Theosophical Glossary Collation

(From Theosophical University Press)

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List of Abbreviated Titles (in alphabetical order)

FY | Five Years of Theosophy – 1885 | H. P. Blavatsky, ed.
GH | Gods and Heroes of the Bhagavad Gita – 1939 | Geoffrey A. Barborka
IN | An Invitation to the Secret Doctrine – 1988 | Grace F. Knoche, ed.
IU | Isis Unveiled – 1877 | H. P. Blavatsky
KT | Key to Theosophy – 1889 | H. P. Blavatsky
MO | The Masks of Odin – 1985 | Elsa-Brita Titchenell
OG | Occult Glossary – 1933, 1996 | G. de Purucker
PV | Esotericism of the Popol Vuh – 1979 | Raphael Girard (glossary by Blair A. Moffett)
SK | Sanskrit Keys the Wisdom Religion – 1940 | Judith Tyberg
SKo | Sanskrit terms from The Ocean of Theosophy, by William Q. Judge, 1893.
SKv | Sanskrit terms from The Voice of the Silence, by H. P. Blavatsky, 1889.
SKf | Sanskrit terms from Fundamentals of the Esoteric Philosophy, by G. de Purucker, 1932.
SKs | Sanskrit terms from The Secret Doctrine, by H. P. Blavatsky, 1888.
SP | Sanskrit Pronunciation – 1992 | Bruce Cameron Hall
TG | Theosophical Glossary – 1892 | H. P. Blavatsky
VS | Voice of the Silence – 1889 | H. P. Blavatsky
WG | The Working Glossary – 1892 | W. Q. Judge
Compiled by Scott J. Osterhage

(TG) A. — The first letter in all the world-alphabets save a few, such for instance as the Mongolian, the Japanese, the Tibetan, the Ethiopian, etc. It is a letter of great mystic power and magic virtue with those who have adopted it, and with whom its numerical value is one It is the Aleph of the Hebrews, symbolized by the Ox or Bull; the Alpha of the Greeks, the one and the first; the Az of the Slavonians, signifying the pronoun I referring to the I am that I am. Even in Astrology, Taurus the Ox or Bull or the Aleph is the first of the Zodiacal signs, its colour being white and yellow. The sacred Aleph acquires a still more marked sanctity with the Christian Kabalists when they learn that this letter typifies the Trinity in Unity, as it is composed of two Yods, one upright, the other reversed with a slanting bar or nexus, … Kenneth R.H. Mackenzie states that the St. Andrew cross is occultly connected therewith. The divine name, the first in the series corresponding with Aleph , is AeHeIeH or Ahih, when vowelless, and this is a Sanskrit root.
(TG) Aahla {Egyp}. One of the divisions of the Kerneter or infernal regions, or Amenti; the word means the Field of Peace.
(TG) Aanroo {Egyp}. The second division of Amenti. The celestial field of Aanroo is encircled by an iron wall. The field is covered with wheat, and the Defunct are represented gleaning it, for the Master of Eternity; some stalks being three, others five, and the highest seven cubits high. Those who reached the last two numbers entered the state of bliss which is called in Theosophy Devachan the disembodied spirits whose harvest was but three cubits high went into lower regions Kamaloka. Wheat was with the Egyptians the symbol of the Law of Retribution or Karma. The cubits had reference to the seven, five and three human principles.
(TG) Aaron {Hebr}. The elder brother of Moses and the first Initiate of the Hebrew Lawgiver. The name means the Illuminated, or the Enlightened. Aaron thus heads the line, or Hierarchy, of the initiated Nabim, or Seers.
(TG) Ab {Hebr}. The eleventh month of the Hebrew civil year; the fifth of the sacred year beginning in July.
(TG) Abaddon {Hebr}. An angel of Hell, corresponding to the Greek Apollyon.
(TG) Abatur {Gnos}. In the Nazarene system the Ancient of Days, Antiquus Altus, the Father of the Demiurgus of the Universe, is called the Third Life or Abatur. He corresponds to the Third Logos in the Secret Doctrine. See Codex Nazaraeus.
(TG) Abba Amona {Hebr}. Lit., Father-Mother; the occult names of the two higher Sephiroth, Chokmah and Binah, of the upper triad, the apex of which is Sephira or Kether. From this triad issues the lower septenary of the Sephirothal Tree.
(TG) Abhamsi {Sans}. A mystic name of the four orders of beings which are, Gods, Demons, Pitris and Men. Orientalists somehow connect the name with waters, but esoteric philosophy connects its symbolism with Akasa — the ethereal waters of space, since it is on the bosom and on the seven planes of space that the four orders of and the three higher Orders of Spiritual Beings are born.
(TG) Abhasvaras {Sans}. The Devas or Gods of Light and Sound, the highest of the upper three celestial regions planes of the second Dhyana A class of gods sixty-four in number, representing a certain cycle and an occult number.
(TG) Abhava {Sans}. Negation, or non-being of individual objects; the noumenal substance, or abstract objectivity.
(FY) Abhava, negation or non-being of individual objects; the substance, the abstract objectivity.
(WG) Abhava, non-existence, non-entity; privation, negation, destruction, death. a, not; bhava, being: non-being.
(TG) Abhaya {Sans}. Fearlessness — a son of Dharma; and also a religious life of duty. As an adjective, Fearless, Abhaya is an epithet given to every Buddha.
(SKs) Abhaya ‘Fearlessness’; a compound of a — not, and bhaya — fear, derived from the verb-root bhi — to fear. Abhaya is also that mental peace and serenity that comes from perfect love, as the Bible says: Perfect love casteth out all fear.
(TG) Abhayagiri {Sans}. Lit., Mount Fearless in Ceylon. It has an ancient Vihara or Monastery in which the well-known Chinese traveller Fa-hien found 5,000 Buddhist priests and ascetics in the year 400 of our era, and a School called Abhayagiri Vasinah, School of the Secret Forest. This philosophical school was regarded as heretical, as the ascetics studied the doctrines of both the greater and the smaller vehicles — or the Mahayana and the Hinayana systems and Triyana or the three successive degrees of Yoga; just as a certain Brotherhood does now beyond the Himalayas. This proves that the disciples of Katyayana were and are as unsectarian as their humble admirers the Theosophists are now. See Sthavirah School. This was the most mystical of all the schools, and renowned for the number of Arhats it produced. The Brotherhood of Abhayagiri called themselves the disciples of Katyayana, the favourite Chela of Gautama, the Buddha. Tradition says that owing to bigoted intolerance and persecution, they left Ceylon and passed beyond the Himalayas, where they have remained ever since.
(TG) Abhidharma {Sans} . The metaphysical third part of Tripitaka, a very philosophical Buddhist work by Katyayana.
(WG) Abhidharma, the third division of the Tripitaka or Buddhist canon. It contains the philosophical dissertations and metaphysics of the Buddhists, and from it the Mahayana and Hinayana schools got their fundamental doctrines.
(TG) Abhijna {Sans}. Six phenomenal or supernatural gifts which Sakyamuni Buddha acquired in the night on which he reached Buddha-ship. This is the fourth degree of Dhyana the seventh in esoteric teachings which has to be attained by every true Arhat. In China, the initiated Buddhist ascetics reckon six such powers, but in Ceylon they reckon only five. The first Abhijna is Divyachakchus, the instantaneous view of anything one wills to see; the second, is Divyasrotra, the power of comprehending any sound whatever, etc., etc.
(TG) Abhimanim {Sans}. The name of Agni (fire) the eldest son of Brahma, in other words, the first element or Force produced in the universe at its evolution (the fire of creative desire). By his wife Swaha, Abhimanim had three sons (the fires) Pavaka, Pavamana and Suchi, and these had forty-five sons, who, with the original son of Brahma and his three descendants, constitute the forty-nine fires of Occultism.
(TG) Abhimanyu {Sans}. A son of Arjuna. He killed Lakshmana, in the great battle of the Mahabharata on its second day, but was himself killed on the thirteenth.
(WG) Abhinivesa, idle terror causing death.
(TG) Abhutarajasas {Sans}. A class of gods or Devas, during the period of the fifth Manvantara.
(WG) Abhutarajasas, bright incorporeal beings, deities having not even astral forms. a, not; bhuta, element; raj, shine.
(WG) Abhyasana, uninterrupted contemplation of an object. abhi, into; asa, throwing: throwing one’s self into study.
(TG) Abib {Hebr}. The first Jewish sacred month, begins in March; is also called Nisan.
(TG) Abiegnus Mons {Latin}. A mystic name, from whence as from a certain mountain, Rosicrucian documents are often found to be issued — Monte Abiegno. There is a connection with Mount Meru, and other sacred hills.
(TG) Ab-i-hayat {Pers}. Water of immortality. Supposed to give eternal youth and sempiternal life to him who drinks of it.
(FY) Ab-e-Hyat, Water of Life, supposed to give eternal youth.
(TG) Abiri {Greek}. See Kabiri, also written Kabeiri, the Mighty Ones, celestials, sons of Zedec the just one, a group of deities worshipped in Phoenicia: they seem to be identical with the Titans, Corybantes, Curetes, Telchines and Dii Magni of Virgil.
(TG) Ablanathanalba {Gnos}. A term similar to Abracadabra. It is said by C.W. King to have meant thou art a father to us; it reads the same from either end and was used as a charm in Egypt.
(TG) Abracadabra {Gnos}. This symbolic word first occurs in a medical treatise in verse by Samonicus, who flourished in the reign of the Emperor Septimus Severus. Godfrey Higgins says it is from Abra or Abar God, in Celtic, and cad holy; it was used as a charm, and engraved on Kameas as an amulet. Godfrey Higgins was nearly right, as the word Abracadabra is a later corruption of the sacred Gnostic term Abrasax, the latter itself being a still earlier corruption of a sacred and ancient Coptic or Egyptian word: a magic formula which meant in its symbolism Hurt me not, and addressed the deity in its hieroglyphics as Father. It was generally attached to an amulet or charm and worn as a Tat, on the breast under the garments.
(TG) Abraxas or Abrasax {Gnos}. Mystic words which have been traced as far back as Basilides, the Pythagorean, of Alexandria, A.D. 90. He uses Abraxas as a title for Divinity, the supreme of Seven, and as having 365 virtues. In Greek numeration, a. 1, b. 2, r. 100, a. 1, x. 60, a. 1, s. 200 = 365, days of the year, solar year, a cycle of divine action. C.W. King, author of The Gnostics, considers the word similar to the Hebrew Shemhamphorasch, a holy word, the extended name of God. An Abraxas Gem usually shows a man’s body with the head of a cock, one arm with a shield, the other with a whip. Abraxas is the counterpart of the Hindu Abhimanim and Brahma combined. It is these compound and mystic qualities which caused Oliver, the great Masonic authority, to connect the name of Abraxas with that of Abraham. This was unwarrantable; the virtues and attributes of Abraxas, which are 365 in number, ought to have shown him that the deity was connected with the Sun and solar division of the year — nay, that Abraxas is the antitype, and the Sun, the type.
(TG) Absoluteness. When predicated of the UNIVERSAL PRINCIPLE, it denotes an abstract noun, which is more correct and logical than to apply the adjective absolute to that which has neither attributes nor limitations, nor can IT have any.
(KT) Absoluteness. When predicated of the UNIVERSAL PRINCIPLE, it denotes an abstraction, which is more correct and logical than to apply the adjective absolute to that which can have neither attributes nor limitations.
(WG) Absolute, anything of which it can be predicated that it is not relative. In pure metaphysics that which exists independent of any other cause; unconditioned. Hence the same as Parabrahmam, or the unknowable. That state or condition into which it is said the manifested universe disappears upon the great Pralaya. Said to be, by some, the combination of Spirit and Matter.
(OG) Absolute — A term which unfortunately is much abused and often misused even in theosophical writings. It is a convenient word in Occidental philosophy by which is described the utterly unconditioned; but it is a practice which violates both the etymology of the word and even the usage of some keen and careful thinkers as, for instance, Sir William Hamilton in his Discussions (3rd edition, p.13n), who apparently uses the word absolute in the exactly correct sense in which theosophists should use it as meaning finished, perfected, completed. As Hamilton observes: The Absolute is diametrically opposed to, is contradictory of, the Infinite. This last statement is correct, and in careful theosophical writings the word Absolute should be used in Hamilton’s sense, as meaning that which is freed, unloosed, perfected, completed. Absolute is from the Latin absolutum , meaning freed, unloosed, and is, therefore, an exact English parallel of the Sanskrit philosophical term moksha or mukti, and more mystically of the Sanskrit term so commonly found in Buddhist writings especially, nirvana — an extremely profound and mystical thought. Hence, to speak of parabrahman as being the Absolute may be a convenient usage for Occidentals who understand neither the significance of the term parabrahman nor the etymology, origin, and proper usage of the English word Absolute — proper outside of a common and familiar employment. In strict accuracy, therefore, the student should use the word Absolute only when he means what the Hindu philosopher means when he speaks of moksha or mukti or of a mukta — i.e., one who has obtained mukti or freedom, one who has arrived at the acme or summit of all evolution possible in any one hierarchy, although as compared with hierarchies still more sublime, such jivanmukta is but a mere beginner. The Silent Watcher in theosophical philosophy is an outstanding example of one who can be said to be absolute in the fully accurate meaning of the word. It is obvious that the Silent Watcher is not parabrahman.
(TG) Ab-Soo {Chald}. The mystic name for Space, meaning the dwelling of Ab the Father, or the Head of the source of the Waters of Knowledge. The lore of the latter is concealed in the invisible space or akasic regions.
(TG) Acacia {Greek}. Innocence; and also a plant used in Freemasonry as a symbol of initiation, immortality, and purity; the tree furnished the sacred Shittim wood of the Hebrews.
(TG) Achamoth {Gnos}. The name of the second, the inferior Sophia. Esoterically and with the Gnostics, the elder Sophia was the Holy Spirit (female Holy Ghost) or the Sakti of the Unknown, and the Divine Spirit; while Sophia Achamoth is but the personification of the female aspect of the creative male Force in nature; also the Astral Light.
(TG) Achar {Hebr}. The Gods over whom (according to the Jews) Jehovah is the God.
(TG) Achara {Sans}. Personal and social (religious) obligations.
(TG) Acharya {Sans}. Spiritual teacher, Guru; as Sankar- acharya, lit., a teacher of ethics. A name generally given to Initiates, etc., and meaning Master.
(WG) Acharya, a holy teacher; an instructor in the mysteries. Literally, one who knows the achara, or rules
(TG) Achath {Hebr}. The one, the first, feminine; achad being masculine. A Talmudic word applied to Jehovah. It is worthy of note that the Sanskrit term ak means one, ekata being unity, Brahma being called ak, or eka, the one, the first, whence the Hebrew word and application.
(TG) Acher {Hebr}. The Talmudic name of the Apostle Paul. The Talmud narrates the story of the four Tanaim, who entered the Garden of Delight, i.e., came to be initiated; Ben Asai, who looked and lost his sight; Ben Zoma, who looked and lost his reason; Acher, who made depredations in the garden and failed; and Rabbi Akiba, who alone succeeded. The Kabalists say that Acher is Paul.
(TG) Acheron {Greek}. One of the rivers of Hades in Greek mythology.
(TG) Achit {Sans}. Absolute non -intelligence; as Chit is — in contrast — absolute intelligence.
(WG) Achit, one of the three inseparable aspects of Parabrahmam. a, devoid of; chit, thought, intelligent force, mind
(TG) Achyuta {Sans}. That which is not subject to change or fall; the opposite to Chyuta, fallen. A title of Vishnu.
(WG) Achyuta, the unfailing, that which is not subject to fall; a title given to Krishna in the Bhagavat-Gita; a name of Vishnu.
(GH) Achyuta The unfallen, i.e., the imperishable: a philosophical term about which H. P. Blavatsky writes: Achyuta is an almost untranslatable term. It means that which is not subject to fall or change for the worse: the Unfalling; and it is the reverse of chyuta, ‘the Fallen.’ The Dhyanis who incarnate in the human forms of the Third Root-Race and endow them with intellect (Manas) are called the chyuta, for they fall into generation. (Secret Doctrine, II, p. 47) Achyuta is applied to Vishnu, and to Krishna in his avataric aspect of Vishnu: not, however, as an individualized entity but in respect to the condition or state of essential Cosmic Being. (Compound a, not; chyuta from (The following word is derived from the verbal root:) chyu, to move to and fro, to fall, to fade. Bhagavad-Gita, W.Q. Judge, p. 132)
(TG) Acosmism {Greek}. The precreative period, when there was no Kosmos but Chaos alone.
(TG) Ad {assyr}. Ad, the Father. In Aramean ad means one, and ad-ad the only one.
(TG) Adah {assyr}. Borrowed by the Hebrews for the name of their Adah, father of Jubal, etc. But Adah meaning the first, the one, is universal property. There are reasons to think that Ak-ad, means the first-born or Son of Ad. Adon was the first Lord of Syria.
(TG) Adam {Hebr}. In the Kabalah Adam is the only-begotten, and means also red earth. It is almost identical with Athamas or Thomas, and is rendered into Greek by Didumos, the twin — Adam, the first, in chap. I of Genesis being shown, male-female.
(WG) Adam, the first man in the Hebraic system. The word really means Man and not a man.
(TG) Adam Kadmon {Hebr} Archetypal Man; Humanity. The Heavenly Man not fallen into sin; Kabalists refer it to the Ten Sephiroth on the plane of human perception. In the Kabalah Adam Kadmon is the manifested Logos corresponding to our Third Logos; the Unmanifested being the first paradigmic ideal Man, and symbolizing the Universe in abscondito, or in its privation in the Aristotelean sense. The First Logos is the Light of the World, the Second and the Third — its gradually deepening shadows.
(KT) Adam Kadmon {Hebr}. Archetypal man, Humanity. The Heavenly man not fallen into sin. Kabalists refer it to the Ten Sephiroth on the plane of human perception. In the Kabala Adam Kadmon is the manifested Logos corresponding to our third Logos, the unmanifested being the first paradigmic ideal man, and symbolizing the universe in abscondito, or in its privation in the Aristotelean sense. The first Logos is the light of the World, the second and the third, its gradually deepening shadows.
(FY) Adam Kadmon, the bi-sexual Sephira of the Kabalists.
(WG) Adam Kadmon, in the Kabalah, the Heavenly Man; Humanity in its ideal form, for Adam Kadmon is said to stand with his head in heaven and his feet on earth.
(IN) Adam Kadmon {Hebr}. In the Kabbalah, archetypal or primordial humanity, macrocosmic or Heavenly Man in contradistinction to the earthly Adam; the Sephirothal Tree of Life.
(TG) Adamic Earth #6nn Called the true oil of gold or the primal element in Alchemy. It is but one remove from the pure homogeneous element.
(TG) Adbhuta Brahmana {Sans}. The Brahmana of miracles; treats of marvels, auguries, and various phenomena.
(TG) Adbhuta Dharma {Sans}. The law of things never heard before. A class of Buddhist works on miraculous or phenomenal events.
(TG) Adept {Latin}. Adeptus, He who has obtained. In Occultism one who has reached the stage of Initiation, and become a Master in the science of Esoteric philosophy.
(KT) Adept (Latim adeptus). In Occultism, one who has reached the stage of initiation and become a master in the Science of Esoteric Philosophy.
(FY) Adept, one who, through the development of his spirit, has attained to transcendental knowledge and powers.
(WG) Adept #6nn, as used in these times is applied to the Mahatmas, but as there are black and white, high and low Adepts, that use is erroneous. The word strictly means an expert or master in some particular art or science. In Theosophical literature the term is generally applied to those occultists who have passed beyond the age of pupilage and have, so to speak, come of age in the study and practice of occultism, being more than chelas but less than full Initiates.
(OG) Adept — The word means one who is skilled; hence, even in our ordinary life, a chemist, a physician, a theologian, a mechanic, an engineer, a teacher of languages, an astronomer, are all adepts, persons who are skilled, each in his own profession. In theosophical writings, however, an Adept is one who is skilled in the esoteric wisdom, in the teachings of life.
(TG) Adharma {Sans}. Unrighteousness, vice, the opposite of Dharma.
(WG) Adharma, unrighteousness, wickedness, vice.
(TG) Adhi {Sans}. Supreme, paramount.
(TG) Adhi-bhautika duhkha {Sans}. The second of the three kinds of pain; lit., Evil proceeding from external things or beings.
(FY) Adhibhautika, arising from external objects.
(WG) Adhibautika, natural; a term applied to natural and extrinsic pain.
(WG) Adhibhuta, the lord of lives; the Supreme Spirit when dwelling in all elemental nature through the mysterious power of -nature’s illusion. (adhi, over; bhuta, element).
(GH) Adhibhuta literally ‘Original Element,’ i.e., the primordial substratum or element of matter and all objects, in its cosmic aspect. (Compound adhi ‘above,’ therefore implying superiority; bhuta, a word frequently used for ‘element.’ Bhagavad-Gita , W.Q. Judge, p. 57).
(FY) Adhidaivika, arising from the gods, or accidents.
(WG) Adhidaivata, (also Adhidaiva), presiding deity, lord of all the gods; the Supreme Spirit as dwelling in the solar orb (meaning, according to Eastern ideas, that the supreme power for this solar system has its place in the sun), or when fully manifest in man. (adhi, over; deva, a god).
(GH) Adhidaivata literally The original or primordial divine, i.e., the divine agent operating in and through beings and objects. A generalizing adjective applying to the divine part of any being from the hierarchical standpoint: applicable to Adhyatman. (Compound adhi above, therefore implying superiority; daivata , divine. Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 57).
(WG) Adhidaivika, spiritual; a term applied to superhuman pain.
(TG) Adhi-daivika duhkha {Sans} . The third of the three kinds of pain. Evil proceeding from divine causes, or a just Karmic punishment.
(FY) Adhikamasansas, extra months.
(IN) Adi-Sanat {Sans} First Ancient, title of Brahma, highest manifesting divinity.
(TG) Adhishtanam {Sans} . Basis; a principle in which some other principle inheres.
(FY) Adhishthanam, basis; a principle in which some other principle inheres.
(WG) Adhiyajna, the Supreme Spirit as director of the body, as it is held in the ancient doctrine that one spirit guides all men, assuming in each an apparent separateness which is due to the personal lower self. (adhi, over; yajna, sacrificial ceremony: director of the sacrificial ceremony — which is human life.
(GH) Adhiyajna literally ‘Primordial sacrifice.’ Cosmologically this refers to the Cosmic Logos, which in the Esoteric Philosophy is represented as in a sense sacrificing itself for the benefit of the world; because due to its own coming into manifestation it enables the waiting hosts of monads to come into being. In the small, every Avatara repeats the sacrifice for the benefit of all that lives. The Bhagavad-Gita refers to this in the words Adhiyajna is myself in this body, i.e., Krishna the Avatara in a physical body. (Compound adhi upper, paramount; yajna, sacrifice. Bhagavad-Gita , W. Q. Judge, p. 58).
(WG) Adhyatma, the soul of souls; the over-soul. (adhi, over; atma, soul).
(GH) Adhyatman literally ‘The Supreme or Original Atman,’ the highest of a hierarchy, equivalent to Paramatman. (Compound adhi above, therefore implying superiority; atman, Self. Bhagavad-Gita, W.Q. Judge, p. 57)
(TG) Adhyatmika duhkha {Sans}. The first of the three kinds of pain; lit., Evil proceeding from Self, an induced or a generated evil by Self, or man himself.
(FY) Adhyatmika, arising out of the inner self.
(WG) Adhyatmika, relating to the soul (adhyatma); a term applied to natural and inseparable pain.
(TG) Adhyatma Vidya {Sans} . Lit., the esoteric luminary. One of the Pancha Vidya Sastras, or the Scriptures of the Five Sciences.
(SKv) Adhyaya A chapter of a book; a lesson, a reading: derived from adhi — towards, and the verb-root i — to go; but meaning in combination ‘to study, to turn the minds towards.’
(TG) Adi {Sans} . The First, the primeval.
(TG) Adi (the Sons of). In Esoteric philosophy the Sons of Adi are called the Sons of the Fire-mist. A term used of certain adepts.
(WG) Adi, the first, the beginning; the unknown Deity, Brahma.
(TG) Adi-bhuta {Sans} . The first Being; also primordial element. Adbhuta is a title of Vishnu, the first Element containing all elements, the unfathomable deity.
(TG) Adi-Buddha {Sans} . The First and Supreme Buddha — not recognised in the Southern Church. The Eternal Light.
(WG) Adibuddha, the first or supreme Buddha. Buddha in reality is not a person, but a principle incarnating in different so-called Buddhas.
(WG) Adi-Buddha, first or primeval wisdom; an aspect of Parabrahmam. ( adi, first; buddha, wisdom
(SKv) Adi-Buddha Adi-Buddha is the ‘Primeval or First Buddha,’ the highest individualized being of the Hierarchy of Wisdom and Compassion in our Solar Universe. The divine nature of this ‘Wondrous Being’ or ‘Silent Watcher,’ as H. P. Blavatsky calls this great being of Light and Truth, permeates all beings, and hence like the Buddha, all men may raise themselves, if they will, to the divine source within them and thus commune with the Supreme Lord who is of the same essence. This Supreme Lord as well as the Divine Monad in man is sometimes given the title of Isvara or Avalokitesvara.
(SKf) Adi-Buddha, Dhyani-Buddha , Dhyani-Bodhisattva, Manushya-Buddha In Trans-Himalayan Buddhism and in the Esoteric Philosophy these four classes of spiritual beings belong to the Hierarchy of Compassionate Guardians of this planet and its inhabitants. Adi-Buddha, the summit of Primeval Wisdom, is the Silent Watcher of the whole Earth Planetary Chain. He is often referred to as the ‘Wondrous Being,’ or as the Logos by the Greeks. The Dhyani-Buddhas watch over the Rounds or great Life-Cycles of this Planet. The Dhyani-Bodhisattvas watch over the Globes of the Earth Planetary Chain. The Manushya-Buddhas are the Guardians and Inspirers of the great Root-Races on each Globe of our Earth Planetary Chain. Gautama the Buddha was one of these Manushya-Buddhas. Manushya is the adjectival form of manushya — man, derived from the verb-root man — to think.
(TG) Adi-budhi {Sans} . Primeval Intelligence or Wisdom; the eternal Budhi or Universal Mind. Used of Divine Ideation, Mahabuddhi being synonymous with MAHAT.
(WG) Adi-buddhi, the first or unmanifested consciousness.
(SP) Adi-buddhi — original intelligence.
(TG) Adikrit {Sans} . Lit. , the first produced or made. The creative Force eternal and uncreate, but manifesting periodically. Applied to Vishnu slumbering on the waters of space during pralaya .
(TG) Adi-natha {Sans} . The first Lord — Adi first natha Lord.
(TG) Adi-nidana {Sans} . First and Supreme Causality, from Adi, the first, and Nidana the principal cause (or the concatenation of cause and effect).
(TG) Adi-Sakti {Sans} . Primeval, divine Force; the female creative power, and aspect in and of every male god. The Sakti in the Hindu Pantheon is always the spouse of some god.
(TG) Adi-Sanat {Sans} . Lit. , First Ancient. The term corresponds to the Kabalistic ancient of days, since it is a title of Brahma — called in the Zohar the Atteekah d’Atteekeen , or the Ancient of the Ancients, etc.
(WG) Adi-sanat, the first ancient, Brahma, the creator.
(TG) Aditi {Sans} . The Vedic name for the Mulaprakriti of the Vedantists; the abstract aspect of Parabrahman, though both unmanifested and unknowable. In the Vedas Aditi is the Mother-Goddess, her terrestrial symbol being infinite and shoreless space.
(WG) Aditi, the boundless, i . e ., space; aether; akasa; Vedic name for mulaprakriti; abstract space, or ideal nature, corresponding with the Egyptian Isis, the female side of procreative nature.
(SKs) Aditi, Aditya Aditi is ‘Boundless Infinitude’; a compound of a — not, diti — limit; hence in compound, ‘unlimited.’ Ancient mystics called Aditi ‘the Divine Mother of every existing being.’ In a still deeper sense Aditi represents ‘Divine Wisdom.’ Aditya, meaning ‘born of Aditi,’ is one of the names given to the sun. The seven Adityas or ‘Sons of Aditi’ are the seven gods whose bodies or dwellings are the seven planets of our Solar System. Some of the more mystical writings speak of twelve Adityas or Planetary Gods. Esoteric philosophy teaches that five of these twelve planets are invisible to us at present.
(TG) Aditi-Gaea. A compound term, Sanskrit and Latin, meaning dual, nature in theosophical writings — spiritual and physical, as Gaea is the goddess of the earth and of objective nature.
(TG) Aditya {Sans} . A name of the Sun; as Marttanda, he is the Son of Aditi.
(TG) Adityas {Sans} . The seven sons of Aditi; the seven planetary gods.
(WG) Adityas, the twelve sun-gods who bring about the universal conflagration of this solar system.
(GH) Adityas The twelve great gods of the Hindu pantheon, sometimes also reckoned as seven (as in early Vedic times, and named, Varuna, the chief, Mitra, Aryaman, Bhaga, Daksha, Ansa, Surya): sons of boundless infinitude (Aditi). These great gods have been known under many names in different kalpas: they are the eternal sustainers of the divine life which exists in all things. The wise call our fathers Vasus; our paternal grandfathers Rudras; our paternal great grandfathers, Adityas; agreeable to a text of the Vedas. (The Laws of Manu (Manava-Dharma-Sastra), pp. iii, p. 284) Astronomically, the seven Adityas are the regents of the seven planets. ( Secret Doctrine, I, p. 99) (Meaning of the word itself: belonging or coming from Aditi. Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 73)
(TG) Adi Varsha {Sans} . The first land; the primordial country in which dwelt the first races.
(WG) Adi-varsha, the first country; the Eden of the first races.
(TG) Adonai {Hebr} . The same as Adonis. Commonly translated Lord. Astronomically — the Sun. When a Hebrew in reading came to the name IHVH, which is called Jehovah, he paused and substituted the word Adonai, (Adni); but when written with the points of Alhim, he called it Elohim.
(WG) Adonai, a Hebrew word, meaning Lord, which was used in reading the sacred scrolls as a substitute for the unutterable name of four letters, the J-H-V-H. This term was used by mediaeval writers as a name for certain classes of the Dhyan Chohans.
(TG) Adonim-Adonai, Adon. The ancient Chaldeo-Hebrew names for the Elohim or creative terrestrial forces, synthesized by Jehovah.
(WG) Adrishta, unseen; beyond reach of consciousness; the merit or demerit attaching to a man’s conduct in a former incarnation, and the corresponding (apparently arbitrary) punishment or reward in the present or a future incarnation; destiny.
(TG) Adwaita {Sans} . A Vedanta sect. The non-dualistic (A-dwaita) school of Vedantic philosophy founded by Sankaracharya, the greatest of the historical Brahmin sages. The two other schools are the Dwaita (dualistic) and the Visishtadwaita; all the three call themselves Vedantic.
(WG) Advaita, non-duality; the one secondless existence, the one reality; a system of philosophy based on non-duality.
(TG) Adwaitin {Sans} . A follower of the said school.
(FY) Advaiti, a follower of the school of Philosophy established by Sankaracharya.
(FY) Advaiti, a follower of the school of Philosophy established by Sankaracharya.
(TG) Adytum {Greek} . The Holy of Holies in the pagan temples. A name for the secret and sacred precincts or the inner chamber, into which no profane could enter; it corresponds to the sanctuary of the altars of Christian Churches.
(TG) Aebel-Zivo {Gnos} . The Metatron or anointed spirit with the Nazarene Gnostics; the same as the angel Gabriel.
(TG) Aeolus {Greek} . The god who, according to Hesiod, binds and looses the winds; the king of storms and winds. A king of Aeolia, the inventor of sails and a great astronomer, and therefore deified by posterity.
(TG) Aeon or Aeons {Greek} . Periods of time; emanations proceeding from the divine essence, and celestial beings; genii and angels with the Gnostics.
(WG) Aeons, periods of time of such duration as to be incomprehensible; also celestial beings.
(TG) Aesir #94 . The same as Ases, the creative Forces personified. The gods who created the black dwarfs or the Elves of Darkness in Asgard. The divine Aesir, the Ases are the Elves of Light. An allegory bringing together darkness which comes from light, and matter born of spirit.
(MO) Aesir {Nors} (ay-seer) deities.
(TG) Aether {Greek} . With the ancients the divine luminiferous substance which pervades the whole universe, the garment of the Supreme Deity, Zeus, or Jupiter. With the moderns, AEther, for the meaning of which in physics and chemistry In esotericism ether is the third principle of the Kosmic Septenary; the Earth being the lowest, then the Astral Light, Ether and Akasa ( phonetically akasha ) the highest.
(KT) Aether ( Gr. ) With the Ancients, the Divine luminiferous substance which pervades the whole universe; the garment of the Supreme Deity, Zeus, or Jupiter. With the Moderns, Ether, for the meaning of which, in physics and chemistry, In Esotericism, AEther is the third principle of the Kosmic Septenary, matter (earth) being the lowest, and Akasa, the highest.
(WG) Aether, same as Ether . The great luminiferous substance throughout the whole universe. Astral Light, Akasa , and the like are forms of Aether.
(TG) Aethrobacy {Greek} . Lit. , walking on, or being lifted into the air with no visible agent at work; levitation. It may be conscious or unconscious; in the one case it is magic, in the other either disease or a power which requires a few words of elucidation. We know that the earth is a magnetic body; in fact, as some scientists have found, and as Paracelsus affirmed some 300 years ago, it is one vast magnet. It is charged with one form of electricity — let us call it positive — which it evolves continuously by spontaneous action, in its interior or centre of motion. Human bodies, in common with all other forms of matter, are charged with the opposite form of electricity, the negative. That is to say, organic or inorganic bodies, if left to themselves will constantly and involuntarily charge themselves with and evolve the form of electricity opposite to that of the earth itself. Now, what is weight? Simply the attraction of the earth. Without the attraction of the earth you would have no weight, says Professor Stewart; and if you had an earth twice as heavy as this, you would have double the attraction. How then, can we get rid of this attraction? According to the electrical law above stated, there is an attraction between our planet and the organisms upon it, which keeps them upon the surface of the globe. But the law of gravitation has been counteracted in many instances, by levitation of persons and inanimate objects. How account for this? The condition of our physical systems, say theurgic philosophers, is largely dependent upon the action of our will. If well-regulated, it can produce miracles; among others a change of this electrical polarity from negative to positive; the man’s relations with the earth-magnet would then become repellent, and gravity for him would have ceased to exist. It would then be as natural for him to rush into the air until the repellent force had exhausted itself, as, before, it had been for him to remain upon the ground. The altitude of his levitation would be measured by his ability, greater or less, to charge his body with positive electricity. This control over the physical forces once obtained, alteration of his levity or gravity would be as easy as breathing.
(IU) Aethrobacy, is the Greek name for walking or being lifted in the air; levitation, so-called, among modern spiritualists. It may be either conscious or unconscious; in the one case, it is magic; in the other, either disease or a power which requires a few words of elucidation. A symbolical explanation of aethrobacy is given in an old Syriac manuscript which was translated in the fifteenth century by one Malchus, an alchemist. In connection with the case of Simon Magus, one passage reads thus: Simon, laying his face upon the ground, whispered in her ear, ‘O mother Earth, give me, I pray thee, some of thy breath; and I will give thee mine; let me loose, O mother, that I may carry thy words to the stars, and I will return faithfully to thee after a while.’ And the Earth strengthening her status, none to her detriment, sent her genius to breathe of her breath on Simon, while he breathed on her; and the stars rejoiced to be visited by the mighty One.
The starting-point here is the recognized electro-chemical principle that bodies similarly electrified repel each other, while those differently electrified mutually attract. The most elementary knowledge of chemistry, says Professor Cooke, shows that, while radicals of opposite natures combine most eagerly together, two metals, or two closely-allied metalloids, show but little affinity for each other. The earth is a magnetic body; in fact, as some scientists have found, it is one vast magnet, as Paracelsus affirmed some 300 years ago. It is charged with one form of electricity — let us call it positive — which it evolves continuously by spontaneous action, in its interior or centre of motion. Human bodies, in common with all other forms of matter, are charged with the opposite form of electricity — negative. That is to say, organic or inorganic bodies, if left to themselves will constantly and involuntarily charge themselves with, and evolve the form of electricity opposed to that of the earth itself. Now, what is weight? Simply the attraction of the earth. Without the attractions of the earth you would have no weight, says Professor Stewart, and if you had an earth twice as heavy as this you would have double the attraction. can we get rid of this attraction? According to the electrical law above stated, there is an attraction between our planet and the organisms upon it, which holds them upon the surface of the ground. But the law of gravitation has been counteracted in many instances, by levitations of persons and inanimate objects; how account for this? The condition of our physical systems, say theurgic philosophers, is largely dependent upon the action of our will. If well-regulated, it can produce miracles; among others a change of this electrical polarity from negative to positive; the man’s relations with the earth-magnet would then become repellent, and gravity for him would have ceased to exist. It would then be as natural for him to rush into the air until the repellent force had exhausted itself, as, before, it had been for him to remain upon the ground. The altitude of his levitation would be measured by his ability, greater or less, to charge his body with positive electricity. This control over the physical forces once obtained, alteration of his levity or gravity would be as easy as breathing. The study of nervous diseases has established that even in ordinary somnambulism, as well as in mesmerized somnambulists, the weight of the body seems to be diminished. Professor Perty mentions a somnambulist, Koehler, who when in the water could not sink, but floated. The seeress of Prevorst rose to the surface of the bath and could not be kept seated in it. He speaks of Anna Fleischer, who being subject to epileptic fits, was often seen by the Superintendent to rise in the air; and was once, in the presence of two trustworthy witnesses (two deans) and others, raised two and a half yards from her bed in a horizontal position. The similar case of Margaret Rule is cited by Upham in his History of Salem Witchcraft . In ecstatic subjects, adds Professor Perty, the rising in the air occurs much more frequently than with somnambulists. We are so accustomed to consider gravitation as being a something absolute and unalterable, that the idea of a complete or partial rising in opposition to it seems inadmissible; nevertheless, there are phenomena in which, by means of material forces, gravitation is overcome. In several diseases — as, for instance, nervous fever — the weight of the human body seems to be increased, but in all ecstatic conditions to be diminished. And there may, likewise, be other forces than material ones which can counteract this power. A Madrid journal, El Criterio Espiritista, of a recent date, reports the case of a young peasant girl near Santiago, which possesses a peculiar interest in this connection. Two bars of magnetized iron held over her horizontally, half a metre distant, was sufficient to suspend her body in the air. Were our physicians to experiment on such levitated subjects, it would be found that they are strongly charged with a similar form of electricity to that of the spot, which, according to the law of gravitation, ought to attract them, or rather prevent their levitation. And, if some physical nervous disorder, as well as spiritual ecstasy produce unconsciously to the subject the same effects, it proves that if this force in nature were properly studied, it could be regulated at will.
(TG) Afrits {Arabic} for native spirits regarded as devils by Mussulmen. Elementals much dreaded in Egypt.
(WG) Agami, one of the three sorts of karma. ( a, not; gami , going
(TG) Agapae {Greek} . Love Feasts; the early Christians kept such festivals in token of sympathy, love and mutual benevolence. It became necessary to abolish them as an institution, because of great abuse; Paul in his First Epistle to the Corinthians complains of misconduct at the feasts of the Christians.
(TG) Agastya {Sans} . The name of a great Rishi, much revered in Southern India; the reputed author of hymns in the Rig Veda, and a great hero in the Ramayana . In Tamil literature he is credited with having been the first instructor of the Dravidians in science, religion and philosophy. It is also the name of the star Canopus.
(TG) Agathodaemon {Greek} . The beneficent, good Spirit as contrasted with the bad one, Kakodaemon. The Brazen Serpent of the Bible is the former; the flying serpents of fire are an aspect of Kakodaemon. The Ophites called Agathodaemon the Logos and Divine Wisdom, which in the Bacchanalian Mysteries was represented by a serpent erect on a pole.
(TG) Agathon {Greek} . Plato’s Supreme Deity. Lit., The Good, our ALAYA, or Universal Soul.
(KT) Agathon ( Gr. ) Plato’s Supreme Deity, Lit. the good. Our ALAYA or the Soul of the World. Kabbalistic names for Sephira, called also the Crown, or Kether .
(TG) Agla {Hebr} . This Kabbalistic word is a talisman composed of the initials of the four words Ateh {Hebr} Gibor {Hebr} Leolam {Hebr} Adonai, {Hebr} meaning Thou art mighty for ever O Lord MacGregor Mathers explains it thus: A, the first; A, the last; G, the trinity in unity; L, the completion of the great work.
(MO) Ager {Nors} (ay-gear) [a titan or giant] Space: brewer of mead for the gods
(MO) Agnar {Nors} (ang-nar) Name of two early humanities; one was taught by Grimner (Odin)
(TG) Agneyastra {Sans} . The fiery missiles or weapons used by the Gods in the exoteric Puranas and the Mahabharata ; the magic weapons said to have been wielded by the adept-race (the fourth), the Atlanteans. This weapon of fire was given by Bharadwaja to Agnivesa, the son of Agni, and by him to Drona, though the Vishnu Purana contradicts this, saying that it was given by the sage Aurva to King Sagara, his chela. They are frequently mentioned in the Mahabharata and the Ramayana .
(TG) Agni {Sans} . The God of Fire in the Veda; the oldest and the most revered of Gods in India. He is one of the three great deities: Agni, Vayu and Surya, and also all the three, as he is the triple aspect of fire; in heaven as the Sun; in the atmosphere or air (Vayu), as Lightning; on earth, as ordinary Fire. Agni belonged to the earlier Vedic Trimurti before Vishnu was given a place of honour and before Brahma and Siva were invented.
(WG) Agni, name of a god; fire, especially fire from heaven; sometimes indirectly signifying Parabrahmam.
(GH) Agni The god of fire: one of the most important of the Vedic deities, to whom the greatest number of hymns are addressed, for he presides chiefly over the earth, and is regarded as the mediator between men and the gods, as protector of men and their homes, and as witness of all their actions. Fire is regarded in three phases: in heaven as the sun, in the air as lightning, and on earth as ordinary fire. Agni is represented as clothed in black, having smoke for his standard and head-piece, and carrying a flaming javelin; he has four hands and seven tongues, with which he licks up the butter used in sacrifices. His chariot is drawn by red horses; the seven winds form the wheels of his car, and he is followed by a ram. Esoterically Agni represents the divine essence present in every atom of the universe, the Celestial Fire; hence in its manifestations Agni is often used synonymously with the Adityas or our spiritual Pitris . In this sense Fire is spoken of as the PRIMARY in the Stanzas of Dzyan: The Spirit, beyond manifested Nature, is the fiery BREATH in its absolute Unity. In the manifested Universe, it is the Central Spiritual Sun, the electric Fire of all Life. In our System it is the visible Sun, the Spirit of Nature, the terrestrial god. And in, on, and around the Earth, the fiery Spirit thereof — air, fluidic fire; water, liquid fire; Earth, solid fire. All is fire — ignis, in its ultimate constitution, . . . the three Vedic chief gods are Agni (ignis), Vayu , and Surya — Fire, Air, and the Sun, three occult degrees of fire. ( Secret Doctrine, II, p. 114) ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 85)
(TG) Agni Bahu {Sans} . An ascetic son of Manu Swayambhuva, the Self-born.
(TG) Agni Bhuvah {Sans} . Lit., born of fire, the term is applied to the four races of Kshatriyas (the second or warrior caste) whose ancestors are said to have sprung from fire. Agni Bhuvah is the son of Agni, the God of Fire; Agni Bhuvah being the same as Kartti-keya, the God of War. (See Secret Doctrine Vol. II., p. 550)
(TG) Agni Dhatu Samadhi {Sans} . A kind of contemplation in Yoga practice, when Kundalini is raised to the extreme and the infinitude appears as one sheet of fire. An ecstatic condition.
(TG) Agni Hotri {Sans} . The priests who served the Fire-God in Aryan antiquity. The term Agni Hotri is one that denotes oblation.
(WG) Agnihotri, a priest and invoker of fire. ( agni, fire, especially fire from heaven; hotri, priest, offerer, invoker
(TG) Agni-ratha {Sans} . A Fiery Vehicle literally. A kind of flying machine. Spoken of in ancient works of magic in India and in the epic poems.
(TG) Agnishwattas {Sans} . A class of Pitris, the creators of the first ethereal race of men. Our solar ancestors as contrasted with the Barhishads , the lunar Pitris or ancestors, though otherwise explained in the Puranas .
(WG) Agnisvattas, gods of fire and air; one of the two kinds of Pitris, incorporeal, without even astral forms, who are fashioners of the inner man.
(OG) Agnishvatta(s) — {Sans} A compound of two words: agni, fire; shvatta, tasted or sweetened, from svad, verb-root meaning to taste or to sweeten. Therefore, literally one who has been delighted or sweetened by fire. A class of pitris: our solar ancestors as contrasted with the barhishads, our lunar ancestors. The kumaras, agnishvattas, and manasaputras are three groups or aspects of the same beings: the kumaras represent the aspect of original spiritual purity untouched by gross elements of matter. The agnishvattas represent the aspect of their connection with the sun or solar spiritual fire. Having tasted or been sweetened by the spiritual fire — the fire of intellectuality and spirituality — they have been purified thereby. The manasaputras represent the aspect of intellectuality — the functions of higher intellect. The agnishvattas and manasaputras are two names for the same class or host of beings, and set forth or signify or represent two different aspects or activities of this one class of beings. Thus, for instance, a man may be said to be a kumara in his spiritual parts, an agnishvatta in his buddhic-manasic parts, and a manasaputra in his purely manasic aspect. Other beings could be called kumaras in their highest aspects, as for instance the beasts, but they are not imbodied agnishvattas or manasaputras.
The agnishvattas are the solar spiritual-intellectual parts of us, and therefore are our inner teachers. In preceding manvantaras, they had completed their evolution in the realms of physical matter, and when the evolution of lower beings had brought these latter to the proper state, the agnishvattas came to the rescue of these who had only the physical creative fire, thus inspiring and enlightening these lower lunar pitris with spiritual and intellectual energies or fires. When this earth’s planetary chain shall have reached the end of its seventh round, we, as then having completed the evolutionary course for this planetary chain, will leave this planetary chain as dhyan-chohans, agnishvattas; but the others now trailing along behind us — the present beasts — will be the lunar pitris of the next planetary chain to come. While it is correct to say that these three names appertain to the same class of beings, nevertheless each name has its own significance in the occult teaching, which is why the three names are used with three distinct meanings. Imagine an unconscious god-spark beginning its evolution in any one solar or maha-manvantara. We may call it a kumara, a being of original spiritual purity, but with a destiny through karmic evolution connected with the realms of matter. At the other end of the line, at the consummation of the evolution in this maha-manvantara, when the evolving entity has become a fully self-conscious god or divinity, its proper appellation then is agnishvatta, for it has been sweetened or purified by means of the working through it of the spiritual fires inherent in itself. Now then, when such an agnishvatta assumes the role of a bringer of mind or of intellectual light to a lunar pitri which it overshadows and in which a ray from it incarnates, it then, although in its own realm an agnishvatta, functions as a manasaputra or child of mind or mahat. A brief analysis of the compound elements of these three names may be useful. Kumara is from ku meaning with difficulty and mara meaning mortal. The significance of the word therefore can be paraphrased as mortal with difficulty, and the meaning usually given to it by Sanskrit scholars as easily dying is wholly exoteric and amusing, and doubtless arose from the fact that kumara is a word frequently used for child or boy, everybody knowing that young children die easily. The idea therefore is that purely spiritual beings, although ultimately destined by evolution to pass through the realms of matter, become mortal, i.e., material, only with difficulty. Agnishvatta has the meaning stated above, delighted or pleased or sweetened, i.e., purified by fire — which we may render in two ways: either as the fire of suffering and pain in material existence producing great fiber and strength of character, i.e., spirituality; or, perhaps still better from the standpoint of occultism, as signifying an entity or entities who have become one in essence through evolution with the aethery fire of spirit. Manasaputra is a compound of two words: manasa , mental or intellectual, from the word manas, mind, and putra , son or child, therefore a child of the cosmic mind — a mind-born son as H. P. Blavatsky phrases it.
(SP) Agnisvatta — literally tasted by fire, name of a class of pitr , father or progenitor.
(TG) Agnoia {Greek} . Divested of reason, lit., irrationality, when speaking of the animal Soul. According to Plutarch, Pythagoras and Plato divided the human soul into two parts (the higher and lower manas) — the rational or noetic and the irrational, or agnoia, sometimes written annoia.
(TG) Agnostic {Greek} . A word claimed by Mr. Huxley to have been coined by him to indicate one who believes nothing which cannot be demonstrated by the senses. The later schools of Agnosticism give more philosophical definitions of the term.
(KT) Agnostic. A word first used by Professor Huxley, to indicate one who believes nothing which cannot be demonstrated by the senses.
(VS) Agnyana (I 21) [[p. 7]] Agnyana is ignorance or non-wisdom the opposite of Knowledge gnyana .
(TG) Agra-Sandhani {Sans} . The Assessors or Recorders who read at the judgment of a disembodied Soul the record of its life in the heart of that SOUL. The same almost as the Lipikas of the Secret Doctrine
(TG) Agruerus A very ancient Phoenician god. The same as Saturn.
(TG) Aham {Sans} . I, — the basis of Ahankara, Self-hood.
(SK) Aham Brahmasmi. I am Brahman. ( Aham — I, Brahma — the Universe’s divinity, asmi — am)
Aham asmi Parabrahma I am verily the Boundless Divine
(SK) Aham eva Parabrahma. I am verily the Boundless.
(TG) Ahan {Sans} . Day, the Body of Brahma, in the Puranas .
(TG) Ahankara {Sans} . The conception of I, Self-consciousness or Self-identity; the I, the egotistical and mayavic principle in man, due to our ignorance which separates our I from the Universal ONE-SELF Personality, Egoism.
(KT) Ahankara {Sans} The conception of I, self-consciousness or self-identity; the I, or egoistical and mayavic principle in man, due to our ignorance which separates our I from the Universal ONE- Self . Personality, egoism also.
(VS) Ahankara (III 14) [[p. 56]] Ahankarathe I or feeling of one’s personality, the I-am-ness.
(FY) Ahankara, personality; egoism; self identity; the fifth principle.
(WG) Ahamkara, egoism; that which within us says, I am the actor, for me all this is being done; in Sankhya philosophy, the third of the eight producers of creation. ( Aham, I; kara, making: the making of self
(OG) Ahankara — {Sans} A compound word: aham, I; kara , maker or doer, from the verb-root kri , to do, to make; egoism, personality. The egoistical and mayavi principle in man, born of the ignorance or avidya which produces the notion of the I as being different from the universal One-Self.
(GH) Ahankara (or Ahamkara) Egoism, the sense of personality or ‘I-am-I-ness’: in its lower aspect in man it is the egoistical principle which produces the notion of the personal ego as being different from the Universal One-Self. Kosmically speaking, Ahankara is that which first issues from ‘Mahat’ or divine mind; the first shadowy outline of Self-hood, for ‘pure’ Ahankara becomes ‘passionate’ and finally ‘rudimental’ (initial); . . . ( Secret Doctrine, I, pp. 452-3). (Compound aham, I; kara, doer, maker; from (The following word is derived from the verbal root:) kri to do. Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 53)
(SKv) Ahankara Egotism, the conception of ‘I am I’; a compound of aham — I, and kara derived from the verb-root kri — to do, to make; hence that conception of self and of personality which tends to lead to selfishness. Before one can attain Buddhahood he must realize the unreality of this idea of a personal Ego, of Ahankara.
(SP) Ahankara [ahamkara, ahankara] — egoism, literally I-maker.
(PV) Ahau Lord. The reigning Regent of a Maya calendric cycle; the final day of the month. The Fourth Regent is equated with Hunahpu.
(TG) Aheie {Hebr} . Existence. He who exists; corresponds to Kether and Macroprosopus.
(TG) Ah-hi {Sensar}, Ahi {Sans}, or Serpents. Dhyan Chohans. Wise Serpents or Dragons of Wisdom.
(IN) Ah-hi (Senzar) Dhyani-chohans, primordial seven logoi, the elohim, a class of celestial beings through which universal mind manifests.
(TG) Ahi {Sans} . A serpent. A name of Vritra, the Vedic demon of drought.
(FY) Ahriman, the Evil Principle of the Universe; so called by the Zoroastrians.
(WG) Ahriman, the evil principle of the universe; the Satan of Zoroastrianism; an asura.
(TG) Ahti #94 . The Dragon in the Eddas .
(TG) Ahu #94 . One and the First.
(TG) Ahum {avesta} . The first three principles of septenary man in the Avesta ; the gross living man and his vital and astral principles.
(FY) Ahum, the first three principles of septenary human constitution; the gross living body of man according to the Avesta.
(TG) Ahura {avesta} . The same as Asura, the holy, the Breath-like. Ahura Mazda, the Ormuzd of the Zoroastrians or Parsis, is the Lord who bestows light and intelligence, whose symbol is the Sun (See Ahura Mazda), and of whom Ahriman, a European form of Angra Mainyu (q.v . ), is the dark aspect.
(TG) Ahura Mazda {avesta} . The personified deity, the Principle of Universal Divine Light of the Parsis. From Ahura or Asura, breath, spiritual, divine in the oldest Rig Veda , degraded by the orthodox Brahmans into A-sura , no gods, just as the Mazdeans have degraded the Hindu Devas (Gods) into Daeva (Devils).
(WG) Ahura-Mazda, the divine principle with the Parsees.
(TG) Aidoneus {Greek} . The God and King of the Nether World; Pluto or Dionysos Chthonios (subterranean).
(TG) Aij Taion. The supreme deity of the Yakoot, a tribe in Northern Siberia.
(TG) Ain {Hebr} . The negatively existent; deity in repose, and absolutely passive.
(TG) Ain-Aior {Chald} . The only Self-existent, a mystic name for divine substance. [W. W. W]
(TG) Aindri {Sans} . Wife of Indra.
(TG) Aindriya {Sans} . Or Indrani , Indriya; Sakti . The female aspect or wife of Indra.
(TG) Ain Soph {Hebr} . The Boundless or Limitless; Deity emanating and extending. [W. W. W]
Ain Soph is also written En Soph and Ain Suph, no one, not even Rabbis, being sure of their vowels. In the religious metaphysics of the old Hebrew philosophers, the ONE Principle was an abstraction, like Parabrahmam, though modern Kabbalists have succeeded now, by dint of mere sophistry and paradoxes, in making a Supreme God of it and nothing higher. But with the early Chaldean Kabbalists Ain Soph is without form or being, having no likeness with anything else (Franck, Die Kabbala, p. 126). That Ain Soph has never been considered as the Creator is proved by even such an orthodox Jew as Philo calling the Creator the Logos, who stands next the Limitless One, and the Second God. The Second God is its (Ain Soph’s) wisdom, says Philo (Quaest. et Solut . ) . Deity is NO-THING; it is nameless, and therefore called Ain Soph; the word Ain meaning NOTHING.
(KT) Ain-Soph {Hebr} The Boundless or Limitless Deity emanating and extending. Ain-Soph is also written En-Soph and Ain-Suph, for no one, not even the Rabbis, are quite sure of their vowels. In the religious metaphysics of the old Hebrew philosophers, the ONE Principle was an abstraction like Parabrahm, though modern Kabalists have succeeded by mere dint of sophistry and paradoxes in making a Supreme God of it, and nothing higher. But with the early Chaldean Kabalists Ain-Soph was without form or being with no likeness with anything else. 126 That Ain-Soph has never been considered as the Creator is proved conclusively by the fact that such an orthodox Jew as Philo calls creator the Logos, who stands next the Limitless One, and is the SECOND God. The Second God is in its (Ain-Soph’s) wisdom, says Philo in Quaest et Solut. Deity is NO-THING; it is nameless, and therefore called Ain-Soph — the word Ain meaning nothing.
(WG) Ain-Soph {Hebr} boundless, the expanding Deity. It is also written En-Soph.{Hebr}
(TG) Ain Soph Aur {Hebr} . The Boundless Light which concentrates into the First and highest Sephira or Kether, the Crown. WA
(GH) Airavata The elephant produced by the gods at the time of the churning of the ocean. He became the special charge of Indra and one of the eight Lokapalas. These latter are the cosmical spirits who preside over the eight points of the compass (Airavata guards the east and are closely akin to the four Maharajas — the four ‘GreatWatchers.’ Although the Lokapalas are represented as ‘elephants,’ H. P. Blavatsky remarks that all of them have an occult significance. ( Secret Doctrine, I, p. 128) (Meaning of the word itself: produced from the ocean, from iravat, the ocean. Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 74)
(TG) Airyamen Yaego {avesta} . Or Airyana Vaego; the primeval land of bliss referred to in the Vendidad, where Ahura Mazda delivered his laws to Zoroaster (Spitama Zarathustra).
(TG) Airyana-ishejo {avesta} . The name of a prayer to the holy Airyamen, the divine aspect of Ahriman before the latter became a dark opposing power, a Satan. For Ahriman is of the same essence with Ahura Mazda, just as Typhon-Seth is of the same essence with Osiris (q.v . ) .
(TG) Aish {Hebr} . The word for Man.
(TG) Aisvarikas {Sans} . A theistic school of Nepaul, which sets up Adi Buddha as a supreme god (Isvara), instead of seeing in the name that of a principle, an abstract philosophical symbol.
(WG) Aisvarya, power; superhuman powers of omnipresence, omnipotence, invisibility, etc.
(TG) Aitareya {Sans} . The name of an Aranyaka (Brahmana) and a Upanishad of the Rig Veda . Some of its portions are purely Vedantic.
(WG) Aitareya-Brahmana, name of a Upanishad.
(TG) Aith-ur {Chald} . Solar fire, divine Aether.
(WG) Aitihya, oral communication, traditional instruction.
(TG) Aja {Sans} . Unborn, uncreated; an epithet belonging to many of the primordial gods, but especially to the first Logos — a radiation of the Absolute on the plane of illusion.
(WG) Aja, not born, existing from all eternity; a term applied to the higher deities.
(PV) Ajbit {quiche-maya} Singular of Bitol, a class of builder gods; in Quiche-Maya theogony, Ajbit is associated with Ajtzak.
(TG) Ajitas {Sans} . One of the Occult names of the twelve great gods incarnating in each Manvantara. The Occultists identify them with the Kumaras. They are called Jnana (or Gnana) Devas. Also, a form of Vishnu in the second Manvantara. Called also Jayas.
(TG) Ajnana {Sans} or Agyana (Bengali) . Non-knowledge; absence of knowledge rather than ignorance as generally translated. An Ajnani, means a profane.
(WG) Ajnana, ignorance, or not-knowledge.
(WG) Ajnyana, ignorance.
(PV) Ajtzak {quiche-maya} Singular of Tzakol, a class of builder gods in Quiche-Maya theogony; associated with Ajbit.
(TG) Akar {Egyp} . The proper name of that division of the Ker-neter infernal regions, which may be called Hell. .
(TG) Akasa {Sans} . The subtle, supersensuous spiritual essence which pervades all space; the primordial substance erroneously identified with Ether. But it is to Ether what Spirit is to Matter, or Atma to Kama-rupa . It is, in fact, the Universal Space in which lies inherent the eternal Ideation of the Universe in its ever-changing aspects on the planes of matter and objectivity, and from which radiates the First Logos, or expressed thought. This is why it is stated in the Puranas that Akasa has but one attribute, namely sound, for sound is but the translated symbol of Logos — Speech in its mystic sense. In the same sacrifice (the Jyotishtoma Agnishtoma ) it is called the God Akasa. In these sacrificial mysteries Akasa is the all-directing and omnipotent Deva who plays the part of Sadasya, the superintendent over the magical effects of the religious performance, and it had its own appointed Hotri (priest) in days of old, who took its name. The Akasa is the indispensable agent of every Kritya (magical performance) religious or profane. The expression to stir up the Brahma, means to stir up the power which lies latent at the bottom of every magical operation, Vedic sacrifices being in fact nothing if not ceremonial magic. This power is the Akasa — in another aspect, Kundalini — occult electricity, the alkahest of the alchemists in one sense, or the universal solvent, the same anima mundi on the higher plane as the astral light is on the lower. At the moment of the sacrifice the priest becomes imbued with the spirit of Brahma, is, for the time being, Brahman himself. (Isis Unveiled) .
(IU) Akasa. — Literally the word means in Sanscrit sky, but in its mystic sense it signifies the invisible sky; or, as the Brahmans term it in the Soma-sacrifice (the Gyotishtoma, Agnishtoma ), the god Akasa, or god Sky. The language of the Vedas shows that the Hindus of fifty centuries ago ascribed to it the same properties as do the Thibetan lamas of the present day; that they regarded it as the source of life, the reservoir of all energy, and the propeller of every change of matter. In its latent state it tallies exactly with our idea of the universal ether; in its active state it became the Akasa, the all-directing and omnipotent god. In the Brahmanical sacrificial mysteries it plays the part of Sadasya, or superintendent over the magical effects of the religious performance, and it had its own appointed Hotar (or priest), who took its name. In India, as in other countries in ancient times, the priests are the representatives on earth of different gods; each taking the name of the deity in whose name he acts. The Akasa is the indispensable agent of every Kritya (magical performance) either religious or profane. The Brahmanical expression to stir up the Brahma — Brahma jinvati — means to stir up the power which lies latent at the bottom of every such magical operation, for the Vedic sacrifices are but ceremonial magic. This power is the Akasa or the occult electricity; the alkahest of the alchemists in one sense, or the universal solvent, the same anima mundi as the astral light. At the moment of the sacrifice, the latter becomes imbued with the spirit of Brahma, and so for the time being is Brahma himself. This is the evident origin of the Christian dogma of transubstantiation. As to the most general effects of the Akasa, the author of one of the most modern works on the occult philosophy, Art-Magic, gives for the first time to the world a most intelligible and interesting explanation of the Akasa in connection with the phenomena attributed to its influence by the fakirs and lamas.
(FY) Akasa, the subtle supersensuous matter which pervades all space.
(WG) Akasa, the subtle fluid that pervades all space, and exists everywhere and in everything, as the vehicle of life and sound; out-look, open space, sky, aether. It is said that by a knowledge and use of the akasa all magical feats can be performed.
(OG) Akasa — {Sans} The word means brilliant, shining, luminous. The fifth kosmic element, the fifth essence or quintessence, called Aether by the ancient Stoics; but it is not the ether of science. The ether of science is merely one of its lower elements. In the Brahmanical scriptures akasa is used for what the northern Buddhists call svabhavat, more mystically Adi-buddhi — primeval buddhi:; it is also mulaprakriti, the kosmical spirit-substance, the reservoir of Being and of beings. The Hebrew Old Testament refers to it as the kosmic waters. It is universal substantial space ; also mystically Alaya. ( See also Mulaprakriti, Alaya)
(GH) Akasa The Fifth Kosmic Element: the spiritual Essence which pervades all space; in fact it may be called imbodied universal Space — in this aspect known as Aditi. It is the substratum for the seven Prakritis (roots) of all in the universe; thus in one sense is Mulaprakriti (the Kosmical Root-Substance). The word itself, without its philosophical meaning, signifies the sky, the open space, hence it is often rendered ‘ether’ in translations from the Sanskrit works, but as H. P. Blavatsky pointed out, Akasa is not that Ether of Science, not even the Ether of the Occultist, who defines the latter as one of the principles of Akasa only ( Secret Doctrine, I, p. 296). In the Brahmanical scriptures the term is used in the same manner that Northern Buddhists employ Svabhavat — more mystically Adi-Buddhi. Some have associated the Astral Light with Akasa, but the former is but a reflection of the latter: To put it plainly, ETHER is the Astral Light, and the Primordial Substance is AKASA, the Upadhi of DIVINE THOUGHT. ( Secret Doctrine, I, p. 326) ((The following word is derived from the verbal root:) kas, to shine, to appear. Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 53)
(SK)o Akasa, Akasic Akasa is the fifth Kosmic Element; the Element above or rather within the other elements of earth, water, air, and fire; derived from the verb-root kas — to shine; hence ‘the shining substance.’ Akasa is primordial spacial substance of a subtil supersensuous and spiritual nature and it pervades all things. It is the vehicle of Divine Thought and hence it is said to have but one attribute, that of sound. The Akasa is the medium of the higher thoughts of men, the medium by which they can communicate with the Gods. Akasa, sometimes called ‘occult electricity,’ is used in the carrying out of any magical or spiritual performance. Akasa has been called by the Mahatmans the ‘tablet of memory’ of the Hierarchy of Dhyan-Chohans as well as of every spiritual Ego, while the Astral Light is the ‘tablet of memory’ of the earth and of animal man. When a man loves all things, as did the Buddha, he surrounds himself with Akasic substance which becomes a protective shield which no malevolent influences can penetrate.
(IN) Akasha, Akasa {Sans} fr kas, to shine) space, vacuity, aether, the fifth cosmic element; subtle spiritual essence or substance which pervades all space.
(SP) Akasa — the fifth cosmic element, aether; also space.
(TG) Akbar. The great Mogul Emperor of India, the famous patron of religions, arts, and sciences, the most liberal of all the Mussulman sovereigns. There has never been a more tolerant or enlightened ruler than the Emperor Akbar, either in India or in any other Mohametan country.
(WG) Akhyayikas, short tales or anecdotes.
(TG) Akiba {Hebr}. The only one of the four Tanaim (initiated prophets) who entering the Garden of Delight (of the occult sciences) succeeded in getting himself initiated while all the others failed.
(WG) Aksha, eye; any round thing.
(TG) Akshara {Sans}. Supreme Deity; lit., indestructible, ever perfect.
(VS) Akshara, the indestructible Fount of Omniscience (I 19) [[p. 6]] The region of the full Spiritual Consciousness beyond which there is no longer danger for him who has reached it.
(WG) Akshara, unbroken, imperishable; Brahma, Vishnu, or Siva: the syllable Om; the soul. ( aksha , a round thing, a circle, unbroken [like a circle
(SKv) Akshara The ‘Imperishable’; a compound of a — not, and kshara , derived from the verbal root kshar — to flow, to perish. Akshara is another descriptive name given to Brahman, the Universal Self. It is sometimes also applied to other high gods of the Hindu pantheon in order to suggest their enduring nature for long cycles of time.
(TG) Akta {Sans}. Anointed: a title of Twashtri or Visvakarman, the highest Creator and Logos in the Rig-Veda. He is called the Father of the Gods and Father of the sacred Fire (See
(WG) Akta, anointed, initiated.
(TG) Akupara {Sans}. The Tortoise, the symbolical turtle on which the earth is said to rest.
(TG) Al-ait {Phoen}. The God of fire, an ancient and very mystic name in Koptic Occultism.
(TG) Alaparus {Chald}. The second divine king of Babylonia who reigned three Sari. The first king of the divine Dynasty was Alorus according to Berosus. He was the appointed Shepherd of the people and reigned ten Sari (or 36,000 years, a Saros being 3,600 years).
(TG) Alaya {Sans}. The Universal Soul The name belongs to the Tibetan system of the contemplative Mahayana School. Identical with Akasa in its mystic sense, and with Mulaprakriti, in its essence, as it is the basis or root of all things.
(WG) Alaya, the over-soul not; laya, dissolution: non-dissolution, permanence
(WG) Alaya, in addition to meaning already given it, may be rendered Universal Soul.
(OG) Alaya — {Sans} A compound word: a, not; laya , from the verb-root li, to dissolve; hence the indissoluble. The universal soul; the basis or root or fountain of all beings and things — the universe, gods, monads, atoms, etc. Mystically identical with akasa in the latter’s highest elements, and with mulaprakriti in the latter’s essence as root-producer or root-nature. ( See also Akasa, Buddhi, Mulaprakriti) [NOTE: The Secret Doctrine (1:49) mentions Alaya in the Yogachara system, most probably referring to alaya-vijnana , but adds that with the Esoteric ‘Buddhists’ . . . ‘Alaya’ has a double and even a triple meaning. — PUBLISHER]
(SKv) Alaya The ‘Indissoluble’ or the ‘Everlasting’; a compound of a — not, and laya derived from the verb-root li — to dissolve. According to the Buddhists, Alaya is the fountain of all beings and things, hence corresponds to the higher forms of Akasa, the fifth Cosmic Element, and with Mulaprakriti, or substantial Space, when it is considered as the Originator of manifested things. Alaya is also used to describe the Spiritual Self in man, which endures throughout the great period of the Planet’s Life.
(IN) Alaya {Sans} The indissoluble; in Buddhism the universal soul or mahabuddhi.
(TG) Alba Petra {Latin}. The white stone of Initiation. The white cornelian mentioned in St. John’s Revelation .
(TG) Al-Chazari {arabic} Prince-Philosopher and Occultist
(TG) Alchemists. From Al and Chemi, fire, or the god and patriarch, Kham, also, the name of Egypt. The Rosicrucians of the middle ages, such as Robertus de Fluctibus (Robert Fludd), Paracelsus, Thomas Vaughan (Eugenius Philalethes), Van Helmont, and others, were all alchemists, who sought for the hidden spirit in every inorganic matter. Some people — nay, the great majority — have accused alchemists of charlatanry and false pretending. Surely such men as Roger Bacon, Agrippa, Henry Khunrath, and the Arabian Geber (the first to introduce into Europe some of the secrets of chemistry), can hardly he treated as impostors — least of all as fools. Scientists who are reforming the science of physics upon the basis of the atomic theory of Democritus, as restated by John Dalton, conveniently forget that Democritus, of Abdera, was an alchemist, and that the mind that was capable of penetrating so far into the secret operations of nature in one direction must have had good reasons to study and become a Hermetic philosopher. Olaus Borrichius says that the cradle of alchemy is to be sought in the most distant times. (Isis Unveiled) .
(IU) Alchemists. — From Al and Chemi, fire, or the god and patriarch, Kham, also, the name of Egypt. The Rosicrucians of the middle ages, such as Robertus de Fluctibus (Robert Fludd), Paracelsus, Thomas Vaughan (Eugenius Philalethes), Van Helmont, and others, were all alchemists, who sought for the hidden spirit in every inorganic matter. Some people — nay, the great majority — have accused alchemists of charlatanry and false pretending. Surely such men as Roger Bacon, Agrippa, Henry Kunrath, and the Arabian Geber (the first to introduce into Europe some of the secrets of chemistry), can hardly be treated as impostors — least of all as fools. Scientists who are reforming the science of physics upon the basis of the atomic theory of Demokritus, as restated by John Dalton, conveniently forget that Demokritus of Abdera, was an alchemist, and that the mind that was capable of penetrating so far into the secret operations of nature in one direction must have had good reasons to study and become a Hermetic philosopher. Olaus Borrichius says, that the cradle of alchemy is to be sought in the most distant times.
(TG) Alchemy, in Arabic Ul-Khemi , is, as the name suggests, the chemistry of nature. Ul-Khemi or Al-Kimia, however, is only an Arabianized word, taken from the Greek chemeia from chumos — juice, sap extracted from a plant. Says Dr. Wynn Westcott: The earliest use of the actual term ‘alchemy’ is found in the works of Julius Firmicus Maternus, who lived in the days of Constantine the Great. The Imperial Library in Paris contains the oldest extant alchemic treatise known in Europe; it was written by Zosimus the Panopolite about 400 A.D. in the Greek language, the next oldest is by Aeneas Gazeus, 480 A.D. It deals with the finer forces of nature and the various conditions in which they are found to operate. Seeking under the veil of language, more or less artificial, to convey to the uninitiated so much of the mysterium magnum as is safe in the hands of a selfish world, the alchemist postulates as his first principle the existence of a certain Universal Solvent by which all composite bodies are resolved into the homogeneous substance from which they are evolved, which substance he calls pure gold, or summa materia . This solvent, also called menstrum universale , possesses the power of removing all the seeds of disease from the human body, of renewing youth and prolonging life. Such is the lapis philosophorum (philosopher’s stone). Alchemy first penetrated into Europe through Geber, the great Arabian sage and philosopher, in the eighth century of our era; but it was known and practised long ages ago in China and in Egypt, numerous papyri on alchemy and other proofs of its being the favourite study of kings and priests having been exhumed and preserved under the generic name of Hermetic treatises. (See Tabula Smaragdina). Alchemy is studied under three distinct aspects, which admit of many different interpretations, viz .: the Cosmic, Human, and Terrestrial. These three methods were typified under the three alchemical properties — sulphur, mercury, and salt. Different writers have stated that there are three, seven, ten, and twelve processes respectively; but they are all agreed that there is but one object in alchemy, which is to transmute gross metals into pure gold. What that gold, however, really is, very few people understand correctly. No doubt that there is such a thing in nature as transmutation of the baser metals into the nobler, or gold. But this is only one aspect of alchemy, the terrestrial or purely material, for we sense logically the same process taking place in the bowels of the earth. Yet, besides and beyond this interpretation, there is in alchemy a symbolical meaning, purely psychic and spiritual. While the Kabbalist-Alchemist seeks for the realization of the former, the Occultist-Alchemist, spurning the gold of the mines, gives all his attention and directs his efforts only towards the transmutation of the baser quaternary into the divine upper trinity of man, which when finally blended are one. The spiritual, mental, psychic, and physical planes of human existence are in alchemy compared to the four elements, fire, air, water and earth, and are each capable of a threefold constitution, i.e ., fixed, mutable and volatile. Little or nothing is known by the word concerning the origin of this archaic branch of philosophy; but it is certain that it antedates the construction of any known Zodiac, and, as dealing with the personified forces of nature, probably also any of the mythologies of the world; nor is there any doubt that the true secret of transmutation (on the physical plane) was known in days of old, and lost before the dawn of the so-called historical period. Modern chemistry owes its best fundamental discoveries to alchemy, but regardless of the undeniable truism of the latter that there is but one element in the universe, chemistry has placed metals in the class of elements and is only now beginning to find out its gross mistake. Even some Encyclopaedists are now forced to confess that if most of the accounts of transmutations are fraud or delusion, yet some of them are accompanied by testimony which renders them probable . . . By means of the galvanic battery even the alkalis have been discovered to have a metallic base. The possibility of obtaining metal from other substances which contain the ingredients composing it, and of changing one metal into another . . . must therefore be left undecided. Nor are all alchemists to be considered impostors. Many have laboured under the conviction of obtaining their object, with indefatigable patience and purity of heart, which is earnestly recommended by sound alchemists as the principal requisite for the success of their labours. (Pop. Encyclop . )
(KT) Alchemy, in Arabic Ul-Khemi, is as the name suggests, the chemistry of nature. Ul-Khemi or Al-Kimia, however, is really an Arabianized word, taken from the Greek chemeia from chumos juice, extracted from a plant. Alchemy deals with the finer forces of nature and the various conditions of matter in which they are found to operate. Seeking under the veil of language, more or less artificial, to convey to the uninitiated so much of the Mysterium Magnum as is safe in the hands of a selfish world, the Alchemist postulates as his first principle, the existence of a certain Universal Solvent in the homogeneous substance from which the elements were evolved; which substance he calls pure gold, or summum materiae. This solvent, also called menstruum universale, possesses the power of removing all the seeds of disease out of the human body, of renewing youth, and prolonging life. Such is the lapis philosophorum (philosopher’s stone). Alchemy first penetrated into Europe through Geber, the great Arabian sage and philosopher, in the eighth century of our era; but it was known and practised long ages ago in China and Egypt. Numerous papyri on Alchemy, and other proofs that it was the favourite study of Kings and Priests, have been exhumed and preserved under the generic name of Hermetic treatises (see Tabula Smaragdina). Alchemy is studied under three distinct aspects, which admit of many different interpretations, viz.: the Cosmic, the Human, and the Terrestrial. These three methods were typified under the three alchemical properties — sulphur, mercury, and salt. Different writers have stated that these are three, seven, ten and twelve processes respectively; but they are all agreed there is but one object in Alchemy, which is to transmute gross metals into pure gold. But what that gold really is, very few people understand correctly. No doubt there is such a thing in Nature as transmutation of the baser metal into the nobler; but this is only one aspect of Alchemy, the terrestrial, or purely material, for we see logically the same process taking place in the bowels of the earth. Yet, besides and beyond this interpretation, there is in Alchemy a symbolical meaning, purely psychic and spiritual. While the Kabalist-Alchemist seeks for the realization of the former, the Occultist-Alchemist, spurning the gold of the earth, gives all his attention to and directs his efforts only towards the transmutation of the baser quaternary into the divine upper trinity of man, which when finally blended, is one. The spiritual, mental, psychic, and physical planes of human existence are in Alchemy compared to the four elements — fire, air, water, and earth, and are each capable of a three-fold constitution, i. e., fixed, unstable, and volatile. Little or nothing is known by the world concerning the origin of this archaic branch of philosophy; but it is certain that it antedates the construction of any known Zodiac, and as dealing with the personified forces of nature, probably also any of the mythologies of the world. Nor is there any doubt that the true secrets of transmutation (on the physical plane) were known in the days of old, and lost before the dawn of the so-called historical period. Modern chemistry owes its best fundamental discoveries to Alchemy, but regardless of the undeniable truism of the latter, that there is but one element in the universe, chemistry placed metals in the class of elements, and is only now beginning to find out its gross mistake. Even some encyclopedists are forced to confess that if most of the accounts of transmutation are fraud or delusion, yet some of them are accompanied by testimony which renders them probable. By means of the galvanic battery even the alkalis have been discovered to have a metallic basis. The possibility of obtaining metal from other substances which contain the ingredients composing it, of changing one metal into another . . . must therefore be left undecided. Nor are all Alchemists to be considered impostors. Many have laboured under the conviction of obtaining their object, with indefatigable patience and purity of heart, which is soundly recommended by Alchemists as the principal requisite for the success of their labours
(TG) Alcyone {Greek}, or Halcyon, daughter of AEolus, and wife of Ceyx, who was drowned as he was journeying to consult the oracle, upon which she threw herself into the sea. Accordingly both were changed, through the mercy of the gods, into king-fishers. The female is said to lay her eggs on the sea and keep it calm during the seven days before and seven days after the winter solstice. It has a very occult significance in ornithomancy.
(TG) Alectromancy {Greek}. Divination by means of a cock, or other bird; a circle was drawn and divided into spaces, each one allotted to a letter; corn was spread over these places and note was taken of the successive lettered divisions from which the bird took grains of corn. [W.W.W.]
(TG) Alethae {Phoen}. Fire worshippers from Al-ait, the God of Fire. The same as the Kabiri or divine Titans. As the seven emanations of Agruerus (Saturn) they are connected with all the fire, solar and storm gods (Maruts).
(TG) Aletheia {Greek}. Truth; also Alethia, one of Apollo’s nurses.
(TG) Alexandrian School (of Philosophers). This famous school arose in Alexandria (Egypt) which was for several centuries the great seat of learning and philosophy. Famous for its library, which bears the name of Alexandrian, founded by Ptolemy Soter, who died in 283 B.C., at the very beginning of his reign; that library which once boasted of 700,000 rolls or volumes (Aulus Gellius); for its museum, the first real academy of sciences and arts; for its world-famous scholars, such as Euclid (the father of scientific geometry), Apollonius of Perga (the author of the still extant work on conic sections), Nicomachus (the arithmetician); astronomers, natural philosophers, anatomists such as Herophilus and Erasistratus, physicians, musicians, artists, etc., etc.; it became still more famous for its Eclectic, or the New Platonic school, founded in 193 A.D., by Ammonius Saccas, whose disciples were Origen, Plotinus, and many others now famous in History. The most celebrated schools of Gnostics had their origin in Alexandria. Philo Judaeus, Josephus, Iamblichus, Porphyry, Clement of Alexandria, Eratosthenes the astronomer, Hypatia the virgin philosopher, and numberless other stars of second magnitude, all belonged at various times to these great schools, and helped to make Alexandria one of the most justly renowned seats of learning that the world has ever produced.
(KT) Alexandrian Philosophers (or School). This famous school arose in Alexandria, Egypt, which city was for long ages the seat of learning and philosophy. It was famous for its library, founded by Ptolemy Soter at the very beginning of his reign (Ptolemy died library which once boasted 700,000 rolls, or volumes (Aulus Gellius), for its museum, the first real Academy of Sciences and Arts, for world-renowned scholars, such as Euclid, the father of scientific geometry; Apollonius of Perga, the author of the still extant work on conic sections; Nicomachus, the arithmetician: for astronomers, natural philosophers, anatomists such as Herophilus and Erasistratus; physicians, musicians, artists, etc. But it became still more famous for its eclectic, or new Platonic school, founded by Ammonius Saccas in 173 A.D., whose disciples were Origen, Plotinus, and many other men now famous in history. The most celebrated schools of the Gnostics had their origin in Alexandria. Philo-Judaeus, Josephus, Iamblichus, Porphyry, Clement of Alexandria, Eratosthenes the astronomer, Hypatia, the virgin philosopher, and numberless other stars of second magnitude, all belonged at various times to these great schools, and helped to make of Alexandria one of the most justly renowned seats of learning that the world has ever produced.
(MO) Alf {Nors} (alv) [channel] Elf, soul
(TG) Alhim {Hebr}. See Elohim.
(TG) Alkahest {arabic}. The universal solvent in Alchemy (see Alchemy); but in mysticism, the Higher Self, the union with which makes of matter (lead), gold, and restores all compound things such as the human body and its attributes to their primaeval essence.
(WG) Alkoran, same as Koran, which see.
(MO) Allvis {Nors} (al-veece) [ all all + vis wise] A dwarf: worldly wise wooer of Thor’s daughter.
(TG) Almadel, the Book. A treatise on Theurgia or White Magic by an unknown mediaeval European author; it is not infrequently found in volumes of MSS. called Keys of Solomon.
(TG) Almeh {arabic}. Dancing girls; the same as the Indian nautches, the temple and public dancers.
(PV) Alom {quiche-maya} One of six hypostases of Cabahuil or god-Seven. Especially associated with the three other hypostases: Tzakol, Bitol, and Cajolom; these four are regent gods of the 4 cosmic angles. Their mediation produces light.
(TG) Alpha and Omega, A. and., the First and the Last, the beginning and ending of all active existence; the Logos, hence (with the Christians) Christ. See Rev. 216., where John adopts Alpha and Omega as the symbol of a Divine Comforter who will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely. The word Azot or Azoth is a mediaeval glyph of this idea, for the word consists of the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, A and, of the Latin alphabet, A and Z, and of the Hebrew alphabet, A and T, or aleph and tau . (See also Azoth).
(TG) Alpha Polaris {Latin}. The same as Dhruva, the pole-star of 31,105 years ago.
(TG) Alswider #94 . All-swift, the name of the horse of the moon, in the Eddas.
(TG) Altruism {Latin}. From alter = other. A quality opposed to egoism. Actions tending to do good to others, regardless of self.
(KT) Altruism, from Alter, other. A quality opposed to Egoism. Actions tending to do good to others, regardless of self.
(TG) Alze, Liber, de Lapide Philosophico. An alchemic treatise by an unknown German author; dated 1677 It is to be found reprinted in the Hermetic Museum; in it is the well known design of a man with legs extended and his body hidden by a seven pointed star. Eliphas Levi has copied it.
(TG) Ama {Hebr}., Amia, {Chald}. Mother. A title of Sephira Binah, whose divine name is Jehovah and who is called Supernal Mother.
(TG) Amanasa {Sans} . The Mindless, the early races of this planet; also certain Hindu gods.
(WG) Amanasa, the mindless. (a , not; manas, mind).
(IN) Amanasa {Sans} The mindless, protohuman races.
(TG) Amara-Kosha {Sans}. The immortal vocabulary. The oldest dictionary known in the world and the most perfect vocabulary of classical Sanskrit; by Amara Sinha, a sage of the second century.
(TG) Amba {Sans}. The name of the eldest of the seven Pleiades, the heavenly sisters married each to a Rishi belonging to the Saptariksha or the seven Rishis of the constellation known as the Great Bear.
(GH) Amba The eldest daughter of the king of Kasi. Through the fault of Bhishma she was rejected by her suitor, whereupon she withdrew to the forest and after practising severe penances she ended her life on the funeral pyre, and was then reborn as Sikhandin. The word in the text should read Ambika — the second daughter of the king.
(GH) Ambalika The third daughter of the king of Kasi given by Bhishma in marriage to his half brother Vichitravirya. After the latter’s death she was wedded to Vyasa, and became the mother of Pandu . ( Bhagavad-Gita , W. Q. Judge, p. Iii)
(TG) Ambhamsi {Sans}. A name of the chief of the Kumaras, Sanat-Sujata, signifying the waters. This epithet will become more comprehensible when we remember that the later type of Sanat-Sujata was Michael, the Archangel, who is called in the Talmud the Prince of Waters , and in the Roman Catholic Church is regarded as the patron of gulfs and promontories. Sanat-Sujata is the immaculate son of the immaculate mother (Amba or Aditi, chaos and space) or the waters of limitless space
(GH) Ambika The second daughter of the king of Kasi wedded to Vichitravirya. After his death she was married to Vyasa, and gave birth to Dhritarashtra . ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. iii)
(TG) Amdo {Tibe}. A sacred locality, the birthplace of Tson-kha-pa, the great Tibetan reformer and the founder of the Gelukpa (yellow caps), who is regarded as an Avatar of Amita-buddha.
(TG) Amen. In Hebrew is formed of the letters A M N = 1, 40, 50 = 91, and is thus a simile of Jehovah Adonai = 10, 5, 6, 5 and 1, 4, 50, 10 = 91 together; it is one form of the Hebrew word for truth. In common parlance Amen is said to mean so be it. But, in esoteric parlance Amen means The concealed. Manetho Sebennites says the word signifies that which is hidden and we know through Hecataeus and others that the Egyptians used the word to call upon their great God of Mystery, Ammon (or Ammas, the hidden god) to make himself conspicuous and manifest to them. Bonomi, the famous hieroglyphist, calls his worshippers very pertinently the Amenoph, and Mr. Bonwick quotes a writer who says: Ammon, the hidden god, will remain for ever hidden till anthropomorphically revealed; gods who are afar off are useless. Amen is styled Lord of the new-moon festival. Jehovah-Adonai is a new form of the ram-headed god Amoun or Ammon who was invoked by the Egyptian priests under the name of Amen.
(TG) Amenti {Egyp}. Esoterically and literally, the dwelling of the God Amen, or Amoun, or the hidden, secret god. Exoterically the kingdom of Osiris divided into fourteen parts, each of which was set aside for some purpose connected with the after state of the defunct. Among other things, in one of these was the Hall of Judgment. It was the Land of the West, the Secret Dwelling, the dark land, and the doorless house. But it was also Ker-neter, the abode of the gods, and the land of ghosts like the Hades of the Greeks. It was also the Good Father’s House (in which there are many mansions). The fourteen divisions comprised, among many others, Aanroo , the hall of the Two Truths, the Land of Bliss, Neter-xer the funeral (or burial) place Otamer-xar, the Silence-loving Fields, and also many other mystical halls and dwellings, one like the Sheol of the Hebrews, another like the Devachan of the Occultists, etc., etc. Out of the fifteen gates of the abode of Osiris, there were two chief ones, the gate of entrance or Rustu, and the gate of exit (reincarnation) Amh. But there was no room in Amenti to represent the orthodox Christian Hell. The worst of all was the Hall of the eternal Sleep and Darkness. As Lepsius has it, the defunct sleep (therein) in incorruptible forms, they wake not to see their brethren, they recognize no longer father and mother, their hearts feel nought toward their wife and children. This is the dwelling of the god All-Dead . . . . Each trembles to pray to him, for he hears not. Nobody can praise him, for he regards not those who adore him. Neither does he notice any offering brought to him. This god is Karmic Decree; the land of Silence — the abode of those who die absolute disbelievers, those dead from accident before their allotted time, and finally the dead on the threshold of Avichi, which is never in Amenti or any other subjective state, save in one case, but on this land of forced re-birth. These tarried not very long even in their state of heavy sleep, of oblivion and darkness, but, were carried more or less speedily toward Amh the exit gate.
(WG) Amenti, in the Egyptian system the dwelling of the God Amon; the same as Hades of the Greeks. In fact the state of man after death, as it was divided into various parts corresponding to the possible various conditions of the soul after death of the body.
(TG) Amesha Spentas {avesta}. Amshaspends. The six angels or divine Forces personified as gods who attend upon Ahura Mazda, of which he is the synthesis and the seventh. They are one of the prototypes of the Roman Catholic Seven Spirits or Angels with Michael as chief, or the Celestial Host; the Seven Angels of the Presence. They are the Builders, Cosmocratores, of the Gnostics and identical with the Seven Prajapatis, the Sephiroth, etc..
(TG) Amitabha. The Chinese perversion of the Sanskrit Amrita Buddha, or the Immortal Enlightened, a name of Gautama Buddha. The name has such variations as Amita, Abida, Amitaya, etc., and is explained as meaning both Boundless Age and Boundless Light. The original conception of the ideal of an impersonal divine light has been anthropomorphized with time.
(WG) Amitabha, a Dhyani-Buddha; the celestial name of Gautama Buddha, much used in Japanese Buddhism. (Literally, of unmeasured splendor
(SKv) Amitabha ‘Unmeasured Splendor,’ ‘Boundless Light’; a compound of a — not; mita , the past participle of the verb-root ma — to measure; and abha — splendor. Parabrahman, or the Infinite All, is called Amitabha. In Buddhist literature we find that that Dhyani-Buddha, or that Over-Lord of Spiritual Beings who enlightened the human soul of Gautama, or, in other words, that Inner God of divine splendor which infilled the soul of Gautama the Buddha, is called the Amitabha-Buddha, or the ‘Buddha of Boundless Light.’
(TG) Ammon {Egyp}. One of the great gods of Egypt. Ammon or Amoun is far older than Amoun-Ra, and is identified with Baal. Hammon, the Lord of Heaven. Amoun-Ra was Ra the Spiritual Sun, the Sun of Righteousness, etc., for — the Lord God is a Sun. He is the God of Mystery and the hieroglyphics of his name are often reversed. He is Pan, All-Nature esoterically, and therefore the universe, and the Lord of Eternity. Ra, as declared by an old inscription, was begotten by Neith but not engendered. He is called the self begotten Ra, and created goodness from a glance of his fiery eye, as Set-Typhon created evil from his. As Ammon (also Amoun and Amen), Ra, he is Lord of the worlds enthroned on the Sun’s disk and appears in the abyss of heaven. A very ancient hymn spells the name Amen-ra , and hails the Lord of the thrones of the earth . . . Lord of Truth, father of the gods, maker of man, creator of the beasts, Lord of Existence, Enlightener of the Earth, sailing in heaven in tranquillity. . . . All hearts are softened at beholding thee, sovereign of life, health and strength! We worship thy spirit who alone made us, etc., etc. (See Bonwick’s Egyptian Belief Ammon Ra is called his mother’s husband and her son. It was to the ram-headed god that the Jews sacrificed lambs, and the lamb of Christian theology is a disguised reminiscence of the ram.
(TG) Ammonias Saccas. A great and good philosopher who lived in Alexandria between the second and third centuries of our era, and who was the founder of the Neo-Platonic School of Philaletheians or lovers of truth. He was of poor birth and born of Christian parents, but endowed with such prominent, almost divine, goodness as to be called Theodidaktos , the god-taught. He honoured that which was good in Christianity, but broke with it and the churches very early, being unable to find in it any superiority over the older religions.
(KT) Ammonius Saccas. A great and good philosopher who lived in Alexandria between the 2nd and 3rd centuries of our Era, the founder of the Neo-Platonic School of the Philalethians or lovers of truth. He was of poor birth and born of Christian parents, but endowed with such prominent, almost divine goodness as to be called Theodidaktos, the God-taught. He honoured that which was good in Christianity, but broke with it and the Churches at an early age, being unable to find in Christianity any superiority over the old religions.
(TG) Amrita {Sans}. The ambrosial drink or food of the gods; the food giving immortality. The elixir of life churned out of the ocean of milk in the Puranic allegory. An old Vedic term applied to the sacred Soma juice in the Temple Mysteries.
(VS) Amrita [[p. 28]] Immortality.
(WG) Amrita, the water of immortality obtained, according to an allegory in the Mahabharata, from the churning of the ocean by the suras and asuras, meaning the spiritual cultivation resulting from the conflict between our higher and lower nature; Soma juice; immortality; the collective body of immortals; the immortal light; final emancipation. (Literally, deathless).
(GH) Amrita, The nectar of the gods, by quaffing which immortality was attained; hence called the waters of immortality or the elixir of life. The amrita was produced when the gods used Ananta for churning the ocean. In the Vedas, amrita is applied to the mystical Soma, which makes a new man of the Initiate. Amri ta is beyond any guna [quality], for it is UNCONDITIONED per se; (Secret Doctrine, I, p. 348). Mystically it is the drinking of the water of supernal wisdom and the spiritual bathing in its life-giving power. (Compound a, not; mrita, dying. Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 74)
(SKv) Amrita Immortality; a compound of a — not, and mrita , the past participle of the verb-root mri — to die. In Hindu literature Amrita is symbolized as the ‘Elixir of Life,’ as the ‘Ambrosial drink or food of the gods.’ Hence one who drank of this Amrita was one who partook of the life-giving waters of god-wisdom and thus became a master of life and death and radiated the spiritual glory with which he had united himself.
(SKf) Amrita-Yana, Pratyeka-Yana The Amrita-Yana is the ‘Pathway of Immortality’; a compound of a — not, and mrita — mortal, derived from the verb-root mri — to die, and yana — path. The Pratyeka-Yana is the ‘Pathway of Each for Himself’; a compound of the preposition prati — for or towards, and eka one. The Pratyeka-Yana is followed by spiritually great souls who strive for peace and wisdom for themselves. A Pratyeka-Buddha is such a one. It is the ‘Path of the Personality’, the Open and material Path to certain of the lower states of Nirvana. One who follows this lower and external aspect of the Upward Path is a disciple of ‘Head-learning,’ of the ‘Eye-Doctrine’ of the Wisdom Teachings. The Amrita-Yana is followed self-consciously by great-souled Initiates such as the Buddhas of Compassion. This is the ‘Pathway of Individuality,’ the Secret and Spiritual Path to a lofty Nirvana. One who follows this higher and inner aspect of the Upward Path is a disciple of ‘Soul-Wisdom,’ the ‘Heart-Doctrine’ of the Wisdom Teachings. The lesser Pathway awakens only the five lower principles in man, whereas the more glorious Pathway awakens the three highest principles in man.
(IN) Amshaspend(s) (Pahlavi) In Zoroastrianism, immortal benefactors, the six or seven creative deities, aspects of Ahura Mazda; similar to the elohim or sephiroth.
(TG) Amulam Mulam {Sans} . Lit., the rootless root; Mulaprakriti of the Vedantins, the spiritual root of nature.
(FY) Amulam Mulam ( Lit. The rootless root); Prakriti; the material of the universe.
(TG) Amun {Egyp} The Egyptian god of wisdom, who had only Initiates or Hierophants to serve him as priests.
(TG) Ana {Chald}. The invisible heaven or Astral Light; the heavenly mother of the terrestrial sea, Mar, whence probably the origin of Anna, the mother of Mary.
(TG) Anacalypsis {Greek}., or an Attempt to withdraw the veil of the Saitic Isis, by Godfrey Higgins. This is a very valuable work, now only obtainable at extravagant prices; it treats of the origin of all myths, religions and mysteries, and displays an immense fund of classical erudition. [W.W.W]
(TG) Anagamin {Sans}. Anagam. One who is no longer to be reborn into the world of desire. One stage before becoming Arhat and ready for Nirvana. The third of the four grades of holiness on the way to final Initiation.
(TG) Anahata Chakram {Sans}. The seat or wheel of life; the heart, according to some commentators.
(FY) Anahatachakram, the heart, the seat of life.
(TG) Anahata Shabda {Sans}. The mystic voices and sounds heard by the Yogi at the incipient stage of his meditation. The third of the four states of sound, otherwise called Madhyama — the fourth state being when it is perceptible by the physical sense of hearing. The sound in its previous stages is not heard except by those who have developed their internal, highest spiritual senses. The four stages are called respectively, Para, Pashyanti, Madhyama and Vaikhari.
(SKv) Anahata-sabda Akasic or spiritual sounds and vibrations; a compound of an — not, ahata, the past participle of the verb-root ahan — to beat, to strike; and sabda — sound; hence a ‘sound not made by beating.’ These mystic sounds reach the ear only of one whose body, mind, and heart have become pure and free from illusion and its many evil results.
(WG) Anaisvarya, powerless, without supremacy.
(TG) Anaitia {Chald}. A derivation from Ana, a goddess identical with the Hindu Annapurana, one of the names of Kali — the female aspect of Siva — at her best.
(TG) Analogeticists. The disciples of Ammonius Saccas (q.. ), so called because of their practice of interpreting all sacred legends, myths and mysteries by a principle of analogy and correspondence, which is now found in the Kabbalistic system, and pre-eminently so in the Schools of Esoteric Philosophy, in the East. (See The Twelve Signs of the Zodiac, by T. Subba Row in Five Years of Theosophy).
(KT) Analogeticists. The disciples of Ammonius Saccas (vide supra) so called because of their practice of interpreting all sacred legends, myths, and mysteries by a principle of analogy and correspondence, which rule is now found in the Kabalistic system, and pre-eminently so in the schools of Esoteric philosophy in the East. (Vide The Twelve Signs of the Zodiac, by T. Subba Row in Five years of Theosophy).
(TG) Ananda {Sans}. Bliss, joy, felicity, happiness. A name of the favourite disciple of Gautama, the Lord Buddha.
(KT) Ananda {Sans}. Bliss, joy, felicity, happiness. A name of the favourite disciple of Gautama, the Lord Buddha.
(FY) Ananda, bliss.
(WG) Ananda, bliss; an aspect of Parabrahmam.
(SP) Ananda — bliss.
(TG) Ananda-Lahari {Sans}. The wave of joy; a beautiful poem written by Sankaracharya, a hymn to Parvati, very mystical and occult.
(TG) Anandamaya-Kosha {Sans}. The illusive Sheath of Bliss, i.e., the mayavic or illusory form, the appearance of that which is formless. Bliss, or the higher soul. The Vedantic name for one of the five Koshas or principles in man; identical with our Atma-Buddhi or the Spiritual Soul.
(FY) Ananda-maya-kosha, the blissful; the fifth sheath of the soul in the Vedantic system; the sixth principle.
(WG) Anandamaya-kosa, the spiritual soul, buddhi.
(TG) Ananga {Sans}. The Bodiless. An epithet of Kama, god of love.
(TG) Ananta-Sesha {Sans}. The Serpent of Eternity — the couch of Vishnu during Pralaya (lit., endless remain).
(WG) Ananta, infinite; a term applied to different deities, and to the seven-headed serpent couch upon which Krishna (the manifested Vishnu) reclines when he creates the worlds; the infinite beyond time and space.
(GH) Ananta. The name of the serpent Sesha, represented as seven-headed and forming the couch of Vishnu, on which he reclines during the pralayas. Sesha, is called Ananta (meaning the unending, the infinite) because he perdures through manvantaras as well as during the pralayas, i.e., during the periods of activity and quiescence. Ananta is represented as carrying a plow and a pestle, for during the churning of the waters for the purpose of making Amrita, the gods used Sesha as a great rope, twisting his tail around the mountain Mandara, and thus using it as a churn. Ananta is also the symbol of eternity, i.e., a serpent in the form of a circle. In the Puranas Sesha is said to have a thousand heads — an expansion of the legend. The seven beads of the serpent typifies the Seven principles throughout nature and man; the highest or middle head being the seventh. ( Secret Doctrine, I, p. 407) (Compound an, not; anta, ending. Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 74)
(GH) Ananta-Vijaya The name of the conch-shell of Yudhishthira. (Meaning of the word itself: eternally victorious. Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 4)
(TG) Anastasis {Greek} . The continued existence of the soul.
(FY) Anastasis, the continued existence of the soul.
(TG) Anatu {Chald} . The female aspect of Anu . She represents the Earth and Depth, while her consort represents the Heaven and Height. She is the mother of the god Hea, and produces heaven and earth. Astronomically she is Ishtar, Venus, the Ashtoreth of the Jews.
(WG) Anavasada, indifference to miseries.
(TG) Anaxagoras {Greek} . A famous Ionian philosopher who lived 500 B.C., studied philosophy under Anaximenes of Miletus, and settled in the days of Pericles at Athens. Socrates, Euripides, Archelaus and other distinguished men and philosophers were among his disciples and pupils. He was a most learned astronomer and was one of the first to explain openly that which was taught by Pythagoras secretly, namely, the movements of the planets, the eclipses of the sun and moon, etc. It was he who taught the theory of Chaos, on the principle that nothing comes from nothing; and of atoms, as the underlying essence and substance of all bodies, of the same nature as the bodies which they formed. These atoms, he taught, were primarily put in motion by Nous (Universal Intelligence, the Mahat of the Hindus), which Nous is an immaterial, eternal, spiritual entity; by this combination the world was formed, the material gross bodies sinking down, and the ethereal atoms (or fiery ether) rising and spreading in the upper celestial regions. Antedating modern science by over 2000 years, he taught that the stars were of the same material as our earth, and the sun a glowing mass; that the moon was a dark, uninhabitable body, receiving its light from the sun; the comets, wandering stars or bodies; and over and above the said science, he confessed himself thoroughly convinced that the real existence of things, perceived by our senses, could not be demonstrably proved. He died in exile at Lampsacus at the age of seventy-two.
(KT) Anaxagoras. A famous Ionian philosopher, who lived 500 B.C., studied philosophy under Anaximenes of Miletus, and settled in the days of Pericles, at Athens. Socrates, Euripides, Archelaus, and other distinguished men and philosophers were among his disciples and pupils. He was a most learned astronomer, and was one of the first to explain openly that which was taught by Pythagoras secretly — viz., the movements of the planets, the eclipses of the sun and moon, etc. It was he who taught the theory of chaos, on the principle that nothing comes from nothing, ex nihilo nihil fit — and of atoms, as the underlying essence and substance of all bodies, of the same nature as the bodies which they formed. These atoms, he taught, were primarily put in motion by nous (universal intelligence, the Mahat of the Hindus), which nous is an immaterial, eternal, spiritual entity; by this combination the world was formed, the material gross bodies sinking down, and the ethereal atoms (or fiery ether) rising and spreading in the upper celestial regions. Ante-dating modern science by over 2,000 years, he taught that the stars were of the same material as our earth, and the sun a glowing mass; that the moon was a dark uninhabitable body, receiving its light from the sun; and beyond the aforesaid science he confessed himself thoroughly convinced that the real existence of things, perceived by our senses, could not be demonstrably proved. He died in exile at Lampsacus, at the age of seventy-two.
(WG) Anayam, a measure of time, 180 days.
(TG) Ancients, The. A name given by Occultists to the seven creative Rays, born of Chaos, or the Deep.
(TG) Anda-Kataha {Sans} . The outer covering, or the shell of Brahma’s egg; the area within which our manifested universe is encompassed.
(WG) Andhatamisra, utter darkness of the soul.
(MO) Andrimner {Nors} [ and air + rimner computation, calendar] One of the boars that feed the One-harriers
(TG) Androgyne Goat (of Mendes See Baphomet.
(TG) Androgyne Ray The first differentiated ray; the Second Logos; Adam Kadmon in the Kabalah ; the male and female created he them, of the first chapter of Genesis.
(TG) Angaraka {Sans} . Fire Star; the planet Mars; in Tibetan, Mig-mar {Tibe}
(TG) Angirasas {Sans} . The generic name of several Puranic individuals and things; a class of Pitris , the ancestors of man; a river in Plaksha, one of the Sapta dwipas .
(TG) Angra Mainyus {avesta} . The Zoroastrian name for Ahriman; the evil spirit of destruction and opposition who (in the Vendidad is said by Ahura Mazda to counter-create by his witchcraft every beautiful land the God creates; for Angra Mainyu is all death.
(WG) Anima, a power or siddhi by which one can go into the smallest atom.
(TG) Anima Mundi {Latin} . The Soul of the World, the same as the Alaya of the Northern Buddhists; the divine essence which permeates, animates and informs all, from the smallest atom of matter to man and god. It is in a sense the seven-skinned mother of the stanzas in the Secret Doctrine, the essence of seven planes of sentience, consciousness and differentiation, moral and physical. In its highest aspect it is Nirvana, in its lowest Astral Light. It was feminine with the Gnostics, the early Christians and the Nazarenes; bisexual with other sects, who considered it only in its four lower planes. Of igneous, ethereal nature in the objective world of form (and then ether), and divine and spiritual in its three higher planes. When it is said that every human soul was born by detaching itself from the Anima Mundi, it means, esoterically, that our higher Egos are of an essence identical with It, which is a radiation of the ever unknown Universal ABSOLUTE.
(KT) Anima Mundi {Latin} The Soul of the World, the same as Alaya of the Northern Buddhists; the divine Essence which pervades, permeates, animates, and informs all things, from the smallest atom of matter to man and god. It is in a sense the seven-skinned Mother of the stanzas in the Secret Doctrine; the essence of seven planes of sentiency, consciousness, and differentiation, both moral and physical. In its highest aspect it is Nirvana; in its lowest, the Astral Light. It was feminine with the Gnostics, the early Christians, and the Nazarenes; bisexual with other sects, who considered it only in its four lower planes, of igneous and ethereal nature in the objective world of forms, and divine and spiritual in its three higher planes. When it is said that every human soul was born by detaching itself from the Anima Mundi, it is meant, esoterically, that our higher Egos are of an essence identical with It , and Mahat is a radiation of the ever unknown Universal ABSOLUTE.
(FY) Anima Mundi, the soul of the world.
(WG) Anima Mundi (Latin), the soul of the world. In Esotericism it means the actual soul or psychic force of the world; that is, that this globe as a whole with its creatures has its own soul.
(WG) Anishtubha, a peculiar Sanskrit metre.
(WG) Anitya, temporary, not everlasting.
(TG) Anjala {Sans} . One of the personified powers which spring from Brahma’s body — the Prajapatis.
(TG) Anjana {Sans} . A serpent, a son of Kasyapa Rishi.
(TG) Annamaya Kosha {Sans} . A Vedantic term. The same as Sthula Sharira or the physical body. It is the first sheath of the five sheaths accepted by the Vedantins, a sheath being the same as that which is called principle in Theosophy.
(FY) Annamaya Kosha, the gross body; the first sheath of the divine mona — Vedantic
(WG) Annamaya-kosa, the material body
(TG) Annapura {Sans} . See Ana.
(TG) Annedotus {Greek} . The generic name for the Dragons or Men-Fishes, of which there were five. The historian Berosus narrates that there rose out of the Erythraean Sea on several occasions a semi-daemon named Oannes or Annedotus, who although part animal yet taught the Chaldeans useful arts and everything that could humanise them. (See Lenormant Chaldean and also Oannes
(TG) Anoia {Greek} . Want of understanding, folly. Anoia is the name given by Plato and others to the lower Manas when too closely allied with Kama, which is irrational (agnoia) . The Greek word agnoia is evidently a derivation from and cognate to the Sanskrit word ajnana (phonetically, agnyana ) or ignorance, irrationality, absence of knowledge. (See Agnoia and Agnostic
(KT) Anoia {Greek} of understanding folly; and is the name applied by Plato and others to the lower Manas when too closely allied with Kama, which is characterised by irrationality (agnoia). The Greek agnoia is evidently a derivative of the Sanskrit ajnana (phonetically agnyana), or ignorance, irrationality, and absence of knowledge.
(TG) Anouki {Egyp} . A form of Isis; the goddess of life, from which name the Hebrew Ank , life. (See Anuki
(TG) Ansumat {Sans} . A Puranic personage, the nephew of 60,000 uncles King Sagara’s sons, who were reduced to ashes by a single glance from Kapila Rishi’s Eye.
(TG) Antahkarana {Sans}, or Antaskarana. The term has various meanings, which differ with every school of philosophy and sect. Thus Sankaracharya renders the word as understanding; others, as the internal instrument, the Soul, formed by the thinking principle and egoism; whereas the Occultists explain it as the path or bridge between the Higher and the Lower Manas, the divine Ego , and the personal Soul of man. It serves as a medium of communication between the two, and conveys from the Lower to the Higher Ego all those personal impressions and thoughts of men which can, by their nature, be assimilated and stored by the undying Entity, and be thus made immortal with it, these being the only elements of the evanescent Personality that survive death and time. It thus stands to reason that only that which is noble, spiritual and divine in man can testify in Eternity to his having lived.
(FY) Antahkarana, the internal instrument, the soul, formed by the thinking principle and egoism.
(VS) Antaskarana (III 9) [[p. 50]] Antaskarana is the lower Manas, the Path of communication or communion between the personality and the higher Manas or human Soul. At death it is destroyed as a Path or medium of communication, and its remains survive in a form as the Kamarupa the shell.
(WG) Antahkarana, the channel of communication between the higher and lower aspects of manas; the seat of thought and feeling. ( antar, within; karana, instrument or means of causing
(WG) Antaskarana, the same as antakarana .
(OG) Antaskarana — {Sans} Perhaps better spelled as antahkarana. A compound word: antar, interior, within; karana, sense organ. Occultists explain this word as the bridge between the higher and lower manas or between the spiritual ego and personal soul of man. Such is H. P. Blavatsky’s definition. As a matter of fact there are several antahkaranas in the human septenary constitution — one for every path or bridge between any two of the several monadic centers in man. Man is a microcosm, therefore a unified composite, a unity in diversity; and the antahkaranas are the links of vibrating consciousness-substance uniting these various centers.
(SKv) Antaskarana, Antahkarana Antaskarana (more correctly spelled Antahkarana) is a compound of antar — between or intermediate, and karana , the present participle form of kri — to do, hence meaning ‘effecting,’ ‘acting.’ Thus Antaskarana is an ‘intermediate instrument’ or ‘that which acts or works between.’ H. P. Blavatsky in The Voice of the Silence refers to the Antaskarana as the Lower Manas, that path or bridge of communication between the personality and the higher Manas or reincarnating part of man, and calls it that path that lies between thy Spirit and thy self. When an adept unites himself with his Spirit and has sacrificed his personal self to the Greater Impersonal Self within, the Antaskarana vanishes because there is no further need of it.
The word Antaskarana, in a more general sense, may be applied to any intermediary, a person or thing, acting between something higher and something lower than itself. A Messenger could be called the Antaskarana between the Masters of Wisdom and humanity.
(SP) Antaskarana or antahkarana — intermediate instrument, the link between higher and lower self.
(WG) Antaratma, mind, the human soul.
(WG) Antaryamin, that which is latent in all; a title of Ishwara.
(TG) Anthesteria {Greek} . The feast of Flowers (Floralia) : during this festival the rite of Baptism or purification was performed in the Eleusinian Mysteries in the temple lakes, the Limnae, when the Mystae were made to pass through the narrow gate of Dionysus, to emerge therefrom as full Initiates.
(TG) Anthropology. The Science of man; it embraces among other things: — Physiology, or that branch of natural science which discloses the mysteries of the organs and their functions in men, animals and plants; and also, and especially,- Psychology or the great, and in our days, too much neglected science of the soul, both as an entity distinct from the spirit, and in its relation to the spirit and body. In modern science, psychology deals only or principally with conditions of the nervous system, and almost absolutely ignores the psychical essence and nature. Physicians denominate the science of insanity psychology, and name the lunacy chair in medical colleges by that designation. (Isis Unveiled . )
(IU) Anthropology — the science of man; embracing among other things: Physiology, or that branch of natural science which discloses the mysteries of the organs and their functions in men, animals, and plants; and also, and especially, Psychology, or the great, and in our days, so neglected science of the soul, both as an entity distinct from the spirit and in its relations with the spirit and body. In modern science, psychology relates only or principally to conditions of the nervous system, and almost absolutely ignores the psychical essence and nature. Physicians denominate the science of insanity psychology, and name the lunatic chair in medical colleges by that designation.
(TG) Anthropomorphism {Greek} . From anthropos meaning man. The act of endowing god or gods with a human form and human attributes or qualities.
(KT) Anthropomorphism. From the Greek Anthropos, man. The act of endowing God or the gods with a human form and human attributes or qualities.
(TG) Anu {Sans} . An atom, a title of Brahma, who is said to be an atom just as is the infinite universe. A hint at the pantheistic nature of the god.
(TG) Anu {Chald} . One of the highest of Babylonian deities, King of Angels and Spirits, Lord of the city of Erech. He is the Ruler and God of Heaven and Earth. His symbol is a star and a kind of Maltese cross — emblems of divinity and sovereignty. He is an abstract divinity supposed to inform the whole expanse of ethereal space or heaven, while his wife informs the more material planes. Both are the types of the Ouranos and Gaia of Hesiod. They sprang from the original Chaos. All his titles and attributes are graphic and indicate health, purity physical and moral, antiquity and holiness. Anu was the earliest god of the city of Erech. One of his sons was Bil or Vil-Kan, the god of fire, of various metals, and of weapons. George Smith very pertinently sees in this deity a close connection with a kind of cross breed between the biblical Tubal Cain and the classical Vulcan . . . . who is considered to be moreover the most potent deity in relation to witchcraft and spells generally.
(WG) Anu, atom; also, one of the names of Brahma.
(SKs) Anu, Jivanu , Paramanu Anu literally means ‘infinitesimal’; probably a compound of a — not and nu — certainty, knowledge. Anu is an atom of matter, the chemical atom, the vehicle of Jivanu ( jiva — life, and anu — atom). The Jivanu is a life-atom or the soul of a chemical atom. Jivanu in its turn is the vehicle of Paramanu ( parama — highest, and anu — atom), which is the supreme or highest atom or the spirit of the chemical atom.
(TG) Anubis {Greek}. The dog-headed god, identical, in a certain aspect, with Horus. He is pre-eminently the god who deals with the disembodied, or the resurrected in post mortem life. Anepou is his Egyptian name. He is a psychopompic deity, the Lord of the Silent Land of the West, the land of the Dead, the preparer of the way to the other world, to whom the dead were entrusted, to be led by him to Osiris, the Judge. In short, he is the embalmer and the guardian of the dead. One of the oldest deities in Egypt, Mariette Bey having found the image of this deity in tombs of the Third Dynasty.
(WG) Anuddharsha, contentment, satisfaction with one’s condition.
(TG) Anugita {Sans} . One of the Upanishads. A very occult treatise. (See The Sacred Books of the East
(KT) Anugita {Sans} One of the Upanishads. A very occult treatise. ( Vide Clarendon Press series The Sacred Books of the East
(WG) Anugita, an episode from the fourteenth book of the Mahabharata. It gives the discourse between Krishna and Arjuna after the battle with which the Bhagavad-Gita opens. ( anu, after; gita , song: an after-song
(TG) Anugraha {Sans} . The eighth creation in the Vishnu Purana .
(TG) Anuki {Egyp} . See Anouki supra . The word Ank in Hebrew, means ‘my life’, my being, which is the personal pronoun Anochi, from the name of the Egyptian goddess Anouki , says the author of the Hebrew Mystery, or the Source of Measures .
(WG) Anumana, inference, drawing a conclusion from given premises, one of the means of obtaining knowledge according to the Sankhya or Nyaya systems.
(WG) Anumapaka, the basis of inference.
(WG) Anumata, producer of satisfaction in the doer of an act, though not himself concerned in action, still appearing as such.
(TG) Anumati {Sans} . The moon at the full; when from a god — Soma — she becomes a goddess.
(TG) Anumitis {Sans} . Inference, deduction in philosophy.
(FY) Anumiti, inference.
(TG) Anunit {Chald} . The goddess of Akkad; Lucifer, the morning star. Venus as the evening star was Ishtar of Erech.
(TG) Anunnaki {Chald} . Angels or Spirits of the Earth; terrestrial Elementals also.
(WG) Anusrava, Vedic tradition; acquired by repeated hearing.
(TG) Anuttara {Sans} . Unrivalled, peerless. Thus Anuttara Bodhi means unexcelled or unrivalled intelligence, Anuttara Dharma , unrivalled law or religion
(TG) Anyamsam Aniyasam {Sans} . Ano-vaniyansam (in Bhagavad gita ). Lit., the most atomic of the atomic; smallest of the small. Applied to the universal deity, whose essence is everywhere.
(WG) Anyathajnana, confounding of the attributes of one thing with those of another. ( anyatha , otherwise; jnana, knowing
(TG) Aour {Chald} . The synthesis of the two aspects of astro-etheric light; and the od — the life-giving, and the ob — the death-giving light.
(WG) Ap, water; air; the intermediate region.
(WG) Apah, (plural of AP), divinities and potencies.
(TG) Apam Napat {avesta} . A mysterious being, corresponding to the Fohat of the Occultists. It is both a Vedic and an Avestian name. Literally, the name means the Son of the Waters (of space, i.e ., Ether), for in the Avesta Apam Napat stands between the fire-yazatas and the water-yazatas (See Secret Doctrine, Vol. II., p. 400, note).
(WG) Apam-napat, Vedic name for Agni, or fire as sprung from water; intelligent force pervading nature, the light of the Logos, Fohat. ( apam , water; napat, offspring
(TG) Apana {Sans} . Inspirational breath; a practice in Yoga. Prana and apana are the expirational and the inspirational breaths. It is called vital wind in Anugita .
(WG) Apana, breathing out, expiration, one of the five vital airs, (opposed to prana); a cultivated physical faculty utilized in certain Hatha Yoga exercises.
(SKs) Apana, Samana , Vyana, Prana, Udana Each one of the seven principles of man’s constitution has its own particular ‘vital flow’ or ‘life-current’ which helps to build and sustain it. The full explanations and correspondences of these ‘Vital Airs’ are kept secret because of the danger of their misuse. The two higher ‘Vital Breaths’ are not spoken of in most exoteric literature. Hatha-Yoga, one of the lower aspects of Yoga training, treats of ways and means of controlling these different ‘breaths’; but without a greater knowledge of the mysteries of our inner nature, practice of this kind is not advisable, and in fact is discouraged. Apana is that ‘vital breath’ which casts out of the human system all that is not wanted there, that is, all waste material; a compound of apa — away, and the verb-root an — to breathe. Samana is that ‘vital breath’ which controls digestion and assimilation, and hence is that which carries on the chemical processes in the body; a compound of sam — together, and an — to breathe. Vyana is that ‘vital breath’ which governs the circulations in the body, and hence, is that which separates and disintegrates, and resists the destructive elements that are ever at work, and keeps the body in shape; a compound of vi — apart, a — towards, and an — to breathe. Prana is that ‘vital breath’ with which we are most familiar, that which controls our breathing, and which enables us to draw in vital essences from without and cast out through the breath certain gases which are destructive to the body; a compound of pra — forth, and the verb-root an — to breathe. Udana is that ‘vital breath’ which directs the vital currents of the body upwards to their sources, to the higher centers of the heart and brain. It therefore controls death; a compound of ud — up, and an — to breathe. Because these Pranas are the circulations of vital force in the body corresponding to the Circulations of the Cosmos, they are keys to an understanding of the Pathways of Life and Death.
(TG) Apap {Egyp}, in Greek Apophis . The symbolical Serpent of Evil. The Solar Boat and the Sun are the great Slayers of Apap in the Book of the Dead . It is Typhon, who having killed Osiris, incarnates in Apap, seeking to kill Horus. Like Taoer (or Ta-ap-oer ) the female aspect of Typhon, Apap is called the devourer of the Souls, and truly, since Apap symbolizes the animal body, as matter left soulless and to itself. Osiris, being, like all the other Solar gods, a type of the Higher Ego (Christos), Horus (his son) is the lower Manas or the personal Ego. On many a monument one can see Horus, helped by a number of dog-headed gods armed with crosses and spears, killing Apap. Says an Orientalist: The God Horus standing as conqueror upon the Serpent of Evil, may be considered as the earliest form of our well-known group of St. George (who is Michael) and the Dragon, or holiness trampling down sin. Draconianism did not die with the ancient religions, but has passed bodily into the latest Christian form of the worship.
(TG) Aparinamin {Sans} . The Immutable and the Unchangeable, the reverse of Parinamin, that which is subject to modification, differentiation or decay.
(TG) Aparoksha {Sans} . Direct perception.
(FY) Aparoksha, direct perception.
(TG) Apava {Sans} . Lit. He who sports in the Water. Another aspect of Narayana or Vishnu and of Brahma combined, for Apava, like the latter, divides himself into two parts, male and female, and creates Vishnu, who creates Viraj, who creates Manu. The name is explained and interpreted in various ways in Brahmanical literature.
(TG) Apavarga {Sans} . Emancipation from repeated births.
(FY) Apavarya, emancipation from repeated births.
(WG) Apavarga, the emancipation of the soul from the misery of repeated re-births; final beatitude. ( apa , from, away; varga, purified, exempt
(TG) Apis {Egyp}, or Hapi-ankh . The living deceased one or Osiris incarnate in the sacred white Bull. Apis was the bull-god that, on reaching the age of twenty-eight, the age when Osiris was killed by Typhon — was put to death with great ceremony. It was not the Bull that was worshipped but the Osiridian symbol; just as Christians kneel now before the Lamb, the symbol of Jesus Christ, in their churches.
(TG) Apocrypha {Greek} . Very erroneously explained and adopted as doubtful, or spurious. The word means simply secret, esoteric, hidden .
(TG) Apollo Belvidere. Of all the ancient statues of Apollo, the son of Jupiter and Latona, called Phoebes, Helios, the radiant and the Sun, the best and most perfect is the one known by this name, which is in the Belvidere gallery of the Vatican at Rome. It is called the Pythian Apollo, as the god is represented in the moment of his victory over the serpent Python. The statue was found in the ruins of Antium, in 1503.
(KT) Apollo Belvidere. Of all the ancient statues of Apollo, the son of Jupiter and Latona, called Phoebus, Helios, the radiant, and the Sun — the best and most perfect is the one of this name, which is in the Belvidere Gallery in the Vatican, at Rome. It is called the Pythian Apollo, as the god is represented in the moment of his victory over the serpent Python. The statue was found in the ruins of Antium in 1503.
(TG) Apollonius of Tyana {Greek} . A wonderful philosopher born in Cappadocia about the beginning of the first century; an ardent Pythagorean, who studied the Phoenician sciences under Euthydemus; and Pythagorean philosophy and other studies under Euxenus of Heraclea. According to the tenets of this school he remained a vegetarian the whole of his long life, fed only on fruit and herbs, drank no wine, wore vestments made only of plant-fibres, walked barefooted, and let his hair grow to its full length, as all the Initiates before and after him. He was initiated by the priests of the temple of AEsculapius (Asclepios) at AEgea, and learnt many of the miracles for healing the sick wrought by the god of medicine. Having prepared himself for a higher initiation by a silence of five years, and by travel, visiting Antioch, Ephesus, Pamphylia and other parts, he journeyed via Babylon to India, all his intimate disciples having abandoned him, as they feared to go to the land of enchantments. A casual disciple, Damis, however, whom he met on his way, accompanied him in his travels. At Babylon he was initiated by the Chaldees and Magi, according to Damis, whose narrative was copied by one named Philostratus a hundred years later. After his return from India, he showed himself a true Initiate, in that the pestilences and earthquakes, deaths of kings and other events, which he prophesied duly happened. At Lesbos, the priests of Orpheus, being jealous of him, refused to initiate him into their peculiar mysteries, though they did so several years later. He preached to the people of Athens and other cities the purest and noblest ethics, and the phenomena he produced were as wonderful as they were numerous and well attested. How is it, enquires Justin Martyr in dismay — how is it that the talismans (telesmata) of Apollonius have power, for they prevent, as we see, the fury of the waves and the violence of the winds, and the attacks of the wild beasts; and whilst our Lord’s miracles are preserved by tradition alone, those of Apollonius are most numerous and actually manifested in present facts? ). But an answer is easily found to this in the fact that after crossing the Hindu Kush, Apollonius had been directed by a king to the abode of the Sages , whose abode it may be to this day, by whom he was taught unsurpassed knowledge. His dialogues with the Corinthian Menippus indeed give us the esoteric catechism and disclose (when understood) many an important mystery of nature. Apollonius was the friend, correspondent and guest of kings and queens, and no marvellous or magic powers are better attested than his. At the end of his long and wonderful life he opened an esoteric school at Ephesus, and died aged almost one hundred years.
(KT) Apollonius of Tyana. A wonderful philosopher born in Cappadocia about the beginning of the first century; an ardent Pythagorean, who studied the Phoenician sciences under Euthydemus, and Pythagorean philosophy and other subjects under Euxenus of Heraclea. According to the tenets of the Pythagorean school he remained a vegetarian the whole of his long life, ate only fruit and herbs, drank no wine, wore vestments made only of plant fibres, walked barefooted and let his hair grow to the full length, as all the Initiates have done before and after him. He was initiated by the priests of the temple of aesculapius (Asclepios) at aegae, and learnt many of the miracles for healing the sick wrought by the God of medicine. Having prepared himself for a higher initiation by a silence of five years, and by travel — visiting Antioch, Ephesus, and Pamphylia and other parts — he repaired via Babylon to India, alone, all his disciples having abandoned him as they feared to go to the land of enchantments. A casual disciple, Damis, whom he met on his way, accompanied him, however, on his travels. At Babylon he got initiated by the Chaldees and Magi, according to Damis, whose narrative was copied by one named Philostratus one hundred years later. After his return from India, he showed himself a true Initiate in that the pestilence, earthquakes, deaths of kings and other events, which he prophesied, duly happened. At Lesbos, the priests of Orpheus got jealous of him, and refused to initiate him into their peculiar mysteries, though they did so several years later. He preached to the people of Athens and other States the purest and noblest ethics, and the phenomena he produced were as wonderful as they were numerous, and well authenticated. How is it, inquires Justin Martyr, in dismay, how is it that the talismans (telesmata) of Apollonius have power, for they prevent, as we see, the fury of the waves, and the violence of the winds, and the attacks of wild beasts; and whilst our Lord’s miracles are preserved by tradition alone, those of Apollonius are most numerous, and actually manifested in present facts? But an answer is easily found to this, in the fact that, after crossing the Hindu Koosh, Apollonius had been directed by a king to the abode of the Sages, whose abode it may be to this day, and who taught him their unsurpassed knowledge. His dialogues, with the Corinthian Menippus, give to us truly the esoteric catechism, and disclose (when understood) many an important mystery of nature. Apollonius was the friend, correspondent, and guest of kings and queens, and no wonderful or magic powers are better attested than his. Towards the close of his long and wonderful life he opened an esoteric school at Ephesus, and died at the ripe old age of one hundred years.
(TG) Aphorreta {Greek} . Secret instructions upon esoteric subjects given during the Egyptian and Grecian Mysteries.
(FY) Apporrheta, secret discourses in Egyptian and Grecian mysteries.
(WG) Aprithaksiddha, inseparable and eternal union, such as that existing between Chit, Achit and Isvara.
(TG) Apsaras {Sans} . An Undine or Water-Nymph, from the Paradise or Heaven of Indra. The Apsarases are in popular belief the wives of the gods and called Suranganas, and by a less honourable term, Sumad-atmajas or the daughters of pleasure, for it is fabled of them that when they appeared at the churning of the Ocean neither Gods (Suras) nor Demons (Asuras) would take them for legitimate wives. Urvasi and several others of them are mentioned in the Vedas . In Occultism they are certain sleep-producing aquatic plants, and inferior forces of nature.
(TG) Ar-Abu Nasr-al-Farabi , called in Latin Alpharabius, a Persian, and the greatest Aristotelian philosopher of the age. He was born in 950 A.D., and is reported to have been murdered in 1047. He was an Hermetic philosopher and possessed the power of hypnotizing through music, making those who heard him play the lute laugh, weep, dance and do what he liked. Some of his works on Hermetic philosophy may be found in the Library of Leyden.
(TG) Arahat {Sans} . Also pronounced and written Arhat, Arhan, Rahat,, the worthy one, lit., deserving divine honours. This was the name first given to the Jain and subsequently to the Buddhist holy men initiated into the esoteric mysteries. The Arhat is one who has entered the best and highest path, and is thus emancipated from re-birth.
(FY) Arahats ( Lit. the worthy ones), the initiated holy men of the Buddhist and Jain faiths.
(SP) Arhat — literally worthy one, Buddhist term for one who has reached personal enlightenment.
(TG) Arani {Sans} . The female Arani is a name of the Vedic Aditi (esoterically, the womb of the world). Avani is a Swastika , a disc-like wooden vehicle, in which the Brahmins generated fire by friction with pramantha, a stick, the symbol of the male generator. A mystic ceremony with a world of secret meaning in it and very sacred, perverted into phallic significance by the materialism of the age.
(WG) Aranis, the two pieces of wood used in producing, by attrition, the sacred fire.
(TG) Aranyaka {Sans} . Holy hermits, sages who dwelt in ancient India in forests. Also a portion of the Vedas containing Upanishads, etc.
(VS) Aranyaka (II 14) [[p. 30]] A hermit who retires to the jungles and lives in a forest, when becoming a Yogi.
(FY) Aranyakas, holy sages dwelling in forests.
(SKv) Aranyaka, Aranyaka , Aranyaukas Aranyaka is a forest; Aranyaka a holy hermit or sage who dwelt in ancient India in forests. Aran-yaukas is also a forest-dweller or ‘one who makes the aranya or forest his okas or dwelling.’
(TG) Araritha {Hebr} . A very famous seven-lettered Kabbalistic wonder-word; its numeration is 813; its letters are collected by Notaricon from the sentence one principle of his unity, one beginning of his individuality, his change is unity. .
(TG) Arasa Maram {Sans} . The Hindu sacred tree of knowledge. In occult philosophy a mystic word.
(TG) Arba-il {Chald} . The Four Great Gods. Arba is Aramaic for four, and il is the same as Al or El. Three male deities, and a female who is virginal yet reproductive, form a very common ideal of Godhead.
(TG) Archaeus {Greek} . The Ancient. Used of the oldest manifested deity; a term employed in the Kabalah ; archaic, old, ancient.
(TG) Archangel {Greek} . Highest supreme angel. From the Greek arch, chief or primordial, and angelos, messenger.
(KT) Archangel. Highest, supreme angel. From the two Greek words, arch, first, and angelos, messenger.
(TG) Archetypal Universe The ideal universe upon which the objective world was built. [W.W.W.]
(TG) Archobiosis {Greek} . Primeval beginning of life.
(TG) Archons {Greek} . In profane and biblical language rulers and princes; in Occultism, primordial planetary spirits.
(TG) Archontes {Greek} . The archangels after becoming Ferouers or their own shadows, having mission on earth; a mystic ubiquity; implying a double life; a kind of hypostatic action, one of purity in a higher region, the other of terrestrial activity exercised on our plane. (See Iamblichus, De Mysterus II.,
(TG) Ardath {Hebr} . This word occurs in the Second Book of Esdras, ix., 26. The name has been given to one of the recent occult novels where much interest is excited by the visit of the hero to a field in the Holy Land so named; magical properties are attributed to it. In the Book of Esdras the prophet is sent to this field called Ardath where no house is builded and bidden eat there only the flowers of the field, taste no flesh, drink no wine, and pray unto the highest continually, and then will I come and talk with thee. [w.w.w.]
(SKv) Ardha-Matra The mystic syllable AUM is said to represent the Kala-hansa or ‘Swan of Time.’ The A represents the bird’s right wing, the U the left wing, and the M its tail. The Ardha-Matra, the ‘half-meter’ or that shifting tone which is made as one passes in tone from the A to the U, and from the U to the M, corresponds to the bird’s head, or the consciousness guiding the pronunciation, hence symbolizing the consciousness guiding the onward progress of the mystic flight of this Bird of Eternity.
(TG) Ardha-Nari {Sans} . Lit. , half-woman. Siva represented as Androgynous, as half male and half female, a type of male and female energies combined. (See occult diagram
(TG) Ardhanariswara {Sans} . Lit., the bi-sexual lord. Esoterically, the unpolarized states of cosmic energy symbolised by the Kabalistic Sephira, Adam Kadmon,
(FY) Ardhanariswara, ( Lit. the bi-sexual Lord); the unpolarized state of cosmic energy; the bi-sexual Sephira, Adam Kadmon.
(TG) Ares. The Greek name for Mars, god of war; also a term used by Paracelsus, the differentiated Force in Cosmos.
(TG) Argha {Chald} . The ark, the womb of Nature; the crescent moon, and a life-saving ship; also a cup for offerings, a vessel used for religious ceremonies.
(WG) Arghya, a libation to gods or saints, of rice, flowers, etc., with water, or of water only, in a small boat-shaped vessel.
(TG) Arghyanath {Sans} . Lit. , lord of libations.
(WG) Arghyanath, lord of libations, a title of the Maha-Chohan.
(WG) Arghya-varsha, the land of libations; the mystery name of the land whence the Kalki avatar is expected to come.
(IN) Arhat {Sans} High initiate; in Buddhism, those who have attained nirvana; more generally, an ascetic.
(VS) A New Arhan (III 36) [[p. 72]] Meaning that a new and additional Saviour of mankind is born, who will lead men to final Nirvana i.e., after the end of the life-cycle.
(KT) Arhat {Sans}, also pronounced and written Arahat, Arhan, Rahat, etc., the worthy one; a perfected Arya, one exempt from reincarnation; deserving Divine honours. This was the name first given to the Jain, and subsequently to the Buddhist holy men initiated into the esoteric mysteries. The Arhat is one who has entered the last and highest path, and is thus emancipated from rebirth.
(WG) Arhats, initiated holy men of the Buddhist and Jaina faiths; often used synonymously with Rishi, Mahatma, and Adept. (Literally, worthy ones
(SKv) Arhan, Aryahata The word Arhan is another form for Arhat. Hence a Buddha is often called an Arhan because of his superior wisdom and perfection. Aryahata is the Path of Arhatship or of that state of spiritual holiness leading to Nirvanic bliss.
(SP) Arhat — literally worthy one, Buddhist term for one who has reached personal enlightenment.
(TG) Arian. A follower of Arius, a presbyter of the Church in Alexandria in the fourth century. One who holds that Christ is a created and human being, inferior to God the Father, though a grand and noble man, a true adept versed in all the divine mysteries.
(KT) Arians. The followers of Arius, a presbyter of the Church in Alexandria in the fourth century. One who holds that Christ is a created and human being, inferior to God the Father, though a grand and noble man, a true adept, versed in all the divine mysteries.
(TG) Aristobulus {Greek} . An Alexandrian writer, and an obscure philosopher. A Jew who tried to prove that Aristotle explained the esoteric thoughts of Moses.
(KT) Aristobulus. An Alexandrian writer, and an obscure philosopher. A Jew who tried to prove that Aristotle explained the esoteric thoughts of Moses.
(TG) Arithmomancy {Greek} . The science of correspondences between gods, men, and numbers, as taught by Pythagoras. [W.W.W.]
(TG) Arjuna {Sans} . Lit. , the white. The third of the five Brothers Pandu or the reputed Sons of Indra (esoterically the same as Orpheus). A disciple of Krishna, who visited him and married Su-bhadra, his sister, besides many other wives, according to the allegory. During the fratricidal war between the Kauravas and the Pandavas, Krishna instructed him in the highest philosophy, while serving as his charioteer. (See Bhagavad Gita
(WG) Arjuna, a personality in the Bhagavat Gita, son and avatar of Indra, allegorically representing man; also spoken of as Nara. ( arjuna, silver white; mara, man, the primal man, a hero
(GH) Arjuna The hero of the Bhagavad-Gita depicted as the disciple of Krishna is one of the most interesting and lovable characters in the Mahabharata. He is the third of the Pandava brothers, the son of Indra by Pritha (or Kunti) — hence referred to throughout the poem as the son of Pritha, or again as the son of Kunti (in Sanskrit Partha and Kaunteya). His individual exploits are related at great length in the epic, each one being of interest. As the warrior-hero par excellence, his achievements are foremost in the martial line; thus Arjuna is represented as the favorite pupil of Drona , as being instructed in arms by the gods themselves (from whom he obtained celestial weapons as well as his remarkable bow, Gandiva, q.v. ). By means of his prowess in arms he was chosen by Draupadi as husband at her svayamvara (‘self-choice’). During a self-imposed exile, Arjuna traveled to Patala (the Antipodes, the name by which America was known in ancient Hindusthan) and there was wooed by the princess Ulupi who wedded him (see Secret Doctrine, II, p. 214). Arjuna is best known in his relationship with Krishna: the manner in which Krishna became Arjuna’s charioteer is related as follows. When it became apparent that a war was to be waged between the Kurus and the Pandavas, both Duryodhana and Arjuna hastened to Krishna in order to obtain his aid. Duryodhana arrived first, but Krishna was in bed asleep: he was still reposing when Arjuna reached the palace, so he stationed himself at the foot of Krishna’s bed, so that upon awaking his eyes rested on his brother-in-law (Arjuna was married to Krishna’s sister, Subhadra). Immediately each hero implored Krishna to aid his cause: but the latter declared that he would not fight in the coming battle, that he would act solely as an advisor; and as each was entitled to his help, Krishna gave his petitioners the choice of his splendidly equipped army to the one side, and to the other himself as advisor. Duryodhana having arrived first was given first choice, and he chose the army, whereupon Arjuna was overjoyed to accept Krishna as his advisor, and the latter agreed to act as his charioteer in the battle. Because of this Arjuna was victorious. Of especial interest is the fact that there is a second dialog between Krishna and Arjuna in the Mahabharata, known as the Anu-gita, which is even more philosophical and more occult than the first dialog, but as it is more difficult of comprehension and deals with more abstruse subjects it is not so well known. Arjuna, who was called Nara, was intended to represent the human monad. ( Notes on the Bhagavad-Gita, p. 11) Krishna is the seventh principle in man, and his gift of his sister in marriage to Arjuna typifies the union between the sixth and the fifth. ( Notes on the Bhagavad-Gita , p. 9) (Meaning of the word itself: white, clear; cf. rijra and (The following word is derived from the verbal root:) raj or (The following word is derived from the verbal root:) ranj, to redden, to glow, also illuminate. Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 2)
(SP) Arjuna — the third of the five sons of Pandu in the Mahabharata, and the hero with whom Krsna converses in the Bhagavad-gita .
(TG) Arka {Sans} . The Sun.
(FY) Arka, sun.
(TG) Arkites. The ancient priests who were attached to the Ark, whether of Isis, or the Hindu Argua , and who were seven in number, like the priests of the Egyptian Tat or any other cruciform symbol of the three and the four, the combination of which gives a male-female number. The Argha (or ark) was the four-fold female principle, and the flame burning over it the triple lingham .
(TG) Ark of Isis. At the great Egyptian annual ceremony, which took place in the month of Athyr, the boat of Isis was borne in procession by the priests, and Collyrian cakes or buns, marked with the sign of the cross (Tat), were eaten. This was in commemoration of the weeping of Isis for the loss of Osiris, the Athyr festival being very impressive. Plato refers to the melodies on the occasion as being very ancient, writes Mr. Bonwick (Eg. Belief and Mod. Thought) . The Miserere in Rome has been said to be similar to its melancholy cadence, and to be derived from it. Weeping, veiled virgins followed the ark. The Nornes, or veiled virgins, wept also for the loss of our Saxon forefathers’ god, the ill-fated but good Baldur.
(TG) Ark of the Covenant. Every ark-shrine, whether with the Egyptians, Hindus, Chaldeans or Mexicans, was a phallic shrine, the symbol of the yoni or womb of nature. The seket of the Egyptians, the ark, or sacred chest, stood on the ara — its pedestal. The ark of Osiris, with the sacred relics of the god, was of the same size as the Jewish ark, says S. Sharpe, the Egyptologist, carried by priests with staves passed through its rings in sacred procession, as the ark round which danced David, the King of Israel. Mexican gods also had their arks. Diana, Ceres, and other goddesses as well as gods had theirs. The ark was a boat — a vehicle in every case. Thebes had a sacred ark 300 cubits long, and the word Thebes is said to mean ark in Hebrew, which is but a natural recognition of the place to which the chosen people are indebted for their ark. Moreover, as Bauer writes, the Cherub was not first used by Moses. The winged Isis was the cherub or Arieh in Egypt, centuries before the arrival there of even Abram or Sarai. The external likeness of some of the Egyptian arks, surmounted by their two winged human figures, to the ark of the covenant, has often been noticed. (Bible Educator . ) And not only the external but the internal likeness and sameness are now known to all. The arks, whether of the covenant, or of honest, straightforward, Pagan symbolism, had originally and now have one and the same meaning. The chosen people appropriated the idea and forgot to acknowledge its source. It is the same as in the case of the Urim and Thummin . In Egypt, as shown by many Egyptologists, the two objects were the emblems of the Two Truths . Two figures of Re and Thmei were worn on the breast-plate of the Egyptian High Priest. Thme, plural thmin, meant truth in Hebrew. Wilkinson says the figure of Truth had closed eyes. Rosellini speaks of the Thmei being worn as a necklace. Diodorus gives such a necklace of gold and stones to the High Priest when delivering judgment. The Septuagint translates Thummin as Truth Belief
(TG) Aroueris {Greek} . The god Harsiesi, who was the elder Horus. He had a temple at Ambos. If we bear in mind the definition of the chief Egyptian gods by Plutarch, these myths will become more comprehensible; as he well says: Osiris represents the beginning and principle; Isis, that which receives; and Horus, the compound of both. Horus engendered between them, is not eternal nor incorruptible, but, being always in generation, he endeavours by vicissitudes of imitations, and by periodical passion (yearly re-awakening to life) to continue always young, as if he should never die. Thus, since Horus is the personified physical world, Aroueris, or the elder Horus, is the ideal Universe; and this accounts for the saying that he was begotten by Osiris and Isis when these were still in the bosom of their mother — Space. There is indeed, a good deal of mystery about this god, but the meaning of the symbol becomes clear once one has the key to it.
(TG) Artephius. — A great Hermetic philosopher, whose true name was never known and whose works are without dates, though it is known that he wrote his Secret Book in the 12th century. Legend has it that he was one thousand years old at that time. There is a book on dreams by him in the possession of an Alchemist, now in Bagdad, in which he gives out the secret of seeing the past, the present, and the future, in sleep, and of remembering the things seen. There are but two copies of this manuscript extant. The book on Dreams by the Jew Solomon Almulus, published in Hebrew at Amsterdam in 1642, has a few reminiscences from the former work of Artephius.
(TG) Artes {Egyp} . The Earth; the Egyptian god Mars.
(TG) Artufas. A generic name in South America and the islands for temples of nagalism or serpent worship.
(TG) Arundhati {Sans} . The Morning Star; Lucifer-Venus.
(TG) Arupa {Sans} . Bodiless, formless, as opposed to rupa, body, or form.
(WG) Arupa, formless, colorless. ( a , not; rupa, color, form
(OG) Arupa {Sans} A compound word meaning formless, but this word formless is not to be taken so strictly as to mean that there is no form of any kind whatsoever; it merely means that the forms in the spiritual worlds (the arupa-lokas) are of a spiritual type or character, and of course far more ethereal than are the forms of the rupa-lokas. Thus in the arupa-lokas, or the spiritual worlds or spheres or planes, the vehicle or body of an entity is to be conceived of rather as an enclosing sheath of energic substance. We can conceive of an entity whose form or body is entirely of electrical substance — as indeed our own bodies are in the last analysis of modern science. But such an entity with an electrical body, although distinctly belonging to the rupa worlds, and to one of the lowest rupa worlds, would merely, by comparison with our own gross physical bodies, seem to us to be bodiless or formless. ( See also Rupa, Loka)
(SKf) Arupa, Rupa Rupa is body or form. Arupa, a compound of a — not, and rupa — body, is applied to something without form or body. The three highest of the Lokas and Talas and the five higher Globes of the Planetary Chain are called Arupa, not because they have no material form, but because to our physical senses they would appear as formless. The four lower Lokas and Talas and the seven lower Globes are called Rupa worlds and Globes because their bodies are of a substantial nature more like unto our own.
(IN) Arupa {Sans} Formless, unmanifest.
(TG) Arvaksrotas {Sans} . The seventh creation, that of man, in the Vishnu Purana .
(TG) Arwaker {Nors} . Lit., early waker. The horse of the chariot of the Sun driven by the maiden Sol, in the Eddas .
(TG) Arya {Sans} . Lit. , the holy; originally the title of Rishis, those who had mastered the Aryasatyani and entered the Aryanimarga path to Nirvana or Moksha, the great four-fold path. But now the name has become the epithet of a race, and our Orientalists, depriving the Hindu Brahmans of their birth-right, have made Aryans of all Europeans. In esotericism, as the four paths, or stages, can be entered only owing to great spiritual development and growth in holiness, they are called the four fruits. The degrees of Arhatship, called respectively Srotapatti, Sakridagamin, Anagamin, and Arhat, or the four classes of Aryas, correspond to these four paths and truths.
(WG) Arya, a man of the Vedic Indian tribes, an Aryan. (Literally, one of the faithful
(GH) Arya A respectable, honorable, or faithful man; also an inhabitant of Aryavarta (or India). In later times the word is used as a title for the first three castes of ancient India. (The following word is derived from the verbal root:) ri to rise, to tend upwards. Bhagavad-Gita , W. Q. Judge, p. iii)
(SK)o Arya, Aryavarta , Hindu, Hindusthan The word Arya , meaning ‘worthy’ or ‘holy,’ was a title given to the wise and spiritual men of old India. Aryavarta, the ancient name of northern and central India, was the avarta or abode of the Aryas. Our word Aryan, now applied to a Race, is derived from Arya. A Hindu is a native Aryan of India. The name Hindu is also applied to one who follows one of India’s many popular religions, classified under the name of Hinduism.
The river Sindhu around which the early migrating Aryans settled was called by the Persians Hindhu. In time these Persians called their Aryan brethren Hindus , and they named the country into which they spread Hindusthan — the sthana or ‘abode’ of the Hindus.
(TG) Arya-Bhata {Sans} . The earliest Hindu algebraist and astronomer, with the exception of Asura Maya ; the author of a work called Arya Siddhanta, a system of Astronomy.
(TG) Arya-Dasa {Sans} . Lit. , Holy Teacher. A great sage and Arhat of the Mahasamghika school.
(TG) Aryahata {Sans} . The Path of Arhatship, or of holiness.
(VS) Aryahata Path [[p. 69]] From the Sanscrit Arhat or Arhan.
(GH) Aryaman The chief of the Pitris . Also the name of one of the Adityas . (Meaning of the word itself: a bosom friend. Bhagavad-Gita , W. Q. Judge, p. 75)
ARYAN — Aryan in the theosophical sense has nothing at all to do with ‘aryan’ as popularized during World War II, as evidenced by the descriptions below:
(KT) Aryan {Sans} Lit., the holy; those who had mastered the Aryasatyani and entered the Aryamarga path to Nirvana or Moksha, the great fourfold path. They were originally known as Rishis. But now the name has become the epithet of a race, and our Orientalists, depriving the Hindu Brahmans of their birthright, have made Aryans of all Europeans. Since, in esotericism the four paths or stages can only be entered through great spiritual development and growth in holiness, they are called the Aryamarga. The degrees of Arhatship, called respectively Srotapatti, Sakridagamin, Anagamin, and Arhat, or the four classes of Aryas, correspond to the four paths and truths.
(IN) Aryan Race fr arya {Sans} noble) Indo-European people who migrated into Northern India, Aryavarta; in theosophy applied to the 5th root-race (present humanity).
(GH) Aryana (see Aryaman)
(TG) Aryasangha {Sans} . The founder of the first Yogacharya School. This Arhat, a direct disciple of Gautama, the Buddha, is most unaccountably mixed up and confounded with a personage of the same name, who is said to have lived in Ayodhya (Oude) about the fifth or sixth century of our era, and taught Tantrika worship in addition to the Yogacharya system. Those who sought to make it popular, claimed that he was the same Aryasangha, that had been a follower of Sakyamuni, and that he was 1,000 years old. Internal evidence alone is sufficient to show that the works written by him and translated about the year 600 of our era, works full of Tantra worship, ritualism, and tenets followed now considerably by the red-cap sects in Sikkhim, Bhutan, and Little Tibet, cannot be the same as the lofty system of the early Yogacharya school of pure Buddhism, which is neither northern nor southern, but absolutely esoteric. Though none of the genuine Yogacharya books (the Narjol chodpa ) have ever been made public or marketable, yet one finds in the Yogacharya Bhumi Shastra of the pseudo -Aryasangha a great deal from the older system, into the tenets of which he may have been initiated. It is, however, so mixed up with Sivaism and Tantrika magic and superstitions, that the work defeats its own end, notwithstanding its remarkable dialectical subtilty. How unreliable are the conclusions at which our Orientalists arrive, and how contradictory the dates assigned by them, may be seen in the case in hand. While Csoma de Koros (who, by-the-bye, never became acquainted with the Gelukpa (yellow-caps), but got all his information from red-cap Lamas of the Borderland), places the pseudo Aryasangha in the seventh century of our era; Wassiljew, who passed most of his life in China, proves him to have lived much earlier; and Wilson (see Royal Asiatic Society Vol. VI., p. 240), speaking of the period when Aryasangha’s works, which are still extant in Sanskrit, were written, believes it now established, that they have been written at the latest, from a century and a half before, to as much after , the era of Christianity. At all events since it is beyond dispute that the Mahayana religious works were all written far before Aryasangha’s time — whether he lived in the second century B.C., or the seventh A.D. — and that these contain all and far more of the fundamental tenets of the Yogacharya system, so disfigured by the Ayodhyan imitator — the inference is that there must exist somewhere a genuine rendering free from popular Sivaism and left-hand magic.
(WG) Aryasangha, the whole body of the Aryans; name of the founder of the Yogachara (Yogakara) school of Buddhism.
(TG) Aryasatyani {Sans} . The four truths or the four dogmas, which are (1) Dukha , or that misery and pain are the unavoidable concomitants of sentient (esoterically, physical) existence; (2) Samudaya , the truism that suffering is intensified by human passions; (3) Nirodha, that the crushing out and extinction of all such feelings are possible for a man on the path; (4) Marga, the narrow way, or that path which leads to such a blessed result.
(TG) Aryavarta {Sans} . The land of the Aryas, or India. The ancient name for Northern India, where the Brahmanical invaders (from the Oxus say the Orientalists) first settled. It is erroneous to give this name to the whole of India, since Manu gives the name of the land of the Aryas only to the tract between the Himalaya and the Vindhya ranges, from the eastern to the western sea.
(FY) Aryavarta, the ancient name of Northern India where the Brahmanical invaders first settled.
(WG) Aryavarta, the sacred land of the Aryans; India.
(TG) Asakrit Samadhi {Sans} . A certain degree of ecstatic contemplation. A stage in Samadhi .
(WG) Asakti, disability.
(TG) Asana {Sans} . The third stage of Hatha Yoga, one of the prescribed postures of meditation.
(FY) Asana, the third stage of Hatha Yoga; the posture for meditation.
(WG) Asana, a posture of a devotee, the manner of sitting forming part of the eight-fold observances of ascetic; one of the eight means or stages of Yoga.
(OG) Asana {Sans} A word derived from the verbal root as, signifying to sit quietly. Asana, therefore, technically signifies one of the peculiar postures adopted by Hindu ascetics, mostly of the hatha yoga school. Five of these postures are usually enumerated, but nearly ninety have been noted by students of the subject. A great deal of quasi-magical and mystical literature may be found devoted to these various postures and collateral topics, and their supposed or actual psychological value when assumed by devotees; but, as a matter of fact, a great deal of this writing is superficial and has very little indeed to do with the actual occult and esoteric training of genuine occultists. One is instinctively reminded of other quasi-mystical practices, as, for instance, certain genuflections or postures followed in the worship of the Christian Church, to which particular values are sometimes ascribed by fanatic devotees. Providing that the position of the body be comfortable so that the mind is least distracted, genuine meditation and spiritual and actual introspection can be readily and successfully attained by any earnest student without the slightest attention being paid to these various postures. A man sitting quietly in his armchair, or lying in his bed at night, or sitting or lying on the grass in a forest, can more readily enter the inner worlds than by adopting and following any one or more of these various asanas, which at the best are physiological aids of relatively small value.
(SKv) Asana, Pranayama Asana, meaning ‘posture,’ is derived from the verb root as — to sit. Asana refers to certain bodily positions taken by some Yogins during meditation. Prana-yama is ‘control of the breath’; a compound of prana — breath, and ayama — restraint. Pranayama refers to certain exercises in breathcontrol which tend to temporarily quiet the mind of the Yogin and thus bring about certain states of consciousness. These two physical practices of Asana and Pranayama are fraught with much danger to body, mind, and soul, unless undergone under the direction of a spiritual teacher who first insists on purity and virtue of heart and mind. These two practices are used mostly by Hatha-Yogins, and rarely by Yogins of the higher orders, such as Raja-Yogins and Brahma-Yogins. Hatha-Yoga, which develops the body and the lower psychic powers, begins with the lower parts of man’s nature, with those parts which are the results of the activity of the desire-mental parts or the Kama-Manasic principles of our being. Hence it is a very slow and often deceptive path, an inverse, indirect, and misleading method of developing the physical and certain psychic faculties. Hatha-Yoga alone will never develop spiritual powers. Raja-Yoga or Self-discipline begins with the training of oneself — the actor within who thinks and desires; it goes at once to the causes which make for general well-being, and hence has little use for Asana and Pranayama outside of the simple rules which we all know induce health.
(TG) Asat {Sans} . A philosophical term meaning non-being, or rather non-be-ness . The incomprehensible nothingness. Sat , the immutable, eternal, ever-present, and the one real Be-ness (not Being) is spoken of as being born of Asat , and Asat begotten by Sat: The unreal, or Prakriti, objective nature regarded as an illusion. Nature, or the illusive shadow of its one true essence.
(FY) Asat, the unreal, Prakriti.
(WG) Asat, non-being.
(OG) Asat — {Sans} A term meaning the unreal or the manifested universe; in contrast with sat, the real. In another and even more mystical sense, asat means even beyond or higher than sat, and therefore asat — not sat. In this significance, which is profoundly occult and deeply mystical, asat really signifies the unevolved or rather unmanifested nature of parabrahman — far higher than sat, which is the reality of manifested existence.
(GH) Asat Not-being, non-being: applied in Hindu philosophy to the manifested universe as being illusory, unreal, false, in contradistinction to Sat — Be-ness, Reality. In this sense Asat is Nature, or the illusive shadow of its one true essence. ( Theosophical Glossary, H. P. Blavatsky, p. 33) (Compound a, not; sat, being, be-ness. Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 119)
(TG) Asathor {Nors} . The same as Thor. The god of storms and thunder, a hero who receives Miolnir, the storm-hammer, from its fabricators, the dwarfs. With it he conquers Alwin in a battle of words; breaks the head of the giant Hrungir, chastises Loki for his magic; destroys the whole race of giants in Thrymheim; and, as a good and benevolent god, sets up therewith land-marks, sanctifies marriage bonds, blesses law and order, and produces every good and terrific feat with its help. A god in the Eddas, who is almost as great as Odin. (See Miolnir and Thor’s Hammer Asato {Sans} ma {Sans} sad {Sans} gamaya {Sans} Tamaso {Sans} jyotir {Sans} gamaya {Sans} Mrityor {Sans} mritam. {Sans}
(TG) Asava Samkhaya (Pali) . The finality of the stream, one of the six Abhijnas . A phenomenal knowledge of the finality of the stream of life and the series of re-births.
(TG) Asburj. One of the legendary peaks in the Teneriffe range. A great mountain in the traditions of Iran which corresponds in its allegorical meaning to the World-mountain, Meru. Asburj is that mount at the foot of which the sun sets.
(OG) Ascending Arc or Luminous Arc — This term, as employed in theosophical occultism, signifies the passage of the life-waves or life-streams of evolving mon ads upwards along, on, and through the globes of the chain of any celestial body, the earth’s chain included. Every celestial body (including the earth) is one member in a limited series or group of globes. These globes exist on different kosmic planes in a rising series. The life-waves or life-streams during any manvantara of such a chain circle or cycle around these globes in periodical surges or impulses. The ascent from the physical globe upwards is called the ascending arc; the descent through the more spiritual and ethereal globes downwards to the physical globe is called the descending arc. ( See also Planetary Chain)
(TG) Asch Metzareph {Hebr} . The Cleansing Fire, a Kabalistic treatise, treating of Alchemy and the relation between the metals and the planets. [W.W.W.]
(TG) Ases {Nors} . The creators of the Dwarfs and Elves, the Elementals below men, in the Norse lays. They are the progeny of Odin; the same as the Aesir .
(MO) Ase {Nors} (aw-seh) [ as topmost roof beam of a house] An active god.
(TG) Asgard {Nors} . The kingdom and the habitat of the Norse gods, the Scandinavian Olympus; situated higher than the Home of the Light-Elves, but on the same plane as Jotunheim, the home of the Jotuns, the wicked giants versed in magic, with whom the gods are at eternal war. It is evident that the gods of Asgard are the same as the Indian Suras (gods) and the Jotuns as the Asuras, both representing the conflicting powers of nature — beneficent and maleficent. They are the prototypes also of the Greek gods and the Titans.
(MO) Asgard {Nors} (aws-gawrd) [ as god + gard court] Home of the Aesir
(TG) Ash {Hebr} . Fire, whether physical or symbolical fire; also found written in English as As, Aish and Esch .
(FY) Ashab and Langhan, ceremonies for casting out evil spirits, so called among the Kolarian tribes.
(TG) Ashen and Langhan (Kolarian) . Certain ceremonies for casting out evil spirits, akin to those of exorcism with the Christians, in use with the Kolarian tribes in India.
(TG) Asherah {Hebr} . A word, which occurs in the Old Testament, and is commonly translated groves referring to idolatrous worship, but it is probable that it really referred to ceremonies of sexual depravity; it is a feminine noun. [W.W.W.]
(TG) Ashmog {avesta} . The Dragon or Serpent, a monster with a camel’s neck in the Avesta ; a kind of allegorical Satan, who after the Fall, lost its nature and its name. Called in the old Hebrew (Kabbalistic) texts the flying camel; evidently a reminiscence or tradition in both cases of the prehistoric or antediluvian monsters, half bird, half reptile.
(TG) Ashtadisa {Sans} . The eight-faced space. An imaginary division of space represented as an octagon and at other times as a dodecahedron .
(TG) Ashtar Vidya {Sans} . The most ancient of the Hindu works on Magic. Though there is a claim that the entire work is in the hands of some Occultists, yet the Orientalists deem it lost. A very few fragments of it are now extant, and even these are very much disfigured.
(TG) Ashta Siddhis {Sans} . The eight consummations in the practice of Hatha Yoga.
(FY) Ashta Siddhis, the eight consummations of Hatha Yoga.
(WG) Ashwattha, same as asvatha.
(TG) Ash Yggdrasil {Nors} . The Mundane Tree, the Symbol of the World with the old Norsemen, the tree of the universe, of time and of life. It is ever green, for the Norns of Fate sprinkle it daily with the water of life from the fountain of Urd, which flows in Midgard. The dragon Nidhogg gnaws its roots incessantly, the dragon of Evil and Sin; but the Ash Yggdrasil cannot wither, until the Last Battle (the Seventh Race in the Seventh Round) is fought, when life, time, and the world will all vanish and disappear.
(TG) Asiras {Sans} . Elementals without heads; lit., headless; used also of the first two human races.
(TG) Asita {Sans} . A proper name; a son of Bharata; a Rishi and a Sage.
(GH) Asita One of the Vedic Rishis, a descendant of Kasyapa, closely associated with Devala . ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 72)
(TG) Ask {Nors} or Ash tree. The tree of Knowledge. Together with the Embla (alder) the Ask was the tree from which the gods of Asgard created the first man.
(TG) Aski-kataski-haix-tetrax-damnameneus-aision. Darkness, Light, Earth, Sun, and Truth, were, says Hesychius, engraved upon the zone or belt of the Diana of Ephesus. Plutarch says that the priests used to recite these words over persons who were possessed by devils. [W.W.W.]
(MO) Askungen {Nors} (ask-ung-en) [ ask ash + unge child] Ash child, Cinderella
(MO) Asmegir {Nors} (aws-may-gir) [godmaker] Potential god: the human soul
(WG) Asmita, egoism.
(TG) Asmodeus. The Persian Aeshma-dev , the Esham-dev of the Parsis, the evil Spirit of Concupiscence, according to Breal, whom the Jews appropriated under the name of Ashmedai, the Destroyer, the Talmud identifying the creature with Beelzebub and Azrael (Angel of Death), and calling him the King of the Devils.
(TG) Asmoneans. Priest-kings of Israel whose dynasty reigned over the Jews for 126 years. They promulgated the Canon of the Mosaic Testament in contradistinction to the Apocrypha or Secret Books of the Alexandrian Jews, the Kabbalists, and maintained the dead-letter meaning of the former. Till the time of John Hyrcanus, they were Ascedeans (Chasidim) and Pharisees; but later they became Sadducees or Zadokites, asserters of Sacerdotal rule as contradistinguished from Rabbinical.
(TG) Asoka {Sans} . A celebrated Indian king of the Morya dynasty which reigned at Magadha. There were two Asokas in reality, according to the chronicles of Northern Buddhism, though the first Asoka — the grandfather of the second, named by Prof. Max Muller the Constantine of India, was better known by his name of Chandragupta. It is the former who was called, Piadasi (Pali) the beautiful, and Devanam-piya the beloved of the gods, and also Kalasoka ; while the name of his grandson was Dharmasoka — the Asoka of the good law — on account of his devotion to Buddhism. Moreover, according to the same source, the second Asoka had never followed the Brahmanical faith, but was a Buddhist born. It was his grandsire who had been first converted to the new faith, after which he had a number of edicts inscribed on pillars and rocks, a custom followed also by his grandson. But it was the second Asoka who was the most zealous supporter of Buddhism; he, who maintained in his palace from 60 to 70,000 monks and priests, who erected 84,000 topes and stupas throughout India, reigned 36 years, and sent missions to Ceylon, and throughout the world. The inscriptions of various edicts published by him display most noble ethical sentiments, especially the edict at Allahabad, on the so-called Asoka’s column, in the Fort. The sentiments are lofty and poetical, breathing tenderness for animals as well as men, and a lofty view of a king’s mission with regard to his people, that might be followed with great success in the present age of cruel wars and barbarous vivisection.
(FY) Asoka (King), a celebrated conqueror, monarch of a large portion of India, who is called the Constantine of Buddhism, temp. circa 250 B.C.
(TG) Asomatous {Greek} . Lit. , without a material body, incorporeal; used of celestial Beings and Angels.
(KT) Aspect. The form ( rupa ) under which any principle in septenary man or nature manifests is called an aspect of that principle in Theosophy.
(TG) Asrama {Sans} . A sacred building, a monastery or hermitage for ascetic purposes. Every sect in India has its Ashrams .
(OG) Asrama — {Sans} A word derived from the root sram, signifying to make efforts, to strive; with the particle a, which in this case gives force to the verbal root sram . Asrama has at least two main significations. The first is that of a college or school or a hermitage, an abode of ascetics, etc.; whereas the second meaning signifies a period of effort or striving in the religious life or career of a Brahmana of olden days. These periods of life in ancient times in Hindustan were four in number: the first, that of the student or brahmacharin; second, the period of life called that of the grihastha or householder — the period of married existence when the Brahmana took his due part in the affairs of men, etc.; third, the vanaprastha, or period of monastic seclusion, usually passed in a vana, or wood or forest, for purposes of inner recollection and spiritual meditation; and fourth, that of the bhikshu or religious mendicant, meaning one who has completely renounced the distractions of worldly life and has turned his attention wholly to spiritual affairs.
Brahmasrama. In modern esoteric or occult literature, the compound term Brahmasrama is occasionally used to signify an initiation chamber or secret room or adytum where the initiant or neophyte is striving or making efforts to attain union with Brahman or the inner god.
(SKf) Asrama, Brahmasrama An Asrama is a hermitage or sacred and secluded abode for ascetics and sages; derived from the verb-root asram — to counsel or consult in private or to commune with the Self within. Brahmasrama (a compound of Brahman — the Universal Divinity, and Asrama ) is a holy temple or an ‘Esoteric Seat’ or an ‘Initiation Chamber’ wherein the sacred mystery-truths are revealed.
(SP) Asrama — a hermitage, or one of the four stages of Hindu religious life.
(TG) Assassins. A masonic and mystic order founded by Hassan Sabah in Persia, in the eleventh century. The word is a European perversion of Hassan, which forms the chief part of the name. They were simply Sufis and addicted, according to the tradition, to hascheesh-eating , in order to bring about celestial visions. As shown by our late brother, Kenneth Mackenzie, they were teachers of the secret doctrines of Islamism; they encouraged mathematics and philosophy, and produced many valuable works. The chief of the Order was called Sheik-el-Jebel, translated the ‘Old Man of the Mountains’ , and, as their Grand Master, he possessed power of life and death.
(TG) Assorus {Chald} . The third group of progeny (Kissan and Assorus) from the Babylonian Duad, Tauthe and Apason, according to the Theogonies of Damascius. From this last emanated three others, of which series the last, Aus, begat Belus — the fabricator of the World, the Demiurgus.
(TG) Assur {Chald} . A city in Assyria; the ancient seat of a library from which George Smith excavated the earliest known tablets, to which he assigns a date about 1500 B.C., called Assur Kileh Shergat .
(TG) Assurbanipal {Chald} . The Sardanapalus of the Greeks, the greatest of the Assyrian Sovereigns, far more memorable on account of his magnificent patronage of learning than of the greatness of his empire, writes the late G. Smith, and adds: Assurbanipal added more to the Assyrian royal library than all the kings who had gone before him . As the distinguished Assyriologist tells us in another place of his Babylonian and Assyrian Literature (Chald. Account of Genesis) that the majority of the texts preserved belong to the earlier period previous to B.C. 1600, and yet asserts that it is to tablets written in his (Assurbanipal’s) reign (B.C. 673) that we owe almost all our knowledge of the Babylonian early history, one is well justified in asking, How do you know?
(TG) Assyrian Holy Scriptures . Orientalists show seven such books: the Books of Mamit, of Worship, of Interpretations, of Going to Hades; two Prayer Books ( Kanmagarri and Kanmikri : Talbot) and the Kantolite, the lost Assyrian Psalter.
(TG) Assyrian Tree of Life Asherah . It is translated in the Bible by grove and occurs 30 times. It is called an idol; and Maachah, the grandmother of Asa, King of Jerusalem, is accused of having made for herself such an idol, which was a lingham . For centuries this was a religious rite in Judaea. But the original Asherah was a pillar with seven branches on each side surmounted by a globular flower with three projecting rays, and no phallic stone, as the Jews made of it, but a metaphysical symbol. Merciful One, who dead to life raises! was the prayer uttered before the Asherah, on the banks of the Euphrates. The Merciful One, was neither the personal god of the Jews who brought the grove from their captivity, nor any extra-cosmic god, but the higher triad in man symbolized by the globular flower with its three rays.
(TG) Asta-dasha {Sans} . Perfect, Supreme Wisdom; a title of Deity.
(TG) Aster’t {Hebr} . Astarte, the Syrian goddess, the consort of Adon, or Adonai.
(SKf) Astika, Nastika An Astika in exoteric and orthodox Hindu religions is one who believes in the existence of an anthropomorphic god or gods, who require propitiation and worship. Astika is derived from the verb-form asti meaning ‘there exists’ or ‘there is’; in other words, ‘One or God exists.’ Nastika, a compound of na — astika or ‘not an Astika,’ is therefore one who does not believe in the orthodox God or Gods. Theosophists as well as Occultists of every religion are Nastikas in this sense. Though they do believe in greater beings than man in ever higher ranges, they do not make idols of them and endow them with power over man’s destiny, for a student of true religion knows too well that man is the builder of his own destiny.
(TG) Astraea {Greek} . The ancient goddess of justice, whom the wickedness of men drove away from earth to heaven, wherein she now dwells as the constellation Virgo.
(TG) Astral Body, or Astral Double . The ethereal counterpart or shadow of man or animal. The Linga Sharira , the Doppelganger. The reader must not confuse it with the ASTRAL SOUL, another name for the lower Manas, or Kama-Manas so-called, the reflection of the HIGHER EGO.
(KT) Astral Body. The ethereal counterpart or double of any physical body — Doppelganger.
(WG) Astral Body #6nn, a term very loosely used in Theosophical literature to cover every kind of phantasmal or ethereal appearance of the human form. Its principal meanings are as follows: The term is used as the English equivalent of the Sanskrit linga-sarira, and then means the ethereal or subtle form round which the physical body is built up, a form which serves as the vehicle of prana or life, and constitutes the mould into and from which the atoms of gross matter are continually passing. The linga-sarira or astral body in this sense can exude or ooze out from the physical body and become perceptible to the physical senses. This frequently occurs in the case of spiritualistic mediums, many of whose phenomena, especially the so-called materializations, are produced through the agency of this astral body. But the linga-sarira can never go far from the physical body and disintegrates, as a rule, shortly after the death of the latter. The term astral body is also used to mean the mayavi-rupa or thought-form, or illusionary form. As its name implies, the latter is a form or body created by the power of thought, and it is this mayavi-rupa which is seen in cases of the apparitions of living persons at a distance from the physical body. The term astral body is also sometimes used in regard to the kama-rupa or body of desires, which remains in the astral world after the death of the physical body, and the disintegration of the linga-sarira proper, when it slowly fades out as the energy that it has derived from the true ego, the manas-buddhi, is dissipated.
(OG) Astral Body — This is the popular term for the model-body, the linga-sarira. It is but slightly less material than is the physical body, and is in fact the model or framework around which the physical body is builded, and from which, in a sense, the physical body flows or develops as growth proceeds. It is the vehicle of prana or life-energy, and is, therefore, the container of all the energies descending from the higher parts of the human constitution by means of the pranic stream. The astral body precedes in time the physical body, and is the pattern around which the physical body is slavishly molded, atom by atom. In one sense the physical body may be called the deposit or dregs or lees of the astral body; the astral body likewise in its turn is but a deposit from the auric egg.
(TG) Astral Light The invisible region that surrounds our globe, as it does every other, and corresponding as the second Principle of Kosmos (the third being Life, of which it is the vehicle) to the Linga Sharira or the Astral Double in man. A subtle Essence visible only to a clairvoyant eye, and the lowest but one ( viz ., the earth), of the Seven Akasic or Kosmic Principles. Eliphas Levi calls it the great Serpent and the Dragon from which radiates on Humanity every evil influence. This is so; but why not add that the Astral Light gives out nothing but what it has received; that it is the great terrestrial crucible, in which the vile emanations of the earth (moral and physical) upon which the Astral Light is fed, are all converted into their subtlest essence, and radiated back intensified, thus becoming epidemics — moral, psychic and physical. Finally, the Astral Light is the same as the Sidereal Light of Paracelsus and other Hermetic philosophers. Physically, it is the ether of modern science. Metaphysically, and in its spiritual, or occult sense, ether is a great deal more than is often imagined. In occult physics, and alchemy, it is well demonstrated to enclose within its shoreless waves not only Mr. Tyndall’s ‘ promise and potency of every quality of life’, but also the realization of the potency of every quality of spirit. Alchemists and Hermetists believe that their astral, or sidereal ether, besides the above properties of sulphur, and white and red magnesia, or magnes , is the anima mundi, the workshop of Nature and of all the Kosmos, spiritually, as well as physically. The ‘grand magisterium’ asserts itself in the phenomenon of mesmerism, in the ‘levitation’ of human and inert objects; and may be called the ether from its spiritual aspect. The designation astral is ancient, and was used by some of the Neo-platonists, although it is claimed by some that the word was coined by the Martinists. Porphyry describes the celestial body which is always joined with the soul as ‘immortal, luminous, and star-like’. The root of this word may be found, perhaps, in the Scythic Aist-aer — which means star, or the Assyrian Istar, which, according to Burnouf has the same sense. (Isis Unveiled . )
(IU) Astral Light. — The same as the sidereal light of Paracelsus and other Hermetic philosophers. Physically, it is the ether of modern science. Metaphysically, and in its spiritual, or occult sense, ether is a great deal more than is often imagined. In occult physics, and alchemy, it is well demonstrated to enclose within its shoreless waves not only Mr. Tyndall’s promise and potency of every quality of life, but also the realization of the potency of every quality of spirit. Alchemists and Hermetists believe that their astral, or sidereal ether, besides the above properties of sulphur, and white and red magnesia, or magnes , is the anima mundi, the workshop of Nature and of all the cosmos, spiritually, as well as physically. The grand magisterium asserts itself in the phenomenon of mesmerism, in the levitation of human and inert objects; and may be called the ether from its spiritual aspect. The designation astral is ancient, and was used by some of the Neo-platonists. Porphyry describes the celestial body which is always joined with the soul as immortal, luminous, and star-like. The root of this word may be found, perhaps, in the Scythic aist-aer — which means star, or the Assyrian Ishtar, which, according to Burnouf has the same sense. As the Rosicrucians regarded the real, as the direct opposite of the apparent, and taught that what seems light to matter, is darkness to spirit , they searched for the latter in the astral ocean of invisible fire which encompasses the world; and claim to have traced the equally invisible divine spirit, which overshadows every man and is erroneously called soul, to the very throne of the Invisible and Unknown God. As the great cause must always remain invisible and imponderable, they could prove their assertions merely by demonstration of its effects in this world of matter, by calling them forth from the unknowable down into the knowable universe of effects. That this astral light permeates the whole cosmos, lurking in its latent state even in the minutest particle of rock, they demonstrate by the phenomenon of the spark from flint and from every other stone, whose spirit when forcibly disturbed springs to sight spark-like, and immediately disappears in the realms of the unknowable. Paracelsus named it the sidereal light, taking the term from the Latin. He regarded the starry host (our earth included) as the condensed portions of the astral light which fell down into generation and matter, but whose magnetic or spiritual emanations kept constantly a never-ceasing intercommunication between themselves and the parent-fount of all — the astral light. The stars attract from us to themselves, and we again from them to us, he says. The body is wood and the life is fire, which comes like the light from the stars and from heaven. Magic is the philosophy of alchemy, he says again. [De Ente Spirituali, lib. iv.; de Ente Astrorum, book. i.; and opera omnia, vol. i., pp. 634 and 699.] Everything pertaining to the spiritual world must come to us through the stars, and if we are in friendship with them, we may attain the greatest magical effects. As fire passes through an iron stove, so do the stars pass through man with all their properties and go into him as the rain into the earth, which gives fruit out of that same rain. Now observe that the stars surround the whole earth, as a shell does the egg ; through the shell comes the air, and penetrates to the centre of the world. The human body is subjected as well as the earth, and planets, and stars, to a double law; it attracts and repels, for it is saturated through with double magnetism, the influx of the astral light. Everything is double in nature; magnetism is positive and negative, active and passive, male and female. Night rests humanity from the day’s activity, and restores the equilibrium of human as well as of cosmic nature. When the mesmerizer will have learned the grand secret of polarizing the action and endowing his fluid with a bisexual force he will have become the greatest magician living. Thus the astral light is androgyne, for equilibrium is the resultant of two opposing forces eternally reacting upon each other. The result of this is LIFE. When the two forces are expanded and remain so long inactive, as to equal one another and so come to a complete rest, the condition is DEATH. A human being can blow either cold or hot air. Every child knows how to regulate the temperature of his breath; but how to protect one’s self from either hot or cold air, no physiologist has yet learned with certainty. The astral light alone, as the chief agent in magic, can discover to us all secrets of nature. The astral light is identical with the Hindu akasa, a word which we will now explain. [[See akasa.]]
(FY) Astral Light, subtle form of existence forming the basis of our material universe.
(WG) Astral Light #6nn, the light derived from the stars; the lowest principle of akasa. This term has been so indiscriminately used as to be now synonymous with akasa and ether. Although called light, it is such as can only be perceived psychically. A tenuous medium, or ether, interpenetrating all space, and which cannot be properly understood unless the doctrine is fully admitted that the apparently solid world and material objects are all illusions or space made visible
(OG) Astral Light — The astral light corresponds in the case of our globe, and analogically in the case of our solar system, to what the linga-sarira is in the case of an individual man. Just as in man the linga-sarira or astral body is the vehicle or carrier of prana or life-energy, so is the astral light the carrier of the cosmic jiva or cosmic life-energy. To us humans it is an invisible region surrounding our earth, as H. P. Blavatsky expresses it, as indeed it surrounds every other physical globe; and among the seven kosmic principles it is the most material excepting one, our physical universe. The astral light therefore is, on the one hand, the storehouse or repository of all the energies of the kosmos on their way downwards to manifest in the material spheres — of our solar system in general as well as of our globe in particular; and, on the other hand, it is the receptacle or magazine of whatever passes out of the physical sphere on its upward way. Thirdly, it is a kosmic picture-gallery or indelible record of whatever takes place on the astral and physical planes; however, this last phase of the functions of the astral light is the least in importance and real interest. The astral light of our own globe, and analogically of any other physical globe, is the region of the kama-loka, at least as concerns the intermediate and lower parts of the kama-loka; and all entities that die pass through the astral light on their way upwards, and in the astral light throw off or shed the kama-rupa at the time of the second death. The solar system has its own astral light in general, just as every globe in the universal solar system has its astral light in particular, in each of these last cases being a thickening or materializing or concreting around the globe of the general astral substance forming the astral light of the solar system. The astral light, strictly speaking, is simply the lees or dregs of akasa and exists in steps or stages of increasing ethereality. The more closely it surrounds any globe, the grosser and more material it is. It is the receptacle of all the vile and horrible emanations from earth and earth beings, and is therefore in parts filled with earthly pollutions. There is a constant interchange, unceasing throughout the solar manvantara, between the astral light on the one hand, and our globe earth on the other, each giving and returning to the other. Finally, the astral light is with regard to the material realms of the solar system the copy or reflection of what the akasa is in the spiritual realms. The astral light is the mother of the physical, just as the spirit is the mother of the akasa; or, inversely, the physical is merely the concretion of the astral, just as the akasa is the veil or concretion of the highest spiritual. Indeed, the astral and physical are one, just as the akasic and the spiritual are one.
(VS) In it [[the Astral region]] thy Soul will find the blossoms of life, but under every flower a serpent coiled (I 18) [[p. 6]] The astral region, the Psychic World of supersensuous perceptions and of deceptive sights the world of Mediums. It is the great Astral Serpent of Eliphas Levi. No blossom plucked in those regions has ever yet been brought down on earth without its serpent coiled around the stem. It is the world of the Great Illusion .
(TG) Astrolatry {Greek} . Worship of the Stars.
(TG) Astrology {Greek} . The Science which defines the action of celestial bodies upon mundane affairs, and claims to foretell future events from the position of the stars. Its antiquity is such as to place it among the very earliest records of human learning. It remained for long ages a secret science in the East, and its final expression remains so to this day, its exoteric application having been brought to any degree of perfection in the West only during the period of time since Varaha Muhira wrote his book on Astrology some 1400 years ago. Claudius Ptolemy, the famous geographer and mathematician, wrote his treatise Tetrabiblos about 135 A.D., which is still the basis of modern astrology. The science of Horoscopy is studied now chiefly under four heads: viz ., (1) Mundane, in its application to meteorology, seismology, husbandry, etc. (2) State or civic , in regard to the fate of nations, kings and rulers. (3) Horary , in reference to the solving of doubts arising in the mind upon any subject. (4) Genethliacal, in its application to the fate of individuals from the moment of their birth to their death. The Egyptians and the Chaldees were among the most ancient votaries of Astrology, though their modes of reading the stars and the modern practices differ considerably. The former claimed that Belus, the Bel or Elu of the Chaldees, a scion of the divine Dynasty, or the Dynasty of the king-gods, had belonged to the land of Chemi, and had left it, to found a colony from Egypt on the banks of the Euphrates, where a temple ministered by priests in the service of the lords of the stars was built, the said priests adopting the name of Chaldees . Two things are known: (a) that Thebes (in Egypt) claimed the honour of the invention of Astrology; and (b) that it was the Chaldees who taught that science to the other nations. Now Thebes antedated considerably not only Ur of the Chaldees, but also Nipur, where Bel was first worshipped — Sin, his son (the moon), being the presiding deity of Ur, the land of the nativity of Terah, the Sabean and Astrolater, and of Abram, his son, the great Astrologer of biblical tradition. All tends, therefore, to corroborate the Egyptian claim. If later on the name of Astrologer fell into disrepute in Rome and elsewhere, it was owing to the fraud of those who wanted to make money by means of that which was part and parcel of the sacred Science of the Mysteries, and, ignorant of the latter, evolved a system based entirely upon mathematics, instead of on transcendental metaphysics and having the physical celestial bodies as its upadhi or material basis. Yet, all persecutions notwithstanding, the number of the adherents of Astrology among the most intellectual and scientific minds was always very great. If Cardan and Kepler were among its ardent supporters, then its later votaries have nothing to blush for, even in its now imperfect and distorted form. As said in Isis Unveiled (I. 259): Astrology is to exact astronomy what psychology is to exact physiology. In astrology and psychology one has to step beyond the visible world of matter, and enter into the domain of transcendent spirit. (See Astronomos
(KT) Astrology. The science which defines the action of celestial bodies upon mundane affairs, and claims to foretell future events from the positions of the stars. Its antiquity is such as to place it among the very earliest records of human learning. It remained for long ages a secret science in the East, and its final expression remains so to this day, its esoteric application only having been brought to any degree of perfection in the West during the lapse of time since Varaha Mihira wrote his book on Astrology, some 1400 years ago. Claudius Ptolemy, the famous geographer and mathematician who founded the system of Astronomy known under his name, wrote his Tetrabiblos, which is still the basis of modern Astrology, 135 A.D. The science of Horoscopy is studied now chiefly under four heads, viz.: (1). Mundane, in its application to meteorology, seismology, husbandry. (2). State or Civic, in regard to the future of nations, Kings, and rulers. (3). Horary, in reference to the solving of doubts arising in the mind upon any subject. (4). Genethliacal, in connection with the future of individuals from birth unto death. The Egyptians and the Chaldees were among the most ancient votaries of Astrology, though their modes of reading the stars and the modern methods differ considerably. The former claimed that Belus, the Bel or Elu of the Chaldees, a scion of the Divine Dynasty, or the dynasty of the King-gods, had belonged to the land of Chemi, and had left it to found a colony from Egypt on the banks of the Euphrates, where a temple, ministered by priests in the service of the lords of the stars, was built. As to the origin of the science, it is known on the one hand that Thebes claimed the honour of the invention of Astrology; whereas, on the other hand, all are agreed that it was the Chaldees who taught that science to the other nations. Now Thebes antedated considerably, not only Ur of the Chaldees, but also Nipur, where Bel was first worshipped — Sin, his son (the moon), being the presiding deity of Ur, the land of the nativity of Terah, the Sabean and Astrolater, and of Abram, his son, the great Astrologer of Biblical tradition. All tends, therefore, to corroborate the Egyptian claim. If later on the name of Astrologer fell into disrepute in Rome and elsewhere, it was owing to the frauds of those who wanted to make money of that which was part and parcel of the Sacred Science of the Mysteries, and who, ignorant of the latter, evolved a system based entirely on mathematics, instead of transcendental metaphysics with the physical celestial bodies as its upadhi or material basis. Yet, all persecutions notwithstanding, the number of adherents to Astrology among the most intellectual and scientific minds was always very great. If Cardan and Kepler were among its ardent supporters, then later votaries have nothing to blush for, even in its now imperfect and distorted form. As said in Isis Unveiled (I., 259), Astrology is to exact astronomy, what psychology is to exact physiology. In astrology and psychology one has to step beyond the visible world of matter and enter into the domain of transcendent spirit.
(OG) Astrology — The astrology of the ancients was indeed a great and noble science. It is a term which means the science of the celestial bodies. Modern astrology is but the tattered and rejected outer coating of real, ancient astrology; for that truly sublime science was the doctrine of the origin, of the nature, of the being, and of the destiny of the solar bodies, of the planetary bodies, and of the beings who dwell on them. It also taught the science of the relations of the parts of kosmic nature among themselves, and more particularly as applied to man and his destiny as forecast by the celestial orbs. From that great and noble science sprang up an exoteric pseudo-science, derived from the Mediterranean and Asian practice, eventuating in the modern scheme called astrology — a tattered remnant of ancient wisdom. In actual fact, genuine archaic astrology was one of the branches of the ancient Mysteries, and was studied to perfection in the ancient Mystery schools. It had throughout all ancient time the unqualified approval and devotion of the noblest men and of the greatest sages. Instead of limiting itself as modern so-called astrology does to a system based practically entirely upon certain branches of mathematics, in archaic days the main body of doctrine which astrology then contained was transcendental metaphysics, dealing with the greatest and most abstruse problems concerning the universe and man. The celestial bodies of the physical universe were considered in the archaic astrology to be not merely time markers, or to have vague relations of a psychomagnetic quality as among themselves — although indeed this is true — but to be the vehicles of starry spirits, bright and living gods, whose very existence and characteristics, individually as well as collectively, made them the governors and expositors of destiny.
(TG) Astronomos {Greek} . The title given to the Initiate in the Seventh Degree of the reception of the Mysteries. In days of old, Astronomy was synonymous with Astrology; and the great Astrological Initiation took place in Egypt at Thebes, where the priests perfected, if they did not wholly invent the science. Having passed through the degrees of Pastophoros, Neocoros, Melanophoros, Kistophoros, and Balahala (the degree of Chemistry of the Stars), the neophyte was taught the mystic signs of the Zodiac, in a circle dance representing the course of the planets (the dance of Krishna and the Gopis, celebrated to this day in Rajputana); after which he received a cross, the Tau (or Tat), becoming an Astronomos and a Healer. (See Isis Unveiled . Vol. II. 365) Astronomy and Chemistry were inseparable in these studies. Hippocrates had so lively a faith in the influence of the stars on animated beings, and on their diseases, that he expressly recommends not to trust to physicians who are ignorant of astronomy. Unfortunately the key to the final door of Astrology or Astronomy is lost by the modern Astrologer; and without it, how can he ever be able to answer the pertinent remark made by the author of Mazzaroth, who writes: people are said to be born under one sign, while in reality they are born under another, because the sun is now seen among different stars in the equinox? Nevertheless, even the few truths he does know brought to his science such eminent and scientific believers as Sir Isaac Newton, Bishops Jeremy and Hall, Archbishop Usher, Dryden, Flamstead, Ashmole, John Rilton, Steele, and a host of noted Rosicrucians.
(WG) Asu, vital spirit, vigorous life; the breath; spiritual life.
(TG) Asuramaya {Sans} . Known also as Mayasura . An Atlantean astronomer, considered as a great magician and sorcerer, well-known in Sanskrit works.
(FY) Asuramaya, an Atlantean astronomer, well known in Sanskrit writings.
(WG) Asura-maya, name of a great Atlantean magician, who is said to have been a great astronomer.
(TG) Asura Mazda {Sans} . In the Zend, Ahura Mazda . The same as Ormuzd or Mazdeo; the god of Zoroaster and the Parsis.
(TG) Asuras {Sans} . Exoterically, elementals and evil gods — considered maleficent; demons, and no gods. But esoterically — the reverse. For in the most ancient portions of the Rig Veda , the term is used for the Supreme Spirit, and therefore the Asuras are spiritual and divine. It is only in the last book of the Rig Veda, its latest part, and in the Atharva Veda , and the Brahmans, that the epithet, which had been given to Agni, the greatest Vedic Deity, to Indra and Varuna, has come to signify the reverse of gods. Asu means breath, and it is with his breath that Prajapati (Brahma) creates the Asuras. When ritualism and dogma got the better of the Wisdom religion, the initial letter a was adopted as a negative prefix, and the term ended by signifying not a god, and Sura only a deity. But in the Vedas the Suras have ever been connected with Surya, the sun, and regarded as inferior deities, devas.
(FY) Asuras, a class of elementals considered maleficent; demons.
(WG) Asura, a spiritual, divine being; (derived from asu, breath;) an evil spirit, a demon of the highest order in perpetual hostility with the gods; (incorrectly derived from a, not, and sura , god: a non-god, a demon
(GH) Asura Originally the word stood for the supreme spirit (being so used in the Rig-Veda), and equivalent to the Zoroastrian Ahura Mazda; then it became applied to deities, such as Indra, Agni and Varuna; later still it denoted a class of elemental beings evil in nature, and consequently Asuras are termed demons. The Taittiriya-Brahmana represents the Asuras as being created from the breath of Brahma-Prajapati likewise the Laws of Manu, but the Puranas indicate that they sprang from his thigh. Esoterically, the Asuras, transformed subsequently into evil Spirits and lower gods, who are eternally at war with the great deities — are the gods of the Secret Wisdom. . . . They are the sons of the primeval Creative Breath at the beginning of every new Mahakalpa, or Manvantara; . . . Evidently they have been degraded in Space and Time into opposing powers or demons by the ceremonialists, ( Secret Doctrine, II, pp. 500-1). (The following word is derived from the verbal root:) as, to breathe. Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 65)
(SKv) Asura Asura has two renderings: an ancient and esoteric one, and a later and exoteric one. The oldest meaning of Asura as used in the Rig-Veda is ‘a divine spirit,’ derived from asu — breath. The word Asura was also applied to those classes of beings now spoken of as Kumaras, Agnishwattas, and Manasaputras, those fallen angels, the fathers of our higher natures, who thus imbodied themselves in order to attain greater wisdom and a fuller awareness of their divine natures. Later when the keys to the mystery-teachings were lost and theological dogma arose among the Brahmanical sects, the Asuras, within or without man, who opposed the empty ritualism and sacrificial ceremonial of the time, were then called ‘elemental-gods’ or ‘demons’ by these followers of false gods and of exoteric form, and the derivation of the word was changed to a — not, and sura — god; and hence Asura soon became synonymous with ‘demon,’ and in most of the later literature of India Asuras are ‘demons,’ those who oppose the works of the gods.
(IN) Asura(s) {Sans} A not-god in post-Vedic period, demons or evil spirits hostile to the suras (gods); in the most ancient portions of the Rig Veda , divine beings, supreme spirit (possibly fr asu , breath); in theosophy, intellectual deities.
(TG) Aswamedha {Sans} . The Horse-sacrifice; an ancient Brahmanical ceremony.
(WG) Asvamedha, the horse-sacrifice, a ceremony of Vedic times.
(TG) Aswattha {Sans} . The Bo-tree , the tree of knowledge, ficus religiosa .
(WG) Asvatha, the holy fig tree, symbolizing the universe.
(GH) Asvattha The pippala, the sacred Indian fig-tree, ficus religiosa. In Buddhism called the Bodhi-tree — the tree under which the Buddha received full illumination. Mystically, the ‘Tree of Life,’ the great World Tree, symbolic both of the vital structure of the universe and of the cosmic hierarchies in all their various interrelations. The roots of the Asvattha represent the Supreme Being, or First Cause, the Logos; but one has to go beyond those roots to unite oneself with Krishna, . . . Its boughs are . . . the highest Dhyan Chohans or Devas. The Vedas are its leaves. He only who goes beyond the roots shall never return, i.e., shall reincarnate no more during this ‘age’ of Brahma. ( Secret Doctrine, (See Bhagavad-Gita (Meaning of the word itself: ‘under which horses stand asva, a horse; ttha from stha, to stand. Bhagavad-Gita
(OG) Asvattha @1179 The mystical tree of knowledge, the mystical tree of kosmical life and being, represented as growing in a reversed position: the branches extending downwards and the roots upwards. The branches typify the visible kosmical universe, the roots the invisible world of spirit. The universe among the ancients of many nations was portrayed or figurated under the symbol of a tree, of which the roots sprang from the divine heart of things, and the trunk and the branches and the branchlets and the leaves were the various planes and worlds and spheres of the kosmos. The fruit of this kosmic tree contained the seeds of future trees, being the entities which had attained through evolution the end of their evolutionary journey, such as men and the gods — themselves universes in the small, and destined in the future to become kosmic entities when the cycling wheel of time shall have turned through long aeons on its majestic round. In fact, every living thing, and so-called inanimate things also, are trees of life, with their roots above in the spiritual realms, with their trunks passing through the intermediate spheres, and their branches manifesting in the physical realms.
(SKs) Aswattha The Mystic Tree of Life, described in Hindu writings as the symbol of life and its illusive joys and pleasures. It is described by them as growing in a reversed position, the branches extending downward and the roots upward; the former typifying the external world of sense, i.e., the visible cosmical universe, and the latter the invisible world of spirit, because the roots have their genesis in the heavenly regions where, from the world’s creation, humanity has placed its invisible deity. — Isis Unveiled, I, 153
(IN) order to attain immortality, and thus free oneself from the endless rounds of life and death on this planet, one must destroy this tree of illusion with the ‘Sword of Knowledge.’ One must go beyond those roots to unite oneself with Krishna . . . the indestructible. . . ( op cit., I, 406) It was under this Aswattha tree, sometimes called the Bodhi-tree, that the Buddha conquered illusion. He delved within, and passing beyond the roots of the tree, attained enlightenment and visioned Reality.
(SP) Asvattha [aswattha] — the sacred fig tree. Symbolically, the Tree of Life.
(GH) Asvatthaman The son of Drona and Kripa (sister of Kripa, q.v. ): one of the generals in the army of the Kauravas. He was one of the three surviving warriors at the end of the war, and was then made commander. ( Bhagavad-Gita , W. Q. Judge, p. 3)
(GH) Asvins (or more correctly Asvinau, the word itself meaning ‘the two horsemen’). Two Vedic deities represented as twin horsemen, harbingers of Ushas, the dawn. They appear in the sky in a chariot drawn by golden horses, or again by birds. Their attributes pertain to youth and beauty. They are regarded as the physicians of the gods, and avert from mankind sickness and misfortune; hence many Vedic hymns are addressed to them. Yaska, the celebrated commentator of the Vedas, referring to the ‘twin horsemen’ as precursors of light and the dawn, held that they represent the transition from darkness to light, and the intermingling of both produces that inseparable duality which is expressed by the twin nature of the Asvinau. H. P. Blavatsky remarks: . . . these twins are, in the esoteric philosophy, the Kumara-Egos, the reincarnating ‘Principles’ in this Manvantara. ( Theosophical Glossary, H. P. Blavatsky, p. 41) ( Bhagavad-Gita , W. Q. Judge, p. 78)
(FY) Aswini, the divine charioteers; mystically they correspond to Hermes, who is looked upon as his equal. They represent the internal organ by which knowledge is conveyed from the soul to the body.
(TG) Aswins {Sans}, or Aswinau , dual; or again, Aswini-Kumarau, are the most mysterious and occult deities of all; who have puzzled the oldest commentators. Literally, they are the Horsemen, the divine charioteers, as they ride in a golden car drawn by horses or birds or animals, and are possessed of many forms . They are two Vedic deities, the twin sons of the sun and the sky, which becomes the nymph Aswini. In mythological symbolism they are the bright harbingers of Ushas, the dawn, who are ever young and handsome, bright, agile, swift as falcons, who prepare the way for the brilliant dawn to those who have patiently awaited through the night. They are also called the physicians of Swarga (or Devachan), inasmuch as they heal every pain and suffering, and cure all diseases. Astronomically, they are asterisms. They were enthusiastically worshipped, as their epithets show. They are the Ocean-born ( i.e ., space born) or Abdhijau, crowned with lotuses or Pushkara-srajam, etc., etc. Yaska, the commentator in the Nirukta, thinks that the Aswins represent the transition from darkness to light — cosmically, and we may add, metaphysically, also. But Muir and Goldstucker are inclined to see in them ancient horsemen of great renown, because, forsooth, of the legend that the gods refused the Aswins admittance to a sacrifice on the ground that they had been on too familiar terms with men . Just so, because as explained by the same Yaska they are identified with heaven and earth, only for quite a different reason. Truly they are like the Ribhus, originally renowned mortals (but also non-renowned occasionally) who in the course of time are translated into the companionship of gods; and they show a negative character, the result of the alliance of light with darkness, simply because these twins are, in the esoteric philosophy, the Kumara-Egos , the reincarnating Principles in this Manvantara.
(MO) Asynja {Nors} (aw-sin-ya) [goddess, f. of Ase] Active deity
(MO) Asynjor {Nors} (aw-sin-yore) [pl. of Asynja, f. of Aesir] Goddesses
(TG) Atala {Sans} . One of the regions in the Hindu lokas, and one of the seven mountains; but esoterically Atala is on an astral plane, and was, once on a time, a real island upon this earth.
(TG) Atalanta Fugiens {Latin} . A famous treatise by the eminent Rosicrucian Michael Maier; it has many beautiful engravings of Alchemic symbolism: here is to be found the original of the picture of a man and woman within a circle, a triangle around it, then a square: the inscription is, From the first ens proceed two contraries, thence come the three principles, and from them the four elementary states; if you separate the pure from the impure you will have the stone of the Philosophers.
(TG) Atarpi {Chald}, or Atarpi-nisi , the man. A personage who was pious to the gods; and who prayed the god Hea to remove the evil of drought and other things before the Deluge is sent. The story is found on one of the most ancient Babylonian tablets, and relates to the sin of the world. In the words of G. Smith the god Elu or Bel calls together an assembly of the gods, his sons, and relates to them that he is angry at the sin of the world; and in the fragmentary phrases of the tablet: . . . . I made them . . . . Their wickedness I am angry at, their punishment shall not be small . . . . let food be exhausted, above let Vul drink up his rain, etc., etc. In answer to Atarpi’s prayer the god Hea announces his resolve to destroy the people he created, which he does finally by a deluge.
(TG) Atash Behram {avesta} . The sacred fire of the Parsis, preserved perpetually in their fire-temples.
(TG) Atef {Egyp} or Crown of Horus. It consisted of a tall white cap with ram’s horns, and the uraeus in front. Its two feathers represent the two truths — life and death .
(TG) Athamaz {Hebr} . The same as Adonis with the Greeks, the Jews having borrowed all their gods.
(TG) Athanor astral fluid of the Alchemists, their Archimedean lever; exoterically, the furnace of the Alchemist.
(TG) Atharva Veda {Sans} . The fourth Veda; lit., magic incantation containing aphorisms, incantations and magic formulae. One of the most ancient and revered Books of the Brahmans.
(FY) Atharva Veda, one of the four most ancient and revered books of the ancient Brahmans.
(WG) Atharva-veda, the fourth of the Vedas.
(TG) Athenagoras {Greek} . A Platonic philosopher of Athens, who wrote a Greek Apology for the Christians in A.D. 177, addressed to the Emperor Marcus Aurelius, to prove that the accusations brought against them, namely that they were incestuous and ate murdered children, were untrue.
(KT) Athenagoras. A Platonic Philosopher of Athens, who wrote an apology for the Christians in 177 A. D., addressed to Marcus Aurelius, to prove that the accusations brought against them, viz., that they were incestuous and ate murdered children, were untrue.
(TG) Athor {Egyp} . Mother Night. Primeval Chaos, in the Egyptian cosmogony. The goddess of night.
(TG) Ativahikas {Sans} . With the Visishtadwaitees, these are the Pitris, or Devas , who help the disembodied soul or Jiva in its transit from its dead body to Paramapadha .
(TG) Atlantidae {Greek} . The ancestors of the Pharaohs and the forefathers of the Egyptians, according to some, and as the Esoteric Science teaches. (See Sec. Doct ., Vol. II., and Esoteric Buddhism Plato heard of this highly civilized people, the last remnant of which was submerged 9,000 years before his day, from Solon, who had it from the High Priests of Egypt. Voltaire, the eternal scoffer, was right in stating that the Atlantidae (our fourth Root Race) made their appearance in Egypt. . . . . It was in Syria and in Phrygia, as well as Egypt, that they established the worship of the Sun. Occult philosophy teaches that the Egyptians were a remnant of the last Aryan Atlantidae.
(TG) Atlantis {Greek} . The continent that was submerged in the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans according to the secret teachings and Plato.
(FY) Atlantis, the continent that was submerged in the Southern and Pacific Oceans.
(WG) Atlantis, a former continent which was submerged long ago during the cataclysms which overtook other races. A part of it was on the Atlantic floor, and hence the name of that ocean as well as Mount Atlas. But it included much more, and probably the Americas among other lands.
(TG) Atma (or Atman ) {Sans} . The Universal Spirit, the divine Monad, the 7th Principle, so-called, in the septenary constitution of man. The Supreme Soul.
(KT) Atman, or Atma {Sans} The Universal Spirit, the divine monad, the seventh Principle, so called, in the exoteric septenary classification of man. The Supreme Soul.
(FY) Atma, the spirit; the divine monad; the seventh principle of the septenary human constitution.
(WG) Atma, the spirit of the universe; spirit; soul; the animating spiritual breath; the permanent Self; the highest principle of life in the universe; in one sense Brahma, the supreme deity and soul of the universe.
(WG) Atman, the same as Atma , which see.
(OG) Atman — {Sans} The root of atman is hardly known; its origin is uncertain, but the general meaning is that of self. The highest part of man — self, pure consciousness per se. The essential and radical power or faculty in man which gives to him, and indeed to every other entity or thing, its knowledge or sentient consciousness of selfhood. This is not the ego. This principle (atman) is a universal one; but during incarnations its lowest parts take on attributes, because it is linked with the buddhi, as the buddhi is linked with the manas, as the manas is linked to the kama, and so on down the scale. Atman is also sometimes used of the universal self or spirit which is called in the Sanskrit writings Brahman (neuter), and the Brahman or universal spirit is also called the paramatman. Man is rooted in the kosmos surrounding him by three principles, which can hardly be said to be above the first or atman, but are, so to say, that same atman’s highest and most glorious parts. The inmost link with the Unutterable was called in ancient India by the term self, which has often been mistranslated soul. The Sanskrit word is atman and applies, in psychology, to the human entity. The upper end of the link, so to speak, was called paramatman, or the self beyond, i.e., the permanent SELF — words which describe neatly and clearly to those who have studied this wonderful philosophy, somewhat of the nature and essence of the being which man is, and the source from which, in beginningless and endless duration, he sprang. Child of earth and child of heaven, he contains both in himself. We say that the atman is universal, and so it is. It is the universal selfhood, that feeling or consciousness of selfhood which is the same in every human being, and even in all the inferior beings of the hierarchy, even in those of the beast kingdom under us, and dimly perceptible in the plant world, and which is latent even in the minerals. This is the pure cognition, the abstract idea, of self. It differs not at all throughout the hierarchy, except in degree of self-recognition. Though universal, it belongs (so far as we are concerned in our present stage of evolution) to the fourth kosmic plane, though it is our seventh principle counting upwards.
