Table Of Contents

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

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PREFACE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v

BEFORE THE VEIL Dogmatic assumptions of modern science and theology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix

The Platonic philosophy affords the only middle ground . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi

Review of the ancient philosophical systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .xv

A Syriac manuscript on Simon Magus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .xxiii

Glossary of terms used in this book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxiii

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Volume First

THE “INFALLIBILITY” OF MODERN SCIENCE

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CHAPTER I.

OLD THINGS WITH NEW NAMES. The Oriental Kabala . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1

Ancient traditions supported by modern research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3

The progress of mankind marked by cycles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Ancient cryptic science . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7

Priceless value of the Vedas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Mutilations of the Jewish sacred books in translation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Magic always regarded as a divine science . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .25

Old Things With New Names – Chapter 1

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THE VEIL OF ISIS

PART ONE. – SCIENCE

 “Ego sum qui sum.” — An axiom of Hermetic Philosophy.

  “We commenced research where modern conjecture closes its faithless wings. And with

us, those were the common elements of science which the sages of to-day disdain as

wild chimeras, or despair of as unfathomable mysteries.” — BULWER’S “ZANONI.” THERE exists somewhere in this wide world an old Book — so very old that our modern antiquarians might ponder over its pages an indefinite time, and still not quite agree as to the nature of the fabric upon which it is written. It is the only original copy now in existence. The most ancient Hebrew document on occult learning — the Siphra Dzeniouta — was compiled from it, and that at a time when the former was already considered in the light of a literary relic. One of its illustrations represents the Divine Essence emanating from ADAM  like a luminous arc proceeding to form a circle; and then, having attained the highest point of its circumference, the ineffable Glory bends back again, and returns to earth, bringing a higher type of humanity in its vortex. As it approaches nearer and nearer to our planet, the Emanation becomes more and more shadowy, until upon touching the ground it is as black as night.

A conviction, founded upon seventy thousand years of experience, as they allege, has been entertained by hermetic philosophers of all periods that matter has in time become, through sin, more gross and dense than it was at man’s first formation; that, at the beginning, the

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human body was of a half-ethereal nature; and that, before the fall, mankind communed freely with the now unseen universes. But since that time matter has become the formidable barrier between us and the world of spirits. The oldest esoteric traditions also teach that, before the mystic Adam, many races of human beings lived and died out, each giving place in its turn to another. Were these precedent types more perfect? Did any of them belong to the winged race of men mentioned by Plato in Phaedrus? It is the special province of science to solve the problem. The caves of France and the relics of the stone age afford a point at which to begin.

As the cycle proceeded, man’s eyes were more and more opened, until he came to know “good and evil” as well as the Elohim themselves. Having reached its summit, the cycle began to go downward. When the arc attained a certain point which brought it parallel with the fixed line of our terrestrial plane, the man was furnished by nature with “coats of skin,” and the Lord God “clothed them.”

This same belief in the pre-existence of a far more spiritual race than the one to which we now belong can be traced back to the earliest traditions of nearly every people. In the ancient Quiche manuscript, published by Brasseur de Bourbourg — the Popol Vuh — the first men are mentioned as a race that could reason and speak, whose sight was unlimited, and who knew all things at once. According to Philo Judaeus, the air is filled with an invisible host of spirits, some of whom are free from evil and immortal, and others are pernicious and mortal. “From the sons of EL we are descended, and sons of EL must we become again.”

And the unequivocal statement of the anonymous Gnostic who wrote The Gospel according to John, that “as many as received Him,” i.e., who followed practically the esoteric doctrine of Jesus, would “become the sons of God,” points to the same belief. (i., 12.) “Know ye not, ye are gods?” exclaimed the Master. Plato describes admirably in Phaedrus the state in which man once was, and what he will become again: before, and after the “loss of his wings”; when “he lived among the gods, a god himself in the airy world.”

From the remotest periods religious philosophies taught that the whole universe was filled with divine and spiritual beings of divers races. From one of these evolved, in the course of time, ADAM, the primitive man.

Phenomena And Forces – Chapter 2

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“Pride, where wit fails, steps in to our defence

And fills up all the mighty void of sense. . . . ” — POPE.

“But why should the operations of nature be changed? There may be a deeper

philosophy than we dream of — a philosophy that discovers the secrets of nature, but

does not alter, by penetrating them, its course.” — BULWER. IS it enough for man to know that he exists? Is it enough to be formed a human being to enable him to deserve the appellation of MAN? It is our decided impression and conviction, that to become a genuine spiritual entity, which that designation implies, man must first create himself anew, so to speak — i.e., thoroughly eliminate from his mind and spirit, not only the dominating influence of selfishness and other impurity, but also the infection of superstition and prejudice. The latter is far different from what we commonly term antipathy or sympathy. We are at first irresistibly or unwittingly drawn within its dark circle by that peculiar influence, that powerful current of magnetism which emanates from ideas as well as from physical bodies. By this we are surrounded, and finally prevented through moral cowardice — fear of public opinion — from stepping out of it. It is rare that men regard a thing in either its true or false light, accepting the conclusion by the free action of their own judgment. Quite the reverse. The conclusion is more commonly reached by blindly adopting the opinion current at the hour among those with whom they associate. A church member will not pay an absurdly high price for his pew any more than a materialist will go twice to listen to Mr. Huxley’s talk on evolution, because they think that it is right to do so; but merely because Mr. and Mrs. So-and-so have done it, and these personages are THE S—- AND S—-‘s.

