Madame Blavatsky about to Unveil Isis to the World

Alexander Wilder and H.P. Blavatsky · Blavatsky Speaks Series · 50 pages

Fifty pages built around a single chapter and the question of its authorship. Before the Veil is the introduction to Isis Unveiled, and this edition opens with Blavatsky's statement of what she owed to Henry Olcott and to Alexander Wilder in producing it, together with her answer to the accusations of wholesale plagiarism that followed the book — that no amount of scholarly criticism justifies the charge when the sincerity and purpose of the work have been recognised by independent thinkers who actually read it.

The chapter itself is largely about Plato, and is the most accessible piece of philosophical exposition in the series. Philosophy's sole purpose is given as freeing the soul from the clutches of the senses and raising it to the majesty of pure thought; Plato is called the world's interpreter, and his philosophy the wisdom of love rather than the love of wisdom. Aristotle comes off badly — he misrepresented Plato, mocked Pythagoras, and was neither a trustworthy witness nor an initiate. Later pages take the number ten as a celestial ray radiating from the One, the Daimonion of Socrates as the divine voice that guided him all his life, and the doctrine that every star has a soul of its own and every atom of matter is impregnated with the Soul of the World.

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