(SK)o Atman The SELF; the Divinity or Highest Principle of man; pure consciousness. Atman is that universal SELF of man which is the same in every living being and which links each and all with Brahman, the SELF of the Universe. The root of the word Atman is uncertain, but it is very likely from a verb-root meaning ‘to breathe.’ WW Atman [A] Sanskrit word which means nothing but the Self; but upon a proper understanding of this word hinges a proper conception of Hindu philosophy. It is the keyword of all, or nearly all, the oriental philosophies. There are six of these: the Shad – darsana, from shash , six, and darsana, from the root dris , to look at, to see, hence those six things (or systems) which are ‘seen’ or studied. They regard a system of philosophy as that which the inner eye sees. What sees it, finally, what is the inner eye? The Atman, principally and first of all the Self. You have often heard the phrase in Patanjali, The universe exists for the purpose of the Soul That can mean: The Self exists for the purpose of the universe. Now this word Atman is sometimes translated soul . It is a mistake. There are other words used for Soul, but Atman is the root-self, the Spirit. The difference between spirit and souls may be likened to a sun and the rays of the sun. Thus, Atman is the source and center of consciousness; in each of us a Sun [[Symbol of a circle with one dot at the center]]. This is the Atman, and these are the rays without number. Light may be conceived as proceeding from the sun as a flood. We may also conceive it as in rays, which is the usual way, and it is as rays that the ancient philosophers seem to have preferred to consider it. You will find it in the old Egyptian paintings and carvings, where you sometimes will also see a sun with its rays, each ray ending in a hand. But now each ray may be considered as a soul. The soul, psychologically speaking, is that aspect of the human individuality which incarnates. Atman does not incarnate. There is no need for Atman to incarnate; it does not learn, it has no need to learn. Mind you, I speak of our own universe. In other universes Atman may be but a soul to a higher Atman, and Atman the Self may be as it were lower than a soul; it may be but an atom, insignificant; but that is beyond us now. When questioned on this point the Lord Buddha is said to have kept silence, not because he did not know, but because he did not think it necessary to touch upon it, because it is beyond our power to properly conceive it. It is because the Christians overestimated their faculties in the pride of their hearts and dragged down this glorious conception of the divine sun in man, that they made of their God one thing, of their church another, and of their Jesus a third, separate, yet united to the first. A mystery to them, explainable only by Theosophy. Consider the sun Atman, each ray a soul. As the soul passes through matter it reaches the earth, and as it goes through the spiritual and psychic atmosphere it loses a large part of its divine glory, of its illuminating power; not that it loses in itself its faculty of light, but the deeper it sinks into matter it loses more and more of its individuality, it falls asleep, because weaker, spiritually flaccid. Now Atman is immortal, boundless, beyond knowledge, possessing all things, instant in its action. The soul is not. If the soul can struggle through life’s shadow by gathering itself into itself — to use a beautiful figure in the Hebrew Bible, as a mother will gather her little child in her arms — in the same way the diviner part will gather the lower part into Itself. How is this done? Through struggle, through suffering, age after age, through different deaths; and as the soul gathers itself it gets a little higher, if there is no falling back, until finally it proceeds in glory and reaches its Atman, itself, its god, and god within. I and my Father are one, said Jesus, I was the soul struggling below; the Father was the Atman, the self.
(IN) Atman {Sans} Self, universal spirit, the highest consciousness in all entities, including man.
(SP) Atman — soul or self jivatman — the living or individual self paramatman — the supreme or universal self sutratman — the thread self of individuality in successive incarnations. LINGA-SARIRA, STHULA-SARIRA, PLANES
(TG) Atma-bhu {Sans} . Soul-existence, or existing as soul
(TG) Atmabodha {Sans} Self-knowledge; the title of a Vedantic treatise by Sankaracharya.
(FY) Atmabodha ( Lit. self-knowledge the title of a Vedantic treatise by Sankara-charya.
(TG) Atma-jnani {Sans} . The Knower of the World-Soul, or Soul in general.
(SKv) Atma-jnanin, Tattva-jnanin Atma-jnanin is ‘the Divine Self-knower’; a com pound of Atman , the divinity of man, and jnanin , the knower, from the verb-root jna — to know. One who has realized or met face to face the Divinity within him is an Atma-jnanin. Tattva-jnanin is one who knows and understands the abstract cosmic essences or principles from which all in this Universe spring. Tattva literally means the ‘that-ness’ of a thing, from tat — that, and tva, a noun suffix.
(TG) Atma-matrasu {Sans} . To enter into the elements of the One-Self (See Sec. Atmamatra is the spiritual atom, as contrasted with, and opposed to, the elementary differentiated atom or molecule.
(FY) Atman
(TG) Atma Vidya {Sans} . The highest form of spiritual knowledge Soul-knowledge.
(WG) Atma-vidya, knowledge of soul or the Supreme Spirit.
(OG) Atom — This word comes to us from the ancient Greek philosophers Democritus, Leucippus, and Epicurus, and the hundreds of great men who followed their lead in this respect and who were therefore also atomists — such, for instance, as the two Latin poets Ennius and Lucretius. This school taught that atoms were the foundation-bricks of the universe, for atom in the original etymological sense of the word means something that cannot be cut or divided, and therefore as being equivalent to particles of what theosophists call homogeneous substance. But modern scientists do not use the word atom in that sense any longer. Some time ago the orthodox scientific doctrine concerning the atom was basically that enunciated by Dalton, to the general effect that physical atoms were hard little particles of matter, ultimate particles of matter, and therefore indivisible and indestructible. But modern science [1933] has a totally new view of the physical atom, for it knows now that the atom is not such, but is composite, builded of particles still more minute, called electrons or charges of negative electricity, and of other particles called protons or charges of positive electricity, which protons are supposed to form the nucleus or core of the atomic structure. A frequent picture of atomic structure is that of an atomic solar system, the protons being the atomic sun and the electrons being its planets, the latter in extremely rapid revolution around the central sun. This conception is purely theosophical in idea, and adumbrates what occultism teaches, though occultism goes much farther than does modern science. One of the fundamental postulates of the teachings of theosophy is that the ultimates of nature are atoms on the material side and monads on the energy side. These two are respectively material and spiritual primates or ultimates, the spiritual ones or monads being indivisibles, and the atoms being divisibles — things that can be divided into composite parts. It becomes obvious from what precedes that the philosophical idea which formed the core of the teaching of the ancient initiated atomists was that their atoms or indivisibles are pretty close to what theosophical occultism calls monads; and this is what Democritus and Leucippus and others of their school had in mind. These monads, as is obvious, are therefore divine-spiritual life-atoms, and are actually beings living and evolving on their own planes. Rays from them are the highest parts of the constitution of beings in the material realms.
(TG) Atri, Sons of {Sans} . A class of Pitris, the ancestors of man, or the so-called Prajapati, progenitors; one of the seven Rishis who form the constellation of the Great Bear.
(WG) Atri, a famous Rishi, author of a number of Vedic hymns.
(TG) Attavada (Pali) . The sin of personality.
(FY) Attavada, the sin of personality ( Pali ).
(TG) Atyantika {Sans} . One of the four kinds of pralaya or dissolution. The absolute pralaya.
(WG) Atyantika Pralaya, absolute dissolution or obscuration, as, for instance, of a whole planetary chain.
(SKs) Atyantika-Pralaya, Naimittika-Pralaya Atyantika is a compound of ati — beyond, and anta — end, hence in combination meaning ‘endless.’ The Atyantika-Pralaya or ‘Endless Dissolution’ is enjoyed by an individual who attains Nirvana before the close of the Planetary Manvantara or ‘Planetary Manifestation.’ Such a god-man is called a Jivanmukta or ‘freed Monad,’ and because his Nirvana or period of peace and rest is so much longer than the long Nirvana period enjoyed by all beings between Manvantaras, this Pralayic time is considered Atyantika or eternal. However, this is only a metaphorical phrase, because no Pralaya or Nirvana lasts forever.
Naimittika means ‘occasional,’ the opposite of Nitya or ‘constant.’ The Naimittika-Pralaya is one which takes place at rare intervals of time, and can therefore be applied to a Planetary or Solar or Universal Pralaya.
(TG) Atziluth {Hebr} . The highest of the Four Worlds of the Kabbalah referred only to the pure Spirit of God. See Aziluth for another interpretation.
(TG) Audlang {Nors} . The second Heaven made by Deity above the field of Ida, in the Norse legends.
(TG) Audumla {Nors} . The symbol of nature in the Norse mythology; the cow who licks the salt rock, whence the divine Buri is born, before man’s creation.
(TG) Audumla {Nors} . The Cow of Creation, the nourisher, from which poured four streams of milk which fed the giant Ymir or Orgelmir (matter in ebullition) and his sons, the Hrimthurses (Frost-giants), before the appearance of gods or men. Having nothing to graze upon she licked the salt of the ice-rocks and thus produced Buri, the Producer in his turn, who had a son Bor (the born) who married a daughter of the Frost Giants, and had three sons, Odin (Spirit), Wili (Will), and We (Holy). The meaning of the allegory is evident. It is the precosmic union of the elements, of Spirit, or the creative Force, with Matter, cooled and still seething, which it forms in accordance with universal Will. Then the Ases, the pillars and supports of the World (Cosmocratores), step in and create as All-father wills them.
(MO) Audhumla {Nors} (a-ood-hum-la) [mythic cow] Symbol of fertility
(TG) Augiras. One of the Prajapatis. A son of Daksha; a lawyer, etc., etc.
(TG) Augoeides {Greek} . Bulwer Lytton calls it the Luminous Self, or our Higher Ego. But Occultism makes of it something distinct from this. It is a mystery. The Augoeides is the luminous divine radiation of the EGO which, when incarnated, is but its shadow — pure as it is yet. This is explained in the Amshaspends and their Ferouers .
(WG) Augoeides (Greek, literally meaning the self -luminous or shining one), a term applied by the Neo-Platonists to the Higher Ego or Individuality of man, as contradistinguished from his lower self or personality. In the Secret Doctrine the hints given in Isis Unveiled are explained by the statement that the Augoeides, the Father in Heaven, the Higher Ego, are synonymous terms referring to the Manasa-Dhyani, who incarnated in or overshadowed the mindless men of the third race, and thus conferred on them the potency of divine, conscious immortality.
(TG) Aum {Sans} . The sacred syllable; the triple-lettered unit; hence the trinity in one.
(VS) Aum (I 10) [[p. 5]] Kala Hamsa , the Bird or Swan ( Vide No. 11). Says the Nada-Bindu Upanishad (Rig Veda) translated by the Kumbakonum Theos. Society The syllable A is considered to be its (the bird Hamsa’s) right wing, U, its left, M, its tail, and the Ardha-matra (half metre) is said to be its head.
(FY) Aum, the sacred syllable in Sanskrit representing the trinity.
(WG) Aum, the same as Om, which see.
(AUPAPADUKA)
(TG) Anupadaka {Sans} . Anupapadaka, also Aupapaduka; means parentless, self-existing, born without any parents or progenitors. A term applied to certain self-created gods, and the Dhyani Buddhas.
(WG) Anupadaka, without progenitors; a name applied to celestial beings generally, and also to the highest Adepts.
(OG) Aupapaduka — {Sans} A compound term meaning self-produced, spontaneously generated. It is a term applied in Buddhism to a class of celestial beings called dhyani-buddhas; and because these dhyani-buddhas are conceived of as issuing forth from the bosom of Adi-buddhi or the kosmic mahat without intermediary agency, are they mystically said to be, as H. P. Blavatsky puts it, parentless or self-existing, i.e., born without any parents or progenitors. They are therefore the originants or root from which the hierarchy of buddhas of various grades flows forth in mystical procession or emanation or evolution. There are variants of this word in Sanskrit literature, but they all have the same meaning. The term aupapaduka is actually a key word, opening a doctrine which is extremely difficult to set forth; but the doctrine itself is inexpressibly sublime. Indeed, not only are there aupapaduka divinities of the solar system, but also of every organic entity, because the core of the core of any organic entity is such an aupapaduka divinity. It is, in fact, a very mystical way of stating the doctrine of the inner god. [NOTE: Later research shows that anupapadaka , as found in Monier-Williams’ Sanskrit-English Dictionary , is a misreading of aupapaduka . Cf. Franklin Edgerton, Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Grammar and Dictionary , Yale University Press, New Haven, 1953, 2:162. — PUBLISHER]
(SKs) Anupapadaka One who is self-born; from an — not, upa — according to, and the causative form of the verb-root pad — to proceed; hence Anupapadaka means ‘one who does not cause to proceed according to regular succession,’ ‘parentless.’ A Buddha or any other human being who so purifies his intermediate nature that it may become a channel for his inner divinity is called an Anupapadaka Avatara. (See Avatara in [[SKo]]). His divinity is born or becomes manifest because of the man’s own efforts, it is self-evolved. Thus all the beings or gods of the Hierarchy of Compassion are known as Anupapadaka.
(SP) Anupapadaka — having no progenitor, parentless, name of a class of celestial beings.
(IN) Anupapadaka {Sans} Parentless, self-born or -existing; applied in Buddhism to certain self-created gods and dhyani-buddhas.
(TG) Aura {Greek} A subtle invisible essence or fluid that emanates from human and animal bodies and even things. It is a psychic effluvium, partaking of both the mind and the body, as it is the electro-vital, and at the same time an electro-mental aura; called in Theosophy the akasic or magnetic aura.
(KT) Aura {Latin} A subtile invisible essence or fluid that emanates from human, animal, and other bodies. It is a psychic effluvium partaking of both the mind and the body, as there is both an electro-vital and at the same time an electro-mental aura; called in Theosophy the Akasic or magnetic aura. In R. C. Martyrology, a Saint.
(OG) Aura — An extremely subtle and therefore invisible essence or fluid that emanates from and surrounds not only human beings and beasts, but as a matter of fact plants and minerals also. It is one of the aspects of the auric egg and therefore the human aura partakes of all the qualities that the human constitution contains. It is at once magneto-mental and electrovital, suffused with the energies of mind and spirit — the quality in each case coming from an organ or center of the human constitution whence it flows. It is the source of the sympathies and antipathies that we are conscious of. Under the control of the human will it can be both life-giving and healing, or death-dealing; and when the human will is passive the aura has an action of its own which is automatic and follows the laws of character and latent impulses of the being from whom it emanates. Sensitives have frequently described it in more or less vague terms as a light flowing from the eyes or the heart or the tips of the fingers or from other parts of the body. Sometimes this fluid, instead of being colorless light, manifests itself by flashing and scintillating changes of color — the color or colors in each case depending not only upon the varying moods of the human individual, but also possessing a background equivalent to the character or nature of the individual. Animals are extremely sensitive to auras, and some beasts even descry the human being surrounded with the aura as with a cloud or veil. In fact, everything has its aura surrounding it with a light or play of color, and especially is this the case with so-called animated beings. The essential nature of the aura usually seen is astral and electrovital. The magnificent phenomena of radiation that astronomers can discern at times of eclipse, long streamers with rosy and other colored light flashing forth from the body of the sun, are not flames nor anything of the sort, but are simply the electrovital aura of the solar body — a manifestation of solar vitality, for the sun in occultism is a living being, as indeed everything else is.
(OG) Auric Egg — A term which appertains solely to the more recondite teachings of occultism, of the esoteric philosophy. Little can be said here about it except to state that it is the source of the human aura as well as of everything else that the human septenary constitution contains. It is usually of an oviform or egg-shaped appearance, whence its name. It ranges from the divine to the astral-physical, and is the seat of all the monadic, spiritual, intellectual, mental, passional, and vital energies and faculties of the human septiform constitution. In its essence it is eternal, and endures throughout the pralayas as well as during the manvantaras, but necessarily in greatly varying fashion in these two great periods of kosmic life.
(TG) Aurnavabha {Sans} . An ancient Sanskrit commentator.
(TG) Aurva {Sans} . The Sage who is credited with the invention of the fiery weapon called Agneyastra .
(TG) Ava-bodha {Sans} . Mother of Knowledge. A title of Aditi.
(WG) Avabodha, waking, perception, discrimination, knowledge.
(TG) Avaivartika {Sans} . An epithet of every Buddha: lit., one who turns no more back; who goes straight to Nirvana.
(TG) Avalokiteswara {Sans} . The on-looking Lord. In the exoteric interpretation, he is Padmapani (the lotus bearer and the lotus-born) in Tibet, the first divine ancestor of the Tibetans, the complete incarnation or Avatar of Avalokiteswara; but in esoteric philosophy Avaloki, the on-looker, is the Higher Self, while Padmapani is the Higher Ego or Manas. The mystic formula Om mani padme hum is specially used to invoke their joint help. While popular fancy claims for Avalokiteswara many incarnations on earth, and sees in him, not very wrongly, the spiritual guide of every believer, the esoteric interpretation sees in him the LOGOS, both celestial and human. Therefore, when the Yogacharya School has declared Avalokiteswara as Padmapani to be the Dhyani Bodhisattva of Amitabha Buddha, it is indeed, because the former is the spiritual reflex in the world of forms of the latter, both being one — one in heaven, the other on earth.
(FY) Avalokitesvara, manifested wisdom, or the Divine Spirit in man.
(WG) Avalokitesvara, a Bhodhisattva; the manifested Logos, the synthesis of the seven Dhyani-Buddhas or Dhyan-Chohanic hosts. ( avalokita, seen; isvara, lord: the lord who is manifest [to the Self]. Rhys Davids renders it, the lord who looks down from on high
(OG) Avalokitesvara — {Sans} A compound word: avalokita, perceived, seen; Isvara, lord; hence the Lord who is perceived or cognized, i.e., the spiritual entity, whether in the kosmos or in the human being, whose influence is perceived and felt; the higher self. This is a term commonly employed in Buddhism, and concerning which a number of intricate and not easily understood teachings exist. The esoteric or occult interpretation, however, sees in Avalokitesvara what Occidental philosophy calls the Third Logos, both celestial and human. In the solar system it is the Third Logos thereof; and in the human being it is the higher self, a direct and active ray of the divine monad. Technically Avalokitesvara is the dhyani-bodhisattva of Amitabha-Buddha — Amitabha-Buddha is the kosmic divine monad of which the dhyani-bodhisattva is the individualized spiritual ray, and of this latter again the manushya-buddha or human buddha is a ray or offspring.
(SP) Avalokitesvara — in Mahayana Buddhism, the Bodhisattva who especially embodies compassion: Tibetan Chenrezi, Chinese Kuan-yin , and Japanese Kannon .
(WG) Avarana-sakti, the power that makes one thing appear as another.
(WG) Avarana-sakti, centripetal force or power.
(TG) Avarasaila Sangharama {Sans} . Lit., the School of the Dwellers on the western mountain. A celebrated Vihara (monastery) in Dhanakstchaka, according to Eitel, built 600 B.C., and deserted A.D. 600.
(TG) Avastan {Sans} . An ancient name for Arabia.
(TG) Avasthas {Sans} . States, conditions, positions.
(FY) Avasthas, states, conditions, positions.
(WG) Avastha, state, condition.
(SKv) Avastha, Jagrat , Svapna, Sushupti, Turiya Avastha is a state or condition of consciousness; derived from the verb-root stha — to stand, to be, and ava — down. There are four Avasthas or states of conscious ness: Jagrat is ‘the waking state,’ that condition of consciousness in which a man normally acts while awake; from the verb-root jagri — to be awake. Svapna is ‘the sleeping-dreaming state,’ that condition of sleeping-dreaming consciousness which a man undergoes while passing through the astral realms either in reverie, in sleep, or after death; derived from the verb-root svap — to sleep, to dream. Sushupti is ‘the deep-sleeping state,’ a state of self-oblivion and utter unconsciousness for the Human Ego, but a conscious state for the Higher Mind. Dr. de Purucker says: It is a consciousness so intense, so keen, so spiritual, with reaches so vast, that the poor limited brain . . . cannot hold it or record it. [ The Theosophical Forum , April, 1936, p. 252] This state of Sushupti is enjoyed by a man’s Higher Ego (often called the Reimbodying Ego or Manasaputric Ego) during deep sleep, and after death in the higher degrees of Devachan, and during spiritual Initiations. Turiya is ‘the fourth state of consciousness,’ that of pure divine-spiritual consciousness or Samadhi. Turiya is a derived form of chatur meaning ‘four.’ This state, often called Turiya-Samadhi, is attained by Buddhas and Christs in their moments of enlightened self-realization. When the Spirit within man returns to its parent-source during sleep and after death it enjoys Turiya-Samadhi. It is also the state into which a man enters who has become at one with the Cosmic Divinity, the Hierarch of our Solar Universe.
(SP) Avastha — a state of consciousness, of which there are four: jagrat — ordinary waking consciousness svapna [swapna] — dreaming sleep susupti [sushupti] — dreamless sleep turiya — literally the fourth, spiritual consciousness.
(WG) Avastha-traya, the three states of the soul, according to Vedanta philosophy, known to uninitiated humanity, namely: jagrata, waking state; svapna, dreaming state; and sushupti, dreamless sleep. (See also Turiya
(TG) Avatara {Sans} . Divine incarnation. The descent of a god or some exalted Being, who has progressed beyond the necessity of Rebirths, into the body of a simple mortal. Krishna was an avatar of Vishnu. The Dalai Lama is regarded as an avatar of Avalokiteswara, and the Teschu Lama as one of Tson-kha-pa, or Amitabha. There are two kinds of avatars: those born from woman, and the parentless, the anupapadaka .
(KT) Avatara {Sans} Divine incarnation. The descent of a god or some exalted Being who has progressed beyond the necessity for rebirth, into the body of a simple mortal. Krishna was an Avatar of Vishnu. The Dalai-Lama is regarded as an Avatar of Avalokiteswara and the Teschu-Lama as one of Tson-Kha-pa, or Amitabba. These are two kinds of Avatars: one born from woman and the other parentless — Anupadaka.
(FY) Avatar, the incarnation of an exalted being, so called among the Hindus.
(WG) Avatara, an avatar, the appearance of any deity upon earth, but more particularly the incarnations of Vishnu in his ten principal forms, namely: the fish, tortoise, boar, man-lion, dwarf, the two Ramas, Krishna, Buddha, and Kalki, the last yet to come, and which will take place at the end of the four yugas.
(OG) Avatara — {Sans} The noun-form derived from a compound of two words: ava , prepositional prefix meaning down, and tri , verb-root meaning to cross over, to pass; thus, avatri — to pass down, or to descend. Hence the word signifies the passing down of a celestial energy or of an individualized complex of celestial energies, which is equivalent to saying a celestial being, in order to overshadow and illuminate some human being — but a human being who, at the time of such connection of heaven with earth, of divinity with matter, possesses no karmically intermediate or connecting link between the overshadowing entity and the physical body: in other words, no human soul karmically destined to be the inner master of the body thus born. The intermediate link necessary, so that the human being-to-be may have the human intermediate or psychological apparatus fit to express the invisible splendor of this celestial descent, is supplied by the deliberate and voluntary entrance into the unborn child — and coincidently with the overshadowing of the celestial power — of the psychological or intermediate principle of one of the Greater Ones, who thus completes what is to be the pure and lofty human channel through which the descending divinity may manifest, this divinity finding in this high psychological principle a sufficiently evolved link enabling it to express itself in human form upon earth. Hence an avatara is one who has a combination of three elements in his being: an inspiring divinity; a highly evolved intermediate nature or soul, which is loaned to him and is the channel of that inspiring divinity; and a pure, clean, physical body. WW Avatara Now let us examine Avatara. This comes from a Sanskrit verb avatari . Now ava is a particle meaning down, tri means to pass over, to go over, as to pass over a river, to cross. The sense in which it is used in the word avatara, is the passing or crossing down of a divinity from the gods’ natural state into the life of man, to incarnate in human body. For instance, Krishno – vatarati , Krishna incarnates, Krishna comes down, crosses down. Avatara, in other words, is the incarnation or passing into human flesh, of a divine being. There are other meanings applied to this, but they are subtle, and they are beyond our present purpose. So for the present we can remember that avatara is practically the same as incarnation; incarnation you will remember meaning in-fleshing. The incarnation, according to the Christian theory, was thus an avatara or the second person of the Trinity; a very, very old conception indeed in its elements. Greek mythological story is full of the incarnations of gods and goddesses, and so are the religions of Hindustan.
(SK)o Avatara An Avatara is a descent of a Divinity from the divine spheres into our human world. The word is derived from the preposition ava — down, and the verb-root tri — to pass. An Avatara is a spiritual event brought about by White Magic in order to effect some spiritual work among men. This Avatara or god in human form is a temporary combination of three elements: an inspiring divinity from the realms of the gods, a highly evolved soul loaned by a Buddha or Bodhisattva, and a physical body which is found to be clean and pure.
(SP) Avatara — a descent or incarnation of divine energy, an avatar.
(TG) Avebury or Abury . In Wiltshire are the remains of an ancient megalithic Serpent temple: according to the eminent antiquarian Stukeley, 1740, there are traces of two circles of stones and two avenues; the whole has formed the representation of a serpent.
(TG) Avesta {avesta} . Lit. , the Law. From the old Persian Abasta , the law. The sacred Scriptures of the Zoroastrians. Zend means in the Zend-Avesta — a commentary or interpretation. It is an error to regard Zend as a language, as it was applied only to explanatory texts, to the translations of the Avesta (Darmsteter).
(FY) Avesta, the sacred books of the Zoroastrians.
(TG) Avicenna. The latinized name of Abu-Ali al Hoseen ben Abdallah Ibn Sina; a Persian philosopher, born 980 A.D., though generally referred to as an Arabian doctor. On account of his surprising learning he was called the Famous, and was the author of the best and the first alchemical works known in Europe, All the Spirits of the Elements were subject to him, so says the legend, and it further tells us that owing to his knowledge of the Elixir of Life, he still lives, as an adept who will disclose himself to the profane at the end of a certain cycle.
(TG) Avitchi {Sans} . A state: not necessarily after death only or between two births, for it can take place on earth as well. Lit., uninterrupted hell. The last of the eight hells we are told, where the culprits die and are reborn without interruption — yet not without hope of final redemption. This is because Avitchi is another name for Myalba (our earth) and also a state to which some soulless men are condemned on this physical plane.
(WG) Avitchi, a state of the soul. The place or time for this state is not always after death, for it may be in life and on this very earth. It is called the last of the eight hells, and is commonly thought of as a state after death of the body.
(OG) Avichi — {Sans} A word, the general meaning of which is waveless, having no waves or movement, suggesting the stagnation of life and being in immobility; it also means without happiness or without repose. A generalized term for places of evil realizations, but not of punishment in the Christian sense; where the will for evil, and the unsatisfied evil longings for pure selfishness, find their chance for expansion — and final extinction of the entity itself. Avichi has many degrees or grades. Nature has all things in her; if she has heavens where good and true men find rest and peace and bliss, so has she other spheres and states where gravitate those who must find an outlet for the evil passions burning within. They, at the end of their avichi, go to pieces and are ground over and over, and vanish away finally like a shadow before the sunlight in the air — ground over in nature’s laboratory. ( See also Eighth Sphere)
(SK)o Avichi An after-death state of evil realizations of many degrees, experienced by those who have lived lives of wickedness, sensuality, avarice, and deceit, etc. The word Avichi is a compound of a — not, and vichi — waves, or pleasure; hence having no movement of life, stagnation, or a place without pleasure. Unless a man can rise from this state, drawn upwards by some flash of the divine nature’s having expressed itself during life, he will after long misery and suffering finally enter the Eighth Sphere or Planet of Death, and having there been ground over in nature’s laboratory, will vanish from this sphere.
(SP) Avici [avichi] — the lowest hell, literally the waveless.
(TG) Avidya {Sans} . Opposed to Vidya, Knowledge. Ignorance which proceeds from, and is produced by the illusion of the Senses or Viparyaya .
(WG) Avidya, Without knowledge, ignorance, illusion; personified illusion, or Maya, in Buddhism, ignorance together with non-existence. ( a, not, without; vidya, knowledge
(OG) Avidya {Sans} A compound word: a, not; vidya , knowledge; hence nonknowledge, ignorance — perhaps a better translation would be nescience — ignorance or rather lack of knowledge of reality, produced by illusion or maya.
(SP) Avidya — ignorance.
(TG) Avikara {Sans} . Free from degeneration; changeless — used of Deity.
(WG) Avikara, changeless, undifferentiating.
(TG) Avyakta {Sans} . The unrevealed cause; indiscrete or undifferentiated; the opposite of Vyakta , the differentiated. The former is used of the unmanifested, and the latter of the manifested Deity, or of Brahma
(FY) Avyakta, the unrevealed cause.
(WG) Avyakta, indiscrete or undifferentiated matter, the primordial principle whence the phenomenal world is produced; mulaprakriti; the all-soul
(TG) Axieros {Greek} the Kabiri.
(TG) Axiocersa, {Greek} of the Kabiri.
(TG) Axiocersus {Greek} of the Kabiri.
(TG) Ayana {Sans} . A period of time; two Ayanas complete a year, one being the period of the Sun’s progress northward, and the other southward in the ecliptic.
(TG) Ayin {Hebr} . Lit. , Nothing, whence the name of Ain-Soph
(TG) Aymar, Jacques. A famous Frenchman who had great success in the use of the Divining Rod about the end of the 17th century; he was often employed in detecting criminals; two M.D’s of the University of Paris, Chauvin and Garnier reported on the reality of his powers. See Colquhoun on Magic . [W. W. W]
(TG) Ayur Veda {Sans} . Lit., the Veda of Life.
(TG) Ayuta {Sans} . 100 Koti, or a sum equal to 1,000,000,000.
(TG) Azareksh {avesta} . A place celebrated for a fire-temple of the Zoroastrians and Magi during the time of Alexander the Great.
(TG) Azazel {Hebr} . God of Victory; the scape-goat for the sins of Israel. He who comprehends the mystery of Azazel, says Aben-Ezra, will learn the mystery of God’s name, and truly. See Typhon and the scape-goat made sacred to him in ancient Egypt.
(TG) Azhi-Dahaka {avesta} . One of the Serpents or Dragons in the legends of Iran and the Avesta Scriptures, the allegorical destroying Serpent or Satan.
(TG) Aziluth {Hebr} . The name for the world of the Sephiroth, called the world of Emanations Olam Aziluth . It is the great and the highest prototype of the other worlds. Atzeelooth is the Great Sacred Seal by means of which all the worlds are copied which have impressed on themselves the image on the Seal; and as this Great Seal comprehends three stages, which are three zures (prototypes) of Nephesh (the vital Spirit or Soul), Ruach (the moral and reasoning Spirit), and the Neshamah (the Highest Soul of man), so the Sealed have also received three zures , namely Breeah, Yetzeerah, and Aseeyah, and these three zures are only one in the Seal (Myer’s Qabbalah ). The globes A, Z, of our terrestial chain are in Aziluth. (See Secret
(TG) Azoth {Hebr} . The creative principle in Nature, the grosser portion of which is stored in the Astral Light. It is symbolized by a figure which is a cross (See Eliphas Levi), the four limbs of which bear each one letter of the word Taro, which can be read also Rota, Ator, and in many other combinations, each of which has an occult meaning.
(TG) B. — The second letter in almost all the alphabets, also the second in the Hebrew. Its symbol is a house, the form of Beth, the letter itself indicating a dwelling, a shed or a shelter. As a compound of a root, it is constantly used for the purpose of showing that it had to do with stone; when stones at Beth-el are set up, for instance. The Hebrew value as a numeral is two. Joined with its predecessor, it forms the word Ab, the root of ‘father’, Master, one in authority, and it has the Kabalistical distinction of being the first letter in the Sacred Volume of the Law. The divine name connected with this letter is Bakhour.
(TG) Baal {Chald} Baal {Hebr} or Adon (Adonai) was a phallic god. Who shall ascend unto the hill (the high place) of the Lord; who shall stand in the place of his Kadushu ? (Psalms The circle-dance performed by King David round the ark, was the dance prescribed by the Amazons in the Mysteries, the dance of the daughters of Shiloh (Judges and the same as the leaping of the prophets of Baal (I. Kings 18). He was named Baal-Tzephon, or god of the crypt (Exodus) and Seth, or the pillar (phallus), because he was the same as Ammon (or Baal-Hammon) of Egypt, called the hidden god. Typhon, called Set, who was a great god in Egypt during the early dynasties, is an aspect of Baal and Ammon as also of Siva, Jehovah and other gods. Baal is the all-devouring Sun, in one sense, the fiery Moloch.
(TG) Babil Mound {Chald}
(TG) Babil Mound {Hebr} site of the Temple of Bel at Babylon.
(PV) Bacabs The four cosmic bearers of the Mayas. The four world pillars whose foundations are in the underworld. During the Third Age, the four primeval giants (Vukup Cakix, his wife, and their two sons) are transformed into these world pillars.
(TG) Bacchus {Greek}. Exoterically and superficially the god of wine and the vintage, and of licentiousness and joy; but the esoteric meaning of this personification is more abstruse and philosophical. He is the Osiris of Egypt, and his life and significance belong to the same group as the other solar deities, all sin-bearing, killed and resurrected; e.g., as Dionysos or Atys of Phrygia (Adonis, or the Syrian Tammuz), as Ausonius, Baldur, , All these were put to death, mourned for, and restored to life. The rejoicings for Atys took place at the Hilaria on the pagan Easter, March 15th. Ausonius, a form of Bacchus, was slain at the vernal equinox, March 21st, and rose in three days. Tammuz, the double of Adonis and Atys, was mourned by the women at the grove of his name over Bethlehem, where the infant Jesus cried, says St. Jerome. Bacchus is murdered and his mother collects the fragments of his lacerated body as Isis does those of Osiris, and so on. Dionysos Iacchus, torn to shreds by the Titans, Osiris, Krishna, all descended into Hades and returned again. Astronomically, they all represent the Sun; psychically they are all emblems of the ever-resurrecting Soul (the Ego in its re-incarnation); spiritually, all the innocent scape-goats, atoning for the sins of mortals, their own earthly envelopes, and in truth, the poeticized image of DIVINE MAN, the form of clay informed by its God.
(TG) Bacon, Roger. A Franciscan monk, famous as an adept in Alchemy and Magic Arts. Lived in the thirteenth century in England. He believed in the philosopher’s stone in the way all the adepts of Occultism believe in it; and also in philosophical astrology. He is accused of having made a head of bronze which having an acoustic apparatus hidden in it, seemed to utter oracles which were words spoken by Bacon himself in another room. He was a wonderful physicist and chemist, and credited with having invented gunpowder, though he said he had the secret from Asian (Chinese) wise men.
(TG) Baddha {Sans}. Bound, conditioned; as is every mortal who has not made himself free through Nirvana.
(FY) Baddha, bound or conditioned; the state of an ordinary human being who has not attained Nirvana.
(TG) Bagavadam {Sans}. A Tamil Scripture on Astronomy and other matters.
(TG) Bagh-bog {slav} a Slavonian name for the Greek Bacchus, whose name became the prototype of the name God or Bagh and bog or bogh; the Russian for God.
(TG) Bahak-Zivo {Gnos}. The father of the Genii in the Codex Nazaraeus. The Nazarenes were an early semi-Christian sect.
(FY) Bahihpragna, the present state of consciousness.
(TG) Bal {Hebr}. Commonly translated Lord, but also Bel, the Chaldean god, and Baal, an idol.
(TG) Bala {Sans}, or Panchabalani. The five powers to be acquired in Yoga practice; full trust or faith; energy; memory; meditation; wisdom.
(TG) Baldur {Nors}. The Giver of all Good. The bright God who is the best and all mankind are loud in his praise; so fair and dazzling is he in form and features, that rays of light seem to issue from him. (Edda). Such was the birth-song chanted to Baldur who resurrects as Wali, the spring Sun. Baldur is called the well-beloved the Holy one, who alone is without sin. He is the God of Goodness, who shall be born again, when a new and purer world will have arisen from the ashes of the old, sin-laden world (Asgard). He is killed by the crafty Loki, because Frigga, the mother of the gods, while entreating all creatures and all lifeless things to swear that they will not injure the well-beloved, forgets to mention the weak mistletoe bough, just as the mother of Achilles forgot her son’s heel. A dart is made of it by Loki and he places it in the hands of blind Hodur who kills with it the sunny-hearted god of light. The Christmas mistletoe is probably a reminiscence of the mistletoe that killed the Northern God of Goodness.
(MO) Balder {Nors} (bahl-der) An Ase: the sun-god
(TG) Bal-ilu {Chald} One of the many titles of the Sun.
(TG) Bamboo Books. Most ancient and certainly pre-historic works in Chinese containing the antediluvian records of the Annals of China. They were found in the tomb of King Seang of Wai, who died 295 B.C., and claim to go back many centuries.
(TG) Bandha {Sans}. Bondage; life on this earth; from the same root as Baddha.
(WG) Bandha, fettering; bondage, as opposed to moksha or emancipation.
(FY) Baodhas, consciousness; the fifth principle of man.
(TG) Baphomet {Greek}. The androgyne goat of Mendes. (See Secret Doctrine, I. 253). According to the Western, and especially the French Kabalists, the Templars were accused of worshipping Baphomet, and Jacques de Molay, the Grand Master of the Templars, with all his brother-Masons, suffered death in consequence. But esoterically, and philologically, the word never meant goat, nor even anything so objective as an idol. The term means according to Von Hammer, baptism or initiation into Wisdom, from the Greek words baphe and metis, and from the relation of Baphometus to Pan. Von Hammer must be right. It was a Hermetico-Kabalistic symbol, but the whole story as invented by the Clergy was false
(TG) Baptism {Greek}. The rite of purification performed during the ceremony of initiation in the sacred tanks of India, and also the later identical rite established by John the Baptist and practised by his disciples and followers, who were not Christians. This rite was hoary with age when it was adopted by the Chrestians of the earliest centuries. Baptism belonged to the earliest Chaldeo-Akkadian theurgy; was religiously practised in the nocturnal ceremonies in the Pyramids where we see to this day the font in the shape of the sarcophagus; was known to take place during the Eleusinian mysteries in the sacred temple lakes, and is practised even now by the descendants of the ancient Sabians. The Mendaeans (the El Mogtasila of the Arabs) are, notwithstanding their deceptive name of St. John Christians, less Christians than are the Orthodox Mussulman Arabs around them. They are pure Sabians; and this is very naturally explained when one remembers that the great Semitic scholar Renan has shown in his Vie de Jesus that the Aramean verb seba, the origin of the name Sabian, is a synonym of the Greek bapitizo . The modern Sabians, the Mendaeans, whose vigils and religious rites, face to face with the silent stars, have been described by several travellers, have still preserved the theurgic, baptismal rites of their distant and nigh-forgotten forefathers, the Chaldean Initiates. Their religion is one of multiplied baptisms, of seven purifications in the name of the seven planetary rulers, the seven Angels of the Presence of the Roman Catholic Church. The Protestant Baptists are but the pale imitators of the El Mogtasila or Nazareans who practise their Gnostic rites in the deserts of Asia Minor
(TG) Bardesanes or Bardaisan. A Syrian Gnostic, erroneously regarded as a Christian theologian, born at Edessa (Edessene Chronicle) in 155 of our era (Assemani Bibl. Orient. i. 389). He was a great astrologer following the Eastern Occult System. According to Porphyry (who calls him the Babylonian, probably on account of his Chaldeeism or astrology), Bardesanes . . . . held intercourse with the Indians that had been sent to the Caesar with Damadamis at their head (De Abst. iv. 17), and had his information from the Indian gymnosophists. The fact is that most of his teachings, however much they may have been altered by his numerous Gnostic followers, can be traced to Indian philosophy, and still more to the Occult teachings of the Secret System. Thus in his Hymns he speaks of the creative Deity as Father-Mother, and elsewhere of Astral Destiny (Karma) of Minds of Fire (the Agni-Devas) He connected the Soul (the personal Manas) with the Seven Stars, deriving its origin from the Higher Beings (the divine Ego); and therefore admitted spiritual resurrection but denied the resurrection of the body, as charged with by the Church Fathers. Ephraim shows him preaching the signs of the Zodiac, the importance of the birth-hours and proclaiming the seven. Calling the Sun the Father of Life and the Moon the Mother of Life, he shows the latter laying aside her garment of light (principles) for the renewal of the Earth. Photius cannot understand how, while accepting the Soul free from the power of genesis (destiny of birth) and possessing free will, he still placed the body under the rule of birth (genesis). For they (the Bardesanists) say, that wealth and poverty and sickness and health and death and all things not within our control are works of destiny (Bibl. Cod. 223, p. 221-f). This is Karma, most evidently, which does not preclude at all free-will. Hippolytus makes him a representative of the Eastern School. Speaking of Baptism, Bardesanes is made to say It is not however the Bath alone which makes us free, but the Knowledge of who we are, what we are become, where we were before, whither we are hastening, whence we are redeemed; what is generation (birth), what is re-generation (re-birth). This points plainly to the doctrine of re-incarnation. His conversation (Dialogue) with Awida and Barjamina on Destiny and Free Will shows it. What is called Destiny, is an order of outflow given to the Rulers (Gods) and the Elements, according to which order the Intelligences (Spirit-Egos) are changed by their descent into the Soul, and the Soul by its descent into the body. (See Treatise, found in its Syriac original, and published with English translation British Museum
(TG) Bardesanian (System). The Codex of the Nazarenes, a system worked out by one Bardesanes. It is called by some a Kabala within the Kabala; a religion or sect the esotericism of which is given out in names and allegories entirely sui-generis. A very old Gnostic system. This codex has been translated into Latin. Whether it is right to call the Sabeanism of the Mendaites (miscalled St. John’s Christians), contained in the Nazarene Codex, the Bardesanian system, as some do, is doubtful; for the doctrines of the Codex and the names of the Good and Evil Powers therein, are older than Bardaisan. Yet the names are identical in the two systems.
(TG) Baresma (Zend). A plant used by Mobeds (Parsi priests) in the fire-temples, wherein consecrated bundles of it are kept.
(MO) Bargalmer, Bergelmir {Nors} (bare-vell-meer) [a titan] Fruitage of a universal lifetime
(FY) Barhaspatyamanam, a method of calculating time prevalent during the later Hindu period in North-eastern India.
(TG) Barhishad {Sans}. A class of the lunar Pitris or Ancestors, Fathers, who are believed in popular superstition to have kept up in their past incarnations the household sacred flame and made fire-offerings. Esoterically the Pitris who evolved their shadows or chhayas to make therewith the first man. (See Secret Doctrine,
(WG) Barhishad, a class of lunar pitris who are creators of physical man. ( baris, sacrificial grass, kusa; sad, seated: seated on the kusa grass
(MO) Barre {Nors} (bar-reh) [ barr pine needle] The sacred grove of peace. Snorri speaks of the ash as having barr, having never seen a tree. There were none in Iceland.
(TG) Basildean ( System ). Named after Basilides; the Founder of one of the most philosophical gnostic sects. Clement the Alexandrian speaks of Basilides, the Gnostic, as a philosopher devoted to the contemplation of divine things. While he claimed that he had all his doctrines from the Apostle Matthew and from Peter through Glaucus, Irenaeus reviled him, Tertullian stormed at him, and the Church Fathers had not sufficient words of obloquy against the heretic. And yet on the authority of St. Jerome himself, who describes with indignation what he had found in the only genuine Hebrew copy of the Gospel of Matthew (See Isis Unv., ii., 181) which he got from the Nazarenes, the statement of Basilides becomes more than credible, and if accepted would solve a great and perplexing problem. His 24 vols. of Interpretation of the Gospels, were, as Eusebius tells us, burnt. Useless to say that these gospels were not our present Gospels. Thus, truth was ever crushed.
(TG) Basileus {Greek}. The Archon or Chief who had the outer supervision during the Eleusinian Mysteries. While the latter was an initiated layman, and magistrate at Athens, the Basileus of the inner Temple was of the staff of the great Hierophant, and as such was one of the chief Mystae and belonged to the inner mysteries.
(TG) Bassantin, James. A Scotch astrologer. He lived in the 16th century and is said to have predicted to Sir Robert Melville, in 1562, the death and all the events connected therewith of Mary, the unfortunate Queen of Scots.
(TG) Bath {Hebr}. Daughter.
(TG) Bath Kol {Hebr}. Daughter of the Voice: the Divine afflatus, or inspiration, by which the prophets of Israel were inspired as by a voice from Heaven and the Mercy-Seat. In Latin Filia Vocis. An analogous ideal is found in Hindu exoteric theology named Vach, the voice, the female essence, an aspect of Aditi, the mother of the gods and primeval Light; a mystery.
(TG) Batoo {Egyp}. The first man in Egyptian folk-lore. Noum, the heavenly artist, creates a beautiful girl — the original of the Grecian Pandora — and sends her to Batoo, after which the happiness of the first man is destroyed.
(TG) Batria {Egyp}. According to tradition, the wife of the Pharaoh and the teacher of Moses.
(TG) Beel-Zebub {Hebr}. The disfigured Baal of the Temples, and more correctly Beel-Zebul. Beel-Zebub means literally god of flies; the derisory epithet used by the Jews, and the incorrect and confused rendering of the god of the sacred scarabaei, the divinities watching the mummies, and symbols of transformation, regeneration and immortality. Beel-Zeboul means properly the God of the Dwelling and is spoken of in this sense in Matthew x. 25. As Apollo, originally not a Greek but a Phoenician god, was the healing god, Paian, or physician, as well as the god of oracles, he became gradually transformed as such into the Lord of Dwelling, a household deity, and thus was called Beel-Zeboul. He was also, in a sense, a psychopompic god, taking care of the souls as did Anubis. Beelzebub was always the oracle god, and was only confused and identified with Apollo latter on.
(TG) Bel {Chald}. The oldest and mightiest god of Babylonia, one of the earliest trinities, — Anu ; Bel, Lord of the World, father of the gods, Creator, and Lord of the City of Nipur; and Hea, maker of fate, Lord of the Deep, God of Wisdom and esoteric Knowledge, and Lord of the City of Eridu. The wife of Bel, or his female aspect (Sakti), was Belat, or Beltis, the mother of the great gods, and the Lady of the City of Nipur. The original Bel was also called Enu, Elu and Kaptu (see Chaldean account of Genesis, by G. Smith). His eldest son was the Moon God Sin (whose names were also Ur, Agu and Itu), who was the presiding deity of the city of Ur, called in his honour by one of his names. Now Ur was the place of nativity of Abram (see Astrology). In the early Babylonian religion the Moon was, like Soma in India, a male, and the Sun a female deity. And this led almost every nation to great fratricidal wars between the lunar and the solar worshippers — e.g ., the contests between the Lunar and the Solar Dynasties, the Chandra and Suryavansa in ancient Aryavarta. Thus we find the same on a smaller scale between the Semitic tribes. Abram and his father Terah are shown migrating from Ur and carrying their lunar god (or its scion) with them; for Jehovah Elohim or El — another form of Elu — has ever been connected with the moon. It is the Jewish lunar chronology which has led the European civilized nations into the greatest blunders and mistakes. Merodach, the son of Hea, became the later Bel and was worshipped at Babylon. His other title, Belas, has a number of symbolical meanings.
(TG) Bela-Shemesh {Hebr}
(TG) Bela-Shemesh {Chald} Lord of the Sun, the name of the Moon during that period when the Jews became in turn solar and lunar worshippers and when the Moon was a male, and the Sun a female deity. This period embraced the time between the allegorical expulsion of Adam and Eve from Eden down to the no less allegorical Noachian flood. (See Secret
(MO) Bele’s bane {Nors} (bay-leh) The sword of Frey
(TG) Bembo, Tablet of; or Mensa Isiaca. A brazen tablet inlaid with designs in Mosaic (now in the Museum at Turin) which once belonged to the famous Cardinal Bembo. Its origin and date are unknown. It is covered with Egyptian figures and hieroglyphics, and is supposed to have been an ornament in an ancient Temple of Isis. The learned Jesuit Kircher wrote a description of it, and Montfaucon has a chapter devoted to it. The only English work on the Isiac Tablet is by Dr. W. Wynn Westcott, who gives a photogravure in addition to its history, description, and occult significance.
(TG) Ben {Hebr}. A son; a common prefix in proper names to denote the son of so-and-so, e.g ., Ben Solomon, Ben Ishmael, etc.
(TG) Be-ness. A term coined by Theosophists to render more accurately the essential meaning of the untranslatable word Sat. The latter word does not mean Being, for it presupposes a sentient feeling or some consciousness of existence. But, as the term Sat is applied solely to the absolute Principle, the universal, unknown, and ever unknowable Presence, which philosophical Pantheism postulates in Kosmos, calling it the basic root of Kosmos, and Kosmos itself — Being was no fit word to express it. Indeed, the latter is not even, as translated by some Orientalists, the incomprehensible Entity; for it is no more an Entity than a non-Entity, but both. It is, as said, absolute Be-ness, not Being, the one secondless, undivided, and indivisible All — the root of all Nature visible and invisible, objective and subjective, to be sensed by the highest spiritual intuition, but never to be fully comprehended.
(KT) Beness. A term coined by Theosophists to render more accurately the essential meaning of the untranslatable word Sat. The latter word does not mean Being, for the term Being presupposes a sentient consciousness of existence. But as the term Sat is applied solely to the absolute principle, that universal, unknown, and ever unknowable principle which philosophical Pantheism postulates, calling it the basic root of Kosmos and Kosmos itself, it could not be translated by the simple term Being. Sat, indeed, is not even, as translated by some Orientalists, the incomprehensible Entity; for it is no more an Entity than a non-entity, but both. It is as said absolute BENESS, not Being; the one, secondless, undivided and indivisible ALL — the root of nature both visible and invisible, objective and subjective, comprehensible and — never to be fully comprehended.
(TG) Ben Shamesh {Hebr}. The children or the Sons of the Sun. The term belongs to the period when the Jews were divided into sun and moon worshippers — Elites and Belites
(TG) Benoo {Egyp}. A word applied to two symbols, both taken to mean Phoenix . One was the Shen-shen (the heron), and the other a nondescript bird, called the Rech (the red one), and both were sacred to Osiris. It was the latter that was the regular Phoenix of the great Mysteries, the typical symbol of self-creation and resurrection through death — a type of the Solar Osiris and of the divine Ego in man. Yet both the Heron and the Rech were symbols of cycles; the former, of the Solar year of 365 days; the latter of the tropical year or a period covering almost 26,000 years. In both cases the cycles were the types of the return of light from darkness, the yearly and great cyclic return of the sun-god to his birth-place, or — his Resurrection. The Rech-Benoo is described by Macrobius as living 660 years and then dying; while others stretched its life as long as 1,460 years. Pliny, the Naturalist, describes the Rech as a large bird with gold and purple wings, and a long blue tail. As every reader is aware, the Phoenix on feeling its end approaching, according to tradition, builds for itself a funeral pile on the top of the sacrificial altar, and then proceeds to consume himself thereon as a burnt-offering. Then a worm appears in the ashes, which grows and developes rapidly into a new Phoenix, resurrected from the ashes of its predecessor.
(TG) Berasit {Hebr}. The first word of the book of Genesis. The English established version translates this as In the beginning, but this rendering is disputed by many scholars. Tertullian approved of In power; Grotius When first; but the authors of the Targum of Jerusalem who ought to have known Hebrew if anyone did, translated it In Wisdom. Godfrey Higgins, in his Anacalypsis, insists on Berasit being the sign of the ablative case, meaning in and ras, rasit, an ancient word for Chokmah, wisdom. [w.w.w.]
(TG) Berasit or Berasheth is a mystic word among the Kabbalists of Asia Minor.
(TG) Bergelmir {Nors}. The one giant who escaped in a boat the general slaughter of his brothers, the giant Ymir’s children, drowned in the blood of their raging Father. He is the Scandinavian Noah, as he, too, becomes the father of giants after the Deluge. The lays of the Norsemen show the grandsons of the divine Buri — Odin, Wili, and We — conquering and killing the terrible giant Ymir, and creating the world out of his body.
(TG) Berosus {Chald}. A priest of the Temple of Beltis who wrote for Alexander the Great the history of the Cosmogony, as taught in the Temples, from the astronomical and chronological records preserved in that temple. The fragments we have in the soi-disant translations of Eusebius are certainly as untrustworthy as the biographer of the Emperor Constantine — of whom he made a saint (!!) — could make them. The only guide to this Cosmogony may now be found in the fragments of the Assyrian tablets, evidently copied almost bodily from the earlier Babylonian records; which, say what the Orientalists may, are undeniably the originals of the Mosaic Genesis, of the Flood, the tower of Babel, of baby Moses set afloat on the waters, and of other events. For, if the fragments from the Cosmogony of Berosus, so carefully re-edited and probably mutilated and added to by Eusebius, are no great proof of the antiquity of these records in Babylonia — seeing that this priest of Belus lived three hundred years after the Jews were carried captive to Babylon, and they may have been borrowed by the Assyrians from them — later discoveries have made such a consoling hypothesis impossible. It is now fully ascertained by Oriental scholars that not only Assyria borrowed its civilization and written characters from Babylonia, but the Assyrians copied their literature from Babylonian sources. Moreover, in his first Hibbert lecture, Professor Sayce shows the culture both of Babylonia itself and of the city of Eridu to have been of foreign importation; and, according to this scholar, the city of Eridu stood already 6,000 years ago on the shores of the Persian gulf, i.e ., about the very time when Genesis shows the Elohim creating the world, sun, and stars out of nothing.
(TG) Bes {Egyp}. A phallic god, the god of concupiscence and pleasure. He is represented standing on a lotus ready to devour his own progeny (Abydos). A rather modern deity of foreign origin.
(TG) Bestla {Nors}. The daughter of the Frost giants, the sons of Ymir; married to Burl, and the mother of Odin and his brothers (Edda).
(TG) Beth {Hebr}. House, dwelling.
(TG) Beth Elohim {Hebr}. A Kabbalistic treatise treating of the angels, souls of men, and demons. The name means House of the Gods.
(TG) Betyles {Phoen}. Magical stones. The ancient writers call them the animated stones; oracular stones, believed in and used both by Gentiles and Christians. (See Sect. Doct. II. p. 342).
(TG) Bhadayat {Sans}. A title of the Buddha and of Krishna. The Lord literally.
(TG) Bhadrakalpa {Sans}. Lit., The Kalpa of the Sages. Our present period is a Bhadra Kalpa, and the exoteric reaching makes it last 236 million years. It is so called because 1,000 Buddhas or sages appear in the course of it (Sanskrit Chinese have already appeared it adds; but as out of the 236 millions, over 151 Million years have already elapsed, it does seem a rather uneven distribution of Buddhas. This is the way exoteric or popular religions confuse everything. Esoteric philosophy teaches us that every Root-race has its chief Buddha or Reformer, who appears also in the seven sub-races as a Bodhisattva . Gautama Sakyamuni was the fourth, and also the fifth Buddha: the fifth, because we are the fifth root-race; the fourth, as the chief Buddha in this fourth Round. The Bhadra Kalpa, or the period of stability, is the name of our present Round, esoterically — its duration applying, of course, only to our globe (D), the 1,000 Buddhas being thus in reality limited to but forty-nine in all.
(TG) Bhadrasena {Sans}. A Buddhist king of Magadha.
(FY) Bhadrasena, a Buddhist king of Magadha.
(TG) Bhadra Vihara {Sans}. Lit., the Monastery of the Sages or Bodhisattvas. A certain Vihara or Matham in Kanyakubdja.
(TG) Bhagats {Sans}. Also called Sokka and Sivnath by the Hindus; one who exorcises evil spirits.
(FY) Bhagats (or called Sokha and Sivnath by the Hindus), one who exorcises and evil spirit.
BHAGAVAD-GITA
Favorite Quotations from the Bhagavad-Gita , from The Gods and Heroes of the Bhagavad-Gita
The Song Celestial, or The Bhagavad Gita by Sir Edwin Arnold
William Q. Judge’s recension of the Bhagavad Gita including his Essays on the Gita (on another site)
(TG) Bhagavad-gita {Sans}. Lit., the Lord’s Song. A portion of the Mahabharata, the great epic poem of India. It contains a dialogue wherein Khrishna — the Charioteer — and Arjuna, his Chela, have a discussion upon the highest spiritual philosophy. The work is pre-eminently occult or esoteric.
(KT) Bhagavat-Gita {Sans} Lit. , the Lord’s Song, a portion of the Mahabharata, the great epic poem of India. It contains a dialogue wherein Krishna — the Charioteer and Arjuna his chela have a discussion upon the highest spiritual philosophy. The work is pre-eminently occult or esoteric.
(FY) Bhagavad Gita ( lit. The Lord’s Song), an episode of the Maha-Bharata, the great epic poem of India. It contains a dialogue between Krishna and Arjuna on Spiritual Philosophy.
(WG) Bhagavad-Gita, an epic in the Mahabharata, consisting of a dialogue between Krishna and Arjuna, which is carried on in a chariot drawn up between two opposing armies. The chariot means, esoterically, the body; Arjuna is the Ego; Krishna is the Supreme Spirit, and the opposing hosts of Kauravas and Pandavas are the higher and lower natures of man; the horses may be called the mind, which draws the body. The poem has been translated by Burnouf into French, by Lassen into Latin, by Stanislav Gotti into Italian, by Galanos into Greek, by Wilkins, Davies, Thompson, Kasinath Telang, Chintamon, Mohini, Arnold and others into English. ( bhagavat, having happiness, blessed; gita, song: song of the blessed one
(GH) Bhagavad-Gita literally Krishna’s song (or divine song). The philosophical discourse between Arjuna and Krishna, the latter being represented as the Avatara of Vishnu, but acting as Arjuna’s charioteer. It is cast in the traditional form of question and answer between disciple and teacher in verses of metrical prose termed slokas. The meter is called Anu-shtubh and consists of four padas or quarter verses of eight syllables each, or two lines of sixteen syllables each. The dialog is placed in the sixth book of the Mahabharata entitled the Bhishma-parva (the book of Bhishma) slokas 830-1532 thereof. The work is pre-eminently occult or esoteric, writes H. P. Blavatsky in Theosophical Glossary, p. 56, and also states in The Secret Doctrine, that there is a secret sense contained in the Bhagavad-Gita. (II, p. 139)
The main object of the Bhagavad Gita — which is one of the main sources of Hindu philosophy — is to explain the higher principles that operate in the cosmos, which are omnipresent and permanent and which are common to all the solar systems. ( Notes on the Bhagavad-Gita, p. 108) (Compound bhagavat, holy, divine; also a name of Krishna
(SP) Bhagavad-gita — the famous Hindu text, literally the Lord’s Song.
(WG) Bhakti, devotion, a thing apportioned or set apart, portion.
(SK)o Bhakti Devotion, faith, or love; derived from the verb-root bhaj -to serve, to honor.
(WG) Bhakti-yoga, systematized devotion for the attainment of union with Parabrahmam, prescribed in the Visishtadvaita Catechism as the contemplation of Parabrahmam, with its various attributes and qualities, without any interruption whatever, throughout one’s whole life, and at the same time discharging one’s duties to the best of one’s ability, or true devotion. (See also the Bhagavad-Gita for prescription of and insistence upon attainment of devotion, conjoined with strict performance of duty
(OG) Bhakti {Sans} A word derived from the verbal root bhaj . In connection with yoga and as being one of the recognized forms of it, the general signification of bhakti yoga is devotion, affectionate attachment
(TG) Bhao {Sans}. A ceremony of divination among the Kolarian tribes of Central India.
(FY) Bhao, ceremony of divination among the Kolarian tribes of Central India.
(WG) Bharata, the one supported, an epithet of Agni as being maintained or kept alive by men; the true consciousness, of which the consciousness of the interior faculties is a reflection; an epithet given Arjuna in the Bhagavad-Gita to signify his intimate relation with his race and nation.
(GH) Bharata The name of a great number of kings and heroes. The one referred to in the Bhagavad-Gita is of the Puru branch (or Pauravas) of the Chandravansa (Lunar Race), the son of Dushyanta and Sakuntala. The ninth king in descent from Bharata was Kuru, and the seventeenth from Kuru was Yudhishthira and his four brothers, i.e. , the Pandavas. ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 11
(GH) Bharata A descendant of Bharata: referable to either the Kauravas or the Pandavas, but most often applied solely to the latter. Arjuna is often referred to as ‘son of Bharata’ or ‘best of the Bharatas.’ ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 11)
(TG) Bharata Yarsha {Sans}. The land of Bharata, an ancient name of India.
(WG) Bharata-varsha, India.
(TG) Bhargayas {Sans}. An ancient race in India; from the name of Bhrigu, the Rishi.
(TG) Bhashya (Sk). A commentary.
(FY) Bhashya, commentary.
(IN) Bhashya {Sans} A treatise or commentary.
(TG) Bhaskara {Sans}. One of the titles of Surya, the Sun; meaning life-giver and light-maker.
(TG) Bhaya {Sans}. Being, or state of being; the world, a birth, and also a name of Siva.
(TG) Bhikshu {Sans}. In Pali Bikkhu. The name given to the first followers of Sakyamuni Buddha. Lit., mendicant scholar. The Sanskrit Chinese Dictionary, explains the term correctly by dividing Bhikshus into two classes of Sramanas (Buddhist monks and priests), viz ., esoteric mendicants who control their nature by the (religious) law, and exoteric mendicants who control their nature by diet; and it adds, less correctly: every true Bhikshu is supposed to work miracles.
(WG) Bhikshus, religious mendicants, or mendicant scholars among the Buddhists. There are two sorts, those who control themselves by religion and those who control themselves by the nature of their foods. At one time they were supposed to be wonder-workers.
(SKs) Bhikshu, Bhikshuni A Bhikshu is one who has renounced the world of desire and illusion and who devotes his life entirely to things of a spiritual and lofty nature. A Buddhist Bhikshu is one who follows a stricter code of precepts than does the Upasaka.
The object of this chapter is not to cover all the Sanskrit words found in The Secret Doctrine, but to clarify and explain those which are the most important, because the most current in Theosophical literature. Bhikshuni is the feminine form of Bhikshu. Both words are derived from the verb-root bhiksh — to wish to share, or to partake, to beg.
(WG) Bhima, son of Vayu the god of the wind; presiding deity of the air, allegorically representing power; a Vidarbhan king; the higher nature of man. (Literally, terrible
(GH) Bhima The second son of Kunti by the god of the wind, Vayu. All through the Mahabharata the remarkable achievements of Bhima provide entertaining reading: his feats of valor and strength are unsurpassable, especially those performed with his enormous club. He shared with Arjuna the honors of valorous exploits in the great conflict, in which the Pandavas were finally victorious. (Meaning of the word itself: the terrible. Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 3)
(WG) Bhishma, the grandsire (grandfather’s step-brother) of both the Kauravas and the Pandavas, allegorically representing the lower nature of man. (Literally, horrible
(GH) Bhishma The son of king Santanu and the river-goddess Ganga. Although the rightful heir to the throne of the Kurus, he relinquished the kingdom so that the children of his father’s second wife, Satyavati might rule instead, but he remained the protector to the throne. Thus he was the ancestor of both the Kauravas and the Pandavas (referred to in the text as the grandsire of the Kurus). He was persuaded to side with the sons of Dhritarashtra and was made the commander-in-chief. He was mortally wounded on the tenth day of the conflict, but as he had been granted the boon to terminate his life whenever he wished, Bhishma remained alive for 58 days and instructed Yudhishthira in the duties of a king. (Meaning of the word itself: the terrible. Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 2)
(WG) Bhoga, fruition, enjoyment.
(WG) Bhokta, the consciousness pervading the Buddhi, and which appears as conscious beings.
(TG) Bhons {Tibe}. The followers of the old religion of the Aborigines of Tibet; of pre-buddhistic temples and ritualism; the same as Dugpas, red caps, though the latter appellation usually applies only to sorcerers.
(FY) Bhon, religion of the aborigines of Tibet.
(TG) Bhrantidarsanatah {Sans}. Lit., false comprehension or apprehension something conceived of on false appearances as a mayavic, illusionary form.
(WG) Bhrantidarsanatah, false perception, the perception of one who moves (or thinks) unsteadily, without aim.
(TG) Bhrigu {Sans}. One of the great Vedic Rishis. He is called Son by Manu, who confides to him his Institutes. He is one of the Seven Prajapatis, or progenitors of mankind, which is equivalent to identifying him with one of the creative gods, placed by the Puranas in Krita Yug, or the first age, that of purity. Dr. Wynn Westcott reminds us of the fact that the late and very erudite Dr. Kenealy (who spelt the name Byighoo), made of this Muni (Saint) the fourth, out of his twelve, divine messengers to the World, adding that he appeared in Tibet, A.N. 4800 and that his religion spread to Britain, where his followers raised the mega Lit hic temple of Stonehenge. This, of course, is a hypothesis, based merely on Dr. Kenealy’s personal speculations.
(WG) Bhrigu, the planet Venus; a race of beings described in the Rig-Veda as cherishing fire brought to them by the wind, or as kindling fire from the aranis; that one of the ten Maharshis from whom these beings descended. It in some sense gives a clue to the use and function of Venus in relation to our earth.
(GH) Bhrigu One of the most celebrated of the Vedic Rishis or Sages, regarded as the ancestor of the Bhargavas (in which race Parasu-Rama was born). He is known as one of the ten Prajapatis (or mind-born sons of Brahma — regarded as the fathers of the human race). He is also regarded as one of the nine great Rishis (in the Vishnu-Purana). The Laws of Manu were confided to Bhrigu, and Manu called him his son. Some hymns in the Rig-Veda are attributed to the Rishi. ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 74)
(WG) Bhuh, the world.
(TG) Bhumi {Sans}. The earth, called also Prithivi.
(WG) Bhumi, the earth. See also Bhuh.
(TG) Bhuranyu {Sans}. The rapid or the swift. Used of a missile — an equivalent also of the Greek Phoroneus.
(TG) Bhur-Bhuya {Sans}. A mystic incantation, as Om, Bhur, Bhuva, Sway, meaning Om, earth, sky, heaven This is the exoteric explanation.
(TG) Bhur-loka {Sans}. One of the 14 lokas or worlds in Hindu Pantheism; our Earth.
(WG) Bhurloka, the place of earth, the terrestrial world.
(WG) Bhuta, an element; created being, elemental, ghost, goblin, imp, demon, phantom, elementary.
(OG) Bhuta(s) — {Sans} The past participle of the verb-root bhu, meaning to be, or to become; hence bhutas literally means has beens — entities that have lived and passed on. The bhutas are shells from which all that is spiritual and intellectual has fled: all that was the real entity has fled from this shell, and naught is left but a decaying astral corpse. The bhutas are the spooks, ghosts, simulacra, reliquiae, of dead men; in other words, the astral dregs and remnants of human beings. They are the shades of the ancients, the pale and ghostly phantoms living in the astral world, or the astral copies of the men that were; and the distinction between the bhuta and the kama-rupa is very slight.
Bereft of all that pertains to the real entity, the genuine man, the bhuta is as much a corpse in the astral realms as is the decaying physical body left behind at physical death; and consequently, astral or psychical intercourse of any kind with these shells is productive only of evil. The bhutas, although belonging in the astral world, are magnetically attracted to physical localities similar in type to the remnants of impulses still inhering in them. The bhuta of a drunkard is attracted to wine cellars and taverns; the bhuta of one who has lived a lewd life is attracted to localities sympathetic to it; the thin and tenuous bhuta of a good man is similarly attracted to less obnoxious and evil places. All over the ancient world and throughout most of even the modern world these eidola or images of dead men have been feared and dreaded, and relations of any kind with them have been consistently and universally avoided. ( See also Eidolon)
(GH) Bhutas The decaying remnants of corpses in the astral world — the real part of man having dropped off these grossest portions of its former vehicle; hence phantoms or ‘shells’, the eidola or shades of the ancients. They are popularly believed to haunt burial places, etc., for these remnants, although in the astral world (and invisible), are still attracted to the localities of their former physical associations. (The following word is derived from the verbal root:) bhu, to become; literally ‘has-beens’, i.e. , entities that formerly lived and have passed on. Bhagavad-Gita , W. Q. Judge, p. 68)
(IN) Bhuta {Sans} A has-been; ghost or astral shell of a deceased person minus soul and spirit.
(SP) Bhuta — ghost, shade or astral shell of the dead, literally has been; also cosmic element.
(WG) Bhuta-dak, a spirit-medium; one who holds communion with elementals. (A mongrel word, dak usually meaning carriage
(TG) Bhutadi {Sans}. Elementary substances, the origin and the germinal essence of the elements.
(TG) Bhutan. A country of heretical Buddhists and Lamaists beyond Sikkhim, where rules the Dharma Raja, a nominal vassal of the Dalai Lama.
(TG) Bhuta-sarga {Sans}. Elemental or incipient Creation, i.e ., when matter was several degrees less material than it is now.
(WG) Bhutatma, the vital soul, or elemental self, as opposed to Kshetrajna. ( bhuta , elemental; atma, self,
(TG) Bhuhta-vidya {Sans}. The art of exorcising, of treating and curing demoniac possession. Literally, Demon or Ghost-knowledge.
(TG) Bhutesa {Sans}, or Bhuleswara; lit., Lord of beings or of existent lives. A name applied to Vishnu, to Brahma and Krishna.
(TG) Bhuts {Sans}. Bhuta: Ghosts, phantoms. To call them demons, as do the Orientalists, is incorrect. For, if on the one hand, a Bhuta is a malignant spirit which haunts cemeteries, lurks in trees, animates dead bodies, and deludes and devours human beings, in popular fancy, in India in Tibet and China, by Bhutas are also meant heretics who besmear their bodies with ashes, or Shaiva ascetics (Siva being held in India for the King of Bhutas).
(WG) Bhuvah, sky.
(TG) Bhuya-loka {Sans}. One of the 14 worlds.
(TG) Bhuyana {Sans}. A name of Rudra or Siva, one of the Indian Trimurti (Trinity). WW Biblical Translation When we come to the study of cosmogony, later, after we have finished our definitions, it will be very interesting to point out the meaning of the words employed here, and how they can be used in their different senses. Ancient Hebrew, like all old languages, was written without any vowels. The ‘points’ by which the words are now read, by which the sense is given, are of far later development, and arose because the ancient Hebrew, with the passage of time, became a dead language and some means was needed to fix the pronunciation and division of the letters into words. For instance, take this, being the first words in the English translation of Genesis: nthbggnnnggdcrtdthhvnndtrth As ancient Hebrew was written in an exactly similar fashion, you see the need of some means of distinguishing what this tremendous file of letters might mean. So what did they do? According to tradition, according to the learned men of the day, they began to set forth, found, a school of commentators, a school of critics, and they began to ‘point’ these letters. They are called the Masoretic points, from the system called Massorah, or the literary efforts of these early commentators of the Hebrew scriptures. The Massorah was probably only fully completed between the 5th and 9th centuries after the reputed birth of Jesus. One of the principal things to remember here is: how did they know that their interpretation was always right? Considering a row of letters like that above, the Hebrew records were practically endless, going on and on, line after line, throughout the scrolls, and almost any reading might have been put in by changing the vowel points. So when we come to study the question of the cosmogony of the book of Genesis, as set forth in the Hebrew, we will see that there are different ways of reading these words, and that different constructions and different meanings may be drawn from them, by changing the vowel points. If one construction is good, with the consonants, another construction is good, and providing it is consistent, and coherent with the text, and is not offensive to good sense nor any faculty of judgment we have, there is as much reason to adopt it as there is to adopt that which is not consonant with good sense, and which degrades our conception of the Deity. It is a monstrous idea, at least I so consider it, to think that man was made after the pattern and image of, the Ineffable, imperfect as man is. But consider that a hierarchy is his pattern, and that he is made after the image of those which are above him, as those creatures which are below him are made after his image, and thus a man could truly say: Let us make the lower things in our image, etc. By his life and thought, man does ‘make’ the beings below him. Another favorite method of expression of the Hebrew Bible is that God ‘said’ this and God ‘said’ that. What man believes that God spoke, that God said so and so? No sane man. It was a mode of expression common in ancient times. It is so in Homer, in the Chaldean, Egyptian, and Hindu sacred writings. What man ever believed that Aphrodite fled weeping to her Olympian mansion from the plains of Troy, her white hand stained with the immortal ichor from her veins? Or that Ares, the God of War, was wounded in his fight with Diomed, and bellowed with rage and pain like ten thousand men? (Iliad, v, 330, 860). As poetry, as symbols, as a way of expression, knowing that those who read would probably have the key, and would understand, it is as good a method as any; far better than most, because the graphic figure remains in the mind. For instance, the story of woman being made from the rib of a man — as a story itself, this is grotesque. So seriously was that taken that at one time the medical men of Europe searched for the place of the missing rib and could not find it. Now take the ancient story of the hermaphroditic race as related by Plato in his Symposium, 190, that original man was bisexual, and for their sins Zeus cut them in two, as you will divide an egg with a hair, and that then Apollo closed up the back side. And the ancients, with great logic and consistency pointed to the remnants of physiological organs in us, such as the rudimentary mammae or breasts of man, which through the ages have not disappeared. The principal thing, I believe to keep fixed in the memory is the fact that a hierarchy — and we came to that conclusion in our last study — is not composed of orders of beings one order above another like stairs, but they interpenetrate very much like concentric spheres, qualifying that with the understanding that it is these spheres which interpenetrate — not concentric circles, but concentric spheres. Every order of the hierarchy has its individuality and its personality; in other words is composed of individuals or persons, not necessarily men, but unitary entities. Each works with each, harmoniously, and although the subject is far beyond our present study and we have no time to develop a matter of such magnitude and importance, nevertheless, this thing may be alluded to: the origin of evil. Now you commonly hear the phrase the origin of evil is a matter which has taxed the mightiest intellects of the race. That is a well-formed rhetorical flourish, and it is principally said by those to whom the origin is an abstruse mystery. It was not so considered by the ancients. To the ancients the origin of evil was no more abstruse than the origin of good; but as Christian philosophers, so-called, and Christian theologians could find no explanation for the origin of evil except in God’s will or the devil’s, and the devil’s will ultimately depending from the will of God, they are between the horns of a dilemma. Which shall they choose? If they say that evil exists in the world through the devil, and the devil being ultimately a creature of God, God is then the primal author of evil, and they consider that monstrous. If they say evil comes from God, they come to the same conclusion, and so they are constantly see-sawing back and forth from one to the other, finding either seat very uneasy. Remember that when we refer to the Deity, we say It; we ascribe no sex to our Deity. It is natural that they should say evil and its origin are unexplainable, and that they have taxed the mightiest intellects of humanity.
Now in all discussions certain things must be taken for granted. In all mathematical problems there must be axioms, there must be certain mathematical postulates; otherwise we arrive nowhere. For instance, in trigonometry certain axioms of geometry are laid down which prove themselves by their inherent reasonableness. Working on those axioms, the relations of lines to each other and of lines to curves are dealt with; but we could do nothing, in the only really exact science that we have, unless there were certain principles, axioms, first accepted. In the same way we cannot consider anything with precision in any of our studies unless we have certain axioms upon which all agree. For instance, that a thing which is endless cannot have one end and have no other end; that the ultimate tribunal of proof is in man, that it is not in dogmatic authority, that it is not in prejudice nor in theories, but that each must ultimately settle within his own mind what he will accept. The principle holds even with the most bigoted and rigid Roman Catholic. He must accept as a matter of faith and belief that the Pope is the vicegerent of God on earth, but he uses his judgment in deciding. Despite himself he uses the same faculty as the man who rejects the Church and the Pope and the whole scheme of Christian theology. It is simply a matter of degree. Consequently in examining anything like our present subject we must take for granted that the world exists; later we will examine whether it is illusion or reality. We must take for granted that in the world there is heterogeneity. We see it around us. Therefore as the world is one, but diverse in its manifestations; and as we find that humanity is one, but multiple in its manifestations; as we find that man is one, but dual or triple or sextuple [septuple?] in his nature, here we come to the origin of discord which men commonly call evil. What causes evil or discord between man and man? Usually misunderstanding. What causes evil in the Universe? For instance, two spheres will meet, and two worlds will crumble into incandescent dust. Shall we say it is a fault in the celestial mechanics? Shall we ascribe it to the Deity, say the Deity is at fault, or say the origin of evil is in God? I think not. We may talk about the law of gravitation, but we know there is some logical cause for those spheres meeting. We also know that when two men meet and quarrel there is some cause, and the ultimate cause is in the will and intelligence. I think it was Col. Robert Ingersoll who spoke of the native cruelties of the world; as he expressed it, every mouth a slaughterhouse, and every stomach a tomb. It is a graphic expression of the way nature preys on itself, and it expresses the same idea that I think Tennyson does when he speaks of the red fangs of nature — nature red in tooth and claw. A sensitive heart feels it, but we do not like to think about it, and we turn away. But it has to be faced, and these problems and the truths of Theosophy are as capable of exact explanation or demonstration as are the problems of mathematics.
(TG) Bifrost {Nors}. A bridge built by the gods to protect Asgard. On it the third Sword-god, known as Heimdal or Riger, stands night and day girded with his sword, for he is the watchman selected to protect Asgard, the abode of gods. Heimdal is the Scandinavian Cherubim with the flaming sword, which turned every way to keep the way of the tree of life.
(MO) Bifrost, Bafrast, Bilrast {Nors} (bee-frost, bayv-rast, beel-rast) The rainbow bridge between men and gods
(TG) Bihar Gyalpo {Tibe}. A king deified by the Dugpas. A patron over all their religious buildings.
(OG) Bija (sometimes Vija) — {Sans} This word signifies seed or life-germ, whether of animals or of plants. But esoterically its signification is far wider and incomparably more abstruse, and therefore difficult to understand without proper study. The term is used in esotericism to designate the original or causal source and vahana or vehicle of the mystic impulse or urge of life, or of lives, to express itself or themselves when the time for such self-expression arrives after a pralaya, or after an obscuration, or again, indeed, during manvantara. Whether it be a kosmos or universe, or the reappearance of god, deva, man, animal, plant, mineral, or elemental, the seed or life-germ from and out of which any one of these arises is technically called bija, and the reference here is almost as much to the life-germ or vehicle itself as it is to the self-urge for manifestation working through the seed or life-germ. Mystically and psychologically, the appearance of an avatara, for instance, is due to an impulse arising in Maha-Siva, or in Maha-Vishnu (according to circumstances), to manifest a portion of the divine essence, in either case, when the appropriate world period arrives for the appearance of an avatara. Or again, when from the chela is born the initiate during the dread trials of initiation, the newly-arisen Master is said to have been born from the mystic bija or seed within his own being. The doctrine connected with this word bija in its occult and esoteric aspects is far too profound to receive more than a cursory and superficial treatment.
(SKs) Bija A seed or life-germ. All the entities of the kingdoms of Nature arise from a Bija. In Occultism an Avatara is said to be born from the mystic Bija or compassionate seed or impulse which arises in the heart of one of the gods who watch over the spiritual welfare of humanity. An Initiate may also be said to be born from the divine Bija within his own being.
(SP) Bija — seed, or life-germ.
(FY) Bikshu, a religious mendicant and ascetic who suppresses all desire and is constantly occupied in devotion; a Buddhist monk.
(MO) Bilskirner {Nors} (beel-sheer-ner) [flashing, shining] Valhalla’s shelf
(TG) Binah {Hebr}. Understanding. The third of the 10 Sephiroth, the third of the Supernal Triad; a female potency, corresponding to the letter he of the Tetragrammaton IHVH. Binah is called AIMA, the Supernal Mother, and the great Sea. [w.w.w.]
(WG) Binah {Hebr}, understanding. The third of the ten Sephiroth of the Kabalah. The third of the supernal triad. A female potency.
(VS) Bird of Life (I 12) [[p. 5]] Says the same Nada-Bindu, A Yogi who bestrides the Hamsa (thus contemplates on Aum) is not affected by Karmic influences or crores of sins.
(TG) Birs Nimrud {Chald}. Believed by the Orientalists to be the site of the Tower of Babel. The great pile of Birs Nimrud is near Babylon. Sir H. Rawlinson and several Assyriologists examined the excavated ruins and found that the tower consisted of seven stages of brick-work, each stage of a different colour, which shows that the temple was devoted to the seven planets. Even with its three higher stages or floors in ruins, it still rises now 154 feet above the level of the plain
(PV) Bitol {quiche-maya} One of six hypostases of Cabahuil or god-Seven. More especially associated with the three other hypostases: Tzakol, Alom, and Cajolom; these four are regent gods of the 4 cosmic angles; their mediation produces light. A class of builder gods.
(TG) Black Dwarfs . The name of the Elves of Darkness, who creep about in the dark caverns of the earth and fabricate weapons and utensils for their divine fathers, the Aesir or Ases. Called also Black Elves.
(TG) Black Fire A Kabbalistic term for Absolute Light and Wisdom — black because it is incomprehensible to our finite intellects.
(TG) Black Magic Sorcery; necromancy, or the raising of the dead, and other selfish abuses of abnormal powers. This abuse may be unintentional; yet it is still — black magic whenever anything is produced phenomenally simply for one’s own gratification.
(KT) Black Magic. Sorcery; necromancy, or the raising of the dead and other selfish abuses of abnormal powers. This abuse may be unintentional; still it has to remain black magic whenever anything is produced phenomenally simply for one’s own gratification.
(WG) Black Magic, sorcery, necromancy, calling back of the dead, selfish use of occult power of any sort. For instance, the use of hypnotism, magnetism, mesmerism, or the like for any purpose for one’s own ends, whether those ends be apparently good or evil, partakes of the nature of black magic. The development of telepathic suggestion will lead to black magic, inasmuch as it can be used for the personal ends of the operator.
Blavatsky, Helena P. — see biography and books on this site
(MO) Bleknabb {Nors} (blayk-neb) [pale beak] Eagle, the giant Rasvalg
(VS) midnight Blossom of Buddha (I 33) [[p. 13]] Adeptship the blossom of Bodhisattva.
(VS) they Blossom forth (III 21) [[p. 63]] A reference to human passions and sins which are slaughtered during the trials of the novitiate, and serve as well-fertilized soil in which holy germs or seeds of transcendental virtues may germinate. Pre-existing or innate virtues, talents or gifts are regarded as having been acquired in a previous birth. Genius is without exception a talent or aptitude brought from another birth.
(TG) B ‘ ne Alhim. or Beni Elohim {Hebr}. Sons of God, literally or more correctly Sons of the gods, as Elohim is the plural of Eloah. A group of angelic powers referable by analogy to the Sephira Hod. [w.w.w.]
(TG) Boat of the Sun. This sacred solar boat was called Sekti, and it was steered by the dead. With the Egyptians the highest exaltation of the Sun was in Aries and the depression in Libya. See Pharaoh, A blue light — which is the Sun’s Son — is seen streaming from the bark. The ancient Egyptians taught that the real colour of the Sun was blue, and Macrobius also states that his colour is of a pure blue before he reaches the horizon and after he disappears below. It is curious to note in this relation the fact that it is only since 1881 that physicists and astronomers discovered that our Sun is really blue. Professor Langley devoted many years to ascertaining the fact. Helped in this by the magnificent scientific apparatus of physical science, he has succeeded finally in proving that the apparent yellow-orange colour of the Sun is due only to the effect of absorption exerted by its atmosphere of vapours, chiefly metallic; but that in sober truth and reality, it is not a white Sun but a blue one, i.e ., something which the Egyptian priests had discovered without any known scientific instruments, many thousands of years ago!
(TG) Boaz {Hebr}. The great-grandfather of David. The word is from B, meaning in, and oz strength, a symbolic name of one of the pillars at the porch of King Solomon’s temple. [w.w.w.]
(TG) Bodha-Bodhi {Sans}. Wisdom-knowledge.
(SKv) Bodha, Bodhi Bodha is innate understanding and intelligence, the capacity of spiritual perception; derived from the verb-root budh — to awaken, to enlighten. Bodhi, derived from the same root, is ‘illumination,’ ‘perfect wisdom.’ The Bodhi-tree, under which legend says the Buddha attained perfect enlightenment, is mystically that source of wisdom which a man who meditates on the divinity within may attain. In India this Bodhi-tree or Tree of Wisdom is symbolized by the sacred fig-tree ( Ficus religiosa ) .
(TG) Bodhi or Sambodhi {Sans}. Receptive intelligence, in contradistinction to Buddhi, which is the potentiality of intelligence.
(VS) Bodhi [[p. 29]] True, divine Wisdom.
(OG) Bodhi — {Sans} This word comes from the root budh, meaning to awaken. It is the state when man has so emptied his mind that it is filled only with the self itself, with the selfless selfhood of the eternal. Then he realizes the ineffable visions of reality, of pure truth. The man who reaches this state is called a buddha, and the organ in and by which it is manifested, is termed buddhi.
(SP) Bodhi — awakening or enlightenment.
(TG) Bodhidharma {Sans}. Wisdom-religion; or the wisdom contained in Dharma (ethics). Also the name of a great Arhat Kshatriya (one of the warrior-caste), the son of a king. It was Panyatara, his guru, who gave him the name Bodhidharma to mark his understanding (bodhi) of the Law (dharma Bodhidharma, who flourished in the sixth century, travelled to China, whereto he brought a precious relic, namely, the almsbowl of the Lord Buddha.
(SKv) Bodhi-dharma, Bodhisattva Bodhi-dharma is ‘wisdom-religion,’ or the spiritual ethics and laws and truths that have existed throughout eternity. Theosophy may be called Bodhi-dharma. The original source of all the great religions and philosophies of the world is Bodhi-dharma. A Bodhi-sattva is ‘one whose very essence or sattva has become an incarnation of wisdom or Bodhi ,’ in other words, a human Ego who has become fully conscious of its inner divinity. In exoteric Buddhism a Bodhisattva stands one step below a Buddha.
(TG) Bodhi Druma {Sans}. The Bo or Bodhi tree; the tree of knowledge, the Pippala or ficus religiosa in botany. It is the tree under which Sakyamuni meditated for seven years and then reached Buddhaship. It was originally 400 feet high, it is claimed; but when Hiouen-Tsang saw it, about the year 640 of our era, it was only 50 feet high. Its cuttings have been carried all over the Buddhist world and are planted in front of almost every Vihara or temple of fame in China, Siam, Ceylon, and Tibet.
(TG) Bodhisattva {Sans}. Lit., he, whose essence (sattva) has become intelligence (bodhi) ; those who need but one more incarnation to become perfect Buddhas, i.e ., to be entitled to Nirvana. This, as applied to Manushi (terrestrial) Buddhas. In the metaphysical sense, Bodhisattva is a title given to the sons of the celestial Dhyani Buddhas.
(VS) Bodhisattva (III 33) [[p. 71]] A Bodhisattva is, in the hierarchy, less than a perfect Buddha. In the exoteric parlance these two are very much confused. Yet the innate and right popular perception, owing to that self-sacrifice, has placed a Bodhisattva higher in its reverence than a Buddha.
(VS) Bodhisattvas twain (III 26) [[p. 66]] In the Northern Buddhist symbology, Amitabha or Boundless Space (Parabrahm) is said to have in his paradise two Bodhisattvas Kwan-shi-yin and Tashishi who ever radiate light over the three worlds where they lived, including our own (vide 27), in order to help with this light (of knowledge) in the instruction of Yogis, who will, in their turn, save men. Their exalted position in Amitabha’s realm is due to deeds of mercy performed by the two, as such Yogis, when on earth, says the allegory.
(FY) Boddhisatwas, Egos evolving towards Buddhahood.
(WG) Bodhisattva, one who has perfect wisdom as his essence, and who will attain in only one or a certain number of births to the state of a Buddha; the terrestrial correspondent of a Dhyani-Buddha, a human Buddha.
(OG) Bodhisattva — {Sans} A compound word: literally he whose essence (sattva) has become intelligence (bodhi). As explained exoterically, a bodhisattva means one who in another incarnation or in a few more incarnations will become a buddha. A bodhisattva from the standpoint of the occult teachings is more than that. When a man, a human being, has reached the state where his ego becomes conscious, fully so, of its inner divinity, becomes clothed with the buddhic ray — where, so to say, the personal man has put on the garments of inner immortality in actuality, on this earth, here and now — that man is a bodhisattva. His higher principles have nearly reached nirvana. When they do so finally, such a man is a buddha, a human buddha, a manushya-buddha. Obviously, if such a bodhisattva were to reincarnate, in the next incarnation or in a very few future incarnations thereafter, he would be a manushya-buddha. A buddha, in the esoteric teaching, is one whose higher principles can learn nothing more. They have reached nirvana and remain there; but the spiritually awakened personal man, the bodhisattva, the person made semi-divine to use popular language, instead of choosing his reward in the nirvana of a less degree, remains on earth out of pity and compassion for inferior beings, and becomes what is called a nirmanakaya. In a very mystical part of the esoteric philosophy, a bodhisattva is the representative on earth of a dhyani-buddha or celestial buddha — in other words, one who has become an incarnation or expression of his own divine monad.
(SP) Bodhisattva — a being on the path to enlightenment or buddhahood.
(TG) Bodhyanga {Sans}. Lit., the seven branches of knowledge or understanding. One of the 37 categories of the Bodhi pakchika dharma, comprehending seven degrees of intelligence (esoterically, seven states of consciousness), and these are (1) Smriti, memory (2) Dharma pravitchaya, correct understanding or discrimination of the Law; (3) Virya, energy (4) Priti, spiritual joy (5) Prasrabdhi, tranquillity or quietude; (6) Samadhi, ecstatic contemplation and (7) Upeksha absolute indifference.
(MO) Bodvild {Nors} (beud-vild) Daughter of King Nidud
(VS) lunar Body (I 29) [[p. 11]] The astral form produced by the Kamic principle, the Kama rupa or body of desire.
(VS) mind- Body (I 30) [[p. 11]] Manasa rupa . The first refers to the astral or personal Self; the second to the individuality or the reincarnating Ego whose consciousness on our plane or the lower Manas has to be paralyzed.
(TG) Boehme (Jacob). A great mystic philosopher, one of the most prominent Theosophists of the mediaeval ages. He was born about 1575 at Old Seidenburg, some two miles from Gorlitz (Silesia), and died in 1624, at nearly fifty years of age. In his boyhood he was a common shepherd, and, after learning to read and write in a village school, became an apprentice to a poor shoemaker at Gorlitz. He was a natural clairvoyant of most wonderful powers. With no education or acquaintance with science he wrote works which are now proved to be full of scientific truths; but then, as he says himself, what he wrote upon, he saw it as in a great Deep in the Eternal. He had a thorough view of the universe, as in a chaos, which yet opened itself in him, from time to time, as in a young plant. He was a thorough born Mystic, and evidently of a constitution which is most rare; one of those fine natures whose material envelope impedes in no way the direct, even if only occasional, intercommunion between the intellectual and the spiritual Ego. It is this Ego which Jacob Boehme, like so many other untrained mystics, mistook for God; Man must acknowledge, he writes, that his knowledge is not his own, but from God, who manifests the Ideas of Wisdom to the Soul of Man, in what measure he pleases. Had this great Theosophist mastered Eastern Occultism he might have expressed it otherwise. He would have known then that the god who spoke through his poor uncultured and untrained brain, was his own divine Ego, the omniscient Deity within himself, and that what that Deity gave out was not in what measure he pleased, but in the measure of the capacities of the mortal and temporary dwelling IT informed.
(KT) Boehme (Jacob). A mystic and great philosopher, one of the most prominent Theosophists of the mediaeval ages. He was born about 1575 at Old Diedenberg, some two miles from Gorlitz (Silesia), and died in 1624,being nearly fifty years old. When a boy he was a common shepherd, and, after learning to read and write in a village school, became an apprentice to a poor shoemaker at Gorlitz. He was a natural clairvoyant of the most wonderful power. With no education or acquaintance with science he wrote works which are now proved to be full of scientific truths; but these, as he himself says of what he wrote, he saw as in a Great Deep in the Eternal. He had a thorough view of the universe, as in chaos, which yet opened itself in him, from time to time, as in a young planet, he says. He was a thorough born mystic, and evidently of a constitution which is most rare; one of those fine natures whose material envelope impedes in no way the direct, even if only occasional, intercommunication between the intellectual and spiritual Ego. It is this Ego which Jacob Boehme, as so many other untrained mystics, mistook for God. Man must acknowledge, he writes, that his knowledge is not his own, but from God, who manifests the Ideas of Wisdom to the Soul of Man in what measure he pleases. Had this great Theosophist been born 300 years later he might have expressed it otherwise. He would have known that the God who spoke through his poor uncultured and untrained brain was his own Divine Ego, the omniscient Deity within himself, and that what that Deity gave out was not what measure he pleased, but in the measure of the capacities of the mortal and temporary dwelling IT informed.
(PV) Bolon ti ku {quiche-maya} The god-Nine, the Nine Lords of the Night, who cooperate with god-Thirteen (Oxlahunoc) in cosmic work. The Nine Lords of the Night are headed by the old Fire god, the oldest in the Maya pantheon, who is the divine nahual of Vucup Hunahpu, or the Seven Ahpu.
(TG) Bona-Oma, or Bona Dea. A Roman goddess, the patroness of female Initiates and Occultists. Called also Fauna after her father Faunus. She was worshipped as a prophetic and chaste divinity, and her cult was confined solely to women, men not being allowed to even pronounce her name. She revealed her oracles only to women, and the ceremonies of her Sanctuary (a grotto in the Aventine) were conducted by the Vestals, every 1st of May. Her aversion to Men was so great that no male person was permitted to approach the house of the consuls where her festival was sometimes held, and even the portraits and the busts of men were carried out for the time from the building. Clodius, who once profaned such a sacred festival by entering the house of Caesar where it was held, in a female disguise, brought grief upon himself. Flowers and foliage decorated her temple and women made libations from a vessel (mellarium) full of milk. It is not true that the mellarium contained wine, as asserted by some writers, who being men thus tried to revenge themselves.
(TG) Bonati, Guido. A Franciscan monk, born at Florence in the 13th century and died in 1306. He became an astrologer and alchemist, but failed as a Rosicrucian adept. He returned after this to his monastery.
(TG) Bono, Peter. A Lombardian; a great adept in the Hermetic Science, who travelled to Persia to study Alchemy. Returning from his voyage fie settled in Istria in 1330, and became famous as a Rosicrucian. A Calabrian monk named Lacinius is credited with having published in 1702 a condensed version of Bono’s works on the transmutation of metals. There is, however, more of Lacinius than of Bono in the work. Bono was a genuine adept and an Initiate; and such do not leave their secrets behind them in MSS.
(TG) Boodhasp {Chald}. An alleged Chaldean; but in esoteric reaching it Buddhist (a Bodhisattva), from the East, who was the founder of the esoteric school of Neo-Sabeism, and whose secret rite of baptism passed bodily into the Christian rite of the same name. For almost three centuries before our era, Buddhist monks overran the whole country of Syria, made their way into the Mesopotamian valley and visited even Ireland. the name Feyho and Faho of the Codex Nazaraeus is but a corruption of Fho, Fo and Pho, the name which the Chinese, Tibetans and even Nepaulese often give to Buddha.
(TG) Book of the Dead. An ancient Egyptian ritualistic and occult work attributed to Thot-Hemnes. Found ill the coffins of ancient mummies
(WG) Book of the Dead, an Egyptian ritualistic work found on mummies, and parts of which are given in Egyptian paintings. It represents in great part the supposed trial of the soul after the death of the body, and in fact refers to the imperishable records of a man’s life in the Astral Light, and the effects in nature of his thoughts and acts, by all of which he is self-judged.
(TG) Book of the Keys. An ancient Kabbalistic work.
(KT) Book of the Keys. An ancient Kabalistic work. The original is no longer extant, though there may be spurious and disfigured copies and forgeries of it.
(TG) Borj {Pers}. The Mundane Mountain, a volcano or fire-mountain; the same as the Indian Meru.
(TG) 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 much 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 recognised 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.
(TG) Borsippa {Chald}. The planet-tower, wherein Bel was worshipped in the days when astrolaters were the greatest astronomers. It was dedicated to Nebo, god of Wisdom.
(TG) Both-al (Irish). The Both-al of the Irish is the descendant and copy of the Greek Batylos and the Beth-el of Canaan, the house of God .
(TG) Bragadini, Marco Antonio. A Venetian Rosicrucian of great achievements, an Occultist and Kabbalist who was decapitated in 1595 in Bavaria, for making gold.
(TG) Bragi {Nors}. The god of New Life, of the re-incarnation of nature and man. He is called “the divine singer” without spot or blemish. He is represented as gliding in the ship of the Dwarfs of Death during the death of nature (pralaya), lying asleep on the deck with his golden stringed harp near him and dreaming the dream of life. When the vessel crosses the threshold of Nain, the Dwarf of Death, Bragi awakes and sweeping the strings of his harp, sings a song that echoes over all the Worlds, a song describing the rapture of existence, and awakens dumb, sleeping nature out of her long death-like sleep.
(MO) Brage, Bragi {Nors} (brah-geh) An Ase: poetic inspiration, wisdom
(TG) Brahma {Sans}. The student must distinguish between Brahma the neuter, and Brahma, the male creator of the Indian Pantheon. The former, Brahma or Brahman, is the impersonal, supreme and uncognizable Principle of the Universe from the essence of which all emanates, and into which all returns, which is incorporeal, immaterial, unborn, eternal, beginningless and endless. It is all-pervading, animating the highest god as well as the smallest mineral atom. Brahma, on the other hand, the male and the alleged Creator, exists periodically in his manifestation only, and then again goes into pralaya, i.e., disappears and is annihilated.
(KT) Brahm {Sans} The student must distinguish between the neuter Brahma, and the male Creator of the Indian Pantheon, Brahma. The former Brahma or Brahman is the impersonal, Supreme, and uncognizable Soul of the Universe, from the essence of which all emanates, and into which all returns; which is incorporeal, immaterial, unborn, eternal, beginningless and endless. It is all-pervading, animating the highest god as well as the smallest mineral atom. Brahma, on the other hand, the male and the alleged Creator, exists in his manifestation periodically only, and passes into pralaya, i. e., disappears and is annihilated as periodically.
(FY) Brahma, the Hinduc Deity which personifies the active cosmic energy.
(WG) Brahma, the Absolute, Parabrahmam.
(WG) Brahma, the creator; the impersonal universe-pervading spirit personified under this name; the lord or ruler over a Brahmanda, at the end of whose “life” that system is resolved into its final elements and reabsorbed by Parabrahmam.
(OG) Brahma — {Sans} A word of which the root, brih, means “expansion.” It stands for the spiritual energy-consciousness side of our solar universe, i.e., our solar system, and the Egg of Brahma is that solar system.
A Day of Brahma or a maha-manvantara is composed of seven rounds, a period of 4,320,000,000 terrestrial years; this period is also called a kalpa. A Night of Brahma, the planetary rest period, which is also called the parinirvanic period, is of equal length.
Seven Days of Brahma make one solar kalpa; or, in other words, seven planetary cycles, each cycle consisting of seven rounds (or seven planetary manvantaras), form one solar manvantara.
One Year of Brahma consists of 360 Divine Days, each day being the duration of a planet’s life, i.e., of a planetary chain of seven globes. The Life of Brahma (or the life of the universal system) consists of one hundred Divine Years, i.e., 4,320,000,000 years times 36,000 x 2.
The Life of Brahma is half ended: that is, fifty of his years are gone — a period of 155,520,000,000,000 of our years have passed away since our solar system, with its sun, first began its manvantaric course. There remain, therefore, fifty more such Years of Brahma before the system sinks into rest or pralaya. As only half of the evolutionary journey is accomplished, we are, therefore, at the bottom of the kosmic cycle, i.e., on the lowest plane.
(GH) Brahma The first aspect of the Hindu Trimurti (or triad), the emanator or ‘creator’ — the other two being Vishnu, the ‘preserver,’ and Siva, the ‘destroyer,’ or rather the ‘regenerator.’ The idea of the Trimurti is not found in the Vedas, nor does the name Brahma occur; the active creator is therein known as Hiranyagarbha, or Prajapati: in later times the term Prajapati was bestowed on Brahma (meaning ‘the Progenitor’). In The Laws of Manu (Manava-Dharma-Sastra) it is said that the supreme soul, the selfexistent lord created the waters and deposited in them a seed, which seed became a golden egg (Hiranyagarbha) in which he himself was born as Brahma, the progenitor of all the worlds. The idea of the Trimurti is of course present in the epic poems: Brahma is represented as springing from the lotus which arose from the navel of Vishnu. From Brahma then rise the mind-born sons (the Prajapatis) who people the world. In the Puranas (especially in Vishnu-Purana), Vishnu becomes more prominent than Brahma: the latter is represented as being in its totality the aspect of Prakriti, both evolved and unevolved (Mulaprakriti), and also the aspect of Spirit, and the aspect of Time.
Brahma is in fact the vehicle or sheath of Brahman: the spiritual evolving or developing energy-consciousness of a solar system, i.e., the Logos, deriving from Brahman. It should be pointed out that the Sanskrit word Brahman is both masculine and neuter, and therefore has two meanings: in order to distinguish these, in Theosophical literature the masculine is spelled Brahma (the nominative form), whereas the neuter is spelled Brahman .
“Brahma, as ‘the germ of unknown Darkness,’ is the material from which all evolves and develops ‘as the web from the spider, as foam from the water,’ etc. . . . Brahma ‘expands’ and becomes the Universe woven out of his own substance.” ( Secret Doctrine, I, p. 83). (The following word is derived from the verbal root:) brih, to expand, to grow, also meaning to fructify Judge, p. 56 — where it should be spelled Brahman. See
(SK)o Brahma (masculine), Brahmanda Brahma is the Self or Hierarch of a Solar System. The Solar System or imbodiment of Brahma is often spoken of as ‘the Egg of Brahma’ or Brahmanda (a compound of Brahma and anda — egg). ‘A Day of Brahma’ consists of seven Rounds of the planetary chain, or what is called a Planetary Manvantara, a period of 4,320,000,000 terrestrial years. ‘A Night of Brahma’ is of equal duration. ‘A Week of Brahma’ or seven Planetary Manvantaras make one Solar Manvantara. ‘One Year of Brahma’ equals 360 Divine Days or Planetary Manvantaras. The ‘Life of Brahma’ consists of 100 Divine Years or Solar Manvantaras, a period of 311,040,000,000,000 terrestrial years. There are as many Brahmas as there are solar systems.
(SKs) Brahma, Vach, Viraj The ancient Hindu scriptures tell us in their poetic manner that the Universe was sung into being by the inspiration arising in the divine mind of Brahma, the Father of the Universe. This Divine Thought in Brahma’s mind was carried by Vach, the Mother of the Universe, or the Divine Voice, or Mystic Sound, and gave rise to Viraj, the Son, or the Divine Word, or the manifested Universe of harmony.
Vach literally means ‘speech’ or ‘word.’ It is often used synonymously with Svara, the ‘Divine Sound,’ and is verily ‘the music of the spheres’ spoken of by Pythagoras, who himself studied in, India. Viraj literally means ‘sovereign,’ ‘splendid,’ derived from the verb-root viraj — to be illustrious, to shine forth. [From Sanskrit Keys to the Wisdom Religion, p. 7 — H. P. Blavatsky tells us that Sanskrit has never been known nor spoken in its true systematized form except by the Initiated Brahmans. This form of Sanskrit was called, as well as by other names, Vach, the mystic speech, signifying the pulsating or vibratory tones that lie latent in its syllables and words. These tones, arranged in a Mantra, are a power in the hands of one who is familiar with the correlations of sounds, numbers, colors, and hierarchies in the Cosmos.]
(IN) Brahma {Sans} Hindu creator god; individualized, periodical generative aspect of Brahman; hierarch of a universe.
(SP) Brahma — the individual or personified aspect of brahman.
(TG) Brahma ‘ s Day. A period of 2,160,000,000 years during which Brahma having emerged out of his golden egg (Hiranyagarbha), creates and fashions the material world (being simply the fertilizing and creative force in Nature). After this period, the worlds being destroyed in turn, by fire and water, he vanishes with objective nature, and then comes Brahma’s Night.
(KT) Brahma’s Day. A period of 2,160,000,000 years, during which Brahma, having emerged out of his Golden Egg (Hiranya Garbha), creates and fashions the material world (for he is simply the fertilizing and creative force in Nature). After this period the worlds being destroyed in turn by fire and water, he vanishes with objective nature; and then comes [[Brahma’s Night.]]
Brahmaivedam Sarvam God is verily all This (the manifested universe)
(WG) Brahma-kalpa, a “day of Brahma,” embracing a period of fourteen manvantaras, together with the sandhis intervening between two Manus, equal in all to 1,000 mahayugas, or 4,320,000,000 solar years.
(TG) Brahma ‘ s Night. A period of equal duration, during which Brahma is said to be asleep. Upon awakening he recommences the process, and this goes on for an AGE of Brahrna composed of alternate “Days”, and “Nights”, and lasting 100 years (of 2,160,000,000 years each). It requires fifteen figures to express the duration of such an age; after the expiration of which the Mahapralaya or the Great Dissolution sets in, and lasts in its turn for the same space of fifteen figures.
(KT) Brahma’s Night. A period of equal duration, in which Brahma is said to be asleep. Upon awakening he recommences the process, and this goes on for an AGE of Brahma composed of alternate “Days” and “Nights,” and lasting for 100 years of 2,160,000,000 each. It requires fifteen figures to express the duration of such an age, after the expiration of which the Mahapralaya or Great Dissolution sets in, and lasts in its turn for the same space of fifteen figures.
(TG) Brahma Prajapati {Sans}. “Brahma, the Progenitor”, literally the “Lord of Creatures”. In this aspect Brahma is the synthesis of the Prajapati or creative Forces.
(TG) Brahmapuri {Sans}. Lit., “the City of Brahma”.
(WG) Brahma-pura, a Vedic term for the heart, also for the body. ( brahma, Brahma; pura, city: city of Brahma
(TG) Brahmaputras {Sans}. The Sons of Brahma.
(WG) Brahma-putras, sons of Brahma.
(WG) Brahma-samadhi, abstract meditation upon Brahma, perfect absorption in thought upon the Supreme Spirit.
(TG) Brahma Vach {Sans}. Male and female Brahma. Vach is also sometimes called the female logos; for Vach means Speech, literally, (See Manu, Book I., and Vishnu Purana
(WG) Brahma Vach, the speech of Brahma, and hence Brahma male and female.
(TG) Brahma Vidya {Sans}. The knowledge, the esoteric science, about the two Brahmas and their true nature.
(KT) Brahm-Vidya {Sans} The knowledge or Esoteric Science about the true nature of the two Brahmas.
(WG) Brahma Vidya, the knowledge of or about Brahman; true knowledge — not literally, but in the sense that if of Brahman it must be true.
(TG) Brahma Viraj. {Sans}. The same: Brahma separating his body into two halves, male and female, creates in them Vach and Viraj. In plainer terms and esoterically, Brahma, the Universe, differentiating, produced thereby material nature, Viraj, and spiritual intelligent Nature, Vach — which is the Logos of Deity or the manifested expression of the eternal divine Ideation.
(WG) Brahma Viraj, almost the same as Brahma Vach ; it is Brahman differentiated into material unintelligent nature and into spiritual intelligent nature.
(TG) Brahmachari {Sans}. A Brahman ascetic; one vowed to celibacy, a monk, virtually, or a religious student.
(FY) Brahmachari, a Brahman ascetic.
(WG) Brahmacharin, an ascetic mendicant who lives under the direction of a spiritual Master and is vowed to celibacy and mendicancy.
(SKs) Brahmacharin One who follows a life of sacred study, a devotee of divine wisdom and learning. Brahmacharin is a compound of brahma — cosmic divinity, or divine wisdom; and charin — ‘one performing,’ derived from the verb-root char — to go along, to perform.
(WG) Brahmacharya, life of religious studentship and holiness.
(GH) Brahmacharya Following a life of philosophic and religious training — usually applicable to the first stage in the life of a Brahmana of ancient times, signifying the state of an unmarried religious student of the Vedas. (Compound Brahman, the Cosmic Spirit — in some cases meaning ‘spiritual wisdom’; charya, conduct). The person following this mode of life is called a Brahmacharin. ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 46)
(SKv) Brahmaivedam sarvam. Verily, all the Universe is Brahman. (Brahmaivedam is a compound of Brahma — the Universal Divinity, eva — verily, and idam — this, the manifested Universe; sarvam means ‘all.’)
(FY) Brahmagnani, one possessed of complete illumination.
(TG) Brahmajnani {Sans}. One possessed of complete Knowledge; an Illuminatus in esoteric parlance.
(TG) Brahman {Sans}. The highest of the four castes in India, one supposed or rather fancying himself, as high among, men, as Brahman, the ABSOLUTE of the Vedantins, is high among, or above the gods.
(FY) Brahman, the highest caste in India; Brahman, the absolute of the Vedantins.
(WG) Brahman, religious devotion, prayer; one who prays, a priest.
(OG) Brahman — {Sans} A word of which the root, brih, means “expansion.” It is that part of the celestial being which first initiates manifestation through the various Brahmas, the expansion of the one into the many. It is what is called the unmanifest Logos. It may also be called the impersonal and uncognizable principle of the universe, and must be sharply distinguished from the masculine Brahma of which there are many in a universe.
Note: In early theosophical literature, as well as in translations of the Hindu writings, Brahman is sometimes spelled Brahma or even Brahm; but this should not be confused with Brahma. ( See also Parabrahman, Brahma)
(GH) Brahman The impersonal and uncognizable Principle of the Universe, implying both the aspect of essential consciousness and that of substance: thus it represents the spiritual background of the Universe, the Cause of all Causes. “The student must distinguish between Brahma the neuter, and Brahma, the male creator of the Indian Pantheon. The former, Brahma or Brahman, is the impersonal, supreme and uncognizable Principle of the Universe from the essence of which all emanates, and into which all returns, which is incorporeal, immaterial, unborn, eternal, beginningless and endless. It is all-pervading, animating the highest god as well as the smallest mineral atom. Brahma, on the other hand, the male and the alleged Creator, exists periodically in his manifestation only, and then again goes into pralaya, i.e., disappears and is annihilated.” ( Theosophical Glossary, H. P. Blavatsky, p. 62)
(GH) Brahman is what is called in Theosophy the Unmanifest Logos: through and from It, therefore, arises Brahma . (The following word is derived from the verbal root:) brih, to expand, to grow. Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 58)
(SK)o Brahman (neuter) The loftiest Hierarch or Divinity of our Kosmos; the SELF, or the summit or the Absolute of this Galactic Universe. There are as many Brahmans or Divine Kosmic Hierarchs as there are Universes in Boundless Infinitude. Brahman is to the Universe what Atman or ‘the Divine Self’ is to man. When Brahman breathes forth, the manifold Brahmas or Selves or Hierarchs of the Solar Systems come into being. Brahman is derived from the verb-root brih — to expand; hence Brahman implies ‘expansion.’
(IN) Brahma(n) {Sans} The impersonal, absolute, ultimate reality; the unmanifest Logos.
(SP) Brahman — the impersonal absolute, or ultimate reality.
(TG) Brahmanas {Sans}. Hindu Sacred Books. Works composed by, and for Brahmans. Commentaries on those portions of the Vedas which were intended for the ritualistic use and guidance of the “twice-born” (Dwija) or Brahmans.
(WG) Brahmana, a class of prose works appended to the Vedas, as the Rig-Veda has the Aitareya-Brahmana and the Kaushitaka-Brahmana; the White Yajur-Veda has the Satapatha-Brahmana; the Black Yajur-Veda has the Taittiriya-Brahmana; the Sama-Veda has eight Brahmanas; and the Atharva-Veda has the Gopatha-Brahmana. They are esoteric keys to the ceremonial magic of the Vedas.
(OG) Brahmana — {Sans} A word having several meanings in Hindu sacred literature. Brahmana is both noun and adjective, as noun signifying a member of the first of the four Vedic classes, and as adjective signifying what belongs to a Brahmana or what is Brahmanical. Secondly, it signifies one of the portions of the Vedic literature, containing rules for the proper usage of the mantras or hymns at sacrifices, explanations in detail of what these sacrifices are, illustrated by legends and old stories.
Another adjective with closely similar meaning is Brahma. An old-fashioned English way of spelling Brahmana is Brahmin.
(GH) Brahmana (often Anglicized as BRAHMAN or BRAHMIN) The highest of the four castes into which the social classes of Hindusthan were divided in post-Vedic times. Originally a Brahmana was one who had been twice-born ( i.e., a dvija, or an initiate), but in decadent times the term came to be used simply as a hereditary prerogative, and hence applied to the members of the priestly caste. ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 127)
(SK)o Brahmana, Kshatriya, Vaisya, Sudra The Brahmanas, Kshatriyas, Vaisyas, and Sudras were the four castes of the early civilization of India. The Brahmanas are the priest-philosophers; the Kshatriyas, the warriors and ruling class; the Vaisyas, the agriculturists, merchants, and business men; the Sudras, the servants and laborers. In archaic times a man became a Brahmana, or verily a devotee of Brahman, by self-conquest, rather than by hereditary right as is the case today. Originally the caste-system referred to different disciplines followed by various types of men. The rigid caste-system based on blood-descent was a later and degraded development.
(SKv) Brahmana, Vaishnava, Saiva These three words are the adjectival forms of Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva. (For explanation of Brahmana The Vaishnavas and Saivas are names of two of the principal sects of modern Hinduism. The Vaishnavas worship Vishnu as their Supreme God, whereas the Saivas worship Siva as their greatest Lord.
(SP) Brahmana — a Brahmin, a member of the priestly class, the first of the four classes; or a Brahamana, a text of the second layer of the Veda.
(TG) Brahmana period {Sans}. One of the four periods into which Vedic literature has been divided by Orientalists.
(FY) Brahmana period, one of the four periods into which the Vedic literature has been divided.
(TG) Brahmanaspati {Sans}. The planet Jupiter; a deity in the Rig-Veda, known in the exoteric works as Brihaspati, whose wife Tara was carried away by Soma (the Moon). This led to a war between the gods and the Asuras.
(WG) Brahmanda, a macrocosm, the mundane egg; a division of infinite space containing the fourteen lokas. ( Brahma, the creator; anda, egg
(TG) Brahmarandhra {Sans}. A spot on the crown of the head connected by Sushumna, a cord in the spinal column, with the heart. A mystic term having its significance only in mysticism.
(WG) Brahma-randhra, an opening in the crown of the head through which the soul is said to escape at death. Nine openings of the human body are usually reckoned, the Brahma-randhra being the tenth. It is, however, in the right sense, an astral current and not a material place or opening. ( brahma, the Supreme, the Atma; randhra, an opening, any one of the openings of the human body
(TG) Brahmarshis {Sans}. The Brahminical Rishis.
(WG) Brahma-rishi, (also Brahmarshi), a priest-sage.
(SKs) Brahma-vidya ‘Divine-Wisdom.’ H. P. Blavatsky says in The Key to Theosophy, p. 2, that “Theosophy is the equivalent of the Sanskrit Brahma-Vidya, divine knowledge.”
(TG) Bread and Wine. Baptism and the Eucharist have their direct origin in pagan Egypt. There the “waters of purification” were used (the Mithraic font for baptism being borrowed by the Persians from the Egyptians) and so were bread and wine. “Wine in the Dionysiak cult, as in the Christian religion, represents that blood which in different senses is the life of the world” (Brown, in the Dionysiak Myth). Justin Martyr says, “In imitation of which the devil did the like in the Mysteries of Mithras, for you either know or may know that they also take bread and a cup of water in the sacrifices of these that are initiated and pronounce certain words over it “.
(TG) Briareus {Greek}. A famous giant in the Theogony of Hesiod. The son of Coelus and Terra, a monster with 50 heads and 100 arms. He is conspicuous in the wars and battles between the gods.
(TG) Briatic World or Briah {Hebr}. This world is the second of the Four worlds of the Kabbalists and referred to the highest created “Archangels”, or to Pure Spirits. [w.w.w.]
(TG) Bride. The tenth Sephira, Malkuth, is called by the Kabbalists the Bride of Microprosopus; she is the final He of the Tetragrammaton; in a similar manner the Christian Church is called the Bride of Christ. [w.w.w.]
(WG) Brih, prayer; expansion.
(TG) Brihadaranyaka {Sans}. The name of a Upanishad. One of the sacred and secret books of the Brahmins; an Aranyaka is a treatise appended to the Vedas, and considered a subject of special study by those who have retired to the jungle (forest) for purposes of religious meditation.
(FY) Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, one of the sacred books of the Brahmins; an Aranyaka is a treatise appended to the Vedas, and considered the subject of special study by those who have retired to the forest for purposes of religious meditation.
(TG) Brihaspati {Sans}. The name of a Deity, also of a Rishi. It is likewise the name of the planet Jupiter. He is the personified Guru and priest of the gods in India; also the symbol of exoteric ritualism as opposed to esoteric mysticism. Hence the opponent of King Soma — the moon, but also the sacred juice drunk at initiation — the parent of Budha, Secret Wisdom.
(WG) Brihaspati, the personification of exoteric ritualism; the planet Jupiter.
(GH) Brihaspati The deity who represents the worshiper of the gods: the suppliant and sacrificer, designated as the Purohita (family priest), because he intercedes with the gods on behalf of mankind, and likewise protects the righteous men from the wicked. He is often called the father of the gods because of his creative powers, and is named the shining one, the golden colored one. Brihaspati is also the regent of the planet Jupiter. The lengthy legend about his wife, Tara, being carried off by Soma, the moon, and the consequent war in heaven (the Tarakamaya) is related in The Secret Doctrine, (II, pp. 498-9) and is there interpreted, H. P. Blavatsky. (Compound brih, as noun, ‘prayer,’ from (The following word is derived from the verbal root:) brih, to grow great, to expand; pati lord. Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 74)
(WG) Brihat-saman, a sacred verse which is said to reveal the path to Nirvana.
(GH) Brihat-Saman The name of the hymns in the Sama-Veda, written in the Brihati meter, i.e., meters of 36 syllables (originally written 8-8-12-8). (Compound Brihat, the Brihati meter; Saman, a sacred verse to be sung. Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 76)
(MO) Brimer {Nors} (bree-mer) [ocean surf] An aspect of Ager. See Ymer
(TG) Briseus {Greek}. A name given to the god Bacchus from his nurse, Briso. He had also a temple at Brisa, a promontory of the isle of Lesbos.
(MO) Brisingamen {Nors} (bree-sing-a-mayn) [ brising fire + men jewel] Freya’s gem, human intelligence
(MO) Brock {Nors} A dwarf: the mineral kingdom
(TG) Brothers of the Shadow. A name given by the Occultists, to Sorcerers, and especially to the Tibetan Dugpas, of whom there are many in the Bhon sect of the Red Caps (Dugpa). The word is applied to all practitioners of black or left hand magic.
(WG) Brothers of the Shadow, the opposite of the Adepts of the white or unselfish school. Those of the shadow include all black magicians, sorcerers, and others who intelligently abuse occult powers for selfish ends. They are not only living in bodies, but are also still undestroyed or not yet disintegrated shades of former living beings who were magicians of the black school.
(OG) Brother(s) of the Shadow — A term given in occultism and especially in modern esotericism to individuals, whether men or women, who follow the path of the shadows, the left-hand path. The term “shadow” is a technical expression and signifies more than appears on the surface: i.e., the expression is not to be understood of individuals who live in actual physical obscurity or actual physical shadows, which literalism would be simply absurd; but applies to those who follow the path of matter, which from time immemorial in the esoteric schools in both Orient and Occident has frequently been called shadow or shadows. The term originally arose, without doubt, in the philosophical conception of the word maya, for in early Oriental esotericism maya, and more especially maha-maya, was a term applied in one of its many philosophical meanings to that which was contrary to and, indeed, in one sense a reflection of, light. Just as spirit may be considered to be pure energy, and matter, although essentially crystallized spirit, may be looked upon as the shadow world or vehicular world in which the energy or spirit or pure light works, just so is maya, as the garment or expression or sakti of the divine energy, the vehicle or shadow of the divine side of nature, in other words its negative or nether pole, as light is the upper or positive pole. The Brothers of the Shadow are therefore those who, being essentially of the nature of matter, instinctively choose and follow the path along which they are most strongly drawn, that is, the path of matter or of the shadows. When it is recollected that matter is but a generalizing term, and that what this term comprises actually includes an almost infinite number of degrees of increasing ethereality from the grossest physical substance, or absolute matter, up to the most ethereal or spiritualized substance, we immediately see the subtle logic of this technical term — shadows or, more fully, the Path of the Shadows, hence the Brothers of the Shadow. They are the so-called black magicians of the Occident, and stand in sharp and notable contrast with the white magicians or the Sons of Light who follow the pathway of self-renunciation, self-sacrifice, self-conquest, perfect self-control, and an expansion of the heart and mind and consciousness in love and service for all that lives. ( See also Right-hand Path) The existence and aims of the Brothers of the Shadow are essentially selfish. It is commonly, but erroneously, supposed that the Brothers of the Shadow are men and women always of unpleasant or displeasing personal appearance, and no greater error than this could possibly be made. Multitudes of human beings are unconsciously treading the path of the shadows and, in comparison with these multitudes, it is relatively only a few who self-consciously lead and guide with subtle and manifest intelligence this army of unsuspecting victims of maya. The Brothers of the Shadow are often highly intellectual men and women, frequently individuals with apparent great personal charm, and to the ordinary observer, judging from their conversation and daily works, are fully as well able to “quote scripture” as are the Angels of Light!
Brujo Spanish, the “black magician,” doomed to hell in Xibalba, the underworld. His nahual is the culebra. The elder of an earlier cycle of Maya prehistory.
(TG) Bubaste {Egyp}. A city in Egypt which was sacred to the cats, and where was their principal shrine. Many hundreds of thousands of cats were embalmed and buried in the grottoes of Beni-Hassan-el-Amar. The cat being a symbol of the moon was sacred to Isis, her goddess. It sees in the dark and its eyes have a phosphorescent lustre which frightens the night-birds of evil omen. The cat was also sacred to Bast, and thence called “the destroyer of the Sun’s (Osiris’) enemies”.
(TG) Buddha {Sans}. Lit., “The Enlightened”. The highest degree of knowledge. To become a Buddha one has to break through the bondage of sense and personality; to acquire a complete perception of the REAL SELF and learn not to separate it from all other selves; to learn by experience the utter unreality of all phenomena of the visible Kosmos foremost of all; to reach a complete detachment from all that is evanescent and finite, and live while yet on Earth in the immortal and the everlasting alone, in a supreme state of holiness.
(KT) Buddha {Sans} “The enlightened.” Generally known as the title of Gautama Buddha, the Prince of Kapilavastu, the founder of modern Buddhism. The highest degree of knowledge and holiness. To become a Buddha one has to break through the bondage of sense and personality; to acquire a complete perception of the real Self, and learn not to separate it from all the other Selves; to learn by experience the utter unreality of all phenomena, foremost of all the visible Kosmos; to attain a complete detachment from all that is evanescent and finite, and to live while yet on earth only in the immortal and everlasting.
(FY) Buddha, the founder of Buddhism; he was a royal prince, by name Siddhartha, son of Suddhodhana, king of the Sakyas, an Aryan tribe.
(VS) thou art Buddha (II 8) [[p. 26]] “Buddha” means “Enlightened.”
(VS) He [[ Buddha ]] preached on mount (II 16) [[p. 30]] All the Northern and Southern traditions agree in showing Buddha quitting his solitude as soon as he had resolved the problem of life i.e., received the inner enlightenment and teaching mankind publicly.
(WG) Buddha, a manifestation of the Supreme, the first Buddha being Avalokitesvara, from whom emanate the seven Dhyani-Buddhas (“Buddhas of contemplation”), who by the power of meditation create for themselves the celestial Bodhisattvas, who incarnate on earth at the beginning of each human cycle as men, and become human Bodhisattvas and finally terrestrial Buddhas, of whom there have been four, humanity being now in the fourth round.
(OG) Buddha — {Sans} The past participle of the root budh , meaning “to perceive,” “to become cognizant of,” also “to awaken,” and “to recover consciousness.” It signifies one who is spiritually awakened, no longer living “the living death” of ordinary men, but awakened to the spiritual influence from within or from “above.” When man has awakened from the living death in which ordinary mortals live, when he has cast off the toils of both mind and flesh and, to use the old Christian term, has put on the garments of eternity, then he has awakened, he is a buddha. He has become one with — not “absorbed” as is constantly translated but has become one with — the Self of selves, with the paramatman, the Supreme Self. ( See also Bodhi, Buddhi)
A buddha in the esoteric teaching is one whose higher principles can learn nothing more in this manvantara; they have reached nirvana and remain there. This does not mean, however, that the lower centers of consciousness of a buddha are in nirvana, for the contrary is true; and it is this fact that enables a Buddha of Compassion to remain in the lower realms of being as mankind’s supreme guide and instructor, living usually as a nirmanakaya.
(SK)o Buddha, Gautama, Siddhartha The word Buddha literally means ‘the enlightened,’ the past participle form of the verb-root budh — to know, to enlighten. A Buddha is one who has reached the highest state of spiritual enlightenment possible for a human being in this Age. Gautama the Buddha the greatest spiritual sages known to history. Legend says his very name bespeaks his glory, for the word Gautama is sometimes interpreted to mean ‘highest on earth’: from gau on earth, and tama , a superlative suffix. Because he attained the goal of human perfection on earth he was called Siddhartha, or gone who has accomplished his purpose,’ from siddha, the past participle form of sidh — to attain, and artha — goal or purpose.
(SP) Buddha — enlightened or awakened one.
(SK) Buddham saranam gachchhami ; Dharmam saranam gachchhami ; Samgham saranam gachchhami.
I go to the Buddha as my refuge; I go to the Light of the Law as my refuge; I go to the Order of Holy Ones as my refuge.
(TG) Buddhachhaya {Sans}. Lit., “the shadow of Buddha”. It is said to become visible at certain great events, and during some imposing ceremonies performed at Temples in commemoration of glorious acts of Buddha’s life. Hiouen-tseng, the Chinese traveller, names a certain cave where it occasionally appears on the wall, but adds that only he “whose mind is perfectly pure”, can see it.
(TG) Buddhaphala {Sans}. Lit., “the fruit of Buddha”, the fruition of Arahattvaphala, or Arhatship.
(TG) Buddha Siddharta {Sans}. The name given to Gautama, the Prince of Kapilavastu, at his birth. It is an abbreviation of Sarvartthasiddha and means, the “realization of all desires”. Gautama, which means, “on earth (gau) the most victorious (tama) ” was the sacerdotal name of the Sakya family, the kingly patronymic of the dynasty to which the father of Gautama, the King Suddhodhana of Kapilavastu, belonged. Kapilavastu was an ancient city, the birth-place of the Great Reformer and was destroyed during his life time. In the title Sakyarmuni, the last Component, muni, is rendered as meaning one “mighty in charity, isolation and silence”, and the former Sakya is the family name. Every Orientalist or Pundit knows by heart the story of Gautama, the Buddha, the most perfect of mortal men that the world has ever seen, but none of them seem to suspect the esoteric meaning underling his prenatal biography, i.e ., the significance of the popular story. The Lalitavistara tells the tale, but abstains from hinting at the truth. The 5,000 Jatakas, or the events of former births (re-incarnations) are taken literally instead of esoterically. Gautama, the Buddha, would not have been a mortal man, had he not passed through hundreds and thousands of births previous to his last. Yet the detailed account of these, and the statement that during them he worked his way up through every stage of transmigration from the lowest animate and inanimate atom and insect, up to the highest — or man, contains simply the well-known occult aphorism: “a stone becomes a plant, a plant an animal, and an animal a man”. Every human being who has ever existed, has passed through the same evolution. But the hidden symbolism in the sequence of these re-births (jataka) contains a perfect history of the evolution on this earth, pre and post human, and is a scientific exposition of natural facts. One truth not veiled but bare and open is found in their nomenclature, viz ., that as soon as Gautama had reached the human form he began exhibiting in every personality the utmost unselfishness, self-sacrifice and charity. Buddha Gautama, the fourth of the Sapta (Seven) Buddhas and Sapta Tathagatas, was born according to Chinese Chronology in 1024 B.C.; but according to the Singhalese chronicles, on the 8th day of the second (or fourth) moon in the year 621 before our era. He fled from his father’s palace to become an ascetic on the night of the 8th day of the second moon, 597 B.C., and having passed six years in ascetic meditation at Gaya, and perceiving that physical self-torture was useless to bring enlightenment, he decided upon striking out a new path, until he reached the state Bodhi. He became a full Buddha on the night of the 8th day of the twelfth moon, in the year 592, and finally entered Nirvana in the year 543, according to Southern Buddhism. The Orientalists, however, have decided upon several other dates. All the rest is allegorical. He attained the state of Bodhisattva on earth when in the personality called Prabhapala. Tushita stands for a place on this globe, not for a paradise in the invisible regions. The selection of the Sakya family and his mother Maya, as “the purest on earth,” is in accordance with the model of the nativity of every Saviour, God or deified Reformer. The tale about his entering his mother’s bosom in the shape of a white elephant is an allusion to his innate Wisdom, the elephant of that colour being a symbol of every Bodhisattva. The statements that at Gautama’s birth, the newly born babe walked seven steps in four directions, that an Udumbara flower bloomed in all its rare beauty and that the Naga kings forthwith proceeded ” to baptise him “, are all so many allegories in the phraseology of the Initiates and well-understood by every Eastern Occultist. The whole events of his noble life are given in occult numbers, and every so-called miraculous event — so deplored by Orientalists as confusing the narrative and making it impossible to extricate truth from fiction — is simply the allegorical veiling of the truth. It is as comprehensible to an Occultist learned in symbolism, as it is difficult to understand for a European scholar ignorant of Occultism. Every detail of the narrative after his death and before cremation is a chapter of facts written in a language which must be studied before it is understood, otherwise its dead letter will lead one into absurd contradictions. For instance, having reminded his disciples of the immortality of Dharmakaya, Buddha is said to have passed into Samadhi, and lost himself in Nirvana — from which none can return. And yet, notwithstanding this, the Buddha is shown bursting open the lid of the coffin, and stepping out of it; salut-ing with folded hands his mother Maya who had suddenly appeared in the air, though she had died seven days after his birth,, As Buddha was a Chakravartti (he who turns the wheel of the Law), his body at its cremation could not be consumed by common fire. What happens? Suddenly a jet of flame burst out of the Svastica on his breast, and reduced his body to ashes. Space prevents giving more instances. As to his being one of the true and undeniable SAVIOURS of the World, suffice it to say that the most rabid Orthodox missionary, unless he is hopelessly insane, or has not the least regard even for historical truth, cannot find one smallest accusation against the life and personal character of Gautama, the “Buddha”. Without any claim to divinity, allowing his followers to fall into atheism, rather than into the degrading superstition of deva or idol-worship, his walk in life is from the beginning to the end, holy and divine. During the 45 years of his mission it is blameless and pure as that of a god — or as the latter should be. He is a perfect example of a divine, godly man. He reached Buddhaship — i.e ., complete enlightenment — entirely by his own merit and owing to his own individual exertions, no god being supposed to have any personal merit in the exercise of goodness and holiness. Esoteric teachings claim that he renounced Nirvana and gave up the Dharmakaya vesture to remain a “Buddha of compassion” within the reach of the miseries of this world. And the religious philosophy he left to it has produced for over 2,000 years generations of good and unselfish men. His is the only, absolutely bloodless religion among all the existing religions: tolerant and liberal, teaching universal compassion and charity, love and self-sacrifice, poverty and contentment with one’s lot, whatever it may be. No persecutions, and enforcement, of faith by fire and sword, have ever disgraced it. No the thunder-and-lightning-vomiting, god likes interfered with its chaste commandments; and if the simple, humane and philosophical code of daily life left to us by the greatest Man-Reformer ever known, should ever come to be adopted by mankind at large, then indeed an era of bliss and peace would dawn on Humanity.
(VS) Buddha of Compassion (III 34) [[p. 71]] This same popular reverence calls “Buddhas of Compassion” those Bodhisattvas who, having reached the rank of an Arhat ( i.e., having completed the fourth or seventh Path), refuse to pass into the Nirvanic state or “don the Dharmakaya robe and cross to the other shore,” as it would then become beyond their power to assist men even so little as Karma permits. They prefer to remain invisibly (in Spirit, so to speak) in the world, and contribute toward man’s salvation by influencing them to follow the Good Law, i.e., lead them on the Path of Righteousness. It is part of the exoteric Northern Buddhism to honour all such great characters as Saints, and to offer even prayers to them, as the Greeks and Catholics do to their Saints and Patrons; on the other hand, the esoteric teachings countenance no such thing. There is a great difference between the two teachings. The exoteric layman hardly knows the real meaning of the word Nirmanakaya hence the confusion and inadequate explanations of the Orientalists. For example Schlagintweit believes that Nirmanakaya -body, means the physical form assumed by the Buddhas when they incarnate on earth “the least sublime of their earthly encumbrances” (vide “Buddhism in Tibet”) and he proceeds to give an entirely false view on the subject. The real teaching is, however, this:
The three Buddhic bodies or forms are styled:
1. Nirmanakaya . 2. Sambhogakaya . 3. Dharmakaya .
The first is that ethereal form which one would assume when leaving his physical he would appear in his astral body having in addition all the knowledge of an Adept. The Bodhisattva develops it in himself as he proceeds on the Path. Having reached the goal and refused its fruition, he remains on Earth, as an Adept; and when he dies, instead of going into Nirvana, he remains in that glorious body he has woven for himself, invisible to uninitiated mankind, to watch over and protect it.
Sambhogakaya is the same, but with the additional lustre of “three perfections,” one of which is entire obliteration of all earthly concerns.
The Dharmakaya body is that of a complete Buddha, i.e., no body at all, but an ideal breath: Consciousness merged in the Universal Consciousness, or Soul devoid of every attribute. Once a Dharmakaya, an Adept or Buddha leaves behind every possible relation with, or thought for this earth. Thus, to be enabled to help humanity, an Adept who has won the right to Nirvana, “renounces the Dharmakaya body” in mystic parlance; keeps, of the Sambhogakaya, only the great and complete knowledge, and remains in his Nirmanakaya body. The esoteric school teaches that Gautama Buddha with several of his Arhats is such a Nirmanakaya, higher than whom, on account of the great renunciation and sacrifice to mankind there is none known.
(VS) Nirvana-Dharma is entered not by all the Buddhas (III 32) [[p. 70]] In the Northern Buddhist phraseology all the great Arhats, Adepts and Saints are called Buddhas.
(OG) Buddha(s) of Compassion — One who, having won all, gained all — gained the right to kosmic peace and bliss — renounces it so that he may return as a Son of Light in order to help humanity, and indeed all that is.
The Buddhas of Compassion are the noblest flowers of the human race. They are men who have raised themselves from humanity into quasi-divinity; and this is done by letting the light imprisoned within, the light of the inner god, pour forth and manifest itself through the humanity of the man, through the human soul of the man. Through sacrifice and abandoning of all that is mean and wrong, ignoble and paltry and selfish; through opening up the inner nature so that the god within may shine forth; in other words, through self-directed evolution, they have raised themselves from mere manhood into becoming god-men, man-gods — human divinities.
They are called Buddhas of Compassion because they feel their unity with all that is, and therefore feel intimate magnetic sympathy with all that is, and this is more and more the case as they evolve, until finally their consciousness blends with that of the universe and lives eternally and immortally, because it is at one with the universe. “The dewdrop slips into the shining sea” — its origin.
Feeling the urge of almighty love in their hearts, the Buddhas of Compassion advance forever steadily towards still greater heights of spiritual achievement; and the reason is that they have become the vehicles of universal love and universal wisdom. As impersonal love is universal, their whole nature expands consequently with the universal powers that are working through them. The Buddhas of Compassion, existing in their various degrees of evolution, form a sublime hierarchy extending from the Silent Watcher on our planet downwards through these various degrees unto themselves, and even beyond themselves to their chelas or disciples. Spiritually and mystically they contrast strongly with what Asiatic occultism, through the medium of Buddhism, has called the Pratyeka Buddhas.
(TG) Buddhi {Sans}. Universal Soul or Mind. Mahabuddhi is a name of Mahat (see “Alaya”); also the spiritual Soul in man (the sixth principle), the vehicle of Atma, exoterically the seventh.
(KT) Buddhi {Sans} Universal Soul or Mind. Mahabuddhi is a name of Mahat also the Spiritual Soul in man (the sixth principle exoterically), the vehicle of Atma, the seventh, according to the exoteric enumeration.
(FY) Buddhi, the spiritual Ego.
(WG) Buddhi, intelligence; in the Sankhya philosophy, intellect as the second tattva, coming next to and proceeding from mulaprakriti or avyakta; the passive spiritual vehicle, or latent ideation, of Atma, serving to connect it with manas, the individual
(WG) Buddhi, the sixth “principle” of man’s sevenfold constitution.
(OG) Buddhi — {Sans} Buddhi comes from a Sanskrit root budh , commonly translated “to enlighten,” but a better translation is “to perceive,” “to cognize,” “to recover consciousness,” hence “to awaken,” and therefore “to understand.” The second counting downwards, or the sixth counting upwards, of the seven principles of man. Buddhi is the principle or organ in man which gives to him spiritual consciousness, and is the vehicle of the most high part of man — the atman — the faculty which manifests as understanding, judgment, discrimination, an inseparable veil or garment of the atman.
From another point of view, buddhi may truly be said to be both the seed and the fruit of manas.
Man’s ordinary consciousness in life in his present stage of evolution is almost wholly in the lower or intermediate duad (manas-kama) of his constitution; when he raises his consciousness through personal effort to become permanently one with the higher duad (atma-buddhi), he becomes a mahatma, a master. At the death of the human being, this higher duad carries away with it all the spiritual essence, all the spiritual and intellectual aroma, of the lower or intermediate duad. Maha-buddhi is one of the names given to the kosmic principle mahat. ( See also Alaya)
(GH) Buddhi The sixth principle in the Theosophical classification of man’s component parts. As the vehicle for Universal Spirit, Buddhi is inseparably linked with Atman and regarded as its vehicle. It is the channel for the divine inspiration which streams from Atman, as well as the faculty of discrimination, and the knowledge of discrimination between good and evil, hence spiritual consciousness. When awakened in man the Buddhic principle evokes compassionate love for all, instant understanding, and intuition. A man so fully awakened is termed a Buddha.
“. . . the Spiritual Soul (Buddhi) . . . conceals a mystery which is never given to any one, with the exception of irrevocably pledged chelas,” (The Key to Theosophy, pp. 119-20). (The following word is derived from the verbal root:) budh, to awaken, to enlighten. Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 28)
(SK)o Buddhi The Spiritual Soul of man; the channel through which Atman may send its divine inspirations to the Human Ego. A man in whom the Buddhi is awakened shines with the qualities of discrimination, intuition, spiritual vision, love without bounds, and compassion. Buddhi comes from the verb-root budh, ‘to know,’ ‘to enlighten.’
(IN) Buddhi {Sans} fr budh, “to wake up”) Human spiritual soul, principle of intuitive knowledge.
(SP) Buddhi — higher intelligence.
(TG) Buddhism. Buddhism is now split into two distinct Churches: the Southern and the Northern Church. The former is said to be the purer form, as having preserved more religiously the original teachings of the Lord Buddha. It is the religion of Ceylon, Siam, Burmah and other places, while Northern Buddhism is confined to Tibet, China and Nepaul. Such a distinction, however, is incorrect. If the Southern Church is nearer, in that it has not departed, except perhaps in some trifling dogmas due to the many councils held after the death of the MASTER, from the public or exoteric teachings of Sakyamuni — the Northern Church is the outcome of Siddharta Buddha’s esoteric teachings which he confined to his elect Bhikshus and Arhats. In fact, Buddhism in the present age, cannot be justly judged either by one or the other of its exoteric popular forms. Real Buddhism can be appreciated only by blending the philosophy of the Southern Church and the metaphysics of the Northern Schools. If one seems too iconoclastic and stern, and the other too metaphysical and transcendental, even to being overgrown with the weeds of Indian exotericism — many of the gods of its Pantheon having been transplanted under new names to Tibetan soil — it is entirely due to the popular expression of Buddhism in both Churches. Correspondentially they stand in their relation to each other as Protestantism to Roman Catholicism. Both err by an excess of zeal and erroneous interpretations, though neither the Southern nor the Northern Buddhist clergy have ever departed from truth consciously, still less have they acted tinder the dictates, of priestocracy, ambition, or with an eye to personal gain and power, as the two Christian Churches have.
(KT) Buddhism is the religious philosophy taught by Gautama Buddha. It is now split into two distinct churches: the Southern and Northern. The former is said to be the purer, as having preserved more religiously the original teachings of the Lord Buddha. The Northern Buddhism is confined to Thibet, China, and Nepaul. But this distinction is incorrect. If the Southern Church is nearer, and has not, in fact, departed, except perhaps in trifling dogmas, due to the many councils held after the death of the MASTER from the public or exoteric teachings of Sakyamuni, the Northern Church is the outcome of Siddharta Buddha’s esoteric teachings which he confined to his elect Bikshus and Arhats. Buddhism, in fact, cannot be justly judged in our age either by one or the other of its exoteric popular forms. Real Buddhism can be appreciated only by blending the philosophy of the Southern Church and the metaphysics of the Northern Schools. If one seems too iconoclastic and stern, and the other too metaphysical and transcendental, events being overcharged with the weeds of Indian exotericism — many of the gods of its Pantheon having been transplanted under new names into Thibetan soil — it is due to the popular expression of Buddhism in both churches. Correspondentially, they stand in their relation to each other as Protestantism to Roman Catholicism. Both err by an excess of zeal and erroneous interpretations, though neither the Southern nor the Northern Buddhist clergy have ever departed from Truth consciously, still less have they acted under the dictates of priestocracy, ambition, or an eye to personal gain and power, as the later churches have.
(OG) Buddhism — The teachings of Gautama the Buddha. Buddhism today is divided into two branches, the Northern and the Southern. The Southern still retains the teachings of the “Buddha’s brain,” the “eye doctrine,” that is to say his outer philosophy for the general world, sometimes inadequately called the doctrine of forms and ceremonies. The Northern still retains his “heart doctrine” — that which is hid, the inner life, the heart-blood, of the religion: the doctrine of the inner heart of the teaching.
The religious philosophy of the Buddha-Sakyamuni is incomparably nearer to the ancient wisdom, the esoteric philosophy of the archaic ages, than is Christianity. Its main fault today is that teachers later than the Buddha himself carried its doctrines too far along merely formal or exoteric lines; yet, with all that, to this day it remains the purest and holiest of the exoteric religions on earth, and its teachings even exoterically are true — once they are properly understood. They need but the esoteric key in interpretation of them. As a matter of fact, the same may be said of all the great ancient world religions. Christianity, Brahmanism, Taoism, and others all have the same esoteric wisdom behind the outward veil of the exoteric formal faith.
(SKf) Buddhism, Budhism Buddhism is that system of teaching given forth by Gautama the Buddha. Budhism is ‘Wisdom’ or Theosophy. Both these words are derived from the verb-root budh — to enlighten, to know; but Budha means ‘a wise man,’ and Buddha, the past participle-form of budh, means ‘enlightened’; hence Budha-ism is the teachings of the Wise Ones of the Ages, while Buddha-ism is the teachings of Gautama the Buddha. The esoteric and deeper portions of Buddhism, as also of Christianity, are Budhism or Theosophy.
(KT) Buddhi-Taijasi {Sans} A very mystic term, capable of several interpretations. In Occultism, however, and in relation to the human “Principles” (exoterically), it is a term to express the state of our dual Manas, when, reunited during a man’s life, it bathes in the radiance of Buddhi, the Spiritual Soul. For “Taijasi” means the radiant, and Manas, becoming radiant in consequence of its union with Buddhi, and being, so to speak, merged into it, is identified with the latter; the trinity has become one; and, as the element of Buddhi is the highest, it becomes Buddhi-Taijasi. In short, it is the human soul illuminated by the radiance of the divine soul, the human reason lit by the light of the Spirit or Divine SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS.
(TG) Buddhochinga {Sans}. The name of a great Indian Arhat who went to China in the 4th century to propagate Buddhism and converted masses of people by means of miracles and most wonderful magic feats.
(TG) Budha {Sans}. “The Wise and Intelligent”, the Son of Soma, the Moon, and of Rokini or Taraka, wife of Brihaspati carried away by King Soma, thus leading to the great war between the Asuras, who sided with the Moon, and the Gods who took the defence of Brihaspati (Jupiter) who was their Purohita (family priest). This war is known as the Tarakamaya. It is the original of the war in Olympus between the Gods and the Titans and also of the war (in Revelation) between Michael (Indra) and the Dragon (personifying the Asuras).
(WG) Budha, awake, intelligent, wise; the planet Mercury.
(MO) Budlung {Nors} (bood-lung) A king (poetic)
(TG) Bull-Worship (See “Apis”). The worship of the Bull and the Ram was addressed to one and the same power, that of generative creation, under two aspects — the celestial or cosmic, and the terrestrial or human. The ram-headed gods all belong to the latter aspect, the bull — to the former. Osiris to whom the hull was sacred, was never regarded as a phallic deity; neither was Siva with his Bull Nandi, in spite of the lingham. As Nandi is of a pure white colour, so was Apis. Both were the emblems of the generative, or of evolutionary power in the Universal Kosmos. Those who regard the solar god and the bulls as of a phallic character, or connect the Suit with it, are mistaken. It is only the lunar gods and the rains, and lambs, which are priapic, and it little becomes a religion which, however unconsciously, has still adopted for its worship a god pre-eminently lunar, and accentuated its choice by the selection of the lamb, whose sire is the ram, a glyph as pre-eminently phallic, for its most sacred symbol — to vilify the older religions for using the same symbolism. The worship of the bull, Apis, Hati Ankh, or the living Osiris, ceased over 3,000 years ago: the worship of the ram and lamb continues to this day. Mariette Bey discovered the Serapeum, the Necropolis of the Apis-bulls, near Memphis, an imposing subterranean crypt 2,000 feet long and twenty feet wide, containing the mummies of thirty sacred bulls. If 1,000 years hence, a Roman Catholic Cathedral with the Easter lamb in it, were discovered under the ashes of Vesuvius or Etna, would future generations be justified in inferring therefrom that Christians were “lamb” and “dove” worshippers? Yet the two symbols would give them as much right in the one case as in the other. Moreover, not all of the sacred bulls were phallic, i.e ., males; there were hermaphrodite and sexless bulls The black bull Mnevis, the son of Ptah, was sacred to the God Ra at Heliopolis; the Pacis of Hermonthis — to Amoun Horus,,, and Apis himself was a hermaphrodite and not male animal, which shows his cosmic character. As well call the Taurus of the Zodiac and all Nature phallic.
(TG) Bumapa {Tibe}. A school of men, usually a college of mystic students.
(TG) Bunda-hish. An old Eastern work in which among other things anthropology is treated in an allegorical fashion.
(MO) Bur {Nors} (boo-r) [birth?] Space, first emanation of Buri
(TG) Burham-i-Kati. A Hermetic Eastern work.
(TG) Buri {Nors}. “The producer”, the Son of Bestla, in Norse legends.
(MO) Buri {Nors} (boo-ree) Frozen, unmanifest, abstract Space. Traditionally King Buri or Bore personifies winter
(TG) Buru Bonga. The “Spirit of the Hills”. This Dryadic deity is worshipped by the Kolarian tribes of Central India with great ceremonies and magical display. There are mysteries connected with it, but the people are very jealous and will admit no stranger to their rites.
(FY) Buru Bonga, spirit of the hills worshipped by the Kolarian tribes of Central India.
(TG) Busardier. A Hermetic philosopher born in Bohemia who is credited with having made a genuine power o f projection He left the bulk of his red powder to a friend named Richthausen, an adept and alchemist of Vienna. Some years after Busardier’s death, in 1637, Richthausen introduced himself to the Emperor Ferdinand III, who is known to have been ardently devoted to alchemy, and together they are said to have converted three pounds of mercury into the finest gold with one single grain of Busardier’s powder. In 1658, the Elector of Mayence also was permitted to test the powder, and the gold produced with it was declared by the Master of the Mint to be such, that he had never seen finer. Such are the claims vouchsafed by the city records and chronicles.
(TG) Butler. An English name assumed by an adept, a disciple of some Eastern Sages, of whom many fanciful stories are current. It is said for instance, that Butler was captured during his travels in 1629, and sold into captivity. He became the slave of an Arabian philosopher, a great alchemist, and finally escaped, robbing his Master of a large quantity of red powder. According to more trustworthy records, only the last portion of this story is true. Adepts who can he robbed without knowing it would be unworthy of the name. Butler or rather the person who assumed this name, robbed his “Master” (whose free disciple he was) of the secret of transmutation, and abused of his knowledge- i.e ., sought to turn it to his personal profit, but was speedily punished for it. After performing many wonderful cures by means of his “stone” (i.e., the occult knowledge of an initiated adept), and producing extraordinary phenomena, to some of which Val Helmont, the famous Occultist and Rosicrucian, was witness, not for the benefit of men but his own vain glory, Butler was imprisoned in the Castle of Viloord, in Flanders, and passed almost the whole of his life in confinement. He lost his powers and died miserable and unknown. Such is the fate of every Occultist who abuses his power or desecrates the sacred science.
(MO) Byleist {Nors} (bee-layst) [wildfire] The destructive side of Loki, mind
(TG) Bythos {Greek}. A Gnostic term meaning “Depth” or the “great Deep”, Chaos. It is equivalent to space, before anything had formed itself in it from the primordial atoms that exist eternally in its spatial depths, according to the teachings of Occultism.
(WG) Bythos, the abyss, or chaos, — a Gnostic term.
(TG) C. — The third letter of the English alphabet, which has no equivalent in Hebrew except Caph, which see under K.
(PV) Cabahuil {quiche-maya} “Heart of Heaven (and of Earth)”; god-Seven or the Creator deity, having six hypostases; integrated by the three suns of the line of parallel (rising, at zenith, setting). Equated with god B of the Mayan codices. Corresponds to the sun at zenith
(PV) Caban {quiche-maya} Earth. As a goddess, a hypostasis of Hunrakan; as a cosmic plane, an unfoldment or reflection of the celestial or heavenly plane. The fertility of, likened to human fecundation. The four giants of the Popol Vuh personify the forces of Earth.
(TG) Cabar Zio {Gnos} “The mighty Lord of Splendour” (Codex Nazaraeus), they who procreate seven beneficent lives, “who shine in their own form and light” to counteract the influence of the seven “badly-disposed” stellars or principles. These are the progeny of Karabtanos, the personification of concupiscence and matter. The latter are the seven physical planets, the former, their genii or Rulers.
(TG) Cabeiri or Kabiri {Phoen}. Deities, held in the highest veneration at Thebes, in Lemnos, Phrygia, Macedonia, and especially at Samothrace. They were mystery gods, no profane having the right to name or speak of them. Herodotus makes of them Fire-gods and points to Vulcan as their father. The Kabiri presided over the Mysteries, and their real number has never been revealed, their occult meaning being very sacred.
(TG) Cabletow A Masonic term for a certain object used in the Lodges. Its origin lies in the thread of the Brahman ascetics, a thread which is also used for magical purposes in Tibet.
(TG) Cadmus {Greek}. The supposed inventor of the letters of the alphabet. He may have been their originator and teacher in Europe and Asia Minor; but in India the letters were known and used by the Initiates ages before him.
(TG) Caduceus {Greek}. The Greek poets and mythologists took the idea of the Caduceus of Mercury from the Egyptians. The Caduceus is found as two serpents twisted round a rod, on Egyptian monuments built before Osiris. The Greeks altered this. We find it again in the hands of AEsculapius assuming a different form to the wand of Mercurius or Hermes. It is a cosmic, sidereal or astronomical, as well as a spiritual and even physiological symbol, its significance changing with its application. Metaphysically, the Caduceus represents the fall of primeval and primordial matter into gross terrestrial matter, the one Reality becoming Illusion. (See Sect. Astronomically, the head and tail represent the points of the ecliptic where the planets and even the sun and moon meet in close embrace. Physiologically, it is the symbol of the restoration of the equilibrium lost between Life, as a unit, and the currents of life performing various functions in the human body.
(WG) Caduceus (Greek), the rod of Mercury, consisting of two serpents twined about a staff. Sometimes the staff also terminates in the head of a serpent.
(TG) Caesar. A far-famed astrologer and “professor of magic,” i.e., an Occultist, during the reign of Henry IV. of France. “He was reputed to have been strangled by the devil in 1611,” as Brother Kenneth Mackenzie tells us.
(TG) Cagliostro. A famous Adept, whose real name is claimed (by his enemies) to have been Joseph Balsamo. He was a native of Palermo, and studied under some mysterious foreigner of whom little has been ascertained. His accepted history is too well known to need repetition, and his real history has never been told. His fate was that of every human being who proves that he knows more than do his fellow-creatures; he was “stoned to death” by persecutions, lies, and infamous accusations, and yet he was the friend and adviser of the highest and mightiest of every land he visited. He was finally tried and sentenced in Rome as a heretic, and was said to have died during his confinement in a State prison. (See Yet his end was not utterly undeserved, as he had been untrue to his vows in some respects, had fallen from his state of chastity and yielded to ambition and selfishness.
(TG) Cain or Kayn {Hebr}. In Esoteric symbology he is said to be identical with Jehovah or the “Lord God” of the fourth chapter of Genesis. It is held, moreover, that Abel is not his brother, but his female aspect. (See Sec. Doct., sub voce. )
(PV) Cajolom {quiche-maya} One of six hypostases of Cabahuil, or god-Seven. Especially associated with the three other hypostases: Tzakol, Bitol, and Alom; these four are regent gods of the 4 cosmic angles; their mediation produces light.
(TG) Calvary Cross. This form of cross does not date from Christianity. It was known and used for mystical purposes, thousands of years before our era. It formed part and parcel of the various Rituals, in Egypt and Greece, in Babylon and India, as well as in China, Mexico, and Peru. It is a cosmic, as well as a physiological (or phallic ) symbol. That it existed among all the “heathen” nations is testified to by Tertullian. “How doth the Athenian Minerva differ from the body of a cross?” he queries. “The origin of your gods is derived from figures moulded on a cross. All those rows of images on your standards are the appendages of crosses; those hangings on your banners are the robes of crosses.” And the fiery champion was right. The tau or [diagram]] symbol without serifs and equal horizontal and vertical lines] is the most ancient of all forms, and the cross or the tat as ancient. The crux ansata, the cross with a handle, is in the hands of almost every god, including Baal and the Phoenician Astarte. The croix cramponnee is the Indian Swastica. It has been exhumed from the lowest foundations of the ancient site of Troy, and it appears on Etruscan and Chaldean relics of antiquity. As Mrs. Jamieson shows “The ankh of Egypt was the crutch of St. Anthony and the cross of St. Philip. The Labarum of Constantine . . . was an emblem long before, in Etruria. Osiris had the Labarum for his sign; Horus appears sometimes with the long Latin cross. The Greek pectoral cross is Egyptian. It was called by the Fathers ‘the devil’s invention before Christ’. The crux ansata is upon the old coins of Tarsus, as the Maltese upon the breast of an Assyrian king. . . . The cross of Calvary, so common in Europe, occurs on the breasts of mummies. . . . It was suspended round the necks of sacred Serpents in Egypt. . . . Strange Asiatic tribes bringing tribute in Egypt are noticed with garments studded with crosses, and Sir Gardner Wilkinson dates this picture B.C., 1500.” Finally, “Typhon, the Evil One, is chained by a cross!” (Eg. Belief and Mod. Thought).
(PV) Came, Vukup {quiche-maya} “Seven Death.” A sevenfold entity (Hun Came) of false gods, Lords of Xibalba, the underworld. Antagonists of Vucup Hunahpu, the true gods, whom the Came challenge to a ball game in Xibalba where they defeat the Seven Ahpu and behead them. The Came are later vanquished by Hunahpu and Ixbalamque, the divine twins who are the offspring of the Seven Ahpu, for the deliverance of mankind from thralldom.
(PV) Came, Hun {quiche-maya} “One Death.” Lord of Xibalba, the equivalent of Cimi, the Second Regent in the Maya primary calendric series of regents or Ahau; assumes the regency from Ixmucane. God of Death.
(TG) Campanella, Tomaso. A Calabrese, born in 1568, who, from his childhood exhibited strange powers, and gave himself up during his whole life to the Occult Arts. The story which shows him initiated in his boyhood into the secrets of alchemy and thoroughly instructed in the secret science by a Rabbi-Kabbalist in a fortnight by means of notaricon, is a cock and bull invention. Occult knowledge, even when a heirloom from the preceding birth, does not come back into a new personality within fifteen days. He became an opponent of the Aristotelian materialistic philosophy when at Naples and was obliged to fly for his life. Later, the Inquisition sought to try and condemn him for the practice of magic arts, but its efforts were defeated. During his lifetime he wrote an enormous quantity of magical, astrological and alchemical works, most of which are no longer extant. He is reported to have died in the convent of the Jacobins at Paris on May the 21st, 1639.
(TG) Canarese. The language of the Karnatic, originally called Kanara, one of the divisions of South India.
(FY) Canarese, one of the Dravidian tongues, spoken in Southern India.
(PV) Caprakan {quiche-maya} “He of two feet.” The theogonic antithesis of Hunrakan, son of Vukup Cakix and his wife, Chimalmat, and brother of Zipacna. With these three, one of the four primeval giants of the Popol Vuh who are vanquished by Hunahpu and Ixbalamque in the Third Age and become transformed into the four “world pillars.” God of earthquakes, associated with his brother, Zipacna.
(TG) Capricornus {Latin}. The 10th sign of the Zodiac ( Makara in Sanskrit), considered, on account of its hidden meaning, the most important among the constellations of the mysterious Zodiac. It is fully described in the Secret Doctrine, and therefore needs but a few words more. Whether, agreeably with exoteric statements, Capricornus was related in any way to the wet-nurse Amalthaea who fed Jupiter with her milk, or whether it was the god Pan who changed himself into a goat and left his impress upon the sidereal records, matters little. Each of the fables has its significance. Everything in Nature is intimately correlated to the rest, and therefore the students of ancient lore will not be too much surprised when told that even the seven steps taken in the direction of every one of the four points of the compass, or — 28 steps — taken by the new-born infant Buddha, are closely related to the 28 stars of the constellation of Capricornus.
(TG) Cardan, Jerome. An astrologer, alchemist, kabbalist and mystic, well known in literature. He was born at Pavia in 1501, and died at Rome in 1576.
CARDS
The Deck of Cards by Manly Hall
(TG) Carnac. A very ancient site in Brittany (France) of a temple of cyclopean structure, sacred to the Sun and the Dragon; and of the same kind as Karnac, in ancient Egypt, and Stonehenge in England. (See the “Origin of the Satanic Myth” in Archaic Symbolism built by the prehistoric hierophant-priests of the Solar Dragon, or symbolized Wisdom (the Solar Kumaras who incarnated being the highest). Each of the stones was personally placed there by the successive priest-adepts in power, and commemorated in symbolic language the degree of power, status, and knowledge of each. (See further Secret Doctrine II. 381, et seq., and also “Karnac
(TG) Caste. Originally the system of the four hereditary classes into which the Indian population was divided: Brahman, Kshatriya, Vaisya, and Sudra (or descendants of Brahma, Warriors, Merchants, and the lowest or Agriculturalists). Besides these original four, hundreds have now grown up in India.
(KT) Caste. Originally the system of the four hereditary classes into which Indian population was divided: Brahman, Kshatriya, Vaisya and Shoodra — ( a ) descendants of Brahma; ( b ) warrior; ( c ) mercantile, and ( d ) the lowest or agricultural Shoodra class. From these four, hundreds of divisions and minor castes have sprung.
(TG) Causal Body. This “body”, which is no body either objective or subjective, but Buddhi, the Spiritual Soul, is so called because it is the direct cause of the Sushupti condition, leading to the Turya state, the highest state of Samadhi. It is called Karanopadhi, “the basis of the Cause”, by the Taraka Raja Yogis; and in the Vedanta system it corresponds to both the Vignanamaya and Anandamaya Kosha, the latter coming next to Atma, and therefore being the vehicle of the universal Spirit. Buddhi alone could not be called a “Causal Body”, but becomes so in conjunction with Manas, the incarnating Entity or EGO.
(KT) Causal Body. This “body,” which is in reality no body at all, either objective or subjective, but Buddhi the Spiritual Soul, is so-called because it is the direct cause of the Sushupti state leading to the Turya state, the highest state of Samadhi. It is called Karanopadhi, “the basis of the cause,” by the “Taraka Raj” Yogis, and in the Vedanta System corresponds to both the Vignanamaya and Anandamaya Kosha (the latter coming next to Atma, and therefore being the vehicle of the Universal Spirit). Buddhi alone could not be called a “Causal body,” but becomes one in conjunction with Manas, the incarnating Entity or EGO.
(WG) Causal Body, the principle Buddhi in conjunction with Manas , as it thus is the cause for incarnation through its connection with spirit above and matter below. In this sense it is soul, thus with the other two bringing out the classification of body, soul , spirit .
(OG) Causal Body — For a proper explanation of the doctrine connected with this term the student is referred to karana-sarira and karanopadhi as defined in this volume. Technically speaking, causal body is a misnomer, for, in fact, the element of man’s constitution here referred to and, mutatis mutandis, when reference is made to beings above and below man, is no body at all, properly speaking, but rather what one might call a soul, although strenuous objection could very logically be taken to the use of this word soul because of the many and often contradictory meanings that common usage has given to it.
Furthermore, the expression “causal body” refers to two different things. The meaning, therefore, is dual — a statement which will be explained under karanopadhi. It may be stated here, however, that the two meanings have reference, the first to a lower part of man’s septenary constitution, and the second to a higher part, both parts acting as causes, or instrumental causes, in producing reappearances, or new manifestations, of a reimbodying monad or entity.
(TG) Cazotte, Jacques. The wonderful Seer, who predicted the beheading of several royal personages and his own decapitation, at a gay supper some time before the first Revolution in France. He was born at Dijon in 1720, and studied mystic philosophy in the school of Martinez Pasqualis at Lyons. On the 11th of September 1791, he was arrested and condemned to death by the president of the revolutionary government, a man who, shameful to state, had been his fellow-student and a member of the Mystic Lodge of Pasqualis at Lyons. Cazotte was executed on the 25th of September on the Place du Carrousel.
(TG) Cecco d’Ascoli. Surnamed “Francesco Stabili.” He lived in the thirteenth century, and was considered the most famous astrologer in his day. A work of his published at Basle in 1485, and called Commentarii in Sphaeram Joannis de Sacrabosco, is still extant. He was burnt alive by the Inquisition in 1327.
(PV) Cerbatana {quiche-maya} “Blowgun.” The divine weapon of Hunahpu; emblem of the solar ray. It operates magically for Hunahpu.
(TG) Cerberus {Latin}
(TG) Cerberus {Greek} the three-headed canine monster, which was supposed to watch at the threshold of Hades, came to the Greeks and Romans from Egypt. It was the monster, half-dog and half-hippopotamus, that guarded the gates of Amenti. The mother of Cerberus was Echidna — a being, half-woman, half-serpent, much honoured in Etruria. Both the Egyptian and the Greek Cerberus are symbols of Kamaloka and its uncouth monsters, the cast-off shells of mortals.
(TG) Ceres {Latin}. In Greek Demeter. As the female aspect of Pater Aether, Jupiter, she is esoterically the productive principle in the all-pervading Spirit that quickens every germ in the material universe.
(TG) Chabrat Zereh Aur Bokher {Hebr}. An Order of the Rosicrucian stock, whose members study the Kabbalah and Hermetic sciences; it admits both sexes, and has many grades of instruction. The members meet in private, and the very existence of the Order is generally unknown. [w.w.w.]
(PV) Chac Of Maya mythology; the four Chac are the equivalent of Tzakol, Bitol, Alom, and Cajolom of the Popol Vuh ; the gods of the four sectors of heaven. The Chac are the owners of the wild plant and animal life of the earth.
(TG) Chadayatana {Sans}. Lit., the six dwellings or gates in man for the reception of sensations; thus, on the physical plane, the eyes, nose, ear, tongue, body (or touch) and mind, as a product of the physical brain and on the mental plane (esoterically), spiritual sight, smell, hearing, taste, touch and perception, the whole synthesized by the Buddhi-atmic element. Chadayatana is one of the 12 Nidanas, which form the chain of incessant causation and effect.
(TG) Chaitanya {Sans}. The founder of a mystical sect in India. A rather modern sage, believed to be an avatar of Krishna.
(WG) Chaitanya, the Supreme Spirit considered as the essence of all being.
(SKs) Chaitanya ‘Consciousness,’ ‘Intelligence’; derived from the verb root chit — to think, to understand. Chaitanya is usually applied to the Cosmic Intelligence; hence it is the invisible source and underlying root of man’s consciousness and intelligence.
(TG) Tchaitya {Sans}. Any locality made sacred through some event in the life of Buddha; a term signifying the same in relation to gods, and any kind of place or object of worship. [[The Sanskrit words commencing with the letters Tch were, owing to faulty transliteration, misplaced, and now come under C. ]]
(TG) Tchakchur {Sans}. The first Vidjnana . Lit., “the eye”, meaning the faculty of sight, or rather, an occult perception of spiritual and subjective realities (Chakshur).
(TG) Chakna-padma-karpo {Tibe}. “He who holds the lotus”, used of Chenresi, the Bodhisattva. It is not a genuine Tibetan word, but half Sanskrit.
(TG) Chakra {Sans}. A wheel, a disk, or the circle of Vishnu generally. Used also of a cycle of time, and with other meanings.
(TG) Tchakra, or Chakra {Sans}. A spell. The disk of Vishnu, which served as a weapon; the wheel of the Zodiac, also the wheel of time, etc. With Vishnu, it was a symbol of divine authority. One of the sixty-five figures of the Sripada, or the mystic foot-print of Buddha which contains that number of symbolical figures. The Tchakra is used in mesmeric phenomena and other abnormal practices.
(WG) Chakra, wheel, discus, center; in the body, centres of psychic energy; the weapon of Vishnu, symbolizing cyclic evolution; a cycle.
(OG) Chakra {Sans} A word signifying in general a “wheel,” and from this simple original meaning there were often taken for occult and esoteric purposes a great many subordinate, very interesting, and in some cases highly mystical and profound derivatives. Chakra also means a cycle, a period of duration, in which the wheel of time turns once. It also means the horizon, as being circular or of a wheel-form. It likewise means certain centers or pranic spherical loci of the body in which are supposed to collect streams of pranic energy of differing qualities, or pranic energies of different kinds. These physiological chakras, which are actually connected with the pranic circulations and ganglia of the auric egg, and therefore function in the physical body through the intermediary of the linga-sarira or astral model-body, are located in different parts of the physical frame, reaching from the parts about the top of the skull to the parts about the pubis. It would be highly improper, having at heart the best interests of humanity, to give the occult or esoteric teaching concerning the exact location, functions, and means of controlling the physiological chakras of the human body; for it is a foregone conclusion that were this mystical knowledge broadcast, it would be sadly misused, leading not only in many cases to death or insanity, but to the violation of every moral instinct. Alone the high initiates, who as a matter of fact have risen above the need of employing the physiological chakras, can use them at will, and for holy purposes — which in fact is something that they rarely, if indeed they ever do.
(GH) Chakra A word with a number of meanings: a wheel; a circle; a discus — the weapon of Vishnu (hence also a symbol of the deity); a cycle or period of time; also the physiological centers of pranic vitality in the human body. In Buddhism the chakra is a favorite symbol, especially associated with Gautama the Buddha, for he is represented as setting a new chakra in motion: his disciples, in broadcasting his message are often referred to as ‘turning the wheel.’ As the weapon of Vishnu, the chakra means “the whirling wheel of spiritual will and power.” (W. Q. Judge, p. in footnote,
(SP) Cakra [chakra] — wheel, cycle of time, or energy center in the body.
(TG) Chakshub {Sans}. The “eye” . Loka-chakshub or “the eye of the world” is a title of the Sun.
(WG) Chakshus, the eye.
(TG) Chaldean Book of Numbers. A work which contains all that is found in the Zohar of Simeon Ben-Jochai, and much more. It must be the older by many centuries, and in one sense its original, as it contains all the fundamental principles taught in the Jewish Kabbalistic works, but none of their blinds. It is very rare indeed, there being perhaps only two or three copies extant, and these in private hands.
(TG) Chaldeans, or Kasdim. At first a tribe, then a caste of learned Kabbalists. They were the savants, the magians of Babylonia, astrologers and diviners. The famous Hillel, the precursor of Jesus in philosophy and in ethics, was a Chaldean. Franck in his Kabbala points to the close resemblance of the “secret doctrine” found in the Avesta and the religious metaphysics of the Chaldees.
(IU) Chaldeans, Or Kasdim. — At first a tribe, then a caste of learned kabalists. They were the savants, the magians of Babylonia, astrologers and diviners. The famous Hillel, the precursor of Jesus in philosophy and in ethics, was a Chaldean. Franck in his Kabbala points to the close resemblance of the “secret doctrine” found in the Avesta and the religious metaphysics of the Chaldees.
(VS) Chamber (I 23) [[p. 18]] The inner chamber of the Heart, called in Sanskrit Brahma poori . The “fiery power” is Kundalini.
(PV) Chan “Serpent.” The name the Chorti Maya apply to themselves: “people of the serpent,” whose chief is called Hor chan (head of the serpent). The generic name of the Maya as a whole, whose cultural totem is the serpent, as a divine nahual. The equivalent of the Quiche word cumatz .
(TG) Tchandalas, or Chhandalas {Sans}. Outcasts, or people without caste, a name now given to all the lower classes of the Hindus; but in antiquity it was applied to a certain class of men, who, having forfeited their right to any of the four castes — Brahmans, Kshatriyas, Vaisyas and Sudras — were expelled from cities and sought refuge in the forests. Then they became “bricklayers”, until finally expelled they left the country, some 4,000 years before our era. Some see in them the ancestors of the earlier Jews, whose tribes began with A-brahm or “No-Brahm”. To this day it is the class most despised by the Brahmins in India.
(WG) Chandala, an outcast, a pariah.
(TG) Chandra {Sans}. The Moon; also a deity. The terms Chandra and Soma are synonyms.
(WG) Chandra, the moon. (Literally, “glittering.”)
(TG) Chandragupta {Sans}. The first Buddhist King in India, the grandsire of the Sandracottus of the all-bungling Greek writers who went to India in Alexander’s time
(TG) Tchandragupta, or Chandragupta {Sans}. The son of Nanda, the first Buddhist King of the Morya Dynasty, the grandfather of King Asoka, “the beloved of the gods” (Piyadasi).
(FY) Chandragupta, one of the kings of Magadha, an ancient province of India.
(TG) Chandra-kanta {Sans}. “The moon-stone”, a gem that is claimed to be formed and developed under the moon-beam is, which give it occult and magical properties. It has a very cooling influence in fever if applied to both temples.
(TG) Chandramanam {Sans}. The method of calculating time by the Moon.
(FY) Chandramanam, the method of calculating time by the movements of the moon.
(TG) Chandra-vansa {Sans}. The “Lunar Race”, in contradistinction to Suryavansa, the “Solar Race”. Some Orientalists think it an inconsistency that Krishna, a Chandravansa (of the Yadu branch) should have been declared an Avatar of Vishnu, who is a manifestation of the solar energy in Rig-Veda, a work of unsurpassed authority with the Brahmans. This shows, however, the deep occult meaning of the Avatar; a meaning which only esoteric philosophy can explain. A glossary is no fit place for such explanations; but it may be useful to remind those who know, and teach those who do not, that in Occultism, man is called a solar-lunar being, solar in his higher triad, and lunar in his quaternary. Moreover, it is the Sun who imparts his light to the Moon, in the same way as the human triad sheds its divine light on the mortal shell of sinful man. Life celestial quickens life terrestrial. Krishna stands metaphysically for the Ego made one with Atma-Buddhi, and performs mystically the same function as the Christos of the Gnostics, both being “the inner god in the temple” — man. Lucifer is “the bright morning star”, a well known symbol in Revelations, and, as a planet, corresponds to the EGO. Now Lucifer (or the planet Venus) is the Sukra-Usanas of the Hindus; and Usanas is the Daitya-guru, i.e ., the spiritual guide and instructor of the Danavas and the Daityas. The latter are the giant-demons in the Puranas, and in the esoteric interpretations, the antetypal symbol of the man of flesh, physical mankind. The Daityas can raise themselves, it is said, through knowledge “austerities and devotion” to the rank of the gods and of the ABSOLUTE.” All this is very suggestive in the legend of Krishna; and what is more suggestive still is that just as Krishna, the Avatar of a great God in India, is of the race of Yadu, so is another incarnation, “God incarnate himself” — or the “God-man Christ”, also of the race Iadoo — the name for the Jews all over Asia. Moreover, as his mother, who is represented as Queen of Heaven standing on the crescent, is identified in Gnostic philosophy, and also in the esoteric system, with the Moon herself, like all the other lunar goddesses such as Isis, Diana, Astarte and others — mothers of the Logoi, so Christ is called repeatedly in the Roman Catholic Church, the Sun-Christ, the Christ-Soleil and so on. If the later is a metaphor so also is the earlier.
(TG) Chandrayana {Sans}. The lunar year chronology.
(TG) Chantong {Tibe}. “He of the 1,000 Eyes”, a name of Padmapani or Chenresi (Avalokitesvara).
(TG) Chaos {Greek}. The Abyss, the “Great Deep”. It was personified in Egypt by the Goddess Neith, anterior to all gods. As Deveria says, “the only God, without form and sex, who gave birth to itself, and without fecundation, is adored under the form of a Virgin Mother”. She is the vulture-headed Goddess found in the oldest period of Abydos, who belongs, accordingly to Mariette Bey, to the first Dynasty, which would make her, even on the confession of the time-dwarfing Orientalists, about 7,000 years old. As Mr. Bonwick tells us in his excellent work on Egyptian belief — “Neith, Nut, Nepte, Nuk (her names as variously read!) is a philosophical conception worthy of the nineteenth century after the Christian era, rather than the thirty-ninth before it or earlier than that”. And he adds: “Neith or Nout is neither more nor less than the Great Mother, and yet the Immaculate Virgin, or female God from whom all things proceeded”. Neith is the “Father-mother” of the Stanzas of the Secret Doctrine, the Swabhavat of the Northern Buddhists, the immaculate Mother indeed, the prototype of the latest “Virgin” of all; for, as Sharpe says, “the Feast of Candlemas — in honour of the goddess Neith — is yet marked in our Almanacs as Candlemas day, or the Purification of the Virgin Mary”; and Beauregard tells us of “the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin, who can henceforth, as well as the Egyptian Minerva, the mysterious Neith, boast of having come from herself, and of having given birth to God”. He who would deny the working of cycles and the recurrence of events, let him read what Neith was 7,000 years ago, in the conception of the Egyptian Initiates, trying to popularize a philosophy too abstract for the masses; and then remember the subjects of dispute at the Council of Ephesus in 431, when Mary was declared Mother of God; and her Immaculate Conception forced on the World as by command of God, by Pope and Council in 1858. Neith is Swabhavat and also the Vedic Aditi and the Puranic Akasa, for “she is not only the celestial vault, or ether, but is made to appear in a tree, from which she gives the fruit of the Tree of Life (like another Eve) or pours upon her worshippers some of the divine water of life”. Hence she gained the favourite appellation of “Lady of the Sycamore”, an epithet applied to another Virgin (Bonwick). The resemblance becomes still more marked when Neith is found on old pictures represented as a Mother embracing the ram-headed god, the “Lamb”. An ancient stele declares her to be “Neut, the luminous, who has engendered the gods” — the Sun included, for Aditi is the mother of the Marttanda, the Sun — an Aditya. She is Naus, the celestial ship; hence we find her on the prow of the Egyptian vessels, like Dido on the prow of the ships of the Phoenician mariners, and forthwith we have the Virgin Mary, from Mar, the “Sea” , called the “Virgin of the Sea”, and the “Lady Patroness” of all Roman Catholic seamen. The Rev. Sayce is quoted by Bonwick, explaining her as a principle in the Babylonian Bahu (Chaos, or confusion) i.e ., “merely the Chaos of Genesis . . . and perhaps also Mot, the primitive substance that was the mother of all the gods”. Nebuchadnezzar seems to have been in the mind of the learned professor, since he left the following witness in cuneiform language, “I built a temple to the Great Goddess, my Mother”. We may close with the words of Mr. Bonwick with which we thoroughly agree: “She (Neith) is the Zerouana of the Avesta, ‘time without limits’. She is the Nerfe of the Etruscans, half a woman and half a fish” (whence the connection of the Virgin Mary with the fish and Pisces ; of whom it is said: “From holy good Nerfe the navigation is happy. She is the Bythos of the Gnostics, the One of the Neoplatonists, the All of German metaphysicians, the Anaita of Assyria.”
(OG) Chaos — (Greek) A word usually thought to mean a sort of helter-skelter treasury of original principles and seeds of beings. Well, so it verily is, in one profound sense; but it is most decidedly and emphatically not helter-skelter. It is properly the kosmic storehouse of all the latent or resting seeds of beings and things from former manvantaras. Of course it is this, simply because it contains everything. It means space, not the highest mystical or actual space, not the parabrahma-mulaprakriti, the Boundless — not that. But the space of any particular hierarchy descending into manifestation, what space for it is at that particular period of its beginning of development. The directive principles in chaos are the gods when they awaken from their pralayic sleep. Chaos in one sense may very truly be called the condition of the space of a solar system or even of a planetary chain during its pralaya. When awakening to planetary action begins, chaos pari passu ceases. WW Chaos Now let us take the Greek word chaos, chaos . Hesiod, in his Theogony, says “[[greek char]],” “first chaos was.” The singularity of this verb, [[greek char]], is that it signifies to become . Obviously enough, not to become from nothing; but Chaos first became in the sense of the first dawn of manifestation, the first flutter of awakening life on a plane below that of material homogeneity. As you will remember, last week we spoke of hierarchies, and of one common life running through all; the gods of one being the elementals of the next higher, and the elementals of one being the gods of the next lower. Now Chaos may be called the first material extension in (not of ) space. Milton speaks of the “void and formless infinite” when he refers to chaos; and when we study the first verse in the Hebrew Bible, which I hope to take up today, we will see that “void” must not be taken in the sense of absolute vacuity, but as void of manifestation, void of what is here, void of heterogeneity. Milton again speaks of it as being “matter unformed and void”; and this is a typically Greek sense of the word chaos. Ovid speaks of “rudis indigestaque moles” ( Metam ., 1, 7), “the rude, confused mass.” This is the primal manifestation of matter conceived of from another viewpoint. Get the thought, the meaning, of the thing: the rude and unformed, inchoate mass of the Roman, conceived of as emptiness by the Greek. Gas may be conceived of from one point of view as being as thick and coarse and heavy as mud, but looked at from our material plane a gas is tenuous, invisible, thin. So Chaos, as it is often conceived of, may be called the yawning abyss, and this is the very translation given to a certain word in the Scandinavian Eddas . This word is Ginungagap, translated as the yawning abyss ; the same meaning, the same conception, that is applied to chaos. The difference between chaos and space is finally this: that space is limitless boundlessness, limitless duration, whereas chaos is the conception of extension as applied to the dawn of a solar system, or of a universe. First, voidness, so far as condensed matter is concerned; then the first quiver of life runs through the homogeneity of that part, if I may use that term, of space; and, as H. P. Blavatsky so beautifully expresses it in The Secret Doctrine, “the mother awakens from her sleep after seven eternities”. Manifestation begins, and through ages upon ages of constant thickening and coarsening, matter is formed — first so subtle, thin, diaphanous that we have no conception of it, vastly more tenuous than our gas; then thickening, coarsening constantly, until we arrive at our own rocky sphere. You see then that Chaos is the opposite of Kosmos; as Kosmos is that which is marshalled, arranged, set in order, the handiwork of the Lord, as the Hebrew Bible puts it, the handiwork of the gods, or the handiwork of the angels, as the Kabbalah puts it. So Chaos is the opposite of it, the lack of material shape, form, order — not disorder, though it is often conceived of by the ancient poets under that figure merely by force of contrast as compared with the word Kosmos. As I have said, when Ovid speaks of “the rude and unformed mass”, he looks at it from one point of view; he does not mean spiritual atoms floating about without law; it is a conception higher than that of atoms. To use a material symbol, we may speak of it as water. Water is colorless, we will say, transparent; and if we were marine or aquatic animals we could live in water as we now live in air. We will conceive of water as being infinitely fluid, instead of being only partially so, and as possessing no properties whatever except that of its own characteristic. Now the animals that dwell in water, the plants that have their being in water, we may conceive of as analogies to the divine beings in the waters of space, in the waters of chaos. “And the spirit of the Gods (Elohim) played upon the waters”, as the Hebrew Bible says; and every word of that is full of meaning, as we shall see when we come to it. When Milton talks of chaos as that “where eldest Night and Chaos, ancestors of Nature, hold eternal anarchy” ( Paradise Lost , II, 95), he is partly right and partly wrong. It is true that the ancient poets speak of eldest night, and Hesiod, from whom Milton draws, speaks of Night and Chaos as the ancestors of nature, ( But there can be no anarchy where there is no manifestation; there can only be anarchy (which means a condition of being or society without a center or head, without a government) in manifestation. Homogeneity is oneness; and anarchy can only exist in heterogeneity, or, in other words, where there is conflict of wills. Were man perfect we would have no need of any government, or law. Man is not perfect, therefore law is imposed by man in self-protection. Man invents laws, finds out the way of governing himself and his fellows, studies to stimulate his own sense of duty, teaches the necessity of self-control, etc. But Milton is right if he uses “anarchy” as the opposite of “Kosmos.”
(TG) Charaka {Sans}. A writer on Medicine who lived in Vedic times. He is believed to have been an incarnation (Avatara) of the Serpent Sesha, i.e., an embodiment of divine Wisdom, since Sesha-Naga, the King of the “Serpent” race, is synonymous with Ananta, the seven-headed Serpent, on which Vishnu sleeps during the pralayas. Ananta is the “endless” and the symbol of eternity, and as such, one with Space, while Sesha is only periodical in his manifestations. Hence while Vishnu is identified with Ananta, Charaka is only the Avatar of Sesha. (See “Ananta” and “Sesha
(FY) Charaka, the most celebrated writer on medicine among the Hindus.
(TG) Charnock, Thomas. A great alchemist of the sixteenth century; a surgeon who lived and practiced near Salisbury, studying the art in some neighbouring cloisters with a priest. It is said that he was initiated into the final secret of transmutation by the famous mystic William Bird, who “had been a prior of Bath and defrayed the expense of repairing the Abbey Church from the gold which he made by the red and white elixirs” Charnock wrote his Breviary of Philosophy in the year 1557 and the Enigma of Alchemy, in 1574.
(TG) Charon {Greek}. The Egyptian Khu-en-ua, the hawk-headed Steersman of the boat conveying the Souls across the black waters that separate life from death. Charon, the Sun of Erebus and Nox, is a variant of Khu-en-ua. The dead were obliged to pay an obolus, a small piece of money, to this grim ferryman of the Styx and Acheron; therefore the ancients always placed a coin under the tongue of the deceased. This custom has been preserved in our own times, for most of the lower classes in Russia place coppers in the coffin under the head of the dead for post mortem expenses.
(TG) Charvaka {Sans}. There were two famous beings of this name. One a Rakshasa (demon) who disguised himself as a Brahman and entered Hastina-pura; whereupon the Brahmans discovered the imposture and reduced Charvaka to ashes with the fire of their eyes, — i.e ., magnetically by means of what is called in Occultism the “black glance” or evil eye. The second was a terrible materialist and denier of all but matter, who if he could come back to life, would put to shame all the “Free thinkers” and “Agnostics” of the day. He lived before the Ramayanic period, but his teachings and school have survived to this day, and he has even now followers, who are mostly to be found in Bengal.
(WG) Charvaka, a Hindu philosopher, founder of the Charvaka system of philosophy, which is considered by some to be materialistic.
(TG) Chastanier, Benedict. A French mason who established in London in 1767 a Lodge called “The Illuminated Theosophists”.
(TG) Chaturdasa Bhuyanam {Sans}. The fourteen lokas or planes of existence. Esoterically, the dual seven states.
(FY) Chaturdasa Bhuvanam, the fourteen lokas or states.
(TG) Tchatur Maharaja {Sans}. The “four kings”, Devas, who guard the four quarters of the universe, and are connected with Karma.
(WG) Chaturmasya, three sacrifices performed every four months, at the beginning of the three seasons.
(TG) Chatur mukha {Sans}. The “four-faced one”, a title of Brahma.
(TG) Chatur Varna {Sans}. The four castes ( lit., colours).
(TG) Chaturyoni {Sans}. Written also tchatur-yoni. The same as Karmaya or “the four modes of birth” — four ways of entering on the path of birth as decided by Karma: (a) birth from the womb, as men and mammalia; (b) birth from an egg, as birds and reptiles; (c) from moisture and air-germs, as insects; and (d) by sudden self-transformation, as Bodhisattvas and Gods (Anupadaka).
(TG) Chavigny, Jean Aime de. A disciple of the world-famous Nostradamus, an astrologer and an alchemist of the sixteenth century. He died in the year 1604. His life was a very quiet one and he was almost unknown to his contemporaries; but he left a precious manuscript on the pre-natal and post-natal influence of the stars on certain marked individuals, a secret revealed to him by Nostradamus. This treatise was last in the possession of the Emperor Alexander of Russia.
(TG) Chaya {Hebr}. The same as Eve: “the Mother of all that lives”; “Life”.
(GH) Chekitana An ally of the Pandavas: a son of Dhrishtaketu (or Kaikeya), the father-in-law of Krishna and Raja of the Kekayas, (one of the chief nations in the war of the Mahabharata). ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 2)
(TG) Chela {Sans}. A disciple, the pupil of a Guru or Sage, the follower of some adept of a school of philosophy ( lit., child).
(KT) Chela {Sans} A disciple. The pupil of a Guru or Sage, the follower of some Adept, or a school of philosophy.
(FY) Chela, a pupil of an adept in occultism; a disciple.
(WG) Chela, pupil, disciple
(OG) Chela — ( Cela ) An old Indian term. In archaic times more frequently spelled and pronounced cheta or cheda. The meaning is “servant,” a personal disciple attached to the service of a teacher from whom he receives instruction. The idea is closely similar to the Anglo-Saxon term leorning-cneht, meaning “learning servant,” a name given in Anglo-Saxon translations of the Christian New Testament to the disciples of Jesus, his “chelas.” It is, therefore, a word used in old mystical scriptures for a disciple, a pupil, a learner or hearer. The relationship of teacher and disciple is infinitely more sacred even than that of parent and child; because, while the parents give the body to the incoming soul, the teacher brings forth that soul itself and teaches it to be and therefore to see, teaches it to know and to become what it is in its inmost being — that is, a divine thing.
The chela life or chela path is a beautiful one, full of joy to its very end, but also it calls forth and needs everything noble and high in the learner or disciple; for the powers or faculties of the higher self must be brought into activity in order to attain and to hold those summits of intellectual and spiritual grandeur where the Masters themselves live. For that, masterhood, is the end of discipleship — not, however, that this ideal should be set before us merely as an end to attain to as something of benefit for one’s own self, because that very thought is a selfish one and therefore a stumbling in the path. It is for the individual’s benefit, of course; yet the true idea is that everything and every faculty that is in the soul shall be brought out in the service of all humanity, for this is the royal road, the great royal thoroughfare, of self-conquest. The more mystical meanings attached to this term chela can be given only to those who have irrevocably pledged themselves to the esoteric life.
(SKv) Chela In archaic times Chela was spelled Cheta or Cheda, a word meaning ‘servant.’ A chela has come to mean a disciple or a devoted servant and pupil of one who gives spiritual instruction. To become an accepted Chela of the Masters of Wisdom, qualifications of a very high order are necessary: unselfishness, generosity of heart and mind, courage, fidelity, purity of mind and body, love of spiritual things, and an awakened intuition and acceptance of universal laws and their workings.
(SP) Cela [chela] (student or disciple) is actually a Hindi word, cela, derived from a Sanskrit word for servant, with variant forms ceta, cetaka, ceda, and cedaka. The usual Sanskrit word for student is sisya.
(TG) Chemi {Egyp}. The ancient name of Egypt.
(WG) Chemi, the land of Egypt.
(TG) Chenresi {Tibe}. The Tibetan Avalokitesvara, The Bodhisattva Padmapani, a divine Buddha.
(TG) Tcherno-Bog {slav}. Lit., “black god”; the chief deity of the ancient Slavonian nations.
(TG) Tchertchen. An oasis in Central Asia, situated about 4,000 feet above the river Tchertchen Darya; the very hot-bed and centre of ancient civilization, surrounded on all sides by numberless ruins, above and below ground, of cities, towns, and burial-places of every description. As the late Colonel Prjevalski reported, the oasis is inhabited by some 3,000 people “representing the relics of about a hundred nations and races now extinct, the very names of which are at present unknown to ethnologists”.
(TG) Cheru {Nors}. Or Heru. A magic sword, a weapon of the “sword-god” Heru. In the Edda, the Saga describes it as destroying its possessor, should he be unworthy of wielding it. It brings victory and fame only in the hand of a virtuous hero.
(TG) Cherubim {Hebr}. According to the Kabbalists, a group of angels, which they specially associated with the Sephira Jesod. In Christian teaching, an order of angels who are “watchers”. Genesis places Cherubim to guard the lost Eden, and the O.T. frequently refers to them as guardians of the divine glory. Two winged representations in gold were placed over the Ark of the Covenant; colossal figures of the same were also placed in the Sanctum Sanctorum of the Temple of Solomon. Ezekiel describes them in poetic language. Each Cherub appears to have been a compound figure with four faces — of a man, eagle, lion, and ox, and was certainly winged. Parkhurst, in voc. Cherub, suggests that the derivation of the word is from K, a particle of similitude, and RB or RUB, greatness, master, majesty, and so an image of godhead. Many other nations have displayed similar figures as symbols of deity; e.g., the Egyptians in their figures of Serapis, as Macrobius describes in his Saturnalia; the Greeks had their triple-headed Hecate, and the Latins had three-faced mages of Diana, as Ovid tells us, ecce procul ternis Hecate variata figuris. Virgil also describes her in the fourth Book of the Aeneid. Porphyry and Eusebius write the same of Proserpine. The Vandals had a many-headed deity they called Triglaf. The ancient German races had an idol Rodigast with human body and heads of the ox, eagle, and man, The Persians have some figures of Mithras with a man’s body, lion’s head, and four wings. Add to these the Chimaera, Sphinx of Egypt, Moloch, Astarte of the Syrians, and some figures of Isis with Bull’s, horns and feathers of a bird on the head. [w.w.w.]
(TG) Chesed {Hebr}. “Mercy”, also named Gedulah, the fourth of the ten Sephiroth; a masculine or active potency. [w.w.w.]
(WG) Chesed {Hebr}, mercy. The fourth of the ten Sephiroth of the Kabalah. A masculine potency, sometimes called Gedulah .
(WG) Chetana, knowledge of right and wrong; the thinking principle
(TG) Tchhanda Riddhi Pada {Sans}. “The step of desire”, a term used in Raja Yoga. It is the final renunciation of all desire as a sine qua non condition of phenomenal powers, and entrance on the direct path of Nirvana.
(TG) Chhandoga {Sans}. A Samhita collection of Sama Veda; also a priest, a chanter of the Sama Veda.
(TG) Chhanmuika {Sans}. A great Bodhisattva with the Northern Buddhists, famous for his ardent love of Humanity; regarded in the esoteric schools as a Nirmanakaya.
(TG) Chhannagarikah {Tibe}. Lit., the school of six cities. A famous philosophical school where Chelas are prepared before entering on the Path.
(TG) Chhassidi or Chasdim. In the Septuagint Assidai, and in English Assideans. They are also mentioned in Maccabees I., vii., 13, as being put to death with many others. They were the followers of Mattathias, the father of the Maccabeans, and were all initiated mystics, or Jewish adepts. The word means: “skilled; learned in all wisdom, human and divine”. Mackenzie the guardians of the Temple for the preservation of its purity; but as Solomon and his Temple are both allegorical and had no real existence, the Temple means in this case the “body of Israel” and its morality.” Scaliger connects this Society of the Assideans with that of the Essenes, deeming it the predecessor of the latter.”
(TG) Chhaya {Sans}. “Shade” or “Shadow”, The name of a creature produced by Sanjna, the wife of Surya, from herself (astral body). Unable to endure the ardour of her husband, Sanjna left Chhaya in her place as a wife, going herself away to perform austerities. Chhaya is the astral image of a person in esoteric philosophy.
(WG) Chhaya, a reflected image, shadow, shade; the astral image projected as a model for material man.
(OG) Chhaya — ( Chaya, Sanskrit) Literally a “shade,” “simulacrum,” or “copy.” In the esoteric philosophy, the word signifies the astral image of a person, and with this idea are bound up some of the most intricate and recondite teachings of human evolution. The Secret Doctrine of H. P. Blavatsky contains many invaluable hints as to the part played by the chhayas of the pitris in human development.
It is a word also which is applied with similar meaning to kosmical matters, for the esoteric student should never forget the ancient maxim of Hermes: “What is above is the same as what is below; what is below is the same as what is above.”
Briefly, then, and so far as human evolution is concerned, the chhaya may be called the astral body or image.
(SKs) Chhaya A ‘shade or shadow’; the lower astral form or Lingasarira. The term Chhaya is often used in connexion with those human astral forms of the First Race around which the physical bodies of the following Races were built. In the early days of humanity on this Globe the outer man was astral in substance; later this astral form became the inner form and the physical body became the outermost vehicle. This early Race of men was called by the ancients the ‘Shadow Race’ or Race of Chhayas.
(SP) Chaya [cchaya] — a shade or shadow.
(IN) Chhaya {Sans} A “shade, shadow,” the astral or model body.
(TG) Chhaya loka {Sans}. The world of Shades; like Hades, the world of the Eidola and Umbae. We call it Kamaloka.
(IN) Chhaya-loka {Sans} Shadow of cosmic spirit; also the sphere of shades, kama-loka.
(TG) Chiah {Hebr}. Life; Vita, Revivificatio. In the Kabbala, the second highest essence of the human soul, corresponding to Chokmah (Wisdom).
(TG) Chichhakti {Sans}. Chih-Sakti; the power which generates thought.
(FY) Chichakti, the power which generates thought.
(TG) Chidagnikundum {Sans}. Lit., “the fire-hearth in the heart the seat of the force which extinguishes all individual desires.
(FY) Chidagnikundum (lit. “The fireplace in the heart”), the seat of the force which extinguishes all individual desires.
(SKf) Chidagnikunda The Agni-kunda is the ‘fire-hearth’ of Chit or Pure Consciousness and Thought. When one becomes a Mahatman or a Great-Self he raises his ego-consciousness to that innermost heart of his being, to the Chid-agni-kunda, where all personality disappears and universality is realized.
(TG) Chidakasam {Sans}. The field, or basis of consciousness.
(FY) Chidakasam, the field of consciousness.
(WG) Chidatma, the Logos — that is, the unitary soul and intelligence in one aspect ( chit, intelligence; atma
(TG) Chifflet, Jean. A Canon-Kabbalist reputed to have learned a key to the Gnostic works from Coptic Initiates; he wrote a work on Abraxas in two portions, the esoteric portion of which was burnt by the Church.
(TG) Chiim {Hebr}. A Plural noun — “lives”; found in compound names Elohim Chiim, the gods of lives, Parkhurst translates “the living God”; and Rach Chiim, Spirit of lives or of life. [w.w.w.]
(TG) Tchikitsa Yidya Shastra {Sans}. A treatise on occult medicine, which contains a number of “magic” prescriptions. It is one of the Pancha Vidya Shastras or Scriptures.
(PV) Chilam Balam, Books of Manuscripts written in the Mayan language but in Roman letters by native Mayans during the late 17th and early 18th centuries, after Spanish conquest of the Yucatan Peninsula and suppression of the native religion. The principal ones among these manuscripts, the Chumayel, Tizimin, and Mani, are named after the towns in Yucatan where they were found. About nine other manuscripts are known at the present time; it is likely that more are preserved in secrecy. The so-called Books of Chilam Balam are the sacred books of the Yucatan Mayas, and probably very many of them existed in towns and villages during the Colonial period.
(PV) Chimalmat {quiche-maya} Wife of Vukup Cakix, and mother of Zipacna and Caprakan. Together, these are the four giants of Quiche-Maya theogony.
(TG) China, The Kabbalah of. One of the oldest known Chinese books is the Yih King, or Book of Changes. It is reported to have been written 2850 B.C., in the dialect of the Accadian black races of Mesopotamia. It is a most abstruse system of Mental and Moral Philosophy, with a scheme of universal relation and divination. Abstract ideas are represented by lines, half lines, circle, and points. Thus a circle represents YIH, the Great Supreme; a line is referred to YIN, the Masculine Active Potency; two half lines are YANG, the Feminine. Passive Potency. KWEI is the animal soul, SHAN intellect, KHIEN heaven or Father, KHWAN earth or Mother, KAN or QHIN Son; male numbers are odd, represented by light circles, female numbers are even, by black circles. There are two most mysterious diagrams, one called, “HO or the River Map”, and also associated with a Horse; and the other called “The Writing of LO”; these are formed of groups of white and black circles, arranged in a Kabbalistic manner.
The text is by a King, named Wan, and the commentary by Kan, his son; the text is allowed to be older than the time of Confucius. [w.w.w.]
(TG) Tchina {Sans}. The name of China in Buddhist works, the land being so called since the Tsin dynasty, which was established in the year 349 before our era.
(FY) Chinmatra, the germ of consciousness, abstract consciousness.
(WG) Chinmatra, pure intelligence.
(TG) Chit {Sans}. Abstract Consciousness.
(FY) Chit, the abstract consciousness.
(WG) Chit, intelligence, perception; the element of immaterial and eternal spirit in each human being, the individual soul; intelligent force; potential understanding; one of the aspects of Parabrahmam. It is held that chit and achit do not exist without Parabrahmam, but, like substance and quality, are in inseparable union with one another and with Parabrahmam.
(SP) Cit [chit] — pure consciousness.
(TG) Chitanuthour {Hebr}. Chitons, a priestly garb; the “coats of skin” given by Java Aleim to Adam and Eve after their fall.
(TG) Chitkala {Sans}. In Esoteric philosophy, identical with the Kumaras, those who first incarnated into the men of the Third Root-Race
(TG) Chitra Gupta {Sans}. The deva (or god) who is the recorder of Yama (the god of death), and who is supposed to read the account of every Soul’s life from a register called Agra Sandhani, when the said soul appears before the seat of Judgment. (See “Agra Sandhani
(WG) Chitra-gupta, name of one of the beings recording the vices and virtues of mankind in Yama’s world. ( chat, visible, ether; gupta, guarded, preserved: preserved in the ether
(TG) Chitra Sikkandinas {Sans}. The constellation of the great Bear; the habitat of the seven Rishis (Sapta-Riksha). Lit., “bright-crested”.
(GH) Chitraratha The king of the Gandharvas . (Meaning of the word itself: having a fine car. Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 74)
(WG) Chitta, thought, mind, reason: the heart considered as the seat of intellect; notice (in the sense of observation).
(TG) Tchitta Riddhi Pada {Sans}. “The step of memory.” The third condition of the mystic series which leads to the acquirement of adeptship; i.e., the renunciation of physical memory, and of all thoughts connected with worldly or personal events in one’s life — benefits, personal pleasures or associations. Physical memory has to be sacrificed, and recalled by will power only when absolutely needed. The Riddhi Pada, lit., the four “Steps to Riddhi”, are the four modes of controlling and finally of annihilating desire, memory, and finally meditation itself — so far as these are connected with any effort of the physical brain — meditation then becomes absolutely spiritual.
(TG) Tchitta Smriti Upasthana {Sans}. One of the four aims of Smriti Upasthana, i.e., the keeping ever in mind the transitory character of man’s life, and the incessant revolution of the wheel of existence.
(FY) Chitta suddhi ( Chitta, mind, and Suddi, purification), purification of the mind.
(TG) Chnournis {Greek}. The same as Chnouphis and Kneph. A symbol of creative force; Chnoumis or Kneph is “the unmade and eternal deity” according to Plutarch. He is represented as blue (ether), and with his ram’s head with an asp between the horns, he might be taken for Ammon or Chnouphis . The fact is that all these gods are solar, and represent under various aspects the phases of generation and impregnation. Their ram’s heads denote this meaning, a ram ever symbolizing generative energy in the abstract, while the bull was the symbol of strength and the creative function. All were one god, whose attributes were individualised and personified. According to Sir G. Wilkinson, Kneph or Chnoumis was “the idea of the Spirit of God”; and Bonwick explains that, as Av, “matter” or “flesh”, he was criocephalic (ramheaded), wearing a solar disk on the head, standing on the Serpent Mehen, with a viper in his left and a cross in his right hand, and bent upon the function of creation in the underworld (the earth, esoterically). The Kabbalists identify him with Binah, the third Sephira of the Sephirothal Tree, or “Binah, represented by the Divine name of Jehovah”. If as Chnoumis-Kneph, he represents the Indian Narayana, the Spirit of God moving on the waters of space, as Eichton or Ether he holds in his mouth an Egg, the symbol of evolution; and as Av he is Siva, the Destroyer and the Regenerator; for, as Deveria explains: “His journey to the lower hemispheres appears to symbolize the evolutions of substances, which are born to die and to be reborn.” Esoterically, however, and as taught by the Initiates of the inner temple, Chnoumis-Kneph was pre-eminently the god of reincarnation. Says an inscription: “I am Chnoumis, Son of the Universe, 700”, a mystery having a direct reference to the reincarnating EGO.
