Isis unveiled

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Isis unveiled, a master key to the mysteries of ancient and modern science and theology. ( Isis Unveiled - A Master Key to the Mysteries of Ancient and Modern Science and Theology ) by Helena Petrovna Blavatsky is a fundamental work of modern theosophy . It was published two years after the Theosophical Society was founded on September 29, 1877 by JW Bouton in New York . Henry Steel Olcott and Alexander Wilder contributed significantly to the publication . The first edition of 1,000 copies was within ten days out . " The sales figures are unique for a title of this type " wrote The American Bookseller in October 1877. The second edition appeared in November of the same year, and the book has been reprinted several times since then. 500,000 copies have now been sold.

The work deals with the fundamentals of theosophy in two volumes on around 1250 pages.

part 1

The first volume, entitled The 'Infallibility' of Modern Science , deals with the scientific foundations and scientific criticism of theosophical ideas and esotericism . He begins with an examination of contemporary natural science ( Charles Darwin , Thomas Henry Huxley ), whose materialistic orientation Blavatsky criticizes. She then deals with alternative teachings such as spiritism, mesmerism and Kabbalah as well as the hidden forces of nature postulated by them. The author tries to bring esoteric cosmology and science into harmony. She claims that "the only possible key to the absolute in science and theology" is to be found in the ancient knowledge that was transmitted from India to ancient Egypt . It was passed on to India by survivors of Atlantis who, after the fall of their continent, lived on an island that was connected to various parts of the world by a system of tunnels. Blavatsky set a cyclical view of history according to which mankind had already reached a higher level of development earlier than today. She referred to publications by the Oxford linguist and religious scholar Max Müller , who argued for the equivalence of ancient Indo-Aryan and modern Western culture.

Volume 2

The second volume ( Theology ) deals with religious and religious-critical aspects and is a thoroughly polemical settlement with the Catholic Church and its teaching, with Blavatsky in a separate chapter in hate speech only about Jesuits . She justifies her hateful attacks by claiming that only she would understand the pure teaching of Jesus , which is why her devastating criticism is only directed against the "falsification in malicious church teaching". Materialism and blind dogma in religion continue to be criticized . She also criticized Judaism : The Semites, the “least spiritual race”, had never succeeded in developing a language in which higher moral or intellectual ideas could be formulated: Everything of value in Judaism had been taken over by the Aryans . With these anti-Semitic judgments, with which she simultaneously wants to delegitimize Christianity, which was based on Judaism, Blavatsky joins the mainstream of European racial theories of the 19th century. She postulates that of all religions, Hinduism and Mahayana Buddhism have been preserved most purely because these have already developed geographically advantageously near the Himalayas, where they locate the origin of the true doctrine , which contains a secret knowledge of all peoples . She therefore attached fundamental importance to the sacred writings of Aryan India, especially the Vedas and Puranas , for her own nascent syncretistic religion of the New Age .

The book discusses or cites, among others, Plato , Plotinus , the Bible , Pythagoras , Ammonios Sakkas , Porphyrios , Iamblichus , Proklos , Apollonios von Tyana , the Popol Vuh , Paracelsus , Louis Jacolliot , Marco Polo , Friedrich Max Müller , Buddhist , Hindu , Chinese and other Far Eastern, Persian , Babylonian , Syrian , Gnostic , Old American, Kabbalistic , Greek and Egyptian literature.

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Hank Troemel (ed.): Helena Petrovna Blavatsky. Isis unveiled . Aquamarin Verlag, Grafing 2003, ISBN 3-89427-244-9 . Page 471.
  2. ↑ Hank Troemel (ed.): Helena Petrovna Blavatsky. Isis unveiled . Aquamarin Verlag, Grafing 2003, ISBN 3-89427-244-9 . Pages 10, 13, 471f.
  3. ↑ Kocku von Stuckrad : What is esotericism? Beck, Munich 2004, p. 204.
  4. ^ Isaac Lubelsky: Mythological and Real Race Issues in Theosophy . In: Olav Hammer, Mikael Rothstein (Eds.): Handbook of the Theosophical Current . Brill, Leiden 2013, p. 341 f.
  5. ^ Isaac Lubelsky: Mythological and Real Race Issues in Theosophy . In: Olav Hammer, Mikael Rothstein (Eds.): Handbook of the Theosophical Current . Brill, Leiden 2013, p. 342.

literature

  • Helena P. Blavatsky: Isis unveiled, a master key to the ancient and modern mysteries, science and theology . Adyar-Reprint, Edition 3 Masques, Burgh-Haamstede 1999, ISBN 3-927837-59-8 .
  • Volume 1: Science
  • Volume 2: Theology
  • Hank Troemel (ed. And transl.): Isis unveiled . Aquamarin-Verlag, Grafing 2003, ISBN 3-89427-244-9 . (Abridged edition)

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