Ireland

The name "Ireland" derives from the Old English "Īrland," meaning "land of the Ériu," a goddess in Irish mythology. The term's origin predates Blavatsky's attempts to connect it to "Fho, Fo, and Pho," suggesting her etymological leap is not supported by mainstream linguistic scholarship.

The name Fcrho and Faho of the Codex Nazaranis is but a corruption of Fho, Fo and Pho, the name which the Chinese, Tibetans and even Ne])aulese often give to Buddha. Book of the Dead. An ancient Egyptian ritualistic antl occult work attributed to Thot-IIermes. Found in the coffins of ancient mummies. Book of the Keys. An ancient Kabbalistic work. Borj (I'crs.). The Mundane Mountain, a volcano or lire-mountain; the same as the Indian Meru. Borri, Joseph Francis. A great Hermetic philosopher, born at Milan in the 17th century. He was an adept, an alchemist and a devoted occultist. He knew too nuich and was, therefore, condemned to death for heresy, in January, 1661, after the death of Pope Innocent X. He escaped and lived many years after, when finally he was recognized by a monk in a Turkish village, denounced, claimed by the Papal Nuncio, taken back to Rome and imprisoned, August 10th, 1675. But facts show that he escaped from his prison in a way no one could account for.

In the grand, often bewildering, lexicon of the occult, the appearance of a place name like "Ireland" among terms like "Atman" or "Brahman" is less a geographical marker and more a signal of a mind seeking universal patterns. Blavatsky, in her monumental effort to synthesize global esoteric traditions, frequently engaged in what Mircea Eliade might term a "myth of the eternal return," seeing echoes of ancient wisdom in the most disparate phenomena. Her definition, linking Ireland to the Chinese "Fo" or the Egyptian "Thoth," is a prime example of this method.

This is not the Ireland of political history or geographical surveys, but a conceptual Ireland, a cipher in a vast symbolic map. It speaks to a worldview where the physical world is a palimpsest, and beneath the visible layer lies a deeper, more resonant reality. The scholar Henry Corbin, in his exploration of Islamic mysticism and Gnosticism, often spoke of the "imaginal realm," a space where symbolic forms hold profound truth. Blavatsky, in her own way, was charting such a realm, and any name, from a sacred text to a distant island, could become a portal if it resonated with her overarching vision.

Her inclusion of Joseph Francis Borri, a 17th-century Hermetic philosopher, further underscores this. Borri’s life, a dramatic saga of persecution and miraculous escape, would have appealed to Blavatsky’s fascination with hidden knowledge and the resilience of the adept. The "Book of the Dead" and "Book of the Keys" are not merely ancient texts but repositories of secrets, their attribution to Thoth-Hermes or Kabbalistic tradition serving as a validation of their occult significance.

What Blavatsky offers here, through this seemingly incongruous entry, is an invitation to see the world not as a collection of discrete facts but as a network of interconnected symbols, a cosmic language waiting to be deciphered. It’s a reminder that for the seeker, even the most mundane name can hold the potential for profound revelation, if one possesses the key to unlock its hidden resonance. The act of seeking itself transforms the known into the unknown, and the ordinary into the extraordinary.