(TG) Chnouphis {Greek}. Nouf in Egyptian. Another aspect of Ammon, and the personification of his generative power in actu, as Kneph is of the same in potentia. He is also ram-headed. If in his aspect as Kneph he is the Holy Spirit with the creative ideation brooding in him, as Chnouphis, he is the angel who “comes in” into the Virgin soil and flesh. A prayer on a papyrus, translated by the French Egyptologist Chabas, says; “O Sepui, Cause of being, who hast formed thine own. body! O only Lord, proceeding from Nourn! O divine substance, created from itself! O God, who hast made the substance which is in him! O God, who has made his own father and impregnated his own mother.” This shows the origin of the Christian doctrines of the Trinity and in immaculate conception. He is seen on a monument seated near a potter’s wheel, and forming men out of clay. The fig-leaf is sacred to him, which is alone sufficient to prove him a phallic god — an idea which is carried out by the inscription: “he who made that which is, the creator of beings, the first existing, he who made to exist all that exists.” Some see in him the incarnation of Ammon-Ra, but he is the latter himself in his phallic aspect, for, like Ammon, he is “his mother’s husband”, i.e., the male or impregnating side of Nature. His names vary, as Cnouphis, Noum, Khern, and Khnum or Chnoumis. As he represents the Demiurgos (or Logos) from the material, lower aspect of the Soul of the World, he is the Agathodaemon, symbolized sometimes by a Serpent; and his wife Athor or Maut (Mot mother), or Sate, “the daughter of the Sun”, carrying an arrow on a sunbeam (the ray of conception), stretches “mistress over the lower portions of the atmosphere”, below the constellations, as Neith expands over the starry heavens. (See “Chaos
(TG) Chohan {Tibe}. “Lord” or “Master”; a chief; thus Dhyan-Chohan would answer to “Chief of the Dhyanis”, or celestial Lights — which in English would be translated Archangels.
(WG) Chohan, Lord and Master. Spiritual beings. See Secret Doctrine for fuller explanations.
(IN) Chohan(s) “Lord,” superior chief, divine or human.
(TG) Chokmah {Hebr}. Wisdom; the second of the ten Sephiroth, and the second of the supernal Triad, A masculine potency corresponding to the Yod (I) of the Tetragrammaton IHVH, and to Ab, the Father. [w.w.w.]
(WG) Chockmah {Hebr}, wisdom. The second of the ten Sephiroth in the Kabalah. The second of the supernal triad. A masculine potency.
(PV) Chorti A Maya people, direct descendants of the builders of classical Copan, the apogee of Maya culture. The Chorti now live in a number of villages and hamlets on the border territory of Honduras and Guatemala, not far from the ruins of Copan.
(TG) Chrestos {Greek}. The early Gnostic form of Christ. It was used in the fifth century B.C. by Aeschylus, Herodotus, and others. The Manteumata pythochresta, or the “oracles delivered by a Pythian god” through a pythoness, are mentioned by the former (Choeph. 901). Chresterion is not only “the seat of an oracle”, but an offering to, or for, the oracle. Chrestes is one who explains oracles, “a prophet and soothsayer”, and Chresterios one who serves an oracle or a god. The earliest Christian writer, Justin Martyr, in his first Apology, calls his co-religionists Chrestians. “It is only through ignorance that men call themselves Christians instead of Chrestians ,” says Lactantius Christ and Christians, spelt originally Chrest and Chrestians, were borrowed from the Temple vocabulary of the Pagans. Chrestos meant in that vocabulary a disciple on probation, a candidate for hierophantship. When he had attained to this through initiation, long trials, and suffering, and had been “anointed” (i.e., “rubbed with oil”, as were Initiates and even idols of the gods, as the last touch of ritualistic observance), his name was changed into Christos, the “purified”, in esoteric or mystery language. In mystic symbology, indeed, Christes, or Christos, meant that the “Way”, the Path, was already trodden and the goal reached; when the fruits of the arduous labour, uniting the personality of evanescent clay with the indestructible INDIVIDUALITY, transformed it thereby into the Immortal EGO. “At the end of the Way stands the Chrestes”, the Purifier, and the union once accomplished, the Chrestos, the “man of sorrow”, became Christos himself. Paul, the Initiate, knew this, and meant this precisely, when he is made to say, in bad translation: “I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you” (Gal. iv. 19), the true rendering of which is “until ye form the Christos within yourselves”. But the profane who knew only that Chrestes was in some way connected with priest and prophet, and knew nothing about the hidden meaning of Christos, insisted, as did Lactantius and Justin Martyr, on being called Chrestians instead of Christians. Every good individual, therefore, may find Christ in his “inner man” as Paul expresses it (Ephesians. iii. 16, 17), whether he be Jew, Mussulman, Hindu, or Christian. Kenneth Mackenzie seemed to think that the word Chrestos was a synonym of Soter, “an appellation assigned to deities, great kings and heroes,” indicating “Saviour,” — and he was right. For, as he adds: “It has been applied redundantly to Jesus Christ, whose name Jesus or Joshua bears the same interpretation. The name Jesus, in fact, is rather a title of honour than a name — the true name of the Soter of Christianity being Emmanuel, or God with us Great divinities among all nations, who are represented as expiatory or self-sacrificing, have been designated by the same title The Asklepios (or Aesculapius) of the Greeks had the title of Soter.
(KT) Chrestos {Greek} The early gnostic term for Christ. This technical term was used in the fifth century B. C. by aeschylus, Herodotus and others. The Manteumata pythocresta, or the “Oracles delivered by a Pythian God” through a pythoness, are mentioned by the former (Cho. 901), and Pythocrestos is derived from chrao. Chresterion is not only “the test of an oracle,” but an offering to, or for, the oracle. Chrestes is one who explains oracles, a “prophet and soothsayer,” and Chresterios, one who serves an oracle or a God. The earliest Christian writer, Justin Martyr, in his first Apology, calls his co-religionists Chrestians. “It is only through ignorance that men call themselves Christians, instead of Chrestians,” says Lactantius Christ and Christians, spelt originally Chrest and Chrestians, were borrowed from the Temple vocabulary of the Pagans. Chrestos meant, in that vocabulary, “a disciple on probation,” a candidate for hierophantship; who, when he had attained it, through Initiation, long trials and suffering, and had been anointed (i. e., “rubbed with oil,” as Initiates and even Idols of the Gods were, as the last touch of ritualistic observance), was changed into Christos — the “purified” in esoteric or mystery language. In mystic symbology, indeed, Christes or Christos meant that the “way,” the Path, was already trodden and the goal reached; when the fruits of the arduous labour, uniting the personality of evanescent clay with the indestructible INDIVIDUALITY, transformed it thereby into the immortal EGO. “At the end of the way stands the Christes,” the Purifier; and the union once accomplished, the Chrestos, the “man of sorrow” became Christos himself. Paul, the Initiate, knew this, and meant this precisely, when he is made to say in bad translation, “I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you” (Gal. iv., 19), the true rendering of which is, ” . . . . until you form the Christos within yourselves.” But the profane, who knew only that Chrestos was in some way connected with priest and prophet, and knew nothing about the hidden meaning of Christos, insisted, as did Lactantius and Justyn Martyr, on being called Chrestians instead of Christians. Every good individual, therefore, may find Christ in his “inner man,” as Paul expresses it, (Ephes. iii., 16, 17) whether he be Jew, Mussulman, Hindu or Christian.
(KT) Christ (see Chrestos).
(WG) Christos (Greek), the Higher Self, Isvara.
(OG) Christos — (Greek) Christos or “Christ” is a word literally signifying one who has been “anointed.” This is a direct reference, a direct allusion, to what happened during the celebration of the ancient Mysteries. Unction or anointing was one of the acts performed during the working of the rites of those ancient Mysteries in the countries surrounding the Mediterranean Sea. The Hebrew word for an anointed one is mashiahh — “messiah” is a common way of misspelling the Hebrew word — meaning exactly the same thing as the Greek word Christos.
Each human being is an incarnation, an imbodiment, of a ray of his own inner god — the divinity living in the core of the core of each one. The modern Christians of a mystical bent of mind call it the Christ Immanent, the immanent Christos, and they are right as far as they go, but they do not carry the thought far enough. Mystically speaking, the Christos is the deathless individuality; and when the striving personal ego becomes united permanently with this stainless individuality, the resultant union is the higher ego, “the living Christ” — a Christ among men, or as the Buddhists would say, a human or manushya-buddha. WW Christianity [[T]]he Christian religion is, as I have said, an evolution. Its most important doctrines, the Trinity, the Incarnation of the Logos, the Virgin Birth of the Savior of men, the Angelical Governance of the World — all these we have seen to be archaic pagan doctrines. I wish to emphasize one fact before we go further, that while it is undoubtedly true that everything that is in Christianity is based upon a Theosophical foundation — that is, everyone of these doctrines, at least — there is no question that these doctrines have been so modified, so stultified, so strangled in the effort to hold them, to explain them and expound them to critics, sceptics, and religious iconoclasts, that they have lost their true life. The Church has lost the key. It never had it beyond the first 75 or 100 years. It would seem as if scarcely 50 years had passed from the accepted time of birth of the founder of Christianity before disagreement and dissention began to creep in. The Christian brotherhood, which seems in its original to have been a kind of Theosophical sodality, the Theosophical Society of its day, suffered the same disintegration that we see to be almost inherent in human affairs unless indeed great men, great minds, are at the head of society. Some man of an inquiring mind, quick intellect, ambitious character, will spring up. Sincerely or insincerely, it is hard to say, perhaps both, he founds a society within the mother society, by drawing together sympathetic spirits. He is following his own desires, possibly sincere ones. He is not intellectual enough, keen enough, to see and feel the meaning, the necessity, the beauty of harmony, of the unity which makes strength. His society grows, it may separate itself from the mother society, it may start on a career of its own. If it grows, indeed, another man similar to the first one springs up in it, and we find it like the branches of a tree splitting into other branches, every little society following its own leader. Some have more real life than others. In some cases these innovations may be for the good. Many of the Christian sects seem to have been founded on a desire to get back to the original Theosophical aspect of the Christian faith from which it had so largely departed. We have thus Arianism, founded by Arius, a presbyter of Alexandria, which nearly split the Christian Church in twain, and whose doctrines were condemned at the General Council at Nicaea in 325, when the Nicene Creed, which we examined in our first and second studies, was set forth. He (Arius) thought, for instance, (and he had a great following) that Jesus was not the second person of the Trinity, which idea seemed then to be growing in Christian faith, but that he was divine in the sense of being the first creature, the first creation, of God, hence the Logos, but he was not one of the Trinity. He in fact denied the Trinity; and it was largely to condemn these doctrines of Arius that the orthodox Church, that is, those who accepted the current ideas of the day, met by order of the Emperor Constantine in 325 A.D. at Nicaea and set forth the Nicene Creed, its declaration of faith. There is a very interesting historical record about Isis (Neith). In the town of Sais, which is on the Canopic mouth of the Nile, in the Delta, in Egypt, there was a magnificent temple, and in it a statue, on which it is said there was this written, which has come down to us in Greek. (Probably it was not originally in Greek, but in the native language. It reads: “I am Isis, all which has been, which is, and shall be; and no one of mortals has ever revealed (or removed) my garment — and the fruit that I brought forth became the sun.” This line “the fruit that I brought forth became the sun”, is only reported to us by Proclus, the Neo-Platonic philosopher, though the rest of the inscription has come down to us from both Plutarch and Proclus. Now it is a very interesting fact, which has its own value, that the fruit of the womb of Mary called Virgin was Jesus, and in the Christian writers, particularly in the writers of the earlier centuries, he is connected very closely in symbology and in philosophical thought with the sun. There is a Christian hymn to Jesus Christ, to Jesus as the Christ, dating from the 6th or 7th century, which runs as follows in Latin: Verusque Sol, illabere, Micans nitore perpeti, Jubarque Sancti Spiritus Infunde nostris sensibus! [Cf. the metrical hymn of the Rig – Veda (iii, 62, 10), Tat savitur varenyam bhargo devasya dhimai dhiyo yo nah prachodayat. Literally, Let us meditate on that most excellent light of the divine Sun, that it may illumine our minds .– PLP EDS.] I ask your close attention to this: “O true Sun, go down,” — (that is, fall as the afternoon sun does; it is evidently sung to the afternoon sun) — “O thou true Sun, go down!, shining with perpetual light! Radiance of the Holy Spirit, infill our minds!” A beautiful thought. You see the sun here is called true sun, evidently marking a distinction between a true sun and lesser sun. “Shining with perpetual light; O glory of the Holy Spirit” — (the sun is the glory or radiance of the Holy Spirit, or the third person of the Trinity –), “infill our minds.” It is an invocation, a prayer, and a hymn to the Sun, as typical an example of sun-worship as could be found in any one of the so-called sun worshiping religions. The thought is very beautiful, and to a philosophical mind is perfectly clear. So we see that Jesus as late as the 6th and 7th centuries was spoken of as the true Sun and the glory of the Holy Spirit; and the Sun was looked upon as being the representative or prototype in the sky of what Jesus was among men. Now there is another curious fact which before we go on I would like to advert to. It is very little known, and unquestionably the Christian theologians did as little as they could to have it known. You will remember that in one of the chapters of Matthew it states that when Jesus was brought before Pilate, the Roman governor, he said (at least the writer called Matthew says), that there was a robber in jail called Barabbas, and that he asked the people “Who will you have, Jesus or Barabbas?” — (“Therefore when they were gathering together, Pilate said unto them, Whom will ye that I release unto you? Barabbas or Jesus who is called Christ?” ( Matthew, 27, 17) And then in verse 21: “The governor answered and said unto them, ‘Which of the twain will ye that I release unto you?’ They said ‘Barabbas’ “). Now one of the greatest, most learned, sincerest, and wisest of the Christian fathers was Origen. He lived in Alexandria at the beginning of the third century, and wrote voluminous works. He was a man of philosophical mind and his writings are very valuable for the information on early Christianity which they contain. In one of his works, a commentary on Matthew, we learn that the Bible in his day, at least Matthew in his day, tells us that the name of this Barabbas was Jesus — Jesus Barabbas. You will remember that one of the titles of Jesus, or rather one of the ways in which he is described, was “Son of the Father.” Barabbas is Syrian for “Son of the Father”; and the interesting point about that is this: that here we have one, the supposed founder of Christianity (accused of blasphemy and insurrection, according to the New Testament tale, by the Jews who sought his death at the hands of the Roman Procurator), whose name was Jesus, frequently referred to as the Son of the Father; and at the same time there was a man in jail called Jesus surnamed the Son of the Father, or insurrectionist; and for some reason for which neither legend nor history has a record, Pilate is said to have offered to give Jesus, the Son of the Father, for Jesus the Son of the Father. And he said: “Which will you have, Jesus the Son of the Father or Jesus the Son of the Father called Christ ; and they said: “Jesus, the Son of the Father.” The point to notice here is the extreme confusion which in the early days must have existed — the wheels within wheels as is shown in the variation in the Gospels, thus making their composite nature. Now Origen, from whom we have this knowledge, wishes to efface the word Jesus on the ground that “the word Jesus should not be applied to a malefactor” against the testimony of the Bible itself. He says it is improper that an evildoer should have the same name as the founder of the Christian faith. Origen was clearly disturbed — for reasons not hard to divine. Of course the name is a Hebrew name, and means “savior”; Joshua, and Jehoshua are merely variants; it is Latinized as “Jesus.” This one little fact gives a glimpse of the critical chaos into which at so early a time as Origen the Christian writings such as then existed had fallen, and of the seeming lack of knowledge which the Christians then possessed. Origen was a learned man, and Bishop Marsh, an eminent English theologian in his translation of Michaelis’ (a German writer) Introduction to the New Testament, long ago pointed out that so great was the authority of this early Christian writer Origen in the Church at that time that many of the changes he made were adopted in all subsequent editions of the Christian scriptures, and unquestionably we owe the originals of the best known of the present Greek manuscripts to Origen. You will remember that there was no printing in those days, that manuscripts were copied laboriously by hand by a class of people commonly spoken of as scribes or writers, and papyrus or parchment was costly, and therefore it required the combination of an educated man and a man of some means to issue copies or recensions of any book. So naturally when a man of such authority as Origen, a man also of means and a man of learning, set forth that such and such a thing should be, and had it copied in his own manuscripts which he spread about, we see how easy it was for any changes or emendations which Origen proposed to have taken place. WW Christianity There are a number of further points I want to cover. As regards the Virgin Birth we touched upon: one may merely say that it is a mystical theory based upon a certain philosophical principle which we will deal with later on, and which is found in different countries. We may mention Perseus, the son of the virgin Danae; and the story of Plato being the son of Perictione supposedly by the God Apollo, before she was wife in fact to her husband. Around the lives of founders of religions there are legends of many kinds. Reverence misplaced, idealism misunderstood, the attempts to make an ideal figure, all work very strongly in the human mind. The lives of all great founders of religions, even the lives of founders of philosophies, or the founders of political systems, as time goes on, become enshrouded and enveiled in marvelous tales, wondrous traditions about the way they were born, or the acts they did, or the miracles they accomplished, so that the story of Jesus as regards these is nothing singular. The Roman Church has always gone to extremes. It is said that it is the most logical of the churches, and that may perhaps be true if we can admit the premises, but the premises are frequently impossibilities, and therefore it is the most illogical in fact of the churches. For instance, its Virgin, instead of being the mythical ideal type of the ancients, was a woman, a human. So eager, apparently were the early founders of the church to have something definite, strong, appealing to set before those whom they wished to convert, that they could think of nothing better than to have an ideal figure of the type of the many ideal figures both of mother and son of antiquity. The difference was that the ancient idea was spiritual, the Christian grossly materialistic. The ‘miracles’ similar to them or different, have been treasured up by the followers of many other men. History and legend are replete with them. All the Greek heroes, all the Greek gods and demi-gods were supposed to have worked miracles of many kinds. In India, the miracles ascribed to Krishna and to the Buddha, who was also supposed to have been born of the virgin Maya (illusion — a very philosophical idea), and the miracles ascribed in ancient America to the wonderful type-figures of the New World so called, all have the same general outline: frequently also the Virgin Birth, or the immaculate birth; the legends clustering about the deliverer or savior, etc.; and the miracles he worked when he grew up and started upon his mission. Often he is rejected; frequently he is accepted; but the rule of parallelism holds good. All Heathendom, so-called, to use a Christian term, looked forward to a regeneration, to the return of the reign of Saturn, the Golden Age of Innocence, of purity, and of joy. Besides the Jews who expected this Messiah, the Persians looked forward to the coming of their Sosiosh, and the Hindus to the coming of their Kali-avatara; while the Mexicans longed for the return of their Quetzalcoatl, bringing peace, joy, and plenty in his train. The marvels of Jesus as contrasted with the miracles or wonderworkings of other saviors have one singular point; that is, they are not particularly wonderful. There were miracles worked by some of the Christian saints which were far more startling. For instance, they say that Saint Columba walked from St. Denis, a town near Paris, to Paris, carrying his head in his hand; but that cannot equal what St. Patrick did, because they say that he swam the Shannon with his head in his mouth! That certainly makes the miracles of Jesus pale into insignificance. A man who can swim a river with his head in his mouth is certainly a very wonderful thaumaturge. At the time of the beginning of the Christian era there lived another wonderworker, a remarkable man, called Apollonius of Tyana (a town in Asia Minor), whose miracles, so called, were so great and so similar to those of Jesus that it has frequently been supposed that his whole story was a forgery made by the ancients to discredit the life and work of Jesus. His life has come down to us written by Philostratus, a philosopher; and one has but to read Philostratus’ work to see the analogy. Apollonius is attended by wonders at his birth; wonders attend his upbringing; he raises the dead; he heals the sick; he vanishes out of sight when accused and on trial before the Emperor Domitian, and appears a few hours later to his disciples at Puteoli, a long distance from Rome, more than three days’ journey. Why do we hear so little of Apollonius of Tyana, why he did not also have a following, why he did not also found a religion, is one of the facts in his favor, I was going to say, but perhaps that is a little harsh. But certain it is that at the time the Christian era began the world was agape for the wonderful. New religions were springing up everywhere; the worship of Isis the virgin and of her son Horus had spread, as you will remember we said last week, all over the Roman Empire, which at that time (at the beginning of this era) included all the land from Britain to the frontiers of the Parthian Empire, and from the Scandinavian fiords to the Cataracts of Assuan (Syene, as it was then called). Any religion or philosophy which could talk long enough and insist strongly enough and clamor loud enough could not fail to get a following. It is a remarkable thing that we have no contemporary reports of Jesus whatsoever, except one (and that a forgery) in Josephus, to which I shall allude in a moment. We are told that at the crucifixion of Jesus — (if indeed there was a crucifixion, which is, as I suggested at the beginning of our study, merely one of the events belonging to the type-figure) — we are told in Matthew , 17.45, that from the sixth hour there was darkness all over the land until the ninth hour — but not a word of this marvel can be found anywhere in any contemporary writer. We are also told that the veil of the temple in Jerusalem (Jerusalem of course is not in the text) was rent in twain from the top to the bottom, and the earth did quake and the rocks rent and the graves were opened and many bodies of the saints which slept arose and came out of the graves and went into the holy city and appeared unto many. ( Matthew These are wonderful things, but not a word has come down to us outside the Christian records. Josephus was a Jew living shortly after that time, a voluminous writer, a learned man, very intimate with the Emperors Vespasian and Titus, with friends at court. He wrote the Antiquities of Judea and a History of Jewish Wars, but he makes no mention of these marvels whatsoever. Philo was another Jew of whom we have spoken, a Platonist, also a learned man, devoted to literature. Born a little before the Christian era and living for forty or fifty years afterward, he writes not a word concerning these wonders. Nor are these miracles or even the existence of Jesus mentioned by Justus of Tiberias, [See Jewish Encyclopedia ] a contemporary Jewish historian. Nor in any of the so-called pagan writers is there anything about them. We are told in St . Luke, 23, 44-46: “it was about the sixth hour and there was darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour, and the sun was darkened, and the veil of the Temple was rent in the midst.” That is all that Luke says. Now concerning what Josephus has to say about Jesus. It was for long supposed by Christians — and they quoted it as one of the rare proofs of the actuality of the life of Jesus and his mission — that this passage I am going to quote from Josephus was genuine. But the good sense of Christian critics and the impossible nature of this passage have resulted in causing it to be completely given up as testimony, and to be pronounced by the most cautious of Christian historians today as an out and out forgery. This is the passage: “Now about this time lived Jesus, a wise man, if indeed it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of men, who received the truth with pleasure. He drew over many among the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was the Christ, and when Pilate at the information of the leading men among us had condemned him to the cross, those who had loved him at first did not cease to do so, for he appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold this and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians was named from him, and are not extinct at this day.” ( Antiquities of the Jews Now if you can imagine an orthodox Jew, belonging to the sect of the Pharisees, calling him the Christ whom, according to the Christian records, these Jews punished with death for blasphemy, speaking of this blasphemer as the Messiah, you will see immediately that as a record this passage as it now stands, is an impossibility. It has, besides, the note of exaggeration that we also find in John , Chap. 21, last verse: “And there are also many other things which Jesus did, which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written. Amen.” So much for Josephus. Pliny was a learned Roman gentleman, a friend of the Emperor Trajan. He was governor of Bithynia, 103-105 A.D., and he thus lived during the first and part of the second centuries. He was born in the year 62, but the probability is that when he issued the work which has come down to us — a collection of his letters and correspondence with the Emperor and with his friends — he was a man of some age, fifty or sixty years old; possibly about the year 110. This is only a little later than the date of Josephus. He writes in Letter No. 97, to the Emperor Trajan, a long epistle, quite unlike his usual style, about the Christians in Bithynia, and how he is dealing with them; because the Roman government was always very jealous of unauthorized associations, unauthorized sodalities, fraternities, guilds, associations of any kind. The Emperor Trajan himself had shortly before issued a rescript, that is a mandate, forbidding such associations, and endorsing to a large extent what his predecessors had done along the same line. This Letter begins by his saying that he had never been present at any trial concerning those who professed Christianity, and was unacquainted with the nature of their crime and the measure of their punishment, and how far it was proper to enter into an examination concerning them, etc. He says that certain people were accused before him as being Christians — and you will remember that the Romans cared not a rap what religion their fellow-citizens, or the countries they had conquered, had, provided they obeyed the laws — and he says he examined them, and “If they admitted it I repeated the question . . . and if they persisted I ordered them to be at once punished . . . They repeated before me an invocation to the gods and other religious rites, and offered wine and incense into the censer before the statue of the Emperor — [which would be equivalent to the gentleman of the present day bowing before the king, or kissing the hand of the Queen — nothing more than a recognition of the Imperial majesty] — and they even reviled the name of Christ; whereas there is no forcing, it is said, those who are really Christians, into any of these compliances — [This has a Christian flavor.] — “I thought it proper therefore to discharge them.” Then he goes on and gives this as their form of meeting and worship: “They all worship your statue and the images of the gods, uttering the imprecations at the same time against the name of Christ. They affirmed that the whole of their guilt or error was that they met on a stated day before dawn and addressed a form of prayer or invocation to Christ, as to a divinity — [evidently a form of solar worship] — binding themselves by a solemn oath, not for the purpose of any wicked design, but never to commit any fraud, theft, or adultery; never to falsify their word, nor to deny a trust when they should be called upon to deliver it up; after which it was their custom to separate, and then reassemble to eat in common a harmless meal.” Then Pliny goes on to say that after putting two female slaves to the question, all he could discover was “evidence of an absurd and extravagant superstition.” That is a Christian’s phrase, although found in one or two other Roman writers, because the Christians were very fond of pointing out how the ancients looked upon their religion as a superstition. Then he continues: “In fact, this contagious superstition is not confined to the cities only, but has spread its infection among the neighboring towns and country. Nevertheless, it still seems possible to restrain its progress. The temples, at least, which were once almost deserted, begin now to be frequented, and the sacred rites after a long intermission are again living, while there is a general demand for the victims which until lately found very few purchasers. From all this it is easy to conjecture what numbers might be reclaimed if a general pardon be granted to those who shall repent of their error Now the point in all this is the following: This Roman governor writes, only 60 or 70 years after the supposed death of Jesus as a malefactor, that in his province the temples of the gods are deserted, victims were scarcely ever purchased, and all the towns and neighboring country were infected with the Christian superstition, and that it is possible to restrain its progress; and yet we know by contemporary history that later years show no such wonderful dissemination of the Christian religion in that district. If this is based upon a genuine letter of Pliny to Trajan, I feel convinced that it has either been grossly changed and meddled with, or that there is some other explanation at present unknown to me, different from the sense of the letter. Were these people followers of elithroism? The style is different from the rest of Pliny’s letters; the elegance, the literary terseness, the large mindedness of the Roman gentleman are all absent. He is addicted in this letter to strong adjectives; he takes an attitude of partisanship against something which on the face of it to him was nothing but a superstition, etc. It is interesting, therefore, to see that Trajan’s answer to Pliny would go to show that this letter (how much of it is genuine we know not) is probably a change or modification of some original, because Trajan in answering it says: “You have taken the right course, my dearest Secundus, in investigating the charges against the Christians who were brought before you. It is not possible to lay down any general rule for all such cases. Do not go out of your way to look for them. If indeed they should be brought before you and the crimes proved — [you will remember that it was a criminal act under Roman law to hold private, secret meetings — not the crime of their being Christians but the crime of their disobeying the law] — they must be punished, with the restriction, however, that where the party denied he is a Christian and shall make it evident that he is not by invoking our gods — [this again has a Christian touch] — let him, notwithstanding any former suspicion, be pardoned, upon his repentance. Anonymous information ought not to be accepted in any trials, under any circumstances. It is introducing a very dangerous precedent and is entirely foreign to the spirit of our age.” (Letter 98) Later we may have to go into this subject more profoundly, and we shall see that these tales of diabolical persecution by the pagans, and of such sweet-spirited serenity and willing martyrdom by the Christians are largely, like so much else, faked testimony. Now as regards the crucifixion of Jesus. You will probably recollect that crucifixion was a Roman form of punishment for malefactors of a certain class: the lowest class of malefactors only were crucified. We may look upon it as a barbarous and horrid form of punishment for an enlightened people to have, but I doubt if it be worse than our barbarous method of hanging a man by the neck until he be dead, or the other barbarous punishments which in the most Christian era of Europe were too common, such as boiling a man in oil. The cross had many forms, but the usual form was what is called the Roman cross an upright stake with a transverse board; and frequently, where the crotch of the man would be, there was a projection, on which the criminal would rest or ride, or towards the foot of the cross there was a horizontal piece set into it, so that he would stand on it. Sometimes the hands were nailed, sometimes they were merely tied, and he was left to die of starvation, which in itself is not a particularly fearful death. Guards were stationed around the cross of punishment to see that the friends of the criminal did not carry him off, and there was strong probability to suppose, from instances in the writings of the Romans which have come down to us, that soporific draughts were given to the criminals before the crucifixion to dull the pain and send them to sleep. If Jesus, according to the story, had been tried for blasphemy, by Jewish law he would have been stoned to death and then perhaps hanged upon a tree, (see the Talmud) as had happened before, and in this stoning to death also the victim was probably given an opiate of some kind, a soporific drink, possibly not always, but it was doubtless frequently so. The whole story of the crucifixion in the Christian Gospel does not bear the stamp of truth. We cannot conceive of a Roman procurator — proud of his nation, filled with the pride of his birth and his training, looking upon the Syrians as all the Romans did with a feeling akin to contempt — acting as Pilate did, if indeed Pilate was the Roman magistrate at the time Jesus died, and if indeed Jesus died as it is said he did. This very Pilate is supposed to have aroused an insurrection among the Jews by his contemptuous treatment of them. Pilate is said to have washed his hands and said: “What is truth?” A natural question enough, showing him a philosopher, possibly of the New Academy, or of the Epicurean sect, if indeed he made the remark. It is a question which is asked by men today and always will be asked, I suppose, as long as men think. Jesus is supposed to have lived 33 years. The early Christians, or at least some of them, gave the time of his ministry as one year, which Irenaeus ( Refutation, II, 23, 5-6) condemns; and the accepted opinion today among pious Christians is that his mission lasted three years, and that he was crucified in his 33rd year. The idea of the early Christians ( Clementine Homilies, XVII, 9; also of the Gnostics) that his mission lasted 12 months and that he died in the 12th month is evidently a form of the work or destiny of the solar god through the twelve months of the year. It has an analogy, mystical perhaps, with the twelve labors of Hercules, he being connected with the sun, as is well known. Now Irenaeus was an early Christian Father living in the 2nd century, and he tells us in his work which has come down to us called The Refutation of all Heresies (II, 22, 5-6) that those people who say that Jesus perished as a young man, 30 odd years of age, are all wrong, because he came as a type-figure, a symbol, of perfect man; and as he was a child to little children and a youth to youth and man to man, so he must have been an old man to the aged. And he declares on the testimony of John, the disciple of Jesus, and of the Presbyters, who heard it from John in Asia Minor, that Jesus’ ministry lasted twenty years, and that he lived to be at least 50 years old. This statement of Irenaeus has caused a great deal of discussion, and it is usually pronounced — being a very unwelcome kind of Christian testimony — to be ‘a tradition’, and you will often read, when learned and pious Christian writers discuss Irenaeus’ statement, ‘how easy it is for traditions to be misunderstood’, etc. Yet this one-year tradition is one of the very earliest. Now Jesus shortly before his death established what the Christians call the sacrament of the Last Supper. This is considered, and has been for ages, one of the greatest mysteries of the Christian faith. The Roman Catholics take the extreme view, as always, and claim that they receive their ideas of the celebration of the Communion straight down the ages from Jesus himself. The form in which the Roman Catholics accept the Communion is called transubstantiation — trans, across, substantiation, from substance, meaning that the elements of the Eucharist, that is, the bread and wine, are transformed, their substance is transformed, into the actual body and blood of Jesus Christ. Now when Luther in the 15th and 16th century started his controversial writings, he aroused a great storm. The Roman Catholic Church in those days was in a state which seriously needed medicine. It was corrupt, in some senses; the Christian spirit had gone, perhaps fortunately, one can hardly say; but such was the outbreak, such was the clamor of discontent, that this, occurring at the time of the revival of learning, made things very precarious for the Roman Catholic See. So they finally called a Council which they claimed to be Ecumenical, or general, and which assembled at the little town not far from the Italian frontier today and on the line of the railroad running over the Brenner Pass. This Council assembled on December 13th, 1545, and lasted with intermissions until December 4, 1563. It was several times suspended, one suspension lasting nine years. And at this Council were condemned the leading doctrines of the Reformation concerning the Bible, original sin, etc. The decrees of this Council were confirmed by Pope Pius IV in January, 1564. It was composed, according to one reckoning, of 3 patriarchs, 7 cardinals, 33 archbishops, 35 bishops — 278 in all. Others give the number in all as 4 cardinal legates, 2 other cardinals, 25 archbishops, 166 bishops, 7 abbots, 7 generals of order, 39 proxies of bishops — 252. Now the decrees of this Council gave a definite and set form to the doctrines of the Roman Church for future time; gave them a firm ground to stand upon. Among them was the question of the celebration of the Communion or Eucharist, in connection with which the word transubstantiation is used. The word itself first occurs in the 11th century, and was used in the controversy about the nature of the Eucharist between La France, who was Archbishop of Canterbury and Italian born in Padua, and Berengarius, a Latinized form of the French Berenger, Canon of Tours, in France. Berengarius denied the real presence of the actual body and blood of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist; La France, the Italian Englishman, asserted it. Berengarius was born in 998, and died at Tours in 188. He was condemned on account of his opposition to the real presence in the Eucharist by several Synods, and he several times recanted these views. La France was born in 1005 and died at Canterbury in 1085. He was a friend and counsellor of William the Conqueror. The discussion concerning the nature of the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist began in the 9th century. Now transubstantiation as a doctrine was approved by the Council of Rome in 1079. At the Fourth Lateran Council in Rome under Pope Innocent III, this doctrine was declared to be an article of faith. The Greek Church accepted an identical or closely similar doctrine to transubstantiation at the Council of Jerusalem in 1672. The Swiss Zwingli, much later, about the time of Calvin and Luther in the 15th and 16th centuries, taught that the Eucharist was merely in commemoration of the Supper of the Lord Jesus, that there was no real presence and that the bread and the wine were merely symbols of the partaking of the divine nature of Jesus by the pure in heart. Luther taught the real presence, as it is called: that the body and blood of Jesus Christ existed in the Eucharist, but in some unexplained way. He denied that the elements of the Eucharist became the body and blood of Jesus. Calvin taught that by faith the true believer received Jesus Christ’s body and blood; merely receiving as it were the heavenly power from the glorified body of Jesus in Heaven; and Calvin’s views were generally admitted by the reformed Churches. The Roman Catholics believe what is set forth in the decrees of the Council of Trent, and I will quote parts of them verbatim: “In the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist, after the consecration of the bread and wine, our Lord Jesus Christ, true God and man, is truly, really and substantially contained in the species [that is to say, the appearance] of these sensible things.” ( Canons and Decrees of the Church Council at Trent “By the consecration of the bread and wine the whole substance of the bread is changed into the body of Christ and the whole substance of the blood; which change is truly and fitly called transubstantiation by the Holy Catholic Church.” (Section XIII, chap. IV). Again: “Under each species [that is to say, under the bread or under the wine], and under each particle of each substance, [that is, under any crumb or fragment which may be partaken of], Christ is contained, whole and entire.” In other words, the Roman Catholics believe that in the bread and in the wine which compose the Eucharist they eat the body of Jesus and drink his blood. Therefore they are theophagists — they eat their god and drink his blood. So strongly do they feel the nature of this sacrament that, perhaps unconsciously, they have a defiant attitude and call it the “holiest and greatest mystery of their faith.” It certainly is. Now Anglican views are divided into the High Church and the Low Church. Generally speaking they follow the line of Calvin. So does the Presbyterian Church, which is also the Scottish Church. But the High Churchmen of the Anglicans have a view which approximates rather closely to that of the Roman Catholics. For instance, Blunt, in his Dictionary of Theology, p. 761, says as follows: “That the body and blood of Christ exists in those elements [that is to say, in the bread and wine) is as much the belief of the English Church as of the Latin and Greek Churches.” And Pusey, who was a famous High Churchman of the Anglican Communion, in his Eirenicon, p. 229, says that “the difference between Anglicans and Romanists is more a dispute about words than a difference in things.” That is the extreme High Church view, but it may be said that the general Anglican view is fairly that of Calvin, to wit: that by faith the true believer receives spiritually the body and blood of his Savior, not that the bread and wine become actually the body and blood of Jesus Christ. The Romanists say that the reason the bread does not look and taste and smell like flesh, and the wine does not look and smell and taste like blood, is because while the substances are changed into the body and blood, yet what are called the accidents , that is, the form and shape and taste and smell of the bread and wine, remain. Now in the early Christian church there seems to have always been a form of the celebration of the Eucharist. In the primitive church, as far as can be known, it was very simple. Almost anybody seems to have been permitted to celebrate, as in the case of friends leaving on a journey from home, and in case of marriages or deaths, possibly; on almost any unusual event happening, they broke bread and drank wine with a prayer. But as time went on, the craving for marvels and the degeneration of the age, the going to sleep of the intellectual nature of man, and the strong development of the love of wonder, worked so forcefully that gradually there grew up a view, an opinion, a feeling, that when Jesus Christ made his last supper, according to the Gospels, with his disciples, he meant it as a type for all good Christians to follow afterwards, and at all times, and that where bread was broken and wine was drunk with a prayer or consecration by the deacon, it partook of a spiritual, divine character or nature; and this view developed more and more until it has now blossomed out into what we see to be the doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church. The mere fact of the partaking of bread and wine (or water) in the name of a god, was not uncommon. The worship of Mithras originated in Persia, or at least became known to the Greeks as from Persia, after the wars of Alexander. It possessed among its other more common rites a Eucharist consisting of bread and water, and a great many of the early Christians also celebrated their Eucharist with bread and water, or bread and water mixed with wine, which latter continued later in the Middle Ages of the Western Church. Mithraism extended all over the Roman Empire, so much so that at one time it might readily have become the dominating religion and have ousted Christianity in the same way that Christianism ousted Mithraism. Medallions or remains of the worship of Mithra have been found in France, Germany, Ireland, England, Egypt, Italy, Spain, Greece, Asia Minor, everywhere. The followers of Mithraism taught that their God was closely connected with the sun, the spiritual force of the sun, as it were, the great light of the world, enlightening the intellects and spirits of men as the sun lighted the material abode of men, the earth. They had a mystical system of initiation, divided into seven degrees; they had a baptism with water in the name of God; they had a Eucharist as I have said, celebrated with bread and water. Justin the Martyr, of whom I have spoken previously today, says it must have been the devil that did all this, so closely ‘copying’ the Christian rites. As Mithraism existed several hundred years before Christianity was born, possibly the Devil did it by anticipation. But as far as we know, Mithraism could never have been said to have taught that the bread was the body of the sun and the water his solar force. We see, therefore, that so far as regards the “greatest mystery of the Christian faith,” in other words, the Eucharist, it was celebrated by Persians, by Greeks, by Romans, Egyptians, Syrians, Germans, Gauls, Britons, Irishmen, followers of Mithraism at the time of the Christian era. And there is strong reason to believe that in the Mysteries celebrated at Eleusis, bread and wine were used as symbolical, bread of the Goddess Ceres, wine of the God Bacchus, celebrated mystically. And we also know from the writings of the Christian priests who accompanied the Spanish soldiery who conquered Mexico under Cortes the Bandit, that the Mexicans celebrated a Eucharist in the name of their God Huitzilpochtli. [Quetzalcoatl] As the Spanish soldiers could not pronounce his name, they called him “Ocho Lobos” (Eight Wolves) — not a bad name for so sanguinary a god. Huitzilpochtli was a god of war, and of the sun, and while the gory rites of human sacrifice undoubtedly existed in an abhorrent degree in Mexico, nevertheless there was a side of the religion which demanded great purity and asceticism among those who followed it. Its Eucharist was partaken of by people, and consisted of a human figure made of maize, Indian corn (a bread), mixed with the blood of the victim slain to the god — a singular analogy with the other victim slain on the cross of the Christians whose blood is drunk in the Eucharist. So great was the resemblance that the Spanish padres did not know how to explain it. The Mexicans had their Eucharist, and their Savior; they had their Virgin Birth. So the Spaniards ascribed it either to the wiles of the devil or to the pious labors of Saint Tomas — a great traveller; and whenever they came across anything like this they said it was due to the hard-working Saint. It is interesting to remember that when the Spanish banditti arrived in Mexico, although they did put a stop to the terrible custom of human sacrifice, they found a civilization there which was more advanced than their own in some ways. The cities were well policed and kept clean, and in those days the cities of France and Italy were in a shocking state, with mud ankle-deep in the principal streets of the capitals of Europe; it was a common custom to throw sewage and night-soil out of the windows on to the head of any unfortunate traveller who might be passing below. The Mexican cities, on the other hand, were well lighted at night, and the Spaniards found a system of religion, comprising, as I have said, all the essential principles, considered from the mystical standpoint, that they could find in their own, and a priesthood devoted to study, not merely to masses and orisons, but to study and teaching. They found a legal system composed of judges administering justice in the name of the King; they found a calendar correct to within a day or two; where as at the time of the arrival of the Spaniards in Mexico the common calendar as used by them was eleven or twelve days in advance of the true date. Truly, “wonderful are the ways of Karman!” It seems to me that when we are present together here, in a sense we are on holy ground. In ancient days, when the subjects which we are now studying were taken up, there was observed, as we said in opening this series of studies, an attitude of reverence and devotion not only towards the higher beings in nature, which were called gods or spirits, as the occasion may be, but also by the students towards each other, a sense of reverence towards our very selves, as being incarnations of divine beings, sleeping gods, gods asleep in the flesh, for according to Oriental methods of study the students assembled with a mind filled with thankfulness and a species of joy, by putting themselves in the proper state of mind, come nearer to the beings from whom we draw our higher principles. In ancient days all initiations were held in the temples or groves, [Groves in Hebrew is AShR, asher, [ See Zohar (Wizards Bookshelf, 1979) p. 211] meaning happy or blessed. See S . D . references thereon. — J.D.] or, in the northern countries, under the spreading boughs of some majestic oak; or they might have been held as sometimes in India, for instance, under the sky, the roof of the world as it was expressed. They saw in that a symbol of the encompassing life, and themselves types or symbols of the hierarchy of beings which move things in nature. And so we, in our way, according to the methods of this century and according to the evolution or rather according to the status of evolution which we have, approach these majestic studies, or at least we should do so, with the same reverence for them and for each other. And these studies do not mean only the Theosophical studies strictly speaking, but also the different religions or religious philosophies of the earth, which contain or enshrine the aspirations of those who have gone before us, who are or rather have been, ourselves; and in studying them we come with the thoughts which we thought and the aspirations which we had, and I dare say that there is no religion and no religious philosophy and no science which in itself could be unfamiliar to us, to our higher natures. Memory is the fountain of recollection or remembrance of the things stored in our higher natures. So therefore, in taking up a study apparently, as it may seem to some, so untheosophical as the one we studied last week, we really are studying a branch of the activities of the human mind, and we get back into the ideas and ideals which brought about the fabric which is called Christianity now. With this preface I would like to continue our study of Jesus the man and Jesus the type-figure, taking up the Jewish historical or semi-historical records of the Syrian sage, and touching lightly upon the Mohammedan teachings regarding him, and still more lightly, because they will come up later, on the apocryphal Christian writings conveyed to us about him. Of course the Jews rejected and reject the Christian claims that Jesus the Nazarene, so called, was their Messiah. They have done so consistently, and the conversions from Judaism to Christianity have not been many. You will remember that we spoke of the rather extraordinary fact that there were no contemporary records either of Jesus or of the works which he was supposed to have done — except one, which was found in Josephus, and was a forgery. There is a personal description of Jesus, formerly usually printed at the beginning of most of the editions of the Gospels, and often printed by itself, purporting to be a letter from a Roman called Lentulus, who was supposed to have been the predecessor of Pontius Pilate as the governor of the Roman province of Judea; but this also is now completely given up as a pious forgery probably dating from some time in the early Middle Ages. The language is very poetic, rather enthusiastic; so much so that that has been one of the arguments against its authenticity, because no Roman official would write that way to the Senate. He must either have been a Christian, or the letter a forgery, and as he was not a Christian, the letter is de facto called spurious. The Jews have a number of written traditions of Yeshu, refusing to give him the full spelling of the Hebrew word for Savior, Yeshua , because, so they said, that being the name of the Savior, it should not be applied to a blasphemer. The Talmud is the great repository in which is found the general rule of life for the Jews. It contains ordinances of conduct, ethical precepts, paraphrases and explanations of obscure passages in the law, that is to say, in the Pentateuch, and other matters. It seems to have first originated in the 5th century before this era, and to have been carried on until the 3rd century. The original writings of the Talmud were called the Mishnah . These were the oldest writings, but taking the writings Mishnah as a text the Jewish doctors, that is to say the learned men of the Jews, have written Gemaras, (a word which means complement or completion ). There are two Gemaras, the Babylonian Gemara and the so-called Jerusalem Gemara, because after the taking and destruction of Jerusalem, the Jews carried the sacred writings of their schools to two principal places, Babylon on the Euphrates, and Tiberias in Palestine. Each of these schools had a patriarch, so-called, who was the head of it, and each school, by the efforts of its own commentators and learned men built up a Gemara on the Mishnah common to both. You will frequently hear the Babylonian Talmud spoken of, or the Jerusalem Talmud; that means, as you have seen, that the Mishnah is common to both, but that the Gemara comes from one or the other of the schools respectively. From the Babylonian Gemara — (I have made some notes here which I will thread together) — to the Mishnah of the Tractate Sabbath says: “They stoned the son of Stada [Satda] [“Satda” from Aramaic STDA related to the Hebrew root STH or STA, to be faithless, to deviate from the proper path. — J.D.] in Lud, and then they crucified him on the evening before the Passover. This son of Stada was the son of Pandirah [Stada means ‘unfaithful’]; Rabbi Chasda has said that the husband of Stada was the master of Pandirah, that is, Paphes, the son of Yehudah. Now how could Stada become his mother? His mother was a hairdresser for women. As is said in Pembeditha [a Babylonian school] she was unfaithful to her husband.” There is a gloss or paraphrase of this, which says, “How came it to be that Stada [or Satda, as it is sometimes written] was his mother? This way, says Rabbi Chasda: Miriam [which is the same as Mary], mother of Pandirah, dressed Satda’s hair . . . . Stada became a mother by Pandirah, Miriam’s son. As said in Pompeditha ‘Stada by name, and Stada [which means “unfaithful”] by nature’.” Here Pandirah in this paraphrase is the son of Mary, who is thus Yeshu’s or Jesus’ grandmother. Again, the Babylonian Gemara on the Mishnah of Tractate Sanhedrin, folio 43, remarks that there was a tradition that they crucified Jesus, Yeshua, on the eve of the Sabbath. Again in Mishnah tractate Sabbath, folio 104, a rule exists against making marks on the skin. On this the Babylonian Gemara says: “The son of Stada made the marks of magic on his skin, and brought them thus out of Egypt.” In the Babylonian Gemara, tractate Sanhedrin, folio 107, it is recorded that when King Alexander Janaeus persecuted the rabbis, Rabbi Jehosua ben Perahhia [that is, Jehoshua, son of Perahhia] fled with his disciple Yoshu or Jesus to Egypt, where both learned magic. Alexander Jannaeus, son of John Hyrcanus, was king of the Jews from 104 to 77 B.C. Now Jehoshua ben Perahhia is a historical character, and was a member of the Sanhedrin under Alexander Jannaeus. This is all that the Talmud says directly about this character called Yeshua the son of Stada. There are a number of other allusions to him in the Talmud, but it is not needful to quote them for our present purpose. I have threaded these allusions together and when you get the report of our study today you will be able to see the connection more easily than you can now, my object being to show that in the Talmud there was a Jesus called the son of Stada and the son of Pandirah, who is supposed to have gone to Egypt under the Rabbi Jehoshua ben Perahhia, and to have studied magic there. Now about the 13th century of this era it began to be known among the bigoted Christians of the day that the Jews had certain writings in which Jesus was spoken of, and it naturally excited no little interest and a large amount of harsh feelings. It soon became known that these writings spoke in no complimentary terms of the Jesus the Son of Stada connected with the Mary of the Christians. There are two versions of the general subject, the subject being called “The Birth of Jesus,” commonly known under the Hebrew name “Toledoth Yeshu . ” These were published and I believe translated into Latin by two learned scholars. The first one was Wagenseil’s edition in 1681, printed at Altdorf, and the other was Huldreich’s, printed at Leyden in 1705. Wagensell, whose edition we will very briefly consider today, because the two versions, while differing very greatly in details are based upon the same general theme, gives a subtitle to his edition as follows: “The Fiery Darts of Satan, that is to say, secret and horrible tales of the Jews against Christ God, and the Christian Religion.” Wagenseil’s edition commences as follows: “In the year of the world 4761 [that is, according to Jewish reckoning, 910 B.C.!!] under King Jannaeus, a misfortune befell Israel. A profligate named Joseph Pandirah then arose. He was handsome, strong, well-made, but spent his time in robbery and hurt to others. He lived in Bethlehem, in Judaea. A widow lived near him who had a daughter, named Miriam [or Mary]. This Miriam dressed women’s hair, and is spoken of in the Talmud.” It then goes on to say that she became the mother of Yeshu [of Jesus] by Pandirah. Yeshu after a number of years goes into the temple, in search of the Incommunicable Name, cuts open his flesh and places therein the Unutterable Name which he has written on a piece of parchment. He works miracles through his possession of knowledge of the Incommunicable Name. Throughout the Toledoth he is called “The Fatherless”, doubtless an allusion to his birth. Now there was one Judas, an Elder of Israel; he goes also into the Temple, in search of the Wonderful Name, so that he may overthrow the Fatherless, and he gets it and he works counter miracles against Yeshua or Jesus, to overthrow him. He does overthrow Yeshua or Jesus, who is finally seized and incarcerated. He escapes through the connivance of his disciples, of whom he had gained a following, washes himself in the Jordan, upon which his magic power returns to him. He then works more miracles; he causes milestones to float on the water, upon one of which he places himself and teaches; he feeds multitudes with fishes, and works many other wonderful miracles. Judas again lays a trap for him and catches him in sleep, and cuts out of his flesh the parchment upon which the Wonderful Name had been written. This of course deprives the Fatherless of his magical power, and he finally comes to so bad a pass that he has to wear a crown of thorns. He thirsts and is given vinegar to drink, and utters the exclamation “My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?” He is sentenced finally to be stoned and hanged on a tree. It was the eve of the Passover. He is taken out of the city and stoned until dead. Judas hides his body under a running stream by first diverting the waters and then allowing them to return into their channel. But his disciples take immediate advantage of this move of Judah, the Jewish Elder, by saying exactly as Yeshu had said, “He is now risen to Heaven, because his body cannot be found.” Great excitement prevails, and to still it Judas draws the body from the bed of the brook, attached to a horse’s tail, through the streets. Finally Simon Peter, one of Jesus’ disciples in his turn gets into the Temple and gets the Wonderful Name, and gives himself out as speaking for Yeshu; he gets a following and finally dies highly respected in a tower built for him in the city, six years later. The Toledoth Yeshu ends here. The second Toledoth Yeshu, edited by Huldreich, is possibly more full of marvels than the first, but agrees, in all principal points, as for instance, that Yeshu was the son of Miriam by Pandirah. It is of course unnecessary to point out that these tales are full of absurdities and anachronisms; as for instance the birth of the son of Stada is given in the year 4671, [See above, viz. 4761. The year 1980 A.D. is 5700 on the Hebrew calendar. Therefore 910 B.C. is 2750 in the Hebrew. Toledoth Yeshu is unavailable; consequently this discrepancy could not be clarified. — J.D.] which corresponds to 910 B.C., and at the same time “Queen Helena”, the wife of Alexander Jannaeus of the 1st century, B.C. is supposed to have seen and spoken with Yeshu during his life. Now these tales, with the exception of the Talmud itself, which is a sober work, could be dismissed as mere fabrication of feeling, if it were not for the fact that so far back in the Christian era as the 2nd Century we find Origen, the Christian Father, alluding to them. In his work against Celsus, the philosopher, whom you will remember we adverted to last week as having written a work against the Christian religion called The True Word, Origen quotes (Bk. 1, Chap. 32) Celsus as saying that a certain soldier named Panthera, which is merely the Grecized form of Pandirah, committed adultery with Mary, upon which the carpenter turned her out of doors. And again, (1, 59) Celsus argues that one Panthera corrupted Mary, and he further says “the body of God would not have generated as you were.” This shows that as early as the first or second century these rumors were current not only among the Jews but among the Greeks and the early Christians. Three or four centuries later there lived and wrote a Christian saint called Epiphanius, and in his work against heresies (the early Christians were particularly fond of writing against heresies, which included every belief that was not their own) he actually gives a genealogy of Jesus as believed in by Christians, at least some Christians — in which Jacob Panthera is the father — of two sons, Joseph and Cleophas. Joseph married Mary, and from Mary was born Jesus. So even as late, then, as the 4th century, we find that Christians had accepted the fact that in some way this man Pandirah was connected with, or was a relation in some fashion of, their Savior. To sum up: from what we have said it would seem that however much the Toledoth Yeshu of the Middle Ages may have been based on visionary theorizing, possibly dictated by hatred of the Christians, at whose hands the Jews had suffered so greatly, nevertheless taking into consideration the fact that the Talmud does mention the fact that the son of Stada and Pandira was called Jesus, and lived somewhere about the time of the beginning of this era, possibly a hundred years before in the reign of King Alexander Jannaeus; and in view of the fact that Origen in the 2nd century finds it of sufficient importance to go to the pains of arguing against it, quoting the statement twice, as if uneasy at its circulating in the world; and in view of the fact that in the 4th century another Christian saint, Epiphanius, gives a Christian genealogy in which this man Pandirah is given as the grandfather of Jesus, it would seem that there must be some basis of fact. What that basis of fact may be no one can say, but it is not the baseless fabric of a vision to believe that Joseph Pandirah was in some fashion connected with the story of Jesus the Man. Of course the name Jesus was a common enough name in Judaea; Joshua and Jehoshua were merely variants. It is thought by some Christian scholars that there unquestionably did live a Pandirah who was a lover or husband or grandmother of a Mary (because the name Pandirah is a feminine form which has led to his being considered Before we dismiss the subject of the birth of Jesus, I would like to call your attention again to two or three things as recorded or rather spoken of in the canonical gospels (canonical, of course, from “canon”, an accepted rule and on, there is a great deal of interesting matter. For instance, 3, 13: “And he goeth up into a mountain, and calleth unto him whom he would; and they came unto him. And he ordained twelve that they should be with him, and that he might send them forth to preach, and to have power to heal sicknesses, and to cast out devils.” That ends verse 15. Then he changes the names of his disciples. “Then they went into a house, and the multitude was so great that they could not so much as eat bread.” (verse 20). Now verse 21: “And when his relations heard of this they went out to lay hold of him: for they said, ‘He is mad’.” And in verse 31 we have: “There came then his brethren and his mother, and standing without, sent unto him, calling him. And he answered, Who is my mother, or my brethren?” (Verse 33). Now is it conceivable that him of whom it had been announced to the Virgin through the angel of God that he was God himself, the son of God, they should seek to restrain from pursuing the course which it was natural that he should pursue, gathering around himself disciples and sending them out to preach? Inconsistency No. 1. In Chapter 2 of Luke, verse 33, we have this: “And Joseph and his mother marvelled at those things which were spoken of him.” The best manuscripts do not say Joseph, they have the words “his father”, which imports a sense tremendously different: “And his father and his mother marvelled at those things which were spoken of him.” In verse 41, same chapter: “Now his parents went to Jerusalem every year at the feast of the Passover.” And in verse 43, “. . . and Joseph and his mother knew not of it.” In other manuscripts they have: “. . . his parents knew not of it.” These readings, differing from the accepted version of King James, have been adopted by the eminent English scholars Westcotte and Hort, and the readings “Joseph and his mother” are put in an appendix under the heading “Noteworthy rejected readings.” Now in Matthew, I, verse 16, the genealogy to which we referred last week ends: “And Jacob begat Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus who is called Christ.” In the best Greek manuscript we have, one of the oldest and the only complete uncial, the Sinaitic, manuscript, taken from the name of the mountain Sinai where it was found, this verse ends as follows: “Joseph, to whom was betrothed Mary, the virgin, begat Jesus, who is called the Christ.” That, of course, makes Jesus the seed of David, and while it is contrary to the accepted canonical Gospels, which both in the originals and in the translations have been accepted as inspired both in text and words, nevertheless it proves, if it be accepted as a standard of authority, that Jesus called the Christ was not born of a Virgin but was born of Mary and Joseph. I may, therefore, call your attention to a quotation which I have taken from Prof. J. Estlin Carpenter, Oxford, in his book The Bible in the 19th Century , p. 494, where he says: “Those who believe that Joseph was the father of Jesus have the authority of the Gospels as fully as those who ascribe his birth to the direct intervention of the Holy Spirit.” And we may dismiss the subject of Jesus’ birth by referring to a remarkable inscription cut on one of the inner walls of the temple of Luxor, in which the god Amen, one of the mightiest, greatest, and oldest of the Gods in the Egyptian pantheon, is represented as standing by the side of a virgin, wife of the king or betrothed of the king, and telling her that that thing which was in her womb was himself, filled with his own soul. The circumstances [I have seen it myself ] are written out with rather a singular elaborateness. Amenhotep III, of the 18th dynasty, is the king to whom this virgin birth is ascribed. Now it may interest you to know that about the middle of the last century, the discontent both among continental and American Protestant churches at the constant attacks which were made on the translation of the various versions — that is the version of King James, both of the New Testament and the Old — was so strong that it eventuated in an assembling of some of the most learned biblical scholars of Great Britain and of this country to get out an improved translation of the Bible, both of the Old Testament and the New. Co-operation was invited by the originators of the movement from eminent scholars in all parts of the world, and the British and American revisers sat, I believe, at the same time. The British scholars were divided into two companies, one for the Old Testament and one for the New, sitting in London; and the Americans of course, sitting in this country. Later the American translation and suggestions were sent to England and a large number of the suggestions were placed, I believe, as an appendix to the new translation when published. Now the number of manuscripts upon which the translators had to work (that is, manuscripts of the New Testament) numbered some 3,000, but very few of them were complete. Some of them only consisted of portions of the New Testament, and the Sinaitic manuscript is the only uncial which shows no gaps. Now as regards the age of the manuscripts, the latest date only from the 4th or 5th centuries, that is to say from 300 to 400 years after the time that Jesus is supposed to have lived and carried out his mission. There are only two dating from the 4th century: that is to say, the Vatican manuscript of Rome, and the Sinaitic at Petersburg; and there are but two which date from the 5th century, the Alexandrine in the British Museum, and the Codex of Ephrahem in the Library National at Paris. The large majority of the balance of the manuscripts date from the 9th century, 800 years after the time of Jesus. With regard to the manuscripts of the Old Testament, there are none older than the 10th century, and there is a difference of some 500 or 600 years between the oldest Hebrew and the oldest Greek manuscripts. The reason for that seems to be that according to Jewish custom, in fact, I believe, law, every manuscript or roll, as soon as it began to show wear or the letters to become in the slightest degree illegible or torn, was immediately destroyed, the idea being thus to guarantee the full integrity of the text. It is remarkable that this being the case, a manuscript even so old as the 10th century should have been extant. Naturally enough, the manuscripts of the Old Testament would be written in Hebrew, although it was a dead language even at the time that Jesus lived, just as Latin is a dead language among us now. The language spoken when Jesus lived and worked, no matter who he was and no matter how he worked and lived the language spoken in Palestine at the time of the beginning of this era, was one of the Syriac dialects, or Aramaic, that is to say, a word coming from Aram, found in the Bible and signifying very much what is now called Syria, the land south of the Euphrates to the borders of Phoenicia. There are a number of Aramaic dialects, the Syriac Chaldes, and one or two others. The Semitic languages, of which Hebrew was one, Arabian another, and the Aramaic family of tongues a third branch, seem to have been restricted to the country bounded on the north by the Tigris, on the south by Egypt, on the west by the Mediterranean, and on the east by the Indian Ocean. If Jesus lived and spoke to his disciples as supposed, he must have used, as I have said, one of the Aramaic dialects then spoken, the common tongue of the people; and there are some interesting facts in connection with this which will come up later. He certainly could hardly have spoken Hebrew to the people, it being practically a dead tongue. Now why was it that the manuscripts of the New Testament have come down to us in Greek? If Jesus lived in Palestine, why is it that our manuscripts are not in Aramaic, in Syriac, or even in Hebrew? Some manuscripts are in Syriac, but they are of comparatively late date. There was a tradition quoted by a number of the Church Fathers that Matthew, the tax gatherer, one of Jesus’ supposed disciples, wrote his Gospel in Hebrew, whatever that may have meant, and that everyone interpreted it as he was able. It would seem from the critical labors of scholars, that from some such distant ancestor all the manuscripts we now have, have been derived, suffering great variation and distortion in the process of constant copying and translation. When Christianity spread from the immediate scene of the labors of the supposed founder, Greek being the tongue then spoken by the learned, the polite, the literary, it took that form, and if the traditions believed in by the early Christians are based on fact, the translations from the original were first made in Alexandria; at any rate, they bear an Alexandrine stamp. The language, the Greek, seems more closely allied to the Alexandrian Greek dialect than to any other; and it is fair to say that the translations themselves, show by a certain staccato style, a certain abruptness and terseness, that the early Christian tradition of their having been derived from some Semitic tongue may be true, because the Semitic tongues are built upon a less developed scheme than the Aryan tongues are; they are shorter in expression, more obscure. Now it would seem as if Christianity originated in Alexandria, from legends and traditions about a Palestine sage called Jesus; and it is certainly the fact that Alexandria, being a great melting pot of learning of the age, the second city of the Roman Empire in size, was frequented by the most learned men of all nations; Greeks, Romans, Jews, Persians, Egyptians, outlanders — all gathered there. It would seem that most of the theories which we have studied before, such as the Logos, the Trinity, the Virgin Birth, the Savior idea, and many others, originated so far as Christianity is concerned, of course, in Alexandria. The revision of the Bible began on June 22nd, 1870. There were two companies, so called, one from the New Testament and one from the Old Testament, the Old Testament being composed of 27 members, the New Testament comprising 26. The New Testament was completed in 1880 and issued in 1881, and the Old Testament was completed in 1884 and published in 1885. The changes in the New Testament in text (that is, in the original) in translation, and in punctuation, amounted to 36,191; and how many more might have been made may be judged from the fact that no correction was accepted which did not have a majority vote of 2 to 1. In other words, taking the New Testament members as 26, there had to be a majority of 2 to 1, or 16, say 17 to 8, to carry the point. You have heard the first three gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, spoken of as ‘synoptics’. It may be of interest to remember that this word so commonly used, and meaning those who saw the thing together, or eyewitnesses, who saw the events described together, originated with the German Griesbach, a learned professor, who in 1776 published a Synopsis as he called it, of the first three gospels, to show, as he supposed, their identity of view. John was so obviously different in many points from the others that it could not be called one of the synoptics. In the early Christian ages there were writings without number. The Christian Fathers and saints seem to have had inexhaustible fecundity in emitting writings of many kinds, Acts, Gospels, memoirs, works against heretics, writings of encouragement, letters, translations, etc. But why or how these four Gospels and the other writings which compose our New Testament came to be accepted as canonical is practically unknown. There are a number of marvellous tales which it would be absurd to refer to because not even the most rigorous opponent of Christianity quotes them otherwise than with a laugh, but the first definite fact to which we can point as showing an established New Testament, is in the third Council of Carthage, held in the year 397, and we there find the New Testament comprising practically the same books that we now have. Our time is so short, that I must cut down what I want to say about the Apocryphal Gospels (from a Greek word meaning hidden, recondite, or obscure; and the word apocryphal is used in the church writings to signify something which is not accepted; so that the apocryphal gospels will be those gospels which are not accepted by the Church, not canonical). It will be proper to say that in the early days of Christianity, however, a great number of these apocryphal gospels were accepted as fully as any others; were daily read and studied for spiritual benefit. Some of them are very interesting for the subject matter they contain, as showing the state of mind and spirit of the Christians of the early ages. Some of them contain very extraordinary miracles, which are interesting from a psychological standpoint, as a psychological study; and others report traditions of Jesus and his acts, which are also valuable; one of them showing Jesus as flying into a passion with some boy and striking him and killing him. He then resuscitated the boy, on his mother’s prayer, by kicking the boy’s hinderparts — Gospel of Matthew, 26. There are 13 apocryphal Acts ; and a number of Revelations, 5 or 6, as I remember. All belong to the literature of the early Christian centuries. No one can say how much more of the literature has perished, because so great was the hatred of the different sects of Christians for each other that they never hesitated to destroy the writings of their opponents when they could come upon them. It is popularly supposed that the Mohammedans reject Jesus. This seems to be the common belief of all Christians; and that they look upon Christians as heretics (and so they do), infidels (and so they do), and that they speak of Mary the Virgin, his mother, in terms of which would bring the flush of shame to the cheek of the pious Christian. During the Middle Ages, at the time of the Crusades (or shortly before) and the wars against the gallant Saladin, the common way the Moslems were spoken of, was infidels, cursed infidels, beastly men-dogs, and various other names of similar character. The Mohammedans, however, accept Jesus as the Messiah; they accept him as the logos of God; but they deny that he was the son of God, and that he was the second person of the Trinity. In fact, they deny the Trinity, as we noticed in our first study. They teach, among many other things, that there has been a succession of 124,000 prophets, or, as it is sometimes given, 224,000; 313 of them of special importance; and out of these, six are of more particular importance; and these six are: Adam, Abraham, Moses, Jesus Christ, and Mohammed, who was the last prophet and the greatest of them all. Mohammedanism is largely based on parts of the Hebrew Bible, combined with a large amount of Persian traditions and religious thought, and with a certain substratum of the native beliefs which were current before Mohammed taught. They believe in the resurrection of the body and of the soul: that the good will be saved, and the bad will be punished; that when a man dies, two angels, Munkar and Nakir, sit, one at his head and one at his feet, and question him as to his good deeds, and if he can be proved to have been a bad man, they punish him with iron maces, but if he can prove himself to have been a good man, obedient to the established laws of the prophet, and to natural morality, he goes to a place of peace, to await the judgment trumpet of God. They believe that when men die the body decays and goes to its elements, but that the coccyx bone, the last bone of the spinal column, contains the seeds of vitality, and that at the time of the resurrection, there will fall a tremendous flood of rain upon the earth, lasting for 40 days, and that the earth will be covered with some 22 feet with water, and that then these bones will sprout like plants, and that these plants will be the bodies of all — Mohammedans, Jews, pagans, everybody, even the animals. Then men will be judged finally according to their desserts; both good and bad will have to pass across the bridge Al-Sirat, that is finer than hair and sharper than a sword; the evil will be precipitated to one of the seven hills, and the good will pass lightly and swiftly over and will then go to Paradise, which is above the seven heavens. Paradise is a wonderful place. Its soil is composed of the purest wheaten flour, or of musk, or of saffron; accounts differ. Mohammed himself seems not sure to have known. Its stones are the brightest gems, and its walls are of gold and silver. In it grows the wonderful Tuba tree, which produced everything that the faithful need; raiment, horses, food, drink. The faithful will pass their time in the company of the blackeyed women of Paradise, called the Khur-al-Uyum, the ‘houris’ or women of Paradise. These blackeyed nymphs have none of the imperfections of mortal women, nor any of the unpleasantness common to flesh. They are made of pure musk. They are immortal; they live in hollow pearls, 60 miles long and 60 miles wide. The faithful who dwell in Paradise will be as men are at 30 years of age; suffering nothing, in the fullest enjoyment of health and life; they will have the stature of Father Adam, 110 feet high, and they will live in the bliss of Paradise eternally. The Christian Heaven varies according to the way we look at it, from singing hymns to the Eternal, to contemplating the agony of the damned. It is doubtful if the rather gross imagery of the Mohammedan is worse than the imbecility or ferocity of the Christian scheme. We are speaking of the Holy Spirit (I am clearing up a number of points now, so that we can continue our regular studies in our next meeting) — we were speaking of the Holy Spirit on other occasions, and you may remember that we alluded to the fact that a number of the early Christians considered the Holy Spirit as feminine. This seems to have been very common in the early ages of Christianity. In the gospel supposedly written by Matthew [ Gospel of the Hebrews ], to which we alluded a little while ago, there occurs this verse which is found in the Christian Father Origen. He quotes it twice in his Homily 15: once on Jeremiah and once on John . I will give you the original Greek, as you may care to study it yourself. [[greek char]] (Arti elabe me meter mou to agion pneuma, en mia ton trichon mou, kai anenegkc(?) me eis to oros to mega thabor “Then took my mother, the Holy Spirit, in one of my hairs and brought me up to the mountain, the great Thabor.” It is also quoted by the Latin Father Jerome ( Michaeas, vii, 6), and he puts it naturally in Latin: “Modo tulit me mater mea Spiritus Sanctus in uno capilorum meorum” — “Then took me my mother, the Holy Spirit, in one of my hairs.” The point to notice is that the Holy Spirit is spoken of in this gospel of the Hebrews as “my mother,” and she speaks of Jesus as “my son”. Origen also speaks of the Holy Ghost, that is the Holy Spirit, in the following fashion: — [[greek char]] (Padiske de kurias tou agiou pneumatos e psuche is handmaiden to her mistress, the Holy Spirit.
(TG) Christian Scientist. A newly-coined term for denoting the practitioners of an art of healing by will. The name is a misnomer, since Buddhist or Jew, Hindu or Materialist, can practise this new form of Western Yoga, with like success, if he can only guide and control his will with sufficient firmness. The “Mental Scientists” are another rival school. These work by a universal denial of every disease and evil imaginable, and claim syllogistically that since Universal Spirit cannot be subject to the ailings of flesh, and since every atom is Spirit and in Spirit, and since finally, they — the healers and the healed — are all absorbed in this Spirit or Deity, there is not, nor can there be, such a thing as disease. This prevents in no wise both Christian and Mental Scientists from succumbing to disease, and nursing chronic diseases in their own bodies just like ordinary mortals.
(KT) Christian Scientist. A newly-coined term for denoting the practitioners of a healing art by will . The name is a misnomer, since Buddhist or Jew, Hindu or Materialist can practise this new form of Western Yoga with like success if he can only guide and control his will with sufficient firmness. “Mental Scientists” is another rival school. These work by a universal denial of every disease and evil imaginable, and claim, syllogistically, that since Universal Spirit cannot be subject to the ailings of flesh, and since every atom is Spirit and in Spirit, and since, finally, they — the healers and the healed — are all absorbed in this Spirit or Deity, there is not, nor can there be, such a thing as disease. This prevents in nowise both Christian and Mental Scientists from succumbing to disease and nursing chronic diseases for years in their own bodies just like other ordinary mortals.
(TG) Chthonia {Greek}. Chaotic earth in the Hellenic cosmogony.
(TG) Chuang. A great Chinese philosopher.
(TG) Chubilgan (Mongol Or Khubilkhan. The same as Chutuktu.
(PV) Chuen Third in the Maya primary calendric series of regents or Ahau, equated with Hun Chouen of the Popol Vuh ; god C of the Maya codices, who symbolizes the Third Regent, and has the face of a monkey. Associated with the sign Chuen and the Third Age of the Popol Vuh .
(TG) Chutuktu {Tibe}. An incarnation of Buddha or of some Bodhisattva, as believed in Tibet, where there are generally five manifesting and two secret Chutuktus among the high Lamas.
(FY) Chutuktu, the five chief Lamas of Tibet.
(TG) Chyuta {Sans}. Means, “the fallen” into generation, as a Kabbalist would say; the opposite of achyuta, something which is not subject to change or differentiation; said of deity.
(WG) Chyuta, “the fallen,” a term applied to those Dhyanis who, incarnating in human form, “fell” into generation.
(PV) Cib “Light, torch.” Fourth in the Maya primary calendric series of regents or Ahau, equated with Hunahpu of the Popol Vuh as Regent of the Fourth Age or Age of Quiche-Maya culture.
(PV) Cimi Second in the Maya primary calendric series of regents or Ahau, equated with the Came of the Popol Vuh .
(TG) Circle. There are several “Circles” with mystic adjectives attached to them. Thus we have: (1) the “Decussated or Perfect Circle” of Plato, who shows it decussated in the form of the letter X; (2) the “Circle-dance” of the Amazons, around a Priapic image, the same as the dance of the Gopis around the Sun (Krishna), the shepherdesses representing the signs of the Zodiac; (3) the “Circle of Necessity” of 3,000 years of the Egyptians and of the Occultists, the duration of the cycle between rebirths or reincarnations being from 1,000 to 3,000 years on the average. This will be treated under the term “Rebirth” or “Reincarnation”.
(OG) Circulations of the Kosmos — Also Circulations of the Universe. This is a term used in the ancient wisdom or esoteric philosophy to signify the network, marvelously intricate and builded of the channels or canals or paths or roads followed by peregrinating or migrating entities as these latter pass from sphere to sphere or from realm to realm or from plane to plane. The pilgrim monads, however far advanced or however little advanced in their evolution, inevitably and ineluctably follow these circulations. They can do nothing else, for they are simply the spiritual, psychomagnetic, astral, and physical pathways along which the forces of the universe flow; and consequently, all entities whatsoever being indeed embodiments of forces must of necessity follow the same routes or pathways that the abstract forces themselves use.
These circulations of the kosmos are a veritable network between planet and planet, and planet and sun, and between sun and sun, and between sun and universe, and between universe and universe. Furthermore, the circulations of the kosmos are not restricted to the material or astral spheres, but are of the very fabric and structure of the entire universal kosmos, inner as well as outer. It is one of the most mystical and suggestive doctrines of theosophy.
(TG) Clairaudience. The faculty, whether innate or acquired by occult training, of hearing all that is said at whatever distance.
(KT) Clairaudience. The faculty — whether innate or acquired by occult training — to hear things at whatever distance.
(OG) Clairaudience — In its largest sense the word means simply “clear-hearing.” True clairaudience is a spiritual faculty, the faculty of the inner spiritual ear, of which the psychical clairaudience is but a distorted and therefore deceptive reflection; neither is it hearing with the physical ear, so imperfect and undeveloped a sensory organ as the latter is. The power to hear with the inner ear enables you to hear anything you will, and at whatever distance, whether on Mars, or on the Sun, or on the Moon, or on Jupiter, or perhaps even on some distant star, or easily anywhere on Earth. Having this spiritual clairaudience, you can hear the grass grow, and that hearing will be to you like a symphonic musical poem. You can hear the celestial orbs singing their songs as they advance along their orbits through space, because everything that is, is in movement, producing sound, simple or composite as the case may be. Thus in very truth every tiny atom sings its own note, and every composite entity, therefore, is an imbodied musical poem, a musical symphony. ( See also Music of the Spheres)
(TG) Clairvoyance. The faculty of seeing with the inner eye or spiritual sight. As now used it is a loose and flippant term, embracing under its meaning a happy guess due to natural shrewdness or intuition, and also that faculty which was so remarkably exercised by Jacob Boehme and Swedenborg. Real clairvoyance means the faculty of seeing through the densest matter (the latter disappearing at the will and before the spiritual eye of the Seer), and irrespective of time (past, present and future) or distance.
(KT) Clairvoyance. A faculty of seeing with the inner eye or spiritual sight. As now used, it is a loose and flippant term, embracing under its meaning both a happy guess due to natural shrewdness or intuition, and also that faculty which was so remarkably exercised by Jacob Boehme and Swedenborg. Yet even these two great seers, since they could never rise superior to the general spirit of the Jewish Bible and Sectarian teachings, have sadly confused what they saw, and fallen far short of true clairvoyance.
(OG) Clairvoyance — In its largest sense the word simply means “clear-seeing,” insight behind the veils, inner visioning. Genuine clairvoyance is a spiritual faculty and is the ability to see and to see aright; and in seeing to know that your seeing is truth. This is no psychical faculty. The clairvoyance commonly called the psychical clairvoyance is very deceptive, because it is a mere moonlight reflection so to speak, and this moonlight reflection is uncertain, deceiving, and illusory. Genuine spiritual clairvoyance, of which the psychical clairvoyance so called is but a feeble ray, will enable one to see what passes at immense distances. You can sit in your armchair and see, with eyes closed, all that you care to see, however far away. This can be done not only in this exterior world, but one can penetrate into the interior and invisible worlds with this spiritual vision, and thus know what is going on in the worlds spiritual and ethereal. This vision is not physical vision, nor that which, on the astral plane, manifests itself as psychical clairvoyance; but true vision is spiritual clairvoyance — seeing through the inner spiritual eye.
(TG) Clemens Alexandrinus. A Church Father and a voluminous writer, who had been a Neo-Platonist and a disciple of Ammonius Saccas. He lived between the second and the third centuries of our era, at Alexandria.
(KT) Clemens Alexandrinus. A Church Father and voluminous writer, who had been a Neo-Platonist and a disciple of Ammonius Saccas. He was one of the few Christian philosophers between the second and third centuries of our era, at Alexandria.
(TG) Cock. A very occult bird, much appreciated in ancient augury and symbolism. According to the Zohar, the cock crows three times before the death of a person; and in Russia and all Slavonian countries whenever a person is ill on the premises where a cock is kept, its crowing is held to be a sign of inevitable death, unless the bird crows at the hour of midnight, or immediately afterwards, when its crowing is considered natural. As the cock was sacred to Aesculapius, and as the latter was called the Soter (Saviour) who raised the dead to life, the Socratic exclamation “We owe a cock to Aesculapius”, just before the Sage’s death, is very suggestive. As the cock was always connected in symbology with the Sun (or solar gods), Death and Resurrection, it has found its appropriate place in the four Gospels in the prophecy about Peter repudiating his Master before the cock crowed thrice. The cock is the most magnetic and sensitive of all birds, hence its Greek name alectruon.
(TG) Codex Nazaraeus {Latin}. The “Book of Adam” — the latter name meaning anthropos, Man or Humanity. The Nazarene faith is called sometimes the Bardesanian system, though Bardesanes (B.C. 155 to 228) does not seem to have had any connection with it. True, he was born at Edessa in Syria, and was a famous astrologer and Sabian before his alleged conversion. But he was a well-educated man of noble family, and would not have used the almost incomprehensible Chaldeo-Syriac dialect mixed with the mystery language of the Gnostics, in which the Codex is written. The sect of the Nazarenes was pre-Christian. Pliny and Josephus speak of the Nazarites as settled on the banks of the Jordan 150 years B.C. (Ant. Jud. xiii. p. 9); and Munk says that the “Naziareate was an institution established before the laws of Musah” or Moses Their modern name is in Arabic — El Mogtasila; in European languages — the Mendaeans or “Christians of St. John”. (See “Baptism”. But if the term Baptists may well be applied to them, it is not with the Christian meaning: for while they were, and still are Sabians, or pure astrolaters, the Mendaeans of Syria, called the Galileans, are pure polytheists, as every traveller in Syria and on the Euphrates can ascertain, once he acquaints himself with their mysterious rites and ceremonies. (See Isis Unv. ii. So secretly did they preserve their beliefs from the very beginning, that Epiphanius who wrote against the Heresies in the 14th century confesses himself unable to say what they believed in (I. 122); he simply states that they never mention the name of Jesus, nor do they call themselves Christians (loc. cit. 190). Yet it is undeniable that some of the alleged philosophical views and doctrines of Bardesanes are found in the codex of the Nazarenes. (See Norberg’s Codex Nazaraeus, or the “Book of Adam”, and also “Mendaeans
(WG) Codex Nazaraeus, the Codex of the Nazarenes; the Book of
(TG) Coeur, Facques. A famous Treasurer of France, born in 1408, who obtained the office by black magic. He was reputed as a great alchemist and his wealth became fabulous; but he was soon banished from the country, and retiring to the Island of Cyprus, died there in 1460, leaving behind enormous wealth, endless legends and a bad reputation.
(TG) Coffin-Rite, or Pastos. This was the final rite of Initiation in the Mysteries in Egypt, Greece and elsewhere. The last and supreme secrets of Occultism could not be revealed to the Disciple until he had passed through this allegorical ceremony of Death and Resurrection into new light. “The Greek verb teleutao ,” says Vronsky, “signifies in the active voice ‘I die’, and in the middle voice ‘I am initiated'”. Stobaeus quotes an ancient author, who says, “The mind is affected in death, just as it is in the initiation into the Mysteries and word answers to word, as well as thing to thing; for telutan is ‘to die’, and teleisthai ‘to be initiated ‘”. And thus, as Mackenzie corroborates, when the Aspirant was placed in the Pastos, Bed, or Coffin (in India on the lathe, as explained in the Secret Doctrine), “he was symbolically said to die”.
(TG) Collanges, Gabriel de. Born in 1524. The best astrologer in the 16th century and a still better Kabbalist. He spent a fortune in the unravelling of its mysteries. It was rumoured that he died through poison administered to him by a Jewish Rabbin-Kabbalist.
(TG) College of Rabbis. A college at Babylon; most famous during the early centuries of Christianity. Its glory, however, was greatly darkened by the appearance in Alexandria of Hellenic teachers, such as Philo Judaeus, Josephus, Aristobulus and others. The former avenged themselves on their successful rivals by speaking of the Alexandrians as theurgists and unclean prophets. But the Alexandrian believers in thaumaturgy were not regarded as sinners or impostors when orthodox Jews were at the head of such schools of ” hazim “. These were colleges for teaching prophecy and occult sciences. Samuel was the chief of such a college at Ramah; Elisha at Jericho. Hillel had a regular academy for prophets and seers; and it is Hillel, a pupil of the Babylonian College, who was the founder of the Sect of the Pharisees and the great orthodox Rabbis.
(KT) College of Rabbis. A college at Babylon; most famous during the early centuries of Christianity, but its glory was greatly darkened by the appearance in Alexandria of Hellenic teachers, such as Philo-Judaeus, Josephus, Aristobulus and others. The former avenged themselves on their successful rivals by speaking of the Alexandrians as Theurgists and unclean prophets. But the Alexandrian believers in thaumaturgy were not regarded as sinners and impostors when orthodox Jews were at the head of such schools of “hazim.” There were colleges for teaching prophecy and occult sciences. Samuel was the chief of such a college at Ramah; Elisha, at Jericho. Hillel had a regular academy for prophets and seers; and it is Hillel, a pupil of the Babylonian College, who was the founder of the sect of the Pharisees and the great orthodox Rabbis.
(TG) Collemann, Jean. An Alsatian, born at Orleans, according to K. Mackenzie; other accounts say he was a Jew, who found favour owing to his astrological studies, with both Charles VII. and Louis XI., and that he had a bad influence on the latter.
(TG) Collyridians. A sect of Gnostics who, in the early centuries of Christianity, transferred their worship and reverence from Astoreth to Mary, as Queen of Heaven and Virgin. Regarding the two as identical, they offered to the latter as they had done to the former, buns and cakes on certain days, with sexual symbols represented on them.
(VS) Compassion Absolute (III 31) [[p. 70]] (31). This “compassion” must not be regarded in the same light as “God, the divine love” of the Theists. Compassion stands here as an abstract, impersonal law whose nature, being absolute Harmony, is thrown into confusion by discord, suffering and sin.
(OG) Consciousness — In all its forms and protean manifestations, consciousness is spirit-matter — force and matter, or spirit and substance, are one — hence consciousness is the finest and loftiest form of energy, is the root of all things, and is coextensive with kosmic space. It is, therefore, the foundation and the essence of gods, of monads, and of atoms — the three generalized degrees, kosmically speaking, of the universe. A natural corollary from this is that the universe therefore is imbodied consciousness, or much more correctly we should call it a quasi-infinite aggregate of imbodied consciousnesses.
(TG) Continents. In the Buddhist cosmogony, according to Gautama Buddha’s exoteric doctrine, there are numberless systems of worlds (or Sakwala) all of which are born, mature, decay, and are destroyed periodically. Orientalists translate the teaching about “the four great continents which do not communicate with each other”, as meaning that “upon the earth there are four great continents” (see Hardy’s Eastern Monachism, p. 4), while the doctrine means simply that around or above the earth there are on either side four worlds, i.e ., the earth appearing as the fourth on each side of the arc.
(PV) Copal The sap from various Central American trees which is used by Mayan natives for incense for purificative and other purposes. Equated with blood and rain as a divine substance or exudation in nature.
(TG) Corybantes, Mysteries of the. These were held in Phrygia in honour of Atys, the youth beloved by Cybele. The rites were very elaborate within the temple and very noisy and tragic in public. They began by a public bewailing of the death of Atys and ended in tremendous rejoicing at his resurrection. The statue or image of the victim of Jupiter’s jealousy was placed during the ceremony in a pastos (coffin), and the priests sang his suffering. Atys, as Visvakarma in India, was a representative of Initiation and Adeptship. He is shown as being born impotent, because chastity is a requisite of the life of an aspirant. Atys is said to have established the rites and worship of Cybele, in Lydia. (See WW Correspondence We saw that the term [hierarchies] was generally applied to those institutions in human affairs whereby authority is deputed or delegated from higher to lower, and that each step, on the hierarchical theory, required another one above it and another one below it. While we saw that this applied to human affairs, nevertheless we also saw that it was a correspondence, to use Swedenborg’s term, of what exists in the cosmos. And if we could get a proper, clear, concise, intelligible view of what hierarchy means in man, or rather, in the affairs of mankind, we have thereby a key by which we may understand the operations that take place in nature — these operations, being the working of intelligence and will upon matter. This takes place according to what H. P. Blavatsky called the doctrine of analogy . Now analogy itself is a science. There are such things as false analogies in logic, and there are manifestations in nature which one can perceive, see, study, and yet they are not, properly speaking, analogies with some set standard. They are apparent analogies, false analogies. To use our own terms, they are Mayavic, that is, illusionary (from the Sanskrit, Maya, illusion “As it is above, so it is below” is the great Hermetic axiom, which you will find all through our literature. The Kabalists had a similar doctrine, i.e. that in the manifestation of the unnameable Deity — this manifestation being accomplished through hierarchies of angelical beings, each angel or each entity, or each god as a Greek would say, Deva as a Hindu or Buddhist would say — each of these entities is impressed as the wax takes the impress of the seal, with the characteristic of its hierarchical head. Therefore, every series of entities proceeding from a hierarchical head bears the stamp or characteristic of that fountain, that source.
(TG) Cosmic Gods. Inferior gods, those connected with the formation of matter.
(TG) Cosmic ideation Eternal thoughts impressed on substance or spirit-matter, in the eternity; thought which becomes active at the beginning of every new life-cycle.
(TG) Cosmocratores {Greek}. “Builders of the Universe”, the “world architects”, or the Creative Forces personified.
(OG) Cosmos — Whenever a theosophist speaks of the cosmos or the universe, he by no means refers only to the physical sphere or world or cross section of the boundless All in which we humans live, but more particularly to the invisible worlds and planes and spheres inhabited by their countless hosts of vitalized or animate beings. In order to avoid redundancy of words and often confusing repetitions in the midst of an explanation dealing with other matters, since H. P. Blavatsky’s time it has been customary among careful theosophical writers to draw a distinction of fact between cosmos and kosmos. The solar universe or solar system is frequently referred to as cosmos or solar cosmos; and the galactic universe or our own home-universe it has been customary to refer to as the kosmos. This distinction, however, does not always hold, because sometimes in dealing with abstract questions where the application of the thought can be indifferently made either to the galactic or to the solar universe, the two forms of spelling may be used interchangeably. ( See also Kosmos, Kosmic Life)
(TG) Cow-worship. The idea of any such “worship” is as erroneous as it is unjust. No Egyptian worshipped the cow, nor does any Hindu worship this animal now, though it is true that the cow and bull were sacred then as they are to-day, but only as the natural physical symbol of a metaphysical ideal; even as a church made of bricks and mortar is sacred to the civilized Christian because of its associations and not by reason of its walls. The cow was sacred to Isis, the Universal Mother, Nature, and to the Hathor, the female principle in Nature, the two goddesses being allied to both sun and moon, as the disk and the cow’s horns (crescent) prove. (See “Hathor In the Vedas, the Dawn of Creation is represented by a cow, This dawn is Hathor, and the day which follows, or Nature already formed, is Isis, for both are one except in the matter of time. Hathor the elder is “the mistress of the seven mystical cows” and Isis, “the Divine Mother”, is the “cow-horned”, the cow of Plenty (or Nature, Earth), and, as the mother of Horns (the physical world) — the “mother of all that lives”. The outa was the symbolic eye of Horns, the right being the sun, and the left the moon. The right “eye” of Horus was called “the cow of Hathor”, and served as a powerful amulet, as the dove in a nest of rays or glory, with or without the cross, is a talisman with Christians, Latins and Greeks. The Bull and the Lion which we often find in company with Luke and Mark in the frontispiece of their respective Gospels in the Greek and Latin texts, are explained as symbols — which is indeed the fact. Why not admit the same in the case of the Egyptian sacred Bulls, Cows, Rams, and Birds?
(TG) Cremer, John. An eminent scholar who for over thirty years studied Hermetic philosophy in pursuance of its practical secrets, while he was at the same time Abbot of Westminster. While on a voyage to Italy, he met the famous Raymond Lully whom he induced to return with him to England. Lully divulged to Cremer the secrets of the stone, for which service the monastery offered daily prayers for him. Crenier, says the Royal Masonic Cyclopedia, “having obtained a profound knowledge of the secrets of Alchemy, became a most celebrated and learned adept in occult philosophy lived to a good old age, and died in the reign of King Edward III.”
(TG) Crescent. Sin was the Assyrian name for the moon, and Sin-ai the Mount, the birth-place of Osiris, of Dionysos, Bacchus and several other gods. According to Rawlinson, the moon was held in higher esteem than the sun at Babylon, because darkness preceded light. The crescent was, therefore, a sacred symbol with almost every nation, before it became the standard of the Turks. Says the author of Egyptian Belief, “The crescent . . . . . . is not essentially a Mahometan ensign. On the contrary, it was a Christian one, derived through Asia from the Babylonian Astarte, Queen of Heaven, or from the Egyptian Isis . . . . whose emblem was the crescent. The Greek Christian Empire of Constantinople held it as their palladium Upon the conquest of the Turks, the Mahometan Sultan adopted it for the symbol of his power. Since that time the crescent has been made to oppose the idea of the cross.”
(TG) Criocephale {Greek}. Ram-headed, applied to several deities and emblematic figures, notably those of ancient Egypt, which were designed about the period when the Sun passed, at the Vernal Equinox, from the sign Taurus to the sign Aries. Previously to this period, bull-headed and horned deities prevailed. Apis was the type of the Bull deity, Ammon that of the ram-headed type: Isis, too, had a Cow’s head allotted to her. Porphyry writes that the Greeks united the Ram to Jupiter and the Bull to Bacchus. [w.w.w.]
(TG) Crocodile. “The great reptile of Typhon.” The seat of its worship “was Crocodilopolis and it was sacred to Set and Sebak — its alleged creators. The primitive Rishis in India, the Manus, and Sons of Brahma, are each the progenitors of some animal species, of which he is the alleged “father”; in Egypt, each god was credited with the formation or creation of certain animals which were sacred to him. Crocodiles must have been numerous in Egypt during the early dynasties, if one has to judge by the almost incalculable number of their mummies. Thousands upon thousands have been excavated from the grottoes of Moabdeh, and many a vast necropolis of that Typhonic animal is still left untouched. But the Crocodile was only worshipped where his god and “father” received honours. Typhon had once received such honours and, as Bunsen shows, had been considered a great god. His words are, “Down to the time of Ramses B.C. 1300, Typhon was one of the most venerated and powerful gods, a god who pours blessings and life on the rulers of Egypt.” As explained elsewhere, Typhon is the material aspect of Osiris. When Typhon, the Quaternary, kills Osiris, the triad or divine Light, and cuts it metaphorically into 14 pieces, and separates himself from the “god”, he incurs the execration of the masses; he becomes the evil god, the storm and hurricane god, the burning sand of the Desert, the constant enemy of the Nile, and the “slayer of the evening beneficent dew”, because Osiris s the ideal Universe, Siva the great Regenerative Force, and Typhon the material portion of it, the evil side of the god, or the Destroying Siva. This is why the crocodile is also partly venerated and partly execrated. The appearance of the crocodile in the Desert, far from the water, prognosticated the happy event of the coming inundation — hence its adoration at Thebes and Ombos. But he destroyed thousands of human and animal beings yearly — hence also the hatred and persecution of the Crocodile at Elephantine and Tentyra.
(WG) Crore, 10,000,000.
(IN) Crore Ten million.
(TG) Cross. Mariette Bey has shown its antiquity in Egypt by proving that in all the primitive sepulchres “the plan of the chamber has the form of a cross ‘ . It is the symbol of the Brotherhood of races and men; and was laid on the breast of the corpses in Egypt, as it is now placed on the corpses of deceased Christians, and, in its Swastica form (croix cramponnee), on the hearts of the Buddhist adepts and Buddhas. (See “Calvary Cross
(TG) Crux Ansata {Latin}. The handled cross, [[symbol shaped like a T sans serif with equal length lines]]; whereas the tau is T [[same as last]], in this form, and the oldest Egyptian cross or the tat is thus +. The crux ansata was the symbol of immortality, but the tat -cross was that of spirit-matter and had the significance of a sexual emblem. The crux ansata was the foremost symbol in the Egyptian Masonry instituted by Count Cagliostro; and Masons just have indeed forgotten the primitive significance of their highest symbols, if some of their authorities still insist that the crux ansata is only a combination of the cteis (or yoni) and phallus (or lingham). Far from this. The handle or ansa had a double significance, but never a phallic one; as an attribute of Isis it was the mundane circle; as a symbol of law on the breast of a mummy it was that of immortality, of an endless and beginningless eternity, that which descends upon and grows out of the plane of material nature, the horizontal feminine line, surmounting the vertical male line — the fructifying male principle in nature or spirit. Without the handle the crux ansata became the tau T [[same as last description]], which, left by itself, is an androgyne symbol, and becomes purely phallic or sexual only when it takes the shape +.
(WG) Crux Ansata (Latin), the ansated cross
(TG) Crypt {Greek}. A secret subterranean vault, some for the purpose of initiation, others for burial purposes. There were crypts under every temple in antiquity. There was one on the Mount of Olives, lined with red stucco, and built before the advent of the Jews.
(PV) Culebra Spanish, “snake,” a pejorative term for the Seven Came, their hellish nahuals, and the brujos or black magicians who represent them on earth
(TG) Curetes. The Priest-Initiates of ancient Crete, in the service of Cybele. Initiation in their temples was very severe; it lasted twenty-seven days, during which time the aspirant was left by himself in a crypt, undergoing terrible trials. Pythagoras was initiated into these rites and came out victorious.
(TG) Cutha. An ancient city in Babylonia after which a tablet giving an account of “creation” is named. The “Cutha tablet” speaks of a “temple of Sittam”, in the sanctuary of Nergal, the “giant king of war, lord of the city of Cutha”, and is purely esoteric. It has to be read symbolically, if at all.
(TG) Cycle. From the Greek kuklos. The ancients divided time into endless cycles, wheels within wheels, all such periods being of various durations, and each marking the beginning or the end of some event either cosmic, mundane, physical or metaphysical. There were cycles of only a few years, and cycles of immense duration, the great Orphic cycle, referring to the ethnological change of races, lasting 120,000 years, and the cycle of Cassandrus of 136,000, which brought about a complete change in planetary influences and their correlations between men and gods — a fact entirely lost sight of by modern astrologers.
(KT) Cycle KUKLOS {Greek} The ancients divided time into endless cycles, wheels within wheels, all such periods being of various durations, and each marking the beginning or end of some event either cosmic, mundane, physical or metaphysical. There were cycles of only a few years, and cycles of immense duration, the great Orphic cycle referring to the ethnological change of races lasting 120,000 years, and that of Cassandrus of 136,000, which brought about a complete change in planetary influences and their correlations between men and gods — a fact entirely lost sight of by modern astrologers.
(WG) Cycle, a ring or turn, from the Greek Kuklos ; more properly a spiral; a day and night are a cycle; a year is another. The returning again of any time or any impression. The subject of cycles is of the greatest importance, as it includes all history and all evolution. The best known large cycle is the sidereal, a little over 25,000 years.
(OG) Cycles or Law of Cycles — An exceedingly interesting branch of theosophical study, and one dealing with a fact which is so obviously manifest in the worlds surrounding us that its existence can hardly be denied, except by the willfully blind, is what may be called the law of cycles, or nature’s repetitive operations.
We find nature repeating herself everywhere, although such repetition of course is not merely a running in the same old ruts on each recurrence of the cyclic activity; for each recurrence is of course the expression of a modification, more or less great, of what has preceded. Day succeeds night, winter succeeds summer, the planets circulate around the suns in regular and periodical courses; and these are but familiar examples of cyclical activity.
Cycles in nature show the time periods of periodic recurrence along and in which any evolving entity or thing expresses the energies and powers which are itself, so that cycles and evolution are like the two sides of a coin: the one shows the time periods or cycles, and the other side manifests the energic or substantial qualities appearing in manifestation according to these cyclical time-periods; but back of this apparently double but actually single process always lie profound karmic causes.
(TG) Cynocephalus {Greek}. The Egyptian Hapi. There was a notable difference between the ape-headed gods and the “Cynocephalus” (Simia hamadryas), a dog-headed baboon from upper Egypt. The latter, whose sacred city was Hermopolis, was sacred to the lunar deities and Thoth-Hermes, hence an emblem of secret wisdom-as was Hanuman, the monkey-god of India, and later, the elephant-headed Ganesha. The mission of the Cynocephalus was to show the way for the Dead to the Seat of Judgment and Osiris, whereas the ape-gods were all phallic. They are almost invariably found in a crouching posture, holding on one hand the outa (the eye of Horus), and in the other the sexual cross. Isis is seen sometimes riding on an ape, to designate the fall of divine nature into generation.
(TG) D. — Both in the English and Hebrew alphabets the fourth letter, whose numerical value is four. The symbolical signification in the Kabbala of the Daleth is “door”. It is the Greek delta , through which the world (whose symbol is the tetrad or number four,) issued, producing the divine seven. The name of the Tetrad was Harmony with the Pythagoreans, “because it is a diatessaron in sesquitertia”. With the Kabbalists, the divine name associated with Daleth was Daghoul.
(TG) Daath {Hebr}. Knowledge; “the conjunction of Chokinah and Binah, Wisdom and Understanding: sometimes, in error, called a Sephira. [w.w.w.]
(TG) Dabar {Hebr}. D (a) B (a) R (im), meaning the “Word”, and the “Words” in the Chaldean Kabbala, Dabar and Logoi. (See Sec. Logos” or “Word”
(TG) Dabistan {Pers}. The land of Iran; ancient Persia.
(TG) Dache-Dachus {Chald}. The dual emanation of Moymis, the progeny of the dual or androgynous World-Principle, the male Apason and female Tauthe. Like all theocratic nations possessing Temple mysteries, the Babylonians never mentioned the “One” Principle of the Universe, nor did they give it a name. This made Damascius (Theogonies) remark that like the rest of “barbarians” the Babylonians passed it over in silence. Tauthe was the mother of the gods, while Apason was her self-generating male power, Moymis, the ideal universe, being her only-begotten son, and emanating in his turn Dache-Dachus, and at last Belus, the Demiurge of the objective Universe.
(TG) Dactyli {Greek}. From daktulos, “a finger”. The name given to the Phrygian Hierophants of Kybele, who were regarded as the greatest magicians and exorcists. They were five or ten in number because of the five fingers on one hand that blessed, and the ten on both hands which evoke the gods. They also heated by manipulation or mesmerism.
(IU) Dactyls. ( daktulos, a finger). — A name given to the priests attached to the worship of Kybele (Cybele). Some archaeologists derive the name from GREEK, finger, because they were ten, the same in number as the fingers of the hand. But we do not believe the latter hypothesis is the correct one.
(TG) Dadouchos {Greek}. The torch-bearer, one of the four celebrants in the Eleusinian mysteries. There were several attached to the temples but they appeared in public only at the Panathenaic Games at Athens, to preside over the so-called “torch-race”. (See
(TG) Daemon {Greek}. In the original Hermetic works and ancient classics it has a meaning identical with that of “god”, “angel” or “genius”. The Daemon of Socrates is the incorruptible part of the man, or rather the real inner man which we call Nous or the rational divine Ego. At all events the Daemon (or Daimon) of the great Sage was surely not the demon of the Christian Hell or of Christian orthodox theology. The name was given by ancient peoples, and especially the philosophers of the Alexandrian school, to all kinds of spirits, whether good or bad, human or otherwise. The- appellation is often synonymous with that of gods or angels. But some philosophers tried, with good reason, to make a just distinction between the many classes.
(IU) Daemons. — A name given by the ancient people, and especially the philosophers of the Alexandrian school, to all kinds of spirits, whether good or bad, human or otherwise. The appellation is often synonymous with that of gods or angels. But some philosophers tried, with good reason, to make a just distinction between the many classes.
(FY) Daemon, the incorruptible part of man; nous; rational soul.
(TG) Daenam (Pahlavi). Lit., “Knowledge”, the principle of understanding in man, rational Soul, or Manas, according to the Avesta.
(FY) Daenam ( lit. “knowledge”), the fourth principle in man, according to the Avesta.
(TG) Dag, Dagon {Hebr}. “Fish” and also “Messiah”. Dagon was the Chaldean man-fish Oannes, the mysterious being who arose daily out of the depths of the sea to teach people every useful science. He was also called Annedotus.
(TG) Dagoba {Sans}, or Stupa. Lit: a sacred mound or tower for Buddhist holy relics. These are pyramidal-looking mounds scattered all over India and Buddhist countries, such as Ceylon, Burmah, Central Asia, etc. They are of various size, and generally contain some small relics of Saints or those claimed to have belonged to Gautama, the Buddha. As the human body is supposed to consist of 84,000 dhatus (organic cells with definite vital functions in them), Asoka is said for this reason to have built 84,000 dhatu-gopas or Dagobas in honour of every cell of the Buddha’s body, each of which has now become a dharmadhaitu or holy relic. There is in Ceylon a Dhatu-gopa at Anuradhapura, said to date from 160 years B.C. They are now built pyramid-like, but the primitive Dagobas were all shaped like towers with a cupola and several tchhatya (umbrellas) over them. Eitel states that the Chinese Dagobas have all from 7 to 14 tchhatras over them, a number which is symbolical of the human body.
(WG) Dagoba, a conical erection of brick or stone surrounding relics among the Buddhists, built on a platform.
(FY) Daimonlouphote, spiritual illumination.
(TG) Daityas {Sans}. Giants, Titans, and exoterically demons, but in truth identical with certain Asuras, the intellectual gods, the opponents of the useless gods of ritualism and the enemies of puja, sacrifices.
(FY) Daityas, demons, Titans.
(WG) Daityas, descendants of Diti, demons, giants who lived in the earliest ages.
(GH) Daityas literally Descendants of Diti — by the Rishi Kasyapa. The daityas are the titans (popularly called demons), constantly warring with the gods; at times they are the victors, at others the vanquished. “The first war happened in the night of time, between the gods [and] the (A)- suras, and lasted for the period of one ‘divine year.’ On this occasion the deities were defeated by the Daityas, under the leadership of Hrada. After that, owing to a device of Vishnu, to whom the conquered gods applied for help, the latter defeated the Asuras. In the Vishnu Purana no interval is found between the two wars. In the Esoteric Doctrine, one war takes place before the building of the Solar system; another, on earth, at the ‘creation’ of man; ” ( Secret Doctrine, I, p. 419). The meaning of the wars is, therefore, that the Daityas represent the urgers of evolutionary progress in the cosmic scheme. ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 75)
(TG) Daitya Guru {Sans}. The instructor of the giants, called Daityas Allegorically, it is the title given to the planet Venus-Lucifer, or rather to its Ruler, Sukra, a male deity (See Sec. Doct. ii. p. 30).
(WG) Daitya-yuga, an age of the demons, consisting of 12,000 divine years.
(TG) Daivi-prakriti {Sans}. Primordial, homogeneous light, called by some Indian Occultist, “the Light of the Logos” (see Notes on the Bhagavat Gita,) when differentiated this light becomes FOHAT.
(WG) Daiva-prakriti, the synthesis of the six forces in the astral light; the “Light of the Logos.”
(OG) Daiviprakriti — {Sans} A compound signifying “divine” or “original evolver,” or “original source,” of the universe or of any self-contained or hierarchical portion of such universe, such as a solar system. Briefly, therefore, daiviprakriti may be called “divine matter,” matter here being used in its original sense of “divine mother-evolver ” or “divine original substance .”
Now, as original substance manifests itself in the kosmic spaces as primordial kosmic light — light in occult esoteric theosophical philosophy being a form of original matter or substance — many mystics have referred to daiviprakriti under the phrase “the Light of the Logos.” Daiviprakriti is, in fact, the first veil or sheath or ethereal body surrounding the Logos, as pradhana or prakriti surrounds Purusha or Brahman in the Sankhya philosophy, and as, on a scale incomparably more vast, mulaprakriti surrounds parabrahman. As daiviprakriti, therefore, is elemental matter, or matter in its sixth and seventh stages counting from physical matter upwards or, what comes to the same thing, matter in its first and second stages of its evolution from above, we may accurately enough speak of those filmy ethereal wisps of light seen in the midnight skies as a physical manifestation of daiviprakriti, because when they are not actually resolvable nebulae, they are worlds, or rather systems of worlds, in the making.
When daiviprakriti has reached a certain state or condition of evolutionary manifestation, we may properly speak of it under the term fohat. Fohat, in H. P. Blavatsky’s words, is “The essence of cosmic electricity. An occult Tibetan term for Daivi-prakriti, primordial light: and in the universe of manifestation the ever-present electrical energy and ceaseless destructive and formative power. Esoterically, it is the same, Fohat being the universal propelling Vital Force, at once the propeller and the resultant.” — Theosophical Glossary, p. 121
All this is extremely well put, but it must be remembered that although fohat is the energizing power working in and upon manifested daiviprakriti, or primordial substance, as the rider rides the steed, it is the kosmic intelligence, or kosmic monad as Pythagoras would say, working through both daiviprakriti and its differentiated energy called fohat, which is the guiding and controlling principle, not only in the kosmos but in every one of the subordinate elements and beings of the hosts of multitudes of them infilling the kosmos. The heart or essence of the sun is daiviprakriti working as itself, and also in its manifestation called fohat, but through the daiviprakriti and the fohatic aspect of it runs the all-permeant and directive intelligence of the solar divinity. The student should never make the mistake, however, of divorcing this guiding solar intelligence from its veils or vehicles, one of the highest of which is daiviprakriti-fohat.
(SKv) Daiviprakriti ‘Divine-Nature,’ prima materia, the highest states of matter, the first luminous emanations of the Universal Mind which form the nuclei of Universes, solar systems, and planets; a compound of daivi, from the verb-root div — to shine; and prakriti — original substance or nature, elemental matter. When a world comes into being, its first appearances are fiery and luminous. Thus we read in G. de Purucker’s Occult Glossary : . . . we may accurately enough speak of those filmy ethereal wisps of light seen in the midnight skies as a physical manifestation of Daiviprakriti, because when they are not actually resolvable nebulae, they are worlds, or rather systems of worlds, in the making.
H. P. Blavatsky speaking of Daiviprakriti says in The Secret Doctrine : It is the informing, ever-present moving-power and life-principle, the vital soul of the suns, moons, planets, and even of our Earth. — I, 602
(TG) Dakini {Sans}. Female demons, vampires and blood-drinkers (asra-pas). In the Puranas they attend upon the goddess Kali and feed on human flesh. A species of evil “Elementals” .
(IN) Dakini {Sans} Female demons attendant on Kali; mindless elemental beings in female form; equivalent to Khado.
(TG) Daksha {Sans}. A form of Brahma, and his son in the Puranas. But the Rig Veda states that “Daksha sprang from Aditi, and Aditi from Daksha”, which proves him to be a personified correlating Creative Force acting on all the planes. The Orientalists seem very much perplexed what to make of him; but Roth is nearer the truth than any, when saying that Daksha is the spiritual power, and at the same time the male energy that generates the gods in eternity, which is represented by Aditi. The Puranas, as a matter of course, anthropomorphize the idea, and show Daksha instituting “sexual intercourse on this earth”, after trying every other means of procreation. The generative Force, spiritual at the commencement, becomes of course at the most material end of its evolution a procreative Force on the physical plane; and so far the Puranic allegory is correct, as the Secret Science teaches that our present mode of procreation began towards the end of the third Root-Race.
(WG) Daksha, ability, faculty, strength, power — all with especial application to spiritual power and will; son of Marisha, Kandu’s daughter, an allegorical personage introduced in the Puranas.
(TG) Dalada {Sans}. A very precious relic of Gautama the Buddha; viz., his supposed left canine tooth preserved at the great temple at Kandy, Ceylon. Unfortunately, the relic shown is not genuine. The latter has been securely secreted for several hundred years, ever since the shameful and bigoted attempt by the Portuguese (the then ruling power in Ceylon) to steal and make away with the real relic. That which is shown in the place of the real thing is the monstrous tooth of some animal.
(WG) Dalada, the left canine tooth of Buddha — a relic.
(TG) Dama {Sans}. Restraint of the senses.
(FY) Dama, restraint of the senses.
(WG) Dama, Victor, a son of Bhima; house, home; self-restraint.
(TG) Damayas {Sans}. Almost the same as Daityas; giants and demons, the opponents of the ritualistic gods.
(TG) Dambulla {Sans}. The name of a huge rock in Ceylon. It is about 400 feet above the level of the sea. Its upper portion is excavated, and several large cave-temples, or Viharas, are cut out of the solid rock, all of these being of pre-Christian date. They are considered as the best preserved antiquities in the, island. The North side of the rock is vertical and quite inaccessible, but on the South side, about 150 feet from its summit, its huge overhanging granite mass has been fashioned into a platform with a row of large cave-temples excavated in the surrounding walls — evidently at an enormous sacrifice of labour and money. Two Viharas may be mentioned out of the many: the Maha Raja Vihara, 172 ft. in length and 75 in breadth, in which there are upwards of fifty figures of Buddha, most of them larger than life and all formed from the solid rock. A well has been dug out at the foot of the central Dagoba, and from a fissure in the rock there constantly drips into it beautiful clear water which is kept for sacred purposes. In the other, the Maha Dewiyo Vihaya, there is to be seen a gigantic figure of the dead Gautama Buddha, 47 feet long, reclining on a couch and pillow cut out of solid rock like the rest. “This long, narrow and dark temple, the position and placid aspect of Buddha, together with the stillness of the place, tend to impress the beholder with the idea that he is in the chamber of death. The priest asserts . . . . that such was Buddha, and such were those (at his feet stands an attendant) who witnessed the last moments of his mortality” (Hardy’s East. Monachism). The view from Dambulla is magnificent. On the large rock platform which seems to be now more visited by very intelligent tame white monkeys than by monks, there stands a huge Bo-Tree, one of the numerous scions from the original Bo-Tree under which the Lord Siddhartha reached Nirvana. “About 50 ft. from the summit there is a pond which, as the priests assert, is never without water.” (The Ceylon Almanac
(TG) Dammapadan #4nn. A Buddhist work containing moral precepts.
(TG) Dana {Sans}. Almsgiving to mendicants, lit., “charity”, the first of the six Paramitas in Buddhism.
(WG) Dana, true charity.
(WG) Danavas, sons of Danu, demons and foes of the gods; spoken of in the Bhagavad-Gita as evil spirits or fallen angels.
(WG) Danda, chastisement, correction; conquest; a measure of time, 60 making a siderial day.
(TG) Dangma {Sans}. In Esotericism a purified Soul. A Seer and an Initiate; one who has attained full wisdom.
(IN) Dangma {Tibe} Freed or purified soul, a high adept, mahatma.
(WG) Danu, one of the daughters of Daksba and mother of the Danavas.
(TG) Daos {Chald}. The seventh King (Shepherd) of the divine Dynasty, who reigned over the Babylonians for the space of ten sari, or 36,000 years, a saros being of 3,600 years’ duration. In his time four Annedoti, or Men-fishes (Dagons) made their appearance.
(TG) Darasta {Sans}. Ceremonial magic practised by the central Indian tribes, especially among the Kolarians.
(TG) Dardanus {Greek}. The Son of Jupiter and Electra, who received the Kabeiri gods as a dowry, and took them to Samothrace, where they were worshipped long before the hero laid the foundations of Troy, and before Tyre and Sidon were ever heard of, though Tyre was built 2,760 years B.C. (See for fuller details “Kabiri
(TG) Darha {Sans}. The ancestral spirits of the Kolarians.
(TG) Darsanas {Sans}. The Schools of Indian philosophy, of which there are six; Shad-darsanas or six demonstrations.
(WG) Darsanas, the six systems of Hindu philosophy, viz : Sankhya of Kapila, Yoga of Patanjali, Nyaya of Gotama, Vaiseshika of Kanada, Purva-Mimansa of Jamini, Uttara-Mimansa or Vedanta of Vyasa.
(FY) Darusta, ceremonial magic practised among the Kolarian tribes of Central India.
(FY) Darha, ancestral spirits of the Kolarian tribes of Central India.
(TG) Dasa-sil {Pali} . The ten obligations or commandments taken by and binding upon the priests of Buddha; the five obligations or Pansil are taken by laymen.
(GH) Dasra One of the twin sky deities, the Asvins , father of Sahadeva — the fifth Pandava — by Madri incorrectly spelled Darsa (Meaning of the word itself: accomplishing wonderful deeds
(TG) Dava {Tibe}. The moon, in Tibetan astrology.
(TG) Davkina {Chald}. The wife of Hea, “the goddess of the lower regions, the consort of the Deep”, the mother of Merodach, the Bel of later times, and mother to many river-gods, Hea being the god of the lower regions, the “lord of the Sea or abyss”, and also the lord of Wisdom.
(VS) Master of the Day (III 24) [[p. 65]] “Day” means here a whole Manvantara, a period of incalculable duration.
(TG) Dayanisi #1nn The god worshipped by the Jews along with other Semites, as the “Ruler of men”; Dionysos — the Sun; whence Jehovah-Nissi, or Iao-Nisi, the same as Dio-nysos or Jove of Nyssa.
(TG) Day of Brahma . See “Brahma’s Day” etc.
(WG) Day of Brahma, the great period during which universal manifestation lasts. A space of time said to include 2,160,000,000 years, or 14 Manvantaras. See Yuga .
(TG) Dayus or Dyaus {Sans}. A Vedic term. The unrevealed Deity, or that which reveals Itself only as light, and the bright day — metaphorically.
(VS) living and the Dead (II 32) [[p. 40]] The “living” is the immortal Higher Ego, and the “dead” the lower personal Ego.
Pythagoras:
Death is our common lot. Material riches are won and lost. Let thy life be inspired by the purest justice! Be beyond reproach in relation to others and to thyself. Seize every opportunity to learn. In this way thou wilt lead a most pleasurable life.
Ponder these thoughts. When thou art filled by them thou wilt be enabled to conceive of the nature of God, of men, and of things, and to account for the unity of all creation. Thou wilt then know this universal law, that everywhere in the world matter and spirit are in principle identical.
Continue the work of liberating thy soul by making a judicious and well-considered choice in all things, to the end that thou mayest assure the triumph of what is best in thyself – the triumph of the spirit. Then, when thou leavest thy mortal shape, thou wilt rise into the ether and, ceasing to be mortal, wilt thyself assume the form of an immortal god.
(OG) Death — Death occurs when a general break-up of the constitution of man takes place; nor is this break-up a matter of sudden occurrence, with the exceptions of course of such cases as mortal accidents or suicides. Death is always preceded, varying in each individual case, by a certain time spent in the withdrawal of the monadic individuality from an incarnation, and this withdrawal of course takes place coincidently with a decay of the seven-principle being which man is in physical incarnation. This decay precedes physical dissolution, and is a preparation of and by the consciousness-center for the forthcoming existence in the invisible realms. This withdrawal actually is a preparation for the life to come in invisible realms, and as the septenary entity on this earth so decays, it may truly be said to be approaching rebirth in the next sphere.
Death occurs, physically speaking, with the cessation of activity of the pulsating heart. There is the last beat, and this is followed by immediate, instantaneous unconsciousness, for nature is very merciful in these things. But death is not yet complete, for the brain is the last organ of the physical body really to die, and for some time after the heart has ceased beating, the brain and its memory still remain active and, although unconsciously so, the human ego for this short length of time, passes in review every event of the preceding life. This great or small panoramic picture of the past is purely automatic, so to say; yet the soul-consciousness of the reincarnating ego watches this wonderful review incident by incident, a review which includes the entire course of thought and action of the life just closed. The entity is, for the time being, entirely unconscious of everything else except this. Temporarily it lives in the past, and memory dislodges from the akasic record, so to speak, event after event, to the smallest detail: passes them all in review, and in regular order from the beginning to the end, and thus sees all its past life as an all-inclusive panorama of picture succeeding picture.
There are very definite ethical and psychological reasons inhering in this process, for this process forms a reconstruction of both the good and the evil done in the past life, and imprints this strongly as a record on the fabric of the spiritual memory of the passing being. Then the mortal and material portions sink into oblivion, while the reincarnating ego carries the best and noblest parts of these memories into the devachan or heaven-world of postmortem rest and recuperation. Thus comes the end called death; and unconsciousness, complete and undisturbed, succeeds, until there occurs what the ancients called the second death.
The lower triad (prana, linga-sarira, sthula-sarira) is now definitely cast off, and the remaining quaternary is free. The physical body of the lower triad follows the course of natural decay, and its various hosts of life-atoms proceed whither their natural attractions draw them. The linga-sarira or model-body remains in the astral realms, and finally fades out. The life-atoms of the prana, or electrical field, fly instantly back at the moment of physical dissolution to the natural pranic reservoirs of the planet.
This leaves man, therefore, no longer a heptad or septenary entity, but a quaternary consisting of the upper duad (atma-buddhi) and the intermediate duad (manas-kama). The second death then takes place.
Death and the adjective dead are mere words by which the human mind seeks to express thoughts which it gathers from a more or less consistent observation of the phenomena of the material world. Death is dissolution of a component entity or thing. The dead, therefore, are merely dissolving bodies — entities which have reached their term on this our physical plane. Dissolution is common to all things, because all physical things are composite: they are not absolute things. They are born; they grow; they reach maturity; they enjoy, as the expression runs, a certain term of life in the full bloom of their powers; then they “die.” That is the ordinary way of expressing what men call death; and the corresponding adjective is dead, when we say that such things or entities are dead.
Do you find death per se anywhere? No. You find nothing but action; you find nothing but movement; you find nothing but change. Nothing stands still or is annihilated. What is called death itself shouts forth to us the fact of movement and change. Absolute inertia is unknown in nature or in the human mind; it does not exist.
(TG) Death, Kiss of. According to the Kabbalah, the earnest follower does not die by the power of the Evil Spirit, Yetzer ha Rah, but by a kiss from the mouth of Jehovah Tetragrammaton, meeting him in the Haikal Ahabah or Palace of Love. [w.w.w.]
(WG) Deha, the body.
(TG) Deist. One who admits the existence of a god or gods, but claims to know nothing of either and denies revelation. A Freethinker of olden times.
(KT) Deist. One who admits the possibility of the existence of a God or gods, but claims to know nothing of either, and denies revelation. An agnostic of olden times.
(TG) Dei termini {Latin}. The name for pillars with human heads representing Hermes, placed at cross-roads by the ancient Greeks and Romans. Also the general name for deities presiding over boundaries and frontiers.
(VS) webs of Delusion (I 7) [[p. 4]] Sakkayaditthi “delusion” of personality.
(TG) Demerit. In Occult and Buddhistic parlance, a constituent of Karma. It is through avidya or ignorance of vidya, divine illumination, that merit and demerit are produced. Once an Arhat obtains full illumination and perfect control over his personality and lower nature, he ceases to create “merit and demerit”.
(TG) Demeter. The Hellenic name for the Latin Ceres, the goddess of corn and tillage. The astronomical sign, Virgo. The Eleusinian Mysteries were celebrated in her honour.
(IN) De minimus non curat lex {Latin} The law does not concern itself with trifles.
(TG) Demiurgic Mind. The same as “Universal Mind”. Mahat, the first “product” of Brahma, or himself.
(TG) Demiurgos {Greek} The Demiurge or Artificer; the Supernal Power which built the universe. Freemasons derive from this word their phrase of “Supreme Architect”. With the Occultists it is the third manifested Logos, or Plato’s ” second god”, the second logos being represented by him as the “Father”, the only Deity that he dared mention as an Initiate into the Mysteries.
(IU) Demiourgos; or Demiurge. — Artificer; the Supernal Power which built the universe. Freemasons derive from this word their phrase of “Supreme Architect.” The chief magistrates of certain Greek cities bore the title.
(WG) Demiurgos (Greek), the creator, not in any personal sense, but as the aggregate of creative forces in the universe.
(IN) Demiourgos (Gk) Cosmic artificer, supreme architect; collectively, the creative powers which build the universe.
(TG) Demon est Deus inversus {Latin}. A Kabbalistic axiom; lit., “the devil is god reversed”; which means that there is neither evil nor good, but that the forces which create the one create the other, according to the nature of the materials they find to work upon.
(TG) Demonologia {Greek}. Treatises or Discourses upon Demons, or Gods in their dark aspects.
(TG) Demons. According to the Kabbalah, the demons dwell in the world of Assiah, the world of matter and of the “shells” of the dead. They are the Klippoth. There are Seven Hells, whose demon dwellers represent the vices personified. Their prince is Samael, his female companion is Isheth Zenunim — the woman of prostitution: united in aspect, they are named “The Beast”, Chiva. [w.w.w.]
(TG) Demrusch {Pers}. A Giant in the mythology of ancient Iran.
(TG) Denis, Angoras. “A physician of Paris, astrologer and alchemist
(TG) Deona Mati . In the Kolarian dialect, one who exorcises evil spirits.
(FY) Deona or Mati, one who exorcises evil spirits ( Kolarian ).
(TG) Dervish. A Mussulman — Turkish or Persian — ascetic. A nomadic and wandering monk. Dervishes, however, sometimes live in communities. They are often called the “whirling charmers”. Apart from his austerities of life, prayer and contemplation, the Turkish, Egyptian, or Arabic devotee presents but little similarity with the Hindu fakir, who is also a mussulman. The latter may become a saint and holy mendicant; the former will never reach beyond his second class of occult manifestations. The dervish may also be a strong mesmerizer, but he will never voluntarily submit to the abominable and almost incredible self-punishment which the fakir invents for himself with an ever-increasing avidity, until nature succumbs and he dies in slow and excruciating tortures. The most dreadful operations, such as flaying the limbs alive; cutting off the toes, feet, and legs; tearing out the eyes; and causing one’s self to be buried alive up to the chin in the earth, and passing whole months in this posture, seem child’s play to them. The Dervish must not be confused ‘with the Hindu sanyasi or yogi. (See “Fakir”).
(IU) Dervishes, or the “whirling charmers,” as they are called. Apart from the austerities of life, prayer and contemplation, the Mohammedan devotee presents but little similarity with the Hindu fakir. The latter may become a sannyasi, or saint and holy mendicant; the former will never reach beyond his second class of occult manifestations. The dervish may also be a strong mesmerizer, but he will never voluntarily submit to the abominable and almost incredible self-punishment which the fakir invents for himself with an ever-increasing avidity, until nature succumbs and he dies in slow and excruciating tortures. The most dreadful operations, such as flaying the limbs alive; cutting off the toes, feet, and legs; tearing out the eyes; and causing one’s self to be buried alive up to the chin in the earth, and passing whole months in this posture, seem child’s play to them. One of the most common tortures is that of Tshiddy-Parvady. [Or more commonly charkh puja.] It consists in suspending the fakir to one of the mobile arms of a kind of gallows to be seen in the vicinity of many of the temples. At the end of each of these arms is fixed a pulley over which passes a rope terminated by an iron hook. This hook is inserted into the bare back of the fakir, who inundating the soil with blood is hoisted up in the air and then whirled round the gallows. From the first moment of this cruel operation until he is either unhooked or the flesh of his back tears out under the weight of the body and the fakir is hurled down on the heads of the crowd, not a muscle of his face will move. He remains calm and serious and as composed as if taking a refreshing bath. The fakir will laugh to scorn every imaginable torture, persuaded that the more his outer body is mortified, the brighter and holier becomes his inner, spiritual body. But the Dervish, neither in India, nor in other Mahometan lands, will ever submit to such operations.
(TG) Desatir. A very ancient Persian work called the Book of Shet. It speaks of the thirteen Zoroasters, and is very mystical.
(WG) Desatir, an ancient Persian book containing the books of the various prophets. It is full of mysticism and not clear to the modern mind.
Desiderata by Max Ehrmann
(TG) Deva {Sans}. A god, a “resplendent” deity. Deva-Deus, from the root div “to shine”. A Deva is a celestial being — whether good, bad, or indifferent. Devas inhabit “the three worlds”, which are the three planes above us. There are 33 groups or 330 millions of them.
(KT) Deva {Sans} A god, a “resplendent” Deity, Deva-Deus, from the root div, “to shine.” A Deva is a celestial being — whether good, bad or indifferent — which inhabits “the three worlds,” or the three planes above us. There are 33 groups or millions of them.
(FY) Deva, God; beings of the subjective side of Nature.
(WG) Deva (also Devata), a celestial being, a god.
(OG) Deva(s) — {Sans} A word meaning celestial being, of which there are various classes. This has been a great puzzle for most of our Occidental Orientalists. They cannot understand the distinctions that the wonderful old philosophers of the Orient make as regards the various classes of the devas. They say, in substance: “What funny contradictions there are in these teachings, which in many respects are profound and seem wonderful. Some of these devas or divine beings are said to be less than man; some of these writings even say that a good man is nobler than any god. And yet other parts of these teachings declare that there are gods higher even than the devas, and yet are called devas. What does this mean?”
The devas or celestial beings, one class of them, are the unself-conscious sparks of divinity, cycling down into matter in order to bring out from within themselves and to unfold or evolve self -consciousness, the svabhava of divinity within. They then begin their reascent always on the luminous arc, which never ends, in a sense; and they are gods, self -conscious gods, henceforth taking a definite and divine part in the “great work,” as the mystics have said, of being builders, evolvers, leaders of hierarchies. In other words, they are monads which have become their own innermost selves, which have passed the ring-pass-not separating the spiritual from the divine.
(GH) Deva A divinity, a spiritual being. In the plural the reference is to the heavenly or shining ones called in the Rig-Veda (II, p. 3, 4) visve devas ‘all the gods,’ — often reckoned as 33 (figuring 11 for each of the ‘three worlds’), or again as the 8 Vasus, the 11 Rudras, the 12 Adityas, and the 2 Asvins. This is also the enumeration in the Mahabharata. The three worlds are the “three planes above us.” ( Theosophical Glossary, H. P. Blavatsky, p. 98) The word is generally rendered ‘god,’ although incorrectly, as pointed out by Subba Row: “Do not make the mistake of thinking that the word Deva means a god, and that because we have thirty-three crores of Devas, we therefore worship thirty-three crores of gods. This is an unfortunate blunder generally committed by Europeans. Deva is a kind of spiritual being, and because the same word is used in ordinary parlance to mean god, it by no means follows that we have and worship thirty-three crores of gods. These beings, as may be naturally inferred, have a certain affinity with one of the three component upadhis [basic principles] into which we have divided man” ( Notes on the Bhagavad-Gita, pp. 37-8) — i.e. , the upadhi of the Karana-sarira. (from div, the sky, the heaven. Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 74)
(SK)o Deva A Divinity or a ‘Shining One’; derived from the verbal root div — to shine. Deva is a very general and inclusive term for all grades of spiritual beings ranging from the young god-sparks on the ladder of evolution, whose evolution is still latent, up to the highest of the Gods who are divine manifestations and self-conscious Divinities.
(SP) Deva — celestial being, a deity. Note: Devachan (the state of rest between incarnations) has been mistakenly explained as a compound of Sanskrit deva with a supposed Tibetan word chan meaning land or region. Devachan is actually a borrowing of the Tibetan word bde-ba-can (pronounced de-wa-chen ), which is the Tibetan translation of Sanskrit sukhavati, “the happy place.”
(TG) Deva Sarga {Sans}. Creation: the origin of the principles, said to be Intelligence born of the qualities or the attributes of nature.
(TG) Devachan {Sans}. The “dwelling of the gods”. A state intermediate between two earth-lives, into which the Ego (Atma-Buddhi-Manas, or the Trinity made One) enters, after its separation from Kama Rupa, and the disintegration of the lower principles on earth.
(KT) Devachan {Sans} The “Dwelling of the Gods.” A state intermediate between two earth-lives, and into which the Ego (Atma-Buddhi-Manas, or the Trinity made one) enters after its separation from Kama Rupa, and the disintegration of the lower principles, after the death of the body, on Earth.
(FY) Devachan, a blissful condition in the after-life; heavenly existence.
(WG) Devachan, heaven, the subjective rest between incarnations.
(OG) Devachan — [Tibetan, bde-ba-can, pronounced de-wa-chen ] A translation of the Sanskrit sukhavati, the “happy place” or god-land. It is the state between earth-lives into which the human entity, the human monad, enters and there rests in bliss and repose.
When the second death after that of the physical body takes place — and there are many deaths, that is to say many changes of the vehicles of the ego — the higher part of the human entity withdraws into itself all that aspires towards it, and takes that “all” with it into the devachan; and the atman, with the buddhi and with the higher part of the manas, become thereupon the spiritual monad of man. Devachan as a state applies not to the highest or heavenly or divine monad, but only to the middle principles of man, to the personal ego or the personal soul in man, overshadowed by atma-buddhi. There are many degrees in devachan: the highest, the intermediate, and the lowest. Yet devachan is not a locality, it is a state, a state of the beings in that spiritual condition.
Devachan is the fulfilling of all the unfulfilled spiritual hopes of the past incarnation, and an efflorescence of all the spiritual and intellectual yearnings of the past incarnation which in that past incarnation have not had an opportunity for fulfillment. It is a period of unspeakable bliss and peace for the human soul, until it has finished its rest time and stage of recuperation of its own energies.
(IN) the devachanic state, the reincarnating ego remains in the bosom of the monad (or of the monadic essence) in a state of the most perfect and utter bliss and peace, reviewing and constantly reviewing, and improving upon in its own blissful imagination, all the unfulfilled spiritual and intellectual possibilities of the life just closed that its naturally creative faculties automatically suggest to the devachanic entity.
Man here is no longer a quaternary of substance-principles (for the second death has taken place), but is now reduced to the monad with the reincarnating ego sleeping in its bosom, and is therefore a spiritual triad. ( See also Death, Reincarnating Ego) WW Devachan This word is Tibetan, and properly transliterated would be Bdebachan, probably from the Sanskrit Deva, a divine being. This last is connected in meaning with the Greek word daimon ; the ending is a locative; hence, the ‘deva-world’…. It really means god-country, god-world, the Sanskrit equivalent being Sukhavati, a noun meaning “state or place of happiness”; vati is simply a grammatical particle implying quality, or as used here is a possessive adjective; hence, the state or place of actual, real joy, bliss. (The Tibetan alphabet has certainly been derived from the Devanagari system, in which Sanskrit is mostly written).
(GH) Devachan A Sanskrit-Tibetan compound word (deva, a divine being, deity; chan, region): the heaven-world. The state of the ego after death between earth-lives, when it rests in utter bliss and perfect repose. In this state all the spiritual aspirations and intellectual yearnings of the past life find fulfilment. Devachan is “an absolute oblivion of all that gave it pain or sorrow in the past incarnation, and even oblivion of the fact that such things as pain or sorrow exist at all. The Devachanee lives its intermediate cycle between two incarnations surrounded by everything it had aspired to in vain, and in the companionship of everyone it loved on earth. It has reached the fulfilment of all its soul-yearnings. And thus it lives throughout long centuries an existence of unalloyed happiness” (The Key to Theosophy, p. 148). ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 51)
(SK)o Devachan A state of mental bliss and rest enjoyed by the Reincarnating Ego after the separation of the higher and lower principles in the astral realms. In the Devachan a man’s spiritual thoughts, yearnings, and aspirations reach their fruition in a happy dream state. But those who have laid up no ‘treasures in heaven’ do not enter the Devachan, but are reborn on earth after their, passage through Kama-loka, or the astral realms of desire. The length of the Devachanic dreams depends on the grade of spiritual aspiration during earth-life. As a rule, the higher the spiritual yearnings are the longer and richer is the Devachan. However, high Initiates who are masters of life and death do not need this state of rest accompanied by illusory dreams, but return very quickly to carry on their spiritual labors for the Hierarchy of Compassion.
(WG) Devadatta, the conch-shell of Arjuna; one of the vital airs. ( deva, god; delta, given
(GH) Devadatta The name of the conch-shell of Arjuna. This conch was given to Arjuna by his parent Indra, the deity of the sky, upon the successful conclusion of the expedition which he was requested to make against the daityas of the sea, who had been troubling the deities. They were vanquished by Arjuna. (Meaning of the word itself: god-given. Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 3)
(WG) Devagana, a troop of Gods or celestial beings possessing much wisdom, for they are presided over by Indra, chief of the Gods.
(WG) Devaganeshwara, an epithet of Indra, because he is lord of a collection or troop of Gods.
(TG) Devajnanas {Sans}. or Daivajna. The higher classes of celestial beings, those who possess divine knowledge.
(TG) Devaki {Sans}. The mother of Krishna. She was shut up in a dungeon by her brother, King Kansa, for fear of the fulfilment of a prophecy which stated that a son of his sister should dethrone and kill him. Notwithstanding the strict watch kept, Devaki was overshadowed by Vishnu, the holy Spirit, and thus gave birth to that god’s avatara, Krishna
(WG) Devaki, the mother of Krishna.
(GH) Devala A Vedic Rishi descendant of Kasyapa: he is credited with having written some of the hymns of the Vedas, particularly Rig-Veda ix. ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 72)
(TG) Deva-laya {Sans}. “The shrine of a Deva”. The name given to all Brahmanical temples.
(TG) Deva-lokas {Sans}. The abodes of the Gods or Devas in superior spheres. The seven celestial worlds above Meru.
(TG) Devamatri {Sans}. Lit., “the mother of the gods”. A title of Aditi, Mystic Space.
(IN) Devamatri {Sans} :Mother of the gods”, cosmic or mystic space.
(TG) Devanagari {Sans}. Lit., “the language or letters of the devas” or gods. The characters of the Sanskrit language. The alphabet and the art of writing were kept secret for ages, as the Dwijas (Twice-born) and the Dikshitas (Initiates) alone were permitted to use this art. It was a crime for a Sudra to recite a verse of the Vedas, and for any of the two lower castes (Vaisya and Sudra) to know the letters was an offence punishable by death. Therefore is the word lipi, “writing”, absent from the oldest MSS., a fact which gave the Orientalists the erroneous and rather incongruous idea that writing was not only unknown before the day of Panini, but even to that sage himself! That the greatest grammarian the world likes ever produced should be ignorant of writing would indeed be the greatest and most incomprehensible phenomenon of all.
(FY) Devanagari, the current Sanskrit alphabet.
(WG) Devanagari, the character in which Sanscrit is usually written. (Literally, “the divine-city writing.”)
(SKs) Deva-parvata ‘The divine mountain,’ a name for the sacred and mystical mountain of Sumeru ( q.v. ); a compound of deva — divine, and parvata — mountain, derived from parvan — knotty, rugged.
(TG) Devapi {Sans}. A Sanskrit Sage of the race of Kuru, who, together with another Sage (Moru), is supposed to live throughout the four ages and until the coming of Maitreya Buddha, or Kalki (the last Avatar of Vishnu); who, like all the Saviors of the World in their last appearance, like Sosiosh of the Zoroastrians and the Rider of St. John’s Revelation, will appear seated on a White Horse. The two, Devapi and Moru, are supposed to live in a Himalayan retreat called Kalapa or Katapa. This is a Puranic allegory.
(TG) Devarshis, or Deva-rishi {Sans}. Lit., “gods rishis”; the divine or god-like saints, those sages who attain a fully divine nature on earth.
(WG) Devarshi, divine sage, demi-god. ( deva, god; rishi , sage
(TG) Devasarman {Sans}. A very ancient author who died about a century after Gautama Buddha. he wrote two famous works, in which he denied the existence of both Ego and non-Ego, the one as successfully as the other.
(GH) Deva-sthana literally ‘The place of a deity,’ or any place in which a deity stays or has its abode. Equivalent to Deva-loka (the word usually employed). (Compound deva, a divine being, a deity; sthana, a place, an abode. Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 67)
(WG) Devi (feminine of Deva), an elemental being, a goddess,
(WG) Dhairya, fortitude, firmness.
(KT) Dhammapada {Sans} A work containing various aphorisms from the Buddhist Scriptures.
(GH) Dhananjaya (or Dhanamjaya ) A name of Arjuna. (Compound dhana, prize, wealth, riches; jaya, winner, conqueror: hence ‘winner of the prize’ or ‘conqueror of wealth.’ Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 16)
(TG) Dharana {Sans}. That state in Yoga practice when the mind has, to be fixed unflinchingly on some object of meditation.
(VS) Dharana (I 3) [[p. 1]] Dharana, is the intense and perfect concentration of the mind upon some one interior object, accompanied by complete abstraction from everything pertaining to the external Universe, or the world of the senses.
(VS) Dharana (I 37) [[p. 19]] See number 3.
(TG) Dharani {Sans}. In Buddhism — both Southern and Northern — and also in Hinduism, it means simply a mantra or mantras — sacred verses from the Rig Veda. In days of old these mantras or Dharani were all considered mystical and practically efficacious in their use. At present, however, it is the Yogacharya school alone which proves the claim in practice. When chanted according to given instructions a Dharani produces wonderful effects. Its occult power, however, does not reside in the words but in the inflexion or accent given and the resulting sound originated thereby. (See “Mantra” and “Akasa”).
(WG) Dhananjaya, a title of Arjuna in the Bhagavad-Gita; an epithet of Soma; a particular vital air which nourishes the body. ( dhanam, booty, wealth; jaya, conquering: conquering wealth
(WG) Dharana, maintaining, supporting, upholding; steadfast concentration
(OG) Dharana — {Sans} A state in the practice of yoga as taught in Hindustan when the mind or percipient intelligence is held with inflexible firmness, with fortitude of soul, and with indomitable resolution upon the object of investigation to be attained through this form of yoga practice. ( See also Samadhi)
(SKv) Dharana The intense and steady mental concentration directed to some subject of thought with the mind and heart absolutely freed at the time from the disturbances of sense attractions. Dharana is derived from the verb-root dhri — to direct one’s attention, to maintain, to resolve.
(TG) Dharma {Sans}. The sacred Law; the Buddhist Canon.
(WG) Dharma, law; duty; religion; good works; custom, usage, correct course of conduct; natural action of anything under its laws; virtue.
(OG) Dharma — {Sans} A noun derived from the verbal root dhri . The meaning is right religion, right philosophy, right science, and the right union of these three; hence the Law per se. It also means equity, justice, conduct, duty, and similar things. It has also a secondary meaning of an essential or characteristic quality or peculiarity; and here its significance approaches closely to that of svabhava. The duty of a man, for instance, is his dharma, that which is set or prescribed or natural to him to do.
(SK)o Dharma That which is maintained or decreed, hence Law per se ; derived from the verb-root dhri — to establish, to hold. Dharma is Truth, the essence of religion, philosophy, and science. Dharma is the ethical doctrine of the Buddhist religion. Its precepts are justice, harmony, equity, and virtue.
(SP) Dharma — sacred law, religion, or duty.
(TG) Dharmachakra {Sans}. Lit., The turning of the “wheel of the Law”. The emblem of Buddhism as a system of cycles and rebirths or reincarnations.
(VS) These vestures are: Nirmanakaya, Sambhoga-Kaya, and Dharmakaya, robe Sublime (II 21) [[p. 32]] Ibid . [[ To I, 20 – See Buddhas of Compassion.]]
(TG) Dharmakaya {Sans}. Lit., “the glorified spiritual body” called the “Vesture of Bliss”. The third, or highest of the Trikaya (Three Bodies), the attribute developed by every “Buddha”, i.e ., every initiate who has crossed or reached the end of what is called the “fourth Path” (in esotericism the sixth “portal” prior to his entry on the seventh). The highest of the Trikaya, it is the fourth of the Buddhaketya, or Buddhic planes of consciousness, represented figuratively in Buddhist asceticism as a robe or vesture of luminous Spirituality. In popular Northern Buddhism these vestures or robes are: (1) Nirmanakaya, (2) Sambhogakaya, (3) and Dharmakaya, the last being the highest and most sublimated of all, as it places the ascetic on the threshold of Nirvana. (See, however, the Voice of the Silence
(VS) Dharmakaya (II 37) [[p. 42]] Vide infra, Part III. 34. [[ See Buddhas of Compassion.]]
(WG) Dharmakaya, the “glorified spiritual body” developed by every Buddha; the body of the law, not as a collection of laws but as a body or vehicle obtained by practice of the precepts through countless incarnations.
(OG) Dharmakaya — {Sans} This is a compound of two words meaning the “continuance body,” sometimes translated equally well (or ill) the “body of the Law” — both very inadequate expressions, for the difficulty in translating these extremely mystical terms is very great. A mere correct dictionary-translation often misses the esoteric meaning entirely, and just here is where Occidental scholars make such ludicrous errors at times.
The first word comes from the root dhri, meaning “to support,” “to sustain,” “to carry,” “to bear,” hence “to continue”; also human laws are the agencies supposed to carry, support, sustain, civilization; the second element, kaya, means “body.” The noun thus formed may be rendered the “body of the Law,” but this phrase does not give the idea at all. It is that spiritual body or state of a high spiritual being in which the restricted sense of soulship and egoity has vanished into a universal (hierarchical) sense, and remains only in the seed, latent — if even so much. It is pure consciousness, pure bliss, pure intelligence, freed from all personalizing thought.
(IN) the Buddhism of Central Asia, the dharmakaya is the third and highest of the trikaya . The trikaya consists of (1) nirmanakaya, (2) sambhogakaya, and (3) dharmakaya. We may look upon these three states, all of them lofty and sublime, as being three vestures in which the consciousness of the entity clothes itself. In the dharmakaya vesture the initiate is already on the threshold of nirvana, if not indeed already in the nirvanic state. ( See also Nirmanakaya, Sambhogakaya)
(WG) Dharma-megha, cloud of virtue; one of the ten Bhumis (earths, worlds) with Buddhists. ( dharma, virtue; megha, cloud
(WG) Dharmana, accordant with nature; according to the established order of things.
(WG) Dharma-sastra, book of laws.
(SK)o Dharma-sastra, Manava-dharma-sastra A Dharma-sastra is a law-book; but it is also a general name given in India to all sacred scriptures. Dharma means ‘law,’ ‘harmony’ and ‘truth,’ and sastra is a ‘scripture.’ The Manavadharma-sastra or Dharma-sastra of Manu, is so named because the instructions contained therein are attributed to the first Mann of the human race. This work, often called in the West the ‘Laws of Manu,’ is the well-known and highly revered and ancient lawbook of India. It is not merely an ordinary law-book, but treats also of the origin and emanation of the Universe, of many metaphysical doctrines, of the after-death states, as well as of the art and science of government and ethics.
(TG) Dharmaprabhasa {Sans}. The name of the Buddha who will appear during the seventh Root-race. (See “Ratnavabhasa Kalpa”, when sexes will exist no longer).
(TG) Dharmasmriti Upasthana {Sans}. A very long compound word containing a very mystical warning. “Remember, the constituents (of human nature) originate according to the Nidanas, and are not originally the Self”, which means — that, which the Esoteric Schools teach, and not the ecclesiastical interpretation.
(TG) Dharmsoka {Sans}. The name given to the first Asoka after his conversion to Buddhism, — King Chandragupta, who served all his long life “Dharma”, or the law of Buddha. King Asoka (the second) was not converted, but was born a Buddhist.
(FY) Dharmasoka, one of the kings of Magadha.
(TG) Dhatu (Pali). Relics of Buddha’s body collected after his cremation.
(FY) Dhatu, the seven principal substances of the human body — chyle, flesh, blood, fat, bones, marrow, semen.
(WG) Dhoti, the cloth wrapped around the loins of Hindus. It is from 2 1/2 to 3 1/2 yards long, and 2 or 3 feet broad. lt is found represented upon the oldest frescoes and sculptures.
(GH) Dhrishtadyumna The brother of Draupadi son of Drupada, the king of Panchala. He was made the commander-in-chief of the Pandava army, and accomplished the death of Drona, after losing his own father in the great conflict. (Meaning of the word itself: confident in strength. Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 4)
(GH) Dhrishtaketu An ally of the Pandavas: son of Sisupala, the king of the land of the Chedis living in the district of the modern Bundelkhand (or Bundelcund). The Chedis were renowned for their attachment to ancient laws and institutions. (Meaning of the word itself: confident in clearness. Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 2)
(WG) Dhritarashtra, a blind king, one of the personalities in the Mahabharata, who allegorically represents material existence — of which his blindness and thirst for prolonged life are typical. He is the first character prominently mentioned in the Bhagavad-Gita, where, being blind, he anxiously asks for particulars of the battle, the defeat of his side meaning that material existence will fall into insignificance. ( dhrita, firm, supported; rashtra, kingdom: “whose empire is firm.”)
(GH) Dhritarashtra The eldest son of Krishna Dvaipayana Vyasa and Ambika (widow of Vichitravirya) being born blind. He was the father by Gandhari of Duryodhana (the eldest of 100 sons), to whom he relinquished the government of his kingdom at Hastinapura. Therefore he sided with the Kauravas ( i.e., the sons of Kuru, as Duryodhana and his followers were called) rather than with the Pandavas, the sons of his half-brother Pandu. Vyasa offered Dhritarashtra vision, but he refused the gift inasmuch as he could not bear the sight of the fratricide and slaughter in the oncoming battle at Kurukshetra; nevertheless, taking a keen interest in the proceedings, as the opening stanzas show, he has Sanjaya narrate every event that occurs. With the final victory of the Pandavas, Dhritarashtra enthrones Yudhishthira at Hastinapura, and with his wife, Gandhari and Kunti he retires to the forest, where all lose their lives in a conflagration.
W. Q. Judge suggests the interpretation that Dhritarashtra stands for man’s physical body viewing the story from the standpoint of the evolutionary development of man. (Meaning of the word itself: he whose empire stands firm. Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 1)
(WG) Dhriti, patience, steadfastness; a certain evening sacrifice offered to the asvamedha.
(TG) Dhruva {Sans}. An Aryan Sage, now the Pole Star. A Kshatriya (one of the warrior caste) who became through religious austerities a Rishi, and was, for this reason, raised by Vishnu to this eminence in the skies. Also called Grah-Adhar or “the pivot of the planets”.
(WG) Dhruva (also Dhruvatara), the pole-star. (Literally, “remaining in one place.”)
(SKf) Dhruva The Pole Star; derived from the verb-root dhru — to be firm or fixed. The age of our present Dhruva is intimately connected with the cycles of the Root-Races.
(WG) Dhurti, decay; injury, damage.
(TG) Dhyana {Sans}. In Buddhism one of the six Paramitas of perfection, a state of abstraction which carries the ascetic practising it far above this plane of sensuous perception and out of the world of matter. Lit., “contemplation”. The six stages of Dhyan differ only in the degrees of abstraction of the personal Ego from sensuous life.
(FY) Dhyan, contemplation. There are six stages of Dhyan, varying in the degrees of abstraction of the Ego from sensuous life.
(KT) Dhyana {Sans} One of the six Paramitas of perfection. A state of abstraction which carries the ascetic practising it far above the region of sensuous perception, and out of the world of matter. Lit., “contemplation.” The six stages of Dhyan differ only in the degrees of abstraction of the personal Ego from sensuous life.
(VS) Dhyana (I 41) [[p. 20]] Dhyana is the last stage before the final on this Earth unless one becomes a full MAHATMA. As said already in this state the Raj Yogi is yet spiritually conscious of Self, and the working of his higher principles. One step more, and he will be on the plane beyond the Seventh (or fourth according to some schools). These, after the practice of Pratyehara a preliminary training, in order to control one’s mind and thoughts count Dharana, Dhyana and Samadhi and embraces the three under the generic name of SAMYAMA.
(WG) Dhyana, meditation; abstract contemplation; divine intuition
(OG) Dhyana — {Sans} A term signifying profound spiritualintellectual contemplation with utter detachment from all objects of a sensuous and lower mental character. In Buddhism it is one of the six paramitas of perfection. One who is adept or expert in the practice of dhyana, which by the way is a wonderful spiritual exercise if the proper idea of it be grasped, is carried in thought entirely out of all relations with the material and merely psychological spheres of being and of consciousness, and into lofty spiritual planes. Instead of dhyana being a subtraction from the elements of consciousness, it is rather a throwing off or casting aside of the crippling sheaths of ethereal matter which surround the consciousness, thus allowing the dhyanin, or practicer of this form of true yoga, to enter into the highest parts of his own constitution and temporarily to become at one with and, therefore, to commune with the gods. It is a temporary becoming at one with the upper triad of man considered as a septenary, in other words, with his monadic essence. Man’s consciousness in this state or condition becomes purely buddhi, or rather buddhic, with the highest parts of the manas acting as upadhi or vehicle for the retention of what the consciousness therein experiences. From this term is drawn the phrase dhyani-chohans or dhyani-buddhas — words so frequently used in theosophical literature and so frequently misconceived as to their real meaning. ( See also Samadhi)
(IN) Dhyani(s) {Sans} fr dhyana, “deep contemplation”) Spiritual beings.
(TG) Dhyani Bodhisattvas {Sans}. In Buddhism, the five sons of the Dhyani-Buddhas. They have a mystic meaning in Esoteric Philosophy.
(TG) Dhyani Buddhas {Sans}. They “of the Merciful Heart”; worshipped especially in Nepaul. These have again a secret meaning.
(WG) Dhyani-Buddha, a spiritual or mental Buddha, of whom seven, and sometimes ten, are mentioned; the first beings emanated by Avalokitesvara.
(IN) Dhyani-Buddha {Sans} A spiritual architect of worlds who emanates divine creative forces, the cosmic prototype of a human buddha.
(TG) Dhyani Pasa {Sans}. “The rope of the Dhyanis” or Spirits; the Ring “Pass not” (See Sec. Doct., Stanza V., Vol. I., p. 129).
(TG) Dhyan Chohans {Sans}. Lit., ” The Lords of Light”. The highest gods, answering to the Roman Catholic Archangels. The divine Intelligences charged with the supervision of Kosmos.
(KT) Dhyan Chohans {Sans} Lit., “The Lords of Light.” The highest gods, answering to the Roman Catholic Archangels. The divine Intelligences charged with the supervision of Kosmos.
(FY) Dhyan Chohans, Devas or Gods; planetary spirits.
(WG) Dhyan Chohans, the highest creative intelligences; gods; souls who become gods and co-workers with nature.
(OG) Dhyan(i)-Chohan(s) — A compound word meaning “lords of meditation” — kosmic spirits or planetary spirits. There are three classes of dhyan-chohans, each of which is divided into seven subclasses. The dhyan-chohans collectively are one division of that wondrous host of spiritual beings who are the full-blown flowers of former world periods or manvantaras. This wondrous host are the men made perfect of those former world periods; and they guide the evolution of this planet in its present manvantara. They are our own spiritual lords, leaders, and saviors. They supervise us now in our evolution here, and in our own present cyclic pilgrimage we follow the path of the general evolution outlined by them.
Man in his higher nature is an embryo dhyan-chohan, an embryo lord of meditation. It is his destiny, if he run the race successfully, to blossom forth at the end of the seventh round as a lord of meditation — a planetary spirit — when this planetary manvantaric kalpa is ended, this Day of Brahma, which is the seven rounds, each round in seven stages.
(IN) one most important sense the dhyan-chohans are actually our own selves . We were born from them. We are the monads, we are the atoms, the souls, projected, sent forth, emanated, by the dhyanis.
(SK)o Dhyan – Chohan A Kosmic Spirit, one of that ‘Wondrous Host of Spiritual Beings’ who are the fuller flowerings of men once made perfect. These Dhyan-Chohans are of many classes, each with its own department of Nature to supervise and to inspire. Dhyan-Chohan is a Sanskrit-Tibetan compound meaning ‘Lord of Meditation’; derived from the Sanskrit Dhyana meditation, and Chohan, the Tibetan word for ‘Lord.’
(SK)o Dhyani – Chohan, Dhyani – Buddha Dhyani-Chohan is a more nearly correct form for Dhyan-Chohan. However, the former term is often applied merely to the lower classes of Dhyan-Chohans or beings of the god-world. Hence the Dhyani-Chohans are called the ‘Builders’ of the material spheres, or the Lords of the Shadowy Arc of evolution; whereas the higher classes of Dhyan-Chohans are usually referred to as Dhyani-Buddhas or the ‘Architects,’ or the Inspirers of the Dhyani-Chohans, or the Lords of the Spiritual or Luminous Arc of evolution.
(IN) Dhyani-Chohan(s) “Lords of meditation,” creative gods, celestial beings superior to man.
(VS) Dhyan Marga (III 18) [[p. 60]] Dhyan-Marga is the “Path of Dhyana ,” literally; or the Path of pure knowledge, of Paramartha or (Sanscrit) Svasamvedana “the self-evident or self-analysing reflection.”
(TG) Diakka. Called by Occultists and Theosophists “spooks” and “shells”, i.e ., phantoms from Kama Loka. A word invented by the great American Seer, Andrew Jackson Davis, to denote what he considers untrustworthy “Spirits”. In his own words: “A Diakka (from the Summerland) is one who takes insane delight in playing parts, in juggling tricks, in personating opposite characters; to whom prayer and profane utterances are of equi-value; surcharged with a passion for lyrical narrations; . . . morally deficient, he is without the active feelings of justice, philanthropy, or tender affection. He knows nothing of what men call the sentiment of gratitude; the ends of hate and love are the same to him; his motto is often fearful and terrible to others — SELF is the whole of private living, and exalted annihilation the end of all private life. Only yesterday, one said to a lady medium, signing himself Swedenborg, this: ‘Whatsoever is, has been, will be, or may be, that I AM; and private life is but the aggregative phantasms of thinking throblets, rushing in their rising onward to the central heart of eternal death’!” (The Diakka and their Victims; ” an explanation of the False and Repulsive in Spiritualism.”) These “Diakka” are then simply the Communicating and materializing so-called “Spirits” of Mediums and Spiritualists.
(TG) Dianoia {Greek}. The same as the Logos. The eternal source of thought, “divine ideation”, which is the root of all thought. (See “Ennoia.”)
(TG) Dido, or Elissa. Astarte; the Virgin of the Sea — who crushes the Dragon under her foot. The patroness of the Phoenician mariners. A Queen of Carthage who fell in love with Aeneas according to Virgil.
(TG) Digambara {Sans}. A naked mendicant. Lit., “clothed with Space”. A name of Siva in his character of Rudra, the Yogi.
(TG) Dii Minores {Latin}. The inferior or “reflected” group of the “twelve gods” or Dii Majores, described by Cicero in his De Natura Deorum, 1. 13.
(TG) Dik {Sans}. Space, Vacuity.
(FY) Dik, space.
(TG) Diksha {Sans}. Initiation. Dikshit, an Initiate.
(FY) Diksha, initiation.
(WG) Diksha, ceremonies preliminary to sacrifice; new-birth — a rite of initiation; initiation personified as the wife of Soma.
(WG) Dikshita, initiated; an initiate.
(SKf) Diksha, Dikshita, Dikshaka Diksha is spiritual or religious initiation or dedication; derived from the verb-root diksh — to consecrate, or dedicate one’s self. A Dikshita is one who is initiated, a pupil of a spiritual teacher. A Dikshaka is a spiritual guide or priest, one who initiates.
(TG) Diktamnon {Greek}, or Dictamnus (Dittany). A curious plant possessing very occult and mystical properties and well-known from ancient times. It was sacred to the Moon-Goddesses, Luna, Astarte, Diana. The Cretan name of Diana was Diktynna, and as such the goddess wore a wreath made of this magic plant. The Diktamnon is an evergreen shrub whose contact, as claimed in Occultism, develops and at the same time cures somnambulism. Mixed with Verbena it will produce clairvoyance and ecstasy. Pharmacy attributes to the Diktamnon strongly sedative and quieting properties. It grows in abundance on Mount Dicte, in Crete, and enters into many magical performances resorted to by the Cretans even to this day.
(TG) Dingir and Mul-lil {akkadian} The Creative Gods.
(TG) Dinur {Hebr}. The River of Fire whose flame burns the Souls of the guilty in the Kabbalistic allegory.
(TG) Dionysos {Greek} The Demiurgos, who, like Osiris, was killed by the Titans and dismembered into fourteen parts. He was the personified Sun, or as the author of the Great Dionysiak Myth says: “He is Phanes, the spirit of material visibility, Kyklops giant of the Universe, with one bright solar eye, the growth-power of the world, the all-pervading animism of things, son of Semele. . . . .” Dionysos was born at Nysa or Nissi, the name given by the Hebrews to Mount Sinai (Exodus xvii. 15), the birthplace of Osiris, which identifies both suspiciously with “Jehovah Nissi”. (See Isis
(TG) Dioscuri {Greek}. The name of Castor and Pollux, the sons of Jupiter and Leda. Their festival, the Dioscuria, was celebrated with much rejoicing by the Lacedaemonians.
(WG) Dioscuri (Greek), the twin brothers Castor and Pollux.
(TG) Dipamkara {Sans}. Lit., “the Buddha of fixed light”; a predecessor of Gautama, the Buddha.
(TG) Diploteratology {Greek}. Production of mixed Monsters; in abbreviation teratology.
(TG) Dis {Greek}. In the Theogony of Damascius, the same as Protogonos, the “first born light”, called by that author “the disposer of all things”.
(WG) Dis, space; a cardinal point of the compass.
(TG) Dises {Nors}. The later name for the divine women called Walkyries, Norris,, in the Edda.
(TG) Disk-worship. This was very common in Egypt but not till later times, as it began with Amenoph III., a Dravidian, who brought it from Southern India and Ceylon. It was Sun-worship under another form, the Aten-Nephru, Aten-Ra being identical with the Adonai of the Jews, the “Lord of Heaven” or the Sun. The winged disk was the emblem of the Soul. The Sun was at one time the symbol of Universal Deity shining on the whole world and all creatures; the Sabaeans regarded the Sun as the Demiurge and a Universal Deity, as did also the Hindus, and as do the Zoroastrians to this day. The Sun is undeniably the one creator of physical nature. Lenormant was obliged, notwithstanding his orthodox Christianity, to denounce the resemblance between disk and Jewish worship. “Aten represents the Adonai or Lord the Assyrian Tammuz, and the Syrian Adonis. . . .
(OG) Divine Soul — In occultism the divine soul is the garment of the divine ego, as the divine ego is the garment or child of the divine monad. The divine monad we may call the inner god, and this would mean that the divine ego, its offspring, is the inner Buddha, or the inner Christ; and hence the divine soul is the expression of the inner Buddha or of the inner Christ in manifestation on earth as the manushya-buddha or christ-man.
It should be stated here that of the several monads which in their combination form the entire septenary constitution of man each such monad has its own ego-child, and this latter has its own soul. It is this combination, mystic, wonderful, mysterious, which makes of man the complex entity he is, and which entitles him to the term which the occultism of the archaic ages has always given to him: the microcosm, a reflection or copy in the small of the macrocosm or kosmic entity.
(TG) Divyachakchus {Sans}. Lit., “celestial Eye” or divine seeing, perception. It is the first of the six “Abhijnas” ; the faculty developed by Yoga practice to perceive any object in the Universe, at whatever distance.
(TG) Divyasrotra {Sans}. Lit., “celestial Ear” or divine hearing. The second “Abhijna”, or the faculty of understanding the language or sound produced by any living being on Earth.
(TG) Djati {Sans}. One of the twelve “Nidanas” ; the cause and the effect in the mode of birth taking place according to the “Chatur Yoni”, when in each case a being, whether man or animal, is placed in one of the six (esoteric seven) Gati or paths of sentient existence, which esoterically, counting downward, are: (1) the highest Dhyani (Anupadaka); (2) Devas; (3) Men; (4) Elementals or Nature Spirits; (5) Animals; (6) lower Elementals; (7) organic Germs. These are in the popular or exoteric nomenclature, Devas, Men, Asuras, Beings in Hells, Pretas (hungry demons), and Animals.
(TG) Djin {arabic}. Elementals; Nature Sprites; Genii. The Djins or Jins are much dreaded in Egypt, Persia and elsewhere.
(TG) Djnana {Sans}, or Jnana . Lit., Knowledge; esoterically, “supernal or divine knowledge acquired by Yoga”. Written also Gnyana.
(GH) Doab {hindi} A region of land situated between two rivers. The particular reference is to the country between the Jumna and Sarasvati rivers, which in ancient times was the land of the Kurus. (Also written duab, from Persian, du, two; ab, water; from the Sanskrit, dva, two; ap, water
(TG) Docetae {Greek}. Lit., “The Illusionists”. The name given by orthodox Christians to those Gnostics who held that Christ did not, nor could be, suffer death actually, but that, if such a thing had happened, it was merely an illusion which they explained in various ways.
(TG) Dodecahedron {Greek}. According to Plato, the Universe is built by “the first begotten” on the geometrical figure of the Dodecahedron
(TG) Dodona {Greek}. An ancient city in Thessaly, famous for its Temple of Jupiter and its oracles. According to ancient legends, the town was founded by a dove. WW Dogma Dogma is a Greek word from the root dokein ( dokein ), to have an opinion, to think about a thing. Dogma, then, would be a thing of supposition, a belief, a persuasion, nothing more. But during the course of time, when the Christians had grown more positive in their attitude towards the expiring faith, the Christian dogmas, the Christian opinions, became crystallized, and settled into rigid doctrines . We then see that a doctrine is an instruction, an exposition of belief, and nothing more, and that a dogma was originally an opinion, and has become a hard and fast doctrine.
(TG) Donar {Nors}, or Thunar, Thoy. In the North the God of Thunder. He was the Jupiter Tonans of Scandinavia. Like as the oak was devoted to Jupiter so was it sacred to Thor, and his altars were overshadowed with oak trees. Thor, or Donar, was the offspring of Odin, “the omnipotent God of Heaven”, and of Mother Earth.
(TG) Dondam-pai-den-pa {Tibe}. The same as the Sanskrit term Paramarthasatya or “absolute truth”, the highest spiritual self-consciousness and perception, divine self-consciousness, a very mystical term.
(TG) Doppelganger #ger A synonym of the “Double” and of the “Astral body” in occult parlance.
(WG) Doppelganger, the double which goes; the same as astral body when that wanders from the physical; synonymous with wraith or apparition or forerunner.
(VS) Close not thine eyes, nor lose thy sight of Dorje (III 12) [[p. 53]] Dorje is the Sanskrit Vajra, a weapon or instrument in the hands of some gods (the Tibetan Dragshed, the Devas who protect men), and is regarded as having the same occult power of repelling evil influences by purifying the air as Ozone in chemistry. It is also a Mudra a gesture and posture used in sitting for meditation. It is, in short, a symbol of power over invisible evil influences, whether as a posture or a talisman. The Bhons or Dugpas, however, having appropriated the symbol, misuse it for purposes of Black Magic. With the “Yellow Caps,” or Gelugpas, it is a symbol of power, as the Cross is with the Christians, while it is in no way more “superstitious.” With the Dugpas, it is like the double triangle reversed, the sign of sorcery.
(TG) Dorjesempa {Tibe}. The “Diamond Soul”, a name of the celestial Buddha.
(TG) Dorjeshang {Tibe}. A title of Buddha in his highest aspect; a name of the supreme Buddha; also Dorje.
(FY) Dosha, fault.
(WG) Dosha, faults.
(TG) Double . The same as the “Astral body” or “Doppelganger”.
(KT) Double. The same as the Astral body or “Doppelganger.”
(WG) Double, the same as Doppelganger, or the astral body detached from the physical.
(TG) Double Image . The name among the Jewish Kabbalists for the Dual Ego, called respectively: the Higher, Metatron, and the Lower, Samael. They are figured allegorically as the two inseparable companions of man through life, the one his Guardian Angel, the other his Evil Demon.
(TG) Dracontia {Greek}. Temples dedicated to the Dragon, the emblem of the Sun, the symbol of Deity, of Life and Wisdom. The Egyptian Karnac, the Carnac in Britanny, and Stonehenge are Dracontia well known to all.
(TG) Drakon {Greek}, or Dragon. Now considered a “mythical” monster, perpetuated in the West only on seals,, as a heraldic griffin, and the Devil slain by St. George, In fact an extinct antediluvian monster. In Babylonian antiquities it is referred to as the “scaly one” and connected on many gems with Tiamat the sea. “The Dragon of the Sea” is repeatedly mentioned. In Egypt, it is the star of the Dragon (then the North Pole Star), the origin of the connection of almost all the gods with the Dragon. Bel and the Dragon, Apollo and Python, Osiris and Typhon, Sigur and Fafnir, and finally St. George and the Dragon, are the same. They were all solar gods, and wherever we find the Sun there also is the Dragon, the symbol of Wisdom — Thoth-Hermes. The Hierophants of Egypt and of Babylon styled themselves “Sons of the Serpent-God” and “Sons of the Dragon”. “I am a Serpent, I am a Druid”, said the Druid of the Celto-Britannic regions, for the Serpent and the Dragon were both types of Wisdom, Immortality and Rebirth. As the serpent casts its old skin only to reappear in a new one, so does the immortal Ego cast off one personality but to assume another.
(WG) Draupadi, the wife of the five Pandu princes, being a personification of yoga-maya, or the power of illusion.
(GH) Draupadi The patronymic of Krishna, the daughter of Drupada, king of Panchala. At a svayamvara (a gathering for a display of feats of skill for the purpose of allowing a king’s daughter to choose a bridegroom) Draupadi selected Arjuna as her bridegroom, but when he returned with his four brothers to his mother, Kunti and announced that they had made a great acquisition, she told them that they were obliged to share it. Because of this and also through the insistence of their ancestor, the sage Vyasa, it was decided that she should become the wife of the five brothers. The Mahabharata also relates that in a previous life Draupadi had received the boon that she should be wedded to five husbands. The Draupadeyas ( i.e. , sons of Draupadi) referred to in the text, were the five sons of the Pandavas, by name: Prativindhya (by Yudhishthira), Sutasoma (by Bhima); Srutakirti (by Arjuna), Satanika (by Nakula); Srutasena (by Sahadeva).
Symbolically Draupadi represents ‘the terrestrial life of the personality.’ ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 2)
(TG) Draupnir {Nors}. The golden armlet of Wodan or Odin, the companion of the spear Gungnir which he holds in his right hand; both are endowed with wonderful magic properties.
(MO) Draupnir {Nors} (drawp-neer) [dripper] Odin’s magic ring: proliferating cycles
(TG) Dravidians. A group of tribes inhabiting Southern India; the aborigines.
(FY) Dravidians, a group of tribes inhabiting Southern India.
(TG) Drayya {Sans}. Substance (metaphysically).
(FY) Dravya, substance.
(WG) Dravya, thing, object, substance, nine kinds of which are reckoned in the Nyaya philosophy, viz : prithivi, earth; ap, water; tejas, fire; vayu, air; akasa, ether; kala, time; dis, space; atma, soul; and manas, mind.
(WG) Driksthiti, the state in which one having converted his internal eye into one of pure knowledge, views the whole of this transitional world as Brahma; the real concentration. ( drik, one who sees, a seer; sthiti, standing, steadiness
(TG) Drishti {Sans}. Scepticism; unbelief.
(WG) Drishta, seen, perceived.
(WG) Drisya, visible, to be seen.
(GH) Drona A Brahmana, son of Bharadvaja, who married Kripa, the half-sister of Bhishma, by whom he had a son, Asvatthaman. He was acharya (teacher of the military art) to the Kaurava princes as well as to the Pandavas. Although loving the princes equally, nevertheless because of his relationship to Bhishma, he sided with the Kauravas in the great conflict at Kurukshetra. The words spoken to the ‘preceptor’ in the second sloka (as narrated by Sanjaya — Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 2) were addressed by Duryodhana to his teacher, Drona. When Bhishma was mortally wounded on the field of battle, Drona became commander-in-chief of the Kaurava army. (
(TG) Druids. A sacerdotal caste which flourished in Britain and Gaul. They were Initiates who admitted females into their sacred order, and initiated them into the mysteries of their religion. They never entrusted their sacred verses and scriptures to writing, but, like the Brahmans of old, committed them to memory; a feat which, according to the statement of Caesar, took twenty years to accomplish. Like the Parsis they had no images or statues of their gods. The Celtic religion considered it blasphemy to represent any god, even of a minor character, under a human figure. It would have been well if the Greek and Roman Christians had learnt this lesson from the “pagan” Druids. The three chief commandments of their religion were: — “Obedience to divine laws; concern for the welfare of mankind; suffering with fortitude all the evils of life”.
(GH) Drupada The son of Prishata, king of Panchala (the region adjacent to the land of the Kurus), father of Dhrishtadyumna (‘the clever son’ referred to in the text). He was also the father of Draupadi (the wife of the Pandavas). His son was made commander-in-chief of the Pandava army. ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 2)
(TG) Druzes. A large sect, numbering about 100,000 adherents, living on Mount Lebanon in Syria. Their rites are very mysterious, and no traveller, who has written anything about them, knows for a certainty the whole truth. They are the Sufis — of Syria. They resent being called Druzes as an insult, but call themselves the “disciples of Hamsa”, their Messiah, who came to them in the ninth century from the “Land of the Word of God”, which land and word they kept religiously secret. The Messiah to come will be the same Hamsa, but called Hakem — the “All-Healer”. (See Isis Unveiled,
(TG) Dudaim {Hebr}. Mandrakes. The Atropa Mandragora plant is mentioned in Genesis, 30.14 and in Canticles: the name is related in Hebrew to words meaning “breasts” and “love”, the plant was notorious as a love charm, and has been used in many forms of black magic. [w.w.w. ]
Ducdaim in Kabbalistic parlance is the Soul and Spirit; any two things united in love and friendship (dodim). “Happy is he who preserves his dudaim (higher and lower Manas) inseparable.”
(TG) Dugpas {Tibe}. Lit., “Red Caps,” a sect in Tibet. Before the advent of Tsong-ka-pa in the fourteenth century, the Tibetans, whose Buddhism had deteriorated and been dreadfully adulterated with the tenets of the old Bhon religion, — were all Dugpas. From that century, however, and after the rigid laws imposed upon the Gelukpas (yellow caps) and the general reform and purification of Buddhism (or Lamaism), the Dugpas have given themselves over more than ever to sorcery, immorality, and drunkenness. Since then the word Dugpa has become a synonym of “sorcerer”, “adept of black magic” and everything vile. There are few, if any, Dugpas in Eastern Tibet, but they congregate in Bhutan, Sikkim, and the borderlands generally. Europeans not being permitted to penetrate further than those borders, the Orientalists never having studied Buddho-Lamaism in Tibet proper, but judging of it on hearsay and from what Cosmo di Koros, Schlagintweit, and a few others have learnt of it from Dugpas, confuse both religions and bring then) under one head. They thus give out to the public pure Dugpaism instead of Buddho-Lamaism. In short Northern Buddhism in its purified, metaphysical form is almost entirely unknown.
(VS) dread Dad- Dugpa clan (III 11) [[p. 51]] The Bhons or Dugpas , the sect of the “Red Caps,” are regarded as the most versed in sorcery. They inhabit Western and little Tibet and Bhutan. They are all Tantrikas. It is quite ridiculous to find Orientalists who have visited the borderlands of Tibet, such as Schlagintweit and others, confusing the rites and disgusting practices of these with the religious beliefs of the Eastern Lamas, the “Yellow Caps,” and their Narjols or holy men. The following is an instance.
(FY) Dugpas, the “Red Caps,” evil magicians, belonging to the left-hand path of occultism, so called in Tibet.
(WG) Dugpa (Thibetan), a sorcerer or “red-cap” of Bhootan.
(TG) Dukkha {Sans}. Sorrow, pain.
(FY) Dukkha, pain.
(WG) Duhkha, misery, uneasiness, anguish; pain personified as the son of Narada and Vedana.
(TG) Dumah {Hebr}. The Angel of Silence (Death) in the Kabbala.
(TG) Durga {Sans}. Lit., “inaccessible”. The female potency of a god; the name of Kali, the wife of Siva, the Mahesvara, or: “the great god”.
(WG) Durga, a goddess, the wife of Siva — goddess of destruction, called also Kali.
(GH) Duryodhana The eldest son of Dhritarashtra and Gandhari leader of the Kurus (or Kauravas) in the conflict with the Pandavas at Kurukshetra. Because of his blindness, Dhritarashtra had intended to make his brother’s virtuous son, Yudhishthira, the heir-apparent to his throne, but the Kurus under Duryodhana objected so strongly that instead he allowed his son to take charge of the government, and turned over a portion of his kingdom — that of Indraprastha — to the Pandavas. Owing to further machinations of the Kurus, Yudhishthira lost this kingdom in a game of dice, and Duryodhana forced the Pandavas into exile for thirteen years. When this period had elapsed, however, Duryodhana refused to give up the kingdom, and as a consequence the great conflict was waged, in which he lost his life. In the Mahabharata Duryodhana represents the forces of evil battling with the forces of light: one story represents him as doing wicked deeds in spite of himself, and realizing this he attempted to put an end to his life. He was prevented from doing this by the imps of darkness, so that he might continue imbodied for their purposes.
Duryodhana is represented as an ambitious, malicious prince, the antithesis of the wise and righteous ruler. (Meaning of the word itself: difficult to conquer. Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 1)
(TG) Dustcharitra {Sans}. The “ten evil acts”; namely, three acts of the body viz., taking life, theft and adultery; four evil acts of the mouth, viz ., lying, exaggeration in accusations, slander, and foolish talk; and three evil acts of mind (Lower Manas), viz ., envy, malice or revenge, and unbelief.
(WG) Dvaita, dualism; a system of philosophy which asserts the distinctness from each other of the human spirit and the universal spirit.
(SKf) Dwaita The Vedanta philosophy, which has been called the Adwaita quintessence of the Upanishads, has been divided Visishtadwaita into three main schools: (1) the Adwaita, which reduces all things to one Secondless Unity ( a — not, and dwaita — duality), and thus teaches that the human divinity — Atman, and the Universal Divinity — Brahman, are one; (2) the Dwaita which teaches an eternal duality, that is, that Atman and Brahman are ever separate Principles; and (3) the Visishtadwaita which differentiates between the two other schools and teaches that Atman is a part of Brahman. Visishtadwaita is a compound of visishta — distinguished or qualified, derived from the verb-root visish — to distinguish, and adwaita — non-duality.
These three sects of Dualists, Qualified Non-Dualists, and Non-Dualists teach the same fundamental truths but they interpret them from different points of view. They could be said to represent three steps in the understanding of Divinity or God: (1) the Dwaita -step — Divinity is somewhere outside of us; (2) the Visishtadwaita -step — We are parts of Divinity, and Divinity manifests everywhere; and (3) the Adwaita -step — I am Divinity, All is Divinity. This last step is one with the esoteric wisdom-teaching: Aham Brahmasmi — I am Brahman.
(MO) Dvalin {Nors} (dvah-leen) [comatose] The human, unawakened soul; Dvalin’s toy, the solar disk
(GH) Dvamdva A pair of opposites ( e.g., heat and cold, joy and sorrow, etc The dvamdva compound in the text has reference to a copulative compound, i.e., two members of a compound which are in the same case and likewise may be connected with the conjunction and. (Meaning of the word itself: two and two: the word is the num. adjective . dva, two, reduplicated
(WG) Dvapara . (See Dvapara-yuga
(TG) Dwapara Yuga {Sans}. The third of the “Four Ages” in Hindu Philosophy; or the second age counted from below.
(WG) Dvapara-yuga, the third of the four ages. (See Yuga
(WG) Dvaraka, Krishna’s city, submerged by the sea. A temple still remains on the peninsula of Guzerat, an object of pilgrimage. (Literally, “city with many gates.”)
(WG) Dvesha, hate.
(TG) Dwarf of Death. In the Edda of the Norsemen, Iwaldi, the Dwarf of Death, hides Life in the depths of the great ocean, and then sends her up into the world at the right time. This Life is Iduna, the beautiful maiden, the daughter of the “Dwarf”. She is the Eve of the Scandinavian Lays, for she gives of the apples of ever-renewed youth to the gods of Asgard to eat; but these, instead of being cursed for so doing and doomed to die, give thereby renewed youth yearly to the earth and to men, after every short and sweet sleep in the arms of the Dwarf. Iduna is raised from the Ocean when Bragi, the Dreamer of Life, without spot or blemish, crosses asleep the silent waste of waters. Bragi is the divine ideation of Life, and Iduna living Nature — Prakriti, Eve.
(MO) Dwarfs {Nors} Souls less than human in evolutionary status
(TG) Dwellers (on the Threshold). A term invented by Bulwer Lytton in Zanoni; but in Occultism the word “Dweller” is an occult term used by students for long ages past, and refers to certain maleficent astral Doubles of defunct persons.
(WG) Dweller on the Threshold, found in Lytton’s Zanoni ; the shades of defunct bad men in Kamaloka, full of evil, able to do evil, and with a kind of intelligence not easily explained; also the combined evil thoughts of the race and family to which every one belongs, and said to become, as it were, visible when one passes the threshold of ordinary experience.
(OG) Dweller on the Threshold — A literary invention of the English mystic and novelist Sir Bulwer Lytton, found in his romance Zanoni . The term has obtained wide currency and usage in theosophical circles. In occultism the word “dweller,” or some exactly equivalent phrase or expression, has been known and used during long ages past. It refers to several things, but more particularly has an application to what H. P. Blavatsky calls “certain maleficent astral Doubles of defunct persons.” This is exact. But there is another meaning of this phrase still more mystical and still more difficult to explain which refers to the imbodied karmic consequences or results of the man’s past, haunting the thresholds which the initiant or initiate must pass before he can advance or progress into a higher degree of initiation. These dwellers, in the significance of the word just last referred to are, as it were, the imbodied quasi-human astral haunting parts of the constitution thrown off in past incarnations by the man who now has to face them and overcome them — very real and living beings, parts of the “new” man’s haunting past. The initiant must face these old “selves” of himself and conquer or — fail, which failure may mean either insanity or death. They are verily ghosts of the dead men that the present man formerly was, now arising to dog his footsteps, and hence are very truly called Dwellers on the Threshold. In a specific sense they may be truly called the kama-rupas of the man’s past incarnations arising out of the records in the astral light left there by the “old” man of the “new” man who now is.
(TG) Dwesa {Sans}. Anger. One of the three principal states of mind (of which 63 are enumerated), which are Raga — pride or evil desire, Dwesa — anger, of which hatred is a part, and Moha — the ignorance of truth. These three are to be steadily avoided.
(TG) Dwija {Sans}. “Twice-born”. In days of old this term was used only of the Initiated Brahmans; but now it is applied to every man belonging to the first of the four castes, who has undergone a certain ceremony.
(SP) Dvija [dwija] — literally “twice-born,” a Hindu of one of the higher classes, especially a Brahmana, who has undergone the second birth of ritual initiation and investment with the sacred thread.
(WG) Dvija, an initiated Brahman, Kshatriya, or Vaishya. ( dvi , twice; ja, born: twice-born
(SKf) Dvija A ‘Twice-born One,’ a spiritual Initiate; a compound of dvi — two, and ja — derived from the verb-root jan — to be born. A Dvija according to Theosophy and also according to the once pure Brahmanical religion refers to one who has definitely awakened spiritually and intellectually and has undergone the trials of Initiation. A true Dvija is therefore a man who has been born physically as well as spiritually; but in India today any man who is invested with the sacred thread of the Brahmanical religion is called a Dvija.
(TG) Dwija Brahman {Sans}. The investure with the sacred thread that now constitutes the “second birth”. Even a Sudra who chooses to pay for the honour becomes, after the ceremony of passing through a silver or golden cow — a dwija .
(FY) Dwija Brahman, twice born; the investiture with the sacred thread constitutes the second birth.
(WG) Dwijadrushta, the inner vision.
(TG) Dwipa {Sans}. An island or a continent. The Hindus have seven (Sapta dwipa); the Buddhists only four. This is owing to a misunderstood reference of the Lord Buddha who, using the term metaphorically, applied the word dwipa to the races of men. The four Root-races which preceded our fifth, were compared by Siddhartha to four continents or isles which studded the ocean of birth and death — Samsara.
(WG) Dvipa, an island, peninsula, any land surrounded by water; any continent on which a root-race is evolved.
(WG) Dwipa, the same as Dvipa. There are said to be seven Dwipas, and these are the great divisions of the world as given in the allegories of the Puranas. There names are: Jambu, Plaksha , Shalmali, Kusha, Krauncha, Shaka, and Pushkara . An explanation of these allegorical divisions will be found in The Path for April and May, 1889 .
(GH) Dvipa A zone, region, land, or continent, commonly called ‘island,’ inasmuch as each dvipa is described as being surrounded by distinct concentric circumambient oceans centering about Mount Meru. Seven dvipas are enumerated as follows: Jambu, Plaksha, Salmali Kusa, Krauncha, Saka, and Pushkara. Esoterically the dvipas refer on the one hand to the seven globes of the Planetary Chain of this Earth, and on the other hand to the seven great continents which come successively into existence as the homes of the seven Root-Races. Jambu-dvipa corresponds to Globe D of the Chain, Mount Meru rising from its center. ( Secret Doctrine, II, p. 320). This dvipa was divided into nine parts termed varshas . ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. ii)
(TG) Dynasties. In India there are two, the Lunar and the Solar, or the Somavansa and the Suryavansa. In Chaldea and Egypt there were also two distinct kinds of dynasties, the divine and the human. In both countries people were ruled in the beginning of time by Dynasties of Gods. In Chaldea they reigned one hundred and twenty Sari, or in all 432,000 years; which amounts to the same figures as a Hindu Mahayuga 4,320,000 years. The chronology prefacing the Book of Genesis (English translation) is given “Before Christ, 4004 “. But the figures are a rendering by solar years. In the original Hebrew, which preserved a lunar calculation, the figures are 4,320 years. This “coincidence” is well explained in Occultism.
(TG) Dyookna {Hebr}. The shadow of eternal Light. The “Angels of the Presence” or archangels. The same as the Ferouer in the Vendidad and other Zoroastrian works.
(TG) Dzyn or Dzyan {Tibe}. Written also Dzen. A corruption of the Sanskrit Dhyan and Jnana (or gnyana phonetically) — Wisdom, divine knowledge. In Tibetan, learning is called dzin.
(SK)o Dzyan Dzyan is the Tibetan way of pronouncing and spelling the Sanskrit word Dhyana, a word meaning ‘spiritual meditation.’ The Book of Dzyan is one of an occult series of works known as the Kiu – ti. These scriptures are kept secret and apart and are carefully guarded in Shi-gat-se. H. P. Blavatsky bases much of her Secret Doctrine on the ‘Stanzas of Dzyan,’ because they contain the archaic teachings regarding the origin and building of worlds and races.
(IN) Dzyan A “corruption” of{Sans} dhyana (spiritual “meditation”) and jnana (wisdom, divine knowledge).
(IN) Dzyu Real knowledge; the collective wisdom of the dhyani-buddhas which becomes fohat.
(TG) E. — The fifth letter of the English alphabet. The he (soft) of the Hebrew alphabet becomes in the Ehevi system of reading that language an E. Its numerical value is five, and its symbolism is a window ; the womb, in the Kabbala. In the order of the divine names it stands for the fifth, which is Hadoor or the “majestic” and the “splendid.”
(TG) Ea {Chald}. also Hea . The second god of the original Babylonian trinity composed of Anu, Hea and Bel. Hea was the; “Maker of Fate”, “Lord of the Deep”, “God of Wisdom and Knowledge”, and “Lord of the City of Eridu”.
(TG) Eagle. This symbol is one of the most ancient. With the Greeks and Persians it was sacred to the Sun; with the Egyptians, under the name of Ah, to Horus, and the Kopts worshipped the eagle under the name of Ahom . It was regarded as the sacred emblem of Zeus by the Greeks, and as that of the highest god by the Druids. The symbol has passed down to our day, when following the example of the pagan Marius, who, in the second century B.C. used the double-headed eagle as the ensign of Rome, the Christian crowned heads of Europe made the double-headed sovereign of the air sacred to themselves and their scions. Jupiter was satisfied with a one-headed eagle and so was the Sun. The imperial houses of Russia, Poland, Austria, Germany, and the late Empire of the Napoleons, have adopted a two-headed eagle as their device.
(TG) Easter. The word evidently comes from Ostara, the Scandinavian goddess of spring. She was the symbol of the resurrection of all nature and was worshipped in early spring. It was a custom with the pagan Norsemen at that time to exchange coloured eggs called the eggs of Ostara. These have now become Easter-Eggs . As expressed in Asgard and the Gods : “Christianity put another meaning on the old custom, by connecting it with the feast of the Resurrection of the Saviour, who, like the hidden life in the egg, slept in the grave for three days before he awakened to new life”. This was the more natural since Christ was identified with that same Spring Sun which awakens in all his glory, after the dreary and long death of winter. (See “Eggs”
(TG) Ebionites {Hebr}. Lit., “the poor”; the earliest sect of Jewish Christians, the other being the Nazarenes. They existed when the term “Christian” was not yet heard of. Many of the relations of Iassou (Jesus), the adept ascetic around whom the legend of Christ was formed, were among the Ebionites. As the existence of these mendicant ascetics can be traced at least a century earlier than chronological Christianity, it is an additional proof that Iassou or Jeshu lived during the reign of Alexander Jannaeus at Lyd or (Lud), where he was put to death as stated in the Sepher Toldos Jeshu .
(TG) Ecbatana. A famous city in Media worthy of a place among the seven wonders of the world. It is thus described by Draper in his Conflict between Religion and Science, chap. 1, . . .”The cool summer retreat of the Persian Kings, was defended by seven encircling walls of hewn and polished blocks, the interior ones in succession of increasing height, and of different colours, in astrological accordance with the seven planets. The palace was roofed with silver tiles; its beams were plated with gold. At midnight in its halls, the sun was rivalled by many a row of naphta (or naptha) cressets. A paradise, that luxury of the monarchs of the East, was planted in the midst of the city. The Persian Empire was truly the garden of the world.”
(TG) Echath {Hebr}. The same as the following [Echod] — the “One”, but feminine.
(TG) Echod {Hebr}, or Echad . “One”, masculine, applied to Jehovah.
(TG) Eclectic Philosophy. One of the names given to the Neo-Platonic school of Alexandria.
(TG) Ecstasis {Greek}. A psycho-spiritual state; a physical trance which induces clairvoyance and a beatific state bringing on visions.
(KT) Ecstasis {Greek} A psycho-spiritual state; a physical trance which induces clairvoyance, and a beatific state which brings on visions.
(TG) Edda (Iceland. Lit., “great-grandmother” of the Scandinavian Lays. It was Bishop Brynjuld Sveinsson, who collected them and brought them to light in 1643. There are two collections of Sagas, translated by the Northern Skalds, and there are two Eddas . The earliest is of unknown authorship and date and its antiquity is very great. These Sagas were collected in the 11th century by an Icelandic priest; the second is a collection of the history (or myths) of the gods spoken of in the first, which became the Germanic deities, giants, dwarfs and heroes.
(MO) Edda {Nors} [great-grandmother] Matrix of human wisdom
(TG) Eden {Hebr}. “Delight”, pleasure. In Genesis the “Garden of Delight” built by God; in the Kabbala the “Garden of Delight”, a place of Initiation into the mysteries. Orientalists identify it with a place which was situated in Babylonia in the district of Karduniyas, called also Gan-dunu, which is almost like the Gan-eden of the Jews That district has four rivers, Euphrates, Tigris, Surappi, Ukni. The two first have been adopted without any change by the Jews; the other two they have probably transformed into “Gihon and Pison”, so as to have something original. The following are some of the reasons for the identification of Eden, given by Assyriologists. The cities of Babylon, Larancha and Sippara, were founded before the flood, according to the chronology of the Jews. “Surippak was the city of the ark, the mountain east of the Tigris was the resting place of the ark, Babylon was the site of the tower, and Ur of the Chaldees the birthplace of Abraham.” And, as Abraham, “the first leader of the Hebrew race, migrated from Ur to Harran in Syria and from thence to Palestine”, the best Assyriologists think that it is “so much evidence in favour of the hypothesis that Chaldea was the original home of these stories (in the Bible) and that the Jews received them originally from the Babylonians”.
(TG) Edom {Hebr}. Edomite Kings. A deeply concealed mystery is to be found in the allegory of the seven Kings of Edom, who “reigned in the land of Edom before there reigned any King over the children of Israel The Kabbala teaches that this Kingdom was one of “unbalanced forces” and necessarily of unstable character. The world of Israel is a type of the condition of the worlds which came into existence subsequently to the later period when the equilibrium had become established. [w.w.w.]
On the other hand the Eastern Esoteric philosophy teaches that the seven Kings of Edom are not the type of perished worlds or unbalanced forces, but the symbol of the seven human Root-races, four of which have passed away, the fifth is passing, and two are still to come. Though in the language of esoteric blinds, the hint in St. John’s Revelation is clear enough when it states in chapter xvii, 10: “And there are seven Kings; five are fallen, and one (the fifth, still) is, and the other (the sixth Root-race) is not yet come. . . . . “Had all the seven Kings of Edom perished as worlds of “unbalanced forces”, how could the fifth still be, and the other or others “not yet come”! In The Kabbalah Unveiled, we read on page 48, “The seven Kings had died and their possessions had been broken up”, and a footnote emphasizes the statement by saying, “these seven Kings are the Edomite Kings”.
(TG) Edris {arabic}, or Idris . Meaning “the learned One”, an epithet applied by the Arabs to Enoch.
(TG) Eggs (Easter). Eggs were symbolical from an early time. There was the “Mundane Egg”, in which Brahma gestated, with the Hindus the Hiranya-Gharba, and the Mundane Egg of the Egyptians, which proceeds from the mouth of the “unmade and eternal deity”, Kneph, and which is the emblem of generative power. Then the Egg of Babylon, which hatched Ishtar, and was said to have fallen from heaven into the Euphrates. Therefore coloured eggs were used yearly during spring in almost every country, and in Egypt were exchanged as sacred symbols in the spring-time, which was, is, and ever will be, the emblem of birth or rebirth, cosmic and human, celestial and terrestrial. They were hung up in Egyptian temples and are so suspended to this day in Mahometan mosques.
(WG) Egg of the World, the egg form assumed by the Supreme Spirit, according to the Rig-Veda, from which the world is evolved.
(TG) Egkosmioi {Greek} “The intercosmic gods,each of which presides over a great number of daemons, to whom they impart their power and change it from one to another at will”, says Proclus, and he adds, that which is taught in the esoteric doctrine. In his system he shows the uppermost regions from the zenith of the Universe to the moon belonging to the gods, or planetary Spirits, according to their hierarchies and classes. The highest among them were the twelve Huper-ouranioi, the super-celestial gods. Next to the latter, in rank and power, came the Egkosmioi .
(MO) Egil {Nors} (ay-gil) An early humanity, the age of innocence
(TG) Ego {Latin}. “Self”; the consciousness in man “I am I” — or the feeling of “I-am-ship”. Esoteric philosophy teaches the existence of two Egos in man, the mortal or personal, and the Higher, the Divine and the Impersonal, calling the former “personality” and the latter “Individuality”.
(KT) Ego {Latin} “I”; the consciousness in man of the “I am I,” or the feeling of I-am-ship. Esoteric philosophy teaches the existence of two Egos in man, the mortal or personal, and the higher, the divine or impersonal, calling the former “personality,” and the latter “individuality.”
(VS) Deva Egos [[p. 29]] The reincarnating Ego.
(WG) Ego (Latin), I; myself; self.
(OG) Ego — (Latin) A word meaning “I.” In theosophical writings the ego is that which says “I am I” — indirect or reflected consciousness, consciousness reflected back upon itself as it were, and thus recognizing its own mayavi existence as a “separate” entity. On this fact is based the one genuine “heresy” that occultism recognizes: the heresy of separateness.
The seat of the human ego is the intermediate duad — manas-kama: part aspiring upwards, which is the reincarnating ego; and part attracted below, which is the ordinary or astral human ego. The consciousness is immortal in the reincarnating ego, and temporary or mortal in the lower or astral human ego.
Consider the hierarchy of the human being’s constitution to grow from the immanent Self: this last is the seed of egoity on the seven (or perhaps better, six) planes of matter or manifestation. On each one of these seven planes (or six), the immanent Self or paramatman develops or evolves a sheath or garment, the upper ones spun of spirit, and the lower ones spun of “shadow” or matter. Now each such sheath or garment is a “soul”; and between the self and such a soul — any soul — is the ego.
Thus atman is the divine monad, giving birth to the divine ego, which latter evolves forth the monadic envelope or divine soul; jivatman, the spiritual monad, has its child which is the spiritual ego, which in turn evolves forth the spiritual soul or individual; and the combination of these three considered as a unit is buddhi; bhutatman, the human ego — the higher human soul, including the lower buddhi and higher manas; pranatman, the personal ego — the lower human soul, or man. It includes manas, kama, and prana; and finally the beast ego — the vital-astral soul: kama and prana. WW Ego Ego is something which most people find very hard to suppress, but we will do our best to dispose of it in the short time that remains. Ego means I. The equivalent word for ego, corresponding to individuality and personality, is egoity, the nature and characteristics of the ego. The ego is the sense of ‘I-ness’, conceived by most Christian writers as the very highest aspect of consciousness. It is not so. If I had time (and we may have to take it up in our next study) we would see that this sense of ego, or egoism, as contrasted with egoity, is one of the lowest aspects. Every man or person, even every animal, has his or its ego, its ‘I’. The personalities of animals are as distinct in their own way — small and restricted — as the personalities of man, and the collection of attributes composing the personality forms at any one moment the vehicle of the ego. The ego is rooted in the person and is so to say the backside of the person; as for instance, an orange is a sphere, or nearly so, so its personality is its yellowness, its acidity, its septa or the division into which it can be cut or torn, while the ego is the same as that plus a sense of consciousness if we choose to endow our orange with the sense of consciousness. So in man, his person is all that he is, his loves, his hates, the way he loves and hates, his longings, and his desires, the way he longs and desires, centered about a consciousness, a conscious center; that is the ego. The person is the expression of the ego, and the attributes composing the person are the personality. The ego, therefore, being the conscious center manifesting in the soul on a certain plane of maya or matter, is a low expression of the individuality. Therefore we may say that the ego changes pari passu with the person. As man progresses, his ego expands (or diminishes, whichever you please), refines itself; as he retrogresses, his ego, pari passu, grows in concentration, intensity, force, power, until finally it reaches a point where its ferocity, its cold, cruel, calculating selfishness makes a monster in human form, and this is on the precipice where a step further leads to the perdition of the soul.
(TG) Egoity. From the word “Ego”. Egoity means “individuality”, never “personality”, and is the opposite of egoism or “selfishness”, the characteristic par excellence of the latter.
(KT) Egoity (from the word “Ego”). Egoity means “individuality” — indifferent — never “personality,” as it is the opposite of Egoism or “selfishness,” the characteristic par excellence of the latter.
(TG) Egregores. Eliphas Levi calls them “the chiefs of the souls who are the spirits of energy and action”; whatever that may or may not mean. The Oriental Occultists describe the Egregores as Beings whose bodies and essence is a tissue of the so-called astral light . They are the shadows of the higher Planetary Spirits whose bodies are of the essence of the higher divine light.
(TG) Eheyeh {Hebr}. “I am”, according to Ibn Gebirol, but not in the sense of “I am that I am”.
(TG) Eidolon {Greek}. The same as that which we term the human phantom, the astral form.
(KT) Eidolon {Greek} The same as that which we term the human phantom, the Astral form.
(OG) Eidolon — (Greek; plural eidola ) A word meaning “image” of the man that was. After death there remains in the astral world — which is on the other side of the threshold of physical life, the etheric world — the “shadow” of the man that was. The ancients called these human shadows, shades; modern children and nursemaids call them ghosts and spooks; and each such shade is but an eidolon, or astral image or pale copy of the physical man that was. This eidolon coheres for a while in the astral realms or in the superphysical ether, and its particles are magnetically held more or less coherent as long as the physical corpse is not fully dissolved into its component elements; but these eidola in a comparatively short time fade out, for they decay in a manner closely resembling the disintegration of the physical body.
(OG) Eighth Sphere or Planet of Death — A term used in the more esoteric or inner part of the teachings about which little can be said, for over this part of the doctrine there has always been drawn a thick veil of secrecy and silence.
Frequently the term is confused with avichi, but this is incorrect, because the two, while closely connected, are nevertheless quite distinct. While avichi is a state where very evil human beings ” die and are reborn without interruption ,” yet not without hope of final redemption — something which can actually take place even on our physical plane in the cases of very evil or soulless men — the Eighth Sphere represents a degree of psychomental degeneration still more advanced. As just hinted, even in avichi there is a possibility of reinsoulment by the ray of the spiritual monad; whereas in the Eighth Sphere or Planet of Death such possibility finally vanishes, and the entity which has sunk to the Planet of Death is what is technically called in the esoteric philosophy a “lost soul.” In the Eighth Sphere the lost souls are ground over and over in nature’s laboratory, and are finally dissipated into their component psycho-astral elements or life-atoms. The Eighth Sphere or Planet of Death is an actual globe. It is also of course a state or condition of being; whereas the avichi is almost exclusively a state or condition in which an entity may find itself, although obviously this entity must have position or place and therefore locality in space — on our earth or elsewhere.
(WG) Eight Superhuman Faculties . These are given under Vibhuti , which see.
(TG) Eka {Sans}. “One”; also a synonym of Mahat, the Universal Mind, as the principle of Intelligence.
(WG) Eka, one, single.
(WG) Ekagrata, one-pointed; the perfect concentration of contemplation. ( eka, one; agrata, pointed
(OG) Ekagrata {Sans} Ekagratva {Sans} A term signifying “onepointedness” or “absolute intentness” in the mental contemplation of an object of meditation. The perfect concentration of the percipient mind on a single point of thought, and the holding of it there.
(TG) Ekana-rupa {Sans}. The One (and the Many) bodies or forms; a term applied by the Puranas to Deity.
(WG) Ekanekarupa, the one and the many in outward form.
(TG) Ekasloka Shastra {Sans}. A work on the Shastras (Scriptures) by Nagarjuna; a mystic work translated into Chinese.
(MO) Eldrimner {Nors} [ eld fire + rimner computation, calendar] One of the boars that feed the One-harriers
(TG) El-Elion {Hebr}. A name of the Deity borrowed by the Jews from the Phoenician Elon, a name of the Sun.
(TG) Elementals. Spirits of the Elements. The creatures evolved in the four Kingdoms or Elements — earth, air, fire, and water. They are called by the Kabbalists, Gnomes (of the earth), Sylphs (of the air), Salamanders (of the fire), and Undines (of the water). Except a few of the higher kinds, and their rulers, they are rather forces of nature than ethereal men and women. These forces, as the servile agents of the Occultists, may produce various effects; but if employed by “Elementaries” — in which case they enslave the mediums — they all deceive the credulous. All the lower invisible beings generated on the 5th, 6th, and 7th planes of our terrestrial atmosphere, are called Elementals: Peris, Devs, Djins, Sylvans, Satyrs, Fauns, Elves, Dwarfs, Trolls, Kobolds, Brownies, Nixies, Goblins, Pinkies, Banshees. Moss People, White Ladies, Spooks, Fairies, etc., etc., etc.
(IU) Elemental Spirits. — The creatures evolved in the four kingdoms of earth, air, fire, and water, and called by the kabalists gnomes, sylphs, salamanders, and undines. They may be termed the forces of nature, and will either operate effects as the servile agents of general law, or may be employed by the disembodied spirits — whether pure or impure — and by living adepts of magic and sorcery, to produce desired phenomenal results. Such beings never become men. [Persons who believe in the clairvoyant power, but are disposed to discredit the existence of any other spirits in nature than disembodied human spirits, will be interested in an account of certain clairvoyant observations which appeared in the London Spiritualist of June 29, 1877. A thunder-storm approaching, the seeress saw “a bright spirit emerge from a dark cloud and pass with lightning speed across the sky, and, a few minutes after, a diagonal line of dark spirits in the clouds.” These are the Maruts of the “Vedas” (See Max Muller’s “Rig-Veda Sanhita”).
The well-known and respected lecturer, author, and clairvoyant, Mrs. Emma Hardinge-Britten, has published accounts of her frequent experiences with these elemental spirits.]
Under the general designation of fairies, and fays, these spirits of the elements appear in the myth, fable, tradition, or poetry of all nations, ancient and modern. Their names are legion — peris, devs, djins, sylvans, satyrs, fauns, elves, dwarfs, trolls, norns, nisses, kobolds, brownies, necks, stromkarls, undines, nixies, salamanders, goblins, ponkes, banshees, kelpies, pixies, moss people, good people, good neighbors, wild women, men of peace, white ladies — and many more. They have been seen, feared, blessed, banned, and invoked in every quarter of the globe and in every age. Shall we then concede that all who have met them were hallucinated?
These elementals are the principal agents of disembodied but never visible spirits at seances, and the producers of all the phenomena except the subjective.
(KT) Elementals, or Spirits of the Elements. The creatures evolved in the Four Kingdoms, or Elements — Earth, Air, Fire, and Water. They are called by the Kabalists, Gnomes (of the Earth), Sylphs (of the Air), Salamanders (of the Fire), and Undines (of the Water), except a few of the higher kinds and their rulers. They are rather the forces of nature than ethereal men and women. These forces, as the servile agents of the occultist, may produce various effects; but if employed by elementaries (Kamarupas) — in which case they enslave the mediums — they will deceive. All the lower invisible beings generated on the fifth, sixth, and seventh Planes of our terrestrial atmosphere are called Elementals — Peris, Devs, Djins, Sylvans, Satyrs, Fauns, Elves, Dwarfs, Trolls, Norns, Kobolds, Brownies, Nixies, Goblins, Pinkies, Banshees, Moss People, White Ladies, Spooks, Fairies, etc., etc.
(FY) Elementals, generic name for all subjective beings other than disembodied human creatures.
(WG) Elementals #6nn, nature-spirits presiding over the elements of fire, air, etc.; beings evolved from or constituting the lower, elemental nature of man; centers of force in the astral light.