The same holds good with everything else. If psychology had had its Darwin, the descent of man as regards moral qualities might have been found inseparably linked with that of his physical form. Society in its servile condition suggests to the intelligent observer of its mimicry a kinship between the Simia and human beings even more striking than is exhibited in the external marks pointed out by the great anthropologist.

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The many varieties of the ape — “mocking presentments of ourselves” — appear to have been evolved on purpose to supply a certain class of expensively-dressed persons with the material for genealogical trees. Science is daily and rapidly moving toward the great discoveries in chemistry and physics, organology, and anthropology. Learned men ought to be free from preconceptions and prejudices of every kind; yet, although thought and opinion are now free, scientists are still the same men as of old. An Utopian dreamer is he who thinks that man ever changes with the evolution and development of new ideas. The soil may be well fertilized and made to yield with every year a greater and better variety of fruit; but, dig a little deeper than the stratum required for the crop, and the same earth will be found in the subsoil as was there before the first furrow was turned.

Not many years ago, the person who questioned the infallibility of some theological dogma was branded at once an iconoclast and an infidel. Vae victis! . . . Science has conquered. But in its turn the victor claims the same infallibility, though it equally fails to prove its right. “Tempora mutantur et nos mutamur in illis,” the saying of the good old Lotharius, applies to the case. Nevertheless, we feel as if we had some right to question the high-priests of science.

For many years we have watched the development and growth of that apple of discord — MODERN SPIRITUALISM. Familiar with its literature both in Europe and America, we have closely and eagerly witnessed its interminable controversies and compared its contradictory hypotheses. Many educated men and women — heterodox spiritualists, of course — have tried to fathom the Protean phenomena.

The only result was that they came to the following conclusion: whatever may be the reason of these constant failures — whether such are to be laid at the door of the investigators themselves, or of the secret Force at work — it is at least proved that, in proportion as the psychological manifestations increase in frequency and variety, the darkness surrounding their origin becomes more impenetrable.

Blind Leaders Of The Blind – Chapter 3

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“The mirror of the soul cannot reflect both earth and heaven; and the one vanishes from

its surface, as the other is glassed upon its deep.” ZANONI.

“Qui, donc, t’a donne la mission d’annoncer au peuple que la Divinite n’existe pas — quel

avantage trouves tu a persuader a l’homme qu’une force aveugle preside a ses destinees

et frappe au hasard le crime et la vertu?”

ROBESPIERRE (Discours), May 7, 1794. WE believe that few of those physical phenomena which are genuine are caused by disembodied human spirits. Still, even those that are produced by occult forces of nature, such as happen through a few genuine mediums, and are consciously employed by the so-called “jugglers” of India and Egypt, deserve a careful and serious investigation by science; especially now that a number of respected authorities have testified that in many cases the hypothesis of fraud does not hold. No doubt, there are professed “conjurors” who can perform cleverer tricks than all the American and English “John Kings” together. Robert Houdin unquestionably could, but this did not prevent his laughing outright in the face of the academicians, when they desired him to assert in the newspapers, that he could make a table move, or rap answers to questions, without contact of hands, unless the table was a prepared one. The fact alone, that a now notorious London juggler refused to accept a challenge for £1,000 offered him by Mr. Algernon Joy, to produce such manifestations as are usually obtained through mediums, unless he was left unbound and free from the hands of a committee, negatives his expose of the occult phenomena. Clever as he may be, we defy and challenge him to reproduce, under the same conditions, the “tricks” exhibited even by a common Indian juggler. For instance, the spot to be chosen by the investigators at the moment of the performance, and the juggler to know nothing of the choice; the experiment to be made in broad daylight, without the least preparations for it; without any confederate but a boy absolutely naked, and the juggler to be in a condition of semi-nudity. After that, we should select out of a variety three tricks, the most common among such public jugglers, and that were recently exhibited to some gentlemen belonging to

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the suite of the Prince of Wales: 1. To transform a rupee — firmly clasped in the hand of a skeptic — into a living cobra, the bite of which would prove fatal, as an examination of its fangs would show. 2. To cause a seed chosen at random by the spectators, and planted in the first semblance of a flower-pot, furnished by the same skeptics, to grow, mature, and bear fruit in less than a quarter of an hour. 3. To stretch himself on three swords, stuck perpendicularly in the ground at their hilts, the sharp points upward; after that, to have removed first one of the swords, then the other, and, after an interval of a few seconds, the last one, the juggler remaining, finally, lying on nothing — on the air, miraculously suspended at about one yard from the ground. When any prestidigitateur, to begin with Houdin and end with the last trickster who has secured gratuitous advertisement by attacking spiritualism, does the same, then — but only then — we will train ourselves to believe that mankind has been evolved out of the hind-toe of Mr. Huxley’s Eocene Orohippus.

