isis unveiled, volume 2: chapter xii (gazing upon the unveiled truth)

“From time immemorial, in Russia, in the month of May, on Trinity Day, maidens from city and village have been in the habit of casting upon the river wreaths of green leaves – which each girl has to form herself – and consulting their oracles. If the wreath sinks, it is a sign that the [...]

isis unveiled, volume 2: chapter xii (gazing upon the unveiled truth)

“The recent experiments with the telephone in America, to which allusion was made in Chapter 5, of our first volume, but which have been greatly perfected since those pages went to press, prove that the human voice and the sounds of instrumental music may be conveyed along a telegraphic wire to a great distance. The [...]

isis unveiled, volume 2: chapter xi (fishers of men and their doctrines)

“Having repeated the plagiarized story, Diego de Couto, who seems to yield up with reluctance his curious notion that Gautama was Joshua, says: “To this name (Budao) the Gentiles throughout all India have dedicated great and superb pagodas. With reference to this story, we have been diligent in inquiring if the ancient Gentiles of those [...]

isis unveiled, vol 2: chapter xi (fishers of men and their doctrines)

“Notwithstanding the impossibility for Christian missionaries to understand clearly the spirit of a religion wholly based on that doctrine of emanation, which is so inimical to their own theology, the reasoning powers of some simple Buddhistical preachers are so high, that we see a scholar like Gutzlaff, utterly silenced and put to great straits by [...]

isis unveiled, vol 2: chapter xi (fishers of men and their doctrines)

“The “soul” under trial is brought before Osiris, the “Lord of Truth”, who sits decorated with the Egyptian cross, emblem of eternal life, and holding in his right hand the Vannus or the flagellum of justice. The spirit begins, in the “Hall of the Two Truths”, an earnest appeal, and enumerates its good deeds, supported [...]

isis unveiled, vol 2: chapter xi (fishers of men and their doctrines)

“O Divine Justice, how blasphemed has been thy name! Unfortunately for all such speculations, belief in the propitiatory efficacy of blood can be traced to the oldest rites. Hardly a nation remained ignorant of it. Every people offered animal and even human sacrifices to the gods, in the hope of averting thereby public calamity, by [...]