(OG) Elemental(s) — Nature-spirits or sprites. The theosophical usage, however, means beings who are beginning a course of evolutionary growth, and who thus are in the elemental states of their growth. It is a generalizing term for purposes of convenient expression for all beings evolutionally below the minerals. Nevertheless, the minerals themselves are expressions of one family or host or hierarchy of elemental beings of a more evolved type. The vegetable kingdom likewise manifests merely one family or host of elemental beings happening to be in the vegetable phase of their evolution on this earth. Just so likewise is it as regards the beasts. The beasts are highly evolved elemental beings, relatively speaking. Men in far distant aeons of the kosmic past were elemental beings also. We have evolved from that elemental stage into becoming men, expressing with more or less ease, mostly very feebly, the innate divine powers and faculties locked up in the core of the core of each one of us.
An elemental is a being who has entered our universe on the lowest plane or in the lowest world, degree, or step on the rising stairway of life; and this stairway of life begins in any universe at its lowest stage, and ends for that universe in its highest stage — the universal kosmic spirit. Thus the elemental passes from the elemental stage through all the realms of being as it rises along the stairway of life, passing through the human stage, becoming superhuman, quasi-divine — a quasi-god — then becoming a god. Thus did we humans first enter this present universe.
Every race of men on earth has believed in these hosts of elemental entities — some visible, like men, like the beasts, like the animate plants; and others invisible. The invisible entities have been called by various names: fairies, sprites, hobgoblins, elves, brownies, pixies, nixies, leprechauns, trolls, kobolds, goblins, banshees, fawns, devs, jinn, satyrs, and so forth. The medieval mystics taught that these elemental beings were of four general kinds: those arising in and frequenting the element of fire — salamanders; those arising in and frequenting the element air — sylphs; those arising in and frequenting the element water — undines; those arising in and frequenting the element earth — gnomes.
(IN) Elementals Ethereal beings born from and animating the elements; classes of beings evolutionally lower than the minerals.
(TG) Elementaries. Properly, the disembodied souls of the depraved; these souls having at some time prior to death separated from themselves their divine spirits, and so lost their chance for immortality; but at the present stage of learning it has been thought best to apply the term to the spooks or phantoms of disembodied persons, in general, to those whose temporary habitation is the Kama Loka. Eliphas Levi and some other Kabbalists make little distinction between elementary spirits who have been men, and those beings which people the elements, and are the blind forces of nature. Once divorced from their higher triads and their bodies, these souls remain in their Kama-rupic envelopes, and are irresistibly drawn to the earth amid elements congenial to their gross natures. Their stay in the Kama Loka varies as to its duration, but ends invariably in disintegration, dissolving like a column of mist, atom by atom, in the surrounding elements.
(IU) Elementary Spirits. — Properly, the disembodied souls of the depraved; these souls having at some time prior to death separated from themselves their divine spirits, and so lost their chance for immortality. Eliphas Levi and some other kabalists make little distinction between elementary spirits who have been men, and those beings which people the elements, and are the blind forces of nature. Once divorced from their bodies, these souls (also called “astral bodies”) of purely materialistic persons, are irresistibly attracted to the earth, where they live a temporary and finite life amid elements congenial to their gross natures. From having never, during their natural lives, cultivated their spirituality, but subordinated it to the material and gross, they are now unfitted for the lofty career of the pure, disembodied being, for whom the atmosphere of earth is stifling and mephitic, and whose attractions are all away from it. After a more or less prolonged period of time these material souls will begin to disintegrate, and finally, like a column of mist, be dissolved, atom by atom, in the surrounding elements.
(WG) Elementary #6nn, the psychic remnant left in the astral sphere after death, where it eventually becomes dissipated. Though abandoned by the real Ego, it may retain the elements of the lower personality, and through accession of force from elementals, or from a living mediumistic person, may present a spurious semblance of the dead, which is easily mistaken for the spirit of that person. The Kabalistic works call the elementals without distinguishing them from the dead.
(OG) Elementaries — “Properly, the disembodied souls of the depraved; these souls having at some time prior to death separated from themselves their divine spirits, and so lost their chance for immortality” ( Theosophical Glossary, H. P. Blavatsky).
Strictly speaking, the word “elementaries” should be used as H. P. Blavatsky defines it in this quotation from her. But in modern theosophical literature the word has come to signify more particularly the phantoms or eidola of disembodied persons, these phantoms or eidola really being the kama-rupic shades, with especial application to the cases of grossly materialistic ex-humans whose evil impulses and appetites still inhering in the kama-rupic phantom draw these phantoms to physical spheres congenial to them. They are a real danger to psychical health and sanity, and literally haunt living human beings possessing tendencies akin to their own. They are soulless shells, but still filled with energies of a depraved and ignoble type. Their destiny of course is like that of all other pretas or bhutas — ultimate disintegration; for the gross astral atoms composing them slowly dissolve through the years after the manner of a dissolving column of smoke or a wisp of dark cloud on a mountainside.
(TG) Elephanta. An island near Bombay, India, on which are the well-preserved ruins of the cave-temple of that name. It is one of the most ancient in the country and is certainly a Cyclopeian work, though the late J. Fergusson has refused it a great antiquity.
(TG) Eleusinia {Greek}. The Eleusinian Mysteries were the most famous and the most ancient of all the Greek Mysteries (save the Samothracian), and were celebrated near the hamlet of Eleusis, not for from Athens. Epiphanius traces them to the days of Inachos founded, as another version has it, by Eumolpus, a King of Thrace and a Hierophant. They were celebrated in honour of Demeter, the Greek Ceres and the Egyptian Isis; and the last act of the performance referred to a sacrificial victim of atonement and a resurrection, when the Initiate was admitted to the highest degree of “Epopt” . The festival of the Mysteries began in the month of Boedromion (September), the time of grape-gathering, and lasted from the 15th to the 22nd, seven days. The Hebrew feast of Tabernacles, the feast of Ingatherings, in the month of Ethanim (the seventh), also began on the 15th and ended on the 22nd of that month. The name of the month (Ethanim) is derived, according to some from Adonim, Adonia, Attenim, Ethanim, and was in honour of Adonai or Adonis (Thammuz), whose death was lamented by the Hebrews in the groves of Bethlehem. The sacrifice of both “Bread and Wine” was performed before the Mysteries of initiation, and during the ceremony the mysteries were divulged to the candidates from the petroma, a kind of book made of two stone tablets (petrai), joined at one side and made to open like a volume. (See Isis Unveiled II.,
(KT) Eleusinia {Greek} The Eleusinian Mysteries were the most famous and the most ancient of all the Greek mysteries (save the Samothracian), and were performed near the hamlet of Eleusis, not far from Athens. Epiphanius traces them to the days of Iacchos Demeter, the great Ceres, and the Egyptian Isis; and the last act of the performance referred to a sacrificial victim of atonement and a resurrection, when the Initiate was admitted to the highest degree of Epopt. The festival of the Mysteries began in the month of Boedromion (September), the time of grape-gathering, and lasted from the 15th to the 22nd — seven days. The Hebrew Feast of Tabernacles — the feast of ingatherings — in the month of Ethanim (the seventh) also began on the 15th and ended on the 22nd of that month. The name of the month (Ethanim) is derived, according to some, from Adonim, Adonia, Attenim, Ethanim, and was in honour of Adonai, or Adonis (Tham), whose death was lamented by the Hebrews in the groves of Bethlehem. The sacrifice of “Bread and Wine” was performed both in the Eleusinia and during the Feast of Tabernacles.
(MO) Elf {Nors} [channel] The human soul between spirit and dwarf in man
(TG) Elivagar {Nors}. The waters of Chaos, called in the cosmogony of the Norsemen “the stream of Elivagar”.
(MO) Eli-vagor {Nors} (ay-lee-vaw-goor) [icicle-waves] Cold streams of matter
(TG) Elohim {Hebr}. Also Alhim, the word being variously spelled. Godfrey Higgins, who has written much upon its meaning, always spells it Aliem . The Hebrew letters are aleph, lamed, he , yod, mem, and are numerically, 1, 30, 5, 10, 40 + 86. It seems to be the plural of the feminine noun Eloah, ALH, formed by adding the common plural form I’m, a masculine ending; and hence the whole seems to imply the emitted active and passive essences. As a title it is referred to “Binah” the Supernal Mother, as is also the fuller title IHVH ALHIM, Jehovah Elohim. As Binah leads on to seven succeedent emanations, so “Elohim” has been said to represent a sevenfold power of godhead. [w.w.w.]
(WG) Elohim, one of the names occurring in Genesis, which have been rendered in the Christian bible as God and Lord; but the Hebrews had a different meaning, and the word may be translated as plural.
(MO) Elohim (ello-heem) [gods, {Heb} pl.] Deity as an aggregate of many infinite forces
(IN) Elohim {Heb} plural; Gods, usually translated God; corresponds to the creative logoi or hosts emanated from the First Logos.
(TG) Eloi {Gnos}. The genius or ruler of Jupiter ; its Planetary Spirit. (Ses e Origen, Contra Celsum
(TG) Elu {Sing} An ancient dialect used in Ceylon.
(TG) Emanation the metaphysical meaning, it is opposed to Evolution, yet one with it. Science teaches that evolution is physiologically a mode of generation in which the germ that develops the foetus pre-exists already in the parent, the development and final form and characteristics of that germ being accomplished in nature; and that in cosmology the process takes place blindly through the correlation of the elements, and their various compounds. Occultism answers that this is only the apparent mode, the real process being Emanation, guided by intelligent Forces under an immutable LAW. Therefore, while the Occultists and Theosophists believe thoroughly in the doctrine of Evolution as given out by Kapila and Manu, they are Emanationists rather than Evolutionists . The doctrine of Emanation was at one time universal. It was taught by the Alexandrian as well as by the Indian philosophers, by the Egyptian, the Chaldean and Hellenic Hierophants, and also by the Hebrews (in their Kabbala, and even in Genesis ). For it is only owing to deliberate mistranslation that the Hebrew word asdt has been translated “angels” from the Septuagint, when it means Emanations, Aeons, precisely as with the Gnostics. Indeed, in Deuteronomy (31., 2) the word asdt or ashdt is translated as “fiery law”, whilst the correct rendering of the passage should be “from his right hand went [not a fiery law , but] a fire according to law “; viz ., that the fire of one flame is imparted to, and caught up by another like as in a trail of inflammable substance. This is precisely emanation. As shown in Isis Unveiled : “In Evolution, as it is now beginning to be understood, there is supposed to be in all matter an impulse to take on a higher form — a supposition clearly expressed by Manu and other Hindu philosophers of the highest antiquity. The philosopher’s tree illustrates it in the case of the zinc solution. The controversy between the followers of this school and the Emanationists may be briefly stated thus: The Evolutionist stops all inquiry at the borders of “the Unknowable”; the Emanationist believes that nothing can be evolved — or, as the word means, unwombed or born — except it has first been involved, thus indicating that life is from a spiritual potency above the whole.”
(KT) Emanation (The doctrine of) is in its metaphysical meaning opposed to evolution, yet one with it. Science teaches that, physiologically, evolution is a mode of generation in which the germ that develops the foetus pre-exists already in the parent, the development and final form and characteristics of that germ being accomplished by nature; and that (as in its cosmology) the process takes place blindly, through the correlation of the elements and their various compounds. Occultism teaches that this is only the apparent mode, the real process being Emanation, guided by intelligent forces under an immutable LAW. Therefore, while the Occultists and Theosophists believe thoroughly in the doctrine of Evolution as given out by Kapila and Manu, they are Emanationists rather than Evolutionists. The doctrine of Emanation was at one time universal. It was taught by the Alexandrian, as well as by the Indian philosophers, by the Egyptian, the Chaldean, and Hellenic Hierophants, and also by the Hebrews (in their Kabala, and even in Genesis). For it is only owing to deliberate mistranslation that the Hebrew word asdt was translated “angels” from the Septuagint, while it means Emanations, aeons, just as with the Gnostics. Indeed, in Deuteronomy (33. 2) the word asdt or ashdt is translated as “fiery law,” whilst the correct rendering of the passage should be, “from his right went (not a fiery law, but) a fire according to law,” viz., that the fire of one flame is imparted to and caught up by another — like as in a trail of inflammable substance. This is precisely Emanation, as shown in Isis Unveiled. “In Evolution, as it is now beginning to be understood, there is supposed to be in all matter an impulse to take on a higher form — a supposition clearly expressed by Manu and other Hindoo philosophers of the highest antiquity. The philosopher’s tree illustrates it in the case of the zinc solution. The controversy between the followers of this school and the Emanationists may be briefly stated thus: The Evolutionist stops all inquiry at the borders of ‘the unknowable’; the Emanationist believes that nothing can be evolved — or, as the word means, unwombed or born — except it has first been involved, thus indicating that life is from a spiritual potency above the whole.”
(TG) Empusa {Greek}. A ghoul, a vampire, an evil demon taking various forms.
(TG) En {Chald}. A negative particle, like a in Greek and Sanskrit. The first syllable of “En-Soph”, or no thing that begins or ends, the “Endless”.
(TG) En (or Ain ) Soph {Hebr}. The endless, limitless and boundless. The absolute deific Principle, impersonal and unknowable. It means literally “no-thing” i.e ., nothing that could be classed with anything else. The word and ideas are equivalent to the Vedantic conceptions of Parabrahm. [w.w.w.]
Some Western Kabbalists, however, contrive to make of IT·, a personal ” He “, a male deity instead of an impersonal deity.
(WG) En-Soph, the same as Ain-Soph, which see.
(TG) Enoichion {Greek}. Lit., the “inner Eye”; the “Seer”, a reference to the third inner, or Spiritual Eye, the true name for Enoch disfigured from Chanock .
(TG) Ens {Greek}. The same as the Greek To On “Being”, or the real Presence in Nature.
(WG) Ens, being, existence, essence. With the alchemists the recondite part of a substance from which all its qualities flow. The real Presence in Nature of the Greeks.
(TG) Ephesus {Greek}. Famous for its great metaphysical College where Occultism ( Gnosis ) and Platonic philosophy were taught in the days of the Apostle Paul. A city regarded as the focus of secret sciences, and that Gnosis, or Wisdom, which is the antagonist of the perversion of Christo-Esotericism to this day. It was at Ephesus where was the great College of the Essenes and all the lore the Tanaim had brought from the Chaldees .
(TG) Epimetheus {Greek}. Lit., “He who takes counsel after ” the event. A brother of Prometheus in Greek Mythology.
(TG) Epinoia {Greek}. Thought, invention, design. A name adopted by the Gnostics for the first passive Aeon.
(TG) Episcopal Crook. One of the insignia of Bishops, derived from the sacerdotal sceptre of the Etruscan Augurs. It is also found in the hand of several gods.
(TG) Epoptes {Greek}. An Initiate. One who has passed his last degree of initiation.
(FY) Epopta, Greek for seer.
(WG) Epopta (Greek), a seer; one initiated into the Greater Mysteries.
(TG) Eridanus {Latin}. Ardan, the Greek name for the river Jordan.
(TG) Eros {Greek}. Hesiod makes of the god Eros the third personage of the Hellenic primordial Trinity composed of Ouranos, Gaea and Eros. It is the personified procreative Force in nature in its abstract sense, the propeller to “creation” and procreation. Esoterically, mythology makes of Eros the god of lustful, animal desire, whence the term erotic ; esoterically, it is different.
(TG) Eshmim {Hebr}. The Heavens, the Firmament in which are the Sun, Planets and Stars; from the root Sm, meaning to place, dispose; hence, the planets, as disposers. [w.w.w.]
(TG) Esoteric {Greek}. Hidden, secret. From the Greek esotericos , “inner”, concealed.
(KT) Esoteric. Hidden, secret. From the Greek Esotericos — “inner,” concealed.
(WG) Esoteric, hidden, secret, within. From the Greek “Esoterikos”. The term was first applied to the private instructions and doctrines of Pythagoras, taught only to a select number of his pupils and not intended or designed for the general outer body. Opposed to exoteric or public. WW Esoteric The word exoteric we first find used, in much the same sense in which we use it, in the Greek philosopher Aristotle; not, however, that he was the first to have an outer and an inner school; we are merely admitting into our present discourse those things which are considered proved by and which are the consensus of opinion of people of intelligence. We will grant we know that Pythagoras had an inner and an outer school, but Aristotle was among the first to use this particular term ‘exoteric’, and this implies the existence of esoteric doctrines and dogmata to signify expositions of beliefs which were given to the ‘inner circle’. The word esoteric comes from eso ( eso ), inner, and the comparative suffix, terikos ( terikos ) while exoteric exoterikos ( exoterikos ), that which is outside, was used to signify those doctrines, beliefs, tenets which were taught outside the school or publicly — popular, belonging to the people. It is a capital error to consider that exoteric doctrines are unworthy of study. I think that we will agree that no natural fact is beneath the dignity of our examination, is unworthy of being studied. Everything that is has a holy touch upon it, and I think we should consider it from that point: nothing is so divine as a fact. We sometimes hear of matter-of-fact people, and the term has come to signify to most of us people who are so hardheaded that they have little touch of spirituality. They are like the man in Bulwer-Lytton’s Zanoni who sees and admits only the outward, the obvious things. But there is another idea of fact, as the phenomenon of spirit, as the outward evidence of the inward truth. I see a leaf fall in the autumn. Now a man who has the true scientific spirit will see a wonder in that. There is likewise a wonderful meaning in the change of the seasons, in the astronomical and terrestrial laws governing these changes. I plant a seed; the tree into which it will grow, with all its ramifications, all its branches, is a fine symbol of the Unity of Being. The little twigs run into the branch, the branch into a bigger branch, and the trunk is fixed in the earth and receives its nutrition, therefore through its roots, and from its leaves also. In a little thing like the fall of a leaf think of all the mysteries locked up there. Therefore, when we study the ancient religions, the ancient philosophies (and we know that they are now exoteric because they are open and were popular), I believe it to be a capital error to assume that they are unworthy of profound thought and to put them to one side thinking that because they were popular, public, they have no meaning. They are facts, and they are esoteric in so far as we can penetrate into the inner meaning of them. I read some time ago an article written on the difference between Exotericism and Esotericism. The writer’s idea of esotericism seemed to be anything that was wonderful, mysterious, strange, queer, and uncanny; and anything that was natural and open and could be seen and judged by the normal active faculties of men apparently was ‘exoteric’ to him. That is not the definition of religious or philosophical mysteries that is applicable in Theosophy. It is not the definition of Plato nor of Aristotle, nor of the Neo-Platonists, nor again of the Hindu Philosophers. They make a careful distinction, as if they had drawn a mental line, between that which was popular and that which was, not unpopular, but secret. That which was exoteric, the popular, was not untrue, any more than the esoteric; it was simply popular, open, apparent, but yet involved in mystery — hence a subject to study.
(TG) Esoteric Bodhism. Secret Wisdom or intelligence from the Greek esotericos “inner”, and the Sanskrit Bodhi, “knowledge”, intelligence — in contradistinction to Buddhi, “the faculty of knowledge or intelligence”, and Buddhism, the philosophy or Law of Buddha (the Enlightened). Also written “Budhism”, from Budha (Intelligence and Wisdom) the Son of Soma.
(KT) Esoteric Bodhism. Secret wisdom or intelligence, from the Greek Esotericos, “inner,” and the Sanskrit Bodhi, “knowledge,” in contradistinction to Buddhi, “the faculty of knowledge or intelligence,” and Buddhism, the philosophy or Law of Buddha (the Enlightened). Also written “Budhism,” from Budha (Intelligence, Wisdom) the Son of Soma.
(OG) Esoteric Doctrine — The body of mystical and sacred teachings reserved for students of high and worthy character. This body of teachings has been known and studied by highly evolved individuals in all ages. The esoteric doctrine is the common property of mankind, and it has always been thus. In all the various great religions and philosophies of the world, the student will find fundamental principles in each which, when placed side by side and critically examined, are easily discovered to be identical. Every one of such fundamental principles is in every great world religion or world philosophy; hence the aggregate of these world religions or world philosophies contains the entirety of the esoteric doctrine, but usually expressed in exoteric form.
However, no one of these world religions or world philosophies gives in clear and explicit shape or form the entirety of the body of teachings which are at its heart; some religions emphasize one or more of such fundamental principles; another religion or philosophy will emphasize others of these principles; in either case others again of the principles remaining in the background. This readily accounts for the fact that the various world religions and world philosophies vary among themselves and often, to the unreflecting mind, superficially seem to have little in common, and perhaps even to be contradictory. The cause of this is the varying manner in which each such religion or philosophy has been given to the world, the form that each took having been best for the period in which it was promulgated. Each such religion or philosophy, having its own racial sphere and period of time, represents the various human minds who have developed it or who, so to say, have translated it to the world in this or in that particular promulgation.
These manners or mannerisms of exoteric thinking we may discard if we wish; but it is the fundamental principles behind every great religion or great philosophy which in their aggregate are the universal esoteric doctrine. In this universal esoteric doctrine lies the mystery-field of each great religion or philosophy — this mystery-teaching being always reserved for the initiates. The esoteric philosophy or doctrine has been held from time immemorial in the guardianship of great men, exalted seers and sages, who from time to time promulgate it, or rather portions of it, to the world when the spiritual and intellectual need for so doing arises. The origins of the esoteric doctrine are found in the mystery-teachings of beings from other and spiritual spheres, who incarnated in the early humanity of the third root-race of this fourth round of our globe, and taught the then intellectually nascent mankind the necessary certain fundamental principles or truths regarding the universe and the nature of the world surrounding us.
(TG) Essasua. The African and Asiatic sorcerers and serpent charmers.
(TG) Essenes. A hellenized word, from the Hebrew Asa, a “healer”. A mysterious sect of Jews said by Pliny to have lived near the Dead Sea per millia saecolorum — for thousands of ages. “Some have supposed them to be extreme Pharisees, and others — which may be the true theory — the descendants of the Benim-nabim of the Bible, and think that they were ‘Kenites’ and Nazarites . They had many Buddhistic ideas and practices; and it is noteworthy that the priests of the Great Mother at Ephesus, Diana-Bhavani with many breasts, were also so denominated. Eusebius, and after him De Quincey, declared them to be the same as the early Christians, which is more than probable. The title ‘brother’, used in the early Church, was Essenean; they were a fraternity, or a koinobion or community like the early converts
(IU) Essenes — from Asa, a healer. A sect of Jews said by Pliny to have lived near the Dead Sea ” per millia saeculorum ” — for thousands of ages. Some have supposed them to be extreme Pharisees; and others — which may be the true theory — the descendants of the Benim nabim of the Bible, and think they were “Kenites” and ” Nazarites .” They had many Buddhistic ideas and practices; and it is noteworthy that the priests of the Great Mother at Ephesus, Diana-Bhavani with many breasts, were also so denominated. Eusebius, and after him De Quincey, declared them to be the same as the early Christians, which is more than probable. The title “brother,” used in the early Church, was Essenean: they were a fraternity, or a koinobion or community like the early converts. It is noticeable that only the Sadducees, or Zadokites, the priest-caste and their partisans, persecuted the Christians; the Pharisees were generally scholastic and mild, and often sided with the latter. James the Just was a Pharisee till his death; but Paul or Aher was esteemed a schismatic.
(VS) eternal ages (I 11) [[p. 5]] Eternity with the Orientals has quite another signification than it has with us. It stands generally for the 100 years or “age” of Brahma, the duration of a Kalpa or a period of 4,320,000,000 years.
(TG) Ether. Students are but too apt to confuse this with Akasa and with Astral Light. It is neither, in the sense in which ether is described by physical Science. Ether is a material agent, though hitherto undetected by any physical apparatus; whereas Akasa is a distinctly spiritual agent, identical, in one sense, with the Anima Mundi, while the Astral Light is only the seventh and highest principle of the terrestrial atmosphere, as undetectable as Akasa and real Ether, because it is something quite on another plane. The seventh principle of the earth’s atmosphere, as said, the Astral Light, is only the second on the Cosmic scale. The scale of Cosmic Forces, Principles and Planes, of Emanations — on the metaphysical — and Evolutions — on the physical plane — is the Cosmic Serpent biting its own tail, the Serpent reflecting the Higher, and reflected in its turn by the lower Serpent. The Caduceus explains the mystery and the four-fold Dodecahedron on the model of which the universe is said by Plato to have been built by the manifested Logos — synthesized by the unmanifested First-Born — yields geometrically the key to Cosmogony and its microcosmic reflection — our Earth.
(WG) Ether, in physics and astronomy a hypothetical medium of extreme tenuity universally diffused throughout all space, and which is supposed to be the medium for the transmission of sound and light, and in a sense the basis of form. It corresponds almost exactly to the Astral Light of the Kabalist, which is an aspect of the Akasa. There are differences between the two, however. It should not be confounded with the Ether of the ancients, which might be said to be the same as the Akasa itself, whereas Ether is only an aspect of that.
(OG) Ethics — The theosophical teachings are essentially and wholly ethical. It is impossible to understand the sublime wisdom of the gods, the archaic wisdom-religion of the ancients, without the keenest realization of the fact that ethics run like golden threads throughout the entire system or fabric of doctrine and thought of the esoteric philosophy. Genuine occultism, divorced from ethics, is simply unthinkable because impossible. There is no genuine occultism which does not include the loftiest ethics that the moral sense of mankind can comprehend, and one cannot weigh with too strong an emphasis upon this great fact.
Ethics in the theosophical philosophy are not merely the products of human thought existing as a formulation of conventional rules proper for human conduct. They are founded on the very structure and character of the universe itself. The heart of the universe is wisdom-love, and these are intrinsically ethical, for there can be no wisdom without ethics, nor can love be without ethics, nor can there be ethics deprived of either love or wisdom.
The philosophic reason why the ancients set so much store by what was commonly known as virtus among the Latins, from which we have our modern word “virtue,” is because by means of the teaching originating in the great Mystery schools, they knew that virtues, ethics, were the offspring of the moral instinct in human beings, who derived them in their turn from the heart of the universe — from the kosmic harmony. It is high time that the Occidental world should cast forever into the limbo of exploded superstitions the idea that ethics is merely conventional morality, a convenience invented by man to smooth the asperities and dangers of human intercourse.
Of course every scholar knows that the words morals and ethics come from the Latin and Greek respectively, as signifying the customs or habits which it is proper to follow in civilized communities. But this fact itself, which is unquestionable, is in a sense disgraceful, for it would almost seem that we had not yet brought forth a word adequately describing the instinct for right and truth and troth and justice and honor and wisdom and love which we today so feebly express by the words ethics or morals. “Theosophist is who Theosophy does,” wrote H. P. Blavatsky, and wiser and nobler words she never wrote. No one can be a theosophist who does not feel ethic-ally and think ethically and live ethically in the real sense that is hereinbefore described. ( See also Morals)
(TG) Eurasians. An abbreviation of “European-Asians”. The mixed coloured races: the children of the white fathers and the dark mothers of India, or vice versa .
(KT) Eurasians. An abbreviation of “European-Asians.” The mixed coloured races; the children of the white fathers, and the dark mothers of India, and vice versa.
(TG) Evapto. Initiation; the same as Epopteia . WW Evil Now we will put down as a postulate for our future studies that the origin of evil arises in the conflict of wills in the universe, and we see that despite ourselves we come back to the principle of polytheism — the harmony and the conflict of wills. Remember that polytheism means nothing more in itself than the governance of the Universe by spiritual beings. I think that we can fix this fact in our minds by considering the evil in ourselves, the dual nature, the struggle that we all have — two wills; as the German poet said: “Zwei Seelen wohnen, ach, in meiner Brust” — Two souls, ah me! dwell in my breast! — And if he had said “Legions dwell in my breast”, it would have been truer, as we shall see when we come to study the nature of soul. Plutarch opens his Life of Theseus as follows: “As in the books on geography, Sossius Senecio, the writers crowd the countries of which they know nothing, into the furthest margins of their maps, and write upon them legends such as ‘In this direction lie waterless deserts, filled with wild beasts’, or, ‘Unexplored morasses’, or, ‘here it is as cold as Scythia’, or ‘a frozen sea’; so I, in my writings on parallel lives go through that period of time where history rests on the firm basis of facts, and may truly say “all beyond this is portentous and fabulous, inhabited by poets and mythologers, and there is nothing true or certain.” It seems to me, on thinking of the subjects that we have to consider in our preparatory studies, that we are somewhat in the position of Plutarch when he describes the geographers as placing in the further corners of their maps all things which are unknown, because as soon as we begin to study, to investigate the mysteries of the different religions, we find vast tracts of mental territory uncharted. And all over these wide tracts we find legends: ‘Mythological’, or ‘God’s work’, or ‘Unknown’, or ‘The habitation of poets and mythologers’. Yet those are tracts of mental territory which we must study. Like the pioneers in exploration we must force our way into the thought of antiquity, find out what the ancients really meant, and what they intended to say in the works which have come down to us.
(TG) Evolution. The development of higher orders of animals from lower. As said in Isis Unveiled: “Modern Science holds but to a one-sided physical evolution, prudently avoiding and ignoring the higher or spiritual evolution, which would force our contemporaries to confess the superiority of the ancient philosophers and psychologists over themselves. The ancient sages, ascending to the UNKNOWABLE, made their starting point from the first manifestation of the unseen, the unavoidable, and, from a strictly logical reasoning, the absolutely necessary creative Being, the Demiurgos of the universe. Evolution began with them from pure spirit, which descending lower and lower down, assumed at last a visible and comprehensible form, and became matter. Arrived at this point, they speculated in the Darwinian method, but on a far more large and comprehensive basis
(IU) Evolution. — The development of higher orders of animals from the lower. Modern, or so-called exact science, holds but to a one-sided physical evolution, prudently avoiding and ignoring the higher or spiritual evolution, which would force our contemporaries to confess the superiority of the ancient philosophers and psychologists over themselves. The ancient sages, ascending to the UNKNOWABLE, made their starting-point from the first manifestation of the unseen, the unavoidable, and from a strict logical reasoning, the absolutely necessary creative Beings, the Demiurgos of the universe. Evolution began with them from pure spirit, which descending lower and lower down, assumed that a visible and comprehensible form, and became matter. Arrived at this point, they speculated in the Darwinian method, but on a far more large and comprehensive basis.
(IN) the Rig-Veda-Sanhita, the oldest book of the World, [Translated by Max Muller, Professor of Comparative Philology at the Oxford University, England.] (to which even our most prudent Indiologists and Sanscrit scholars assign an antiquity of between two and three thousand years B.C, in the first book, “Hymns to the Maruts,” it is said:
” Not-being and Being are in the highest heaven, in the birthplace of Daksha, in the lap of Aditi” (Mandala, i., Sukta 166).
“In the first age of the gods, Being (the comprehensible Deity) was born from Not-being (whom no intellect can comprehend); after it were born the Regions (the invisible), from the Uttanapada.”
“From Uttanapada the Earth was born, the Regions (those that are visible) were born from the Earth. Daksha was born of Aditi, and Aditi from Daksha
Aditi is the Infinite, and Daksha is daksha-pitarah, literally meaning the fathers of gods, but understood by Max Muller and Roth to mean the fathers of strength, “preserving, possessing, granting faculties.” Therefore, it is easy to see that “Daksha, born of Aditi and Aditi from Daksha,” means what the moderns understand by “correlation of forces;” the more so as we find in this passage (translated by Prof. Muller):
“I place Agni, the source of all beings, the father of strength” (iii, 27, 2), a clear and identical idea which prevailed so much in the doctrines of the Zoroastrians, the Magians, and the mediaeval fire-philosophers. Agni is god of fire, of the Spiritual Ether, the very substance of the divine essence of the Invisible God present in every atom of His creation and called by the Rosicrucians the “Celestial Fire.” If we only carefully compare the verses from this Mandala, one of which runs thus: “The Sky is your father, the Earth your mother, Soma your brother, Aditi your sister” (i., 191, 6), [“Dyarih vah pita, prithivi mata, somah bhrata, aditih svasa.”] with the inscription on the Smaragdine Tablet of Hermes, we will find the same substratum of metaphysical philosophy, the identical doctrines!
“As all things were produced by the mediation of one being, so all things were produced from this one thing by adaptation: ‘Its father is the sun; its mother is the moon’ . . . etc. Separate the earth from the fire, the subtile from the gross . . . . What I had to say about the operation of the sun is completed” ( Smaragdine Tablet ).’ [As the perfect identity of the philosophical and religious doctrines of antiquity will be fully treated upon in subsequent chapters, we limit our explanations for the present.]
Professor Max Muller sees in this Mandala “at last, something like a theogony, though full of contradictions.” [“Rig-Veda-Anhita,” p. 234.] The alchemists, kabalists, and students of mystic philosophy will find therein a perfectly defined system of Evolution in the Cosmogony of a people who lived a score of thousands of years before our era. They will find in it, moreover, a perfect identity of thought and even doctrine with the Hermetic philosophy, and also that of Pythagoras and Plato.
(IN) Evolution, as it is now beginning to be understood, there is supposed to be in all matter an impulse to take on a higher form — a supposition clearly expressed by Manu and other Hindu philosophers of the highest antiquity. The philosopher’s tree illustrates it in the case of the zinc solution. The controversy between the followers of this school and the Emanationists may be briefly stated thus: The Evolutionist stops all inquiry at the borders of “the Unknowable;” the Emanationist believes that nothing can be evolved — or, as the word means, unwombed or born — except it has first been involved, thus indicating that life is from a spiritual potency above the whole.
(OG) Evolution — As the word is used in theosophy it means the “unwrapping,” “unfolding,” “rolling out” of latent powers and faculties native to and inherent in the entity itself, its own essential characteristics, or more generally speaking, the powers and faculties of its own character: the Sanskrit word for this last conception is svabhava. Evolution, therefore, does not mean merely that brick is added to brick, or experience merely topped by another experience, or that variation is superadded on other variations — not at all; for this would make of man and of other entities mere aggregates of incoherent and unwelded parts, without an essential unity or indeed any unifying principle.
(IN) theosophy evolution means that man has in him (as indeed have all other evolving entities) everything that the cosmos has because he is an inseparable part of it. He is its child; one cannot separate man from the universe. Everything that is in the universe is in him, latent or active, and evolution is the bringing forth of what is within; and, furthermore, what we call the surrounding milieu, circumstances — nature, to use the popular word — is merely the field of action on and in which these inherent qualities function, upon which they act and from which they receive the corresponding reaction, which action and reaction invariably become a stimulus or spur to further manifestations of energy on the part of the evolving entity.
There are no limits in any direction where evolution can be said to begin, or where we can conceive of it as ending; for evolution in the theosophical conception is but the process followed by the centers of consciousness or monads as they pass from eternity to eternity, so to say, in a beginningless and endless course of unceasing growth.
Growth is the key to the real meaning of the theosophical teaching of evolution, for growth is but the expression in detail of the general process of the unfolding of faculty and organ, which the usual word evolution includes. The only difference between evolution and growth is that the former is a general term, and the latter is a specific and particular phase of this procedure of nature.
Evolution is one of the oldest concepts and teachings of the archaic wisdom, although in ancient days the concept was usually expressed by the word emanation. There is indeed a distinction, and an important one, to be drawn between these two words, but it is a distinction arising rather in viewpoint than in any actual fundamental difference. Emanation is a distinctly more accurate and descriptive word for theosophists to use than evolution is, but unfortunately emanation is so ill-understood in the Occident, that perforce the accepted term is used to describe the process of interior growth expanding into and manifesting itself in the varying phases of the developing entity. Theosophists, therefore, are, strictly speaking, rather emanationists than evolutionists ; and from this remark it becomes immediately obvious that the theosophist is not a Darwinist, although admitting that in certain secondary or tertiary senses and details there is a modicum of truth in Charles Darwin’s theory adopted and adapted from the Frenchman Lamarck. The key to the meaning of evolution, therefore, in theosophy is the following: the core of every organic entity is a divine monad or spirit, expressing its faculties and powers through the ages in various vehicles which change by improving as the ages pass. These vehicles are not physical bodies alone, but also the interior sheaths of consciousness which together form man’s entire constitution extending from the divine monad through the intermediate ranges of consciousness to the physical body. The evolving entity can become or show itself to be only what it already essentially is in itself — therefore evolution is a bringing out or unfolding of what already preexists, active or latent, within. ( See also Involution)
(TG) Exoteric. Outward, public; the opposite of esoteric or hidden.
(KT) Exoteric {Greek} Outward, public; the opposite of esoteric or hidden.
(WG) Exoteric, public, unconcealed. The opposite of esoteric , which see.
(OG) Exoteric — This word, when applied particularly to the great philosophical and religious systems of belief, does not mean false. The word merely means teachings of which the keys have not been openly given. The word seems to have originated in the Peripatetic School of Greece, and to have been born in the mind of Aristotle. Its contrast is “esoteric.”
(OG) Exotericism — that is to say, the outward and popular formulation of religious and philosophic doctrines — reveils the truth; the self-assurance of ignorance, alas, always reviles the truth; whereas esotericism reveals the truth.
(TG) Extra-Cosmic. Outside of Kosmos or Nature; a nonsensical word invented to assert the existence of a personal God, independent of, or outside, Nature per se, in opposition to the Pantheistic idea that the whole Kosmos is animated or informed with the Spirit of Deity, Nature being but the garment, and matter the illusive shadow, of the real unseen Presence.
(KT) Extra-Cosmic, i.e., outside of Kosmos or Nature. A nonsensical word invented to assert the existence of a personal god independent of or outside Nature per se; for as Nature, or the Universe, is infinite and limitless there can be nothing outside it. The term is coined in opposition to the Pantheistic idea that the whole Kosmos is animated or informed with the Spirit of Deity, Nature being but the garment, and matter the illusive shadows, of the real unseen Presence.
(VS) Doctrine of the Eye (II 9) [[p. 27]] See No. 1. The exoteric Buddhism of the masses.
(TG) Eye of Horus. A very sacred symbol in ancient Egypt. It was called the outa : the right eye represented the sun, the left, the moon. Says Macrobius: “The outa (or uta ) is it not the emblem of the sun, king of the world, who from his elevated throne sees all the Universe below him?”
(TG) Eyes (divine). The “eyes” the Lord Buddha developed in him at the twentieth hour of his vigil when sitting under the Bo-tree, when he was attaining Buddhaship. They are the eyes of the glorified Spirit, to which matter is no longer a physical impediment, and which have the power of seeing all things within the space of the limitless Universe. On the following morning of that night, at the close of the third watch, the “Merciful One” attained the Supreme Knowledge.
(TG) Ezra {Hebr}. The Jewish priest and scribe, who, circa 450 B.C., compiled the Pentateuch (if indeed he was not the author of it) and the rest of the Old Testament, except Nehemiah and Malachi. [w.w.w.]
(TG) Ezra {Hebr}. The same as Azareel and Azriel, a great Hebrew Kabbalist. His full name is Rabbi Azariel ben Manahem. He flourished at Valladolid, Spain, in the twelfth century, and was famous as a philosopher and Kabbalist. He is the author of a work on the Ten Sephiroth.
(TG) F. — The sixth letter of the English alphabet, for which there is no equivalent in Hebrew. It is the double [[F and upside down backwards F]] of the Aeolians which became the Digamma for some mysterious reasons. It corresponds to the Greek phi . As a Latin numeral it denotes 40, with a dash over the letter ([[F with a horizontal line over it]]) 400,000.
(TG) Faces (Kabbalistic), or, as in Hebrew, Partzupheem . The word usually refers to Areekh Anpeen or Long Face, and Zeir-Anpeen, or Short Face, and Resha Hivrah the White Head or Face. The Kabbala states that from the moment of their appearance (the hour of differentiation of matter) all the material for future forms was contained in the three Heads which are one, and called Atteekah Kadosha (Holy Ancients and the Faces). It is when the Faces look toward each other, that the Holy Ancients in three Heads, or Atteekah Kadosha, are called Areek Appayem This refers to the three Higher Principles, cosmic and human.
(IN) Facies totius Universi . . . (Spinoza) The face of the whole universe, though it varies in infinite modes, yet remains always the same.
(TG) Fafnir {Nors}. The Dragon of Wisdom.
(TG) Fahian {Chin} . A Chinese traveller and writer in the early centuries of Christianity, who wrote on Buddhism.
(TG) Fa-Hwa-King {Chin} Chinese work on Cosmogony.
(TG) Faizi {arabic}. Literally the heart. A writer on occult and mystic subjects.
(TG) Fakir {arabic}. A Mussulman ascetic in India, a Mahometan Yogi. The name is often applied, though erroneously, to Hindu ascetics; for strictly speaking only Mussulman ascetics are entitled to it. This loose way of calling things by general names was adopted in Isis Unveiled but is now altered.
(IU) Fakirs. — Religious devotees in East India. They are generally attached to Brahmanical pagodas and follow the laws of Manu. A strictly religious fakir will go absolutely naked, with the exception of a small piece of linen called dhoti , around his loins. They wear their hair long, and it serves them as a pocket, as they stick in it various objects — such as a pipe, a small flute called vagudah, the sounds of which throw the serpents into a cataleptic torpor, and sometimes their bamboo-stick (about one foot long) with the seven mystical knots on it. This magical stick, or rather rod , the fakir receives from his guru on the day of his initiation, together with the three mantrams, which are communicated to him mouth to ear. No fakir will be seen without this powerful adjunct of his calling. It is, as they all claim, the divining rod, the cause of every occult phenomenon produced by them. [Philostratus assures us that the Brahmans were able, in his time, to perform the most wonderful cures by merely pronouncing certain magical words. The Indian Brahmans carry a staff and a ring, by means of which they are able to do almost anything. Origen states the same (Contra Celsum). But if a strong mesmeric fluid — say projected from the eye, and without any other contact-is not added, no magical words would be efficacious.] The Brahmanical fakir is entirely distinct from the Mussulman mendicant of India, also called fakirs in some parts of the British territory.
(FY) Fakir, a Mohamedan recluse or Yogi.
(WG) Fakir, a Mohammedan ascetic wonder-worker; the equivalent among the Mohammedans of the Hindu yogi.
(TG) Falk, Cain Chenul . A Kabbalistic Jew, reputed to have worked miracles. Kenneth Mackenzie quotes in regard to him from the German annalist Archenoiz’ work on England (1788): — There exists in London an extraordinary man who for thirty years has been celebrated in Kabbalistic records. He is named Cain Chenul Falk. A certain Count de Rautzow, lately dead in the service of France, with the rank of Field-Marshal, certifies that he has seen this Falk in Brunswick, and that evocations of spirits took place in the presence of credible witnesses. These spirits were Elementals, whom Falk brought into view by the conjurations used by every Kabbalist. His son, Johann Friedrich Falk, likewise a Jew, was also a Kabbalist of repute, and was once the head of a Kabbalistic college in London. His occupation was that of a jeweller and appraiser of diamonds, and he was a wealthy man. To this day the mystic writings and rare Kabbalistic works bequeathed by him to a trustee may be perused in a certain half-public library in London, by every genuine student of Occultism. Falk’s own writings are all still in MS., and some in cypher.
(FY) Fan, Bar-nang, space, eternal law.
(TG) Farbauti {Nors}. A giant in the Edda ; lit., the oarsman; the father of Loki, whose mother was the giantess Laufey (leafy isle); a genealogy which makes W.S.W. Anson remark in Asgard and the Gods that probably the oarsman or Farbauti was . . . . . the giant who saved himself from the flood in a heat, and the latter (Laufey) the island to which he rowed?” — which is an additional variation of the Deluge.
(TG) Fargard {avesta}. A section or chapter of verses in the Vendidad of the Parsis.
(TG) Farvarshi {avesta-mazdean} same as Ferouer, or the opposite (as contrasted) double. The spiritual counterpart of the still more spiritual original. Thus, Ahriman is the Ferouer or the Farvarshi of Ormuzd — demon est deus inversus — Satan of God. Michael the Archangel, he like god, is a Ferouer of that god. A Farvarshi is the shadowy or dark side of a Deity — or its darker lining.
(MO) Fenja {Nors} (fen-yah) [ fen water] One of the giantesses who turn the magic mill Grotte
(MO) Fenris, Fenrer {Nors} Loki’s son, werewolf which will devour the sun
(TG) Ferho {Gnos} . The highest and greatest creative power with the Nazarene Gnostics . (Codex Nazaraeus
(KT) Ferho {Gnos} . The highest and greatest creative power with the Nazarene Gnostics (Codex Nazaraeus).
(TG) Fetahil {Greek}. The lower creator, in the same Codex .
(MO) Fimbultyr {Nors} (fim-bul-teer) [ fimbul mighty, great + tyr god] The highest divinity, the god of secret wisdom
(TG) Fire (Living). A figure of speech to denote deity, the One life. A theurgic term, used later by the Rosicrucians. The symbol of the living fire is the sun, certain of whose rays develope the fire of life in a diseased body, impart the knowledge of the future to the sluggish mind, and stimulate to active function a certain psychic and generally dormant faculty in man. The meaning is very occult.
(TG) Fire-Philosophers . The name given to the Hermetists and Alchemists of the Middle Ages, and also to the Rosicrucians. The latter, the successors of the Theurgists, regarded fire as the symbol of Deity. It was the source, not only of material atoms, but the container of the spiritual and psychic Forces energizing them. Broadly analyzed, fire is a triple principle; esoterically, a septenary, as are all the rest of the Elements. As man is composed of Spirit, Soul and Body, plus a fourfold aspect: so is Fire. As in the works of Robert Fludd (de Fluctibus) one of the famous Rosicrucians, Fire contains (1) a visible flame (Body); (2) an invisible, astral fire (Soul); and (3) Spirit. The four aspects are heat (life), light (mind), electricity (Kamic, or molecular powers) and the Synthetic Essence, beyond Spirit, or the radical cause of its existence and manifestation. For the Hermetist or Rosicrucian, when a flame is extinct on the objective plane it has only passed from the seen world unto the unseen, from the knowable into the unknowable.
(KT) Fire-Philosophers. The name given to the Hermetists and Alchemists of the Middle Ages, and also to the Rosicrucians. The latter, the successors of Theurgists, regarded fire as the symbol of Deity. It was the source, not only of material atoms, but the container of the Spiritual and Psychic Forces energising them. Broadly analysed, Fire is a triple principle; esoterically, a septenary, as are all the rest of the elements. As man is composed of Spirit, Soul, and Body, plus a four-fold aspect; so is Fire. As in the works of Robert Flood (de Fluctibus), one of the famous Rosicrucians, fire contains — Firstly, a visible flame (body); secondly, an invisible, astral fire (soul); and thirdly, spirit. The four aspects are ( a ) heat (life), ( b ) light (mind), ( c ) electricity (Kamic or molecular powers, and ( d ) the synthetic essences, beyond spirit, or the radical cause of its existence and manifestation. For the Hermetist or Rosicrucian, when a flame is extinct on the objective plane, it has only passed from the seen world into the unseen; from the knowable into the unknowable.
(TG) Fifty Gates of Wisdom {Hebr}. The number is a blind, and there are really 49 gates, for Moses, than whom the Jewish world has no higher adept, reached, according to the Kabbalas, and passed only the the 49th. These gates typify the different planes of Being or Ens . ‘They are thus the gates of Life and the gates of understanding or degrees of occult knowledge. These 49 (or 50) gates correspond to the seven gates in the seven caves of Initiation into the Mysteries of Mithra (see Celsus and Kircher). The division of the 50 gates into five chief gates, each including ten — is again a blind. It is in the fourth gate of these five, from which begins, ending at the tenth, the world of Planets, thus making seven, corresponding to the seven lower Sephiroth — that the key to their meaning lies hidden. They are also called the gates of Binah or understanding.
(TG) First Point . Metaphysically the first point of manifestation, the germ of primeval differentiation, or the point in the infinite Circle whose centre is everywhere, and circumference nowhere. The Point is the LOGOS.
(MO) Fjolsvinn {Nors} (fyeul-svinn) [ fjol very + svinn wise] Odin as instructor and initiator given by Paracelsus to a particular kind of guardian angels or genii.
(WG) Flagae {Latin} , a name given by Paracelsus to one of the higher groups of Dhyan Chohans.
(TG) Flame (Holy). The Holy Flame is the name given by the Eastern Asiatic Kabbalists (Semites) to the Anima Mundi, the world soul. The Initiates were called the Sons of the Holy Flame.
(TG) Fludd (Robert), generally known as Robertus de Fluctibus, the chief of the Philosophers by Fire. A celebrated English Hermetist of the sixteenth century, and a voluminous writer. He wrote on the essence of gold and other mystic and occult subjects.
(TG) Fluvii Transitus {Latin}. Or crossing of the River (Chebar). Cornelius Agrippa gives this alphabet. In the Ars Quatuor Coronatorum, Vol. III., part 2, 1890, which work is the Report of the proceedings of the Quatuor Coronati Lodge of Freemasons, No. 2076, will be found copies of this alphabet, and also the curious old letters called Melachim, and the Celestial alphabet, supplied by W. Wynn Westcott, P.M. This Lodge seems to be the only one in England which really does study the hidden mysteries of Nature and Science in earnest.
(MO) Flyting [Eng. dial.] Dispute in verse, personal abuse
(TG) Fohat {Tibe}. A term used to represent the active (male) potency of the Sakti (female reproductive power) in nature. The essence of cosmic electricity. An occult Tibetan term for Daiviprakriti, primordial light: and in the universe of manifestation the ever-present electrical energy and ceaseless destructive and formative power. Esoterically, it is the same, Fohat being the universal propelling Vital Force, at once the propeller and the resultant.
(FY) Fohat, Tibetan for Sakti; cosmic force or energising power of the universe.
(WG) Fohat (Thibetan), force; force in its highest aspect, — that which gives differentiation and life to cosmic matter.
(OG) Fohat — An extremely mystical term used in the occultism of Tibet for what in Sanskrit is called daiviprakriti, which means divine nature or primordial nature, and which also can be called primordial light. In one sense of the word fohat may be considered as almost identical with the old mystical Greek eros, but fohat as a technical term contains within itself a far wider range of ideas than does the Greek term.
Fohat may be considered as the essence of kosmic electricity, provided, however, that in this definition we endow the term electricity with the attribute of consciousness; or, to put it more accurately, provided that we understand that the essence of electricity is indeed consciousness. It is ever-present and active from the primordial beginnings of a manvantara to its last end, nor does it then actually pass out of existence, but becomes quiescent or latent as it were, sleeping or dormant during the kosmic pralaya. In one sense of the word it may be called kosmic will, for the analogy with the conscious will in human beings is exceedingly close. It is the incessantly active, ever-moving, impelling or urging force in nature, from the beginning of the evolution of a universe or of a solar system to its end.
H. P. Blavatsky, quoting one of the ancient mystically occult works, says in substance: Fohat is the steed and thought is the rider. If, however, we liken fohat to what the conscious will is in the human being, we must then think only of the lower or substantial parts — the pranic activities — of the human will, for behind the substantial parts stands always the directing and guiding consciousness. Fohat being incessantly active is therefore both formative and destructive, because it is through the ceaseless working of fohat that unending change continues — the passing of one phase of manifested existence to another phase, whether this manifested existence be a solar system or a planetary chain or a globe or human being or, indeed, any entity.
Fohat is as active among the electrons of an atom and among the atoms themselves as it is among the suns. In one sense it may be called the vital force of the universe, corresponding from this viewpoint to the pranic activity on all the seven planes of the human constitution.
(SKv) Fohat ‘Cosmic Life or Vitality’; a mystical Tibetan term which is often used interchangeably with Daiviprakriti in some of its varying energies and functions. H. P. Blavatsky calls it the essence of cosmic electricity. Fohat has also been called Buddha-life because Fohat as the Cosmic Prana or life-principle, builds the Universe when inspired by the Cosmic Buddhi, or divine intelligence. Occult works say: Fohat is the steed and thought is the rider.
(MO) Fohat {Tibe} Electromagnetic radiation
(IN) Fohat (Turanian compound, fr Mongolian pho, fo, buddha, buddhi) The cause or essence of cosmic vitality or electricity, divine ideative energy of the universe.
(TG) Foh-tchou {Chin}. Lit. , Buddha’s Lord, meaning, however, simply the teacher of the doctrines of Buddha. Foh means a Guru who lives generally in a temple of Sakyamuni Buddha — the Foh-Maeyu.
(IN) Fons et origo {Latin} Source and origin.
(TG) Fons Vitae {Latin}. A work of Ibn Gebirol,the Arabian Jewish philosopher of the 11th century, who called it Me-gor Hayyun or the Fountain of Life” ( De Materia Universali and Fons Vitae ). The Western Kabbalists have proclaimed it a really Kabbalistic work. Several MSS., Latin and Hebrew, of this wonderful production have been discovered by scholars in public libraries; among others one by Munk, in 1802. The Latin name of Ibn Gebirol was Avicebron, a name well-known to all Oriental scholars.
(MO) Forsete {Nors} (for-set-eh) An Ase: justice, karma
(TG) Four Animals . The symbolical animals of the vision of Ezekiel (the Mercabah ). With the first Christians the celebration of the Mysteries of the Faith was accompanied by the burning of seven lights, with incense, the Trishagion, and the reading of the book of the gospels, upon which was wrought, both on covers and pages, the winged man, lion, bull, and eagle ( Qabbalah, by Isaac Myer, To this day these animals are represented along with the four Evangelists and prefixing their respective gospels in the editions of the Greek Church. Each represents one of the four lower classes of worlds or planes, into the similitude of which each personality is cast. Thus the Eagle (associated with St. John) represents cosmic Spirit or Ether, the all-piercing Eye of the Seer; the Bull of St. Luke, the waters of Life, the all-generating element and cosmic strength; the Lion of St. Mark, fierce energy, undaunted courage and cosmic fire; while the human Head or the Angel, which stands near St. Matthew is the synthesis of all three combined in the higher Intellect of man, and in cosmic Spirituality. All these symbols are Egyptian, Chaldean, and Indian. The Eagle, Bull and Lion-headed gods are plentiful, and all represented the same idea, whether in the Egyptian, Chaldean, Indian or Jewish religions, but beginning with the Astral body they went no higher than the cosmic Spirit or the Higher Manas — Atma-Buddhi, or Absolute Spirit and Spiritual Soul its vehicle, being incapable of being symbolised by concrete images.
(TG) Fravasham {avesta}. Absolute spirit.
(FY) Fravashem, absolute spirit.
(MO) Freke {Nors} (fray-keh) [gluttony] One of Odin’s wolfhounds
(MO) Frey {Nors} (fray) An Ase: planetary spirit of earth; valor
(TG) Freya or Frigga {Nors}. In the Edda, Frigga is the mother of the gods like Aditi in the Vedas . She is identical with the Northern Frea of the Germans, and in her lowest aspect was worshipped as the all-nourishing Mother Earth. She was seated on her golden throne, formed of webs of golden light, with three divine virgins as her handmaidens and messengers, and was occupied with spinning golden threads with which to reward good men. She is Isis and Diana at the same time, for she is also Holda, the mighty huntress, and she is Ceres-Demeter, who protects agriculture — the moon and nature.
(MO) Freya {Nors} (fray-a) An Asynja: planetary spirit of Venus, protectress of humanity
(MO) Frigga {Nors} [AS frigu love] An Asynja: Odin’s consort
(MO) Frode {Nors} (froo-deh) [ frodr wise] A legendary king
(MO) Frodefrid {Nors} (froo-deh-freed) [ frodr wise + frid peace] Age of peace and wisdom: the golden age
(TG) Frost Giants or Hrimthurses {Nors}. They are the great builders, the Cyclopes and Titans of the Norsemen, and play a prominent part in the Edda. It is they who build the strong wall round Asgard (the Scandinavian Olympus) to protect it from the Jotuns, the wicked giants.
(MO) Frost Giant {Nors} Age of non-life between active lives of a cosmos
(TG) Fylfot {Nors}. A weapon of Thor, like the Swastika, or the Jaina, the four-footed cross; generally called Thor’s Hammer.
(TG) G. — The seventh letter in the English alphabet. “In Greek, Chaldean, Syriac, Hebrew, Assyrian, Samaritan, Etrurian, Coptic, in the modern Romaic and Gothic, it occupies the third place in the alphabet, while in Cyrillic, Glagolitic, Croat, Russian, Serbian and Wallachian, it stands fourth.” As the name of “god” begins with this letter (in Syriac, gad; Swedish, gud; German, gott; English, god; Persian, gada there is an occult reason for this which only the students of esoteric philosophy and of the Secret Doctrine, explained esoterically, will understand thoroughly; it refers to the three logoi — the last, the Elohim, and the emanation of the latter, the androgynous Adam Kadmon. All these peoples have derived the name of “god” from their respective traditions, the more or less clear echoes of the esoteric tradition. Spoken and “Silent Speech” (writing) are a “gift of the gods”, say all the national traditions, from the old Aryan Sanskrit-speaking people who claim that their alphabet, the Devanagari ( lit., the language of the devas or gods) was given to them from heaven, down to the Jews, who speak of an alphabet, the parent of the one which has survived, as having been a celestial and mystical symbolism given by the angels to the patriarchs. Hence, every letter had its manifold meaning. A symbol itself of a celestial being and objects, it was in its turn represented on earth by like corresponding objects whose form symbolised the shape of the letter. The present letter, called in Hebrew gimel and symbolised by a long camel’s neck, or rather a serpent erect, is associated with the third sacred divine name, Ghadol or Magnus (great). Its numeral is four, the Tetragrammaton and the sacred Tetraktys; hence its sacredness. With other people it stood for 400 and with a dash over it, for 400,000.
(TG) Gabriel. According to the Gnostics, the “Spirit” or Christos, the “messenger of life”, and Gabriel are one. The former “is called sometimes the Angel Gabriel — in Hebrew ‘the mighty one of God’, “and took with the Gnostics the place of the Logos, while the Holy Spirit was considered one with the Aeon Life (see Irenaeus Therefore we find Theodoret saying (in Haeret. Fab ., “The heretics agree with us (Christians) respecting the beginning of all things. . . . but they say there is not one Christ (God), but one above and the other below . And this last formerly dwelt in many ; but the Jesus, they at one time say is from God, at another they call him a Spirit.” The key to this is given in the esoteric philosophy. The “spirit” with the Gnostics was a female potency esoterically, it was the ray proceeding front the Higher Manas, the Ego, and that which the Esotericists refer to as the Kama-Manas or the lower personal Ego, which is radiated in every human entity by the Higher Ego or Christos, the god within us. Therefore, they were right in saying: “there is but one Christ, but one above and the other below”. Every student of Occultism will understand this, and also that Gabriel — or “the mighty one of God” — is one with the Higher Ego (See Isis Unveiled
(TG) Gaea {Greek}. Primordial Matter in the Cosmogony of Hesiod; Earth, as some think; the wife of Ouranos, the sky or heavens. The female personage of the primeval Trinity, composed of Ouranos, Gaea and Eros.
(TG) Gaffarillus. An Alchemist and philosopher who lived in the middle of the seventeenth century. He is the first philosopher known to maintain that every natural object ( e.g ., plants, living creatures, etc, when burned, retained its form in its ashes and that it could be raised again from them. This claim was justified by the eminent chemist Du Chesne, and after him Kircher, Digby and Vallemont have assured themselves of the fact, by demonstrating that the astral forms of burned plants could be raised from their ashes. A receipt for raising such astral phantoms of flowers is given in a work of Oetinger, Thoughts on the Birth and Generation of Things .
(TG) Gaganeswara {Sans}. “Lord of the Sky”, a name of Garuda.
(MO) Gagnrad {Nors} (gang-n-rawd) [ gagn gainful + rad counsel] Odin in Vaftrudnismal
(TG) Gai-hinnom {Hebr}. The name of Hell in the Talmud.
(MO) Galder {Nors} (gahl-der) Incantation
(TG) Gambatrin {Nors}. The name of Hermodur’s “magic staff” in the Edda .
(TG) Ganadevas {Sans} . A certain class of celestial Beings who are said to inhabit Maharloka . They are the rulers of our Kalpa (Cycle) and therefore termed Kalpadhikarins, or Lord of the Kalpas. They last only “One Day” of Brahma.
(TG) Gandapada {Sans} . A celebrated Brahman teacher, the author of the Commentaries on the Sankhya Karika, Mandukya Upanishad, and other works.
(WG) Gandha, odor, smell; fragrant substance; fragrance; perfume.
(TG) Gandhara {Sans} . A musical note of great occult power in the Hindu gamut — the third of the diatonic scale.
(TG) Gandharva {Sans} . The celestial choristers and musicians of India. In the Vedas these deities reveal the secrets of heaven and earth and esoteric science to mortals. They had charge of the sacred Soma plant and its juice, the ambrosia drunk in the temple which gives “omniscience”.
(WG) Gandharvas, heavenly singers belonging to Indra’s court, a class of elemental spirits.
(GH) Gandharvas The musicians and singers of the gods, represented as dwelling in the sky and preparing the heavenly soma-juice for the gods, as they are especially skilled in medicine. In the Vedas they are described as revealing the secrets of heaven and divine truths to men. The Atharva-Veda mentions that there are 6,333 Gandharvas . “Cosmically — the Gandharvas are the aggregate powers of the solar-fire, and constitute its Forces; psychically — the intelligence residing in the Sushumna, Solar ray, the highest of the seven rays; mystically — the occult force in the Soma (the moon, or lunar plant) and the drink made of it; physically — the phenomenal, and spiritually — the noumenal causes of Sound and the ‘Voice of Nature.’ Hence, they are called the 6,333 ‘heavenly Singers’ and musicians of Indra’s loka who personify (even in number) the various and manifold sounds in Nature, both above and below.” ( Secret Doctrine, I, p. 523) ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 74)
(WG) Gandiva, the bow of Arjuna, which was made from the plant gandi . It was presented by Soma to Varuna, by him to Agni, and by Agni to Arjuna.
(GH) Gandiva (or Gandiva ) A remarkable bow which Arjuna received from the fire-god Agni in order that he might assist the deity in a battle with the god of the sky, Indra. At this time Arjuna also assisted Agni in the burning of the Khandava forest-an episode in the Mahabharata. The bow was originally given by Soma to the god Varuna, who in turn passed it on to Agni. It is likewise said to have belonged to Prajapati Brahma, and Siva. ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 6)
(TG) Gan-Eden {Hebr} . Also Ganduniyas. (See”Eden”
(TG) Ganesa {Sans} . The elephant-headed God of Wisdom, the son of Siva. He is the same as the Egyptian Thoth-Hermes. and Anubis or Hermanubis . The legend shows him as having lost his human head, which was replaced by that of an elephant.
(WG) Ganesa, the god of wisdom, who is said to cause obstacles and remove them. He is the son of Siva and Parvati, and is represented as a short fat man with an elephant’s head, having but one tusk; usually he is riding a rat, or is attended by one. He is said to have written down the Mahabharata, as dictated by Vyasa. He is the allegorical representation of magical learning. ( gana , body of attendants, Siva’s troop; isa, commander: leader of the attendants of Siva
(TG) Ganga {Sans} . The Ganges, the principal sacred river in India. There are two versions of its myth: one relates that Ganga (the goddess) having transformed herself into a river, Rolls from the big toe of Vishnu: the other, that the Ganga drops from the ear of Siva into the Anavatapta lake, thence passes out, through the mouth of the silver cow (gomukhi), crosses all Eastern India and falls into the Southern Ocean. “An heretical superstition”, remarks Mr. Eitel in his Sanskrit, Chinese Dictionary “ascribes to the waters of the Ganges ” sin-cleansing power “. No more a “superstition” one would say, than the belief that the waters of Baptism and the Jordan have “sin-cleansing power”.
(GH) Ganges (Ganga) The sacred river of India, represented in the Puranas as taking its rise in the heavens from the toe of Vishnu, and brought down to earth through the prayers of the sage Bhagiratha, in order to purify the ashes of the sixty thousand sons of king Sagara. (These sons had been destroyed by the angry glance of the sage Kapila Ganga intended to flood the earth (because of being obliged to descend from her heavenly abode), but the force of the fall was intercepted by the god Siva, who caught the river in his matted locks, and allowed it to descend from his brow in seven gentle streams upon the earth. Ganga is personified as a goddess, the daughter of Mena and Himavat (the personification of the Himalaya mountains). The goddess became the wife of king Santanu and gave birth to Bhishma. ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 75)
(TG) Gangadwara {Sans} . “The gate or door of the Ganges”, literally; the name of a town now called Hardwar, at the foot of the Himalayas.
(TG) Gangi {Sans} . A renowned Sorcerer in the time of Kasyapa Buddha (a predecessor of Gautama). Gangi was regarded as an incarnation of Apalala, the Naga (Serpent), the guardian Spirit of the Sources of Suhhavastu, a river in Udyana. Apalala is said to have been converted by Gautama Buddha, to the good Law, and become an Arhat. The allegory of the name is comprehensible: all the Adepts and initiates were called nagas, “Serpents of Wisdom”.
(MO) Ganglare {Nors} (gong-lay-re) [ gang wandering + lare learner] King Gylfe seeking wisdom
(TG) Ganinnanse. A Singhalese priest who has not yet been ordained — from gana, an assemblage or brotherhood. The higher ordained priests “are called terunnanse from the Pali thero, an elder”. (Hardy)
(WG) Garima, a siddhi, or power in magic, giving control over gravitation, so that one can become light or heavy at will.
(MO) Garin {Nors} The hound that guards the gate of Hel, queen of death
(TG) Garm {Nors}. The Cerberus of the Edda . This monstrous dog lived in the Gnypa cavern in front of the dwelling of Hel, the goddess of the nether-world.
(TG) Garuda {Sans} . A gigantic bird in the Ramayana, the steed of Vishnu. Esoterically — the symbol of the great Cycle.
(WG) Garuda, a mythical bird pictured as attendant upon Vishnu, as the eagle is the bird of Jove. It is a symbol of the great cycle of cosmic activity.
(GH) Garuda The bearer of Vishnu (hence often called Vishnu-ratha): represented as having the body and limbs of a man but the head, wings, talons, and beak of an eagle; the face being white, the wings red, and the body golden. Garuda is regarded as the king of the birds and the great enemy of serpents: his parents were the Vedic sage Kasyapa and Vinata — one of the daughters of Daksha (one of the Prajapatis). The myths also relate that Garuda once took the Amrita from the gods in order to purchase the freedom of his mother from Kadru. Indra pursued Garuda and recovered the Amrita — although the god of the sky was worsted in the battle for it. Garuda is “the symbol esoterically of the great cycle,” ( Secret Doctrine, II, p. 323), while his son, Jatayu “is, of course, the cycle of 60,000 years within the great cycle of GARUDA; hence he is represented as his son, or nephew,” ( Secret Doctrine, II, p. 570). ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 75)
(TG) Gatha {Sans}. Metrical chants or hymns, consisting of moral aphorisms. A gatha of thirty-two words is called Aryagiti.
(WG) Gatha, a sacred verse, to be chanted or sung; a religious verse, but not belonging to the Vedas.
(TG) Gati {Sans} . The six (esoterically seven ) conditions of sentient existence. These are divided into two groups: the three higher and the three lower paths . To the former belong the devas, the asuras and ( immortal ) men; to the latter (in esoteric teachings) creatures in hell, pretas or hungry demons, and animals. Explained esoterically, however, the last three are the personalities in Kamaloka, elementals and animals. The seventh mode of existence is that of the Nirmanakaya .
(TG) Gatra {Sans} . Lit., the limbs (of Brahma) from which the “mind-born” sons, the seven Kumaras, were born.
(FY) Gaudapada, a celebrated Brahmanical teacher, the author of commentaries on the Sankhya Karika, Mundukya Upanishad,
(TG) Gautama {Sans} . The Prince of Kapilavastu, son of Sudhodana, the Sakya king of a small realm on the borders of Nepaul, born in the seventh century B.C., now called the “Saviour of the World”. Gautama or Gotama was the sacerdotal name of the Sakya family, and Sidhartha was Buddha’s name before he became a Buddha. Sakyamuni, means the Saint of the Sakya family, born a simple mortal he rose to Buddhaship through his own personal and unaided merit. A man — verily greater than any god!
(KT) Gautama {Sans} A name in India. It is that of the Prince of Kapilavastu, son of Sudhodana, the Sakhya King of a small territory on the borders of Nepaul, born in the seventh century B.C., now called the “Saviour of the world.” Gautama or Gotama was the sacerdotal name of the Sakya family. Born a simple mortal, he rose to Buddha-ship through his own personal and unaided merit; a man — verily greater than any God!
(SP) Gautama — the family name of Sakyamuni Buddha, Pali Gotama.
(TG) Gayat {Sans} . Ancient city of Magadha, a little north-west of the modern Gayah. It is at the former that Sakyamuni reached his Buddhaship, under the famous Bodhi-tree, Bodhidruma .
GAYATRI
As rendered by G. de Purucker:
Oh thou golden sun of most excellent splendor, illumine our hearts and fill our minds, so that we, recognizing our oneness with the Divinity which is the heart of the universe, may see the pathway before our feet, and tread it to those distant goals of perfection, stimulated by thine own radiant light.
(TG) Gayatri {Sans} . also Savriti . A most sacred verse, addressed to the Sun, in the Rig-Veda, which the Brahmans have to repeat mentally every morn and eve during their devotions.
(FY) Gayatri, the holiest verse of the Vedas.
(OG) Gayatri or Savitri — {Sans} A verse of the Rig-Veda (iii.62.10) which from immemorial time in India has been surrounded with the attributes of quasi-divinity. The Sanskrit words of this verse are: Tat savitur varenyam bhargo devasya dhimahi, dhiyo yo nah prachodayat . Every orthodox Brahmana is supposed to repeat this archaic hymn, at least mentally, at both his morning and evening religious exercises or devotions. A translation in explanatory paraphrase, giving the essential esoteric meaning of the Gayatri or Savitri, is the following: “Oh thou golden sun of most excellent splendor, illumine our hearts and fill our minds, so that we, recognizing our oneness with the Divinity which is the heart of the universe, may see the pathway before our feet, and tread it to those distant goals of perfection, stimulated by thine own radiant light.”
(GH) Gayatri An ancient meter of 24 syllables (variously arranged, but generally as a triplet of 8 syllables each). The word is also applied specifically to a verse in the Rig-Veda, iii, p. 62, 10: tat savitur varen am bhargo devasya dhimahi dhiyo yo nah prachodayat.
Literal translation: “Let us meditate on that excellent splendor of the divine Sun; may it illumine our hearts (minds).” ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 76)
(SKf) Gayatri, Savitri The Gayatri is a verse or metrical hymn of the Rig-Veda (iii, 62, 10) which has been held very sacred from time immemorial, for it contains the essence of religion, of divine living. The word Gayatri is derived from the verb-root gai — to sing or to praise in song. This Gayatri, which is a verse invoking the Divine Sun at the depths of our being, has also been called the Savitri, because Savitri is the name given to the Divine Solar Entity, or that divine influence and inspiring and vivifying power behind Surya, the visible sun. Savitri is derived from the verb-root su — to vivify, to urge.
The Sanskrit words and literal translation of this verse are: 1 2 3 — 6 1 Tat savitur varenyam — Let us meditate on that most 4 5 6 — 3 4 5 2 bhargo devasya dhimahi — excellent light of the divine Sun, 8 7 9 10 — 7 10 9 8 dhiyo yo nah prachodayat. — that it may illumine our minds. A translation by G. de Purucker in explanatory paraphrase giving the essential esoteric meaning of the above is the following: “O thou golden sun of most excellent splendor, Illumine our hearts and fill our minds, so that we, Recognising our oneness with the Divinity, which is the heart of the Universe, May see the Pathway before our feet, and tread it to those distant goals of perfection, Stimulated by thine own radiant light.”
(SP) Gayatri or Savitri — a verse ( Rgveda III.62.10) recited daily by orthodox Brahmanas at morning and evening: tat savitur varenyam bhargo devasya dhimahi dhiyo yo nah pracodayat
— approximately translated: “Let us meditate on that most excellent light of the divine Sun, that it may illumine our minds.”
(TG) Geber {Hebr} or Gibborim . “Mighty men”; the same as the Kabirim . In heaven, they are regarded as powerful angels, on earth as the giants mentioned in chapter vi. of Genesis .
(TG) Gebirol, Salomon Ben Jehudah . Called in literature Avicebron. An Israelite by birth, a philosopher, poet and Kabbalist, a voluminous writer and a mystic. He was born in the eleventh century at Malaga (1021), educated at Saragrossa, and died at Valencia in 1070, murdered by a Mohammedan. His fellow-religionists called him Salomon the Sephardi, or the Spaniard, and the Arabs, Abu Ayyub Suleiman ben ya’hya Ibn Dgebirol, whilst the scholastics named him Avicebron. (See Myer’s Qabbalah Ibn Gebirol was certainly one of the greatest philosophers and scholars of his age. He wrote much in Arabic and most of his MSS. have been preserved. His greatest work appears to be the Megor Hayyim, i.e ., the Fountain of Life, “one of the earliest exposures of the secrets of the Speculative Kabbalah”, as his biographer informs us.
(KT) Gebirol. Salomon Ben Jehudah, called in literature Avicebron. An Israelite by birth, a philosopher, poet and kabalist; a voluminous writer and a mystic. He was born in the eleventh century at Malaga (1021), educated at Saragossa, and died at Valencia in 1070, murdered by a Mahomedan. His fellow-religionists called him Salomon, the Sephardi, or the Spaniard, and the Arabs, Abu Ayyub Suleiman-ben ya’hya Ibn Dgebirol, whilst the Scholastics named him Avicebron (see Myers’ Qabbalah). Ibn Gebirol was certainly one of the greatest philosophers and scholars of his age. He wrote much in Arabic, and most of his MSS have been preserved. His greatest work appears to be The Megoy Hayyim, i. e ., The Fountain of Life, “one of the earliest exposures of the secrets of the Speculative Kabbalah,” as his biographer informs us.
(TG) Geburah {Hebr} . A Kabbalistic term ; the fifth Sephira, a female and passive potency, meaning severity and power; from it is named the Pill:~r of Severity.
(WG) Geburah {Hebr}, power. The fifth of the ten Sephiroth of the Kabalah. A female potency.
(TG) Gedulah {Hebr} . Another name for the Sephira Chesed .
(WG) Gedulah {Hebr}, same as Chesed .
(TG) Gehenna, in Hebrew Hinnom . No hell at all, but a valley near Jerusalem, where Israelites immolated their children to Moloch. In that valley a place named Tophet was situated, where a fire was perpetually preserved for sanitary purposes. The prophet Jeremiah informs us that his countrymen, the Jews, used to sacrifice their children on that spot.
(TG) Gehs {avesta}. Parsi prayers.
(MO) Geirrod {Nors} (gay-reud) [ geir spear + rod red] An early humanity
(TG) Gelukpa {Tibe}. “Yellow Caps” literally; the highest and most orthodox Buddhist sect in Tibet, the antithesis of the Dugpa (“Red Caps”), the old “devil worshippers”.
(FY) Gelugpas, “Yellow Caps,” the true Magi and their school, so called in Tibet.
(WG) Gelukpa, the same as Gyalugpa. Literally, the “yellow caps”, from their wearing such color. They are a sect in Tibet, the opposite of Dugpas who wear red caps. Gelukpas are white magicians and Dugpas black.
(TG) Gemara {Hebr} . The latter portion of the Jewish Talmud, begun by Rabbi Ashi and completed by Rabbis Mar and Meremar, about 300 A.D. [w.w.w.]
(TG) Lit., to finish. It is a commentary on the Mishna.
(TG) Gematria {Hebr} . A division of the practical Kabbalah. It shows the numerical value of Hebrew words by summing up the values of the letters composing them; and further, it shows by this means, analogies between words and phrases.
One of the methods (arithmetical) for extracting the hidden meaning from letters, words and sentences.
(TG) Gems, Three precious . In Southern Buddhism these are the sacred books, the Buddhas and the priesthood. In Northern Buddhism and its secret schools, the Buddha, his sacred teachings, and the Narjols (Buddhas of Compassion).
(TG) Genesis. The whole of the Book of Genesis down to the death of Joseph, is found to be a hardly altered version of the Cosmogony, of the Chaldeans, as is now repeatedly proven from the Assyrian tiles. The first three chapters are transcribed from the allegorical narratives of the beginnings common to all nations. Chapters four and five are a new allegorical adaptation of the same narration in the secret Book of Numbers: chapter six is an astronomical narrative of the Solar year and the seven cosmocratores from the Egyptian original of the Pymander and the symbolical visions of a series of Enoichioi (Seers) — from whom came also the Book of Enoch. The beginning of Exodus, and the story of Moses is that of the Babylonian Sargon, who having flourished (as even that unwilling authority Dr. Sayce tells us) 3750 B.C. preceded the Jewish lawgiver by almost 2300 years. (See Secret Doctrine, vol. II., pp. 691 et seq Nevertheless, Genesis is an undeniably esoteric work. It has not borrowed, nor has it disfigured the universal symbols and teachings on the lines of which it was written, but simply adapted the eternal truths to its own national spirit and clothed them in cunning allegories comprehensible only to its Kabbalists and Initiates. The Gnostics have done the same, each sect in its own way, as thousands of years before, India, Egypt, Chaldea and Greece, had also stressed the same incommunicable truths each in its own national garb. The key and solution to all such narratives can be found only in the esoteric teachings .
(TG) Genii {Latin}. A name for Aeons, or angels, with the Gnostics. The names of their hierarchies and classes are simply legion.
(TG) Geonic Period . The era of the Geonim may be found mentioned in works treating of the Kabbalah; the ninth century A.D. is implied.
(MO) Gerd {Nors} A giantess: spouse of Frey
(MO) Gere {Nors} [greed] One of Odin’s wolfhounds
(TG) Gharma {Sans} . A title of Karttikeya, the Indian god of war and the Kumara born of Siva’s drop of sweat that fell into the Ganges.
(WG) Ghee, a common word for ghi or ghrita — clarified butter used both for culinary and religious purposes.
(TG) Ghocha {Sans} . Lit., “the miraculous Voice”. The name of a great Arhat, the author of Abhidharmamrita Shastra, who restored sight to a blind man by anointing his eyes with the tears of the audience moved by his (Ghocha’s) supernatural eloquence.
(WG) Ghora, frightful, disagreeable; an epithet of Siva.
(WG) Ghrana, the nose; smell; smelling.
(WG) Ghrita, ghee, butter clarified and hardened.
(MO) Giant, Giantess {Nors} Matter vivified by divinity
(TG) Gilgoolem {Hebr} . The cycle of rebirths with the Hebrew Kabbalists; with the orthodox Kabbalists, the “whirling of the soul” after death, which finds no rest until it reaches Palestine, the “promised land”, and its body is buried there.
(TG) Gimil {Nors}. “The Cave of Gimil” or Wingolf. A kind of Heaven or Paradise, or perhaps a New Jerusalem, built by the “Strong and Mighty God” who remains nameless in the Edda, above the Field of Ida, and after the new earth rose out of the waters.
(MO) Gimle {Nors} (gim-leh) [heavenly abode] A superior shelf of existence
(TG) Ginnungagap {Nors}. The “cup of illusion” literally; the abyss of the great deep,or the shoreless, beginningless, and endless, yawning gulf; which in esoteric parlance we call the “World’s Matrix”, the primordial living space. The cup that contains the universe, hence the “cup of illusion”.
(MO) Ginnungagap {Nors} (yinn-ung-a-gahp) [ ginn the void + unge off spring + gap chasm] The mystery of Nonbeing
(TG) Giol {Nors}. The Styx, the river Giol which had to be crossed before the nether-world was reached, or the cold Kingdom of Hel. It was spanned by a gold-covered bridge, which led to the gigantic iron fence that encircles the palace of the Goddess of the Under-World or Hel.
(MO) Gladsheim {Nors} (glahds-haym) [gladhome] Location of Valhalla
(OG) Globe — Every one of the physical globes that we see scattered over the fields of space is accompanied by six — really eleven — invisible and superior globes, forming what in theosophy is called a chain. This is the case with every sun or star, with every planet, and with every moon of every planet. It is likewise the case with the nebulae and the comets: all are septiform entities in manifestation; all have a sevenfold — indeed twelvefold — constitution, even as man has, who is a copy in the little of what the universe is in the great. The seven manifested globes for purposes of convenience are enumerated as A, B, C, D, E, F, and G; but reference is sometimes made more mystically to the globes from “A to Z,” here hinting at but not specifying all the twelve globes of the chain.
The life-waves circle around these globes in seven great cycles which are called rounds. Each life-wave first enters globe A, runs through its life cycle there, and then passes on to globe B. Finishing its cycle on globe B, it passes on to globe C, and then to globe D, the lowest of the manifested seven. In our own planetary chain, globe D is our earth. Three globes precede it on the downward arc, and three globes follow it on the ascending arc of evolution — referring here to the manifested seven.
The passing through or traversing of any one of these seven globes by the life-wave is a globe round; and during any one globe round on a globe, seven root-races are born, attain their efflorescence, and then pass away. ( See also Round)
(TG) Gna {Nors}. One of the three handmaidens of the goddess Freya. She is a female Mercury who bears her mistress messages into all parts of the world.
(TG) Gnana {Sans} . Knowledge as applied to the esoteric sciences.
(WG) Gnana . (See Jnana
(TG) Gnan Devas {Sans} . Lit., “the gods of knowledge”. The higher classes of gods or devas ; the “mind-born” sons of Brahma, and others including the Manasa-putras (the Sons of Intellect). Esoterically, our reincarnating Egos .
(TG) Gnanasakti {Sans} . The power of true knowledge, one of the seven great forces in nature ( six, exoterically).
(FY) Gnansakti, the power of true knowledge, one of the six forces.
(WG) Gnani . (See Jnanin
(TG) Gnatha {Sans} . The Kosmic Ego ; the conscious, intelligent Soul of Kosmos.
(TG) Gnomes The Rosicrucian name for the mineral and earth elementals.
(TG) Gnosis {Greek}. Lit., “knowledge”. The technical term used by the schools of religious philosophy, both before and during the first centuries of so-called Christianity, to denote the object of their enquiry. This Spiritual and Sacred Knowledge, the Gupta Vidya of the Hindus, could only be obtained by Initiation into Spiritual Mysteries of which the ceremonial “Mysteries” were a type.
(KT) Gnosis ( Gr. ) Lit. “knowledge.” The technical term used by the schools of religious philosophy, both before and during the first centuries of so-called Christianity, to denote the object of their enquiry. This spiritual and sacred knowledge, the Gupta Vidya of the Hindus, could only be obtained by Initiation into Spiritual Mysteries of which the ceremonial “Mysteries” were a type.
(WG) Gnosis, “knowledge”. The term used in the earlier Western mystical systems to denote the final wisdom to be achieved. The same as the Gupta Vidya of the Hindus.
(TG) Gnostics {Greek}. The philosophers who formulated and taught the Gnosis or Knowledge . They flourished in the first three centuries of the Christian era: the following were eminent, Valentinus, Basilides, Marcion, Simon Magus, etc. [w.w.w.]
(KT) Gnostics {Greek} The philosophers who formulated and taught the “Gnosis” or knowledge. They flourished in the first three centuries of the Christian Era. The following were eminent: Valentinus, Basilides, Marcion, Simon Magus, etc.
(WG) Gnostics, philosophers of the first, second, and third century who followed the Gnosis (knowledge) and taught a doctrine almost identical with present-day Theosophy.
(VS) Gnyana [[p. 47]] Knowledge, Wisdom.
(WG) Gnyana . (See Jnyana
(TG) Gnypa {Nors}. The cavern watched by the dog Garm .
(VS) thy inner GOD [[p. 9]] The Higher SELF.
(OG) God — The core of the core of a human being or of any other organic entity whatsoever is a kosmic spirit, a spark so to say of the kosmic flame of life. ( See also Inner God)
(OG) Gods — The old pantheons were builded upon an ancient and esoteric wisdom which taught, under the guise of a public mythology, profound secrets of the structure and operations of the universe which surrounds us. The entire human race has believed in gods, has believed in beings superior to men; the ancients all said that men are the “children” of these gods, and that from these superior beings, existent in the azure spaces, men draw all that in them is; and, furthermore, that men themselves, as children of the gods, are in their inmost essence divine beings linked forever with the boundless universe of which each human being, just as is the case with every other entity everywhere, is an inseparable part. This is a truly sublime conception.
One should not think of human forms when the theosophist speaks of the gods; we mean the arupa — the “formless” — entities, beings of pure intelligence and understanding, relatively pure essences, relatively pure spirits, formless as we physical humans conceive form. The gods are the higher inhabitants of nature. They are intrinsic portions of nature itself, for they are its informing principles. They are as much subject to the wills and energies of still higher beings — call these wills and energies the “laws” of higher beings, if you will — as we are, and as are the kingdoms of nature below us.
The ancients put realities, living beings, in the place of laws which, as Occidentals use the term, are only abstractions — an expression for the action of entities in nature ; the ancients did not cheat themselves so easily with words. They called them gods, spiritual entities. Not one single great thinker of the ancients, until the Christian era, ever talked about laws of nature, as if these laws were living entities, as if these abstractions were actual entities which did things. Did the laws of navigation ever navigate a ship? Does the law of gravity pull the planets together? Does it unite or pull the atoms together? This word laws is simply a mental abstraction signifying unerring action of conscious and semi-conscious energies in nature.
(TG) Gogard {avesta}. The Tree of Life in the Avesta .
(TG) Golden Age. The ancients divided the life cycle into the Golden, Silver, Bronze and Iron Ages. The Golden was an age of primeval purity, simplicity and general happiness.
(KT) Golden Age. The ancients divided the life cycle into the Golden, Silver, Bronze and Iron Ages. The Golden was an age of primeval purity, simplicity and general happiness.
GOLDEN CHAIN
The GOLDEN RULE
Excerpt from James A. Long’s Expanding Horizons :
American Indian Great Spirit, grant that I may not criticize my neighbor until I have walked a mile in his moccasins.
Buddhism In five ways should a clansman minister to his friends and familiars – by generosity, courtesy, benevolence, by treating them as he treats himself, and by being as good as his word.
Christianity All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.
Confucianism “Is there any one word,” asked Tzu Kung, “which could be adopted as a lifelong rule of conduct?” The Master replied: “Is not Sympathy the word? Do not do to others what you would not like yourself.”
Greek Philosophy Do not do to others what you would not wish to suffer yourself. — Isocrates Treat your friends as you would want them to treat you. — Aristotle
Hinduism One should not behave towards others in a way which is disagreeable to oneself. This is the essence of duty (dharma). All else results from selfish desire.
Islam No one of you is a believer until he loves for his brother what he loves for himself.
Judaism Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart:…but thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.
Zoroastrianism That nature only is good when it shall not do unto another whatever is not good for its own self.
(TG) Gonpa {Tibe}. A temple or monastery; a Lamasery .
(TG) Gopis {Sans} . Shepherdesses — the playmates and companions of Krishna, among whom was his wife Raddha.
(TG) Gossain {Sans} . The name of a certain class of ascetics in India.
(SKv) Gotrabhujnana, Jnanadarsanasuddhi Gotra-bhu-jnana means ‘knowledge concerning the races of the earth’ or ‘knowledge of humankind’; a compound of gotra — race, bhu -earth, and jnana — knowledge. Jnana-darsana-suddhi means ‘perfection in visioning Wisdom or Truth’; a compound of jnana — wisdom, darsana, a participial form of verb-root dris — to perceive, and suddhi — purity or perfection. All the ancient Gurus, Acharyas, and Naljor, were versed in Secret Wisdom of this kind.
(WG) Govinda, the finder of cows, the searcher for cows, an epithet of Krishna or manifested Vishnu.
(GH) Govinda A name applied to Krishna. It refers to the time of his youth, for he was reared amongst the cowherds. (Meaning of the word itself: chief of cowherds: go, a cow. Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 11)
(TG) Great Age . There were several “great ages” mentioned by the ancients. In India it embraced the whole Maha-manvantara, the “age of Brahma”, each “Day” of which represents the life cycle of a chain — i.e . it embraces a period of seven Rounds. (See Esoteric Buddhism, by A. P. Sinnett Thus while a “Day” and a “Night” represent, as Manvantara and Pralaya, 8,640,000,000 years, an “age” lasts through a period of 311,040,000,000,000 years; after which the Pralaya, or dissolution of the universe, becomes universal. With the Egyptians and Greeks the “great age” referred only to the tropical or sidereal year, the duration of which is 25,668 solar years. Of the complete age — that of the gods — they say nothing, as it was a matter to be discussed and divulged only in the Mysteries, during the initiating ceremonies. The “great age” of the Chaldees was the same in figures as that of the Hindus.
(KT) Great Age. There were several “Great Ages” mentioned by the ancients. In India it embraced the whole Maha-Manvantara, the “Age of Brahma,” each “Day” of which represents the Life Cycle of a chain, i. e., it embraces a period of Seven Rounds ( vide “Esoteric Buddhism,” by A. P. Sinnett). Thus while a “Day” and a “Night” represent, as Manvantara and Pralaya, 8,640,000,000 years, an “age” lasts through a period of 311,040,000,000,000; after which the Pralaya or dissolution of the universe becomes universal. With the Egyptian and Greeks the “Great Age” referred only to the Tropical, or Sidereal year, the duration of which is 25,868 solar years. Of the complete age — that of the Gods — they said nothing, as it was a matter to be discussed and divulged only at the Mysteries, and during the Initiation Ceremonies. The “Great Age” of the Chaldees was the same in figures as that of the Hindus.
(TG) Grihastha {Sans} Lit., “a householder”, “one who lives in a house with his family”. A Brahman “family priest” in popular rendering, and the sacerdotal hierarchy of the Hindus.
(WG) Grihastha, a priest of the exoteric ritual only; a house holder. ( grihia, house sthia, standing, abiding
(MO) Grimner {Nors} [disguised] Odin as teacher of the younger Agnar
(MO) Groa {Nors} (groo-a) [growth] A sibyl: the evolutionary past leading up to the present
(MO) Grotte {Nors} (grott-eh) [growth] Magic mill of change, creation, destruction: evolution
(PV) Guacamayo Spanish, “macaw.” Six macaws, with the game ball, compose the symbol of the god-Seven (Cabahuil), the disguise or nahual of the Solar deity.
(PV) Guaman Poma de Ayala, Felipe . “Falcon Puma.” An Andean Indian nobleman of the Inca caste, the author of the Nueva Coronica y Buen Gobierno, an illustrated codex or manuscript describing the origins of the Incas, the four ages of mankind, and related matters from indigenous Andean pre-Conquest belief. The manuscript severely indicts Spanish treatment of the native Andean peoples. Prepared sometime between 1567 and 1615, it was directed to King Philip III of Spain, but somehow found its way to the Royal Library in Copenhagen, where it lay untouched for 300 years, until 1908, when European scholars interested in the early New World brought it to light.
(PV) Gucumatz {quiche-maya} “Serpent-bird” or “Feathered Serpent.” One of six hypostases of Cabahuil, it is especially associated with Cabahuil itself and another hypostasis, Tepeu, as the three suns of the line of parallel (rising, at zenith, setting). Corresponds to the sun at setting. Identical with the Quetzalcoatl of Toltec tradition. Stands also for the class of creative gods as a whole.
(MO) Gudasaga {Nors} (goo-dah-sah-ga) [ gud god + saga spell] A divine tale given orally, a god-spell or gospel
(TG) Guardian Wall . A suggestive name given to the host of translated adepts (Narjols) or the Saints collectively, who are supposed to watch over, help and protect Humanity. This is the so-called “Nirmanakaya” doctrine in Northern mystic Buddhism. (See Voice of the Silence
(VS) Guardian Wall (III 28) [[p. 68]] The “Guardian Wall” or the “Wall of Protection.” It is taught that the accumulated efforts of long generations of Yogis, Saints and Adepts, especially of the Nirmanakayas have created, so to say, a wall of protection around mankind, which wall shields mankind invisibly from still worse evils.
(WG) Guardian Wall, the metaphorical wall of protection created around mankind by the accumulated efforts of all the hosts of Saints, Adepts, Narjols, and Nirmanakayas, to save it from falling lower in the scale than it already is, and to shield it from yet more terrible evils than are at present its lot.
(GH) Gudakesa One of the names given to Arjuna. ( Meaning of the word itself: thick-haired. Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 79)
(TG) Guff {Hebr} . Body; physical form; also written Gof.
(WG) Guha, a cave or subterranean resort of a yogi.
(TG) Guhya {Sans} . Concealed, secret.
(TG) Guhya Vidya {Sans} . The secret knowledge of mystic Mantras.
(KT) Guhya Vidya {Sans} The secret knowledge of mystic-mantras.
(SKs) Guhya-Vidya The knowledge of Mantras or mystical incantation, the science of the mystical potency of the sounds or letters of a chant. Guhya-Vidya is a compound of vidya — wisdom, and guhya — hidden, derived from the verb-root guh — to hide, to protect.
(FY) Gujarathi, the vernacular dialect of Gujrat, a province of Western India.
(TG) Gullweig {Nors}. The personification of the “golden” ore. It is said in the Edda that during the Golden Age, when lust for gold and wealth was yet unknown to man, “when the gods played with golden disks, and no passion disturbed the rapture of mere existence”, the whole earth was happy. But, no sooner does “Gullweig (Gold ore) the bewitching enchantress come, who, thrice cast into the fire, arises each time more beautiful than before, and fills the souls of gods and men with unappeasable longing”, than all became changed. It is then that the Norns, the Past, Present and Future, entered into being, the blessed peace of childhood’s dreams passed away and Sin came into existence with all its evil consequences. (Asgard and the Gods
(MO) Gullveig {Nors} (gull-vayg) [ guld gold + veig drink or thirst] The soul’s yearning for wisdom
(TG) Gunas {Sans} . Qualities, attributes (See “Triguna”); a thread, also a cord.
(FY) Gunas, qualities, properties.
(WG) Guna, a quality, attribute; as a term in philosophy, one o the three pervading qualities of prakriti, matter, which specifically are: sattva, truth, purity; rajas, passional activity; tamas, darkness. ( guna, a single thread of a cord
(OG) Gunas or Trigunas — {Sans} Differentiated matter is considered to possess or to have in occult philosophy three essential qualities or characteristics inherent in it, and their Sanskrit names are satva, rajas, and tamas. These three are the gunas or trigunas.
(SK)o Guna, Triguna, Sattva, Rajas, Tamas, Sattvika, Rajasa , Tamasa Guna is a word meaning ‘a quality,’ or ‘a characteristic.’ All Prakriti or all Nature possesses three basic qualities or Trigunas, those of Sattva, the quality of purity, truth, goodness, or substantial reality; Rajas, the quality of activity, passion, or desire; and Tamas, the quality of quiescence, darkness, ignorance, inertia, or immobility. Each one of these Trigunas has its good and its evil side; and each itself is threefold; hence there is a Sattva-sattva, a Rajas-sattva, and a Tamas-sattva; a Sattva-rajas, etc. These three qualities and their subdivisions may be traced in all visible and invisible things, and also in the actions of all living beings. When a man dies his Ego is in a Tamasa, a quiescent, state; when alive it is in a Rajasa state; while the divine-spiritual part of man, either during life or death, is in the Sattvika state. A wise man endeavors to express and live the highest aspects of all these three qualities.
Sattvika, Rajasa, and Tamasa are the Sanskrit adjectival forms of Sattva, Rajas, and Tamas.
(SP) Guna — quality, one of three qualities of prakrti: sattva [sattwa] — clarity or purity rajas — passion or activity tamas — darkness or inertia.
(WG) Gunasamya, the state in which the qualities — gunas — are in equilibrium.
(TG) Gunavat {Sans} . That which is endowed with qualities.
(FY) Gunavat, endowed with qualities.
(WG) Gunavisesha, modifications or affections of the qualities.
(MO) Gunnlod {Nors} (gun-leud) Giantess who served mead to Odin in the mountain
(TG) Gupta Vidya {Sans} . The same as Guhya Vidya; Esoteric or Secret Science; knowledge.
(KT) Gupta Vidya {Sans} The same as Guhya Vidya. Esoteric or secret science, knowledge.
(WG) Gupta-vidya, guarded or secret knowledge. ( gupta, hidden; vidya, knowledge
(SKf) Gupta-Vidya The Secret and Esoteric Wisdom of the ages, the fountain source of all Truth known to mankind. Gupta-Vidya is a compound of gupta — hidden, derived from the verb-root gup — to hide, to protect; and vidya — wisdom, derived from the verb-root vid — to know, to be wise.
(TG) Guru {Sans} . “Spiritual Teacher; a master in metaphysical and ethical doctrines; used also for a teacher of any science.
(VS) Seek not for him [[ guru ]] who is to give thee birth (I 20) [[p. 7]] The Initiate who leads the disciple through the Knowledge given to him to his spiritual, or second, birth is called the Father guru or Master.
(FY) Guru, spiritual preceptor.
(WG) Guru, a spiritual parent or preceptor. ( guru, weighty, important, worthy of honor
(OG) Guru — {Sans} Sometimes gurudeva, “master divine.” The word used in the old Sanskrit scriptures for teacher, preceptor. According to the beautiful teachings of the ancient wisdom, the guru acts as the midwife bringing to birth, helping to bring into the active life of the chela, the spiritual and intellectual parts of the disciple — the soul of the man. Thus the relationship between teacher and disciple is an extremely sacred one, because it is a tie which binds closely heart to heart, mind to mind. The idea is, again, that the latent spiritual potencies in the mind and heart of the learner shall receive such assistance in their development as the teacher can karmically give; but it does not mean that the teacher shall do the work that the disciple himself or herself must do. The learner or disciple must tread his own path, and the teacher cannot tread it for him. The teacher points the way, guides and aids, and the disciple follows the path.
(GH) Guru A Teacher, a Preceptor, especially one who imparts spiritual teachings to a disciple. ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 86)
(SKv) Guru, Gurudeva, Upadhyaya A Guru is a spiritual parent or spiritual preceptor. The word is derived from the verbal root guy — to raise, to lift up. Guru may also be used for the Higher Self within, whose influence is ever inspiring and uplifting the learning human being. In order to express the sacredness and reverence felt by the pupil towards his spiritual guide, inner or outer, a Guru is often called Gurudeva, ‘divine Teacher’ or the guide and awakener of the divine life within. Another word used in ancient Hindu literature for a spiritual guide is Upadhyaya, a compound of upa — according to, and the preposition adhi plus the verb-root i — meaning in combination ‘one who causes one to learn according to the Vedic scriptures or the wisdom-teachings.’
(SP) Guru — teacher.
(TG) Guru Deva {Sans} . Lit., “divine Master”.
(OG) Guru-parampara — {Sans} This is a compound formed of guru, meaning “teacher,” and a subordinate compound param-para , the latter compound meaning “a row or uninterrupted series or succession.” Hence guru-parampara signifies an uninterrupted series or succession of teachers. Every Mystery school or esoteric college of ancient times had its regular and uninterrupted series or succession of teacher succeeding teacher, each one passing on to his successor the mystical authority and headship he himself had received from his predecessor.
Like everything else of an esoteric character in the ancient world, the guru-parampara or succession of teachers faithfully copied what actually exists or takes place in nature herself, where a hierarchy with its summit or head is immediately linked on to a superior hierarchy as well as to an inferior one; and it is in this manner that the mystical circulations of the kosmos, and the transmission of life or vital currents throughout the fabric or web of being is assured.
From this ancient fact and teaching of the Mystery schools came the greatly distorted Apostolic Succession of the Christian Church, a pale and feeble reflection in merely ecclesiastical government of a fundamental spiritual and mystical reality. The great Brotherhood of the sages and seers of the world, which in fact is the association of the Masters of Wisdom and Compassion headed by the Maha-chohan, is the purest and most absolute form or example of the guru-parampara existing on our earth today. ( See also Hermetic Chain)
(SKf) Guruparampara ‘The Golden Chain of Hermes’; an uninterrupted succession of spiritual teachers one following another; a compound of guru — teacher, and parampara — one following the other. In the ancient Mystery-Schools, as in our own Theosophical Mystery-School, the Hierophant or Spiritual Guardian of the sacred teachings passed on his holy trust to another worthy one just as he had received it from the one before him. Another use of the word Guruparampara is the graded series of Divine Rulers ranging from the Hierophants of a Spiritual Center of Truth among men to the highest Divine Guardians of our Universe, and verily, even farther, beyond our ken.
(SP) Guru – parampara — a succession or lineage of teachers.
(TG) Gyan-Ben-Gian {Pers}. The King of the Peris, the Sylphs, in the old mythology of Iran.
(TG) Gyges {Greek}. “The ring of Ages” has become a familiar metaphor in European literature. Gyges was a Lydian who, after murdering the King Candaules, married his widow. Plato tells us that Gyges descended once into a chasm of the earth and discovered a brazen horse, within whose open side was the skeleton of a man who had a brazen ring on his finger. This ring when placed on his own finger made him invisible.
(KT) Gyges. “The ring of Gyges” has become a familiar metaphor in European literature. Gyges was a Lydian, who, after murdering the King Candaules, married his widow. Plato tells us that Gyges descending once into a chasm of the earth, discovered a brazen horse, within whose opened side was the skeleton of a man of gigantic stature, who had a brazen ring on his finger. This ring when placed on his own finger made him invisible.
(MO) Gylfe {Nors} (yil-veh) A legendary king and seeker of wisdom
(MO) Gymer {Nors} (yi-mayr) A giant: father of Gerd
(TG) Gymnosophists {Greek}. The name given by Hellenic writers to a class of naked or “air-clad” mendicants; ascetics in India: extremely learned and endowed with great mystic powers. It is easy to recognise in these gymnosophists the Hindu Arayaka of old, the learned yogis and ascetic philosophers who retired to the jungle and forest, there to reach, through great austerities, superhuman knowledge and experience.
(TG) Gyn {Tibe}. Knowledge acquired under the tuition of an adept teacher or guru.
(TG) H. — The eighth letter and aspirate of the English alphabet, and also the eighth in the Hebrew. As a Latin numeral it signifies 200 and with the addition of a dash 200,000; in the Hebrew alphabet Chethi is equivalent to h, corresponds to eight, and is symbolised by a Fence and Venus according to Seyffarth, being in affinity and connected with He, and therefore with the opening or womb. It is preeminently a Yonic letter.
(TG) Ha {Sans}. A magic syllable used in sacred formulae; it represents the power of Akasa Sati. Its efficacy lies in the expirational accent and the sound produced.
(FY) Ha, a magic syllable used in sacred formulae; represents the power of Akasa Sakti.
(WG) Ha, the sun; a symbol for the breath called prana in Hatha Yoga practices.
(TG) Habal de Garmin {Hebr}. According to the Kabbalah this is the Resurrection Body: a tzelem image or demooth similitude to the deceased man; an inner fundamental spiritual type remaining after death. It is the “Spirit of the Bones” mentioned in Daniel and Isaiah and the Psalms, and is referred to in the Vision of Ezekiel about the clothing of the dry bones with life: consult C. de Leiningen on the, Kabbalah, T.P.S. Pamphlet. Vol. II., No. 18. [w.w.w.]
(TG) Hachoser {Hebr}. Lit., “reflected Lights” a name for the minor or inferior powers, in the Kabbalah.
(TG) Hades {Greek}, or Aides. The “invisible”, i.e., the land of the shadows, one of whose regions was Tartarus, a place of complete darkness, like the region of profound dreamless sleep in the Egyptian Amenti. Judging by the allegorical description of the various punishments inflicted therein, the place was, purely Karmic. Neither Hades nor Amenti were the hell still preached by some retrograde priests and clergymen; but whether represented by the Elysian Fields or by Tartarus, Hades was a place of retributive justice and no more. This could only be reached by crossing the river to the “other shore”, i.e. by crossing the river Death, and being once more reborn, for weal or for woe. As well expressed in Egyptian Belief : “The story of Charon, the ferryman (of the Styx) is to be found not only in Homer, but in the poetry of many lands. The River must be crossed before gaining the Isles of the Blest. The Ritual of Egypt described a Charon and his boat long ages before Homer. He is Khu-en-ua, the hawk-headed steersman.” (See “Amenti “Hel” and “Happy Fields”
(KT) Hades {Greek}, or Aides, the “invisible,” the land of shadows; one of whose regions was Tartarus, a place of complete darkness, as was also the region of profound dreamless sleep in Amenti. Judging by the allegorical description of the punishments inflicted therein, the place was purely Karmic. Neither Hades nor Amenti were the Hell still preached by some retrograde priests and clergymen; and whether represented by the Elysian Fields or by Tartarus, they could only be reached by crossing the river to the “other shore.” As well expressed in the “Egyptian Belief,” the story of Charon, the ferryman (of the Styx) is to be found not only in Homer, but in the poetry of many lands. The River must be crossed before gaining the Isles of the Blest. The Ritual of Egypt described a Charon and his boat long ages before Homer. He is Khu-en-na, “the hawk-headed steersman.” (See Hell
(TG) Hagadah {Hebr}. A name given to parts of the Talmud which are legendary. [w.w.w.]
(TG) Hahnir {Nors}, or Honir. One of the three mighty gods (Odin, Hahnir and Lodur) who, while wandering on earth, found lying on the seashore two human forms, motionless, speechless, and senseless. Odin gave them souls; Hahnir, motion and senses; and Lodur, blooming complexions. Thus were men created.
(TG) Haima {Hebr}. The same as the Sanskrit hiranya (golden), as “the golden Egg” Hiranyagarbha.
(TG) Hair. Occult philosophy considers the hair (whether human or animal) as the natural receptacle and retainer of the vital essence which often escapes with other emanations from the body. It is closely connected with many of the brain functions for instance memory. With the ancient Israelites the cutting of the hair and beard was a sign of defilement, and “the Lord said unto Moses. They shall not make baldness upon “Baldness”, whether natural or artificial, was a sign of calamity, punishment, or grief, as when Isaiah (iii., 24) enumerates, “instead of well-set hair baldness”, among the evils that are ready to befall the chosen people. And again, “On all their heads baldness and every beard cut” ( Ibid. xv., 2). The Nazarite was ordered to let his hair and beard grow, and never to permit a razor to touch them. With the Egyptians and Buddhists it was only the initiated priest or ascetic to whom life is a burden, who shaved. The Egyptian priest was supposed to have become master of his body, and hence shaved his head for cleanliness; yet the Hierophants wore their hair long. The Buddhist still shaves his head to this day — as sign of scorn for life and health. Yet Buddha, after shaving his hair when he first became a mendicant, let it grow again and is always represented with the top-knot of a Yogi. The Hindu priests and Brahmins, and almost all the castes, shave the rest of the head but leave a long lock to grow from the centre of the crown. The ascetics of India wear their hair long, and so do the war-like Sikhs, and almost all the Mongolian peoples. At Byzantium and Rhodes the shaving of the beard was prohibited by law, and in Sparta the cutting of the beard was a mark of slavery and servitude. Among the Scandinavians, we are told, it was considered a disservice, “a mark of infamy”, to cut off the hair. The whole population of the island of Ceylon (the Buddhist Singhalese) wear their hair long. So do the Russian, (Greek and Armenian clergy, and monks. Jesus and the Apostles are always represented with their hair long, but fashion in Christendom proved stronger than Christianity, the old ecclesiastical rules (Constit. Apost. lib. I. c. 3) enjoining the clergy “to wear their hair and beards long”. (See Riddle’s Ecclesiastical Antiquities The Templars were commanded to wear their beards long. Samson wore his hair long, and the biblical allegory shows that health and strength and the very life are connected with the length of the hair. If a cat is shaved it will die in nine cases out of ten. A dog whose coat is not interfered with lives longer and is more intelligent than one whose coat is shaven. Many old people as they lose their hair lose much of their memory and become weaker. While the life of the Yogis is proverbially long, the Buddhist priests (of Ceylon and elsewhere) are not generally long-lived. Mussulmen shave their heads but wear their beards; and as their head is always covered, the danger is less.
(TG) Hajaschar {Hebr}. The Light Forces in the Kabbalah; the “Powers of Light”, which are the creative but inferior forces.
(TG) Hakem. Lit., “the Wise One”, the Messiah to come, of the Druzes or the “Disciples of Hamsa”.
(TG) Hakim {arabic}. A doctor, in all the Eastern countries, from Asia Minor to India.
(TG) Halachah {Hebr}. A name given to parts of the Talmud, which are arguments on points of doctrine; the word means “rule”. [w.w.w.]
(VS) It is the Hall in which thou saw’st the light, in which thou livest and shalt die (I 17) [[p. 6]] The phenomenal World of Senses and of terrestrial consciousness only.
(VS) Hall of Learning [[p. 6]] The Hall of Probationary Learning.
(TG) Hallucination. A state produced sometimes by physiological disorders, sometimes by mediumship, and at others by drunkenness. But the cause that produces the Visions has to be sought deeper than physiology. All such visions, especially when produced through mediumship, are preceded by a relaxation of the nervous system, invariably generating an abnormal magnetic condition which attracts to the sufferer waves of astral light. It is the latter that furnishes the various hallucinations. These, however, are not always what physicians would make them, empty and unreal dreams. No one can see that which does not exist — i.e., which is not impressed — in or on the astral waves. A Seer may, however, perceive objects and scenes (whether past, present, or future) which have no relation whatever to himself, and also perceive several things entirely disconnected with each other at one and the same time, thus producing the most grotesque and absurd combinations. Both drunkard and Seer, medium and Adept, see their respective visions in the Astral Light; but while the drunkard, the madman, and the untrained medium, or one suffering from brain-fever, see, because they cannot help it, and evoke the jumbled visions unconsciously to themselves, the Adept and the trained Seer have the choice and the control of such visions. They know where to fix their gaze, how to steady the scenes they want to observe, and how to see beyond the upper outward layers of the Astral Light. With the former such glimpses into the waves are hallucinations: with the latter they become the faithful reproduction of what actually has been, is, or will be, taking place. The glimpses at random caught by the medium, and his flickering visions in the deceptive light, are transformed under the guiding will of the Adept and Seer into steady pictures, the truthful representations of that which he wills to come within the focus of his perception.
(KT) Hallucinations. A state produced sometimes by physiological disorders, sometimes by mediumship, and at others by drunkenness. But the cause that produces the visions has to be sought deeper than physiology. All such, particularly when produced through mediumship, are preceded by a relaxation of the nervous system, generating invariably an abnormal magnetic condition which attracts to the sufferer waves of astral light. It is these latter that furnish the various hallucinations, which, however, are not always, as physicians would explain them, mere empty and unreal dreams. No one can see that which does not exist — i. e., which is not impressed — in or on the astral waves. But a seer may perceive objects and scenes (whether past, present or future) which have no relation whatever to himself; and perceive, moreover, several things entirely disconnected with each other at one and the same time, so as to produce the most grotesque and absurd combinations. But drunkard and seer, medium and adept see their respective visions in the astral light; only while the drunkard, the madman, and the untrained medium, or one in a brain fever, see, because they cannot help it, and evoke jumbled visions unconsciously to themselves without being able to control them, the adept and the trained Seer have the choice and the control of such visions. They know where to fix their gaze, how to steady the scenes they wish to observe, and how to see beyond the upper outward layers of the astral light. With the former such glimpses into the waves are hallucinations; with the latter they become the faithful reproduction of what actually has been, is, or will be taking place. The glimpses at random, caught by the medium, and his flickering visions in the deceptive light, are transformed under the guiding will of the adept and seer into steady pictures, the truthful representation of that which he wills to come within the focus of his perception.
(MO) Hamingja {Nors} (ha-ming-ya) [fortune] Guardian spirit
(TG) Hamsa or Hansa {Sans}. “Swan or goose”, according to the Orientalists; a mystical bird in Occultism analogous to the Rosicrucian Pelican. The sacred mystic name which, when preceded by that of KALA (infinite time), i.e. Kalahansa, is a name of Parabrahm; meaning the “Bird out of space and time”. Hence Brahma (male) is called Hansa Vahana “the Vehicle of Hansa” (the BIRD). We find the same idea in the Zohar, where Ain Suph (the endless and infinite) is said to descend into the universe, for purposes of manifestation, using Adam Kadmon (Humanity) as a chariot or vehicle.
(WG) Hamsa, (also Hansa), a mythical bird, corresponding some what to the swan, and which is the vehicle of Brahma; it symbolises spiritual wisdom. (Probably derived from aham, I, and sa, that: “I am that,” i . e ., the Supreme Spirit, — sa being a form of tad or tat . It may also be derived from han, “to go,” and would then mean “who goes eternally
(TG) Hamsa {arabic}. The founder of the mystic sect of the Druzes of Mount Lebanon. (See “Druzes”
(TG) Hangsa {Sans}. A mystic syllable standing for evolution, and meaning in its literal sense “I am he”, or Ahamsa.
(FY) Hangsa, a mystic syllable standing for evolution: it literally means “I am he.”
(TG) Hansa {Sans}. The name, according to the Bhagavata Purana , of the One Caste “when there were as yet no varieties of caste, but verily one Veda, one Deity and one Caste”.
(TG) Hanuman {Sans}. The monkey god of the Ramayana ; the generalissimo of Rama’s army; the son of Vayu, the god of the wind, and of a virtuous she-demon. Hanuman was the faithful ally of Rama and by his unparalleled audacity and wit, helped the Avatar of Vishnu to finally conquer the demon-king of Lanka, Ravana, who had carried off the beautiful Sita, Rama’s wife, an outrage which led to the celebrated war described in the Hindu epic poem.
(WG) Hanuman, (Hanumat), a monkey-chief, the most celebrated of a vast host of ape-like beings, who, according to the Ramayana, were created by the gods to be the allies of Rama-chandra in his war with Ravana. Hanumat was the son of Pavana or Maruta, “the Wind,” (according to some legends, of Siva,) and had many magical powers. (Literally, “having large jaws.”)
(WG) Hanuman, the “monkey god”.
(GH) Hanuman (nominative case: dictionary form or ‘crude form’. Hanumat) The celebrated monkey-deity of the Ramayana, son of Pavana, the god of the wind, by Anjana. His exploits partake more of the superhuman than human, thus they are favorite topics among the Hindus from youth to old age. As instances: the epic relates that he jumped from India to Ceylon in one leap; he tore up trees by the roots; he flew to and from the Himalayas bringing healing herbs to the wounded. It is related that he and his monkey host were created by the gods in order to assist Rama in his battle against Ravana and the Rakshasas of Lanka (Ceylon). Among mental achievements Hanuman is credited with being a skilled grammarian, and no one could equal him in the sastras (scriptures) and in the art of explaining them.
Arjuna had adopted the traditional representation of Hanuman as his crest. ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 4)
(TG) Happy Fields. The name given by the Assyrio-Chaldeans to their Elysian Fields, which were intermingled with their Hades. As Mr. Boscawen tells his readers — “The Kingdom of the underworld was the realm of the god Hea, and the Hades of the Assyrian legends was placed in the underworld, and was ruled over by a goddess, Nin-Kigal, or ‘the Lady of the Great Land’. She is also called Allat.” A translated inscription states: — “After the gifts of these present days, in the feasts of the land of the silver sky, the resplendent Courts, the abode of blessedness, and in the light of the Happy Fields, may he dwell in life eternal, holy, in the presence of the gods who inhabit Assyria”. This is worthy of a Christian tumulary inscription. Ishtar, the beautiful goddess, descended into Hades after her beloved Tammuz, and found that this dark place of the shades had seven spheres and seven gates, at each of which she had to leave something belonging to her.
(TG) Hara {Sans}. A title of the god Siva.
(TG) Hare-Worship. The hare was sacred in many lands and especially among the Egyptians and Jews. Though the latter consider it an unclean, hoofed animal, unfit to eat, yet it was held sacred by some tribes. The reason for this was that in a certain species of hare the male suckled the little ones. It was thus considered to be androgynous or hermaphrodite, and so typified an attribute of the Demiurge, or creative Logos. The hare was a symbol of the moon, wherein the face of the prophet Moses is to be seen to this day, say the Jews. Moreover the moon is connected with the worship of Jehovah, a deity preeminently the god of generation, perhaps also for the same reason that Eros, the god of sexual love, is represented as carrying a hare. The hare was also sacred to Osiris. Lenormand writes that the hare “has to be considered as the symbol of the Logos . . . the Logos ought to be hermaphrodite and we know that the hare is an androgynous type”.
(TG) Hari {Sans}. A title of Vishnu, but used also for other gods.
(WG) Hari, pale yellow or golden, bay — “bays,” the bay coursers of Indra; “the Remover,” a title given to Krishna.
(GH) Hari Especially the name of Krishna as an Avatara of Vishnu; applied also to Vishnu and Siva. ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 79)
(TG) Harikesa {Sans}. The name of one of the seven rays of the Sun.
(WG) Harivant, “lord of the bay coursers” — a title of Indra.
(TG) Hariyansa {Sans}. A portion of the Mahabharata, a poem on the genealogy of Vishnu, or Hari.
(TG) Harmachus {Greek}. The Egyptian Sphinx, called Har-em-chu or “Horus (the Sun) in the Horizon”, a form of Ra the sun-god; esoterically the risen god. An inscription on a tablet reads: “O blessed Ra-Harmachus! Thou careerest by him in triumph. O shine, Amoun-Ra-Harmachus self-generated”. The temple of the Sphinx was discovered by Mariette Bey close to the Sphinx, near the great Pyramid of Gizeh. All the Egyptologists agree in pronouncing the Sphinx and her temple the “oldest religious monument of the world”at any rate of Egypt. “The principal chamber”, writes the late Mr. Fergusson ” in the form of a cross, is supported by piers, simple prisms of Syenite granite without base or capital . . no sculptures or inscriptions of any sort are found on the walls of this temple, no ornament or symbol nor any image in the sanctuary”. This proves the enormous antiquity of both the Sphinx and the temple.” The great bearded Sphinx of the Pyramids of Gizeh is the symbol of Harmachus, the same as each Egyptian Pharaoh who bore, in the inscriptions, the name of ‘living form of the Solar Sphinx upon the Earth’,”writes Brugsh Bey. And Renan recalls that “at one time the Egyptians were said to have temples without sculptured images” (Bonwick). Not only the Egyptians but every nation of the earth began with temples devoid of idols and even of symbols. It is only when the remembrance of the great abstract truths and of the primordial Wisdom taught to humanity by the dynasties of the divine kings died out that men had to resort to mementos and symbology. In the story of Horus in some tablets of Edfou, Rouge found an inscription showing that the god had once assumed “the shape of a human-headed lion to gain advantage over his enemy Typhon. Certainly Horns was so adored in Leontopolis. He is the real Sphinx. That accounts, too, for the lion figure being sometimes seen on each side of Isis. . . It was her child And yet the story of Harmachus, or Har-eni-chu, is still left untold to the world, nor is it likely to be divulged to this generation. (See “Sphinx
(TG) Harpocrates {Greek}. The child Hortisorehoou represented with a finger on his mouth, the solar disk upon his head and golden hair. He is the “god of Silence” and of Mystery. (See “Horus”). Harpocrates was also worshipped by both Greeks and Romans in Europe as a son of Isis.
(WG) Harpocrates, the “god of Silence and Mystery” in Egyptian mythology. He is represented with a finger on his mouth, and is either standing, or sitting on a Lotus. An aspect of Horus, the child of Isis and Osiris.
(TG) Harshana {Sans}. A deity presiding over offerings to the dead, or Sraddha.
(TG) Harviri {Egyp}. Horus, the elder: the ancient name of a solar god: the rising sun represented as a god reclining on a full-blown lotus, the symbol of the Universe.
(TG) Haryaswas {Sans}. The five and ten thousand sons of Daksha, who instead of peopling the world as desired by their father, all became yogis, as advised by the mysterious sage Narada, and remained celibates. “They dispersed through the regions and have not returned.” This means, according to the secret science, that they had all incarnated in mortals. The name is given to natural born mystics and celibates, who are said to be incarnations of the “Haryaswas”.
(GH) Hastinapura The city founded by king Hastin (the great-great-grandfather of Kuru), which became the capital city of the kings of the Chandravansa (the ‘Lunar Dynasty’), and the principal city of the Kurus. A great part of the main action of the Mahabharata centers about this city. It formed the main objective of the Pandavas in the great conflict at Kurukshetra (between the Kurus and the Pandavas), at the conclusion of which the victorious Yudhishthira was crowned king after a triumphal entry into the city. Hastinapura was situated about 57 miles north-east of the modern city of Delhi on the banks of an old channel of the Ganges river. (Meaning of the word itself: the city of the elephant — hastin, an elephant. Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. i)
(TG) Hatchet. In the Egyptian Hieroglyphics a symbol of power, and also of death. The hatchet is called the “Severer of the Knot” i.e., of marriage or any other tie.
(TG) Hatha Yoga {Sans}. The lower form of Yoga practice; one which uses physical means for purposes of spiritual self-development. The opposite of Raja Yoga.
(FY) Hatha Yog, a system of physical training to obtain psychic powers, the chief feature of this system being the regulation of breath.
(WG) Hatha-yoga, a system of physical practices designed to cultivate will-power, withdraw the mind from external objects, and bring about certain changes of condition in the physical body, for the attainment of the lower siddhis or magical powers. It involves great austerities, difficult and often painful postures, control of the breath, etc., is attended with great dangers, and yet, at its best, results in merely abnormal cultivation of physical and Psychical powers, at the expense of spiritual progress . ( hatha , violence, force ; yoga, union, contemplation: forcing the mind to abstain from external objects
(TG) Hathor {Egyp}. The lower or infernal aspect of Isis, corresponding to the Hecate of Greek mythology.
(MO) Havarnal {Nors} (haw-va-mawl) [ har high + mal speech] Lay of the High One
(TG) Hawk. The hieroglyphic and type of the Soul. The sense varies with the postures of the bird. Thus when lying as dead it represents the transition, larva state, or the passage from the state of one life to another. When its wings are opened it means that the defunct is resurrected in Amenti and once more in conscious possession of his soul. The chrysalis has become a butterfly.
(TG) Hayo Bischat {Hebr}. The Beast, in the Zohar : the Devil and Tempter. Esoterically our lower animal passions.
(TG) Hay-yah {Hebr}. One of the metaphysical human “Principles”. Eastern Occultists divide men into seven such Principles; Western Kabbalists, we are told, into three only — namely, Nephesh, Ruach and Neshamah. But in truth, this division is as loose and as mere an abbreviation is our “Body, Soul, Spirit”. For, in the Qabbalah of Myer ( Zohar., 141, b., Cremona Ed. ii., fol. 63 b ., col. 251) it is stated that Neshamah or Spirit likes three divisions, “the highest being Ye’hee-dah (Atma) the middle, Hay-yah (Buddhi), and the last and third, the Neshamah, properly speaking (Manas)”. Then comes Mahshabah, Thought (the lower Manas, or conscious Personality), in which the higher then manifest themselves, thus making four ; this is followed by Tzelem, Phantom of the Image ( Kama-rupa in life the Karmic element) D’yooq-nah, Shadow of the image (Linga Sharira, the Double); and Zitrath, Prototype, which is Life — SEVEN in all, even without the D’mooth, Likeness or Similitude, which is called a lower manifestation, and is in reality the Guf, or Body. Theosophists of the E. S. who know the transposition made of Atma and the part taken by the auric prototype, will easily find which are the real seven, and assure themselves that between the division of Principles of the Eastern Occultists and that of the real Eastern Kabbalists there is no difference. Do not let us forget that neither the one nor the other are prepared to give out the real and final classification in their public writings.
(TG) Hay-yoth ha Qadosh {Hebr}. The holy living creatures of Ezekiel’s vision of the Merkabak, or vehicle, or chariot. These are the four symbolical beasts, the cherubim of Ezekiel, and in the Zodiac Taurus, Leo, Scorpio (or the Eagle), and Aquarius, the man.
(TG) Hea {Chald}. The god of the Deep and the Underworld; some see in him Ea or Oannes, the fish-man, or Dagon.
(TG) Heabani {Chald}. A famous astrologer at the Court of Izdubar, frequently mentioned in the fragments of the Assyrian tablets in reference to a dream of Izdubar, the great Babylonian King, or Nimrod, the “mighty hunter before the Lord”. After his death, his soul being unable to rest underground, the ghost of Heabani was raised by Merodach, the god, his body restored to life and then transferred alive, like Elijah, to the regions of the Blessed.
(TG) Head of all Heads Used of the “Ancient of the Ancients” Atteekali D’atteekeen, who is the “Hidden of the Hidden, the Concealed of the Concealed”. In this cranium of the “White Head”, Resha Hivrah, “dwell daily 13,000 myriads of worlds, which rest upon It, lean upon It” ( Zohar iii . Idrah Rabbah ). . . “In that Atteekah nothing is revealed except the Head alone, because it is the Head of all Heads. . . The Wisdom above, which is the Head, is hidden in it, the Brain which is tranquil and quiet, and none knows it but Itself. . . . And this Hidden Wisdom . . . the Concealed of the Concealed, the Head of all Heads, a Head which is not a Head, nor does any one know, nor is it ever known, what is in that Head which Wisdom and Reason cannot comprehend” ( Zohar iii., fol. 288 a ). This is said of the Deity of which the Head ( i.e ., Wisdom perceived by all) is alone manifested. Of that Principle which is still higher nothing is even predicated, except that its universal presence and actuality are a philosophical necessity.
(VS) thus have I Heard (II 10) [[p. 27]] The usual formula that precedes the Buddhist Scriptures, meaning, that that which follows is what has been recorded by direct oral tradition from Buddha and the Arhats.
(VS) chamber of the Heart (I 23) [[p. 9]] The inner chamber of the Heart, called in Sanskrit Brahma poori . The “fiery power” is Kundalini.
(VS) Doctrine of the Heart (II1) [[p. 23]] The two schools of Buddha’s doctrine, the esoteric and the exoteric, are respectively called the “Heart” and the “Eye” Doctrine, Bodhidharma called them in China from whence the names reached Tibet the Tsung-men (esoteric) and Kiau-men (exoteric school). It is so named, because it is the teaching which emanated from Gautama Buddha’s heart, whereas the “Eye” Doctrine was the work of his head or brain. The “Heart Doctrine” is also called “the seal of truth” or the “true seal,” a symbol found on the heading of almost all esoteric works.
(VS) Secret Heart (II 3) [[p. 24]] “Secret Heart” is the esoteric doctrine.
(TG) Heavenly Adam. The synthesis of the Sephirothal Tree, or of all the Forces in Nature and their informing deific essence. In the diagrams, the Seventh of the lower Sephiroth, Sephira Malkhooth — the Kingdom of Harmony — represents the feet of the ideal Macrocosm, whose head reaches to the first manifested Head, This Heavenly Adam is the natura naturans, the abstract world, while the Adam of Earth (Humanity) is the natura naturata or the material universe. The fomier is the presence of Deity in its universal essence; the latter the manifestation of the intelligence of that essence. In the real Zohar — not the fantastic and anthropomorphic caricature which we often find in the writings of Western Kabbalists — there is not a particle of the personal deity which we find so prominent in the dark cloaking of the Secret Wisdom known as the Mosaic Pentateuch.
(TG) Hebdomad {Greek}. The Septenary.
(TG) Hebron or Kirjath-Ayba. The city of the Four Kabeiri, for Kirjath Arba signifies “the City of the Four”. It is in that city, according to the legend, that an Isarim or an Initiate found the famous Smaragdine tablet on the dead body of Hermes.
(MO) Heid {Nors} (hayd) [ heid bright sky] A vala or sibyl: nature’s memory of the past
(MO) Heidrun {Nors} (hayd-run) [ heidr heath or honor] The goat that nibbles the bark of the Tree of Life
(MO) Heimdal {Nors} (haym-dahl) [ heim home + dal dell] “The whitest Ase.” Celestial guardian of Bifrost
(TG) Hel or Hela {Nors}. The Goddess-Queen of the Land of the Dead; the inscrutable and direful Being who reigns over the depths of Helheim and Nifelheim. In the earlier mythology, Hel was the earth-goddess, the good and beneficent mother, nourisher of the weary and the hungry. But in the later Shades she became the female Pluto, the dark Queen of the Kingdom of Shades, she who brought death into this world, and sorrow afterwards.
(MO) Hel {Nors} (hayl) [death] The daughter of Loki, ruler of the kingdom of the dead. She is represented as half blue, half white
(TG) Helheim {Nors}. The Kingdom of the Dead in the Norse mythology. In the Edda, Helheim surrounds the Northern Mistworld, called Nifelheim.
(TG) Heliolatry {Greek}. Sun-Worship.
(TG) Hell. A term with the Anglo-Saxons, evidently derived from the name of the goddess Hela, and by the Sclavonians from the Greek Hades: hell being in Russian and other Sclavonian tongues — ad, the only difference between the Scandinavian cold hell and the hot hell of the Christians, being found in their respective temperatures. But even the idea of those overheated regions is not original with the Europeans, many peoples having entertained the conception of an underworld climate; as well may we if we localise our Hell in the centre of the earth. All exoteric religions — the creeds of the Brahmans, Buddhists, Zoroastrians, Mohammedans, Jews, and the rest, make their hells hot and dark, though many are more attractive than frightful. The idea of a hot hell is an afterthought, the distortion of an astronomical allegory. With the Egyptians, Hell became a place of punishment by fire not earlier than the seventeenth or eighteenth dynasty when Typhon was transformed from a god into a devil. But at whatever time this dread superstition was implanted in the minds of the poor ignorant masses, the scheme of a burning hell and souls tormented therein is purely Egyptian. Ra (the Sun) became the Lord of the Furnace in Karr, the hell of the Pharaohs, and the sinner was threatened with misery “in the heat of infernal fires”. “A lion was there” says Dr. Birch “and was called the roaring monster”. Another describes the place as “the bottomless pit and lake of fire, into which the victims are thrown” (compare Revelation). The Hebrew word gai-hinnom (Gehenna) never really had the significance given to it in Christian orthodoxy.
(KT) Hell. A term which the Anglo-Saxon race has evidently derived from the name of the Scandinavian goddess, Hela, just as the word ad, in Russian and other Slavonian tongues expressing the same conception, is derived from the Greek Hades, the only difference between the Scandinavian cold Hell, and the hot Hell of the Christians, being found in their respective temperatures. But even the idea of these overheated regions is not original with the Europeans, many people having entertained the conception of an under-world climate; as well we may, if we localise our Hell in the centre of the earth. All exoteric religions — the creeds of the Brahmans, Buddhists, Zoroastrians, Mahomedans, Jews, and the rest, made their Hells hot and dark, though many were more attractive than frightful. The idea of a hot Hell is an afterthought, the distortion of an astronomical allegory. With the Egyptians Hell became a place of punishment by fire not earlier than the 17th or 18th Dynasty, when Typhon was transformed from a God into a Devil. But at whatever time they implanted this dread superstition in the minds of the poor ignorant masses, the scheme of a burning Hell and souls tormented therein is purely Egyptian. Ra (the Sun) became the Lord of the Furnace, in Karr, the Hell of the Pharaohs, and the sinner was threatened with misery “in the heat of infernal fires.” “A lion was there,” says Dr. Birch, “and was called the roaring monster.” Another describes the place as “the bottomless pit and lake of fire, into which the victims are thrown” (compare Revelation) . The Hebrew word gai-hinnom (gehena) had never really the significance given to it in Christian orthodoxy.
(OG) Heaven and Hell — Every ancient exoteric religion taught that the so-called heavens are divided into steps or grades of ascending bliss and purity; and the so-called hells into steps or grades of increasing purgation or suffering. Now the esoteric doctrine or occultism teaches that the one is not a punishment, nor is the other strictly speaking a reward. The teaching is, simply, that each entity after physical death is drawn to the appropriate sphere to which the karmic destiny of the entity and the entity’s own character and impulses magnetically attract it. As a man works, as a man sows, in his life, that and that only shall he reap after death. Good seed produces good fruit; bad seed, tares — and perhaps even nothing of value or of spiritual use follows a negative and colorless life.
After the second death, the human monad “goes” to devachan — often called in theosophical literature the heaven-world. There are many degrees in devachan: the highest, the intermediate, and the lowest. What becomes of the entity, on the other hand, the lower human soul, that is so befouled and weighted with earth thought and the lower instincts that it cannot rise? There may be enough in it of the spirit nature to hold it together as an entity and enable it to become a reincarnating being, but it is foul, it is heavy; its tendency is consequently downwards. Can it therefore rise into a heavenly felicity? Can it go even into the lower realms of devachan and there enjoy its modicum of the beatitude, bliss, of everything that is noble and beautiful? No. There is an appropriate sphere for every degree of development of the ego-soul, and it gravitates to that sphere and remains there until it is thoroughly purged, until the sin has been washed out, so to say. These are the so-called hells, beneath even the lowest ranges of devachan; whereas the arupa heavens are the highest parts of the devachan. Nirvana is a very different thing from the heavens. ( See also Kama-Loka, Avichi, Devachan, Nirvana)
(MO) Hel’s road {Nors} The path from birth toward death
(TG) Hemadri {Sans}. The golden Mountain; Meru.
(TG) Hemera {Greek}. “The light of the inferior or terrestrial regions” as Ether is the light of the superior heavenly spheres. Both are born of Erebos (darkness) and Nux (night).
(TG) Heptakis {Greek}. “The Seven-rayed One” of the Chaldean astrolaters: the same as IAO.
(TG) Herakles {Greek}. The same as Hercules.
(TG) Heranasikha {Sing} From Heyana “novice” and Sikha “rule” or precept: manual of Precepts. A work written in Elu or the ancient Singhalese, for the use of young priests.
(VS) Great Heresy (I 8) [[p. 4]] Attavada, the heresy of the belief in Soul or rather in the separateness of Soul or Self from the One Universal, infinite SELF.
(TG) Hermanubis {Greek}. Or Hermes Anubis “the revealer of the mysteries of the lower world” — not of Hell or Hades as interpreted, but of our Earth (the lowest world of the septenary , chain of worlds) –and also of the sexual mysteries. Creuzer must have guessed at the truth of the right interpretation, as he calls Anubis-Thoth-Hermes ” a symbol of science and of the intellectual world ” . He was always represented with a cross in his hand, one of the earliest symbols of the mystery of generation, or procreation on this earth. In the Chaldean Kabbala (Book of Numbers) the Tat symbol, or +, is referred to its Adam and Eve, the latter being the transverse or horizontal bar drawn out of the side (or rib) of Hadam , the perpendicular bar. The fact is that, esoterically, Adam and Eve while representing the early third Root Race — those who, being still mindless, imitated the animals and degraded themselves with the latter — stand also as the dual symbol of the sexes. Hence Anubis, the Egyptian god of generation, is represented with the head of an animal, a dog or a jackal, and is also said to be the “Lord of the under world ” or “Hades” into which he introduces the souls of the dead (the reincarnating entities), for Hades is in one sense the womb, as some of the writings of the Church Fathers fully show.
(TG) Hermaphrodite {Greek}. Dual-sexed; a male and female Being, whether man or animal.
(TG) Hermas {Greek}. An ancient Greek writer of whose works only a few fragments arc now extant.
(KT) Hermas, an ancient Greek writer, of whose works only a few fragments now remain extant.
HERMES
The Emerald Tablet by Hermes Trismegistus
Truly, without Deceit, certainly and absolutely:
That which is Below corresponds to that which is Above, and that which is Above corresponds to that which is Below, in the accomplishment of the Miracle of One Thing. And just as all things have come from One, through the Mediation of One, so all things follow from this One Thing in the same way.
(TG) Hermes-fire. The same as “Elmes-fire”. (See Isis Unveiled
(TG) Hermes Sarameyas (Greco-Sanskrit). The God Hermes, or Mercury, he who watches over the flock of stars in the Greek mythology.
(TG) Hermes Trismegistus {Greek}. The “thrice great Hermes”, the Egyptian. The mythical personage after whom the Hermetic philosophy was named. In Egypt the God Thoth or Thot. A generic name of many ancient Greek writers on philosophy and Alchemy. Hermes Trismegistus is the name of Hermes or Thoth in his human aspect, as a god he is far more than this. As Hermes-Thoth-Aah, he is Thoth, the moon, i.e., his symbol is the bright side of the moon, supposed to contain the essence of creative Wisdom, “the elixir of Hermes”. As such he is associated with the Cynocephalus, the dog-headed monkey, for the same reason as was Anubis, one of the aspects of Thoth. (See “Hermanubis The same idea underlies the form of the Hindu God of Wisdom, the elephant-headed Ganesa, or Ganpat, the son of Parvati and Siva. (See “Ganesa” When he has the head of an ibis, lie is the sacred scribe of the gods; but even then he wears the crown atef and the lunar disk. He is the most mysterious of gods. As a serpent, Hermes Thoth is the divine creative Wisdom. The Church Fathers speak at length of Thoth-Hermes.
(WG) Hermes Trismegistus, the “founder” of the Hermetic philosophy. A purely mythical personage, whose name has been appropriated by many of the Greek Alchemists. The same as the Egyptian god Thoth, the celestial scribe, who records the thoughts and words of all men, and on whose tablets are to be found the mysteries of the ages.
(TG) Hermetic. Any doctrine or writing connected with the esoteric teachings of Hermes, who, whether as the Egyptian Thoth or the Greek Hermes, was the God of Wisdom with the Ancients, and, according to Plato, “discovered numbers, geometry, astronomy and letters”. Though mostly considered as spurious, nevertheless the Hermetic writings were highly prized by St. Augustine, Lactantius, Cyril and others. In the words of Mr. J. Bonwick, “They are more or less touched up by the Platonic philosophers among the early Christians (such as Origen and Clemens Alexandrinus) who sought to substantiate their Christian arguments by appeals to these heathen and revered writings, though they could not resist the temptation of making them say a little too much”. Though represented by some clever and interested writers as teaching pure monotheism, the Hermetic or Trismegistic books are, nevertheless, purely pantheistic. The Deity referred to in them is defined by Paul as that in which “we live, and move and have our being” — notwithstanding the “in Him” of the translators.
(WG) Hermetic Philosophy, the philosophic system of Hermes Trismegistus, of which unreliable fragments alone remain in Western literature.
(OG) Hermetic Chain — Among the ancient Greeks there existed a mystical tradition of a chain of living beings, one end of which included the divinities in their various grades or stages of divine authority and activities, and the other end of which ran downwards through inferior gods and heroes and sages to ordinary men, and to the beings below man. Each link of this living chain of beings inspired and instructed the chain below itself, thus transmitting and communicating from link to link to the end of the marvelous living chain, love and wisdom and knowledge concerning the secrets of the universe, eventuating in mankind as the arts and the sciences necessary for human life and civilization. This was mystically called the Hermetic Chain or the Golden Chain.
(IN) the ancient Mysteries the teaching of the existence and nature of the Hermetic Chain was fully explained; it is a true teaching because it represents distinctly and clearly and faithfully true and actual operations of nature. More or less faint and distorted copies of the teaching of this Hermetic Chain or Golden Chain or succession of teachers were taken over by various later formal and exoteric sects, such as the Christian Church, wherein the doctrine was called the Apostolic Succession. In all the great Mystery schools of antiquity there was this succession of teacher following teacher, each one passing on the light to his successor as he himself had received it from his predecessor; and as long as this transmission of light was a reality, it worked enormous spiritual benefit among men. Therefore all such movements lived, flourished, and did great good in the world. These teachers were the messengers to men from the Great Lodge of the Masters of Wisdom and Compassion. ( See also Guru-parampara)
(IU) Hermetist. — From Hermes, the god of Wisdom, known in Egypt, Syria, and Phoenicia as Thoth, Tat, Adad, Seth, and Sat-an (the latter not to be taken in the sense applied to it by Moslems and Christians), and in Greece as Kadmus. The kabalists identify him with Adam- Kadmon, the first manifestation of the Divine Power, and with Enoch. There were two Hermes: the elder was the Trismegistus, and the second an emanation, or “permutation” of himself; the friend and instructor of Isis and Osiris. Hermes is the god of the priestly wisdom, like Mazeus.
(WG) Hermetist, one who follows the philosophy of Hermes Trismegistus.
(MO) Hermod {Nors} (hayr-mood) [ herr a host + modr wrath, mood] An Ase: a son of Odin
(TG) Hetu {Sans}. A natural or physical cause.
(WG) Hetumat, having cause or origin; proceeding from a cause. (Literally, “having, the hetu ,” reason for an inference, the second member of the five-membered Nyaga syllogism
(TG) Heva {Hebr}. Eve. “the mother of all that lives”.
(WG) Heya-gunas, bad qualities.
(TG) Hiarchas {Greek}. The King of the Wise Men in the Journey of Apollonius of Tyana to India.
(OG) Hierarchy — The word hierarchy merely means that a scheme or system or state of delegated directive power and authority exists in a self-contained body, directed, guided, and taught by one having supreme authority, called the hierarch. The name is used by theosophists, by extension of meaning, as signifying the innumerable degrees, grades, and steps of evolving entities in the kosmos, and as applying to all parts of the universe; and rightly so, because every different part of the universe — and their number is simply countless — is under the vital governance of a divine being, of a god, of a spiritual essence; and all material manifestations are simply the appearances on our plane of the workings and actions of these spiritual beings behind it.
The series of hierarchies extends infinitely in both directions. If he so choose for purposes of thought, man may consider himself at the middle point, from which extends above him an unending series of steps upon steps of higher beings of all grades — growing constantly less material and more spiritual, and greater in all senses — towards an ineffable point. And there the imagination stops, not because the series itself stops, but because our thought can reach no farther out nor in. And similar to this series, an infinitely great series of beings and states of beings descends downwards (to use human terms) — downwards and downwards, until there again the imagination stops, merely because our thought can go no farther.
The summit, the acme, the flower, the highest point (or the hyparxis) of any series of animate and inanimate beings, whether we enumerate the stages or degrees of the series as seven or ten or twelve (according to whichever system we follow), is the divine unity for that series or hierarchy, and this hyparxis or highest being is again in its turn the lowest being of the hierarchy above it, and so extending onwards forever — each hierarchy manifesting one facet of the divine kosmic life, each hierarchy showing forth one thought, as it were, of the divine thinkers.
Various names were given to these hierarchies considered as series of beings. The generalized Greek hierarchy as shown by writers in periods preceding the rise of Christianity may be collected and enumerated as follows: (1) Divine; (2) Gods, or the divine-spiritual; (3) Demigods, sometimes called divine heroes, involving a very mystical doctrine; (4) Heroes proper; (5) Men; (6) Beasts or animals; (7) Vegetable world; (8) Mineral world; (9) Elemental world, or what was called the realm of Hades. The Divinity (or aggregate divine lives) itself is the hyparxis of this series of hierarchies, because each of these nine stages is itself a subordinate hierarchy. This (or any other) hierarchy of nine, hangs like a pendant jewel from the lowest hierarchy above it, which makes the tenth counting upwards, which tenth we can call the superdivine, the hyperheavenly, this tenth being the lowest stage (or the ninth, counting downwards) of still another hierarchy extending upwards; and so on, indefinitely.
One of the noblest of the theosophical teachings, and one of the most far-reaching in its import, is that of the hierarchical constitution of universal nature. This hierarchical structure of nature is so fundamental, so basic, that it may be truly called the structural framework of being. ( See also Planes) WW Hierarchies [[This]] is an exceedingly difficult subject because so much is involved in it. Let us go backwards instead of forwards. A great many people, preeminently the Christians themselves (because no people know less about their religion than do the Christians) do not know that Christian mythology, or, as I do not wish to be offensive, Christian theology, in those branches which pertain to the more recondite aspects of their creeds — few Christians know, I repeat, that they had, and their Teacher taught, a hierarchical succession in Nature. As embodied in the early Christian writings this hierarchical system was divided into nine classes; these nine classes being further subdivided into three triads. I will write it on the blackboard very shortly, so as to make it clear. Their angelical orders, like everything of value in Christianity, came direct from the pagans, the pagans in this instance, being the Syrians, Chaldeans, and Arabians, and the Neo-platonists. A similar series of divine beings, proceeding from the divinity down to the lowest, has been believed in by all peoples of all times. From the Scandinavian fjords to the plains of Arabia, from China to Peru, in all countries, we will find the same belief in a hierarchical system by which the universe is governed, a hierarchical system of divine beings, if you please. The word hierarchy comes from the Greek hieros ( hieros ), holy, and archein ( archein ), i.e., to be at the beginning, at the head; hence to lead, to rule. Now these words joined, we have the word hierarchy — a government by deputation from a divine source. The Deity, to put it in plain words, governs through deputies, lesser gods in heaven, and priests on earth; hence the word remaining alive in its original significance. In the church of Rome exists the Roman hierarchy, the head of which is the Pope, and the head of him is the Lord Jesus, since the Pope is the vicegerent of God on earth. Under the Pope, the cardinals; although according to one theory in the Roman Church itself, there seems to be a tendency to believe that the cardinals as a united body, in conclave, are possibly equal in authority to the Pope himself. In certain of the Protestant churches, also, there is a hierarchy, as in the Anglican Church, in which the Archbishop of Canterbury is the hierarchial head. Under him are the bishops; under these are the priests; under the priests are the lesser priests, called the curates; and there are other orders of greater or less dignity, deans, deacons, and heaven knows what else. There is a somewhat similar system in the American Episcopal Church which is fundamentally the same as the Anglican church. This system embodies the principle of derivation of spiritual authority from another always a step higher. This hierarchical system is the cause, the basis, of the power of Rome. Its coherence, the instant communication of orders from center to circumference, the sense of unity, the recognition of authority, the feeling of brotherhood, makes the common bond, which is so strong that all the onslaughts and attacks of science, logic, reason, history, have been unable at the present day to do more than shatter the outward fortifications of the Church of Rome. The Church of Rome, as the great English Rationalist Hobbes once said, is the ghost of the Roman empire; and it is still a marvelously powerful ghost. The seeds of its disintegration must be sown within its own body. The Modernism of today is becoming a powerful force for progress in it. Hierarchies is one of the keys to the natural religion of mankind, which is Theosophy. The religions of the ancient world without exception not even excepting the Jewish, and the religions of ancient America, as far as we can know them from the writings of the prejudiced priests who wrote the books from which we derive our information — all these show that the world was governed on the hierarchical system, the orders or classes of being proceeding from the Deity ‘downwards’ ever growing more material. The whole system of the government of the universe was conceived of as a deputation of authority. Man was one of the steps; below man were the animals; below the animals, the plants; below the plants, the minerals; below the minerals, the elementals — until another world begins, which is a very abstruse subject that I cannot touch upon here. Above man were the Gods, the spiritual beings; above the Gods, others called Super-Archangels, if you like; above them were the Thrones, and the Dominations and Powers, all names conveying the idea of a procession of authority, which we are attempting to describe. The ‘angelic’ hierarchy, as the Christians have it, dates from the 6th century, and it is first found in a writer who calls himself, or rather who is known as, Dionysius the Areopagite, from the Areopagus, the Hill of Athens. He was associated with some legend connected with the Areopagus. As my memory serves me, according to the Christian legend he was one of St. Paul’s first converts, an Athenian named Dionysius, and he was converted on the Areopagus, or belonged to the Council of Mar’s Hill, and he took the name Areopagite or Areopagites, as a surname — Dionysius the Areopagite. There is no foundation for this legend of his Athenian derivation, beyond the passage in Acts xvii, 4. He divided, as I have previously hinted, the hierarchical series into nine orders, subdivided into three triads. They are as follows as he gives them: First Triad 1. First and highest, Seraphim or the Seraphs, a word derived from the Hebrew [[heb char]] (ShRPh) referring to the fire, fiery essence. 2. Cherubim, also from the Hebrew, the word [[heb char]] (ChRVB) being of very First doubtful origin; but, as learned and pious Triad Christian commentators put it, there is no question of their being of angelical nature, because it is not true that the Lord God once rode upon a Cherub and Fly? [rode upon a Cherub and Fly? See II Sam . 11, 11. Fly is not a noun here, but a verb — flew.– J.D.] ( Samuel ), 22, 11, Psalms 3. The Thrones ; this makes the first triad. Second Triad 4. Dominations 5. Virtues 6. Powers Third Triad 7. Principalities 8. Archangels 9. Angels WW Hierarchies [[W]]e will remark on the following nine orders: Gods, angelic orders, daimons, heroes, men, animals, plants, minerals, and elementals. Before we begin it might be well to say something about elementals. They form properly the ninth in the hierarchy which I have just mentioned because they are at the bottom of the scale; and those entities which are at the bottom of any scale consisting of nine units are elemental in their nature. You will remember we said that the angels were the ninth in order of the hierarchy or ladder of beings, as given by Dionysius called the Areopagite. He was called the Areopagite because he was supposed to be that individual whom Paul met, converted, and turned to Christianity when he visited Athens. There is a Dionysius mentioned in the Gospel of the Christians, in Acts xvii, 34, as being one of the individuals whom Paul converted; and medieval scholastics supposed that this Dionysius was later ‘Bishop’ of the church of Athens, and was still later transferred to Paris to become bishop of a certain district in northern France; and it pleased Gallic pride to suppose that their St. Denis and the writer calling himself Dionysius the Areopagite were one and the same person. The probability is, however — a probability which is almost certainly the fact — that whoever the writer may have been who threw his thoughts into the form of the work which has come down to us ascribed to Dionysius the Areopagite, drew his inspiration and a source of his knowledge from the Neoplatonic School. We find the same system of hierarchical governance of the world set forth; we find the same attributes, to a large extent, ascribed to the Deity; we find the same general Neoplatonic way of looking at the world and man, at the beings between man and the Deity and the beings under man. Now, coming to our hierarchy: 1st Triad 1. Gods (Any other name would be, probably, as apt; I merely chose the words angelical order, because angelical comes from the Greek word meaning messenger, and all things are from the gods 2. Angelical order 3. Daimones 2nd Triad 4. Heroes 5. Men 6. Animals 3rd Triad 7. Plants 8. The mineral world 9. Elementals, and a new world begins, a new hierarchy. You will remember that when we spoke of gods in our last study we described them as ‘spiritual beings’. The objection to this is that it is not sufficiently definite, because ‘spiritual beings’ may be applied to any entity in the universe possessing, as all entities do, an intelligent spiritual center. Therefore, searching for a word, this — Gods — seemed best. Any other word would be as good, provided it conveyed the idea of the summit, physical, intellectual, and spiritual, of any hierarchy under discussion. The angelical order would be the second in the series, a step downward from the Gods. It would be, of course, perfectly proper to call them ‘gods one degree lower’; the daimones ‘gods two degrees lower’, the heroes three, men four, etc., and thus down to the end of the scale. But as that is confusing, and as it fixes an entity in the mind by giving it a name, let us call the next, the third in order, daimones, from the Greek word daimones which has many meanings and is used in Greek literature with many significations. Hesiod in his Works and Days (121), speaks of the daimones as being the entities of the first, golden, or Saturnian race of men [See also The Secret Doctrine, II, 765.– PLP EDS.] (which would fit in very well with what we understand by our Third Race in this Round), who exercise a protecting and beneficent care over men. The order of Heroes is lower, a word taken from Greek mythology, philosophy, and literature. Hesiod speaks of the Heroes as the representatives of his third race of men, formidable, mighty … hearts of adamant, unapproachable, which would also fit in admirably with our Third and early Fourth Races. Hesiod omits mention of our First Race; and his other races are made to overlap. The Heroes were greater men, supermen, as they might be called today. They were men such as Theseus was, and Hercules too. The Heroes in Greek mythology were conceived as of having a god for one parent and a human for the other parent. Men are such as we are, a strange mingling of god and beast, standing midway betwixt the gods and the elementals, and composing the middle point of the hierarchy. The Animals are lesser men, or super-plants, beings with everything latent in them which we have, beings which are following us as the world progresses, feeding on what we cast off. Our dead bodies nourish the plants. Our astral elements after our death, nourish the animals. The higher parts of the animals are nourished by those parts of the lower quaternary, the second part of man (conceived of as a heptad), which he casts off in the postmortem state. The plants are lesser animals. Sometimes the difference between plant and animal is small. There are creatures on earth today, principally marine, in which it is difficult to distinguish whether they are animal or plant. The Mineral world composes the hard and rocky substance from which plants, animals, and men, ultimately draw their subsistence And the Elementals form both the lowest order of this hierarchical scale — which you will remember is merely taken as an example of any hierarchical scale — and the commencement of another hierarchical scale below, another series of nine. They are the super-gods, so to say, of the lower scale, as the elementals of the hierarchy above the gods would be the super-gods of our hierarchy, superior to this as this is superior to the one below it. So much for the principles of the hierarchical governance of the universe. Now it was a part of the Neoplatonic technique, and it is also the technique of Theosophy, more particularly as set forth by H. P. Blavatsky in The Secret Doctrine, that every part of nature has its head. Nature is divided into spheres of activity, planes of action, ruled by deputies, who are the hierarchical heads thereof. This is also the teaching of Dionysius the Areopagite. Be it remembered, that his ideas are unsatisfactory from their vagueness, from the attempt to twist them to suit dogmatical Christian theology, and from the effort made to stretch them or to compress them into the proper size to fit that theology. But the principle is there, of dominance, of governance of the cosmos, of the universe, by deputies, receiving their power, their authority, their intelligence from the hierarchical head. In the Scandinavian Edda there are also the gods in their hierarchies. The eighth state or order in this scale is called Hel , that is to say the eighth of the hierarchy, lower or higher, as we view it than the one corresponding to this I have just written on the blackboard which we may call the human hierarchy, giving it the name of that which composes its center. [This statement is somewhat unclear, evidently referencing some scheme or diagram on the blackboard not incorporated in the original shorthand transcript. — PLP EDS.] The ninth state of this Scandinavian hierarchy was called Nifelheim. Now we come to an exceedingly difficult part of this subject, and that is, tracing the golden thread of consciousness and individuality running from the summit down. You will remember that Homer ( Iliad viii, 19-24) speaks of the golden chain, by which if necessary he could drag all the gods and goddesses up from below, or let them down from Olympus if he so pleased; and this passage in the divine Homer has exercised the minds of more Greek and Latin philosophers than any other. Its proper elucidation is found in the writings of the Neoplatonists. These Neo-Platonists were a wonderful body of men. The name Neo of course means ‘new’, and Platonists is a word indicating the source of their philosophy in Plato. And they said that as Plato hid his knowledge in metaphor and symbol, as all ancient teachers did, so their duty was (considering that the world had arrived at what was called among themselves a period of intellectual and spiritual barrenness when false ideas were abroad and spreading in the world) — their duty was to set forth as much as they dared of the real meaning of what Plato thought, more or less of the actual teachings taught in the Mysteries of Greece. And they did so, and they said that the ‘golden chain’ signified that procession of conscious being from the highest we can conceive of, down to the lowest. Every god had a procession or chain of entities proceeding from him to the lowest things. Along that magnetic chain, that golden chain, that series of links between the lowest and the highest, the particular characteristic or qualities of that particular god were always manifest. There was the Athentic, or Minervic which is the Latin term for the same thing, and this is the procession of intellectual entities. Their chain, down to the lowest, had an intellectual characteristic or nature. Those gods in which the passion of harmony, or love, (divine love, please understand) was the characteristic dominant, as in the celestial Venus, formed the chain connecting the celestial beings with the lowest of beings in which attraction below and love above predominated. You will remember that there were two Venuses, the celestial Venus, the divine Venus, called by the Greeks Aphrodite Ourania (from the Greek word meaning the heavens), and the Aphrodite Pandemos, of all people, as we might say, ‘everybody’s’ Venus. (Cf. Plato, Symposium, 81C). This Aphrodite Pandemos, was the Venus of animal desire, of animal love, animal attraction; and the Aphrodite Ourania, the celestial Aphrodite, was that power in the universe which is best represented by our human word harmony, or love, pure celestial, impersonal love. Therefore, consider if you please, that this hierarchy is removed seven degrees, seven stages above ours, leaving the relative positions of these nine orders as they now are. We may take fourteen stages or fifteen, or any number we may choose, but we will say seven above, counting upwards from the gods. From the gods of that seventh degree higher the influence proceeds mystically and wonderfully through all these others down to the ends of things. The second order of that degree sends forth in the same way, and the third and all the other. We are now men. What makes us men? It is the working in us of the intellectual faculties, the Manas, that which links us with the above and which enables us to understand the below. When we come to study Soul, Spirit, Matter, and Maya we shall be able to go into that subject more fully. Now it will be better to leave it, merely alluding to the fact that we are men because we receive as the source of our faculties, of our inspiration, the influence, the life, the magnetic stream so to speak, which descends from this particular hierarchy to which we belong. This composite stream was spoken of in ancient India under a dual form, as the solar and the lunar strains or inheritance, because man, mystically speaking, is part sun and part moon. These are difficult questions. We will go into them later when they come up. I am now trying to show you how hierarchies work in Nature, and you really see that the subject is so complex that I can give no more than the idea as thought by the ancients. That is my duty; it is the duty of those who wish to study, to investigate for themselves. H. P. Blavatsky taught us, all our Teachers have taught us, to take our literature, The Secret Doctrine pre-eminently, and by searching and reading such works as will enable us to advance step by step, to realize the grandeur of conceptions such as these: that the universe is conceived of as an organism, as being a unit; that there is no creation in the ordinary sense (we will come to that subject later also). There is evolution, emanation. Strictly speaking, we Theosophists are evolutionary emanationists. We are not evolutionists and we are not emanationists, in the popular sense, when we describe the tremendous activities which we class under the two names Cosmogony and Theogony. Therefore, each unit or order of any hierarchical system, giving its individuality, its life, its principles to all below it, and all below it aspiring towards it; each hierarchy in turn sending its principles, its life, its energy, its light, to those lower, and those lower aspiring to those higher — we can see what a majestic system it was which the ancients had, and how, despite themselves, these Christians with their arrogance and egotism find themselves drawn back to the old system, not knowing it. They cannot avoid it. It is in them. It is in the blood of men because they are men. Instinctively, they are drawn, as the magnet attracts them. All men are thinking beings, as a Greek philosopher said, and all heroes are aspiring beings, and all daimones are intellectual entities, and all angelical orders are orders of love. And the gods form the apex, those who are perfected. Little by little the elementals raise themselves into the minerals, the minerals through ages and ages of time become plants, the plants raise themselves in turn to the animals, the animals aspire to the heroes, the heroes are drawn to the animals and man is born! Heaven above, earth below, man in the middle; below earth the elemental world. It is a wonderful system, wonderful in the suggestiveness of every thought. Thoughts come into our minds as we discuss these things that we cannot follow, as we have not time, but you will see that in whatever way we look at these truths there is a new conception. Vaster horizons are opened to our view; new worlds seem to burst upon our astonished gaze. And how do we enter them? What is the key? It is Unity Divine, Universal Brotherhood, the identity of all things that are spiritual, where there is neither a beginning nor an end, because the end is a beginning and the beginning is an end. When the great Christian Teacher said: I am the Alpha and the Omega, by Alpha and Omega he meant that which is the beginning and the end — I am a hierarchy. And see how it has been twisted and turned as implying the personal, irascible, thundering God, the adopted God, the misunderstood Jewish Lord, the creator of heaven and earth, and no more. I and my Father are one. What is the Father of man? God, which is myself, yourself — and yet seven principles in each of us all, and seven principles to each order of any hierarchy, each principle with each principle interlinked, and forming an interminable chain from the lowest up to the very Godhead. And what is the Godhead? It is the elemental order of that which is higher. And we talk about ‘infinity’ and ‘eternity’ and quibble quite loosely, scarcely understanding what the words mean! I could say much more on this subject, but time passes. I would like to point out one thing. In the Christian New Testament, Paul, writing to the Romans supposedly, (XI, 36) says (and the English of it does not carry the force of the Greek): For of me and through me and to me are all things. ( of, derivation ; through , procession ; from, a source ; to , aspiration ). The Old Testament of the Jews has a remarkable passage. It says Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness. You will see the force of that in a few moments. The Hebrew of it is this: [[heb char]] N’AShH ADM BTsLMNV ChDMVThNV (Gen. I, 26) The word for man here is Adam . It is used for man in the sense that the Germans use Der Mensch, not Der Mann ; as the Latins used the word Homo, not Vir ; as the Greeks said anthropos, not aner . It means humanity, mankind, not a human pair, Adam and Eve. The poetic term for man in Hebrew was [[heb char]] (ANVSh) = Enoch. [G. de P. has Hebrew ANVSh, but English Enoch, which derives from Hebrew ChNVCh, Haunch. H. P. Blavatsky shows these terms to be equivalent. See Gen. iv, 17; v. 6, 19. ChNVCh had a life span of 365 years; ANVSh, by gematria, is 365 x 1 according to Skinner’s Source of Measures methodology. — J.D.] But in speaking of a man particularly, as one of the race, an individual man, the word [[heb char]] Ish, was used. For instance, a man said to a man: [[heb char]] AMR AISH LAISH. Man considered as a genus, as a class is [[heb char]] ADM Adam, commonly called Adam. Now, we find: — Let us make humanity in our image — so God created man in his own image. In the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. ( Genesis The point is this: God, ‘Elohim, created man in the image of God, ‘Elohim; man is a child of God, ‘Elohim; he is the image of his hierarchy, the image of his summit, the apex of the hierarchy. So careful were the writers of that verse that they repeated In the image of God ‘Elohim created he him; male and female created he them. Are we to understand that the Lord God of the Jews is shaped as a physical man is? In chapter V of Genesis there is this: — Male and female created he them and blessed them, and called their name Adam. Now I ask your attention to these things: they are not unimportant. We are told that the first man, according to the usual interpretation, was called Adam, and that the first woman was taken from a rib of his body. We are told in the fifth chapter that their name was Adam. We have just seen that Adam was the name of humanity, and that the name for man as an individual was [[heb char]] (pronounced Ish). What then is the inference? That humanity is spoken of, not a human pair; that as their name was Adam (called he ), and as his ‘wife’ is distinguished from that word by the word Eve, therefore that the nature of the mankind spoken of here was mystically dual — a humanity which became ages and ages later on actually a double-sex race — bisexual. Bisexual humanity on earth is symbolic of an equivalent participation of energies in the hierarchical order from which that bisexual race traced its source. (The Adam of the first chapter of Genesis , it should be remembered, is not a physical being — rather an ‘angel’, a semi-spiritual being of bi-polar nature. We shall come again to this in due time We see, then that in the Hebrew records early humanity (not the physical, fleshly being we know as man; there is no authority for that) was in the image of Elohim. Now Elohim is a very curious word. It is a plural; it comes from [[heb char]] (ALVH) Eloah, a ‘divine being’ or ‘god’, used sometimes as a word for the Deity. It would mean — reading it as a word and taking our minds away from theological misconceptions — the Gods . And the Gods said: Let us make humanity in our image, according to our pattern. The orthodox answer to that (and it is proper that we should have the other side before us) is that Elohim is used in the masculine plural as a plural of majesty, or dignity, much as an earthly monarch might say: We, by the grace of God, Edward, King of Great Britain and Ireland; we the king….Furthermore the argument is strengthened against what I have just said by the usage in this locus of the singular verb (in part only) and by the singular pronoun (in part, the plural also being used, ‘our’, ‘us’, ‘we’). But it is according to the genius of the ancient Hebrew that under certain conditions a plural noun may take a singular verb, very much as in Greek the neuter plural regularly takes a singular verb, as for instance [[greek char]] (ta panta esti agatha), literally, all things is good . A similar rule prevails in the Hebrew, that plurals sometimes take singular verbs, sometimes not. So the argument of the monotheists that Elohim is here only a plural of dignity, and besides that it takes a singular verb to designate the Deity, disappears. Furthermore, the sense in our image, our pattern, is very strong in Hebrew. It has more force than it has in the English. Both words, both expressions have a plural sense, and as we know that if we accept the orthodox interpretation, whether of the Jews or of the Christians, we must believe that man was made in the image of the formless Deity, that the Deity is the model of man, we are led into what seems to a theosophical mind utter blasphemy. But taking it in the sense of the plural as it stands, not necessarily as gods with the usual idea of a heterogeneous collection of squabbling divinities, but as a closely-knit order of hierarchy — In our likeness, in our copy — we see that being patterned after his archetype, man is a hierarchy; the gods are a hierarchy; the Elohim are any undefined hierarchy which you may choose to name. The Hebrew books speak of it, and Genesis starts off with the words as commonly rendered: In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
(TG) Hierogrammatists. The title given to those Egyptian priests, who were entrusted with the writing and reading of the sacred and secret records. The scribes of the secret records literally. They were the instructors of the neophytes preparing for initiation.
(KT) Hierogrammatists {Greek} The title given to those Egyptian priests who were entrusted with the writing and reading of the sacred and secret records. The scribes of the secret records literally. They were the instructors of the neophytes preparing for initiation.
(TG) Hierophant. From the Greek Hierophantes; literally, One who explains sacred things. The discloser of sacred learning, and the Chief of the Initiates. A title belonging to the highest Adepts in the temples of antiquity, who were the teachers and expounders of the Mysteries and the Initiators into the final great Mysteries. The Hierophant represented the Demiurge, and explained to the postulants for Initiation the various phenomena of Creation that were produced for their tuition. He was the sole expounder of the esoteric secrets and doctrines. It was forbidden even to pronounce his name before an uninitiated person. He sat in the East, and wore as a symbol of authority a golden globe suspended from the neck. He was also called Mystagogus (Kenneth R. H. Mackenzie, ix., F.T.S., in The Royal Cyclopaedia). In Hebrew and Chaldaic the term was Peter, the opener, discloser; hence the Pope as the successor of the hierophant of the ancient Mysteries, sits in the Pagan chair of St. Peter.
(IU) Hierophant. — Discloser of sacred learning. The Old Man, the Chief of the Adepts at the initiations, who explained the arcane knowledge to the neophytes, bore this title. In Hebrew and Chaldaic the term was Peter, or opener, discloser; hence, the Pope, as the successor of the hierophant of the ancient Mysteries, sits in the Pagan chair of St. Peter. The vindictiveness of the Catholic Church toward the alchemists, and to arcane and astronomical science, is explained by the fact that such knowledge was the ancient prerogative of the hierophant, or representative of Peter, who kept the mysteries of life and death. Men like Bruno, Galileo, and Kepler, therefore, and even Cagliostro, trespassed on the preserves of the Church, and were accordingly murdered.
Every nation had its Mysteries and hierophants. Even the Jews had their Peter — Tanaim or Rabbin, like Hillel, Akiba, [Akiba was a friend of Aher, said to have been the Apostle Paul of Christian story. Both are depicted as having visited Paradise. Aher took branches from the Tree of Knowledge, and so fell from the true (Jewish) religion. Akiba came away in peace. See 2d Epistle to the Corinthians, chapter xii.] and other famous kabalists, who alone could impart the awful knowledge contained in the Merkaba . In India, there was in ancient times one, and now there are several hierophants scattered about the country, attached to the principal pagodas, who are known as the Brahma-atmas. In Thibet the chief hierophant is the Dalay or Taley-Lama of Lha-ssa. [Taley means ocean or sea.] Among Christian nations, the Catholics alone have preserved this heathen custom, in the person of their Pope, albeit they have sadly disfigured its majesty and the dignity of the sacred office.
(KT) Hierophant. From the Greek Hierophantes, literally he who explains sacred things; a title belonging to the highest adepts in the temples of antiquity, who were the teachers and expounders of the Mysteries, and the Initiators into the final great Mysteries. The Hierophant stood for the Demiurge, and explained to the postulants for Initiation the various phenomena of creation that were produced for their tuition. He was the sole expounder of the exoteric secrets and doctrines. It was forbidden even to pronounce his name before an uninitiated person. He sat in the East, and wore as symbol of authority, a golden globe, suspended from the neck. He was also called Mystagogus
(FY) Hierophants, the High Priests.
(WG) Hierophant #6nn, an instructor in the Mysteries, an initiator. (Greek hieros , sacred; phantes, one who shows
(WG) Higher Ego, Buddhi-Manas . The spiritual part of the human ego. The god within us, or our Father in Heaven.
(TG) Higher Self. The Supreme Divine Spirit overshadowing man. The crown of the upper spiritual Triad in man — Atman .
(WG) Higher Self, Atma. The spiritual essence in man. The supreme Soul, the divine Monad, overshadowing the human Ego.
(OG) Higher Triad — The imperishable spiritual ego considered as a unity. It is the reincarnating part of man’s constitution which clothes itself in each earth-life in a new personality or lower quaternary. The higher triad, speaking in the simplest fashion, is the unity of atman, buddhi, and the higher manas; and the lower quaternary consists of the lower manas or kama-manas, the prana or vitality, the linga-sarira or astral model-body, and the physical vehicle.
Another manner of considering the human constitution in its spiritual aspects is that viewed from the standpoint of consciousness, and in this latter manner the higher triad consists of the divine monad, the spiritual monad, and the higher human monad. The higher triad is often spoken of in a collective sense, and ignoring details of division, as simply the reincarnating monad, or more commonly the reincarnating ego, because this latter is rooted in the higher triad.
Many theosophists experience quite unnecessary difficulty in understanding why the human constitution should be at one time divided in one way and at another time divided in another way. The difficulty lies in considering these divisions as being absolute instead of relative, in other words, as representing watertight compartments instead of merely indefinite and convenient divisions. The simplest psychological division is probably that which divides the septenary constitution of man in three parts: an uppermost duad which is immortal, an intermediate duad which is conditionally immortal, and a lower triad which is unconditionally mortal. (See Fundamentals of the Esoteric Philosophy, 1st ed., pp. 167, 525; 2nd rev. ed., pp. 199, 601).
(TG) Hillel. A great Babylonian Rabbi of the century preceding the Christian era. He was the founder of the sect of the Pharisees, a learned and a sainted man.
(KT) Hillel. A great Babylonian Rabbi of the century preceding the Christian Era. He was the founder of the sect of the Pharisees, a learned and a saintly man.
(TG) Himachala Himadri {Sans}. The Himalayan Mountains.
(GH) Himalaya The lofty range of mountains in central Asia. Also known as Himachala and Himadri and personified as Himavat, mythologically considered to be the husband of Mena and the father of Ganga (the Ganges river). ( Bhagavad-Gita , W. Q. Judge, p. 74)
(TG) Himavt {Sans}. The personified Himalayas; the father of the river Ganga, or Ganges.
(TG) Hinayana {Sans}. The Smaller Vehicle; a Scripture and a School of the Northern Buddhists, opposed to the Mahayana, the Greater Vehicle, in Tibet. Both schools are mystical. (See Mahayana Also in exoteric superstition the lowest form of transmigration.
(KT) Hinayana {Sans} The Smaller Vehicle; a Scripture and a School of the Buddhists, contrasted with the Mahayana, The Greater Vehicle. Both schools are mystical. (See Mahayana Also in exoteric superstition, the lowest form of transmigration.
(FY) Hina-yana, lowest form of transmigration of the Buddhist.
(WG) Hina-yana, the inferior or lesser vehicle, a system of Buddhistic teaching. (See Maha-yana
(WG) Hindu, a Hindoo; the name of the religion of the Hindus.
(FY) Hiong-Thsang, the celebrated Chinese traveler whose writings contain the most interesting account of India of the period.
(TG) Hiouen Thsang. A great Chinese writer and philosopher who travelled in India in the sixth century, in order to learn more about Buddhism, to which he was devoted.
HIPPOCRATES
Oath and Law of Hippocrates
(TG) Hippocrates {Greek}. A famous physician of Cos, one of the Cyclades, who flourished at Athens during the invasion of Artaxerxes, and delivered that town from a dreadful pestilence. He was called the father of Medicine. Having studied his art from the votive tablets offered by the cured patients at the temples of Aesculapius, he became an Initiate and the most proficient healer of his day, so much so that he was almost deified. His learning and knowledge were enormous. Galen says of his writing that they are truly the voice of an oracle. He died in his 100th year, 361 B.C.
(TG) Hippopotamus {Greek}. In Egyptian symbolism Typhon was called the hippopotamus who slew his father and violated his mother, Rhea (mother of the gods). His father was Chronos. As applied therefore to Time and Nature (Chronos and Rhea), the accusation becomes comprehensible. The type of Cosmic Disharmony, Typhon, who is also Python, the monster formed of the slime of the Deluge of Deucalion, Violates his mother, Primordial Harmony, whose beneficence was so great that she was called The Mother of the Golden Age. It was Typhon, who put an end to the latter, i.e ., produced the first war of the elements.
(TG) Hiquet {Egyp}. The frog-goddess; one of the symbols of immortality and of the Water principle. The early Christians had their church lamps made in the form of a frog, to denote that baptism in water led to immortality.
(TG) Hiram Abiff. A biblical personage; a skilful builder and a Widow’s Son, whom King Solomon procured from Tyre, for the purpose of superintending the works of the Temple, and who became later a masonic character, the hero on whom hangs all the drama, or rather play , of the Masonic Third Initiation . The Kabbala makes a great deal of Hiram Abiff.
(TG) Hiranya {Sans}. Radiant, golden, used of the Egg of Brahma.
(TG) Hiranya Garbha {Sans}. The radiant or golden egg or womb. Esoterically the luminous fire mist or ethereal stuff from which the Universe was formed.
(WG) Hiranya-Garbha, a name of Brahma, the creator, said to have been born from a golden egg which was formed out of the seed deposited by the self-existent Brahma in the waters; a symbol for universal abstract nature. ( hiranya , golden; garbha, the conceiving womb, the fruit of the womb: gold-scion, or fruit of the golden [egg]
(SKs) Hiranyagarbha Literally ‘the Golden Egg’ or ‘the Egg of imperishable matter,’ the ‘Auric Egg’ of a universe, a solar system, a planet, a god, or a human being. Hiranyagarbha is a compound of hiranya — golden, and garbha — womb. Legend, which is verily history of the hoary past, says that Brahman, the Universal Divinity, cast a seed into the Waters of Space. From this seed, which became Hiranyagarbha or a golden egg which shone like unto the sun, was born Brahma, the Solar Self. The Auric Egg of any being is that radiant sphere which is the source of the being on all planes. In an article on the Auric Egg to appear in the forthcoming Encyclopedic Glossary, Dr. de Purucker writes about the Auric Egg of a human being in the following words: It ranges from the divine to the astral-physical, and is the seat of all the monadic, spiritual, intellectual, mental, passional, and vital energies and faculties of the human septiform constitution. In its essence it is eternal, and endures throughout the Pralayas as well as during the Manvantaras; but necessarily in greatly varying fashion in these two great periods of Kosmic Life.
(IN) The Complete Works, H. P. Blavatsky writes that the word Hiranya does not mean gold but the golden light of divine knowledge, the first principle in whose womb is contained the light of the eternal truth which illuminates the liberated soul when it has reached its highest abode. It is, in short, the Philosopher’s Stone of the alchemist, and the Eternal Light of the Fire Philosopher. — II, p. 76
(TG) Hiranyakasipu {Sans}. A King of the Daityas, whom Vishnu — in his avatar of the man-lion — puts to death.
(TG) Hiranyaksha {Sans}. The golden-eyed. The king and ruler of the 5th region of Patala, the nether-world; a snake-god in the Hindu Pantheon. It has various other meanings.
(TG) Hiranyapura {Sans}. The Golden City.
(TG) Hisi #fin. The Principle of Evil in the Kalevala, the epic poem of Finland.
(TG) Hitopadesa {Sans}. Good Advice. A work composed of a collection of ethical precepts, allegories and other tales from an old, Scripture, the Panchatantra.
(TG) Chivim {Hebr}.
(TG) Hivim {Hebr}. Whence the Hivites who, according to some Roman Catholic commentators, descend from Heth, son of Canaan, son of Ham, the accursed. Brasseuir de Bourbourg, the missionary translator of the Scripture of the Guatemalans, the Popol Vuh, indulges in tile theory that the Hivim of the Qutetzo Cohuatl, the, Mexican Serpent Deity, and the descendants of Serpents as they call themselves, are identical with the descendants of Ham (!!) whose ancestor is Cain. Such is the conclusion, at any rate, drawn from Bombourg’s writings by Des Mousseaux, the demonologist. Bourbourg hints that the chiefs of the name of Votan, the Quetzo Cohuatl, are the descendants of Ham and Canaan. I and Hivim, they say. Being a Hivim, I am of the great Race of the Dragons. I am a snake, myself, for I am a Hivim ( Cortes 51). But Cain is allegorically shown as the ancestor of the Hivites, the Serpents, because Cain is held to have been the first initiate in the mysteries of procreation. The race of the Dragons or Serpents means the Wise Adepts. The names Hivi or Hivite, and Levi — signify a Serpent; and the Hivites or Serpent-tribe of Palestine, were, like all Levites and Ophites of Israel, initiated Ministers to the temples, i.e ., Occultists, as are the priests of Quetzo Cohuatl. The Gibeonites whom Joshua assigned to the service of the sanctuary were Hivites
(TG) Hler {Nors}. The god of the sea. One of the three mighty sons of the Frost-giant, Ymir. These sons were Karl, god of the air and the storms; Hler of the Sea; and Logi of the fire. They are the Cosmic trinity of the Norsemen.
(TG) Hoa {Hebr}. That, from which proceeds Ab, the Father; therefore the Concealed Logos.
(TG) Hoang Ty {Chin}. The Great Spirit. His Sons are said to have acquired new wisdom, and imparted what they knew before to mortals, by falling — like the rebellious angels — into the Valley of Pain, which is allegorically our Earth. In other words they are identical with the Fallen Angels of exoteric religions, and with the reincarnating Egos, esoterically.
(TG) Hochmah {Hebr}. See Chochmah.
(TG) Hod {Hebr}. Splendour, the eighth of the ten Sephiroth, a female passive potency. [w.w.w.]
(WG) Hod {Hebr}, splendor. The eighth of the ten Sephiroth of the Kabalah. A female potency.
(MO) Hoder {Nors} (heu-der) [ hod war, slaughter] An Ase: blind god of darkness and ignorance; brother of Balder
(TG) Holy of Holies. The Assyriologists, Egyptologists, and Orientalists, in general, show that such a place existed in every temple of antiquity. The great temple of Bel-Merodach whose sides faced the four cardinal points, had in its extreme end a Holy of Holies hidden from the profane by a veil: here, at the beginning of the year ‘the divine, king of heaven and earth, the lord of the heavens, seats himself’. According to Herodotus, here was the golden image of the god with a golden table in front like the Hebrew table for the shew bread, and upon this, food appears to have been placed. In some temples there also was a little coffer or ark with two engraved stone tablets on it. (Myer’s Qabbalah In short, it is now pretty well proven, that the chosen people had nothing original of their own, but that every detail of their ritualism and religion was borrowed from older nations. The Hibbert Lectures by Prof. Sayce and others show this abundantly. The story of the birth of Moses is that of Sargon, the Babylonian, who preceded Moses by a couple of thousand years; and no wonder, as Dr. Sayce tells us that the name of Moses, Mosheh, has a connection with the name of the Babylonian sun-god as the hero or leader. (Hibvert Lect. p. 4 et Says Mr. J Myer, The orders of the priests were divided into high priests, those attached or bound to certain deities, like the Hebrew Levites; anointers or cleaners; the Kali , ‘illustrious’ or ‘elders’; the soothsayers, and the Makhkhu or ‘great one’ in which Prof. Delitzsch sees the Rab-mag of the Old Testament. The Akkadians and Chaldeans kept a Sabbath day of rest every seven days, they also had thanksgiving days, and days for humiliation and prayer. There were sacrifices of vegetables and animals, of meats and wine. . . . The number seven was especially sacred. . . . The great temple of Babylon existed before 2,250 B.C. Its ‘Holy of Holies’ was within the Shrine of Nebo, the prophet god of wisdom. It is from the Akkadians that the god Mardak passed to the Assyrians, and he had been before Merodach, the merciful, of the Babylonians, the only son and interpreter of the will of Ea or Hea, the great Deity of Wisdom. The Assyriologists have, in short, unveiled the whole scheme of the chosen people .
(WG) Holy Triad, in Buddhism, the Lord (Buddha), the Law, and the Assembly.
(TG) Holy Water. This is one of the oldest rites practised in Egypt, and thence in Pagan Rome. It accompanied the rite of bread and wine. Holy water was sprinkled by the Egyptian priest alike upon his gods’ images and the faithful. It was both poured and sprinkled. A brush has been found, supposed to have been used for that purpose, as at this day As to the bread, the cakes of Isis . . . were placed upon the alter. Gliddon writes that they were ‘identical in shape with the consecrated cake of the Roman and Eastern Churches’. Melville assures us ‘the Egyptians marked this holy bread with St. Andrew’s cross’. The Presence bread was broken before being distributed by the priests to the people, and was supposed to become the flesh and blood of the Deity. The miracle was wrought by the hand of the officiating priest, who blessed the food. . . . Rouge tells us ‘the bread offerings bear the imprint of the fingers , the mark of consecration See also Bread and Wine
(TG) Homogeneity. From the Greek words homos the same and genos kind. That which is of the same nature throughout, undifferentiated, non-compound, as gold is supposed to be.
(KT) Homogeneity. From the Greek words homos, the same; and genos, kind. That which is of the same nature throughout, undifferentiated, non-compound, as gold is supposed to be.
(TG) Honir {Nors}. A creative god who furnished the first man with intellect and understanding after man had been created by him jointly with Odin and Lodur from an ash tree.
(MO) Honer {Nors} (heu-ner) One of the creative trinity; the watery principle
(TG) Honover (Zend). The Persian Logos, the manifested Word.
(TG) Hor Ammon {Egyp}. The Self-engendered, a word in theogony which answers to the Sanskrit Anupadaka, parentless. Hor-Ammon is a combination of the ram-headed god of Thebes and of Horus.
(PV) Hor chan Head of the serpent. The Chorti Maya caste of elder-chiefs, equated with Gucumatz, the Agrarian deity of which they are the earthly representatives. This elder caste is of divine origin, but the individual born into it must win the right to exercise of the post through his or her personal merit and exemplary conduct.
(TG) Horchia {Chald}. According to Berosus, the same as Vesta, goddess of the Hearth.
(TG) Horus {Egyp}. The last in the line of divine Sovereigns in Egypt, said to he the son of Osiris and Isis. He is the great god loved of Heaven, the beloved of the Sun, the offspring of the gods, the subjugator of the world. At the time of the Winter Solstice (our Christmas), his image, in the form of a small newly-born infant, was brought out from the sanctuary for the adoration of the worshipping, crowds. As he is, the type of the vault of heaven, he is said to have come from the Maem Misi, the sacred birth-place (the womb of the World), and is, therefore, the mystic Child of the Ark or the argha, the symbol of the matrix. Cosmically, he is the Winter Sun. A tablet describes him as the substance of his father, Osiris, of whom he is an incarnation and also identical with him. Horus is a chaste deity, and like Apollo has no amours. His part in the lower world is associated with the Judgment. He introduces souls to his father, the Judge (Bonwick). An ancient hymn says of him, By him the world is judged in that which it contains. Heaven and earth are under his immediate presence. He rules all human beings. The sun goes round according to his purpose. He brings forth abundance and dispenses it to all the earth. Every one adores his beauty. Sweet is his love in us.
(WG) Horus, the son of Osiris and Isis, the Father and Mother, or spiritual and material aspects of Being, in Egyptian mysticism. Therefore he is the fount of life, the germ, the mystic child of the ark; that out of which the whole universe grows or becomes.
(MO) Hostage {Nors} A Vana god among the Aesir: an avatara from a higher to a lower world
(TG) Hotri {Sans}. A priest who recites the hymns from the Rig Veda , and makes oblations to the fire.
(WG) Hotri, a priest conversant with the Rig-Veda; an offerer of sacrifices with fire.
(TG) Hotris {Sans}. A symbolical name for the seven senses called, in the Anugita the Seven Priests. The senses supply the fire of mind ( i.e ., desire) with the oblations of external pleasures. An occult term used metaphysically.
(VS) Householder (II 11) [[p. 28]] Rathapala the great Arhat thus addresses his father in the legend called Rathapala Sutrasanne . But as all such legends are allegorical ( e.g. Rathapala’s father has a mansion with seven doors ) hence the reproof, to those who accept them literally .
Hrida tashtan mantran Mantras carved by the heart
(WG) Hridaya, the heart; the center or essence of anything; divine knowledge.
(TG) Hrimthurses {Nors}. The Frost-giants; Cyclopean builders in the Edda.
(WG) Hrishikesha, lord of the organs of sense, or the faculties. ( hrishika, any organ of sense, or indriya ; isa , master, ruler. (See Indriyatman
(GH) Hrishikesa A name applied to Krishna and to Vishnu. (Meaning of the word itself: lord of the senses. Bhagavad-Gita , W. Q. Judge, p. 84)
(MO) Hugin {Nors} (hoog-in) [ bug mind] One of Odin’s two ravens
(TG) Humanity. Occultly and Kabbalistically, the whole of mankind is symbolised, by Manu in India; by Vajrasattva or Dorjesempa, the head of the Seven Dhyani, in Northern Buddhism; and by Adam Kadmon in the Kabbala. All these represent the totality of mankind whose beginning is in this androgynic protoplast, and whose end is in the Absolute , beyond all these symbols and myths of human origin. Humanity is a great Brotherhood by virtue of the sameness of the material from which it is formed physically and morally. Unless, however, it becomes a Brotherhood also intellectually, it is no better than a superior genus of animals.
(OG) Human Ego — The human ego is seated in that part of the human constitution which theosophists call the intermediate duad, manas-kama. The part which is attracted below and is mortal is the lower human ego. The part which aspires upwards towards the buddhi and ultimately joins it is the higher human ego or reincarnating ego. The dregs of the human ego after the death of the human being and after the second death in the kama-loka, remain in the astral spheres as the disintegrating kama-rupa or spook.
(OG) Human Monad — In theosophical terminology the human monad is that part of man’s constitution which is the root of the human ego. After death it allies itself with the upper duad, atma-buddhi, and its inclusion within the bosom of the upper duad produces the source whence issues the Reincarnating Ego at its next rebirth. The monad per se is an upper duad alone, but the attributive adjective human is given to it on account of the reincarnating ego which it contains within itself after death. This last usage is rather popular and convenient than strictly accurate.
(OG) Human Soul — The human soul, speaking generally, is the intermediate nature of man’s constitution, and being an imperfect thing it is drawn back into incarnation on earth where it learns needed lessons in this sphere of the universal life.
Another term for the human soul is the ego — a usage more popular than accurate, because the human ego is the soul of the human soul so to speak, the human soul being its vehicle. The ego is that which says in each one of us, I am I , not you ! It is the child of the immanent Self; and through its imprisonment in matter as a ray of the overruling immanent Self, it learns to reflect its consciousness back upon itself, thus obtaining cognition of itself as self-conscious and hetero-conscious, i.e., knowing itself, and knowing non-self or other selves.
Just as our higher and highest nature work through this human soul or intermediate nature of us, so does this last in its turn work and function through bodies or vehicles or sheaths of more or less etherealized matters which surround and enclose it, which are of course still lower than itself, and which therefore give it the means of contacting our own lower and lowest planes of matter; and these lower planes provide us with the vital-astral-physical parts of us. This human soul or intermediate nature manifests therefore as best it can through and by the astral-physical vehicle, the latter our body of human flesh.
(IN) the theosophical classification, the human soul is divided into the higher human soul, composed of the lower buddhi and the higher manas — and the self corresponding to it is the bhutatman, meaning the self of that which has been or the reincarnating ego — and the lower human soul, the lower manas and kama, and the self corresponding to it is pranatman or astral personal ego, which is mortal.
(PV) Hunab ku The Supreme Being of the Maya, also called Hun Itzamna. Equated with the Quiche’s Cabahuil, the god-Seven of the Popol Vuh.
(PV) Hunahpu {quiche-maya} One Blowgunner. The Quiche name of the Maya savior deity that incarnates to enlighten mankind and show the way to divinity; born immaculately at dawn on the winter solstice. With Ixbalamque, the civilizing hero of Quiche-Maya culture; god-Five, the young Solar and Maize god, in Chorti imagery symbolized by a cross (four points plus the central point); son of the Supreme Being, and alter ego of Hunrakan. A hypostasis of the Agrarian deity (god-Seven); as the young Maize god, is born from the foot of Cabahuil in the bowels of the earth. A twin of Ixbalamque, grandchild of Ixpiyacoc and Ixmucane. God B of the Maya codices; god of Dawn; compared with Osiris; symbol of chronological unity; apotheosized with Ixbalamque at the end of the Third Age in the Popol Vuh; the Fourth Regent or Ahau; god of the Woods; one of his zoological nahuals is the fish.
(PV) Hun Batz {quiche-maya} One Big Monkey. A son of one of the Seven Ahpu, he is a hero and great sage, singer, orator, engraver, sculptor, etc., of the Third Age of the Popol Vuh. A cousin or older brother of Hunahpu and Ixbalamque and Regent of the Third Age. Together with his brother, Hun Chouen, transformed into a monkey at the end of the Third Age. The monkeys of the forests are the only record of his existence.
(PV) Hun Chouen {quiche-maya} One Monkey. Like his brother Hun Batz, a son of one of the Seven Ahpu and sage and hero of the Third Age, sharing its regency. Transformed into a monkey with Hun Batz at the end of their regency, or the Third Age.
(TG) Hun-desa {Sans}. The country around lake Mansaravara in Tibet.
(PV) Hunrakan {quiche-maya} He of the single foot. A variant of Cabahuil, having a precise functional meaning. A nahual of Hunahpu and Ixbalamque. Identified with the constellation Ursa Major.
(TG) Hvanuatha {Avesta} name of the earth on which we live. One of the seven Karshvare (Earths), spoken of in Orma Ahr . (See Introduction to the Vendidad by Prof. Darmsteter
(MO) Hvergalmer {Nors} (vayr-yell-mer) [ hverr caldron] Source of the rivers of lives. It rises in Niflheim and waters one root of the Tree of Life
(TG) Hwergelmir {Nors}. A roaring cauldron wherein the souls of the evil doers perish.
(TG) Hwun {Chin}. Spirit. The same as Atman.
(FY) Hwun, spirit; the seventh principle in man ( Chinese ).
(TG) Hydranos {Greek}. Lit. , the Baptist. A name of the ancient Hierophant of the Mysteries who made the candidate pass through the trial by water, wherein he was plunged thrice. This was his baptism by the Holy Spirit which moves on the waters of Space. Paul refers to St. John as Hydranos, the Baptist. The Christian Church took this rite from the ritualism of the Eleusinian and other Mysteries.
(TG) Hyksos {Egyp}. The mysterious nomads, the Shepherds, who invaded Egypt at a period unknown and far anteceding the days of Moses. They are called the Shepherd Kings.
(TG) Hyle {Greek}. Primordial stuff or matter; esoterically the homogeneous sediment of Chaos or the Great Deep. The first principle out of which the objective Universe was formed.
(MO) Hymer {Nors} (hee-mer) The first titan of a life cycle. See Rymer
(TG) Hypatia {Greek}. The girl-philosopher, who lived at Alexandria during the fifth century, and taught many a famous man — among others Bishop Synesius. She was the daughter of the mathematician Theon, and became famous for her learning. Falling a martyr to the fiendish conspiracy of Theophilos, Bishop of Alexandria, and his nephew Cyril, she was foully murdered by their order. With her death fell the Neo-Platonic School.
(TG) Hyperborean {Greek}. The regions around the North Pole in the Arctic Circle.
(WG) Hyperborean, the regions round the North Pole comprised within the Arctic Circle. The land of the Second Race.
(TG) Hypnotism {Greek}. A name given by Dr. Braid to various processes by which one person of strong will-power plunges another of weaker mind into a kind of trance; once in such a state the latter will do anything suggested to him by the hypnotiser. Unless produced for beneficial purposes, Occultists would call it black magic or Sorcery. It is the most dangerous of practices, morally and physically, as it interferes with the nerve fluid and the nerves controlling the circulation in the capillary blood-vessels.
(KT) Hypnotism {Greek} A name given by Dr. Braid to the process by which one man of strong will-power plunges another of weaker mind into a kind of trance; once in such a state the latter will do anything suggested to him by the hypnotiser. Unless produced for beneficial purposes, the Occultists would call it black magic or sorcery. It is the most dangerous of practices, morally and physically, as it interferes with the nerve fluids.
(OG) Hypnotism — Derived from a Greek word hypnos, which means sleep, and strictly speaking the word hypnotism should be used only for those psychological-physiological phenomena in which the subject manifesting them is in a condition closely resembling sleep. The trouble is that in any attempt to study these various psychological powers of the human constitution it is found that they are many and of divers kinds; but the public, and even the technical experimenters, usually group all these psychological phenomena under the one word hypnotism, and therefore it is a misnomer. One of such powers, for instance, which is well known, is called fascination. Another shows a more or less complete suspension of the individual will and of the individual activities of him who is the sufferer from such psychological power, although in other respects he may show no signs of physical sleep. Another again — and this perhaps is the most important of all so far as actual dangers lie — passes under the name of suggestion, an exceedingly good name, because it describes the field of action of perhaps the most subtle and dangerous side-branch of the exercise of the general power or force emanating from the mind of the operator.
The whole foundation upon which this power rests lies in the human psychological constitution; and it can be easily and neatly expressed in a few words. It is the power emanating from one mind, which can affect another mind and direct or misdirect the latter’s course of action. This is in nine hundred and ninety-nine times out of a thousand a wrong thing to do; and this fact would readily be understood by everybody did men know, as they should, the difference between the higher and the lower nature of man, the difference between his incorruptible, death-defying individuality, his spiritual nature, on the one hand; and, on the other hand, the brain-mind and all its train of weak and fugitive thoughts.
Anyone who has seen men and women in the state of hypnosis must realize not only how dangerous, how baleful and wrong it is, but also that it exemplifies the trance state perfectly. The reason is that the intermediate nature, or the psychomental apparatus, of the human being in this state has been displaced from its seat, in other words, is disjoined or dislocated; and there remains but the vitalized human body, with its more or less imperfect functioning of the brain cells and nervous apparatus. H. P. Blavatsky in her Theosophical Glossary writes: It is the most dangerous of practices, morally and physically, as it interferes with the nerve-fluid and the nerves controlling the circulation in the capillary blood-vessels. ( See also Mesmerism)
(TG) Hypocephalus {Greek}. A kind of a pillow for the head of the mummy. They are of various kinds, e.g ., of stone, wood, etc., and very often of circular disks of linen covered with cement, and inscribed with magic figures and letters. They are called rest for the dead in the Ritual, and every mummy-coffin has one.
(TG) I. — The ninth letter in the English, the tenth in the Hebrew alphabet. As a numeral signifies, in both languages one, and also ten in the Hebrew (see J), in which it corresponds to the Divine name Jah, the male side, or aspect, of the hermaphrodite being, or the male-female Adam, of which hovah (Jah-hovah) is the female aspect. It is symbolized by a hand with bent forefinger, to show its phallic signification.
(TG) Iacchos {Greek}. A synonym of Bacchus. Mythology mentions three persons so named: they were Greek ideals adopted later by the Romans. The word Iacchos is stated to be of Phoenician origin, and to mean “an infant at the breast”. Many ancient monuments represent Ceres or Demeter with Bacchus in her arms. One Iacchos was called Theban and Conqueror, son of Jupiter and Semele; his mother died before his birth and he was preserved for some time in the thigh of his father; he was killed by the Titans. Another was son of Jupiter, as a Dragon, and Persephone; this one was named Zagraeus. A third was Iacchos of Eleusis, son of Ceres: he is of importance because he, appeared on the sixth day of the Eleusinian Mysteries. Some see an analogy between Bacchus and Noah, both cultivators of the Vine, and patrons of alcoholic excess. [w.w.w.]
(TG) Iachus {Greek}. An Egyptian physician, whose memory, according to Aelian, was venerated for long centuries, on account of his wonderful occult knowledge. Iachus is credited with having stopped epidemics simply by certain fumigations, and cured diseases by making his patients inhale herbs.
(TG) Iaho. Though this name is more fully treated under the word “Yaho” and “Iao”, a few words of explanation will not be found amiss. Diodorus mentions that the God of Moses was Iao; but as the latter name denotes a “mystery god”, it cannot therefore be confused with Iaho or Yaho . The Samaritans pronounced it Iabe, Yahva, and the Jews Yaho, and then Jehovah, by change of Masoretic vowels, an elastic scheme by which any change may be indulged in. But “Jehovah” is a later invention and invocation, as originally the name was Jah, or Iacchos (Bacchus). Aristotle shows the ancient Arabs representing Iach (Iacchos) by a horse, i.e., the horse of the Sun (Dionysus), which followed the chariot on Israeli Ahura Mazda, the god of the Heavens, daily rode.
(TG) Iamblichus {Greek}. A great Theurgist, mystic, a nd writer of the third and fourth centuries, a Neo-Platonist and philosopher, born at Chalcis in Coele-Syria. Correct biographies of him have never existed because of the hatred of the Christians; but that which has been gathered of his life in isolated fragments from works by impartial pagan and independent writers shows how excellent and holy was his moral character, and how great his learning. He may be called the founder of theurgic magic among the Neo-Platonists and the reviver of the practical mysteries outside of temple or fane. His school was at first distinct from that of Plotinus and Porphyry, who were strongly against ceremonial magic and practical theurgy as dangerous, though later he convinced Porphyry of its advisability on some occasions, and both master and pupil firmly believed in theurgy and magic, of which the former is principally the highest and most efficient mode of communication with one’s Higher Ego, through the medium of one’s astral body. Theurgic is benevolent magic, and it becomes goetic, or dark and evil, only when it is used for necromancy or selfish purposes; but such dark magic has never been practised by any theurgist or philosopher, whose name has descended to us unspotted by any evil deed. So much was Porphyry (who became the teacher of Iamblichus in Neo-Platonic philosophy) convinced of this, that though he, himself never practised theurgy, yet he gave instructions for the acquirement of this sacred science. Thus he says in one of his writings, “Whosoever is acquainted with the nature of divinely luminous appearances (phasmata) knows also on what account it is requisite to abstain from all birds (and animal food) and especially for him who hastens to be liberated from terrestrial concerns and to be established with the celestial gods”. (See Select Works by T. Taylor, p. 159 Moreover, the same Porphyry mentions in his Life of Plotinus a priest of Egypt, who, “at the request of a certain friend of Plotinus, exhibited to him, in the temple of Isis at Rome, the familiar daimon of that philosopher”. In other words, he produced the theurgic invocation (see “Theurgist “) by which Egyptian Hierophant or Indian Mahatma, of old, could clothe their own or any other person’s astral double with the appearance of its Higher Ego, or what Bulwer Lytton terms the “Luminous Self”, the Augoeides, and confabulate with It. This it is which Iamblichus and many others, including the mediaeval Rosicrucians, meant by union with Deity. Iamblichus wrote many books but only a few of his works are extant, such as his “Egyptian Mysteries” and a treatise “On Daemons”, in which he speaks very severely against any intercourse with them. He was a biographer of Pythagoras and deeply versed in the system of the latter, and was also learned in the Chaldean Mysteries. He taught that the One, or universal MONAD, was the principle of all unity as well as diversity, or of Homogeneity and Heterogeneity; that the Duad, or two (“Principles”), was the intellect, or that which we call Buddhi-Manas; three, was the Soul (the lower Manas), etc., etc. There is much of the theosophical in his teachings, and his works on the various kinds of daemons (Elementals) are a well of esoteric knowledge for the Student. His austerities, purity of life and earnestness were great. Iamblichus is credited with having been once levitated ten cubits high from the ground, as are some of the modern Yogis, and even great mediums.
(KT) Iamblichus. A great Theosophist and an Initiate of the third century. He wrote a great deal about the various kinds of demons who appear through evocation, but spoke severely against such phenomena. His austerities, purity of life and earnestness were great. He is credited with having been levitated ten cubits high from the ground, as are some modern Yogis, and mediums.
(TG) Iao {Greek}. See Iaho. The highest god of the Phoenicians — “the light conceivable only by intellect”, the physical and spiritual Principle of all things, “the male Essence of Wisdom”. It is the ideal Sunlight.
(WG) Iao (Hebrew), among the Semites, a name for the Supreme Spirit, as Aum is among the Aryans.
(TG) Iao Hebdomai {Greek}. The collective “Seven Heavens” (also angels) according to Irenaeus. The mystery-god of the Gnostics. The same as the Seven Manasa-putras of the Occultists. (See also “Yah” and “Yaho”
(TG) Ibis Worship . The Ibis, in Egyptian Hab, was sacred to Thoth at Hermopolis. It was called the messenger of Osiris, for it is the symbol of Wisdom, Discrimination, and Purity, as it loathes water if it is the least impure. Its usefulness in devouring the eggs of the crocodiles and serpents was great, and its credentials for divine honours as a symbol were: (a) its black wings, which related it to primeval darkness — chaos; and (b) the triangular shape of them — the triangle being the first geometrical figure and a symbol of the trinitarian mystery. To this day the Ibis is a sacred bird with some tribes of Kopts who live along the Nile.
(TG) Ibn Gebirol. Solomon Ben Yehudah: a great philosopher and scholar, a Jew by birth, who lived in the eleventh century in Spain. The same as Avicenna .
(TG) Ichchha {Sans}. Will, or will-power.
(FY) Itchasakti, will power; force of desire; one of the six forces of Nature.
(WG) Ichchha, wish, desire.
(WG) Ichchhanabhighata, unobstruction of wish.
(TG) Ichchha Sakti {Sans}. Will-power; force of desire; one of the occult Forces of nature. That power of the will which, exercised in occult practices, generates the nerve-currents necessary to set certain muscles in motion and to paralyze certain others.
(WG) Ichchha-sakti, the power of will, in the sense of strong desire.
(TG) Ichthus {Greek}. A Fish: the symbol of the Fish has been frequently referred to Jesus, the Christ of the New Testament, partly because the five letters forming the word are the initials of the Greek phrase, Iesous Chyistos Theou Uios Soter, Jesus Christ the Saviour, Son of God. Hence his followers in the early Christian centuries were often called fishes, and drawings of fish are found in the Catacombs. Compare also the narrative that some of his early disciples were fishermen, and the assertion of Jesus — “I will make you fishers of men”. Note also the Vesica Piscis, a conventional shape for fish in general, is frequently found enclosing a picture of a Christ, holy virgin, or saint; it is a long oval with pointed ends, the space marked out by the intersection of two equal circles, when less than half the area of one. Compare the Christian female recluse, a Nun — this word is the Chaldee name for fish, and fish is connected with the worship of Venus, a goddess, and the Roman Catholics still eat fish on the Dies Veneris or Friday. [w.w.w.]
(TG) Ida {Nors}. The plains of Ida, on which the gods assemble to hold counsel in the Edda. The field of peace and rest.
(WG) Ida, a magnetic current on the right side of the human body, between the heart and the Brahma-randhra.
(TG) Idaeic Finger. An iron finger strongly magnetized and used in the temples for healing purposes. It produced wonders in that direction, and therefore was said to possess magical powers.
(SK)o Idam A pronoun meaning ‘this.’ The Vedic sages often used Idam as a noun to express the manifested Universe in contradistinction to Tat, that Boundless underlying Reality, or that inexpressible Mystery in which the Super-Spirit is rooted.
