PUBLISHER’S PREFACE
This
anniversary edition of ISIS UNVEILED was first printed fourteen
years ago—in 1931—on the centenary of the birth of the author, H. P.
Blavatsky. The present printing is identical with the first, being a
photographic reproduction of the original edition published in New
York in 1877. J. W. Bouton, the publisher, issued twelve editions of
the work, and while several later editions of ISIS UNVEILED have
been printed, none of them—with the exception of a facsimile edition
by Rider of London—can be trusted by those who desire the authentic
text of H. P. Blavatsky’s first great treatise. These editions were
from reset type, with consequent unavoidable errors, and suffer from
attempts at correction or Improvement, and the addition of
extraneous matter; but they are all now out of Print.
The original production of ISIS UNVEILED was encompassed by
almost insurmountable obstacles. All public knowledge of, or even
belief in, the actual existence of perfected Men, the Mahatmas, or
Great Souls, had for long centuries been lost to humanity, both in
the Orient and in the Occident. The Wisdom-Religion, as the
accumulated knowledge gained through a of spiritual and intellectual
evolution, was not even dreamed of by mystics of the West, while in
the East the belief everywhere prevailed that the Rishis of old had
departed from this earth at the commencement of its Kaliyuga or Dark
Age and would not return till milenniums hence when a new Golden Age
would be inaugurated. Among the great world religions, priests
and laity alike cast longing eyes back ward to a Savior who had
been, or forward to a dim future when a Savior would come. None of
them contained anything but the skeletal remains of a once-living
Spiritual gnosis; in none did anything remain but the broken tablets
of the Law; the letter of the Law could still be painfully spelled,
but its spirit was lost. Modern materialistic science in the West,
with its repercussive influence in all lands, was steadily
conquering the domain of human thought as well as of physical
nature: mankind at large was fast losing all faith in immortality,
all interest in other than material existence and material
well-being.
Alone, the strange and widespread phenomena miscalled
Spiritualism had attracted a vast attention and almost endless
investigation amongst all classes of men. Here, then, was the only
available soil in which to sow the first seeds of a philosophy which
includes the whole of Nature. But of all men, Spiritualists had
least interest in philosophy. They were drunk with phenomena, the
more inviting because easily accessible and because no
philosophical, ethical, moral, scientific or religious preparation
was necessary in order to become a medium or to obtain supposed
messages from the dead, as well as other phenomena inexplicable from
any accepted scientific standpoint.
As though all this were not enough, H. P. Blavatsky was a
stranger in a strange land, with a merely colloquial acquaintance
with the English language, no literary experience, no knowledge of
the formalities and conventions of acceptable composition. Of her
two closest associates, Colonel H. S. Olcott was a Spiritualist, who
had even less acquaintance with philosophy than she had with
English; William Q. Judge, destined to be her greatest co-worker in
future years, was but twenty-four years of age. The parent
theosophical society had just been formed with a limited membership
consisting almost entirely of ardent Spiritualists. The task set
herself by H. P. Blavatsky was of the same nature, and as
formidable, as any ever undertaken by any actual or legendary
philanthropist or savior. ISIS UNVEILED was begun by her in 1874, a
bare year after landing in New York City. Its writing went on in the
midst of multifarious other activities and interruptions, yet was
completed and published in the early autumn of 1877. When the
contents of the work are considered and the attendant circumstances
weighed, ISIS UNVEILED offers to the thoughtful mind a spiritual and
intellectual phenomenon of the first magnitude. Without it, the
Theosophical Movement as well as the Theosophical Society would have
been still-born. Without it, her Mission and her Theosophy cannot be
understood. Without it, her Secret Doctrine can no more he grasped
than can algebra without a knowledge of arithmetic. Her writings are
not discrete works, any one of which can be studied apart from the
rest, but one continuous
serial unfoldment of so much of the Wisdom-Religion as her Masters,
from their inclusive point of view, considered ample for the needs
of the greatest minds until 1975, when, contingent upon the use made
of what she provided, the next Messenger may add further material
for future building upon the foundations laid by her. ISIS UNVEILED
and The Secret Doctrine are integral; both are parts of one
stupendous whole. To the extent that they are neglected, that the
attention of students and inquirers is diverted to interpretations,
substitutions, and the many misguided and ambitious later attempts
to embellish and improve upon the recorded Theosophy of H. P.
Blavatsky to that extent will the philanthropy of her Masters and
herself have been abused and betrayed by its recipients.
That ISIS UNVEILED in its original publication embodies
typographical and other verbal errors, and is open to ample
criticism on the score of its violation of literary canons, was
never denied by its author. What has been missed by its captious
critics is the simple fact that all these errors are so transparent
that an ordinarily intelligent child would observe them for what
they are, if intent upon getting at the meaning of the statements
made.
