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Oracles; Chaldean Book of Numbers; Psellus' Works; Zoroastrian Oracles; Magical
and Philosophical Precepts of Zoroaster; Egyptian Book of the Dead; Books of
Hermes; Quiché Cosmogony; Book of Jasher; Kabala of the Tanaim; Sepher Jezira;
Book of Wisdom of Schlomah (Solomon); Secret Treatise on Mukta and Badha; The
Stangyour of the Tibetans; Desatir (pseudo-Persian4); Orphic Hymns; Sepher
Toldos Jeshu (Hebrew MSS. of great antiquity); Laws of Manu; Book of Keys
(Hermetic Work); Gospel of Nicodemus; The Shepherd of Hermas; (Spurious) Gospel
of the Infancy; Gospel of St. Thomas; Book of Enoch; The History of Baarlam and
Josaphat; Book of Evocations(of the Pagodas); Golden Verses of Pythagoras;
various Kabbalas; Tarot of the Bohemians.
In the realm of more widely-known literature, she uses material from Plato and
to a minor extent, Aristotle; quotes the early Greek philosophers, Thales,
Heraclitus, Parmenides, Empedocles, Democritus; is conversant with the Neo-
Platonist representatives, Ammonius Saccas, Plotinus, Porphyry, Iamblichus and
Proclus; shows familiarity with Plutarch, Philo, Apollonius of Tyana, the
Gnostics, Basilides, Bardesanes, Marcion, and Valentinus. She had examined the
Church Fathers, from Augustine to Justin Martyr, and was especially familiar
with Irenaeus, Tertullian and Eusebius, whom she charged with having wrecked the
true ancient wisdom. Beside this array she draws on the enormous Vedic,
Brahmanic, Vedantic, and Buddhistic literatures; likewise the Chinese, Persian,
Babylonian, "Chaldean," Syrian, and Egyptian. Nor does she neglect the ancient
American contributions, such as the Popul Vuh. Her acquaintance also with the
vast literature of occult magic and philosophy of the Middle Ages seems hardly
less inclusive. She levies upon Averroës, Maimonides, Paracelsus, Van Helmont,
Robert Fludd, Eugenius Philalethes, Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim, Roger
Bacon, Bruno, Pletho, Mirandolo, Henry More and many a lesser-known expounder of
mysticism and magic art. She quotes incessantly from scores of compendious
modern works.
Because of this show of prodigious learning some students later alleged that
Isis was not the work of Madame Blavatsky, but of Dr. Alexander Wilder; others
declared that Col. Olcott had written it.5
There are three main sources of testimony bearing on the composition of the
books: (1) Statements of her immediate associates and co-workers in the writing;
(2) Her own version; (3) The evidence of critics who have traced the sources of
her materials.
First, there is the testimony of her colleague, Olcott, who for two years
collaborated almost daily with her in the work. He says:
"Whence, then, did H.P.B. draw the materials which comprise Isis and which
cannot be traced to accessible literary sources of quotation? From the Astral
Light, and by her soul-senses, from her Teachers-the 'Brothers,' 'Adepts,'
'Sages,' 'Masters,' as they have been variously called. How do I know it? By
working two years with her on Isis and many more years on other literary work."6
He goes on:
"To watch her at work was a rare and never-to-be-forgotten experience. We sat at
opposite sides of one big table usually, and I could see her every movement. Her
pen would be flying over the page; when she would suddenly stop, look out into
space with the vacant eye of the clairvoyant seer, shorten her vision as though
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to look at something held invisibly in the air before her, and begin copying on
the paper what she saw. The quotation finished, her eyes would resume their
natural expression, and she would go on writing until again stopped by a similar
interruption."7
Still more remarkable is the following:
"Most perfect of all were the manuscripts which were written for her while she
was sleeping. The beginning of the chapter on the civilization of ancient Egypt
(Vol. I., Chapter XIV) is an illustration. We had stopped work the evening
before at about 2 A.M. as usual, both too tired to stop for our usual smoke and
chat before parting; she almost fell asleep in her chair, while I was bidding
her goodnight; so I hurried off to my bed room. The next morning, when I came
down after my breakfast, she showed me a pile of at least thirty or forty pages
of beautifully written H.P.B. manuscript, which, she said, she had had written
for her by-------, a Master . . . It was perfect in every respect and went to
the printers without revision."8
It is the theory of Olcott that the mind of H.P.B. was receptive to the
impressions of three or four intelligent entities-other persons living or dead-
who overshadowed her mentally, and wrote through her brain. These personages
seemed to cast their sentences upon an imperceptible screen in her mind. They
sometimes talked to Olcott as themselves, not as Madame Blavatsky. Their
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