 We assert again, in full confidence, that there does not exist a professional wizard, either of the North, South or West, who can compete with anything approaching success, with these untutored, naked sons of the East. These require no Egyptian Hall for their performances, nor any preparations or rehearsals; but are ever ready, at a moment’s notice, to evoke to their help the hidden powers of nature, which, for European prestidigitateurs as well as for scientists, are a closed book. Verily, as Elihu puts it, “great men are not always wise; neither do the aged understand judgment.” To repeat the remark of the English divine, Dr. Henry More, we may well say: “. . . indeed, if there were any modesty left in mankind, the histories of the Bible might abundantly assure men of the existence of angels and spirits.”

Theories Respecting Psychic Phenomena – Chapter 4

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 “I choose the nobler part of Emerson, when, after various disenchantments, he

exclaimed, ‘I covet Truth.’ The gladness of true heroism visits the heart of him who is

really competent to say this.” — TYNDALL.

“A testimony is sufficient when it rests on:

1st. A great number of very sensible witnesses who agree in having seen well.

2d. Who are sane, bodily and mentally.

3d. Who are impartial and disinterested.

4th. Who unanimously agree.

5th. Who solemnly certify to the fact.” — VOLTAIRE, Dictiannaire Philosophique.  THE Count Agenor de Gasparin is a devoted Protestant. His battle with des Mousseaux, de Mirville and other fanatics who laid the whole of the spiritual phenomena at the door of Satan, was long and fierce. Two volumes of over fifteen hundred pages are the result, proving the effects, denying the cause, and employing superhuman efforts to invent every other possible explanation that could be suggested rather than the true one.

The severe rebuke received by the Journal des Debats from M. de Gasparin, was read by all civilized Europe. After that gentleman had minutely described numerous manifestations that he had witnessed himself, this journal very impertinently proposed to the authorities in France to send all those who, after having read the fine analysis of the “spiritual hallucinations” published by Faraday, should insist on crediting this delusion, to the lunatic asylum for Incurables. “Take care,” wrote de Gasparin in answer, “the representatives of the exact sciences are on their way to become . . . the Inquisitors of our days. . . . Facts are stronger than Academies. Rejected, denied, mocked, they nevertheless are facts, and do exist.”

The following affirmations of physical phenomena, as witnessed by himself and Professor Thury, may be found in de Gasparin’s voluminous work.

“The experimenters have often seen the legs of the table glued, so to say, to the floor, and, notwithstanding the excitement of those present, refuse to be moved from their place. On other occasions they have seen the tables levitated in quite an energetic way. They heard, with their own

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ears, loud as well as gentle raps, the former threatening to shatter the table to pieces on account of their violence, the latter so soft as to become hardly perceptible. . . . As to LEVITATIONS WITHOUT CONTACT, we found means to produce them easily, and with success. . . . And such levitations do not pertain to isolated results. We have reproduced them over THIRTY times. . . . One day the table will turn, and lift its legs successively, its weight being augmented by a man weighing eighty-seven kilogrammes seated on it; another time it will remain motionless and immovable, notwithstanding that the person placed on it weighs but sixty.. . . On one occasion we willed it to turn upside down, and it turned over, with its legs in the air, notwithstanding that our fingers never touched it once.”

“It is certain,” remarks de Mirville, “that a man who had repeatedly witnessed such a phenomenon, could not accept the fine analysis of the English physicist.”

Since 1850, des Mousseaux and de Mirville, uncompromising Roman Catholics, have published many volumes whose titles are cleverly contrived to attract public attention. They betray on the part of the authors a very serious alarm, which, moreover, they take no pains to conceal. Were it possible to consider the phenomena spurious, the church of Rome would never have gone so much out of her way to repress them.

Both sides having agreed upon the facts, leaving skeptics out of the question, people could divide themselves into but two parties: the believers in the direct agency of the devil, and the believers in disembodied and other spirits. The fact alone, that theology dreaded a great deal more the revelations which might come through this mysterious agency than all the threatening “conflicts” with Science and the categorical denials of the latter, ought to have opened the eyes of the most skeptical. The church of Rome has never been either credulous or cowardly, as is abundantly proved by the Machiavellism which marks her policy. Moreover, she has never troubled herself much about the clever prestidigitateurs whom she knew to be simply adepts in juggling. Robert Houdin, Comte, Hamilton and Bosco, slept secure in their beds, while she persecuted such men as Paracelsus, Cagliostro, and Mesmer, the Hermetic philosophers and mystics — and effectually stopped every genuine manifestation of an occult nature by killing the mediums.