(VS) Iddhi (I 1) [[p. 1]] The Pali word Iddhi, is the synonym of the Sanskrit Siddhis, or psychic faculties, the abnormal powers in man. There are two kinds of iddhis . One group which embraces the lower, coarse, psychic and mental energies; the other is one which exacts the highest training of Spiritual powers. Says Krishna in Shrimad Bhagavat: “He who is engaged in the performance of yoga, who has subdued his senses and who has concentrated his mind in me (Krishna), such yogis all the Siddhis stand ready to serve.”
(TG) Ideos, in Paracelsus the same as Chaos, or Mysterium Magnum as that philosopher calls it.
(TG) Idises {Nors}. The same as the Dises, the Fairies and Walkyries, the divine women in the Norse legends; they were reverenced by the Teutons before the day of Tacitus, as the latter shows.
(TG) Idol. A statue or a picture of a heathen god; or a statue or picture of a Romish Saint, or a fetish of uncivilized tribes.
(TG) Idospati {Sans}. The same as Narayana or Vishnu; resembling Poseidon in some respects.
(TG) Idra Rabba {Hebr}. “The Greater Holy Assembly”, a division of the Zohar.
(TG) Idra Suta {Hebr}. “The Lesser Holy Assembly”, another division of the Zohar.
(TG) Iduna {Nors}. The goddess of immortal youth. The daughter of Iwaldi, the Dwarf. She is said in the Edda to have hidden “life” in the Deep of the Ocean, and when the right time came, to have restored it to Earth once more. She was the wife of Bragi, the god of poetry; a most charming myth. Like Heimdal, “born of nine mothers”, Bragi at his birth rises upon the crest of the wave from the bottom of the sea (see Bragi “). he married Iduna, the immortal goddess, who accompanies him to Asgard where every morning she feeds the gods with the apples of eternal youth and health. (See Asgard and the Gods. )
(MO) Idun {Nors} (ee-dun) An Asynja: “the fruitful spirit” who feeds the gods the apples of immortality; soul of the earth. She is the wife of Brage, poetic inspiration
(TG) Idwatsara {Sans}. One of the five periods that form the Yuga. This cycle is pre-eminently the Vedic cycle, which is taken as the basis of calculation for larger cycles.
(TG) Ieu. The “first man”; a Gnostic term used in Pistis-Sophia.
(TG) Iezedians or Iezidi {Pers}. This sect came to Syria from Basrah. They use baptism, believe in the archangels, but reverence Satan at the same time. Their prophet Iezad, who preceded Mahomet by long centuries, taught that a messenger from heaven would bring them a book written from the eternity.
(TG) Ifing {Nors}. The broad river that divides Asgard, the home of the gods, from that of the Jotuns, the great and strong magicians. Below Asgard was Midgard, where in the sunny aether was built the home of the Light Elves. In their disposition and order of locality, all these Homes answer to the Deva and other Lokas of the Hindus, inhabited by the various classes of gods and Asuras.
(MO) Ifing {Nors} (ee-ving) [ ef or if doubt] River that separates men from gods
(TG) Igaga {Chald}. Celestial angels, the same as Archangels.
(TG) I. H. S. This triad of initials stands for the in hoc signo of the alleged vision of Constantine, of which, save Eusebius, its author, no one ever knew. I.H.S. is interpreted Jesus Hominum Salvator, and In hoc signo. It is, however, well known that the Greek GREEK was one of the most ancient names of Bacchus. As Jesus was never identical with Jehovah, but with his own “Father” (as all of us are), and had come rather to destroy the worship of Jehovah than to enforce it, as the Rosicrucians well maintained, the scheme of Eusebius is very transparent. In hoc signo Victoreris, or the Labarum [[symbol with small capital P over T with horizontal leg half the size of the vertical leg]] (the tau and the resh ) is a very old signum, placed on the foreheads of those who were just initiated. Kenealy translates it as meaning “he who is initiated into the Naronic Secret, or the 600, shall be Victor”; but it is simply “through this sign hast thou conquered”; i.e ., through the light of Initiation — LUX. (See “Neophyte” and “Naros”
(TG) Ikhir Bonga . A “Spirit of the Deep” of the Kolarian tribes.
(TG) Ikshwaku {Sans}. The progenitor of the Solar tribe (the Suryavansas) in India, and the Son of Vaivaswata Manu, the progenitor of the present human Race.
(GH) Ikshvaku The son of Vaivasvata-Manu, of whom it is related in mythology that he was born from the nostril of his father when the latter happened to sneeze! Ikshvaku was the founder of the Suryavansa (the ‘solar dynasty’), reigning at Ayodhya at the commencement of the Treta-Yuga (the second Yuga). ( Bhagavad-Gita , W. Q. Judge, p. 30)
(TG) Ila {Sans}. Daughter of Vaivaswata Manu; wife of Buddha, the son of Soma; one month a woman and the other a man by the decree of Saraswati; an allusion to the androgynous second race. Ila is also Vach in another aspect.
(TG) Ilavriti {Sans}. A region in the centre of which is placed Mount Meru, the habitat of the gods.
(TG) Ilda Baoth. Lit., “the child from the Egg”, a Gnostic term. He is the creator of our physical globe (the earth) according to the Gnostic teaching in the Codex Nazaraeus (the Evangel of the Nazarenes and the Ebionites). The latter identifies him with Jehovah the God of the Jews. Ildabaoth is “the Son of Darkness” in a bad sense and the father of the six terrestrial “Stellar”, dark spirits, the antithesis of the bright Stellar spirits. Their respective abodes are the seven spheres, the upper S of which begins in the “middle space”, the region of their mother Sophia Achamoth, and the lower ending on this earth — the seventh region (See Isis Unveiled, Vol. II., 183 Ilda-Baoth is the genius of Saturn, the planet; or rather the evil spirit of its ruler.
(WG) Ilda Baoth, the son of Darkness and god of our material (fourth) globe according to the Gnostic teaching in the Codex Nazaraeus .
(TG) Iliados. In Paracelsus the same as “Ideos” . Primordial matter in the subjective state.
(TG) Illa-ah, Adam {Hebr}. Adam Illa-ah is the celestial, superior Adam, in the Zohar.
(TG) Illinus. One of the gods in the Chaldean Theogony of Damascius.
(TG) Illuminati {Latin}. The “Enlightened”, the initiated adepts.
(TG) Illusion. In Occultism everything finite (like the universe and all in it) is called illusion or maya.
(KT) Illusion. In Occultism everything finite (such as the Universe and all in it) is called Illusion or Maya.
(VS) great illusion (I 6) [[p. 3]] Maha Maha “Great Illusion,” the objective Universe.
(TG) Ilmatar #fin The Virgin who falls from heaven into the sea before creation. She is the “daughter of the air” and the mother of seven sons (the seven forces in nature). (See Kalevala, the epic poem of Finland.
(TG) Ilus {Greek}. Primordial mud or slime; called also Hyle.
(FY) Ikhir Bonga, spirit of the deep of the Kolarian tribes.
(WG) Iksvaku, son of Manu Vaivasvata, and founder and first kin of the solar dynasty in Ayodhya, the capital of Rama, said to be the modern Oude.
(TG) Image. Occultism permits no other image than that of the living image of divine man (the symbol of Humanity) on earth. The Kabbala teaches that this divine Image, the copy of the sublime and holy upper Image (the Elohim) has now changed into another similitude, owing to the development of men’s sinful nature. It is only the upper divine Image (the Ego ) which is the same; the lower (personality) has changed, and man, now fearing the wild beasts, has grown to bear on his face the similitude of many of them. ( Zohar I. fol. 71 a In the early period of Egypt there were no images; but later, as Lenormand says, “In the sanctuaries of Egypt they divided the properties of nature and consequently of Divinity (the Elohim, or the Egos ), into seven abstract qualities, characterised each by an emblem, which are matter, cohesion, fluxion, coagulation, accumulation, station and division”. These were all attributes symbolized in various images.
(TG) Imagination. In Occultism this is not to be confused with fancy, as it is one of the plastic powers of the higher Soul, and is the memory of the preceding incarnations, which, however disfigured by the lower Manas, yet rests always on a ground of truth.
(TG) Imhot-pou or Imhotep {Egyp}. The god of learning (the Greek Imouthes). He was the son of Ptah, and in one aspect Hermes, as he is represented as imparting wisdom with a book before him. He is a solar god; Lit., “the god of the handsome face”.
(PV) Imix First in the Maya primary series of regents or Ahau. Associated with Ixmucane, and the First Age of the Popol Vuh.
(TG) Immah {Hebr}. Mother, in contradistinction to Abba, father.
(TG) Immah Illa-ah {Hebr}. The upper mother; a name given to Shekinah.
(OG) Immortality — A term signifying continuous existence or being; but this understanding of the term is profoundly illogical and contrary to nature, for there is nothing throughout nature’s endless and multifarious realms of being and existence which remains for two consecutive instants of time exactly the same. Consequently, immortality is a mere figment of the imagination, an illusory phantom of reality. When the student of the esoteric wisdom once realizes that continuous progress, i.e., continuous change in advancement, is nature’s fundamental procedure, he recognizes instantly that continuous remaining in an unchanging or immutable state of consciousness or being is not only impossible, but in the last analysis is the last thing that is either desirable or comforting. Fancy continuing immortal in a state of imperfection such as we human beings exemplify — which is exactly what the usual acceptance of this term immortality means. The highest god in highest heaven, although seemingly immortal to us imperfect human beings, is nevertheless an evolving, growing, progressing entity in its own sublime realms or spheres, and therefore as the ages pass leaves one condition or state to assume a succeeding condition or state of a nobler and higher type; precisely as the preceding condition or state had been the successor of another state before it.
Continuous or unending immutability of any condition or state of an evolving entity is obviously an impossibility in nature; and when once pondered over it becomes clear that the ordinary acceptance of immortality involves an impossibility. All nature is an unending series of changes, which means all the hosts or multitudes of beings composing nature, for every individual unit of these hosts is growing, evolving, i.e., continuously changing, therefore never immortal. Immortality and evolution are contradictions in terms. An evolving entity means a changing entity, signifying a continuous progress towards better things; and evolution therefore is a succession of state of consciousness and being after another state of consciousness and being, and thus throughout duration. The Occidental idea of static immortality or even mutable immortality is thus seen to be both repellent and impossible.
This doctrine is so difficult for the average Occidental easily to understand that it may be advisable once and for all to point out without mincing of words that just as complete death, that is to say, entire annihilation of consciousness, is an impossibility in nature, just so is continuous and unchanging consciousness in any one stage or phase of evolution likewise an impossibility, because progress or movement or growth is continuous throughout eternity. There are, however, periods more or less long of continuance in any stage or phase of consciousness that may be attained by an evolving entity; and the higher the being is in evolution, the more its spiritual and intellectual faculties have been evolved or evoked, the longer do these periods of continuous individual, or perhaps personal, quasi-immortality continue. There is, therefore, what may be called relative immortality, although this phrase is confessedly a misnomer.
Master KH in The Mahatma Letters, on pages 128-30, uses the phrase “panaeonic immortality” to signify this same thing that I have just called relative immortality, an immortality — falsely so called, however — which lasts in the cases of certain highly evolved monadic egos for the entire period of a manvantara, but which of necessity ends with the succeeding pralaya of the solar system. Such a period of time of continuous self-consciousness of so highly evolved a monadic entity is to us humans actually a relative immortality; but strictly and logically speaking it is no more immortality than is the ephemeral existence of a butterfly. When the solar manvantara comes to an end and the solar pralaya begins, even such highly evolved monadic entities, full-blown gods, are swept out of manifested self-conscious existence like the sere and dried leaves at the end of the autumn; and the divine entities thus passing out enter into still higher realms of superdivine activity, to reappear at the end of the pralaya and at the dawn of the next or succeeding solar manvantara.
The entire matter is, therefore, a highly relative one. What seems immortal to us humans would seem to be but as a wink of the eye to the vision of super-kosmic entities; while, on the other hand, the span of the average human life would seem to be immortal to a self-conscious entity inhabiting one of the electrons of an atom of the human physical body.
The thing to remember in this series of observations is the wondrous fact that consciousness from eternity to eternity is uninterrupted, although by the very nature of things undergoing continuous and unceasing change of phases in realization throughout endless duration. What men call unconsciousness is merely a form of consciousness which is too subtle for our gross brain-minds to perceive or to sense or to grasp; and, secondly, strictly speaking, what men call death, whether of a universe or of their own physical bodies, is but the breaking up of worn-out vehicles and the transference of consciousness to a higher plane. It is important to seize the spirit of this marvelous teaching, and not allow the imperfect brain-mind to quibble over words, or to pause or hesitate at difficult terms.
(TG) In {Chin}. The female principle of matter, impregnated by Yo, the male ethereal principle, and precipitated thereafter down into the universe.
(TG) Incarnations (Divine) or Avatars. The Immaculate Conception is as pre-eminently Egyptian as it is Indian. As the author of Egyptian Belief has it: “It is not the vulgar, coarse and sensual story as in Greek mythology, but refined, moral and spiritual”; and again the incarnation idea was found revealed on the wall of a Theban temple by Samuel Sharpe, who thus analyzes it: “First the god Thoth . . . as the messenger of the gods, like the Mercury of the Greeks (or the Gabriel of the first Gospel), tells the maiden queen Mautmes, that she is to give birth to a son, who is to be king Amunotaph III. Secondly, the god Kneph, the Spirit . . . . and the goddess Hathor (Nature) . . . both take hold of the queen by the hands and put into her mouth the character for life, a cross, which is to be the life of the coming child”, etc., etc. Truly divine incarnation, or the avatar doctrine, constituted the grandest mystery of every old religious system!
(WG) Incarnation, the descent into matter, or contacting of the Soul with physical existence.
(TG) Incas (Peruvian). The name given to the creative gods in the Peruvian theogony, and later to the rulers of the country. “The Incas, seven in number have repeopled the earth after the Deluge”, Coste makes them say (I. iv., p. 19). They belonged at the beginning of the fifth Root-race to a dynasty of divine kings, such as those of Egypt, India and Chaldea.
(TG) Incubus {Latin}. Something more real and dangerous than the ordinary meaning given to the word, viz ., that of “nightmare”. An Incubus is the male Elemental, and Succuba the female, and these are undeniably the spooks of mediaeval demonology, called forth from the invisible regions by human passion and lust. They are now called “Spirit brides” and “Spirit husbands” among some benighted Spiritists and spiritual mediums. But these poetical names do not prevent them in the least being that which they are — Ghools, Vampires and soulless Elementals; formless centres of Life, devoid of sense; in short, subjective protoplasms when left alone, but called into a definite being and form by the creative and diseased imagination of certain mortals. They were known under every clime as in every age, and the Hindus can tell more than one terrible tale of the dramas enacted in the life of young students and mystics by the Pisachas, their name in India.
(WG) Incubus, the male Elemental called into existence by sexual passion and lust. The female is called the Succubus .
(TG) Individuality. One of the names given in Theosophy and Occultism to the Human Higher EGO. We make a distinction between the immortal and divine Ego, and the mortal human Ego which perishes. The latter, or “personality” (personal Ego) survives the dead body only for a time in the Kama Loka; the Individuality prevails for ever.
(KT) Individuality. One of the names given in Theosophy and Occultism to the human Higher Ego. We make a distinction between the immortal and divine and the mortal human Ego which perishes. The latter or “Personality” (personal Ego) survives the dead body but for a time in Kama Loka: the Individuality prevails for ever.
(WG) Individuality, the permanent principle in man. A name applied by Theosophists to the Higher Ego, in contradistinction to the lower, transitory element, the “personality”. (See Higher Ego
(OG) Individuality — Theosophists draw a sharp and comprehensive distinction between individuality and personality. The individuality is the spiritual-intellectual and immortal part of us; deathless, at least for the duration of the kosmic manvantara — the root, the very essence of us, the spiritual sun within, our inner god. The personality is the veil, the mask, composed of various sheaths of consciousness through which the individuality acts.
The word individuality means that which cannot be divided, that which is simple and pure in the philosophical sense, indivisible, uncompounded, original. It is not heterogeneous; it is not composite; it is not builded up of other elements; it is the thing in itself . Whereas, on the contrary, the intermediate nature and the lower nature are composite, and therefore mortal, being builded up of elements other than themselves. Strictly speaking, individuality and monad are identical, but the two words are convenient because of the distinctions of usage contained in them; just as consciousness and self-consciousness are fundamentally identical, but convenient as words on account of the distinctions contained in them. ( See also Monad) WW Individual [[We will now]] take up Individual and Person . Individual is from the word individuum, that which cannot be divided, the indivisible. Its abstraction, that is to say the ‘whatness’ of it, what the scholastics called the ‘quiddity’, the essence of it, is individuality . Quiddity is from the scholastic term quid, what, the whatness of a thing, its essence, its nature; as for instance, the essence (essential nature) of water would be wetness, and fluidity too, perhaps. Individuality, therefore, is the abstraction or nature of individual . We see at once that it is a logical error to speak of individuality, unless indeed we do mean my individuality, and not myself as an individual.
(TG) Indra {Sans}. The god of the Firmament, the King of the sidereal gods. A Vedic Deity.
(WG) Indra, one of the great powers of nature; the name of god, or power, in heaven (svarga) found in Sanskrit literature, sometimes directly and at other times indirectly signifying Parabrahmam.
(GH) Indra The god of the sky and atmosphere: in the Vedas, lord of the deities of the intermediate region (the sky), lord of rain and thunder, and leader of the storm-gods (Maruts, q.v. ). He is represented as riding in a golden car drawn by two tawny horses, waging war upon the demons of darkness (especially Vritra, the demon of drought, whom he slays; hence he is called Vritrajit), and conquering them with his thunderbolt (vajra) and his bow and arrows. Originally Indra was not the chief of the gods, but because of the religious observances instituted necessitating the invocation of the deity of the atmosphere, he superseded the more spiritual Varuna: thus more Vedic hymns are addressed to Indra than to any other deity, except Agni . In later mythology, however, the Trimurti (Brahma, Vishnu, Siva) became most prominent, therefore Indra was relegated to a subservient position. In The Laws of Manu (Manava-Dharma-Sastra) he is the regent of Svarga (heaven) with particular watch over the east quarter, and is considered one of the twelve Adityas . He is then represented as riding a white horse (Uchchaihsravas, q.v. ), or an elephant (Airavata, q.v. ).
“Fohat is the scientific aspect of both Vishnu and Indra, the latter older and more important in the Rig Veda than his sectarian successor” ( Secret Doctrine, I, p. 673). ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 67)
(TG) Indrani {Sans}. The female aspect of Indra.
(TG) Indriya or Deha Sanyama {Sans}. The control of the senses in Yoga practice. These are the ten external agents; the five senses which are used for perception are called Jnana-indriya, and the five used for action — Karma-indriya. Pancha-indryani means literally and in its occult sense “the five roots producing life” (eternal). With the Buddhists, it is the five positive agents producing five supernal qualities.
(FY) Indriya, or Deha Sanyama, control over the senses.
(WG) Indriyas, the senses. (Literally, “belonging to Indra.”)
(TG) Induyansa {Sans}. Also Somavansa or the lunar race (dynasty), from Indu, the Moon. (See “Suryavansa”
(TG) Indwellers. A name or the substitute for the right Sanskrit esoteric name, given to our “inner enemies”, which are seven in the esoteric philosophy. The early Christian Church called them the “seven capital Sins”: the Nazarene Gnostics named them, the “seven badly disposed Stellars”, and so on. Hindu exoteric teachings speak only of the ” six enemies and under the term Arishadwarga enumerate them as follows (1) Personal desire, lust or any passion (Kama) ; (2) Hatred or malice (Krodha) ; (3) Avarice or cupidity (Lobha) ; (4) Ignorance (Moha) ; (5) Pride or arrogance (Mada) ; (6) jealousy, envy (Matcharya) ; forgetting the seventh, which is the “unpardonable sin”, and the worst of all in Occultism. (See Theosophist, May, 1890, p. 431
(TG) Ineffable Name. With the Jews, the substitute for the ” mystery name” of their tribal deity Eh-yeh, “I am”, or Jehovah. The third commandment prohibiting the using of the latter name “in vain”, the Hebrews substituted for it that of Adonai or “the Lord”. But the Protestant Christians who, translating indifferently Jehovah and Elohim — which is also a substitute per se, besides being an inferior deity name — by the words “Lord” and “God”, have become in this instance more Catholic than the Pope, and include in the prohibition both the names. At the present moment, however, neither Jews nor Christians seem to remember, or so much as suspect, the occult reason why the qualification of Jehovah or YHVH had become reprehensible; most of the Western Kabbalists also seem to be unaware of the fact. The truth is, that the name they bring forward as “ineffable”, is not in the least so. It is the “unpronounceable”, or rather the name not to be pronounced, if any thing; and this for symbological reasons. To begin with, the “Ineffable Name ” of the true Occultist, is no name at all, least of all is it that of Jehovah. The latter implies, even in its Kabbalistical, esoteric meaning, an androgynous nature, YHVH, or one of a male and female nature. It is simply Adam and Eve, or man and woman blended in one, and as now written and pronounced, is itself a substitute. But the Rabbins do not care to remember the Zoharic admission that YHVH means “not as I Am written, Am I read” ( Zohar, fol. III., 230 a ). One has to know how to divide the Tetragrammaton ad infinitum before one arrives at the sound of the truly unpronounceable name of the Jewish mystery-god. That the Oriental Occultists have their own “Ineffable name” it is hardly necessary to repeat.
(OG) Infinite — A term meaning that which is not finite. The expression is used sometimes with almost absurd inaccuracy, and is one which in all probability representing as it does imperfect understanding could never be found in any of the great religious or philosophical systems of the ancients. Occidental writers of the past and present often use the word infinite as applying to beings or entities, such as in the expression “an infinite personal deity” — a ludicrous joining of contradictory and disparate words. The ancients rejected the phantom idea that this term involves, and used instead expressions such as the Boundless, or the Frontierless, or the Endless, whether speaking of abstract space or abstract time — the latter more properly called unending duration. ( See also Absolute)
(IN)ITIATE
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(TG) Initiate. From the Latin Initiatus. The designation of anyone who was received into and had revealed to him the mysteries and secrets of either Masonry or Occultism. In times of antiquity, those who had been initiated into the arcane knowledge taught by the Hierophants of the Mysteries; and in our modern days those who have been initiated by the adepts of mystic lore into the mysterious knowledge, which, notwithstanding the lapse of ages, has yet a few real votaries on earth.
(IU) Initiates. — In times of antiquity, those who had been initiated into the arcane knowledge taught by the hierophants of the Mysteries; and in our modern days those who have been initiated by the adepts of mystic lore into the mysterious knowledge, which, notwithstanding the lapse of ages, has yet a few real votaries on earth.
(KT) Initiate. From the Latin Initiatus. The designation of anyone who was received into and had revealed to him the mysteries and secrets of either Masonry or Occultism. In times of antiquity they were those who had been initiated into the arcane knowledge taught by the Hierophants of the Mysteries; and in our modern days those who have been initiated by the adepts of mystic lore into the mysterious knowledge, which, notwithstanding the lapse of ages, has yet a few real votaries on earth.
(WG) Initiate, one who has passed through an Initiation; especially, one who has passed the seventh or final Initiation on this planet.
(OG) Initiates — Those who have passed at least one initiation and therefore those who understand the mystery-teachings and who are ready to receive them at some future time in even larger measure. Please note the distinction between initiant and initiate. An initiant is one who is beginning or preparing for an initiation. An initiate is one who has successfully passed at least one initiation. It is obvious therefore that an initiate is always an initiant when he prepares for a still higher initiation.
The mystery-teachings were held as the most sacred treasure or possession that men could transmit to their descendants who were worthy postulants. The revelation of these mystery-doctrines under the seal of initiation, and under proper conditions to worthy depositaries, worked marvelous changes in the lives of those who underwent successfully the initiatory trials. It made men different from what they were before they received this spiritual and intellectual revelation. The facts are found in all the old religions and philosophies, if these are studied honestly. Initiation was always spoken of under the metaphor or figure of speech of “a new birth,” a “birth into truth,” for it was a spiritual and intellectual rebirth of the powers of the human spirit-soul, and could be called in all truth a birth of the soul into a loftier and nobler self-consciousness. When this happened, such men were called “initiates” or the reborn. In India, such reborn men were anciently called dvija, a Sanskrit word meaning “twice-born.” In Egypt such initiates or reborn men were called “Sons of the Sun.” In other countries they were called by other names.
(TG) Initiation. From the same root as the Latin initial which means the basic or first principles of any Science. The practice of initiation or admission into the sacred Mysteries, taught by the Hierophants and learned priests of the Temples, is one of the most ancient customs. This was practised in every old national religion. In Europe it was abolished with the fall of the last pagan temple. There exists at present but one kind of initiation known to the public, namely that into the Masonic rites. Masonry, however, has no more secrets to give out or conceal. In the palmy days of old, the Mysteries, according to the greatest Greek and Roman philosophers, were the most sacred of all solemnities as well as the most beneficent, and greatly promoted virtue. The Mysteries represented the passage from mortal life into finite death, and the experiences of the disembodied Spirit and Soul in the world of subjectivity. In our own day, as the secret is lost, the candidate passes through sundry meaningless ceremonies and is initiated into the solar allegory of Hiram Abiff, the “Widow’s Son”.
(WG) Initiation, the ceremony of introducing to fresh knowledge concerning anything. Applied to the rite of admission into the sacred mysteries.
(OG) Initiation — In olden times there were seven — and even ten — degrees of initiation. Of these seven degrees, three consisted of teachings alone, which formed the preparation, the discipline, spiritual and mental and psychic and physical — what the Greeks called the katharsis or “cleansing.” When the disciple was considered sufficiently cleansed, purified, disciplined, quiet mentally, tranquil spiritually, then he was taken into the fourth degree, which likewise consisted partly of teaching, but also in part of direct personal introduction by the old mystical processes into the structure and operations of the universe, by which means truth was gained by first-hand personal experience. In other words, to speak in plain terms, his spirit-soul, his individual consciousness, was assisted to pass into other planes and realms of being, and to know and to understand by the sheer process of becoming them . A man, a mind, an understanding, can grasp and see, and thereby know, only those things which the individual entity itself is .
After the fourth degree, there followed the fifth and the sixth and the seventh initiations, each in turn, and these consisted of teachings also; but more and more as the disciple progressed — and he was helped in this development more and more largely as he advanced farther — there was evolved forth in him the power and faculties still farther and more deeply to penetrate beyond the veils of maya or illusion; until, having passed the seventh or last initiation of all of the manifest initiations, if we may call them that, he became one of those individuals whom theosophists call the mahatmas.
(OG) Inner God — Mystics of all the ages have united in teaching this fact of the existence and ever-present power of an individual inner god in each human being, as the first principle or primordial energy governing the progress of man out of material life into the spiritual. Indeed, the doctrine is so perfectly universal, and is so consistent with everything that man knows when he reflects over the matter of his own spiritual and intellectual nature, that it is small wonder that this doctrine should have acquired foremost place in human religious and philosophical consciousness. Indeed, it may be called the very foundation-stone on which were builded the great systems of religious and philosophical thinking of the past; and rightly so, because this doctrine is founded on nature herself.
The inner god in man, man’s own inner, essential divinity, is the root of him, whence flow forth in inspiring streams into the psychological apparatus of his constitution all the inspirations of genius, all the urgings to betterment. All powers, all faculties, all characteristics of individuality, which blossom through evolution into individual manifestation, are the fruitage of the working in man’s constitution of those life-giving and inspiring streams of spiritual energy.
The radiant light which streams forth from that immortal center or core of our inmost being, which is our inner god, lightens the pathway of each one of us; and it is from this light that we obtain ideal conceptions. It is by this radiant light in our hearts that we can guide our feet towards an ever larger fulfilling in daily life of the beautiful conceptions which we as mere human beings dimly or clearly perceive, as the case may be.
The divine fire which moves through universal Nature is the source of the individualized divine fire coming from man’s inner god.
The modern Christians of a mystical bent of mind call the inner god the Christ Immanent, the immanent Christos; in Buddhism it is called the living Buddha within; in Brahmanism it is spoken of as the Brahma in his Brahmapura or Brahma-city, which is the inner constitution.
Hence, call it by what name you please, the reflective and mystical mind intuitively realizes that there works through him a divine flame, a divine life, a divine light, and that this by whatever name we may call it, is himself, his essential SELF. ( See also God)
(TG) Inner Man. An occult term, used to designate the true and immortal Entity in us, not the outward and mortal form of clay that we call our body. The term applies, strictly speaking, only to the Higher Ego, the “astral man” being the appellation of the Double and of Kama Rupa or the surviving eidolon.
(TG) Innocents. A nick-name given to the Initiates and Kabbalists before the Christian era. The “Innocents” of Bethlehem and of Lud (or Lydda) who were put to death by Alexander Janneus, to the number of several thousands (B.C. 100, or so), gave rise to the legend of the 40,000 innocent babes murdered by Herod while searching for the infant Jesus. The first is a little known historical fact, the second a fable, as sufficiently shown by Renan in his Vie de Jesus.
(TG) Intercosmic gods. The Planetary Spirits, Dhyan-Chohans, Devas of various degrees of spirituality, and “Archangels” in general.
(OG) Intermediate Nature — To speak of man as a trichotomy, or as having a division into three parts — as in the Christian New Testament: a “natural” body, a psychical body, and a spiritual body — is a convenient expression, but it by no means sets forth in detail the entire economy of man’s inner being.
Following then this trichotomy, there is first the divinespiritual element in the human constitution which is man’s own individual inner god; second, the soul or human monad, which is his human egoic self, his intermediate or psychical or second nature; third, all the composite lower part of him which although comprising several sheaths may be conveniently grouped under the one term vehicle or body. Gods, monads, and atoms collectively in nature are copied in the essential trichotomy of man, as spirit, soul, and body, and hence the latter is another way of saying man’s divine-spiritual, intermediate soul, and astral-physical parts.
It is the intermediate nature, offspring of the divine spark, which enshrines the ray from the divine spark, its spiritual sun so to say, and steps it down into the ordinary mentality of man. It is this intermediate nature which reincarnates. The divine-spiritual part of man does not reincarnate, for this part of man has no need of learning the lessons that physical life can give: it is far above them all. But it is the intermediate part functioning through the various garments or sheaths of the inner man — these garments may be called astral or ethereal — which in this manner can reach down to and touch our earthly plane; and the physical body is the garment of flesh in touch with the physical world.
The intermediate nature is commonly called the human soul. It is an imperfect thing, and is that which comes back into incarnation, because it is drawn to this earth by attraction. It learns much needed lessons here, in this sphere of the universal life. ( See also Principles of Man)
(OG) Invisible Worlds — The ancient wisdom teaches that the universe is not only a living organism, but that physical human beings live in intimate connection, in intimate contact, with invisible spheres, with invisible and intangible realms, unknown to man because the physical senses are so imperfectly evolved that we neither see these invisible realms nor feel nor hear nor smell nor taste them, nor cognize them except by that much more highly evolved and subtle sensorium which men call the mind. These inner realms interpenetrate our physical sphere, permeate it, so that in our daily affairs as we go about our duties we actually pass through the dwellings, through the mountains, through the lakes, through the very beings, mayhap, of the entities of and dwelling in these invisible realms. These invisible realms are built of matter just as this our physical world is, but of a more ethereal matter than ours is; but we cognize them not at all with our physical senses. The explanation is that it is all a matter of differing rates of vibration of substances.
The reader must be careful not to confuse this theosophical teaching of inner worlds and spheres with what the modern Spiritism of the Occident has to say on the matter. The “Summerland” of the Spiritists in no wise resembles the actuality which the theosophical philosophy teaches of, the doctrine concerning the structure and operations of the visible and invisible kosmos. The warning seems necessary lest an unwary reader may imagine that the invisible worlds and spheres of the theosophical teachings are identic with the Summerland of the Spiritists, for it is not so.
Our senses tell us absolutely nothing of the far-flung planes and spheres which belong to the ranges and functionings of the invisible substances and energies of the universe; yet those inner and invisible planes and spheres are actually inexpressibly more important than what our physical senses tell us of the physical world, because these invisible planes are the causal realms, of which our physical world or universe, however far extended in space, is but the effectual or phenomenal or resultant production.
But while these inner and invisible worlds or planes or spheres are the fountainhead, ultimately, of all the energies and matters of the whole physical world, yet to an entity inhabiting these inner and invisible worlds or planes, these latter are as substantial and “real” — using the popular word — to that entity as our gross physical world is to us. Just as we know in our physical world various grades or conditions of energy and matter, from the physically grossest to the most ethereal, precisely after the same general plan do the inhabitants of these invisible and inner and to us superior worlds know and cognize their own grossest and also most ethereal substances and energies.
Man as well as all the other entities of the universe is inseparably connected with these worlds invisible.
(OG) Involution — The reverse process or procedure of evolution. As evolution means the unfolding, the unwrapping, the rolling forth, of what already exists and is latent, so involution means the inwrapping, the infolding, the ingoing of what previously exists or has been unfolded, etc. Involution and evolution never in any circumstances can be even conceived of properly as operative the one apart from the other: every act of evolution is an act of involution, and vice versa. To illustrate, as spirit and matter are fundamentally one and yet eternally co-active and interactive, so involution and evolution are two names for two phases of the same procedure of growth, and are eternally coactive and interactive. As an example, the so-called descent of the monads into matter means an involution or involving or infolding of spiritual potencies into material vehicles which coincidently and contemporaneously, through the compelling urge of the infolding energies, unfold their own latent capacities, unwrap them, roll them forth; and this is the evolution of matter. Thus what is the involution of spirit is contemporaneously and pari passu the evolution of matter. Contrariwise, on the ascending or luminous arc when the involved monadic essences begin to rise towards their primordial spiritual source they begin to unfold or unwrap themselves as previously on the descending arc they had infolded or inwrapped themselves. But this process of unfolding or evolution of the monadic essences is contemporaneous with and pari passu with the infolding and inwrapping, the involution, of the material energies and powers.
Human birth and death are outstanding illustrations or examples of the same thing. The child is born, and as it grows to its full efflorescence of power it evolves or rolls forth certain inherent characteristics or energies or faculties, all derived from the human being’s svabhava or ego. Contrariwise, when the decline of human life begins, there is a slow infolding or inwrapping of these same facilities which thus seem gradually to diminish. These facilities and energies thus evolved forth in earth-life are the working of the innate spiritual and intellectual and psychical characteristics impelling and compelling the vehicular or body sides of the human constitution to express themselves as organs becoming more and more perfect as the child grows to maturity.
After death the process is exactly the reverse. The material or vehicular side of the being grows less and less strong and powerful, more and more involved, and becoming with every step in the process more dormant. But contemporaneously and coincidently the distinctly spiritual and intellectual powers and faculties themselves become released from the vehicles and begin to expand into ever larger efflorescence, attaining their maximum in the devachan. It is only the usual carelessness in accurate thinking that induces the idea that evolution is one distinct process acting alone, and that involution — about which by the way very little is heard — is another process acting alone. The two, as said above, are the two phases of activity of the evolving monads, and these phases exist contemporaneously at any moment, each of the two phases continually acting and interacting with the other phase. They are inseparable.
Just so with spirit and matter. Spirit is not something radically distinct from and utterly separate from matter. The two are fundamentally one, and the two are eternally coactive and interactive.
There are several terms in Sanskrit which correspond to what the theosophist means by evolution, but perhaps the best general term is pravritti, meaning to “revolve” or to “roll forwards,” to unroll or to unwrap. Again, the reverse procedure or involution can probably best be expressed in Sanskrit by the term nivritti, meaning “rolling backwards” or “inwrapping” or “infolding.” A term which is frequently interchangeable with evolution is emanation. ( See also Evolution)
(MO) Iormungandr {Nors} (yer-mung-andr) [ jormun immense + andr breath] An offspring of Loki: the Midgard serpent. (May be the equator, the plane of the ecliptic, or the Milky Way)
(TG) Iranian Morals. The little work called Ancient Iranian and Zoroastrian Morals, compiled by Mr. Dhunjibhoy Jamsetjee Medhora, a Parsi Theosophist of Bombay, is an excellent treatise replete with the highest moral teachings, in English and Gujerati, and will acquaint the student better than many volumes with the ethics of the ancient Iranians.
(TG) Irdhi {Sans}. The synthesis of the then “supernatural” occult powers in Buddhism and Brahmanism.
(TG) Irkalla {Chald}. The god of Hades, called by the Babylonians “the country unseen”.
(WG) Isa, lord; the name of one of the Upanishads, which treat of spiritual identity or unity.
(TG) Isarim {Hebr}. The Essenian Initiates.
(TG) Ishim {Chald}. The B ‘ ne-Aleim, the “beautiful sons of god”, the originals and prototypes of the later “Fallen Angels”.
(TG) Ishmonia {arabic}. The city near which is buried the so-called “petrified city” in the Desert. Legend speaks of immense subterranean halls and chambers, passages, and libraries secreted in them. Arabs dread its neighbourhood after sunset.
(TG) Ishtar {Chald}. The Babylonian Venus, called “the eldest of heaven and earth”, and daughter of Anu, the god of heaven. She is the goddess of love and beauty. The planet Venus, as the evening star, is identified with Ishtar, and as the morning star with Anunit, the goddess of the Akkads. There exists a most remarkable story of her descent into Hades, on the sixth and Seventh Assyrian tiles or tablets deciphered by the late G. Smith. Any Occultist who reads of her love for Tammuz, his assassination by Izdubar, the despair of the goddess and her descent in search of her beloved through the seven gates of Hades, and finally her liberation from the dark realm, will recognise the beautiful allegory of the soul in search of the Spirit.
(TG) Isiac table. A true monument of Egyptian art. It represents the goddess Isis under many of her aspects. The Jesuit Kircher describes it as a table of copper overlaid with black enamel and silver incrustations. It was in the possession of Cardinal Bembo, and therefore called “Tabula Bembina sive Mensa Isiaca”. Under this title it is described by W. Wynn Westcott, M.B., who gives its “History and Occult Significance” in an extremely interesting and learned volume (with photographs and illustrations). The tablet was believed to have been a votive offering to Isis in one of her numerous temples. At the sack of Rome in 1525, it came into the possession of a soldier who sold it to Cardinal Bembo. Then it passed to the Duke of Mantua in 1630, when it was lost.
(TG) Isis. In Egyptian Issa, the goddess Virgin-Mother; personified nature. In Egyptian or Koptic Uasi, the female reflection of Uasar or Osiris. She is the “woman clothed with the sun” of the land of Chemi. Isis-Latona is the Roman Isis.
(FY) Isis (“Isis Unveiled”), book written by Madame Blavatsky on the Esoteric Doctrine.
(WG) Isis, the mystic “Mother” of Nature in Egyptian lore. The “woman clothed with the sun”.
(TG) Isitwa {Sans}. The divine Power.
(WG) Isita, one of the eight superhuman faculties. The power to exercise supreme dominion. See Vibhuti .
(VS) Holy Isle [[p. 59]] The Higher Ego, or Thinking Self.
(TG) Israel {Hebr}. The Eastern Kabbalists derive the name from Isaral or Asar, the Sun-God. “Isra-el” signifies “striving with god”: the “sun rising upon Jacob-Israel” means the Sun-god Isaral (or Isar-el) striving with, and to fecundate matter, which has power with “God and with man” and often prevails over both. Esau, Aesaou, Asu, is also the Sun. Esau and Jacob, the allegorical twins, are the emblems of the ever struggling dual principle in nature — good and evil, darkness and sunlight, and the “Lord” (Jehovah) is their antetype. Jacob-Israel is the feminine principle of Esau, as Abel is that of Cain, both Cain and Esau being the male principle. Hence, like Malach-Iho, the “Lord” Esau fights with Jacob and prevails not. In Genesis 32 the God-Sun first strives with Jacob, breaks his thigh (a phallic symbol) and yet is defeated by his terrestrial type — matter; and the Sun-God rises on Jacob and his, thigh in covenant. All these biblical personages, their “Lord God” included, are types represented in an allegorical sequence. They are types of Life and Death, Good and Evil, Light and Darkness, of Matter and Spirit in their synthesis, all these being under their contrasted aspects.
(TG) Iswara, {Sans}. The “Lord” or the personal god — divine Spirit in man. Lit., sovereign (independent) existence. A title given to Siva and other gods in India. Siva is also called Iswaradeva, or sovereign deva.
(KT) Iswara {Sans} The “Lord” or the personal god, divine spirit in man. Literally Sovereign (independent) existence. A title given to Siva and other gods in India. Siva is also called Iswaradeva, or sovereign deva.
(FY) Iswara, Personal God, Lord, the Spirit in man, the Divine principle in its active nature or condition, one of the four states of Brahma.
(WG) Isvara, lord, master; an epithet of Siva, also of Durga or any other female sakti; the Supreme Spirit, or Atman, — the usual meaning in modern Theosophical works; one of the three inseparable realities — Chit, Achit and Isvara — combined in Parabrahmam, the three-in-one, which pervades and controls the universe; that part of the trinity which, assuming a form of suddasatva (intellectual substance), enables yogis to engage in contemplation who would otherwise be incapable of contemplating or comprehending the impersonal deity. (Pronounced, and often written, Ishwara
(OG) Isvara — {Sans} Isvara means “lord,” and is a term which is frequently applied in Hindu mythology not only to kosmic divinities, but to the expression of the cosmic spirit in the human being. Consequently, when reference is had to the individual human being, Isvara is the divine individualized spirit in man — man’s own personal god. It may be otherwise described as the divine ego, the child of the divine monad in a man, and in view of this fact also could be used with reference to the dhyani-buddha or to the immanent Christ in a man. In India it is a title frequently given to Siva and other gods of the Hindu pantheon.
(GH) Isvara ‘Lord’ (used in the same sense as is the term ‘Father in heaven’ in the Christian New Testament), hence the Supreme Self or Hierarch of a system, applicable to the great or to the small — to the universe or to man. In man it is the Divine Spirit, or the Divine-Spiritual Monad. Isvara is also used as a title for many of the gods, such as Vishnu and Siva.
“The Logos, or both the unmanifested and the manifested WORD, is called by the Hindus, Iswara, ‘the Lord,’ . . . Iswara, say the Vedantins, is the highest consciousness in nature. ‘This highest consciousness,’ answer the Occultists, ‘is only a synthetic unit in the world of the manifested Logos . . . for it is the sum total of Dhyan-Chohanic consciousnesses.’ ” ( Secret Doctrine, I, p. 573) (The following word is derived from the verbal root:) is, to rule, to be master. Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 130)
(SKv) Isvara, Avalokitesvara Isvara is derived from the verbal root is — to rule, to be master; hence Isvara is often applied to the ‘Lord’ or summit of any hierarchy, universe, Solar System or man. Avalokitesvara means ‘the manifested Isvara,’ or the ava-lokita — downwards-seen Lord; thus suggesting the realization of that glorious experience when the Divine Self is perceived by the Human Self, or when Adi-Buddha is perceived by god-like beings and Dhyan-Chohans.
(SP) Isvara [Iswara] — lord, head of a hierarchy.
Isvarah sarvabhutanam hriddese rjuna tishthati The Lord, O Arjuna dwells in the Heart of all Beings
(TG) Ithyphallic {Greek}. Qualification of the gods as males and hermaphrodites, such as the bearded Venus, Apollo in woman’s clothes, Ammon the generator, the embryonic Ptah, and so on. Yet the phallus, so conspicuous and, according to our prim notions, so indecent, in the Indian and Egyptian religions, was associated in the earliest symbology far more with another and much purer idea than that of sexual creation. As shown by many an Orientalist, it expressed resurrection, the rising in life from death. Even the other meaning had nought indecent in it: “These images only symbolise in a very expressive manner the creative force of nature, without obscene intention,” writes Marlette Bey, and adds, “It is but another way to express celestial generation, which should cause the deceased to enter into a new life”. Christians and Europeans are very hard on the phallic symbols of the ancients. The nude gods and goddesses and their generative emblems and statuary have secret departments assigned to them in our museums; why then adopt and preserve the same symbols for Clergy and Laity ? The love-feasts in the early Church — its agapae — were as pure (or as impure) as the Phallic festivals of the Pagans; the long priestly robes of the Roman and Greek Churches, and the long hair of the latter, the holy water sprinklers and the rest, are there to show that Christian ritualism has preserved in more or less modified forms all the symbolism of old Egypt. As to the symbolism of a purely feminine nature, we are bound to confess that in the sight of every impartial archaeologist the half nude toilets of our cultured ladies of Society are far more suggestive of female-sex worship than are the rows of yoni-shaped lamps, lit along the highways to temples in India.
Iti maya srutam Thus have I heard
(KT) Iu-Kabar Zivo, Gnostic term. The “Lord of the aeons” in the Nazarene system. He is the procreator (Emanator) of the seven holy lives (the seven primal Dhyan Chohans or Archangels, each representing one of the cardinal virtues), and is himself called the third life (third Logos). In the Codex he is addressed as the Helm and Vine of the food of life. Thus he is identical with Christ (Christos) who says: “I am the true vine and my Father is the husbandman.” (John xv. 1 It is well known that Christ is regarded in the Roman Catholic Church as the “Chief of the aeons,” as also is Michael, “who is as God.” Such also was the belief of the Gnostics.
(TG) Iu-Kabar Zivo {Gnos}. Known also as Nebat-Iavar-bar-Iufin-Ifafin, “Lord of the Aeons” in the Nazarene System. He is the procreator (Emanator) of the seven holy lives (the seven primal Dhyan Chohans, or Archangels, each representing one of the cardinal Virtues), and is himself called the third life (third Logos). In the Codex he is addressed as “the Helm and Vine of the food of life”. Thus, he is identical with Christ (Christos) who says “I am the true Vine and my Father is the Husbandman”(John xv. 1). It is well known that Christ is regarded in the Roman man Catholic Church as the “chief of the Aeons”, and also as Michael “who is like god”. Such was also the belief of the Gnostics.
(TG) Iurbo Adunai. A Gnostic term, or the compound name for Iao-Jehovah, whom the Ophites regarded as an emanation of their Ilda-Baoth, the Son of Sophia Achamoth — the proud, ambitious and jealous god, and impure Spirit, whom many of the Gnostic sects regarded as the god of Moses. “Iurbo is called by the Abortions (the Jews) Adunai” says the Codex Nazaraeus (vol. iii., p, 13 The “Abortions” and Abortives was the nickname given to the Jews by their opponents the Gnostics.
(FY) Ivabhavat, the one substance.
(TG) Iwaldi {Nors}. The dwarf whose sons fabricated for Odin the magic spear. One of the subterranean master-smiths who, together with other gnomes, contrived to make an enchanted sword for the great war-god Cheru. This two-edged-sword figures in the legend of the Emperor Vitellius, who got it from the god, — “to his own hurt”, according to the oracle of a “wise woman”, neglected it and was finally killed with it at the foot of the capitol, by a German soldier who had purloined the weapon. The “sword of the war-god” has a long biography, since it also re-appears in the half-legendary biography of Attila. Having married against her will Ildikd, the beautiful daughter of the King of Burgundy whom he had slain, his bride gets the magic sword from a mysterious old woman, and with it kills the King of the Huns.
(MO) Ivalde {Nors} (ee-vahl-deh) A giant: the previous imbodiment of earth
(PV) Ixbalamque {quiche-maya} With Hunahpu, her inseparable “twin,” the hero god of the Quiche-Maya. The feminine aspect of god-Five; new-moon goddess. Grandchild of Ixpiyacoc and Ixmucane. Her nahual is the jaguar. With Hunahpu, apotheosized at the end of the Third Age of the Popol Vuh.
(PV) Ixcanleos The Maya equivalent of the Quiche Ixmucane, “the mother of the gods.”
(PV) Ixmucane {quiche-maya} With Ixpiyacoc, the Supreme Pair of Quiche-Maya theogony, grandparents of the Mayas and of humanity as a whole. A feminine deity, the old lunar-earth goddess. Identical with the Maya Ixcanleos.
(PV) Ixpiyacoc {quiche-maya} The equivalent of Hunab ku, the Supreme Being of Maya tradition. With Ixmucane, the Supreme Pair of Quiche-Maya theogony, and grandparents of humanity. A masculine deity, the father of the Seven Ahpu.
(PV) Ixquic {quiche-maya} The mother of Hunahpu and Ixbalamque in the Popol Vuh ; a lunar goddess and earth goddess, associated with the four cosmic bearers. Immaculately fertilized by the Seven Ahpu, she bears their offspring, the twin savior deity. Her nahual is the jaguar.
(TG) Izdubar. A name of a hero in the fragments of Chaldean History and Theogony on the so-called Assyrian tiles, as, read by the late George Smith and others. Smith seeks to identify Izdubar with Nimrod. Such may or may not be the case but as the name of that Babylonian King itself only “appears” as Izdubar, his identification with the soil of Cush may also turn out more apparent than real. Scholars are but too apt to Check their archaeological discoveries by the far later statements found in the Mosaic books, instead of acting vice versa. The “chosen people” have been fond at all periods of history of helping themselves to other people’s property. From the appropriation of the early history of Sargon, King of Akkad, and its wholesale application to Moses born (if at all) some thousands of years later, down to their “spoiling” the Egyptians under the direction and divine advice of their Lord God, the whole Pentateuch seems to be made up of unacknowledged mosaical fragments from other people’s Scriptures. This ought to have made Assyriologists more cautious; but as many of these belong to the clerical caste, such coincidences as that of Sargon affect them very little. One thing is certain: Izdubar, or whatever may be his name, is shown in all the tablets as a mighty giant ‘who towered in size above all other men as a cedar towers over brushwood — hunter, according to cuneiform legends, who contended with, and destroyed the lion, tiger, bull, and buffalo, the most formidable animals.
(TG) J. — The tenth letter in the English and Hebrew alphabet, in the latter of which it is equivalent to y, and i, and is numerically number 10, the perfect number (See Jodh and Yodh ), or one. (See also I
(TG) Jabalas {Sans}. Students of the mystical portion of the White Yajur Veda .
(TG) Jachin {Hebr}. In Hebrew letters IKIN, from the root KUN to establish, and the symbolical name of one of the Pillars at the porch of King Solomon’s Temple [w.w.w.].
The other pillar was called Boaz, and the two were respectively white and black. They correspond to several mystic ideas, one of which is that they represent the dual Manas or the higher and the lower Ego; another connected these two pillars in Slavonian mysticism with God and the Devil, to the WHITE and the BLACK GOD or Byeloy Bog and Tchernoy Bog . (See Yakin and Boaz infra ).
(TG) Jacobites. A Christian sect in Syria of the 6th-C. (550), which held that Christ had only one nature and that confession was not of divine origin. They had secret signs, passwords and a solemn initiation with mysteries.
(TG) Jadoo {hindi}. Sorcery, black magic, enchantment.
(TG) Jadoogar {hindi}. A Sorcerer, or Wizard.
(TG) Jagaddhatri {Sans}. Substance; the name of the nurse of the world, the designation of the power which carried Krishna and his brother Balarama into Devaki, their mother’s bosom. A title of Sarasvati and Durga.
(TG) Jagad-Yoni {Sans}. The womb of the world; space.
(WG) Jagad-Yoni, an epithet of Siva, Brahma, Vishnu and Krishna. ( jagat, world; yoni, womb: womb of the world
(TG) Jagan-Natha {Sans}. Lit. , Lord of the World, a title of Vishnu. The great image of Jagan-natha on its car, commonly pronounced and spelt Jagernath. The idol is that of Vishnu Krishna. Puri, near the town of Cuttack in Orissa, is the great seat of its worship; and twice a year an immense number of pilgrims attend the festivals of the Snana-yatra and Ratha-yatra. During the first, the image is bathed, and during the second it is placed on a car, between the images of Balarama the brother, and Subhadra the sister of Krishna and the huge vehicle is drawn by the devotees, who deem it felicity to be crushed to death under it.
(WG) Jagannatha, a Hindu god, the juggernaut of the Christian missionaries. He is the allegorical representation of the soul indwelling in the body and in the world. ( jagat , movable, the body, the world; natha, ruler, master
(TG) Jagat {Sans}. The Universe.
(WG) Jagat, movable; all that moves; the animated beings of the visible, material universe.
(TG) Jagrata {Sans}. The waking state of consciousness. When mentioned in Yoga philosophy, Jagrata-avastha is the waking condition, one of the four states of Pranava in ascetic practices, as used by the Yogis.
(FY) Jagrata, waking.
(WG) Jagrata, waking existence, one of the three states of consciousness known to ordinary man. (See Avastha-traya
(OG) Jagrat — {Sans} The state of consciousness when awake, as opposed to svapna , the dreaming-sleeping state of consciousness, and different again from sushupti when the human consciousness is plunged into profound self-oblivion. The highest of all the states into which the consciousness may cast itself, or be cast, is the turiya (fourth), which is the highest state of samadhi, and is almost a nirvanic condition.
All these states or conditions of the consciousness are affections or phases of the constitution of man, and of beings constructed similarly to man. The waking state, or jagrat, is the state or condition of consciousness normal to the imbodied human being when not asleep. Svapna is the state of consciousness more or less freed from the sheath of the body and partially awake in the astral realms, higher or lower as the case may be. Sushupti is the state of self-oblivion into which the human being is plunged when the percipient consciousness enters into the purely manasic condition, which is self-oblivion for the relatively impotent brain-mind; whereas the turiya state, which is a practical annihilation of the ordinary human consciousness, is an attainment of union with atma-buddhi overshadowing or working through the higher manas. Actually, therefore, it is becoming at one with the monadic essence.
(FY) Jagrata Avastha, the waking state; one of the four aspects of Pranava.
(TG) Jahnavi {Sans}. A name of Ganga, or the river Ganges.
(TG) Jahva Alhim {Hebr}. The name that in Genesis replaces Alhim, or Elohim, the gods . It is used in chapter I., while in chapter II. the Lord God or Jehovah steps in. In Esoteric philosophy and exoteric tradition, Jahva Alhim (Java Aleim) was the title of the chief of the Hierophants, who initiated into the good and the evil of this world in the college of priests known as the Aleim College in the land of Gandunya or Babylonia. Tradition and rumour assert, that the chief of the temple Fo-maiyu , called Foh-tchou (teacher of Buddhist law), a temple situated in the fastnesses of the great mount of Kouenlongr-sang (between China and Tibet), teaches once every three years under a tree called Sung-Min-Shu, or the Tree of Knowledge and (the tree) of life, which is the Bo (Bodhi) tree of Wisdom.
(TG) Jaimini {Sans}. A great sage, a disciple of Vyasa, the transmitter and teacher of the Sama Veda which as claimed he received from his Guru. He is also the famous founder and writer of the Purva Mimansa philosophy.
(TG) Jainas {Sans}. A large religious body in India closely resembling Buddhism, but who preceded it by long centuries. They claim that Gautama, the Buddha, was a disciple of one of their Tirtankaras, or Saints. They deny the authority of the Vedas and the existence of any personal supreme god, but believe in the eternity of matter, the periodicity of the universe and the immortality of men’s minds (Manas) as also of that of the animals. An extremely mystic sect.
(FY) Jains, a religious sect in India closely related to the Buddhists.
(WG) Jaina, a sect founded in India by Rishabadeva. They deny the infallibility of the Vedas; give reverence to holy men called Tirthankaras, and will kill nothing that has life. They are followers of Jina, and affirm Nirvana. (The Anglicized form of the word is Jains
(TG) Jaina Cross. The same as the Swastika , Thor’s hammer also, or the Hermetic cross.
(TG) Jalarupa {Sans}. Lit. , water-body, or form. One of the names of Makara (the sign capricornus ). It is one of the most occult and mysterious of the Zodiacal signs; it figures on the banner of Kama, god of love, and is connected with our immortal Egos. (See Secret Doctrine
(TG) Jambu-dwipa {Sans}. One of the main divisions of the globe, in the Puranic system. It includes India. Some say that it was a continent, — others an island — or one of the seven islands (Sapta dwipa). It is the dominion of Vishnu. In its astronomical and mystic sense it is the name of our globe, separated by the plane of objectivity from the six other globes of our planetary chain.
(FY) Jambudvipa, one of the main divisions of the world, including India, according to the ancient Brahminical system.
(TG) Jamin {Hebr}. The right side of a man, esteemed the most worthy. Benjamin means son of the right side”, i.e., testis . [w.w.w.]
(TG) Janaka {Sans}. One of the Kings of Mithila of the Solar race. He was a great royal sage, and lived twenty generations before Janaka the father of Sita who was King of Videha.
(FY) Janaka, King of Videha, a celebrated character in the Indian epic of Ramayana. He was a great royal sage.
(WG) Janaka, a celebrated king and Adept who is taken as an example of one who, in the midst of the performance of duties, yet became proficient in divine science.
(GH) Janaka A king of the Mithila Dynasty who reigned at Videha, famed for his good works, knowledge, and sanctity: through his righteous life he became a Brahmana and one of the Rajarshis. He was the father of Sita, who sprang up from the earth from the furrow he had made with his plow. ( Bhagavad-Gita , W. Q. Judge, p. 25)
(TG) Jana-loka {Sans}. The world wherein the Munis (the Saints) are supposed to dwell after their corporeal death (See Puranas ). Also a terrestrial locality.
(WG) Jana-loka, the fifth of the seven lokas, the one where the sons of Brahma reside. ( jana , created beings; loka, place, world
(TG) Janarddana {Sans}. Lit. , the adored of mankind, a title of Krishna.
(WG) Janardana, giver of all that men ask, one of Krishna’s titles; a class of deities. ( jana , created beings, men; ardana, moving: agitating men
(GH) Janardana In the Puranas the One Cosmic Intelligent Life, manifesting in the threefold aspect of Fashioner, Preserver, and Regenerator ( i.e., the Hindu Trimurti — Brahma, Vishnu, Siva). Applied to Krishna in his avataric manifestation of Vishnu. (The following word is derived from the verbal root:) jan, to be born, to come forth; (The following word is derived from the verbal root:) ard, to move: ‘the ever-born.’ Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 72)
(WG) Janman, birth; existence; term of life.
(FY) Janwas, gross form of matter.
(TG) Japa {Sans}. A mystical practice of certain Yogis. It consists in the repetition of various magical formulae and mantras.
(FY) Japa, mystical practice of the Yogi, consisting of the repetition of certain formulae.
(WG) Japa, a religious exercise, consisting of repeating in a murmuring tone passages from scriptures, muttering prayers or spells, counting the beads of a rosary, etc. (Literally, whispering, muttering
(TG) Jaras {Sans}. Old Age. The allegorical name of the hunter who killed Krishna by mistake, a name showing the great ingenuity of the Brahmans and the symbolical character of the World-Scriptures in general. As Dr. Crucefix, a high mason well says, to preserve the occult mysticism of their order from all except their own class, the priests invented symbols and hieroglyphics to embody sublime truths.
(MO) Jarnsaxa {Nors} (yern-sax-ah) [ jarn iron + sax a short sword] An age: mother of Thor’s son Magne. On earth the Iron Age, in space one of Heimdal’s nine mothers
(TG) Jatayu {Sans}. The Son of Garuda. The latter is the great cycle, or Mahakalpa symbolized by the giant bird which served as a steed for Vishnu, and other gods, when related to space and time. Jatayu is called in the Ramayana the King of the feathered tribe. For defending Sita carried away by Ravana, the giant king of Lanka, he was killed by him. Jatayu is also called the king of the vultures.
(TG) Javidan Khirad {Pers}. A work on moral precepts.
(KT) Javidan Khirad {Pers} A work on moral precepts.
(GH) Jayadratha A prince of the Chandravansa (Lunar Dynasty), son of Brihanmanas and king of the Sindhus and Sauviras (tribes living along the Indus river). Jayadratha. married Duhsala, the daughter of Dhritarashtra, hence he became an ally of the Kurus in the war with the Pandavas, during which he was slain by Arjuna. (Meaning of the word itself: having victorious chariots. Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 83)
(TG) Jayas {Sans}. The twelve great gods in the Puranas who neglect to create men, and are therefore, cursed by Brahma to be reborn in every (racial) Manvantara till the seventh”. Another form or aspect of the reincarnating Egos.
(WG) Jaya, a class of deities, the twelve great gods created by Brahma to assist him in the work of creation; a name of the sun. (Literally, conquering
(TG) Jebal Djudi {arabic}. The Deluge Mountain of the Arabic legends. The same as Ararat, and the Babylonian Mount of Nizir where Xisuthrus landed with his ark.
(TG) Jehovah {Hebr}. The Jewish Deity name J’hovah, is a compound of two words, viz of Jah (y, i, or j, Yodh, the tenth letter of the alphabet) and hovah (Havah, or Eve), says a Kabalistic authority, Mr. J. Ralston Skinner of Cincinnati, U.S.A. And again, The word Jehovah, or Jah-Eve , has the primary meaning of existence or being as male female. It means Kabalistically the latter, indeed, and nothing more; and as repeatedly shown is entirely phallic. Thus, verse 26 in the 4th chapter of Genesis, reads in its disfigured translation . . . . then began men to call upon the name of the Lord, whereas it ought to read correctly . . . . then began men to call themselves by the name of Jah-hova or males and females, which they had become after the separation of sexes. In fact the latter is described in the same chapter, when Cain (the male or Jah ) rose up against Abel, his ( sister not) brother and slew him ( spilt his blood, in the original). Chapter IV of Genesis contains in truth, the allegorical narrative of that period of anthropological and physiological evolution which is described in the Secret Doctrine when treating of the third Root race of mankind. It is followed by Chapter V as a blind ; but ought to be succeeded by Chapter VI, where the Sons of God took as their wives the daughters of men or of the giants. For this is an allegory hinting at the mystery of the Divine Egos incarnating in mankind, after which the hitherto senseless races became mighty men, . . . . men of renown (v. 4), having acquired minds (Manas) which they had not before.
(WG) Jehovah, literally Male-Female. The god of procreation, or sex-god. The tribal-god of the Jews — now worshipped by Christians as the Most High.
(TG) Jehovah Nissi {Hebr}. The androgyne of Nissi (See Dionysos), The Jews worshipped under this name Bacchus-Osiris, Dio-Nysos, and the multiform Joves of Nyssa, the Sinai of Moses. Universal tradition shews Bacchus reared in a cave of Nysa. Diodorus locates Nysa between Phoenicia and Egypt, and adds, Osiris was brought up in Nysa . . . . he was son of Zeus and was named from his father (nominative Zeus, genitive Dios) and the place Dio-nysos — the Zeus or Jove of Nyssa.
(TG) Jerusalem, Jerosalem and Hierosolyma (Vulgate) . In Hebrew it is written Yrshlim or city of peace, but the ancient Greeks called it pertinently Hierosalem or Secret Salem”, since Jerusalem is a rebirth from Salem of which Melchizedek was the King-Hierophant, a declared Astrolator and worshipper of the Sun, the Most High by-the-bye. There also Adoni-Zedek reigned in his turn, and was the last of its Amorite Sovereigns. He allied himself with four others, and these five kings went to conquer back Gideon, but (according to Joshua X) came out of the affray second best. And no wonder, since these five kings were opposed, not only by Joshua but by the Lord God, and by the Sun and the Moon also. On that day, we read, at the command of the successor of Moses, the sun stood still and the moon stayed (v. 13) for the whole day. No mortal man, king or yeoman, could withstand, of course, such a shower of great stones from heaven as was cast upon them by the Lord himself . . . . from Beth-horon unto Azekah . . . . and they died (v. 11). After having died they fled and hid themselves in a cave at Makkedah” (v. 16). It appears, however, that such undignified behaviour in a God received its Karmic punishment afterwards. At different epochs of history, the Temple of the Jewish Lord was sacked, ruined and burnt (See Mount Moriah) — holy arc; of the covenant, cherubs, Shekinah and all, but that deity seemed as powerless to protect his property from desecration as though they were no more stones left in heaven. After Pompey had taken the Second Temple in 63, B.C., and the third one, built by Herod the Great, had been razed to the ground by the Romans, in 70 A.D., no new temple was allowed to be built in the capital of the chosen people” of the Lord. In spite of the Crusades, since the 13th century Jerusalem has belonged to the Mohammedans, and almost every site holy and dear to the memory of the old Israelites, and also of the Christians, is now covered by minarets and mosques, Turkish barracks and other monuments of Islam.
(TG) Jesod {Hebr}. Foundation; the ninth of the Ten Sephiroth, a masculine active potency, completing the six which form the Microprosopus . [w.w.w.]
(WG) Jesod {Hebr}, foundation. The ninth of the ten Sephiroth of the Kabalah. A masculine potency. WW Jesus You all know the story, of course, as set forth in the Christian gospels: of a certain man who is supposed to have been born in Syria, in Palestine, in the town of Bethlehem, from a virgin betrothed or married to a man called Joseph, and of his life works, and of the fact that he is the accepted Messiah of the Christians and a rejected postulant, as supposed by the Christians, to the Messiahship of the Jews. Now, in the first place, there are few things either in history or legend that are so much involved in obscurity and uncertainty as the story of Jesus, afterwards called the Christ. The Gospels themselves differ in their accounts of him very seriously, and the Christians who accepted his mission and his gospel differed very greatly among themselves as to the way they accepted life so that uniformity as regards his birth, mission, and even death, cannot be found. But it would seem that at some time about 1900 or 1950 years ago (about 46 B.C, there did live in Palestine a Jew, a sage, around whose life and mission has been built up the tremendous fabric which we call Christianity. [ See Le Lotus, Vol. II, No. 13, April 1888, reprinted in Blavatsky Collected Writings, IX, 216 et seq . For me Jesus Christ . . . was never a historical person. He is a deified personification of the glorified type of the great Hierophants of the Temples, and his story, as told in the New Testament, is an allegory . . . The legend of which I speak is founded on the existence of a personage called Jehoshua (from which Jesus has been made) born at Lud or Lydda about 120 years before the modern era. — PLP EDS.] There are two ways in which to look at it. One is as Jesus the man; the other, as Jesus the type-figure of a religion or of a mythology. And this latter is Jesus the Christ. When we come to the further definitions in our study to the Mysteries and Initiations, we shall be able better to understand what now we can merely speak of as a skeleton theory: that is to say, that the life of Jesus, his mission, is based on a typical figure, a type, an exemplar of what was prefigured in the Mysteries, no matter in what country these Mysteries were held. The Mysteries, though varying in form, were one in the fundamental subjects taught. Now I spoke of Jesus in connection with the sun. Obviously that did not mean that Jesus was the sun, nor that Jesus Christ, the type-figure, was the sun, but it meant that both the man and the type figure had a mystical relationship to the sun, as conceived in ancient days, and as taught in the Mysteries, the sun being in one sense the Logos or Word of the Father. Hence he was the type-figure of the perfect man, and in another sense the manifested demiurge, that is to say the cosmic artificer, acting on this plane. Last week we spoke about the Christians having a conception of the type-figure, Jesus the Christ as the Sun of Righteousness, which riseth with healing in its wings (a passage taken from the Jewish Prophet Malachi, IV, 2, and frequently applied to Jesus by Christians), and apart from the invocation or hymn or prayer which you remember we quoted as used in the 6th or 7th centuries, and undoubtedly before that time by the Christians. It is interesting also to recollect that the early Christian Fathers, such as Origen in Contra Celsum , I, 51; Eusebius, Vita Const ., III, 40, and Justin called the Martyr in Dialog . 78, speak of the birth of Jesus as having taken place in a cave in or near the village or town of Bethlehem in Judea. And in the 5th century, Jerome, the Latin Church Father, who passed a great many years of his life in Palestine as a monk, tells us in a letter ( Epist . ad Paulin, VIII; see also Epist . ad Sabin ) that the cave where Christ was born was dedicated to the worship and celebration of rites in honor of Adonis, Adonis being a Syrian God of the sun. Eusebius also tells us that the Emperor Hadrian built a temple to Apollo, that is to say, to Adonis, over this cave. Several of the Apocryphal gospels also mention the cave (see especially the Protevangelium of Tomes, 18, and the Gospel of the Pseudo Matthew, 13, History of Joseph the Carpenter , 7, and others The connection of the Logos idea with the sun was noticed in our other studies, as you will remember; and the Christians did adopt a great many pagan ideas, and with them the philosophical consequences, thus establishing the connection of Jesus, the type figure, with the sun. Now, in the first place, when was Jesus born? No one knows. He is supposed to have been born in what is commonly spoken of as the year 1 A.D., or 1914 years ago. [[Obviously the number of years changes as each year passes.]] Criticism of the Gospels has shown that it ought to be at least four years before that, so then he would have been born (accepting this not as a truth but as something of a basis to work upon) 1918 years ago. [[Ibid.]] When he was really born, no one knows. Justin the Martyr tells us (first Apology, 46) that Jesus was born 150 years earlier. The trouble is that no one knows exactly when Justin himself lived. The time of his birth varies according to different computations from 89 of this Christian era to as late as 120; but taking the largest figure, even then Jesus was born more than 1918 years ago. [[Ibid.]] To be the Messiah as accepted by the Christians, based upon the ideas of the Jews concerning their Messiah — because you will remember that the Christians adopted a great many of the mystical ideas of the Jews in founding their faith — Jesus must be of the seed of David; that is, belonging to the blood royal of the Kingdom of Judah; he must come to restore the Jewish nation, to purify the Jewish faith, and to carry the gospel of righteousness to surrounding peoples. If it could be proved that Jesus was not the seed of David, he was not the Messiah. Now in the Gospel according to Matthew he gives the genealogy of Jesus from Abraham down to Christ, dividing it into three periods: to wit, from Abraham to David, 14 generations; from David until the carrying away into Babylon, 14 generations; and from the carrying away into Babylon until Christ, 14 generations. (Let me interpolate and remind you that these titles The Gospel according to Matthew , or Mark, or Luke, or John, do not mean that they were written by these individuals. No one knows who wrote the Gospels. Pious believers suppose and hope that they were written by these men, but there is no proof of it, and the contradictions in the Gospels themselves show that if they were written by eye-witnesses either the eye-witnesses were lunatics when they wrote them or they were not eye-witnesses). Thrice fourteen is obviously a mystical number and shows an endeavor to conform facts to a theory. Second, there are not 14 generations (as may be found by counting them) from the carrying away to Babylon to Christ, but only 13 generations. Again, the genealogy ends and Jacob begat Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus who is called the Christ. The genealogy given here shows Joseph to be the seed of David, not Mary, Christ’s mother, the virgin. Therefore he cannot be the Messiah by the genealogy of Matthew . Mark gives no genealogy. Luke, in the third chapter, Verses 23 to the end, verse 38, gives a genealogy from Joseph on up through a larger number than in Matthew, ending which was the son of Enos, which was the son of Seth, which was the son of Adam, which was the son of God, tracing it back to God. This genealogy also makes Joseph of the seed of David, not Mary the virgin, the mother of Christ. Therefore by Luke he cannot be the seed of David, because Joseph was of the seed of David, but not Mary, the virgin, his mother. Thus far Matthew and Luke agree; but when we examine these genealogies we find that the father of Joseph in Matthew was Jacob; the father of Joseph in Luke was Heli; the Father of Jacob in Matthew was Matthan; the father of Heli in Luke was Matthat; the father of Matthan in Matthew was Eleazar; the father of Matthat in Luke was Levi; the father of Eleazar in Matthew was Eliud; and the father of Levi in Luke was Melchi; and so on, the genealogies being different. Now the very early Christians, such as Justin the Martyr, who lived as I have said at some indefinite periods between the year 89 of our era and the year 165, traced the genealogy of Jesus through Mary and not through Joseph; they know nothing of the genealogy of Jesus as being the son of Joseph. Furthermore, there were other early Christians, some of them called heretics, who said that Joseph was indeed the father of Jesus, and it was but mystically that Jesus was said to be born of a virgin. The 23rd verse in the 3rd chapter of Luke is as follows; And Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of age, being ( as was supposed ) the son of Joseph, which was the son of Heli. And then the genealogy continues. Now, that as was supposed is ambiguous, in Greek as in English. It could mean: as was supposed, such being the fact; or it could mean: as was wrongly supposed, such not being the fact. These three words are probably a harmonistic interpolation, to destroy the stated fathership of Joseph. Now as regards the personality of Jesus the man, nothing is known. It is popular to think of him as a man of noble and prepossessing appearance, high-minded, gentle, infilled with the spirit of the Deity, incapable of sin, the incarnation of love and pity — a man of majestic personal presence, etc. Origen, the Christian father, in his answer to the philosopher Celsus wrote a work called The True Word showing the contradictions and impossibilities in the Christian scheme, which unfortunately has not come down to us except in small extracts. In one of his arguments ( Contra . Celsus . vi ) he says that even if Celsus does say, quoting certain of our sacred works (that is, accepted by the Christians) that Jesus was insignificant, vulgar in appearance, unprepossessing in form, it still matters not, because although it is true that certain writers say that, nevertheless the 45th Psalm speaks of his beauty — by prophecy. Saint Paul, by the way, the most philosophical writer found among the books called the Christian New Testament, is also described by some ancient and present discredited writings which have come down to us from the Christian era, as being a bandy-legged fellow, bald, with a hooked nose. And some able men today believe that when Saint Paul speaks of the thorn in his flesh against which he had constantly to wrestle, it was because he was an epileptic. These, of course, are merely stories and traditions, as worthy or as little worthy of credence as the Gospels, so-called, themselves. One may say that if any historical fact were founded upon such information as the story of Jesus contained in these Gospels, it would be thrown out by any historian jealous of his reputation, particularly as these Gospel tales not only differ among themselves, differ seriously, but contradict each other, and there are some grotesque errors, as for instance they speak of the High Priests of the Jews. The Jews of course had but one High Priest. Coming from Jews, supposedly, who lived and assisted Jesus in his work, this is rather ridiculous.
(TG) Jetzirah {Hebr}. See Yetzirah.
(TG) Jetzirah, Sepher; or Book of the Creation. The most occult of all the Kabalistic works now in the possession of modern mystics. Its alleged origin, of having been written by Abraham, is of course nonsense; but its intrinsic value is great. It is composed of six Perakim (chapters), subdivided into thirty-three short Mishnas or Sections; and treats of the evolution of the Universe on a system of correspondences and numbers. Deity is said therein to have formed (created) the Universe by means of numbers by thirty-two paths (or ways) of secret wisdom, these ways being made to correspond with the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet and the ten fundamental numbers. These ten are the primordial numbers whence proceeded the whole Universe, and these are followed by the twenty-two letters divided into Three Mothers, the seven double consonants and the twelve simple consonants. He who would well understand the system is advised to read the excellent little treatise upon Sepher Jetzirah, by Dr. W. Wynn Westcott. (See Yetzirah
(FY) Jevishis, will; Karma Rupa; fourth principle.
(TG) Jhana {Sans} or Jnana. Knowledge; Occult Wisdom.
(KT) Jhana {Sans} or Jnana, Knowledge: Occult Wisdom.
(TG) Jhana Bhaskara {Sans}. A work on Asuramaya, the Atlantean astronomer and magician, and other prehistoric legends.
(TG) Jigten Gonpo {Tibe}. A name of Avalokiteswara, or Chenres-Padma-pani , the Protector against Evil.
(WG) Jihva, the tongue; tongue of flame of Agni.
(WG) Jina, a name of Buddha.
(TG) Jishnu {Sans}. Leader of the Celestial Host, a title of Indra, who, in the War of the Gods with the Asuras, led the host of devas. He is the Michael, the leader of the Archangels of India.
(TG) Jiva {Sans}. Life, as the Absolute; the Monad also or Atma-Buddhi.
(FY) Jiva or Karana Sarira, the second principle of man; life.
(WG) Jiva, living; the principle of life; the vital principle in the material body; monad; individual soul; the name adopted in Esoteric Buddhism for one of the seven human principles. There are, it is taught, three classes of jivas, or souls: first, nityas, those who permanently enjoy supreme bliss, and are never subject to matter or karma; second, muktas, those who have attained supreme bliss, and are freed from all miseries and from the necessity for reincarnation; third, baddhas , who are subject to all karma and to the miseries arising from connection with matter.
(OG) Jiva — {Sans} This is a word meaning essentially a living being per se, apart from any attributes or qualities that such living being may have or possess. It therefore is the exactly proper equivalent of the theosophical term monad. In one sense, therefore, jiva could be also used for a life-atom, provided that the emphasis be laid on the word life, or rather life-entity — not an atom of life, but a being whose essence is pure living individuality. Monad in its divine-spiritual essence, and life-atom in its pranic-astral-physical being — such is a jiva; and between these two extremes are the numerous planes or sheaths on and in which the individualized consciousness works.
(SK)o Jiva A living being per se ; a monad; a life-atom; derived from the verbal root jiv — to live. These Jivas or monadic life-centers range from the simple consciousnesses of the elemental worlds to the complex living beings that imbody universes. Jiva is also a term used for the Prana or life-principle of the Universe.
(IN) Jiva {Sans} Individualized life” force, a living being or monad; also cosmic life principle, prana.
(SP) Jiva — life or a living being.
(TG) Jivanmukta {Sans}. An adept or yogi who has reached the ultimate state of holiness, and separated himself from matter; a Mahatma, or Nirvanee, a dweller in bliss and emancipation. Virtually one who has reached Nirvana during life.
(WG) Jivan-mukta, one who has during life attained freedom from conditioned existence; a soul in conscious union with the Supreme Spirit.
(OG) Jivanmukta — {Sans} A highly mystical and philosophical word which means a freed jiva, signifying a human being, or an entity equivalent in evolutionary development to a human being, who has attained freedom or release as an individualized monad from the enthralling chains and attractions of the material spheres.
A jivanmukta is not necessarily without body; and, as a matter of fact, the term is very frequently employed to signify the loftiest class of initiates or Adepts who through evolution have risen above the binding attractions or magnetism of the material spheres. The term is frequently used for a mahatma, whether imbodied or disembodied, and also occasionally as a descriptive term for a nirvani — one who has reached nirvana during life. Were the nirvani without body, the mystical and technical meaning of jivanmukta would hardly apply. Consequently, jivanmukta may briefly be said to be a human being who lives in the highest portions of his constitution in full consciousness and power even during earth-life.
(SP) Jivanmukta — literally released while living, one who attains mukti (liberation) in the present life.
(WG) Jivan-mukti, emancipation, redemption. (See Jivan-mukta
(TG) Jivatma {Sans}. The ONE universal life, generally; but also the divine Spirit in Man.
(FY) Jivatma, the human spirit, seventh principle in the Microcosm.
(WG) Jivatma, the human spirit; the intellectual life of the ego; the Logos; living soul; sometimes applied to the monad which passes through all incarnations. ( jiva , life; atma, soul
(OG) Jivatman — {Sans} An expressive word having much the same significance as jiva, but with emphasis laid upon the last element of the compound, atman, self. Jivatman is perhaps a better term for monad even than jiva is, because it carries the clear idea of the monad in which the individual self is predominant over all other monadic attributes. One may perhaps describe it by a paraphrase as the essential self or individuality of the monad.
Jivatman is also a term sometimes used for the universal life; but this definition, while correct in a way, is rather confusing because suggesting similarity if not identity with paramatman. Paramatman is the Brahman or universal spirit of a solar system, for instance; and paramatman is therefore the converging point of a kosmic consciousness in which all the hosts of jivatmans unite as in their hierarchical head. The jivatmans of any hierarchy are like the rays from the paramatman, their divine-spiritual sun. The jivatman, therefore, in the case of the human being, or indeed of any other evolving entity, is the spiritual monad, or better perhaps the spiritual ego of that monad.
(WG) Jnana, knowledge, especially of the higher truths of religion and philosophy. (See Vidya
(SKv) Jnana, Ajnana , Avidya Jnana means ‘wisdom’ or ‘knowledge’; derived from the verb-root jna — to know. Ajnana means ‘non-knowledge,’ ‘nescience,’ that is, absence of knowledge concerning the inner truths of Life. Avidya also means ‘nescience,’ ignorance of Universal truths; a compound of a — not, and vidya — wisdom, derived from the verb-root vid — to understand, to know. Avidya is considered to be one of the root-causes of evil and suffering, and of keeping a man the servant of unknown forces of a destructive nature.
(TG) Jnanam {Sans}. The same as Gnana, etc., the same as Jhana .
(FY) Jnanam, knowledge.
(WG) Jnana-marga, knowledge of the way. ( jnana , knowledge; marga, path
(TG) Jnana Sakti {Sans}. The power of intellect.
(WG) Jnana-sakti, power of knowing.
(WG) Jnana-yoga, the religion of knowledge.
(IN) Jnana Yoga {Sans} Union” with the divine through knowledge” and wisdom.
(TG) Jnanendriyas {Sans}. The five channels of knowledge.
(FY) Jnanendriyas, the five channels of knowledge.
(WG) Jnanendriyas, the organs of sense, or perception; the organs by which external objects are perceived.
(SKv) Jnanesvari A highly mystical treatise in which Krishna describes in occult language the pathway and final attainments of a fully illumined Yogin. Jnanesvari is a compound of jnana knowledge, and isvara — lord.
(WG) Jnanin, a sage; one possessed of occult wisdom.
(TG) Jord. In Northern Germany the goddess of the Earth, the same as Nerthus and the Scandinavian Freya or Frigg.
(KT) Josephus Flavius. A historian of the first century; a Hellenized Jew who lived in Alexandria and died at Rome. He was credited by Eusebius with having written the 16 famous lines relating to Christ, which were most probably interpolated by Eusebius himself, the greatest forger among the Church Fathers. This passage, in which Josephus, who was an ardent Jew and died in Judaism, is nevertheless made to acknowledge the Messiaship and divine origin of Jesus, is now declared spurious both by most of the Christian Bishops (Lardner among others) and even by Paley (see his Evidence of Christianity). It was for centuries one of the weightiest proofs of the real existence of Jesus, the Christ.
(TG) Jotunheim {Nors}. The land of the Hrimthurses or Frost-giants.
(TG) Jotuns {Nors}. The Titans or giants. Mimir, who taught Odin magic, the thrice wise, was a Jotun.
(VS) Great Journey (II 25) [[p. 34]] Great Journey or the whole complete cycle of existences, in one Round.
JUDGE, William Quan — Links to biography and online books
(TG) Jul {Nors}. The wheel of the Sun from whence Yuletide, which was sacred to Freyer, or Fro, the Sun-god, the ripener of the fields and fruits, admitted later to the circle of the Ases. As god of sunshine and fruitful harvests he lived in the Home of the Light Elves.
(VS) Julai (II 15) [[p. 30]] Julai the Chinese name for Tathagata, a title applied to every Buddha.
(GH) Jumna The modern Jamna: a river in the Northwest Provinces of India: it joins the Ganges at Allahabad. The strip of land lying between it and the Sarasvati river was the region of the Kurus in the Mahabharata. The Yadavas ruled over the country west of the Jumna. Vyasa was born on an island situated in this river. ( Bhagavad-Gita , W. Q. Judge, p. iii)
(TG) Jupiter {Latin}. From the same root as the Greek Zeus, the greatest god of the ancient Greeks and Romans, adopted also by other nations. His names are among others: (1) Jupiter-Aerios; (2) Jupiter-Ammon of Egypt; (3) Jupiter Bel-Moloch the Chaldean; (4) Jupiter-Mundus, Deus Mundus, God of the World; (5) Jupiter-Fulgur, the Fulgurant, etc., etc.
(WG) Jyotis, light; star; heavenly body; the light in the head.
(TG) Jyotisha {Sans}. Astronomy and Astrology; one of the Vedangas.
(TG) Jyotisham Jyotch {Sans}. The light of lights, the Supreme Spirit, so called in the Upanishads.
(FY) Jyotisham Jyotih, the light of lights, the supreme spirit, so called in the Upanishads.
(TG) Jyotsna {Sans}. Dawn; one of the bodies assumed by Brahma; the morning twilight.
(TG) K. — The eleventh letter in both the English and the Hebrew alphabets. As a numeral it stands in the latter for 20, and in the former for 250, and with a stroke over it ([[symbol K with a line over it]]) for 250,000. The Kabalists and the Masons appropriate the word Kodesh or Kadosh as the name of the Jewish god under this letter.
(TG) Ka {Sans}. According to Max Muller, the interrogative pronoun “who?” — raised to the dignity of a deity without cause or reason. Still it has its esoteric significance and is a name of Brahma in his phallic character as generator or Prajapati .
(TG) Kabah or Kaaba {arabic}. The name of the famous Mohammedan temple at Mecca, a great place of pilgrimage. The edifice is not large but very original; of a cubical form 23 x 24 cubits in length and breadth and 27 cubits high, with only one aperture on the East side to admit light. In the north-east corner is the “black stone” of Kaaba, said to have been lowered down direct from heaven and to have been as white as snow, but subsequently it became black, owing to the sins of mankind. The “white stone”, the reputed tomb of Is mael, is in the north side and the place of Abraham is to the east: If, as the Mohammedans claim, this temple was, at the prayer of Adam after his exile, transferred by Allah or Jehovah direct from Eden down to earth, then the “heathen” may truly claim to have far exceeded the divine primordial architecture in the beauty of their edifices.
(TG) Kabalist. From Q B L H, KABALA, an unwritten or oral tradition. The kabalist is a student of “secret science”, one who interprets the hidden meaning of the Scriptures with the help of the symbolical Kabala, and explains the real one by these means. The Tanaim were the first kabalists among the Jews; they appeared at Jerusalem about the beginning of the third century before the Christian era. The books of Ezekiel, Daniel, Henoch, and the Revelation of St. John, are purely kabalistical. This secret doctrine is identical with that of the Chaldeans, and includes at the same time much of the Persian wisdom, or “magic”. History catches glimpses of famous kabalists ever since the eleventh century. The Mediaeval ages, and even our own times, have had an enormous number of the most learned and intellectual men who were students of the Kabala (or Qabbalah, as some spell it). The most famous among the former were Paracelsus, Henry Khunrath, Jacob Bohmen, Robert Fludd, the two Van Helmonts, the Abbot John Trithemius, Cornelius Agrippa, Cardinal Nicolao Cusani, Jerome Carden, Pope Sixtus IV., and such Christian scholars as Raymond Lully, Giovanni Pico de la Mirandola, Guillaume Postel, the great John Reuchlin, Dr. Henry More, Eugenius Philalethes (Thomas Vaughan), the erudite Jesuit Athanasius Kircher, Christian Knorr (Baron) von Rosenroth; then Sir Isaac Newton, Leibniz, Lord Bacon, Spinosa, etc., etc., the list being almost inexhaustible. As remarked by Mr. Isaac Myer, in his Qabbalah, the ideas of the Kabalists have largely influenced European literature. “Upon the practical Qabbalah, the Abbe de Villars (nephew of de Montfaucon) in 1670, published his celebrated satirical novel, ‘The Count de Gabalis’, upon which Pope based his ‘Rape of the Lock’. Qabbalism ran through the Mediaeval poems, the ‘Romance of the Rose’, and permeates the writings of Dante.” No two of them, however, agreed upon the origin of the Kabala, the Zohar, Sepher Yetzirah, etc. Some show it as coming from the Biblical Patriarchs, Abraham, and even Seth; others from Egypt, others again from Chaldea. The system is certainly very old; but like all the rest of systems, whether religious or philosophical, the Kabala is derived directly from the primeval Secret Doctrine of the East; through the Vedas, the Upanishads, Orpheus and Thales, Pythagoras and the Egyptians. Whatever its source, its substratum is at any rate identical with that of all the other systems from the Book of the Dead down to the later Gnostics. The best exponents of the Kabala in the Theosophical Society were among the earliest, Dr. S. Pancoast, of Philadelphia, and Mr. G. Felt; and among the latest, Dr. W. Wynn Westcott, Mr. S. L. Mac Gregor Mathers (both of the Rosicrucian College) and a few others. (See “Qabbalah”
(TG) Kabalistic Faces. These are Nephesch, Ruach and Neschamah, or the animal (vital), the Spiritual and the Divine Souls in man — Body, Soul and Mind.
(TG) Kabalah {Hebr}. The hidden wisdom of the Hebrew Rabbis of the middle ages derived from the older secret doctrines concerning divine things and cosmogony, which were combined into a theology after the time of the captivity of the Jews in Babylon. All the works that fall under the esoteric category are termed Kabalistic.
(KT) Kabbalah {Hebr}, or Kabbala. “The hidden wisdom of the Hebrew Rabbis of the middle ages derived from the older secret doctrines concerning divine things and cosmogony, which were combined into a theology after the time of the captivity of the Jews in Babylon.” All the works that fall under the esoteric category are termed Kabalistic.
(FY) Kabala, ancient mystical Jewish books.
(WG) Kabala (Hebrew), the esoteric meaning of the scriptures and the traditions of the Jews, derived by them from the Chaldeans. As, in the Hebrew language, the consonants only were usually written and the vowels omitted, the letters being at equal distances and without punctuation, and each letter representing also a numeral, the real meaning could be concealed under an apparently real wording.
(IN) Kabbalah (Heb) The esoteric “tradition” or theosophy of the Jews.
(IU) Kabalist. — From GREEK, KABALA; an unwritten or oral tradition. The kabalist is a student of “secret science,” one who interprets the hidden meaning of the Scriptures with the help of the symbolical Kabala, and explains the real one by these means. The Tanaim were the first kabalists among the Jews; they appeared at Jerusalem about the beginning of the third century before the Christian era. The Books of Ezekiel, Daniel, Henoch, and the Revelation of St. John, are purely kabalistical. This secret doctrine is identical with that of the Chaldeans, and includes at the same time much of the Persian wisdom, or “magic.”
(TG) Kabiri {Phoen}, or the Kabirim. Deities and very mysterious gods with the ancient nations, including the Israelites, some of whom — as Terah, Abram’s father — worshipped them under the name of Teraphim. With the Christians, however, they are now devils, although the modern Archangels are the direct transformation of these same Kabiri. In Hebrew the latter name means “the mighty ones”, Gibborim. At one time all the deities connected with fire — whether they were divine, infernal or volcanic — were called Kabirian.
(IN) Kabiri (Gk, kabeiroi, possibly of Phrygian origin) Divine instructors of arts, sciences, and agriculture, linked with cosmic and terrestrial fire; also, regents of seasons and cosmic cycles.
(TG) Kadmon {Hebr}. Archetypal man. See “Adam Kadmon”.
(WG) Kadmon, see Adam Kadmon .
(TG) Kadosh {Hebr}. Consecrated, holy; also written Kodesh. Something set apart for temple worship. But between the etymological meaning of the word, and its subsequent significance in application to the Kadeshim (the “priests” set apart for certain temple rites) — there is an abyss. The words Kadosh and Kadeshim are used in II. Kings as rather an opprobrious name, for the Kadeshuth of the Bible were identical in their office and duties with the Nautch girls of some Hindu temples. They were Galli, the mutilated priests of the lascivious rites of Venus Astarte, who lived “by the house of the Lord”. Curiously enough the terms Kadosh , etc., were appropriated and used by several degrees of Masonic knighthood.
(TG) Kailasa {Sans}. In metaphysics “heaven”, the abode of gods; geographically a mountain range in the Himalayas, north of the Mansaravara lake, called also lake Manasa.
(TG) Kailem {Hebr}. Lit., vessels or vehicles; the vases for the source of the Waters of Life; used of the Ten Sephiroth, considered as the primeval nuclei of all Kosmic Forces. c Kabalists regard them as manifesting in the universe through twenty-two canals, which are represented by the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet, thus making with the Ten Sephiroth thirty-two paths of wisdom. [[W.W.W.]
(TG) Kaimarath {Pers}. The last of the race of the prehuman kings. He is identical with Adam Kadmon. A fabulous Persian hero.
(WG) Kaivalya, emancipation of the soul from matter; enjoyment by the jiva, in its real condition, of supreme bliss. (Literally, “isolated,” “detached.”)
(TG) Kakodaemon {Greek}. The evil genius as opposed to Agathodaemon, the good genius, or deity. A Gnostic term.
(TG) Kala {Sans}. A measure of time; four hours, a period of thirty Kashthas.
(TG) Kala {Sans}. Time, fate; a cycle and a proper name, or title given to Yama, King of the nether world and Judge of the Dead.
(WG) Kala, time. (See Time
(TG) Kalabhana {Sans}. The same as Taraka (See Secret Doctrine , Vol. II., p. 382, foot-note).
(TG) Kalagni {Sans}. The flame of time. A divine Being created by Siva, a monster with 1,000 heads. A title of Siva meaning “the fire of fate”.
(TG) Kalahansa or Hamsa {Sans}. A mystic title given to Brahma (or Parabrahman); means “the swan in and out of time”. Brahma (male) is called Hansa-Vahan, the vehicle of the “Swan”.
(SKv) Kala-hansa, Kali-hansa, Hansa-Vahana, Brahmanda Kala-hansa, literally meaning ‘the Swan in Eternity,’ is a title of Brahma (masculine), the ‘Self of the Solar System.’ The ancient Aryans symbolized this ‘First Cause’ of our Solar System as an invisible mystical Bird who dropped into Space an Egg, which became the Solar Universe or Brahmanda, the anda or ‘Egg’ of Brahma. The Kala or ‘Eternity’ represents the great age of Brahma’s life or a Maha-Manvantara. The word Hansa, or Hamsa, interpreted esoterically is equivalent to aham-sa -‘I am HE,’ a highly occult phrase implying that universal mystery of the identity of the Solar System and all in it with the essence of Brahman, the highest Principle or Self of the Galactic Universe. Brahman (neuter), ‘the Universal Self’ or ‘He who breathes forth the various Brahmas or Solar Selves,’ is called the Hansa-Vahana, or ‘the Bearer of the Swan.’ Vahana is derived from the verb-root vah — to carry. Brahman (neuter) is also called Kali – Hansa, ‘the Black Swan,’ suggesting the unrevealed Divine Wisdom of this great Being which is Darkness to mankind.
(TG) Kalavingka {Sans}. also Kuravikaya and Karanda, etc. “The sweet-voiced bird of immortality”. Eitel identifies it with cuculus melanoleicus, though the bird itself is allegorical and non-existent. Its voice is heard at a certain stage of Dhyana in Yoga practice. It is said to have awakened King Bimbisara and thus saved him from the sting of a cobra. In its esoteric meaning this sweet-voiced bird is our Higher Ego.
(WG) Kalayana, truth-seeking, mercy, charity; fair, lovely.
(TG) Kalevala . The Finnish Epic of Creation.
(TG) Kali {Sans}. The “black”, now the name of Parvati, the consort of Siva, but originally that of one of the seven tongues of Agni, the god of fire — “the black, fiery tongue”. Evil and wickedness.
(WG) Kali, black; an epithet of Siva; the goddess Durga.
(TG) Kalidasa {Sans}. The greatest poet and dramatist of India.
(WG) Kalidasa, the greatest dramatist of India, well known in European literature. His drama Sakuntala was first translated into English in 1789. He is said to have lived in the sixth century A.D.
(TG) Kaliya {Sans}. The five-headed serpent killed by Krishna in his childhood. A mystical monster symbolizing the passions of man — the river or water being a symbol of matter.
(TG) Kaliyuga {Sans}. The fourth, the black or iron age, our present period, the duration of which is 432,000 years. The last of the ages into which the evolutionary period of man is divided by a series of such ages. It began 3,102 years B.C. at the moment of Krishna’s death, and the first cycle of 5,000 years will end between the years 1897 and 1898.
(FY) Kaliyuga, the last of the four ages in which the evolutionary period of man is divided. It began 3,000 years B.C.
(WG) Kali-yuga, the age of vice, a period of 432,000 years of mortals in Brahmanical computation. It is the present yuga, the age in which we live, and is described in the Mahabharata as characterized by great material advance, with spiritual darkness. (See Yuga
(TG) Kalki Avatar {Sans}. The “White Horse Avatar”, which will be the last manvantaric incarnation of Vishnu, according to the Brahmins; of Maitreya Buddha, agreeably to Northern Buddhists; of Sosiosh, the last hero and Saviour of the Zoroastrians, as claimed by Parsis; and of the “Faithful and True” on the white Horse (Rev. xix., 2). In his future epiphany or tenth avatar, the heavens will open and Vishnu will appear “seated on a milk-white steed, with a drawn sword blazing like a comet, for the final destruction of the wicked, the renovation of ‘creation’ and the ‘restoration of purity'”. (Compare Revelation This will take place at the end of the Kaliyuga 427,000 years hence. The latter end of every Yuga is called “the destruction of the world”, as then the earth changes each time its outward form, submerging one set of continents and upheaving another set.
(WG) Kalki Avatar, the tenth and last avatar of Vishnu, who will appear at the end of the four yugas. (See Avatara
(TG) Kalluka Bhatta {Sans}. A commentator of the Hindu Manu Smriti Scriptures; a well-known writer and historian.
(TG) Kalpa {Sans}. The period of a mundane revolution, generally a cycle of time, but usually, it represents a “day” and “night” of Brahma, a period of 4,320,000,000 years.
(VS) Kalpas [[p. 68]] Cycles of ages.
(FY) Kalpa, the period of cosmic activity; a day of Brahma, 4,320 million years.
(WG) Kalpa, a day of Brahma, or 1,000 yugas, a period of 432,000,000 years of mortals. (See Yuga
(OG) Kalpa — {Sans} This word comes from a verb-root klrip , meaning “to be in order”; hence a “period of time,” or a “cycle of time.” Sometimes a kalpa is called the period of a mahamanvantara — or “great manvantara” — after which the globes of a planetary chain no longer go into obscuration or repose, as they periodically do, but die utterly. A kalpa is also called a Day of Brahma, and its length is 4,320,000,000 years. Seven rounds form a Day of Brahma, or a planetary manvantara. ( See also Brahma, Manvantara)
Seven planetary manvantaras (or planetary cycles, each cycle consisting of seven rounds) form one solar kalpa (or solar manvantara), or seven Days of Brahma — a week of Brahma.
The difficulty that many Western students have had in understanding this word lies in the fact that it is unavoidably a “blind,” because it does not apply with exclusive meaning to the length of one time period alone. Like the English word age, or the English phrase time period, the word kalpa may be used for several different cycles. There is likewise the maha-kalpa or “great kalpa,” which frequently is the name given to the vast time period contained in a complete solar manvantara or complete solar pralaya.
(GH) Kalpa A period of time, a cycle: a generalizing term and therefore used for time-periods of different lengths; chronologers, however, compute a Kalpa by the Life of Brahma — minor kalpas are numerous. A Mahakalpa is often made the equivalent of a Manvantara. (The following word is derived from the verbal root:) klrip, to be in order. Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 65)
(SK)o Kalpa, Maha – Kalpa A Kalpa is a cycle of time; from the verb-root klrip — to be in order. Like the English word cycle , Kalpa may be used for several different periods of time. It is sometimes used synonymously with ‘A Day of Brahma,’ a period of 4,320,000,000 years. A Solar Kalpa, or ‘Seven Days of Brahma’ is usually called a Maha-Kalpa or Great Kalpa.
(IN) Kalpa {Sans} An age or vast time cycle.
(SP) Kalpa — a vast cycle of time.
(TG) Kama {Sans}. Evil desire, lust, volition; the cleaving to existence. Kama is generally identified with Mara, the tempter.
(FY) Kama, lust, desire, volition; the Hindu Cupid.
(WG) Kama, desire, longing, love.
(OG) Kama — {Sans} “Desire”; the fourth substance-principle of which man’s constitution is composed. Kama is the driving or impelling force in the human constitution; per se it is colorless, neither good nor bad, and is only such as the mind and soul direct its use. It is the seat of the living electric impulses, desires, aspirations, considered in their energic aspect. Usually however, although there is a divine kama as well as an infernal one, this word is restricted, and wrongly so, to evil desire almost exclusively.
(SK)o Kama The Desire-principle in man; derived from the verb-root kam, ‘to desire.’ Kama is the seat of the driving and electrical forces in man, the basis of action. Kama per se is colorless, neither good nor bad. If this force is used by the impulses of the lower and less evolved parts of our nature, its direction is downward, leading to decay and destruction; if used by the aspirations and desires of the Higher Manas its direction is upward, leading to growth and eternal life. Hence Karna, the fourth of the seven principles in man, has been called the balance-principle, and likened to the sign Libra in the path of the Sun through the Zodiac.
(IN) Kama {Sans} “Desire”; love in all its ranges, cosmic and human.
(SP) Kama — desire. Kama-loka is the world or realm of desire. Kama-rupa is the desire body. STHULA-SARIRA
(TG) Kamadeva {Sans}. In the popular notions the god of love, a Visvadeva, in the Hindu Pantheon. As the Eros of Hesiod, degraded into Cupid by exoteric law, and still more degraded by a later popular sense attributed to the term, so is Kama a most mysterious and metaphysical subject. The earlier Vedic description of Kama alone gives the key-note to what he emblematizes. Kama is the first conscious, all embracing desire for universal good, love, and for all that lives and feels, needs help and kindness, the first feeling of infinite tender compassion and mercy that arose in the consciousness of the creative ONE FORCE, as soon as it came into life and being as a ray from the ABSOLUTE. Says the Rig Veda, “Desire first arose in IT, which was the primal germ of mind, and which Sages, searching with their intellect, have discovered in their heart to be the bond which connects Entity with non-Entity”, or Manas with pure Atma-Buddhi. There is no idea of sexual love in the conception. Kama is preeminently the divine desire of creating happiness and love; and it is only ages later, as mankind began to materialize by anthropomorphization its grandest ideals into cut and dried dogmas, that Kama became the power that gratifies desire on the animal plane. This is shown by what every Veda and some Brahmanas say . In the Atharva Veda, Kama is represented as the Supreme Deity and Creator. In the Taitariya Brahmana, he is the child of Dharma, the god of Law and Justice, of Sraddha and faith. In another account he springs from the heart of Brahma. Others show him born from water, i.e., from primordial chaos, or the “Deep”. Hence one of his many names, Ira-ja, “the water-born”; and Aja, “unborn”; and Atmabhu or “Self-existent”. Because of the sign of Makara (Capricornus) on his banner, he is also called “Makara Ketu”. The allegory about Siva, the “Great Yogin”, reducing Kama to ashes by the fire from his central (or third) Eye, for inspiring the Mahadeva with thoughts of his wife, while he was at his devotions — is very suggestive, as it is said that he thereby reduced Kama to his primeval spiritual form.
(GH) Kamadeva The god of love ( literally the god Kama). The first-born in the Vedas: “Him neither devas, nor pitris, nor men have equalled. Thou art superior to these and forever great,” chants the Atharva-Veda; while the Rig-Veda sings: “Desire first arose in It, which was the primal germ of mind; and which sages, searching with their intellect, have discovered in their heart to be the bond which connects entity with non-entity” (x, 129). Kamadeva is the lord of the Apsarasas (the celestial nymphs, consorts of the Gandharvas, q.v. ), and is represented as a handsome youth riding on a parrot, attended by the Apsarasas, one of whom bears his banner distinguished by the Makara . His bow is made of sugar-cane, and his bow-string a line of bees, while each one of his arrows is tipped with a different flower. The Taittiriya Brahmana has it that Kamadeva was the son of Dharma (moral religious duty, piety, justice) and of Sraddha (faith); in another hymn he is born from the heart of Brahma and therefore called the Self-Existent (Atma-bhu), or the Unborn (Aja).
Kamadeva is in the Rig-Veda “the personification of that feeling which leads and propels to creation. He was the first movement that stirred the ONE, after its manifestation from the purely abstract principle, to create,” ( Secret Doctrine, II, p. 176).
“As Eros was connected in early Greek mythology with the world’s creation, and only afterwards became the sexual Cupid, so was Kama in his original Vedic character,” (ibid. ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 74 — mentioned as ‘the god of love.’)
(TG) Kamadhatu {Sans}. Called also Kamavatchara, a region including Kamaloka. In exoteric ideas it is the first of the Trailokya — or three regions (applied also to celestial beings) or seven planes or degrees, each broadly represented by one of the three chief characteristics; namely, Kama, Rupa and Arupa, or those of desire, form and formlessness. The first of the Trailokyas, Kamadhatu, is thus composed of the earth and the six inferior Devalokas, the earth being followed by Kamaloka . These taken together constitute the seven degrees of the material world of form and sensuous gratification. The second of the Trailokya (or Trilokya) is called Rupadhatu or “material form” and is also composed of seven Lokas (or localities). The third is Arupadhatu or “immaterial lokas”. “Locality”, however, is an incorrect word to use in translating the term dhatu, which does not mean in some of its special applications a “place” at all. For instance, Arupadhatu is a purely subjective world, a “state” rather than a place. But as the European tongues have no adequate metaphysical terms to express certain ideas, we can only point out the difficulty.
(WG) Kama-Dhuk, a mythological animal, the cow of plenty.
(GH) Kamaduh (dictionary form or ‘crude form’: nominative case. Kamadhuk) The mythical cow belonging to the sage Vasishtha, produced by the gods at the churning of the cosmic ocean. (See Ananta She is supposed to grant all desires and hence is termed the ‘cow of plenty.’ The alternative form, Kamadhenu, gives the clue to this meaning: kama, desire, wish; dhenu, milch-cow. In interpretation of the above allegory: the reference is to the appearance of the Earth in space as the mother of all that later appears on it. ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 23)
(TG) Kamaloka {Sans}. The semi -material plane, to us subjective and invisible, where the disembodied “personalities”, the astral forms, called Kamarupa remain, until they fade out from it by the complete exhaustion of the effects of the mental impulses that created these eidolons of human and animal passions and desires. (See “Kamarupa” It is the Hades of the ancient Greeks and the Amenti of the Egyptians, the land of Silent Shadows; a division of the first group of the Trailokya. (See “Kamadhatu”
(KT) Kamaloka {Sans} The semi -material plane, to us subjective and invisible, where the disembodied “personalities,” the astral forms called Kama Rupa, remain until they fade out from it by the complete exhaustion of the effects of the mental impulses that created these eidolons of the lower animal passions and desires. (See Kama Rupa It is the Hades of the ancient Greeks and the Amenti of the Egyptians — the land of Silent Shadows.
(FY) Kama Loka, abode of desire, the first condition through which a human entity passes in its passage, after death, to Devachan. It corresponds to purgatory.
(WG) Kamaloka, sometimes written Kama Loka and Kama -Loca . Literally, the place, world, or sphere of desire, from Kama , desire, and loka, place, world, or sphere. That place where the body of passions and desires holds sway after the death of the physical body. It is the same as the Greek Hades and Egyptian Amenti, where the astral shades of the dead remain until they disintegrate or fade out. As the earthly plane is where the material body disintegrates, so Kamaloka is that one wherein the astral body in its turn dies and fades away. Kamaloka is much the same as the purgatory of the Christians, and in it remain the bodies of the dead infused with the desires and passions, for which reason is the term Kamarupa . The disincarnated Ego sheds its astral body in Kamaloka, and from that state passes to Devachan ; hence the state is intermediate between earth-life and the joys of the Devachanic state.
(OG) Kama-Loka — {Sans} A compound which can be translated as “desire world,” which is accurate enough, but only slightly descriptive. It is a semi-material plane or rather world or realm, subjective and invisible to human beings as a rule, which surrounds and also encloses our physical globe. It is the habitat or dwelling-place of the astral forms of dead men and other dead beings — the realm of the kama-rupas or desire-bodies of defunct humans. “It is the Hades,” as H. P. Blavatsky says, “of the ancient Greeks, and the Amenti of the Egyptians, the land of Silent Shadows.”
It is in the kama-loka that the second death takes place, after which the freed upper duad of the human being that was enters the devachan. The highest regions of the kama-loka blend insensibly into the lowest regions or realms of the devachan; and, conversely, the grossest and lowest regions of the kama-loka blend insensibly into the highest regions of the avichi.
When the physical body breaks up at death, the astral elements of the excarnate entity remain in the kama-loka or “shadow world,” with the same vital centers as in physical life clinging within them, still vitalizing them; and here certain processes take place. The lower human soul that is befouled with earth-thought and the lower instincts cannot easily rise out of the kama-loka, because it is foul, it is heavy; and its tendency is consequently downwards. It is in the kama-loka that the processes of separation of the monad from the kama-rupic spook or phantom take place; and when this separation is complete, which is the second death above spoken of, then the monad receives the reincarnating ego within its bosom, wherein it enjoys its long rest of bliss and recuperation. If, contrariwise, the entity in the kama-loka is so heavy with evil and is so strongly attracted to earth spheres that the influence of the monad cannot withdraw the reincarnating ego from the kama-rupa, then the latter with its befouled soul sinks lower and lower and may even enter the avichi. If the influence of the monad succeeds, as it usually does, in bringing about the second death, then the kama-rupa becomes a mere phantom or kama-rupic spook, and begins instantly to decay and finally vanishes away, its component life-atoms pursuing each one the road whither its attractions draw it.
(SK)o Kama-loka, Kama-rupa, Bhuta Kama-loka is literally the ‘Desire-world’; a compound of kama — desire, and loka — world. Kama-loka is the invisible astral region which penetrates and surrounds the earth. The ruling force in it is desire devoid of intelligence. It is the realm of purgatory through which all entities must pass after death. Therein the Reincarnating Ego must suffer for the evil done on earth, and thus free itself of its grosser astral and kamic clothing in order that it may rise higher. Good men usually pass through the Kama-loka practically unconsciously, whereas men not so good awaken to a semi-dream state of an unhappy nature, and evil-minded men suffer a vivid nightmare. What is known as the ‘Second Death’ takes place in Kama-loka. This death is the separation between the immortal Reincarnating Ego and the body of lower mental and psychical energies. When the Reincarnating Ego is thus freed it enters the Devachan accompanied by the aroma of all its past experiences, while the lower part remains in Kama-loka as the Kama-rupa or ‘Desire-body,’ and soon disintegrates if left alone and not drawn to mediumistic seances, etc. This Kama-rupa is often called a Bhuta, a ‘spook’ or ‘has-been’; for bhuta is the past participle of the verb-root bhu — to be; hence the ‘shell’ from which the intellectual and spiritual parts have fled.
These four states of Nirvana, Devachan, Kama-loka, and Avichi can be experienced by a man right here on earth while he is awake; and a man in sleep may suffer or enjoy dreams of Kamaloka or Devachan. We are drawn in sleep and death and even in conscious life to the states whither our attractions lead us.
(WG) Kama-manas, a compound term used in Theosophical literature to designate the state of mind or manas when closely associated with Kama, or desire; it may therefore be said to be lower manas, as it is mind directed by, and functioning in, desire to a greater extent than in and by -Buddhi .
(TG) Kamarupa {Sans}. Metaphysically, and in our esoteric philosophy, it is the subjective form created through the mental and physical desires and thoughts in connection with things of matter, by all sentient beings, a form which survives the death of their bodies. After that death three of the seven “principles” — or let us say planes of senses and consciousness on which the human instincts and ideation act in turn — viz ., the body, its astral prototype and physical vitality, — being of no further use, remain on earth; the three higher principles, grouped into one, merge into the state of Devachan, in which state the Higher Ego will remain until the hour for a new reincarnation arrives; and the eidolon of the ex-Personality is left alone in its new abode. Here, the pale copy of the man that was, vegetates for a period of time, the duration of which is variable and according to the element of materiality which is left in it, and which is determined by the past life of the defunct. Bereft as it is of its higher mind, spirit and physical senses, if left alone to its own senseless devices, it will gradually fade out and disintegrate. But, if forcibly drawn back into the terrestrial sphere whether by the passionate desires and appeals of the surviving friends or by regular necromantic practices — one of the most pernicious of which is mediumship — the “spook” may prevail for a period greatly exceeding the span of the natural life of its body. Once the Kamarupa has learnt the way back to living human bodies, it becomes a vampire, feeding on the vitality of those who are so anxious for its company. In India these eidolons are called Pisachas, and are much dreaded, as already explained elsewhere.
(KT) Kama Rupa {Sans} Metaphysically and in our esoteric philosophy it is the subjective form created through the mental and physical desires and thoughts in connection with things of matter, by all sentient beings: a form which survives the death of its body. After that death, three of the seven “principles” — or, let us say, planes of the senses and consciousness on which the human instincts and ideation act in turn — viz., the body, its astral prototype and physical vitality, being of no further use, remain on earth; the three higher principles, grouped into one, merge into a state of Devachan (q. v, in which state the Higher Ego will remain until the hour for a new reincarnation arrives, and the eidolon of the ex-personality is left alone in its new abode. Here the pale copy of the man that was, vegetates for a period of time, the duration of which is variable according to the element of materiality which is left in it, and which is determined by the past life of the defunct. Bereft as it is of its higher mind, spirit and physical senses, if left alone to its own senseless devices, it will gradually fade out and disintegrate. But if forcibly drawn back into the terrestrial sphere, whether by the passionate desires and appeals of the surviving friends or by regular necromantic practices — one of the most pernicious of which is mediumship — the “spook” may prevail for a period greatly exceeding the span of the natural life of its body. Once the Kama Rupa has learnt the way back to living human bodies, it becomes a vampire feeding on the vitality of those who are so anxious for its company. In India these Eidolons are called Pisachas, — and are much dreaded.
(FY) Kamarupa, the principle of desire in man; the fourth principle.
(WG) Kama-rupa, one of the human “principles”; “desire-form.” ( kama, desire; rupa, form
(OG) Kama-Rupa — {Sans} A compound word signifying “desire body.” It is that part of man’s inner constitution in which dwell or inhere the various desires, affections, hates, loves — in short, the various mental and psychical energies. After death it becomes the vehicle in the astral worlds of the higher principles of the man that was. But these higher principles are nevertheless scarcely conscious of the fact, because the rupture of the golden cord of life at the moment of the physical death plunges the cognizing personal entity into a merciful stupor of unconsciousness, in which stupor it remains a longer or shorter period depending upon its qualities of spirituality or materiality. The more spiritual the man was the longer the period of merciful unconsciousness lasts, and vice versa. After death, as has been frequently stated elsewhere, there occurs what is called the second death, which is the separation of the immortal part of the second or intermediate duad from the lower portions of this duad, which lower portions remain as the kama-rupa in the etheric or higher astral spheres which are intermediate between the devachanic and the earthly spheres. In time this kama-rupa gradually fades out in its turn, its life-atoms at such dissolution passing on to their various and unceasing peregrinations. It is this kama-rupa which legend and story in the various ancient world religions or philosophies speak of as the shade, and which it has been customary in the Occident to call the spook or ghost. It is, in short, all the mortal elements of the human soul that was. The kama-rupa is an exact astral duplicate, in appearance and mannerism, of the man who died; it is his eidolon or “image.” ( See also Second Death)
(WG) Kamavasayita, one of the eight superhuman faculties. The power to suppress all desire. See Vibhuti .
(TG) Kamea {Hebr}. An amulet, generally a magic square.
(TG) Kandu {Sans}. A holy sage of the second root-race, a yogi, whom Pramocha, a “nymph” sent by Indra for that purpose, beguiled, and lived with for several centuries. Finally, the Sage returning to his senses, repudiated and chased her away. Whereupon she gave birth to a daughter, Marisha. The story is in an allegorical fable from the Puranas.
(TG) Kanishka {Sans}. A King of the Tochari, who flourished when the third Buddhist Synod met in Kashmir, i.e., about the middle of the last century B.C., a great patron of Buddhism, he built the finest stupas or dagobas in Northern India and Kabulistan.
(TG) Kanishthas {Sans}. A class of gods which will manifest in the fourteenth or last manvantara of our world — according to the Hindus.
(GH) Kansa A king of the Yadava line of the Lunar Dynasty, ruler of the Bhojas, reigning at Mathura, who deposed his own father, Ugrasena. Ugrasena was the brother of Devaka, the latter being the father of Devaki mother of Krishna. Kansa is usually called the uncle of Krishna; strictly speaking, however, he is a cousin. In spite of this relationship, he became the avowed enemy of Krishna because a prophecy had been foretold to him that a son of Devaki would cause his death. In order to prevent this from happening, Kansa imprisoned Devaki and Vasudeva in his palace and commanded that all infants born to them should be put to death. Six children were so slain, but a seventh, Balarama, was saved through the connivance of his parents. Then when Krishna was born, his parents escaped from the palace and fled from the city of Mathura, whereupon the enraged Kansa ordered all infant boys in the kingdom put to death; but the parents escaped from the realm with Krishna, and the child was brought up by cow-herds in seclusion. Kansa at length learned that Krishna had escaped destruction and made several attempts to bring about his death: as an instance, he sent jarasandha, the king of Magadha, to battle with the young Krishna eighteen times, but that monarch was as many times defeated. Krishna finally slew Kansa, as was predicted, restored Ugrasena, but left Mathura and established his kingdom at Dvaraka. ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 121 )
(TG) Kanya {Sans}. A virgin or maiden. Kanya Kumari ” the virgin-maiden” is a title of Durga-Kali, worshipped by the Thugs and Tantrikas.
(FY) Kapila, the founder of one of the six principal systems of Indian philosophy – viz., the Sankhya.
(WG) Kapila, a great Indian sage, who founded the Sankhya school of philosophy.
(GH) Kapila One of the famous Rishis. There are many sages by the name of Kapila, the last being the founder of the Sankhya philosophy. A legend relates that while Kapila was engaged in meditation in Patala, he was menaced by the sixty thousand sons of Sagara, whereupon the sacred flame which darted from his person immediately reduced the sixty thousand sons to ashes. “That the story is an allegory is seen upon its very face: the 60,000 Sons, brutal, vicious, and impious, are the personification of the human passions that a ‘mere glance of the sage’ — the SELF who represents the highest state of purity that can be reached on earth — reduces to ashes.” ( Secret Doctrine, II, p. 571)
“There are several well-known Kapilas in the Puranas. First the primeval sage, then Kapila, one of the three ‘Secret’ Kumaras; and Kapila, son of Kasyapa and Kadru . . . besides Kapila, the great sage and philosopher of the Kali Yuga.” ( Secret Doctrine, II, p. 572) ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 74)
(TG) Kapila Rishi {Sans}. A great sage, a great adept of antiquity; the author of the Sankhya philosophy.
(TG) Kapilavastu {Sans}. The birthplace of the Lord Buddha; called “the yellow dwelling”: the capital of the monarch who was the father of Gautama Buddha.
(KT) Kapilavastu {Sans} The birthplace of the Lord Buddha, called the “yellow dwelling,” the capital of the monarch who was the father of Gautama Buddha.
(SKf) Kapilavastu The birthplace of the Lord Gautama, the Buddha, and also the capital of the kingdom of his father, the King. The word is a compound of kapila — golden or yellow, and vastu — substance or dwelling. This compound, esoterically interpreted, refers to the sun. All the names connected with the Buddha’s life are suggestive of the deep mystical content of the legend and life of a very great teacher.
(TG) Karabtanos {Greek}. The spirit of blind or animal desire; the symbol of Kama-rupa. The Spirit “without sense or judgment” in the Codex of the Nazarenes. He is the symbol of matter and stands for the father of the seven spirits of concupiscence begotten by him on his mother, the “Spiritus” or the Astral Light.
(TG) Karam {Sans}. A great festival in honour of the Sun-Spirit with the Kolarian tribes.
(FY) Karam, great festival of the Kolarian tribes in honour of the sun spirit.
(TG) Karana {Sans}. Cause (metaphysically).
(SKf) Karana A general word meaning ’cause’ or ‘origin.’ In Theosophy and Hindu philosophy Karana refers to ‘that metaphysical Cause’ which starts manifested evolution. Karana is derived from the causative form of the verb-root kri — to make; and hence means ‘that which causes to make or to act.’
(IN) Karana {Sans} “Cause” of existence and of death, the Causeless Cause.
(TG) Karana Sarira {Sans}, The “Causal body”. It is dual in its meaning. Exoterically, it is Avidya, ignorance, or that which is the cause of the evolution of a human ego and its reincarnation; hence the lower Manas esoterically — the causal body or Karanopadhi stands in the Taraka Rajayoga as corresponding to Buddhi and the Higher “Manas,” or Spiritual Soul.
(FY) Karana Sarira, the causal body; Avidya; ignorance; that which is the cause of the evolution of a human ego.
(WG) Karana-sarira, the causal body in which the Logos is reflected. ( karana, causal; sarira, body
(OG) Karana-Sarira — {Sans} A compound signifying “cause body” or “causal body,” the instrument or principle or causal element in man’s constitution, and inferentially in the constitution of any other reimbodying entity, which brings about not merely the reproduction in imbodied form of such entity, but likewise its evolution during a manvantara through an unending series of reembodiments. ( See also Karanopadhi)
(TG) Karanda {Sans}. The “sweet-voiced bird,” the same as Kalavingka (q.v).
(TG) Karanopadhi {Sans}. The basis or upadhi of Karana, the “causal soul”. In Taraka Rajayoga, it corresponds with both Manas and Buddhi. See Table in the Secret Doctrine, Vol. I., p. 157.
(WG) Karanopadhi, the spiritual soul or buddhi, the vehicle of atma. ( karana, causal; upadhi, basis
(OG) Karanopadhi — {Sans} A compound meaning the “causal instrument” or “instrumental cause” in the long series of reembodiments to which human and other reimbodying entities are subject. Upadhi, the second element of this compound, is often translated as “vehicle”; but while this definition is accurate enough for popular purposes, it fails to set forth the essential meaning of the word which is rather “disguise,” or certain natural properties or constitutional characteristics supposed to be the disguises or clothings or masks in and through which the spiritual monad of man works, bringing about the repetitive manifestations upon earth of certain functions and powers of this monad, and, indeed, upon the other globes of the planetary chain; and, furthermore, intimately connected with the peregrinations of the monad through the various spheres and realms of the solar kosmos. In one sense of the word, therefore, karanopadhi is almost interchangeable with the thoughts set forth under the term maya, or the illusory disguises through which spirit works, or rather through which spiritual monadic entities work and manifest themselves.
Karanopadhi, as briefly explained under the term “causal body,” is dual in meaning. The first and more easily understood meaning of this term shows that the cause bringing about reembodiment is avidya , nescience rather than ignorance; because when a reimbodying entity through repeated reembodiments in the spheres of matter has freed itself from the entangling chains of the latter, and has risen into self-conscious recognition of its own divine powers, it thereby shakes off the chains or disguises of maya and becomes what is called a jivanmukta. It is only imperfect souls, or rather monadic souls, speaking in a general way, which are obliged by nature’s cyclic operations and laws to undergo the repetitive reembodiments on earth and elsewhere in order that the lessons of self-conquest and mastery over all the planes of nature may be achieved. As the entity advances in wisdom and knowledge, and in the acquiring of self-conscious sympathy for all that is, in other words, as it grows more and more like unto its divine-spiritual counterpart, the less is it subject to avidya. It is, in a sense, the seeds of kama-manas left in the fabric or being of the reincarnating entity, which act as the karana or reproducing cause, or instrumental cause, of such entity’s reincarnations on earth.
The higher karanopadhi, however, although in operation similar to the lower karanopadhi, or karana-sarira just described, nevertheless belongs to the spiritual-intellectual part of man’s constitution, and is the reproductive energy inherent in the spiritual monad bringing about its re-emergence after the solar pralaya into the new activities and new series of embodiments which open with the dawn of the solar manvantara following upon the solar pralaya just ended. This latter karanopadhi or karana-sarira, therefore, is directly related to the element-principle in man’s constitution called buddhi — a veil, as it were, drawn over the face or around the being of the monadic essence, much as prakriti surrounds Purusha, or pradhana surrounds Brahman, or mulaprakriti surrounds and is the veil or disguise or sakti of parabrahman. Hence, in the case of man, this karanopadhi or causal disguise or vehicle corresponds in a general way to the buddhi-manas, or spiritual soul, in which the spiritual monad works and manifests itself.
It should be said in passing that the doctrine concerning the functions and operations of buddhi in the human constitution is extremely recondite, because in buddhi lie the causal impulses or urges bringing about the building of the constitution of man, and which, when the latter is completed, and when forming man as a septenary entity, express themselves as the various strata or qualities of the auric egg.
Finally, the karana-sarira, the karanopadhi or causal body, is the vehicular instrumental form or instrumental body-form, produced by the working of what is perhaps the most mysterious principle or element, mystically speaking, in the constitution not only of man, but of the universe — the very mysterious spiritual bija.
The karanopadhi, the karana-sarira or causal body, is explained with minor differences of meaning in various works of Hindu philosophy; but all such works must be studied with the light thrown upon them by the great wisdom-teaching of the archaic ages, esoteric theosophy. The student otherwise runs every risk of being led astray.
I might add that the sushupti state or condition, which is that of deep dreamless sleep, involving entire insensibility of the human consciousness to all exterior impressions, is a phase of consciousness through which the adept must pass, although consciously pass in his case, before reaching the highest state of samadhi, which is the turiya state. According to the Vedanta philosophy, the turiya (meaning “fourth”) is the fourth state of consciousness into which the full adept can self-consciously enter and wherein he becomes one with the kosmic Brahman. The Vedantists likewise speak of the anandamaya-kosa, which they describe as being the innermost disguise or frame or vehicle surrounding the atmic consciousness. Thus we see that the anandamaya-kosa and the karana-sarira, or karanopadhi, and the buddhi in conjunction with the manasic ego, are virtually identical.
The author has been at some pains to set forth and briefly to develop the various phases of occult and esoteric theosophical thought given in this article, because of the many and various misunderstandings and misconceptions concerning the nature, characteristics, and functions of the karana-sarira or causal body.
(KT) Kardec, Allan. The adopted name of the Founder of the French Spiritists, whose real name was Rivaille. It was he who gathered and published the trance utterances of certain mediums and afterwards made a “philosophy” of them between the years 1855 and 1870.
(TG) Kardecists. The followers of the spiritistic system of Allan Kardec, the Frenchman who founded the modern movement of the Spiritist School. The Spiritists of France differ from the American and English Spiritualists in that their “Spirits” teach reincarnation, while those of the United States and Great Britain denounce this belief as a heretical fallacy and abuse and slander those who accept it. “When Spirits disagree . . .”
(TG) Karma {Sans}. Physically, action: metaphysically, the LAW OF RETRIBUTION, the Law of cause and effect or Ethical Causation. Nemesis, only in one sense, that of bad Karma. It is the eleventh Nidana in the concatenation of causes and effects in orthodox Buddhism; yet it is the power that controls all things, the resultant of moral action, the metaphysical Samskara, or the moral effect of an act committed for the attainment of something gratifies a personal desire. There is the Karma of merit and the Karma of demerit. Karma neither punishes nor rewards, it is simply the one Universal LAW which guides unerringly, and so to say blindly, all other laws productive of certain effects along the grooves of their respective causations. When Buddhism teaches that “Karma is that moral kernel (of any being) which alone survives death and continues in transmigration” or reincarnation, it simply means that there remains nought after each Personality but the causes produced by it; causes which are undying, i.e ., which cannot be eliminated from the Universe until replaced by their legitimate effects, and wiped out by them, so to speak, and such causes — unless compensated during the life of the person who produced them with adequate effects, will follow the reincarnated Ego, and reach it in its subsequent reincarnation until a harmony between effects and causes is fully reestablished. No “personality” — a mere bundle of material atoms, and of instinctual and mental characteristics — can of course continue, as such, in the world of pure Spirit. Only that which is immortal in its very nature and divine in its essence, namely, the Ego, can exist for ever. And as it is that Ego which chooses the personality it will inform, after each Devachan, and which receives through these personalities the effects of the Karmic causes produced, it is therefore the Ego, that self which is the “moral kernel” referred to and embodied karma, “which alone survives death.”
(KT) Karma {Sans} Physically, action; Metaphysically, the LAW of RETRIBUTION; the Law of Cause and Effect or Ethical Causation. It is Nemesis only in the sense of bad Karma. It is the eleventh Nidana in the concatenation of causes and effects in orthodox Buddhism; yet it is the power that controls all things, the resultant of moral action, the metaphysical Samskara, or the moral effect of an act committed for the attainment of something which gratifies a personal desire. There is the Karma of merit and the Karma of demerit. Karma neither punishes nor rewards; it is simply the one Universal LAW which guides unerringly and, so to say, blindly, all other laws productive of certain effects along the grooves of their respective causations. When Buddhism teaches that “Karma is that moral Kernel (of any being) which alone survives death and continues in transmigration” or reincarnation, it simply means that there remains nought after each personality, but the causes produced by it, causes which are undying, i. e., which cannot be eliminated from the Universe until replaced by their legitimate effects, and so to speak, wiped out by them. And such causes, unless compensated during the life of the person who produced them with adequate effects, will follow the reincarnated Ego and reach it in its subsequent incarnations until a full harmony between effects and causes is fully re-established. No “personality” — a mere bundle of material atoms and instinctual and mental characteristics — can, of course, continue as such in the world of pure spirit. Only that which is immortal in its very nature and divine in its essence, namely, the Ego, can exist for ever. And as it is that Ego which chooses the personality it will inform after each Devachan, and which receives through these personalities the effects of the Karmic causes produced, it is, therefore, the Ego, that Self, which is the “moral Kernel” referred to, and embodied Karma itself, that “which alone survives death.”
(FY) Karma, the law of ethical causation; the effect of an act for the attainment of an object of personal desire, merit and demerit.
(WG) Karma, the law of universal harmony, or the self-adjusting force of nature restoring harmony disturbed by action; the self-enforcing equation of action — cause and effect in endless succession; the moral law of compensation, operating to produce all conditions of life, misery and happiness, birth, death and rebirth, being itself both cause and effect, action and the effect of action, the rewarder of good and the punisher of evil, and being always in operation, involving all worlds up to that of Brahma. The three divisions of karma in the Siamese school are: thittham wethaniya kam, fruits experienced at once, or in this life; upadha wethaniya kam, fruits for next life; aprapara wethaniya kam, fruits in future lives from the third onward. In the Indian schools some of its great divisions are: karma now being experienced; karma that we are making for the next incarnation or incarnations, and delayed karma from other lives still unexperienced. ( karma, action, work deed; derived from the root kri, “to make,” which is akin to the Latin cre-are, whence comes the English “cre-ate.”)
(OG) Karma — ( Karman, Sanskrit) This is a noun-form coming from the root kri meaning “to do,” “to make.” Literally karma means “doing,” “making,” action. But when used in a philosophical sense, it has a technical meaning, and this technical meaning can best be translated into English by the word consequence. The idea is this: When an entity acts, he acts from within; he acts through an expenditure in greater or less degree of his own native energy. This expenditure of energy, this outflowing of energy, as it impacts upon the surrounding milieu, the nature around us, brings forth from the latter perhaps an instantaneous or perhaps a delayed reaction or rebound. Nature, in other words, reacts against the impact; and the combination of these two — of energy acting upon nature and nature reacting against the impact of that energy — is what is called karma, being a combination of the two factors. Karma is, in other words, essentially a chain of causation, stretching back into the infinity of the past and therefore necessarily destined to stretch into the infinity of the future. It is unescapable, because it is in universal nature, which is infinite and therefore everywhere and timeless; and sooner or later the reaction will inevitably be felt by the entity which aroused it.
It is a very old doctrine, known to all religions and philosophies, and since the renascence of scientific study in the Occident has become one of the fundamental postulates of modern coordinated knowledge. If you toss a pebble into a pool, it causes ripples in the water, and these ripples spread and finally impact upon the bank surrounding the pool; and, so modern science tells us, the ripples are translated into vibrations, which are carried outward into infinity. But at every step of this natural process there is a corresponding reaction from every one and from all of the myriads of atomic particles affected by the spreading energy.
Karma is in no sense of the word fatalism on the one hand, nor what is popularly known as chance, on the other hand. It is essentially a doctrine of free will, for naturally the entity which initiates a movement or action — spiritual, mental, psychological, physical, or other — is responsible thereafter in the shape of consequences and effects that flow therefrom, and sooner or later recoil upon the actor or prime mover.
Since everything is interlocked and interlinked and interblended with everything else, and no thing and no being can live unto itself alone, other entities are of necessity, in smaller or larger degree, affected by the causes or motions initiated by any individual entity; but such effects or consequences on entities, other than the prime mover, are only indirectly a morally compelling power, in the true sense of the word moral.
An example of this is seen in what the theosophist means when he speaks of family karma as contrasted with one’s own individual karma; or national karma, the series of consequences pertaining to the nation of which he is an individual; or again, the racial karma pertaining to the race of which the individual is an integral member. Karma cannot be said either to punish or to reward in the ordinary meaning of these terms. Its action is unerringly just, for being a part of nature’s own operations, all karmic action ultimately can be traced back to the kosmic heart of harmony which is the same thing as saying pure consciousness-spirit. The doctrine is extremely comforting to human minds, inasmuch as man may carve his own destiny and indeed must do so. He can form it or deform it, shape it or misshape it, as he wills; and by acting with nature’s own great and underlying energies, he puts himself in unison or harmony therewith and therefore becomes a co-worker with nature as the gods are. WW Karman Karman is a well known term in all Hindu philosophical literature. It comes from the Sanskrit root kri . The word is popularly written and pronounced karma, but we had better follow our plan of adopting the ‘crude’ form, the dictionary form of these words, such as atman instead of atma . Kri means to do, to act , to make, to perform . Karman is a noun meaning act, action ; nothing more. That is the meaning of the word. On it has been founded one of the grandest doctrines that the mind of man has ever conceived: the philosophical doctrine of karma. It is held with some variation by the different Indian sects, the Buddhists, for instance, having some minor variations as compared with the orthodox Hindus or Brahmans. But throughout Hindustan the general meaning is that Karman is the totality of results at any instant of time of all a man’s thoughts, emotions, actions. Now we speak of the laws of nature, and so common has the phrase become that we do not or at least we rarely stop to analyze the phrase. Theoretically, of course, a law means a commandment, a command, an order, a mandate, issuing from the sovereign head of a state, or from the sovereign, as it is usually expressed, setting forth a rule of action, and in legal usage must be accompanied by words called a sanction, that is, a penalty. We speak of the ‘laws’ of nature, and it is correct for a Christian to so speak of them, because his God is a personal God, a moral being governing the world by his fiat, by his will. According to Christian theory, he created the laws (as far as I can understand it) and set them to working, and then withdrew the almighty hand. The result of a doctrine like that — ethical and philosophical results — are tremendous. The Deity at once takes the responsibility for everything that ensues. He is the author of all good, all evil, all iniquity, as well as all virtue. That the Deity is the author of evil would be indignantly denied by all pious Christians, yet there is no escape from this logical consequence, and we have here another of the theological contradictions into which the unfortunate theologians of Christendom have fallen. But it is common to all modern European languages to speak of the laws of nature. The phrase evidently arose from an analogy with the methods of man on earth. Zeus, Jupiter, the Jewish Lord Jehovah, and all gods of the same kind stand on one level; they are demiurges, [[greek char]] ( demiourgoi ), as the Greeks called them, workmen, artificers in the cosmos; and we will see that it was with great reason that the Gnostics put the Jewish Lord and the Christian God and the Greek Zeus and the Roman Jupiter on the plane merely of an angel, the head of the angels or the head of one hierarchy of angels, but not the Ineffable, the Unspeakable, THAT, as the Hindus say, and no word can be more reverent. The ‘law’ of gravitation no more can draw an apple to earth or hold me in my chair than the ‘law’ or ‘laws’ of navigation can propel and direct a vessel on a cruise. ‘Law,’ here is an abstraction. The laws of nature mean two things, or mean at least one thing with two aspects, two sides. They mean the regular and uninterrupted course of physical phenomena, or the mode of action of a natural force. The ‘law’ of gravitation is the action of gravity; the laws of numbers are mathematics; the laws of thought are thinking (there seems to be no other word in English that expresses it). And we see by that, that as on earth a law, a human law, is the Will of the sovereign expressed or sent out, so a natural law is a habit of nature, a characteristic of nature, a mode of action, which must by the same analogy find its causes, its source, in the will of some intelligent being. Order, cosmos, regularity, uninterrupted succession of phenomena in the same manner and under the same conditions, predicate intelligence. We see then that the so-called laws of nature are, in nature, the wills of beings. We see nature in conflict, in travail: we see storms, hurricanes, devastating conflagrations and winds; volcanoes erupt and tornados destroy, but through it all there runs the one purpose — everything works towards a determined end. These destructive forces themselves act according to set habits, characteristics, according to a nature; and as we saw that the origin of evil was in the conflict of wills, and the necessity of things showed us that it must be so, so is evil but untransmuted good, and both good and evil are, relative. This is a subject we shall have to pursue later. So we see that in the working of natural law, so-called, we find nothing but the phenomena of nature pursuing a regularity, a succession of events, and this we trace to intelligence and will, or rather intelligences and wills. As the soul of man is worked on by the spirit, the soul governing the body, so nature is the body of a soul or souls, worked on by a spirit or spirits. Karma, therefore, in nature, is the acting of the intelligences and wills governing nature, the totality of any instant of time of all results. So the karma of a man is the totality of any instant of time of all the results of his past, in this life and in other lives. The karmans of different men conflict, but the very conflict is governed by order and regularity.
(GH) Karma Briefly, the teaching of Karma in the Bhagavad-Gita (and for that matter throughout the whole of the Mahabharata) is, that man’s actions set in motion causes which in due time react upon their producer, hence until he can “burst the bonds of Karma and rise above them” he is in fact chained thereby, and must return to the scene of his actions again and again, i.e., he is reborn on Earth again and again until he is freed from the bonds of Karma. The means for freeing himself are inculcated, principally in chapters iii 5, 14, and 18. (The following word is derived from the verbal root:) kri to do, to act: dictionary form or ‘crude form’ : karman, nominative case : karma. Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 15)
(SK)o Karman, Karmic Literally Karman means ‘action’; derived from the verbal root kri — to do, to act. The philosophical doctrine of Karman teaches that every act affects all nature, inner and outer; and that Nature, whose very essence is harmony and justice, reacts sooner or later, returning to the original actor the consequence of his own deeds whether good or evil. Hence Karman simply expressed is “As ye sow, so shall ye also reap.” Every being, from god to atom, possesses the body, character, abilities, and powers which it has built for itself by its choice of action some time in the past. At every moment we have the divine gift of free will to build a better Karmic destiny, to choose a pathway which will unfold the spiritual powers within us, and thus harmonize, raise, beautify, and glorify our whole being.
(FY) Karman, action; attributes of Linga Sarira.
(IN) Karma {Sans} “Action” and reaction, cause and effect, absolute justice and harmony.
(SP) Karman — action, especially morally significant action which has karmic consequences, karma.
(WG) Karma-yoga, the religion of good deeds, or the proper performance of duty, as prescribed in the Bhagavad-Gita, always keeping in view the Supreme Spirit.
(WG) Karmendriyas, the five organs of action, namely: vak, voice; pani, band; pada, foot; payti, anus; upastha, organs of generation. ( karma, action; indriya, organ
(GH) Karna The son of Pritha (or Kunti) by Surya, the god of the sun, through the instrumentality of a mantra granted to her by the sage Durvasas. This occurred before her marriage to Pandu, hence Karna was the half-brother of the Pandavas, although this was not known to them until after his death, which was accomplished by Arjuna during the battle at Kurukshetra. Karna had been abandoned by his mother while yet a child: he was found by the suta (Charioteer) of Dhritarashtra, named Adhiratha (or Nandana), and brought up as his own son. Although knowing his relationship to the Pandavas, Karna sided with the Kauravas, because Duryodhana had given him the kingdom of Anga. During the great conflict Karna was on the point of slaying Arjuna, of whom he was especially envious, but was prevented from doing so by Krishna. ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 2)
(TG) Karnak {Egyp} The ruins of the ancient temples, and palaces which now stand on the emplacement of ancient Thebes. The most magnificent representatives of the art and skill of the earliest Egyptians. A few lines quoted from Champollion, Denon and an English traveller, show most eloquently what these ruins are. Of Karnak Champollion writes: — “The ground covered by the mass of remaining buildings is square; and each side measures 1,800 feet. One is astounded and overcome by the grandeur of the sublime remnants, the prodigality and magnificence of workmanship to be seen everywhere. No people of ancient or modern times has conceived the art of architecture upon a scale so sublime, so gracdiose as it existed among the ancient Egyptians; and the imagination, which in Europe soars far above our porticos, arrests itself and falls powerless at the foot of the hundred and forty columns of the hypostyle of Karnac! In one of its halls, the Cathedral of Notre Dame might stand and not touch the ceiling, but be considered as a small ornament in the Centre of the Hall.”
Another writer exclaims: “Courts, halls, gateways, pillars, obelisks, monolithic figures, sculptures, long rows of sphinxes, are found in such profusion at Karnak, that the sight is too much for modern comprehension.” Says Denon, the French traveller: “It is hardly possible to believe, after seeing it, in the reality, of the existence of so many buildings collected together on a single point, in their dimensions, in the resolute perseverance which their construction required, and in the incalculable expenses of so much magnificence! It is necessary that the reader should fancy what is before him to be a dream, as he who views the objects themselves occasionally yields to the doubt whether he be perfectly awake. . . . There are lakes and mountains within the periphery of the sanctuary. These two edifices are selected as examples from a list next to inexhaustible. The whole valley and delta of the Nile, from the cataracts to the sea, was covered with temples, palaces, tombs, pyramids, obelisks, and pillars. The execution of the sculptures is beyond praise. The mechanical perfection with which artists wrought in granite, serpentine, breccia, and basalt, is wonderful, according to all the experts . . . animals and plants look as good as natural, and artificial objects are beautifully sculptured; battles by sea and land, and scenes of domestic life are to be found in all their bas-reliefs .”
(TG) Karnaim {Hebr}. Horned, an attribute of Ashtoreth and Astarte those horns typify the male element, and convert the deity into an androgyne. Isis also is at times horned. Compare also the idea of the Crescent Moon — symbol of Isis — as horned. [w.w.w.]
(TG) Karneios {Greek}. “Apollo Karneios, ” is evidently an avatar of the Hindu “Krishna Karna “. Both were Sun-gods; both “Karna” and Karneios meaning “radiant”. (See the Secret Doctrine II., p. 44. note
(TG) Karshipta {avesta-mazdean}. The holy bird of Heaven in the Mazdean Scriptures, of which Ahura Mazda says to Zaratushta that “he recites the Avesta in the language of birds” (Bund.19 et seq. The bird is the symbol of “Soul” of Angel and Deva in every old religion. It is easy to see, therefore, that this “holy bird” means the divine Ego of man, or the “Soul”. The same as Karanda .
(TG) Karshvare (Zend). The “seven earths” (our septenary chain) over which rule the Amesha Spenta, the Archangels or Dhyan Chohans of the Parsis. The seven earths, of which one only, namely Hvanirata — our earth — is known to mortals. The Earths (esoterically), or seven divisions (exoterically), are our own planetary chain as in Esoteric Buddhism and the Secret Doctrine. The doctrine is plainly stated in Fargard XIX., 39, of the Vendidad.
(WG) Karshvares, the seven spheres of our planetary chain.
(FY) Kartika, the Indian god or war, son if Siva and Parvati; he is also the personification of the power of the Logos.
(TG) Kartikeya {Sans}, or Kartika. The Indian God of War, son of Siva, born of his seed fallen into the Ganges. He is also the personification of the power of the Logos. The planet Mars. Kartika is a very occult personage, a nursling of the Pleiades, and a Kumara. (See Secret Doctrine )
(WG) Karttika, a name of Skanda. (See Karttikeya
(WG) Karttikeya, Skanda, the god of war, so called because he was nourished by the Pleiads or Karttikas.
(TG) Karuna-Bhawana {Sans}. The meditation of pity and compassion in Yoga.
(SP) Karuna — compassion.
(WG) Karya, action; effect.
(TG) Kasbeck. The mountain in the Caucasian range where Prometheus was bound.
(WG) Kashaya, in the practice of yoga, that disposition of the mind which impels to thinking of unpleasant things.
(WG) Kashi, the same as Casi and Kasi .
(TG) Kasi {Sans}. Another and more ancient name of the holy city of Benares.
(FY) Kasi, another name for the sacred city of Benares.
(WG) Kasi, Benares; the sacred city; consciousness fully developed and figured as located between the eyebrows.
(GH) Kasi (or Kasi) A country situated in the vicinity of modern Benares, whose king, Kasya, sided with the Pandavas. ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 2)
(TG) Kasina {Sans}. A mystic Yoga rite used to free the mind from all agitation and bring the Kamic element to a dead stand-still.
(TG) KasiKhanda {Sans}. A long poem, which forms a part of the Skanda Purana, and contains another version of the legend of Daksha’s head. Having lost it in an affray, the gods replaced it with the head of a ram Mekha Shivas, whereas the other versions describe it as the head of a goat, a substitution which changes the allegory considerably.
(TG) Kasyapa {Sans}. A Vedic Sage; in the words of Atharva Veda, “The self-born who sprang from Time”. Besides being the father of the Adityas headed by Indra, Kasyapa is also the progenitor of serpents, reptiles, birds and other walking, flying and creeping beings.
(WG) Kasyapi, an epithet of Aruna, charioteer of the sun; also of Garuda, the bird of Vishnu. (Literally, “having black teeth.”)
(TG) Katha {Sans}. One of the Upanishads commented upon by Sankaracharya.
(TG) Kaumara {Sans}. The “Kumara Creation”, the virgin youths who sprang from the body of Brahma.
(WG) Kauravas, the same as Kuravas .
(GH) Kauravas (see Kurus)
(TG) Kauravya {Sans}. The King of the Nagas (Serpents) in Patala, exoterically a hall. But esoterically it means something very different. There is a tribe of the Nagas in Upper India ; Nagal is the name in Mexico of the chief medicine men to this day, and was that of the chief adepts in the twilight of history; and finally Patal means the Antipodes and is a name of America. Hence the story that Arjuna travelled to Patala, and married Ulupi, the daughter of the King Kauravya, may be as historical as many others regarded first as fabled and then found out to be true.
(TG) Kavyavahana {Sans}. The fire of the Pitris.
(TG) Kayanim {Hebr}. Also written Cunim; the name of certain mystic cakes offered to Ishtay, the Babylonian Venus. Jeremiah speaks of these Cunim offered to the “Queen of Heaven”, vii. 18. Nowadays we do not offer the buns, but eat them at Easter. [w.w.w.]
(TG) Kchana {Sans}. A second incalculably short: the 90th part or fraction of a thought, the 4,500th part of a minutes during which from 90 to 100 births and as many deaths occur on this earth.
(TG) Kebar-Zivo {Gnos} One of the chief creditors in the Codex Nasaraeus.
(TG) Keherpas {Sans}. Aerial form.
(FY) Keherpas, aerial form; third principle.
(MO) Kenning A descriptive epithet used in lieu of a name
(TG) Keshara {Sans}. “Sky Walker”, i.e., a Yogi who can travel in his astral form.
(WG) Kesava, one of the titles of Krishna. (Literally, “having long or much handsome hair.”)
(GH) Kesava A name applied to Krishna, likewise to Vishnu. (Meaning of the word itself: having much or fine hair. Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 18)
(GH) Kesin A daitya (or ‘demon’) slain by Krishna when the prince was attacked by Kesin in the form of a horse. The daitya was believed to have been sent by Kansa in order to cause the death of Krishna. ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 121)
(TG) Kether {Hebr}. The Crown, the highest of the ten Sephiroth; the first of the Supernal Triad. It corresponds to the Macroprosopus, vast countenance, or Arikh Anpin, which differentiates into Chokmah and Binah. [w.w.w.]
(KT) Kether {Hebr} “The Crown, the highest of the ten Sephiroth; the first of the supernal Triad. It corresponds to the Macroprosopus, Vast Countenance, or Arikh Anpin, which differentiates into Chokmah and Binah.”
(WG) Kether {Hebr}, the Crown. The highest of the ten Sephiroth, the emanations of Deity in the Hebrew Kabalah . The first of the supernal Triad.
(TG) Ketu {Sans}. The descending node in astronomy; the tall of the celestial dragon who attacks the Sun during the eclipses; also a comet or meteor.
(TG) Key. A symbol of universal importance, the emblem of silence among the ancient nations. Represented on the threshold of the Adytum, a key had a double meaning : it reminded the candidates of the obligations of silence, and promised the unlocking of many a hitherto impenetrable mystery to the profane. In the “Oedipus Coloneus” of Sophocles, the chorus speaks of “the golden key which had come upon the tongue of the ministering Hierophant in the mysteries of Eleusis”, (1051). The priestess of Ceres, according to Callimachus, bore a key as her ensign of office, and the key was in the Mysteries of Isis, symbolical of the opening or disclosing of the heart and conscience before the forty-two assessors of the dead” (R. M. Cyclopaedia).
(TG) Kha {Sans}. The same as “Akasa”.
(TG) Khado {Tibe}. Evil female demons in popular folk-lore. In the Esoteric Philosophy occult and evil Forces of nature. Elementals known in Sanskrit as Dakini.
(IN) Khado or Khadomas {Tibe} Female demons, mindless elemental beings in female form, equivalent of {Sans} dakini .
(TG) Khaldi. The earliest inhabitants of Chaldea who were first the worshippers of the Moon god, Deus Lunus, a worship which was brought to them by the great stream of early Hindu emigration, and later a caste of regular Astrologers and Initiates.
(TG) Khamism. A name given by the Egyptologists to the ancient language of Egypt. Khami, also .
(WG) Khanda, broken; a portion, a chapter; divisions of some of the Upanishads.
(TG) Khanda Kala {Sans}. Finite or conditioned time in contradistinction to infinite time, or eternity — Kala.
(WG) Khanda-kala, conditioned time; time reckoned by the revolutions of the planets.
(FY) Khanda period, a period of Vedic literature.
(OG) Khe-Chara — ( Khecara, Sanskrit) “Ether-goer” or sometimes rendered as “sky-walker.” The name used in the mystical and philosophical literature of Hindustan to signify one of the siddhis or psychospiritual powers that belong to yogis of advanced grade, or to initiates. It is, in fact, nothing more than what in Tibet is called hpho-wa, the projection of the mayavi-rupa to any part of the earth’s surface or, indeed, farther than that, and the doing of this at will.
(SKv) Khechara One of the Siddhis; the magical power of flying, or rather of clothing one’s inner consciousness in a temporary thought-body and wandering therein anywhere in the spaces of the heavens and thus learning of the mysteries of suns, stars, and planets, and of the wondrous relationships of all in the universe. Khechara is a compound of khe — in the sky or heaven, from kha — sky; and chara from the verb-root char — to go, to wander, hence , a wanderer in the sky or heavens.’
(TG) Khem {Egyp}. The same as Horus. “The God Khem will avenge his father Osiris”; says a text in a papyrus.
(TG) Khepra {Egyp}. An Egyptian god presiding over rebirth and transmigration. He is represented with a scarabaeus instead of a head.
(TG) Khi {Chin}. Lit., “breath”; meaning Buddhi.
(FY) Khi, ( lit. breath); the spiritual ego; the sixth principle in man ( Chinese ).
(TG) Khnoom {Egyp}. The great Deep, or Primordial Space.
(TG) Khoda {Pers}. The name for the Deity.
(TG) Khons, or Chonso. {Egyp} The Son of Maut and Ammon, the personification of morning. He is the Theban Harpocrates, according to some. Like Horus he crushes under his foot a crocodile, emblem of night and darkness or Seb (Sebek) who is Typhon. But in the inscriptions, he is addressed as “the Healer of diseases and banisher of all evil”. He is also the “god of the hunt”, and Sir Gardner Wilkinson would see in him the Egyptian Hercules, probably because the Romans had a god named Consus who presided over horse races and was therefore called “the concealer of secrets”. But the latter is a later variant on the Egyptian Khons, who is more probably an aspect of Horus, as he wears a hawk’s head, carries the whip and crook of Osiris the tat and the crux ansata.
(TG) Khoom {Egyp}, or Knooph. The Soul of the world; a variant of Khnoom.
(TG) Khubilkhan #mong, or Shabrong. In Tibet the names given to the supposed incarnations of Buddha. Elect Saints.
(TG) Khunrath, Henry. A famous Kabalist, chemist and physician born in 1502, initiated into Theosophy (Rosicrucian) in 1544. He left some excellent Kabalistic works, the best of which is the “Amphitheatre of Eternal Wisdom” (1598).
(VS) killed beyond reanimation (I 36) [[p. 19]] This means that in the sixth stage of development which, in the occult system is Dharana, every sense as an individual faculty has to be “killed” (or paralyzed) on this plane, passing into and merging with the Seventh sense, the most spiritual.
(TG) Kimapurushas {Sans}. Monstrous Devas, half-men, half-horses.
(WG) Kim-Purushas, heavenly spirits.
(TG) Kings of Edom. Esoterically, the early, tentative, malformed races of men. Some Kabalists interpret them as “sparks”, worlds in formation disappearing as soon as formed.
(TG) Kinnaras {Sans}. Lit., “What men?” Fabulous creatures of the same description as the Kim-purushas. One of the four classes of beings called “Maharajas”.
(TG) Kioo-tche {Chin}. An astronomical work.
(TG) Kiratarjuniya of Bharavi {Sans}. A Sanskrit epic, celebrating the strife and prowess of Arjuna with the god Siva disguised as a forester.
(FY) Kiratarjuniya of Bharavi, a Sanskrit epic, celebrating the encounters of Arjuna, one of the heroes of the Mahabharata with the god Siva, disguised as a forester.
(TG) Kiver-Shans {Chin}. The astral or “Thought Body”.
(TG) Kiyun {Hebr}. Or the god Kivan which was worshipped by the Israelites in the wilderness and was probably identical with Saturn and even with the god Siva. Indeed, as the Zendic H is S in India (their “hapta” is “sapta”, etc, and as the letters K, H, and S, are interchangeable, Siva may have easily become Kiva and Kivan.
(TG) Klesha {Sans}. Love of life, but literally ” pain and misery”. Cleaving to existence, and almost the same as Kama.
(VS) Klesha (III 29) [[p. 69]] Klesha is the love of pleasure or of worldly enjoyment, evil or good.
(WG) Klesha, lit. “misery”. Cleaving to existence; love of life; Kama.
(SKv) Klesa Literally ‘pain,’ but philosophically ‘that love of pleasure or of worldly enjoyment, good or evil,’ which is the cause of the pain and suffering experienced by man. The word is derived from the verb-root klis — to suffer. According to Yoga philosophy there are five Klesas: ignorance, egotism, desire, aversion, and tenacity of worldly existence. According to Buddhism there are ten Klesas: three sins of the body, four of speech, and three of the mind. In order to progress on the spiritual path, it is essential to remove these Klesas.
(TG) Klikoosha 2rus One possessed by the Evil one. Lit., a “crier out”, a “screamer”, as such unfortunates are periodically attacked with fits during which they crow like cocks, neigh, bray and prophesy.
(TG) Klippoth {Hebr}. Shells: used in the Kabbalah in several senses; (1) evil spirits, demons; (2) the shells of dead human beings, not the physical body, but the remnant of the personality after the spirit has departed; (3) the Elementaries of some authors. [w.w.w.]
(TG) Kneph {Egyp}. Also Cneph and Nef, endowed with the same attributes as Khem. One of the gods of creative Force, for he is connected with the Mundane Egg. He is called by Porphyry “the creator of the world”; by Plutarch the “unmade and eternal deity”; by Eusebius he is identified with the Logos: and Jamblichus goes so far as almost to identify him with Brahma, since he says of him that “this god is intellect itself, intellectually, perceiving itself, and consecrating intellections to itself; and is to be worshipped in silence”. One form of him, adds Mr. Bonwick “was Av meaning flesh. He was criocephalus, with a solar disk on his head, and standing on the serpent Mehen. In his, left hand was a viper, and a cross was in his right. He was actively engaged in the underworld upon a mission of creation.” Deveria writes: “His journey to the lower hemisphere appears to symbolize the evolutions of substances which are born to die and to be reborn”. Thousands of years before Kardec, Swedenborg, and Darwin appeared, the old Egyptians entertained their several philosophies. (Eg. Belief and Mod. Thought. )
(VS) Knower of All Self (I 9) [[p. 5]] The Tatwagyanee is the “knower” or discriminator of the principles in nature and in man; and Atmagyanee is the knower of ATMAN or the Universal, ONE SELF.
(VS) Tree of Knowledge (II 2) [[p. 23]] The “tree of knowledge” is a title given by the followers of the Bodhidharma (Wisdom religion) to those who have attained the height of mystic knowledge adepts. Nagarjuna the founder of the Madhyamika School was called the “Dragon Tree,” Dragon standing as a symbol of Wisdom and Knowledge. The tree is honoured because it is under the Bodhi (wisdom) Tree that Buddha received his birth and enlightenment, preached his first sermon and died.
(TG) Koinobi {Greek}. A sect which lived in Egypt in the early part of the first Christian century; usually confounded with the Therapeutae. They passed for magicians.
(TG) Kokab {Chald}. The Kabalistic name associated with the planet Mercury; also the Stellar light. [w.w.w.]
(TG) Kol {Hebr}. A voice, in Hebrew letters QUL. The Voice of the divine. (See “Bath Kol” and “Vach
(TG) Kols. One of the tribes in central India, much addicted to magic. They are considered to be great sorcerers.
(FY) Kols, one of the tribes in Central India.
(TG) Konx-Om-Pax {Greek}. Mystic Words used in the Eleusinian mysteries. It is believed that these words are the Greek mutation of ancient Egyptian words once used in the secret ceremonies of the Isiac cult. Several modern authors give fanciful translations, but they are all only guesses at the truth. [w.w.w.]
(TG) Koorgan 2rus An artificial mound, generally an old tomb. Traditions of a supernatural or magical character are often attached to such mounds.
(TG) Koran {arabic}, or Quran. The sacred Scripture of the Mussulmans, revealed to the Prophet Mohammed by Allah (god) himself. The revelation differs, however, from that given by Jehovah to Moses. The Christians abuse the Koran calling it a hallucination, and the work of an Arabian impostor. Whereas, Mohammed preaches in his Scripture the unity of Deity, and renders honour to the Christian prophet “Issa Ben Yussuf” (Jesus, son of Joseph). The Koran is a grand poem, replete with ethical teachings proclaiming loudly Faith, Hope and Charity.
(WG) Koran, the sacred Scriptures of the Mussalmans — Mohamedans — containing their moral and religious code; revealed to Mohamet.
(WG) Kosa, (Kosha), sheath; a term, especially Vedantic, for five of the human principles, regarded as successive “sheaths” around the divine monad.
(WG) Kosha, the same as Kosa, which see.
(OG) Kosmic Life — All the great religions and philosophies of past times, all the ancient sciences likewise, taught the fact of the existence of inner, invisible, intangible, but causal realms, as the foundation and background of these various systems. According to them all, our physical world is but the outer shell or garment or veil of other worlds which are inner, vital, alive, and causal, which in their aggregate imbody the kosmic life. This kosmic life is not a person, not an individualized entity. It is far, far different from any such merely human conception, because it is infinite, boundless, beginningless, endless, coextensive with infinity, coextensive with eternity. The kosmic life is in very truth the ultimate reality behind and within all that is.
All the energies and matters in our world are really only various and innumerable manifestations of the kosmic life existing in truly infinitely large variety. The kosmic life, therefore, is, as said, the reality behind all the infinitely varied hosts of entities and things. But this reality is no personal or individualized Deity. It is precisely what theosophy calls it: the boundless and, in its totality, incomprehensible life-substance-consciousness.
(TG) Kosmos {Greek}. The Universe, as distinguished from the world, which may mean our globe or earth.
(OG) Kosmos — (Greek) A word meaning “arrangement”; that which was arranged and kept along the lines and rules of harmony, the arrangement of the universe. Kosmos, therefore, is virtually interchangeable with universe. It must be distinctly understood that kosmos and universe, when employed in the esoteric philosophy, signify above everything else the indwelling boundless life expressing itself in its multimyriad entities and forms producing the amazing variety, and unity in diversity, that we see around us. ( See also Cosmos) WW Kosmos Now Kosmos we studied in our last lesson. You will remember that the word came from the Greek, Kosmen, to set in order, to arrange, to marshal as an army; and following the same thought it is applied to those things which are worn, as being those things which are arranged on the body, the garments, the clothing; and you will remember that we said that Nature among the old poets of whatever nation was conceived of as a maiden arrayed in her finest, was conceived of as having a feminine characteristic or nature. And it was called Kosmos because the primal substance, as acted upon by the Divine Reason, was brought out of chaos into cosmos, out of lack of order into order, out of relative homogeneity into heterogeneity. Now this being so, it would doubtless be proper to apply the term Kosmos to our solar system, also to the whole manifestation of nature which we see and which is commonly called the universe, and properly so called. It is proper, with this definition before us, to apply likewise the word Kosmos to the world of infinitesimals, commonly called the atomic world. Anything which is marshalled, set in order, arranged in formal and exact lines, would be a Kosmos. Now it is very interesting to recall that the Latins had a word mundus ; the ordinary meaning of this is world , that is to say, Kosmos. And, what does this word come from? It comes from or is allied to a verb mundo, to clean, to cleanse, to make things proper; in other words, to set in order. Mundus , therefore has the same meaning as the Greek word Kosmos, and is also applied to a woman’s garments, that which she wears. This is significant of the fact that antiquity followed certain set lines of thought, a common system of philosophy. There is no obvious reason why the Latins should have had a word similar in meaning to a Greek word, and that both words should have been applied in the same way, and both had a sub-sense or meaning as applying to a woman’s ornaments. What it does show is that there is a thread that runs through all antiquity, one common philosophy.
(TG) Kounbourn {Tibe}. The sacred Tree of Tibet, the “tree of the 10,000 images” as Huc gives it. It grows in an enclosure on the Monastery lands of the Lamasery of the same name, and is well cared for. Tradition has it that it grew out of the hair of Tson-ka-pa, who was buried on that spot. This “Lama” was the great Reformer of the Buddhism of Tibet, and is regarded as an incarnation of Amita Buddha. In the words of the Abbe Huc, who lived several months with another missionary named Gabet near this phenomenal tree: “Each of its leaves, in opening, bears either a letter or a religious sentence, written in sacred characters, and these letters are, of their kind, of such a perfection that the type-foundries of Didot contain nothing to excel them. Open the leaves, which vegetation is about to unroll, and you will there discover, on the point of appearing, the letters or the distinct words which are the marvel of this unique tree! Turn your attention from the leaves of the plant to the bark of its branches, and new characters will meet your eyes! Do not allow your interest to flag; raise the layers of this bark, and Still OTHER CHARACTERS will show themselves below those whose beauty had surprised you. For, do not fancy that these superposed layers repeat the same printing. No, quite the contrary; for each lamina you lift presents to view its distinct type. How, then, can we suspect jugglery? I have done my best in that direction to discover the slightest trace of human trick, and my baffled mind could not retain the slightest suspicion.” Yet promptly the kind French Abbe suspects — the Devil.
(WG) Kounboum, a sacred Tree of Thibet, on whose leaves and bark are said to be imprinted innumerable religious sentences in sacred characters, each leaf containing a distinct word or sentence. The tree is said to have grown out of the hair of the Lama Tson-ka-pa, who was buried under the soil on which it flourishes.
(TG) Kratudwishas {Sans}. The enemies of the Sacrifices; the Daityas, Danavas, Kinnaras, etc., etc., all represented as great ascetics and Yogis. This shows who are really meant. They were the enemies of religious mummeries and ritualism.
(TG) Kravyad {Sans}. A flesh-eater; a carnivorous man or animal.
(GH) Kripa The son of the sage Saradvat. With his sister Kripa he was adopted by king Santanu (the father of Bhishma). Kripa was one of the privy councillors at Hasti napura, and was one of the three sole surviving warriors of the conflict on the side of the Kauravas (hence he is referred to in the text as ‘the conqueror in battle’). ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 3)
(TG) Krisaswas Sons of {Sans}. The weapons called Agneyastra. The magical living weapons endowed with intelligence, spoken of in the Ramayana and elsewhere. An occult allegory.
(TG) Krishna {Sans}. The most celebrated avatar of Vishnu, the “Saviour” of the Hindus and their most popular god. He is the eighth Avatar, the son of Devaki, and the nephew of Kansa, the Indian King Herod, who while seeking for him among the shepherds and cowherds who concealed him, slew thousands of their newly-born babies. The story of Krishna’s conception, birth, and childhood are the exact prototype of the New Testament story. The missionaries, of course, try to show that the Hindus stole the story of the Nativity from the early Christians who came to India.
(KT) Krishna {Sans} The most celebrated Avatar of Vishnu, the “Saviour” of the Hindus and the most popular god. He is the eighth Avatar, the son of Devaki, and the nephew of Kansa, the Indian Herod, who while seeking for him among the shepherds and cowherds who concealed him slew thousands of their newly-born babes. The story of Krishna’s conception, birth and childhood are the exact prototype of the New Testament story. The missionaries, of course, try to show that the Hindus stole the story of the Nativity from the early Christians who came to India.
(WG) Krishna, one of the manifestations, within the comprehension of finite intelligence, of the Absolute and, in Itself, Unknowable One; the personification of the Supreme Spirit; the human spirit; a divine Avatar who remained in mortal form 125 years and died 3,001 B.C. (Literally, “dark,” “black.”)
(GH) Krishna The son of Devaki and Vasudeva (of the Yadava line of the Chandravansa — the Lunar Dynasty). (For particulars as to his birth see Kansa Krishna is represented as the eighth Avatara of Vishnu: in this aspect he is the spiritual teacher, the embodiment of wisdom; but as with other Saviors, stories and allegories have been woven around him in great abundance. In the Mahabharata his story is briefly sketched, yet all his exploits are enumerated: he appears throughout the work mostly as the advisor of the Pandavas. The life of Krishna is told in full in the Harivansa (a work regarded as an addition to the epic), also in great detail in the Vishnu- and Bhagavata-Puranas, and popularized for the multitude in the Prem Sagar (written in Hindi. The various stories and allegories woven around Krishna are still the most loved topic among the populace of India today, who revere him as a god. Nevertheless his teachings as outlined in the Bhagavad-Gita are as applicable today in the Occident as in the Orient – although couched in the metaphor and background of a people living thousands of years ago. The date of Krishna’s death is given as 3102 B.C., and this event marked the commencement of the Kali-yuga, the present ‘Iron Age.’ The Bhagavad-Gita itself best describes the avataric character of Krishna: it represents the teacher as the Logos, while Arjuna typifies man.
H. P. Blavatsky makes the following interesting comment regarding the successive incarnations of avataras of Vishnu ( i.e. , the Narasinha Avatara, Rama, and Krishna) and the successive reincarnations of Daityas. Hiranyakasipu, the unrighteous but valiant monarch of the Daityas, because of his wickedness was slain by the Avatara Nara-sinha (Man-lion). “Then he was born as Ravana, the giant king of Lanka, and killed by Rama; after which he is reborn as Sisupala, the son of Raja-rishi (King Rishi) Damaghosha, when he is again killed by Krishna, the last incarnation of Vishnu. This parallel evolution of Vishnu (spirit) with a Daitya, as men, may seem meaningless, yet it gives us the key not only to the respective dates of Rama and Krishna but even to a certain psychological mystery.” ( Secret Doctrine, II, p. 225)
(Meaning of the word itself: dark-colored, black, or blue-black. Krishna is represented as being very dark-skinned. Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 3)
(SP) Krsna [Krishna] — literally “dark one,” an avatara of Vishnu, and the advisor of the sons of Pandu in the Mahabharata, who converses with Arjuna in the Bhagavad-gita.
(GH) Krishna Dvaipayana (see Vyasa). ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. iii)
(GH) Krishna-Yajur-Veda literally ‘the Black Yajur-Veda’ — an alternative name for the Taittiriya-Samhita — one of the two divisions of this Veda, the other part being known as the White YajurVeda. It is called ‘black’ (krishna) because the Samhita and Brahmana portions of this Veda are confused and mixed together, whereas the part named ‘white’ (sukla) is free from this confusion and is arranged in an orderly manner. Yajur-Veda means ‘sacrificial Veda’: — it is a collection of sacred mantras which are practically identical with some of the mantras in the Rig-Veda; in fact it is simply a collection, cut up and rearranged for the priests as a sort of sacrificial prayer-book. The principal sacrifices are those to be performed at the new and full moon, and at the horse-sacrifice (asvamedha). ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 31)
(WG) Krita, made, done, well done, good; the side of a die marked with four spots.
(TG) Krita-Yuga {Sans}. The first of the four Yugas or Ages of the Brahmans; also called Satya-Yuga, a period lasting 1,728,000 years.
(WG) Krita-yuga, the first age, sometimes called satya-yuga, “the age of truth,” containing 4,800 divine years, which multiplied by 360 gives 1,728,000 years. (See Yuga
(TG) Krittika {Sans}. The Pleiades. The seven nurses of Karttikiya, the god of War.
(WG) Krittikas, the Pleiads.
(WG) Kriya, performance, duty, action; doing one’s duty, as prescribed in the Vedas, as perfectly as possible.
(TG) Kriyasakti {Greek} The power of thought; one of the Seven forces of Nature. Creative potency of the Siddhis (powers) of the full Yogis.
(FY) Kriyasakti, the power of thought; one of the six forces in Nature.
(WG) Kriya-sakti, the power of thought which, by its knowledge, produces results on the objective plane. ( kriya, power; sakti , power: capability to act
(SKf) Kriya-sakti Literally ‘the power of action’; but mystically it is that power of creative thought attained by adepts whose higher faculties of will and consciousness are awakened. The Secret Doctrine, Vol. II, p. 173, says: Kriyasakti — the mysterious power of thought which enables it to produce external, perceptible, phenomenal results by its own inherent energy. The ancients held that any idea will manifest itself externally if one’s attention (and Will) is deeply concentrated upon it; similarly, an intense volition will be followed by the desired result.
The Ancient Wisdom teaches that the Seventh Race of mankind will bring forth its offspring by means of Kriya-sakti.
(IN) Kriyasakti {Sans} “Power of action,” the creative power of thought and spiritual will.
(TG) Kronos {Greek}. Saturn. The God of Boundless Time and of the Cycles.
(TG) Krura-lochana {Sans}. The “evil-eyed”; used of Sani, the Hindu Saturn, the planet.
(WG) Ksha, loss; destruction of the world; the fourth incarnation of Vishnu, as the man-lion, or nara-sinha.
(WG) Kshana, a measure of time.
(TG) Kshanti {Sans}. Patience, one of the Paramitas of perfection.
(VS) Kshanti [[p. 53]] Kshanti, “patience,” vide supra the enumeration of the golden keys. [[Paramitas.]]
(WG) Kshanti, indifference, patience, forbearance.
(WG) Kshara, water; that which streams or flows; perishable; a material body.
(WG) Kshatra, rule, dominion, temporal power; the second or military tribe or caste.
(TG) Kshatriya {Sans}. The second of the four castes into which the Hindus were originally divided.
(FY) Kshatriya, the second of the four castes into which the Hindu nation was originally divided.
(WG) Kshatriya, the second or military tribe or caste in India.
(OG) Kshatriya — {Sans} The warrior, the administrator, the king, the prince, in short, the world of officialdom, etc.; the second of the four grades or classes, social and political, of the early civilizations of Hindustan in the Vedic Period. ( See also Brahmana, Vaisya, Sudra)
(GH) Kshattriya (or Kshatriya ) The second of the four social classes in the Vedic period: generally called the warrior caste, but the term refers also to the world of officialdom, i.e., kings, princes, administrators, etc. (see Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, pp. 127-8). ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 14)
(SP) kshatriya — a member of the warrior class, the second of the four classes.
(WG) Kshetra, a field; the field of evil passions, i . e ., the body.
(GH) Kshetra A sphere of action, a field, a vehicle. Referred to (in Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge) as the compounded constitution of the knower, or of the conscious entity, i.e., the body. ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 93)
(TG) Kshetrajna or Kshetrajneswara {Sans}. Embodied spirit, the Conscious Ego in its highest manifestations; the reincarnating Principle; the “Lord” in us.
(KT) Kshetragna, or Kshetragneswara {Sans} Embodied Spirit in Occultism, the conscious Ego in its highest manifestations; the reincarnating Principle, or the “Lord” in us.
(FY) Kshetrajnesvara, embodied spirit, the conscious ego in its highest manifestation.
(WG) Kshetra-jna, the embodied soul. ( kshetra, field; jna , knowing
(GH) Kshetrajna The conscious ego: the cognising and recognising element in the human constitution — Buddhi-Manas (translated ‘soul’ in Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge). (Compound kshetra, field, i.e. , body; jna, the knower. Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 93)
(SKs) Kshetrajna, Kshetrajnesvara Kshetrajna is ‘Imbodied Spirit,’ the Conscious Ego or ‘Knower’ ( jna ) in the kshetra or ‘field’ of action; in other words, the Spiritual Ego in man’s constitution or compound make-up. Kshetrajnesvara ( kshetrajna-isvara ) is an extension in meaning of Kshetrajna, and means ‘the Lordly Knower in man’s constitution.’
(TG) Kshetram {Sans}. The “Great Deep” of the Bible and Kabala. Chaos, Yom; Prakriti, Space.
(FY) Kshetram, the great abyss of the Kabbala; chaos; Yoni, Prakriti; space.
(TG) Kshira Samudra {Sans}. Ocean of milk, churned by the gods.
(TG) Kuch-ha-guf {Hebr}. The astral body of a man. In Franz Lambert it is written “Coach-ha-guf”. But the Hebrew word is Kuch, meaning vis, “force”, motive origin of the earthy body. [w.w.w.]
(WG) Kuchakri, “the intriguer,” a title that has been by some commentators on the Bhagavad-Gita applied to Krishna, because of a certain allegory concerning him.
(TG) Kuklos Anagkes {Greek}. Lit., “The Unavoidable Cycle” or the “Circle of Necessity”. Of the numerous Catacombs in Egypt and Chaldea the most renowned were the subterranean crypts of Thebes and Memphis. The former began on the Western side of the Nile extending toward the Libyan desert, and were known as the serpents’ (initiated Adepts) catacombs. It was there that the Sacred Mysteries of the Kuklos Anakes were performed, and the candidates were acquainted with the inexorable laws traced for every disembodied Soul from the beginning of time. These laws were that every reincarnating Entity, casting away its body should pass from this life on earth unto another life on a more subjective plane, a state of bliss, unless the sins of the personality, brought on a complete separation of the higher from the lower principles that the “circle of necessity” or the unavoidable cycle should last a given period (front one thousand to even three thousand years in a few cases), and that when closed the Entity should return to its mummy, i.e., to a new incarnation. The Egyptian and Chaldean teachings were those of the “Secret Doctrine” of the Theosophists. The Mexicans had the same. Their demi-god, Votan, is made to describe in Popol Vuh (see de Bourbourg’s work) the ahugero de colubra which is identical with the “Serpent’s Catacombs”, or passage, adding that it ran underground and “terminated at the root of heaven”, into which serpent’s hole, Votan was admitted because he was himself “a son of the Serpents”, or a Dragon of Wisdom, i.e., an initiate. The world over, the priest-adepts called themselves “Sons of the Dragon” and “Sons of the Serpent-god”.
(TG) Kukkuta Padagiri {Sans}, called also Gurupadagiri, the “teacher’s mountain”. It is situated about seven miles from Gaya, and is famous owing to a persistent report that Arhat Mahakasyapa even to tills day dwells in its Caves.
(TG) Kumara {Sans}. A virgin boy, or young celibate. The first Kumaras are the seven sons of Brahma, born out of the limbs of the god, in the so-called ninth creation. It is stated that the name was given to them owing to their formal refusal to “procreate their species”, and so they remained Yogis”, as the legend says.
(KT) Kumara {Sans} A virgin boy or young celibate. The first Kumaras are the seven sons of Brahma, born out of the limbs of the god in the so-called Ninth Creation. It is stated that the name was given to them owing to their formal refusal to “procreate” their species, and thus they “remained Yogis” according to the legend.
(WG) Kumaras, gods who incarnated in the third root-race. (Literally, “easily dying.”)
(SP) Kumara — child, youth.
(TG) Kumarabudhi {Sans}. An epithet given to the human “Ego”.
(TG) Kumara guha {Sans}. Lit., “the mysterious virgin youth”. A title given to Karttikeya owing to his strange origin.
(TG) Kumbhaka {Sans}. Retention of breath, according to the regulations of the Hatha Yoga system.
(FY) Kumbhaka, retention of breath, regulated according to the system of Hatha Yoga.
(WG) Kumbhaka, immovable concentration on the conviction of the identity of the individual soul and the Supreme Spirit; in hatha-yoga, stopping the breath by shutting the mouth and closing the nostrils with the fingers of the right hand.
(OG) Kumbhaka — {Sans} An extremely dangerous practice belonging to the hatha yoga system. It consists in retaining the breath by shutting the mouth and holding the nostrils closed with the fingers of the right hand. All these breathing exercises of whatever kind are attended with the utmost physiological danger to those who attempt to practice them, unless under the skilled guidance of a genuine Adept; and their practice is virtually forbidden, at least in the first few degrees, to all chelas of genuinely occult or esoteric schools. Indeed, except in rare instances, and for extraordinary reasons, the chela of a true Master of Wisdom will have no need to practice these hatha yoga exercises, for the whole purpose of esoteric training is to evolve forth the faculties and powers of the inner divinity, and not to gain minor and often misleading powers of small range which are occasionally acquired by following the hatha yoga physiologic and physical practices.
(TG) Kumbhakarna {Sans}. The brother of King Ravana of Lanka, the ravisher of Rama’s wife, Sita. As shown in the Ramayana , Kumbhakarna under a curse of Brahma slept for six months, and then remained awake one day to fall asleep again, and so on, for many hundreds of years. He was awakened to take part in the war between Rama and Ravana, captured Hanuman, but was finally killed himself.
(WG) Kumudi-Pati, the moon. ( kumud, lotus, water-lily; pati , father: father of the lotus
(TG) Kundalini Sakti {Sans}. The power of life; one of the Forces of Nature; that power that (reiterates a certain light in those who sit for spiritual and clairvoyant development. It is a power known only to those who practise concentration and Yoga.
(FY) Kundalinisakti, the power of life; one of the six forces of Nature.
(VS) mystic Power” (I 31) Kundalini, the “Serpent Power” or mystic fire [[p. 12]] Kundalini is called “Serpentine” or the annular power on account of its spiral-like working or progress in the body of the ascetic developing the power in himself. It is an electric fiery occult or Fohatic power, the great pristine force, which underlies all organic and inorganic matter.
(WG) Kundalini-sakti, the serpentine force, the astral fire, an aspect of buddhi, the basic force of all manifested nature. ( kundalini, annular, spiral, winding; sakti, force
(OG) Kundalini or Kundalini-Sakti — {Sans} A term whose essential meaning is “circular” or “winding” or “spiral” or “coiling” action, or rather energy, and signifies a recondite power in the human constitution. Kundalini-sakti is derivative of one of the elemental forces of nature. It works in and through, in the case of man, his auric egg, and expresses itself in continuous action in many of the most familiar phenomena of existence even when man himself is unconscious of it. In its higher aspect Kundalini is a power or force following winding or circular pathways carrying or conveying thought and force originating in the higher triad. Abstractly, in the case of man it is of course one of the fundamental energies or qualities of the pranas. Unskilled or unwise attempts to interfere with its normal working in the human body may readily result in insanity or malignant or enfeebling disease.
(SKv) Kundalini Kundalini literally means ‘circular’ or ‘spiral.’ It is one of the secret and mystic powers in man which can be brought into full activity only by highly advanced Yogins and adepts. In The Voice of the Silence we read that Kundalini is called the “Serpentine” or the annular power on account of its spiral-like working or progress in the body of the ascetic developing the power in himself. It is an electric fiery occult or Fohatic power, the great pristine force, which underlies all organic and inorganic matter. — Fragment I, note 31
Further H. P. Blavatsky explains that Kundalini is Buddhi in an active state. In spiritually undeveloped men Buddhi is passive. When a man acts with divine love and compassion Kundalini is aroused.
Brahmapura The pura or ‘abode’ of Brahman, the Universal Self. Brahmapura is the inmost and divine heart of man. Kundalini, called the ‘World’s Mother’ has its abode in Brahma-pura, the ‘Fire-hearth of the Heart.’
(TG) Kunti {Sans}. The wife of Pandu and the another of the Pandavas, the heroes and the foes of their cousins the Kauravas, in the Bhagavad-gita. It is an allegory of the Spirit-Soul or Buddhi. Some think that Draupadi, the wife in common of the five brothers, the Pandavas, is meant to represent Buddhi: but this is not so, for Draupadi stands for the terrestrial life of the Personality. As such, we see it made little of, allowed to be insulted and even taken into slavery by Yudhishthira, the elder of the Pandavas and her chief lord, who represents the Higher Ego with all its qualifications.
(WG) Kunti . Arjuna’s mother.
(GH) Kunti The patronymic of Pritha, the sister of Krishna’s father, Vasudeva, and daughter of a Yadava prince named Sura, who gave her to his childless cousin Kunti (or Kuntibhoja), by whom she was adopted — hence she was called Kunti. As a maiden she paid such respect and devotion to the sage Durvasas that he taught her a mantra whereby she was enabled to have a child by any god she chose to invoke. In order to test the efficacy of this she invoked the god of the sun, Surya, and Karna was born: but Kunti abandoned the child. She chose Pandu as her husband (at a svayamvara). With the aid of her mantra she invoked the god of justice, Dharma, by whom Yudhishthira was born by invoking Vayu, the god of the wind, Bhima was born; and by supplication to Indra, the god of the sky, Kunti gave birth to Arjuna. In the Mahabharata Kunti is represented as the model of maternal affection and devotion, ever watching over the Pandavas, with whom she spent thirteen years in exile. After the great war she retired with Gandhari and Dhritarashtra into the forest, where she perished in a conflagration.
“As Aditi is called Surarani (the matrix or ‘mother’ of the sura gods), so Kunti the mother of the Pandavas, is called in Mahabharata Pandavarani — which term is already physiologized.” ( Secret Doctrine, II, p. 527) ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 4)
(GH) Kuntibhoja (or Kunti) King of the Kuntis (a people of ancient India). This Yadava prince adopted Pritha, the daughter of his cousin Sura, hence she was called Kunti . ( Bhagavad-Gita , W. Q. Judge, p. 2)
(WG) Kuravas, sons of Kuru (who was the ancestor of both Pandu and Dhrita-rashtra, though this patronymic is applied only to the descendants of the latter); the personified evil propensities of man, his vices and their allies.
(TG) Kurios {Greek}. The Lord, the Master.
(GH) Kuru A king of the Paurava line of the Chandravansa (the Lunar Dynasty) reigning at Hastinapura. He was the son of Samvarana and Tapati and the ancestor of Dhritarashtra and Pandu by the fourteenth remove. Hence Arjuna is referred to as ‘son of Kuru’ ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 51) or ‘best of the Kurus’ ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 35).
(WG) Kuru-kshetra, the field of the battle between the Kurus and the Pandus; allegorically, the human personality as the contested ground between cosmic energy and spiritual forces. ( kuru, son of Dhrita-rashtra or personified material existence, the cosmic or astral forces; kshetra, a field
(GH) Kurukshetra literally, ‘The field of the Kurus’: a plain situated in the vicinity of modern Delhi on which was staged the great conflict which forms the principal theme of the Mahabharata. (Compound Kuru, and kshetra, field. Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 1)
(TG) Kurus {Sans}. or Kauravas. The foes of the Pandavas in the Bhagavad Gita, on the plain of Kurukshetra. This plain is but a few miles from Delhi.
(WG) Kurus, the enemies of the Pandavas in the Mahabharata . The Kurus represent the lower material elements in our nature: the Pandavas the higher. The war which is carried on between these on the plane of Kurukshetra re presents the struggle Man has to make in order to gain control over his lower nature.
(GH) Kurus (or Kauravas) An ancient people inhabiting the northwest of India, in the vicinity of the modern Delhi. In the Mahabharata they are divided into northern and southern Kurus: the northern occupying one of the four Mahadvipas (principal divisions of the known world), and regarded as a country beyond the most northern range of the Himalayas, often described as a country of everlasting happiness and considered to be the ancient home of the Aryan Race. The southern Kurus were those referred to in the Bhagavad-Gita reigning at Hastinapura.
(IN) the text reference to the Kurus is applicable to the sons of Dhritarashtra, although the sons of Pandu are equally ‘Kurus.’ And so Arjuna is referred to as ‘the best of the Kurus,’ for he was a descendant of Kuru by the fifteenth remove. ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 4)
(TG) Kusa {Sans}. A sacred grass used by the ascetics of India, called the grass of lucky augury. It is very occult.
(WG) Kusa, the poa cynosuroides, a grass with long stalks and numerous pointed leaves, considered sacred and used in certain religious ceremonies. It is said to have strong magnetic properties.
(GH) Kusa The sacred grass (Poa cynosuroides), used in India at certain religious ceremonies. H. P. Blavatsky remarks that it has certain occult properties. ( Theosophical Glossary, H. P. Blavatsky, p. ) ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 46)
(TG) Kusadwipa {Sans}. One of the seven islands named Saptadwipa in the Puranas
(TG) Kusala {Sans}. Merit, one of the two chief constituents of Karma.
(TG) Kusinara {Sans}. The city near which Buddha died. It is near Delhi, though some Orientalists would locate it in Assam.
(WG) Kusinagara, the scene of Buddha’s nirvana, said to be some one hundred miles north by north-east of Benares.
(GH) Kusumakara The season of Spring. (Compound kusuma, flower, blossom; akara, making a quantity of. Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 76)
(WG) Kutastha, in philosophy, whatever is immovable, unchangeable, perpetually and universally the same; the indestructible spirit. ( kuta, the summit; stha, standing: standing on the peak
(GH) Kutastha A philosophical term meaning ‘holding the highest position,’ hence the primordial divinity. As a noun it is often used as a synonym for Isvara, the Divine-Spiritual Monad. Kutastha is often used derivatively for Akasa and for Mulaprakriti. (Compound kuta, the highest, the summit; stha, standing. Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 108)
(WG) Kuthumi, a pupil of Panshyinji and teacher of the Sama Veda.
(TG) Kuvera {Sans}. God of the Hades, and of wealth like Pluto. The king of the evil demons in the Hindu Pantheon.
(MO) Kvasir {Nors} (kvah-seer) A hostage given to the Aesir by the Varier, and whose blood is epic poetry
(TG) Kwan-shai-yin {Chin}. The male logos of the Northern Buddhists and those of China; the “manifested god”.
(WG) Kwan-Shai-Yin, the manifested spiritual side of nature in Northern and Chinese Buddhism. The Male Logos.
(IN) Kwan-Shi-Yin (Chin) Male aspect of divine wisdom, the first manifested Logos or the seventh (highest) universal principle.
KWAN-YIN
The Pledge of Kwan-Yin
“Never will I seek nor receive private, individual salvation; never will I enter into final peace alone; but forever, and everywhere, will I live and strive for the redemption of every creature throughout the world.”
(TG) Kwan-yin {Chin}. The female logos, the “Mother of Mercy”.
(WG) Kwan-Yin, the permanent, hidden side of the manifested Universe. The female Logos. (Chinese).
(IN) Kwan-Yin (Chin) Buddhist “goddess of compassion,” female aspect of Kwan-Shi-Yin.
(TG) Kwan-yin-tien {Chin}. The heaven where Kwan-yin and the other logoi dwell.
(IN) Kwan-Yin-Tien (Chin) “Melodious heaven of sound,” abode of Kwan-Yin.
(FY) Kwer Shans, Chinese for third principle; the astral body.
(TG) L. — The twelfth letter of the English Alphabet, and also of the Hebrew, where Lamed signifies an Ox-goad, the sign of a form of the god Mars, the generative deity. The letter is an equivalent of number 30. The Hebrew divine name corresponding to L, is Limmud, or Doctus.
(TG) Labarum {Latin}. The standard borne before the old Roman Emperors, having an eagle upon it as an emblem of sovereignty. It was a long lance with a cross staff at right angles. Constantine replaced the eagle by the Christian monogram with the motto GREEK LETTERS which was later interpreted into In hoc signo vinces. As to the monogram, it was a combination of the letter L, Chi, and P, Rho , the initial syllable of Christos. But the Labarum had been an emblem of Etruria ages before Constantine and the Christian era. It was the sign also of Osiris and of Horus who is often represented with the long Latin cross, while the Greek pectoral cross is purely Egyptian. In his “Decline and Fall” Gibbon has exposed the Constantine imposture. The emperor, if he ever had a vision at all, must have seen the Olympian Jupiter, in whose faith he died.
(TG) Labro. A Roman saint, solemnly beatified a few years ago. His great holiness Consisted in sitting at one of the gates of Rome night and day for forty years, and remaining unwashed through the whole of that time. He was eaten by vermin to his bones.
(KT) Labro, St. A Roman Saint solemnly beatified a few years ago. His great holiness consisted in sitting at one of the gates of Rome night and day for forty years, and remaining unwashed through the whole of that time, the result of which was that he was eaten by vermin to his bones.
(TG) Labyrinth {Greek}. Egypt had the “celestial labyrinth” whereinto the souls of the departed plunged, and also its type on earth, the famous Labyrinth, a subterranean series of halls and passages with the most extraordinary windings. Herodotus describes it as consisting of 3,000 chambers, half below and half above ground. Even in his day strangers were not allowed into the subterranean portions of it as they contained the sepulchres of the kings who built it and other mysteries. The “Father of History” found the Labyrinth already almost in ruins, yet regarded it even in its state of dilapidation is far more marvellous than the pyramids.
(TG) Lactantius. A Church father, who declared the heliocentric system a heretical doctrine, and that of the antipodes as a “fallacy invented by the devil”.
(TG) Ladakh. The upper valley of the Indus, inhabited by Tibetans, but belonging to the Rajah of Cashmere.
(TG) Ladder. There are many “ladders” in the mystic philosophies and schemes, all of which were, and some still are, used in the respective mysteries of various nations. The Brahmanical Ladder symbolises the Seven Worlds or Sapta Loka ; the Kabalistical Ladder, the seven lower Sephiroth; Jacob’s Ladder is spoken of in the Bible; the Mithraic Ladder is also the “Mysterious Ladder”. Then there are the Rosicrucian, the Scandinavian, the Borsippa Ladders, etc., etc., and finally the Theological Ladder which, according to Brother Kenneth Mackenzie, consists of the four cardinal and three theological virtues.
(OG) Ladder of Life — A term frequently found in theosophical literature, briefly and neatly expressing the ascending grades or stages of manifested existences in the universe. In one sense the term ladder of life is interchangeable with the other terms, the Hermetic Chain or the Golden Chain.
The universe is imbodied consciousnesses; and these imbodied consciousnesses exist in a practically infinite gradation of varying degrees of perfection — a real ladder of life, or stair of life, stretching endlessly in either direction, for our imagination can conceive of no limits except a hierarchical one; and such hierarchical limitation is but spacial and not actual, qualitative and formal. This ladder of life is marked at certain intervals by landing places, so to say, which are what theosophists call the different planes of being — the different spheres of consciousness, to put the thought in another manner.
(TG) Lady of the Sycamore. A title of the Egyptian goddess Neith, who is often represented as appearing in a tree and handing therefrom the fruit of the Tree of Life, as also the Water of Life, to her worshippers.
(TG) Laena {Latin}. A robe worn by the Roman Augurs with which they covered their heads while sitting in contemplation on the flight of birds.
(WG) Laghima, lightness, one of the magic powers by which one can control weight.
(TG) Lahgash {Hebr} Secret speech; esoteric incantation; almost identical with the mystical meaning of Vach.
(TG) Lajja {Sans}. “Modesty”; a demi-goddess, daughter of Daksha.
(TG) Lakh {Sans}. 100,000 of units, either in specie or anything else.
(WG) Lakh, (also LAC), 100,000.
(TG) Lakshana {Sans}. The thirty-two bodily signs of a Buddha, marks by which he is recognised.
(WG) Lakshana, characteristic mark; topic.
(TG) Lakshmi {Sans}. “Prosperity”, fortune; the Indian Venus, born of the churning of the ocean by the gods; goddess of beauty and wife of Vishnu.
(WG) Lakshmi, a mark or sign of luck, good or bad, but usually good, and so of wealth, prosperity; the goddess of wealth.
(TG) Lalita Vistara. {Sans}. A celebrated biography of Sakya Muni, the Lord Buddha, by Dharmarakcha, A.D. 308.
(WG) Lalita-Vistara, Nepalese life of Buddha.
(TG) Lama {Tibe}. Written “Clama”. The title, if correctly applied, belongs only to the priests of superior grades, those who can hold office as gurus in the monasteries. Unfortunately every common member of the gedun (clergy) calls himself or allows himself to be called “Lama”. A real Lama is an ordained and thrice ordained Gelong. Since the reform produced by Tsong-ka-pa, many abuses have again crept into the theocracy of the land. There are “Lama-astrologers”, the Chakhan, or common Tsikhan (from tsigan, “gypsy”), and Lama-soothsayers, even such as are allowed to marry and do not belong to the clergy at all. They are very scarce, however, in Eastern Tibet, belonging principally to Western Tibet and to sects which have nought to do with the Gelukpas (yellow caps). Unfortunately, Orientalists knowing next to nothing of the true state of affairs in Tibet, confuse the Choichong, of the Gurmakhayas Lamasery (Lhassa) — the Initiated Esotericists, with the Charlatans and Dugpas (sorcerers) of the Bhon sects. No wonder if — as Schagintweit says in his Buddhism in Tibet — “though the images of King Choichong (the ‘god of astrology’) are met with in most monasteries of Western Tibet and the Himalayas, my brothers never saw a Lama Choichong”. This is but natural. Neither the Choichong, nor the Kubilkhan overrun the country. As to the “God” or “King Choichong”, he is no more a “god of astrology” than any other “Planetary” Dhyan Chohan.
(IU) Lamas. — Buddhist monks belonging to the Lamaic religion of Thibet, as, for instance, friars are the monks belonging to the Popish or Roman Catholic religion. Every lama is subject to the grand Taley-Lama, the Buddhist pope of Thibet, who holds his residence at Lha-ssa, and is a reincarnation of Buddha.
(WG) Lama, a title properly given only to the superior priests of Thibet; now of ten, however, applied to those of any caste. The Grand Lama is supposed to be an incarnation of Buddha.
(FY) Lama-gylongs, pupils of Lamas.
(TG) Lamrin {Tibe}. A sacred volume of precepts and rules, written by Tson-kha-pa, “for the advancement of knowledge”.
(VS) birth-place of the sacred rivers is the sacred land (II 29) [[p. 39]] Tirthikas are the Brahmanical Sectarians “beyond” the Himalayas called “infidels” by the Buddhists in the sacred land, Tibet, and vice versa .
(TG) Land of the Eternal Sun. Tradition places it beyond the Arctic regions at the North Pole. It is “the land of the gods where the sun never sets”.
(TG) Lang-Shu {Chin}. The title of the translation of Nagarjuna’s work, the Ekasloka-Shastra.
(TG) Lanka {Sans}. The ancient name of the island now called Ceylon. It is also the name of a mountain in the South East of Ceylon, where, as tradition says, was a town peopled with demons named Lankapuri. It is described in the epic of the Ramayana as of gigantic extent and magnificence, “with seven broad moats and seven stupendous walls of stone and metal”. Its foundation is attributed to Visva-Karma, who built it for Kuvera, the king of the demons, from whom it was taken by Ravana, the ravisher of Sita. The Bhagavat Purana shows Lanka or Ceylon as primarily the summit of Mount Meru, which was broken off by Vayu, god of the wind, and hurled into the ocean. It has since become the seat of the Southern Buddhist Church, the Siamese Sect (headed at present by the High Priest Sumangala), the representation of the purest exoteric Buddhism on this side of the Himalayas.
(WG) Lanka, the capital of ancient Ceylon; the island of Ceylon.
(WG) Lankrika, psycho-physiological powers supposed to be developed by physiological means; the results obtained by hatha-yoga practices.
Lanoo : For more information on this term see Teachers, Disciples, and the Hierarchy of Compassion on this site.
(TG) Lanoo {Sans}. A disciple, the same as “chela”.
(WG) Lanoo (Thibetan), disciple, chela, neophyte or student of the Mysteries, under the instruction of a Guru or Master.
(OG) Lanoo — A word used in old Asiatic mystical training-schools for “disciple.” ( See also Chela)
(IN) Lanoo Student, disciple, chela.
(TG) Lao-tze {Chin}. A great sage, saint and philosopher who preceded Confucius.
(KT) Lao-Tze {Chin} A great Sage, Saint, and Philosopher, who preceded Confucius.
(FY) Lao-teze, a Chinese reformer.
(WG) Lao-tze, a great Chinese philosopher; the founder of Taoism . He preceded Confucius. The mystic doctrine of the latter (now almost universal in China) is in many ways but the revived Taoistic belief.
(TG) Lapis philosophorum {Latin}. The “Philosopher’s stone”; a mystic term in alchemy, having quite a different meaning from that usually attributed to it.
(TG) Lararium {Latin}. An apartment in the house of ancient Romans where the Lares or household gods were preserved, with other family relics.
(TG) Lares {Latin}. These were of three kinds: Lares familiares, the guardians and invisible presidents of the family circle; Lares parvi, small idols used for divinations and augury: and Lares praestites, which were supposed to maintain order among the others. The Lares are the manes or ghosts of disembodied people. Apuleius says that the tumulary inscription, To the gods manes who lived, meant that the Soul had been transformed in a Lemure: and adds that though “the human Soul is a demon that our languages may name genius”, and “is an immortal god though in it certain sense she is born at the same time as the man in whom she is, yet we may say that she dies in the same way that she is born”. Which means in plainer language that Lares and Lemures are simply the shells cast off by the EGO, the high spiritual and immortal Soul, whose shell, and also its astral reflection, the animal Soul, die, whereas the higher Soul prevails throughout eternity.
(TG) Larva {Latin}. The animal Soul. Larvae are the shadows of men that have lived and died.
One Fundamental Law
The radical unity of the ultimate essence of each constituent part of compounds in Nature – from Star to mineral Atom, from the highest Dhyan Chohan to the smallest infusoria, in the fullest acceptation of the term, and whether applied to the spiritual, intellectual, or physical worlds – this is the one fundamental law in Occult Science. — H.P. Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine, I, p.217
(TG) Law of Retribution. (See “Karma”
(KT) Law of Retribution ( vide Karma).
(TG) Laya or Layam {Sans}. From the root Li “to dissolve, to disintegrate” a point of equilibrium (zero-point) in physics and chemistry. In occultism, that point where substance becomes homogeneous and is unable to act or differentiate.
(WG) Laya, passivity; a neutral center; in yoga practice, the natural disposition toward passivity of mind, one of the obstacles to concentration.
(OG) Laya-Center — A “point of disappearance” — which is the Sanskrit meaning. Laya is from the Sanskrit root li, meaning “to dissolve,” “to disintegrate,” or “to vanish away.” A laya-center is the mystical point where a thing disappears from one plane and passes onwards to reappear on another plane. It is that point or spot — any point or spot — in space, which, owing to karmic law, suddenly becomes the center of active life, first on a higher plane and later descending into manifestation through and by the laya-centers of the lower planes. In one sense a laya-center may be conceived of as a canal, a channel, through which the vitality of the superior spheres pours down into, and inspires, inbreathes into, the lower planes or states of matter, or rather of substance. But behind all this vitality there is a directive and driving force. There are mechanics in the universe, mechanics of many degrees of consciousness and power. But behind the pure mechanic stands the spiritual-intellectual mechanician.
Finally, a laya-center is the point where substance rebecomes homogeneous. Any laya-center, therefore, of necessity exists in and on the critical line or stage dividing one plane from another. Any hierarchy, therefore, contains within itself a number of laya-centers. ( See also Hierarchy)
(SKf) Laya ‘A vanishing-point’; derived from the verb-root li — to dissolve, to vanish away. The laya-centers spoken of in Theosophy refer to those disappearing points or foci or channels through which consciousnesses or life-atoms pass when going from one plane to another, from higher to lower or from lower to higher. They are like doors which lead in two directions, downwards and upwards, or rather outwards and inwards. Modern science deals only with matter up to this zero- or disappearing -point, but Theosophy and Occultism deal with worlds beyond that. The heart or center of any being is a laya-center through which lives of many grades constantly flow back and forth.
(SP) Laya — dissolution, disappearance. Alaya — non-dissolution, permanence.
(VS) Hall of Learning [[p. 6]] The Hall of Probationary Learning.
(TG) Lebanon {Hebr}. A range of mountains in Syria, with a few remnants of the gigantic cedar trees, a forest of which once crowned its summit. Tradition says that it is here, that the timber for King Solomon’s temple was obtained. (See “Druzes”
(TG) Lemuria. A modern term first used by some naturalists, and now adopted by Theosophists, to indicate a continent that, according to the Secret Doctrine of the East, preceded Atlantis. Its Eastern name would not reveal much to European ears.
(WG) Lemuria, the name given by some writers to a continent supposed to have existed at one time, but now hidden under the waves. The Secret Doctrine affirms its previous existence and holds that it extended between India and Africa. The land of the Third Race.
(TG) Leon, Moses de. The name of a Jewish Rabbi in the 13th century, accused of having composed the Zohar which he gave out as the true work of Simeon Ben Jachai. His full name is given in Myer’s Qabbalah as Rabbi Moses ben-Shem-Tob de Leon, of Spain, the same author proving very cleverly that de Leon was not the author of the Zohar. Few will say he was, but every one must suspect Moses de Leon of perverting considerably the original Book of Splendour (Zohar). This sin, however, may be shared by him with the Mediaeval “Christian Kabalists” and by Knorr von Rosenroth especially. Surely, neither Rabbi Simeon, condemned to death by Titus, nor his son, Rabbi Eliezer, nor his Secretary Rabbi Abba, can be charged with introducing into the Zohar purely Christian dogmas and doctrines invented by the Church Fathers several centuries after the death of the former Rabbis. This would be stretching alleged divine prophecy a little too far.
(TG) Levanah {Hebr}. The moon, as a planet and an astrological influence.
(TG) Levi, Eliphas. The real name of this learned Kabalist was Abbe Alphonse Louis Constant. Eliphas Levi Zahed was the author of several works on philosophical magic. Member of the Fratres Lucis (Brothers of Light), he was also once upon a time a priest, an abbe of the Roman Catholic Church, which promptly proceeded to unfrock him, when he acquired fame as a Kabalist. He died some twenty years ago, leaving five famous works — Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie (1856); Histoire de la Magie (1860); La Clef des grands Mysteres (1861); Legendes et Symboles (1862); and La Science des Esprits (1865); besides some other works of minor importance. His style is extremely light and fascinating; but with a rather too strong characteristic of mockery and paradox in it to be the ideal of a serious Kabalist.
