Investigating Blavatsky's Isis Unveiled, part 17 – Chapter 11

Chapter 11 – (Psychological and physical marvels) Esoteric Aspects of Embryology, the Will, and Imagination

Chapter’s 11-15 seem a little looser, not quite as cohesive as the previous chapters, but they still tackle some basic theosophical themes. Chapters 9-13 all deal with various aspect of pre-natal and post-mortem life while chapters 13-14 deals with the question of Atlantis. This chapter’s impressive main section on esoteric embryology segues nicely from the previous chapter’s discussion on reincarnation, but overall, this is probably the least cohesive chapter in the sense that the work’s running side arguments, although very interesting, overcrowd the chapter’s main topic. However, her discussion of physiology is one of her most impressive treatments of the technicalities of hardcore science, many specialized, technical, mainstream scientific works were consulted and very perceptively commented on.

1- Phenomena of Invulnerability (p.378)

Impenetrable mesmeric astral fluid 378 / Invulnerability of soldiers 379 / Power to fire astral bolts of force 380 / Power to charm and tame animals 381 / Blavatsky’s snake charming personal account 382

AND now we must search Magical History for cases similar to those given in the preceding chapter. This insensibility of the human body to the impact of heavy blows, and resistance to penetration by sharp points and musket-bullets, is a phenomenon sufficiently familiar in the experience of all times and all countries. While science is entirely unable to give any reasonable explanation of the mystery, the question appears to offer no difficulty to mesmerists, who have well studied the properties of the fluid. The man, who by a few passes over a limb can produce a local paralysis so as to render it utterly insensible to burns, cuts, and the prickings of needles, need be but very little astonished at the phenomena of the Jansenists. As to the adepts of magic, especially in Siam and the East Indies, they are too familiar with the properties of the akasa, the mysterious life-fluid, to even regard the insensibility of the Convulsionnaires as a very great phenomenon. The astral fluid can be compressed about a person so as to form an elastic shell, absolutely nonpenetrable by any physical object, however great the velocity with which it travels. In a word, this fluid can be made to equal and even excel in resisting-power, water and air. 378

2- The Mysteries of Embryology (384)

Plastic power of pregnant mother’s imagination 384 / Power of imagination to cure diseases 385 /

Soul-blindness 387 / Esoteric aspects of embryology 388 / Critique of the inductive method 394 / Universal force 394 / Astral light and pregnant women (eliphas levi) 395 / Imagination 397 / Cases of stigmata appearances 398 / Universal ether 400 / Substantialism, atomism 401

This mysterious process of a nine-months formation the kabalists call the completion of the “individual cycle of evolution.” As the foetus develops from the liquor amnii in the womb, so the earths germinate from the universal ether, or astral fluid, in the womb of the universe. These cosmic children, like their pigmy inhabitants, are first nuclei; then ovules; then gradually mature; and becoming mothers in their turn, develop mineral, vegetable, animal, and human forms. From centre to circumference, from the imperceptible vesicle to the uttermost conceivable bounds of the cosmos, these glorious thinkers, the kabalists, trace cycle merging into cycle, containing and contained in an endless series. The embryo evolving in its pre-natal sphere, the individual in his family, the family in the state, the state in mankind, the earth in our system, that system in its central universe, the universe in the cosmos, and the cosmos in the First Cause: — the Boundless and Endless. So runs their philosophy of evolution:

“All are but parts of one stupendous whole, Whose body Nature is; and God the Soul.”

“Worlds without number Lie in this bosom like children.” 389-90

From whatever aspect we view and question matter, the world-old philosophy that it was vivified and fructified by the eternal idea, or imagination — the abstract outlining and preparing the model for the concrete form — is unavoidable. If we reject this doctrine, the theory of a cosmos evolving gradually out of its chaotic disorder becomes an absurdity; for it is highly unphilosophical to imagine inert matter, solely moved by blind force, and directed by intelligence, forming itself spontaneously into a universe of such admirable harmony. If the soul of man is really an outcome of the essence of this universal soul, an infinitesimal fragment of this first creative principle, it must of necessity partake in degree of all the attributes of the demiurgic power. As the creator, breaking up the chaotic mass of dead, inactive matter, shaped it into form, so man, if he knew his powers, could, to a degree, do the same. 397

3- A Critique of the Despotism of Science and Scientific Methodology (403)

John Stuart Mill on impossibility of miracles 403 / Plato and Aristotle scientific method regarding supernatural phenomena 405 / Destruction of ancient mystical texts 405 / Plato and Aristotle 408

What facts? we might inquire. A man of science cannot be expected to admit that these facts can be furnished by occult science, since he does not believe in the latter. Nevertheless, the future may demonstrate this verity. Aristotle has bequeathed his inductive method to our scientists; but until they supplement it with “the universals of Plato,” they will experience still more “failures” than the great tutor of Alexander. The universals are a matter of faith only so long as they cannot be demonstrated by reason and based on uninterrupted experience. Who of our present-day philosophers can prove by this same inductive method that the ancients did not possess such demonstrations as a consequence of their esoteric studies? Their own negations, unsupported as they are by proof, sufficiently attest that they do not always pursue the inductive method they so much boast of. Obliged as they are to base their theories, nolens volens, on the groundwork of the ancient philosophers, their modern discoveries are but the shoots put forth by the germs planted by the former. And yet even these discoveries are generally incomplete, if not abortive. Their cause is involved in obscurity and their ultimate effect unforeseen. “We are not,” says Professor Youmans, “to regard past theories as mere exploded errors, nor present theories as final. The living and growing body of truth has only mantled its old integuments in the progress to a higher and more vigorous state.”* This language, applied to modern chemistry by one of the first philosophical chemists and most enthusiastic scientific writers of the day, shows the transitional state in which we find modern science; but what is true of chemistry is true of all its sister sciences. 405

4- Strange Accounts of Ancient Science Validated by Modern Discoveries (411)

Solomon on flow of water 410 / Belief in magic universal 414

The unanimous testimony of mankind is said to be an irrefutable proof of truth; and about what was ever testimony more unanimous than that for thousands of ages among civilized people as among the most barbarous, there has existed a firm and unwavering belief in magic? The latter implies a contravention of the laws of nature only in the minds of the ignorant; and if such ignorance is to be deplored in the ancient uneducated nations, why do not our civilized and highly-educated classes of fervent Christians, deplore it also in themselves? The mysteries of the Christian religion have been no more able to stand a crucial test than biblical miracles. Magic alone, in the true sense of the word, affords a clew to the wonders of Aaron’s rod, and the feats of the magi of Pharaoh, who opposed Moses; and it does that without either impairing the general truthfulness of the authors of the Exodus, or claiming more for the prophet of Israel than for others, or allowing the possibility of a single instance in which a “miracle” can happen in contravention of the laws of nature. Out of many “miracles,” we may select for our illustration that of the “river turned into blood.” The text says: “Take thy rod and stretch out thine hand (with the rod in it) upon the waters, streams, etc. . . . that they may become blood.” 414

Notable authors and works discussed: