Isis Unveiled

I am putting the full text of Isis Unveiled here. Helena Petrovna Blavatsky wrote it. J. W. Bouton of New York published it in 1877, in two volumes. Volume I is Science. Volume II is Theology.

This is Blavatsky’s own book. In it she sets out claims about ancient wisdom, and she sets those claims against the science and the theology of her time. She said she wrote the book with help from Masters. That help is a claim she made. It is not a record I can check in a public archive. I do not read the book as a novel.

Her later book is The Secret Doctrine, published in 1888. I wrote about that book on The Secret Doctrine. A short account of her life is on Helena Blavatsky.

Blavatsky died in 1891. The printed dedication gives the two volumes to the Theosophical Society, which was founded in New York in 1875.

Contents

Volume I. Science

• Vol. I, Dedication
• Vol. I, Preface
• Vol. I, Before the Veil
• Vol. I, Chapter 1. Old Things with New Names
• Vol. I, Chapter 2. Phenomena and Forces
• Vol. I, Chapter 3. Blind Leaders of the Blind
• Vol. I, Chapter 4. Theories Respecting Psychic Phenomena
• Vol. I, Chapter 5. The Ether, or “Astral Light”
• Vol. I, Chapter 6. Psycho-Physical Phenomena
• Vol. I, Chapter 7. The Elements, Elementals, and Elementaries
• Vol. I, Chapter 8. Some Mysteries of Nature
• Vol. I, Chapter 9. Cyclic Phenomena
• Vol. I, Chapter 10. The Inner and Outer Man
• Vol. I, Chapter 11. Psychological and Physical Marvels
• Vol. I, Chapter 12. The “Impassable Chasm”
• Vol. I, Chapter 13. Realities and Illusion
• Vol. I, Chapter 14. Egyptian Wisdom
• Vol. I, Chapter 15. India the Cradle of the Race

Volume II. Theology

• Vol. II, Preface
• Vol. II, Chapter 1. The Church: Where Is It?
• Vol. II, Chapter 2. Christian Crimes and Heathen Virtues
• Vol. II, Chapter 3. Divisions Amongst the Early Christians
• Vol. II, Chapter 4. Oriental Cosmogonies and Bible Records
• Vol. II, Chapter 5. Mysteries of the Kabala
• Vol. II, Chapter 6. Esoteric Doctrines of Buddhism Parodied in Christianity
• Vol. II, Chapter 7. Early Christian Heresies and Secret Societies
• Vol. II, Chapter 8. Jesuitry and Masonry
• Vol. II, Chapter 9. The Vedas and the Bible
• Vol. II, Chapter 10. The Devil-Myth
• Vol. II, Chapter 11. Comparative Results of Buddhism and Christianity
• Vol. II, Chapter 12. Conclusions and Illustrations
• Vol. II, Index

Credits and public domain

The text on the chapter pages is the 1877 book. I took the wording from the Theosophical University Press online edition. That edition says it reprints Isis Unveiled as first published in New York in 1877, and it keeps the original page numbers. I checked it against the scans named below.

Volume I: the 1877 Cornell copy, archive.org identifier cu31924092304579. The title page reads New York, J. W. Bouton, 706 Broadway, and London, Bernard Quaritch, 1877. I also compared passages with the 1901 printing of the 1877 Volume I text, archive.org identifier isisunveiled0001hpbl.

Volume II: archive.org identifier b24886154_0002. The title page of that copy says fourth edition, 1878. Its contents leaf prints the part title as The “Infallibility” of Religion. The chapter text I used prints Part Two, Religion.

The index is the one printed at the end of that Volume II. It is not a later index. I checked the opening entries against the scan. Abarbanel is ii. 256. Abraham is ii. 217, ii. 216, ii. 488, and ii. 493. Those numbers are the ones on the printed page. The wording is the proofread text of that same printing. The proofreader notes that a few page numbers in the index were set to the pages of the book, and that the punctuation was made regular. The entries stay in the printed order.

H. P. Blavatsky died in 1891. The book was published in 1877, and the title page carries the notice “Copyright, by J. W. Bouton, 1877.” In the United States the text is in the public domain. The printer named on the copyright leaf is Trow’s Printing and Bookbinding Co., 205-213 East 12th St., New York.

I did not copy the material the Theosophical University Press added after the book. That material is an enlarged index, a bibliographical appendix, and four later articles: “Theories about Reincarnation and Spirits” (The Path, November 1886), “My Books” (Lucifer, 15 May 1891), Alexander Wilder’s “How Isis Unveiled Was Written” (The Word, May 1908), and letters printed with that article (The Word, June 1908).

The 1877 Volume I opens with the title page, the copyright leaf, and the dedication. That copy has no portrait frontispiece. The Volume II scan opens the same way. The cover picture is the 1877 title page.

The figures are the ones printed in the book: the seal, the alchemical signs, the tau and the other small symbols, the cosmic diagrams, and the cipher plates. They stand where the book puts them. The two large diagrams in Volume II, Chapter VI, are the Hindu cosmic diagram and the Hebrew cosmic diagram. The words drawn on those plates are part of the figures.

The picture files are not on the image server yet. The pages will show them after these files are uploaded:

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