(TG) Leviathan. In biblical esotericism, Deity in its double manifestation of good and evil. The meaning may be found in the Zohar (II. 34 b Rabbi Shimeon said: The work of the beginning (of ‘creation’) the companions (candidates) study and understand it; but the little ones (the full or perfect Initiates) are those who understand the allusion to the work of the beginning by the Mystery of the Serpent of the Great Sea (to wit) Thanneen, Leviathan. ” (See also Qabbalah, by I. Myer
(TG) Lha {Tibe}. Spirits of the highest spheres, whence the name of Lhassa, the residence of the Dalai-Lama. The title of Lha is often given in Tibet to some Narjols (Saints and Yogi adepts) who have attained great occult powers.
(WG) Lha (Thibetan), pitris, spirits.
(IN) Lha(s) {Tibe} Celestial beings ranging from the highest to a terrestrial spirit; equivalent to {Sans} deva .
(TG) Lhagpa {Tibe}. Mercury, the planet.
(VS) Lhagpa [[p. 36]] Mercury.
(TG) Lhakang {Tibe}. A temple; a crypt, especially a subterranean temple for mystic ceremonies.
(TG) Lhamayin {Tibe}. Elemental sprites of the lower terrestrial plane. Popular fancy makes of them demons and devils.
(VS) Lhamayin (III 17) [[p. 58]] Lhamayin are elementals and evil spirits adverse to men and their enemies.
(WG) Lhamayin, an order of Elementals. (Thibetan).
(IN) Lhamayin {Tibe} Non-deity, demon, elemental; spirits of lower spheres; equivalent to {Sans} asura .
(MO) Li and Lacti {Nors} (law, lay-tee) Genetic bloodline and distinctive character or appearance
(VS) man’s liberation (III 20) [[p. 63]] This is an allusion to a well-known belief in the East (as in the West, too, for the matter of that) that every additional Buddha or Saint is a new soldier in the army of those who work for the liberation or salvation of mankind. In Northern Buddhist countries, where the doctrine of Nirmanakayas those Bodhisattvas who renounce well-earned Nirvana or the Dharmakaya vesture (both of which shut them out for ever from the world of men) in order to invisibly assist mankind and lead it finally to Paranirvana is taught, every new Bodhisattva or initiated great Adept is called the “liberator of mankind.” The statement made by Schlagintweit in his “Buddhism in Tibet” to the effect that Prulpai Ku or “Nirmanakaya” is “the body in which the Buddhas or Bodhisattvas appear upon the earth to teach men” is absurdly inaccurate and explains nothing.
(MO) Lidskjalf {Nors} (leed-shelv) [ hlid aligning with, or lid suffering + skjalf shelf] The plane of aid or compassion
(TG) Lif {Nors}. Lif and Lifthresir, the only two human beings who were allowed to be present at the “Renewal of the World”. Being “pure and innocent and free from sinful desires, they are permitted to enter the world where peace now reigns”. The Edda shows them hidden in Hoddmimir’s forest dreaming the dreams of childhood while the last conflict was taking place. These two creatures, and the allegory in which they take part, are allusions to the few nations of the Fourth Root Race, who, surviving the great submersion of their continent and the majority of their Race, passed into the Fifth and continued their ethnical evolution in our present Human Race.
(MO) Lif and Lifthrasir {Nors} (leev, leev-trah-seer) [life and survival] Immortal principles
(VS) Give up thy life, if thou would’st live (I 13) [[p. 5]] Give up the life of physical personality if you would live in spirit.
(VS) Secret Life (II 34) [[p. 41]] The “Secret Life” is life as a Nirmanakaya.
(OG) Life-Atom — A learning, evolving entity, each one a unit in one or other of the numberless hosts or hierarchies of them which exist. A life-atom is a vital individualized vehicle or body of a spiritual monad, which latter is the consciousness-center, the ultimate, noblest, highest, finest part of us. The heart of every life-atom is a spiritual monad. Life-atoms are young gods, embryo gods, and are, therefore, in a continuous process of self-expressing themselves on the planes of matter.
A life-atom may be briefly said to be the ensouling power in every primary or ultimate particle. An atom of physical matter is ensouled by such a life-atom, which is its pranic-astral-vital primary, the life-atom of it. The life-atom is not the physical atom, which latter is but its garment or vehicle and is compounded of physical matter only, which breaks up when its term of life has run, and which will return again in order to reimbody itself anew through the instrumentality and by the innate force or energy latent in its ensouling primary, the life-atom.
(IN) other words, the life-atom has a house of life, and this house of life is its body or physical atom; and the life-atom itself is the lowest expression of the monadic light within that atomic house.
(OG) Life-Atoms — The physical body is composed essentially of energy, of energies rather, in the forms that are spoken of in modern physical science as electrons and protons. These are in constant movement; they are incessantly active, and are what theosophists call the embodiments or manifestations of life-atoms . These life-atoms are inbuilt into man’s body during the physical life which he leads on earth, although they are not derivative from outside, but spring forth from within himself — at least a great majority of them are such. This is equivalent to saying that they compose both his physical as well as his intermediate nature, which latter is obviously higher than the physical.
When the man dies — that is to say, when the physical body dies — its elements pass, each and all, into their respective and appropriate spheres: some into the soil, to which those that go there are drawn by magnetic affinity, an affinity impressed upon their life-energies by the man when alive, whose overshadowing will and desires, whose overlordship and power, gave them that direction. Others pass into the vegetation from the same reason that the former are impelled to the mineral kingdom; others pass into the various beasts with which they have, at the man’s death, magnetic affinity, psychic affinity more accurately, an affinity which the man has impressed upon them by his desires and various impulses; and those which take this path go to form the interior or intermediate apparatus of the beasts into which they pass. So much for the course pursued by the life-atoms of the man’s lowest principles.
But there are other life-atoms belonging to him. There are life-atoms, in fact, belonging to the sphere of each one of the seven principles of man’s constitution. This means that there are life-atoms belonging to his intermediate nature and to his spiritual nature and to all grades intermediate between these two higher parts of him. And in all cases, as the monad “ascends” or “rises” through the spheres, as he goes step by step higher on his wonderful postmortem journey, on each such step he discards or casts off the life-atoms belonging to each one of these steps or stages of the journey. With each step, he leaves behind the more material of these life-atoms until, when he has reached the culmination of his wonderful postmortem peregrination, he is, as Paul of the Christians said, living in “a spiritual body” — that is to say, he has become a spiritual energy, a monad.
Nature permits no absolute standing still for anything, anywhere. All things are full of life, full of energy, full of movement; they are both energy and matter, both spirit and substance; and these two are fundamentally one — phases of the underlying reality, of which we see but the maya or illusory forms.
The life-atoms are actually the offspring or the off-throwings of the interior principles of man’s constitution. It is obvious that the life-atoms which ensoul the physical atoms in man’s body are as numerous as the atoms which they ensoul; and there are almost countless hosts of them, decillions upon decillions of them, in practically incomputable numbers. Each one of these life-atoms is a being which is living, moving, growing, never standing still — evolving towards a sublime destiny which ultimately becomes divinity.
(OG) Life-Wave — This is a term which means the collective hosts of monads, of which hosts there are seven or ten, according to the classification adopted. The monad is a spiritual ego, a consciousness-center, being in the spiritual realms of the universal life what the life-atoms are in the lower planes of form. These monads and life-atoms collectively are the seven (or ten) life-waves — these monads with the life-atoms in and through which they work; these life-atoms having remained, when the former planetary chain went into pralaya, in space as kosmic dust on the physical plane, and as corresponding life-atoms or life-specks of differentiated matter on the intermediate planes above the physical. Out of the working of the monads as they come down into matter — or rather through and by the monadic rays permeating the lower planes of matter — are the globes builded. The seven (or ten) life-waves or hosts of monads consist of monads in seven (or ten) degrees of advancement for each host.
When the hosts of beings forming the life-wave — the life-wave being composed of the entities derived from a former but now dead planet, in our case the moon — find that the time has arrived for them to enter upon their own particular evolutionary course, they cycle downwards as a life-wave along the planetary chain that has been prepared for them by the three hosts of elementary beings, of the three primordial elementary worlds, the forerunners of the life-wave, yet integral parts of it. This life-wave passes seven times in all around the seven spheres of our planetary chain, at first cycling down the shadowy arc through all the seven elements of the kosmos, gathering experience in each one of them; each particular entity of the life-wave, no matter what its grade or kind — spiritual, psychic, astral, mental, divine — advancing, until at the bottom of the arc, when the middle of the fourth round is attained, they feel the end of the downward impulse. Then begins the upward impulse, the reascent along the luminous arc upwards, towards the source from which the life-wave originally came.
(IN) Life-wave Kingdom or family of monads which progress through the 7 globes of a planetary chain.
(TG) Light, Brothers of. This is what the great authority on secret societies, Brother Kenneth R. H. Mackenzie IX., says of this Brotherhood. “A mystic order, Fratres Lucis, established in Florence in 1498. Among the members of this order were Pasqualis, Cagliostro, Swedenborg, St. Martin, Eliphas Levi, and many other eminent mystics. Its members were very much persecuted by the Inquisition. It is a small but compact body, the members being spread all over the world.”
(TG) Lila {Sans}. Sport, literally; or pastime. In the orthodox Hindu Scriptures it is explained that “the acts of the divinity are lila “, or sport.
(TG) Lilith {Hebr}. By Jewish tradition a demon who was the first wife of Adam, before Eve was created: she is supposed to have a fatal influence on mothers and newly-born infants. LIL is night, and LILITH is also the owl: and in mediaeval works is a synonym of Lamia or female demon. [w.w.w.]
(TG) Lil-in {Hebr}. The children of Lilith, and their descendants. “Lilith is the Mother of the Shedim and the Muquishim (the ensnarers)”. Every class of the Lil-ins, therefore, are devils in the demonology of the Jews. (See Zohar ii. 268 a
(TG) Limbus Major {Latin}. A term used by Paracelsus to denote primordial (alchemical) matter; “Adam’s earth”.
(MO) Lin {Nors} (leen) [lin flax] Frigga, Odin’s consort
(TG) Linga or Lingam {Sans}. A sign or a symbol of abstract creation. Force becomes the organ of procreation only on this earth. In India there are 12 great Lingams of Siva, some of which are on mountains and rocks, and also In temples. Such is the Kedaresa in the Himalaya, a huge and shapeless mass of rock. In its origin the Lingam had never the gross, meaning connected with the phallus, an idea which is altogether of a later date. The symbol in India has the same meaning which it had in Egypt, which is simply that the creative or procreative Force is divine. It also denotes who was the dual Creator — male and female, Siva and his Sakti. The gross and immodest idea connected with the phallus is not Indian but Greek and pre-eminently Jewish. The Biblical Bethels were real priapic stones, the “Beth-el” (phallus) wherein God dwells. The same symbol was concealed within the ark of the Covenant, the “Holy of Holies”. Therefore the “Lingam” even as a phallus is not “a symbol of Siva” only, but that of every “Creator” or creative god in every nation, including the Israelites and their “God of Abraham and Jacob”.
(WG) Lingam, the genital organ, membre virile, phallus.
(TG) Linga Purana {Sans}. A scripture of the Saivas or worshippers of Siva. Therein Maheswara, “the great Lord”, concealed in the Agni Linga explains the ethics of life — duty, virtue, self-sacrifice and finally liberation by and through ascetic life at the end of the Agni Kalpa (the Seventh Round). As Professor Wilson justice observed “the Spirit of the worship (phallic) is as little influenced by the character of the type as can well be imagined. There is nothing like the phallic orgies of antiquity; it is all mystical and spiritual .”
(TG) Linga Sharira {Sans}. The “body”, i.e., the aerial symbol of the body, This term designates the doppelganger or the “astral body” of man or animal. It is the eidolon of the Greeks, the vital and prototypal body; the reflection of the men of flesh. It is born before and dies or fades out, with the disappearance of the last atom of the body.
(KT) Linga Sharira {Sans} “Astral body,” i. e., the aerial symbol of the body. This term designates the doppelganger, or the “astral body” of man or animal. It is the eidolon of the Greeks, the vital and prototypal body, the reflection of the man of flesh. It is born before man and dies or fades out with the disappearance of the last atom of the body.
(WG) Linga-sarira, the astral form upon which the physical body is concreted. ( linga, characteristic; sarira, body
(OG) Linga-Sarira — {Sans} Linga is a word which means “characteristic mark,” hence “model,” “pattern.” Sarira, “form,” from a verb-root sri, meaning “to molder” or “to waste away,” the word thus signifying “impermanence.”
The sixth substance-principle, counting downwards, of which man’s constitution is composed. The model-body, popularly called astral body, because it is but slightly more ethereal than the physical body, and is in fact the model or framework around which the physical body is builded, and from which, in a sense, the physical body flows or develops as growth proceeds.
At death the linga-sarira or model-body remains in the astral realms and finally fades out, dissolving pari passu, atom by atom, with the atoms of the physical corpse. These astral realms are not one single plane, but a series of planes growing gradually more ethereal or spiritual as they approach the inward spheres of nature’s constitution or structure. The linga-sarira is formed before the body is formed, and thus serves as a model or pattern around which the physical body is molded and grows to maturity; it is as mortal as is the physical body, and disappears with the physical body.
(SK)o Linga – sarira The Model-body, often called the ‘astral body’; a compound of linga — model, and sarira — form, derived from the verb-root sri — to waste away; hence Linga-sarira implies a model that is impermanent. This Model-body is more ethereal than the physical body. It is the causal form from which flow the energies which build the physical body atom for atom. Like the Astral Light it automatically records all the effects of the earth-experiences lived through by the man; and therefore, if more fully understood, could give the key to many human and psychological mysteries. STHULA-SARIRA
(TG) Lipi {Sans}. To write. See “Lipikas” in Vol. I. of the Secret Doctrine.
(TG) Lipikas {Sans}. The celestial recorders, the “Scribes”, those who record every word and deed, said or done by man while on this earth. As Occultism teaches, they are the agents of KARMA — the retributive Law.
(WG) Lipikas, the celestial scribes; the recorders of every thought, act, and word of man. Collectively, the “Book of the Recording Angel”. Agents of Karma in the greater sense; mentioned in the Secret Doctrine ,
(OG) Lipika(s) — {Sans} This word comes from the verb-root lip, meaning “to write”; hence the word lipikas means the “scribes.” Mystically, they are the celestial recorders, and are intimately connected with the working of karma, of which they are the agents. They are the karmic “Recorders or Annalists, who impress on the (to us) invisible tablets of the Astral Light, ‘the great picture-gallery of eternity,’ a faithful record of every act, and even thought, of man [and indeed of all other entities and things], of all that was, is, or ever will be, in the phenomenal Universe” ( The Secret Doctrine 1:104).
Their action although governed strictly by kosmic consciousness is nevertheless rigidly automatic, for their work is as automatic as is the action of karma itself. They are entities as a matter of fact, but entities which work and act with the rigid automatism of the kosmic machinery, rather than like the engineer who supervises and changes the running of his engines. In one sense they may perhaps better be called kosmic energies — a most difficult matter to describe.
(SK)o Lipika The Lipikas are Kosmic energies or spiritual beings belonging to the Hierarchy of Compassion. Their very action, the nature of which is harmony with the Kosmic Consciousness, automatically and impersonally impresses on the Astral Light, “the great picture gallery of Eternity,” a record of every deed, word, and thought of all the entities of the Kosmos. They have been called the ‘Agents of Karman,’ and the ‘Guardians of Destiny,’ for in one sense they blaze the paths that all entities will follow in a future Manvantara. The word Lipika comes from the verbal root lip — to write.
(IN) Lipika {Sans} “Scribe,” celestial recorders on the astral light of every thought, word, and act; highest cosmic agents of karma.
(SP) Lipika — scribe, celestial recorder.
(VS) living and the dead (II 32) [[p. 40]] The “living” is the immortal Higher Ego, and the “dead” the lower personal Ego.
(VS) living Dead (II 36) [[p. 42]] Men ignorant of the Esoteric truths and Wisdom are called “the living Dead.”
(TG) Lobha {Sans}. Covetousness: cupidity, a son sprung from Brahma, in an evil hour.
(WG) Lobha, avarice.
(MO) Loddfafner {Nors} (lodd-fawv-ner) A dwarf. a learning human soul
(TG) Lodur {Nors}. The second personage in the trinity of gods in the Eddas of the Norsemen; and the father of the twelve great gods. It is Lodur who endows the first man — made of the ash-tree (Ask), with blood and colour.
(MO) Lodur {Nors} (loo-dur) One of the creative trinity; the fiery principle
(MO) Lofar {Nors} (loo-vahr) [ lof hand or praise] Highest member of animal kingdom
(TG) Logi {Nors}. Lit., “flame”. This giant with his soils and kindred, made themselves finally known as the authors of every cataclysm and conflagration in heaven or on earth, by letting mortals perceive them in the midst of flames. These giant-fiends were all enemies of man trying to destroy his work wherever they found it. A symbol of the cosmic elements.
(MO) Logi {Nors} (loo-gee) [ log flame] Wildfire, the uninspired mind
(TG) Logia {Greek}. The secret discourses and teachings of Jesus contained in the Evangel of Matthew — in the original Hebrew, not the spurious Greek text we have-and preserved by the Ebionites and the Nazarenes in the library collected by Pamphilus, at Caesarea. This Evangel called by many writers “the genuine Gospel of Matthew”, was used according to (St Jerome, by the Nazarenes and Ebionites of Beroea, Syria, in his own day (4th century). Like the Aporrheta or secret discourses, of the Mysteries, these Logia could only be understood with a key. Sent by the Bishops Chromatius and Heliodorus, Jerome, after having obtained permission, translated them, but found it “a difficult task” (truly so!) to reconcile the text of the “genuine” with that of the spurious Greek gospel he was acquainted with
(TG) Logos {Greek}. The manifested deity with every nation and people; the outward expression, or the effect of the cause which is ever concealed. Thus, speech is the Logos of thought; hence it is aptly translated by the “Verbum” and “Word” in its metaphysical sense.
(KT) Logos {Greek} The manifested deity with every nation and people; the outward expression or the effect of the Cause which is ever concealed. Thus, speech is the logos of thought; hence, in its metaphysical sense, it is aptly translated by the terms “Verbum,” and the “Word.”
(WG) Logos (Greek), the word; the first cause; the Demiurgos; Isvara; Brahma; a mirror reflecting universal mind; the great unseen; the unknown light; the one ray.
(OG) Logos — (Greek) In old Greek philosophy the word logos was used in many ways, of which the Christians often sadly misunderstood the profoundly mystical meaning. Logos is a word having several applications in the esoteric philosophy, for there are different kinds or grades of logoi, some of them of divine, some of them of a spiritual character; some of them having a cosmic range, and others ranges much more restricted. In fact, every individual entity, no matter what its evolutionary grade on the ladder of life, has its own individual logos. The divine-spiritual entity behind the sun is the solar logos of our solar system. Small or great as every solar system may be, each has its own logos, the source or fountainhead of almost innumerable logoi of less degree in that system. Every man has his own spiritual logos; every atom has its own logos; every atom likewise has its own paramatman and mulaprakriti, for every entity everywhere has its own highest. These things and the words which express them are obviously relative.
One meaning of the Greek logos is “word” — a phrase or symbol taken from the ancient Mysteries meaning the “lost word,” the “lost” logos of man’s heart and brain. The logos of our own planetary chain, so far as this fourth round is concerned, is the Wondrous Being or Silent Watcher.
The term, therefore, is a relative and not an absolute one, and has many applications. WW Logos Now Logos — here is a vast field before us. Possibly the literature of no time in history has ever been so full of quarrel, disagreement, and learned dissertation as what have been written in Christian times about this word logos . The word itself is very simple; it is a Greek word meaning word, which the Latins expressed as verbum . The difficulty lies in the religious or semi-philosophical attributes or meanings or senses that have gathered about this word; and at the present day, and looking back through history, one almost despairs of any short and lucid exposition of it, because the field of discussion has been so vast, the quarrels have been so acrimonious, and rivers of ink, according to the well-known saying, have been poured out by writers to prove each man his own view concerning the incarnation of the Word, that is of the Logos . Now this is not either a Christian word or a Christian conception. You will remember that when we spoke of the doctrine of the Trinity we saw that it was an evolution of ideas. The early Christians had no trinity. Doubtless they knew of the triadic essences of ancient times because the Greek literature was full of discussion concerning the Divine Father, the Son or the Logos, and the outpouring of the Spirit expressed in many ways and under many terms. But the Christians themselves had no developed doctrine of the Trinity as it now exists. It was an evolution, as you will remember. Plato uses the term Logos as implying the Divine Reason, the Divine Intellect. Why did they use the term word? Because the spoken word is the manifestation of reason; it was the carrier of intellectual conceptions to the outward world, into manifestation, so to speak; and therefore the Word was conceived of as the Son of the Father, which was conceived of as the Intellect; the Father, the Immanent Intellect. The early Platonic writers used the word logos to signify the Kosmical Plan, as being the manifestation or spoken word or idea of the Deity in operation; or again, they spoke of it as the reason divine, the Divine Reason, and the later Platonists spoke of it as the Son of the Deity or the Son of the Creator. Now the Jews, too, or at least a great many of the most eminent men in ancient days belonging to that race, had a similar conception, in spite of their henotheistic views regarding their own national Deity; and these men were the brighter, more sunny intellects of their race, the more intuitive in perception. For Instance, Philo, commonly called Philo the Jew, a Jewish Platonist who lived about the time of the supposed birth of Jesus, was born about 20 B.C., and lived some forty or fifty years afterwards. He was a voluminous writer; he had made a profound study of Platonic philosophy; he was a man of searching and profound intellect, withal a mystic. The scope of his literary work was to reconcile the Hebrew writings, particularly the Pentateuch, that is the first five books of the Bible, with the Platonic philosophy; and it is commonly said of him today by critical writers that some of his analogies and explanations are very ingenious, but that his one great fault was his mysticism, for he saw mystical explanations where there were none. This is the same kind of criticism that we find applied by the learned wiseacres of all ages to those who differ from accepted standards, which to many people is a crime. Now Philo speaks of the Logos as the Second God, as the representative God on earth and in space, as the Divine Word. He takes these terms from the Platonic writers, and as we shall see in a few moments, his usage of the term word or logos is at bottom identical with the usage as found in the Hebrew Targumical literature. The constant use of the word memra , or word by the Jewish writers there, and by those of succeeding ages, is typically Platonic in conception so far as it goes. The Targums (from Targum, a Chaldean word meaning explanation ) — there were several of them — were the translations or paraphrases of the Old Testament, particularly of the Pentateuch into Aramean, when the Hebrew language, as such, began to pass into disuse. And the Targumists were those commentators and translators, the men who made the paraphrases and explained what the Hebrew Old Testament meant. And memra is Aramaic, meaning word, like the Greek logos and the Latin verbum . They frequently used the word memra, or logos, for Jehovah. Now a very interesting example of this usage I shall put on the blackboard, so that you can see it; the spoken word is often helped by the visible sign, so they say. Now the first verse in the Hebrew Bible is: [[heb char]] (BRAShITh BRA ALHIM ATh HShMIM VATh HARTs) the common translation being: “In the beginning created Elohim the heavens and the earth.” You will remember that we noticed last week that ancient Hebrew was written commencing from the right, in parallel lines, without any vowels, without separation of words, without capitals, so that this custom would be something like this if applied to the English translation of the first verses of Genesis : nthbgnnngcrtdlhmthhvnsndthrth . And you will remember that Massoretes, the body of men who “pointed” the Hebrew, that is to say, put in the vowels, (because the Hebrew vowels are expressed by points) “pointed” what according to tradition was the proper reading of this formidable array of consonants. And the common translation of the Hebrew, as we have it now in the Hebrew Bible, is based on the work of the Massoretes. The particle [[heb char]] = B means in or through ; it is a preposition and the following word [[heb char]] (RAShITh) (beginning, head, wisdom) means beginning . But if we run all through all these letters together, and divide the words so, it reads: [[heb char]] BRASh IThBRA ALHIM ATh HShMIM VATh HARTs “in the head created themselves Elohim the heavens and the earth.” In the head – – in German there is the word Hauptmann, captain, because he is the head of the men underneath him, and so in English the “headman” or chief; the head was the wisdom, as the feet had the sustaining power; therefore “In the head (by wisdom, or in wisdom) created themselves, (i.e. became the Elohim, the gods, the divine beings), the Heavens and the earth.” A magnificent translation. The divine being themselves, from passive hierarchies, because active manifestations; they created themselves, or became . And what was the result of this? The heavens and the earth. “In the head that is, in wisdom, through wisdom, by wisdom — created themselves or became Elohim the heavens and the earth.” And the heavens and the earth were without form. It was a purely spiritual creation; the gods were formless; they were what is called in Sanskrit Arupa, bodiless; and the spirit of God, Elohim, moved on the face of the water. Now the force of this last phrase lies in this — and first the Hebrew: — [[heb char]] We-ruahh Elohim merahhefet al-pney ham-hayim. Now ruahh means wind, breath, soul . The true word for spirit in Hebrew is neshamah, whereas this first word ruahh would be more equivalent to the Sanskrit word Manas , meaning mind. Now the word used here, translated into the English “moving”, is a participle from the verb rauhaf, [” rauhaf” is the simple form of the root RChPh and means to tremble, shudder, shake or quiver. The participle form rihel means to hover or flutter. The derivation of ruahh RVCh from RChPh is difficult, requiring both a metathesis of V and Ch as well as a softening of V to Ph. To brood, however, which is formed from the triconsonantal BRKh via the biconsonantal RKh, meaning soft or gentle, requires only a hardening of Kh to Ch. RCh carries the meaning of aroma or fragrance. Usually ruahh is derived from RVCh, a root indicating freedom and open airiness, hence, spirit, wind, breath. — J.D.] to hover, to flutter and to brood, as of a hen which broods on its eggs. The simile is homely, but if you have ever watched a hen brooding you will have noticed its absorption, how it is wrapped in itself. So the divine goose (instead of the hen — an oriental metaphor) is conceived of as laying, and fluttering over, or brooding on the cosmic egg. In the Finnish Kalevala we read of the bird which laid the cosmic eggs, and then brooded on the eggs. H. P. Blavatsky, in the first pages of The Secret Doctrine, has a quotation from the Finnish Kalevala . We were speaking of the logos . In the Targum of Jerusalem is found this translation: “In wisdom God created heaven and earth”; the principal point here being this rendering of wisdom for this word [[heb char]] RAShITh (= wisdom ) which means head or beginning , origin, exactly in the sense that the Christians and the early Platonists used the word logos, implying the reason, the wisdom of the Deity. “In the wisdom of the Deity the world was manifested,” and as wisdom is popularly supposed to reside in the head, therefore the Jewish targumists translated this: “In the wisdom (in the head, in the logos) created God (as they translate Elohim, which means gods) the heavens and the earth.” Before going on I will have to recall to your memory that we said something last week about this word Elohim, commonly translated God by both Jewish and Christian writers, and yet it is a plural word, and can only be translated by the plural originally of El, which is a word found in many Semitic tongues implying might or majesty, and god. The word Elohim certainly has come from Eloah, a feminine of El, and as Hebrew feminines often form abstract conceptions, this could be translated not as a goddess but as a divine faculty, a faculty of the divinity itself, wisdom for instance. Therefore, the godly wise beings, the angels, spiritual beings, the gods, created themselves, or became by wisdom the heavens and earth. It fits in exactly with the conception of hierarchies which we studied last week, because the hierarchies not only fabricate the world (which is the original meaning of “create”), form it, shape it, but they are it themselves, in a sense. Examine the atoms of your flesh, if it were possible; at least examine the scientific conception of what matter today consists of — innumerable, numberless, infinitesimal little entities. Each atom is a kosmos, a mystic center, surrounded by hundreds of whirling planets, as our own sun is. And are we to conceive that we are the only intelligent beings in this vast limitless boundlessness? It would indeed be remarkable! Rather let us follow logical deductions from the facts which are, and say that man is but one stage, one step in an infinite series of gradations of intelligent beings, extending from the atoms and the sub-atoms and the worlds below the atoms through infinite hierarchies up to the Deity and beyond that Deity, and beyond the next one up to that wonder, the Unspeakable! We shall not be able to consider today as many of these words as I had hoped. But let me say a few words more about the Logos. The Christian writer John, commonly called Divine, from the word “Theologist” which is often placed after his name (you will remember we studied the meaning of the word theology in our first class) has these words in opening his gospel, so-called: “In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was towards [or with] God, and God was the Logos, or the Logos was God” [the Greek can be either translation]. This was in the beginning towards God [that is to say, with God, the word used in the Greek being the preposition pros which with accusative signifies towards a thing, proximity, and under strained interpretation could be translated with ]; all things became through him [ or through it], and outside of him [or it] there is not one thing which became. In him [or it] was life, and the life was the light of men; and the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not receive it.” Now mark: then begins, “There was a man sent from God;” — another thought, as abrupt as can possibly be, either in the Greek or in the English. Notice, after this philosophical exposition concerning the Logos, suddenly we are told: “There was a man sent from God, and his name was John. He came as a witness,” etc. The point to which I wish to call your attention is this: it looks as if this exposition of the Logos, as it is popularly believed to be, is an addition. This addition, and its development in the following verses of this chapter, can only be taken from the ideas of the Logos as held by early Christian writers like Justin, who bases his thoughts on the exposition of Philo the Jew and on the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible called the Septuagint. The Christian Logos-doctrine is therefore an evolution of ideas common to the ancient world at that time. The early Platonists, in discussing the doctrine of the logos used two expressions which are very graphic and very philosophic: they spoke of the [[greek char]] and the [[greek char]]. That is to say, the logos endiathetos comes from the Greek, and the sense is “to keep within”; from [[greek char]] (to place, [[greek char]] in , and [[greek char]] through : to keep within); [[greek char]] comes from [[greek char]], to utter, to send out; therefore the logos endiathetos would be the immanent logos, that aspect of the Divinity which remains latent, which is not manifest; and the logos prophorikos would be that verbum, that divine influence of reason, which is sent out as a man would send a messenger from his house; logos you will remember, meaning reason, intellect, the divine reason. The early Christians adopted the same words and the same conceptions, the logos prophorikos being the out-going, the active reason; the logos endiathetos being the intelligence or reason of the Deity remaining unmanifested — as the Christians would say, remaining in the bosom of the Godhead. Philo the Jew also uses them in his attempts to reconcile the Hebrew Bible with the Platonic Philosophy. It is curious that in ancient Egypt the out-going faculty of the Deity, or rather the Deity conceived of as manifesting himself, was often spoken of as the Son, and frequently Sun, because the sun was with constant reiteration in ancient philosophy conceived of as the son of the Deity. We have by no means finished this subject, and I shall advert to it in future studies. I wish to say in conclusion that Heraclitus, the great Greek philosopher, also the Stoic School, used the term logos to signify the rational or intelligent principle in Nature, in exactly the same general way as the early Christians did; and the Stoics also spoke of a logos spermatikos, or the seed logos, from sperma, the Greek for seed, meaning that aspect of consciousness in manifestation which makes a thing what it is as contrasted with something else. For instance, the logos spermatikos of a rose is what keeps it a rose, and not a gooseberry or a pear; the logos spermatikos of a man is what keeps him a man, and not an ant or a horse. The logos spermatikos of anything, let us say, is what keeps it what it is: its seed of individuality. You will remember that we spoke in our first lecture of the marvels latent in a seed, and of why it should always bring forth its own kind; and in our future studies we will find that that was not the case in the very early periods of time. We will find the testimony of ancient history and we will produce the proofs even of modern science, to show that in the early history of our globe all things produced almost at hap-hazard. Such beings as existed then produced according to different laws; for instance, we will call one being of the X species, and whether by fission or breaking off, or budding, or by whatever may have been the method of generation that species X might or might not produce its own species. It might produce species b or q, just as supposing our laws of today were those operative then, the offspring of a woman today might be a mule or a cow, or that which grew out of the egg of a hen might be an elephant. In the early days it was so. But when the working of the logos spermatikos came into action, then each thing followed its own line.
(IN) Logos ( Gk. ) “Word,” manifested deity, the living expression of divine thought.
(TG) Lohitanga {Sans}. The planet, Mars.
(TG) Loka {Sans}. A region or circumscribed place. In metaphysics, a world or sphere or plane. The Puranas in India speak incessantly of seven and fourteen Lokas, above, and below our earth; of heavens and hells.
(WG) Lokas, worlds, places, spheres. The Vishnu-Purana gives seven, namely: pitri-loka; Indra, or svarga; marut-loka, or devi-loka; mahar-loka, or gandharva-loka; janar-loka, of saints; tapar-loka, of the seven sages; Brahma-loka, or satya-loka, of infinite truth. The loka of Krishna, called go-loka, is indestructible.
(OG) Loka — {Sans} A word meaning “place” or “locality” or, as much more frequently used in theosophy, a “world” or “sphere” or “plane.”
The lokas are divided into rupa-lokas and arupa-lokas — “material worlds” and “spiritual spheres.” There is a wide range of teaching connected with the lokas and talas which belongs to the deeper reaches of the esoteric philosophy. ( See also Arupa, Rupa, Tala)
(SKf) Lokas — Talas
1 Satya-loka — 1 Atala 2 Tapar-loka — 2 Vitala 3 Janar-loka — 3 Sutala 4 Mahar-loka — 4 Rasatala 5 Svar-loka — 5 Talatala 6 Bhuvar-loka — 6 Mahatala 7 Bhur-loka — 7 Patala
The Ancient Wisdom teachings divide the Universe into seven great Planes or worlds of beings, each of which is bi-polarized into a Loka and a Tala. These pairs of Lokas and Talas are as inseparable as the two sides of a coin. They represent those two universally contrasting forces of nature which are expressed by good and evil, high and low, spirit and matter, etc. The word Loka means ‘a vast space,’ ‘a world,’ and is applied to a spiritual sphere. The seven Lokas are called in Hindu writings the ‘seven regions of the blessed’ or the ‘seven heavens.’ The word Tala means ‘lower part,’ ‘base,’ and is applied to a material place or region. The seven Talas have been called the ‘seven Hells’ or the ‘seven inferior places.’
Loka-aspects — Tala-aspects
(SP)iritual world — Material world Light side — Night side High — Low Positive — Negative Luminous Arc — Shadowy Arc Zenith — Nadir
Each couple of Loka and Tala represents a cosmic plane, or rather a sphere ranging from its loka or spiritual parts to its tala or physical parts. The highest and most spiritual and inmost of the lokas and talas produces the next lower or next outer loka and tala, which in its turn contains within itself the qualities of its parent and of the lokas and talas beneath or without it as well as its own dominant characteristic qualities. So on down to the lowest or outermost loka and tala. Therefore we see that each loka and tala is sevenfold, and contains aspects of all the other lokas and talas within it or without it.
(IN) The Esoteric Tradition, G. de Purucker writes: Seven interblending lokas and talas are actually the hierarchical conditions or states of each and of every one of the Worlds, Spheres, Planes, Houses, or Mansions, . . . In other words, these various Worlds, etc., are based on substances or matters existing in those particular phases of substantiality or ethereality which are described by the different names of these lokas and talas. Lokas, speaking generally, are the spiritual and less illusory conditions or states in any one such world or sphere or globe, while talas are those particular states or conditions appropriate to substances and matters of a grosser and more material character. Yet the lokas and talas are inseparable; each loka has its inseparable and corresponding twin tala, throughout the series: the highest loka having as its nether pole or alter ego, the most spiritual or ethereal of the talas, and thus down the series until the lowest or least spiritual of each pair is reached. (p. 558)
These lokas and talas represent different stages in evolutionary unfoldment. All evolution may be described as a series of spirals. Beings, in order to evolve, come forth from the Great All, the Divine Source, and then descend along a series of spheres, each more material than the preceding, and on each of these they build for themselves bodies in which to live. When they reach the lowest point of the descent, the most material sphere, they then proceed upwards to unfold consciously the spiritual and inner beauty latent and wrapped within their bodies of different degrees of physical texture. As they advance upwards they cast aside their garments gradually, the most material first, and become more and more divine in manifested virtue and power, until they reach once more the highest, the Divine Source, but not in the same condition as that in which they last sprang forth from it, but on a higher level, wiser, grander, and more universal. There they rest for a while until the urge to become greater brings them once more into manifestation.
The coming forth into manifestation, the putting on of garments, each one more material as the descent continues, is another way of saying that a man, or any other being, passes through the tala-side of the seven great divisions of the Universe. The conscious return to the Divine Source, the unfolding of the divine qualities and the casting off of the material forms of different grades, is another way of saying that a man, or any other being, is passing through the loka-side of the seven great divisions of the Universe. Hence Theosophy teaches that as a human Life-Wave comes into being on this Earth it passes around or through the twelve Globes of the Earth’s Planetary Chain which are distributed over the seven Great Cosmic Spheres or planes.
There is one such Globe on the highest as well as on the lowest plane, and two such Globes on each of the planes between. (See accompanying diagram Hence as the Human Race appears, it passes from Globe D’ to C’ to B’ to A to B to C to D on its Descending Arc into matter, and as it does this, on each Globe it builds for itself bodies appropriate to the sphere through which it passes. This descent through the globes is actually a passing through the seven Talas of the Universe. Then from the midpoint of the cycle of time passed on Globe D the Human Race ascends upwards, passing from Globe D to E to F to G to F’ to E’ to D’. This ascent through the globes is actually a passing through the lokas.
When the talas are dominant, matter evolves and spirit involves, the lokas being recessive. When the lokas are dominant, spirit evolves and matter involves, the talas being then recessive. This same tala-descent and loka-ascent may be applied analogically to anything that evolves, from atom to universe.
The diagram to the left shows these lokas and talas and the Globes of the Planetary Chain in planes one above the other. This diagram, though useful in showing corresponding aspects in several hierarchies, can be misleading. The circular diagram above is more nearly correct. But these circles representing the lokas and talas must not be considered as flat geometric planes, but as spheres with a common center lying one within another. The inmost, which is the most spiritual and ethereal, penetrates all the other spheres, and goes far out beyond them all; whereas the outermost Loka-Tala, though permeated by the influences and atmospheres of all the other lokas and talas, does not itself reach beyond its own atmosphere.
We thus see by observing the circular diagram that every one of the lokas and talas is sevenfold and that though each pair is permeated by the six others, it has its own essential and dominant characteristic. This demonstrates the truth that at any moment, right here on earth in the Bhurloka-Patala in which we at present live we may penetrate the depths and inner spiritual parts of ourselves and our sphere and commune with our higher Selves and our Spiritual Guardians. We must become fully conscious in all the lokas and talas and sub-lokas and sub-talas before we truly know the Universe and ourselves.
The unconscious descent through the talas, into matter, is the first and necessary process of evolution, a process which prepares the way for the second and more important half of the evolutionary journey, that of the conscious ascent through the lokas, the self-directed unfoldment of the lofty inner qualities and powers. The Human Race is now in this second stage of development, because it long ago reached Globe D, the nadir of the descent. Therefore the different bodies, physical, astral, mental, and spiritual, with which we have clothed ourselves in our descent, should now be kept pure in order that they may be used as sacred instruments on that self-directed spiritual journey upwards. The first descent through the talas is not evil, is not against nature’s laws; but a second and conscious descent through the talas, brought about by the choosing of that which is low and the self-willing identification with matter and its limiting and selfish attributes, is evil, for it is against nature’s laws. This latter is the Downward Path to annihilation, the path of a Lost Soul or of a Brother of the Shadow.
So we may say that the tala-side of nature has its two poles, its two contrasting aspects, the good — that which enables beings to build forms on their descent into existence; and the evil — that of self-identification with the base and selfish side of nature. Likewise the lokas have this dual aspect, which is demonstrated in the Path of the Buddhas of Compassion and the Path of the Pratyeka-Buddhas
Though these lokas and talas may be depicted as states of consciousness or conditions of beings they are also actual localities in which different classes of beings, high, intermediate, and low, live. The particular meaning of each set of loka and tala beginning with the highest is as follows:
Satya – loka is the ‘world of truth and reality,’ the realm in which live divine beings and Nirvanins. It is the highest state of consciousness possible to a human being, the loftiest Samadhi. Its atmosphere extends into regions far beyond our ken, out into the fields of infinitude. Its nether pole, Atala, is the first suggestion of a place, the first something of existence. It is called a – tala, ‘not-a-place,’ because it is of such spiritual-ethereal matter that it can scarcely be considered a place. A Lost Soul or one who follows the Downward Path, suffers final annihilation in Atala.
Tapar – loka is the ‘world of spiritual meditation and devotion,’ the realm in which live the Spiritual Guardians of our Universe, the state in which the Christos or the Buddhic Splendor manifests itself in its fulness. Its atmosphere, though not as far-reaching as Satya-loka, extends beyond our ken. Its nether pole, Vitala, is that spiritual-ethereal place in which there is a change ( vi ) towards matter, therefore it is a ‘better place for matter.’ It is in Vitala that the one who self-consciously following the Downward Path breaks the final link with his Higher Nature.
Janar – loka is the ‘world of spiritual birth,’ the realm in which dwell the Kumaras, Agnishwattas, and Manasaputras, the state in which the Higher Manas of man becomes the complete master of the lower principles. Its atmosphere extends to the reaches of our Galaxy. Its nether pole Sutala is a ‘good place,’ that is, a place that is good ( su ) for matter. In Sutala a human being who has selfconsciously followed the Downward Path has brought his mind into the condition of an absolute slave to his lower desires.
Mahar – loka is the ‘great world,’ whose field of influence extends to the limits of our Solar System. It is the realm in which live the different classes of Devas who are intimately connected with the mind and the senses. In this loka a man’s brain-mind is no longer deluded by Maya, but is concerned with compassionate service to all. The nether pole, Rasatala, is the ‘place of taste,’ that place in which one can perceive with one of the organs of sense. A human being whose brain-mind is wholly concerned with things of the senses and the objective world is immersed in Rasatala.
Svar – loka is the ‘heaven world’ wherein the human being enjoys the after-death state of Devachan. It is the state in which a human being unfolds his higher aspirations. It is the abode of the higher Elementals, and its atmosphere extends to the pole star. Its nether pole is Talatala. This word is a compound of tala-atala , meaning ‘a place not a place’ and implying that this place is more of a tala than those above it but is not yet a fully substantial tala. A man who centers his mind and energies in the gratification of his senses is in Talatala.
Bhuvar – loka is the ‘world of becoming,’ the region of the Astral Light which extends to the Sun, and the abode of the lower Naturespirits. A man who has attained to this loka has become aware of his inner and higher nature and hence has become more impersonal, and therefore more unselfish, more spiritual. The nether pole of Bhuvar-loka is Mahatala, the ‘great place,’ the abode of man’s astral shadow. When a man performs deeds which are selfish and unkind and impure he is in Mahatala.
Bhur – loka is the ‘earth sphere’ in which our planet Terra or Globe D exists. It is the abode of human beings who are thoughtful and good, but not necessarily spiritually awakened. Bhur-loka’s nether pole is Patala or the ‘nethermost tala’ or the region beneath us, the Underworld. The derivation of Patala is obscure, but it may be a contracted form of pata — sunk or fallen, and tala. PAtala is the dwelling-place of man’s physical body and personal self, of animals, and of Nature-spirits such as the gnomes. Instinctual selfishness, self-preservation, gratification of the senses, and the helpless innocence of childhood are characteristic marks of one who is in Patala. Patala is often used for our word ‘Hell.’
Such are the ranges of the Human Spirit: from the darkest regions of Patala to the loftiest and divinest regions of truth — Satya-loka!
(SP) Loka — a world, realm, or plane. A tala is a lower realm corresponding to a particular loka.
(MO) Lokabrenna {Nors} [ brenna burning] A name for Sirius
(TG) Loka Chakshub {Sans}. The “Eye of the World”; a title of the Sun, Surya.
(TG) Loka Palas {Sans}. The supporters, rulers and guardians of the world. The deities (planetary gods) which preside over the eight cardinal points, among which are the Tchatur (Four) Maharajahs.
(MO) Lokasenna {Nors} [ senna banter] Loki’s Flyting
(TG) Loki {Nors}. The Scandinavian Evil Spirit exoterically. In esoteric philosophy “an opposing power” only because differentiating from primordial harmony. In the Edda, he is the father of the terrible Fenris Wolf, and of the Midgard Snake. By blood he is the brother of Odin, the good and valiant god; but in nature he is his opposite. Loki-Odin is simply two in one. As Odin is, in one sense, vital heat, so is Loki the symbol of the passions produced by the intensity of the former.
(MO) Loki {Nors} [ lokka entice, logi light] An Ase of giant stock: the enlightener, dual mind
(WG) Lokothra, psychic powers accompanying spiritual development.
(KT) Long Face. A Kabalistic term, Areekh Anpeen in Hebrew; or “Long Face”; in Greek, Macroprosopos, as contrasted with “Short Face,” or Zeir Anpeen, the Microprosopos. One relates to Deity, the other to man, the “little image of the great form.”
(KT) Longinus, Dionysius Cassius. A famous critic and philosopher, born in the very beginning of the third century (about 213). He was a great traveller, and attended at Alexandria the lectures of Ammonius Saccas, the founder of Neoplatonism, but was rather a critic than a follower. Porphyry (the Jew Malek or Malchus) was his pupil before he became the disciple of Plotinus. It is said of him that he was a living library and a walking museum. Towards the end of his life he became the instructor in Greek literature of Zenobia, Queen of Palmyra. She repaid his services by accusing him before the Emperor Aurelius of having advised her to rebel against the latter, a crime for which Longinus, with several others, was put to death by the Emperor in 273.
(MO) Lopt {Nors} [lofty] Aspiring mind
(VS) Lord of Mercy [[p. 30]] Buddha.
(TG) Loreley. The German copy of the Scandinavian “Lake Maiden”. Undine is one of the names given to these maidens, who are known in exoteric Magic and Occultism as the Water-Elementals.
(MO) Lorride {Nors} (lor-ree-deh) Thor as electric power on earth
(TG) Lost Word (Masonic). It ought to stand as “lost words” and lost secrets, in general, for that which is termed the lost “Word” is no word at all, as in the case of the Ineffable Name The Royal Arch Degree in Masonry, has been “in search of it” since it was founded. But the “dead” — especially those murdered — do not speak; and were even “the Widow’s Son” to come back to life “materialized”, he could hardly reveal that which never existed in the form in which it is now taught. The SHEMHAMPHORASH (the separated name, through the power of which according to his detractors, Jeshu Ben Pandira is said to have wrought his miracles, after stealing it from the Temple) — whether derived from the “self existent substance” of Tetragrammaton, or not, can never be a substitute, for the lost LOGOS of divine magic.
(TG) Lotus {Greek}. A most occult plant, sacred in Egypt, India and elsewhere; called “the child of the Universe bearing the likeness of its mother in its bosom”. There was a time “when the world was a golden lotus” (padma) says the allegory. A great variety of these plants, from the majestic Indian lotus, down to the marsh-lotus (bird’s foot trefoil) and the Grecian “Dioscoridis”, is eaten at Crete and other islands. It is a species of nymphaea, first introduced from India to Egypt to which it was not indigenous. See the text of Archaic Symbolism in the Appendix VIII. “The Lotus, as a Universal Symbol”.
(TG) Lotus, Lord of the. A title applied to the various creative gods, as also to the Lords of the Universe of which this plant is the symbol
(WG) Lotus, the sacred plant of oriental nations, Egypt, India, etc. At one time a universal symbol of the Universe, and in a narrower sense of the Earth.
(TG) Love Feasts, Agapae {Greek}. These banquets of charity held by the earliest Christians were founded at Rome by Clemens, in the reign of Domitian. Professor A. Kestner’s The Agapae or the Secret World Society (Wiltbund) of the Primitive Christians ” (published 1819 at Jena) speaks of these Love Feasts as “having a hierarchical constitution, and a groundwork of Masonic symbolism and Mysteries”; and shows a direct connection between the old Agapae and the Table Lodges or Banquets of the Freemasons. Having, however, exiled from their suppers the “holy kiss” and women, the banquets of the latter are rather “drinking” than “love” feasts. The early Agapae were certainly the same as the Phallica, which “were once as pure as the Love Feasts of early Christians” as Mr. Bonwick very justly remarks, “though like them rapidly degenerating into licentiousness”. (Eg.
(TG) Lower Face or Lower Countenance A term applied to Microprosopus, as that of “Higher Face” is to Macroprosopus. The two are identical with Long Face and Short Face.
(TG) Lubara {Chald}. The god of Pestilence and Disease.
(TG) Lucifer {Latin}. The planet Venus, as the bright “Morning Star”. Before Milton, Lucifer had never been a name of the Devil. Quite the reverse, since the Christian Saviour is made to say of himself in Revelations 16.22 “I am . . . the bright morning star” or Lucifer. One of the early Popes of Rome bore that name; and there was even a Christian sect in the fourth century which was called the Luciferians.
(WG) Lucifer, the planet Venus as the “Morning Star”. Lucifer is the symbol of purity and wisdom, and not of the devil; the alter-ego and “better half ” of the earth.
(TG) Lully, Raymond . An alchemist, adept and philosopher, born in the 13th century, on the island of Majorca. It is claimed for him that, in a moment of need, he made for King Edward III. of England several millions of gold “rose nobles”, and thus helped him to carry on war victoriously. He founded several colleges for the study of Oriental languages, and Cardinal Ximenes was one of his patrons and held him in great esteem, as also Pope John XXI. He died in 1314, at a good old age. Literature has preserved many wild stories about Raymond Lully, which would form a most extraordinary romance. He was the elder son of the Seneshal of Majorca and inherited great wealth from his father.
(TG) Lunar Gods. Called in India the Fathers, “Pitris” or the lunar ancestors. They are subdivided, like the rest, into seven classes or Hierarchies. In Egypt although the moon received less worship than in Chaldea or India, still Isis stands as the representative of Luna-Lunus, “the celestial Hermaphrodite”. Strange enough while the modern connect the moon only with lunacy and generation, the ancient nations, who knew better, have, individually and collectively, connected their “wisdom gods” with it. Thus in Egypt the lunar gods are Thoth-Hermes and Chons; in India it is Budha, the Son of Soma, the moon; in Chaldea Nebo is the lunar god of Secret Wisdom, etc., etc. The wife of Thoth, Sifix, the lunar goddess, holds a pole with five rays or the five-pointed star, symbol of man, the Microcosm, in distinction from the Septenary Macrocosm. As in all theogonies a goddess precedes, a god, on the principle most likely that the chick can hardly precede its eggs in Chaldea the moon was held as older and more venerable than the Sun, because, as they said, darkness precedes light at every periodical rebirth (or “creation”) of the universe. Osiris although connected with the Sun and a Solar god is, nevertheless, born on Mount Sinai, because Sin is the Chaldeo-Assyrian word for the moon; so was Dio-Nysos, god of Nyssi or Nisi, which latter appellation was that of Sinai in Egypt, where it was called Mount Nissa. The crescent is not — as proven by many writers — an ensign of the Turks, but was adopted by Christians for their symbol before the Mohammedans. For ages the crescent was the emblem of the Chaldean Astarte, the Egyptian Isis, and the Greek Diana, all of them Queens of Heaven, and finally became the emblem of Mary the Virgin. “The Greek Christian Empire of Constantinople held it as their palladium. Upon the conquest by the Turks, the Sultan adopted it . . . and since that, the crescent has been made to oppose the idea of the cross “. (Eg. Belief
(OG) Lunar Pitri(s) — Lunar of course means “belonging to the moon,” while pitri is a Sanskrit word meaning “father.” It is a term used in theosophy to signify the seven or ten grades of evolving entities which at the end of the lunar manvantara pass into a nirvanic state, to leave it aeons later as the seven or tenfold hierarchy of beings which inform the planetary chain of earth. In a general sense lunar pitris means all entities which originally came from the moon-chain to the earth-chain; but in a more particular and restricted sense it refers to those elements of the human constitution beneath the evolutionary standing of the agnishvattas.
Another term for lunar pitris is lunar ancestors or barhishads. These lunar ancestors are usually given as of seven classes, three being arupa, incorporeal, and four being rupa or corporeal. There is a vast body of teaching connected with the lunar pitris, of which the best modern exposition thus far given is to be found in H. P. Blavatsky’s The Secret Doctrine . Briefly, the earth-chain including our own globe Terra was populated from the moon-chain, because all entities now on earth, whatever their grade in evolution, came from the chain of the moon. ( See also Pitris, Agnishvattas)
(TG) Lupercalia {Latin}. Magnificent popular festivals celebrated in ancient Rome on February 15th, in honour of the God Pan, during which the Luperci, the most ancient and respectable among the sacerdotal functionaries, sacrificed two goats and a dog, and two of the most illustrious youths were compelled to run about the city naked (except the loins) whipping all those whom they met. Pope Gelasius abolished the Lupercalia in 496, but substituted for them on the same day the procession of lighted candles.
(IN) Lusus naturae {Latin} Freak of nature.
(TG) Luxor A compound word from lux (light) and aur (fire), thus meaning the “Light of (divine) Fire.”
(TG) Luxor, Brotherhood of . A certain Brotherhood of mystics. Its name had far better never have been divulged, as it led a great number of well-meaning people into being deceived, and relieved of their money by a certain bogus Mystic Society of speculators, born in Europe, only to be exposed and fly to America. The name is derived from the ancient Lookshur in Beloochistan, lying between Bela and Kedjee. The order is very ancient and the most secret of all. It is useless to repeat that its members disclaim all connection with the “H.B. of L.”, and the tutti quanti of commercial mystics, whether from Glasgow or Boston.
(WG) Luxor, (Brotherhood of) the most secret of the mystic orders. One of its centers is in the United States, while “its ramifications extend widely throughout the great Republic of the West”. The name is derived from the Ancient Lookshur in Beloochistan, after which the Egyptian city was also named. It is in direct and intimate relationship with the great Eastern Brotherhood.
(TG) Lycanthropy {Greek}. Physiologically, a disease or mania, during which a person imagines he is a wolf, and acts as such. Occultly, it means the same as “were-wolf”, the psychological faculty of certain sorcerers to appear as wolves. Voltaire states that in the district of Jura, in two years between 1598 and 1600, over 600 lycanthropes were put to death by a too Christian judge. This does not mean that Shepherds accused of sorcery, and seen as wolves, had indeed the power of changing themselves physically into such ; but simply that they had the hypnotizing power of making people (or those they regarded as enemies), believe they saw a wolf when there was none in fact. The exercise of such power is truly sorcery. “Demoniacal” possession is true at bottom, minus the devils of Christian theology. But this is no place for a long disquisition upon occult mysteries and magic powers.
(TG) M. — The thirteenth letter of the Hebrew and of the English alphabets, and the twenty-fourth of the Arabic. As a Roman numeral, this letter stands for 1000, and with a dash on it signifies one million. In the Hebrew alphabet Mem symbolized water, and as a numeral is equivalent to 40. The Sanskrit ma is equivalent to number 5, and is also connected with water through the sign of the Zodiac, called Makara . Moreover, in the Hebrew and Latin numerals the m stands “as the definite numeral for an indeterminate number” (Mackenzie’s Mason. Cyc. ), and “the Hebrew sacred name of God applied to this letter is Meborach, Benedictus. ” With the Esotericists the M is the symbol of the Higher Ego — Manas, Mind.
(TG) Ma {Sans}. Lit., “five”. A name of Lakshmi.
(TG) Ma, Mut {Egyp}. The goddess of the lower world, another form of Isis, as she is nature, the eternal mother. She was the sovereign and Ruler of the North wind, the precursor of the overflow of the Nile, and thus called “the opener of the nostrils of the living”. She is represented offering the ankh, or cross, emblem of physical life to her worshippers, and is called the “Lady of Heaven”.
(TG) Machagistia. Magic, as once taught in Persia and Chaldea, and raised in its occult practices into a religio-magianism. Plato, speaking of Machagistia, or Magianism, remarks that it is the purest form of the worship of things divine.
Machchittah sarvadurgani matprasadattarishyasi With Mind on Me you will pass over all difficulties by My Grace
(TG) Macrocosm {Greek}. The “Great Universe” literally, or Kosmos.
(KT) Macrocosm {Greek} The “Great Universe” or Kosmos, literally.
(FY) Macrocosm, universe.
(WG) Macrocosm the great world, or universe, of which the microcosm, or little world — man — is a copy.
(OG) Macrocosm — The anglicized form of a Greek compound meaning “great arrangement,” or more simply the great ordered system of the celestial bodies of all kinds and their various inhabitants, including the all-important idea that this arrangement is the result of interior orderly processes, the effects of indwelling consciousnesses. In other and more modern phrasing the macrocosm is the vast universe, without definable limits, which surrounds us, and with particular emphasis laid on the interior, invisible, and ethereal planes. In the visioning or view of the ancients the macrocosm was an animate kosmic entity, an “animal” in the Latin sense of this word, as an organism possessing a directing and guiding soul. But this was only the outward or exoteric view. In the Mystery schools of the archaic ages, the macrocosm was considered to be not only what is hereinbefore just stated, but also to consist more definitely and specifically of seven, ten, and even twelve planes or degrees of consciousness-substance ranging from the superdivine through all the intermediate stages to the physical, and even to degrees below the physical, these comprised in one kosmic organic unit, or what moderns would call a universe. In this sense of the word macrocosm is but another name for kosmic hierarchy, and it must be remembered in this connection that these hierarchies are simply countless in number and not only fill but actually compose and are indeed the spaces of frontierless SPACE.
The macrocosm was considered to be filled full not only with gods, but with innumerable multitudes or armies of evolving entities, from the fully self-conscious to the quasi-self-conscious downwards through the merely conscious to the “unconscious.” Note well that in strict usage the term macrocosm was never applied to the Boundless, to boundless, frontierless infinitude, what the Qabbalists called Eyn-soph. In the archaic wisdom, the macrocosm, belonging in the astral world, considered in its causal aspect, was virtually interchangeable with what modern theosophists call the Absolute.
(TG) Macroprosopus {Greek}. A Kabalistic term, made of a compound Greek word: meaning the Vast or Great Countenance (See “Kabalistic Faces”); a title of Kether, the Crown, the highest Sephira. It is the name of the Universe, called Arikh-Anpin, the totality of that of which Microprosopus or Zauir-Anpin, “the lesser countenance”, is the part and antithesis. In its highest or abstract metaphysical sense, Microprosopus is Adam Kadmon, the vehicle of Ain-Suph, and the crown of the Sephirothal Tree, though since Sephira and Adam Kadmon are in fact one under two aspects, it comes to the same thing. Interpretations are many, and they differ.
(WG) Macroposopus, a Kabalistic term, meaning the “Great Countenance”. The Universe as a whole, or the totality of the manifested Cosmos. The Heavenly Man. The Macrocosm.
(TG) Madhasadana or Madhu-Sudana {Sans}. “Slayer of Madhu” (a demon), a title of Krishna from his killing the latter.
(TG) Madhava {Sans}. (1) A name of Vishnu or Krishna; (2) The month of April; (3) A title of Lakshmi when written Madhavi.
(WG) Madhava, a title of Krishna. (Literally, “made of honey.”)
(WG) Madhu, the demon of darkness; a giant who was slain by Krishna.
(GH) Madhu The name of an asura, who was slain by Vishnu. Madhu and his companion Kaitabha sprang from the ear of Vishnu while the deity was resting at the end of a kalpa. These two asuras took advantage of the sleep of the god to approach Brahma, who was also resting, and were on the point of putting him to death but Vishnu awoke and frustrated them in their plot by immediately slaying the asuras. Because of this act Vishnu is known by the names of Madhusudana (slayer of Madhu) and Kaitabhajit (Causing the death of Kaitabha). W. Q. Judge suggests that Madhu represents the quality of passion in nature ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 49). Krishna was also called Madhusudana. ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 9)
(GH) Madhusudana A name applied to KrishnaVishnu (Krishna in the aspect of Vishnu). (Compound Madhu ; sudana, slayer. Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 9) Also the name of many Sanskrit authors. ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 51)
(WG) Madhvacharya, a great philosopher, who taught that the relation between Deity and man is that of master and servant. He founded a system of philosophy and established monastic orders that exist to the present day.
(TG) Madhya {Sans}. Ten thousand billions.
(TG) Madhyama {Sans}. Used of something beginningless and endless. Thus Vach (Sound, the female Logos, or the female counterpart of Brahma), is said to exist in several states, one of which is that of Madhyama, which is equivalent to saying that Vach is eternal in one sense: “the Word (Vach) was with God, and in God”, for the two are one.
(TG) Madhyamikas {Sans}. A sect mentioned in the Vishnu Purana. Agreeably to the Orientalists, a “Buddhist” sect, which is an anachronism. It was probably at first a sect of Hindu atheists. A later school of that name, teaching a system of sophistic nihilism, that reduces every proposition into a thesis and its antithesis, and then denies both, has been started in Tibet and China. It adopts a few principles of Nagarjuna, who was one of the founders of the esoteric Mahayana systems, not their exoteric travesties. The allegory that regarded Nagarjuna’s “Paramartha” as a gift from the Nagas (Serpents) shows that he received his teachings from the secret school of adepts, and that the real tenets, are therefore kept secret.
(SKv) Madhyamika, Nagarjuna The Madhyamika, meaning ‘that which belongs to the madhya or middle way,’ is a School which was founded in Tibet and China by Nagarjuna, a Buddhist Arhat who lived about 223 B.C. The teachings of this school were of purely esoteric origin and belonged to the Mahayana school of Buddhism. This Madhyamika School, however, soon degenerated into a school of Nihilism through the brain-mind arguments and the lack of intuitive understanding of its disciples. The word Nagarjuna is a compound of naga — serpent or dragon, and arjuna — the name of a special kind of tree. A dragon was a symbol of an Initiate among all ancient peoples; hence the title ‘the Dragon-tree’ was one of great honor. Nagarjuna’s spiritual attainments were so grand that Buddhists often referred to him as ‘one of the four great suns which illumine the world.’
(WG) Madhya-stha, neutral, indifferent, unconcerned. ( madhya , middle, medius ; stha, standing
(GH) Madri A sister of the king of the Madras, who became the second wife of Pandu. By means of the mantra given her by Kunti , she became the mother of Nakula and Sahadeva by the twin Asvins (the sky-gods). At the death of Pandu, Madri ascended the funeral pyre with her husband’s corpse. ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. iv)
(TG) Maga {Sans}. The priests of the Sun, mentioned in the Vishnu Purana. They are the later Magi of Chaldea and Iran, the forefathers of the modern Parsis.
(TG) Magadha {Sans}. An ancient country in India, under Buddhist Kings.
(TG) Mage, or Magian. From Mag or Maha. The word is the root of the word magician. The Maha-atma (the great Soul or Spirit) in India had its priests in the pre-Vedic times. The Magians were priests of the fire-god; we find them among the Assyrians and Babylonians, as well as among the Persian fire-worshippers. The three Magi, also denominated kings, that are said to have made gifts of gold, incense and myrrh to the infant Jesus, were fire-worshippers like the rest, and astrologers; for they saw his star. The high priest of the Parsis, at Surat, is called Mobed. Others derived the name from Megh; Meh-ab signifying something grand and noble. Zoroaster’s disciples were called Meghestom, according to Kleuker.
(IU) Mage, Or Magian ; from Mag or Maha . The word is the root of the word magician. The Maha-atma (the great Soul or Spirit) in India had its priests in the pre-Vedic times. The Magians were priests of the fire-god; we find them among the Assyrians and Babylonians, as well as among the Persian fire-worshippers. The three magi, also denominated kings, that are said to have made gifts of gold, incense, and myrrh to the infant Jesus, were fire-worshippers like the rest, and astrologers; for they saw his star. The high priest of the Parsis, at Surat, is called Mobed , others derived the word from Megh; Meh-ab signifying something grand and noble. Zoroaster’s disciples were called Meghestom, according to Kleuker.
(TG) Magi {Latin}. The name of the ancient hereditary priests and learned adepts in Persia and Media, a word derived from Maha, great, which became later mog or mag, a priest in Pehlevi. Porphyry describes them ( Abst. iv. 16) as “The learned men who are engaged among the Persians in the service of the Deity are called Magi”, and Suidas informs us that “among the Persians the lovers of wisdom ( philalethai ) are called Magi”. The Zendavesta (ii. 171, 261) divides them into three degrees: (1) The Herbeds or “Novitiates”; (2) Mobeds or “Masters”; (3) Destur Mobeds, or “Perfect Masters”. The Chaldees had similar colleges, as also the Egyptians, Destur Mobeds being identical with the Hierophants of the mysteries, as practised in Greece and Egypt.
(FY) Magi, fire worshippers; the great magicians or wisdom-philosophers of old.
(TG) Magic. The great “Science”. According to Deveria and other Orientalists, “magic was considered as a sacred science inseparable from religion” by the oldest and most civilized and learned nations. The Egyptians, for instance, were one of the most sincerely religious nations, as were and still are the Hindus. “Magic consists of, and is acquired by the worship of the gods”, said Plato. Could then a nation, which, owing to the irrefragable evidence of inscriptions and papyri, is proved to have firmly believed in magic for thousands of years, have been deceived for so long a time. And is it likely that generations upon generations of a learned and pious hierarchy, many among whom led lives of self-martyrdom, holiness and asceticism, would have gone on deceiving themselves and the people (or even only the latter) for the pleasure of perpetuating belief in “miracles”? Fanatics, we are told, will do anything to enforce belief in their god or idols. To this we reply: in such case, Brahmans and Egyptian Rekhget-amens or Hierophants would not have popularized belief in the power of man by magic practices to command the services of the gods: which gods, are in truth, but the occult powers or potencies of Nature, personified by the learned priests themselves, in which they reverenced only the attributes of the one unknown and nameless Principle. As Proclus the Platonist ably puts it: “Ancient priests, when they considered that there is a certain alliance and sympathy in natural things to each other, and of things manifest to occult powers, and discovered that all things subsist in all, fabricated a sacred science from this mutual sympathy and similarity . . . . and applied for occult purposes, both celestial and terrene natures, by means of which, through a certain similitude, they deduced divine virtues into this inferior abode”. Magic is the science of communicating with and directing supernal, supramundane Potencies, as well as of commanding those of the lower spheres; a practical knowledge of the hidden mysteries of nature known to only the few, because they are so difficult to acquire, without falling into sins against nature. Ancient and mediaeval mystics divided magic into three classes — Theurgia, Goetia and natural Magic. “Theurgia has long since been appropriated as the peculiar sphere of the theosophists and metaphysicians”, says Kenneth Mackenzie. Goetia is black magic, and “natural (or white) magic has risen with healing in its wings to the proud position of an exact and progressive study”. The comments added by our late learned Brother are remarkable. “The realistic desires of modern times have contributed to bring magic into disrepute and ridicule. . . . Faith (in one’s own self) is an essential element in magic, and existed long before other ideas which presume its pre-existence. It is said that it takes a wise man to make a fool; and a man’s ideas must be exalted almost to madness, i.e ., his brain susceptibilities must be increased far beyond the low, miserable status of modern civilization, before he can become a true magician; (for) a pursuit of this science implies a certain amount of isolation and an abnegation of Self ” . A very great isolation, certainly, the achievement of which constitutes a wonderful phenomenon, a miracle in itself. Withal magic is not something supernatural. As explained by Iamblichus, “they through the sacerdotal theurgy announce that they are able to ascend to more elevated and universal Essences, and to those that are established above fate, viz., to god and the demiurgus: neither employing matter, nor assuming any other things besides, except the observation of a sensible time”. Already some are beginning to recognise the existence of subtle powers and influences in nature of which they have hitherto known nought. But as Dr. Carter Blake truly remarks, “the nineteenth century is not that which has observed the genesis of new, nor the completion of old, methods of thought”; to which Mr. Bonwick adds that “if the ancients knew but little of our mode of investigations into the secrets of nature, we know still less of their mode of research”.
(KT) Magic. The “great” Science. According to Deveria and other Orientalists, “Magic was considered as a sacred science inseparable from religion” by the oldest and most civilised and learned nations. The Egyptians, for instance, were a most sincerely religious nation, as were, and are still, the Hindus. “Magic consists of, and is acquired by, the worship of the gods,” says Plato. Could, then, a nation which, owing to the irrefragable evidence of inscriptions and papyri, is proved to have firmly believed in magic for thousands of years, have been deceived for so long a time? And is it likely that generations upon generations of a learned and pious hierarchy, many among whom led lives of self-martyrdom, holiness and asceticism, would have gone on deceiving themselves and the people (or even only the latter) for the pleasure of perpetuating belief in “miracles”? Fanatics, we are told, will do anything to enforce belief in their god or idols. To this we reply: — In such cases Brahmans and Egyptian Rekhget-amens or Hierophants, would not have popularised the belief in the power of man by magic practices, to command the services of the gods: which gods are in truth but the occult powers or potencies of Nature, personified by the learned priests themselves, who reverenced only in them the attributes of the one unknown and nameless Principle. As Proclus, the Platonist, ably puts it: “Ancient priests, when they considered that there is a certain alliance and sympathy in natural things to each other, and of things manifest to occult powers, and discovered that all things subsist in all, fabricated a sacred science from this mutual sympathy and similarity . . . . and applied for occult purposes both celestial and terrene natures, by means of which, through a certain similitude, they deduced divine natures into this inferior abode.” Magic is the science of communicating with, and directing supernal supramundane potencies, as well as commanding those of lower spheres; a practical knowledge of the hidden mysteries of nature which are known only to the few, because they are so difficult to acquire without falling into sin against the law. Ancient and mediaeval mystics divided magic into three classes — Theurgia, Goetia and Natural Magic. “Theurgia has long since been appropriated as the peculiar sphere of the Theosophists and metaphysicians,” says Kenneth Mackenzie. “Goetia is black magic, and ‘natural’ or white magic has risen with healing in its wings to the proud position of an exact and progressive study.” The remarks added by our late learned brother are remarkable: “The realistic desires of modern times have contributed to bring magic into disrepute and ridicule. . . . Faith (in one’s own self) is an essential element in magic, and existed long before other ideas which presume its pre-existence. It is said that it takes a wise man to make a fool; and a man’s idea must be exalted almost to madness, i. e., his brain susceptibilities must be increased far beyond the low miserable status of modern civilisation, before he can become a true magician, for a pursuit of this science implies a certain amount of isolation and an abnegation of self.” A very great isolation certainly, the achievement of which constitutes a wonderful phenomenon, a miracle in itself. Withal, magic is not something supernatural. As explained by Iamblichus, “they, through the sacerdotal theurgy, announce that they are able to ascend to more elevated and universal essences, and to those that are established above fate, viz., to god and the demiurgos: neither employing matter, nor assuming any other things besides, except the observation of a sensible time.” Already some are beginning to recognise the existence of subtle powers and influences in nature, in which they have hitherto known nought. But, as Dr. Carter Blake truly remarks, “the nineteenth century is not that which has observed the genesis of new, nor the completion of old, methods of thought”; to which Mr. Bonwick adds, that “if the Ancients knew but little of our mode of investigation into the secrets of Nature, we know still less of their mode of research.”
(WG) Magic, the science of bringing into visible action forces ordinarily hidden. The ancients recognized three sorts: Theurgia , or White Magic; Goetia, or Black Magic; and Natural Magic. Theurgia had to do with the powers of the soul, the philosopher’s stone, the magic which makes of man a God. Goetia was sorcery, or the communication with the regents of the invisible worlds with evil intent. Natural Magic had dealings entirely with nature, and might be either Black or White according as the Adept whose will called it into action was of the Left- or Right-hand path. The physician who heals with the use of his drugs is as much a natural magician as the necromancer who effects cures by his thaumaturgy; with the difference, however, that the one can give no reason for the effects he produces, while the other can.
(TG) Magic, Black. (Vide Supra. )
(KT) Magic, Black (vide supra). Sorcery, abuse of powers.
(KT) Magic, Ceremonial. Magic, according to Kabalistic rites worked out, as alleged by the Rosicrucians and other mystics, by invoking Powers higher spiritually than Man, and commanding Elementals who are far lower than himself on the scale of being.
(TG) Magic, White, or “Beneficent Magic”, so-called, is divine magic, devoid of selfishness, love of power, of ambition, or lucre, and bent only on doing good to the world in general, and one’s neighbour in particular. The smallest attempt to use one’s abnormal powers for the gratification of self, makes of these powers sorcery or black magic.
(KT) Magic, White, or “Beneficent Magic,” so called, is divine magic, devoid of selfishness, love of power, of ambition or lucre, and bent only on doing good to the world in general and one’s neighbour in particular. The smallest attempt to use one’s abnormal powers for the gratification of self makes of these powers sorcery or Black Magic.
(TG) Magician. This term, once a title of renown and distinction, has come to be wholly perverted from its true meaning. Once the synonym of all that was honourable and reverent, of a possessor of learning and wisdom, it has become degraded into an epithet to designate one who is a pretender and a juggler; a charlatan, in short, or one who has “sold his soul to the Evil One”, who misuses his knowledge, and employs it for low and dangerous uses, according to the teachings of the clergy, and a mass of superstitious fools who believe the magician a sorcerer and an “Enchanter”. The word is derived from Magh, Mah, in Sanskrit Maha — great; a man well versed in esoteric knowledge. (Isis Unveiled
(IU) Magician. — This term, once a title of renown and distinction, has come to be wholly perverted from its true meaning. Once the synonym of all that was honorable and reverent, of a possessor of learning and .wisdom, it has become degraded into an epithet to designate one who is a pretender and a juggler; a charlatan, in short, or one who has “sold his soul to the Evil One;” who misuses his knowledge, and employs it for low and dangerous uses, according to the teachings of the clergy, and a mass of superstitious fools who believe the magician a sorcerer and an enchanter. But Christians forget, apparently, that Moses was also a magician, and Daniel, ” Master of the magicians, astrologers, Chaldeans, and soothsayers” ( Daniel, v.II).
The word magician then, scientifically speaking, is derived from Magh, Hindu or Sanscrit — great; a man well versed in the secret or esoteric knowledge; properly a sacerdote.
(TG) Magna Mater {Latin}. “Great Mother”. A title given in days of old, to all the chief goddesses of the nations, such as Diana of Ephesus, Isis, Mauth, and many others.
(MO) Magne {Nors} (mang-neh) [godly power: gravitation?] One of Thor’s sons in cosmic space
(TG) Magnes. An expression used by Paracelsus and the mediaeval Theosophists. It is the spirit of light, or Akasa. A word much used by the mediaeval Alchemists.
(TG) Magnetic Masonry. Also called “Iatric” masonry. It is described as a Brotherhood of Healers (from iatrike a Greek word meaning “the art of healing”), and is greatly used by the “Brothers of Light” as Kenneth Mackenzie states in the Royal Masonic Cyclopedia. There appears to be a tradition in some secret Masonic works — so says Ragon at any rate, the great Masonic authority — to the effect that there was a Masonic degree called the Oracle of Cos, “instituted in the eighteenth century B.C., from the fact that Cos was the birthplace of Hippocrates”. The iatrike was a distinct characteristic of the priests who took charge of the patients in the ancient AEsclepia, the temples where the god Asclepios (Aesculapius) was said to heal the sick and the lame.
(TG) Magnetism. A Force in nature and in man. When it is the former, it is an agent which gives rise to the various phenomena of attraction, of polarity, etc. When the latter, it becomes “animal” magnetism, in contradistinction to cosmic, and terrestrial magnetism.
(TG) Magnetism, Animal. While official science calls it a “supposed” agent, and utterly rejects its actuality, the teeming millions of antiquity and of the now living Asiatic nations, Occultists, Theosophists, Spiritualists, and Mystics of every kind and description proclaim it as a well established fact. Animal magnetism is a fluid, an emanation. Some people can emit it for curative purposes through their eyes and the tips of their fingers, while the rest of all creatures, mankind, animals and even every inanimate object, emanate it either as an aura, or a varying light, and that whether consciously or not. When acted upon by contact with a patient or by the will of a human operator, it is called “Mesmerism” .
(TG) Magnum Opus {Latin}. In Alchemy the final completion, the “Great Labour” or Grand Oeuvre; the production of the “Philosopher’s Stone” and “Elixir of Life” which, though not by far the myth some sceptics would have it, has yet to be accepted symbolically, and is full of mystic meaning.
(TG) Magus {Latin}. In the New Testament it means a Sage, a wise man of the Chaldeans; it is in English often used for a Magician, any wonder-worker; in the Rosicrucian Society it is the title of the highest members, the 9th grade; the Supreme Magus is the Head of the Order in the “Outer”; the Magi of the “Inner” are unknown except to those of the VIIIth grade. [W. W. W.]
(WG) Maha, {Sans} great.
(TG) Mahabharata {Sans}. Lit., “the great war”; the celebrated epic poem of India (probably the longest poem in the world) which includes both the Ramayana and the Bhagavad Gita “the Song Celestial”. No two Orientalists agree as to its date. But it is undeniably extremely ancient.
(FY) Maha-Bharata, the celebrated Indian epic poem.
(WG) Mahabharata, a great epic poem of India. The “Great war”. In it occur the two celebrated poems, the Bhagavad-Gita and the Ramayana . Probably the oldest poem extant.
(GH) Mahabharata literally ‘The great (war) of the Bharatas.’ The great epic poem of Hindusthan, consisting of about 215,000 lines of metrical prose, which are divided into 18 parvas (books or sections). The main theme of the work is the recounting of the history of the later scions of the Chandravansa (Lunar Dynasty) dealing especially with the exploits of the Kurus and the Pandavas, culminating in the great conflict which forms the major portion of the epic. Not only does it follow the achievements of its principal characters, for the ramifications of the narrative consider innumerable stories and allegories with a wealth of description and fancy unequalled in the realm of fiction; but every phase of the human emotions is dealt with, so that this epic has been the source of material for dramas and stories for succeeding generations. The mythological and religious aspect of the people of ancient times is set forth, as regards both the allegories of the deities and the priestly ceremonial observances; philosophical discourses abound (the Bhagavad-Gita being but a single instance); teachings in regard to Karman and Reincarnation are expounded as well as illustrated in story-form (see under Draupadi and Sikhandin); moral and ethical lessons are repeatedly inculcated, while the traditions and legends of the Bharatas are stressed at all times, featuring all the exploits of a war-like race. The tale of Rama (which forms the basis for the second great epic of India, the Ramayana) is told in full, as is also the story of Sakuntala (later dramatized by Kalidasa). Unquestionably the Mahabharata is a work intended for the populace, therefore it is written in a manner which would appeal to the people of that time, and deals principally with battles. Its compilation is attributed to Vyasa . “No two Orientalists agree as to its date. But it is undeniably extremely ancient.” ( Theosophical Glossary, H. P. Blavatsky, p. 201) “. . . from the first appearance of the Aryan race . . . down to the final disappearance of Plato’s small island of Atlantis, the Aryan races had never ceased to fight with the descendants of the first giant races. This war lasted till nearly the close of the age which preceded the Kali Yug, and was the Mahabharatean war so famous in Indian History.” ( Secret Doctrine, II, p. 395) ( Bhagavad-Gita , W. Q. Judge, p. i)
(SK)o Mahabharata, Bhagavad-Gita, Krishna, Arjuna, Ramayana , Rama The Mahabharata and the Ramayana are the two celebrated epic poems of India. The Mahabharata, the greater of the two, is the story of the maha or ‘great’ Bharatas, a family of old India. It is the longest poem known to the world — 220,000 lines. The Bhagavad-Gita or the ‘Divine-Song’ is a portion of the Mahabharata wherein Krishna, the Avatara, and Arjuna, his disciple, discuss lofty and spiritual philosophy. In this dialog Krishna represents the Divinity within each man, and Arjuna the learning human entity.
The Ramayana, the older of the two epics, narrates the adventures — ayana — of Rama, the Avatara. This epic of some forty eight thousand lines has been called the ‘Iliad of the East,’ because of its beautiful poetry and its high ideals.
(SP) Mahabharata — the great epic of ancient India, the great story of the descendants of Bharata. The other famous ancient Indian epic is the Ramayana, the Story of Rama.
(TG) Mahabharatian period. According to the best Hindu Commentators and Swami Dayanand Saraswati, 5,000 years B.C.
(TG) Mahabhashya {Sans}. The great commentary on Panini’s grammar by Patanjali.
(FY) Mahabhashya, a commentary on the Grammar of Panini by Patanjali.
(TG) Mahabhautic {Sans}. Belonging to the Macrocosmic principles.
(FY) Mahabhautic, belonging to the macrocosmic principles.
(TG) Mahabhutas {Sans}. Gross elementary principles of matter.
(FY) Mahabhutas, gross elementary principles.
(WG) Maha-bhutas, the five great elements, ether, air, fire, water and earth. ( maha, great; bhuta, element
(TG) Maha Buddhi {Sans}. Mahat. The Intelligent Soul of the World. The seven Prakritis or seven “natures” or planes, are counted from Mahabuddhi downwards.
(WG) Maha-buddhi, mahat. The great intelligence of the Universe; Cosmic Ideation.
(IN) Mahabuddhi {Sans} “Great buddhi,” cosmic intelligence or mind, source of human mind.
(TG) Maha Chohan {Sans}. The chief of a spiritual Hierarchy, or of a school of Occultism; the head of the trans-Himalayan mystics.
(WG) Maha Chohan, the “great Chohan”. The head of a spiritual Hierarchy. On this planet the head of the trans-Himalayan School of Adepts.
(TG) Maha Deva {Sans}. Lit., “great god”; a title of Siva.
(TG) Maha Guru {Sans}. Lit., “great teacher”. The Initiator.
(TG) Mahajwala {Sans}. A certain hell.
(TG) Maha Kala {Sans}. “Great Time”. A name of Siva as the “Destroyer”, and of Vishnu as the “Preserver”.
(TG) Maha Kalpa {Sans}. The “great age”.
(WG) Maha-kalpa, 100 years of Brahma, comprising 360 days and nights of Brahma, making 311,040,000,000,000 solar years. ( maha , great; kalpa, age
(TG) Maha Manvantara {Sans}. Lit., the great interludes between the “Manus”. The period of universal activity. Manvantara implying here simply a period of activity, as opposed to Pralaya, or rest — without reference to the length of the cycle.
(KT) Mahamanvantara {Sans} Lit., the great interludes between the Manus — the period of universal activity. Manvantara here implies simply a period of activity as opposed to Pralaya or rest — without reference to the length of the cycle.consciousness. In the Puranic philosophy, the first product of root-nature or Pradhana (the same as Mulaprakriti); the producer of Manas the thinking principle, and of Ahankara, Egotism or the feeling of “I am I” in the lower Manas.
(WG) Maha-manvantara, the great manvantara, or period of universal activity. Said to include 311,040,000,000,000 years, or a Maha-Kalpa .
(TG) Maha Maya {Sans}. The great illusion of manifestation. This universe, and all in it in their mutual relation, is called the great Illusion or Mahamaya. It is also the usual title given to Gautama the Buddha’s Immaculate Mother — Mayadevi, or the “Great Mystery”, as she is called by the Mystics.
(SKv) Maha-maya ‘The Great Illusion,’ ‘the Objective Universe , ‘which is a temporary vehicle of a great living god. (See Maya. )
(TG) Maha Parinibbana Sutta {Pali} . One of the most authoritative of the Buddhist sacred writings.
(FY) Mahaparinibbana Sutta {Pali}, one of the most authoritative of the Buddhist sacred writings.
(TG) Maha Pralaya {Sans}. The opposite of Mahamanvantara, literally “the great Dissolution”, the “Night” following the “Day of Brahma”. It is the great rest and sleep of all nature after a period of active manifestation; orthodox Christians would refer to it as the “Destruction of the World”.
(WG) Maha Pralaya, a great pralaya, or period of universal rest and dissolution. The “Night of Brahma”.
(TG) Maha Purusha {Sans}. Supreme or Great Spirit. A title of Vishnu.
(WG) Maha-purusha . the Supreme Spirit. ( maha, great; purusha , spirit
(TG) Maharaga {Sans}. Maha uraga, “great serpent” — Sesha or any others.
(TG) Maharajahs, The Four {Sans}. The four great Karmic deities with the Northern Buddhists placed at the four cardinal points to watch mankind.
(WG) Maharaja, “Great King”. The four Maharajas are the four Karmic deities said to be at the four cardinal points to watch mankind.
(TG) Maha Rajikas {Sans}. A gana or class of gods 236 in number. Certain Forces in esoteric teachings.
(TG) Mahar Loka {Sans}. A region wherein dwell the Munis or “Saints” during Pralaya; according to the Puranic accounts. It is the usual abode of Bhriga, a Prajapati (Progenitor) and a Rishi, one of the seven who are said to be co-existent with Brahma.
(GH) Maharshi literally ‘Great Sage’ (great Rishi): referring especially to the ten Maharshis who were the ‘mind-born sons’ of Prajapati (or Manu Svayambhuva) enumerated in The Laws of Manu (Manava-Dharma-Sastra) (I, p. 34) as: Marichi Atri Angiras, Pulastya, Pulaha, Kratu, Prachetas, Vasishtha, Bhrigu, Narada. They are also called the ten Prajapatis. Sometimes they are referred to as seven only — as in chapter x, sloka 6, rendered as “the seven great Sages,” Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 71. (See Rishi “Every nation has either the seven and ten Rishis-Manus and Prajapatis; . . . One and all have been derived from the primitive Dhyan-Chohans of the Esoteric doctrine, or the ‘Builders’ of the Stanzas (Book I). From Manu, Thoth-Hermes, Oannes-Dagon, and Edris-Enoch, down to Plato and Panodorus, all tell us of seven divine Dynasties, of seven Lemurian, and seven Atlantean divisions of the Earth; of the seven primitive and dual gods who descend from their celestial abode and reign on Earth, teaching mankind Astronomy, Architecture, and all the other sciences that have come down to us. These Beings appear first as ‘gods’ and Creators; then they merge in nascent man, to finally emerge as ‘divine-Kings and Rulers.”‘ ( Secret Doctrine, II, pp. 365-6) (Compound maha, great ; rishi, a Sage or Seer. Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 81)
(TG) Maha Sunyata {Sans}. Space, or eternal law; the great void or chaos.
(FY) Maha Sunyata, space or eternal law; great emptiness.
(SKf) Maha-sunya, Maha-sunyata Maha-sunya or Maha-sunyata means ‘the Great Void’ or Infinite Space to our physical senses, but a great and lofty ‘Fulness’ to the awakened divinity within each man or god; also equivalent to the Pleroma of the ancient Greeks.
(TG) Mahasura {Sans}. The great Asura; exoterically — Satan, esoterically — the great god.
(WG) Maha-sushupti, the great dreamless sleep of all, signifying pralaya or dissolution, for at the great pralaya everything goes into a state which for us can only be rendered as dreamless sleep.
(TG) Mahat {Sans}. Lit., “The great one”. The first principle of Universal Intelligence and Consciousness. In the Puranic philosophy the first product of root-nature or Pradhana (the same as Mulaprakriti); the producer of Manas the thinking principle, and of Ahankara, egotism or the feeling of “I am I” (in the lower Manas).
(KT) Mahat {Sans} Lit. “The Great One.” The first principle of Universal Intelligence and
(FY) Mahat, Buddhi; the first product of root-nature and producer of Ahankara (egotism), and manas (thinking principle).
(WG) Mahat, intellect in the universal sense; first manifested intellect.
(OG) Mahat — {Sans} This word means “great.” Mahat is a technical term in the Brahmanic system, and is the “father-mother” of manas; it is the “mother” of the manasaputras or sons of mind, or that element from which they spring, that element which they breathe and of which they are the children. In the Sankhya philosophy — one of the six darsanas or “visions,” i.e., systems of philosophical visioning of ancient India — mahat is a term that corresponds to kosmic buddhi, but more accurately perhaps to maha-buddhi.
(SKs) Mahat Literally ‘the Great.’ Mahat is ‘Divine Intelligence,’ ‘Cosmic Mind,’ the source of the mind or Manas in man. Theosophy teaches that Mahat is actually the aggregate of the divine and spiritual intelligences of our cosmos, in other words, the host of Dhyani-Chohans.
(IN) Mahat {Sans} The “great”; cosmic mind or intelligence; source of manas.
(SP) Mahat — universal intelligence, the macrocosmic equivalent to buddhi.
(TG) Mahatma. Lit., “great soul”. An adept of the highest order. Exalted beings who, having attained to the mastery over their lower principles are thus living unimpeded by the “man of flesh”, and are in possession of knowledge and power commensurate with the stage they have reached in their spiritual evolution. Called in Pali Rahats and Arhats.
(KT) Mahatma {Sans} Lit., “Great Soul.” An adept of the highest order. An exalted being, who having attained to the mastery over his lower principles, is therefore living unimpeded by the “man of flesh.” Mahatmas are in possession of knowledge and power commensurate with the stage they have reached in their spiritual evolution. Called in Pali Rahats and Arhats.
(FY) Mahatma, a great soul; an adept in occultism of the highest order.
(WG) Mahatma, great soul. As applied to beings it is held by some to mean a perfectly developed sage who has become one with universal spirit. ( maha, great; atma, spirit: mahatma, the Supreme Spirit, or maha-tattva; mahatma, great-souled, powerful
(OG) Mahatma — ( Mahatman, Sanskrit) “Great soul” or “great self” is the meaning of this compound word (maha, “great”; atman , “self”). The mahatmas are perfected men, relatively speaking, known in theosophical literature as teachers, elder brothers, masters, sages, seers, and by other names. They are indeed the “elder brothers” of mankind. They are men, not spirits — men who have evolved through self-devised efforts in individual evolution, always advancing forwards and upwards until they have now attained the lofty spiritual and intellectual human supremacy that now they hold. They were not so created by any extra-cosmic Deity, but they are men who have become what they are by means of inward spiritual striving, by spiritual and intellectual yearning, by aspiration to be greater and better, nobler and higher, just as every good man in his own way so aspires. They are farther advanced along the path of evolution than the majority of men are. They possess knowledge of nature’s secret processes, and of hid mysteries, which to the average man may seem to be little short of the marvelous — yet, after all, this mere fact is of relatively small importance in comparison with the far greater and more profoundly moving aspects of their nature and lifework. Especially are they called teachers because they are occupied in the noble duty of instructing mankind, in inspiring elevating thoughts, and in instilling impulses of forgetfulness of self into the hearts of men. Also are they sometimes called the guardians, because they are, in very truth, the guardians of the race and of the records — natural, racial, national — of past ages, portions of which they give out from time to time as fragments of a now long-forgotten wisdom, when the world is ready to listen to them; and they do this in order to advance the cause of truth and of genuine civilization founded on wisdom and brotherhood. Never — such is the teaching — since the human race first attained self-consciousness has this order or association or society or brotherhood of exalted men been without its representatives on our earth. It was the mahatmas who founded the modern Theosophical Society through their envoy or messenger, H. P. Blavatsky, in New York in 1875.
(GH) Mahatman literally ‘Great Soul’ or ‘Great Self’compound of maha, great; atman, Self. In India today the word (Anglicized as Mahatma) is applied as a title to a man of outstanding achievement, although in ancient times it referred to a man of outstanding spiritual attainment, as mentioned in the Bhagavad-Gita. In Theosophical literature the word is employed technically for those beings farther advanced evolutionally than ordinary men, who are also referred to as the Masters of Wisdom, or the Sages and Seers. ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 55)
(SK)o Mahatman A ‘Great Soul’ or ‘Great Self’; a compound of maha — great, and atman — self. The Mahatmans are adepts of the highest order and are the flowers of human evolution. They are known as Sages, Seers, and Masters of Wisdom.
(SP) Mahatman — literally “great-souled one,” master, Mahatma.
(TG) Mahatmya {Sans}. “Magnanimity”, a legend of a shrine, or any holy place.
(TG) Mahatowarat {Sans}. Used of Parabrahm; greater than the greatest spheres.
(TG) Mahattattwa {Sans}. The first of the seven creations called respectively in the Puranas — Mahattattwa, Chuta, Indriya, Mukhya, Tiryaksrotas, Urdhwasrotas and Arvaksrotas.
(TG) Mahavanso {Pali} . A Buddhist historical work written by Bhikshu Mohanama, the uncle of King Dhatusma. An authority on the history of Buddhism and its spread in the island of Ceylon.
(FY) Mahavanso, a Buddhist historical work written by the Bhikshu Mohanama, the uncle of King Dhatusma.
(TG) Maha Vidya {Sans}. The great esoteric science. The highest Initiates alone are in possession of this science, which embraces almost universal knowledge.
(TG) Mahayana {Sans} A school; lit., “the great vehicle”. A mystical system founded by Nagarjuna. Its books were written in the second century B.C.
(KT) Mahayana {Sans} A school of Buddhistic philosophy; lit. , the “Great Vehicle.” A mystical system founded by Nagarjuna. Its books were written in the second century B.C.
(WG) Maha-yana, “the great vehicle,” a system of Buddhism promulgated by Nagarjuna.
(SKv) Mahayana, Hinayana The Mahayana or ‘the Great Vehicle’ and the Hina-yana or ‘the Lower or Incomplete Vehicle’ are the names of two schools of Buddhist religion and philosophy. The Hinayana is the older of the two schools, and its sects are found in Ceylon, Burma, Siam, and Cambodia. The Mahayana School, though of a later date, embraces a more esoteric aspect of the original teachings of the Buddha than does the Hinayana. The Western representatives of the Mahayana are in Tibet and Mongolia, the eastern in China, Japan, Korea, and Hawaii. Though these two schools fundamentally teach the same truths, the Mahayana is more distinctly religious and intuitive, and the Hinayana more intellectual in type. The Hinayana could be said to teach the ‘Eye-Doctrine,’ and the Mahayana the ‘Heart Doctrine.’ The Pratyeka-Buddha doctrine, or the attainment of liberation for Self, in other words, Nirvana, is the goal of the Hinayana, whereas that of the Mahayana is the Buddha of Compassion, or Self-Renunciation for the salvation of mankind, the great Bodhisattva doctrine, which makes the highest call on the human heart: the Renunciation of well-earned Nirvana in order to serve and enlighten struggling hearts still left on earth.
(TG) Maha Yogin {Sans}. The “great ascetic”. A title of Siva.
(TG) Maha Yuga {Sans}. The aggregate of four Yugas or ages, of 4,320,000 solar years: a “Day of Brahma” in the Brahmanical system; lit., “the great age”.
(FY) Maha-Yug, the aggregate of four Yugas, or ages — 4,320,000 years — in the Brahmanical system.
(WG) Mahesvara, the great lord, the Supreme Spirit. ( maha , great; isvara, master
(GH) Mahesvara literally ‘Great Lord,’ a term applied to the ‘spirit.’ Also a title applied to Siva (the third member of the Hindu Trimurti). (Compound maha, great ; isvara, lord, master. Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 96)
(WG) Mahima, a power or siddhi by which one can expand the consciousness and perception so as to embrace the largest mass or the greatest space.
(WG) Mahimnastava, a hymn of praise.
(TG) Mahtmya {Sans}. “Magnanimity”, a legend of a shrine, or any holy place.
(GH) Madhusudana The name of many Sanskrit writers. Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 51)
(TG) Maitreya Buddha {Sans}. The same as the Kalki Avatar of Vishnu (the “White Horse” Avatar), and of Sosiosh and other Messiahs. The only difference lies in the dates of their appearances. Thus, while Vishnu is expected to appear on his white horse at the end of the present Kali Yuga age “for the final destruction of the wicked, the renovation of creation and the restoration of purity”, Maitreya is expected earlier. Exoteric or popular teaching making slight variations on the esoteric doctrine states that Sakyamuni (Gautama Buddha) visited him in Tushita (a celestial abode) and commissioned him to issue thence on earth as his Successor at the expiration of five thousand years after his (Buddha’s) death. This would be in less than 3,000 years hence. Esoteric philosophy teaches that the next Buddha will appear during the seventh (sub) race of this Round. The fact is that Maitreya was a follower of Buddha, a well-known Arhat, though not his direct disciple, and that he was the founder of an esoteric philosophical school. As shown by erected in his honour as early as B.C. 350.
(WG) Maitreya, the title of an Upanishad composed by Maitri, wife of Yajnavalkya; name of a Buddha yet to come.
(TG) Makara {Sans}. “The Crocodile.” In Europe the same as Capricorn the tenth sign of the Zodiac. Esoterically, a mystic class of devas. With the Hindus, the vehicle of Varuna, the water-god.
(WG) Makara, in the Hindu zodiac the tenth sign, Capricornus, said to have been the eighth sign under the old system; a fabulous sea-monster sometimes confounded with the crocodile.
(GH) Makara A sea-animal: the vehicle of Varuna (god of the ocean). It is variously described: as a fish, a shark, a dolphin, or a crocodile; however, in the legends it is depicted as having the head and forelegs of an antelope and the body and tail of a fish-very similar to Capricornus, and like it, allocated to the tenth sign of the Zodiac. Makara is “now the most sacred and mysterious of the signs of the Zodiac.” ( Secret Doctrine, II, p. 268) ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 75)
(TG) Makara Ketu {Sans}. A name of Kama, the Hindu god of love and desire.
(TG) Makaram or Panchakaram {Sans}. In occult symbology a pentagon, the five-pointed star, the five limbs, or extremities, of man. Very mystical.
(TG) Makaras {Sans}. The five M’s of the Tantrikas. (See “Tantra”).
(TG) Malachim {Hebr}. The messengers or angels.
(WG) Malimluch, a demon, an imp.
(TG) Malkuth {Hebr}. The Kingdom, the tenth Sephira, corresponding to the final H (he) of the Tetragrammaton or IHVH. It is the Inferior Another, the Bride of the Microprosopus ; also called the “Queen”. It is, in one sense, the Shekinah. [w.w.w.]
(WG) Malkuth, {Hebr}, the kingdom. The tenth of the ten Sephiroth. A female potency. The “Inferior Mother”; the earth.
(TG) Mamitu {Chald}. The goddess of Fate. A kind of Nemesis.
Manekam saranam vraja! Seek refuge in Me alone!
(OG) Man — Man is in his essence a spark of the central kosmic spiritual fire. Man being an inseparable part of the universe of which he is the child — the organism of graded consciousness and substance which the human constitution contains or rather is — is a copy of the graded organism of consciousnesses and substances of the universe in its various planes of being, inner and outer, especially inner as being by far the more important and larger, because causal.
Human beings are one class of “young gods” incarnated in bodies of flesh at the present stage of their own particular evolutionary journey. The human stage of evolution is about halfway between the undeveloped life-atom and the fully developed kosmic spirit or god.
From another point of view, man is a sheaf or bundle of forces or energies. Force and matter, or spirit and substance being fundamentally one, hence, man is de facto a sheaf or bundle of matters of various and differing grades of ethereality, or of substantiality; and so are all other entities and things everywhere.
Man’s nature, and the nature of the universe likewise, of which man is a reflection or microcosm or “little world,” is composite of seven stages or grades or degrees of ethereality or of substantiality; or, kosmically speaking, of three generally inclusive degrees: gods, monads, and atoms. And so far as man is concerned, we may take the New Testament division of the Christians, which gives the same triform conception of man, that he is composed of spirit, soul, body — remembering, however, that all these three words are generalizing terms.
Man stands at the midway point of the evolutionary ladder of life: below him are the hosts of beings less than he is; above him are other hosts greater than he is only because older in experience, riper in wisdom, stronger in spiritual and in intellectual fiber and power. And these beings are such as they are because of the evolutionary unfoldment of the inherent faculties and powers immanent in the individuality of the inner god — the ever-living, inner, individualized spirit.
Man, then, like everything else — entity or what is called “thing” — is, to use the modern terminology of philosophical scientists, an “event,” that is to say, the expression of a central consciousness-center or monad passing through one or another particular phase of its long, long pilgrimage over and through infinity, and through eternity. This, therefore, is the reason why the theosophist often speaks of the monadic consciousness-center as the pilgrim of eternity.
Man can be considered as a being composed of three essential upadhis or bases: first, the monadic or divine-spiritual; second, that which is supplied by the Lords of Light, the so-called manasa-dhyanis, meaning the intellectual and intuitive side of man, the element-principle that makes man Man ; and the third upadhi we may call the vital-astral-physical.
These three bases spring from three different lines of evolution, from three different and separate hierarchies of being. This is the reason why man is composite. He is not one sole and unmixed entity; he is a composite entity, a “thing” built up of various elements, and hence his principles are to a certain extent separable. Any one of these three bases can be temporarily separated from the two others without bringing about the death of the man physically. But the elements that go to form any one of these bases cannot be separated without bringing about physical dissolution or inner dissolution.
These three lines of evolution, these three aspects or qualities of man, come from three different hierarchies or states, often spoken of as three different planes of being. The lowest comes from the vital-astral-physical earth, ultimately from the moon, our cosmogonic mother. The middle, the manasic or intellectualintuitional, from the sun. The monadic from the monad of monads, the supreme flower or acme, or rather the supreme seed of the universal hierarchy which forms our kosmical universe or universal kosmos.
(VS) eternal man (II 7) [[p. 26]] The reincarnating EGO is called by the Northern Buddhists the “true man,” who becomes in union with his Higher-Self a Buddha.
(TG) Manas {Sans}. Lit., “the mind”, the mental faculty which makes of man an intelligent and moral being, and distinguishes him from the mere animal; a synonym of Mahat. Esoterically, however, it means, when unqualified, the Higher EGO, or the sentient reincarnating Principle in man. When qualified it is called by Theosophists Buddhi-Manas or the Spiritual Soul in contradistinction to its human reflection — Kama-Manas.\
(KT) Manas {Sans} Lit., the “Mind.” The mental faculty which makes of a man an intelligent and moral being, and distinguishes him from the mere animal; a synonym of Mahat. Esoterically, however, it means, when unqualified, the Higher Ego or the sentient reincarnating Principle in man. When qualified it is called by Theosophists Buddhi-Manas, or the spiritual soul, in contradistinction to its human reflection — Kama-Manas.
(VS) that which in thee knows, [[ manas ]] for it is knowledge (II 19) [[p. 31]] Mind ( Manas ) the thinking Principle or Ego in man, is referred to “Knowledge” itself, because the human Egos are called Manasa-putras the sons of (universal) Mind.
(FY) Manas, the mind, the thinking principle; the fifth principle in the septenary division.
(WG) Manas, mind, in the widest sense as applied to thought and emotion; the intellect, feelings, disposition; one of the seven human principles, the individual self or reincarnating ego, corresponding to the Greek Nous.
(OG) Manas — {Sans} The root of this word means “to think,” “to cogitate,” “to reflect” — mental activity, in short. The center of the ego-consciousness in man and in any other quasi-self-conscious entity. The third substance-principle, counting downwards, of which man’s constitution is composed.
Manas springs forth from buddhi (the second principle) as the fruit from the flower; but manas itself is mortal, goes to pieces at death — insofar as its lower parts are concerned. All of it that lives after death is only what is spiritual in it and that can be squeezed out of it, so to say — the “aroma” of the manas; somewhat as the chemist takes from the rose the attar or essence of roses. The monad or atma-buddhi thereupon takes that “all” with it into the devachan, after the second death has taken place. Atman, with buddhi and with the higher part of manas, becomes thereupon the spiritual monad of man. Strictly speaking, this is the divine monad within its vehicle — atman and buddhi — combined with the human ego in its higher manasic element; but they are joined into one after death, and are hence spoken of as the spiritual monad.
The three principles forming the upper triad exist each on its own plane in consciousness and power; and as human beings we continuously feel their influence despite the enshrouding veils of a psychical and astral-physical character. We know of each principle only what we have so far evolved forth of it. All we know, for instance, of the third principle (counting from the top), the manas, is what we have so far assimilated of it in this fourth round. The manas will not be fully developed in us until the end of the next round. What we now call our manas is a generalizing term for the reincarnating ego, the higher manas.
(GH) Manas The seat of mind and consciousness of egoity: the real man. In the Theosophical classification of man’s principles, the fifth (Counting upwards): regarded as the child of Mahat, hence called Manasaputra.
“Manas is a ‘principle,’ and yet it is an ‘Entity’ an individuality or Ego. He is a ‘God,’ and yet he is doomed to an endless cycle of incarnations, . . .
“. . . In its very essence it is THOUGHT, and is, therefore, called in its plurality Manasa putra, ‘the Sons of the (Universal) mind.’ ” (The Key to Theosophy, pp. 183-4)
“Manas, or the Thinker, is the reincarnating being, the immortal who carries the results and values of all the different lives lived on earth or elsewhere. Its nature becomes dual as soon as it is attached to a body.” The reasoning faculty “is the lower aspect of the Thinker or Manas, . . . Its other, and in theosophy higher, aspect is the intuitional, which knows, and does not depend on reason.” (The Ocean of Theosophy, p. 54) ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 53)
(SK)o Manas, Manasa, Manasic The Thinker or thinking principle in man; that which gives a man egoic consciousness; derived from the verb-root man, ‘to think.’ During life on earth Manas is dual. The Higher Manas is the heavenly aspiring mind, the field of the ever living Reincarnating Ego enlightened by the spiritual understanding of Buddhi; Lower Manas is the human thinking faculty guided by terrestrial and animal desires and passions. The Esoteric Commentaries in The Secret Doctrine by H. P. Blavatsky say that Manas is lunar in its lower portion and solar in its upper. Sankaracharya wrote: “The moon is the mind, and the sun the understanding.”
Manasa is the Sanskrit adjectival form of Manas; and Manasic is the anglicized adjectival form.
(IN) Manas {Sans} fr man, “to think”) Self-conscious mind, human intelligence.
(SP) Manas — mind as a faculty of perception and judgment.
(TG) Manas, Kama {Sans}. Lit., “the mind of desire.” With the Buddhists it is the sixth of the Chadayatana, or the six organs of knowledge, hence the highest of these, synthesized by the seventh called Klichta, the spiritual perception of that which defiles this (lower) Manas, or the “Human-animal Soul”, as the Occultists term it. While the Higher Manas or the Ego is directly related to Vijnana (the 10th of the 12 Nidanas) — which is the perfect knowledge of all forms of knowledge, whether relating to object or subject in the nidanic concatenation of causes and effects; the lower, the Kama Manas is but one of the Indriya or organs (roots) of Sense. Very little can be said of the dual Manas here, as the doctrine that treats of it, is correctly stated only in esoteric works. Its mention can thus be only very superficial.
(TG) Manas Sanyama {Sans}. Perfect concentration of the mind, and control over it, during Yoga practices.
(TG) Manas Taijasi {Sans}. Lit., the “radiant” Manas; a state of the Higher Ego, which only high metaphysicians are able to realize and comprehend.
(TG) Manasa or Manaswin {Sans}. “The efflux of the divine mind,” and explained as meaning that this efflux signifies the manasa or divine sons of Brahma-Viraj. Nilakantha who is the authority for this statement, further explains the term “manasa” by manomatrasarira. These Manasa are the Arupa or incorporeal sons of the Prajapati Viraj, in another version. But as Arjuna Misra identifies Viraj with Brahma, and as Brahma is Mahat, the universal mind, the exoteric blind becomes plain. The Pitris are identical with the Kumara, the Vairaja, the Manasa-Putra (mind sons), and are finally identified with the human “Egos”.
(IN) Manasa {Sans} Adjectival form of manas: manasa-dhyani , manasaputras, mind-born sons of Brahma.
(TG) Manasa Dhyanis {Sans}. The highest Pitris in the Puranas; the Agnishwatthas, or Solar Ancestors of Man, those who made of Man a rational being, by incarnating in the senseless forms of semi-ethereal flesh of the men of the third race. (See Vol. II. of Secret Doctrine. )
(WG) Manasa Dhyanis, the Agnishwatta Pitris: those who incarnated in man at the close of the Third Race and gave him mind, thereby making him a rational being.
(KT) Manasaputra {Sans} Lit., the “Sons of Mind” or mind-born Sons; a name given to our Higher Egos before they incarnated in mankind. In the exoteric though allegorical and symbolical Puranas (the sacred and ancient writings of Hindus), it is the title given to the mind-born Sons of Brahma, the Kumara .
(WG) Manasa-putras, mind-born sons. (See Augoeides
(OG) Manasaputra(s) — {Sans} This is a compound word: manas , “mind,” putra, “son” — “sons of mind.” The teaching is that there exists a Hierarchy of Compassion, which H. P. Blavatsky sometimes called the Hierarchy of Mercy or of Pity. This is the light side of nature as contrasted with its matter side or shadow side, its night side. It is from this Hierarchy of Compassion that came those semi-divine entities at about the middle period of the third root-race of this round, who incarnated in the semi-conscious, quasi-senseless men of that period. These advanced entities are otherwise known as the solar lhas as the Tibetans call them, the solar spirits, who were the men of a former kalpa, and who during the third root-race thus sacrificed themselves in order to give us intellectual light — incarnating in those senseless psychophysical shells in order to awaken the divine flame of egoity and self -consciousness in the sleeping egos which we then were. They are ourselves because belonging to the same spiritray that we do; yet we, more strictly speaking, were those halfunconscious, half-awakened egos whom they touched with the divine fire of their own being. This, our “awakening,” was called by H. P. Blavatsky, the incarnation of the manasaputras, or the sons of mind or light. Had that incarnation not taken place, we indeed should have continued our evolution by merely “natural” causes, but it would have been slow almost beyond comprehension, almost interminable; but that act of self-sacrifice, through their immense pity, their immense love, though, indeed, acting under karmic impulse, awakened the divine fire in our own selves, gave us light and comprehension and understanding. From that time we ourselves became “sons of the gods,” the faculty of self-consciousness in us was awakened, our eyes were opened, responsibility became ours; and our feet were set then definitely upon the path, that inner path, quiet, wonderful, leading us inwards back to our spiritual home.
The manasaputras are our higher natures and, paradoxical as it is, are more largely evolved beings than we are. They were the spiritual entities who “quickened” our personal egos, which were thus evolved into self-consciousness, relatively small though that yet be. One, and yet many! As you can light an infinite number of candles from one lighted candle, so from a spark of consciousness can you quicken and enliven innumerable other consciousnesses, lying, so to speak, in sleep or latent in the life-atoms.
These manasaputras, children of mahat, are said to have quickened and enlightened in us the manas-manas of our manas septenary, because they themselves are typically manasic in their essential characteristic or svabhava. Their own essential or manasic vibrations, so to say, could cause that essence of manas in ourselves to vibrate in sympathy, much as the sounding of a musical note will cause sympathetic response in something like it, a similar note in other things. ( See also Agnishvattas)
(SP) Manasaputra — mental (or mind-born) son.
(SKv) Manasa-rupa The ‘mind-body,’ the individuality, that higher part of the human thinking entity which endures from life to life; a compound of the adjectival form of manas — mind, and rupa — body.
(TG) Manasas {Sans}. Those who endowed humanity with manas or intelligence, the immortal EGOS in men. (See “Manas”
(TG) Manasasarovara {Sans}. Phonetically pronounced Mansoravara. A sacred lake in Tibet, in the Himalayas, also called Anavatapta. Manasasarovara is the name of the tutelary deity of that lake and, according to popular folk-lore, is said to be a naga, a “serpent”. This, translated esoterically, means a great adept, a sage. The lake is a great place of yearly pilgrimage for the Hindus, as the Vedas are claimed to have been written on its shores.
(FY) Manas Sanyama, perfect concentration of the mind; control over the mind.
(KT) Manas Sutratma {Sans} Two words meaning “mind” (Manas) and “Thread Soul” (Sutratma). It is, as said, the synonym of our Ego, or that which reincarnates. It is a technical term of Vedantic philosophy.
(KT) Manas Taijasi ( Sans. ) Lit., the “radiant” Manas; a state of the Higher Ego which only high metaphysicians are able to realize and comprehend. The same as “Buddhi Taijasi,” which see.
(WG) Manas Taijasi, “Manas radiant”; Manas illumined by the light of Buddhi ; the Ego in conjunction with spirit.
(TG) Manava {Sans}. A land of ancient India; a Kalpa or Cycle. The name of a weapon used by Rama; meaning “of Manu”, as —
(WG) Manava, (f. Manavi), human; descended from Manti.
(TG) Manava Dharma Shastra — is the ancient code of law of, or by Manu.
(TG) Mandakini {Sans}. The heavenly Ganga or Ganges.
(TG) Mandala {Sans}. A circle; also the ten divisions of the Vedas.
(TG) Mandara {Sans}. The mountain used by the gods as a stick to churn the ocean of milk in the Puranas.
(TG) Mandragora {Greek}. A plant whose root has the human form. In Occultism it is used by black magicians for various illicit objects, and some of the “left-hand” Occultists make homunculi with it. It is commonly called mandrake, and is supposed to cry out when pulled out of the ground.
(IN) Mandukya {Sans} An Upanishad dealing with the sacred syllable Om.
(TG) Manes or Manus {Latin}. Benevolent “gods”, i.e ., “spooks” of the lower world (Kamaloka); the deified shades of the dead — of the ancient profane, and the “materialized” ghosts of the modern Spiritualists, believed to be the souls of the departed, whereas, in truth, they are only their empty shells, or images.
(TG) Manichaeans {Latin}. A sect of the third century which believed in two eternal principles of good and evil; the former furnishing mankind with souls, and the latter with bodies. This sect was founded by a certain half-Christian mystic named Mani, who gave himself out as the expected “Comforter”, the Messiah and Christ. Many centuries later, after the sect was dead, a Brotherhood arose, calling itself the “Manichees”, of a masonic character with several degrees of initiation. Their ideas were Kabalistic, but were misunderstood.
(OG) Manifestation — A generalizing term signifying not only the beginning but the continuance of organized kosmic activity, the latter including the various minor activities within itself. First there is of course always the Boundless in all its infinite planes and worlds or spheres, aggregatively symbolized by the circle; then parabrahman, or the kosmic life-consciousness activity, and mulaprakriti its other pole, signifying root-nature especially in its substantial aspects. Then the next stage lower, Brahman and its veil pradhana; then Brahma-prakriti or Purusha-prakriti (prakriti being also maya); the manifested universe appearing through and by this last, Brahma-prakriti, “father-mother.” In other words, the second Logos or father-mother is the producing cause of manifestation through their son which, in a planetary chain, is the primordial or the originating manu, called Svayambhuva.
When manifestation opens, prakriti becomes or rather is maya; and Brahma, the father, is the spirit of the consciousness, or the individuality. These two, Brahma and prakriti, are really one, yet they are also the two aspects of the one life-ray acting and reacting upon itself, much as a man himself can say, “I am I .” He has the faculty of self-analysis or self-division. All of us know it, we can feel it in ourselves — one side of us, in our thoughts, can be called the prakriti or the material element, or the mayavi element, or the element of illusion; and the other is the spirit, the individuality, the god within.
The student should note carefully that manifestation is but a generalizing term, comprehensive therefore of a vast number of different and differing kinds of evolving planes or realms. For instance, there is manifestation on the divine plane; there is manifestation also on the spiritual plane; and similarly so on all the descending stages of the ladder or stair of life. There are universes whose “physical” plane is utterly invisible to us, so high is it; and there are other universes in the contrary direction, so far beneath our present physical plane that their ethereal ranges of manifestation are likewise invisible to us.
(GH) Manipushpaka The name of the conch-shell of Sahadeva. (Meaning of the word itself: jewel-flowered. Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 4)
(TG) Manjusri {Tibe}. The God of Wisdom. In Esoteric philosophy a certain Dhyan Chohan.
(TG) Mano {Gnos}. The Lord of Light. Rex Lucis, in the Codex Nazaraeus. He is the Second “Life” of the second or manifested trinity “the heavenly life and light, and older than the architect of heaven and earth” ( Cod. Nazaraeus Vol, I, p. 145). These trinities areas follows. The Supreme Lord of splendour and of light, luminous and refulgent, before which no other existed, is called Corona (the crown); Lord Ferho, the unrevealed life which existed in the former from eternity; and Lord Jordan — the spirit, the living water of grace ( Ibid. II ., pp. 45-51). He is the one through whom alone we can be saved. These three constitute the trinity in abscondito. The second trinity is composed of the three lives. The first is the similitude of Lord Ferho, through whom he has proceeded forth; and the second Ferho is the King of Light — MANO. The second life is Ish Amon (Pleroma), the vase of election, containing the visible thought of the Jordanus Maximus — the type (or its intelligible reflection), the prototype of the living water, who is the “spiritual Jordan”. ( Ibid. II., p. 211 The third life, which is produced by the other two, is ABATUR ( Ab, the Parent or Father). This is the mysterious and decrepit “Aged of the Aged”, the Ancient ” Senem sui obtegentem et grandaevum mundi. ” This latter third Life is the Father of the Demiurge Fetahil, the Creator of the world, whom the Ophites call Ilda-Baoth, though Fetahil is the only-begotten one, the reflection of the Father, Abatur, who begets him by looking into the “dark water”. Sophia Achamoth also begets her Son Ilda-Baoth the Demiurge, by looking into the chaos of matter. But the Lord Mano, “the Lord of loftiness, the Lord of all genii”, is higher than the Father, in’ this kabalistic Codex — one is purely spiritual, the other material. So, for instance, while Abatur’s “only-begotten” one is the genius Fetahil, the Creator of the physical world, Lord Mano, the “Lord of Celsitude”, who is the son of Him, who is “the Father of all who preach the Gospel”, produces also an “only-begotten” one, the Lord Lehdaio, “a just Lord”. He is the Christos, the anointed, who pours out the “grace” of the Invisible Jordan, the Spirit of the Highest Crown. (See for further information Isis Unveiled. Vol . II., pp. 227, et. seq. )
(TG) Manodhatu {Sans}. Lit., the “World of the mind”, meaning not only all our mental faculties, but also one of the divisions of the plane of mind. Each human being has his Manodhatu or plane of thought proportionate with the degree of his intellect and his mental faculties, beyond which he can go only by studying and developing his higher spiritual faculties in one of the higher spheres of thought.
(TG) Manomaya Kosha {Sans}. A Vedantic term, meaning the Sheath (Kosha) of the Manomaya, an equivalent for fourth and fifth “principles” in man. In esoteric philosophy this “Kosha” corresponds to the dual Manas.
(FY) Manomaya Kosha, third sheath of the divine monad, Vedantic equivalent for fourth and fifth principles.
(TG) Manticism, or Mantic Frenzy. During this state was developed the gift of prophecy. The two words are nearly synonymous. One was as honoured as the other. Pythagoras and Plato held it in high esteem, and Socrates advised his disciples to study Manticism. The Church Fathers, who condemned so severely the mantic frenzy in Pagan priests and Pythiae, were not above applying it to their own uses. The Montanists, who took their name from Montanus, a bishop of Phrygia, who was considered divinely inspired, contended with the manteis (manteis) or prophets. “Tertullian, Augustine, and the martyrs of Carthage, were of the number”, says the author of Prophecy, Ancient and Modern. “The Montanists seem to have resembled the Bacchantes in the wild enthusiasm that characterized their orgies,” he adds. There is a diversity of opinion as to the origin of the word Manticism. There was the famous Mantis the Seer, in the days of Melampus and Proetus, King of Argos; and there was Manto, the daughter of the prophet of Thebes, herself a prophetess. Cicero describes prophecy and mantic frenzy, by saying, that “in the inner recesses of the mind is divine prophecy hidden and confined, a divine impulse, which when it burns more vividly is called furor”, frenzy. (Isis Unveiled
(IU) Manticism, or mantic frenzy. During this state was developed the gift of prophecy. The two words are nearly synonymous. One was as honored the other Pythagoras and Plato held it in high esteem. and Socrates advised his disciples to study Manticism. The Church Fathers, who condemned so severely the mantic frenzy in Pagan priests and Pythiae, were not above applying it to their own uses. The Montanists, who took their name from Montanus, a bishop of Phrygia, who was considered divinely inspired, rivalled with the GREEK (manteis) or prophets. “Tertullian, Augustine, and the martyrs of Carthage, were of the number,” says the author of Prophecy, Ancient and Modern . “The Montanists seem to have resembled the Bacchantes in the wild enthusiasm that characterized their orgies,” he adds. There is a diversity of opinion as to the origin of the word Manticism. There was the famous Mantius the Seer, in the days of Melampus and Proetus, King of Argos; and there was Manto, the daughter of the prophet of Thebes, herself a prophetess. Cicero describes prophecy and mantic frenzy by saying that “in the inner recesses of the mind is divine prophecy hidden and confined, a divine impulse, which when it burns more vividly is called furor” (frenzy, madness).
But there is still another etymology possible for the word mantis, and to which we doubt if the attention of the philologists was ever drawn. The mantic frenzy may, perchance, have a still earlier origin. The two sacrificial cups of the Soma-mystery used during the religious rites, and generally known as grahas, are respectively called Sukra and Manti . [See “Aytareya Brahmanan.” 3, I.]
It is in the latter manti or manthi cup that Brahma is said to be “stirred up.” While the initiate drinks (albeit sparingly) of this sacred soma-juice, the Brahma, or rather his “spirit,” personified by the god Soma, enters into the man and takes possession of him. Hence, ecstatic vision, clairvoyance, and the gift of prophecy. Both kinds of divination — the natural and the artificial — are aroused by the Soma. The Sukra-cup awakens that which is given to every man by nature. It unites both spirit and soul, and these, from their own nature and essence, which are divine, have a foreknowledge of future things, as dreams, unexpected visions, and presentiments, well prove. The contents of the other cup, the manti, which “stirs the Brahma,” put thereby the soul in communication not only with the minor gods — the well-informed but not omniscient spirits — but actually with the highest divine essence itself. The soul receives a direct illumination from the presence of its “god;” but as it is not allowed to remember certain things, well known only in heaven, the initiated person is generally seized with a kind of sacred frenzy, and upon recovering from it, only remembers that which is allowed to him. As to the other kind of seers and diviners — those who make a profession of and a living by it — they are usually held to be possessed by a gandharva, a deity which is nowhere so little honored as in India.
(TG) Mantras {Sans}. Verses from the Vedic works, used as incantations and charms. By Mantras are meant all those portions of the Vedas which are distinct from the Brahmanas, or their interpretation.
(IU) Mantra. — A Sanskrit word conveying the same idea as the “Ineffable Name.” Some mantras, when pronounced according to magical formula taught in the Atharva-Veda, produce an instantaneous and wonderful effect. In its general sense, though, a mantra is either simply a prayer to the gods and powers of heaven, as taught by the Brahmanical books, and especially Manu, or else a magical charm. In its esoteric sense, the “word” of the mantra, or mystic speech, is called by the Brahmans Vach. It resides in the mantra, which literally means those parts of the sacred books which are considered as the Sruti, or direct divine revelation.
(KT) Mantras {Sans} Verses from the Vedic works, used as incantations and charms. By Mantras are meant all those portions of the Vedas which are distinct from the Brahmanas, or their interpretation.
(WG) Mantra, (also Mantram), incantation; spell; charm; sacred text; essential virtue, in sound or otherwise, of verse or word.
(SP) Mantra — an utterance considered to have not only meaning but power as sound — in ritual or as a focus for meditation.
(TG) Mantra period {Sans}. One of the four periods into which Vedic literature has been divided.
(FY) Mantra period, one of the four periods into which the Vedic literature has been divided.
(TG) Mantra Shatstra {Sans}. Brahmanical writings on the occult science, of incantations.
(FY) Mantra Sastras, Brahmanical writings on the occult science of incantations.
(TG) Mantra Tantra Shastras {Sans}. Works on incantations, but specially on magic.
(FY) Mantra Tantra Sastras, works on Incantation and Magic.
(TG) Mantrika Sakti {Sans}. The power, or the occult potency of mystic words, sounds, numbers or letters in these Mantras.
(FY) Matrikasakti, the power of speech; one of the six forces in Nature.
(WG) Matrika-sakti, the power of sound.
(WG) Mantrika Sakti, this is improperly put matrikas .
(TG) Manu {Sans}. The great Indian legislator. The name comes from the Sanskrit root wan “to think” — mankind really, but stands for Swayambhuva, the first of the Manus, who started from Swayambhu, “the self-existent ” hence the Logos, and the progenitor of mankind. Manu is the first Legislator, almost a Divine Being.
(TG) Manus {Sans}. The fourteen Manus are the patrons or guardians of the race cycles in a Manvantara, or Day of Brahma. The primeval Manus are seven, they become fourteen in the Puranas.
(KT) Manu {Sans} The great Indian legislator. The name comes from the Sanskrit root man to think, MAN really standing only for Swayambhuva, the first of the Manus, who started from Swayambhu, the Self-Existent, who is hence the Logos and the progenitor of mankind. Manu is the first legislator — almost a divine being.
(FY) Manu, the great Indian legislator.
(WG) Manu, mankind; a name applied to each of fourteen spiritual sovereigns of humanity, the first being Svayambhuva (sprung from the Self-Existent), and the seventh or present Manu being Vaivasvata (sun-born). They are personifications of collective humanity. The Hindu “Laws of Manu” are ascribed to Svayambhuva.
(OG) Manu — Manu in the esoteric system is the entities collectively which appear first at the beginning of manifestation, and from which, like a cosmic tree, everything is derived or born. Manu actually is the spiritual tree of life of any planetary chain of manifested being. Manu is thus in one sense the third Logos; as the second is the father-mother, the Brahma and prakriti; and the first is what we call the unmanifest Logos, or Brahman (neuter) and its cosmic veil pradhana.
(IN) other words, the second Logos, father-mother, is the producing cause of manifestation through their son, which in a planetary chain is Manu, the first of the manus being called in the archaic Hindu system Svayambhuva.
During a Day of Brahma or period of seven rounds, fourteen subordinate or inferior manus appear as patrons and guardians of the race cycles or life-waves ( See also H. P. Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine, passim ; also Manvantara).
Manu is likewise the name of a great ancient Indian legislator, the alleged author of the Laws of Manu ( Manava-dharma-sastra ).
(GH) Manu In the The Laws of Manu (Manava-Dharma-Sastra) it is stated that Manu was created by Viraj: he then produced the ten Prajapatis, who in turn produced seven other Manus; each of these Manus again produced seven Manus. Fourteen Manus, however, are allocated to the seven globes of a planetary chain, two to each: one appears at the commencement of a Round (called the Root-Manu) and one at the conclusion (the Seed-Manu), the interval between the two Manus being termed a Manvantara. The Manu in charge of our present Fourth Round is named Vaivasvata-Manu . The four Manus (mentioned on p. 71, Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge) refer to the Manus of the four Rounds, the fourth Round being now in progress. ( See Maharshi and Rishi
Esoterically Manu stands for the entities collectively which appear first at the beginning of manifestation: it is the spiritual ‘Tree of Life’ of any planetary chain of manifested being. “Manu declares himself created by Viraj, or Vaiswanara, (the Spirit of Humanity), which means that his Monad emanates from the never resting Principle in the beginning of every new Cosmic activity:” ( Secret Doctrine, II, p. 311).
“Notwithstanding the terrible, and evidently purposed, confusion of Manus, Rishis, and their progeny in the Puranas, one thing is made clear: there have been and there will be seven Rishis in every Root-Race (Called also Manvantara in the sacred books) as there are fourteen Manus in every Round, the ‘presiding gods, the Rishis and Sons of the Manus’ being identical. . . . ‘Six’ Manvantaras are given, the Seventh being our own in the Vishnu Purana.” ( Secret Doctrine, II, p. 614) ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 30)
(SK)o Manu Manu represents that aggregate of entities or class of Dhyani-Chohans which first appear at the dawn of manifestation and which contain the potentiality of all thinking forms in their many emanations. They are the seeds of former Manvantaras, from which spring, mystically speaking, all the beings of this planetary period. Manu may be compared to the white light which gives birth to the vibrations of all the various colors when it is passed through a prism, the prism being the spheres of evolution. Manu is derived from the verb-root man — to think.
(IN) Manu {Sans} Progenitor of mankind; collectively, the pitris or entities who begin and end a planetary life cycle.
(SP) Manu — one of the beings who open or close a manvantara ; also the author of the Manava-dharma-sastra (the “Law Book of Manu”).
(TG) Manushi or Manushi Buddhas {Sans}. Human Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, or incarnated Dhyan Chohans.
(IN) Manushya {Sans} “Human,” especially a human buddha who guides and inspires a root-race or life-wave.
(TG) Manu Swayambhuva (Sk). The heavenly man. Adam-Kadmon, the synthesis of the fourteen Manus.
(TG) Manvantara {Sans}. A period of manifestation, as opposed to Pralaya (dissolution, or rest), applied to various cycles, especially to a Day of Brahma, 4,320,000,000 Solar years — and to the reign of one Manu — 308,448,000. (See Vol. II. of the Secret Doctrine, p. 68 et. seq. ) Lit., Manuantara — between Manus.
(KT) Manvantara {Sans} A period of manifestation, as opposed to Pralaya (dissolution or rest); the term is applied to various cycles, especially to a Day of Brahma — 4,320,000,000 Solar years — and to the reign of one Manu — 308,448,000. Lit., Manuantara — “between Manus.” (See Secret Doctrine, Vol. 11, p. 68, et seq
(FY) Manvantara, the outbreathing of the creative principle; the period of cosmic activity between two pralayas.
(WG) Manvantara, the period of creative, formative and re-constructive activity on the objective planes of the universe, intervening between two pralayas; a period of evolution; the life of a Manu.
(OG) Manvantara — {Sans} This word is a compound, and means nothing more than “between two manus”; more literally, “manu-within or -between.” A manu, as said, is the entities collectively which appear first at the beginning of manifestation; the spiritual tree of life of any planetary chain of manifested being. The second verbal element of “manvantara,” or antara, is a prepositional suffix signifying “within” or “between”; hence the compound paraphrased means “within a manu,” or “between manus.” A manvantara is the period of activity between any two manus, on any plane, since in any such period there is a root-manu at the beginning of evolution, and a seed-manu at its close, preceding a pralaya.
There are many kinds of manvantaras: prakritika manvantara — universal manvantara; saurya manvantara — the manvantara of the solar system; bhaumika manvantara — the terrestrial manvantara, or manvantara of earth; paurusha manvantara — the manvantara, or period of activity, of man.
A round-manvantara is the time required for one round: that is, the cycle from globe A to the last globe of the seven, and starting from the root-manu or collective “humanity” of globe A and ending with the seed-manu or collective “humanity” of Globe G.
A planetary manvantara — also called a maha-manvantara or a kalpa — is the period of the lifetime of a planet during its seven rounds. It is also called a Day of Brahma, and its length is 4,320,000,000 years.
(SK)o Manvantara, Maha – Manvantara A period of life and activity between ( antara ) the Root-Manu, who initiates the evolution of all thinking forms at the dawn of manifestation, and the Seed-Manu who remains at the close of manifestation. There are as many kinds of Manvantaras as there are living things. The life-cycle of a planet is called a Maha-Manvantara or Great Manvantara, whereas the life-cycle of one Globe of a Planetary Chain is called a Minor Manvantara.
(IN) Manvantara {Sans} “Between manus,” a period of manifested life which alternates with rest periods (pralayas).
(SP) Manvantara — literally “interval between manus ,” a cycle of cosmic manifestation.
(TG) Maquom {Chald}. “A secret place” in the phraseology of the Zohar, a concealed spot, whether referring to a sacred shrine in a temple, to the “Womb of the World”, or the human womb. A Kabalistic term.
(TG) Mara {Sans}. The god of Temptation, the Seducer who tried to turn away Buddha from his PATH. He is called the “Destroyer” and “Death” (of the Soul). One of the names of Kama, God of love.
(VS) Great Ensnarer, ( Mara ) (I 22) [[p. 8]] Mara is in exoteric religions a demon, an Asura, but in esoteric philosophy it is personified temptation through men’s vices, and translated literally means “that which kills” the Soul. It is represented as a King (of the Maras) with a crown in which shines a jewel of such lustre that it blinds those who look at it, this lustre referring of course to the fascination exercised by vice upon certain natures.
(WG) Mara, death; the world of death, i . e ., this world; with Buddhists, the Destroyer, Evil One.
(SKv) Mara, Maha-mara Mara is ‘the Destroyer,’ ‘the Evil One,’ ‘that which kills the Soul’; derived from the causative form of the verb-root mri — to die; hence, ‘that which causes to die,’ or ‘that which kills.’ Mara is the personification of the temptations that come to a man as a result of his own weaknesses, and of his own past evil deeds and thoughts. It is the yielding to these lower temptations life after life which brings about the killing of the soul or Mara’s triumph. The ‘Hosts of Mara’ that beset us on the path are our own creations returning to us in their cyclic rhythm. They are like the furies of ancient Greece, who could be changed into the Eumenides by the firm aspirations and conquests of the neophyte. Legend mystically relates that the Buddha as he sat under the Bodhi tree or Wisdom-tree was attacked by the hosts of Mira who endeavored to turn him from his great purpose; but by his soul-purity and compassion these evil ones were turned into five-colored Lotus flowers.
Mahamara is ‘the Great Deluder.’ The Voice of the Silence says: It is represented as a King (of the Maras) with a crown in which shines a jewel of such luster that it blinds those who look at it, this luster referring of course to the fascination exercised by vice upon certain natures. — Frag. I
(TG) Marabut. A Mahometan pilgrim who has been to Mekka, a saint. After his death his body is placed in an open sepulchre built above ground, like other buildings, but in the middle of the streets and public places of populated cities. Placed inside the small and only room of the tomb (and several such public sarcophagi of brick and mortar may be seen to this day in the streets and squares of Cairo), the devotion of the wayfarers keeps a lamp ever burning at his head. The tombs of some of these marabuts are very famous for the miracles they are alleged to perform.
(IU) Marabut.- A Mahometan pilgrim who has been to Mekka; a saint, after whose death his body is placed in an open sepulchre built on the surface, like other buildings, but in the middle of the streets and public places of populated cities. Placed inside the small and only room of the tomb (and several such public sarcophagi of brick and mortar may be seen to this day in the streets and squares of Cairo), the devotion of the wayfarers keeps a lamp ever burning at his head. The tombs of some of these marabuts have a great fame for the miracles they are alleged to perform.
(VS) Maras, King at Tsi, the portal of assembling (I 44) [[p. 21]] At the portal of the “assembling” the King of the Maras the Maha Mara stands trying to blind the candidate by the radiance of his “Jewel.”
(TG) Marcionites. An ancient Gnostic Sect founded by Marcion who was a devout Christian as long as no dogma of human creation came to mar the purely transcendental, and metaphysical concepts, and the original beliefs of the early Christians. Such primitive beliefs were those of Marcion. He denied the historical facts (as now found in the Gospels) of Christ’s birth, incarnation and passion, and also the resurrection of the body of Jesus, maintaining that such statements were simply the carnalization of metaphysical allegories and symbolism, and a degradation of the true spiritual idea. Along with all the other Gnostics, Marcion accused the “Church Fathers”, as Irenaeus himself complains, of “framing their (Christian) doctrine according to the capacity of their hearers, fabling blind things for the blind, according to their blindness; for the dull, according to their dulness: for those in error, according to their errors.”
(TG) Marga {Sans}. The “Path”, The Ashthanga marga, the “holy” or sacred path is the one that leads to Nirvana. The eight-fold path has grown out of the seven-fold path, by the addition of the (now) first of the eight Marga; i.e., “the possession of orthodox views”; with which a real Yogacharya would have nothing to do.
(VS) Marga [[p. 68]] Marga “Path.”
(SKv) Marga In Buddhism Marga is ‘the Path Upward,’ the Path to Liberation, Wisdom, and Peace; derived from the verb-root marg — to seek, to strive, to attain.
(GH) Margasirsha The name of the month in which the full moon enters Mrigasiras (generally applied to Capricornus in the signs of the Zodiac): the tenth or in later times the first month in the year. ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 76)
(TG) Marichi {Sans}. One of the “mind-born” sons of Brahma, in the Puranas. Brahmans make of him the personified light, the parent of Surya, the Sun and the direct ancestor of Mahakasyapa. The Northern Buddhists of the Yogacharya School, see in Marichi Deva, a Bodhisattva, while Chinese Buddhists (especially the Tauists), have made of this conception the Queen of Heaven, the goddess of light, ruler of the sun and moon. With the pious but illiterate Buddhists, her magic formula “Om Marichi svaha” is very powerful. Speaking of Marichi, Eitel mentions “Georgi, who explains the name as a ‘Chinese transcription of the name of the holy Virgin Mary'” (!!). As Marichi is the chief of the Maruts and one of the seven primitive Rishis, the supposed derivation does seem a little far fetched.
(GH) Marichi One of the ten Prajapatis (progenitors) or mind-born sons of Brahma, from whom mankind is descended (according to The Laws of Manu (Manava-Dharma-Sastra). He is also regarded as one of the seven great Rishis, in the Mahabharata. He is the father of the Rishi Kasyapa — the Vedic sage, the most prolific of creators, who produced the Nagas . Marichi is also represented as the chief of the Maruts . In The Laws of Manu (Manava-Dharma-Sastra) the Pitris of the Gods are reborn as the sons of Marichi and his wife Sambhuti. These pitris are the Agnishvatta Pitris, while those called in The Laws of Manu (Manava-Dharma-Sastra) the ‘Pitris of the Demons,’ who are reborn as the sons of Atri are the Barhishad Pitris. ( Secret Doctrine, II, p. 89) ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 73)
(TG) Marisha {Sans}. The daughter of the Sage Kanda and Pramlocha, the Apsara-demon from Indra’s heaven. She was the mother of Daksha. An allegory referring to the Mystery of the Second and Third human Races.
(TG) Martinists. A Society in France, founded by a great mystic called the Marquis de St. Martin, a disciple of Martinez Pasqualis. It was first established at Lyons as a kind of occult Masonic Society, its members believing in the possibility of communicating with Planetary Spirits and minor Gods and genii of the ultramundane Spheres. Louis Claude de St. Martin, born in 1743, had commenced life as a brilliant officer in the army, but left it to devote himself to study and the belles lettres, ending his career by becoming an ardent Theosophist and a disciple of Jacob Boehmen. He tried to bring back Masonry to its primeval character of Occultism and Theurgy, but failed. He first made his “Rectified Rite” to consist of ten degrees, but these were brought down owing to the study of the original Masonic orders — to seven. Masons complain that he introduced certain ideas and adopted rites “at variance with the archaeological history of Masonry”; but so did Cagliostro and St Germain before him, as all those who knew well the origin of Freemasonry.
(TG) Marttanda {Sans}. The Vedic name of the Sun.
(WG) Marttanda, our sun; the sun-god; an aditya.
(WG) Martya-loka, the world of mortals, this world. ( martya , mortal; loka, world
(TG) Maruts {Sans}. With the Orientalists Storm-Gods, but in the Veda something very mystical. In the esoteric teachings as they incarnate in every round, they are simply identical with some of the Agnishwatta Pitris, the Human intelligent Egos. Hence the allegory of Siva transforming the lumps of flesh into boys, and calling them Maruts, to show senseless men transformed by becoming the Vehicles of the Pitris or Fire Maruts, and thus rational beings.
(FY) Maruts, the wind gods.
(WG) Maruts, the storm-gods; Indra’s companions.
(GH) Maruts The storm gods, helpers of Indra: armed with lightning and thunderbolts, they ride on the whirlwind and direct storms. They are prominent in the Vedas, being called the sons of Rudra (the storm god), or again sons and brothers of Indra (god of the sky). In the Puranas it is related that the Maruts were born in the following manner: Did, the wife of Kasyapa, (one of the great Rishis) was about to give birth to a son, but the embryo was separated by Indra into seven portions, each portion when born being again separated into seven parts. Siva transformed these into boys, calling them Maruts. H. P. Blavatsky interprets this legend as follows: Diti “is the sixth principle of metaphysical nature, the Buddhi of Akasa. Diti the mother of the Maruts, is one of her terrestrial forms, made to represent, at one and the same time, the divine Soul in the ascetic, and the divine aspirations of mystic Humanity . . .” Indra represents the cosmic principle Mahat, in man “Manas in its dual aspect: as connected with Buddhi; and as allowing himself to be dragged down by his Kama -principle (the body of passions and desires).” The babe allegorizes “the divine and steady will of the Yogi — determined to resist all such temptations, and thus destroy the passions within his earthly personality. Indra succeeds again, because flesh conquers spirit . . . He divides the ‘Embryo’ (of new divine adeptship, begotten once more by the Ascetics of the Aryan Fifth Race), into seven portions a reference not alone to the seven sub-races of the new Root-Race, in each of which there will be a ‘Manu,’ but also to the seven degrees of adeptship — and then each portion into seven pieces — alluding to the Manu-Rishis of each Root-Race, and even sub-race.” ( Secret Doctrine, II, pp. 614-5) “The Maruts represent (a) the passions that storm and rage within every candidate’s breast, when preparing for an ascetic life — this mystically; (b) the occult potencies concealed in the manifold aspects of Akasa’s lower principles her body, or sthula sarira, representing the terrestrial, lower, atmosphere of every inhabited globe — this mystically and sidereally; (c) actual conscious Existences, Beings of a cosmic and psychic nature. “At the same time, ‘Maruts’ is, in occult parlance, one of the names given to those EGOS of great Adepts who have passed away, and who are known also as Nirmanakayas;” ( Secret Doctrine, II, p. 615). ( Bhagavad-Gita , W. Q. Judge, p. 73)
(TG) Marut Jivas {Sans}. The monads of Adepts who have attained the final liberation, but prefer to re-incarnate on earth for the sake of Humanity. Not to be confused, however, with the Nirmanakayas, who are far higher.
(TG) Masben [[symbol of three dots forming a triangle — two on the bottom and one on top]] {Chald}. A Masonic term meaning “the Sun in putrefaction”. Has a direct reference — perhaps forgotten by the Masons — to their “Word at Low Breath”.
(TG) Mash-Mak. By tradition an Atlantean word of the fourth Race, to denote a mysterious Cosmic fire, or rather Force, which was said to be able to pulverize in a second whole cities and disintegrate the world.
(TG) Masorah {Hebr}. The name is especially applied to a collection of notes, explanatory, grammatical and critical, which are found on the margin of ancient Hebrew MSS., or scrolls of the Old Testament. The Masoretes were also called Melchites.
(TG) Masoretic Points, or Vowels {Hebr}. Or, as the system is now called, Masora from Massoreh, or Massoreth, “tradition”, and Masar, to “hand down”. The Rabbins who busied themselves with the Masorah, hence called Masorites, were also the inventors of the Masoretic points, which are supposed to give the vowelless words of the Scriptures their true pronunciation, by the addition of points representing vowels to the consonants. This was the invention of the learned and cunning Rabbins of the School of Tiberias (in the ninth century of our era), who, by doing so, have put an entirely new construction on the chief words and names in the Books of Moses, and made thereby confusion still more confounded. The truth is, that this scheme has only added additional blinds to those already existing in the Pentateuch and other works.
(TG) Mastaba {Egyp}. The upper portion of an Egyptian tomb, which, say the Egyptologists, consisted always of three parts: namely (1) the Mastaba or memorial chapel above ground, (2) a Pit from twenty to ninety feet in depth, which led by a passage, to (3) the Burial Chamber, where stood the Sarcophagus, containing the mummy sleeping its sleep of long ages. Once the latter interred, the pit was filled up and the entrance to it concealed. Thus say the Orientalists, who divide the last resting place of the mummy on almost the same principles as theologians do man — into body, soul, and spirit or mind. The fact is, that these tombs of the ancients were symbolical like the rest of their sacred edifices, and that this symbology points directly to the septenary division of man. But in death the order is reversed; and while the Mastaba with its scenes of daily life painted on the walls, its table of offerings, to the Larva, the ghost, or “Linga Sarira”, was a memorial raised to the two Principles and Life which had quitted that which was a lower trio on earth; the Pit, the Passage, the Burial Chambers and the mummy in the Sarcophagus, were the objective symbols raised to the two perishable “principles” the personal mind and Kama, and the three imperishable, the higher Triad, now merged into one. This “One” was the Spirit of the Blessed now resting in the Happy Circle of Aanroo.
(KT) Master. A translation from the Sanskrit Guru, “Spiritual teacher,” and adopted by the Theosophists to designate the Adepts, from whom they hold their teachings.
(VS) Master (I 4) [[p. 3]] The “great Master” is the term used by lanoos or chelas to indicate one’s “Higher Self.” It is the equivalent of Avalokiteswara, and the same as Adi-Budha with the Buddhist Occultists, ATMAN the “Self” (the Higher Self) with the Brahmins, and CHRISTOS with the ancient Gnostics.
(OG) Master(s) — A master is one who has his higher principles awakened and lives in them; and ordinary men do not. From the scientific standpoint, that is all there is to it; from the philosophic standpoint, we may say that a master has become, as far as he can be, more at one with the universal life; and from the religious standpoint or the spiritual standpoint, we may say that a master has developed an individual consciousness or recognition of his oneness with the Boundless. ( See also Mahatmas)
(TG) Matari Svan {Sans}. An aerial being shown in Rig-Veda bringing down agni or fire to the Bhrigus; who are called “The Consumers”, and are described by the Orientalists as “a class of mythical beings who belonged to the middle or aerial class of gods”. In Occultism the Bhrigus are simply the “Salamanders” of the Rosicrucians and Kabalists.
(TG) Materializations. In Spiritualism the word signifies the objective appearance of the so-called “Spirits” of the dead, who reclothe themselves occasionally in matter; i.e., they form for themselves out of the materials at hand, which are found in the atmosphere and the emanations of those present, a temporary body bearing the human likeness of the defunct as he appeared, when alive. Theosophists accept the phenomenon of “materialization”; but they reject the theory that it is produced by “Spirits”, i.e., the immortal principles of the disembodied persons. Theosophists hold that when the phenomenon is genuine — and it is a fact of rarer occurrence than is generally believed — it is produced by the larvae, the eidola or Kamalokic “ghosts” of the dead personalities. (See “Kamadhatu”, “Kamaloka” and “Kamarupa” As Kamaloka is on the earth plane and differs from its degree of materiality only in the degree of its plane of consciousness, for which reason it is concealed from our normal sight, the occasional apparition of such shells is as natural as that of electric balls and other atmospheric phenomena. Electricity as a fluid, or atomic matter (for Theosophists hold with Maxwell that it is atomic), though invisible, is ever present in the air, and manifests under various shapes, but only when certain conditions are there to “materialize” the fluid, when it passes from its own on to our plane and makes itself objective. Similarly with the eidola of the dead. They are present, around us, but being on another plane do not see us any more than we see them. But whenever the strong desires of living men and the conditions furnished by the abnormal constitutions of mediums are combined together, these eidola are drawn — nay, pulled down from their plane on to ours and made objective. This is Necromancy; it does no good to the dead, and great harm to the living, in addition to the fact that it interferes with a law of nature. The occasional materialization of the “astral bodies” or doubles of living persons is quite another matter. These “astrals” are often mistaken for the apparitions of the dead, since, chameleon-like, our own “Elementaries”, along with those of the disembodied and cosmic Elementals, will often assume the appearance of those images which are strongest in our thoughts. In short, at the so-called “materialization” seances it is those present and the medium, who create the peculiar likeness of the apparitions. Independent “apparitions” belong to another kind of psychic phenomena. Materializations are also called “form-manifestations” and “portrait statues”. To call them materialized spirits is inadmissible, for they are not spirits but animated portrait-statues, indeed.
(IU) Materialization. — A word employed by spiritualists to indicate the phenomenon of “a spirit clothing himself with a material form.” The far less objectionable term, “form-manifestation,” has been recently suggested by Mr. Stainton-Moses, of London. When the real nature of these apparitions is better comprehended, a still more appropriate name will doubtless be adopted. To call them materialized spirits is inadmissible, for they are not spirits but animated portrait-statues.
(KT) Materialisations. In Spiritualism the word signifies the objective appearance of the so-called “spirits of the dead,” who re-clothe themselves occasionally in matter; i. e., they form for themselves out of the materials at hand found in the atmosphere and the emanations of those present, a temporary body bearing the human likeness of the defunct, as he appeared when alive. Theosophists accept the phenomenon of “materialisation,” but they reject the theory that it is produced by “Spirits,” i. e., the immortal principles of disembodied persons. Theosophists hold that when the phenomena are genuine — which is a fact of rarer occurrence than is generally believed — they are produced by the larvae, the eidolons, or Kamalokic “ghosts” of the dead personalities. (See “Kamaloka” and “Kamarupa.”) As Kamaloka is on the earth-plane and differs from its degree of materiality only in the degree of its plane of consciousness, for which reason it is concealed from our normal sight, the occasional apparition of such shells is as natural as that of electric balls and other atmospheric phenomena. Electricity as a fluid, or atomic matter (for Occultists hold with Maxwell that it is atomic), is ever, though invisibly, present in the air and manifests under various shapes, but only when certain conditions are present to “materialise” the fluid, when it passes from its own on to our plane and makes itself objective. Similarly with the eidolons of the dead. They are present around us, but being on another plane do not see us any more than we see them. But whenever the strong desires of living men and the conditions furnished by the abnormal constitutions of mediums are combined together, these eidolons are drawn — nay pulled down from their plane on to ours and made objective. This is necromancy; it does no good to the dead, and great harm to the living, in addition to the fact that it interferes with a law of nature. The occasional materialisation of the “astral bodies” or doubles of living persons is quite another matter. These “astrals” are often mistaken for the apparitions of the dead, since, chameleon-like, our own “elementaries” along with those of the disembodied and cosmic Elementals, will often assume the appearance of those images which are strongest in our thoughts. In short, at the so-called “materialisation seances,” it is those present and the medium who create the peculiar apparition. Independent “apparitions” belong to another kind of psychic phenomena.
(WG) Materialization, a term used among spiritualists to designate the supposed appearance objectively and tangibly at a seance, of a spirit. Materializations, however, are not such as spiritualists claim. They are brought about — according to the “spirits” themselves in agreement with occult philosophy — by a combination of magnetic and electric forces and material with pictures from the astral light wherein all pictures forever are. A framework, skeleton form, or flat surface of magnetic and electric matter is first constructed which is perfectly transparent like glass but also tangible, and upon it is reflected the image desired to be seen, whereupon the onlookers think they see a once incarnated spirit. It is the greatest of illusions, and, on the astral plane, is, in the opinion of occultism, nothing more than a “pepper’s ghost”. That these images speak does not add to proofs of identification, because all such things may be psychologically imitated, and an impression of speech may be produced upon every one who views the phenomenon. But it does happen, sometimes, that one among the onlookers may not hear the speech the others think they hear. A medium is absolutely necessary for a materialization to occur, unless it is brought about by an Adept.
(KT) Materialist. Not necessarily only one who believes in neither God nor soul, nor the survival of the latter, but also any person who materializes the purely spiritual; such as believe in an anthropomorphic deity, in a soul capable of burning in hell fire, and a hell and paradise as localities instead of states of consciousness. American “Substantialists,” a Christian sect, are materialists, as also the so-called Spiritualists.
(TG) Mathadhipatis {Sans}. Heads of various religious Brotherhoods in India, High Priests in Monasteries.
(FY) Mathadhipatis, heads of different religious institutions in India.
(WG) Mati, understanding; devotion.
(TG) Matra {Sans}. The shortest period of time as applied to the duration of sounds, equal to the twinkling of the eye.
(TG) Matra {Sans}. The quantity of a Sanskrit Syllable.
(TG) Matripadma {Sans}. The mother-lotus; the womb of Nature.
(IN) Matripadma {Sans} Mother lotus.
(TG) Matris {Sans}. “Mothers,” the divine mothers. Their number is seven. They are the female aspects and powers of the gods.
(TG) Matronethah @242 Identical with Malcuth, the tenth Sephira. Lit., Matrona is the “inferior mother”.
(TG) Matsya {Sans}. “A fish.” Matsya avatar was one of the earliest incarnations of Vishnu.
(WG) Matsya, a species of fish; the twelfth sign of the zodiac, Pisces; name of one of the eighteen Puranas, so called because said to have been communicated by Vishnu in the form of a fish to Vaivasvata Manu.
(TG) Matsya Purana {Sans}. The Scripture or Purana which treats of that incarnation.
(FY) Matsya Puranas, one of the Puranas.
(OG) Matter — What men call matter or substance is the existent but illusory aggregate of veils surrounding the fundamental essence of the universe which is consciousness-life-substance. From another point of view, matter or substance is in one sense the most evolved form of expression of manifested spirit in any particular hierarchy. This is but another way of saying that matter is but inherent energies or powers or faculties of kosmical beings, unfolded, rolled out, and self-expressed. It is the nether and lowest pole of what the original and originating spirit is; for spirit is the primal or original pole of the evolutionary activity which brought forth through its own inherent energies the appearance or manifestation in the kosmic spaces of the vast aggregate of hierarchies. Between the originant or spirit and the resultant or matter, there is all the vast range of hierarchical stages or steps, thus forming the ladder of life or the ladder of being of any one such hierarchy. When theosophists speak of spirit and substance, of which latter, matter and energy or force are the physicalized expressions, we must remember that all these terms are abstractions — generalized expressions for hosts of entities manifesting aggregatively. The whole process of evolution is the raising of units of essential matter, life-atoms, into becoming at one with their spiritual and inmost essence. As the kosmic aeons slowly drop one after the other into the ocean of the past, matter pari passu is resolved back into the brilliant realms of spirit from which it originally came forth. All the sheaths of consciousness, all the blinding veils around it, arise from the matter side or dark side or night side of nature, which is matter — the nether pole of spirit. WW Matter Now matter and maya . Here again we come to tremendous subjects. Matter is from a root common to many so-called Aryan tongues, of which the origin seems to have been production or bringing forth, generation, that which is disclosed. We have it in mother, mater, [[greek char]], in different languages, the generatrix. We have it in materia and materies, words used in the philosophy of the Latins to signify that out of which anything is made. This root is the source of mother and matter : I do not say that the root of matter is mother ; I say that mother and matter with the idea of production, of bringing forth, are closely connected and have arisen from some at present unknown root (possibly ma ) common to many Aryan tongues. Matter is the great womb, the great matrix, (again we have the root) from which all springs. It is used ordinarily today by philosophers and by scientists to mean the physical things and bodies which we use around us; but originally, and often in our Theosophical usage, it means very much what modern philosophers call substance, to stand under, from sub, under, and stare, to stand ; to stand under , to support a thing . For instance, the original meaning would be something like this: this (pointing to the easel) would be the substance of that (pointing to the blackboard). Again, the blackboard is composed of sensible substance, and so on; therefore the support (i.e. essence) of matter would be the substance, something that substands. I trust you will follow me. Matter according to modern usage, is like the truth, flowers and the leaves, or the phenomena of the plant; the chemical atoms of it are that which substands it; it springs from the elements which build it up, the carbon, the oxygen, the minerals, etc. Matter is the phenomenal part; substance is the noumenon, matter the phenomenon. As we have seen, that seems to be the ordinarily accepted definition today, but it is not so in our Theosophical usage, and was not so among the ancients, where matter seems to have meant very largely what we should now call substance also. Enough for that. Now maya — and here we are in deep waters again.
(WG) Mauna, the state of a sage or muni who abandons all doubts as to the relations of Brahma and Jagat.
(TG) Maya {Sans}. Illusion; the cosmic power which renders phenomenal existence and the perceptions thereof possible. In Hindu philosophy that alone which is changeless and eternal is called reality; all that which is subject to change through decay and differentiation and which has therefore a beginning and an end is regarded as maya — illusion.
(KT) Maya {Sans} Illusion; the cosmic power which renders phenomenal existence and the perceptions thereof possible. In Hindu philosophy that alone which is changeless and eternal is called reality: all that which is subject to change through decay and differentiation, and which has, therefore, a beginning and an end, is regarded as MAYA — illusion.
(FY) Maya, illusion, is the cosmic power which renders phenomenal existence possible.
(WG) Maya, illusion, which produces the diverse manifestations of the one reality, entering into all finite things; in the Sankhya system, prakriti.
(OG) Maya — {Sans} The word comes from the root ma, meaning “to measure,” and by a figure of speech it also comes to mean “to effect,” “to form,” and hence “to limit.” There is an English word mete, meaning “to measure out,” from the same IndoEuropean root. It is found in the Anglo-Saxon as the root met, in the Greek as med , and it is found in the Latin also in the same form. Ages ago in the wonderful Brahmanical philosophy maya was understood very differently from what it is now usually understood to be. As a technical term, maya has come to mean the fabrication by man’s mind of ideas derived from interior and exterior impressions, hence the illusory aspect of man’s thoughts as he considers and tries to interpret and understand life and his surroundings; and thence was derived the sense which it technically bears, “illusion.” It does not mean that the exterior world is nonexistent; if it were, it obviously could not be illusory. It exists, but is not. It is “measured out” or is “limited,” or it stands out to the human spirit as a mirage. In other words, we do not see clearly and plainly and in their reality the vision and the visions which our mind and senses present to the inner life and eye. The familiar illustrations of maya in the Vedanta, which is the highest form that the Brahmanical teachings have taken and which is so near to our own teaching in many respects, were such as follows: A man at eventide sees a coiled rope on the ground, and springs aside, thinking it a serpent. The rope is there, but no serpent. The second illustration is what is called the “horns of the hare.” The animal called the hare has no horns, but when it also is seen at eventide, its long ears seem to project from its head in such fashion that it appears even to the seeing eye as being a creature with horns. The hare has no horns, but there is then in the mind an illusory belief that an animal with horns exists there. That is what maya means: not that a thing seen does not exist, but that we are blinded and our mind perverted by our own thoughts and our own imperfections, and do not as yet arrive at the real interpretation and meaning of the world or of the universe around us. By ascending inwardly, by rising up, by inner aspiration, by an elevation of soul, we can reach upwards or rather inwards towards that plane where truth abides in fullness. H. P. Blavatsky says on page 631 of the first volume of The Secret Doctrine : Esoteric philosophy, teaching an objective Idealism — though it regards the objective Universe and all in it as Maya, temporary illusion — draws a practical distinction between collective illusion, Mahamaya, from the purely metaphysical standpoint, and the objective relations in it between various conscious Egos so long as this illusion lasts.
The teaching is that maya is thus called from the action of mulaprakriti or root -nature, the coordinate principle of that other line of coactive consciousness which we call parabrahman. From the moment when manifestation begins, it acts dualistically, that is to say that everything in nature from that point onwards is crossed by pairs of opposites, such as long and short, high and low, night and day, good and evil, consciousness and nonconsciousness, etc., and that all these things are essentially mayic or illusory — real while they last, but the lasting is not eternal. It is through and by these pairs of opposites that the self-conscious soul learns truth. It might be said, in conclusion, that another and very convenient way of considering maya is to understand it to mean “limitation,” “restriction,” and therefore imperfect cognition and recognition of reality. The imperfect mind does not see perfect truth. It labors under an illusion corresponding with its own imperfections, under a maya, a limitation. Magical practices are frequently called maya in the ancient Hindu books. WW Maya Maya, Mayaka : Maya is from a root ma, and ya is a termination. Ma, like the verbs signifying to make in so many languages, has a thousand and one meanings: to measure, to make, to form, to fashion, to create, to share, etc. It means action exercised upon material. Now this word maya is used in Hindu philosophy (by a development of meaning, a progression of thought from measure, to make ) to signify that which is illusory. For instance, a house is a development of an idea inherent in the architect’s mind. It is a maya of the idea; it is an illusory aspect of the spiritual conception. Maya is used signifying magic, deceit, impersonation, and many other words giving the equivalent idea of a cloud covering the truth. Maya is often spoken of as if its meaning were nothingness. This will not be found in Hindu philosophy except in a purely philosophical sense; but it does mean illusion, deceit, deception, that which appears but is not. Let me try to give an example of that; it is very important that we get this perfectly clear. We see the universe around us, the stars running their courses, the sun rising and setting regularly. This is an example of maya . The sun does not rise and set; it appears to do so. The earth turns on its axis and produces the phantasmal illusion of the sun rising and setting. The stars do not rise and set; the earth turns on its axis, producing the illusion of the rising and setting of the spheres. Now that too is an example of maya, of magic, of deception, of illusion. Illusion is the meaning usually given to maya, and it is correct, but it does not mean that which is not, nothingness. You will sometimes hear the phrase “All is maya.” True, all is maya, things are not what they seem. I think it is Longfellow in his Psalm of Life, who says: Tell me not in mournful numbers Life is but an empty dream; For the soul is dead that slumbers And things are not what they seem. But our souls are slumbering most of the time and we do not see things as they are, yet we regulate our lives by them. We seek for facts in the illusory appearances of things, but the facts are behind the phenomena. The sun does not rise and set, the spheres do not rise and set, ‘heat’ and ‘cold’ are sensory illusions and in themselves there is no such absolute thing as ‘heat’ and ‘cold,’ these being impressions on the senses of forces of nature. In this way we understand what maya is: the magic of nature — the goddess of Mahamaya, the great mystery. It is said in the Vedanta, and H. P. Blavatsky frequently speaks of it, that the veil of the Deity is maya, Maha-maya, Great Maya, and we saw when we quoted the inscription on the statue of the goddess Neith that she declared that no mortal had revealed her, had ever lifted or discovered her veil, her garment. The usual translation of that seems to be “no mortal has ever uncovered my form”, but I think a better rendering is “no mortal has ever revealed (or disclosed) my garment” — this garment being Maya, the great magic, the mystery and illusion which covers nature, the dress of nature. Now soul is that ray from the star, which is clothed in maya, shrouded in illusion. That is why our brains are not stronger than they are; that is why the brains of some of us are stronger than the brains of others of us, because they see more clearly into maya, they see more clearly through the veil which enshrouds us all. The spirit understands maya, because the spirit, paradoxically enough, and maya, are the same. Spirit and matter are two poles of one thing. Matter and maya also are one, from one aspect, because we can conceive of maya as being illusion itself, or as being the force in nature which produces illusion, this being perhaps the nearest definition to the original sense of the root from which maya springs — ma : to make, to create; hence to make illusion, to create illusion, to deceive.
(GH) Maya As a philosophical term the word has come to be associated with the illusory aspect of man’s thoughts and views as he considers life and his surroundings, endeavoring to interpret and understand things: therefore is Maya rendered ‘illusion.’ One of the traditional explanations of this term given in the Vedanta is: a man sees a coil of rope and believing it to be a serpent instinctively jumps away from it. On looking a second time he realizes that it is but a piece of rope: yet he thought he saw a serpent; therefore he decides that he was fooled by the illusory nature of things — maya. “Maya or illusion is an element which enters into all finite things, for everything that exists has only a relative, not an absolute, reality, since the appearance which the hidden noumenon assumes for any observer depends upon his power of cognition.” ( Secret Doctrine, I, p. 39) Maya is often used as an equivalent for Avidya (ignorance), although properly it should be applied solely to Prakriti . (The following word is derived from the verbal root:) ma, to measure, with an acquired meaning of to form, to limit. Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 31)
(SK)o Maya Illusion, temporary limitation, therefore an imperfect understanding of Reality. The word is derived from the verb-root ma — to measure; hence Maya is that which limits or circumscribes, and prevents us from cognizing perfect Truth or Reality, which is beyond limits, boundless. Maya is the inevitable result of manifestation because matter of any kind is a veil which hides Reality. The thicker the veil, the greater the Maya. Anything that is impermanent and subject to change through decay is a Maya. The closer we unite ourselves with our Inner Essence or Real Self the less Mayavi or less imperfect will be our vision of Truth.
(IN) Maya, Mahamaya {Sans} “Illusion,” the noneternal, that causes us not to perceive reality as it is.
(SP) Maya — illusion.
(WG) Maya-krita, made by illusion, illusionary.
(TG) Maya Moha {Sans}. An illusive form assumed by Vishnu in order to deceive ascetic Daityas who were becoming too holy through austerities and hence too dangerous in power, as says the Vishnu Purana.
(TG) Mayavic Upadhi {Sans}. The covering of illusion, phenomenal appearance.
(FY) Mayavic Upadhi, the covering of illusion, phenomenal appearance.
(TG) Mayavi Rupa {Sans}. “Illusive form”; the “double” in esoteric philosophy; doppelganger or perisprit, in German and French.
(FY) Mayavirupa, the “double;” “doppelg„nger;” “perisprit.”
(WG) Mayavi-rupa, illusionary body, the form used by an Adept when appearing at a distance from his physical body. ( mayavi , illusionary; rupa, form
(OG) Mayavi-Rupa — {Sans} This is a compound of two words: mayavi, the adjectival form of the word maya, hence “illusory”; rupa, “form”; the mayavi-rupa or thought-body, or illusory-body, a higher astral-mental form. The mayavi can assume all forms or any form, at the will of an Adept. A synonymous philosophical term is protean soul. In Germany medieval mystics called it the doppelganger . There is a very mystical fact connected with the mayavi-rupa: the Adept is enabled to project his consciousness in the mayavi-rupa to what would seem to the uninitiated incredible distances, while the physical body is left, as it were, intranced. In Tibet this power of projecting the mayavi-rupa is called hpho-wa.
(SKs) Mayavi-rupa, Mayavi, Hpho-wa The Mayavi-rupa is the ‘illusory body’ or ‘thought-body’ of an Initiate; the ‘higher astral mental form’; not the lower astral form known as the Linga-sarira or astral mental-body. This word is a compound of mayavi — illusory, the adjectival form of maya ; and rupa — form. This form is created by the power of will and thought of an adept, and may be made an exact double of the man or any other shape desired. It is called an illusory body because it is only a temporary creation of the adept. When it has accomplished the intended purpose of the adept it is withdrawn and dissolved. In the Occult Glossary, G. de Purucker writes: There is a very mystical fact connected with the mayavi-rupa, i.e. , the Adept is enabled to project his consciousness in the mayavi-rupa to what would seem to the uninitiated incredible distances, while the physical body is left, as it were, intranced. In Tibet this power of projecting the mayavi-rupa is called Hpho-wa.
(IN) those mystical initiations which take a man into the starry spaces the mayavi-rupa is the vehicle used.
(SP) Mayavi-rupa — illusory form.
(TG) Mazdeans. From (Ahura) Mazda. (See Spiegel’s Yasna, xl They were the ancient Persian nobles who worshipped Ormazd, and, rejecting images, inspired the Jews with the same horror for every concrete representation of the Deity. They seem in Herodotus’ time to have been superseded by the Magian religionists. The Parsis and Gebers, ( geberim, mighty men, of Genesis vi. and x. 8) appear to be Magian religionists.
(IU) Mazdeans, from (Ahura) Mazda. (See Spiegel’s Yasna, xl They were the ancient Persian nobles who worshipped Ormazd, and, rejecting images, inspired the Jews with the same horror for every concrete representation of the Deity. “They seem in Herodotus’s time to have been superseded by the Magian religionists. The Parsis and Ghebers, mighty men, of Genesis vi. and x. 8) appear to be Magian religionists. . . . By a curious muddling of ideas, Zoro-Aster ( Zero, a circle, a son or priest, Aster, Ishtar, or Astarte — in Aryan dialect, a star), the title of the head of the Magians and fire-worshippers, or Surya-ishtara, the sun-worshipper, is often confounded in modern times with Zara-tustra, the reputed Mazdean apostle” (Zoroaster).
(TG) Mazdiasnian. Zoroastrian; lit., “worshipping god”.
(FY) Mazdiasnian, Zoroastrian priests.
(TG) M’bul {Hebr}. The “waters of the flood”. Esoterically, the periodical outpourings of astral impurities on to the earth; periods of psychic crimes and iniquities, or of regular moral cataclysms.
(MO) Mead Drink of the gods: experience of life.
(TG) Medini {Sans}. The earth; so-called from the marrow (medas) of two demons. These monsters springing from the ear of the sleeping Vishnu, were preparing to kill Brahma who was lying on the lotus which grows from Vishnu’s navel, when the god of Preservation awoke and killed them. Their bodies being thrown into the sea produced such a quantity of fat and marrow that Narayana used it to form the earth with.
MEDITATION
Diagram of Meditation Apparently the diagram was part and parcel of esoteric instruction of H.P.B., as recorded by E. T. Sturdy
Letter regarding Desire by H.P.B.
(KT) Mediumship. A word now accepted to indicate that abnormal psycho-physiological state which leads a person to take the fancies of his imagination, his hallucinations, real or artificial, for realities. No entirely healthy person on the physiological and psychic planes can ever be a medium. That which mediums see, hear, and sense, is “real” but untrue; it is either gathered from the astral plane, so deceptive in its vibrations and suggestions, or from pure hallucinations, which have no actual existence, but for him who perceives them. “Mediumship” is a kind of vulgarised mediatorship in which one afflicted with this faculty is supposed to become an agent of communication between a living man and a departed “Spirit.” There exist regular methods of training for the development of this undesirable acquirement.
(OG) Medium — A word of curiously ill-defined significance, and used mostly if not exclusively by modern Spiritists. The general sense of the word would seem to be a person of unstable psychical temperament, or constitution rather, who is supposed to act as a canal or channel of transmission, hence “medium,” between human beings and the so-called spirits.
A medium actually in the theosophical teaching is one whose inner constitution is in unstable balance, or perhaps even dislocated, so that at different times the sheaths of the inner parts of the medium’s constitution function irregularly and in magnetic sympathy with currents and entities in the astral light, more particularly in kama-loka. It is an exceedingly unfortunate and dangerous condition to be in, despite what the Spiritists claim for it. Very different indeed from the medium is the mediator, a human being of relatively highly evolved spiritual and intellectual and psychical nature who serves as an intermediary or mediator between the members of the Great Brotherhood, the mahatmas, and ordinary humanity. There are also mediators of a still more lofty type who serve as channels of transmission for the passing down of divine and spiritual and highly intellectual powers to this sphere. Actually, every mahatma is such a mediator of this higher type, and so in even larger degree are the buddhas and the avataras. A mediator is one of highly evolved constitution, every portion of which is under the instant and direct control of the spiritual dominating will and the loftiest intelligence which the mediator is capable of exercising. Every human being should strive to be a mediator of this kind between his own inner god and his mere brain-mind. The more he succeeds, the grander he is as a man. Mediator, therefore, and medium are the polar antitheses of each other. The medium is irregular, negative, often irresponsible or quasi-irresponsible, and uncertain, and is not infrequently the victim or plaything of evil and degenerate entities whom theosophists call elementaries, having their habitat in the astral light of the earth; whereas the mediator is one more or less fully insouled or inspirited with divine, spiritual, and intellectual powers and their corresponding faculties and organs.
(TG) Megacosm {Greek}. The world of the Astral light, or as explained by a puzzled Mason “a great world, not identical with Macrocosm, the Universe, but something between it and Microcosm, the little world” or man.
(TG) Mehen {Egyp}. In popular myths, the great serpent which represents the lower atmosphere. In Occultism, the world of the Astral light, called symbolically the Cosmic Dragon and the Serpent. (See the works of Eliphas Levi, who called this light le Serpent du Mal, and by other names, attributing to it all the evil influences on the earth
(TG) Melekh {Hebr}. Lit., “a King”. A title of the Sephira Tiphereth, the V, or van in the tetragrammaton — the son or Microprosopus (the Lesser Face).
(TG) Melhas {Sans}. A class of fire-gods or Salamanders.
(WG) Melhas (Thibetan), fire-gods.
(TG) Memrab {Hebr}. In the Kabala, “the voice of the will”; i.e., the collective forces of nature in activity, called the “Word”, or Logos, by the Jewish Kabalists.
(TG) Mendaeans {Greek}. Also called Sabians, and St. John Christians. The latter is absurd, since, according to all accounts, and even their own, they have nothing at all to do with Christianity, which they abominate. The modern sect of the Mendaeans is widely scattered over Asia Minor and elsewhere, and is rightly believed by several Orientalists to be a direct surviving relic of the Gnostics. For as explained in the Dictionnaire des Apocryphes by the Abbe Migne (art. “Le Code Nazarean” vulgairement appele ” Livre d ‘ Adam “), the Mendaeans (written in French Mandaites, which name they pronounce as Mandai ) “properly signifies science, knowledge or Gnosis. Thus it is the equivalent of Gnostics ” ( loc. cit. note p. 3). As the above cited work shows, although many travellers have spoken of a sect whose followers are variously named Sabians, St. John’s Christians and Mendaeans, and who are scattered around Schat-Etarab at the junction of the Tigris and Euphrates (principally at Bassorah, Hoveiza, Korna, etc, it was Norberg who was the first to point out a tribe belonging to the same sect established in Syria. And they are the most interesting of all. This tribe, some 14,000 or 15,000 in number, lives at a day’s march east of Mount Lebanon, principally at Elmerkah, (Lata-Kieh). They call themselves indifferently Nazarenes and Galileans, as they originally come to Syria from Galilee. They claim that their religion is the same as that of St. John the Baptist, and that it has not changed one bit since his day. On festival days they clothe themselves in camel’s skins, sleep on camel’s skins, and eat locusts and honey as did their “Father, St. John the Baptist”. Yet they call Jesus Christ an impostor, a false Messiah, and Nebso (or the planet Mercury in its evil side), and show him as a production of the Spirit of the “seven badly-disposed stellars” (or planets). See Codex Nazaraeus, which is their Scripture.
(TG) Mendes {Greek}. The name of the demon-goat, alleged by the Church of Rome to have been worshipped by the Templars and other Masons. But this goat was a myth created by the evil fancy of the odium theologicum. There never was such a creature, nor was its worship known among Templars or their predecessors, the Gnostics. The god of Mendes, or the Greek Mendesius, a name given to Lower Egypt in pre-Christian days, was the ram-headed god Ammon, the living and holy spirit of Ra, the life-giving sun; and this led certain Greek authors into the error of affirming that the Egyptians called the “goat” (or the ram -headed god) himself, Mendes. Ammon was for ages the chief deity of Egypt, the supreme god; Amoun-Ra the “hidden god”, or Amen (the concealed) the Self-engendered who is “his own father and his own son”. Esoterically, he was Pan, the god of nature or nature personified, and probably the cloven foot of Pan the goat-footed, helped to produce the error of this god being a goat. As Ammon’s shrine was at Pa-bi-neb-tat, “the dwelling of Tat or Spirit, Lord of Tat” ( Bindedi in the Assyrian inscriptions), the Greeks first corrupted the name into Bendes and then into Mendes from “Mendesius”. The “error” served ecclesiastical purposes too well to be made away with, even when recognized.
(MO) Menglad {Nors} [ men jewel + glad happy] Freya whose jewel is humanity
(MO) Menja {Nors} (men-yah) [ men jewel] One of the two giantesses who turn the mill Grotte
(TG) Mensambulism {Latin}. A word coined by some French Kabalists to denote the phenomenon of “table turning” from the Latin mensa, a table.
(TG) Meracha phath {Hebr}. Used of the “breathing” of the divine Spirit when in the act of hovering over the waters of space before creation (See Siphra Dzeniutha ) .
(TG) Mercavah or Mercabah {Hebr}. A chariot: the Kabalists say that the Supreme after he had established the Ten Sephiroth used them as a chariot or throne of glory on which to descend upon the souls of men.
(KT) Mercavah, or Mercabah {Hebr} “A chariot. The Kabbalists say that the Supreme, after he had established the ten Sephiroth — which, in their totality, are Adam Kadmon, the Archetypal Man, used them as a chariot or throne of glory in which to descend upon the souls of men.”
(TG) Merodach {Chald}. God of Babylon, the Bel of later times. He is the son of Davkina, goddess of the lower regions, or the earth, and of Hea, God of the Seas and Hades with the Orientalists; but esoterically and with the Akkadians, the Great God of Wisdom, “he who resurrects the dead”. Hea, Ea, Dagon or Oannes and Merodach are one.
(TG) Meru {Sans}. The name of an alleged mountain in the centre (or “navel”) of the earth where Swarga, the Olympus of the Indians, is placed. It contains the “cities” of the greatest gods and the abodes of various Devas. Geographically accepted, it is an unknown mountain north of the Himalayas. In tradition, Meru was the “Land of Bliss” of the earliest Vedic times. It is also referred to as Hemadri “the golden mountain”, Ratnasanu, “jewel peak” , Karnikachala, “lotus mountain”, and Amaradri and Deva-parvata, “the mountain of the gods”. The Occult teachings place it in the very centre of the North Pole, pointing it out as the site of the first continent on our earth, after the solidification of the globe.
(WG) Meru, the celestial mountain where the gods and highest spiritual beings are said to dwell. It is compared to the seed-vessel of a lotus, the leaves of which are formed by the various continents (dvipas), the central dvipa being Jambu. Meru is thought by some to mean the north-polar continent, now unseen.
(GH) Meru Mythologically, a mountain situated in the center of the earth, represented as the abode of the gods, compared to the seed-vessel of a lotus, the leaves of which are formed by the various island-continents (Dvipas); the river Ganges falls on its summit and flows therefrom to the world in four streams; the regents of the four quarters occupy corresponding faces of the mountain, which is resplendent with gold and gems. “Meru is not ‘the fabulous mountain in the navel or centre of the earth,’ but its roots and foundations are in that navel, though it is in the far north itself. This connects it with the ‘central’ land ‘that never perishes’;” ( Secret Doctrine, II, p. 401 ). “It is the north pole, the country of ‘Meru,’ which is the seventh division, as it answers to the Seventh principle” ( Secret Doctrine, II, p. 403). ( Bhagavad-Gita , W. Q. Judge, p. 74)
(TG) Meshia and Meshiane {avesta}. The Adam and Eve of the Zoroastrians, in the early Persian system; the first human couple.
(TG) Mesmer, Friedrich Anton. The famous physician who rediscovered and applied practically that magnetic fluid in man which was called animal magnetism and since then Mesmerism. He was born in Schwaben, in 1734, and died in 1815. He was an initiated member of the Brotherhoods of the Fratres Lucis and of Lukshoor (or Luxor), or the Egyptian Branch of the latter. It was the Council of “Luxor” which selected him — according to the orders of the “Great Brotherhood” — to act in the 18th century as their usual pioneer, sent in the last quarter of every century to enlighten a small portion of the Western nations in occult lore. It was St. Germain who supervised the development of events in this case; and later Cagliostro was commissioned to help, but having made a series of mistakes, more or less fatal, he was recalled. Of these three men who were at first regarded as quacks, Mesmer is already vindicated. The justification of the two others will follow in the next century. Mesmer founded the “Order of Universal Harmony” in 1783, in which presumably only animal magnetism was taught, but which in reality expounded the tenets of Hippocrates, the methods of the ancient Asclepieia, the Temples of Healing, and many other occult sciences.
(KT) Mesmerism. The term comes from Mesmer, who rediscovered this magnetic force and its practical application toward the year 1775, at Vienna. It is a vital current that one person may transfer to another; and through which he induces an abnormal state of the nervous system that permits him to have a direct influence upon the mind and will of the subject or mesmerized person.
(OG) Mesmerism — An ill-understood branch of human knowledge, developed within fairly recent times, connected with the existence of the psychomagnetic fluid in man which can be employed by the will for purposes either good or evil. It has been called animal magnetism, but more often in former times than at present. The first European who rediscovered and openly proclaimed the existence of this subtle psychomagnetic fluid in man was Dr. Friedrich Anton Mesmer, born in Germany in 1733, who died in 1815. His honesty and his theories have been more or less vindicated in modern times by later students of the subject. There are distinct differences as among mesmerism, hypnotism, psychologization, and suggestion, etc. ( See also Hypnotism)
(OG) Messenger — In the theosophical sense, an individual who comes with a mandate from the Lodge of the Masters of Wisdom and Compassion to do a certain work in the world. Only real genius — indeed something more than merely human genius — only extraordinary spiritual and intellectual capacity, native to the constitution of some lofty human being, could explain the reason for the choice of such messengers. But, indeed, this is not saying enough; because in addition to genius and to merely native spiritual and intellectual capacity such a messenger must possess through initiatory training the capacity of throwing at will the intermediate or psychological nature into a state of perfect quiescence or receptivity for the stream of divine-spiritual inspiration flowing forth from the messenger’s own inner divinity or monadic essence. It is obvious, therefore, that such a combination of rare and unusual qualities is not often found in human beings; and, when found, such a one is fit for the work to be done by such a messenger of the Association of great ones. The Masters of Wisdom and Compassion and Peace send their envoys continuously into the world of men, one after the other, and in consequence these envoys are working in the world among men all the time. Happy are they whose hearts recognize the footfalls of those crossing the mountaintops of the Mystic East. The messengers do not always do public work before the world, but frequently work in the silences and unknown of men, or relatively unknown. At certain times, however, they are commissioned and empowered and directed to do their work publicly and to make public announcement of their mission. Such, for instance, was the case of H. P. Blavatsky.
(KT) Metaphysics. From the Greek meta, beyond, and physica, the things of the external material world. It is to forget the spirit and hold to the dead letter, to translate it beyond nature or supernatural, as it is rather beyond the natural, visible, or concrete. Metaphysics, in ontology and philosophy is the term to designate that science which treats of the real and permanent being as contrasted with the unreal, illusionary or phenomenal being.
(TG) Metatron {Hebr}. The Kabbalistic “Prince of Faces”, the Intelligence of the First Sephira, and the reputed ruler of Moses. His numeration is 314, the same as the deity title “Shaddai”, Almighty. He is also the Angel of the world of Briah, and he who conducted the Israelites through the Wilderness, hence, the same as “the Lord God” Jehovah. The name resembles the Greek words metathronon or “beside the Throne”. [W.W.W.]
(TG) Metempsychosis. The progress of the soul from one stage of existence to another. Symbolized as and vulgarly believed to be rebirths in animal bodies. A term generally misunderstood by every class of European and American society, including many scientists. Metempsychosis should apply to animals alone. The kabalistic axiom, “A stone becomes a plant, a plant an animal, an animal a man, a man a spirit, and a spirit a god”, receives an explanation in Manu’s Manava-Dharma-Shastra and other Brahmanical books.
(IU) Metempsychosis. — The progress of the soul from one stage of existence to another. Symbolized and vulgarly believed to be rebirths in animal bodies. A term generally misunderstood by every class of European and American society, including many scientists. The kabalistic axiom, “A stone becomes a plant, a plant an animal, an animal a man, a man a spirit, and a spirit a god,” receives an explanation in Manu’s Manava-Dharma-Sastra, and other Brahmanical books.
(WG) Metempsychosis, transmigration, the passage of the soul (psyche) from one body to another.
(WG) Metempsychosis . While this means transmigration it should be applied only to animals, so as to distinguish it from Reincarnation, now applied to the reembodiment of the soul in human bodies. For many years European encyclopaedias have given the meaning as “passing after death into the body of some animal”, and thus misunderstood the doctrine of the passing from one human body into another. Yet it has been often used to describe rebirth in human form. Herder has “Dialogues on Metempsychosis”, devoted to the doctrine of human rebirth. There is not the slightest doubt that the doctrine of passing into an animal form can be found in both Buddhism and Brahmanism. It doubtless arose from the theory, which has great authority behind it, that the physical atoms will pass, after death and the flight of the soul, into animal forms if the life of the man has been low and animal-like; for, every atom in the body is impressed with the actual character of the person; and further it was taught that a man having thus misused the atoms in his charge during life, would reap bad karma; from this arose the doctrine, with the vulgar, that men’s souls passed into animal forms of different kinds as penalty for this, that, and the other crime.
(OG) Metempsychosis — (Greek) A compound vocable which may be rendered briefly by “insouling after insouling,” or “changing soul after soul.” Metempsychosis contains the specific meaning that the soul of an entity, human or other, moves not merely from condition to condition, migrates not merely from state to state or from body to body; but also that it is an indivisible entity in its inmost essence, which is pursuing a course along its own particular evolutionary path as an individual monad, taking upon itself soul after soul; and it is the adventures which befall the soul, in assuming soul after soul, which in their aggregate are grouped together under this word metempsychosis. In ordinary language metempsychosis is supposed to be a synonym for transmigration, reincarnation, preexistence, and palingenesis, etc., but all these words in the esoteric philosophy have specific meanings of their own, and should not be confused. It is of course evident that these words have strict relations with each other, as, for instance, every soul in its metempsychosis also transmigrates in its own particular sense; and inversely every transmigrating entity also has its metempsychosis or soul-changings in its own particular sense. But these connections or interminglings of meanings must not be confused with the specific significance attached to each one of these words. The essential meaning of metempsychosis can perhaps be briefly described by saying that a monad during the course of its evolutionary peregrinations throws forth from itself periodically a new soul-garment or soul-sheath, and this changing of souls or soul-sheaths as the ages pass is called metempsychosis. ( See also Transmigration, Reincarnation, Preexistence, Palingenesis)
(IN) Metempsychosis (Gk) “Reensoulment,” the progress of a monad through soul after soul; an aspect of reembodiment.
(OG) Metensomatosis — (Greek) A compound word of which the significance may perhaps be briefly rendered thus: “changing body after body.” The reference is to a reimbodying entity which does not necessarily use human bodies of flesh only, in which respect this word differs from reincarnation, but bodies of appropriate yet different physical material concordant with the evolutionary stage which the human race may have reached at any time, and with the plane or sphere of nature on which the reembodiment takes place. This word, because of the intricate ideas involved, is very difficult to explain properly or even to hint at in a few words, but perhaps it may be made more clear by the following observation: In far past ages the human race had bodies, but not bodies of flesh; and in far distant ages of the future, the human race will likewise have bodies, but not necessarily bodies of flesh. Actually, our teaching in this respect is that in those far-distant periods of the future, human bodies of that time will be compact of ether or, what comes to much the same thing, of luminous matter which may very properly be called concreted light.
(TG) Metis {Greek}. Wisdom. The Greek theology associated Metis — Divine Wisdom, with Eros — Divine Love. The word is also said to form part of the Templars’ deity or idol Baphomet, which some authorities derive from Baphe, baptism, and Metis, wisdom; while others say that the idol represented the two teachers whom the Templars equally denied, viz ., Papa or the Pope, and Mahomet. [W.W.W.]
(KT) Microcosm. The “little” Universe meaning man, made in the image of his creator, the Macrocosm, or “great” Universe, and containing all that the latter contains. These terms are used in Occultism and Theosophy.
(FY) Microcosm, man.
(WG) Microcosm, a little world; man. (See Macrocosm
(OG) Microcosm — (Greek) A compound meaning “little arrangement,” “little world,” a term applied by ancient and modern mystics to man when considering the seven, ten, and even twelve aspects or phases or organic parts of his constitution, from the superdivine down to and even below the physical body. Just as throughout the macrocosm there runs one law, one fundamental consciousness, one essential orderly arrangement and habitude to which everything contained within the encompassing macrocosm of necessity conforms, just so does every such contained entity or thing, because it is an inseparable part of the macrocosm, contain in itself, evolved or unevolved, implicit or explicit, active or latent, everything that the macrocosm contains — whether energy, power, substance, matter, faculty, or what not. The microcosm, therefore, considered as man or indeed any other organic entity, is correctly viewed as a reflection or copy in miniature of the great macrocosm, the former being contained, with hosts of others like it, within the encircling frontiers of the macrocosm. Thus it was stated by the ancient mystics that the destiny of man, the microcosm, is coeval with the universe or macrocosm. Their origin is the same, their energies and substances are the same, and their future is the same, of course mutatis mutandis . It was no vain figment of imagination and no idle figure of speech which brought the ancient mystics to declare man to be a son of the Boundless. The teaching is one of the most suggestive and beautiful in the entire range of the esoteric philosophy, and the deductions that the intuitive student will immediately draw from this teaching themselves become keys opening even larger portals of understanding. The universe, the macrocosm, is thus seen to be the home of the microcosm or man, in the former of which the latter is at home everywhere. WW Microcosm Microcosm and Macrocosm — These come from three Greek words mikros ( mikros ), small and makros ( makros ), great, and kosmos ( kosmos ) universe. Cosmos itself comes from kosmein ( kosmein ) to set in order, to adorn to decorate. Indeed, you will find the same thought regarding the world in the Hebrew Bible, where it speaks of the heavens declaring the glory of God, [ Psalms xix, 1.] and the handiwork of the Lord. Properly understood, that conception is as grand as is the conception latent in the word cosmos. A woman in Greece was said to kosmen ( kosmen ) herself, i.e. to put on her best apparel; so Nature, in its vast manifestations, has been likened by Oriental philosophers and poets to a maiden arrayed in her finest. Macrocosm would mean, then, that which is arrayed on the great scale, that which is dressed on the great scale; Microcosm, that which is set forth on the small scale. The Macrocosm, as we know from our studies, means the Universe; not necessarily the world, but the Universe, because ‘world’ is an ambiguous term, it means two things. It means an epoch of time, which was its original sense, and afterwards — because there is a close relationship in philosophical conception between time itself, or the extension of duration, and matter, which is the extension of material, the extension of physical substance — it gradually grew to have the meaning of the physical world. Now the word microcosm was used by the Fire Philosophers, of whom Paracelsus and Robert Fludd were two of the best exponents, to mean that manifestation which was a copy in all things of the Macrocosm. For instance, a tree could be called a microcosm of man, who in turn could be called a microcosm of the Deity, the Macrocosm, which is Cause to everything that is, Progenitor of everything. Through all things runs one Life, and that Life carries on its flood, on its currents, the seeds, the natures of all other things. You will remember that when we spoke of Nature, we spoke of Nature as a fulness, as being all that is, both divine and material. There is a constant communication or circulation between the higher and the lower; so that a tree could be the microcosm of man. It is built on the same causal plan that man is; its physical body has pursued a different physical line, but even there we may find the limbs, you may find that it grows in the same way, mystically, as man does; it is rooted in the earth as man is rooted in spirit; it has often figured in the Orient as the symbol of Unity, and in the Sanskrit and Scandinavian mythologies as the Midgards and Aswattha-Trees. A man is conceived of as a tree: he is often represented as a tree growing with its roots upward and the branches down, the branches symbolizing the different lives, each leaf, each twig, being a different experience. It breathes and drinks in the experience of the material world, taking its spiritual sustenance from the spirit. The Macrocosm, then, is that which is great, the Microcosm — its correspondence — that which is small. They are copies of each other. They are used in Theosophy, Macrocosm to signify the universe, Microcosm, man.
(WG) Microposopus, the “Lesser Countenance”, a kabalistic term applied to any part of nature’s manifestations, in antithesis to Macroposopus which includes them all; the Microcosm.
(TG) Midgard {Nors}. The great snake in the Eddas which gnaws the roots of the Yggdrasil — the Tree of Life and the Universe in the legend of the Norsemen. Midgard is the Mundane Snake of Evil.
(MO) Midgard {Nors} (mid-gawrd) [ mid middle + gard court] Our physical planet
(TG) Midrashim {Hebr}. “Ancient” — the same as Purana; the ancient writings of the Jews as the Puranas are called the “Ancient” (Scriptures) of India.
(TG) Migmar {Tibe}. The planet Mars.
(VS) Migmar [[p. 36]] Mars.
(OG) Milky Way, The — The Milky Way or galaxy is held to be our own especial home-universe. The nebulae are in many cases taken to be what are called island-universes, that is to say, vast aggregations of stars, many numbers of them with their respective planets around them, and all gathered together in these individual world-clusters. Of course there are nebulae of other kinds, but to these reference is not here made. Of the island-universes, there are doubtless hundreds of thousands of them; but as none of these has as yet [1933] been discovered to be as large in diameter, or as thick through, as is our own Milky Way system — which system has somewhat the shape of a lens or of a thin watch — the astronomers call our Milky Way by the popular name of continent-universe; and such other nebular star-clusters which we see and which are in many cases really vast masses of millions or billions of suns, are called island-universes. Our own Milky Way, could it be seen from some vast kosmic distance, would doubtless appear as a nebula or large star-cluster; and to certain percipient watchers our galaxy might even probably appear to be a spiral nebula, or perhaps an annular nebula. Our own sun is one of the stars in the cluster of the Milky Way, and is said by astronomers to be situated some distance, kosmically speaking, from the central portion of our Milky Way system, and a trifle to the north of the plane passing through the figure-center of the galaxy. The Milky Way is not only a vast star-cluster of suns in all-various degrees of evolutionary growth, but it is also the storehouse of celestial bodies-to-be. In this last respect, it is, as it were, the kosmic nursery from which seeds of future suns go forth to begin their manvantaric evolutionary courses. There are vast and fascinating mysteries connected with the Milky Way even in matters that concern the destiny of us human beings, as well as of all other entities of our solar system. The profound teachings which theosophy hints at under the topics of circulations of the kosmos and peregrinations of the monads are directly connected with the doctrines just referred to. The whole matter, however, is of so recondite a character that it is impossible here to do more than point suggestively to it.
(PV) Milpa Spanish, “seed field.” The native maize planting field. The symbolic equivalent of the altar table, the sacred ball court, the plane of the Earth.
(MO) Mimameid {Nors} (mee-mah-mayd) [ mima of Mimer + meid tree] The tree of Mimer, owner of the spring of experience
(TG) Mimansa {Sans}. A school of philosophy; one of the six in India. There are two Mimansa, the older and the younger. The first, the “Purva-Mimansa”, was founded by Jamini, and the later or “Uttara-Mimansa”, by a Vyasa — and is now called the Vedanta school. Sankaracharya was the most prominent apostle of the latter. The Vedanta school is the oldest of all the six Darshana ( lit., “demonstrations”), but even to the Purva-Mimansa no higher antiquity is allowed than 500 B.C. Orientalists in favour of the absurd idea that all these schools are “due to Greek influence”, in order to have them fit their theory would make them of still later date. The Shad-darshana (or Six Demonstrations) have all a starting point in common, and maintain that ex nihilo nihil fit.
(WG) Mimansa, an Indian philosophical system founded by Jaimini. It, in effect, denies the doctrine of free-will. (Literally, “something to be considered.”)
(TG) Mimir {Nors}. A wise giant in the Eddas. One of the Jotuns or Titans. He had a well which he watched over (Mimir’s well), which contained the waters of Primeval Wisdom, by drinking of which Odin acquired the knowledge of all past, present, and future events.
(MO) Mimer {Nors} (mee-mer) [the nine-layered sky] A giant: owner of the well of wisdom from which Odin drinks daily: matter
(TG) Minas {Sans}. The same as Meenam, the Zodiacal sign Pisces or Fishes.
(VS) mind is a mirror; it gathers dust while it reflects (II 6) [[p. 26]] From Shin-Sien’s Doctrine, who teaches that the human mind is like a mirror which attracts and reflects every atom of dust, and has to be, like that mirror, watched over and dusted every day. Shin-Sien was the sixth Patriarch of North China who taught the esoteric doctrine of Bodhidharma.
(TG) Minos {Greek}. The great Judge in Hades. An ancient King of Crete. WW Miracle I do not wish to be offensive to any one who desires to believe in miracles; I have no objection to ‘miracles’ in the original sense of ‘miracle’, that is, any phenomenon which is merely marvelous and not understood.
(TG) Mirror. The Luminous Mirror, Aspaqularia nera, a Kabalistic term, means the power of foresight and farsight, prophesy such as Moses had. Ordinary mortals have only the Aspaqularia della nera or Non Luminous Mirror, they see only in a glass darkly; a parallel symbolism is that of the conception of the Tree of Life, and that only of the tree of Knowledge. [W.W.W.]
(VS) mind is a mirror ; it gathers dust while it reflects (II 6) [[p. 26]] From Shin-Sien’s Doctrine, who teaches that the human mind is like a mirror which attracts and reflects every atom of dust, and has to be, like that mirror, watched over and dusted every day. Shin-Sien was the sixth Patriarch of North China who taught the esoteric doctrine of Bodhidharma.
(TG) Mishnah {Hebr}. The older portion of the Jewish Talmud, or oral law, consisting of supplementary regulations for the guidance of the Jews with an ample commentary. The contents are arranged in six sections, treating of Seeds, Feasts, Women, Damages, Sacred Things and Purification. Rabbi Judah Haunasee codified the Mishnah about A.D. 140. [W.W.W.]
(KT) Mishnah {Hebr} Lit., “a repetition” from the word Shanah , “to repeat” something said orally. A summary of written explanations from the oral traditions of the Jews and a digest of the Scriptures on which the later Talmud was based.
(WG) Misrana, mixing.
(TG) Mistletoe. This curious plant, which grows only as a parasite upon other trees, such as the apple and the oak, was a mystic plant in several ancient religions, notably that of the Celtic Druids: their priests cut the Mistletoe with much ceremony at certain seasons, and then only with a specially consecrated golden knife. Hislop suggests as a religious explanation that the Mistletoe being a Branch growing out of a Mother tree was worshipped as a Divine Branch out of an Earthly Tree, the union of deity and humanity. The name in German means “all heal”. Compare the Golden Branch in Virgil’s AEneid, vi. 126: and Pliny, Hist. Nat., 17 44. ” Sacerdos candida veste cultus arborein scandit, falce aurea demetit. ” [W.W.W.]
(TG) Mitra or Mithra. {Pers}. An ancient Iranian deity, a sun-god, as evidenced by his being lion-headed. The name exists also in India and means a form of the sun. The Persian Mithra, he who drove out of heaven Ahriman, is a kind of Messiah who is expected to return as the judge of men, and is a sin-bearing god who atones for the iniquities of mankind. As such, however, he is directly connected with the highest Occultism, the tenets of which were expounded during the Mithraic Mysteries which thus bore his name.
(TG) Mitre. The head-dress of a religious dignitary, as of a Roman Catholic Bishop: a cap ending upwards in two lips, like a fish’s head with open mouth — os tincae — associated with Dagon, the Babylonian deity, the word dag meaning fish. Curiously enough the os uteri has been so called in the human female and the fish is related to the goddess Aphrodite who sprang from the sea. It is curious also that the ancient Chaldee legends speak of a religious teacher coming to them springing out of the sea, named Oannes and Annedotus, half fish, half man. [W.W.W.]
(TG) Mizraim {Egyp}. The name of Egypt in very ancient times. This name is now connected with Freemasonry. See the rite of Mizraim and the rite of Memphis in Masonic Cyclopaedias.
(TG) Miolner {Nors}. The storm-hammer of Thor (See “Svastica”) made for him by the Dwarfs; with it the God conquered men and gods alike. The same kind of magic weapon as the Hindu Agneyastra, the fireweapon.
(MO) Mjolnir {Nors} (myeul-neer) [miller] Thor’s hammer of creation and destruction
(MO) Mjotudr {Nors} (myeut-oodr) [ mjot measure + udr exhausting] The Tree of Life in its dying phase
(MO) Mjotvidr {Nors} (myeut-veedr) [ mjot measure + vid increasing] The Tree of Life in its growing phase
(TG) Mlechchhas {Sans}. Outcasts. The name given to all foreigners, and those who are non-Aryas.
(WG) Mlechchha, a foreigner, barbarian, outcast, non-Aryan.
(IN) Mlechchhas {Sans} “Outcastes”; in Hinduism, foreigners, barbarians; also those unworthy of esoteric learning.
(TG) Mnevis {Egyp}. The bull Mnevis, the Son of Ptah, and the symbol of the Sun-god Ra, as Apis was supposed to be Osiris in the sacred bull-form. His abode was at Heliopolis, the City of the Sun. He was black and carried on his horns the sacred uraeus and disk.
(TG) Mobeds {avesta}. Parsi, or Zoroastrian priests.
(FY) Mobeds, Zoroastrian priests.
(WG) Moha, dullness; insensibility; destruction; delusion of mind preventing the discernment of truth by leading men to believe in the reality of worldly objects.
(TG) Moira {Greek}. The same as the Latin Fatum — fate, destiny, the power which rules over the actions, sufferings, the life and struggles of men. But this is not Karma; it is only one of its agent-forces.
(TG) Moksha {Sans}. Liberation. The same as Nirvana; a post-mortem state of rest and bliss of the Soul-Pilgrim.
(KT) Moksha {Sans} The same as Nirvana; a post-mortem state of rest and bliss of the Soul-pilgrim.
(WG) Moksha, salvation; complete liberation from conditioned existence and enjoyment of supreme bliss. Those who attain it may reincarnate on earth to aid humanity, but in doing so are not subject to karma or to the conditions of matter, and return to moksha when their term of voluntary reincarnation ends. Two kinds of moksha — kaivalya and Brahmanda, also called sayujya — are described in the Visishtadvaita philosophy.
(OG) Moksha — {Sans} This word comes from moksh, meaning to release, to set free, and is probably a desiderative of the root much, from which the word mukti also comes. The meaning of this word is that when a spirit, a monad, or a spiritual radical, has so grown in evolution that it has first become a man, and is set free interiorly, inwardly, and from a man has become a planetary spirit or dhyan-chohan or lord of meditation, and has gone still higher, to become interiorly a Brahman, and from a Brahman the Parabrahman for its hierarchy, then it is absolutely perfected, relatively speaking, free, released — perfected for that great period of time which to us seems almost an eternity so long is it, virtually incomputable by the human intellect. Now this also is the real meaning of the much abused word Absolute, limited in comparison with things still more immense, still more sublime; but so far as we can think of it, released or freed from the chains or bonds of material existence. One who is thus released or freed is called a jivanmukta.
(SP) Moksa [Moksha] — spiritual release or liberation. Mukti is synonymous.
(MO)NAD
(MO)nadology by Leibnitz
(TG) Monad {Greek}. The Unity, the one; but in Occultism it often means the unified triad, Atma-Buddhi-Manas, or the duad, Atma-Buddhi, that immortal part of man which reincarnates in the lower kingdoms, and gradually progresses through them to Man and then to the final goal — Nirvana.
(KT) Monad. It is the Unity, the ONE; but in occultism it often means the unified duad, Atma-Buddhi, — or that immortal part of man which incarnating in the lower kingdoms and gradually progressing through them to Man, finds thence way to the final goal — Nirvana.
(FY) Monad, the spiritual soul, that which endures through all changes of objective existence.
(WG) Monad, an ultimate atom; an unextended point; an elemental; the spirit, the ego.
(OG) Monad — A spiritual entity which to us humans is indivisible; it is a divine-spiritual life-atom, but indivisible because its essential characteristic, as we humans conceive it, is homogeneity; while that of the physical atom, above which our consciousness soars, is divisible, is a composite heterogeneous particle.
(MO)nads are eternal, unitary, individual life-centers, conscious-ness-centers, deathless during any solar manvantara, therefore ageless, unborn, undying. Consequently, each one such — and their number is infinite — is the center of the All, for the divine or the All is THAT which has its center everywhere, and its circumference or limiting boundary nowhere.
(MO)nads are spiritual-substantial entities, self-motivated, self-impelled, self-conscious, in infinitely varying degrees, the ultimate elements of the universe. These monads engender other monads as one seed will produce multitudes of other seeds; so up from each such monad springs a host of living entities in the course of illimitable time, each such monad being the fountainhead or parent, in which all others are involved, and from which they spring.
Every monad is a seed, wherein the sum total of powers appertaining to its divine origin are latent, that is to say unmanifested; and evolution consists in the growth and development of all these seeds or children monads, whereby the universal life expresses itself in innumerable beings.
