Volume I of _Isis_ begins with a reference to an “old book”:
So very old that our modern antiquarians might ponder over its pages an indefinite time, and still not quite agree as to the nature of the fabric upon which it is written. It is the only original copy now in existence. The most ancient Hebrew document on occult learning—the _Siprah Dzeniouta_—was compiled from it, and that at a time when the former was already considered in the light of a literary relic. One of its illustrations represents the Divine Essence emanating from ADAM(25) like a luminous arc proceeding to form a circle; and then, having attained the highest point of its circumference, the ineffable Glory bends back again, and returns to earth, bringing a higher type of humanity in its vortex. As it approaches nearer and nearer to our planet, the Emanation becomes more and more shadowy, until upon touching the ground it is as black as night.
This very old book is the original work from which the many volumes of _Kiu‐ti_ were compiled. Not only the latter and the _Siphrah Dzeniouta_, but even the _Sepher Jetzirah_(26)—the work attributed by the Hebrew Kabalists to their Patriarch Abraham (!), the _Shu‐king_, China’s primitive Bible, the sacred volumes of the Egyptian Thoth‐Hermes, the _Purânas_ in India, the Chaldean _Book of Numbers_ and the _Pentateuch_ itself, are all derived from that one small parent volume. Tradition says, that it was taken down in _Senzar_, the secret sacerdotal tongue, from the words of Divine Beings, who dictated it to the Sons of Light, in Central Asia, at the very beginning of our Fifth Race; for there was a time when its language (the Senzar) was known to the Initiates of every nation, when the forefathers of the Toltec understood it as easily as the inhabitants of the lost Atlantis, who inherited it, in their turn, from the sages of the Third Race, the Mânushis, who learnt it direct from the Devas of the Second and First Races. The illustration spoken of in _Isis_ relates to the evolution of these Races and of our fourth‐ and fifth‐race Humanity in the Vaivasvata Manvantara, or Round; each Round being composed of the Yugas of the seven periods of Humanity; four of which are now passed in _our_ Life‐Cycle, the middle point of the fifth being nearly reached. This illustration is symbolical, as every one can well understand, and covers the ground from the beginning. The old book, having described cosmic evolution and explained the origin of everything on earth, including physical man, after giving the true history of the Races, from the First down to our own Fifth Race, goes no further. It stops short at the beginning of the Kali Yuga, just 4,989 years ago, at the death of Krishna, the bright Sun‐god, the once living hero and reformer.