The 1866 Volume Had to Make a
Time Travel Before Arriving Home
Louis Vivès Libraire-Éditeur, Paris, 1886, 480 pages: the copy undergoing repairs on March 25, 2024.
With the pages still attached to each other and therefore unopened, an original copy of volume I of “Les Vies des Pères des Déserts d’Orient”, by Michel-Ange Marin, edition 1886, arrived at the library of the Independent Lodge of Theosophists in 2024, showing abrasions and oxidation stains, although it had never been read and its pages were not turned by anyone.
Marin was born in 1697 and lived until 1767. In the 1880s, after more than a century of life, his work was a classic when it got a new, revised edition.
In the first half of 1886, Helena Blavatsky was in Würsburg, Germany, but in July she moved to Ostend, Belgium. In 1887, she settled in London. Thus, when Marin’s book on the Desert Fathers left the press, the volume was surrounded by the magnetic aura and by the dense and subtle atmosphere of Europe, in which Blavatsky lived. It was a long journey through time, until it arrived by express mail, still unread by anyone, at the ILT library.
In 1886 - and until the middle of the 20th century - books were sold with the pages attached to each other, usually in groups of 8. Before reading, the pages had to be manually separated with a knife or spatula. This is how the book about the Desert Fathers arrived at the library of the ILT. Although the volume of Michel-Ange Marin’s work had never been read, it had to face problems through the time journey. The front cover and back cover, as well as the first and last pages, reached the year of 2024 during the process of getting dismantled. However, once the repair glue dried, it became possible to read and to turn its pages as naturally as any other book.
The teachings of the Fathers of the Desert are recognized by both the Russian and Greek Orthodox Churches, and by the Catholic and Protestant worlds alike. They are seen as important by Theosophists.
Jesus himself was a Sage of the Desert, and Helena Blavatsky highlights the fact in “Isis Unveiled, volume II”, pp. 144-145. However, the life of the Desert Fathers was a pale remnant of the pagan esoteric wisdom of previous times, as we can see on pages 108 and 196, among others, of Isis, volume II.
Pale remnants as they are, the traditional sayings and apophthegms ascribed to the Desert Fathers teach many a valuable lesson to the modern student of theosophy, in his efforts to experience in daily life the wisdom he seeks to understand.
000
The article “Desert Fathers, the Journey of a Rare Book” is available on the websites of the Independent Lodge of Theosophists since 30 October 2025. An initial version of it is part of the April 2024 edition of “The Aquarian Theosophist”, pages 10-11. Original title: “The Journey of a Rare Book”.
000
Read more:
See the thematic section on Christianity and Esoteric Philosophy.
000
Helena Blavatsky (photo) wrote these revealing words: “Deserve, then desire”.
000