As the monad descends into matter, or rather as its ray — one of other innumerable rays proceeding from it — is propelled into matter, it secretes from itself and then excretes on each one of the seven planes through which it passes, its various vehicles, all overshadowed by the self, the same self in you and in me, in plants and in animals, in fact in all that is and belongs to that hierarchy. This is the one self, the supreme self or paramatman of the hierarchy. It illumines and follows each individual monad and all the latter’s hosts of rays — or children monads. Each such monad is a spiritual seed from the previous manvantara, which manifests as a monad in this manvantara; and this monad through its rays throws out from itself by secretion and then excretion all its vehicles. These vehicles are, first, the spiritual ego, the reflection or copy in miniature of the monad itself, but individualized through the manvantaric evolution, bearing or carrying as a vehicle the monadic ray. The latter cannot directly contact the lower planes, because it is of the monadic essence itself, the latter a still higher ray of the infinite Boundless composed of infinite multiplicity in unity. ( See also Individuality)
(IN) Monad(s) (fr Gk monas , one, unit) Indivisible, divine center of every living being, atomic to cosmic.
(TG) Monas {Greek}. The same as the term Monad; Alone, a unit. In the Pythagorean system the duad emanates from the higher and solitary Monas, which is thus the First Cause.
(KT) Monas {Greek} The same as the Latin Monad; the only, a Unit. In the Pythagorean system the Duad emanates from the higher and solitary Monas, which is thus the First Cause.
(FY) Moneghar, the headman of a village.
(TG) Monogenes {Greek}. Lit., the only-begotten; a name of Proserpine and other gods and goddesses.
(KT) Monogenes {Greek} Literally, the only-begotten; a name of Proserpine and other gods and goddesses, as also of Jesus. WW Monotheism The next words for our study are Monotheism, Polytheism, Pantheism , and Atheism . The definitions given in the dictionary are, as I have said before, not satisfactory. We must have an agreement as to what words mean. Let us therefore analyze them. Monotheism, the dictionary will tell you, means the belief in one god. Well, it does mean that. Polytheism , the dictionary will say, is the belief in several or many gods; in any case, in more than one. Pantheism, it will tell you, is the belief that everything is God; and Atheism is the belief that there are no gods or god at all. Now Monotheism has been professed exoterically by three of the greatest religions since ancient times, and they are in historical order, firstly Judaism; secondly, and the most monotheistic of all, the most intransigent in attitude of all, Mohammedanism; and thirdly, Christianism. ( Question : What is the meaning of intransigent, please? — It means the mental attitude of him who will not go over to the other man’s side, who is going to hold his own opinion in spite of everything irreconcilably The Christians profess monotheism. They teach a Trinity. This Trinity is a mystery. It is sacrilegious, if not blasphemous, for those outside of holy orders to try to investigate the attributes of the Trinity. The Trinity is one God, not three Gods. It is three persons but one God. The Holy Spirit proceedeth from the Father, and the Latins say that the Holy Spirit proceedeth from the Father and the Son. The Greeks say that the Holy Spirit proceedeth from the Father alone. I think we are not astonished that such a doctrine can be called a mystery, in the popular sense. It is evidently based upon a Neoplatonic theory, belonging partly to the Gnostics also, concerning the tripartite nature, as it is conceived by man, by the human intellect, of that ultimate, ineffable, unspeakable Wonder which Theosophists call the Deity. The quarrels over this doctrine of the Trinity were so bitter, so rancorous, that Christians split into a multitude of sects; and reading the history of the Christian church as it is set forth in the records of the councils, and in the writings of their saints and eminent men and bishops, is like reading the history of an interminable squabble. In these Councils they actually murdered, they used to assault each other physically; soldiers were called in to preserve order, while the attributes of God were being settled. Some would preach monotheism — ‘monothehitism’, as it is called — i.e. that there was a Trinity, that is three persons in one God and one God in three persons, and being one, the three persons and consequently Jesus Christ as the incarnation of the second person of the Trinity, had one will. This was a heresy opposed to the other or ‘dyothelitism’ in the church; they would not have it. They said they have not three wills, but to say that the will of Jesus Christ the Son is the same as the will of the Father is a heresy, and let him be anathema who asserts it. It is hardly to be wondered at, gentlemen, that the ancients considered the doctrines of the Christian church as subject to scathing criticism. The Mohammedans are as learned and as intelligent and fully as subtle intellectually as the Christian theologians are. Now Hebrew monotheism is similar to what the late Professor Max Muller called Henotheism, from two Greek words enos one, and theism, also meaning the doctrine of one god. There is a distinction, subtle, it is true, between monotheism and henotheism — the doctrine of one god as supreme or dominant over other gods: that is henotheism. For instance, when the Roman poet and satirist Juvenal speaks of the battle between the inhabitants of different cities on the Nile, because one city worshiped the crocodile and another worshiped some other animal, while recognizing other Egyptian deities, these are examples of exoteric henotheism. Now the Hebrews, in worshiping one god, worshiped him as the national deity, the protector and god of Israel. This custom was not characteristic of the Hebrews alone, and that is a point which I have never seen sufficiently brought out in any writer. If we examine the religious history of any city of ancient times, taking something in Greece, for instance, we will find the one god or one goddess was locally preeminent in the ceremonial worship accorded to the divinities. As for instance the goddess Athena was especially reverenced in Athens, the city itself taking its name from her. Venus was the protectress of the gens Julia; and Julius Caesar actually traced his descent from the goddess Venus. Among the Athenians Athena was thus the tribal or rather municipal goddess; and so on. The religious differences between the Jews and the nations surrounding them in later times was simply that being a people who had suffered greatly they clung to their religion with unusual tenacity, found that they could keep their nationality, their national traits, best by holding to their national faith. Jehovah, the god of Israel, was taken over by the Christians, and despite the fact that these latter worshiped the Jewish god and annexed the Hebrew scriptures from the rightful possessors. All the sufferings of the Jewish people under the Roman empire, and earlier under the Babylonian domination, and under the Egyptian and Assyrian conquests, cannot compare with what that unfortunate people suffered during the centuries in medieval Europe under the dominion of Papal Rome. But we are wandering from our subject. Monotheism, then, among the Jews, signified the worship of one god, the national god of Israel and of no other people. It is improper to look upon the Jews, as a nation in history, as being as monotheistic as the Mohammedans. Their own prophets tell us that they were continually stiff-necked, as the saying is; they turned from the worship of their tribal god and worshiped the gods of the neighboring nations. Why should they not? The Phoenicians and the Jews spoke very nearly the same language, had very nearly the same fundamental ideas in religious beliefs, except in that one thing, that the Jews worshiped the god of Israel, and that Tyre and Sidon, as it may be, worshiped Hercules Ashtaroth, etc. But so did the Jews. The Baclim, the ‘Asherah, the ‘High Places’, always attracted Israel. The Mohammedans are the most strictly monotheistic. Their religion is not henotheistic; it is in theory pure and unmitigated monotheism. Listen to their saying La allahu li – allahi! No ‘Allah but ‘Allah! It is not like the Jewish saying. The Jewish confession runs: Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one. That is the confession of Israel. It is the recognition of the tribal god of Israel. But the Mohammedans will tell you: Listen: no God but Allah — uncompromising monotheism. The Jews never denied the existence of other deities, as their Bible proves, and I think no scholar has ever been bold enough to say that the ancient Jews as a people ever said There is no God but Jehovah. They said Jehovah is the God of Israel; other gods (Elohim) are less. But the Mohammedans said: No God but ‘Allah; no Lord but ‘Allah’. This is thorough-going monotheism. The modern Jews, however, are more monotheistic than their ancient forbears. The Christians then, are strictly speaking trinitarians, the Mohammedans monotheists, the ancient Jews were henotheists. All over the ancient world, in whatever part of Europe or Asia Minor, you will find that Henotheism was inextricably interwoven with what may be called the common religion of ancient days. For instance, all Greeks worshiped Zeus, Hera, Apollo, Hercules, Dionysos, etc., but each city, as Rome for instance, even each family, had its own particular municipal or clan god, and this poet made them henotheists in so far as they worshiped that particular god or protector, at the same time professing the national faith. Polytheism is the belief (and there is no belief so outrageously misrepresented and so woefully misunderstood) that the universe is governed by spiritual beings. It takes many forms. There was the popular belief with the Greeks and the Latins that Jupiter or Zeus, Hera or Juno, etc., continually intermeddled in the affairs of the world; that they could be supplicated by prayers, invoked to mend men’s mistakes, to pour balm upon the wounds he suffered proceeding from his own iniquities, to change and set aside the laws governing nature. The philosophers held another belief, so nearly like what is now held by scientists, that they are practically indistinguishable. They held that the god of our cosmos — not the ineffable Deity, not Zeus, for instance — was subject to law, was a spiritual power, filling as it were a post, a function, a magistrature in the economy of Nature. Under Zeus, so they taught, were lesser deities, each one with his function, his sphere of action in Nature. Pantheism is the doctrine, as it is usually set forth in the dictionaries, that all is God. I think that properly speaking Pantheism is not subject to such definition as that. It is rather the idea that all is rooted in the Deity, using the word Deity in its largest sense that nothing which is and exists can be separated from the Deity; that every smallest atom of everything in heaven and earth, is not only rooted in the Deity but a manifestation of deific power; not necessarily following it, because Pantheism recognizes each creature as possessing will, and the will of the person is frequently opposed to the will of the individual. Atheism as popularly conceived is the doctrine that God does not exist or that there are no gods. It has many aspects; some go to one extreme and set forth that the universe has no spiritual governance at all, that the happenings of nature are fortuitous, that the laws of nature are phantasms of man’s imagination, etc. The Christians were called atheos atheists, by the pagans because they did not accept all the pagan deities. The Christians retaliated by calling the pagans atheists because they did not accept the Jewish Jehovah. So Atheism is largely a matter of degree, and we should be careful not to condemn a fellow-man because his god is not our god.
(TG) Moon. The earth’s satellite has figured very largely as an emblem in the religions of antiquity; and most commonly has been represented as Female, but this is not universal, for in the myths of the Teutons and Arabs, as well as in the conception of the Rajpoots of India (see Tod, Hist. ) , and in Tartary the moon was male. Latin authors speak of Luna, and also of Lunus, but with extreme rarity. The Greek name is Selene, the Hebrew Lebanah and also Yarcah. In Egypt the moon was associated with Isis, in Phoenicia with Astarte and in Babylon with Ishtar. From certain points of view the ancients regarded the moon also as Androgyne. The astrologers allot an influence to the moon over the several parts of a man, according to the several Zodiacal signs she traverses; as well as a special influence produced by the house she occupies in a figure.
The division of the Zodiac into the 28 mansions of the moon appears to be older than that into 12 signs: the Copts, Egyptians, Arabs, Persians and Hindoos used the division into 28 parts centuries ago, and the Chinese use it still.
The Hermetists said the moon gave man an astral form, while Theosophy teaches that the Lunar Pitris were the creators of our human bodies and lower principles. (See Secret Doctrine I. 386 [w.w.w.]
(OG) Morals, Morality — What is the basis of morals? This is the most important question that can be asked of any system of thought. Is morality based on the dicta of man? Is morality based on the conviction in most men’s hearts that for human safety it is necessary to have certain abstract rules which it is merely convenient to follow? Are we mere opportunists? Or is morality, ethics, based on truth, which it is not merely expedient for man to follow, but necessary? Surely upon the latter! Morals is right conduct based upon right views, right thinking.
(IN) the third fundamental postulate of The Secret Doctrine [1:17] we find the very elements, the very fundamentals, of a system of morality greater than which, profounder than which, more persuasive than which, perhaps, it would be impossible to imagine anything.
On what, then, is morality based? And by morality is not meant merely the opinion which some pseudo-philosophers have, that morality is more or less that which is good for the community, based on the mere meaning of the Latin word mores , good customs, as opposed to bad. No! Morality is that instinctive hunger of the human heart to do righteousness, to do good to every man because it is good and satisfying and ennobling to do so.
When man realizes that he is one with all that is, inwards and outwards, high and low; that he is one with all, not merely as members of a community are one, not merely as individuals of an army are one, but like the molecules of our own flesh, like the atoms of the molecule, like the electrons of the atom, composing one unity — not a mere union but a spiritual unity — then he sees truth. ( See also Ethics)
(TG) Moriah, Mount. The site of King Solomon’s first temple at Jerusalem according to tradition. It is to that mount that Abraham journeyed to offer Isaac in sacrifice.
(TG) Morya {Sans}. One of the royal Buddhist houses of Magadha; to which belonged Chandragupta and Asoka his grandson; also the name of a Rajpoot tribe.
(FY) Morya, one of the royal houses of Magadha; also the name of a Rajpoot tribe.
(WG) Morya, the name of a Rajpoot tribe, so-called because of its being almost altogether composed of the descendants of the famous Moryan sovereign of Marya-Nagara. The Moryan Dynasty began with certain Kshatriyas of the Sakya line closely related to Gautama Buddha, who founded the town of Morya-Nagara in the Himalayas. In the Vishnu Purana it is stated that a king called Moru who lived during the Surya Dynasty is by his devotion and austerities living yet, in a certain village in the Himalayas, and in a future age he will come forth and restore the kshatriya race. The Moryas will possess the Earth is said in another place; meaning that by the power of their occult wisdom the Moryas in the future will be rulers of the earth, occultly, or in possession of all its knowledge.
(TG) Mout or Mooth {Egyp}. The mother goddess; the primordial goddess, for all the gods are born from Mooth, it is said. Astronomically, the moon.
(WG) Mriga, a wild animal.
(WG) Mrityu, death.
(TG) Mu {Phoen}. The same as ilus, mud, primordial chaos; a word used in the Tyrrhenian Cosmogony (See Suidas).
(TG) Mudra {Sans}. Called the mystic seal. A system of occult signs made with the fingers. These signs imitate ancient Sanskrit characters of magic efficacy. First used in the Northern Buddhist Yogacharya School, they were adopted later by the Hindu Tantrikas, but often misused by them for black magic purposes.
(OG) Mudra — {Sans} A general name for certain intertwinings or positions of the fingers of the two hands, used alone or together, in devotional yoga or exoteric religious worship, and these mudras or digital positions are held by many Oriental mystics to have particular esoteric significance. They are found both in the Buddhist statues of northern Asia, especially those belonging to the Yogachara school, and also in India where they are perhaps particularly affected by the Hindu tantrikas. There is doubtless a good deal of hid efficacy in holding the fingers in proper position during meditation, but to the genuine occult student the symbolic meaning of such mudras or digital positions is by far more useful and interesting. The subject is too intricate, and of importance too small, to call for much detail of explanation here, or even to attempt a full exposition of the subject.
(SKv) Mudra A mystic symbol, seal, or sign used as a talisman of magical power. One such Mudra is the Hindu Vajra or thunderbolt-weapon of the gods, which exerted power over invisible and evil forces. The Mudras are also a system of occult signs of magical effect made with the fingers, as well as certain postures taken during meditation. Mudra is derived from the verbal root mud — to be happy, to rejoice.
(SP) Mudra — symbolic gesture.
(TG) Mukta and Mukti {Sans}. Liberation from sentient life; one beatified or liberated; a candidate for Moksha, freedom from flesh and matter, or life on this earth.
(FY) Mukta, liberated; released from conditional existence.
(WG) Muktatma, liberated spirit. ( mukta , freed; atma, spirit
(FY) Mukti, See Mukta.
(WG) Mukti, salvation, deliverance, release from conditioned existence.
(SKf) Mukti, Moksha , Jivanmukta Mukti and Moksha both mean freedom, liberation, release from the bonds of material existence in this world, in other words: Nirvana. The verb-roots of these words: much and moksh, both mean to liberate, to set free. This liberation, however, is only relative; for when an entity reaches the summit of one scale of existence, there is unfolded before him a still higher range of worlds to be mastered, and so on forever. A man who has brought his discerning and spiritual faculties into active use, and hence has become free from the bonds of illusion and desire could be said to have attained Mukti. A monad or enlightened human being who while still alive on earth is freed from ignorance and its accompanying restrictions is termed a Jivanmukta. The Mahatmans and high Initiates are often called Jivanmuktas. This word is a compound of jivan — living, and mukta — freed, hence ‘one freed while living.’
(WG) Mula-bandha, having roots, deep-rooted.
(TG) Mulaprakriti {Sans}. The Parabrahmic root, the abstract deific feminine principle — undifferentiated substance. Akasa. Literally, the root of Nature (Prakriti) or Matter.
(FY) Mula-prakriti, undifferentiated cosmic matter; the unmanifested cause and substance of all being.
(WG) Mula-prakriti, undifferentiated matter; the root of matter; the first emanation of Parabrahmam, being itself an aspect of Parabrahmam. ( mula , root;. prakriti, matter
(OG) Mulaprakriti — {Sans} A compound containing mula, root, prakriti, nature, root-matter or root-nature. Corresponding to it as the other or active pole is parabrahman, from which Brahman (neuter), the first or unmanifest Logos, proceeds. Mulaprakriti, therefore, as the kosmic veil of parabrahman, may be called homogeneous or undifferentiated primordial substance. It is the fountain or root of akasa. ( See also Prakriti)
(SK)o Mulaprakriti ‘Root-matter’ or ‘root-nature’; from mula — root, and prakriti — nature. Mulaprakriti is primordial matter or mother-substance, the ‘veil’ or manifested expression, or the other pole, of Parabrahman. The first faint vibrations of Universal Life are caused by the interaction of Parabrahman and Mulaprakriti. Every living thing, every atom, from the moment of manifestation has its dual aspect, its Parabrahman and its Mulaprakriti, its fundamental essence and its first divine vesture. Mulaprakriti is the fountain of Prakriti or of all material forms ranging from the grossest to the finest.
(IN) Mulaprakriti {Sans} Root-nature, undifferentiated cosmic substance, the veil or opposite pole of Parabrahman.
(SP) Mulaprakrti [mulaprakriti] — root nature.
(TG) Mulil {Chald}. A name of the Chaldean Bel.
(TG) Muluk-Taoos {arabic}. From Maluh, Ruler, a later form of Moloch, Melek, Malayak and Malachim, messengers, angels. It is the Deity worshipped by the Yezidis, a sect in Persia, kindly called by Christian theology devil worshippers, under the form of a peacock. The Lord Peacock is not Satan, nor is it the devil; for it is simply the symbol of the hundred eyed Wisdom; the bird of Saraswati, goddess of Wisdom; of Karttikeya the Kumara, the Virgin celibate of the Mysteries of Juno, and all the gods and goddesses connected with the secret learning.
(TG) Mummy. The name for human bodies embalmed and preserved according to the ancient Egyptian method. The process of mummification is a rite of extreme antiquity in the land of the Pharaohs, and was considered as one of the most sacred ceremonies. It was, moreover, a process showing considerable learning in chemistry and surgery. Mummies 5,000 years old and more, reappear among us as preserved and fresh as when they first came from the hands of the Parashistes.
(TG) Mumukshatwa {Sans}. Desire for liberation (from reincarnation and thraldom of matter).
(FY) Mumukshatwa, desire for liberation.
(WG) Mumukshutva, desire for moksha or final emancipation.
(TG) Mundakya Upanishad {Sans}. Lit., the Mundaka esoteric doctrine, a work of high antiquity. It has been translated by Raja Rammohun Roy.
(KT) Mundakya Upanishad {Sans} Lit., the Mundaka esoteric doctrine. A work of high antiquity; it has been translated by Raja Ram Mohun Roy.
(TG) Mundane Egg or Tree, or any other such symbolical object in the world Mythologies. Meru is a Mundane Mountain; the Bodhi Tree, or Ficus religiosa, is the Mundane Tree of the Buddhists; just as the Yggdrasil is the Mundane Tree of the Scandinavians or Norsemen.
(WG) Mundane Egg . (See Egg of the World, also Hiranyagharba
(TG) Munis {Sans}. Saints, or Sages.
(WG) Muni, an ascetic, a saint, a holy man; pressure, impulse; a man driven by inward pressure or impulse.
(GH) Muni An ascetic, monk, devotee, hermit (especially one who has taken a vow of silence. (The following word is derived from the verbal root:) man, to think; hence one of the meanings of the word is ‘a man who has attained union with his inner divinity.’ Bhagavad-Gita , W. Q. Judge, p. 18)
(TG) Murari {Sans}. An epithet of Krishna or Vishnu; Lit., the enemy of Mura — an Asura.
(WG) Murha, perplexing.
(TG) Murti {Sans}. A form, or a sign, or again a face, e.g., Trimurti, the three Faces or Images.
(TG) Murttimat {Sans}. Something inherent or incarnate in something else and inseparable from it; like wetness in water, which is coexistent and coeval with it. Used of some attributes of Brahma and other gods.
(OG) Music of the Spheres — Every sphere that runs its course in the abysmal depths of space sings a song as it passes along. Every little atom is attuned to a musical note. It is in constant movement, in constant vibration at speeds which are incomprehensible to the ordinary brain-mind of man; and each such speed has its own numerical quantity, in other words its own numerical note, and therefore sings that note. This is called the music of the spheres, and if man had the power of spiritual clairaudience, the life surrounding him would be one grand sweet song: his very body would be as it were a symphonic orchestra, singing some magnificent, incomprehensible, musical symphonic composition. The growth of a flower, for instance, would be like a changing melody running along from day to day; he could hear the grass grow, and understand why it grows; he could hear the atoms sing and see their movements, and hear the unison of the songs of all individual atoms, and the melodies that any physical body produces; and he would know what the stars in their courses are constantly singing.
(TG) Muspel {Nors}. A giant in the Edda, the Fire-god, and the father of the Flames. It was these evil sons of the good Muspel who after threatening evil in Glowheim (Muspelheim) finally gathered into a formidable army, and fought the Last Battle on the field of Wigred. Muspel is rendered as World (or Mundane) Fire. The conception Dark Surtur (black smoke) out of which flash tongues of flame, connects Muspel with the Hindu Agni.
(IN) Mutatis mutandis {Latin} Necessary changes being made.
(TG) Mutham or Mattam. {Sans}. Temples in India with cloisters and monasteries for regular ascetics and scholars.
(TG) Myalba {Tibe}. In the Esoteric philosophy of Northern Buddhism, the name of our Earth, called Hell for those who reincarnate in it for punishment. Exoterically, Myalba is translated a Hell.
(VS) Joy Unto Ye, O Men of Myalba (III 35) [[p. 72]] Myalba is our earth pertinently called Hell, and the greatest of all Hells, by the esoteric school. The esoteric doctrine knows of no hell or place of punishment other than on a man-bearing planet or earth. Avitchi is a state and not a locality.
(SKv) Myalba A Tibetan word which literally means ‘hell.’ The Voice of the Silence says: Myalba is our earth — pertinently called Hell, and the greatest of all Hells, by the esoteric school. The esoteric doctrine knows of no hell or place of punishment other than on a man-bearing planet or earth. Avichi [Hell] is a state and not a locality. — Fragment III, note 35
(TG) Mystagogy {Greek}. The doctrines or interpretations of the sacred mysteries.
(TG) Mysteries. Greek teletai, or finishings, celebrations of initiation or the Mysteries. They were observances, generally kept secret from the profane and uninitiated, in which were taught by dramatic representation and other methods, the origin of things, the nature of the human spirit, its relation to the body, and the method of its purification and restoration to higher life. Physical science, medicine, the laws of music, divination, were all taught in the same manner. The Hippocratic oath was but a mystic obligation. Hippocrates was a priest of Asklepios, some of whose writings chanced to become public. But the Asklepiades were initiates of the Aesculapian serpent-worship, as the Bacchantes were of the Dionysia; and both rites were eventually incorporated with the Eleusinia. The Sacred Mysteries were enacted in the ancient Temples by the initiated Hierophants for the benefit and instruction of the candidates. The most solemn and occult Mysteries were certainly those which were performed in Egypt by the band of secret-keepers, as Mr. Bonwick calls the Hierophants. Maurice describes their nature very graphically in a few lines. Speaking of the Mysteries performed in Philae (the Nile-island), he says that it was in these gloomy caverns that the grand and mystic arcana of the goddess (Isis) were unfolded to the adoring aspirant, while the solemn hymn of initiation resounded through the long extent of these stony recesses. The word mysteries is derived from the Greek muo, to close the mouth, and every symbol connected with them had a hidden meaning. As Plato and many other sages of antiquity affirm, the Mysteries were highly religious, moral and beneficent as a school of ethics. The Grecian mysteries, those of Ceres and Bacchus, were only imitations of the Egyptian; and the author of Egyptian Belief and Modern Thought, informs us that our own word chapel or capella is said to be the Caph-El or college of El , the Solar divinity. The well-known Kabiri are associated with the Mysteries. In short, the Mysteries were in every country a series of dramatic performances, in which the mysteries of cosmogony and nature, in general, were personified by the priests and neophytes, who enacted the part of various gods and goddesses, repeating supposed scenes (allegories) from their respective lives. These were explained in their hidden meaning to the candidates for initiation, and incorporated into philosophical doctrines.
(IU) Mysteries. — Greek teletai , or finishings, as analogous to teleuteia or death. They were observances, generally kept secret from the profane and uninitiated, in which were taught by dramatic representation and other methods, the origin of things, the nature of the human spirit, its relations to the body, and the method of its purification and restoration to higher life. Physical science, medicine, the laws of music, divination, were all taught in the same manner. The Hippocratic oath was but a mystic obligation. Hippocrates was a priest of Asklepios, some of whose writings chanced to become public. But the Asklepiades were initiates of the Aesculapian serpent-worship, as the Bacchantes were of the Dionysia; and both rites were eventually incorporated with the Eleusinia. We will treat of the Mysteries fully in the subsequent chapters.
(KT) Mysteries (Sacred). They were enacted in the ancient temples by the initiated Hierophants for the benefit and instruction of candidates. The most solemn and occult were certainly those which were performed in Egypt by the band of secret-keepers, as Mr. Bonwick calls the Hierophants. Maurice describes their nature very graphically in a few lines. Speaking of the Mysteries performed in Philae (the Nile-island), he says: — It was in these gloomy caverns that the grand mystic arcana of the goddess (Isis) were unfolded to the adoring aspirant, while the solemn hymn of initiation resounded through the long extent of these stony recesses. The word mystery is derived from the Greek muo, to close the mouth, and every symbol connected with them had a hidden meaning. As Plato and many of the other sages of antiquity affirm, these mysteries were highly religious, moral, and beneficent as a school of ethics. The Grecian Mysteries, those of Ceres and Bacchus, were only imitations of the Egyptian, and the author of Egyptian Belief and Modern Thought informs us that our own word chapel or capella is said to be the caph-el or college of El , the solar divinity. The well-known Kabeiri are associated with the mysteries.
(IN) short, the Mysteries were in every country a series of dramatic performances, in which the mysteries of Cosmogony and nature in general were personified by the priests and neophytes, who enacted the parts of various gods and goddesses, repeating supposed scenes (allegories) from their respective lives. These were explained in their hidden meaning to the candidates for initiation and incorporated into philosophical doctrines.
(WG) Mysteries, the secret ceremonies which took place during the Ancient Initiations, in which the candidates were taught the origin of things, the nature of the soul, and shown the births of worlds and systems by dramatic representations. They were divided into the Greater and the Lesser Mysteries.
(OG) Mysteries — The Mysteries were divided into two general parts, the Less Mysteries and the Greater.
The Less Mysteries were very largely composed of dramatic rites or ceremonies, with some teaching; the Greater Mysteries were composed of, or conducted almost entirely on the ground of, study; and the doctrines taught in them later were proved by personal experience in initiation. In the Greater Mysteries was explained, among other things, the secret meaning of the mythologies of the old religions, as, for instance, the Greek.
The active and nimble mind of the Greeks produced a mythology which for grace and beauty is perhaps without equal, but it nevertheless is very difficult to explain; the Mysteries of Samothrace and of Eleusis — the greater ones — explained among other things what these myths meant. These myths formed the basis of the exoteric religions; but note well that exotericism does not mean that the thing which is taught exoterically is in itself false, but merely that it is a teaching given without the key to it. Such teaching is symbolic, illusory, touching on the truth — the truth is there, but without the key to it, which is the esoteric meaning, it yields no proper sense.
We have the testimony of the Greek and Roman initiates and thinkers that the ancient Mysteries of Greece taught men, above everything else, to live rightly and to have a noble hope for the life after death. The Romans derived their Mysteries from those of Greece.
The mythological aspect comprises only a portion — and a relatively small portion — of what was taught in the Mystery schools in Greece, principally at Samothrace and at Eleusis. At Samothrace was taught the same mystery-teaching that was current elsewhere in Greece, but here it was more developed and recondite, and the foundation of these mystery-teachings was morals. The noblest and greatest men of ancient times in Greece were initiates in the Mysteries of these two seats of esoteric knowledge.
(IN) other countries farther to the east, there were other Mystery schools or colleges, and this word college by no means necessarily meant a mere temple or building; it meant association, as in our modern word colleague, associate. The Teutonic tribes of northern Europe, the Germanic tribes, which included Scandinavia, had their Mystery colleges also; and teacher and neophytes stood on the bosom of Mother Earth, under Father Ether, the boundless sky, or in subterranean receptacles, and taught and learned. The core, the heart, the center, of the teaching of the ancient Mysteries was the abstruse problems dealing with death. ( See also Guru-parampara)
(TG) Mystery Language. The sacerdotal secret jargon employed by the initiated priests, and used only when discussing sacred things. Every nation had its own mystery tongue, unknown save to those admitted to the Mysteries.
(KT) Mystery Language. The sacerdotal secret jargon used by the initiated priests, and employed only when discussing sacred things. Every nation had its own mystery tongue, unknown to all save those admitted to the Mysteries.
(WG) Mystery-Language, the language of the mysteries or those things which cannot be told. The sacerdotal language used in discussing sacred things.
(TG) Mystes {Greek}. In antiquity, the name of the new Initiates; now that of Roman Cardinals, who having borrowed all their other rites and dogmas from Aryan, Egyptian and Hellenic heathen, have helped themselves also to the musis of the neophytes. They have to keep their eyes and mouth shift on their consecration, and are, therefore, called Mystae.
(TG) Mystica Vannus Iacchi. Commonly translated the mystic Fan: but in an ancient terra-cotta in the British Museum the fan is a Basket such as the Ancients’ Mysteries displayed with mystic contents: Inman says with emblematic testes. [w.w.w.]
(IU) Mystics. — Those initiated. But in the mediaeval and later periods the term was applied to men like Boehmen the Theosophist, Molinos the Quietist, Nicholas of Basle, and others who believed in a direct interior communion with God, analogous to the inspiration of the prophets.
(KT) Mystic, from the Greek word mysticos. In antiquity, one belonging to those admitted to the ancient mysteries; in our own times, one who practises mysticism, holds mystic, transcendental views, etc.
(KT) Mysticism. Any doctrine involved in mystery and metaphysics, and dealing more with the ideal worlds than with our matter-of-fact, actual universe.
(OG) Mysticism — A word originally derived from the Greek and having a wide range of meaning in modern Occidental religious and philosophical literature. A mystic may be said to be one who has intuitions or intimations of the existence of inner and superior worlds, and who attempts to ally himself or to come into self-conscious communion with them and the beings inhabiting these inner and invisible worlds.
The word mysticism, of course, has various shades of significance, and a large number of definitions could easily be written following the views of different mystical writers on this theme. From the theosophical or occult point of view, however, a mystic is one who has inner convictions often based on inner vision and knowledge of the existence of spiritual and ethereal universes of which our outer physical universe is but the shell; and who has some inner knowledge that these universes or worlds or planes or spheres, with their hosts of inhabitants, are intimately connected with the origin, destiny, and even present nature of the world which surrounds us.
Genuine mysticism is an ennobling study. The average mystic, however, is one who lacks the direct guidance derived from personal teaching received from a master or spiritual superior.
(TG) N. — The 14th letter in both the English and the Hebrew alphabets. In the latter tongue the N is called Nun, and signifies a fish. It is the symbol of the female principle or the womb. Its numerical value is 50 in the Kabalistic system, but the Peripatetics made it equivalent to 900, and with a stroke over it (900) 9,000. With the Hebrews, however, the final Nun was 700.
(TG) Naaseni. The Christian Gnostic sect, called Naasenians, or serpent worshippers, who considered the constellation of the Dragon as the symbol of their Logos or Christ.
(TG) Nabatheans. A sect almost identical in their beliefs with the Nazarenes and Sabeans, who had more reverence for John the Baptist than for Jesus. Maimonides identifies them with the astrolaters. . . . “Respecting the beliefs of the Sabeans “, he says, “the most famous is the book, The agriculture of the Nabatheans “. And we know that the Ebionites, the first of whom were the friends and relatives of Jesus, according to tradition, in other words, the earliest and first Christians, “were the direct followers and disciples of the Nazarene sect”, according to Epiphanius and Theodoret (See the Contra Ebionites of Epiphanius, and also “Galileans” and “Nazarenes”).
(TG) Nabhi {Sans}. The father of Bharata, who gave his name to Bharata Varsha (land) or India.
(FY) Nabhichakram, the seat of the principle of desire, near the umbilicus.
(TG) Nabia {Hebr}. Seership, soothsaying. This oldest and most respected of mystic phenomena is the name given to prophecy in the Bible, and is correctly included among the spiritual powers, such as divination, clairvoyant visions, trance-conditions, and oracles. But while enchanters, diviners, and even astrologers are strictly condemned in the Mosaic books, prophecy, seership, and nabia appear as the special gifts of heaven. In early ages they were all termed Epoptai (Seers), the Greek word for Initiates; they were also designated Nebim, “the plural of Nebo, the Babylonian god of wisdom.” The Kabalist distinguishes between the seer and the magician; one is passive, the other active; Nebirah, is one who looks into futurity and a clairvoyant; Nebi-poel, he who possesses magic powers. We notice that Elijah and Apollonius resorted to the same means to isolate themselves from the disturbing influences of the outer world, viz ., wrapping their heads entirely in a woollen mantle, from its being an electric non-conductor we must suppose.
(IU) Nabia. — Seership, soothsaying. This oldest and most respected of mystic phenomena, is the name given to prophecy in the Bible, and is correctly included among the spiritual powers, such as divination, clairvoyant visions, trance-conditions, and oracles. But while enchanters, diviners, and even astrologers are strictly condemned in the Mosaic books, prophecy, seership, and nabia appear as the special gifts of heaven. In early ages they were all termed Epoptai, the Greek word for seers, clairvoyants; after which they were designated as Nebim, “the plural of Nebo, the Babylonian god of wisdom.” The kabalist distinguishes between the seer and the magician ; one is passive, the other active; Nebirah, is one who looks into futurity and a clairvoyant; Nebi-poel, he who possesses magic powers . We notice that Elijah and Apollonius resorted to the same means to isolate themselves from the disturbing influences of the outer world, viz.: wrapping their heads entirely in a woolen mantle: from its being an electric non-conductor we must suppose.
(TG) Nabu {Chald}. Nebu or Nebo, generally; the Chaldean god of Secret Wisdom, from which name the Biblical, Hebrew term Nabiim (prophets) was derived. This son of Anu and Ishtar was worshipped chiefly at Borsippa; but he had also his temple at Babylon, above that of Bel, devoted to the seven planets. (See “Nazarenes” and “Nebo”
(VS) Nada (I 2), “the Soundless Sound” [[p. 1]] The “Soundless Voice,” or the “Voice of the Silence.” Literally perhaps this would read “Voice in the Spiritual Sound,” as Nada is the equivalent word in Sanskrit, for the Sensar term.
(SKv) Nada Literally ‘sound’; from the verb-root nad — to sound. H. P. Blavatsky used this word Nada in the sense of the ‘Voice of the Silence,’ the voice of Atman or the Divine Self of man.
(WG) Nadi, passage, channel, method.
(TG) Naga ( Sk). Literally “Serpent”. The name in the Indian Pantheon of the Serpent or Dragon Spirits, and of the inhabitants of Patala, hell. But as Patala means the antipodes, and was the name given to America by the ancients, who knew and visited that continent before Europe had ever heard of it, the term is probably akin to the Mexican Nagals the (now) sorcerers and medicine men. The Nagas are the Burmese Nats, serpent-gods, or “dragon demons”. In Esotericism, however, and as already stated, this is a nick-name for the “wise men” or adepts. In China and Tibet, the “Dragons” are regarded as the titulary deities of the world, and of various spots on the earth, and the word is explained as meaning adepts, yogis, and narjols. The term has simply reference to their great knowledge and wisdom. This is also proven in the ancient Sutras and Buddha’s biographies. The Naga is ever a wise man, endowed with extraordinary magic powers, in South and Central America as in India, in Chaldea as also in ancient Egypt. In China the “worship” of the Nagas was widespread, and it has become still more pronounced since Nagarjuna (the “great Naga”, the “great adept” literally), the fourteenth Buddhist patriarch, visited China. The “Nagas” are regarded by the Celestials as “the tutelary Spirits or gods of the five regions or the four points of the compass and the centre, as the guardians of the five lakes and four oceans” (Eitel). This, traced to its origin and translated esoterically, means that the five continents and their five root-races had always been under the guardianship of “terrestrial deities”, i.e ., Wise Adepts. The tradition that Nagas washed Gautama Buddha at his birth, protected him and guarded the relics of his body when dead, points again to the Nagas being only wise men, Arhats, and no monsters or Dragons. This is also corroborated by the innumerable stories of the conversion of Nagas to Buddhism. The Naga of a lake in a forest near Rajagriha and many other “Dragons” were thus converted by Buddha to the good Law.
(WG) Naga, a serpent; a tree; a mountain; the sun; the number seven; a symbol of wisdom; an Initiate.
(GH) Naga The word means a snake, especially a cobra; but in the Mahabharata it refers to a race of beings inhabiting Patala, the daughter of whose king, Ulupi married Arjuna. “But as Patala means the antipodes, and was the name given to America by the ancients, who knew and visited that continent before Europe had ever heard of it, the term is probably akin to the Mexican Nagals the (now) sorcerers and medicine men.” ( Theosophical Glossary, H. P. Blavatsky, p. 222) One myth relates that the Nagas were the offspring of the Rishi Kasyapa (the son of Marichi q.v. ). Regarding this H. P. Blavatsky wrote: “What is the fable, the genealogy and origin of Kasyapa, with his twelve wives, by whom he had a numerous and diversified progeny of nagas (serpents), reptiles, birds, and all kinds of living things, and who was thus the father of all kinds of animals, but a veiled record of the order of evolution in this round?” ( Secret Doctrine, II, p. 253) Another tale represents the Nagas as a semi-divine race (the race of Kadru) inhabiting the waters, or the city of Bhogavati situated under the earth: they are fabled to possess a human face with serpent-like lower extremities. Ananta is king of the Nagas. In The Secret Doctrine, the word Naga stands for a Serpent of Wisdom, a full Initiate — the serpent has ever been used in Occultism as the symbol of immortality and wisdom. “In the Secret Doctrine,, the first Nagas — beings wiser than Serpents — are the ‘Sons of Will and Yoga,’ ” ( Secret Doctrine,, II, p. 181). “Some of the descendants of the primitive Nagas, the Serpents of Wisdom, peopled America, when its continent arose during the palmy days of the great Atlantis,” ( Secret Doctrine, II, p. 182). ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 75)
(TG) Nagadwipa {Sans}. Lit., “the island of the Dragons”; one of the Seven Divisions of Bharatavarsha, or modern India, according to the Puranas. No proofs remain as to who were the Nagas (a historical people however), the favourite theory being that they were a Scythic race. But there is no proof of this. When the Brahmans invaded India they “found a race of wise men, half-gods, half-demons”, says the legend, men who were the teachers of other races and became likewise the instructors of the Hindus and the Brahmans themselves. Nagpur is justly believed to be the surviving relic of Nagadwipa. Now Nagpur is virtually in Rajputana, near Oodeypore, Ajmere, etc. And is it not well known that there was a time when Brahmans went to learn Secret Wisdom from the Rajputs? Moreover a tradition states that Apollonius of Tyana was instructed in magic by the Nagas of Kashmere.
(TG) Nagarajas {Sans}. The usual name given to all the supposed “guardian Spirits” of lakes and rivers, meaning literally “Dragon Kings”. All of these are shown in the Buddhist chronicles as having been converted to the Buddhist monastic life: i.e., as becoming Arhats from the Yogis that they were before.
(TG) Nagarjuna {Sans}. An Arhat, a hermit (a native of Western India) converted to Buddhism by Kapimala and the fourteenth Patriarch, and now regarded as a Bodhisattva-Nirmanakaya. He was famous for his dialectical subtlety in metaphysical arguments; and was the first teacher of the Amitabha doctrine and a representative of the Mahayana School. Viewed as the greatest philosopher of the Buddhists, he was referred to as “one of the four suns which illumine the world”. He was born 223 B.C., and going to China after his conversion converted in his turn the whole country to Buddhism.
(MO) Nagelfar {Nors} (nahg-el-fahr) [ nagel nail + far travel] The ship of death, built of dead men’s nails
(TG) Nagkon Wat #sia. Imposing ruins in the province of Siamrap (Eastern Siam), if ruins they may be called. An abandoned edifice of most gigantic dimensions, which, together with the great temple of Ankortham, are the best preserved relics of the past in all Asia. After the Pyramids this is the most occult edifice in the whole world. Of an oblong form, it is 796 feet in length and 588 in width, entirely built of stone, the roof included, but without cement like the pyramids of Ghizeh, the stones fitting so closely that the joints are even now hardly discernible. It has a central pagoda 250 feet in height from the first floor, and four smaller pagodas at the four corners, about 175 feet each. In the words of a traveller, (The Land of the White Elephant, Frank Vincent, p. 209): “in style and beauty of architecture, solidity of construction, and magnificent and elaborate carving and sculpture, the great Nagkon Wat has no superior, certainly no rival, standing at the present day.” (See Isis Unv., Vol. I. pp. 561-566
(TG) Nahash {Hebr}. “The Deprived”; the Evil one or the Serpent, according to the Western Kabalists.
(TG) Nahbkoon {Egyp}. The god who unites the “doubles”, a mystical term referring to the human disembodied “principles”.
(TG) Nagal. The title of the chief Sorcerer or “medicine man” of some tribes of Mexican Indians. These keep always a daimon or god, in the shape of a serpent — and sometimes some other sacred animal — who is said to inspire them.
(PV) Nahual An alter ego of a person, of vegetable, animal, human or godlike nature. An inner relationship, fully defined, exists between the person and his or her nahual(s) from birth to death: e.g., a nahual of Hunahpu is the fish; of Ixbalamque, the jaguar; of both as the divine twins, Hunrakan itself. Nahualism as a belief continues among today’s Indians.
(TG) Naimittika {Sans}. Occasional, or incidental; used of one of the four kinds of Pralayas (See “Pralaya”).
(WG) Naimittika-pralaya, that change by which, at the end of each Brahma-kalpa, all things in an individual solar system are resolved into their primitive elements. ( naimittika, periodical; pralaya , dissolution
(TG) Nain {Nors}. The “Dwarf of Death”.
(TG) Najo {hindi}. Witch; a sorceress.
(FY) Najo, witch.
(TG) Nakshatra {Sans}. Lunar asterisms.
(WG) Nakshatra, star; the 27 lunar houses or signs of the zodiac.
(GH) Nakula The son of Madri (the second wife of Pandu) and the twin gods of the sky, the Asvinau: the fourth of the Pandavas. Madri had been given by Kunti the use of her mantra for calling to her side a god, but she was clever enough to summon the twin sky-gods, hence she gave birth to two sons: Nakula and Sahadeva. Nakula excelled in the art of training and managing horses, which he learned from Drona. ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 4)
(SKv) Naljor, Naga, Rishi Naljor is the Tibetan word for a holy man, an adept. Naga literally means ‘Serpent’; but because the serpent has ever been a symbol of Immortality and Wisdom and spiritual rebirth, the full Initiate of old India was given the title of Naga. A Rishi is an enlightened poet or sage. The Rishis or Seers of old India were the authors of the Vedic hymns. Some Sanskritists think that the word Rishi is a derived form of the verb-root dris — to perceive, to see.
(TG) Namah {Sans}. In Pali Namo. The first word of a daily invocation among Buddhists, meaning, “I humbly trust, or adore, or acknowledge” the Lord; as: “Namo tasso Bhagavato Arahato” etc., addressed to Lord Buddha. The priests are called “Masters of Namah” — both Buddhist and Taoist, because this word is used in liturgy and prayers, in the invocation of the Triratna, and with a slight change in the occult incantations to the Bodhisvattvas and Nirmanakayas.
(TG) Nanda {Sans}. One of the Kings of Magadha (whose dynasty was overthrown by Chandragupta q.v .
(FY) Nanda, ( King ), one of the kings of Magadha.
(TG) Nandi {Sans}. The sacred white bull of Siva and his Vahan (Vehicle).
(TG) Nanna {Nors}. The beautiful bride of Baldur, who fought with the blind Hodur (“he who rules over darkness”) and received his death from the latter by magic art. Baldur is the personification of Day, Hodur of Night, and the lovely Nanna of Dawn.
(MO) Nanna {Nors} Soul of the moon, who died of sorrow when her husband Balder was killed. Predecessor of Idun
(TG) Nannak {Chald}, also Nanar and Sin. A name of the moon; said to be the son of Mulil, the older Bel and the Sun, in the later mythology. In the earliest, the Moon is far older than the Sun.
(TG) Nara {Sans}. “Man”, the original, eternal man.
(TG) Nara {Sans}. The waters of Space, or the Great Deep, whence the name of Narayana or Vishnu.
(WG) Nara, man; the primal man; a hero; a title of Arjuna.
(GH) Nara A man. In the Mahabharata and the Puranas, Nara is sometimes used as an equivalent for Cosmic Purusha , ‘Primordial Universal Man,’ and associated with Narayana (the Logos). Arjuna is identified with Nara, and Krishna with Narayana — the difference in the human sphere suggesting the difference in the cosmic sphere. Thus, as Subba Row explains, Arjuna represents Nara or the human monad, whereas Krishna represents the Logos ( Notes on the Bhagavad-Gita, 9). ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. viii)
(TG) Narada {Sans}. One of the Seven great Rishis, a Son of Brahma. This “Progenitor” is one of the most mysterious personages in the Brahmanical sacred symbology. Esoterically Narada is the Ruler of events during various Karmic cycles, and the personification, in a certain sense, of the great human cycle; a Dhyan Chohan. He plays a great part in Brahmanism, which ascribes to him some of the most occult hymns in the Rig Veda, in which sacred work he is described as “of the Kanwa family”. He is called Deva-Brahma, but as such has a distinct character from the one he assumes on earth — or Patala. Daksha cursed him for his interference with his 5,000 and 10,000 sons, whom he persuaded to remain Yogins and celibates, to be reborn time after time on this earth ( Mahabharata ). But this is an allegory. He was the inventor of the Vina, a kind of lute, and a great “lawgiver”. The story is too long to be given here.
(GH) Narada One of the ten great Rishis, or Prajapatis, known as the mind-born so ns of Brahma. This Rishi is credited with the authorship of some of the hymns of the Rig-Veda. In the epic poems he is represented as the virgin-ascetic frustrating creative functions, nevertheless he is a helper of mankind and appears as the friend of Krishna. Then too Narada is the leader of the heavenly musicians (Gandharvas, q.v. ), the inventor of the vina (lute); he also descends into Patala (the infernal regions). Narada is called “in Cis-Himalayan Occultism Pesh-Hun, the ‘Messenger,’ . . . a kind of active and ever incarnating logos, who leads and guides human affairs from the beginning to the end of the Kalpa.” ( Secret Doctrine, II, p. 48) ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 72)
(TG) Naraka {Sans}. In the popular conception, a hell, a “prison under earth”. The hot and cold hells, each eight in number, are simply emblems of the globes of our septenary chain, with the addition of the “eighth sphere” supposed to be located in the moon. This is a transparent blind, as these “hells” are called vivifying hells because, as explained, any being dying in one is immediately born in the second, then in the third, and so on; life lasting in each 500 years (a blind on the number of cycles and reincarnations). As these hells constitute one of the six gati (conditions of sentient existence), and as people are said to be reborn in one or the other according to their Karmic merits or demerits, the blind becomes self-evident. Moreover, these Narakas are rather purgatories than hells, since release from each is possible through the prayers and intercessions of priests for a consideration, just as in the Roman Catholic Church which seems to have copied the Chinese ritualism in this pretty closely. As said before, esoteric philosophy traces every hell to life on earth, in one or another form of sentient existence.
(WG) Naraka, a state of being, “in a certain locality,” in which the jivatma feels pain as a punishment for or effect of bad karma; hell, limited in duration by karma; a place of retribution for evil karma, supposed to be situated near the earth and in an etherial condition — variously described by different systems as of numerous divisions, generally said to be twenty-one in number.
(TG) Nara Sinha {Sans}. Lit., “Man-lion”; an Avatar of Vishnu.
(TG) Narayana {Sans}. The “mover on the Waters” of space: a title of Vishnu, in his aspect of the Holy Spirit, moving on the Waters of Creation. (See Manu, Book II In esoteric symbology it stands for the primeval manifestation of the life-principle, spreading in infinite Space.
(FY) Narayana, in mystic symbology it stands for the life principle.
(WG) Narayana, son of the primal man; Vishnu, a manifestation of Parabrahmam. ( nara, water; ayana, moving: moving on the water
(TG) Nargal {Chald}. The Chaldean and Assyrian chiefs of the Magi (Rab Mag).
(TG) Narjol {Tibe}. A Saint; a glorified Adept.
(VS) Narjol [[p. 48]] A saint, an adept.
(TG) Naros or Neros {Hebr}. A cycle, which the Orientalists describe as consisting of 600 years. But what years? There were three kinds of Neros: the greater, the middle and the less. It is the latter cycle only which was of 600 years. (See “Neros”
(GH) Nasatya One of the twin Asvins, the sky deities. By Madri he became the father of Nakula — the fourth of the Pandava brothers. (Meaning of the word itself: the helpful one. Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. iv)
(TG) Nastika {Sans}. Atheist, or rather he who does not worship or recognize the gods and idols.
(IN) Nastika {Sans} “Atheist,” unbeliever, one who does not worship idols or the anthropomorphic gods of orthodox religions.
(TG) Nath {Sans}. A Lord: used of gods and men; a title added to the first name of men and things as Badrinath (lord of mountains), a famous place of pilgrimage; Gopinath (lord of the shepherdesses), used of Krishna.
(WG) Natha, lord, protector, ruler.
(OG) Nature — The consciousness side of nature is composed of vast hierarchies of gods, developed cosmical spirits, spiritual entities, cosmic graduates in the university of life. The material side of nature is the heterogeneous matter, the material world in its many various planes, in all stages of imperfection — but all these stages filled with armies of entities evolving and growing. The proper term for nature in modern theosophical usage is prakriti or still more accurately mulaprakriti — the ever-living kosmic producer, the eternally fecund mother, of the universe. When a theosophist speaks of nature, unless he limits the term to the physical world, he never means the physical world alone, but the vast reaches of universal kosmos and more particularly the inner realms, the causal factors of the boundless All. Hence, a growing understanding of nature in this sense — which is another way of saying an understanding of reality — obviously provides the only basis of a religion founded on the changeless realities. WW Nature [[Nature is]] a very important word because on a proper understanding of that word is based a proper understanding of Theosophy. Theosophy may be considered as the exposition of natural truths — natural in the sense in which I have said, because all things are children of the Mother, Nature, the great mother of all, the mother of the gods (or spiritual beings if you prefer the word), the mother of men, the mother of worlds. Nature is the plenum of all ages. The word Nature is sometimes used in modern philosophy as merely being that physical aspect of the world which we see or know through five senses. I doubt if any Theosophist would admit of such a definition being complete; I doubt it; it is not comprehensive enough; it is too limited. There are too many sides and aspects of Nature which bear directly on the origin and destiny of man, for that opinion to bear the examination which I think any intelligent man who wanted to get at the truth of things, the reality, would bring to bear upon it. I have just taken as examples the fall of a leaf or the planting of a seed. Take the growth of a blade of grass. Put our seed into the ground; it produces its kind, not another kind, but its kind alone. That is very significant. It is so common that we do not realize the mysteries that are involved in it. Nature is what is . That may seem a trite sentence but I beg your indulgence. I beg you to consider what I mean. These may sound abstractions to you. I think they are not. I believe them to be concrete expressions of reality. Nature is what is. It is the Isness of things. The spirit whether of man or brute is also part of Nature. This doctrine concerning Nature is perhaps our first and greatest disagreement with the Christians. It is highly proper to regard them as our brothers, but when it comes definitely to questions of belief, questions of their faith and our knowledge, because knowledge is what we can and must get, we find that we can get a knowledge from Theosophy which they cannot get from their beliefs and their doctrines. When the difference narrows down to distinctions, this is one of their principal stumbling-blocks. They say the world was made out of nothing. It certainly is a remarkable world I think to be made out of nothing. But that question has been so ably debated by others that it is unnecessary to go further into it. It is now one of the res adjudicatae in religion. I think it will be sufficient to call attention to it and pass on. The word Nature, then, as I shall use it during the course of our studies, will mean in large part, although not wholly, what the Gnostics meant by the word pleroma ( pleroma ), the fulness, which comes from the Greek word plerodethai ( plerodethai ) to be filled full. Fulness in the sense of all that is — the universe, in the outer sense and the inner sense: not merely all the planets and all the suns and all the constellations, but the inner world too, is a part of Nature; in fact it is the greater part of Nature. The exterior, physical world which we sense is but a mask, a shadow cast on the screen of time and reality.
(TG) Nava Nidhi {Sans}. Lit., “the nine jewels”; a consummation of spiritual development, in mysticism.
(FY) Nava nidhi, the nine jewels, or consummation of spiritual development.
(TG) Nazar {Hebr}. One “set apart”; a temporary monastic class of celibates spoken of in the Old Testament, who married not, nor did they use wine during the time of their vow, and who wore their hair long, cutting it only at their initiation. Paul must have belonged to this class of Initiates, for he himself tells the Galatians (i. 15) that he was separated or “set apart” from the moment of his birth; and that he had his hair cut at Cenchrea, because “he had a vow” (Acts 18. 18), i.e., had been initiated as a Nazar; after which he became a “master-builder” ( I Corinth . iii. 10). Joseph is styled a Nazar (Gen.49.26). Samson and Samuel were also Nazars, and many more.
(TG) Nazarenes {Hebr}. The same as the St. John Christians; called the Mendaeans, or Sabeans. Those Nazarenes who left Galilee several hundred years ago and settled in Syria, east of Mount Lebanon, call themselves also Galileans; though they designate Christ “a false Messiah” and recognise only St. John the Baptist, whom they call the “Great Nazar”. The Nabatheans with very little difference adhered to the same belief as the Nazarenes or the Sabeans. More than this — the Ebionites, whom Renan shows as numbering among their sect all the surviving relatives of Jesus, seem to have been followers of the same sect if we have to believe St. Jerome, who writes: “I received permission from the Nazaraeans who at Beraea of Syria used this (Gospel of Matthew written in Hebrew) to translate it. . . . . The Evangel which the Nazarenes and Ebionites use which recently I translated from Hebrew into Greek.” (Hieronymus’ Comment. to Matthew, Book II., chapter xii., and Hieronymus’ De Viris Illust. cap . 3. ) Now this supposed Evangel of Matthew, by whomsoever written, “exhibited matter,” as Jerome complains (loc. cit, “not for edification but for destruction” (of Christianity). But the fact that the Ebionites, the genuine primitive Christians, “rejecting the rest of the apostolic writings, made use only of this (Matthew’s Hebrew) Gospel” ( Adv. Haer., i. 26) is very suggestive. For, as Epiphanius declares, the Ebionites firmly believed, with the Nazarenes, that Jesus was but a man “of the seed of a man” (Epiph. Contra Ebionites). Moreover we know from the Codex of the Nazarenes, of which the “Evangel according to Matthew” formed a portion, that these Gnostics, whether Galilean, Nazarene or Gentile, call Jesus, in their hatred of astrolatry, in their Codex Naboo-Meschiha or “Mercury”. (See “Mendaeans”). This does not shew much Orthodox Christianity either in the Nazarenes or the Ebionites; but seems to prove on the contrary that the Christianity of the early centuries and modern Christian theology are two entirely opposite things.
(KT) Nazarene Codex. The Scriptures of the Nazarenes and of the Nabotheans also. According to sundry Church Fathers, Jerome and Epiphanius especially, they were heretical teachings, but are in fact one of the numerous Gnostic readings of cosmogony and theogony, which produced a distinct sect.
(TG) Nebban or Neibban {Chin}. The same as Nirvana, Nippang in Tibet.
(TG) Nebo {Chald}. The same as the Hindu Budha, son of Soma the Moon, and Mercury the planet. (See “Nabu”
(TG) Necromancy {Greek}. The raising of the images of the dead, considered in antiquity and by modern Occultists as a practice of black magic. Iamblichus, Porphyry and other Theurgists have deprecated the practice, no less than did Moses, who condemned the “witches” of his day to death, the said witches being only Necromancers — as in the case of the Witch of Endor and Samuel.
(KT) Necromancy. The raising of the images of the dead, considered in antiquity and by modern occultists as a practice of Black Magic. Iamblichus, Porphyry and other theurgists deprecated the practice no less than Moses, who condemned the “witches” of his day to death, the said witches being often only mediums, e.g., the case of the Witch of Endor and Samuel.
(TG) Nehaschim {Hebr} “The serpent’s works.” It is a name given to the Astral Light, “the great deceiving serpent” (Maya), during certain practical works of magic. (See Sec. Doc. II . 409
(TG) Neilos {Greek}. The river Nile; also a god.
(TG) Neith {Egyp}. Neithes. The Queen of Heaven; the moon-goddess in Egypt. She is variously called Nout, Nepte, Nur. (For symbolism, see “Nout”
(TG) Neocoros {Greek}. With the Greeks the guardian of a Temple.
(TG) Neophyte {Greek}. A novice; a postulant or candidate for the Mysteries. The methods of initiation varied. Neophytes had to pass in their trials through all the four elements, emerging in the fifth as glorified Initiates. Thus having passed through Fire (Deity), Water (Divine Spirit), Air (the Breath of God), and the Earth (Matter), they received a sacred mark, a tat and a tau, or a + and a [[symbol similar to a T]]. The latter was the monogram of the Cycle called the Naros, or Neros. As shown by Dr. E. V. Kenealy, in his Apocalypse, the cross in symbolical language (one of the seven meanings) “+ exhibits at the same time three primitive letters, of which the word LVX or Light is compounded. . . . The Initiates were marked with this sign, when they were admitted into the perfect mysteries. We constantly see the Tau and the Resh united thus [[symbol similar to a P over a T]]. Those two letters in the old Samaritan, as found on coins, stand, the first for 400, the second for 200 = 600. This is the staff of Osiris.” Just so, but this does not prove that the Naros was a cycle of 600 years; but simply that one more pagan symbol had been appropriated by the Church. (See “Naros” and “Neros” and also “I. H. S.”)
(FY) Neophyte, a candidate for initiation into the mysteries of adeptship.
(WG) Neophyte, a candidate or novice. One not initiated but preparing to be admitted into the sacred mysteries.
(TG) Neo-platonism. Lit ., “The new Platonism” or Platonic School. An eclectic pantheistic school of philosophy founded in Alexandria by Ammonius Saccas, of which his disciple Plotinus was the head (A.D. 189-270). It sought to reconcile Platonic teachings and the Aristotelean system with oriental Theosophy. Its chief occupation was pure spiritual philosophy, metaphysics and mysticism. Theurgy was introduced towards its later years. It was the ultimate effort of high intelligences to check the ever-increasing ignorant superstition and blind faith of the times; the last product of Greek philosophy, which was finally crushed and put to death by brute force.
(KT) Neoplatonists. A school of philosophy which arose between the second and third century of our era, and was founded by Ammonius Saccas, of Alexandria. The same as the Philalethians, and the Analogeticists; they were also called Theurgists and by various other names. They were the Theosophists of the early centuries. Neo-Platonism is Platonic philosophy plus ecstasy, divine Raj-yoga.
(WG) Neo-Platonism, the revived Platonism of the second and third centuries. Ammonius Saccas founded an Eclectic School of Theosopoy in Alexandria at that period, and strove to reestablish the older oriental philosophies and reconcile Platonic teaching with them. His followers have since been called Neo-Platonists. Plotinus was of this school.
(TG) Nephesh {Hebr}. Breath of life. Anima, Mens, Vita, Appetites. This term is used very loosely in the Bible. It generally means prana “life”; in the Kabbalah it is the animal passions and the animal Soul. [W.W.W.] Therefore, as maintained in theosophical teachings, Nephesh is the synonym of the Prana-Kamic Principle, or the vital animal Soul in man. [H. P. B.]
(KT) Nephesh {Hebr} “Breath of Life, Anima, Mens Vitae, appetites. The term is used very loosely in the Bible. It generally means Prana, ‘life’; in the Kabbalah it is the animal passions and the animal soul.” Therefore, as maintained in theosophical teachings, Nephesh is the Prana-Kamic Principle, or the vital animal soul in man.
(FY) Nephesh, one of the three souls, according to the Kabala; first three principles in the human septenary.
(WG) Nephesh (Hebrew), the “breath of life”; the vital soul; manas. In the Kabala the division is: neschamah, ruach, nephesh .
(TG) Nephesh Chia {Hebr}. Animal or living Soul.
(TG) Nephilim {Hebr}. Giants, Titans, the Fallen Ones.
(TG) Nephtys {Egyp}. The sister of Isis, philosophically only one of her aspects. As Osiris and Typhon are one under two aspects, so Isis and Nephtys are one and the same symbol of nature under its dual aspect. Thus, while Isis is the wife of Osiris, Nephtys is the wife of Typhon, the foe of Osiris and his slayer, although she weeps for him. She is often represented at the bier of the great Sun-god, having on her head a disk between the two horns of a crescent. She is the genius of the lower world, and Anubis, the Egyptian Pluto, is called her son. Plutarch has given a fair esoteric explanation of the two sisters. Thus he writes “Nephtys designs that which is under the earth, and which one sees not ( i.e ., its disintegrating and reproducing power), and Isis that which is above earth, and which is visible (or physical nature). . . . The circle of the horizon which divides these two hemispheres and which is common to both, is Anubis.” The identity of the two goddesses is shown in that Isis is also called the mother of Anubis. Thus the two are the Alpha and Omega of Nature.
(TG) Nergal {Chald}. On the Assyrian tablets he is described as the “giant king of war, lord of the city of Cutha”. It is also the Hebrew name for the planet Mars, associated invariably with ill-luck and danger. Nergal-Mars is the “shedder of blood”. In occult astrology it is less malefic than Saturn, but is more active in its associations with men and its influence on them.
(TG) Neros {Hebr}. As shown by the late E. V. Kenealy this “Naronic Cycle” was a mystery, a true “secret of god”, to disclose which during the prevalence of the religious mysteries and the authority of the priests, meant death. The learned author seemed to take it for granted that the Neros was of 600 years duration, but he was mistaken. (See “Naros” Nor were the establishment of the Mysteries and the rites of Initiation due merely to the necessity of perpetuating the knowledge of the true meaning of the Naros and keeping this cycle secret from the profane; for the Mysteries are as old as the present human race, and there were far more important secrets to veil than the figures of any cycle. (See “Neophyte” and “I. H. S.”, also “Naros” The mystery of 666, “the number of the great heart” so called, is far better represented by the Tau and the Resh than 600.
(TG) Nerthus #6nn. The goddess of the earth, of love and beauty with the old Germans; the same as the Scandinavian Freya or Frigga. Tacitus mentions the great honours paid to Nerthus when her idol was carried on a car in triumph through several districts.
(TG) Neshamah {Hebr}. Soul, anima, afflatus. In the Kabbalah, as taught in the Rosicrucian order, one of the three highest essences of the Human Soul, corresponding to the Sephira Binah. [w.w.w.]
(FY) Neschamah, one of the three souls, according to the Kabala; the seventh principle in the human septenary.
(WG) Neschamah (Hebrew), the spirit; atma. (See Nephesh
(TG) Nesku or Nusku {Chald}. Is described in the Assyrian tablets as the “holder of the golden sceptre, the lofty god”.
(TG) Netzach {Hebr}. “Victory”. The seventh of the Ten Sephiroth, a masculine active potency. [W.W.W.]
(WG) Netzach, {Hebr}, Victory; the seventh of the ten Sephiroth of the Kabalah. A masculine potency.
(TG) Nidana {Sans}. The 12 causes of existence, or a chain of causation, “a concatenation of cause and effect in the whole range of existence through 12 links”. This is the fundamental dogma of Buddhist thought, “the understanding of which solves the riddle of life, revealing the inanity of existence and preparing the mind for Nirvana”. (Eitel’s Sans. Chin. Dict. ) The 12 links stand thus in their enumeration. (1) Jati, or birth, according to one of the four modes of entering the stream of life and reincarnation — or Chatur Yoni, each mode placing the being born in one of the six Gati . (2) Jardinarana, or decrepitude and death, following the maturity of the Skandhas . (3) Bhava, the Karmic agent which leads every new sentient being to be born in this or another mode of existence in the Trailokya and Gati . (4) Upadana, the creative cause of Bhava which thus becomes the cause of Jati which is the effect; and this creative cause is the clinging to life. (5) Trishna, love, whether pure or impure. (6) Vedana, or sensation; perception by the senses, it is the 5th Skandha. (7) Sparsa, the sense of touch. (8) Chadayatana, the organs of sensation. (9) Namarupa, personality, i.e ., a form with a name to it, the symbol of the unreality of material phenomenal appearances. (10) Vijnana, the perfect knowledge of every perceptible thing and of all objects in their concatenation and unity. (11) Samskara, action on the plane of illusion. (12) Avidya, lack of true perception, or ignorance. The Nidanas belonging to the most subtle and abstruse doctrines of the Eastern metaphysical system, it is impossible to go into the subject at any greater length.
(WG) Nidana, a band, a rope, a halter. Theosophically, a first or original cause; a primary or remote cause; original form or cause of a thing; in ancient medicine of the Hindus the study of symptoms to determine remote or primary cause of the disease was a department with sixteen divisions, one being called nidana sthana . In metaphysics and the psychology of occultism, a nidana is the beginning of a current leading to acts and circumstances. It is related to another word — nida — which means a resting-place, a bird’s-nest, a lair, a den; that is, the resting-place for a cause or start of a current or nidana .
(SKs) Nidana The twelve Nidanas of Buddhism are the twelve ‘fetters’ or ’causes of existence.’ Nidana is derived from the verb-root da — to bind, and the preposition ni — down; hence it is ‘that which binds to earth,’ or that which attracts one back to earthly existence. The twelve Nidanas are: Avidya ‘Nescience’ or lack of a true understanding of life and its truths and mysteries; a compound of a — not, and vidya wisdom. The cause of: Samskara The karmic results of actions performed under the influence of illusion or false understanding of life; derived from the verb-root kri — to do, to fashion, plus the preposition sam — together; hence in combination, to put together, to adorn, to accumulate. The cause of: Vijnana ‘Consciousness or intelligence’; derived from the verb-root vijna — to discern, to distinguish. The cause of: Nama-rupa ‘The form with a name’; in other words, the ‘personality’ which is transient; a compound of nama — name, and rupa — form. The cause of: Shadayatana ‘The six sense organs’; a compound of shad — six, and ayatana — resting-place or abode, derived from the verb-root ayat — to abide, to depend upon. The cause of: Sparsa ‘Touch or Contact’ of any kind; derived from the verb-root sprig — to touch. The cause of: Vedana ‘Sense perception’; derived from the verb-root vid — to know, to perceive. The cause of: Trishna ‘Thirst for life,’ which is the cause of attachment. This longing or attachment may be either pure or impure; derived from the verb-root trish — to thirst. The cause of: Upadana ‘Clinging to earth life’ or ‘grasping for oneself’; derived from the verb-root upada — to acquire, to appropriate for oneself. The cause of: Bhava ‘Becoming and rebecoming’; derived from the verb-root bhu — to become. “Bhava is that Karmic agent which leads every new sentient being to be born in this or another mode of existence. . . . (H. P. B., Theosophical Glossary, p. 229) The cause of: Jara-marana ‘Old age and death’; a compound of jara — old age, derived from the verb-root jri — to decay, to grow old; and marana — death, derived from the verb-root mri — to die. The cause of: Jati ‘Birth’ which brings into effect the results of past actions; derived from the verb-root jan — to be born.
(IN) order to escape the Wheel of Life and enter Nirvana, one must free himself from these Nidanas or fetters. To be able to do this is to understand the Science of Life.
(IN) Nidanas {Sans} “Bonds,” in Buddhism, the twelve causes of existence, the chain of causation.
(TG) Nidhi {Sans}. A treasure. Nine treasures belonging to the god Kuvera — the Vedic Satan — each treasure being under the guardianship of a demon; these are personified, and are the objects of worship of the Tantrikas.
(TG) Nidhogg {Nors}. The “Mundane” Serpent.
(MO) Nidhogg {Nors} (need-heugg) [ nid beneath + hogg biter] Serpent undermining Yggdrasil, the Tree of Life
(TG) Nidra {Sans}. Sleep. Also the female form of Brahma.
(MO) Nidud {Nors} (nee-dud) [ nid beneath, evil] A legendary king: the most material age of earth.
(TG) Niflheim {Nors}. The cold Hell, in the Edda. A place of eternal non-consciousness and inactivity. (See Secret Doctrine, Vol . II., p. 245).
(MO) Niflheim {Nors} (nee-vel-haym) [ nifl cloud, nebula + heim home] A cosmic principle. See Muspellsheim
(MO) Niflhel {Nors} (nee-vel-hayl) [ nifl cloud, nebula + hel death] Extinction of matter
(MO) Niflungar {Nors} (nee-vel-ung-ahr) [ nifl mist + ungar children] An early human race that was still formless, nebulous
(TG) Night of Brahma. The period between the dissolution and the active life of the Universe which is called in contrast the “Day of Brahma”.
(WG) Night of Brahma, a period of non-manifestation, of the same length as Day of Brahma, which see.
(MO) Nikar {Nors} (nee-kahr) [ladler] Odin as bringer of misfortune
(TG) Nilakantha {Sans}. A name of Siva meaning “blue throated”. This is said to have been the result of some poison administered to the god.
(TG) Nile-God {Egyp}. Represented by a wooden image of the river god receiving honours in gratitude for the bounties its waters afford the country. There was a “celestial” Nile, called in the Ritual Nen-naou or “primordial waters”; and a terrestrial Nile, worshipped at Nilopolis and Hapimoo. The latter was represented as an androgynous being with a beard and breasts, and a fat blue face; green limbs and reddish body. At the approach of the yearly inundation, the image was carried from one place to another in solemn procession.
(TG) Nimbus {Latin}. The aureole around the heads of the Christ and Saints in Greek and Romish Churches is of Eastern origin. As every Orientalist knows, Buddha is described as having his head surrounded with shining glory six cubits in width; and, as shown by Hardy (Eastern Monachism), “his principal disciples are represented by the native painters as having a similar mark of eminence”. In China, Tibet and Japan, the heads of the saints are always surrounded with a nimbus.
(WG) Nimisha, the time taken to twinkle the eye. (See Time
(TG) Nimitta {Sans}. 1. An interior illumination developed by the practice of meditation. 2. The efficient spiritual cause, as contrasted with Upadana, the material cause, in Vedanta philosophy. See also Pradhana in Sankhya philosophy.
(WG) Nimitti-karana, the instrumental cause.
(TG) Nine. The “Kabbalah of the Nine Chambers” is a form of secret writing in cipher, which originated with the Hebrew Rabbis, and has been used by several societies for purposes of concealment: notably some grades of the Freemasons have adopted it. A figure is drawn of two horizontal parallel lines and two vertical parallel lines across them, this process forms nine chambers, the centre one a simple square, the others being either two or three sided figures, these are allotted to the several letters in any order that is agreed upon. There is also a Kabbalistic attribution of the ten Sephiroth to these nine chambers, but this is not published. [W.W.W..]
(WG) Nirakana, formless; Vishnu; universal spirit.
(TG) Nirguna {Sans}. Negative attribute; unbound, or without Gunas (attributes), i.e., that which is devoid of all qualities, the opposite of Saguna, that which has attributes (Secret Doctrine, II. 95), e.g., Parabrahmam is Nirguna; Brahma, Saguna. Nirguna is a term which shows the impersonality of the thing spoken of.
(FY) Nirguna, unbound; without gunas or attributes; the soul in its state of essential purity is so called.
(WG) Nir-guna, devoid of attributes or qualities.
(WG) Nirmalah, free from love, hate, etc.
(TG) Nirmanakaya {Sans}. Something entirely different in esoteric philosophy from the popular meaning attached to it, and from the fancies of the Orientalists. Some call the Nirmanakaya body “Nirvana with remains” (Schlagintweit, etc on the supposition, probably, that it is a kind of Nirvanic condition during which consciousness and form are retained. Others say that it is one of the Trikaya (three bodies), with the “power of assuming any form of appearance in order to propagate Buddhism” (Eitel’s idea); again, that “it is the incarnate avatara of a deity” (ibid, and so on. Occultism, on the other hand, says: that Nirmanakaya, although meaning literally a transformed “body”, is a state. The form is that of the adept or yogi who enters, or chooses, that post mortem condition in preference to the Dharmakaya or absolute Nirvanic state. He does this because the latter kaya separates him for ever from the world of form, conferring upon him a state of selfish bliss, in which no other living being can participate, the adept being thus precluded from the possibility of helping humanity, or even devas. As a Nirmanakaya, however, the man leaves behind him only his physical body, and retains every other “principle” save the Kamic — for he has crushed this out for ever from his nature, during life, and it can never resurrect in his post mortem state. Thus, instead of going into selfish bliss, he chooses a life of self-sacrifice, an existence which ends only with the life-cycle, in order to be enabled to help mankind in an invisible yet most effective manner. (See The Voice of the Silence, third treatise, “The Seven Portals” Thus a Nirmanakaya is not, as popularly believed, the body “in which a Buddha or a Bodhisattva appears on earth”, but verily one, who whether a Chutuktu or a Khubilkhan, an adept or a yogi during life, has since become a member of that invisible Host which ever protects and watches over Humanity within Karmic limits. Mistaken often for a “Spirit”, a Deva, God himself, , a Nirmanakaya is ever a protecting, compassionate, verily a guardian angel, to him who becomes worthy of his help. Whatever objection may be brought forward against this doctrine; however much it is denied, because, forsooth, it has never been hitherto made public in Europe and therefore since it is unknown to Orientalists, it must needs be “a myth of modern invention” — no one will be bold enough to say that this idea of helping suffering mankind at the price of one’s own almost interminable self-sacrifice, is not one of the grandest and noblest that was ever evolved from human brain.
(KT) Nirmanakaya {Sans} Something entirely different in esoteric philosophy from the popular meaning attached to it, and from the fancies of the Orientalists. Some call the Nirmanakaya body “Nirvana with remains” (Schlagintweit), on the supposition, probably, that it is a kind of Nirvanic condition during which consciousness and form are retained. Others say that it is one of the Trikaya (three bodies) with “the power of assuming any form of appearance in order to propagate Buddhism” (Eitel’s idea); again, that “it is the incarnate avatara of a deity” (ibid Occultism, on the other hand, says (“Voice of the Silence”) that Nirmanakaya, although meaning literally a transformed “body,” is a state. The form is that of the Adept or Yogi who enters, or chooses, that post-mortem condition in preference to the Dharmakaya or absolute Nirvanic state. He does this because the latter Kaya separates him for ever from the world of form, conferring upon him a state of selfish bliss, in which no other living being can participate, the adept being thus precluded from the possibility of helping humanity, or even devas. As a Nirmanakaya, however, the adept leaves behind him only his physical body, and retains every other “principle” save the Kamic, for he has crushed this out for ever from his nature during life, and it can never resurrect in his post-mortem state. Thus, instead of going into selfish bliss, he chooses a life of self-sacrifice, an existence which ends only with the life-cycle, in order to be enabled to help mankind in an invisible, yet most effective, manner. (See “Voice of the Silence,” third Treatise, “The Seven Portals.”) Thus a Nirmanakaya is not, as popularly believed, the body “in which a Buddha or a Bodhisattva appears on earth,” but verily one who, whether a Chutuktu or a Khubilkhan, an adept or a Yogi during life, has since become a member of that invisible Host which ever protects and watches over humanity within Karmic limits. Mistaken often for a “Spirit,” a Deva, God himself, , a Nirmanakaya is ever a protecting, compassionate, verily a guardian, angel to him who is worthy of his help. Whatever objection may be brought forward against this doctrine, however much it is denied, because, forsooth, it has never hitherto been made public in Europe, and therefore, since it is unknown to Orientalists, it must needs be a “myth of modern invention” — no one will be bold enough to say that this idea of helping suffering mankind at the price of one’s own almost interminable self-sacrifice, is not one of the grandest and noblest that was ever evolved from the human brain.
(VS) These vestures are: Nirmanakaya, Sambhoga- Kaya, and Dharmakaya, robe Sublime (II 21) [[p. 32]] Ibid . [To I, 20 – See Buddhas of Compassion.]
(WG) Nirmanakayas, men who have reached the point where they can enter nirvana but voluntarily relinquish it and remain on earth in an unseen body in order to help men.
(OG) Nirmanakaya — {Sans} A compound of two words: nirmana , a participle meaning “forming,” “creating”; kaya, a word meaning “body,” “robe,” “vehicle”; thus, nirmanakaya means “formed-body.” A nirmanakaya, however, is really a state assumed by or entered into by a bodhisattva — an individual man made semi-divine who, to use popular language, instead of choosing his reward in the nirvana of a less degree, remains on earth out of pity and compassion for inferior beings, clothing himself in a nirmanakayic vesture. When that state is ended the nirmanakaya ends.
A nirmanakaya is a complete man possessing all the principles of his constitution except the linga-sarira and its accompanying physical body. He is one who lives on the plane of being next superior to the physical plane, and his purpose in so doing is to save men from themselves by being with them, and by continuously instilling thoughts of self-sacrifice, of self-forgetfulness, of spiritual and moral beauty, of mutual help, of compassion, and of pity. Nirmanakaya is the third or lowest, exoterically speaking, of what is called in Sanskrit trikaya or “three bodies.” The highest is the dharmakaya, in which state are the nirvanis and full pratyeka buddhas, etc.; the second state is the sambhogakaya , intermediate between the former and, thirdly, the nirmanakaya . The nirmanakaya vesture or condition enables one entering it to live in touch and sympathy with the world of men. The sambhogakaya enables one in that state to be conscious indeed to a certain extent of the world of men and its griefs and sorrows, but with little power or impulse to render aid. The dharmakaya vesture is so pure and holy, and indeed so high, that the one possessing the dharmakaya or who is in it, is virtually out of all touch with anything inferior to himself. It is, therefore, in the nirmanakaya vesture if not in physical form that live and work the Buddhas of Compassion, the greatest sages and seers, and all the superholy men who through striving through ages of evolution bring forth into manifestation and power and function the divinity within. The doctrine of the nirmanakayas is one of the most suggestive, profound, and beautiful teachings of the esoteric philosophy. ( See also Dharmakaya, Sambhogakaya)
(SP) Nirmanakaya — transformation body, the form of Buddha which appears in the human realm. This is the Sanskrit word translated by the Tibetan term tulku .
(TG) Nirmathya {Sans}. The sacred fire produced by the friction of two pieces of wood — the “fire” called Pavamana in the Puranas. The allegory contained therein is an occult teaching.
(TG) Nirriti {Sans}. A goddess of Death and Decay.
(TG) Nirukta {Sans}. An anga or limb, a division of the Vedas; a glossarial comment.
(WG) Nirukta, uttered, pronounced; explained.
(TG) Nirupadhi {Sans}. Attributeless; the negation of attributes.
(TG) Nirvana {Sans}. According to the Orientalists, the entire “blowing out”, like the flame of a candle, the utter extinction of existence. But in the esoteric explanations it is the state of absolute existence and absolute consciousness, into which the Ego of a man who has reached the highest degree of perfection and holiness during life goes, after the body dies, and occasionally, as in the case of Gautama Buddha and others, during life. (See “Nirvani”
(KT) Nirvana {Sans} According to the Orientalists, the entire “blowing-out,” like the flame of a candle, the utter extinction of existence. But in the exoteric explanations it is the state of absolute existence and absolute consciousness, into which the Ego of a man who had reached the highest degree of perfection and holiness during life, goes after the body dies, and occasionally, as is the case of Gautama Buddha and others, during life.
(VS) Nirvana reach, or cast the prize away (II 33) [[p. 40]] Vide infra Part III. par. 34. [ See Buddhas of Compassion.]
(FY) Nirvana, beatitude, abstract spiritual existence, absorption into all.
(WG) Nirvana, the extinguishment of desire; the kingdom of ineffable peace; annihilation of the illusions of matter; conscious rest in omniscience. Called Niebban in Burmah and Nippang in China.
(OG) Nirvana — {Sans} This is a compound: nir, “out,” and vana, the past participle passive of the root va, “to blow,” literally meaning “blown out.” So badly has the significance of the ancient Indian thought (and even its language, the Sanskrit) been understood, that for many years erudite European scholars were discussing whether being “blown out” meant actual entitative annihilation or not. But the being blown out refers only to the lower principles in man. Nirvana is a very different thing from the “heavens.” Nirvana is a state of utter bliss and complete, untrammeled consciousness, a state of absorption in pure kosmic Being, and is the wondrous destiny of those who have reached superhuman knowledge and purity and spiritual illumination. It really is personal-individual absorption into or rather identification with the Self — the highest SELF. It is also the state of the monadic entities in the period that intervenes between minor manvantaras or rounds of a planetary chain; and more fully so between each seven-round period or Day of Brahma, and the succeeding day or new kalpa of a planetary chain. At these last times, starting forth from the seventh sphere in the seventh round, the monadic entities will have progressed far beyond even the highest state of devachan. Too pure and too far advanced even for such a condition as the devachanic felicity, they go to their appropriate sphere and condition, which latter is the nirvana following the end of the seventh round.
Devachan and nirvana are not localities. They are states, states of the beings in those respective spiritual conditions. Devachan is the intermediate state; nirvana is the superspiritual state; and avichi, popularly called the lowest of the hells, is the nether pole of the spiritual condition. These three are states of beings having habitat in the lokas or talas, in the worlds of the kosmic egg. So far as the individual human being is concerned, the nirvanic state or condition may be attained to by great spiritual seers and sages, such as Gautama the Buddha, and even by men less progressed than he; because in these cases of the attaining of the nirvana even during a man’s life on earth, the meaning is that one so attaining has through evolution progressed so far along the path that all the lower personal part of him is become thoroughly impersonalized, the personal has put on the garment of impersonality, and such a man thereafter lives in the nirvanic condition of the spiritual monad. As a concluding thought, it must be pointed out that nirvana, while the ultima thule of the perfection to be attained by any human being, nevertheless stands less high in the estimate of mystics than the condition of the bodhisattva. For the bodhisattva, although standing on the threshold of nirvana and seeing and understanding its ineffable glory and peace and rest, nevertheless retains his consciousness in the worlds of men, in order to consecrate his vast faculties and powers to the service of all that is. The buddhas in their higher parts enter the nirvana, in other words, assume the dharmakaya state or vesture, whereas the bodhisattva assumes the nirmanakaya vesture, thereafter to become an ever-active and compassionate and beneficent influence in the world. The buddha indeed may be said to act indirectly and by long distance control, thus indeed helping the world diffusively or by diffusion; but the bodhisattva acts directly and positively and with a directing will in works of compassion, both for the world and for individuals.
(GH) Nirvana A super-spiritual status: the state of supreme bliss, of complete absorption of the consciousness in pure Kosmic Being: it is the state of those beings who have reached superhuman knowledge and spiritual illumination and are enabled to live in their own spiritual essence, casting off the inferior parts of the pilgrim-monad’s sheaths — such is the meaning of the word Jivanmukta (a ‘freed monad’). To attain Nirvana one has to identify oneself with one’s divine Parent (the ‘Father in Heaven’ — the divine Monad). (Compound nir, out or away; vana, past participle of va, to blow, hence ‘blown out’ — referring to man’s lower principles, which are indeed discarded by the Jivanmukta ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 21)
(SK)o Nirvana A state of utter bliss and of perfect illuminated consciousness which is co-vibrational and co-extensive with the Universe; a state of absorption in pure Kosmic Being attained by the highest Initiates; a personal-individual at-one-ness with the Highest SELF. The word Nirvana is a compound of the preposition nir — out, and vana — blown; but that which is ‘blown out’ refers only to the lower principles of man.
(IN) Nirvana {Sans} “Blown out,” liberation from material existence; absolute consciousness.
(SP) Nirvana — spiritual emancipation, the extinction of the passions, the cessation of bondage to the cycle of rebirth.
(TG) Nirvani {Sans}. One who has attained Nirvana — an emancipated soul. That Nirvana means nothing of the kind asserted by Orientalists every scholar who has visited China, India and Japan is well aware. It is ” escape from misery” but only from that of matter, freedom from Klesha, or Kama, and the complete extinction of animal desires. If we are told that Abidharma defines Nirvana “as a state of absolute annihilation”, we concur, adding to the last word the qualification “of everything connected with matter or the physical world”, and this simply because the latter (as also all in it) is illusion, maya. Sakyamuni Buddha said in the last moments of his life that “the spiritual body is immortal” (See Sans. Chin. Dict. ) . As Mr. Eitel, the scholarly Sinologist, explains it: “The popular exoteric systems agree in defining Nirvana negatively as a state of absolute exemption from the circle of transmigration; as a state of entire freedom from all forms of existence; to begin with, freedom from all passion and exertion; a state of indifference to all sensibility” — and he might have added “death of all compassion for the world of suffering”. And this is why the Bodhisattvas who prefer the Nirmanakaya to the Dharmakaya vesture, stand higher in the popular estimation than the Nirvanis. But the same scholar adds that: “Positively (and esoterically) they define Nirvana as the highest state of spiritual bliss, as absolute immortality through absorption of the soul (spirit rather) into itself, but preserving individuality so that, e.g., Buddhas, after entering Nirvana, may reappear on earth”, — i.e., in the future Manvantara.
(KT) Nirvanee {Sans} One who has attained Nirvana — an emancipated Soul. That Nirvana means something quite different from the puerile assertions of Orientalists, every scholar who has visited India, China, or Japan, is well aware. It is “escape from misery,” but only from that of matter, freedom from Klesha, or Kama, and the complete extinction of animal desires. If we are told that Abhidharma defines Nirvana as “a state of absolute annihilation” we concur, adding to the last word the qualification “of everything connected with matter or the physical world,” and this simply because the latter (as also all in it) is illusion or Maya. Sakyamuni Buddha said in the last moments of his life: — “the spiritual body is immortal.” (Vide “Sans.-Chin. Dict.”) As Mr. Eitel, the scholarly Sinologist, explains it: “The popular exoteric systems agree in defining Nirvana negatively as a state of absolute exemption from the circle of transmigration; as a state of entire freedom from all forms of existence, to begin with, freedom from all passion and exertion; a state of indifference to all sensibility” — and he might have added “death of all compassion for the world of suffering.” And this is why the Bodhisattvas who prefer the Nirmanakaya to the Dharmakaya vesture stand higher in the popular estimation than the Nirvanees. But the same scholar adds that “Positively (and esoterically) they define Nirvana as the highest state of spiritual bliss, as absolute immortality through absorption of the Soul (Spirit rather) into itself, but preserving individuality, so that, e. g., Buddhas, after entering Nirvana, may re-appear on earth — i. e., in the future Manvantara.”
(SKv) Nirvana-dharma, Nirvanin Nirvana-dharma is the Nirvanic state, the reunion with the Cosmic Self, that perfect state of highest bliss and repose and omniscience. One who enters the Nirvana-dharma is called a Nirvanin. Nirvani is the nominative singular form of Nirvanin.
(WG) Nir-vikarah, formless.
(TG) Nishada {Sans}. (1) One of the seven qualities of sound — the one and sole attribute of Akasa; (2) the seventh note of the Hindu musical scale; (3) an outcast offspring of a Brahman and a Sudra mother; (4) a range of mountains south of Meru — north of the Himalayas.
(WG) Nish-karma, karmaless. ( nish, without; karma, karma
(WG) Nish-kriya, actionless; a term for the Supreme Spirit. ( nis, without; kriya, action
(TG) Nissi {Chald} One of the seven Chaldean gods.
(TG) Niti {Sans}. Lit., Prudence, ethics.
(WG) Nitya, constant; daily; always.
(WG) Nitya-muktah, separate.
(TG) Nitya Parivrita {Sans}. Lit., continuous extinction.
(TG) Nitya Pralaya {Sans}. Lit., “perpetual” Pralaya or dissolution. It is the constant and imperceptible changes undergone by the atoms which last as long as a Mahamanvantara, a whole age of Brahma, which takes fifteen figures to sum up. A stage of chronic change and dissolution, the stages of growth and decay. It is the duration of “Seven Eternities”. (See Secret Doctrine I. 371, II. 69, 310 There are four kinds of Pralayas, or states of changelessness. The Naimittika, when Brahma slumbers; the Prakritika, a partial Pralaya of anything during Manvantara; Atyantika, when man has identified himself with the One Absolute — a synonym of Nirvana; and Nitya, for physical things especially, as a state of profound and dreamless sleep.
(WG) Nitya-pralaya, constant dissolution; the change which takes place, perceptibly and imperceptibly, in everything in the universe of matter, from the globe to the atom, without cessation.
(TG) Nitya Sarga {Sans}. The state of constant creation or evolution, as opposed to Nitya Pralaya — the state of perpetual incessant dissolution (or change of atoms) disintegration of molecules, hence change of forms.
(TG) Nixies. The water-sprites; Undines.
(WG) Niyama, act of obligation, voluntary penance; constant and inseparable consciousness of unity with Brahma.
(SKv) Niyama ‘Restraint of the mind’; derived from the verb-root yam — to hold, and ni — down. Niyama is the controlling and directing of one’s thoughts and motives and actions, as well as other voluntary rules and minor regulations of life adopted by the ascetic in order to silence the personal self and thus give way to the Universal Self within. These laws which are self-imposed prepare a man for greater service to the whole of humanity, and they are known as the positive laws of ethics and compassion.
(TG) Niyashes {avesta-mazdean}. Parsi prayers.
(FY) Niyashes, Parsi prayers.
(TG) Nizir {Chald}. The “Deluge Mountain”; the Ararat of the Babylonians with “Xisuthrus” as Noah.
(MO) Njord {Nors} (nyeurd) A Vanagod: the regent of Saturn, father of Frey and Freya
(OG) Noetic — (Greek) The adjective belonging to nous .
(TG) Nofir-hotpoo {Egyp}. The same as the god Khonsoo, the lunar god of Thebes. Lit., “he who is in absolute rest”. Nofir-hotpoo is one of the three persons of the Egyptian trinity, composed of Ammon, Mooth, and their son Khonsoo or Nofir-hotpoo.
(TG) Nogah {Chald}. Venus, the planet; glittering splendour.
(TG) Noo {Egyp}. Primordial waters of space called “Father-Mother”; the “face of the deep” of the Bible; for above Noo hovers the Breath of Kneph, who is represented with the Mundane Egg in his mouth.
(TG) Noom {Egyp}. A celestial sculptor, in the Egyptian legends, who creates a beautiful girl whom he sends like another Pandora to Batoo (or “man”), whose happiness is thereafter destroyed. The “sculptor” or artist is the same as Jehovah, the architect of the world, and the girl is “Eve”.
(TG) Noon {Egyp}. The celestial river which flows in Noot, the cosmic abyss or Noo. As all the gods have been generated in the river (the Gnostic Pleroma), it is called “the Father-Mother of the gods”.
(TG) Noor Ilahee {arabic}. “The light of the Elohim”, literally. This light is believed by some Mussulmen to be transmitted to Mortals “through a hundred prophet-leaders”. Divine knowledge; the Light of the Secret Wisdom.
(TG) Noot {Egyp}. The heavenly abyss in the Ritual or the Book of the Dead. It is infinite space personified in the Vedas by Aditi, the goddess who, like Noon is the “mother of all the gods”.
(TG) Norns {Nors}. The three sister goddesses in the Edda, who make known to men the decrees of Orlog or Fate. They are shown as coming out of the unknown distances enveloped in a dark veil to the Ash Yggdrasil, and “sprinkle it daily with water from the Fountain of Urd, that it may not wither but remain green and fresh and strong” (Asgard and the Gods). Their names are “Urd”, the Past; “Werdandi”, the Present; and “Skuld”, the Future, “which is either rich in hope or dark with tears”. Thus they reveal the decrees of Fate “for out of the past and present the events and actions of the future are born” (loc. cit.
(MO) Norns {Nors} [norn weird, doom] Spinners of destiny for gods, worlds, and men
(TG) Notaricon {Hebr}. A division of the practical Kabbalah; treats of the formation of words from the initials or finals of the words in every sentence; or conversely it forms a sentence of words whose initials or finals are those of some word [W. W. W.].
(TG) Noumenon {Greek}. The true essential nature of being as distinguished from the illusive objects of sense.
(KT) Noumena {Greek} The true essential nature of Being as distinguished from the illusive objects of sense.
(FY) Noumena, the true essential nature of being, as distinguished from the illusive objects of sense.
(WG) Noumena (Greek), realities, as opposed to phenomena or illusionary appearances.
(TG) Nous. {Greek}. A Platonic term for the Higher Mind or Soul. It means Spirit as distinct from animal Soul — psyche; divine consciousness or mind in man: Nous was the designation given to the Supreme deity (third logos) by Anaxagoras. Taken from Egypt where it was called Nout, it was adopted by the Gnostics for their first conscious Aeon which, with the Occultists, is the third logos, cosmically, and the third “principle” (from above) or manas, in man. (See “Nout”
(KT) Nous {Greek} A Platonic term for the Higher Mind or Soul. It means Spirit as distinct from animal-Soul, Psyche; divine consciousness or mind in man. The name was adopted by the Gnostics for their first conscious aeon, which, with the Occultists, is the third logos, cosmically, and the third “principle” (from above) or Manas, in man. (Vide infra, “Nout.”)
(FY) Nous, spirit, mind; Platonic term, reason.
(WG) Nous (Greek), the Higher Manas or Reincarnating Ego.
(OG) Nous — (Greek) This is a term frequently used by Plato for what in modern theosophical literature is usually called the higher manas or higher mind or spiritual soul, the union and characteristics of the buddhi-manas in man overshadowed by the atman. The distinction to be drawn between the nous on the one hand, and the animal soul or psyche and its workings on the other hand, is very sharp, and the two must not be confused. In occultism the kosmic nous is the third Logos, and in the case of man’s own constitution, or in human pneumatology, the nous is the buddhi-manas or higher manas or spiritual monad.
(TG) Nout. {Greek}. In the Pantheon of the Egyptians it meant the “One-only-One”, because they did not proceed in their popular or exoteric religion higher than the third manifestation which radiates from the Unknown and the Unknowable, the first unmanifested and the second logoi in the esoteric philosophy of every nation. The Nous of Anaxagoras was the Mahat of the Hindu Brahma, the first manifested Deity — “the Mind or Spirit self-potent”; this creative Principle being of course the primum mobile of everything in the Universe — its Soul and Ideation. (See “Seven Principles” in man
(KT) Nout {Egyp} In the Egyptian Pantheon it meant the “One-only-One,” because it does not proceed in the popular or exoteric religion higher than the third manifestation which radiates from the Unknowable and the Unknown in the esoteric philosophy of every nation. The Nous of Anaxagoras was the Mahat of the Hindus — Brahma, the first manifested deity — “the Mind or spirit Self-potent.” This creative principle is the primum mobile of everything to be found in the Universe — its Soul or Ideation. (Vide “Seven Principles” in man
(TG) Number Nip. An Elf, the mighty King of the Riesengebirge, the most powerful of the genii in Scandinavian and German folk-lore.
(TG) Nuns. There were nuns in ancient Egypt as well as in Peru and old Pagan Rome. They were the “virgin brides” of their respective (Solar) gods. Says Herodotus, “The brides of Ammon are excluded from all intercourse with men”, they are “the brides of Heaven”; and virtually they became dead to the world, just as they are now. In Peru they were “Pure Virgins of the Sun”, and the Pallakists of Ammon-Ra are referred to in some inscriptions as the “divine spouses”. “The sister of Ounnefer, the chief prophet of Osiris, during the reign of Rameses II.,” is described as “Taia, Lady Abbess of Nuns” (Mariette Bey).
(TG) Nuntis {Latin}. The “Sun-Wolf”, a name of the planet Mercury. He is the Sun’s attendant, Solaris luminis particeps. (See Secret Doct. II. 28
(TG) Nyaya {Sans}. One of the six Darshanas or schools of Philosophy in India; a system of Hindu logic founded by the Rishi Gautama.
(WG) Nyaya, method, system; logic; the system of philosophy of Gautama.
(FY) Nyaya Philosophy, a system of Hindu logic founded by Gautuma.
(WG) Nyayya, normal, right, regular.
(TG) Nyima {Tibe}. The Sun — astrologically.
(VS) Nyima (II 26) The Sun [[p. 36]] Nyima, the Sun in Tibetan Astrology. Migmar or Mars is symbolized by and “Eye,” and Shagpa or Mercury by a “Hand.”
(VS) Nyima [[p. 36]] The Sun.
(TG) Nyingpo {Tibe}. The same as Alaya, “the World Soul”; also called Tsang.
(TG) O. — The fifteenth letter and fourth vowel in the English alphabet. It has no equivalent in Hebrew, whose alphabet with one exception is vowelless. As a numeral, it signified with the ancients 11; and with a dash on it 11,000. With other ancient people also, it was a very sacred letter. In the Devanagari, or the characters of the gods, its significance is varied, but there is no space to give instances.
(TG) Oak, sacred. With the Druids the oak was a most holy tree, and so also with the ancient Greeks, if we can believe Pherecydes and his cosmogony, who tells us of the sacred oak in whose luxuriant branches a serpent (i.e., wisdom) dwelleth, and cannot be dislodged. Every nation had its own sacred trees, pre-eminently the Hindus.
(TG) Oannes. {Greek} Musarus Oannes, the Annedotus, known in the Chaldean legends, transmitted through Berosus and other ancient writers, as Dag or Dagon, the man-fish. Oannes came to the early Babylonians as a reformer and an instructor. Appearing from the Erythraean Sea, he brought to them civilisation, letters and sciences, law, astronomy and religion, teaching them agriculture, geometry and the arts in general. There were Annedoti who came after him, five in number (our race being the fifth) — all like Oannes in form and teaching the same; but Musarus Oannes was the first to appear, and this he did during the reign of Ammenon, the third of the ten antediluvian Kings whose dynasty ended with Xisuthrus, the Chaldean Noah (See Xisuthrus). Oannes was an animal endowed with reason . . . whose body was that of a fish, but who had a human head under the fish’s with feet also below, similar to those of a man, subjoined to the fish’s tail, and whose voice and language too were articulate and human (Polyhistor and Apollodorus). This gives the key to the allegory. It points out Oannes, as a man and a priest, an Initiate. Layard showed long ago (See Nineveh) that the fish’s head was simply a head gear, the mitre worn by priests and gods, made in the form of a fish’s head, and which in a very little modified form is what we see even now on the heads of high Lamas and Romish Bishops. Osiris had such a mitre. The fish’s tail is simply the train of a long stiff mantle as depicted on some Assyrian tablets, the form being seen reproduced in the sacerdotal gold cloth garment worn during service by the modern Greek priests. This allegory of Oannes, the Annedotus, reminds us of the Dragon and Snake-Kings; the Nagas who in Buddhist legends instruct people in wisdom on lakes and rivers, and end by becoming converts to the good Law and Arhats. The meaning is evident. The fish is an old and very suggestive symbol in the Mystery-language, as is also water. Ea or Hea was the god of the sea and Wisdom, and the sea serpent was one of his emblems, his priests being serpents or Initiates. Thus one sees why Occultism places Oannes and the other Annedoti in the group of those ancient adepts who were called marine or water dragons — Nagas. Water typified their human origin (as it is a symbol of earth and matter and also of purification), in distinction to the fire Nagas or the immaterial, Spiritual Beings, whether celestial Bodhisattvas or Planetary Dhyanis, also regarded as the instructors of mankind. The hidden meaning becomes clear to the Occultist, once lie is told that this being (Oannes) was accustomed to pass the day among men, teaching; and when the Sun had set, he retired again into the sea, passing the night in the deep, for he was amphibious, i.e., he belonged to two planes: the spiritual and the physical. For the Greek word amphibios means simply life on two planes, from amphi, on both sides, and bios, life. The word was often applied in antiquity to those men who, though still wearing a human form, had made themselves almost divine through knowledge, and lived as much in the spiritual supersensuous regions as on earth. Oannes is dimly reflected in Jonah, and even in John, the Precursor, both connected with Fish and Water.
(WG) Oannes, the same as Dag or Dagon, the man-fish. A generic name for the Initiates of Chaldea, corresponding to the Nagas or Snake-Kings of the Buddhist legends, who are said to preserve and guard the ancient truths.
(TG) Ob {Hebr}. The astral light — or rather, its pernicious evil currents — was personified by the Jews as a Spirit, the Spirit of Ob. With them, any one who dealt with spirits and necromancy was said to be possessed by the Spirit of Ob.
(TG) Obeah. Sorcerers and sorceresses of Africa and the West Indies. A sect of black magicians, snake-charmers, enchanters,
(OG) Obscuration — This is a word coined by A. P. Sinnett, one of the pioneers in theosophical propaganda. A far better word than obscuration would have been dormancy or sleep, because this word obscuration actually rather obscures the sense. A man is not obscured when he sleeps. The inner faculties may be so, in a sense; but it is better actually to state in more appropriate words just what the real condition is. It is that of sleep, or latency — of dormancy, rather. Thus when one of the seven kingdoms has passed through its seven periods of progress, of evolution, it goes into dormancy or obscuration. Likewise when the seven kingdoms — from the first elemental kingdom upwards to the human — have finished their evolution on globe A (for instance) during the first round, globe A then goes into obscuration, that is, into dormancy; it goes to sleep. Everything left on it is now dormant, is sleeping, awaiting the incoming, when round two begins, of the life-waves which have just left it. Again, when the life-waves have run their full sevenfold course, or their seven stock-races or root-races on globe B, then globe B in its turn goes into dormancy or obscuration, which is not pralaya; and the distinction between pralaya and obscuration is an extremely important one. It may be possible in popular usage at times to call the state of dormancy by the name of pralaya in a very limited and particular sense; but pralaya really means disintegration and disappearance, like that of death. But obscuration is sleep — dormancy.
Thus is it with each one of the seven globes of the planetary chain, one after the other, each one going into obscuration when a life-wave has left it, so far as that particular life-wave is concerned. When the final or rather the last representatives of the last root-race of the last life-wave leave it, each globe then goes to sleep or into dormancy. During a planetary obscuration or planetary rest period, at the end of a round, the entities leave the last globe, the seventh, and enter into a (lower) nirvanic period of manvantaric repose, answering to the devachanic or between-life state of the human entity between one life on earth and the next life on earth. There is one very important point of the teachings to be noted here: a globe when a life-wave leaves it does not remain in obscuration or continuously dormant until the same life-wave returns to it in the next round. The life-waves succeed each other in regular file, and each life-wave as it enters a globe has its period of beginning, its efflorescence, and its decay, and then leaves the globe in obscuration so far as that particular life-wave is concerned. But the globe within a relatively short time receives a succeeding life-wave, which runs through its courses and leaves the globe again in obscuration so far as this last life-wave is concerned, etc. It is obvious, therefore, that a period of obscuration on any globe of the planetary chain is much shorter than the term of a full planetary round.
What is Occultism?
[[Excerpted from the back cover of Studies in Occultism]] The term OCCULT has noble, but largely forgotten origins. Derived from the Latin ‘occultus’ meaning ‘hidden,’ it properly defines anything which is undisclosed, concealed, or not easily perceived. Early theologians, for example, spoke of the occult judgment of God, while occult philosopher was a designation for the pre-Renaissance scientist who sought the unseen causes regulating nature’s phenomena. In astronomy, the term is still used when one stellar body ‘occults’ another by passing in front of it, temporarily hiding it from view. Writing a century ago, when the word had not acquired today’s mixed connotations, H.P. Blavatsky defined OCCULTISM as altruism pure and simple – the divine wisdom or hidden theosophy within all religions. Occultism is founded on the principle that Divinity is concealed – transcendent yet immanent – within every living being. As a spiritual discipline occultism is the renunciation of selfishness; it is the still small path which leads to wisdom, to the right discrimination between good and evil, and the practice of altruism.
(TG) Occult Sciences. The science of the secrets of nature — physical and psychic, mental and spiritual; called Hermetic and Esoteric Sciences. In the West, the Kabbalah may be named; in the East, mysticism, magic, and Yoga philosophy, which latter is often referred to by the Chelas in India as the seventh Darshana (school of philosophy), there being only six Darshanas in India known to the world of the profane. These sciences are, and have been for ages, hidden from the vulgar for the very good reason that they would never be appreciated by the selfish educated classes, nor understood by uneducated; whilst the former might misuse them for their own profit, and thus turn the divine science into black magic. It is often brought forward as an accusation against the Esoteric philosophy and the Kabbalah, that their literature is full of a barbarous and meaningless jargon unintelligible to the ordinary mind. But do not exact Sciences — medicine, physiology, chemistry, and the rest — do the same? Do not official Scientists equally veil their facts and discoveries with a newly coined and most barbarous Graeco-Latin terminology? As justly remarked by our late brother, Kenneth Mackenzie — To juggle thus with words, when the facts are so simple, is the art of the Scientists of the present time, in striking contrast to those of the 17th century, who called spades spades, and not ‘agricultural implements’. Moreover, whilst their facts would be as simple and as comprehensible if rendered in ordinary language, the facts of Occult Science are of so abstruse a nature, that in most cases no words exist in European languages to express them; in addition to which our jargon is a double necessity — (a) for the purpose of describing clearly these facts to him who is versed in the Occult terminology; and (b) to conceal them from the profane.
(TG) Occultist. One who studies the various branches of occult science. The term is used by the French Kabbalists (See Eliphas Levi’s works). Occultism embraces the whole range of psychological, physiological, cosmical, physical, and spiritual phenomena. From the word occultus hidden or secret. It therefore applies to the study of the Kabbalah, astrology, alchemy, and all arcane sciences.
(IU) Occultist. — One who studies the various branches of occult science. The term is used by the French kabalists (See Eliphas Levi’s works). Occultism embraces the whole range of psychological, physiological, cosmical, physical, and spiritual phenomena. From the word occult, hidden or secret; applying therefore to the study of the Kabala, astrology, alchemy, and all arcane sciences.
(KT) Occultist. One who practises Occultism, an adept in the Secret Sciences, but very often applied to a mere student.
(IN) Occult(ist) (fr Latin occultus, hid) Concealed, obscured by something else, as in astronomy; a truth seeker, adept in hidden wisdom and knowledge.
(KT) Occultism. See Occult Sciences.
(FY) Occultism, the study of the mysteries of Nature and the development of the psychic powers latent in man.
(WG) Occultism, the real science of things, now unknown to uninitiated humanity; the science of the unknown astral and spiritual planes; secret knowledge.
(OG) Occultism — This word meant originally only the science of things hid; even in the Middle Ages of Europe those philosophers who were the forerunners of the modern scientists, those who then studied physical nature, called their science occultism, and their studies occult, meaning the things that were hid or not known to the common run of mankind. Such a medieval philosopher was Albertus Magnus, a German; and so also was Roger Bacon, an Englishman — both of the thirteenth century of the Christian era.
Occultism as theosophists use the term, and as it should be used, means the study of the hid things of Being, the science of life or universal nature. In one sense this word can be used to mean the study of unusual phenomena, which meaning it usually has today among people who do not think of the vastly larger field of causes which occultism, properly speaking, investigates. Doubtless mere physical phenomena have their place in study, but they are on the frontier, on the outskirts — the superficialities — of occultism. The study of true occultism means penetrating deep into the causal mysteries of Being.
Occultism is a generalizing term for the entire body of the occult sciences — the sciences of the secrets of universal nature; as H. P. Blavatsky phrases it, physical and psychic, mental and spiritual; called Hermetic and Esoteric Sciences. Occultism may be considered also to be a word virtually interchangeable with the phrase esoteric philosophy, with, however, somewhat more emphasis laid on the occult or secret or hid portions of the esoteric philosophy. Genuine occultism embraces not merely the physical, physiological, psychological, and spiritual portions of man’s being, but has an equal and indeed a perhaps wider range in the studies dealing with the structure and operations as well as the origin and destiny of the kosmos.
(KT) Occult Sciences. The science of the secrets of nature — physical and psychic, mental and spiritual; called Hermetic and Esoteric Sciences. In the west, the Kabbala may be named; in the east, mysticism, magic, and Yoga philosophy. The latter is often referred to by the Chelas in India as the seventh Darshana (school of philosophy), there being only six Darshanas in India known to the world of the profane. These sciences are, and have been for ages, hidden from the vulgar, for the very good reason that they would never be appreciated by the selfish educated classes, who would misuse them for their own profit, and thus turn the Divine science into black magic, nor by the uneducated, who would not understand them. It is often brought forward as an accusation against the Esoteric Philosophy of the Kabbala, that its literature is full of a barbarous and meaningless jargon, unintelligible to the ordinary mind. But do not exact Sciences — medicine, physiology, chemistry, and the rest — plead guilty to the same impeachment? Do not official scientists veil their facts and discoveries with a newly-coined and most barbarous Graeco-Latin terminology? As justly remarked by our late Brother, Kenneth Mackenzie, to juggle thus with words, when the facts are so simple, is the art of the Scientists of the present time, in striking contrast to those of the seventeenth century, who called spades spades, and not ‘agricultural implements.’ Moreover, whilst their facts would be as simple, and as comprehensible if rendered in ordinary language, the facts of Occult Science are of so abstruse a nature, that in most cases no words exist in European languages to express them. Finally our jargon is a double necessity — (a) for describing clearly these facts to one who is versed in the occult terminology; and (b) for concealing them from the profane.
(KT) Occult World. The name of the first book which treated of Theosophy, its history, and certain of its tenets. Written by A. P. Sinnett, then editor of the leading Indian paper, the Pioneer, of Allahabad, India.
(TG) Od {Greek}. From odos, passage, or passing of that force which is developed by various minor forces or agencies such as magnets, chemical or vital action, heat, light, It is also called odic and odylic force, and was regarded by Reichenbach and his followers as an independent entitative force — which it certainly is — stored in man as it is in Nature.
(MO) Od, Odr {Nors} (ood, ood-r) [odr wit, intelligence] The higher human soul, spiritually inspired
(TG) Odacon. The fifth Annedotus, or Dagon (See Oannes) who appeared during the reign of Euedoreschus from Pentebiblon, also from the Erythraean Sea like the former, having the same complicated form between a fish and a man (Apollodorus, Cory p. 30).
(TG) Odem or Adm {Hebr}. A stone (the cornelian) on the breast-plate of the Jewish High Priest. It is of red colour and possesses a great medicinal power.
(TG) Odin {Nors}. The god of battles, the old German Sabbaoth, the same as the Scandinavian Wodan. He is the great hero in the Edda and one of the creators of man. Roman antiquity regarded him as one with Hermes or Mercury (Budha), and modern Orientalism. (Sir W. Jones) accordingly confused him with Buddha. In the Pantheon of the Norsemen, he is the father of the gods and divine wisdom, and as such he is of course Hermes or the creative wisdom. Odin or Wodan in creating the first man from trees — the Ask (ash) and Embla (the alder) — endowed them with life and soul, Honir with intellect, and Lodur with form and colour.
(MO) Odin {Nors} [odr intelligence, wisdom] Allfather: the divine principle in all levels of universal life. Consciousness
(MO) Odraerir {Nors} (ood-reur-er) [od wisdom + raerir rearer] Inspirer of divine wisdom
(MO) Od’s maid {Nors} (Freya) The hamingja or higher self of man
(TG) Odur {Nors}. The human husband of the goddess Freya, a scion of divine ancestry in the Northern mythology.
(TG) Oeaihu, or Oeaihwu. The manner of pronunciation depends on the accent. This is an esoteric term for the six in one or the mystic seven. The occult name for the seven vowelled ever-present manifestation of the Universal Principle.
(IN) Oeaohoo The 7-vowelled sacred name representing the sevenfold root from which all proceeds; parent of the gods.
(MO) Ofner {Nors} (ohv-ner) [opener] Odin at the beginning of a cycle
(TG) Ogdoad {Greek}. The tetrad or quaternary reflecting itself produced the ogdoad, the eight, according to the Marcosian Gnostics. The eight great gods were called the sacred Ogdoad.
(TG) Ogham (Celtic). A mystery language belonging to the early Celtic races, and used by the Druids. One form of this language consisted in the association of the leaves of certain trees with the letters, this was called Beth-luis-nion Ogham, and to form words and sentences the leaves were strung on a cord in the proper order. Godfrey Higgins suggests that to complete the mystification certain other leaves which meant nothing were interspersed. [W.W.W.]
(TG) Ogir or Hler {Norse}. A chief of the giants in the Edda and the ally of the gods. The highest of the Water-gods, and the same as the Greek Okeanos.
(TG) Ogmius. The god of wisdom and eloquence of the Druids, hence Hermes in a sense.
(TG) Ogygia {Greek}. An ancient submerged island known as the isle of Calypso, and identified by some with Atlantis. This is in a certain sense correct. But then what portion of Atlantis, since the latter was a continent rather than an enormous island!
(TG) Oitzoe {Pers}. The invisible goddess whose voice spoke through the rocks, and whom, according to Pliny, the Magi had to consult for the election of their kings.
(OG) O jas — {Sans} A word meaning energy, vigor, power. It is often used for the principle of vital heat permeating the human constitution. From this fact, it sometimes is employed to signify virility or the generative faculty. Its use is extremely uncommon in modern occult literature.
(TG) Okhal {arabic}. The High priest of the Druzes, an Initiator into their mysteries.
(TG) Okhema {Greek}. A Platonic term meaning vehicle or body.
(FY) Okhema, vehicle; Platonic term for body.
(MO) Okolner {Nors} (oo-kol-ner) [unfreezing] The waters of space
(TG) Okuthor {Nors}. The same as Thor, the thunder god.
OLCOTT, Henry Steel — link to a biography
(KT) Olympiodorus. The last Neoplatonist of fame and celebrity in the school of Alexandria. He lived in the sixth century under the Emperor Justinian. There were several writers and philosophers of this name in pre-Christian as in post-Christian periods. One of these was the teacher of Proclus, another a historian in the eighth century, and so on.
(TG) Olympus {Greek}. A mount in Greece, the abode of the gods according to Homer and Hesiod.
(TG) Om or Aum {Sans}. A mystic syllable, the most solemn of all words in India. It is “an invocation, a benediction, an affirmation and a promise”; and it is so sacred, as to be indeed the word at low breath of occult, primitive masonry. No one must be near when the syllable is pronounced for a purpose. This word is usually placed at the beginning of sacred Scriptures, and is prefixed to prayers. It is a compound of three letters a,u,m, which, in the popular belief, are typical of the three Vedas, also of three gods — A (Agni) V (Varuna) and M (Maruts) or Fire, Water and Air. In esoteric philosophy these are the three sacred fires, or the “triple fire” in the Universe and Man, besides many other things. Occultly, this “triple fire” represents the highest Tetraktys also, as it is typified by the Agni named Abhimanin and his transformation into his three sons, Pavana, Pavamana and Suchi, “who drinks up water”, i.e., destroys material desires. This monosyllable is called Udgitta, and is sacred with both Brahmins and Buddhists.
(WG) Om, the name of the Deity, considered as sacred by the Brahmans and Buddhists alike. Its sounds are said by them to contain a mystery and to symbolize the universe. Its full form is Aum. The first sound, in its utterance, — a sound of a — represents Brahma, and signifies creation; its second sound — a sound of u — represents Vishnu, and signifies the preservation of the universe; the third, or “stoppage” — the sound of m — represents Siva, and signifies destruction. Its occult significance is very great. Its substitute word is Pranava.
(OG) Om — A word considered very holy in the Brahmanical literature. It is a syllable of invocation, as well as of benediction and of affirmation, and its general usage (as elucidated in the literature treating of it, which is rather voluminous, for this word Om has attained almost divine reverence on the part of vast numbers of Hindus) is that it should never be uttered aloud, or in the presence of an outsider, a foreigner, or a non-initiate, and it should be uttered in the silence of one’s mind, in peace of heart, and in the intimacy of one’s “inner closet.” There is strong reason to believe, however, that this syllable of invocation was uttered, and uttered aloud in a monotone, by the disciples in the presence of their teacher. This word is always placed at the beginning of any scripture or prayer that is considered of unusual sanctity.
It is said that by prolonging the uttering of this word, both of the o and the m, with the mouth closed, the sound re-echoes in and arouses vibration in the skull, and affects, if the aspirations be pure, the different nervous centers of the body for good.
The Brahmanas say that it is an unholy thing to utter this word in any place which is unholy. It is sometimes written Aum.
(GH) OM (or AUM) The syllable which has come to have a holy significance in India, particularly in Brahmanical literature. It has the meaning of benediction and affirmation, it opens and closes invocations or prayers (see Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 119), and is pronounced by Yogins during meditation. “It is a compound of three letters a, u, m, which, in the popular belief, are typical of the three Vedas, also of three gods — A (Agni) V (Varuna) and M (Maruts) or Fire, Water and Air. In esoteric philosophy these are the three sacred fires, or the ‘triple fire’ in the Universe and Man, besides many other things.” (Theosophical Glossary, H. P. Blavatsky, p. 240) (Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 1)
(SKv) Om, Aum, Hum Om (sometimes written Aum) is a holy syllable used by chelas and initiates in their sacred meetings, and found in many Hindu scriptures. H. P. Blavatsky in her Theosophical Glossary writes of Om or Aum as follows: A mystic syllable, the most solemn of all words in India. It is “an invocation, a benediction, an affirmation and a promise”; and it is so sacred, as to be indeed the word at low breath of occult, primitive masonry. No one must be near when the syllable is pronounced for a purpose. This word is usually placed at the beginning of sacred Scriptures, and is prefixed to prayers. It is a compound of three letters, a, u, m, which, in the popular belief, are typical of the three Vedas, also of three gods — A (Agni) V (Varuna) and M (Maruts) or Fire, Water and Air. In esoteric philosophy these are the three sacred fires, or “the triple fire” in the Universe and Man, besides many other things. Occultly, this “triple fire” represents the highest Tetraktys also, . . .
(IN) her Isis Unveiled, Volume II, page 31, she further states of this syllable: . . . the mystic formula, resume of every science, contained in the three mysterious letters, A U M which signify creation, conservation, and transformation. Hum is a Tibetan mystical syllable equivalent in meaning to Om. It is usually placed at the end of a Mantra.
(SP) Om — a sacred syllable used in invocations; sometimes written aum and analysed into the elements a + u + m + silence, which symbolize many things, such as the four avasthas.
(TG) Omoroka {Chald}. The “sea” and the woman who personifies it according to Berosus, or rather of Apollodorus. As the divine water, however, Omoroka is the reflection of Wisdom from on high.
(VS) One (I 28), becomes that ONE and lives therein [[p. 11]] The disciple is one with Brahma or the ATMAN.
(TG) Omkara {Sans}. The same as Aum or Om. It is also the name of one of the twelve lingams, that was represented by a secret and most sacred shrine at Ujjain — no longer existing, since the time of Buddhism.
(WG) Om-Kara, the name of Om.
(SKv) Om Mani Padme Hum Om Mani Padme Hum — Om! the jewel in the Lotus Hum! is a Mantra of the most beautiful and mystical significance. The divinest truths lie hidden in its words. In occult literature the Lotus has always been a favorite symbol for the Macrocosm and the microcosm, the Universe and man. The jewel is the divinity of the Cosmos or the divinity of man. Hence the Mantra represents not only the jewel of Man’s divinity living within the Lotus or the Cosmos, but also the jewel of the Cosmic Divinity living within the Lotus or Man, or in other words: “I am in Thee and Thou art in me.” This Mantra bespeaks the unity and brotherhood of all beings and of their innate divine possibilities.
(SKv) Om Tat Sat. Om That Boundless Reality!
(SKv) Om Vajrapani Hum Om Vajrapani Hum — Om! the Wielder of the Thunderbolt Hum! is a mystical phrase or Mantra, used as an inner prayer or aspiration toward selfconscious union with the all-powerful and indestructible Divinity within.
(TG) Omito-Fo {Chin}. The name of Amita-Buddha, in China.
(MO) One-harrier {Nors} Odin’s warrior; one who has conquered himself
(TG) Onech {Hebr}. The Phoenix, so named after Enoch or Phenoch. For Enoch (also Khenoch) means literally the initiator and instructor, hence the Hierophant who reveals the last mystery. The bird Phoenix is always associated with a tree, the mystical Ababel of the Koran, the Tree of Initiation or of knowledge.
(TG) Onnofre or Oun-nofre {Egyp}. The King of the land of the Dead, the Underworld, and in this capacity the same as Osiris, “who resides in Amenti at Oun-nefer, king of eternity, great god manifested in the celestial abyss”. (A hymn of the 19th dynasty (See also “Osiris”
(VS) Open and the Secret (II 35) [[p. 41]] The “Open” and the “Secret Path” or the one taught to the layman, the exoteric and the generally accepted, and the other the Secret Path the nature of which is explained at initiation.
(TG) Ophanim {Hebr}. More correctly written Auphanim. The “wheels” seen by Ezekiel and by John in the Revelation — world-spheres (Secret Doctrine I., 92 The symbol of the Cherubs or Karoubs (the Assyrian Sphinxes). As these beings are represented in the Zodiac by Taurus, Leo, Scorpio and Aquarius, or the Bull, the Lion, the Eagle and Man, the occult meaning of these creatures being placed in company of the four Evangelists becomes evident. In the Kabbalah they are a group of beings allotted to the Sephira Chokmah, Wisdom.
(TG) Ophiomorphos {Greek}. The same, but in its material aspect, as the Ophis-Christos. With the Gnostics the Serpent represented “Wisdom in Eternity”.
(TG) Ophiozenes {Greek}. The name of the Cypriote charmers of venomous serpents and other reptiles and animals.
(TG) Ophis {Greek}. The same [[as Ophis]] as Chnuphis or Kneph, the Logos; the good serpent or Agathodaemon.
(TG) Ophis-Christos {Greek}. The serpent Christ of the Gnostics.
(TG) Ophites {Greek}. A Gnostic Fraternity in Egypt, and one of the earliest sects of Gnosticism, or Gnosis (Wisdom, Knowledge), known as the “Brotherhood of the Serpent”. It flourished early in the second century, and while holding some of the principles of Valentinus had its own occult rites and symbology. A living serpent, representing the Christos-principle (i.e., the divine reincarnating Monad, not Jesus the man), was displayed in their mysteries and reverenced as a symbol of wisdom, Sophia, the type of the all-good and all-wise. The Gnostics were not a Christian sect, in the common acceptation of this term, as the Christos of pre-Christian thought and the Gnosis was not the “god-man” Christ, but the divine EGO, made one with Buddhi. Their Christos was the “Eternal Initiate”, the Pilgrim, typified by hundreds of Ophidian symbols for several thousands of years before the “Christian” era, so-called. One can see it on the “Belzoni tomb” from Egypt, as a winged serpent with three heads (Atma-Buddhi-Manas), and four human legs, typifying its androgynous character; on the walls of the descent to the sepulchral chambers of Rameses V., it is found as a snake with vulture’s wings — the vulture and hawk being solar symbols. “The heavens are scribbled over with interminable snakes”, writes Herschel of the Egyptian chart of stars. “The Meissi (Messiah?) meaning the Sacred Word, was a good serpent”, writes Bonwick in his Egyptian Belief. “This serpent of goodness, with its head crowned, was mounted upon a cross and formed a sacred standard of Egypt.” The Jews borrowed it in their “brazen serpent of Moses”. It is to this “Healer” and “Saviour”, therefore, that the Ophites referred, and not to Jesus or his words, “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so it behoves the Son of Man to be lifted up” — when explaining the meaning of their ophis. Tertullian, whether wittingly or unwittingly, mixed up the two. The four-winged serpent is the god Chnuphis. The good serpent bore the cross of life around its neck, or suspended from its mouth. The winged serpents become the Seraphim (Seraph, Saraph) of the Jews. In the 87th chapter of the Ritual (the Book of the Dead) the human soul transformed into Bata, the omniscient serpent, says: — “I am the serpent Ba-ta, of long years, Soul of the Soul, laid out and born daily; I am the Soul that descends on the earth”, i.e., the Ego.
(TG) Orai {Greek}. The name of the angel-ruler of Venus, according to the Egyptian Gnostics.
(TG) Orcus {Greek}. The bottomless pit in the Codex of the Nazarenes.
(TG) Orgelmir {Nors}. Lit., “seething clay”. The same as Ymir, the giant, the unruly, turbulent, erratic being, the type of primordial matter, out of whose body, after killing him, the sons of Bor created a new earth. He is also the cause of the Deluge in the Scandinavian Lays, for he flung his body into Ginnungagap, the yawning abyss; the latter being filled with it, the blood flowed over and produced a great flood in which all the Hrimthurses, the frost giants, were drowned; one of them only the cunning Bergelmir saves himself and wife in a boat and became the father of a new race of giants. “And there were giants on the earth in those days.”
(MO) Orgalmer {Nors} (eur-yell-mer) [or original] First vibration: the big bang. See Ymer
(KT) Origen. A Christian Churchman, born at the end of the second century, probably in Africa, of whom little, if anything, is known, since his biographical fragments have passed to posterity on the authority of Eusebius, the most unmitigated falsifier that has ever existed in any age. The latter is credited with having collected upwards of one hundred letters of Origen (or Origenes Adamantius), which are now said to have been lost. To Theosophists, the most interesting of all the works of Origen is his “Doctrine of the Pre-existence of Souls.” He was a pupil of Ammonius Saccas, and for a long time attended the lectures of this great teacher of philosophy.
(TG) Orion {Greek}. The same as Atlas, who supports the world on his shoulders.
(TG) Orlog {Nors}. Fate, destiny, whose agents were the three Norns, the Norse Parcae.
(TG) Ormazd or Ahura Mazda (Zend). The god of the Zoroastrians or the modern Parsis. He is symbolized by the sun, as being the Light of Lights. Esoterically, he is the synthesis of his six Amshaspends or Elohim, and the creative Logos. In the Mazdean exoteric system, Ahura Mazda is the supreme god, and one with the supreme god of the Vedic age — Varuna, if we read the Vedas literally.
(WG) Ormazd, (see Ahura-Mazda).
(TG) Orpheus {Greek}. Lit., the “tawny one”. Mythology makes him the son of AEager and the muse Calliope. Esoteric tradition identifies him with Arjuna, the son of Indra and the disciple of Krishna. He went round the world teaching the nations wisdom and sciences, and establishing mysteries. The very story of his losing his Eurydice and finding her in the underworld or Hades, is another point of resemblance with the story of Arjuna, who goes to Patala (Hades or hell, but in reality the Antipodes or America) and finds there and marries Ulupi, the daughter of the Naga king. This is as suggestive as the fact that he was considered dark in complexion even by the Greeks, who were never very fair-skinned themselves.
(TG) Orphic Mysteries or Orphica {Greek}. These followed, but differed greatly from, the mysteries of Bacchus. The system of Orpheus is one of the purest morality and of severe asceticism. The theology taught by him is again purely Indian. With him the divine Essence is inseparable from whatever is in the infinite universe, all forms being concealed from all eternity in It. At determined periods these forms are manifested from the divine Essence or manifest themselves. Thus through this law of emanation (or evolution) all things participate in this Essence, and are parts and members instinct with divine nature, which is omnipresent. All things having proceeded from, must necessarily return into it; and therefore, innumerable transmigrations or reincarnations and purifications are needed before this final consummation can take place. This is pure Vedanta philosophy. Again, the Orphic Brotherhood ate no animal food and wore white linen garments, and had many ceremonies like those of the Brahmans.
(WG) Osha, burning, combustion.
(TG) Oshadi Prastha {Sans}. Lit., “the place of medicinal herbs”. A mysterious city in the Himalayas mentioned even from the Vedic period. Tradition shows it as once inhabited by sages, great adepts in the healing art, who used only herbs and plants, as did the ancient Chaldees. The city is mentioned in the Kumara Sambhava of Kalidasa.
(TG) Osiris. {Egyp}. The greatest God of Egypt, the Son of Seb (Saturn), celestial fire, and of Neith, primordial matter and infinite space. This shows him as the self-existent and self-created god, the first manifesting deity (our third Logos), identical with Ahura Mazda and other “First Causes”. For as Ahura Mazda is one with, or the synthesis of, the Amshaspends, so Osiris, the collective unit, when differentiated and personified, becomes Typhon, his brother, Isis and Nephtys his sisters, Horus his son and his other aspects. He was born at Mount Sinai, the Nyssa of the O. T. (See Exodus xvii. 15), and buried at Abydos, after being killed by Typhon at the early age of twenty-eight, according to the allegory. According to Euripides he is the same as Zeus and Dionysos or Dio-Nysos “the god of Nysa”, for Osiris is said by him to have been brought up in Nysa, in Arabia “the Happy”. Query: how much did the latter tradition influence, or have anything in common with, the statement in the Bible, that “Moses built an altar and called the name Jehovah Nissi”, or Kabbalistically — “Dio-Iao-Nyssi”? (See Isis Unveiled Vol. II. p. 165 The four chief aspects of Osiris were — Osiris-Phtah (Light), the spiritual aspect; Osiris-Horus (Mind), the intellectual manasic aspect; Osiris-Lunus, the “Lunar” or psychic, astral aspect; Osiris-Typhon, Daimonic, or physical, material, therefore passional turbulent aspect. In these four aspects he symbolizes the dual EGO — the divine and the human, the cosmico-spiritual and the terrestrial. Of the many supreme gods, this Egyptian conception is the most suggestive and the grandest, as it embraces the whole range of physical and metaphysical thought. As a solar deity he had twelve minor gods under him — the twelve signs of the Zodiac. Though his name is the “Ineffable”, his forty-two attributes bore each one of his names, and his seven dual aspects completed the forty-nine, or 7 x 7; the former symbolized by the fourteen members of his body, or twice seven. Thus the god is blended in man, and the man is deified into a god. He was addressed as Osiris-Eloh. Mr. Dunbar T. Heath speaks of a Phoenician inscription which, when read, yielded the following tumular inscription in honour of the mummy: “Blessed be Ta-Bai, daughter of Ta-Hapi, priest of Osiris-Eloh. She did nothing against any one in anger. She spoke no falsehood against any one. Justified before Osiris, blessed be thou from before Osiris! Peace be to thee.” And then he adds the following remarks: “The author of this inscription ought, I suppose, to be called a heathen, as justification before Osiris is the object of his religious aspirations. We find, however, that he gives to Osiris the appellation Eloh. Eloh is the name used by the Ten Tribes of Israel for the Elohim of Two Tribes. Jehovah-Eloh (Gen. iii. 21 in the version used by Ephraim corresponds to Jehovah Elohim in that used by Judah and ourselves. This being so, the question is sure to be asked, and ought to be humbly answered — What was the meaning meant to be conveyed by the two phrases respectively, Osiris-Eloh and Jehovah-Eloh? For my part I can imagine but one answer, viz., that Osiris was the national God of Egypt, Jehovah that of Israel, and that Eloh is equivalent tu Dens, Gott or Dieu”. As to his human development, he is, as the author of the Egyptian Belief has it . . . “One of the Saviours or Deliverers of Humanity . . . . As such he is born in the world. He came as a benefactor, to relieve man of trouble . . . . In his efforts to do good he encounters evil . . . and he is temporarily overcome. he is killed . . Osiris is buried. His tomb was the object of pilgrimage for thousands of years. But he did not rest in his grave. At the end of three days, or forty, he rose again and ascended to Heaven. This is the story of his Humanity” (Egypt. Belief). And Mariette Bey, speaking of the Sixth Dynasty, tells us that “the name of Osiris . . commences to be more used. The formula of Justified is met with”: and adds that “it proves that this name (of the Justified or Makheru) was not given to the dead only”. But it also proves that the legend of Christ was found ready in almost all its details thousands of years before the Christian era, and that the Church fathers had no greater difficulty than to simply apply it to a new personage.
(TG) Ossa . {Greek} A mount, the tomb of the giants (allegorical).
(TG) Otz-Chiim. {Hebr}. The Tree of Life, or rather of Lives, a name given to the Ten Sephiroth when arranged in a diagram of three columns. [W. W. W.]
(TG) Oulam, or Oulom {Hebr}. This word does not mean “eternity” or infinite duration, as translated in the texts, but simply an extended time, neither the beginning nor the end of which can be known.
(TG) Ouranos {Greek}. The whole expanse of Heaven called the “Waters of Space”, the Celestial Ocean, etc. The name very likely comes from the Vedic Varuna, personified as the water god and regarded as the chief Aditya among the seven planetary deities. In Hesiod’s Theogony, Ouranos (or Uranus) is the same as Caelus (Heaven) the oldest of all the gods and the father of the divine Titans.
(PV) Oxlahun-oc {quiche-maya} “Having thirteen feet.” The god-Thirteen; the Solar deity in its zenith position, with its twelve stellar companions.
(TG) P. — The 16th letter in both the Greek and the English alphabets, and the 17th in the Hebrew, where it is called pe or pay, and is symbolized by the mouth, corresponding also, as in the Greek alphabet, to number 80. The Pythagoreans also made it equivalent to 100, and with a dash — thus it stood for 400,000. The Kabbalists associated with it the sacred name of Phodeh (Redeemer), though no valid reason is given for it.
(TG) P and Cross, called generally the Labarum of Constantine. It was, however, one of the oldest emblems in Etruria before the Roman Empire. It was also the sign of Osiris. Both the long Latin and the Greek pectoral crosses are Egyptian, the former being very often seen in the hand of Horus. “The cross and Calvary so common in Europe, occurs on the breasts of mummies” (Bonwick).
(TG) Pachacarnac #prv. The name given by the Peruvians to the Creator of the Universe, represented as a host of creators. On his altar only the first-fruits and flowers were laid by the pious.
(TG) Pacis Bull. The divine Bull of Hermonthes, sacred to Amoun-Horus, the Bull Netos of Heliopolis being sacred to Amoun-Ra.
(WG) Pada, foot; step; pace; stride; footprint; mark; vestige; portion; path.
(TG) Padarthas {Sans}. Predicates of existing things; so-called in the Vaiseshika or “atomic” system of philosophy founded by Kanada. This school is one of the six Darshanas.
(FY) Padarthas, predicates of existing things, so called in the “Vaiseshikha,” or atomic system of philosophy, founded by Kanad {Sans}.
(TG) Padma, {Sans}. The Lotus; a name of Lakshmi, the Hindu Venus, who is the wife, or the female aspect, of Vishnu.
(WG) Padma, the lotus — not the plant itself, but the flower only.
(TG) Padma Asana {Sans}. A posture prescribed to and practised by some Yogis for developing concentration.
(FY) Padma sana, a posture practised by some Indian mystics. It consists in sitting with the legs crossed one over the other and the body straight.
(TG) Padma Kalpa {Sans}. The name of the last Kalpa or the preceding Manvantara, which was a year of Brahma.
(TG) Padma Yoni {Sans}. A title of Brahma (also called Abjayoni), or the “lotus-born”.
(WG) Padmi, the lotus — the whole plant, padma being the flower only.
(TG) Paean {Greek}. A hymn of rejoicing and praise in honour of the sun-god Apollo or Helios.
(TG) Pagan {Latin}. Meaning at first no worse than a dweller in the country or the woods; one far removed from the city-temples, and therefore unacquainted with the state religion and ceremonies. The word “heathen” has a similar significance, meaning one who lives on the heaths and in the country. Now, however, both come to mean idolaters. WW Paganism A pagan is generally considered today to be a man of loose religious ideas, etc. That is quite a Christian definition; but it is, unfortunately, really the only one which we will find, and when people speak of Paganism they have a general idea of that, and also of the theories and beliefs of the Greeks and Romans. The word pagan comes from the Latin paganus, and it itself comes from the word pagus, which means a district, as for instance, the districts surrounding a city. The pagani originally were the country people, peasants, those who inhabited the countryside as contrasted with those who lived in the city, who were called cives or rather urbani. Later, the pagani also became cives, but originally the civis was the inhabitant of a city, and the paganus, or in the plural pagani, were the inhabitants of the villages of the countryside. Now that word paganus first acquired its present unenviable signification about the middle of the 4th century, and in an edict of the Emperor Valentinian bearing the date 368 A.D., we find the word pagani signifying those who did not accept the Christian faith, but followed the rites, practices, and at least to a certain extent, the religious ideas, of the ancients. That is the first instance in which the word paganus appears bearing its present signification. So much for the meaning of the term. We may add that to apply it either to the ancients, or to those who hold non-Christian views today, is not only insulting, but absurdly improper. I wish to say a few words in explanation of certain matters first, the fact that the Christians have so consistently attempted to vilify paganism. I speak subject to all reasonable correction, as it would not be permissible for any Theosophist to attempt to degrade by words or act the sincere religious beliefs of another. This in no sense prevents an open, fair, and courteous, if perfectly frank, study and expression. I wish to say that in my opinion the reason for this villification lay in fear. The Christians never had a philosophy; their religion was based on faith, blind faith. Theologians today, many at least, and nearly all up to fifty years ago, taught that the blinder the faith the greater the merit. The ancients, on the other hand, had schools of learning, institutes of philosophy, where the subtlest questions that can agitate the human heart and try the human intellect were debated with learning and acumen. To this the early Christians opposed marvels, and miracles, and wonder-working, not only of Jesus called the Christ, but also the wonder-working and miracles after their saints had died. You will remember that to become canonized, or for one dead to become a saint in the Roman Catholic Church, it is necessary to prove that the aspirant to canonization worked at least two miracles before he was beatified, and that his relics after his beatification worked at least two more; and furthermore, that his life was pure and spotless. This last is a condition indeed noble and worthy. Parenthetically, it may interest you to listen to a little anecdote of a Christian saint, one of the most esteemed in his church, and one whose writings are of vast influence, which is based on his own records, and is not, possibly, inapposite. It was Saint Augustine. He was Bishop of Hippo in Africa, and he relates in one of his sermons that very extraordinary things existed in Africa in his day; because, he says, assuredly through the grace of God, and his own natural merit: “I preached the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ to whole nations of people who had no heads, but had two eyes in their breasts; and furthermore, in the interior, I preached to a people who had a head indeed, but only one eye, and that was in the middle of the forehead.” This man, although no records have been found of his acephalous or headless humanity nor of his one-eyed race, and although untruth would be a bar to canonization, is yet considered one of the most worthy and erudite saints in Christian hagiology, (a word which makes one think of ugly old ladies, but it simply means the doctrines or history or philosophy of the lives and legends of saints. or [[greek char]]). It may be, to continue our parenthesis for a moment, quite possible that when Shakespeare, in his Othello, writes “of antres vast and deserts idle. Rough quarries, rocks and hills whose heads touch Heaven…. And of the Cannibals that each other eat, The Anthrophagi, and men whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders.” (Act I, Sc. III), he was thinking of this very worthy Saint’s stories, of his preaching to the acephalous humanity of Africa; and I have no doubt that St. Augustine himself — who at one time was a most excellent pagan, later a heretic belonging to a body called the Manichaeans, and later an orthodox follower of the church — got his ideas of his one-eyed men and of the eye in the middle of the forehead, from the old Homeric legends of the Cyclopes. As to his headless humanity — possibly we had better leave these to others to identify. Paganism was a very noble faith. It was profound, worthy of study, and full of mystery, in the proper sense of the word. Its mystery, or rather its esoteric part, was embodied in one of the institutions of humanity which were ever considered in ancient times as most worthy of reverence — the Mysteries. The ancient philosophers spoke of these Mysteries as those institutions founded by the Gods, which lead humanity from a degraded and brutish life to be near the Gods, and to be one with them; and that those who had been initiated had a greater hope after death and a wider sympathy with their fellows in life. Cicero refers to it in closely similar terms in one of his ethical writings. That, however, is a subject which I do not at present wish further to dilate, because we will come to it in time; but when you hear or when you read in the dictionary and the books that have been written by those opposed to the ancient paganism that it was stupid idolatry, or that it was sensual, or that it was foolish, or any similar vice, as Theosophists and as men who are seeking the truth, remembering that it is from the ancients that everything good that we have today has come down to us, it is well to go to the original source. Read the ancient literatures, study the ancient histories, try and get at the truth which the ancient writers embodied in those of their dissertations and in their discourses which have come down to us. They are many. The philosophers no more believed in what the Christians attempted to represent as their beliefs, than today any intelligent Christian believes that their Lord God rode on the wings of the wind, or on a cherub, or thundered or lightened his displeasure from the clouds. These are allegorical sayings, as we shall see later on. The people may have believed the things that were said about the ancient gods and goddesses; the educated men, never. Their histories show it. Look, for one thing, at the way they themselves satirized the accepted faith before and after Christianity was born and came into the world, unfortunately. Look at the bitter, biting diatribes of Lucian. Perhaps no more caustic wit was ever born. Look at the way Plato, for instance, treats some of the tales about the gods and goddesses. He said he would not admit Homer, who was considered almost god-like in his genius by the ancient world, into his ideal Republic. Why? On account of the tales he had circulated about the gods and goddesses, their sorrows, their hatreds, their disgraceful acts. All thinking men in the ancient world had a conception of the divinities which was sublime as it was scientific, but in all ages of the world you will find a vulgar mass of common people, the crowd (and this does not refer to birth, it refers to the vulgar in mind, in intellect) in all ages you will find such men, and they always follow the same course — light, foolish, and flippant speeches against those things which have been considered most holy and most worthy of reverence since the time of historical records; and we know that it must have been so before. I simply wish to add that in explaining the word ‘paganism’, I should also have adduced the word heathenism, from another word of precisely similar analogy. When the Christian missionaries entered Northern Europe they found the priesthood of the religions of the different countries dwelling in forests, as the Druids, for instance; and the priests and priestesses of the Germans made their temples of the leafy bowers. Under some spreading oak tree they would render their supplications and perform their devotions to the deities. Later, as the town became more settled and populous and Christianity, under the very vigorous proselytizing and swords of the invaders, increased, the people who dwelt on the heaths of the country, out of the city, were naturally those who last received Christianity, just as those in the countries around the Mediterranean who were the last to become converted were the villagers, the pagani; and as the countryman became synonymous with pagan in the Christian use, so heathen — those who lived on heaths — became synonymous with those who were not Christians. The derivation of the two words is rather interesting.
(TG) Pagan Gods. The term is erroneously understood to mean idols. The philosophical idea attached to them was never that of something objective or anthropomorphic, but in each case an abstract potency, a virtue, or quality in nature. There are gods who are divine planetary spirits (Dhyan Chohans) or Devas, among which are also our Egos. With this exception, and especially whenever represented by an idol or in anthropomorphic form, the gods represent symbolically in the Hindu, Egyptian, or Chaldean Pantheons — formless spiritual Potencies of the “Unseen Kosmos”.
(IU) Pagan Gods. — This term gods is erroneously understood by most of the reading public, to mean idols. The idea attached to them is not that of something objective or anthropomorphical. With the exception of occasions when “gods” mean either divine planetary entities (angels), or disembodied spirits of pure men, the term simply conveys to the mind of the mystic — whether Hindu Hotar, Mazdean Mage, Egyptian hierophant, or disciple of the Greek philosophers — the idea of a visible or cognized manifestation of an invisible potency of nature. And such occult potencies are invoked under the appellation of various gods, who, for the time being, are personating these powers. Thus every one of the numberless deities of the Hindu, Greek, and Egyptian Pantheons, are simply Powers of the “Unseen Universe.” When the officiating Brahman invokes Aditya — who, in her cosmic character, is the goddess-sun — he simply commands that potency (personified in some god), which, as he asserts, “resides in the Mantra, as the sacred Vach.” These god-powers are allegorically regarded as the divine Hotars of the Supreme One; while the priest (Brahman) is the human Hotar who officiates on earth, and representing that particular Power becomes, ambassador-like, invested with the very potency which he personates.
(TG) Pahans (Prakrit). Village priests.
(FY) Pahans, village priests.
(TG) Paksham {Sans}. An astronomical calculation; one half of the lunar month or 14 days; two paksham (or paccham) making a month of mortals, but only a day of the Pitar devata or the “father-gods”.
(TG) Palaeolithic. A newly-coined term meaning in geology “ancient stone” age, as a contrast to the term neolithic, the “newer” or later stone age.
(TG) Palasa Tree {Sans} Called also Kanaka (butea frondosa) a tree with red flowers of very occult properties.
(TG) Pali. The ancient language of Magadha, one that preceded the more refined Sanskrit. The Buddhist Scriptures are all written in this language.
(TG) Palingenesis {Greek}. Transformation; or new birth.
(OG) Palingenesis — (Greek) A compound which means “coming again into being,” or “becoming again.” The meaning attached to this word is quite specific, although having a wide and general application. The idea included in it may be illustrated, as is found in the philosophical literature of the ancients who lived around the Mediterranean Sea, by the example of the oak which produces its seed, the acorn, the acorn in its turn producing a new oak containing the same life that was passed on to it from the mother oak — or the father oak. This transmission of an identic life in cyclical recurring phases is the specific meaning of the word palingenesis. Thus the thought is different from the respective ideas contained in the other words connected with the doctrine of reembodiment. Perhaps another way of stating the specific meaning would be by stating that palingenesis signifies the continuous transmission of an identic life producing at each transformation a new manifestation or result, these several results being in each case a palingenesis or “new becoming” of the same life-stream. Its specific meaning is quite different from that imbodied in the word transmigration.
(TG) Pan {Greek}. The nature-god, whence Pantheism; the god of shepherds, huntsmen, peasants, and dwellers on the land. Homer makes him the son of Hermes and Dryope. His name means ALL. He was the inventor of the Pandaean pipes; and no nymph who heard their sound could resist the fascination of the great Pan, his grotesque figure notwithstanding. Pan is related to the Mendesian goat, only so far as the latter represents, as a talisman of great occult potency, nature’s creative force. The whole of the Hermetic philosophy is based on nature’s hidden secrets, and as Baphomet was undeniably a Kabbalistic talisman, so was the name of Pan of great magic efficiency in what Eliphas Levi would call the “Conjuration of the Elementals”. There is a well-known pious legend which has been current in the Christian world ever since the day of Tiberias, to the effect that the “great Pan is dead”. But people are greatly mistaken in this; neither nature nor any of her Forces can ever die. A few of these may be left unused, and being forgotten lie dormant for long centuries. But no sooner are the proper conditions furnished than they awake, to act again with tenfold power.
(TG) Panaenus {Greek}. A Platonic philosopher in the Alexandrian school of Philaletheans.
(KT) Panaenus. A Platonic philosopher in the Alexandrian school of the Philalethians.
(GH) Panchajanya The name of Krishna’s conch-shell, which he obtained in the following manner: Panchajana was an elemental of the sea, using the form of a conch-shell (sankha). He had seized the son of Sandipani (who had instructed Krishna in the use of arms), whereupon Krishna attacked and slew Panchajana, taking the shell for use as his conch.
It is significant and interesting that the word Panchajana itself means ‘five classes,’ having reference to the five lower classes of beings which in a general way were considered by the ancient Hindus to inhabit the universe. The name therefore could properly be applied to a head of any one such composite group of beings; and to speak of Panchajana as a ‘demon,’ as Orientalists often do, is to forget the fact that one of the Panchajanas or five classes of animate beings are men, who can hardly be called ‘demons,’ even in the Hindu mythological sense. (Meaning of the word itself: literally descended from Panchajana. Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 3)
(TG) Panchakama {Sans}. Five methods of sensuousness and sensuality.
(WG) Pancha-karmendriya, the five organs of action. (pancha, five; karma, action; indriya, organ
(TG) Pancha Kosha {Sans}. The five “sheaths”. According to Vedantin philosophy, Vijnanamaya Kosha, the fourth sheath, is composed of Buddhi, or is Buddhi. The five sheaths are said to belong to the two higher principles — Jivatma and Sakshi, which represent the Upahita and An-upahita, divine spirit respectively. The division in the esoteric teaching differs from this, as it divides man’s physical-metaphysical aspect into seven principles.
(FY) Panchakosha, the five sheaths in which is enclosed the divine monad.
(WG) Pancha-kosa, the five-fold screen, case or sheath of the soul — anna-maya, prana-maya, manomaya, vignana-maya and ananda-maya. (pancha, five; kosa, sheath
(SKs) Pancha-kosa, Anandamaya-kosa, Vijnanamaya-kosa, Manomaya-kosa, Pranamaya-kosa, Annamaya-kosa The Vedantic philosophy divides man into the Divine Monad or Atman and five enclosing sheaths collectively called the Pancha-kosa (pancha — five; kosa — sheath). Atman’s sphere or home is the Galactic Universe. Atman’s first veil or sheath is the Anandamaya-kosa, the Spiritual Soul or Buddhi, sometimes called the ‘Sheath of the Sun’; a compound of ananda — pure bliss, maya built of, and kosa — sheath. In this sheath the Spiritual Monad can range over the Solar System. The Vijnanamaya-kosa is the Higher Mind or the ‘Manasaputric Soul’; from vijnana — discernment, intelligence. In this sheath the Manasaputra within may pass anywhere within the Planetary Chain of this Earth. The Manomaya-kosa is the lower mind and the desire-principle, or the ‘Human Soul’; from manas — mind. This sheath is the human Ego’s psychological apparatus on this Globe D of our Planetary Chain. Pranamaya-kosa is the life-principle together with the astral body, called the ‘vital-astral soul’; from prana — life. This sheath clothes the ‘Animal Monad’ in man’s constitution. The Annamaya-kosa is the physical body built up of the anna or food of the earth.
(TG) Pancha Krishtaya {Sans}. The five races.
(TG) Panchakritam {Sans}. An element combined with small portions of the other four elements.
(TG) Panchama {Sans}. One of the five qualities of musical sound, the fifth, Nishada and Daivata completing the seven; G of the diatonic scale.
(WG) Pancha-maha-bhuta, the five gross elements — earth, water, fire, air, ether. (pancha, five; maha, great; bhuta, element
(WG) Pancha-maha-prana, the five great airs — the ascending and descending airs, the airs of circulation, assimilation and respiration. (pancha, five; maha, great; prana, breath
(TG) Panchanana {Sans}. “Five-faced”, a title of Siva; an allusion to the five races (since the beginning of the first) which he represents, as the ever reincarnating Kumara throughout the Manvantara. In the sixth root-race he will be called the “six-faced”.
(WG) Pancha-ratnani, the five jewels, or five most admired episodes in the Mahabharata.
(TG) Panchasikha {Sans}. One of the seven Kumaras who went to pay worship to Vishnu on the island of Swetadwipa in the allegory.
(SKs) Pancha Sila, Pansil The Pancha Sila are the ‘Five Precepts’ of compassion, honesty, purity, sincerity, and temperance, which every lay-disciple of Buddhism promises to endeavor to follow. Pansil is the Pali word for Pancha Sila.
(WG) Pancha-tan-matras, the five subtle elements. (See Tanmatras
(TG) Panchen Rimboche {Tibe}. Lit., “the great Ocean, or Teacher of Wisdom”. The title of the Teshu Lama at Tchigadze; an incarnation of Amitabha the celestial “father” of Chenresi, which means to say that he is an Avatar of Tson-kha-pa (See “Sonkhapa”). De jure the Teshu Lama is second after the Dalai Lama; de facto, he is higher, since it is Dharma Richen, the successor of Tson-kha-pa at the golden monastery founded by the latter Reformer and established by the Gelukpa sect (yellow caps), who created the Dalai Lamas at Llhassa, and was the first of the dynasty of the “Panchen Rimboche”. While the former (Dalai Lamas) are addressed as “Jewel of Majesty”, the latter enjoy a far higher title, namely “Jewel of Wisdom”, as they are high Initiates.
(FY) Panchikrita, developed into the five gross elements.
(TG) Pandavarani {Sans}. Lit., the “Pandava Queen”; Kunti, the mother of the Pandavas. (All these are highly important personified symbols in esoteric philosophy
(TG) Pandavas {Sans}. The descendants of Pandu.
(WG) Pandavas, the five sons of Pandu — Yudhi-sthira, Bhima, Arjuna, Nakula, and Saha-deva, — and their adherents: personalities in the Mahabharata who represent the higher principles in man.
(WG) Pandita, a learned Brahmin.
(SKs) Pandita A learned man; derived from panda — wisdom, knowledge, or learning.
(TG) Pandora {Greek}. A beautiful woman created by the gods under the orders of Zeus to be sent to Epimetheus, brother of Prometheus; she had charge of a casket in which all the evils, passions and plagues which torment humanity were locked up. This casket Pandora, led by curiosity, opened, and thus set free all the ills which prey on mankind.
(KT) Pandora. In Greek Mythology, the first woman on earth, created by Vulcan out of clay to punish Prometheus and counteract his gift to mortals. Each God having made her a present of some virtue, she was made to carry them in a box to Prometheus, who, however, being endowed with foresight, sent her away, changing the gifts into evils. Thus, when his brother Epimetheus saw and married her, when he opened the box, all the evils now afflicting humanity issued from it, and have remained since then in the world.
(TG) Pandu {Sans}. “The Pale”, literally; the father of the Pandavas Princes, the foes of the Kurava in the Mahabharata.
(WG) Pandu, the father of the Pandava Princes, who were the foes of the Kurus as related in the Bhagavat-Gita.
(GH) Pandu The son of Krishna Dvaipayana Vyasa and Ambalika, half-brother of Dhritarashtra, and parent of the five hero princes Yudhishthira, Bhima, Arjuna, Nakula, and Sahadeva — who were known as the Pandavas (i.e., sons of Pandu). When Pandu became of age, he was given the throne of Hastinapura by his regent-uncle Bhishma, because Dhritarashtra was considered unfit to rule the kingdom on account of his blindness. Pandu, however, relinquished the kingdom because of a curse pronounced upon him while hunting, and retired to the Himalayas, where he died. (Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 2)
(GH) Pandus (or Pandavas) The sons of Pandu, referring to the five brothers — Yudhishthira, Bhima, Arjuna, Nakula, and Sahadeva — who sought to regain their kingdom of Indraprastha, which had been taken from them by the Kauravas under the leadership of Duryodhana. This led to the great battle at Kurukshetra, in which the Pandavas were victorious. (Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 2)
(WG) Pani, the hand.
(TG) Panini {Sans}. A celebrated grammarian, author of the famous work called Paniniyama; a Rishi, supposed to have received his work from the god Siva. Ignorant of the epoch at which he lived, the Orientalists place his date between 600 B.C. and 300 A.D.
(TG) Pantacle {Greek}. The same as Pentalpha; the triple triangle of Pythagoras or the five-pointed star. It was given the name because it reproduces the letter A (alpha) on the five sides of it or in five different positions — its number, moreover, being composed of the first odd (3) and the first even (2) numbers. It is very occult. In Occultism and the Kabala it stands for man or the Microcosm, the “Heavenly Man”, and as such it was a powerful talisman for keeping at bay evil spirits or the Elementals. In Christian theology it refers to the five wounds of Christ; its interpreters failing, however, to add that these “five wounds were themselves symbolical of the Microcosm, or the Little Universe”, or again, Humanity, this symbol pointing out the fall of pure Spirit (Christos) into matter (Iassous, “life”, or man) In esoteric philosophy the Pentalpha, or five-pointed star, is the symbol of the EGO or the Higher Manas. Masons use it, referring to it as the five-pointed star, and connecting it with their own fanciful interpretation. (See the word “Pentacle” for its difference in meaning from “Pantacle”
(TG) Pantheist. One who identifies God with Nature and vice versa. Pantheism is often objected to by people and regarded as reprehensible. But how can a philosopher regard Deity as infinite, omnipresent and eternal unless Nature is an aspect of IT, and IT informs every atom in Nature?
(KT) Pantheist. One who identifies God with nature and vice versa. If we have to regard Deity as an infinite and omnipresent Principle, this can hardly be otherwise; nature being thus simply the physical aspect of Deity, or its body.
(TG) Panther {Hebr}. According to the Sepher Toldosh Jeshu, one of the so-called Apocryphal Jewish Gospels, Jesus was the son of Joseph Panther and Mary, hence Ben Panther. Tradition makes of Panther a Roman soldier. [W.W.W.]
(WG) Papa, evil, destructive; bad karma; one of the hells.
(TG) Papa-purusha {Sans}. Lit., “Man of Sin”: the personification in a human form of every wickedness and sin. Esoterically, one who is reborn, or reincarnated from the state of Avitchi — hence, “Soulless”.
(TG) Para {Sans}. “Infinite” and “supreme” in philosophy — the final limit. Param is the end and goal of existence; Parapara is the boundary of boundaries.
(WG) Para, the opposite shore of a river; the limit or utmost reach; applied to the first half — now completed — of the present maha-kalpa, of which the universe has but just entered upon the second half; other, chief, highest.
(TG) Parabrahm {Sans}. “Beyond Brahma”, literally. The Supreme Infinite Brahma, “Absolute” — the attributeless, the secondless reality. The impersonal and nameless universal Principle.
(KT) Parabrahm {Sans} A Vedantin term meaning “beyond Brahma.” The Supreme and the absolute Principle, impersonal and nameless. In the Veda it is referred to as “THAT.”
(FY) Parabrahm, the supreme principle in Nature; the universal spirit.
(WG) Para-Brahma, (also Para-Brahmam), the Absolute, above all, yet in all and containing all; Brahma, the Unknowable, above and beyond Brahma and all creators.
(OG) Parabrahman — {Sans} Para is a word meaning “beyond.” Brahman (neuter) is sometimes used as the universal self or spirit; also called paramatman. Beyond Brahman is the para-Brahman. Note the deep philosophical meaning of this — there is no attempt here to limit the illimitable, the ineffable, by adjectives. In the Sanskrit Vedas and in the works deriving therefrom and belonging to the Vedic literary cycle, this “beyond” is called tat, “THAT,” as this world of manifestations is called idam, “This.” Parabrahman is intimately connected with mulaprakriti. Their interaction and intermingling cause the first nebulous thrilling, if the words will pass, of the universal life when spiritual desire first arose in it in the beginnings of things. Parabrahman, therefore, literally means “beyond Brahman”; and strictly speaking it is Brahman to which the Occidental term Absolute should be applied. Parabrahman is no entity, is no individual or individualized being. It is a convenient technical word with conveniently vague philosophical significancy, implying whatever is beyond the Absolute or Brahman of any hierarchy. Just as Brahman is the summit of a kosmic hierarchy, so, following the same line of thought, the parabrahman is “whatever is beyond Brahman.”
(GH) Parabrahman literally Beyond Brahman, i.e., that which is beyond the summit of a manifested kosmic hierarchy; referred to in Vedic literature as TAT, THAT (the world of manifestation being Idam, This). Parabrahman is very closely connected with Mulaprakriti (Root-Substance) inasmuch as Mulaprakriti is the veil of Parabrahman (Notes on the Bhagavad-Gita, 62). Krishna speaks of Parabrahman as his Avyaktamurti because Parabrahman “is unknowable, and only becomes knowable when manifesting itself as the Logos” or Isvara (Notes on the Bhagavad-Gita, 62). Parabrahman “is the field of Absolute Consciousness, i.e., that Essence which is out of all relation to conditioned existence, and of which conscious existence is a conditioned symbol.” (Secret Doctrine, I, p. 15) (Compound para, beyond; Brahman, ‘Universal Spirit.’ Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 71)
(SK)o Parabrahman All that is ‘beyond’ (para) the loftiest reaches of Brahman — beyond the loftiest reaches of the inmost essence or Divinity of the Kosmos. Parabrahman is the Reality or Be-ness of Boundless Space and hence is the All. Since the Highest is latent in everything and includes the lower portions or outer garments, all, mystically speaking, is Parabrahman or Tat. Every living being or manifested thing is Parabrahman in its fundamental essence.
(IN) Parabrahm(an) {Sans} “Beyond Brahman,” precosmic source of divinity and being, the Ineffable, unnameable That; also spiritual pole of mulaprakriti.
(SP) Parabrahman — the supreme brahman, or beyond brahman.
(TG) Paracelsus. The symbolical name adopted by the greatest Occultist of the middle ages — Philip Bombastes Aureolus Theophrastus von Hohenheim — born in the canton of Zurich in 1493. He was the cleverest physician of his age, and the most renowned for curing almost any illness by the power of talismans prepared by himself. He never had a friend, but was surrounded by enemies, the most bitter of whom were the Churchmen and their party. That he was accused of being in league with the devil stands to reason, nor is it to be wondered at that finally he was murdered by some unknown foe, at the early age of forty-eight. He died at Salzburg, leaving a number of works behind him, which are to this day greatly valued by the Kabbalists and Occultists. Many of his utterances have proved prophetic. He was a clairvoyant of great powers, one of the most learned and erudite philosophers and mystics, and a distinguished Alchemist. Physics is indebted to him for the discovery of nitrogen gas, or Azote.
(WG) Para Chitr, Siamese equivalent of Divine Spirit.
(WG) Para-devata, the highest deity — in the sense of the highest abstraction of the human mind.
(TG) Paradha {Sans}. The period of one-half the Age of Brahma.
(WG) Para-guru, highest teacher, in an occult and religious sense.
(TG) Parama {Sans} The “One Supreme”.
(TG) Paramapadatmava {Sans} . Beyond the condition of Spirit, “supremer” than Spirit, bordering on the Absolute.
(TG) Paramapadha {Sans} . The place where — according to Visishtadwaita Vedantins — bliss is enjoyed by those who reach Moksha (Bliss). This “place” is not material but made, says the Catechism of that sect, “of Suddhasatwa, the essence of which the body of Iswara”, the lord, “is made”.
(WG) Paramapada, the supreme state, or path — vaikuntha loka — above all material worlds, and composed of intellectual substance — suddha-sattva — in which supreme bliss is enjoyed.
(TG) Paramapaha {Sans}. A state which is already a conditioned existence.
(TG) Paramarshis {Sans}. Composed of two words: parama, “supreme”, and Rishis, or supreme Rishis — Saints.
(TG) Paramartha {Sans}. Absolute existence.
(WG) Paramartha, the highest or most sublime truth.
(SKv) Paramartha, Samvriti, Paramartha-satya, Samvriti-satya Paramartha, a compound of parama — highest, and artha — purpose or aim, is ‘the highest goal’ of attainment for an adept of the Earth. It is a Nirvanic state in which a man is self-consciously aware of his divine nature and has become all-wise because he has become at one with the Spiritual Hierarch of this Planetary Chain. The word Samvriti is derived from the verb-root vrit — to turn, plus the preposition sam, meaning in combination ‘to cover, to hide’; and hence in philosophy Samvriti is applied to ‘False conception’ brought about by the deceptive and limiting powers of matter, in other words, by illusion or Maya. Samvriti-satya therefore is the ‘relative truth,’ the satya or truth concerning the origin of that illusion which conceals from man the highest Truth and the true conception of Reality. This Highest Truth which sees beyond the illusive or mayavi appearance of things is Paramartha-satya. One cannot fully comprehend Samvriti-satya until one reaches Paramartha-satya.
(IN) Paramartha {Sans} True or supreme self-consciousness; in Buddhism, absolute or nirvanic consciousness.
(TG) Paramarthika {Sans}. The one true state of existence according to Vedanta.
(FY) Paramarthika, one of the three states of existence according to Vedanta; the true, the only real one.
(TG) Paramatman {Sans}. The Supreme Soul of the Universe.
(FY) Paramatma, the Supreme Spirit.
(WG) Paramatman, the Great or Supreme Spirit; beyond atman.
(OG) Paramatman — {Sans} The “primordial self” or the “self beyond,” the permanent SELF, the Brahman or universal spirit-soul. A compound term meaning the highest or universal atman. Parama, “primordial,” “supreme,” etc.; the root of atman is hardly known — its origin is uncertain, but the general meaning is that of “self.” Paramatman consequently means the “supreme self,” or the summit or flower of a hierarchy, the root-base or source of that kosmic self. Selflessness is the attribute of the paramatman, the universal self, where all personality vanishes.
The universal self is the heart of the universe, for these two phrases are but two manners of expressing the same thing; it is the source of our being; it is also the goal whither we are all marching, we and the hierarchies above us as well as the hierarchies and the entities which compose them inferior to us. All come from the same ineffable source, the heart of Being, the universal self, pass at one period of their evolutionary journey through the stage of humanity, gaining thereby self-consciousness or the ego-self, the “I am I,” and they find it, as they advance along this evolutionary path, expanding gradually into universal consciousness — an expansion which never has an end, because the universal consciousness is endless, limitless, boundless. The paramatman is spiritually practically identical with what the theosophist has in mind when he speaks of the Absolute; and consequently paramatman, though possessing a wide range of meanings, is virtually identical with Brahman. Of course when the human mind or consciousness ascends in meditation up the rungs of the endless ladder of life and realizes that the paramatman of one hierarchy or kosmos is but one of a multitude of other paramatmans of other kosmic hierarchies, the realization comes that even the vague term parabrahman may at certain moments of philosophical introspection be found to be the frontierless paramatman of boundless space; but in this last usage of paramatman the word obviously becomes a sheer generalizing expression for boundless life, boundless consciousness, boundless substance. This last use of the word, while correct enough, is hardly to be recommended because apt to introduce confusion, especially in Occidental minds with our extraordinary tendency to take generalizations for concrete realities.
(GH) Paramatman The Supreme Self. In man Paramatman is the three highest principles, with especial emphasis upon the atman, hence the reference is to the root-base of man. The term may likewise apply to the Root-Base of a hierarchy, and cosmically, to the First or Unmanifest Logos of the Universe. (Compound parama, beyond; atman, Self: hence the SELF which is higher than the Self of the human ego. Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 96)
(SKf) Paramatman, Atman, Jivatman, Bhutatman, Pranatman Paramatman is the ‘Supreme Self’ or the ‘Remotest Self,’ the ‘Father in Heaven,’ the Self of the Cosmos, Brahman. Paramatman (a compound of parama — supreme, and atman — self) is our link with Boundless Infinitude; it is that Universal part of us which is a promise of what we may in future ages unfold from within ourselves as we evolve; it is that heart of the heart of our being whose consciousness ranges over vast stretches of the fields of infinitude. What we as personal human beings are to the atoms of our bodies, so is Paramatman to us. We as human beings control and give a higher power and force to all the tiny lives that build our various bodies. These atomic beings live in our life-stream. So do we as humans live and move and have our being in this Cosmic Self — Paramatman or Brahman. Atman is the Divine Self or Ego in man. The range of consciousness of this Divinity is co-extensive with the Universe. Jivatman is the Spiritual Self; a compound of jiva — monad or life, and atman. This Jivatman is the Buddhic Monad whose range of consciousness extends over our entire Solar System. Bhutatman is the Reimbodying Self, sometimes called the Reincarnating Ego or Individuality, the ‘Self that has been’ (bhuta). Its range of consciousness is the Earth Planetary Chain. Pranatman is the ‘Personal Self,’ the Self of Prana or Vitality; that part of us which is at home or conscious on Globe D of our Earth-Chain.
PARAMITAS
The Glorious “Virtues” or Paramitas compiled by the Editor
Excerpt from the Voice of the Silence, pp. 47-49:
Thou seest well, Lanoo. These Portals lead the aspirant across the waters on “to the other shore” (7). Each Portal hath a golden key that openeth its gate; and these keys are: —
1. DANA, the key of charity and love immortal. 2. SHILA, the key of Harmony in word and act, the key that counterbalances the cause and the effect, and leaves no further room for Karmic action. 3. KSHANTI, patience sweet, that nought can ruffle. 4. VIRAG, indifference to pleasure and to pain, illusion conquered, truth alone perceived. 5. VIRYA, the dauntless energy that fights its way to the supernal TRUTH, out of the mire of lies terrestrial. 6. DHYANA, whose golden gate once opened leads the Narjol* toward the realm of Sat eternal and its ceaseless contemplation. [*A saint, an adept.] 7. PRAJNA, the key to which makes of a man a god, creating him a Bodhisattva, son of the Dhyanis. Such to the Portals are the golden keys. Before thou canst approach the last, O weaver of thy freedom, thou hast to master these Paramitas of perfection — the virtues transcendental six and ten in number — along the weary Path.
(VS) six glorious virtues [[Paramitas ]] (II 23) [[p. 33]] To “practise the Paramita Path” means to become a Yogi with a view of becoming an ascetic.
(VS) Paramitas (III 5) [[p. 45]] Paramitas, the six transcendental virtues; for the priests there are ten.
(WG) Paramitas, the Buddhistic six and ten perfections belonging to a Bodhisattva. (Literally, “transcendent.”)
(WG) Paramitas, the seven Paramitas of perfection are: Dana, Charity; Shila, Harmony; Kshanti, Patience; Virag, the higher Indifference; Virya, Courage; Dhyana, Contemplation; Prajna, the capacity for Mahatic perception.
(SKv) Paramita A Paramita is a ‘virtue,’ a ‘perfection’; a compound of param, the accusative form of para — beyond, or further shore, or utmost reach; and ita, the past participle of the verb-root i — to go; hence ‘having gone beyond,’ or ‘having reached perfection.’ The Paramitas are ideals of spiritual perfection which may be the guide of the aspirant to self-realization or Atma-vidya. The seven Paramitas or the seven glorious virtues are called the ‘Seven Keys to the Portals of Jnana or Wisdom.’ THESE SEVEN KEYS ARE: [[The passages quoted in this description of the Paramitas are H. P. Blavatsky’s own words in The Voice of the Silence, Fragment III.]] Dana “the key of charity and love immortal.” Derived from the verb-root da — to give. The attainment of this virtue calls not only for material charity, but for tender mercy, sympathy, brotherhood, and that divine love and compassion that causes enlightened Initiates like the Buddha to give themselves utterly in service to the world instead of entering the lofty bliss and peace of Nirvana. Sila “the key of Harmony in word and act, the key that counterbalances the cause and the effect, and leaves no further room for Karmic action.” Derived from the verb-root sil — to serve, to practice. To attain Sila one must practice simplicity, kindness, restraint, self-giving, until even the opposites of good and evil disappear and there is but spontaneously harmonious behavior. A noble act done without thought of reward is harmonious, and hence helps to free a man from the bonds of earthly karman. Kshanti “patience sweet, that nought can ruffle.” Derived from the verb-root ksham — to be patient. To attain the essence of Kshanti, one must cultivate endurance, practice forbearance with external circumstances and with the temperaments of others, exercise fortitude with one’s own self, and kill out fear and doubt, two enemies of Patience. Viraga “indifference to pleasure and to pain, illusion conquered, truth alone perceived.” A compound of vi — without, and raga — passion, desire, derived from the verb-root raj — to glow, to be excited. To master Viraga one must conquer temptations, the illusions of matter, the sense-desires, the wayward mind, the unsteady heart, and become one with Reality. This portal is called the “Gate of Balance,” because it represents the final struggle between the Higher and Lower, the Real and the Unreal. Virya “the dauntless energy that fights its way to the supernal TRUTH, out of the mire of lies terrestrial.” Derived from vir — to be powerful or valiant. This virtue calls for more than mere outward zeal. Self-control and perseverance in keeping the mind and heart pure, and a glorious and steadfast exertion in bringing Truth to mankind are required. Dhyana ‘Meditation,’ ‘Spiritual contemplation’; derived from the verb-root dhyai — to meditate. True Dhyana is a mind and heart bathed in pure knowledge and enlightenment, and free from the attractions of the lower and deceptive world. The portal of Dhyana is one “whose golden gate once opened leads the Naljor toward the realm of Sat eternal and its ceaseless contemplation.” Prajna True Wisdom; wisdom which is the result of Self-realization; that intelligence and discrimination which clearly reflects the Higher Self; or as the Buddhists express it “divine intuition”; derived from the verb-root jna — to understand, to know; and the preposition pra — before; hence ‘foreknowledge.’ The Key to Prajna “makes of a man a god, creating him a Bodhisattva, a son of the Dhyanis.” “SUCH TO THE PORTALS ARE THE GOLDEN KEYS.”
(SP) Paramita — the transcendent qualities or perfections of the Bodhisattvas, which carry them across to the other shore of enlightenment. There are numerous lists of paramitas, most often lists of six or ten. The following list of seven is given in The Voice of the Silence (omitting viraga gives the most common list of six): dana — generosity sila — morality ksanti — patience viraga — dispassion virya — courage dhyana — meditation prajna — understanding.
(TG) Pararna {Sans}. The “one Supreme”.
(TG) Paranellatons. In ancient Astronomy the name was applied to certain stars and constellations which are extra Zodiacal, lying above and below the constellations of the Zodiac; they were 36 in number: allotted to the Decans, or one-third parts of each sign. The paranellatons ascend or descend with the Decans alternately, thus when Scorpio rises, Orion in its paranellaton sets, also Auriga; this gave rise to the fable that the horses of Phaeton, the Sun, were frightened by a Scorpion, and the Charioteer fell into the River Po; that is the constellation of the River Eridanus which lies below Auriga the star. [W.W.W.]
(TG) Paranirvana {Sans}. Absolute Non-Being, which is equivalent to absolute Being or “Be-ness”, the state reached by the human Monad at the end of the great cycle (See Secret Doctrine I, 135). The same as Paranishpanna.
(KT) Paranirvana. In the Vedantic philosophy the highest form of nirvana — beyond the latter.
(WG) Para-nirvana, beyond nirvana.
(SKv) Paranirvana, Paranishpanna Paranirvana is a divine state of consciousness higher than Nirvana, para meaning ‘beyond.’ At the close of the Life of Brahma — a period of 311,040,000,000,000 terrestrial years — all spiritual essences will be withdrawn by the ‘Great Breath’ of the Divinity of the Cosmos into a state of Paranirvana and will remain therein during the period of the Maha-pralaya or the death-cycle of Brahma. At the dawn of the reembodiment of Brahma all the spiritual and divine rays will once more re-emerge to continue their evolution. Paranishpanna is identical in use with Paranirvana. The word Paranishpanna is a compound of para — beyond, nis — out, forth, and panna, the perfect passive participle of the verb-root pad — to walk, to go; hence meaning in combination ‘having gone forth beyond.’
(IN) Paranishpanna, paranirvana or parinirvana {Sans} “Beyond nirvana”; the state when all life is withdrawn into the divine source and all matter is dissolved (cosmic pralaya).
(TG) Parasakti {Sans}. “The great Force” — one of the six Forces of Nature; that of light and heat.
(FY) Parasakti, one of the six forces of Nature; the great force.
(TG) Parasara {Sans}. A Vedic Rishi, the narrator of Vishnu Purana.
(TG) Paratantra {Sans}. That which has no existence of, or by itself, but only through a dependent or causal connection.
(SKv) Parikalpita The Error produced from Illusion; derived from the verb-root klrip — to regulate, and pari — around; hence ‘that which is arranged around’; something circumscribed and limited. Parikalpita is the erroneous belief that manifested life, that is, bodies and vehicles and vestures of various kinds are reality, and that they are self-existent and eternal.
(WG) Parinama, change, alteration, advance in age.
(TG) Paroksha {Sans}. Intellectual apprehension of a truth.
(FY) Paroksha, intellectual apprehension of a truth.
(TG) Parsees. Written also Parsis. The followers of Zoroaster. This is the name given to the remnant of the once-powerful Iranian nation, which remained true to the religion of its forefathers — the fire-worship. This remnant now dwells in India, some 50,000 strong, mostly in Bombay and Guzerat.
(KT) Parsees (or Parsis). The present Persian followers of Zoroaster, now settled in India, especially in Bombay and Guzerat; sun and fire worshippers. One of the most intelligent and esteemed communities in the country, generally occupied with commercial pursuits. There are between 50,000 and 60,000 now left in India where they settled some 1,000 years ago.
(WG) Parvati, a name of Durga, the goddess representing cosmic energy.
(TG) Pasa {Sans}. The crucifixion noose of Siva, the noose held in his right hand in some of his representations.
(WG) Pasa, a noose, a cord.
(TG) Paschalis, Martinez. A very learned man, a mystic and occultist. Born about 1700, in Portugal. He travelled extensively, acquiring knowledge wherever he could in the East, in Turkey, Palestine, Arabia, and Central Asia. He was a great Kabbalist. He was the teacher of the Initiator of the Marquis de St. Martin, who founded the mystical Martinistic School and Lodges. Paschalis is reported to have died in St. Domingo about 1779, leaving several excellent works behind him.
(TG) Pasht {Egyp}. The cat-headed goddess, the Moon, called also Sekhet. Her statues and representations are seen in great numbers at the British Museum. She is the wife or female aspect of Ptah (the son of Kneph), the creative principle, or the Egyptian Demiurgus. She is also called Beset or Bubastis, being then both the re-uniting and the separating principle. Her motto is: — “punish the guilty and remove defilement”, and one of her emblems is the cat. According to Viscount Rouge, her worship is extremely ancient (B.C. 3000), and she is the mother of the Asiatic race, the race that settled in Northern Egypt. As such she is called Ouato.
(TG) Pashut {Hebr}. “Literal interpretation.” One of the four modes of interpreting the Bible used by the Jews.
(TG) Pashyanti {Sans}. The second of the four degrees (Para, Pashyanti, Madhyama and Vaikhari), in which sound is divided according to its differentiation.
(TG) Passing of the River {Hebr}. This phrase may be met with in works referring to mediaeval magic: it is the name given to a cypher alphabet used by Kabbalistic Rabbis at an early date; the river alluded to is the Chebar — the name will also be found in Latin authors as Literae Transitus. [W.W.W.]
(TG) Pass not. The circle within which are confined all those who still labour under the delusion of separateness.
(TG) Pastophori {Greek}. A certain class of candidates for initiation, those who bore in public processions (and also in the temples) the sacred coffin or funeral couch of the Sun-gods — killed and resurrected, of Osiris, Tammuz (or Adonis), of Atys and others. The Christians adopted their coffin from the pagans of antiquity.
(WG) Pasu, domestic animal, sacrificial animals; uninitiated persons.
(TG) Patala {Sans}. The nether world, the antipodes; hence in popular superstition the infernal regions, and philosophically the two Americas, which are antipodal to India. Also, the South Pole as standing opposite to Meru, the North Pole.
(TG) Pataliputra {Sans}. The ancient capital of Magadha, a kingdom of Eastern India, now identified with Patna.
(FY) Pataliputra, the ancient capital of the kingdom of Magadhu, in Eastern India, a city identified with the modern Patna.
(TG) Patanjala {Sans}. The Yoga philosophy; one of the six Darshanas or Schools of India.
(TG) Patanjali {Sans}. The founder of the Yoga philosophy. The date assigned to him by the Orientalists is 200 B.C.; and by the Occultists nearer to 700 than 600 B.C. At any rate he was a contemporary of Panini.
(FY) Patanjali, the author of “Yoga Philosophy,” one of the six orthodox systems of India and of the Mahabhashya.
(SP) Patanjali — the author to whom the Yogasutra is ascribed; also the author of the basic commentary on Panini’s grammar, who may or may not be the same person.
(VS) Thou canst not travel on the Path before thou hast become that Path itself (I 32) [[p. 12]] This “Path” is mentioned in all the Mystic Works. As Krishna says in the Dhyaneswari: “When this Path is beheld . . . whether one sets out to the bloom of the east or to the chambers of the west, without moving, O holder of the bow, is the travelling in this road. In this path, to whatever place one would go, that place one’s own self becomes.” “Thou art the Path” is said to the adept guru and by the latter to the disciple, after initiation. “I am the way and the Path” says another MASTER.
(VS) three vestures of the Path (II 20) [[p. 32]] Vide Part III. Glossary, paragraph 34 et seq. [See Buddhas of Compassion.]
(OG) Path, The — Universal nature, our great parent, exists inseparably in each one of us, in each entity everywhere, and no separation of the part from the whole, of the individual from the kosmos, is possible in any other than a purely illusory sense. This points out to us with unerring definiteness and also directs us to the sublime path to utter reality. It is the path inwards, ever onwards within, which is endless and which leads into vast inner realms of wisdom and knowledge; for, as all the great world philosophies tell us so truly, if you know yourself you then know the universe, because each one of you is an inseparable part of it and it is all in you, its child. It is obvious from this last reflection that the sole essential difference between any two grades of the evolving entities which infill and compose the kosmos is a difference of consciousness, of understanding; and this consciousness and understanding come to the evolving entity in only one way — by unwrapping or unfolding the intrinsic faculties or powers of that entity’s own inner being. This is the path, as the mystics of all ages have put it. The pathway is within yourself. There is no other pathway for you individually than the pathway leading ever inwards towards your own inner god. The pathway of another is the same pathway for that other; but it is not your pathway, because your pathway is your Self, as it is for that other one his Self — and yet, wonder of wonders, mystery of mysteries, the Self is the same in all. All tread the same pathway, but each man must tread it himself, and no one can tread it for another; and this pathway leads to unutterable splendor, to unutterable expansion of consciousness, to unthinkable bliss, to perfect peace.
(GH) Paundra The name of the conch-shell of Bhima. (Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 4)
(TG) Pavaka {Sans}. One of the three personified fires — the eldest sons of Abhimanim or Agni, who had forty-five sons; these with the original son of Brahma, their father Agni, and his three descendants, constitute the mystic 49 fires. Pavaka is the electric fire.
(GH) Pavaka A name applied to one of the eight Vasus, the Vasu fire. Also applied to the god of fire, Agni . (Meaning of the word itself: bright, shining. Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 74)
(TG) Pavamana {Sans}. Another of the three fires (vide supra) — the fire produced by friction.
(TG) Pavana {Sans}. God of the wind; the alleged father of the monkey-god Hanuman (See “Ramayana”).
(GH) Pavana An alternative name for the god of the wind, Vayu . (Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 75)
(WG) Payu, the anus.
(VS) Peace to all beings (III 37) [[p. 72]] This is one of the variations of the formula that invariably follows every treatise, invocation or Instruction. “Peace to all beings,” “Blessings on all that Lives,” ,
(TG) Peling {Tibe}. The name given to all foreigners in Tibet, to Europeans especially.
(FY) Peling, the name given to Europeans in Tibet.
(TG) Pentacle {Greek}. Any geometrical figure, especially that known as the double equilateral triangle, the six-pointed star (like the theosophical pentacle); called also Solomon’s seal, and still earlier “the sign of Vishnu”; used by all the mystics, astrologers, etc.
(TG) Pentagon {Greek}, from pente “five”, and gonia “angle”; in geometry a plane figure with five angles.
(WG) Pentagram, a figure of this shape:
(TG) Per-M-Rhu {Egyp}. This name is the recognised pronunciation of the ancient title of the collection of mystical lectures, called in English The Book of the Dead. Several almost complete papyri have been found, and there are numberless extant copies of portions of the work. [W. W. W.]
(TG) Personality. In Occultism — which divides man into seven principles, considering him under the three aspects of the divine, the thinking or the rational, and the animal man — the lower quaternary or the purely astrophysical being; while by Individuality is meant the Higher Triad, considered as a Unity. Thus the Personality embraces all the characteristics and memories of one physical life, while the Individuality is the imperishable Ego which re-incarnates and clothes itself in one personality after another.
(KT) Personality. The teachings of Occultism divide man into three aspects — the divine, the thinking or rational, and the irrational or animal man. For metaphysical purposes also he is considered under a septenary division, or, as it is agreed to express it in theosophy, he is composed of seven “principles,” three of which constitute the Higher Triad, and the remaining four the lower Quaternary. It is in the latter that dwells the Personality which embraces all the characteristics, including memory and consciousness, of each physical life in turn. The Individuality is the Higher Ego (Manas) of the Triad considered as a Unity. In other words the Individuality is our imperishable Ego which reincarnates and clothes itself in a new Personality at every new birth.
(OG) Personality — Theosophists draw a clear and sharp distinction, not of essence but of quality, between personality and individuality. Personality comes from the Latin word persona, which means a mask, through which the actor, the spiritual individuality, speaks. The personality is all the lower man: all the psychical and astral and physical impulses and thoughts and tendencies, and what not. It is the reflection in matter of the individuality; but being a material thing it can lead us downwards, although it is in essence a reflection of the highest. Freeing ourselves from the domination of the person, the mask, the veil, through which the individuality acts, then we show forth all the spiritual and so-called superhuman qualities; and this will happen in the future, in the far distant aeons of the future, when every human being shall have become a buddha, a christ. Such is the destiny of the human race.
(IN) occultism the distinction between the personality and the immortal individuality is that drawn between the lower quaternary or four lower principles of the human constitution and the three higher principles of the constitution or higher triad. The higher triad is the individuality; the personality is the lower quaternary. The combination of these two into a unity during a lifetime on earth produces what we now call the human being. The personality comprises within its range all the characteristics and memories and impulses and karmic attributes of one physical life; whereas the individuality is the aeonic ego, imperishable and deathless for the period of a solar manvantara. It is the individuality through its ray or human astral-vital monad which reincarnates time after time and thus clothes itself in one personality after another personality. WW Personal Person comes from a Latin word persona, a mask. On the stage the Latin actors wore big masks that covered the whole head sometimes, with enormous gaping mouths, and such a mask was called a persona. You see here why the Christian theologian speaks of the three personae or the three persons of the Trinity, because the Christian Trinity was evidently conceived of as the three masks through which the Godhead spoke, like the actor speaking his role, saying his little speeches, through the persona (the mask-persona coming from per, through, and sonare, to sound; to sound through, to speak through). The role, the character, which an actor took was hence frequently called by synecdoche his persona, his mask, and therefore, the Christians were, so far as the word went, correct enough in calling the three aspects or three characteristics, or rather the tripartite characteristics of their Godhead, as three persons; the Deity manifested or ‘spoke’ in three ways, three personae. From this word persona, mask, comes our word person, and you will notice with what exactitude it is used in our Theosophical terminology: our person is a mere mask through which the real actor speaks. The abstract nature of the person is personality — all that congeries or collection of attributes which form the person, making up his personality. Of course it is logically just as wrong for one to speak of his person when he means his personality, or of his personality when he means himself as a person, as it is for him to misapply the words individual and individuality. The person bears the same relation to personality as the individual does to individuality. The person therefore is the soul, the individual is the spirit, the individuality is the nature or characteristic of the spirit, and the personality is the nature and characteristic of the soul.
(TG) Pesh-Hun {Tibe}. From the Sanskrit pesuna “spy”; an epithet given to Narada, the meddlesome and troublesome Rishi.
(TG) Phala {Sans}. Retribution; the fruit or result of causes.
(FY) Phala, retribution; fruit or results of causes.
(WG) Phala, fruit (of action); result.
(TG) Phalguna {Sans}. A name of Arjuna; also of a month.
(TG) Phallic {Greek}. Anything belonging to sexual worship; or of a sexual character externally, such as the Hindu lingham and yoni — the emblems of the male and female generative power — which have none of the unclean significance attributed to it by the Western mind.
(KT) Phallic Worship, or Sex Worship; reverence and adoration shown to those gods and goddesses which, like Siva and Durga in India, symbolise respectively the two sexes.
(TG) Phanes {Greek}. One of the Orphic triad — Phanes, Chaos and Chronos. It was also the trinity of the Western people in the pre-Christian period.
(TG) Phenomenon {Greek}. In reality “an appearance”, something previously unseen, and puzzling when the cause of it is unknown. Leaving aside various kinds of phenomena, such as cosmic, electrical, chemical, etc., and holding merely to the phenomena of spiritism, let it be remembered that theosophically and esoterically every “miracle” — from the biblical to the theumaturgic — is simply a phenomenon, but that no phenomenon is ever a miracle, i.e., something supernatural or outside of the laws of nature, as all such are impossibilities in nature.
(KT) Philadelphians. Lit., “those who love their brother-man.” A sect in the seventeenth century, founded by one Jane Leadly. They objected to all rites, forms, or ceremonies of the Church, and even to the Church itself, but professed to be guided in soul and spirit by an internal Deity, their own Ego or God within them.
(TG) Philaletheans {Greek}. Lit., “the lovers of truth”; the name is given to the Alexandrian Neo-Platonists, also called Analogeticists and Theosophists. (See Key to Theosophy, p. 1, et seq The school was founded by Ammonius Saccas early in the third century, and lasted until the fifth. The greatest philosophers and sages of the day belonged to it.
(KT) Philalethians. (Vide “Neoplatonists.”)
(TG) Philalethes, Eugenius. The Rosicrucian name assumed by one Thomas Vaughan, a mediaeval English Occultist and Fire Philosopher. He was a great Alchemist. [W.W.W.]
(TG) Philae {Greek}. An island in Upper Egypt where a famous temple of that name was situated, the ruins of which may be seen to this day by travellers.
(TG) Philo Judaeus . A Hellenized Jew of Alexandria, and a very famous historian and writer; born about 30 B.C., died about 45 A.D. He ought thus to have been well acquainted with the greatest event of the 1st century of our era, and the facts about Jesus, his life, and the drama of the Crucifixion. And yet he is absolutely silent upon the subject, both in his careful enumeration of the then existing Sects and Brotherhoods in Palestine and in his accounts of the Jerusalem of his day. He was a great mystic and his works abound with metaphysics and noble ideas, while in esoteric knowledge he had no rival for several ages among the best writers. [See under “Philo Judaeus” in the Glossary of the Key to Theosophy.]
(KT) Philo-Judaeus. A Hellenized Jew of Alexandria, a famous historian and philosopher of the first century, born about the year 30 B.C., and died between the years 45 and 50 A.D. Philo’s symbolism of the Bible is very remarkable. The animals, birds, reptiles, trees, and places mentioned in it are all, it is said, “allegories of conditions of the soul, of faculties, dispositions, or passions; the useful plants were allegories of virtues, the noxious of the affections of the unwise and so on through the mineral kingdom; through heaven, earth and stars; through fountains and rivers, fields and dwellings; through metals, substances, arms, clothes, ornaments, furniture, the body and its parts, the sexes, and our outward condition.” (Dictionary Christian Biography) All of which would strongly corroborate the idea that Philo was acquainted with the ancient Kabbala.
(TG) Philosopher’s Stone. Called also the “Powder of Projection”. It is the Magnum Opus of the Alchemists, an object to be attained by them at all costs, a substance possessing the power of transmuting the baser metals into pure gold. Mystically, however, the Philosopher’s Stone symbolises the transmutation of the lower animal nature of man into the highest and divine.
(KT) Philosopher’s Stone. A term in Alchemy; called also the Powder of Projection, a mysterious “principle” having the power of transmuting the base metals into pure gold. In Theosophy it symbolises the transmutation of the lower animal nature of man into the highest divine.
(OG) Philosophy — An operation of the human spirit-mind in its endeavor to understand not merely the how of things, but the why of things — why and how things are as they are. Philosophy is one phase of a triform method of understanding the nature of nature, of universal nature, and of its multiform and multifold workings, and philosophy cannot be separated from the other two phases (science and religion), if we wish to gain a true and complete picture of things as they are in themselves. It is a capital mistake of Western thought to suppose that science, religion, and philosophy are three separate and unrelated operations of thought. The idea when pondered upon is immediately seen to be ludicrously false, because all these three are but phases of operations of human consciousness. Not one of these three — philosophy, religion, or science — can be divorced from the other two, and if the attempt be made so to divorce them, the result is spiritual and intellectual dissatisfaction, and the mind senses an incompleteness. Consequently any philosophy which is unscientific and irreligious, or any religion which is unscientific and unphilosophical, and any science which is unphilosophical and unreligious, is de facto erroneous because incomplete. These three are simply three aspects or phases of a fundamental reality which is consciousness.
Philosophy is that aspect of the human consciousness which is correlative, and which seeks the bonds of union among things and exposes them, when found, as existing in the manifold and diverse forms of natural processes and the so-called laws which demonstrate their existence. (See also Religion, Science)
(TG) Philostratus {Greek}. A biographer of Apollonius of Tyana, who described the life, travels and adventures of this sage and philosopher.
(TG) Phla {Greek}. A small island in the lake Tritonia, in the days of Herodotus.
(TG) Phlegiae {Greek}. A submerged ancient island in prehistoric days and identified by some writers with Atlantis; also a people in Thessaly.
(TG) Pho {Chin}. The animal Soul.
(TG) Phoebe {Greek}. A name given to Diana, or the moon.
(TG) Phoebus-Apollo {Greek}. Apollo as the Sun, “the light of life and of the world”.
(TG) Phoreg {Greek}. The name of the seventh Titan not mentioned in the cosmogony of Hesiod. The “mystery” Titan.
(TG) Phorminx {Greek}. The seven-stringed lyre of Orpheus.
(TG) Phoronede {Greek}. A poem of which Phoroneus is the hero; this work is no longer extant.
(TG) Phoroneus {Greek}. A Titan; an ancestor and generator of mankind. According to a legend of Argolis, like Prometheus he was credited with bringing fire to this earth (Pausanias). The god of a river in Peloponnesus.
(WG) Phrabat, the holy footprint of Buddha, said to be in Siam, where a temple is erected over it. It is visited by pilgrims every year. There are many alleged footprints of Buddha in India and other places.
(TG) Phren {Greek}. A Pythagorean term denoting what we call the Kama-Manas still overshadowed by the Buddhi-Manas.
(KT) Phren. A Pythagorean term denoting what we call the Kama-manas, still overshadowed by Buddhi-Manas.
(FY) Pho, animal soul.
(TG) Phtah {Egyp}. The God of death; similar to Siva, the destroyer. In later Egyptian mythology a sun-god. It is the seat or locality of the Sun and its occult Genius or Regent in esoteric philosophy.
(TG) Phta-Ra {Egyp}. One of the 49 mystic (occult) Fires. WW Physiology It comes from physis (physis), nature, and logos (logos), discourse; hence a discourse concerning Nature; and the Greek Physiologists (physiologos) were equivalent to what we would call natural philosophers, scientists (all knowledge was considered sacred in ancient times, a part of religion). Many of the ‘physiologists’ were physicians, in our modern sense, because in the early days medicine was considered a sacred science, and doubtless all physicians were priests. With the fall of so-called paganism the science of medicine gradually separated itself, and the study of Nature, science per se, became discredited and was frowned upon by the church, medicine being the only science cultivated with some degree of regularity and exactness because it was necessary to human welfare. Thus ‘physiology’ became restricted to its present meaning — that of the function and matters appertaining to the physical bodies of animals and plants. But the Greek physiologists or physiologers were those who studied nature from the standpoint which we know to be the Theosophical one — an outlook upon nature from the standpoint of divinity, if I may so put it. And all ancient theology and all ancient Theosophy was based upon physiological studies in that sense — was based, in other words, upon what we would now call natural science of the mind, or psychology, the science of the spirit or religion, the science of the intellect per se or logic, etc.
(TG) Picus, John, Count of Mirandola. A celebrated Kabbalist and Alchemist, author of a treatise “on gold” and other Kabbalistic works. He defied Rome and Europe in his attempt to prove divine Christian truth in the Zohar. Born in 1463, died 1494.
(TG) Pillaloo Codi (Tamil). A nickname in popular astronomy given to the Pleiades, meaning “hen and chickens”. The French also, curiously enough call this constellation, “Poussiniere”.
(TG) Pillars, The Two. Jachin and Boaz were placed at the entrance to the Temple of Solomon, the first on the right, the second on the left. Their symbolism is developed in the rituals of the Freemasons.
(TG) Pillars, The Three. When the ten Sephiroth are arranged in the Tree of Life, two vertical lines separate them into 3 Pillars, namely the Pillar of Severity, the Pillar of Mercy, and the central Pillar of Mildness. Binah, Geburah, and Hod form the first, that of Severity; Kether, Tiphereth, Jesod and Malkuth the central pillar; Chokmah, Chesed and Netzach the Pillar of Mercy. [W. W. W.]
(TG) Pillars of Hermes. Like the “pillars of Seth” (with which they are identified) they served for commemorating occult events, and various esoteric secrets symbolically engraved on them. It was a universal practice. Enoch is also said to have constructed pillars.
(GH) Pimpala (more correctly Pippala) The sacred Indian fig-tree, ficus religiosa, called in Buddhism the Bo-tree. Mystically the Cosmic World-Tree, or Tree of Life, the Asvattha . (Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 74)
(WG) Pinda, lump, ball, especially the ball or cake of meal offered to the manes of deceased ancestors. (See Sraddha
(WG) Pindi, a meal cake.
(TG) Pingala {Sans}. The great Vedic authority on the Prosody and chhandas of the Vedas. Lived several centuries B.C.
(WG) Pingala, a particular current in the body: the right of three currents running from the os coccyx to the head, which, according to the anatomy of the Yoga system, are the chief passages of breath. (Literally, “yellowish.”)
(WG) Pingala, in addition to what is given it should be understood that the breath and its channels referred to are not the lungs and air passages but the inner psychic breath.
(TG) Pippala {Sans}. The tree of knowledge: the mystic fruit of that tree “upon which came Spirits who love Science”. This is allegorical and occult.
(TG) Pippalada {Sans}. A magic school wherein Atharva Veda is explained founded by an Adept of that name.
(TG) Pisachas {Sans}. In the Puranas, goblins or demons created by Brahma. In the southern Indian folk-lore, ghosts, demons, larvae, and vampires — generally female — who haunt men. Fading remnants of human beings in Kamaloka, as shells and Elementaries.
(FY) Pisacham, fading remnants of human beings in the state of Kama Loka; shells or elementaries.
(WG) Pisacha, an evil spirit or demon; an evil ghost.
(SKs) Pisacha Pisacha is used in different ways. Usually it is an elementary or astral shell (Kama-rupa) of an evil man who has become soulless. This shell often finds its way back to a living human body and becomes a vampire. Pisacha is also used in The Secret Doctrine in the sense of a Chhaya or the astral form of the first Races of men. In the Puranas these Pisachas are referred to as ‘Devils’; but H. P. Blavatsky tells us that these devils often refer to those huge astral forms of the first Races of men. (Derivation uncertain
(TG) Pistis Sophia {Sans}. “Knowledge-Wisdom.” A sacred book of the early Gnostics or the primitive Christians.
(WG) Pistis Sophia, a sacred Gnostic work; full of mysticism; very obscure in its terms.
(TG) Pitaras {Sans}. Fathers, Ancestors. The fathers of the human races.
(TG) Pitar Devata {Sans}. The “Father-Gods”, the lunar ancestors of mankind.
(TG) Pitris {Sans}. The ancestors, or creators of mankind. They are of seven classes, three of which are incorporeal, arupa, and four corporeal. In popular theology they are said to be created from Brahma’s side. They are variously genealogized, but in esoteric philosophy they are as given in the Secret Doctrine. In Isis Unveiled it is said of them: “It is generally believed that the Hindu term means the spirits of our ancestors, of disembodied people, hence the argument of some Spiritualists that fakirs (and yogis) and other Eastern wonder-workers, are mediums. This is in more than one sense erroneous. The Pitris are not the ancestors of the present living men, but those of the human kind, or Adamic races; the spirits of human races, which on the great scale of descending evolution preceded our races of men, and they were physically, as well as spiritually, far superior to our modern pigmies. In Manava Dharma Shastra they are called the Lunar Ancestors.” The Secret Doctrine has now explained that which was cautiously put forward in the earlier Theosophical volumes.
(IU) Pitris. — It is generally believed that the Hindu term Pitris means the spirits of our direct ancestors; of disembodied people. Hence the argument of some spiritualists that fakirs, and other Eastern wonder-workers, are mediums; that they themselves confess to being unable to produce anything without the help of the Pitris, of whom they are the obedient instruments. This is in more than one sense erroneous. The Pitris are not the ancestors of the present living men, but those of the human kind or Adamic race; the spirits of human races which, on the great scale of descending evolution, preceded our races of men, and were physically, as well as spiritually, far superior to our modern pigmies. In Manava-Dharma-Sastra they are called the Lunar ancestors.
(WG) Pitris, fathers, lunar spirits, beings perfected (within its scope) upon the lunar chain of planets, transferred hither to lead and guide humanity. Some Indian wonderworkers claim the help of pitris.
(OG) Pitri(s) — {Sans} A word meaning “father.” There are seven (or ten) classes of pitris. They are called “fathers” because they are more particularly the actual progenitors of our lower principles; whereas the dhyani-chohans are actually, in one most important sense, our own selves. We were born from them; we were the monads, we were the atoms, the souls, projected, sent forth, emanated, by the dhyanis. The pitris, for easy understanding, may be divided into two great groups, the solar and lunar. The lunar pitris or barhishads, as the name implies, came from the moon-chain; while the solar pitris whom we may group under the expressive name agnishvatta-pitris are those dhyan-chohans which have not the physical “creative fire,” because they belong to a much superior sphere of being, but they have all the fires of the spiritual-intellectual realms active or latent within them as the case may be. In preceding manvantaras they had finished their evolution so far as the realms of astral and physical matter were concerned, and when the proper time came in the cycling ages, the agnishvatta-pitris came to the rescue of those who had only the physical creative fire, or barhishad-pitris, the lunar pitris, inspiring and enlightening these lower pitris with the spiritual and intellectual energies or “fires.” In other words, the lunar pitris may briefly be said to be those consciousness-centers in the human constitution which feel humanly, which feel instinctually, and which possess the brain-mind mentality. The agnishvatta-pitris are those monadic centers of the human constitution which are of a purely spiritual type. (See also Agnishvatas, Lunar Pitris)
(GH) Pitris literally Fathers: referring to (a) the deceased father, grandfathers, and great grandfathers of a person, and (b), the Progenitors of the human race. To both classes rites are performed (Sraddhas) and oblations presented (Pindas) — to which the text refers. The Progenitors are of seven groups or classes: the three higher classes are called Arupa-Pitris — commonly Solar Pitris or Agnishvatta-Pitris, i.e., those who have no physical ‘creative fire’ albeit the enlighteners of the mind of man (the Manasaputras of The Secret Doctrine,); the four lower classes are called Barhishads — commonly Lunar Pitris who fashion mankind’s vehicle, i.e., the Monads undergoing evolution in the Lunar Chain who, transfer their energies to the Earth-chain at the time of its reembodiment. (See Marichi “The Progenitors of Man, called in India ‘Fathers, Pitaras or Pitris, are the creators of our bodies and lower principles. They are ourselves, as the first personalities, and we are they. . . . they were ‘lunar Beings.”‘ (Secret Doctrine, II, p. 88) (Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 68)
(SK)o Pitri, Kumara, Agnishwatta, Manasaputra, Barhishad The Pitris are the ‘Fathers’ of mankind, or the Progenitors of the various parts of the human being, inner and outer. The Solar Pitris — the Kumaras, Agnishwattas, and Manasaputras — are the fashioners of the higher parts of man; and the Lunar Pitris or Barhishads are the builders of the human astral form from which the physical body evolves. Kumaras, literally translated, means ‘Youths’; from a compound of ku — with difficulty, and mara — mortal, from the verbal root mri — to die. But the Kumaras mystically interpreted refer to a class of Dhyan-Chohans. They are pure spiritual beings of a passive nature, youths of the Cosmos, who are destined to pass through all experiences in the realms of matter, hence to become ‘mortal with difficulty,’ in order to attain active self-conscious divinity; for “Where there is no struggle there is no merit.” The Agnishwattas are those Dhyan-Chohans who have become through evolution in the realms of matter one in essence with the fire of spirit, become self-conscious spiritual beings. Agnishwatta is a compound of agni — fire or inner essence, and swatta, the past participle-form of the verb-root swad — to taste; hence they are those who have tasted or become one with the fire of spirit or the Buddhi-Manasic part of man. The Manasaputras are the ‘Sons of Mind’; a compound of manasa — the adjectival form of manas — mind, and putra — son. The Manasaputras are those Dhyan-Chohans whose higher Manasic principle is highly developed through the illumination of Buddhi. They belong to the Hierarchy of Compassion and their spiritual labor is to quicken the fires of mind in lesser beings. We learn from the Esoteric Commentaries that a certain class of Agnishwattas became Manasaputras by entering the undeveloped minds of the humans of the Third Root-Race of the Fourth Round, in order to awaken the latent and yet unevoked powers of mind, of egoity, of self-consciousness, and of the responsibility of choice. Thus they set the human race on that inner pathway that leads to selfconscious divinity. This act of the Manasaputras may be compared to the flame which sets alight the candle and brings forth its own powers of light-giving.
