model of the Papal tiara, we must search the annals of the ancient Assyrian tablets. We invite the reader to give his attention to Dr. Inman's illustrated work, Ancient Pagan and Modern Christian Symbolism. On page sixty-four, he will readily recognize the head-gear of the successor of St. Peter in [...]

"In a manuscript of the first century, a combination of the Demotic and Greek texts, and mostly probably one of the few which miraculously escaped the Christian vandalism of the second and third centuries, when all such precious manuscripts were burned as magical, we find occurring in several places a phrase, which, perhaps, may throw [...]

"As to Peter, biblical criticism has shown before now that he had probably no more to do with the foundation of the Latin Church at Rome, than to furnish the pretext so readily seized upon by the cunning Irenaeus to benefit this Church with the new name of the apostle - Petra or Kiffa, a [...]

"Paul declares that: "According to the grace of God, which is given unto me, as a wise master-builder, I have laid the foundation." This expression, master-builder, used only once in the whole Bible, and by Paul, may be considered as a whole revelation. In the Mysteries, the third part of the sacred rites was called [...]

"The erudite author of Supernatural Religion assiduously endeavors to prove that by Simon Magus we must understand the apostle Paul, whose Epistles were secretly as well as openly calumniated by Peter, and charged with containing "dysnoetic learning." The Apostle of the Gentiles was brave, outspoken, sincere, and very learned; the Apostle of Circumcision, cowardly, cautious, [...]

""Augustine and Cyprian admit that Hermes and Hostanes believed in one true god; the first two maintaining, as well as the two Pagans, that he is invisible and incomprehensible, except spiritually. Moreover, we invite any man of intelligence - provided he be not a religious fanatic - after reading fragments chosen at random from the [...]

"It really seems too bad to strip Rome of all her symbols at once; but justice must be done to the despoiled hierophants. Long before the sign of the cross was adopted as a Christian symbol, it was employed as a secret sign of recognition among neophytes and adepts. Says Levi: "The sign of the [...]

"For the purpose of comparison, we have not even availed ourselves of the ritual of ceremonial magic of the Christian kabalists of the middle ages, wherein the language modeled upon a belief in the divinity of Christ is, with the exception of a stray expression here and there, identical with the Catholic Ritual. The latter, [...]