This is the first chapter of the
series of articles titled “Studies in Isis
Unveiled” published by Theosophy
journal.
The
Secret Wisdom
The accompanying article is made up
of textual extracts from Isis Unveiled, topically and sequentially arranged.
The page references from which the statements are taken, are given at the
conclusion of the article. — Editors
From the first ages of man the
fundamental truths of all that we are permitted to know on earth was in the
safe keeping of the adepts of the sanctuaries. These guardians of the primitive
divine revelation were bound together by a universal freemasonry of science and
philosophy, which formed one unbroken chain around the globe.
The difference in creeds and
religious practice was only external. Too many of our thinkers do not consider
that the numerous changes in language, the allegorical phraseology and evident
secretiveness of the old Mystical writers, who were generally under an obligation
never to divulge the solemn secrets of the sanctuary, might have sadly misled
translators and commentators. The phrases of the mediaeval alchemist they read
literally; and even the veiled symbology of Plato is commonly misunderstood by
the modern scholar.
Almost without exception ancient and
mediaeval scholars believed in the arcane doctrines of wisdom. These included
Alchemy, the Chaldeo-Jewish Kabala, the esoteric systems of Pythagoras and the
old Magi, and those of the later Platonic philosophers and theurgists, the
Indian Gymnosophists and the Chaldean astrologers.
Formerly, magic was a universal
science, entirely in the hands of the sacerdotal savant. Though the focus was
jealously guarded in the sanctuaries, its rays illuminated the whole of
mankind. Otherwise, how are we to account for the extraordinary identity of
"superstitions," customs, traditions, and even sentences, repeated in
popular proverbs scattered from one pole to the other?
The fables of the mythopoeic ages
will be found to have but allegorized the greatest truths of geology and
anthropology. It is in these ridiculously expressed fables that science will
have to look for her "missing links."
Otherwise, whence such strange
"coincidences" in the respective histories of nations and peoples so
widely thrown apart? Whence that identity of primitive conceptions which fables
and legends though they are termed now, contain in them nevertheless the kernel
of historical facts, of a truth thickly overgrown with the husks of popular embellishment,
but still a truth?
Even the so-called fabulous
narratives of certain Buddhistical books, when stripped of their allegorical
meanings, are found to be the secret doctrines taught by Pythagoras. What
Buddha taught in the sixth century, B.C., in India, Pythagoras taught in the fifth,
in Greece and Italy.
There are, scattered throughout the
world, a handful of thoughtful and solitary students, who pass their lives in
obscurity, far from the rumors of the world, studying the great problem of the
physical and spiritual universes. They have their secret records in which are
preserved the fruits of the scholastic labors of the long line of recluses
whose successors they are. The knowledge of their early ancestors, the sages of
India, Babylonia, Nineveh, and the imperial Thebes; the legends and traditions
commented upon by the masters of Solon, Pythagoras, and Plato, in the marble
halls of Heliopolis and Sais; traditions which, in their days, already seemed
to hardly glimmer from behind the foggy curtains of the past; – all this, and much
more, is recorded on indestructible parchment, and passed with jealous care
from one adept to another. We must bear in mind that authentic treatises upon
ancient magic of the Chaldean and Egyptian lore are not scattered about in
public libraries, and at auction sales. That such exist is nevertheless a fact.
The keys to the Biblical miracles of
old, and to the phenomena of modern days; the problems of psychology,
physiology, and the many "missing links" which have so perplexed
scientists, are all in the hands of secret fraternities.
No wonder that the Northern seer,
Swedenborg, advises people to search for the LOST WORD among the hierophants of
Tartary, China, and Thibet; for it is there, and only there now, although we
find it inscribed on the monuments of the oldest Egyptian dynasties.
The grandiose poetry of the four
Vedas; the Books of Hermes; the Chaldean Book of Numbers; the Nazarene Codex;
the Kabala of the Tanaim; the Sepher Jezira; the Book of Wisdom of Schlomah
(Solomon); the secret treatise on Muhta and Badha, attributed by the Buddhist
kabalists to Kapila, the founder of the Sankhya system; the Brahmanas; the
Stan-Gyour of the Thibetans; all these volumes have the same ground-work.
Varying but in allegories they teach the same secret doctrine which, when once
thoroughly eliminated, will prove to be the Ultima Thule of true philosophy,
and disclose what is this LOST WORD. Our scientists do not – nay, cannot
understand correctly the old Hindu literature. They have a perfect right to the
just consciousness of their great learning, but none at all to lead the world
into their own error, by making it believe that they have solved the last
problem of ancient thought in literature, whether Sanscrit or any other; that
there lies not behind the external "twaddle" far more than was ever
dreamed of by our modern exact philosophy; or that above and beyond the correct
rendering of Sanscrit words and sentences there is no deeper thought,
intelligible to some of the descendants of those who veiled it in the morning
hours of earth's day, if they are not to the profane reader. No people in the
world have ever attained to such grandeur of thought in ideal conceptions of
the Deity and its offspring, MAN, as the Sanscrit metaphysicians and
theologians.
Verily the Christs of the
pre-Christian ages were many. But they died unknown to the world, and
disappeared silently and mysteriously. There never was nor ever will be a truly
philosophical mind, whether of Pagan, heathen, Jew, or Christian, but has followed
the same path of thought.
