Preface:
It is now generally acknowledged that the Egyptians, of the ancient peoples, were the most learned in the Occult Sciences of Nature. The wisest of philosophers from other nations visited Egypt to be intitiated in the sacred Mysteries by the priests of Thebes, Memphis and Hermopolis. Thales, Solon, Pythagoras and Plato journeyed from Greece to the delta of the Nile in quest of knowledge. Upon returning to their own country, these illumined men acknowledged the Egyptians to be the wisest of mortals and the Egyptians temples to be repositories of the most sublime doctrines concerning the history of the Gods and the regenration of men.
The decline of egypt under the Ptolemies resulted in dissipation of the sacred arcana and the violation of the sanctuaries of the Hermetic Gods. The priests retired into the deserts and migrated to more hospitable lands. In distant and desolate places the old rites flourished anew, and the Hierophants still delivered judgement with the fort scrolls spread before them on the altar top.
European Culture, thwarted by the Dark Ages, languished in the Patristic dungeons, to be freed artistically by the Renaissance and religiously by the Reformation. It was not until the eighteenth century of the Christian era, however, that thought, freed from bondage to sophistry and pedantics, recognized and acknowledged the indebtedness that each generation owes to antiquity. Eighteenth century savants sought valiantly, in the ruin of time, among the battered monuments half buried in Egyptian sand for the lost keys to the sacred sciences. Only scolarship can rebuild and rededicate the ruind and desecrated shrines of the Old Wisdom.
Dimly perceptible in the subtle hints of classical writers, arcanely intimated in symbol and fable, and thinly veiled by the great institutions of classical philosophy, the Secret Doctrine may yet be recovered to enrich and complete the material knowledge which is the boasted power of modern men.
The fable of Isis and Osiris belongs to the earliest period of Egyptian me
The Crata Repoa Rite, whic has been inserted in this book, sets forth the principal elements of the intiatory drama. Restored from the ancient authorities, though, of course, incomplete in its esoteric parts, the ritual is faintly reminiscent of the sublime spectacles which transpired in the subterranean chambers and crypts of ancient Egyptian temples.
He who ponders well upon the Mystery may, perchance, discover under the figures and symbols of the old ceremonies allusions to ever living qualities and ever present problems MsSVig