Much subsequent controversy grew up over certain statements in
the first volume of ISIS UNVEILED; in particular over those made on
pages 345 to 357 in reference to “reincarnation.” From this
controversy has sprung a whole mythology of ignorance, including the
legend that at the time of writing ISIS UNVEILED H. P. Blavatsky
herself was a Spiritualist medium, as unversed in what she was
conveying as were those for whom she wrote; that she herself at that
period did not believe in reincarnation, and that the Master who
instructed her was himself ignorant on that subject!
There is no doubt that her writing suffered at the hands of
editors and proof-readers, and on this, one of the Masters wrote in
January, 1882, to Mr. A. P. Sinnett, as follows:
By-the-bye, I’ll re-write for you pages 345 to 357, Vol. I.,
of Isis jumbled, and confused by Olcott, who thought he was
improving it!
For the convenience of students, we list in chronological
order the subsequent references made by H. P. Blavatsky to the
mistakes in ISIS UNVEILED :
"Seeming Discrepancies,” first published in the Theosophist for
June, 1882;
" 'Isis Unveiled' and the ‘Theosophist’ on
Reincarnation,” first published in the Theosophist for August, 1882;
C.C.M.’ and ‘Isis Unveiled’,” first published
in the Theosophist for September, 1882;
“Theories about Reincarnation and Spirits,”
first published in the Path for
November, 1886, and republished in Theosophy
for April, 1914;
A foot-note to some correspondence, first
published in Lucifer for February, 1889, at pages 527-28;
“My Books,” first published in Lucifer for May,
1891, and reprinted in Theosophy for June, 1914.
This was the last signed article from the pen of H. P.
Blavatsky.
From
these articles it will he seen that H. P. Blavatsky gave the widest
possible publicity, both to the actual facts covering the mis-
understood
passages in ISIS UNVEILED, and to the nature of her mission and
message. That those may be served for whom the foregoing citations
may not he readily accessible, the footnote to Lucifer for February,
1889, is herewith given:
Since 1882 when the mistake was first found out in “Isis
Unveiled,” it has been repeatedly stated in the Theosophist, and
last year in the Path that the word “planet” [ 351, volume I of Isis
] was a mistake and that “cycle” was meant, i.e., the “cycle of
Devachanic rest.” This mistake, due to one of the literary
editors—the writer knowing English more than imperfectly twelve
years ago, and the editors being still more ignorant of Buddhism and
Hinduism—has led to great confusion and numberless accusations of
contradictions between the statements in his and later theosophical
teaching. The paragraph quoted meant to upset the theory of the
French Reincarnationists who maintain that the same personality is
reincarnated, often a few days after death, so that a grandfather
can be reborn as his own grand-daughter. Hence the idea was
combated, and it was said that neither Buddha nor any of the Hindu
philosophers ever taught reincarnation in the same cycle, or of the
came personality, but of the “triune man” who, when properly united,
was “capable of running the race” forward to perfection. The same
and a worse mistake occurs on pages 346 and (Vol. I). For on the
former it is stated that the Hindus dread reincarnation ‘‘only on
other and inferior planets,” instead of what is the case, that
Hindus dread reincarnation in other and inferior bodies, of brutes
and animals or transmigration. while on page 347 the said error of
putting “planet” instead of “cycle” and “personality,” shows the
author (a professed Buddhist) speaking as though Buddha had
never taught the doctrine of reincarnation!! The sentence ought to
read that the “former life believed in by Buddhists is not a life in
the same cycle and personality,” as no one appreciates more than
they do “the great doctrine of cycles.” As it reads now, however,
namely that “this former life believed in by the Buddhists is not a
life on this planet,” and this sentence on page 347 just preceded by
that other (paragraph 2 on page 346), “Thus like the revolutions of
a wheel, there is a regular succession of death and birth,” etc—the
whole reads like the raving of a lunatic, and a jumble of
contradictory statements. If asked why the error was permitted to
remain and run through ten editions, it is answered that (a) the
attention of the author was drawn to it only in 1882; and (b) that
the undersigned was not in a position to alter it from stereotyped
plates which belonged to the American publisher and not to her. The
work was written under exceptional circumstances, and no doubt more
than one great error may be discovered in ISIS UNVEILED
The present edition of ISIS UNVEILED contains the photographic
facsimile reproduction not only of the original text, but of the
original index. This latter is immediately followed by a Publisher’s
Note and a Supplemental Index which, it is hoped, will together with
the Publisher’s Preface, be of material assistance to serious
students of the synthetic Philosophy recorded by H. P. Blavatsky.
With the publication of the present Centenary Anniversary Edition of
ISIS UNVEILED there is completed the task undertaken by the late
Robert Crosbie and his associates—to make available to students
authentic reproductions of all the Theosophical writings of H. P.
Blavatsky, and of her Colleague, William Q. Judge.
THE
THEOSOPHY COMPANY
August,
1931