Who, of those who ever studied the
ancient philosophies, who understand intuitionally the grandeur of their
conceptions, the boundless sublimity of their views of the Unknown Deity, can
hesitate for a moment to give the preference to their doctrines over the
incomprehensible dogmatic and contradictory theology of the hundreds of
Christian sects? Who that has ever read Plato and fathomed his To On,
"whom no person has seen except the son," can doubt that Jesus was a
disciple of the same secret doctrine which had instructed the great
philosopher?
For Plato never claimed to be the
inventor of all that he wrote, but gave credit for it to Pythagoras, who, in
his turn, pointed to the remote East as the source whence he derived his information
and his philosophy.
The mass of cumulative evidence has
been reinforced to an extent which leaves little, if any, room for further
controversy. A conclusive opinion is furnished by too many scholars to doubt
the fact that India was the Alma-Mater, not only of the civilization,
arts, and sciences, but also of all the great religions of antiquity; Judaism,
and hence Christianity, included.
And when we say, indiscriminately,
"India," we do not mean the India of our modern days, but that of the
archaic period. In those ancient times, countries which are now known to us by
other names were all called India. There was an Upper, a Lower, and a Western
India, the latter of which is now Persia-Iran. The countries now named Thibet,
Mongolia, and Great Tartary, were also considered by the ancient writers as
India.
And now we will try to give a clear
insight into one of the chief objects of this work. What we desire to prove is,
that underlying every ancient popular religion was the same ancient
wisdom-doctrine, one and identical, professed and practiced by the initiates of
every country, who alone were aware of its existence and importance. The proofs
of this identity of fundamental doctrine in the old religions are found in the
prevalence of a system of initiation; in the secret sacerdotal castes who had
the guardianship of mystical words of power, and a public display of a
phenomenal control over natural forces, indicating association with preterhuman
beings. Every approach to the Mysteries of all these nations was guarded with
the same jealous care, and in all, the penalty of death was inflicted upon
initiates of any degree who divulged the secrets entrusted to them. There was
an identity of vows, formulas, rites, and doctrines, between the ancient
faiths. Not only is their memory still preserved in India, but also the Secret
Association is still alive and as active as ever. The chief pontiff and
hierophant, the Brahmatma, is still accessible to those "who
know," though perhaps recognized by another name; and the ramifications of
his influence extend throughout the world.
The secret doctrines of the Magi, of
the pre-Vedic Buddhists, of the hierophants of the Egyptian Thoth or Hermes,
and of the adepts of whatever age and nationality, including the Chaldean
Kabalists and the Jewish nazars, were identical from the
beginning. When we use the term Buddhists we do not mean to imply by it
either the exoteric Buddhism instituted by the followers of Gautama-Buddha, nor
the modern Buddhistic religion, but the secret philosophy of Sakyamuni, which
in its essence is certainly identical with the ancient wisdom-religion of the
sanctuary, the pre-Vedic Brahmanism. By Buddhism, therefore, we mean
that religion signifying literally the doctrine of wisdom, and which by many
ages antedates the metaphysical philosophy of Siddartha Sakyamuni. The building
of the Temple of Solomon is the symbolical representation of the gradual
acquirement of the secret wisdom, or magic; this is the "Temple"
which can be reared without the sound of the hammer, or any tool of iron being
heard in the house while it is "in building."
In the East, this science is called,
in some places, the "seven-storied," in others, the
"nine-storied" Temple; every story answers allegorically to a degree
of knowledge acquired. Throughout the countries of the Orient, wherever magic
and the wisdom-religion are studied, its practitioners and students are known
among their craft as Builders – for they build the temple of knowledge, of
secret science.
The "wisdom" of the
archaic ages did not die out, and the Gnosis still lingers on earth, and
its votaries are many, albeit unknown. Such secret brotherhoods have been
mentioned by more than one great author. If they have been regarded as mere
fictions of the novelist, that fact has only helped the "brother-adepts"
to keep their incognito the more easily.
But there are numbers of these
mystic brotherhoods which have naught to do with "civilized"
communities. Many are the candidates at the doors of those who are supposed to
know the path that leads to the secret brotherhoods. The great majority are
refused admittance, and these turn away interpreting the refusal as an evidence
of the non-existence of any such secret society. Thus these societies will go
on and hear themselves denied without uttering a word until the day shall come
for them to throw off their reserve and show how completely they are masters of
the situation. The present writer states a few facts concerning them, by the
special permission of one who has a right to give it. The work now submitted to
public judgment is the fruit of a somewhat intimate acquaintance with Eastern
adepts and study of their science.
Our work, then, is a plea for the
recognition of the Hermetic Philosophy, the anciently universal
Wisdom-Religion, as the only possible key to the Absolute in science and
theology. The religion of the ancients is the religion of the future. A few
centuries more, and there will linger no sectarian beliefs in either of the
great religions of humanity. Brahmanism and Buddhism, Christianity and
Mahometanism will all disappear before the mighty rush of facts. No other
claim is advanced for a hearing of the opinion contained in the present work
than that they are based upon many years' study of both ancient magic and its
modern form, Spiritualism.
(Note: The volume and page
references to Isis Unveiled, from which the foregoing chapter is
compiled, are, in the order of the excerpts, as follows: I, 37-8; I, 205; I,
247; I, 122; I, 291; I, 347; I, 557; I, 558; I, 559; I, 573; I, 580; I, 581; I,
583; II, 43; II, 84; II, 38; II, 39; II, 30; I, 589; II, 98-9; II, 100; II,
142; II, 143; II, 391-2; II, 402-3-4; II, 307; I, v; I, vii; I, 613; I, 42.)
(Theosophy,
Los Angeles, Abril 1917, p.241-245)
