Isis unveiled, Volume 1 (of 2), Science

[80] Schweigger: “Introduction to Mythology through Natural History.”

[81] Ennemoser: “History of Magic,” i., 3.

[82] “Hist. of Magic,” vol. i., p. 9.

[83] Philo Jud.: “De Specialibus Legibus.”

[84] Zend-Avesta, vol. ii., p. 506.

[85] Cassian: “Conference,” i., 21.

[86] “De Vita et Morte Mosis,” p. 199.

[87] Acts of the Apostles, vii., 22.

[88] Justin, xxxvi., 2.

[89] Molitor: “Philosophy of History and Traditions,” Howitt’s Translation, p. 285.

[90] “Conflict between Religion and Science,” p. 329.

[91] See “Gazette du Midi,” and “Le Monde,” of 3 May, 1864.

[92] Shakspere: “Richard III.”

[93] Literally, the screaming or the howling ones.

[94] The half-demented, the idiots.

[95] But such is not always the case, for some among these beggars make a regular and profitable trade of it.

[96] Webster declares very erroneously that the Chaldeans called saros, the cycle of eclipses, a period of about 6,586 years, “the time of revolution of the moon’s node.” Berosus, himself a Chaldean astrologer, at the Temple of Belus, at Babylon, gives the duration of the sar, or sarus, 3,600 years; a neros 600; and a sossus 60. (See, Berosus from Abydenus, “Of the Chaldæan Kings and the Deluge.” See also Eusebius, and Cary’s MS. Ex. Cod. reg. gall. gr. No. 2360, fol. 154.)

[97] Before scientists reject such a theory—traditional as it is—it would be in order for them to demonstrate why, at the end of the tertiary period, the Northern Hemisphere had undergone such a reduction of temperature as to utterly change the torrid zone to a Siberian climate? Let us bear in mind that the helicocentric system came to us from upper India; and that the germs of all great astronomical truths were brought thence by Pythagoras. So long as we lack a mathematically correct demonstration, one hypothesis is as good as another.

[98] Censorinus: “De Natal Die.” Seneca: “Nat. Quæst.,” iii., 29.

[99] Euseb.: “Præp. Evan.” Of the Tower of Babel and Abraham.

[100] This is in flat contradiction of the Bible narrative, which tells us that the deluge was sent for the special destruction of these giants. The Babylon priests had no object to invent lies.

[101] Coleman, who makes this calculation, allowed a serious error to escape the proof-reader; the length of the manwantara is given at 368,448,000, which is just sixty million years too much.

[102] S. Davis: “Essay in the Asiatic Researches;” and Higgins’s “Anacalypsis;” also see Coleman’s “Mythology of the Hindus.” Preface, p. xiii.

[103] Bunsen: “Egypte,” vol. i.

[104] The forty-two Sacred Books of the Egyptians mentioned by Clement of Alexandria as having existed in his time, were but a portion of the Books of Hermes. Iamblichus, on the authority of the Egyptian priest Abammon, attributes 1200 of such books to Hermes, and Manetho 36,000. But the testimony of Iamblichus as a neo-Platonist and theurgist is of course rejected by modern critics. Manetho, who is held by Bunsen in the highest consideration as a “purely historical personage” ... with whom “none of the later native historians can be compared ...” (see “Egypte,” i., p. 97), suddenly becomes a Pseudo-Manetho, as soon as the ideas propounded by him clash with the scientific prejudices against magic and the occult knowledge claimed by the ancient priests. However, none of the archæologists doubt for a moment the almost incredible antiquity of the Hermetic books. Champollion shows the greatest regard for their authenticity and great truthfulness, corroborated as it is by many of the oldest monuments. And Bunsen brings irrefutable proofs of their age. From his researches, for instance, we learn that there was a line of sixty-one kings before the days of Moses, who preceded the Mosaic period by a clearly-traceable civilization of several thousand years. Thus we are warranted in believing that the works of Hermes Trismegistus were extant many ages before the birth of the Jewish law-giver. “Styli and inkstands were found on monuments of the fourth Dynasty, the oldest in the world,” says Bunsen.

If the eminent Egyptologist rejects the period of 48,863 years before Alexander, to which Diogenes Laertius carries back the records of the priests, he is evidently more embarrassed with the ten thousand of astronomical observations, and remarks that “if they were actual observations, they must have extended over 10,000 years” (p. 14). “We learn, however,” he adds, “from one of their own old chronological works ... that the genuine Egyptian traditions concerning the mythological period, treated of myriads of years.” (“Egypte,” i, p. 15).

[105] Higgins: “Anacalypsis.”

[106] “De Vite Pythag.”

[107] “The Rosicrucians,” etc., by Hargrave Jennings.

[108] W. Crookes, F.R.S.: “Researches in the Phenomena of Spiritualism.”

[109] W. Crookes: “Experiments on Psychic Force,” page 25.

[110] W. Crookes: “Spiritualism Viewed by the Light of Modern Science.” See “Quarterly Journal of Science.”

[111] A. Aksakof: “Phenomena of Mediumism.”

[112] A. N. Aksakof: “Phenomena of Mediumism.”

[113] “The Last of Katie King,” pamphlet iii., p. 119.

[114] Ibid., pamp. i., p. 7.

[115] “The Last of Katie King,” pamp. iii., p. 112.

[116] Ibid., p. 112.

[117] “Researches in the Phenomena of Spiritualism,” p. 45.

[118] Pfaff’s “Astrology.” Berl.