Creating a sensation when it was first published in 1877, the first major work by the young Russian noblewoman who would found the Theosophical Society devoted 1200 pages to the mysteries of ancient and modern science and theology. This new edition abridged by Theosophical scholar Michael Gomes breathes fresh life into this classic of Western esoteric thinking. Stripped of its lengthy quotations from other writers and its repetitious commentary, Isis Unveiled is revealed to be a clear and readable exploration of the universal truths of the Ancient Wisdom Tradition by one of the most remarkable women of modern times.
This meticulously edited collection has been formatted for your eReader with a functional and detailed table of contents. The works of Helena Blavatsky will reveal you the secrets Theosophy and its mystical teachings. The nature is not "a fortuitous concurrence of atoms," and will assign to man his rightful place in the scheme of the Universe. Content: Isis Unveiled The Secret Doctrine The Key to Theosophy The Voice of the Silence Studies in Occultism From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan Nightmare Tales
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Isis Unveiled H. P. Blavatsky - Includes the complete Volumes I and II of Isis Unveiled. Blavatsky's first major work on theosophy, examining religion and science in the light of Western and Oriental ancient wisdom and occult and spiritualistic phenomena.
Nearly twenty-five hundred years ago the Greek thinker Heraclitus supposedly uttered the cryptic words "Phusis kruptesthai philei." How the aphorism, usually translated as "Nature loves to hide," has haunted Western culture ever since is the subject of this engaging study by Pierre Hadot. Taking the allegorical figure of the veiled goddess Isis as a guide, and drawing on the work of both the ancients and later thinkers such as Goethe, Rilke, Wittgenstein, and Heidegger, Hadot traces successive interpretations of Heraclitus' words. Over time, Hadot finds, "Nature loves to hide" has meant that all that lives tends to die; that Nature wraps herself in myths; and (for Heidegger) that Being unveils as it veils itself. Meanwhile the pronouncement has been used to explain everything from the opacity of the natural world to our modern angst. From these kaleidoscopic exegeses and usages emerge two contradictory approaches to nature: the Promethean, or experimental-questing, approach, which embraces technology as a means of tearing the veil from Nature and revealing her secrets; and the Orphic, or contemplative-poetic, approach, according to which such a denuding of Nature is a grave trespass. In place of these two attitudes Hadot proposes one suggested by the Romantic vision of Rousseau, Goethe, and Schelling, who saw in the veiled Isis an allegorical expression of the sublime. "Nature is art and art is nature," Hadot writes, inviting us to embrace Isis and all she represents: art makes us intensely aware of how completely we ourselves are not merely surrounded by nature but also part of nature.
Defying the hand of time, the vain inquiry of profane science, the insults of the “revealed” religions, they will disclose their riddles to none but the legatees of those by whom they were entrusted with the Mystery. The key was in the keeping of those who knew how to commune with the invisible Presence, and who had received from the lips of mother Nature herself, her grand truths. And so stand these imperial monuments of long-crumbled dynasties, like mute, forgotten sentinels on the threshold of that unseen world, whose gates are thrown open but to a few elect.
Isis Unveiled, A Master-Key to the Mysteries of Ancient and Modern of Science and Theology by H. P. Blavatsky. Volume 1 of 2: The "Infallibility of Science. CONTENTS include: Before the Veil--Old Things with New Names--Phenomena and Forces--Blind Leaders of the Blind--Theories Respecting Psychic Phenomena--The Ether, or "Astral Light"--Psycho-Physical Phenomena--The Elements, Elementals, and Elementaries--Some Mysteries of Nature--Cyclic Phenomena--The Inner and Outer Man--Psychological and Physical Marvels--The "Impassable Chasm"--Realities and Illusion--Egyptian Wisdom--India, The Cradle of the Race. Reproduction of the 1877 Edition.
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1919 edition. Excerpt: ... MAN'S YEARNING FOR IMMORTALITY 37 that melancholy can throw at a man, to tell him that he is at the end of his nature, or that there is no future state to come, unto which this seems progressive, and otherwise made in vain." Let any religion offer itself that can supply these proofs in the shape of scientific facts, and the established system will be driven to the alternative of fortifying its dogmas with such facts, or of passing out of the reverence and affection of Christendom. Many a Christian divine has been forced to acknowledge that there is no authentic source whence the assurance of a future state could have been derived by man. How could then such a belief have stood for countless ages, were it not that among all nations, whether civilized or savage, man has been allowed the demonstrative proof? Is not the very existence of such a belief an evidence that thinking philosopher and unreasoning savage have both been compelled to acknowledge the testimony of their senses? That if, in isolated instances, spectral illusion may have resulted from physical causes, on the other hand, in thousands of instances, apparitions of persons have held converse with several individuals at once, who saw and heard them collectively, and could not all have been diseased in mind? The greatest thinkers of Greece and Rome regarded such matters as demonstrated facts. They distinguished the apparitions by the names of manes, anima and umbra: the manes descending after the decease of the individual into the Underworld; the anima, or pure spirit, ascending to heaven; and the restless umbra (earth-bound spirit) hovering about its tomb, because the attraction of matter and love of its earthly body prevailed in it and prevented its ascension to higher regions....
