Against Ecclesiastical Christianity and Religious Dogmatism

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky · Blavatsky Speaks Series · 256 pages

By a wide margin the longest document in Blavatsky Speaks, and effectively a book. Its spine is the preface to the second part of Isis Unveiled, a critical dissection of ecclesiastical theology, expanded here with related material into a continuous argument. The position is stated at the head: that Ageless Wisdom is the only religion of reason and free thought, of truth and impartiality rather than authority; that paganism was modified by Christianity and Christianity by paganism; and that the only thing absolutely necessary for man is truth.

The first part sets out to show that every Christian dogma has its origin in a heathen rite, and the questions it opens with are the ones the whole volume returns to — what is truth, and where is it to be looked for among a multitude of warring sects each claiming divine revelation and the keys of the celestial gates. Her image for the age is a society balancing on one leg on an unseen tightrope stretched from the visible universe into the invisible, unsure whether the far end will hold. From there the chapters run through the hells of various nations, the geocentric hell of Augustine, the history of the Chair of Peter, the fireproof parchment rolls of the Bruchion at Alexandria, and the claim that the Roman church has two mightier enemies than heretics and infidels — comparative mythology and philology.

Read the full text (PDF, 5.1 MB, 256 pages)