Art Thou a Vain Breath?

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky · Mystic Verse and Insights Series · 2 pages

A two-page file built around a single quotation, opened by a detail from Albrecht Altdorfer's Triumphal Procession (1513–1515) held in the Albertina, Vienna. The passage is taken from Isis Unveiled, volume I page 200, which is in turn quoting des Mousseaux.

The context is the oracular vapour of Delphi, which the text describes as a subterranean gas carrying intoxicating magnetic properties. The point being made is that Plutarch, as priest of Apollo, treats that vapour as having a dual nature — a physical side and something working through it. He does so by addressing the vapour directly and asking it what it is: without a God who creates and ripens it, and without a dæmon acting under the orders of God to direct and govern it, it can do nothing and is nothing but a vain breath. The file is short by design, presenting the quotation and its source rather than an argument around it.

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