We may represent the activities of these three classes of Dhyan-Chohans — the Kumaras, Agnishwattas, and Manasaputras, which are truly names for the same beings but in different stages of evolution — in the following way: At the opening of a planetary Manvantara, the human monad of purely spiritual origin, as yet an un-self-conscious god, or in other words, the latent Divinity within, is the Kumara. At the end of the Planetary Manvantara this god-spark has become, through experiences in all the realms of matter, aware of its Divinity, self-consciously divine, hence an Agnishwatta. At the dawn of a new Manvantara these Agnishwattas then kindle the light of mind and understanding in lesser beings, the young humans of the new cycle, and are thus called Manasaputras. From another point of view, a man may be said to be a Kumara in his purely spiritual parts, an Agnishwatta in his Buddhi-Manasic parts, and a Manasaputra in his purely Manasic parts. The Barhishads are those Pitris or ‘Fathers’ who evolved the human astral form, the model of the physical body. The Barhishads became the human entities of the First Race, entities as yet not lighted by the sacred spark or Manasaputra which awakens the seed which brings forth the flower of human intellect and wisdom. The Barhishad within each man is the human soul. The perfected animal souls of this Manvantara will be the Barhishads or learning human souls of the next Manvantara. The word Barhishad is a compound of barhis, ‘sacred grass’ or ‘fire’; and the verbal root sad — to sit. By extension of meaning this word was philosophically applied to the builders of the human astral form, because like the Barhishads or those who attended the household-fires seated on the sacred grass, they were concerned with the building of the more material parts of man.
(IN) Pitri(s) {Sans} “Fathers,” progenitors of the human race.
(SP) Pitr [pitri] — father or progenitor; also ancestor.
(WG) Pitri-Patri, lord or king of the pitris.
(WG) Pitri-yajna, sacrifice to the manes or pitris. (pitri, forefather; yajna, sacrifice
(TG) Piyadasi (Pali). “The beautiful”, a title of King Chandragupta (the “Sandracottus” of the Greeks) and of Asoka the Buddhist king, his grandson. They both reigned in Central India between the fourth and third centuries B.C., called also Devanampiya, “the beloved of the gods”.
(FY) Piyadasi, another name for Asoka
(TG) Plaksha {Sans}. One of the seven Dwipas (continents or islands) in the Indian Pantheon and the Puranas.
(TG) Plane. From the Latin planus (level, flat) an extension of space or of something in it, whether physical or metaphysical, e.g., a “plane of consciousness”. As used in Occultism, the term denotes the range or extent of some state of consciousness, or of the perceptive power of a particular set of senses, or the action of a particular force, or the state of matter corresponding to any of the above.
(KT) Plane. From the Latin Planus (level, flat), an extension of space, whether in the physical or metaphysical sense. In Occultism, the range or extent of some state of consciousness, or the state of matter corresponding to the perceptive powers of a particular set of senses or the action of a particular force.
(WG) Plane, a level surface; specifically, a field of consciousness; as dream-plane, mental-plane, physical-plane, etc.
(OG) Plane(s) — This is a word used in theosophy for the various ranges or steps of the hierarchical ladder of lives which blend into each other. There are no solutions of continuity in space, either in inner and invisible space or in outward and visible space. The physical world grades off into the astral world, which grades off again into a world higher than it, the world which is superior to the astral world; and so it continues throughout the series of hierarchical steps which compose a universe such as our universe. Remember also that the boundless All is filled full with universes, some so much greater than ours that the utmost reach of our imagination cannot conceive of them.
To quote H. P. Blavatsky in this connection, in her Theosophical Glossary under this same head: “As used in Occultism, the term denotes the range or extent of some state of consciousness, or of the perceptive power of a particular set of senses, or the action of a particular force, or the state of matter corresponding to any of the above.” (See also Hierarchy) WW Planes Now the word planes has been mostly used in our literature, and it is a very apt word and a very good one provided certain definitions be clearly understood. I am rather an enthusiast for definition, gentlemen, because I have seen that most of the honest differences of life are based on a lack of mutual understanding of fundamentals upon which both may meet in concord. Our planes are considered by most people to be like tiers of drawers, one above another, and to go on to a higher plane and to come down on to a lower plane. I will wager that there are very few, even among ourselves, who consider it other than a stepping down stairs. Now that is all right; it is as a stepping down stairs; the figure is good provided that we understand that that stepping down stairs is a diminution of spiritual force and an augmentation of materialism. But if we consider these planes as being actually built up in tiers, or as a chest of drawers, then it is an error. Far clearer, I think, would be to look upon the highest within us, the Atman, as a mathematical point. Now a mathematical point may be of any dimension, it need not necessarily be exceedingly small; it may be infinite, because it is both. A mathematical point has no dimensions, therefore it has all. The Atman, then, let us conceive of as a mathematical point. Springing from it, like the skin to flesh, not a distance off, we will take the first sphere. There is no separation between the mathematical point and the sphere which it includes or includes it. They are the same. Then comes another sphere, and a third, and a fourth, and the ‘bigger’ they get, in this way of looking at it, the more material they are — seven, fourteen, twenty-one, any number you like. I prefer that conception. I think it is the grander, because the mathematical point (the Atman) being in the center gives the inner idea, though it is perfectly right and correct philosophically and religiously to consider it as being the periphery of a boundless sphere. Taking this latter figure, as the mathematician, French Pascal, says (although the conception is not original with him: “C’est une sphere infinie, dont le centre est partout, la circonference nulle part,” Pensees, 22), such a periphery or circumference has no limits, because it is exactly the same as the mathematical point above spoken of, and the finest point we can conceive of contains a still smaller point, not smaller in dimensions, but smaller in faculty, power, potency, etc., until we arrive at an illusionary center, and we get here to a person — not the individual, but the person. The person represents on this physical plane of maya, illusion, inversely what Atman represents on the plane of reality. We see each other as persons. It is our persons (not of course the physical shell, the body of flesh) which learn and which pass from life to life. Many times has H. P. Blavatsky quoted the so-called Hermetic saying: “As it is above, so it is below.” It therefore seems to me that it will be simpler in our studies to look upon the different planes rather as spheres, remembering too, that these spheres have a distinct analogy with the spheres (globes) of the cosmos, that is, the worlds in space — possibly more than an analogy. In fact I think it would be correct to say that every world in space is the manifestation of a God, meaning by that term ‘god’ a spiritual being. I prefer the former term because personally I am a polytheist. In our Society each man has the privilege of keeping and developing his own beliefs, and I merely use that term because it seems to be the best fitted, on account of its associations in the minds of intelligent and educated men to describe what I am endeavoring to say.
(OG) Planetary Chain — Every kosmic body or globe, be it sun or planet, nebula or comet, atom or electron, is a composite entity formed of or comprised of inner and invisible energies and substances and of an outer, to us, and often visible, to us, physical vehicle or body. These elements all together number seven (or twelve), being what is called in theosophy the seven principles or elements of every self-contained entity; in other words, of every individual life-center. Thus every one of the physical globes that we see scattered over the fields of space is accompanied by six invisible and superior globes, forming what in theosophy is called a chain. This is the case with every sun or star, with every planet, and with every moon of every planet. It is likewise the case with the nebulae and the comets as above stated: all are septiform entities, all have a sevenfold constitution, even as man has, who is a copy in the little of what the universe is in the great, there being for us one life in that universe, one natural system of “laws” in that universe. Every entity in the universe is an inseparable part of it; therefore what is in the whole is in every part, because the part cannot contain anything that the whole does not contain, the part cannot be greater than the whole.
Our own earth-chain is composed of seven (or twelve) globes, of which only one, our earth, is visible on this our earth plane to our physical sense apparatus, because that apparatus is builded or rather evolved to cognize this earth plane and none other. But the populations of all the seven (or twelve) globes of this earth-chain pass in succession, and following each other, from globe to globe, thus gaining experience of energy and matter and consciousness on all the various planes and spheres that this chain comprises. The other six (or eleven) globes of our earth-chain are invisible to our physical sense, of course; and, limiting our explanation only to the manifest seven globes of the complete chain of twelve globes, the six globes other and higher than the earth exist two by two, on three planes of the solar system superior to our physical plane where our earth-globe is — this our earth. These three superior planes or worlds are each one superior to the world or plane immediately beneath or inferior to it. Our earth-globe is the fourth and lowest of all the manifest seven globes of our earth-chain. Three globes precede it on the descending or shadowy arc, and three globes follow it on the ascending or luminous arc of evolution. The Secret Doctrine by H. P. Blavatsky and the more recent work, Fundamentals of the Esoteric Philosophy (1932), contain most suggestive material for the student interested in this phase of the esoteric philosophy. (See also Ascending Arc)
(TG) Planetary Spirits. Primarily the rulers or governors of the planets. As our earth has its hierarchy of terrestrial planetary spirits, from the highest to the lowest plane, so has every other heavenly body. In Occultism, however, the term “Planetary Spirit” is generally applied only to the seven highest hierarchies corresponding to the Christian archangels. These have all passed through a stage of evolution corresponding to the humanity of earth on other worlds, in long past cycles. Our earth, being as yet only in its fourth round, is far too young to have produced high planetary spirits. The highest planetary spirit ruling over any globe is in reality the “Personal God” of that planet and far more truly its “over-ruling providence” than the self-contradictory Infinite Personal Deity of modern Churchianity.
(KT) Planetary Spirits. Rulers and governors of the Planets. Planetary Gods.
(WG) Planetary Spirit, the Regent of a planet; its Archangel, Governor, Spirit or Dhyan-Chohan.
(OG) Planetary Spirit(s) — Every celestial body in space, of whatever kind or type, is under the overseeing and directing influence of a hierarchy of spiritual and quasi-spiritual and astral beings, who in their aggregate are generalized under the name of celestial spirits. These celestial spirits exist therefore in various stages or degrees of evolution; but the term planetary spirits is usually restricted to the highest class of these beings when referring to a planet.
(IN) every case, and whatever the celestial body may be, such a hierarchy of ethereal beings, when the most advanced in evolution of them are considered, in long past cycles of kosmic evolution had evolved through a stage of development corresponding to the humanity of earth. Every planetary spirit therefore, wherever existent, in those far past aeons of kosmic time was a man or a being equivalent to what we humans on earth call man. The planetary spirits of earth, for instance, are intimately linked with the origin and destiny of our present humanity, for not only are they our predecessors along the evolutionary path, but certain classes of them are actually the spiritual guides and instructors of mankind. We humans, in far distant aeons of the future, on a planetary chain which will be the child or grandchild of the present earth-chain, will be the planetary spirits of that future planetary chain. It is obvious that as H. P. Blavatsky says: “Our Earth, being as yet only in its Fourth Round, is far too young to have produced high Planetary Spirits”; but when the seventh round of this earth planetary chain shall have reached its end, our present humanity will then have become dhyanchohans of various grades, planetary spirits of one group or class, with necessary evolutionary differences as among themselves. The planetary spirits watch over, guide, and lead the hosts of evolving entities inferior to themselves during the various rounds of a planetary chain. Finally, every celestial globe, whether sun or planet or other celestial body, has as the summit or acme of its spiritual hierarchy a supreme celestial spirit who is the hierarch of its own hierarchy. It should not be forgotten that the humanity of today forms a component element or stage or degree in the hierarchy of this (our) planetary chain.
(VS) sacred plant of nine and seven stalks (II 31) [[p. 39]] Vide supra 22: Shangna plant.
(FY) Plaster or Plantal; Platonic term for the power which moulds the substances of the universe into suitable forms.
(TG) Plastic Soul. Used in Occultism in reference to the linga sharira or the astral body of the lower Quaternary. It is called “plastic” and also “Protean” Soul from its power of assuming any shape or form and moulding or modelling itself into or upon any image impressed in the astral light around it, or in the minds of the medium or of those present at seances for materialization. The linga sharira must not be confused with the mayavi rupa or “thought body” — the image created by the thought and will of an adept or sorcerer; for while the “astral form” or linga sharira is a real entity, the “thought body” is a temporary illusion created by the mind.
(KT) Plastic. Used in Occultism in reference to the nature and essence of the astral body, or the “Protean Soul.” (Vide “Plastic Soul” in the Theosophical Glossary
(WG) a Plastic Body, a name for the Linga-Sharira, or astral form. Called “Plastic” or “Protean” because of its power to assume any shape or form.
(TG) Plato. An Initiate into the Mysteries and the greatest Greek philosopher, whose writings are known the world over. He was the pupil of Socrates and the teacher of Aristotle. He flourished over 400 years before our era.
(TG) Platonic School, or the “Old Akademe”, in contrast with the later or Neo-Platonic School of Alexandria (See “Philalethean”).
(TG) Pleroma {Greek}. “Fulness”, a Gnostic term adopted to signify the divine world or Universal Soul. Space, developed and divided into a series of aeons. The abode of the invisible gods. It has three degrees.
(KT) Pleroma. “Fulness”; a gnostic term used also by St. Paul. Divine world or the abode of gods. Universal space divided into metaphysical aeons.
(WG) Pleroma, space; akasa. WW Pleroma You will remember that [Pleroma] came up in our first study: it is a Gnostic word. The word Gnostic meant “he who knows.” It was a word used by a number of societies or associations (about the time or a little before the beginning of the Christian era,) of men who were banded together in an endeavor to find the truth in the different religions of the time. And the early Christians applied to themselves the same word Gnostic, and as they grew stronger, and more able to impose their beliefs on other men, they denied the right of these others to call themselves Gnostics, or rather those who know . But on account of their constant verbal warfare, the books that were written by the Christians against the Gnostics, and vice versa, it finally became settled to call the Gnostics Gnostics, simply to distinguish them from other bodies, including the Christians, the Christians taking for their name the title of their supposed founder, [Turning to blackboard] Christians from Christos . Pleroma means fullness. It was applied with shades of meanings by the different bodies of Gnostics, of which there were very many, a score or more, I believe, but with one general sense as implying fullness, the fullness of all that is, particularly the fullness of the Manifest Deity, as infilling all — a purely pantheistic conception. It is a remarkable thing that the Christian God is infinite, eternal, ubiquitous; he is everywhere, and lasts through all time; and yet they will not allow that he can be in vessels of dishonor, which they consider derogatory to the divine dignity. Now if he cannot be in a vessel of dishonor, as for instance, in an evil man’s heart, he cannot be infinite. Are we to understand that an evil man is outside of infinity? Or that some physical vessel applied to obscene or low uses by man can be outside the Deity? We have to admit that if the Deity be ubiquitous, omnipresent, this must mean everywhere, and that is simply one of the multitude of contradictions that our unfortunate friends, the Christians, have got into by losing the key to their own religion. We shall study the doctrines of some of the principal bodies of the Gnostics later, and then we shall have need to take up the study of the word pleroma more fully. It will be enough at the present time to remember that as we shall use this word, it will mean by a possible extension of the Gnostic meaning the fullness of all that is, in the pantheistic sense. The difference between it and Chaos, being as you will remember, that chaos is the first quiver of manifestation, emptiness, if you like, voidness, if you please, but only of that which is manifest; whereas Pleroma we shall use in two senses: as the fullness of the Deity, and as All that is.
(TG) Plotinus. The noblest, highest and grandest of all the Neo-Platonists after the founder of the school, Ammonius Saccas. He was the most enthusiastic of the Philaletheans or “lovers of truth”, whose aim was to found a religion on a system of intellectual abstraction, which is true Theosophy, or the whole substance of Neo-Platonism. If we are to believe Porphyry, Plotinus has never disclosed either his birth-place or connexions, his native land or his race. Till the age of twenty-eight he had never found teacher or teaching which would suit him or answer his aspirations. Then he happened to hear Ammonius Saccas, from which day he continued to attend his school. At thirty-nine he accompanied the Emperor Gordian to Persia and India with the object of learning their philosophy. He died at the age of sixty-six after writing fifty-four books on philosophy. So modest was he that it is said he “blushed to think he had a body”. He reached Samadhi (highest ecstasy or “reunion with God” the divine Ego) several times during his life. As said by a biographer, “so far did his contempt for his bodily organs go, that he refused to use a remedy, regarding it as unworthy of a man to use means of this kind”. Again we read, “as he died, a dragon (or serpent) that had been under his bed, glided through a hole in the wall and disappeared” — a fact suggestive for the student of symbolism. He taught a doctrine identical with that of the Vedantins, namely, that the Spirit-Soul emanating from the One deific principle was, after its pilgrimage, re-united to It.
(KT) Plotinus. A distinguished Platonic philosopher of the third century, a great practical mystic, renowned for his virtues and learning. He taught a doctrine identical with that of the Vedantins, namely, that the spirit soul emanating from the One Deific Principle was after its pilgrimage on earth reunited to it. (Vide Theosophical Glossary
(TG) Point within a Circle. In its esoteric meaning the first unmanifested logos appearing on the infinite and shoreless expanse of Space, represented by the Circle. It is the plane of Infinity and Absoluteness. This is only one of the numberless and hidden meanings of this symbol, which is the most important of all the geometrical figures used in metaphysical emblematology. As to the Masons, they have made of the point “an individual brother” whose duty to God and man is bounded by the circle, and have added John the Baptist and John the Evangelist to keep company with the “brother”, representing them under two perpendicular parallel lines.
(TG) Popes-Magicians. There are several such in history; e.g., Pope Sylvester II., the artist who made an “oracular head”, like the one fabricated by Albertus Magnus, the learned Bishop of Ratisbon. Pope Sylvester was considered a great “enchanter and sorcerer” by Cardinal Benno, and the “head” was smashed to pieces by Thomas Aquinas, because it talked too much. Then there were Popes Benedict IX., John XX., and the VIth and VIIth Gregory, all regarded by their contemporaries as magicians. The latter Gregory was the famous Hildebrand. As to Bishops and lesser Priests who studied Occultism and became expert in magic arts, they are numberless.
(TG) Popol Vuh. The Sacred Books of the Guatemalans. Quiche MSS., discovered by Brasseur de Bourbourg.
(FY) Popol-Vuh, the sacred book of the Guatemalans.
(PV) Popol Vuh {quiche-maya} A document written down in the Quiche-Maya language but in Latin letters by a Quiche Indian shortly after the Spanish Conquest. It contains the Quiche rendition of Maya cosmogony, theogony, and sacred history, as well as a history of the Quiche-Maya peoples themselves down to the year 1550. Hidden from Europeans for 150 years, it somehow was discovered at the end of the 17th century by Father Francisco Ximenez, a learned priest of the Dominican Order, in his parish at Santo Tomas Chichicastenango, located north of Lake Atitlan in Guatemala’s highlands. Ximenez transcribed the original Quiche text and translated it into Spanish. His manuscript was found in 1854, in the library of the University of San Carlos, the city of Guatemala, by the European, Carl Scherzer. The original Quiche document has never been found, and was perhaps returned to the Indian donor by Ximenez after he had copied it.
(TG) Porphyry, or Porphyrius. A Neo-Platonist and a most distinguished writer, only second to Plotinus as a teacher and philosopher. He was born before the middle of the third century A.D., at Tyre, since he called himself a Tyrian and is supposed to have belonged to a Jewish family. Though himself thoroughly Hellenized and a Pagan, his name Melek (a king) does seem to indicate that he had Semitic blood in his veins. Modern critics very justly consider him the most practically philosophical, and the soberest, of all the Neo-Platonists. A distinguished writer, he was specially famous for his controversy with Iamblichus regarding the evils attendant upon the practice of Theurgy. He was, however, finally converted to the views of his opponent. A natural-born mystic, he followed, as did his master Plotinus, the pure Indian Raj-Yoga training, which leads to the union of the Soul with the Over-Soul or Higher Self (Buddhi-Manas). He complains, however, that, all his efforts notwithstanding, he did not reach this state of ecstasy before he was sixty, while Plotinus was a proficient in it. This was so, probably because while his teacher held physical life and body in the greatest contempt, limiting philosophical research to those regions where life and thought become eternal and divine, Porphyry devoted his whole time to considerations of the bearing of philosophy on practical life. “The end of philosophy is with him morality”, says a biographer, “we might almost say, holiness — the healing of man’s infirmities, the imparting to him a purer and more vigorous life. Mere knowledge, however true, is not of itself sufficient; knowledge has for its object life in accordance with Nous ” — “reason, translates the biographer. As we interpret Nous, however, not as reason, but mind (Manas) or the divine eternal Ego in man, we would translate the idea esoterically, and make it read “the occult or secret knowledge has for its object terrestrial life in accordance with Nous, or our everlasting reincarnating Ego “, which would be more consonant with Porphyry’s idea, as it is with esoteric philosophy. (See Porphyry’s De Abstinentia i., 29 Of all the Neo-Platonists, Porphyry approached the nearest to real Theosophy as now taught by the Eastern secret school. This is shown by all our modern critics and writers on the Alexandrian school, for “he held that the Soul should be as far as possible freed from the bonds of matter, . . . be ready . . . to cut off the whole body”. ( Ad Marcellam, 34 He recommends the practice of abstinence, saying that “we should be like the gods if we could abstain from vegetable as well as animal food”. He accepts with reluctance theurgy and mystic incantation as those are “powerless to purify the noetic (manasic) principle of the soul”; theurgy can “but cleanse the lower or psychic portion, and make it capable of perceiving lower beings, such as spirits, angels and gods” (Aug. De Civ. Dei. x., 9), just as Theosophy teaches. “Do not defile the divinity”, he adds, “with the vain imaginings of men; you will not injure that which is for ever blessed (Buddhi-Manas) but you will blind yourself to the perception of the greatest and most vital truths”. ( Ad Marcellam, 18 “If we would be free from the assaults of evil spirits, we must keep ourselves clear of those things over which evil spirits have power, for they attack not the pure soul which has no affinity with them”. ( De Abstin. ii., 43 This is again our teaching. The Church Fathers held Porphyry as the bitterest enemy, the most irreconcilable to Christianity. Finally, and once more as in modern Theosophy, Porphyry — as all the Neo-Platonists, according to St. Augustine — “praised Christ while they disparaged Christianity”; Jesus, they contended, as we contend, “said nothing himself against the pagan deities, but wrought wonders by their help”. “They could not call him as his disciples did, God, but they honoured him as one of the best and wisest of men” . ( De Civ. Dei., xix., 23 Yet, “even in the storm of controversy, scarcely a word seems to have been uttered against the private life of Porphyry. His system prescribed purity and . . . . he practised it”. (See A Dict. of Christian Biography, Vol. IV., “Porphyry”
(KT) Porphyry (Porphyrius). His real name was Malek, which led to his being regarded as a Jew. He came from Tyre, and having first studied under Longinus, the eminent philosopher-critic, became the disciple of Plotinus, at Rome. He was a Neo-Platonist and a distinguished writer, specially famous for his controversy with Iamblichus regarding the evils attending the practice of Theurgy, but was, however, finally converted to the views of his opponent. A natural-born mystic he followed, like his master Plotinus, the pure Indian Raj-Yoga system, which, by training, leads to the union of the soul with the over-soul of the universe, and of the human with its divine soul, Buddhi-Manas. He complains, however, that in spite of all his efforts, he reached the highest state of ecstasy only once, and that when he was sixty-eight years of age, while his teacher Plotinus had experienced the supreme bliss six times during his life. ( Vide “Porphyry,” in the Theos. Gloss
(TG) Poseidonis {Greek}. The last remnant of the great Atlantean Continent. Plato’s island Atlantis is referred to as an equivalent term in Esoteric Philosophy.
(FY) Poseidonis, the last island submerged of the continent of Atlantis.
(WG) Poseidonis, {Greek}, the last remaining portion of the great Atlantic Continent, the isle Atlantis referred to in the Critias of Plato.
(TG) Postel, Guillaume. A French adept, born in Normandy in 1510. His learning brought him to the notice of Francis I., who sent him to the Levant in search of occult MSS., where he was received into and initiated by an Eastern Fraternity. On his return to France he became famous. He was persecuted by the clergy and finally imprisoned by the Inquisition, but was released by his Eastern brothers from his dungeon. His Clavis Absconditorum, a key to things hidden and forgotten, is very celebrated.
(TG) Pot-Amun. Said to be a Coptic term. The name of an Egyptian priest and hierophant who lived under the earlier Ptolemies. Diogenes Laertius tells us that it signifies one consecrated to the “Amun”, the god of wisdom and secret learning, such as were Hermes, Thoth, and Nebo of the Chaldees. This must be so, since in Chaldea the priests consecrated to Nebo also bore his name, being called the Neboim, or in some old Hebrew Kabbalistic works, “Abba Nebu”. The priests generally took the names of their gods. Pot-Amun is credited with having been the first to teach Theosophy, or the outlines of the Secret Wisdom-Religion, to the uninitiated.
(KT) Pot Amun. A Coptic term meaning “one consecrated to the god Amun,” the Wisdom-god. The name of an Egyptian priest and occultist under the Ptolemies.
(TG) Prabhavapyaya {Sans}. That whence all originates and into which all things resolve at the end of the Life-cycle.
(WG) Prabhuta, governed, presided over.
(TG) Prachetas {Sans}. A name of Varuna, the god of water, or esoterically — its principle.
(FY) Pracheta, the principle of water.
(TG) Prachetasas {Sans}. See Secret Doctrine, II . 176 et seq. Daksha is the son of the Prachetasas, the ten sons of Prachinavahis. Men endowed with magic powers in the Puranas, who, while practising religious austerities, remained immersed at the bottom of the sea for 10,000 years. The name also of Daksha, called Prachetasa.
(TG) Pradhana {Sans}. Undifferentiated substance, called elsewhere and in other schools — Akasa; and Mulaprakriti or Root of Matter by the Vedantins. In short, Primeval Matter.
(WG) Pradhana, in the Sankhya systems, the source of the material world; the manifestation of mulaprakriti. (Literally, “the originant.”)
(SK)o Pradhana That shadowy substance or ‘veil’ placed before or surrounding Brahman, the Universal Self. Hence Pradhana may be spoken of as the envelop or manifested expression of Brahman, its spiritual counterpart. Pradhana is derived from the verb-root dha — to place, and the preposition pra — before.
(SP) Pradhana — undifferentiated matter.
(TG) Pragna {Sans} or Prajna. A synonym of Mahat, the Universal Mind. The capacity for perception. ( S. D., I. 139) Consciousness.
(KT) Pragna, or Prajna {Sans} A term used to designate the “Universal Mind.” A synonym of Mahat.
(FY) Pragna, consciousness.
(WG) Pragna, (also PRAJNA), consciousness; wisdom personified; the energy of Adi-buddhi.
(TG) Prahlada {Sans}. The son of Hiranyakashipu, the King of the Asuras. As Prahlada was devoted to Vishnu, of whom his father was the greatest enemy, he became subjected in consequence to a variety of tortures and punishments. In order to save his devotee from these, Vishnu assumed the form of Nri-Sinha (man-lion, his fourth avatar ) and killed the father.
(GH) Prahlada The son of Hiranyakasipu of the Daitya race ( i.e. , Titans), who waged wars with the gods, in one of which they overcame Indra and took possession of Svarga (heaven). Prahlada, however, as a boy, instead of following the Daitya practice, became an ardent worshiper of Vishnu. This was told his father who in anger ordered that his son be killed. But no Daitya weapon could cause his death, nor even the flames of fire, whereupon Prahlada was sent back to his preceptor and he continued his adoration of Vishnu. Because of Prahlada’s persecution, Vishnu took on incarnation as the Narasinha (‘man-lion’) Avatara, slaying Hiranyakasipu and expelling the Daityas from heaven. (See under Krishna They took up their abode in Patala under the rule of Prahlada. At his death Prahlada attained union with Vishnu. The Padma-Purana narrates that in a previous birth, as a Brahmana named Sornasarman, he was desirous of uniting himself with Vishnu, but was distracted in his meditations by the Daityas, and so was born again as one of them, ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 75)
(TG) Prajapatis {Sans}. Progenitors; the givers of life to all on this Earth. They are seven and then ten — corresponding to the seven and ten Kabbalistic Sephiroth; to the Mazdean Amesha-Spentas, Brahma, the creator, is called Prajapati as the synthesis of the Lords of Being.
(FY) Prajapatis, the constructors of the material universe.
(WG) Praja-Patis, creators; the seven progenitors of the first seven divisions of men on the planet. ( praja, offspring; patis , fathers, lords
(OG) Prajapati — {Sans} A word meaning “governor” or “lord” or “master” of “progeny.” The word is applied to several of the Vedic gods, but in particular to Brahma — that is to say the second step from parabrahman — the evolver-creator, the first and most recondite figure of the Hindu triad, consisting of Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva. Brahma is the emanator or evolver, Vishnu the sustainer or preserver, and Siva, a name which may be translated euphemistically perhaps as “beneficent,” the regenerator. Prajapati is a name which is often used in the plural, and refers to seven and also to ten different beings. They are the producers and givers of life of all on earth and, indeed, on the earth’s planetary chain.
(GH) Prajapati literally ‘Lord of progeny,’ or lord of creation: a title applied originally to several of the Vedic gods, as divinities presiding over the production of worlds and men; later applied to the Hindu Trimurti (Brahma, Vishnu, Siva) especially to Brahma as the chief progenitor, evolver, and producer (as in The Laws of Manu (Manava-Dharma-Sastra). Likewise Manu Svayambhuva is termed a Prajapati as the son of Brahma, and as the secondary creator of the ten Rishis — the mind-born sons of Brahma from whom mankind is descended, hence termed Prajapatis. These are enumerated as: Marichi Atri Angiras, Pulastya, Pulaha, Kratu, Vasishtha, Prachetas (or Daksha), Bhrigu, Narada. Occasionally only the first seven are enumerated, and they are made equivalent to the seven great Rishis . The Prajapatis “are neither gods, nor supernatural Beings, but advanced Spirits from another and lower planet, reborn on this one, and giving birth in their turn in the present Round to present Humanity.” ( Secret Doctrine, II, p. 611) “What are all the myths and endless genealogies of the seven Prajapatis, and their sons, the seven Rishis or Manus, and of their wives, sons and progeny, but a vast detailed account of the progressive development and evolution of animal creation, one species after the other?” ( Secret Doctrine, II, p. 253) (The following word is derived from the verbal root:) pra-jan, to give birth to; pati lord. Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 85)
(SKf) Prajapati ‘The Lord of Progeny’; a compound of pati — lord, and praja — progeny; derived from the verb-root jan — to produce, and the preposition pra — forth. Prajapati is a name given to Brahma, the Great Evolver of the Solar System. The seven, ten, or twelve Prajapatis are the Producers of Life on this planet. They are the Lords or Hierarchs of the different classes of monads. The Prajapatis are mystically described in the Puranas as the sons of Brahma and as the fathers of the Manus (See [[SKo]]). Some of the Puranic legends of the Prajapatis and the Manus are mystical histories of our higher Monads in their descent through the spheres.
(SP) Prajapati — literally “lord of progeny,” brahma.
(WG) Prakamya, one of the eight superhuman faculties; the power to exercise irresistible will. See Vibhuti .
(WG) Prakasana, manifesting to; enlightening; an epithet of Vishnu.
(TG) Prakrita {Sans}. One of the provincial dialects of Sanskrit — “the language of the gods”, and therefore, its materialisation.
(WG) Prakrita, essential, natural.
(TG) Prakritika Pralaya {Sans}. The Pralaya succeeding to the Age of Brahma, when everything that exists is resolved into its primordial essence (or Prakriti).
(WG) Prakrita-pralaya, the change of the universe from its present to a latent condition and its dissolution in unmanifested nature, in which no evolution can take place until the dawn of a new manvantara. This takes place at the end of each maha-kalpa, and the pralaya continues during an expanse of time equal to a maha-kalpa — 311,040,000,000 solar years.
(TG) Prakriti {Sans}. Nature in general, nature as opposed to Purusha — spiritual nature and Spirit, which together are the “two primeval aspects of the One Unknown Deity” . ( Secret Doctrine, I.
(FY) Prakriti, undifferentiated matter; the supreme principle regarded as the substance of the universe.
(WG) Prakriti, nature; cosmic matter, always in combination with spirit — purusha. (Literally, “procreated.”)
(OG) Prakriti — {Sans} A compound consisting of the prepositional prefix pra, meaning “forwards” or “progression,” and kriti, a noun-form from the verbal root kri, “to make” or “to do.” Therefore prakriti means literally “production” or “bringing forth,” “originating,” and by an extension of meaning it also signifies the primordial or original state or condition or form of anything: primary, original substance. The root or parent of prakriti is mula-prakriti or root of prakriti. Prakriti is to be considered with vikriti — vikriti signifying change or an alteration of some kind, or a production or evolution from the prakriti which precedes it. As an illustration, the chemical elements hydrogen and oxygen combine in the proportion H2O, producing thus a substance known in its most common form as water; but this same H2O can appear as ice as well as vapor-gas; hence the vapor, the water, and the ice may be called the vikritis of the original prakriti which is the originating hydrogen and oxygen. The illustration is perhaps not a very good one but is suggestive. In common usage prakriti may be called nature in general, as the great producer of entities or things, and through this nature acts the ever-active Brahma or Purusha. Purusha, therefore, is spirit, and prakriti is its productive veil or sheath. Essentially or fundamentally the two are one, and whatever prakriti through and by the influence of Purusha produces is the multitudinous and multiform vikritis which make the immense variety and diversity in the universe around us. In one or more of the Hindu philosophies, prakriti is the same as sakti, and therefore prakriti and sakti are virtually interchangeable with maya or maha-maya or so-called illusion. Prakriti is often spoken of as matter, but this is inexact although a very common usage; matter is rather the “productions” or phases that prakriti brings about, the vikritis. In the Indian Sankhya philosophy pradhana is virtually identical with prakriti, and both are often used to signify the producing element from and out of which all illusory material manifestations or appearances are evolved.
(GH) Prakriti Broadly speaking equivalent to Nature — in the sense of the great producer of beings. Through Nature acts the ever-moving Spirit — Brahma or Purusha. Thus Purusha is Spirit and Prakriti is its productive veil or sheath. Although Prakriti is commonly rendered ‘matter,’ matter is rather the productions that Prakriti brings about ( i.e., the Vikritis) through the excitation or influence of Purusha. Some Hindu schools use Prakriti in the sense of Sakti or Maya (Illusion), the Vedantins, however, teach that every particle of Prakriti contains Jiva (divine life) and is the sarira (body) of that Jiva which it contains. (Compound pra , forwards, progression; (The following word is derived from the verbal root:) kri to do, to make; hence literally production, bringing forth. Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 65)
(SK)o Prakriti Literally, ‘production’ or ‘bringing forth’; a compound of the preposition pra — forth, and the verb-root kri — to do, to make. Prakriti is Nature, or that producing element out of which springs the universe with all its various material spheres and bodies. The consciousness or motive-power or spirit which acts through Prakriti is Brahma or Purusha.
Thus there are the three Logoi: the First Logos or the Unmanifest — Parabrahman and Mulaprakriti; the Second Logos or the partially Manifest — Brahman and Pradhana; and the Third Logos or the Manifest — Brahma and Prakriti, or Purusha and Prakriti.
(SKf) Prakriti The Prakritis are the Cosmic Elements and their power of producing substance; they are the living garments of the Tattwas or Seven Principles of the Cosmos. Therefore they are identical with the Seven Mahabhutas or the Great Elements of earth, water, air, fire, etc. Prakritika-Pralaya and -Manvantara are the universal dissolution and the manifested existence of Nature. Prakritika is the adjectival form of Prakriti — nature. Saurya-Pralaya and -Manvantara are the dissolution and the manifested existence of the Solar System. Saurya is the adjectival form of surya -sun. Bhaumika-Pralaya and -Manvantara are the terrestrial or planetary dissolution and its manifested existence. Bhaumika is the adjectival form of bhumi — earth. Paurusha-Pralaya and -Manvantara are the death and life of the individual man. Paurusha is the adjectival form of purusha — man. Nitya-Pralaya and -Manvantara are the constant or continuous change or death and the regeneration and life of the cells of a body, whether of man, or a planet, or a Solar System. Nitya means ‘constant’. All these cycles of life and death, whether of a Universal Being or of an atomic entity, repeat themselves again and again, but ever higher. The only difference among them lies in the length of the cycle and the degree of evolutionary unfoldment. Life and death, Manvantara and Pralaya, are two continuously recurring phases in the Great Adventure of Evolution.
(IN) Prakriti {Sans} Primal nature, spiritual and ethereal substance; opposite pole of Purusha.
(SP) Prakrti [prakriti] — nature or material manifestation.
(WG) Prakriti-sambandha, connection with matter; being bound to matter.
(TG) Pralaya {Sans}. A period of obscuration or repose — planetary, cosmic or universal — the opposite of Manvantara ( S. D., I. 370.
(KT) Pralaya {Sans} Dissolution, the opposite of Manvantara, one being the period of rest and the other of full activity (death and life) of a planet, or of the whole universe.
(FY) Pralaya, the period of cosmic rest.
(OG) Pralaya — {Sans} A compound word, formed of laya, from the root li, and the prefix pra . Li means “to dissolve,” “to melt away,” “to liquefy,” as when one pours water upon a cube of salt or of sugar. The cube of salt or of sugar vanishes in the water — it dissolves, changes its form — and this may be taken as a figure, imperfect as it is, or as a symbol, of what pralaya is: a crumbling away, a vanishing away, of matter into something else which is yet in it, and surrounds it, and interpenetrates it. Such is pralaya, usually translated as the state of latency, state of rest, state of repose, between two manvantaras or life cycles. If we remember distinctly the meaning of the Sanskrit word, our minds take a new bent in direction, follow a new thought. We get new ideas; we penetrate into the arcanum of the thing that takes place. Pralaya, therefore, is dissolution, death. There are many kinds of pralayas. There is the universal pralaya, called prakritika, because it is the pralaya or vanishing away, melting away, of prakriti or nature. Then there is the solar pralaya. Sun in Sanskrit is surya, and the adjective from this is saurya : hence, the saurya pralaya or the pralaya of the solar system. Then, thirdly, there is the terrestrial or planetary pralaya. One Sanskrit word for earth is bhumi, and the adjective corresponding to this is bhaumika : hence, the bhaumika pralaya. Then there is the pralaya or death of the individual man. Man is purusha ; the corresponding adjective is paurusha : hence, the paurusha pralaya or death of man. These adjectives apply equally well to the several kinds of manvantaras or life cycles. There is another kind of pralaya which is called nitya . In its general sense, it means “constant” or “continuous,” and can be exemplified by the constant or continuous change — life and death — of the cells of our bodies. It is a state in which the indwelling and dominating entity remains, but its different principles and rupas undergo continuous and incessant change. Hence it is called nitya, signifying continuous. It applies to the body of man, to the outer sphere of earth, to the earth itself, to the solar system, and indeed to all nature. It is the unceasing and chronic changing of things that are — the passing from phase to phase, meaning the pralaya or death of one phase, to be followed by the rebirth of its succeeding phase. There are other kinds of pralayas than those herein enumerated.
(SK)o Pralaya Dissolution, death, or a period of repose between two Manvantaras. Pralaya is a compound of pra — away, and laya, derived from the verb-root li — to dissolve. Just as dissolution implies a transformation of substances into another state of matter, so at the time of Pralaya all manifested or visible things dissolve or vanish into the noumenal or invisible worlds: the Many return to their Source, become the ONE. There are many kinds of Pralayas, for the word can be applied to the death of a man, a planet, or a Universe.
(IN) Pralaya {Sans} “Dissolution,” death, a period of latency between manvantaras, planetary or cosmic.
(SP) Pralaya — a cycle of dissolution between manvantaras.
(TG) Pramantha {Sans}. An accessory to producing the sacred fire by friction. The sticks used by Brahmins to kindle fire by friction.
(TG) Prameyas {Sans}. Things to be proved; objects of Pramana or proof.
(FY) Prameyas, things to be proved, objects of Pramana or proof.
(TG) Pram-Gimas (Lithuanian). Lit., “Master of all”, a deity-title.
(TG) Pramlocha {Sans}. A female Apsaras — a water-nymph who beguiled Kandu. (See “Kandu”
(TG) Prana {Sans}. Life-Principle; the breath of Life.
(KT) Prana {Sans} Life Principle, the breath of life, Nephesh.
(FY) Prana, the one life.
(WG) Prana, breath; the force derived from the sun, which is represented in man by the breath; one of the seven human principles.
(OG) Prana — {Sans} The word is derived from pra , prepositional prefix meaning “before”; and an, verb meaning “to breathe,” “to blow,” “to live.” Usually translated “life,” but rather the psychoelectrical veil or psychoelectrical field manifesting in the individual as vitality. Commonly called “life principle.” This Sanskrit word is used by modern theosophists in a general sense, although in the Sanskrit it has a rather specific and restricted meaning, because there are, as a matter of fact, a number of life currents, vital fluids. They have each one its own name. One system gives the number as three; another as five, which is the commonly accepted number; another enumeration is seven; another again is twelve, as is found in some Upanishads; and one old writer even gives them as thirteen.
The life-atoms of the prana, or psychoelectrical field, fly instantly back at the moment of physical dissolution to the natural pranic reservoirs of the planet.
(SK)o Prana The Life-principle in man; a compound of the verb-root an, ‘to breathe,’ and the prepositional prefix pra — forth. Theosophy in a general sense speaks of Prana as that efflux or life-fluid of Atman which manifests in the more physical realms and gives to man his vital energy. The ancient Sanskrit literature speaks of Prana as the expirational breath, and as only one of the seven life-breaths or Pranas working in man.
(SP) Prana — breath or the various life-breaths or vital forces.
(TG) Pranamaya Kosha {Sans}. The vehicle of Prana, life, or the Linga Sarira: a Vedantic term.
(FY) Pranamaya Kosha, the principle of life and its vehicle; the second sheath of the Divine monad (Vedantic).
(WG) Prana-maya-kosa, the vital sheath surrounding the soul.
(TG) Pranatman {Sans}. The same as Sutratma, the eternal germ-thread on which are strung, like beads, the personal lives of the EGO.
(FY) Pranatman, the eternal or germ thread on which are strung, like beads, the personal lives. The same as Sutratma.
(TG) Pranava {Sans}. A sacred word, equivalent to Aum.
(WG) Pranava, a substitute word for the sacred word Aum.
(TG) Pranayama {Sans}. The suppression and regulation of the breath in Yoga practice.
(WG) Pranayama, suspending the breath: by rechaka, or holding the left nostril and breathing through the right; puraka, closing the right and breathing through the left nostril; kumbhaka, both nostrils closed and breathing suspended.
(TG) Pranidhana {Sans}. The fifth observance of the Yogis; ceaseless devotion. (See Yoga Shastras, ii. 32
(WG) Prapatti, a phase of Yoga — devotion and means for attainment of supreme bliss — in which one contemplates: first, one’s own inability to practice either of the other kinds of Yoga; and, second, the attributes and qualities of Isvara as the sole redeemer. Prapatti is much approved in the Visishtadvaita school of religious philosophy. It is particularly intended for those who are unable to contemplate the impersonal Deity.
(TG) Prapti {Sans}. From Prap, to reach. One of the eight Siddhis (powers) of Raj-Yoga. The power of transporting oneself from one place to another, instantaneously, by the mere force of will; the faculty of divination, of healing and of prophesying, also a Yoga power.
(WG) Prapti, one of the eight superhuman faculties. See Vibhuti for description.
(WG) Prarabdha-karma, that karma which has already begun to produce results, such as we now experience.
(TG) Prasanga Madhyamika {Sans}. A Buddhist school of philosophy in Tibet. It follows, like the Yogacharya system, the Mahayana or “Great Vehicle” of precepts; but, having been founded far later than the Yogacharya, it is not half so rigid and severe. It is a semi-exoteric and very popular system among the literati and laymen.
(TG) Prashraya, or Vinaya {Sans}. “The progenetrix of affection.” A title bestowed upon the Vedic Aditi, the “Mother of the Gods”.
(WG) Pratibha, comprehension, understanding.
(TG) Pratibhasika {Sans}. The apparent or illusory life.
(FY) Pratibhasika, the apparent or illusory life.
(TG) Pratisamvid {Sans}. The four “unlimited forms of wisdom” attained by an Arhat; the last of which is the absolute knowledge of and power over the twelve Nidanas. (See “Nidana”
(TG) Pratyabhava {Sans}. The state of the Ego under the necessity of repeated births.
(TG) Pratyagatma {Sans}. The same as Jivatma, or the one living Universal Soul — Alaya.
(WG) Pratyagatma, the individual soul.
(TG) Pratyahara {Sans}. The same as “Mahapralaya”.
(WG) Praty-ahara, restraint of the organs of sense from all outward things and directing them entirely to mental impressions. (Literally, “drawing back, restraint.”)
(SKv) Pratyahara ‘Withdrawal’; derived from the verb-root ahri — to bring, and prati — back. Pratyahara is often used as a synonym for Pralaya, the dissolution of the manifested universe, which is brought about by the withdrawal into higher spheres of the Universal Self. Pratyahara as the fifth stage of Yoga is the withdrawal of the consciousness inwards toward spiritual things. This is brought about by strong love and devotion to realities and Truth, thus silencing the wayward senses which tend to make one respond to external and deceptive concerns.
(TG) Pratyaharana {Sans}. The preliminary training in practical Raj-Yoga.
(TG) Pratyaksha {Sans}. Spiritual perception by means of senses.
(FY) Pratyaksha, perception.
(WG) Praty-aksha, perception, apprehension by the senses. ( prati, near; aksha, eye: in sight
(TG) Pratyasarga {Sans}. In Sankhya philosophy the “intellectual evolution of the Universe”; in the Puranas the 8th creation.
(TG) Pratyeka Buddha {Sans}. The same as ” Pasi -Buddha”. The Pratyeka Buddha is a degree which belongs exclusively to the Yogacharya school, yet it is only one of high intellectual development with no true spirituality. It is the dead-letter of the Yoga laws, in which intellect and comprehension play the greatest part, added to the strict carrying out of the rules of the inner development. It is one of the three paths to Nirvana, and the lowest, in which a Yogi — “without teacher and without saving others” — by the mere force of will and technical observances, attains to a kind of nominal Buddhaship individually; doing no good to anyone, but working selfishly for his own salvation and himself alone. The Pratyekas are respected outwardly but are despised inwardly by those of keen or spiritual appreciation. A Pratyeka is generally compared to a “Khadga” or solitary rhinoceros and called Ekashringa Rishi, a selfish solitary Rishi (or saint). “As crossing Sansara (‘the ocean of birth and death’ or the series of incarnations), suppressing errors, and yet not attaining to absolute perfection, the Pratyeka Buddha is compared with a horse which crosses a river swimming, without touching the ground.” (Sanskrit-Chinese Dict He is far below a true “Buddha of Compassion”. He strives only for the reaching of Nirvana.
(VS) Pratyeka-Buddha (II 38) [[p. 43]] Pratyeka Buddhas are those Bodhisattvas who strive after and often reach the Dharmakaya robe after a series of lives. Caring nothing for the woes of mankind or to help it, but only for their own bliss, they enter Nirvana and disappear from the sight and the hearts of men. In Northern Buddhism a “Pratyeka Buddha” is a synonym of spiritual Selfishness.
(WG) Praty-eka-Buddha, a Buddha who obtains emancipation for himself only. (Literally, “one by one.”)
(OG) Pratyeka Buddha — {Sans} Pratyeka is a compound of two words: prati, prepositional prefix meaning “towards” or “for”; eka , the numeral “one”; thus we can translate the compound by the paraphrase “each one for himself.”
The Pratyeka Buddha, he who achieves buddhahood for himself, instead of feeling the call of almighty love to return and help those who have gone less far, goes ahead into the supernal light — passes onwards and enters the unspeakable bliss of nirvana — and leaves mankind behind. Though exalted, nevertheless he does not rank with the unutterable sublimity of the Buddha of Compassion.
The Pratyeka Buddha concentrates his energies on the one objective — spiritual self-advancement: he raises himself to the spiritual realm of his own inner being, enwraps himself therein and, so to speak, goes to sleep. The Buddha of Compassion raises himself, as does the Pratyeka Buddha, to the spiritual realms of his own inner being, but does not stop there, because he expands continuously, becomes one with All, or tries to, and in fact does so in time. When the Pratyeka Buddha in due course emerges from the nirvanic state in order to take up his evolutionary journey again, he will find himself far in the rear of the Buddha of Compassion.
(SKv) Pratyeka-Buddha, Buddha of Compassion Pratyeka is a compound of prati — for, towards; and eka — one; hence the term implies ‘for one alone.’ The Pratyeka-Buddha is a lofty spiritual being who becomes so wrapped up in the beautiful future of spiritual peace and rest and wisdom that Nirvana offers, that he becomes oblivious of those who could gain much by his help and enlightenment. When the choice comes, as it comes to all Initiates — Shall I enter this well-earned Nirvana which means blissful rest for aeons, or shall I give up this wondrous and glorious state so that I may remain as a spiritual inspirer, a Nirmanakaya, in the world of men’s thoughts and feelings and thus answer the deepest call of the human heart, compassion? — then a Pratyeka-Buddha, whose goal is for self alone, because his spiritual parts are awakened only in their lower aspects, chooses the former path of bliss; whereas a Buddha of Compassion, an older soul, awakened in the loftier aspects of his spiritual nature, renounces Nirvana and follows the call of compassion. At the dawn of a new cycle of evolution in the far distant future a Pratyeka-Buddha will have to undergo certain experiences in the lower spheres in order to develop the deeper and more compassionate side of his higher nature; whereas a Buddha of Compassion will be winging his way on to greater vistas of evolution, to heights beyond human ken.
(SP) Pratyeka-buddha — one who attains buddhahood for himself alone.
(SKf) Pravritti, Nivritti Pravritti is derived from the verbal root vrit — to flow or to turn, plus the preposition pra — forth, hence the word means ‘a flowing forth,’ an unfolding of what is within, in other words, evolution. Nivritti is a ‘flowing back’ ( ni — back), an infolding of what is without or already manifest in other words, involution. The processes of evolution and involution are simultaneous and cannot be separated. On the Downward Arc of Evolution or the Cycle of emanating forms, matter undergoes Pravritti and hence bodies of many grades are developed, and Spirit undergoes Nivritti and hence becomes inwrapped in these bodies of ever increasing materiality. On the Upward Arc or the cycle of spiritual development matter involves and spirit evolves, outward forms gradually disappear inwards and spirit unfolds itself in ever fuller visible expressions, such as divine and compassionate actions and qualities.
(SP) pravritti — evolution, the reverse of nivrtti [nivritti], involution.
(TG) Pre-existence. The term used to denote that we have lived before. The same as reincarnation in the past. The idea is derided by some, rejected by others, called absurd and inconsistent by the third: yet it is the oldest and the most universally accepted belief from an immemorial antiquity. And if this belief was universally accepted by the most subtle philosophical minds of the pre-Christian world, surely it is not amiss that some of our modern intellectual men should also believe in it, or at least give the doctrine the benefit of the doubt. Even the Bible hints at it more than once, St. John the Baptist being regarded as the reincarnation of Elijah, and the Disciples asking whether the blind man was born blind because of his sins, which is equal to saying that he had lived and sinned before being born blind. As Mr. Bonwick well says: it was “the work of spiritual progression and soul discipline. The pampered sensualist returned a beggar; the proud oppressor, a slave; the selfish woman of fashion, a seamstress. A turn of the wheel gave a chance for the development of neglected or abused intelligence and feeling, hence the popularity of reincarnation in all climes and times. . . . thus the expurgation of evil was . . . gradually but certainly accomplished.” Verily “an evil act follows a man, passing through one hundred thousand transmigrations” (Panchatantra). “All souls have a subtle vehicle, image of the body, which carries the passive soul from one material dwelling to another” says Kapila; while Basnage explains of the Jews: “By this second death is not considered hell, but that which happens when a soul has a second time animated a body”. Herodotus tells his readers, that the Egyptians “are the earliest who have spoken of this doctrine, according to which the soul of man is immortal, and after the destruction of the body, enters into a newly born being. When, say they, it has passed through all the animals of the earth and sea, and all the birds, it will re-enter the body of a new born man.” This is Pre-existence. Deveria showed that the funeral books of the Egyptians say plainly “that resurrection was, in reality, but a renovation, leading to a new infancy, and a new youth”. (See “Reincarnation”
(OG) Preexistence — This term means that the human soul did not first come into being or existence with its present birth on earth; in other words, that it preexisted before it was born on earth. This doctrine of preexistence is by no means typically theosophical, for it likewise was a part of the early teachings of Christianity, as is evidenced in the writings that remain to us of Origen, the great Alexandrian Church Father, and of his school. The theosophical student should be very careful in distinguishing the technical meanings that pertain to several words which in popular and mistaken usage are often employed interchangeably, as for example preexistence, metempsychosis, transmigration, reincarnation, reembodiment, rebirth, metensomatosis, palingenesis. Each one of these words has a specific meaning typically its own, and describes or sets forth one phase of the destiny of a reimbodying and migrating entity. In popular usage, several of these words are used as synonyms, and this usage is wrong. Preexistence, for instance, does not necessarily signify the transmigration of an entity from plane to plane nor, indeed, does it signify as does reincarnation that a migrating monad reinfleshes or reincarnates itself through its ray on earth. Preexistence signifies only that a soul, be it human or other, preexisted before its birth on earth. The doctrine of the great Origen, as found in his works that remain to us, was that the human soul preexisted in the spiritual world, or within the influence or range of the divine essence or “God,” before it began a series of reincarnations on earth. It is obvious that Origen’s manner of expressing his views is a more or less faithful but distorted reflection of the teaching of the esoteric philosophy. The teaching of preexistence as outlined by Origen and his school and followers, with others of his mystical quasi-theosophical doctrines, was formally condemned and anathematized at the Home Synod held under Mennas at Constantinople about 543 of the Christian era. Thus passed out of orthodox Christian theology as a “newly discovered heresy” what was a most important and mystical body of teaching of the early centuries of the new Christian religion — to the latter’s great loss, spiritual and intellectual. The doctrines of Origen and his school may be said to have formed an important part of original Christian theosophy, a form of universal theosophy of Christianized character. (See under their respective heads the various correlated doctrines mentioned above
(TG) Pretas {Sans}. “Hungry demons” in popular folk-lore. “Shells”, of the avaricious and selfish man after death; “Elementaries” reborn as Pretas, in Kama-loka, according to the esoteric teachings.
(FY) Pretya-bhava, the state of an ego under the necessity of repeated births.
(WG) Pretya-bhava, the state after death. ( pretya, having died; bhava, being
(TG) Priestesses. Every ancient religion had its priestesses in the temples. In Egypt they were called the Sa and served the altar of Isis and in the temples of other goddesses. Canephorae was the name given by the Greeks to those consecrated priestesses who bore the baskets of the gods during the public festivals of the Eleusinian Mysteries. There were female prophets in Israel as in Egypt, diviners of dreams and oracles; and Herodotus mentions the Hierodules, the virgins or nuns dedicated to the Theban Jove, who were generally the Pharaohs’ daughters and other Princesses of the Royal House. Orientalists speak of the wife of Cephrenes, the builder of the so-called second Pyramid, who was a priestess of Thoth. (See “Nuns”
(TG) Primordial Light. In Occultism, the light which is born in, and through the preternatural darkness of chaos, which contains “the all in all”, the seven rays that become later the seven Principles in Nature.
(TG) Principles. The Elements or original essences, the basic differentiations upon and of which all things are built up. We use the term to denote the seven individual and fundamental aspects of the One Universal Reality in Kosmos and in man. Hence also the seven aspects in their manifestation in the human being — divine, spiritual, psychic, astral, physiological and simply physical.
(OG) Principles of Man — The seven principles of man are a likeness or rather copy of the seven cosmic principles. They are actually the offspring or reflection of the seven cosmic principles, limited in their action in us by the workings of the law of karma, but running in their origin back into THAT which is beyond: into THAT which is the essence of the universe or the universal — above, beyond, within, to the unmanifest, to the unmanifestable, to that first principle which H. P. Blavatsky enunciates as the leading thought of the wisdom-philosophy of The Secret Doctrine . These principles of man are reckoned as seven in the philosophy by which the human spiritual and psychical economy has been publicly explained to us in the present age. In other ages these principles or parts of man were differently reckoned — the Christian reckoned them as body, soul, and spirit, generalizing the seven under these three heads. Some of the Indian thinkers divided man into a basic fourfold entity, others into a fivefold. The Jewish philosophy, as found in the Qabbalah which is the esoteric tradition of the Jews, teaches that man is divided into four parts: neshamah, ruah, nefesh , and guf . Theosophists for convenience often employ in their current literature a manner of viewing man’s composite constitution which is the dividing of his nature into a trichotomy, meaning a division into three, being spirit, soul, and body, which in this respect is identical with the generalized Christianized theosophical division. Following this trichotomy, man’s three parts, therefore, are: first and highest, the divine spirit or the divine monad of him, which is rooted in the universe, which spirit is linked with the All, being in a highly mystical sense a ray of the All; second, the intermediate part, or the spiritual monad, which in its higher and lower aspects is the spiritual and human souls; then, third, the lowest part of man’s composite constitution, the vital-astral-physical part of him, which is composed of material or quasi-material life-atoms. ( See also Atman, Buddhi, Manas, Kama, Prana, Linga-sarira, Sthula-sarira)
(GH) Pritha The name of the daughter of Sura, a Yadava prince, who gave her to his childless cousin Kunti (or Kuntibhoja) by whom he was adopted — hence she was called Kunti . She is the mother of the Pandavas. Throughout the text Arjuna is referred to as the son of Pritha (in Sanskrit, Partha). ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 20)
(WG) Prithivi, the earth.
(TG) Priyavrata {Sans}. The name of the son of Swayambhuva Manu in exoteric Hinduism. The occult designation of one of the primeval races in Occultism.
(TG) Proclus {Greek}. A Greek writer and mystic philosopher, known as a Commentator of Plato, and surnamed the Diadochus. He lived in the fifth century, and died, aged 75, at Athens A.D. 485. His last ardent disciple and follower and the translator of his works was Thomas Taylor of Norwich, who, says Brother Kenneth Mackenzie, “was a modern mystic who adopted the pagan faith as being the only veritable faith, and actually sacrificed doves to Venus, a goat to Bacchus and . . . designed to immolate a bull to Jupiter” but was prevented by his landlady.
(TG) Prometheus {Greek}. The Greek logos; he, who by bringing on earth divine fire (intelligence and consciousness) endowed men with reason and mind. Prometheus is the Hellenic type of our Kumaras or Egos, those who, by incarnating in men, made of them latent gods instead of animals. The gods (or Elohim) were averse to men becoming “as one of us” (Genesis iii., 22), and knowing “good and evil”. Hence we see these gods in every religious legend punishing man for his desire to know. As the Greek myth has it, for stealing the fire he brought to men from Heaven, Prometheus was chained by the order of Zeus to a crag of the Caucasian Mountains.
(TG) Propator {Greek}. A Gnostic term. The “Depth” of Bythos, or En-Aior, the unfathomable light. The latter is alone the Self-Existent and the Eternal — Propator is only periodical.
(IN) Pro re nata {Latin} For a special emergency or business.
(KT) Protean Soul. A name for Mayavi rupa or thought-body, the higher astral form which assumes all forms and every form at the will of an adept’s thought. ( Vide “Plastic Soul” in the Theos. Gloss
(TG) Protogonos {Greek}. The “first-born”; used of all the manifested gods and of the Sun in our system.
(TG) Proto-ilos {Greek}. The first primordial matter.
(TG) Protologoi {Greek}. The primordial seven creative Forces when anthropomorphized into Archangels or Logoi.
(TG) Protyle {Greek}. A newly-coined word in chemistry to designate the first homogeneous, primordial substance.
(TG) Pschent {Egyp}. A symbol in the form of a double crown, meaning the presence of Deity in death as in life, on earth as in heaven. This Pschent is only worn by certain gods.
(TG) Psyche {Greek}. The animal, terrestrial Soul; the lower Manas.
(TG) Psychism, from the Greek psyche. A term now used to denote very loosely every kind of mental phenomena, e.g ., mediumship, and the higher sensitiveness, hypnotic receptivity, and inspired prophecy, simple clairvoyance in the astral light, and real divine seership; in short, the word covers every phase and manifestation of the powers and potencies of the human and the divine Souls.
(KT) Psychism. The word is used now to denote every kind of mental phenomena, e.g ., mediumship as well as the higher form of sensitiveness. A newly-coined word.
(OG) Psychic Powers — The lowest powers of the intermediate or soul-nature in the human being, and we are exercising and using them all the time — yes, and we cannot even control them properly! Men’s emotional thoughts are vagrant, wandering, uncertain, lacking precision, without positive direction, and feebly governed. The average man cannot even keep his emotions and thoughts in the grip of his self-conscious will. His weakest passions lead him astray. It is this part of his nature whence flow his psychic powers. It is man’s work to transmute them and to turn them to employment which is good and useful and holy. Indeed, the average man cannot control the ordinary psycho-astral-physical powers that he commonly uses; and when, forsooth, people talk about cultivating occult powers, by which they mean merely psychic powers, it simply shows that through ignorance they know not to what they refer. Their minds are clouded as regards the actual facts. Those who talk so glibly of cultivating occult powers are just the people who cannot be trusted as real guides, for before they themselves can crawl in these mysterious regions of life, they seem to desire to teach other people how to run and to leap. What most people really mean, apparently, when they speak of cultivating occult powers is I want to get power over other people. Such individuals are totally unfit to wield occult powers of any kind, for the motive is in most cases purely selfish, and their minds are beclouded and darkened with ignorance. The so-called psychic powers have the same relation to genuine spiritual powers that baby-talk has to the discourse of a wise philosopher. Before occult powers of any kind can be cultivated safely, man must learn the first lesson of the mystic knowledge, which is to control himself; and all powers that later he gains must be laid on the altar of impersonal service — on the altar of service to mankind. Psychic powers will come to men as a natural development of their inner faculties, as evolution performs its wonderful work in future ages. New senses, and new organs corresponding to these new senses, both interior and exterior, will come into active functioning in the distant future. But it is perilous both to sanity and to health to attempt to force the development of these prematurely, and unless the training and discipline be done under the watchful and compassionate eye of a genuine occult teacher who knows what he is about. The world even today contains hundreds of thousands of sensitives who are the first feeble forerunners of what future evolution will make common in the human race; but these sensitives are usually in a very unfortunate and trying situation, for they themselves misunderstand what is in them, and they are misunderstood by their fellows. ( See also Occultism)
(TG) Psychography. A word first used by theosophists; it means writing under the dictation or the influence of one’s soul-power, though Spiritualists have now adopted the term to denote writing produced by their mediums under the guidance of returning Spirits.
(TG) Psychology. The Science of Soul, in days of old: a Science which served as the unavoidable basis for physiology. Whereas in our modern day, it is psychology that is being based (by our great scientists) upon physiology.
(OG) Psychology — This word is ordinarily used to signify in our days, and in the seats of learning in the Occident, a study mostly beclouded with doubts and hypotheses, and often actual guesswork, meaning little more than a kind of mental physiology, practically nothing more than the working of the brain-mind in the lowest astral-psychical apparatus of the human constitution. But in the theosophical philosophy, the word psychology is used to mean something very different and of a far nobler character: we might call it pneumatology, or the science or the study of spirit and its rays, because all the inner faculties and powers of man ultimately spring from his spiritual nature. The term psychology ought really to connote the study of the inner intermediate economy of man, and the interconnection of his principles and elements or centers of energy or force — what the man really is inwardly.
(IN) days of the far bygone past, psychology was indeed what the word signifies: the science of soul; and upon this science was securely based the collateral and subordinate science of genuine physiology. Today, however, it is physiology which serves as the basis for psychology because of a mistaken view of man’s constitution. It is a case of hysteron proteron — putting the cart before the horse.
(TG) Psychometry. Lit ., Soul-measuring; reading or seeing, not with the physical eyes, but with the soul or inner Sight.
(TG) Psychophobia. Lit ., Soul-fear, applied to materialists and certain atheists, who become struck with madness at the very mention of Soul or Spirit.
(TG) Psylli {Greek}. Serpent-charmers of Africa and Egypt.
(TG) Ptah, or Pthah {Egyp}. The son of Kneph in the Egyptian Pantheon. He is the Principle of Light and Life through which creation or rather evolution took place. The Egyptian logos and creator, the Demiurgos. A very old deity, as, according to Herodotus, he had a temple erected to him by Menes, the first king of Egypt. He is giver of life and the self-born, and the father of Apis, the sacred bull, conceived through a ray from the Sun. Ptah is thus the prototype of Osiris, a later deity. Herodotus makes him the father of the Kabiri, the mystery-gods; and the Targum of Jerusalem says Egyptians called the wisdom of the First Intellect Ptah; hence he is Mahat the divine wisdom; though from another aspect he is Swabhavat, the self-created substance, as a prayer addressed to him in the Ritual of the Dead says, after calling Ptah father of fathers and of all gods, generator of all men produced from his substance: Thou art without father, being engendered by thy own will; thou art without mother, being born by the renewal of thine own substance from whom proceeds substance .
(PV) Pucbal-chaj {quiche-maya} The place where the Came buried the Seven Ahpu after beheading them in Xibalba.
(TG) Puja {Sans}. An offering; worship and divine honours offered to an idol or something sacred.
(WG) Puja, worship or adoration to idols, images or persons.
(TG) Pulastya {Sans}. One of the seven mind-born sons of Brahma; the reputed father of the Nagas (serpents, also Initiates) and other symbolical creatures.
(TG) Pums {Sans}. Spirit, supreme Purusha, Man.
(TG) Punarjanma {Sans}. The power of evolving objective manifestations; motion of forms; also, re-birth.
(FY) Punarjanmam, power of evolving objective manifestation; re-birth.
(SKf) Punarjanman Rebirth; a compound of punar — again, and janman — birth. Punarjanman is a general term for the ever-recurring process that all beings undergo in different bodies and different states of consciousness in their eternal pilgrimage through space. Therefore Punarjanman includes the English terms of Reembodiment, Palingenesis, Reincarnation, and Regeneration. Spiritual Punarjanman is Initiation: birth into wider and grander spheres of consciousness.
(SP) Punarjanman — rebirth, reincarnation.
(TG) Pundarik-aksha {Sans}. Lit., lotus-eyed, a title of Vishnu. Supreme and imperishable glory, as translated by some Orientalists.
(WG) Pura, filling; rising of a river; flood; high water; formerly.
(TG) Puraka {Sans}. Inbreathing process; a way of breathing as regulated according to the prescribed rules of Hatha Yoga.
(FY) Puraka, in-breathing, regulated according to the system of Hatha Yoga.
(TG) Puranas {Sans}. Lit., ancient. A collection of symbolical and allegorical writings — eighteen in number now — supposed to have been composed by Vyasa, the author of Mahabharata.
(KT) Puranas {Sans} Lit., the ancient, referring to Hindu writings or Scriptures, of which there is a considerable number.
(FY) Puranas (lit. old writings). A collection of symbolical Brahmanical writings. They are eighteen in number, and are supposed to have been composed by Vyasa, the author of the Mahabharata.
(WG) Puranas, a large class of Indian works of an historical and prophetic character. They are eighteen in number, as Brahma, Padma, Vishnu, Vrihan-naradiya, Bhagavata, Martanda, Agni, Bhavisya, Brahma-vairvata, Linga, Varaha, Skanda, Vamana, Kurma, Matsya, Garuda, Brahmanda. There are eighteen minor Puranas. (Literally, tales of old times, from pura , formerly, once upon a time
(OG) Puranas — {Sans} A word which literally means ancient, belonging to olden times. In India the word is especially used as a term comprehending certain well-known sacred scriptures, which popular and even scholarly authorities ascribe to the poet Vyasa. The Puranas contain the entire body of ancient Indian mythology. They are usually considered to be eighteen in number, and each Purana, to be complete, is supposed to consist of five topics or themes. These five topics or themes are commonly enumerated as follows: (1) the beginnings or creation of the universe; (2) its renewals and destructions, or manvantaras and pralayas; (3) the genealogies of the gods, other divine beings, heroes, and patriarchs; (4) the reigns of the various manus; and (5) a resume of the history of the solar and lunar races. Practically none of the Puranas as they stand in modern versions contains all these five topics, except perhaps the Vishnu-Purana , probably the most complete in this sense of the word; and even the Vishnu-Purana contains a great deal of matter not directly to be classed under these five topics. All the Puranas also contain a great deal of symbolical and allegorical writing.
(SK)o Purana The Puranas are allegorical writings which contain ancient legends and archaic traditions of the human race and of our universe. They are called Puranas, a word meaning ‘ancient,’ because they are relics of antiquity passed on by memory from teacher to pupil.
(IN) Purana(s) {Sans} Ancient stories; collections of Hindu allegories and myths on cosmic and human life-cycles.
(SP) Purana — literally ancient, a class of Hindu mythological texts.
(TG) Purohitas {Sans}. Family priests; Brahmans.
(GH) Purujit A hero on the side of the Pandavas, brother of Kuntibhoja . (Meaning of the word itself: conquering many. Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 2)
PURUCKER, Gottfried de — link to biography and works
(TG) Pururavas {Sans}. The son of Budha, the son of Soma (the moon), and of Ila; famous for being the first to produce fire by the friction of two pieces of wood, and make it (the fire) triple. An occult character.
(TG) Purusha {Sans}. Man , heavenly man. Spirit, the same as Narayana in another aspect. The Spiritual Self.
(FY) Purusha, spirit
(WG) Purusha, spirit; the intelligence pervading nature; the divine spirit infusing matter.
(OG) Purusha — {Sans} A word meaning man, the Ideal Man, like the Qabbalistic Adam Qadmon, the primordial entity of space, containing with and in prakriti or nature all the septenary (or denary) scales of manifested being. More mystically Purusha has a number of different significancies. In addition to meaning the Heavenly Man or Ideal Man, it is frequently used for the spiritual man in each individual human being or, indeed, in every self-conscious entity — therefore a term for the spiritual self. Purusha also sometimes stands as an interchangeable term with Brahma, the evolver or creator.
Probably the simplest and most inclusive significance of Purusha as properly used in the esoteric philosophy is expressed in the paraphrase the entitative, individual, everlasting divine-spiritual self, the spiritual monad, whether of a universe or of a solar system, or of an individual entity in manifested life, such as man.
(GH) Purusha literally ‘Man’: used in the sense of the Ideal Man ( i.e., the Primordial Entity of Space), likewise for the Spiritual Man in each human being — equivalent to Spiritual Self. Purusha also sometimes stands as an interchangeable term with Brahma, the Evolver or ‘Creator.’ In another aspect Purusha (Spirit) is equivalent to the energic force in the universe of which Prakriti (Matter) is the other pole. Purusha and Prakriti are but the two primeval aspects of the One and Secondless. They produce all things, but they are essentially one and not two. ( Secret Doctrine, I, p. 281) ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 59, see also p. 96
(SK)o Purusha A word literally meaning ‘man’; but bearing the mystical significance of the ‘Ideal Man,’ the Higher Self within. The term Purusha is often used in the Esoteric philosophy to express the Spirit or the everlasting entitative individual of a Universe, a Solar System, or of a man. Purusha comes from the verb-root pri — to fill, to make complete, to bestow.
(IN) Purusha {Sans} Ideal or cosmic man, Hindu equivalent of Adam Kadmon; the universal spirit that animates prakriti, its substantial counterpart or pole; the individual spiritual self or monad of any entity.
(SP) purusha — person, spirit, or spiritual monad.
(TG) Purusha Narayana {Sans}. Primordial male — Brahma.
(TG) Purushottama {Sans}. Lit., best of men; metaphysically, however, it is spirit, the Supreme Soul of the universe; a title of Vishnu.
(WG) Purushottama, the Supreme Spirit. ( purusha , life principle, spirit; uttama , uppermost, highest
(TG) Purvaja {Sans}. Pregenetic, the same as the Orphic Protologos ; a title of Vishnu.
(WG) Purva-mimansa, one of the six systems of Indian philosophy; an Upanishad (sometimes called the Karma-Mimansa), being an inquiry into the first or ritual portion of the Veda. It is really an interpretation of the text of the Veda, and is generally called the Mimansa, the term Vedanta– end of the Veda — being applied to the Uttara-Mimansa, which is an exposition of the later portion of the Veda or Upanishads. ( purva, prior, ancient, mimansa , discussion
(TG) Purvashadha {Sans}. An asterism.
(TG) Pushan {Sans}. A Vedic deity, the real meaning of which remains unknown to Orientalists. It is qualified as the Nourisher, the feeder of all (helpless) beings. Esoteric philosophy explains the meaning. Speaking of it the Taittiriya Brahmana says that, When Prajapati formed living beings, Pushan nourished them. This then is the same mysterious force that nourishes the foetus and unborn babe, by Osmosis, and which is called the atmospheric (or akasic ) nurse, and the father nourisher. When the lunar Pitris had evolved men, these remained senseless and helpless, and it is Pushan who fed primeval man. Also a name of the Sun.
(WG) Pushan, the Deity in the sun.
(TG) Pushkala {Sans} or Puskola. A palm leaf prepared for writing on, used in Ceylon. All the native books are written on such palm leaves, and last for centuries.
(TG) Pushkara {Sans}. A blue lotus; the seventh Dwipa or zone of Bharatavarsha (India). A famous lake near Ajmere; also the proper name of several persons.
(TG) Puto {Sans}. An island in China where Kwan-Shai-Yin and Kwan-Yin have a number of temples and monasteries.
(TG) Putra {Sans}. A son.
(TG) Pu-tsi K’iun-ling {Chin}. Lit., the Universal Saviour of all beings. A title of Avalokiteswara, and also of Buddha.
(TG) Pygmalion {Greek}. A celebrated sculptor and statuary in the island of Cyprus, who became enamoured of a statue he had made. So the Goddess of beauty, taking pity on him, changed it into a living woman (Ovid, Met. The above is an allegory of the soul.
(TG) Pymander {Greek}. The Thought divine. The Egyptian Prometheus and the personified Nous or divine light, which appears to and instructs Hermes Trismegistus, in a hermetic work called Pymander.
(TG) Pyrrha {Greek}. A daughter of Epimetheos and Pandora, who was married to Deucalion. After a deluge when mankind was almost annihilated, Pyrrha and Deucalion made men and women out of stones which they threw behind them.
(TG) Pyrrhonism {Greek}. The doctrine of Scepticism as first taught by Pyrrho, though his system was far more philosophical than the blank denial of our modern Pyrrhonists.
(TG) Pythagoras {Greek}. The most famous of mystic philosophers, born at Samos, about 586 B.C. He seems to have travelled all over the world, and to have culled his philosophy from the various systems to which he had access. Thus, he studied the esoteric sciences with the Brachmanes of India, and astronomy and astrology in Chaldea and Egypt. He is known to this day in the former country under the name of Yavanacharya (Ionian teacher). After returning he settled in Crotona, in Magna Grecia, where he established a college to which very soon resorted all the best intellects of the civilised centres. His father was one Mnesarchus of Samos, and was a man of noble birth and learning. It was Pythagoras who was the first to teach the heliocentric system, and who was the greatest proficient in geometry of his century. It was he also who created the word philosopher, composed of two words meaning a lover of wisdom — philo-sophos. As the greatest mathematician, geometer and astronomer of historical antiquity, and also the highest of the metaphysicians and scholars, Pythagoras has won imperishable fame. He taught reincarnation as it is professed in India and much else of the Secret Wisdom.
(KT) Pythagoras. The most famous mystic philosopher, born at Samos about 586 B.C., who taught the heliocentric system and reincarnation, the highest mathematics and the highest metaphysics, and who had a school famous throughout the world. (See for fuller particulars, Theos. Gloss
(TG) Pythagorean Pentacle {Greek}. A Kabbalistic six-pointed star with an eagle at the apex and a bull and a lion under the face of a man; a mystic symbol adopted by the Eastern and Roman Christians, who place these animals beside the four Evangelists.
(TG) Pythia or Pythoness {Greek}. Modern dictionaries inform us that the term means one who delivered the oracles at the temple of Delphi, and any female supposed to have the spirit of divination in her — a witch (Webster). This is neither true, just nor correct. On the authority of Iamblichus, Plutarch and others, a Pythia was a priestess chosen among the sensitives of the poorer classes, and placed in a temple where oracular powers were exercised. There she had a room secluded from all but the chief Hierophant and Seer, and once admitted, was, like a nun, lost to the world. Sitting on a tripod of brass placed over a fissure in the ground, through which arose intoxicating vapours, these subterranean exhalations, penetrating her whole system, produced the prophetic mania, in which abnormal state she delivered oracles. Aristophanes in Vaestas I., reg. 28, calls the Pythia ventriloqua vates or the ventriloquial prophetess, on account of her stomach -voice . The ancients placed the soul of man (the lower Manas) or his personal self-consciousness, in the pit of his stomach. We find in the fourth verse of the second Nabhanedishta hymn of the Brahmans: Hear, O sons of the gods, one who speaks through his name (nabha), for he hails you in your dwellings! This is a modern somnambulic phenomenon. The navel was regarded in antiquity as the circle of the sun, the seat of divine internal light. Therefore was the oracle of Apollo at Delphi, the city of Delphus, the womb or abdomen — while the seat of the temple was called the omphalos, navel. As well-known, a number of mesmerized subjects can read letters, hear, smell and see through that part of their body. In India there exists to this day a belief (also among the Parsis) that adepts have flames in their navels, which enlighten for them all darkness and unveil the spiritual world. It is called with the Zoroastrians the lamp of Deshtur or the High Priest; and the light or radiance of the Dikshita (the initiate) with the Hindus.
(IU) Pythia, Or Pythoness. — Webster dismisses the word very briefly by saying that it was the name of one who delivered the oracles at the Temple of Delphi, and any female supposed to have the spirit of divination in her — a witch , which is neither complimentary, exact, nor just. A Pythia, upon the authority of Plutarch, Iamblichus, Lamprias, and others, was a nervous sensitive; she was chosen from among the poorest class, young and pure. Attached to the temple, within whose precincts she had a room, secluded from every other, and to which no one but the priest, or seer, had admittance, she had no communications with the outside world, and her life was more strict and ascetic than that of a Catholic nun. Sitting on a tripod of brass placed over a fissure in the ground, through which arose intoxicating vapors, these subterranean exhalations penetrating her whole system produced the prophetic mania. In this abnormal state she delivered oracles. She was sometimes called ventriloqua vates , the ventriloquist-prophetess. [See Pantheon: Myths, p. 31; also Aristophanes in Voestas, I., reg. 28.]
The ancients placed the astral soul of man, [[psuche]]or his self-consciousness, in the pit of the stomach. The Brahmans shared this belief with Plato and other philosophers. Thus we find in the fourth verse of the second Nabhanedishtha Hymn it is said: Hear, O sons of the gods (spirits) one who speaks through his navel (nabha) for he hails you in your dwellings!
Many of the Sanscrit scholars agree that this belief is one of the most ancient among the Hindus. The modern fakirs, as well as the ancient gymnosophists, unite themselves with their Atman and the Deity by remaining motionless in contemplation and concentrating their whole thought on their navel. As in modern somnambulic phenomena, the navel was regarded as the circle of the sun, the seat of internal divine light. [The oracle of Apollo was at Delphos, the city of the [[delphus]], womb or abdomen; the place of the temple was denominated the omphalos or navel. The symbols are female and lunary; reminding us that the Arcadians were called Proseleni, pre-Hellenic or more ancient than the period when Ionian and Olympian lunar worship was introduced.] Is the fact of a number of modern somnambulists being enabled to read letters, hear, smell, and see, through that part of their body to be regarded again as a simple coincidence, or shall we admit at last that the old sages knew something more of physiological and psychological mysteries than our modern Academicians? In modern Persia, when a magician (often simply a mesmerizer) is consulted upon occasions of theft and other puzzling occurrences, he makes his manipulations over the pit of his stomach, and so brings himself into a state of clairvoyance. Among the modern Parsis, remarks a translator of the Rig-vedas, there exists a belief up to the present day that their adepts have a flame in their navel, which enlightens to them all darkness and discloses the spiritual world, as well as all things unseen, or at a distance. They call it the lamp of the Deshtur, or high priest; the light of the Dikshita (the initiate), and otherwise designate it by many other names.
(TG) Pytho {Greek}. The same as Ob — a fiendish, devilish influence; the ob through which the sorcerers are said to work.
(TG) Q. — The seventeenth letter of the English Alphabet. It is the obsolete AEolian Qoppa, and the Hebrew Koph . As a numeral it is 100, and its symbol is the back of the head from the ears to the neck. With the AEolian Occultists it stood for the symbol of differentiation.
(TG) Qabbalah {Hebr}. The ancient Chaldean Secret Doctrine, abbreviated into Kabala. An occult system handed down by oral transmission; but which, though accepting tradition, is not in itself composed of merely traditional teachings, as it was once a fundamental science, now disfigured by the additions of centuries, and by interpolation by the Western Occultists, especially by Christian Mystics. It treats of hitherto esoteric interpretations of the Jewish Scriptures, and teaches several methods of interpreting Biblical allegories. Originally the doctrines were transmitted “from mouth to ear” only, says Dr. W. Wynn Westcott, “in an oral manner from teacher to pupil who received them; hence the name Kabbalah, Qabalah, or Cabbala from the Hebrew root QBL, to receive. Besides this Theoretic Kabbalah, there was created a Practical branch, which is concerned with the Hebrew letters, as types alike of Sounds, Numbers, and Ideas.” (See “Gematria”, “Notaricon”, “Temura” For the original book of the Qabbalah — the Zohar — see further on. But the Zohar we have now is not the Zohar left by Simeon Ben Jochai to his son and secretary as an heirloom. The author of the present approximation was one Moses de Leon, a Jew of the 13th century. (See “Kabalah” and “Zohar”
(WG) Qaballah, this is also written Kaballah and Kabalah, which see. For a good series of hints on the Kabala see Lucifer, vol. x, May 92, p. 185 .
(OG) Qabbalah — (More frequently spelled Kabala or Kabbala The Hebrew word for what the Jewish theosophical initiates called “the Tradition,” or “the Secret Doctrine” — meaning something which is handed down or passed down from man to man by tradition; from a Hebrew word meaning “to receive” or “to take over.” Unquestionably the Jewish Qabbalah existed as a traditional system of doctrine long before the present manuscripts of it were written, for these are of comparatively late production and probably date from the European Middle Ages; and one proof of this statement is found in the fact that in the earliest centuries of the Christian era several of the Church Fathers of the new Christian religion used language which could have been taken only from the Hebrew theosophy, that is, the Hebrew Qabbalah. The expressions here are in some cases identic, and the thought is in all cases the same. The Zohar may be called the original and main book of the Qabbalah. The basis of the Jewish Qabbalah was the archaic Chaldean secret doctrine which was a system of occult or esoteric philosophy handed down in part by oral, and in part by written, transmission — and mostly by oral reception, wholly so in the case of the deeper mysteries of the Qabbalah. The Jewish Qabbalah, such as it exists today, has been disfigured and distorted by the interpolations and mutilations of many Western occultists, especially by mystics of strong Christian bias. The Qabbalah, therefore, is essentially the theosophy of the Jews, or rather the form which the universal theosophy of the archaic ages took in its transmission through the Jewish mind.
(TG) Qai-yin {Hebr}. The same as Cain.
(TG) Qaniratha {avesta-mazdean}. Our earth, in the Zoroastrian Scriptures, which is placed, as taught in the Secret Doctrine, in the midst of the other six Karshwars, or globes of the terrestrial chain. (See Secret Doctrine, II. p. 759
(TG) Qadmon, Adam, or Adam Kadmon {Hebr}. The Heavenly or Celestial Man,: the Microcosm . He is the manifested Logos; the third Logos according to Occultism, or the Paradigm of Humanity.
(TG) Q’lippoth {Hebr}, or Klippoth . The world of Demons or Shells; the same as the Aseeyatic World, called also Olam Klippoth . It is the residence of Samael, the Prince of Darkness in the Kabbalistic allegories. But note what we read in the Zohar (ii. 43 a ): “For the service of the Angelic World, the Holy. . . . made Samael and his legions, i.e ., the world of action, who are as it were the clouds to be used (by the higher or upper Spirits, our Egos ) to ride upon in their descent to the earth, and serve, as it were, for their horses”. This, in conjunction with the fact that Q’lippoth contains the matter of which stars, planets, and even men are made, shows that Samael with his legions is simply chaotic, turbulent matter, which is used in its finer state by spirits to robe themselves in. For speaking of the “vesture” or form (rupa) of the incarnating Egos, it is said in the Occult Catechism that they, the Manasaputras or Sons of Wisdom, use for the consolidation of their forms, in order to descend into lower spheres, the dregs of Swabhavat, or that plastic matter which is throughout Space, in other words, primordial ilus . And these dregs are what the Egyptians have called Typhon and modern Europeans Satan, Samael, etc., etc. Deus est Demon inversus — the Demon is the lining of God.
(TG) Quadrivium {Latin}. A term used by the Scholastics during the Middle Ages to designate the last four paths of learning — of which there were originally seven. Thus grammar, rhetoric and logic were called the trivium, and arithmetic, geometry, music and astronomy (the Pythagorean obligatory sciences) went under the name of quadrivium .
(KT) Quaternary. The four lower “principles in man,” those which constitute his personality (i.e., Body, Astral Double, Prana or life, organs of desire and lower Manas, or brain-mind), as distinguished from the Higher Ternary or Triad, composed of the higher Spiritual Soul, Mind and Atman (Higher Self).
(WG) Quaternary, the four lower “principles” in man’s sevenfold constitution, to wit: Rupa, Life, Astral Body, and Kama . These four separate and disintegrate in Kama loka after death, for when the link is broken the deserted physical body is as much in Kama loka as the others. The symbol of the Quaternary is a square.
(TG) Quetzo-Cohuatl #azt. The serpent-god in the Mexican Scriptures and legends. His wand and other “land-marks” show him to be some great Initiate of antiquity, who received the name of “Serpent” on account of his wisdom, long life and powers. To this day the aboriginal tribes of Mexico call themselves by the names of various reptiles, animals and birds.
(TG) Quiche Cosmogony. Called Popol Vuh ; discovered by the Abbe Brasseur de Bourbourg. (See “Popol Vuh”
(PV) Quiche-Maya At the time of the Conquest, the principal Maya people living in the highlands of what is now Guatemala, north of Lake Atitlan. Its chiefs claimed descent from ruling families in Tula, Mexico. Like all Maya tribes, the Quiche-Maya regarded themselves as the direct descendants of the Supreme Being and the creator and builder gods.
(TG) Quietists. A religious sect founded by a Spanish monk named Molinos. Their chief doctrine was that contemplation (an internal state of complete rest and passivity) was the only religious practice possible, and constituted the whole of religious observances. They were the Western Hatha Yogis and passed their time in trying to separate their minds from the objects of sense. The practice became a fashion in France and also in Russia during the early portion of this century.
(TG) Quinanes. A very ancient race of giants, of whom there are many traditions, not only in the folk-lore but in the history of Central America. Occult science teaches that the race which preceded our own human race was one of giants, which gradually decreased, after the Atlantean deluge had almost swept them off the face of the earth, to the present size of man.
(TG) Quindecemvir {Latin}. The Roman priest who had charge of the Sibylline books.
(TG) Qu-tamy {Chald}. The name of the mystic who receives the revelations of the moon-goddess in the ancient Chaldean work, translated into Arabic, and retranslated by Chwolsohn into German, under the name of Nabathean Agriculture .
(TG) R. — The eighteenth letter of the alphabet; “the canine”, as its sound reminds one of a snarl. In the Hebrew alphabet it is the twentieth, and its numeral is 200. It is equivalent as Resh to the divine name Rahim (clemency); and its symbols are, a sphere, a head, or a circle.
(TG) Ra {Egyp}. The divine Universal Soul in its manifested aspect — the ever-burning light; also the personified Sun.
(TG) Rabbis {Hebr}. Originally teachers of the Secret Mysteries, the Qabbalah; later, every Levite of the priestly caste became a teacher and a Rabbin. (See the series of Kabbalistic Rabbis by W.W.W1
(TG) 1 Rabbi Abulafia of Saragossa, born in 1240, formed a school of Kabbalah named after him; his chief works were The Seven Paths of the Law and The Epistle to Rabbi Solomon.
(TG) 2 Rabbi Akiba. Author of a famous Kabbalistic work, the “Alphabet of R.A.”, which treats every letter as a symbol of an idea and an emblem of some sentiment; the Book of Enoch was originally a portion of this work, which appeared at the close of the eighth century. It was not purely a Kabbalistic treatise.
(TG) 3 Rabbi Azariel ben Menachem (A.D. 1160). The author of the Commentary on the Ten Sephiroth, which is the oldest purely Kabbalistic work extant, setting aside the Sepher Yetzirah, which although older, is not concerned with the Kabbalistic Sephiroth. He was the pupil of Isaac the Blind, who is the reputed father of the European Kabbalah, and he was the teacher of the equally famous R. Moses Nachmanides.
(TG) 4 Rabbi Moses Botarel (1480). Author of a famous commentary on the Sepher Yetzirah; he taught that by ascetic life and the use of invocations, a man’s dreams might be made prophetic.
(TG) 5 Rabbi Chajim Vital (1600). The great exponent of the Kabbalah as taught R. Isaac Loria: author of one of the most famous works, Otz Chiim, or Tree of Life — from this Knorr von Rosenroth has taken the Book on the Rashith ha Gilgalim, revolutions of souls, or scheme of reincarnations.
(TG) 6 Rabbi Ibn Gebirol. A famous Hebrew Rabbi, author of the hymn Kether Malchuth, or Royal Diadem, which appeared about 1050; it is a beautiful poem, embodying the cosmic doctrines of Aristotle, and it even now forms part of the Jewish special service for the evening preceding the great annual Day of Atonement (See Ginsburg and Sachs on the Religious Poetry of the Spanish Jews). This author is also known as Avicebron.
(TG) 7 Rabbi Gikatilla. A distinguished Kabbalist who flourished about 1300: he wrote the famous books, The Garden of Nuts, The Gate to the Vowel Points, The mystery of the shining Metal, and The Gates of Righteousness. He laid especial stress on the use of Gematria, Notaricon and Temura.
(TG) 8 Rabbi Isaac the Blind of Posquiero. The first who publicly taught in Europe, about A.D. 1200, the Theosophic doctrines of the Kabbalah.
(TG) 9 Rabbi Loria (also written Luria, and also named Ari from his initials). Founded a school of the Kabbalah circa 1560. He did not write any works, but his disciples treasured up his teachings, and R. Chajim Vital published them.
(TG) 10 Rabbi Moses Cordovero (A.D. 1550). The author of several Kabbalistic works of a wide reputation, viz., A Sweet Light, The Book of Retirement, and The Garden of Pomegranates; this latter can be read in Latin in Knorr von Rosenroth’s Kabbalah Denudata, entitled Tractatus de Animo, ex libro Pardes Rimmonim . Cordovero is notable for an adherence to the strictly metaphysical part, ignoring the wonder-working branch which Rabbi Sabbatai Zevi practised, and almost perished in the pursuit of.
(TG) 11 Rabbi Moses de Leon (circa 1290 A.D. The editor and first publisher of the Zohar, or “Splendour”, the most famous of all the Kabbalistic volumes, and almost the only one of which any large part has been translated into English. This Zohar is asserted to be in the main the production of the still more famous Rabbi Simon ben Jochai, who lived in the reign of the Emperor Titus.
(TG) 12 Rabbi Moses Maimonides (died 1304). A famous Hebrew Rabbi and author, who condemned the use of charms and amulets, and objected to the Kabbalistic use of the divine names.
(TG) 13 Rabbi Sabbatai Zevi (born 1641). A very famous Kabbalist, who passing beyond the dogma became of great reputation as a thaumaturgist, working wonders by the divine names. Later in life he claimed Messiahship and fell into the hands of the Sultan Mohammed IV. of Turkey, and would have been murdered, but saved his life by adopting the Mohammedan religion. (See Jost on Judaism and its Sects
(TG) 14 Rabbi Simon ben Jochai (circa A.D. 70-80). It is round this name that cluster the mystery and poetry of the origin of the Kabbalah as a gift of the deity to mankind. Tradition has it that the Kabbalah was a divine theosophy first taught by God to a company of angels, and that some glimpses of its perfection were conferred upon Adam; that the wisdom passed from him unto Noah; thence to Abraham, from whom the Egyptians of his era learned a portion of the doctrine. Moses derived a partial initiation from the land of his birth, and this was perfected by direct communications with the deity. From Moses it passed to the seventy elders of the Jewish nation, and from them the theosophic scheme was handed from generation to generation; David and Solomon especially became masters of this concealed doctrine. No attempt, the legends tell us, was made to commit the sacred knowledge to writing until the time of the destruction of the second Temple by Titus, when Rabbi Simon ben Jochai, escaping from the besieged Jerusalem, concealed himself in a cave, where he remained for twelve years. Here he, a Kabbalist already, was further instructed by the prophet Elias. Here Simon taught his disciples, and his chief pupils, Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Abba, committed to writing those teachings which in later ages became known as the Zohar, and were certainly published afresh in Spain by Rabbi Moses de Leon, about 1280. A fierce contest has raged for centuries between the learned Rabbis of Europe around the origin of the legend, and it seems quite hopeless to expect ever to arrive at an accurate decision as to what portion of the Zohar, if any, is as old as Simon ben Jochai. (See “Zohar” [W.W.W.]
RACE(S)
Theosophically races are concerning human life-waves on earth — nothing to do with ethnicity.
(OG) Races — During evolution on our earth (and on the other six manifest globes of the planetary chain of earth correspondentially), mankind as a life-wave passes through seven evolutionary stages called root-races. Seven such root-races form the evolutionary cycle on this globe earth in this fourth round through the planetary chain; and this evolutionary cycle through our globe earth is called one globe round. We are at the present time in the fourth subrace of our present fifth root-race, on globe D or our earth. Each root-race is divided in our teachings into seven minor races, and each one of these seven minor races is again in its turn subdivided into seven branchlet or still smaller racial units, etc. The student who is interested in the matter of tracing the evolutionary arrangement or history of the seven root-races on our globe earth is referred primarily to H. P. Blavatsky’s The Secret Doctrine, and secondarily to Fundamentals of the Esoteric Philosophy . Each one of the seven root-races reaches its maximum of material efflorescence and power at about its middle point. When half of the cycle of any one of the seven root-races is run, then the racial cataclysm ensues, for such is the way in which nature operates; and at this middle racial point, at the middle point of the fourth subrace of the mother-race or root-race, a new root-race begins or is born out of the preceding root-race, and pursues its evolution from birth towards maturity, side by side with, or rather in connection with, the latter half of the preceding mother-race or root-race. It is in this fashion that the root-races overlap each other, a most interesting fact in ethnological or racial history. This overlapping likewise takes place in the cases of the minor and branchlet races. It will be between sixteen thousand and twenty thousand years more before the racial cataclysm will ensue which will cut our own fifth root-race in two — exactly as the same racial cataclysmic occurrence happened to the fourth-race Atlanteans who preceded us, and to the third-race Lemurians who preceded them; and as it will happen to the two root-races which will follow ours, the sixth and seventh — for we are now approaching the middle point of our own fifth root-race, because we are nearing the middle point of the fourth subrace of this fifth root-race. ( See also Globe, Planetary Chain, Round)
(WG) Race, a division of Humanity. Occultism teaches that Mankind arises on the Earth in seven successive classes, called races. Each of these again divides into sub-races. The present “civilized” nations constitute the Fifth Subrace of the Fifth Root-Race; and it is taught that there are still extant specimens of the older races.
(TG) Radha {Sans}. The shepherdess among the Gopis (shepherdesses) of Krishna, who was the wife of the god.
(TG) Raga {Sans}. One of the five Kleshas (afflictions) in Patanjali’s Yoga philosophy. In Sankhya Karika, it is the “obstruction” called love and desire in the physical or terrestrial sense. The five Kleshas are: Avidya, or ignorance; Asmita, selfishness, or “I-am-ness”; Raga, love ; Dwesha, hatred; and Abhinivesa, dread of suffering.
(WG) Raga, emotion, feeling, love; joy, pleasure; regret, sorrow; the quality of rajas. (See Guna, also Rajoguna
(TG) Ragnarok {Nors}. A kind of metaphysical entity called the “Destroyer” and the “Twilight of the Gods”, the two-thirds of whom are destroyed at the “Last Battle” in the Edda. Ragnarok lies in chains on the ledge of a rock so long as there are some good men in the world; but when all laws are broken and all virtue and good vanish from it, then Ragnarok will be unbound and allowed to bring every imaginable evil and disaster on the doomed world.
(MO) Ragnarok {Nors} (rang-na-reuk) [ragna rulers + rok ground] When the ruling deities withdraw to their ground; end of a world’s lifetime
(TG) Ragon, J. M. A French Mason, a distinguished writer and great symbologist, who tried to bring Masonry back to its pristine purity. He was born at Bruges in 1789, was received when quite a boy into the Lodge and Chapter of the “Vrais Amis”, and upon removing to Paris founded the Society of the Trinosophes. It is rumoured that he was the possessor of a number of papers given to him by the famous Count de St. Germain, from which he had all his remarkable knowledge upon early Masonry. He died at Paris in 1866, leaving a quantity of books written by himself and masses of MSS., which were bequeathed by him to the “Grand Orient”. Of the mass of his published works very few are obtainable, while others have entirely disappeared. This is due to mysterious persons (Jesuits, it is believed) who hastened to buy up every edition they could find after his death. In short; his works are now extremely rare.
(TG) Rahasya {Sans}. A name of the Upanishads. Lit ., secret essence of knowledge.
(SKs) Rahasya Any secret doctrine or mystery-truth, any recondite or esoteric thought; derived from the verb-root rah — to part, to separate.
(TG) Rahat. The same as “Arhat”; the adept who becomes entirely free from any desires on this plane, by acquiring divine knowledge and powers.
(WG) Rahat, the same as Arhat and Arahat which see.
(TG) Ra’hmin Seth {Hebr}. According to the Kabala (or Qabbalah), the “soul-sparks”, contained in Adam (Kadmon), went into three sources, the heads of which were his three sons. Thus, while the “soul spark” (or Ego) called Chesed went into Habel, and Geboor-ah into Qai-yin (Cain) — Ra’hmin went into Seth, and these three sons were divided into seventy human species, called “the principal roots of the human race”.
(TG) Rahu {Sans}. A Daitya (demon) whose lower parts were like a dragon’s tail. He made himself immortal by robbing the gods of some Amrita — the elixir of divine life — for which they were churning the ocean of milk. Unable to deprive him of his immortality, Vishnu exiled him from the earth and made of him the constellation Draco, his head being called Rahu and his tail Ketu — astronomically, the ascending and descending nodes. With the latter appendage he has ever since waged a destructive war on the denouncers of his robbery, the sun and the moon, and (during the eclipses) is said to swallow them. Of course the fable has a mystic and occult meaning.
(TG) Rahula {Sans}. The name of Gautama Buddha’s son.
(TG) Raibhyas {Sans}. A class of gods in the 5th Manvantara.
(TG) Raivata Manvantara {Sans}. The life-cycle presided over by Raivata Manu. As he is the fifth of the fourteen Manus (in Esotericism, Dhyan Chohans), there being seven root-Manus and seven seed-Manus for the seven Rounds of our terrestrial chain of globes (See Esotweic Buddhism by A. P. Sinnett, and the Secret Doctrine, Vol. I., “Brahminical Chronology”), Raivata presided over the third Round and was its root-Manu.
(TG) Raja {Sans}. A Prince or King in India.
(TG) Rajagriha {Sans}. A city in Magadha famous for its conversion to Buddhism in the days of the Buddhist kings. It was their residence from Bimbisara to Asoka, and was the seat of the first Synod, or Buddhist Council, held 510 B.C.
(SKv) Rajan A king; derived from the verb-root raj — to reign, to rule. Raja is the nominative form of Rajan.
(TG) Rajarshis {Sans}. The King-Rishis or King-Adepts, one of the three classes of Rishis in India; the same as the King-Hierophants of ancient Egypt.
(TG) Rajas {Sans}. The “quality of foulness” ( i.e ., differentiation), and activity in the Puranas. One of the three Gunas or divisions in the correlations of matter and nature, representing form and change.
(FY) Rajas, the quality of foulness; passionate activity.
(OG) Rajas — {Sans} One of the three gunas or “qualities” in the correlations of force and matter, the other two being respectively sattva and tamas. Rajas is the guna or the “quality” of longing, passion, activity, one of the three divisions of nature. In a sense it is the result or consequence of the elementary urge in nature producing change and the longing therefor.
(GH) Rajas In Hindu philosophy, one of the three gunas (qualities) running through the web or fabric of Nature: the quality of longing, activity, passion. (See Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. chapters 14, 18 ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 28)
(FY) Rajarshi, a king-adept.
(GH) Rajarshi Compound of rajan, ‘king’ ; rishi ‘sage’: a kingly or royal sage, i.e., kings and princes who follow the path of illumination and initiation. The Rajarshis in India were the same as the King-Hierophants of ancient Egypt. “There were three classes of Rishis in India, who were the earliest adepts known; the royal, or Rajarshis, kings and princes, who adopted the ascetic life; the Devarshis, divine, or the sons of Dharma or Yoga; and Brahmarshis, descendants of those Rishis who were the founders of gotras of Brahmans, or caste-races.” ( Secret Doctrine, II, pp. 501-2) ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 30)
(TG) Rajasas {Sans}. The elder Agnishwattas — the Fire-Pitris, “fire” standing as a symbol of enlightenment and intellect.
(WG) Rajasika, equivalent to rajoguna.
(TG) Raja-Yoga {Sans}. The true system of developing psychic and spiritual powers and union with one’s Higher Self — or the Supreme Spirit, as the profane express it. The exercise, regulation and concentration of thought. Raja-Yoga is opposed to Hatha-Yoga, the physical or psycho-physiological training in asceticism.
(FY) Raj Yoga, the true science of the development of psychic powers and union with the Supreme Spirit.
(WG) Raja-yoga . (See Yoga
(WG) Rajoguna, the quality in nature that impels to action, of mixed good and evil in its development in man, inasmuch as no action can be performed by an imperfect man without some taint of self. ( rajas, energy, activity; guna, a quality, a “single thread.”)
(TG) Raka {Sans}. The day of the full moon: a day for occult practices.
(TG) Raksha {Sans}. An amulet prepared during the full or new moon.
(TG) Rakshasas {Sans}. Lit., “raw eaters”, and in the popular superstition evil spirits, demons. Esoterically, however, they are the Gibborim (giants) of the Bible, the Fourth Race or the Atlanteans. (See Secret Doctrine, II ., 165
(FY) Rakshasas, evil spirits; literally, raw-eaters.
(WG) Rakshasas, nocturnal demons who disturb sacrifices; a name for the Atlanteans, or men of the fourth race. (Literally, “harmers,” “destroyers.”)
(GH) Rakshasas Popularly regarded as demons (evil elemental beings) residing in the sixth of the material spheres (Rakshasa-loka); in the scriptures, however, they are grouped into three distinct classes: (1) elemental beings not necessarily evil; (2) giants engaged in warfare with the gods; (3) fiends and demons haunting cemeteries, etc., disturbing sacrifices, and afflicting mankind in various ways. In the epic poems ‘Rakshasa’ is rather loosely applied to any pre-Aryan people — such as the inhabitants of Lanka under the leadership of Ravana — ultimately defeated by the Aryans. “The Rakshasas, regarded in Indian popular theology as demons, are called the ‘Preservers’ beyond the Himalayas. This double and contradictory meaning has its origin in a philosophical allegory,” ( Secret Doctrine, II, p. 165). (The following word is derived from the verbal root:) raksh, to protect. Bhagavad-Gita , W. Q. Judge, p. 65)
(SKs) Rakshasa In India a Rakshasa is popularly considered to be a ‘devil.’ In the Ramayana, one of the great Hindu epics, the Rakshasas are the evil giants of the late Atlantean Race. In still earlier times these ‘demons’ received the name of Rakshasas or ‘Protectors’ (from the verb-root raksh — to protect) because of some service rendered unto Brahma.
(TG) Rakshasi-Bhasha {Sans}. Lit., the language of the Rakshasas. In reality, the speech of the Atlanteans, our gigantic forefathers of the fourth Root-race.
(TG) Rama {Sans}. The seventh avatar or incarnation of Vishnu; the eldest son of King Dasaratha, of the Solar Race. His full name is Rama-Chandra, and he is the hero of the Ramayana. He married Sita, who was the female avatar of Lakshmi, Vishnu’s wife, and was carried away by Ravana the Demon-King of Lanka, which act led to the famous war.
(WG) Rama, in Hindu mythology the seventh Avatar, or manifestation on Earth of the Supreme. He is the hero of the Ramayana, the famous epic poem of India.
(GH) Rama Three heroes are known by the name of Rama: Parasu-rama, Rama-chandra, and Bala-rama (see Kansa). The second is the one to whom the name is especially applied, for he is the hero of the Ramayana, wherein his exploits are fully recounted. Rama was the eldest son of king Dasaratha of the Suryavansa (the Solar Dynasty) reigning at Ayodhya; he is represented as the seventh Avatara of Vishnu, incarnating at the end of the Treta-yuga (the second ‘Great Age’) for the especial purpose of delivering mankind and the gods from the iniquities caused by Ravana, the Rakshasa king of Lanka (Ceylon). Rama was known as the mightiest of those who carry arms, inasmuch as he was the only one able to bend the mighty bow of the god Siva. To him who could bend this bow, Janaka offered the hand of his daughter, Sita, in marriage; thus she became the bride of Rama. With the help of Hanuman, Rama accomplished the purpose of the gods. The Ramayana “is the mystic narrative in epic form of the struggle between Rama — the first king of the divine dynasty of the early Aryans — and Ravana, the symbolical personation of the Atlantean (Lanka) race. The former were the incarnations of the Solar Gods; the latter, of the lunar Devas. This was the great battle between Good and Evil, between white and black magic, for the supremacy of the divine forces, or of the lower terrestrial, or cosmic powers. . . . The Ramayana — every line of which has to be read esoterically — discloses in magnificent symbolism and allegory the tribulations of both man and soul.” ( Secret Doctrine, II, pp. 495-6) ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 75)
(WG) Ramanujacharya, name of the founder of a system of religious philosophy and monastic orders still in existence. He taught that the Supreme Spirit is the only reality.
(TG) Ramayana {Sans}. The famous epic poem collated with the Mahabharata. It looks as if this poem was either the original of the Iliad or vice versa, except that in Ramayana the allies of Rama are monkeys, led by Hanuman, and monster birds and other animals, all of whom fight against the Rakshasas, or demons and giants of Lanka.
(FY) Ramayana, an epic poem describing the life of Rama, a deified Indian hero.
(WG) Ramayana, the twin epic poem of the Mahabharata ; the allies of the hero (Rama) are monkeys, which under the able generalship of Hanuman finally conquer Ravana, the demon-king, and the Rakshasas, or demons and giants of Lanka or Ceylon.
(TG) Ram Mohum Roy {hindi}. The well-known Indian reformer who came to England in 1833 and died there.
(FY) Ram Mohun Roy, the well-known Indian Reformer, died 1833.
(TG) Rasa {Sans}. The mystery-dance performed by Krishna and his Gopis, the shepherdesses, represented in a yearly festival to this day, especially in Rajastan. Astronomically it is Krishna — the Sun — around whom circle the planets and the signs of the Zodiac symbolised by the Gopis. The same as the “circle-dance” of the Amazons around the priapic image, and the dance of the daughters of Shiloh (Judges xxi, and that of King David around the ark. (See Isis Unveiled, II ., pp. 45, 331 and 332
(WG) Rasa, juice; sapidity, taste; inclination.
(WG) Rasasvada, in yoga practice, the disposition (one of the obstacles) of the mind to fly from the object selected for contemplation to pleasurable ideas. ( rasa, juice; asvada , tasting, enjoying: the sipping of juices, perception of enjoyment
(TG) Rashi {Sans}. An astrological division, the sixth, relating to Kanya (Virgo) the sixth sign in the Zodiac.
(TG) Rashi-Chakra {Sans}. The Zodiac.
(TG) Rasit {Hebr}. Wisdom.
(TG) Rasollasa {Sans}. The first of the eight physical perfections, or Siddhis (phenomena), of the Hatha Yogis. Rasollasa is the prompt evolution at will of the juices of the body independently of any nutriment from without.
(TG) Rasshoo {Egyp}. The solar fires formed in and out of the primordial “waters”, or substance, of Space.
(MO) Ratatosk {Nors} (rah-tah-tosk) [rate travel + tosk tusk] Squirrel in the Tree of Life: consciousness
(MO) Rate {Nors} (rah-teh) [a drill] Bored through matter for Odin
(WG) Ratha, car, chariot, war-chariot; the body as the vehicle of the soul.
(TG) Ratnavabhasa Kalpa {Sans}. The age in which all sexual difference will have ceased to exist, and birth will take place in the Anupadaka mode, as in the second and third Root-races. Esoteric philosophy teaches that it will take place at the end of the sixth and during the seventh and last Root-race in this Round.
(TG) Ratri {Sans}. Night; the body Brahma assumed for purposes of creating the Rakshasas or alleged giant-demons.
(TG) Raumasa {Sans}. A class of devas (gods) said to have originated from the pores of Verabhadra’s skin. An allusion to the pre-Adamic race called the “sweat-born”. (Secret Doctrine, Vol . II
(TG) Ravail. The true name of the Founder of modern Spiritism in France, who is better known under the pseudonym of Allan Kardec.
(TG) Ravana {Sans}. The King-Demon (the Rakshasas), the Sovereign of Lanka (Ceylon), who carried away Sita, Rama’s wife, which led to the great war described in the Ramayana.
(TG) Ravi {Sans}. A name of the Sun.
(OG) Rebirth — One of the several aspects or branches of the general doctrine of reembodiment. A word of large and generalized significance. Signifying merely a succession of rebirths, the definition becomes generalized, excluding specific explanations as to the type or kind of reembodiment. The likeness between the idea comprised in this word and that belonging to the term reincarnation is very close, yet the two ideas are quite distinct. (For this difference see Reincarnation; also Preexistence, Metempsychosis, Transmigration, etc
(TG) Rechaka. {Sans}. A practice in Hatha Yoga, during the performance of Pranayama or the regulation of breath: namely, that of opening one nostril and emitting breath therefrom, and keeping the other closed; one of the three operations respectively called Puraka, Kumbhaka and Rechaka — operations very pernicious to health.
(FY) Rechaka, out-breathing, regulated according to the system of Hatha Yoga.
(WG) Rechaka, emptying; expelling the breath out of one of the nostrils, in yoga practice; the negation of phenomenal illusion and conviction of spirit as the only reality.
(OG) Rechaka — (Sanskrit) One of the practices used in the hatha yoga system for the regulation of the breath. The breath is expelled or expired from one of the nostrils while the other nostril is held closed with the finger, and then the operation is repeated with the other nostril. These operations, as observed under Kumbhaka, are extremely dangerous to health and mental balance, and cannot be encouraged. Indeed, they should be unequivocally discouraged.
(KT) Recollection, Remembrance, Reminiscence. Occultists make a difference between these three functions. As, however, a glossary cannot contain the full explanation of every term in all its metaphysical and subtle differences, we can only state here that these terms vary in their applications, according to whether they relate to the past or the present birth, and whether one or the other of these phases of memory emanates from the spiritual or the material brain; or, again, from the “Individuality” or the “Personality.”
(TG) Red Colour. This has always been associated with male characteristics, especially by the Etruscans and Hindoos. In Hebrew it is Adam, the same as the word for “earth” and “the first man”. It seems that nearly all myths represent the first perfect man as white. The same word without the initial A is Dam or Dem, which means Blood, also of red colour. [W.W.W.] The colour of the fourth Principle in man — Kama, the seat of desires is represented red.
(OG) Reembodiment — This term means that the living and migrating entity takes upon itself a new body at some time after death. Its meaning, therefore, is a highly generalized one, and the specific significance is that of assuming new embodiments periodically. It teaches something more than that the soul merely preexists, the idea being that the soul takes unto itself a succession of new bodies — on whatever plane it may happen to be. This particular aspect or branch of the general doctrine of the migration of living entities tells us not what kind of body the soul newly assumes, nor whether that body be taken here on earth or elsewhere, that is to say, whether the new body is to be a visible body or an invisible one in the invisible realms of nature. It simply says that the life-center reimbodies itself; and this is the essence of the specific meaning of this word. ( See also Preexistence, Rebirth, Metempsychosis, Reincarnation, etc
A Comparison of Terms which are often confused with each other in this area of study.
(TG) Reincarnation. The doctrine of rebirth, believed in by Jesus and the Apostles, as by all men in those days, but denied now by the Christians. All the Egyptian converts to Christianity, Church Fathers and others, believed in this doctrine, as shown by the writings of several. In the still existing symbols, the human-headed bird flying towards a mummy, a body, or “the soul uniting itself with its sahou (glorified body of the Ego, and also the kamalokic shell) proves this belief. “The song of the Resurrection chanted by Isis to recall her dead husband to life, might be translated Song of Rebirth”, as Osiris is collective Humanity. “Oh! Osiris [here follows the name of the Osirified mummy, or the departed], rise again in holy earth (matter), august mummy in the coffin, under thy corporeal substances”, was the funeral prayer of the priest over the deceased. “Resurrection” with the Egyptians never meant the resurrection of the mutilated mummy, but of the Soul that informed it, the Ego in a new body. The putting on of flesh periodically by the Soul or the Ego, was a universal belief; nor can anything be more consonant with justice and Karmic law. (See “Pre-existence”
(KT) Reincarnation, or Re-birth; the once universal doctrine, which taught that the Ego is born on this earth an innumerable number of times. Now-a-days it is denied by Christians, who seem to misunderstand the teachings of their own gospels. Nevertheless, the putting on of flesh periodically and throughout long cycles by the higher human Soul (Buddhi-Manas) or Ego is taught in the Bible as it is in all other ancient scriptures, and “resurrection” means only the rebirth of the Ego in another form. (Vide Theos. Gloss
(WG) Reincarnation, rebirth of the soul into human bodies. The oldest belief of the world, viz ., that the Soul or Ego of man has lived on Earth many times previously to the present life, and will be reborn, or incarnated again, many times in the future, before the full experience attainable on this planet has been gathered, Not to bee confounded with transmigration however, for which it is often mistaken. See Metempsychosis .
(OG) Reincarnation — An anglicized word of Latin derivation, meaning “reinfleshment,” the coming again into a human body of an excarnate human soul. The repetitive reembodiment of the reincarnating human ego in vehicles of human flesh — this being a special case of the general doctrine of reembodiment. This general doctrine of reembodiment applies not solely to man, but to all centers of consciousness whatsoever, or to all monads whatsoever — wheresoever they may be on the evolutionary ladder of life, and whatsoever may be their particular developmental grade thereon. The meaning of this general doctrine is very simple indeed. It is as follows: every life-consciousness-center, in other words, every monad or monadic essence, reincorporates itself repeatedly in various vehicles or bodies, to use the popular word. These bodies may be spiritual, or they may be physical, or they may be of a nature intermediate between these two, i.e., ethereal. This rule of nature, which applies to all monads without exception, takes place in all the different realms of the visible and invisible universe, and on all its different planes, and in all its different worlds. There are eight words used in the theosophical philosophy in connection with reembodiment, which are not all synonymous, although some of these eight words have almost the same specific meaning. They are: preexistence, rebirth, reembodiment, palingenesis, metensomatosis, metempsychosis, transmigration, reincarnation (see under each word for definition). Of these eight words, four only may be said to contain the four different basic ideas of the general doctrine of reembodiment, and these four are preexistence, reembodiment, metempsychosis, and transmigration. In no case is the word reincarnation identical with any of the other seven words, though of course it has grounds of strong similarity with them all, as for instance with preexistence, because obviously the entity preexists before it reincarnates; and on the same grounds it is similar to rebirth, reembodiment, and metensomatosis. The meaning of the word reincarnation differs specifically from rebirth in this, that the latter word simply means rebirth in human bodies of flesh on this earth; while the former term also contains the implication, tacit if not expressed, of possible incarnations in flesh by entities which have finished their earthly pilgrimage or evolution, but who can and sometimes do return to this earth in order to incarnate for the purpose of aiding their less evolved brothers. WW Reincarnation Now here are four words which it is exceedingly important to properly understand. They are Reincarnation, Re – embodiment, Metempsychosis, and Transmigration. All things have life, all things are pursuing a course, a pathway, tending towards a destiny, springing from a source. How is it done? There must be a method in it. It is this method which the ancient philosophers have studied and they have enriched the literature of all times with the result of their thoughts and their investigations. It is from them that we get these words — in some cases if not the words, the thought. Metempsychosis is one of these words, one of the finest of them. It generally means, in ordinary literature, or in ordinary dictionaries, what will undoubtedly strike us as an inadequate presentation. The definitions are usually flippant, often sarcastic, sometimes queer. So: “a doctrine of the ancients believed in by some of the medieval theosophists and fire-philosophers, signifying the transmigration of souls”. So it is, in one sense, but it is not in another. There is a difference between metempsychosis and transmigration. Transmigration comes from two Latin words, trans, across, and migrare, to go somewhere. We have it in migration, to migrate to a certain place. The word in English has almost the exact force of the Latin. Transmigration, then, would mean to migrate across, in other words, a passing from life to life. It does not say anything more; the definition of the word ends there. It is important to note that it does not say from animal life to human or human life to spiritual; simply the passing across from one existence to another. It may be used of animals, of men, of the gods or spiritual beings, but the above is all the word means. The conception embodied in this word has a value all its own as applied to the Greek and Latin philosophies. It was broadly applied to the teaching of Pythagoras (adopted in the Platonic Dialogs, cf. Timaeus, 42:91) which is commonly found in the Greek and Latin literatures to be something like this: that a man incarnated in a body in accordance with his deserts. If he has lived a beastly and hoggish life, in his next life he will be a hog; if he has lived a life of a different type, if his mind be of a soaring character, albeit simple, yet aspiring heavenward, in his next life he will be, perhaps, an eagle. If the man is grasping, wolfish, in his character, in his next life he will be a wolf, etc. You doubtless know that H. P. Blavatsky has dealt with this subject. Theosophy admits no transmigration of this kind, and there is no convincing reason to believe that Pythagoras taught or Plato really intended any such thing as the human rational becoming the brute irrational. But because there have been stories related of Pythagoras, about his having recognized things that belong to him when he was incarnated in bodies of previous lives, people have got the idea that he deliberately taught that men can fall from their spiritual estate in one life into the bodies of animals in another life. Proclus, and before him Iamblichus, Syrianus and other Neoplatonists state emphatically that the Greek philosophers meant nothing of the sort. They say, in substance, “Once a man, always a man”. So also in Theosophy, with one exception: that a man through a number of lives of continuous deviltry, evil, mischief-making, wickedness, and lust, can so becloud the divine spark shining within him that the whole tendency of his nature, of his character, in the cycle of reincarnation is towards lower human bodies, lower civilizations; until finally comes barbarism and savagery; and if the impetus be sufficiently strong it may even carry him out of the human circle; he cannot enter the animals (with the exception, perhaps, of the higher anthropoids) because no animals are sufficiently near enough to the human to allow the junction. The psychic laws of his make-up prevent it. When I use that word psychic I use it in the sense of the Greek word psyche ( psyche ), referring to the Kama-Manas — Kama, desire, and Manas, mind. The Psyche was likened to a butterfly by the Greeks, a beautiful image, because just as a butterfly flits from flower to flower its whole life occupied in feeding on the droplets of nectar here and there, in sucking the sweetness from all that it lights upon, so the lower aspect of mind goes after pleasure, seeking the material sweets of life; there it becomes cloyed and spiritually ill. The nature of our lower human mind –the Kama-Manas — was likened to the butterfly, continually seeking the sensations of physical life; in other words, those things which cause the greatest rush of physical vitality. Now there being no normal man who can go sufficiently low for the psychic nature, stamped as it is with the Manas, to make a junction with the animal, it is impossible, a Psychical impossibility, for a normal man to enter a sub-human body. There is one rare exception to that, the case for instance, of one of those whom our Teachers have taught us to regard as perfected men on this earth. It would be within their power, as we shall see, to make a junction if the thing could be conceived as ever desirable or probable. But in the ordinary instances of life no man could transmigrate, go over, into an animal body. The teaching of transmigration into animal bodies is also not uncommon in India; but I think it may be shown to be based on identical, or closely similar principles to those here set forth…. Now metempsychosis comes from the word meta ( meta ), ‘afterwards’, ‘with’, ‘among’, ‘over’, and empsychos ( empsychos ), to animate, from en ( en ), and psyche ( psyche ). The meaning of this is that the spirit-soul, which is the higher triad of man, the Atma-Buddhi-Manas, leaves the body at death. After its period of rest and refreshment in the heaven-world, when it is time for it to incarnate, it is drawn by the intrinsic processes or working of the Psyche, by the attractions towards matter which still remain in the spiritual man, to ‘enpsychise’ itself into another body. That is the meaning of metempsychosis. We will develop the thought by and by. The fact that it is usually called transmigration is due to the fact that reincarnation, transmigration, and metempsychosis are so little understood by lexicographers. They do not know the mystical difference between these terms. Metempsychosis then is the attraction experienced by the psyche for things of matter, which is the cause of its return to earth and of its reincarnation. Metempsychosis is the re-embodiment of the human soul in consequence of the seeds of desire, seeds of material and physical life, lying latent in the psyche or the lower mind during its heaven-rest, starting into activity, bringing it hence to earth and to incarnation. There is another sense, and a very profound one, in which metempsychosis is properly used. Reincarnation is a term which is used by all of us to signify the infleshing of the soul. It has often seemed to me that distinctions should be drawn as to the proper use of this word, because it is subject to criticism by intelligent outsiders, and I am as careless as anybody as regards the way in which that word is loosely used. I have heard people talking of the ‘reincarnation’ of the universe, or the reincarnation of a plant, or the reincarnation of a god; of course the term is an absurdity, in such a connection. The incarnation of a god is properly speaking an avatara, the descent of a divinity into flesh, a subject which we shall come to later. Reincarnation means nothing more nor less than infleshing. It is proper to speak of the infleshing of an animal soul into an animal body, of a human soul into a human body; it is also proper to speak of a god or spiritual being taking on its physical vesture as incarnating. We hardly possess the proper terms in the European language to express these differences. Inzoonization has been suggested for the re-embodiment of animals into animal bodies, the word coming from zoon ( zoon ) ‘animal’; and re-invegetalization for the transmigration or re-embodiment of the plant-soul into the bodies of plants, and these terms possess some philosophical accuracy. You see the difficulty which we have in these words, because the English language (in fact all the European languages) has not the terms to express these things. ‘Reinmetalization’ has been suggested for the re-embodiment of the life-atoms in the mineral world. Re-embodiment is probably the broadest word of them all.
(OG) Reincarnating Ego — In the method of dividing the human principles into a trichotomy of an upper duad, an intermediate duad, and a lower triad — or distributively spirit, soul, and body — the second or intermediate duad, manas-kama, or the intermediate nature, is the ordinary seat of human consciousness, and itself is composed of two qualitative parts: an upper or aspiring part, which is commonly called the reincarnating ego or the higher manas, and a lower part attracted to material things, which is the focus of what expresses itself in the average man as the human ego, his everyday ordinary seat of consciousness. When death occurs, the mortal and material portions sink into oblivion; while the reincarnating ego carries the best and noblest parts of the spiritual memory of the man that was into the devachan or heaven world of postmortem rest and recuperation, where the ego remains in the bosom of the monad or of the monadic essence in a state of the most perfect and utter bliss and peace, constantly reviewing and improving upon in its own blissful imagination all the unfulfilled spiritual yearnings and longings of the life just closed that its naturally creative faculties automatically suggest to the entity now in the devachan.
But the monad above spoken of passes from sphere to sphere on its peregrinations from earth, carrying with it the reincarnating ego, or what we may for simplicity of expression call the earth-child, in its bosom, where this reincarnating ego is in its state of perfect bliss and peace, until the time comes when, having passed through all the invisible realms connected by chains of causation with our own planet, it slowly “descends” again through these higher intermediate spheres earthwards. Coincidently does the reincarnating ego slowly begin to reawaken to self-conscious activity. Gradually it feels, at first unconsciously to itself, the attraction earthwards, arising out of the karmic seeds of thought and emotion and impulse sown in the preceding life on earth and now beginning to awaken; and as these attractions grow stronger, in other words as the reincarnating ego awakens more fully, it finds itself under the domination of a strong psychomagnetic attraction drawing it to the earth-sphere. The time finally comes when it is drawn strongly to the family on earth whose karmic attractions or karmic status or condition are the nearest to its own characteristics; and it then enters, or attaches itself to, by reason of the psychomagnetic attraction, the human seed which will grow into the body of the human being to be. Thus reincarnation takes place, and the reincarnating ego reawakens to life on earth in the body of a little child.
(TG) Rekh-get-Amen {Egyp}. The name of the priests, hierophants, and teachers of Magic, who, according to Lenormant, Maspero, the Champollions, etc., etc., “could levitate, walk the air, live under water, sustain great pressure, harmlessly suffer mutilation, read the past, foretell the future, make themselves invisible, and cure diseases” (Bonwick, Religion of Magic). And the same author adds: “Admission to the mysteries did not confer magical powers. These depended upon two things: the possession of innate capacities, and the knowledge of certain formulae employed under suitable circumstances”. Just the same as it is now.
(OG) Relativity — The modern scientific doctrine of relativity, despite its restrictions and mathematical limitations, is extremely suggestive because it introduces metaphysics into physics, does away with purely speculative ideas that certain things are absolute in a purely relative universe, and brings us back to an examination of nature as nature is and not as mathematical theorists have hitherto tacitly taken it to be. The doctrine of relativity in its essential idea of relations rather than absolutes is true; but this does not mean that we necessarily accept Einstein’s or his followers’ deductions. These latter may or may not be true, and time will show. In any case, relativity is not what it is often misunderstood to be — the naked doctrine that “everything is relative,” which would mean that there is nothing fundamental or basic or real anywhere, whence other things flow forth; in other words, that there is no positively real or fundamental divine and spiritual background of being. The relativity theory is an adumbration, a reaching out for, a groping after, a very, very old theosophical doctrine — the doctrine of maya. The manner in which theosophy teaches the conception of relativity is that while the universe is a relative universe and all its parts are therefore relative — each to each, and each to all, and all to each — yet there is a deathless reality behind, which forms the substratum or the truth of things, out of which the phenomenal in all its myriad relative manifestations flows. And there is a way, a road, a path, by which men may reach this reality behind, because it is in man as his inmost essence and therefore primal origin. In each one is fundamentally this reality of which we are all in search. Each one is the path that leads to it, for it is the heart of the universe. In a sense still more metaphysical, even the heart of a universe may be said to exist relatively in connection with other universes with their hearts. It would be quite erroneous to suppose that there is one Absolute Reality in the old-fashioned European sense, and that all relative manifestations flow forth from it, and that these relative manifestations although derived from this Absolute Reality are without links of union or origin with an Absolute even still more essential and fundamental and vaster. Once the conception of boundless infinitude is grasped, the percipient intelligence immediately realizes that it is simply hopeless, indeed impossible, to postulate ends, absolute Absolutes, as the divine ultima thule . No matter how vast and kosmic an Absolute may be, there are in sheer frontierless infinitude always innumerable other Absolutes equal to or greater than it.
(OG) Religion — An operation of the human spiritual mind in its endeavor to understand not only the how and the why of things, but comprising in addition a yearning and striving towards self-conscious union with the divine All and an endlessly growing self-conscious identification with the cosmic divine-spiritual realities. One phase of a triform method of understanding the nature of nature, of universal nature, and its multiform and multifold workings; and this phase cannot be separated from the other two phases (science and philosophy) if we wish to gain a true picture of things as they are in themselves . Human religion is the expression of that aspect of man’s consciousness which is intuitional, aspirational, and mystical, and which is often deformed and distorted in its lower forms by the emotional in man. It is usual among modern Europeans to derive the word religion from the Latin verb meaning “to bind back” — religare . But there is another derivation, which is the one that Cicero chooses, and of course he was a Roman himself and had great skill and deep knowledge in the use of his own native tongue. This other derivation comes from a Latin root meaning “to select,” “to choose,” from which, likewise, we have the word lex, “law,” i.e., the course of conduct or rule of action which is chosen as the best, and is therefore followed; in other words, that which is the best of its kind, as ascertained by selection, by trial, and by proof. Thus then, the meaning of the word religion from the Latin religio, means a careful selection of fundamental beliefs and motives by the higher or spiritual intellect, a faculty of intuitional judgment and understanding, and a consequent abiding by that selection, resulting in a course of life and conduct in all respects following the convictions that have been arrived at. This is the religious spirit. To this the theosophist would add the following very important idea: behind all the various religions and philosophies of ancient times there is a secret or esoteric wisdom given out by the greatest men who have ever lived, the founders and builders of the various world religions and world philosophies; and this sublime system in fundamentals has been the same everywhere over the face of the globe. This system has passed under various names, e.g., the esoteric philosophy, the ancient wisdom, the secret doctrine, the traditional teaching, theosophy, etc. ( See also Science, Philosophy)
(TG) Rephaim {Hebr}. Spectres, phantoms. (Secret Doctrine, II ., 279
(TG) Resha-havurah {Hebr} . Lit., the “White Head”, from which flows the fiery fluid of life and intelligence in three hundred and seventy streams, in all the directions of the Universe. The “White Head” is the first Sephira, the Crown, or first active light.
(TG) Reuchlin, John . Nicknamed the “Father of the Reformation”; the friend of Pico di Mirandola, the teacher and instructor of Erasmus, of Luther and Melancthon. He was a great Kabbalist and Occultist.
(KT) Reuchlin, John. A great German philosopher and philologist, Kabbalist and scholar. He was born at Pfortzheim in Germany, in 1455, and early in youth was a diplomat. At one period of his life he held the high office of judge of the tribunal at Tubingen, where he remained for eleven years. He was also the preceptor of Melancthon, and was greatly persecuted by the clergy for his glorification of the Hebrew Kabbala, though at the same time called the “Father of the Reformation.” He died in 1522, in great poverty, the common fate of all who in those days went against the dead-letter of the Church.
(MO) Rig {Nors} (reeg) [descent, involvement] Divine awakening of human mind
RIG VEDA
From the Rig Veda:
Nor Aught nor Nought existed; yon bright sky Was not, nor heaven’s broad roof outstretched above. What covered all? what sheltered? what concealed? Was it the water’s fathomless abyss? There was not death – yet there was nought immortal, There was no confine betwixt day and night; The only One breathed breathless by itself, Other than It there nothing since has been. Darkness there was, and all at first was veiled In gloom profound – an ocean without light — The germ that still lay covered in the husk Burst forth, one nature, from the fervent heat. . . .
Who knows the secret? who proclaimed it here? Whence, whence this manifold creation sprang? The Gods themselves came later into being — Who knows from whence this great creation sprang? That, whence all this great creation came, Whether Its will created or was mute, The Most High Seer that is in highest heaven, He knows it – or perchance even He knows not. Gazing into eternity . . . Ere the foundations of the earth were laid, . . .
Thou wert. And when the subterranean flame Shall burst its prison and devour the frame . . . Thou shalt be still as Thou wert before And knew no change, when time shall be no more. Oh! endless thought, divine Eternity.
(TG) Rig Veda {Sans}. The first and most important of the four Vedas. Fabled to have been “created” from the Eastern mouth of Brahma; recorded in Occultism as having been delivered by great sages on Lake Man(a)saravara beyond the Himalayas, dozens of thousands of years ago.
(FY) Rig Veda, the first of the Vedas.
(WG) Rig-Veda . (See Veda
(OG) Right-hand Path — From time immemorial, in all countries of the earth, among all races of men, there have been existent two opposing and antagonistic schools of occult or esoteric training, the one often technically called the Path of Light, and the other the Path of Darkness or of the Shadows. These two paths likewise are much more commonly called the right-hand path and the left-hand path, and although these are technical names in the rather shaky occultism of the Occident, the very same expressions have prevailed all over the world, and are especially known in the mystical and esoteric literature of Hindustan. The right-hand path is known in Sanskrit writings by the name dakshina-marga, and those who practice the rules of conduct and follow the manner of life enjoined upon those who follow the right-hand path are technically known as dakshinacharins, and their course of life is known as dakshinachara . Conversely, those who follow the left-hand path, often called Brothers of the Shadow, or by some similar epithet, are called vamacharins, and their school or course of life is known as vamachara . An alternative expression for vamachara is savyachara . The white magicians or Brothers of Light are therefore dakshinacharins, and the black magicians or Brothers of the Shadow, or workers of spiritual and intellectual and psychical evil, are therefore vamacharins . To speak in the mystical language of ancient Greece, the dakshinacharins or Brothers of Light pursue the winding ascent to Olympus, whereas the vamacharins or Brothers of the Left-hand follow the easy but fearfully perilous path leading downwards into ever more confusing, horrifying stages of matter and spiritual obscuration. The latter is the faciles descensus averno ( Aeneid, 6.126) of the Latin poet Virgil. Woe be to him who, refusing to raise his soul to the sublime and cleansing rays of the spiritual sun within him, places his feet upon the path which leads downwards. The warnings given to students of occultism about this matter have always been solemn and urgent, and no esotericist should at any moment consider himself safe or beyond the possibilities of taking the downward way until he has become at one with the divine monitor within his own breast, his own inner god.
(TG) Rik {Sans}. A verse of Rig-Veda.
(GH) Rik (or Rich ) A verse, especially a sacred verse recited in praise of a deity — one of the four kinds of Vedic composition. ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 66)
(TG) Riksha {Sans}. Each of the twenty-seven constellations forming the Zodiac. Any fixed star, or constellation of stars.
(MO) Rimgrimner {Nors} [ rim rime + grimner mask] A thurse, giant: cold, utter matter
(TG) Rimmon {Hebr}. A Pomegranate, the type of abundant fertility; occurs in the Old Testament; it figures in Syrian temples and was deified there, as an emblem of the celestial prolific mother of all; also a type of the full womb. [W.W.W.]
(MO) Rind {Nors} (rhymes with sinned) Earth in winter or in sleep
(TG) Pass not, The Ring. The circle within which are confined all those who still labour under the delusion of separateness.
(WG) Ring-Pass-Not, the limit of possibility in the expansion of consciousness or perception for Man, while he remains such. To cross its border-line is to enter Nirvana, to become one with all and to lose the personality. The circle is broken for all only on the great day Be-with-us, when all go into para-nirvana .
(OG) Ring-Pass-Not — A profoundly mystical and suggestive term signifying the circle or bounds or frontiers within which is contained the consciousness of those who are still under the sway of the delusion of separateness — and this applies whether the ring be large or small. It does not signify any one especial occasion or condition, but is a general term applicable to any state in which an entity, having reached a certain stage of evolutionary growth of the unfolding of consciousness, finds itself unable to pass into a still higher state because of some delusion under which the consciousness is laboring, be that delusion mental or spiritual. There is consciously a ring-pass-not for every globe of the planetary chain, a ring-pass-not for the planetary chain itself, a ring-pass-not for the solar system, and so forth. It is the entities who labor under the delusion who therefore actually create their own rings-pass-not, for these are not actual entitative material frontiers, but boundaries of consciousness. A ring-pass-not furthermore may perhaps be said with great truth to be somewhat of the nature of a spiritual laya-center or point of transmission between plane and plane of consciousness. The rings-pass-not as above said, however, have to do with phases or states of consciousness only. For instance, the ring-pass-not for the beasts is self-consciousness, i.e., the beasts have not yet been enabled to develop forth their consciousness to the point of self-consciousness or reflective consciousness except in minor degree. A dog, for example, located in a room which it desires to leave, will run to a door out of which it is accustomed to go and will sit there whining for the door to be opened. Its consciousness recognizes the point of egress, but it has not developed the self-conscious mental activity to open the door. A general ring-pass-not for humanity is their inability to self-consciously participate in spiritual self-consciousness.
(TG) Rings, Magic. These existed as talismans in every folk-lore. In Scandinavia such rings are always connected with the elves and dwarfs who were alleged to be the possessors of talismans and who gave them occasionally to human beings whom they wished to protect. In the words of the chronicler: “These magic rings brought good luck to the owner so long as they were carefully preserved; but their loss was attended with terrible misfortunes and unspeakable misery “.
(TG) Rings and Rounds. Terms employed by Theosophists in explanation of Eastern cosmogony. They are used to denote the various evolutionary cycles in the Elemental, Mineral,, Kingdoms, through which the Monad passes on any one globe, the term Round being used only to denote the cyclic passage of the Monad round the complete chain of seven globes. Generally speaking, Theosophists use the term ring as a synonym of cycles, whether cosmic, geological, metaphysical or any other.
(TG) Riphaeus {Greek}. In mythology a mountain chain upon which slept the frozen-hearted god of snows and hurricanes. In Esoteric philosophy a real prehistoric continent which from a tropical ever sunlit land has now become a desolate region beyond the Arctic Circle.
(TG) Rishabha {Sans}. A sage supposed to have been the first teacher of the Jain doctrines in India.
(TG) Rishabham {Sans}. The Zodiacal sign Taurus.
(FY) Rishabham, the Zodiacal sign of Taurus, the sacred syllable Aum.
(TG) Rishis {Sans}. Adepts; the inspired ones. In Vedic literature the term is employed to denote those persons through whom the various Mantras were revealed.
(FY) Rishis, (lit. “revealers”), holy sages.
(WG) Rishi, singer of sacred songs; poet; one of those to whom the Vedas were revealed, later regarded as a patriarchal sage. The seven Rishis are the seven Dhyan Chohans, or creative spirits.
(GH) Rishi An adept, a seer, an inspired person. In Vedic literature the term is employed as referring to the seers through whom the various mantras or hymns of the Veda were revealed. The Satapatha-Brahmana enumerates seven as: Gotama, Bharadvaja, Visvamitra, Jamadagni Vasishtha, Kasyapa, and Atri. In later times (in the epic poems and Puranas) the Rishis are regarded as a particular class of beings, distinct from gods and men, the patriarchs or ‘creators.’ The Mahabharata enumerates the seven Rishis of the first manvantara as: Marichi Atri Angiras, Pulaha, Kratu, Pulastya, Vasishtha. These are also called the seven great Rishis (Saptarshis) especially associated with the Great Bear — being, in fact, seven Planetary Regents. The above-named Rishis are also called in most of the texts the seven Rishis “of the Third Manvantara; the latter referring both to the Third Round and also to the third Root-Race and its branch-Races in the Fourth Round. These are all the creators of the various beings on this Earth, the Prajapatis, and at the same time they appear as divers reincarnations in the early Manvantaras or races.” ( Secret Doctrine, II, p. 78) ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 80)
(TG) Rishi-Prajapati {Sans}. Lit., “revealers”, holy sages in the religious history of Aryavarta. Esoterically the highest of them are the Hierarchies of “Builders” and Architects of the Universe and of living things on earth; they are generally called Dhyan Chohans, Devas and gods.
Rishih suktan pasyati The seer-sage sees the Vedic hymns.
(TG) Ri-thlen. Lit., “snake-keeping”. It is a terrible kind of sorcery practised at Cherrapoonjee in the Khasi-Hills. The former is the ancient capital of the latter. As the legend tells us: ages ago a thlen (serpent-dragon) which inhabited a cavern and devoured men and cattle was put to death by a local St. George, and cut to pieces, every piece being sent out to a different district to be burnt. But the piece received by the Khasis was preserved by them and became a kind of household god, and their descendants developed into Ri-thlens or “snake-keepers”, for the piece they preserved grew into a dragon (thlen) and ever since has obsessed certain Brahmin families of that district. To acquire the good grace of their thlen and save their own lives, these “keepers” have often to commit murders of women and children, from whose bodies they cut out the toe and finger nails, which they bring to their thlen, and thus indulge in a number of black magic practices connected with sorcery and necromancy.
(VS) sacred River’s roaring voice whereby all Nature-sounds are echoed back (III 10) [[p. 50]] The Northern Buddhists, and all Chinamen, in fact, find in the deep roar of some of the great and sacred rivers the key-note of Nature. Hence the simile. It is a well-known fact in Physical Science, as well as in Occultism, that the aggregate sound of Nature such as heard in the roar of great rivers, the noise produced by the waving tops of trees in large forests, or that of a city heard at a distance is a definite single tone of quite an appreciable pitch. This is shown by physicists and musicians. Thus Prof. Rice (Chinese Music) shows that the Chinese recognized the fact thousands of years ago by saying that “the waters of the Hoang-ho rushing by, intoned the kung” called “the great tone” in Chinese music; and he shows this tone corresponding with the F, “considered by modern physicists to be the actual tonic of Nature.” Professor B. Silliman mentions it, too, in his Principles of Physics, saying that “this tone is held to be the middle F of the piano; which may, therefore, be considered the key-note of Nature.”
(TG) Ro and Ru {Egyp}. The gate or outlet, the spot in the heavens whence proceeded or was born primeval light; synonymous with “cosmic womb”.
(MO) Rodung {Nors} (reud-ung) [ rod red + ung child] Father of the early races Agnar and Geirrod in Grimnismal
(TG) Roger Bacon. A very famous Franciscan monk who lived in England in the thirteenth century. He was an Alchemist who firmly believed in the existence of the Philosopher’s Stone, and was a great mechanician, chemist, physicist and astrologer. In his treatise on the Admirable Force of Art and Nature, he gives hints about gunpowder and predicts the use of steam as a propelling power, describing besides the hydraulic press, the diving-bell and the kaleidoscope. He also made a famous brazen head fitted with an acoustic apparatus which gave out oracles.
(TG) Rohinila {Sans}. The ancient name of a monastery visited by Buddha Sakyamuni, now called Roynallah, near Balgada, in Eastern Behar.
(TG) Rohit {Sans}. A female deer, a hind; the form assumed by Vach (the female Logos and female aspect of Brahma, who created her out of one half of his body) to escape the amorous pursuits of her “father”, who transformed himself for that purpose into a buck or red deer (the colour of Brahma being red).
(TG) Rohitaka Stupa {Sans}. The “red stupa”, or dagoba, built by King Asoka, and on which Maitribala-raja fed starving Yakshas with his blood. The Yakshas are inoffensive demons (Elementaries) called pynya-janas or “good people “.
(IN) Root-Race(s) The main serial divisions of the life-waves on any planetary globe, each lasting millions of years; present-day humanity comprises the 5th of 7 great root-races.
(MO) Ropt, Roptatyr {Nors} (rop-tah-teer) [ ropt maligned + tyr god] Odin as bringer of trials to the soul; the initiator, hierophant
(TG) Rosicrucians The name was first given to the disciples of a learned Adept named Christian Rosenkreuz, who flourished in Germany, circa 1460. He founded an Order of mystical students whose early history is to be found in the German work, Fama Fraternitatis (1614), which has been published in several languages. The members of the Order maintained their secrecy, but traces of them have been found in various places every half century since these dates. The Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia is a Masonic Order, which has adopted membership in the “outer”; the Chabrath Zereh Aur Bokher, or Order of the G. D., which has a very complete scheme of initiation into the Kabbalah and the Higher Magic of the Western or Hermetic type, and admits both sexes, is a direct descendant from mediaeval modalities of Rosicrucians, themselves descended from the Egyptian Mysteries. [w.w.w.]
(MO) Roskva {Nors} (reuss-kvah) [vigor] Daughter of Egil and servant of Thor
(TG) Rostan. Book of the Mysteries of Rostan; an occult work in manuscript.
(WG) Round, the journey of the monad once around the seven globes composing the Earth-chain or any other planetary chain. The word “round” was used interchangeably with “ring”, in the early writings on the subject in Theosophical literature. It is applied generally in respect to the Monad in human body, although it is the same for all other kingdoms.
(OG) Round — The doctrine concerning our planetary chain commonly called that of the seven rounds means that the life cycle or life-wave begins its evolutionary course on globe A, the first of the series of seven (or ten) globes; then, completing its cycles there, runs down to globe B, and then to globe C, and then to globe D, our earth; and then, on the ascending arc, to globe E, then to globe F, and then to globe G. These are the manifest seven globes of the planetary chain. This is one planetary round . After the planetary round there ensues a planetary or chain nirvana, until the second round begins in the same way, but in a more “advanced” degree of evolution than was the first round. A globe round is one of the seven passages of a life-wave during its planetary round, on any one (and therefore on and through each) of the globes. When the life-wave has passed through globe D, for instance, and ends its cycles on globe D, this is the globe round of globe D for that particular planetary round; and so with all the globes respectively. Seven root-races make one globe round. There are seven globe rounds therefore (one globe round for each of the seven globes) in each planetary round. Seven planetary rounds equal one kalpa or manvantara or Day of Brahma. When seven planetary rounds have been accomplished, which is as much as saying forty-nine globe rounds (or globe manvantaras), there ensues a still higher nirvana than that occurring between globes G and A after each planetary round. This higher nirvana is coincident with what is called a pralaya of that planetary chain, which pralaya lasts until the cycle again returns for a new planetary chain to form, containing the same hosts of living beings as on the preceding chain, and which are now destined to enter upon the new planetary chain, but on and in a higher series of planes or worlds than in the preceding one. When seven such planetary chains with their various kalpas or manvantaras have passed away, this sevenfold grand cycle is one solar manvantara, and then the solar system sinks into the solar or cosmic pralaya. There are outer rounds and inner rounds. An inner round comprises the passage of the life-wave in any one planetary chain from globe A to globe G once around, and this takes place seven times in a planetary manvantara. The outer round comprises the passage of the entirety of a life-wave of a planetary chain along the circulations of the solar system, from one of the seven sacred planets to another; and this for seven (or ten) times. There is another aspect of the teaching concerning the outer rounds which cannot be elucidated here.
(IN) Round(s) The procession of any life-wave through all the globes of a planetary chain; also the completion of 7 root-races on any one globe (globe-round).
(TG) Rowhanee {Egyp} or Er-Roohanee. Is the Magic of modern Egypt, supposed to proceed from Angels and Spirits, that is Genii, and by the use of the mystery names of Allah; they distinguish two forms — Ilwee, that is the Higher or White Magic; and Suflee and Sheytanee, the Lower or Black Demoniac Magic. There is also Es-Seemuja, which is deception or conjuring. Opinions differ as to the importance of a branch of Magic called Darb el Mendel, or as Barker calls it in English, the Mendal: by this is meant a form of artificial clairvoyance, exhibited by a young boy before puberty, or a virgin, who, as the result of self-fascination by gazing on a pool of ink in the hand, with coincident use of incense and incantation, sees certain scenes of real life passing over its surface. Many Eastern travellers have narrated instances, as E. W. Lane in his Modern Egyptians and his Thousand and One Nights, and E. B. Barker; the incidents have been introduced also into many works of fiction, such as Marryat’s Phantom Ship, and a similar idea is interwoven with the story of Rose Mary and the Beryl stone, a poem by Rossetti. For a superficial attempt at explanation, see the Quarterly Review, No. 117. [W.W.W.]
(TG) Ruach {Hebr}. Air, also Spirit; the Spirit, one of the “human principles” (Buddhi-Manas).
(FY) Ruach, one of the souls, according to the Kabala; second three principles in the human septenary.
(WG) Ruach (Hebrew), in the Kabala, the spiritual soul, or buddhi.
(TG) Ruach Elohim {Hebr}. The Spirit of the gods; corresponds to the Holy Ghost of the Christians. Also the wind, breath and rushing water. [W.W.W.]
(WG) Ruchi, light; beauty; desire, passion.
(TG) Rudra {Sans}. A title of Siva, the Destroyer.
(TG) Rudras {Sans}. The mighty ones; the lords of the three upper worlds. One of the classes of the “fallen” or incarnating spirits; they are all born of Brahma.
(WG) Rudras, a class of storm-gods (Maruts) led by Rudra, who became in later Sanskrit literature Siva — the third member of the trinity. ( Siva, “the gracious one,” an euphemism for Rudra, the howling one, the terrible one
(GH) Rudras An alternative name for the stormgods or Maruts , who are under the leadership of Rudra or Siva. “These deities are only another aspect, or a development of the Kumaras, who are Rudras in their patronymic, like many others.” ( Secret Doctrine, II, p. 613) (Meaning of the word itself: howlers, or roarers. Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 73)
(TG) Runes {Nors}. The Runic language and characters are the mystery or sacerdotal tongue and alphabet of the ancient Scandinavians. Runes are derived from the word runa (secret). Therefore both language and character could neither be understood nor interpreted without having the key to it. Hence while the written runes consisting of sixteen letters are known, the ancient ones composed of marks and signs are indecipherable. They are called the magic characters. “It is clear”, says E. W. Anson, an authority on the folk-lore of the Norsemen, “that the runes were from various causes regarded even in Germany proper as full of mystery and endowed with supernatural power”. They are said to have been invented by Odin.
(MO) Runes Wisdom gained by living
(MO) Rungner {Nors} (rung-ner) [loud roar] A giant
(TG) Rupa {Sans}. Body; any form, applied even to the forms of the gods, which are subjective to us.
(WG) Rupa, form, external appearance, body; visibility.
(OG) Rupa — {Sans} A word meaning “form,” “image,” “similitude,” but this word is employed technically, and only rarely in the popular sense in which it is commonly used in English. It signifies rather an atomic or monadic aggregation about the central and indwelling consciousness, forming a vehicle or body thereof.
Thus the rupa-lokas are lokas or worlds where the body-form or vehicle is very definitely outlined in matter; whereas the arupa-lokas are worlds where the body-forms or “images” are outlined in a manner which to us humans is much less definite. It should be noted that the word rupa applies with equal force to the bodies or vehicles even of the gods, although these latter to us are purely subjective or arupa. ( See also Loka)
(SKs) Rupa, Vedana, Sanjna, Samskara, Vijnana These are the five Skandhas or attributes of character and personality which have been formed in previous lives. They help to rebuild the constitution of man in each new birth. (See [[SKo]] under Skandha Rupa is ‘form’ or the characteristics of the physical body; Vedana is ‘sensation,’ or the developed feelings and perceptions; Sanjna is ‘consciousness,’ or abstract ideas; Samskara is action,’ or the physical and mental leanings and preferences; Vijnana is ‘intelligence,’ or the moral and mental tendencies. (See under Nidana
(IN) Rupa {Sans} Form, body.
(SP) Rupa — form. Arupa — formless.
(TG) Ruta {Sans}. The name of one of the last islands of Atlantis, which perished ages before Poseidonis, the “Atlantis” of Plato.
(TG) Rutas {Sans}. An ancient people that inhabited the above island or continent in the Pacific Ocean.
(MO) Rymer {Nors} (ree-mer) A giant: end of a life cycle. See Hymer
(TG) S. — The nineteenth letter; numerically, sixty. In Hebrew it is the fifteenth letter, Samech, held as holy because “the sacred name of god is Samech”. Its symbol is a prop, or a pillar, and a phallic egg. In occult geometry it is represented as a circle quadrated by a cross, [[symbol]]. In the Kabbalah the “divisions of Gan-Eden or paradise” are similarly divided.
(TG) Sa or Hea {Chald}. The synthesis of the seven Gods in Babylonian mythology.
(TG) Sabalaswas {Sans}. Sons of Daksha (Secret Doctrine, II., 275).
(TG) Sabao {Greek}. The Gnostic name of the genius of Mars.
(TG) Sabaoth {Hebr}. An army or host, from Saba — to go to war; hence the name of the fighting god-the “Lord of Sabaoth”.
(TG) Sabda {Sans}. The Word, or Logos.
(FY) Sabda, the Logos or Word.
(TG) Sabda Brahmam {Sans}. “The Unmanifested Logos.” The Vedas; “Ethereal Vibrations diffused throughout Space”.
(OG) Sabda-Brahman — {Sans} A phrase literally signifying “Word=Brahman” — a curious analogy with the archaic Greek mystical teaching concerning the Logos. SabdaBrahman, therefore, may be rendered as the active unmanifest Logos of the solar system, and hence as the soul of Brahman expressing itself through its akasic veils as the divine Logos, or Word or Sound. This term is closely connected in meaning with the teaching concerning daiviprakriti. H. P. Blavatsky in her posthumous Glossary speaks of the Sabda-Brahman as “Ethereal Vibrations diffused throughout Space.”
(TG) Sabha {Sans}. An assembly; a place for meetings, social or political. Also Mahasabha, “the bundle of wonderful (mayavic or illusionary) things” the gift of Mayasur to the Pandavas (Mahabharata
(TG) Sabianism. The religion of the ancient Chaldees. The latter believing in one impersonal, universal, deific Principle, never mentioned It, but offered worship to the solar, lunar, and planetary gods and rulers, regarding the stars and other celestial bodies as their respective symbols.
(TG) Sabians. Astrolaters, so called; those who worshipped the stars, or rather their “regents”. (See “Sabianism”
(TG) Sacha Kiriya {Sans}. A power with the Buddhists akin to a magic mantram with the Brahmans. It is a miraculous energy which can be exercised by any adept, whether priest or layman, and “most efficient when accompanied by bhawana ” (meditation). It consists in a recitation of one’s “acts of merit done either in this or some former birth” — as the Rev. Mr. Hardy thinks and puts it, but in reality it depends on the intensity of one’s will, added to an absolute faith in one’s own powers, whether of yoga — willing — or of prayer, as in the case of Mussulmans and Christians. Sacha means “true”, and Kiriyang, “action”. It is the power of merit, or of a saintly life.
(TG) Sacrariurn {Latin}. The name of the room in the houses of the ancient Romans, which contained the particular deity worshipped by the family; also the adytum of a temple.
(TG) Sacred Heart. In Egypt, of Horus; in Babylon, of the god Bel; and the lacerated heart of Bacchus in Greece and elsewhere. Its symbol was the persea. The pear-like shape of its fruit, and of its kernel especially, resembles the heart in form. It is sometimes seen on the head of Isis, the mother of Horus, the fruit being cut open and the heart-like kernel exposed to full view, The Roman Catholics have since adopted the worship of the “sacred heart” of Jesus and of the Virgin Mary.
(TG) Sacred Science. The name given to the inner esoteric philosophy, the secrets taught in days of old to the initiated candidates, and divulged during the last and supreme Initiation by the Hierophants.
(KT) Sacred Science. The epithet given to the occult sciences in general, and by the Rosicrucians to the Kabbala, and especially to the Hermetic philosophy.
(TG) Sadaikarupa {Sans}. The essence of the immutable nature.
(WG) Sadaika-rupa, the immutable nature, or essence; changeless form. ( sada, always; eka, one; rupa, form
(WG) Sadatma, the ego. ( sada, always; atma, soul
(TG) Sadducees. A sect, the followers of one Zadok, a disciple of Antigonus Saccho. They are accused of having denied the immortality of the (personal) soul and that of the resurrection of the (physical and personal) body. Even so do the Theosophists; though they deny neither the immortality of the Ego nor the resurrection of all its numerous and successive lives, which survive in the memory of the Ego. But together with the Sadducees — a sect of learned philosophers who were to all the other Jews that which the polished and learned Gnostics were to the rest of the Greeks during the early centuries of our era — we certainly deny the immortality of the animal soul and the resurrection of the physical body. The Sadducees were the scientists and the learned men of Jerusalem, and held the highest offices, such as of high priests and judges, while the Pharisees were almost from first to last the Pecksniffs of Judaea.
(WG) Sadhanas, possessing riches, having spiritual accomplishments.
(WG) Sadhu, a holy man. (Literally, “leading straight to the goal.”)
(TG) Sadhyas {Sans}. One of the names of the “twelve great gods” created by Brahma. Kosmic gods; lit., “divine sacrificers”. The Sadhyas are important in Occultism.
(GH) Sadhyas A class of divine beings: in the Vedas represented as dwelling in regions superior to the gods — in later works they are placed in Bhuvar-loka (between heaven and earth). In The Laws of Manu (Manava-Dharma-Sastra) the Sadhyas are stated to be the offspring of the Soma-sads from Viraj, i.e., children of the Ancestors from the Moon — the Pitris . The Sadhyas are termed ‘divine sacrificers,’ “the most occult of all” the classes of the Pitris (in Secret Doctrine, II 605) — the reference being to the Manasaputras. (The following word is derived from the verbal root:) sadh, to be fulfilled, completed, attained. Bhagavad-Gita , W. Q. Judge, p. 81)
(TG) Sadik. The same as the Biblical Melchizedec, identified by the mystic Bible-worshippers with Jehovah, and Jesus Christ. But Father Sadik’s identity with Noah being proven, he can be further identified with Kronos-Saturn.
(TG) Safekh {Egyp}. Written also Sebek and Sebakh, god of darkness and night, with the crocodile for his emblem. In the Typhonic legend and transformation he is the same as Typhon. He is connected with both Osiris and Horus, and is their great enemy on earth. We find him often called the “triple crocodile”. In astronomy he is the same as Makara or Capricorn, the most mystical of the signs of the Zodiac.
(TG) Saga {Nors}. The goddess “who sings of the deeds of gods and heroes”, and to whom the black ravens of Odin reveal the history of the Past and of the Future in the Norsemen’s Edda.
(TG) Sagara {Sans}. Lit., “the Ocean”; a king, the father of 60,000 sons, who, for disrespect shown to the sage Kapila, were reduced to ashes by a single glance of his eye.
(TG) Sagardagan. One of the four paths to Nirvana.
(TG) Saha {Sans}. “The world of suffering”; any inhabited world in the chilio-cosmos.
(WG) Saha-Deva, one of the “sons of the sun,” representing water, in Mahabharatic allegory. ( saha, with; deva, god
(GH) Sahadeva The son of Madri (the second wife of Pandu) and the twin sky-gods, the Asvinau: brother of Nakula . Regarded as the youngest of the five Pandava princes. Sahadeva excelled in the science of astronomy, which he studied under Drona . He was also very proficient in the management of cattle. ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 4)
(WG) Sahakarikarana, the auxiliary cause.
(TG) Sahampati {Sans}. Maha or Parabrahm.
(TG) Saharaksha {Sans}. The fire of the Asuras; the name of a son of Pavamana, one of the three chief occult fires.
(GH) Saibya The king of the Sibis (an ancient people of India): an ally of the Pandavas. ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 2)
(TG) St. Germain, the Count of. Referred to as an enigmatical personage by modern writers. Frederic II., King of Prussia, used to say of him that he was a man whom no one had ever been able to make out. Many are his “biographies”, and each is wilder than the other. By some he was regarded as an incarnate god, by others as a clever Alsatian Jew. One thing is certain, Count de St. Germain — whatever his real patronymic may have been — had a right to his name and title, for he had bought a property called San Germano, in the Italian Tyrol, and paid the Pope for the title. He was uncommonly handsome, and his enormous erudition and linguistic capacities are undeniable, for he spoke English, Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Russian, Swedish, Danish, and many Slavonian and Oriental languages, with equal facility with a native. He was extremely wealthy, never received a sou from anyone — in fact never accepted a glass of water or broke bread with anyone — but made most extravagant presents of superb jewellery to all his friends, even to the royal families of Europe. His proficiency in music was marvellous; he played on every instrument, the violin being his favourite. “St. Germain rivalled Paganini himself”, was said of him by an octogenarian Belgian in 1835, after hearing the “Genoese maestro”. “It is St. Germain resurrected who plays the violin in the body of an Italian skeleton”, exclaimed a Lithuanian baron who had heard both.
He never laid claim to spiritual powers, but proved to have a right to such claim. He used to pass into a dead trance from thirty-seven to forty-nine hours without awakening, and then knew all he had to know, and demonstrated the fact by prophesying futurity and never making a mistake. It is he who prophesied before the Kings Louis XV. and XVI., and the unfortunate Marie Antoinette. Many were the still living witnesses in the first quarter of this century who testified to his marvellous memory; he could read a paper in the morning and, though hardly glancing at it, could repeat its contents without missing one word days afterwards; he could write with two hands at once, the right hand writing a piece of poetry, the left a diplomatic paper of the greatest importance. He read sealed letters without touching them, while still in the hand of those who brought them to him. He was the greatest adept in transmuting metals, making gold and the most marvellous diamonds, an art, he said, he had learned from certain Brahmans in India, who taught him the artificial crystallisation (“quickening”) of pure carbon. As our Brother Kenneth Mackenzie has it: — “In 1780, when on a visit to the French Ambassador to the Hague, he broke to pieces with a hammer a superb diamond of his own manufacture, the counterpart of which, also manufactured by himself, he had just before sold to a jeweller for 5500 louis d’or”. He was the friend and confidant of Count Orloff in 1772 at Vienna, whom he had helped and saved in St. Petersburg in 1762, when concerned in the famous political conspiracies of that time; he also became intimate with Frederick the Great of Prussia. As a matter of course, he had numerous enemies, and therefore it is not to be wondered at if all the gossip invented about him is now attributed to his own confessions: e.g., that he was over five hundred years old; also, that he claimed personal intimacy “with the Saviour and his twelve Apostles, and that he had reproved Peter for his bad temper” — the latter clashing somewhat in point of time with the former, if he had really claimed to be only five hundred years old. If he said that “he had been born in Chaldea and professed to possess the secrets of the Egyptian magicians and sages”, he may have spoken truth without making any miraculous claim. There are Initiates, and not the highest either, who are placed in a condition to remember more than one of their past lives. But we have good reason to know that St. Germain could never have claimed “personal intimacy” with the Saviour. However that may be, Count St. Germain was certainly the greatest Oriental Adept Europe has seen during the last centuries. But Europe knew him not. Perchance some may recognise him at the next Terreur, which will affect all Europe when it comes, and not one country alone.
(KT) St. Germain (Count). A mysterious personage, who appeared in the last century and early in the present one in France, England and elsewhere.
(TG) Saint Martin, Louis Claude de. Born in France (Amboise), in 1743. A great mystic and writer, who pursued his philosophical and theosophical studies at Paris, during the Revolution. He was an ardent disciple of Jacob Boehme, and studied under Martinez Paschalis, finally founding a mystical semi-Masonic Lodge, “the Rectified Rite of St. Martin”, with seven degrees. He was a true Theosophist. At the present moment some ambitious charlatans in Paris are caricaturing him and passing themselves off as initiated Martinists, and thus dishonouring the name of the late Adept.
(TG) Sais {Egyp}. The place where the celebrated temple of Isis-Neith was found, wherein was the ever-veiled statue of Neith (Neith and Isis being interchangeable), with the famous inscription, “I am all that has been, and is, and shall be, and my peplum no mortal has withdrawn (See “Sirius”
(TG) Saka {Sans}. Lit., “the One”, or the Eka; used of the “Dragon of Wisdom” or the manifesting deities, taken collectively.
(TG) Saka {Sans}. According to the Orientalists the same as the classical Sacae. It is during the reign of their King Yudishtira that the Kali Yuga began.
(TG) Saka Dwipa {Sans}. One of the seven islands or continents mentioned in the Puranas (ancient works).
(FY) Saketa, the capital of the ancient Indian kingdom of Ayodhya.
(TG) Sakkayaditthi. Delusion of personality; the erroneous idea that ” I am I”, a man or a woman with a special name, instead of being an inseparable part of the whole.
(SKv) Sakkayaditthi, Attavada Sakkayaditthi is a Pali word meaning ‘the heresy of the personality.’ It is a word composed of sat being, kaya — body, and ditthi — false belief; hence ‘a false belief in the eternal existence of the body or personality.’ Attavada is a Pali word meaning ‘the heresy of separateness,’ the false belief in a Soul as separate from the Universal Self. Attavada is a compound of atta — soul, and vada — belief.
(TG) Sakradagamin {Sans}. Lit., “he who will receive birth (only) once more” before Nirvana is reached by him; he who has entered the second of the four paths which lead to Nirvana and has almost reached perfection.
(WG) Sakriya, mutable, movable.
(TG) Sakshi {Sans}. The name of the hare, who in the legend of the “moon and the hare” threw himself into the fire to save some starving pilgrims who would not kill him. For this sacrifice Indra is said to have transferred him to the centre of the moon.
(WG) Sakshi, witness. (Literally, “one having eyes.”)
(TG) Sakti {Sans}. The active female energy of the gods; in popular Hinduism, their wives and goddesses; in Occultism, the crown of the astral light. Force and the six forces of nature synthesized. Universal Energy.
(FY) Sakti, the crown of the astral light; the power of Nature.
(WG) Sakti, power, ability; the power to create.
(OG) Sakti — {Sans} A term which may be briefly defined to mean one of what in modern Occultism are called the seven forces of nature, of which six are manifest and the seventh unmanifest, or only partly manifest. Sakti in general may be described as universal energy, and is, as it were, the feminine aspect of fohat. In popular Hinduism the various saktis are the wives or consorts of the gods, in other words, the energies or active powers of the deities represented as feminine influences or energies.
These anthropomorphic definitions are unfortunate, because misleading. The saktis of nature are really the veils, or sheaths, or vehicular carriers, through which work the inner and ever-active energies. As substance and energy, or force and matter, are fundamentally one, as modern science in its researches has begun to discover, it becomes apparent that even these saktis or sheaths or veils are themselves energic to lower spheres or realms through which they themselves work.
The crown of the astral light, as H. P. Blavatsky puts it, is the generalized sakti of universal nature in so far as our solar system is concerned.
(SP) Sakti — cosmic activity, mythically personified as the wives of the gods.
(TG) Sakti-Dhara {Sans}. Lit., the “Spear-holder”, a title given to Kartikeya for killing Taraka, a Daitya or giant-demon. The latter, demon though he was, seems to have been such a great Yogin, owing to his religious austerities and holiness, that he made all the gods tremble before him. This makes of Kartikeya, the war god, a kind of St. Michael.
(FY) Sakuntala, a Sanskrit drama by Kalidasa.
(TG) Sakwala. This is a bana or “word” uttered by Gautama Buddha in his oral instructions. Sakwala is a mundane, or rather a solar system, of which there is an infinite number in the universe, and which denotes that space to which the light of every sun extends. Each Sakwala contains earths, hells and heavens (meaning good and bad spheres, our earth being considered as hell, in Occultism); attains its prime, then falls into decay and is finally destroyed at regularly recurring periods, in virtue of one immutable law. Upon the earth, the Master taught that there have been already four great “continents” (the Land of the Gods, Lemuria, Atlantis, and the present “continent” divided into five parts of the Secret Doctrine), and that three more have to appear. The former “did not communicate with each other”, a sentence showing that Buddha was not speaking of the actual continents known in his day (for Patala or America was perfectly familiar to the ancient Hindus), but of the four geological formations of the earth, with their four distinct root -races which had already disappeared.
(TG) Sakya {Sans}. A patronymic of Gautama Buddha.
(TG) Sakyamuni Buddha {Sans}. A name of the founder of Buddhism, the great Sage, the Lord Gautama.
(WG) Sakya-muni, -the “Sakya-saint,” a title of Gautama Buddha, Sakya being the name of the family of Buddha.
(SKf) Sakya, Sakyamuni Sakya is the adjectival form of Saka, the name of a group of landowners and rulers of Kapilavastu, the city in which the Buddha was born. The Buddha was later called Sakya-muni or the Sakya-sage. The term Sakya has since been applied to a Buddhist mendicant.
(TG) Salamanders. The Rosicrucian name for the Elementals of Fire. The animal, as well as its name, is of most occult significance, and is widely used in poetry. The name is almost identical in all languages. Thus, in Greek, Latin, French, Spanish, Italian, etc., it is Salamandra, in Persian Samandel, and in Sanskrit Salamandala.
(TG) Salmali {Sans}. One of the seven zones; also a kind of tree.
(WG) Salokya, living in one and the same place with Isvara.
(TG) Sama {Sans}. One of the bhava pushpas, or “flowers of sanctity”. Sama is the fifth, or “resignation”. There are eight such flowers, namely: clemency or charity, self-restraint, affection (or love for others), patience, resignation, devotion, meditation and veracity. Sama is also the repression of any mental perturbation.
(FY) Sama, repression of mental perturbations.
(WG) Sama, the first qualification of a disciple — perfect mastery over the mind. (Literally, “same,” “level,” “equal.”)
(TG) Samadhana {Sans}. That state in which a Yogi can no longer diverge from the path of spiritual progress; when everything terrestrial, except the visible body, has ceased to exist for him.
(FY) Samadhana, incapacity to diverge from the path of spiritual progress.
(WG) Samadhana, being constitutionally incapable of deviating from the path of right.
(TG) Samadhi {Sans}. A state of ecstatic and complete trance. The term comes from the words Sam-adha, “self-possession”. He who possesses this power is able to exercise an absolute control over all his faculties, physical or mental; it is the highest state of Yoga.
(KT) Samadhi. The name in India for spiritual ecstasy. It is a state of complete trance, induced by means of mystic concentration.
(VS) Samadhi (I 42) [[p. 20]] Samadhi is the state in which the ascetic loses the consciousness of every individuality including his own. He becomes the ALL.
(FY) Samadhi, state of ecstatic trance.
(WG) Samadhi, abstract meditation; perfect absorption of thought into the Supreme Spirit, — the highest and last stage of yoga.
(OG) Samadhi — {Sans} A compound word formed of sam, meaning “with” or “together”; a, meaning “towards”; and the verbal root dha , signifying “to place,” or “to bring”; hence samadhi, meaning “to direct towards,” generally signifies to combine the faculties of the mind with a direction towards an object. Hence, intense contemplation or profound meditation, with the consciousness directed to the spiritual. It is the highest form of self-possession, in the sense of collecting all the faculties of the constitution towards reaching union or quasi-union, long or short in time as the case may be, with the divine-spiritual. One who possesses and is accustomed to use this power has complete, absolute control over all his faculties, and is, therefore, said to be “completely self – possessed.” It is the highest state of yoga or “union.”
Samadhi, therefore, is a word of exceedingly mystical and profound significance implying the complete abstraction of the percipient consciousness from all worldly or exterior or even mental concerns or attributes, and its absorption into or, perhaps better, its becoming the pure unadulterate, undilute superconsciousness of the god within. In other words, samadhi is self-conscious union with the spiritual monad of the human constitution. Samadhi is the eighth or final stage of genuine occult yoga, and can be attained at any time by the initiate without conscious recourse to the other phases or practices of yoga enumerated in Oriental works, and which other and inferior practices are often misleading, in some cases distinctly injurious, and at the best mere props or aids in the attaining of complete mental abstraction from worldly concerns.
The eight stages of yoga usually enumerated are the following: (1) yama, signifying “restraint” or “forbearance”; (2) niyama , religious observances of various kinds, such as watchings or fastings, prayings, penances, etc.; (3) asana, postures of various kinds; (4) pranayama, various methods of regulating the breath; (5) pratyahara, a word signifying “withdrawal,” but technically and esoterically the “withdrawal” of the consciousness from sensual or sensuous concerns, or from external objects; (6) dharana, firmness or steadiness or resolution in holding the mind set or concentrated on a topic or object of thought, mental concentration; (7) dhyana, abstract contemplation or meditation when freed from exterior distractions; and finally, (8) samadhi, complete collection of the consciousness and of its faculties into oneness or union with the monadic essence.
It may be observed, and should be carefully taken note of by the student, that when the initiate has attained samadhi he becomes practically omniscient for the solar universe in which he dwells, because his consciousness is functioning at the time in the spiritual-causal worlds. All knowledge is then to him like an open page because he is self-consciously conscious, to use a rather awkward phrase, of nature’s inner and spiritual realms, the reason being that his consciousness has become kosmic in its reaches.
(SKv) Samadhi The highest state of Yoga, hence Union with the Spirit within. It is the “state of faultless vision.” Samadhi is derived from the verb-root adha — to direct, and sam — together, hence ‘to direct together, to unite.’ Samadhi, a state of spiritual consciousness which is almost Nirvanic, may be enjoyed for a brief moment or for a longer space of time by an Initiate without his having resorted to any of the other Yogic practices. Speaking of Samadhi, The Voice of the Silence says: Samadhi is the state in which the ascetic loses the consciousness of every individuality, including his own. He becomes — the ALL. — Fragment I, note 42
Dr. de Purucker describes Samadhi thus in The Occult Glossary: . . . when the initiate has attained Samadhi he becomes practically omniscient for the Solar Universe in which he dwells, because his consciousness is functioning at the time in the spiritual-causal worlds. All knowledge is then to him like an open page because he is self-consciously conscious . . . of Nature’s inner and spiritual realms, the reason being that his consciousness has become kosmic in its reaches.
The eight stages of Yoga are: Yama, self-control and non-injury of others; Niyama, restraint of the mind and a life voluntarily regulated to spiritual purposes; Asana, posture; Pranayama, control of the breath; Pratyahara, withdrawal of self from worldly concerns toward inner spiritual things; Dharana, perfect concentration of mind; Dhyana, spiritual meditation; Samadhi, the perfect union of all the faculties with the Divinity within.
(TG) Samadhindriya {Sans}. Lit., “the root of concentration”; the fourth of the five roots called Pancha Indriyani, which are said in esoteric philosophy to be the agents in producing a highly moral life, leading to sanctity and liberation; when these are reached, the two spiritual roots lying latent in the body (Atma and Buddhi) will send out shoots and blossom. Samadhindriya is the organ of ecstatic meditation in Raj-yoga practices.
(TG) Samael {Hebr}. The Kabbalistic title of the Prince of those evil spirits who represent incarnations of human vices; the angel of Death. From this the idea of Satan has been evolved. [w.w.w.]
(WG) Samaja, company, convention.
(TG) Samajna {Sans}. Lit., “an enlightened (or luminous) Sage”. Translated verbally, Samgharana Samajna, the famous Vihara near Kustana (China), means “the monastery of the luminous Sage”.
(GH) Saman A metrical hymn, or song of praise; especially a sacred verse which is to be sung, rather than recited or muttered — one of the four kinds of Vedic composition. ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 66)
(TG) Samana {Sans}. One of the five breaths ( Pranas ) which carry on the chemical action in the animal body.
(WG) Samana, good; honored.
(TG) Samanera. A novice; a postulant for the Buddhist priesthood.
(TG) Samanta Bhadra {Sans}. Lit., “Universal Sage”. The name of one of the four Bodhisattvas of the Yogacharya School, of the Mahayana (the Great Vehicle) of Wisdom of that system. There are four terrestrial and three celestial Bodhisattvas: the first four only act in the present races, but in the middle of the fifth Root-race appeared the fifth Bodhisattva, who, according to an esoteric legend, was Gautama Buddha, but who, having appeared too early, had to disappear bodily from the world for a while.
(TG) Samanta Prabhasa {Sans}. Lit., “universal brightness” or dazzling light. The name under which each of the 500 perfected Arhats reappears on earth as Buddha.
(TG) Samanya {Sans}. Community, or commingling of qualities, an abstract notion of genus, such as humanity.
(FY) Samanya, community or commingling of qualities.
(TG) Samapatti {Sans}. Absolute concentration in Raja-Yoga; the process of development by which perfect indifference ( Sams ) is reached (apatti). This state is the last stage of development before the possibility of entering into Samadhi is reached.
(WG) Samarthya, having considered; being determined.
(WG) Samarthya, to meaning already given add; the attenuation of passion by reflection.
(TG) Sama Veda {Sans}. Lit., “the Scripture, or Shastra, of peace”. One of the four Vedas.
(WG) Sama-veda . (See Veda
(WG) Sama veda, one of the four Vedas of the Hindus.
(TG) Samaya {Sans}. A religious precept.
(TG) Sambhala {Sans}. A very mysterious locality on account of its future associations. A town or village mentioned in the Puranas, whence, it is prophesied, the Kalki Avatar will appear. The “Kalki” is Vishnu, the Messiah on the White Horse of the Brahmins; Maitreya Buddha of the Buddhists, Sosiosh of the Parsis, and Jesus of the Christians (See Revelations). All these “messengers” are to appear “before the destruction of the world”, says the one; before the end of Kali Yuga say the others. It is in Sambhala that the future Messiah will be born. Some Orientalists make modern Muradabad in Rohilkhand (N.W.P identical with Sambhala, while Occultism places it in the Himalayas. It is pronounced Shambhala.
(WG) Shambhala, the town spoken of in the Puranas where the Kalki-Avatar, the Messiah on the White Horse will appear before the end of the Kali-Yuga or Black age. Occultists name its position as in the Himalayas.
(OG) Sambhala — {Sans} A place-name of highly mystical significance. Many learned occidental Orientalists have endeavored to identify this mystical and unknown locality with some well-known modern district or town, but unsuccessfully. The name is mentioned in the Puranas and elsewhere, and it is stated that out of Sambhala will appear in due course of time the Kalki-Avatara of the future. The Kalki-Avatara is one of the manifestations or avataras of Vishnu. Among the Buddhists it is also stated that out of Sambhala will come in due course of time the Maitreya-Buddha or next buddha.
Sambhala, however, although no erudite Orientalist has yet succeeded in locating it geographically, is an actual land or district, the seat of the greatest brotherhood of spiritual adepts and their chiefs on earth today. From Sambhala at certain times in the history of the world, or more accurately of our own fifth root-race, come forth the messengers or envoys for spiritual and intellectual work among men.
This Great Brotherhood has branches in various parts of the world, but Sambhala is the center or chief lodge. We may tentatively locate it in a little-known and remote district of the high tablelands of central Asia, more particularly in Tibet. A multitude of airplanes might fly over the place without “seeing” it, for its frontiers are very carefully guarded and protected against invasion, and will continue to be so until the karmic destiny of our present fifth root-race brings about a change of location to some other spot on the earth, which then in its turn will be as carefully guarded as Sambhala now is.
(SK)o Sambhala The name of the secret home of the Brotherhood of Spiritual Adepts or Mahatmans. It is located in a little known and remote district of the high table-lands of Tibet and is guarded by spiritual barriers from those not worthy to enter. The word Sambhala is very mystic in its composition. It may be interpreted to mean ‘the happy land,’ from Sam — happiness, and bhala, a term used to address the sun.
(SP) Sambhala — the secret place where Hindus expect Kalkin (the next avatara of Visnu), where Buddhists expect Maitreya (the next Buddha), and where theosophists locate the chief lodge of the Mahatmas.
(WG) Sambhava, proportion; identity.
(TG) Sambhogakaya {Sans}. One of the three “Vestures” of glory, or bodies, obtained by ascetics on the “Path”. Some sects hold it as the second, while others as the third of the Buddhakshetyas, or forms of Buddha. Lit., the “Body of Compensation” (See Voice of the Silence, Glossary iii). Of such Buddhakshetyas there are seven, those of Nirmanakaya, Sambhogakaya and Dharmakaya, belonging to the Trikaya, or three-fold quality.
(VS) These vestures are: Nirmanakaya, Sambhoga- Kaya, and Dharmakaya, robe Sublime (II 21) [[p. 32]] Ibid . [[To I, 20 – See Buddhas of Compassion.]]
(OG) Sambhogakaya — {Sans} This is a compound of two words meaning “enjoyment-body,” or rather “participation-body”; sambhoga meaning “enjoyment together,” or “delightful participation,” etc.; and kaya, meaning “body.” This is the second of the glorious vestures, the other two being dharmakaya, the highest, and nirmanakaya, the lowest. The buddha in the sambhogakaya state still participates in, still retains more or less, his self-consciousness as an individual, his egoship and his individual soul-sense, though he is too far above material or personal concerns to care about or to meddle with them. In consequence, a buddha in the sambhogakaya state would be virtually powerless here on our material earth.
(TG) Samgha {Sans}. The corporate assembly, or a quorum of priests called also Bhikshu Samgha; the word “church” used in translation does not at all express the real meaning.
(TG) Samkhara (Pali). One of the five Skandhas or attributes in Buddhism.
(TG) Samkhara (Pali). “Tendencies of mind” (See “Skandhas”).
(KT) Samkhara. One of the five Buddhist Skandhas or attributes. ( Vide “Skandhas.”) “Tendencies of mind.”
(TG) Samma Sambuddha (Pali). The recollection of all of one’s past incarnations; a yoga phenomenon.
(TG) Samma Sambuddha (Pali). A title of the Lord Buddha, the “Lord of meekness and resignation”; it means “perfect illumination”.
(KT) Samma Sambuddha. The sudden remembrance of all one’s past incarnations, a phenomenon of memory obtained through Yoga. A Buddhist mystic term.
(FY) Samma-Sambuddha, perfect illumination.
(TG) Samothrace {Greek}. An island famous for its Mysteries, perhaps the oldest ever established in our present race. The Samothracian Mysteries were renowned all over the world.
(KT) Samothrace. An island in the Grecian Archipelago, famous in days of old for the mysteries celebrated in its temples. These mysteries were world-renowned.
(TG) Samothraces {Greek}. A designation of the Five gods worshipped at the island of that name during the Mysteries. They are considered as identical with the Cabeiri, Dioscuri and Corybantes. Their names were mystical, denoting Pluto, Ceres or Proserpine, Bacchus and Aesculapius, or Hermes.
(IU) Samothraces. — A designation of the Fane-gods worshipped at Samothracia in the Mysteries. They are considered as identical with the Kabeiri, Dioskuri, and Korybantes. Their names were mystical — denoting Pluto, Ceres or Proserpina, Bacchus, and Aesculapius or Hermes.
(TG) Sampajnana {Sans}. A power of internal illumination.
(SKs) Samsara ‘A passing through a succession of states’; derived from the verb-root samsri — to wander or pass through. The wheel of Samsara refers to the continuously recurring cycles of imbodied existences, of birth and death, of sorrow and pain, of joy and happiness. To attain Nirvana is to cross the ocean of Samsara or the ever-recurring rounds of birth and death on earth.
(SP) Samsara — this universe to which we are bound by the cycle of rebirth.
(TG) Samskara {Sans}. Lit., from Sam and Kri, to improve, refine, impress. In Hindu philosophy the term is used to denote the impressions left upon the mind by individual actions or external circumstances, and capable of being developed on any future favourable occasion — even in a future birth. The Samskara denotes, therefore, the germs of propensities and impulses from previous births to be developed in this, or the coming janmas or reincarnations. In Tibet, Samskara is called Doodyed, and in China is defined as, or at least connected with, action or Karma. It is, strictly speaking, a metaphysical term, which in exoteric philosophies is variously defined; e.g., in Nepaul as illusion, in Tibet as notion, and in Ceylon as discrimination. The true meaning is as given above, and as is connected with Karma and its working.
(WG) Samskara, literally means “impression”. The name of the initiatory rites of the Brahmans from birth through life, for they, being all priests by birth, have various initiatory ceremonies. With us the samskaras would be the same as sacrament ; for baptism or naming the child is one samskara, the first going forth of the child is another, shaving the head, marriage, giving up the world, and so on, are others. A full explanation of the samskaras is given in the Oriental Department of the American Section T.S., in Paper No. 10 .
(TG) Samtan {Tibe}. The same as Dhyana or meditation.
(VS) Samtan (III 4) of eye Doctrine [[p. 45]] Samtan (Tibetan), the same as the Sanskrit Dhyana, or the state of meditation, of which there are four degrees.
(TG) Samvarta {Sans}. A minor Kalpa. A period in creation after which a partial annihilation of the world occurs.
(TG) Samvartta Kalpa {Sans}. The Kalpa or period of destruction, the same as Pralaya. Every root-race and sub-race is subject to such Kalpas of destruction; the fifth root-race having sixty-four such cataclysms periodically; namely: fifty-six by fire, seven by water, and one small Kalpa by winds or cyclones.
(TG) Samvat {Sans}. The name of an Indian chronological era, supposed to have commenced fifty-seven years B.C.
(FY) Samvat, an Indian era which is usually supposed to have commenced 57 B.C.
(TG) Samvriti {Sans}. False conception — the origin of illusion.
(VS) Samvriti (III 16) [[p. 57]] Samvriti is that one of the two truths which demonstrates the illusive character or emptiness of all things. It is relative truth in this case. The Mahayana school teaches the difference between these two truths Paramarthasatya and Samvritisatya (Satya “truth”). This is the bone of contention between the Madhyamikas and the Yogacharyas, the former denying and the latter affirming that every object exists owing to a previous cause or by a concatenation. The Madhyamikas are the great Nihilists and Deniers, for whom everything is parikalpita, an illusion and an error in the world of thought and the subjective, as much as in the objective universe. The Yogacharyas are the great spiritualists. Samvriti, therefore, as only relative truth, is the origin of all illusion.
(TG) Samvritisatya {Sans}. Truth mixed with false conceptions (Samvriti) the reverse of absolute truth-or Paramarthasatya, self-consciousness in absolute truth or reality.
(TG) Samyagajiva {Sans}. Mendicancy for religious purposes: the correct profession. It is the fourth Marga (path), the vow of poverty, obligatory on every Arhat and monk.
(TG) Samyagdrishti {Sans}. The ability to discuss truth. The first of the eight Margas (paths) of the ascetic.
(TG) Samyakkarmanta {Sans}. The last of the eight Margas. Strict purity and observance of honesty, disinterestedness and unselfishness, the characteristic of every Arhat.
(TG) Samyaksamadhi {Sans}. Absolute mental coma. The sixth of the eight Margas; the full attainment of Samadhi.
(TG) Samyaksambuddha {Sans}. or Sammasambuddha, as pronounced in Ceylon. Lit ., the Buddha of correct and harmonious knowledge, and the third of the ten titles of Sakyamuni.
(SKv) Samyak-Sambuddha Samyak-Sambuddha is a compound of samyak perfect, and sambuddha — fully awakened or completely understood; hence the title implies ‘one who is thoroughly awake spiritually and perfectly enlightened.’ This title was given to the Buddha by his disciples because of their reverence for the great excellence of his attainments.
(TG) Samyattaka Nikaya (Pali). A Buddhist work composed mostly of dialogues between Buddha and his disciples.
(TG) Samyara {Sans}. A deity worshipped by the Tantrikas.
(WG) Sam-yoga, junction, — one of the twenty-four gunas of the Nyaya system.
(KT) Samyuttaka Nikaya. One of the Buddhist Sutras.
(TG) Sana {Sans}. One of the three esoteric Kumaras, whose names are Sana, Kapila and Sanatsujata, the mysterious triad which contains the mystery of generation and reincarnation.
(TG) Sana or Sanaischara {Sans}. The same as Sani or Saturn the planet. In the Hindu Pantheon he is the son of Surya, the Sun, and of Sanjna, Spiritual Consciousness, who is the daughter of Visva-Karman, or rather of Chhaya, the shadow left behind by Sanjna. Sanaischara, the “slow-moving”.
(TG) Sanaka {Sans}. A sacred plant, the fibres of which are woven into yellow robes for Buddhist priests.
(TG) Sanat Kumara {Sans}. The most prominent of the seven Kumaras, the Vaidhatra, the first of which are called Sanaka, Sananda, Sanatana, and Sanat Kumara; which names are all significant qualifications of the degrees of human intellect.
(TG) Sanat Sujatiya {Sans}. A work treating of Krishna’s teachings, such as in Bhagavad Gita and Anugita.
(TG) Sancha-Dwipa {Sans}. One of the seven great islands Sapta-Dwipa.
(WG) Sanchita-karma, that karma which is latent, producing no effect – owing to the active operation of other karma, but which will operate in a future incarnation. ( sanchita, piled up, accumulated;
(TG) Sanchoniathon {Greek}. A pre-christian writer on Phoenician Cosmogony, whose works are no longer extant. Philo Byblus gives only the so-called fragments of Sanchoniathon.
(TG) Sandalphon {Hebr}. The Kabbalistic Prince of Angels, emblematically represented by one of the Cherubim of the Ark.
(WG) Sandhi, the period at the expiration of each yuga and equal to one-sixth of its duration; occurring also at the end of each manvantara. ( san, together; dhi, putting: junction
(SKf) Sandhi, Sandhya, Sandhyansa Both Sandhi and Sandhya mean literally ‘a union’ or ‘a junction’; derived from the verb-root samdha — to join, to unite. These two words are used for the interval between a day and night — a twilight; and the interval between a night and day — a dawn. In Theosophical terminology Sandhi and Sandhya are also applied to the ‘Dawns and Twilights’ or ‘transition periods’ between two great ages such as Yugas or Kalpas. The length of a Sandhi or Sandhya depends upon the length of the cycle it precedes or follows. Sandhyansa, a compound of sandhya, and ansa — portion, is applied to a part or portion of a ‘Dawn’ or ‘Twilight’; and in some cases is used for the ‘twilight’ or transition period following a cycle.
(TG) Sandhya {Sans}. A period between two Yugas, morning-evening; anything coming between and joining two others. Lit., “twilight”; the period between a full Manvantara, or a “Day”, and a full Pralaya or a “Night” of “Brahma”.
(WG) Sandhya, morning or evening twilight; the period which precedes a yuga.
(TG) Sandhyamsa {Sans}. A period following a Yuga.
(WG) Sandhyansa, the portion of a sandhi (twilight) succeeding a yuga, and equal in duration to the dawn preceding the yuga. ( sandhi, period between day and night; ansa, a part, a portion
(WG) Sangha, the order, the assemblage.
(TG) Sanghai Dag-po {Tibe}. The “concealed Lord”; a title of those who have merged into, and identified themselves with, the Absolute. Used of the “Nirvanees” and the “Jivanmuktas”.
(TG) Sangye Khado {Sans}. The Queen of the Khado or female genii; the Dakini of the Hindus and the Lilith of the Hebrews.
(WG) Sanjaya, the charioteer of King Dhrita-rashtra and narrator in the Bhagavad-Gita.
(GH) Sanjaya A suta ( i.e., a charioteer, as well as a royal bard who recounted the heroic actions of the king, etc of the monarch Dhritarashtra, also an ambassador of that king, bearing the family-name Gavalgani. He was granted by Krishna Dvaipayana Vyasa the divine sight of seeing everything in minutest detail, so that he might thus recount all that he saw in regard to the conflict at Kurukshetra to the blind monarch Dhritarashtra. Therefore, as the opening stanzas tell, Sanjaya relates the preliminaries of the battle, at which time the dialog between Krishna and Arjuna occurs — this dialog being known as the Bhagavad-Gita. (Meaning of the word itself: completely victorious. Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 1)
(TG) Sanjna {Sans}. Spiritual Consciousness. The wife of Surya, the Sun.
(WG) Sanjna, name of the Gayatri, or most sacred verse of the Vedas; name of a daughter of Visva-karman and wife of the sun, allegorically signifying spiritual consciousness.
(SKv) Sanjna-veshin The ‘initiation robe’ of neophytes on the path of Self-Knowledge, the robe of spiritual consciousness and wisdom with which Nirvana is entered. Sanjna-veshin is derived from the verb-root jna — to know, and sam — wholly, completely; and veshin — robe or appearance, derived from the causative form of verb-root vish — to clothe.
(WG) Sankalpa, volition, strength of mind; thought, reflection.
(GH) Sankalpa (or Samkalpa) Conception or idea formed in the mind or heart; hence the word has the further meaning of will, volition, desire. (The following word is derived from the verbal root:) sam-klrip, to be brought about, to come into existence. Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 31)
(TG) Sankara {Sans}. The name of Siva. Also a great Vedantic philosopher.
(GH) Sankara (or Samkara) literally ‘The auspicious’: a name of Siva, in his aspect of chief of the Rudras (or Maruts, q.v. ). Also and especially in his auspicious or beneficent character: that of regenerator, hence popularly regarded as the creator. ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 73)
(TG) Sri Sankaracharya {Sans}. The great religious reformer of India, and teacher of the Vedanta philosophy — the greatest of all such teachers, regarded by the Adwaitas (Non-dualists) as an incarnation of Siva and a worker of miracles. He established many mathams (monasteries), and founded the most learned sect among Brahmans, called the Smartava. The legends about him are as numerous as his philosophical writings. At the age of thirty-two he went to Kashmir, and reaching Kedaranath in the Himalayas, entered a cave alone, whence he never returned. His followers claim that he did not die, but only retired from the world.
(FY) Sankaracharya, the great expositor of the monistic Vedanta Philosophy, which denies the personality of the Divine Principle, and affirms its unity with the spirit of man.
(WG) Sankaracharya, one of the great teachers of Brahminism; said to be a reincarnation of Gautama Buddha.
(SK)o Sankaracharya, Acharya, Vedanta Sankaracharya was an Avatara who lived in India from 510 B.C. to 478 B.C. * He was a great religious reformer and was one of the greatest exponents of the Vedanta philosophy. Vedanta is a compound of veda — knowledge, and anta — end or completion; hence the Vedanta philosophy presents an illuminated interpretation of the Vedic writings. Because of the light and wisdom he brought to India he was called Sankaracharya, a compound meaning ‘blessed spiritual teacher,’ from sankara — blessed, and acharya — spiritual guide. [* Second Printing of Second Edition by Point Loma Publications, Inc., Editors believe the dates to be 788 A.D. to 820 A.D.]
(SP) Sankaracarya — the master (acarya) Sankara [Samkara], great thinker and commentator of the Advaita school of Vedanta philosophy. Sankara also founded a set of monasteries and his most important successors among the abbots use Sankaracarya as a title.
(TG) Sankhya {Sans}. The system of philosophy founded by Kapila Rishi, a system of analytical metaphysics, and one of the six Darshanas or schools of philosophy. It discourses on numerical categories and the meaning of the twenty-five tatwas (the forces of nature in various degrees). This “atomistic school”, as some call it, explains nature by the interaction of twenty-four elements with purusha (spirit) modified by the three gunas (qualities), teaching the eternity of pradhana (primordial, homogeneous matter), or the self-transformation of nature and the eternity of the human Egos.
(WG) Sankhya, one of the great systems of Indian philosophy, — a speculative system as broadly distinguished from the practical, or that based upon exercise of the moral and religious duties. (Literally, “the summing up [of philosophy].”)
(GH) Sankhya (or Samkhya) The name of the third of the six Darsanas or Hindu schools of philosophy, which may be rendered ‘the school of reckoners.’ It was so called because this school divided or ‘reckoned’ the universe (and likewise man, as a child of the universe) into 25 elementary principles (Tattwas) — 24 of which formed the vehicles or bodies in which the true self (Purusha) works. This school was founded by Kapila . H. P. Blavatsky states that the system was established by the first Kapila (as stated in the Puranas) and written down by the last Kapila, the sage and philosopher of the Kali-yuga period. ( Secret Doctrine, II, p. 572) There were several sages of the name of Kapila. (The following word is derived from the verbal root:) khya + sam, Meaning of the word itself: to reckon, to enumerate. Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 15)
(SKf) Sankhya, Kapila The Sankhya is a school of Hindu philosophy founded by Kapila. This school divides the Universe, or man, into a Purusha (Spirit) and twenty-four Tattwas (manifested Principles). Hence the name Sankhya, derived from the verb-root samkhya — to enumerate. The goal of this philosophy is to free the Purusha from these encasing Principles or Tattwas.
(TG) Sankhya Karika {Sans}. A work by Kapila, containing his aphorisms.
(FY) Sankhya Karika, a treatise containing the aphorisms of Kapila, the founder of the Sankhya system, one of the six schools of Hindu philosophy.
(WG) Sankhya Karika, the metaphysical aphorisms of Kapila Rishi.
(TG) Sankhya Yoga {Sans}. The system of Yoga as set forth by the above school.
(FY) Sankhya Yog, the system of Yog as set forth by Sankhya philosophers.
(TG) Sanna (Pali). One of the five Skandhas, namely the attribute of abstract ideas.
(KT) Sanna. One of the five Skandhas, or attributes, meaning “abstract ideas.”
(WG) Sannyasa, asceticism; withdrawal from the world of pain.
(GH) Sannyasa Renunciation of the world and material affairs and the taking up of the path leading to mystic knowledge. (Compound sam, with; (The following word is derived from the verbal root:) ni-as, to reject, to resign worldly life One who practises Sannyasa is called a Sannyasin. ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 44)
(SKv) Sannyasa The renunciation of all external and worldly bonds in order to devote one’s life to the higher intellectual and spiritual culture and service. Sannyasa is a general term which embraces the three Yogic attainments of Dharana, Dhyana, and Samadhi. The word is derived from the verb-root as — to throw, and ni — down, and sam — together; hence meaning ‘to throw or lay aside, to renounce.’
(TG) Sannyasi {Sans}. A Hindu ascetic who has reached the highest mystic knowledge; whose mind is fixed only upon the supreme truth, and who has entirely renounced everything terrestrial and worldly.
(FY) Sannyasi, a Hindu ascetic whose mind is steadfastly fixed upon the Supreme Truth.
(WG) Sannyasin, one who retires from worldly concerns; an ascetic.
(OG) Sannyasin — {Sans} One who renounces (a renouncer); from sannyasa, “renunciation,” abandonment of worldly bonds and attractions. Resignation to the service of the spiritual nature.
(SP) Sannyasin — renouncer, one who renounces.
(TG) Sansara {Sans}. Lit., “rotation”; the ocean of births and deaths. Human rebirths represented as a continuous circle, a wheel ever in motion.
(WG) Sansara, migration; passing through a succession of states; passing from one body to another, reincarnation.
(WG) Sansaya, doubt; error.
(WG) Sansiddhika, innate.
(WG) Sanskara, fancy, imagination; inclination.
(TG) Sanskrit {Sans}. The classical language of the Brahmans, never known nor spoken in its true systematized form (given later approximately by Panini), except by the initiated Brahmans, as it was pre-eminently “a mystery language”. It has now degenerated into the so-called Prakrita.
(SK)o Sanskrit, Devanagari Sanskrit is the mother of Aryan languages. It is the developed and perfected form of a very early Aryan tongue; hence the name, from Sanskrita, a word meaning ‘perfected,’ ‘polished.’ This original natural language was worked upon and added to and improved by the Initiates of the ancient temples of wisdom in order that it could express more clearly the profound and mystic god-teachings that had been entrusted to them. Thus it has often been called the ‘language of the gods.’ Devanagari is the alphabetical script of Sanskrit. Devanagari is a compound of deva — god, and nagari — city; hence it is the divine-city writing, or in other words, the temple-script.
(TG) Santa {Sans}. Lit., “placidity”. The primeval quality of the latent, undifferentiated state of elementary matter.
(WG) Santa, tranquil, pleasant.
(GH) Santanu (or Samtanu) The son of Pratipa (of the Lunar Dynasty), a king of the Kurus, and younger brother of Devapi who became a hermit when Santanu usurped his throne. He married Gafiga, who gave birth to Bhishma . He later wedded Satyavati by whom he had two sons, Chitrangada and Vichitravirya . Santanu was the fourteenth descendant of Kuru and was remarkable for his devotion, charity, modesty, constancy, and resolution. It was further related of him that every decrepit man whom he touched became young again. ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. iii)
(TG) Santatih {Sans}. The “offspring.”
(GH) Santa-Veda The third of the Vedas, consisting of metrical hymns (of 1549 verses) many of which are similar to the Rig-Veda. The hymns are especially arranged for chanting at the sacrifices or offerings of the Soma . Those who chanted the hymns were called Udgatris. ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 73)
(WG) Sanyama, the combination of attention, contemplation and abstract meditation; in yoga practice, restraint due to the foregoing combination.
(TG) Saphar {Hebr}. Sepharim; one of those called in the Kabbalah — Sepher, Saphar and Sipur, or “Number, Numbers and Numbered”, by whose agency the world was formed.
(TG) Sapta {Sans}. Seven.
(WG) Sapta, seven.
(IN) Sapta {Sans} Seven.
(TG) Sapta Buddhaka {Sans}. An account in Mahtanidana Sutra of Sapta Buddha, the seven Buddhas of our Round, of which Gautama Sakyamuni is esoterically the fifth, and exoterically, as a blind, the seventh.
(TG) Saptadwipa {Sans}. The seven sacred islands or “continents” in the Puranas.
(TG) Saptaloka {Sans}. The seven higher regions, beginning from the earth upwards.
(TG) Saptaparna {Sans}. The “sevenfold”. A plant which gave its name to a famous cave, a Vihara, in Rajagriha, now near Buddhagaya, where the Lord Buddha used to meditate and teach his Arhats, and where after his death the first Synod was held. This cave had seven chambers, whence the name. In Esotericism Saptaparna is the symbol of the “sevenfold Man-Plant”.
(WG) Saptaparna, the seven-chambered cave, near Buddhagaya, where Buddha initiated and taught his Arhats; also man, because he has seven chambers or principles.
(IN) Saptasarma [Saptaparna] {Sans} “Seven-leaved parna tree,” the man-plant, the seven-principled human being.
(SKf) Sapta Ratnani The ‘Seven Jewels of Wisdom.’ Ratnani is the nominative plural form of ratna — a jewel. These Seven Keys to Wisdom and Initiation are: (1) Punarjanman — Rebirth; (2) Karman — the Law of Cause and Effect; (3) Lokas and Talas — Hierarchies, or the law that ‘Everything exists in everything else’; (4) Svabhava — the Essential Characteristic of every being; (5) Pravritti and Nivritti — Evolution and Involution; (6) Amrita-Yana and Pratyeka-Yana — the ‘Path of Immortality’ and the ‘Path of Each for Himself’; and (7) Atma-Vidya — ‘Selfknowledge’ which is Universal Knowledge.
(TG) Saptarshi {Sans}. The seven Rishis. As stars they are the constellation of the Great Bear, and called as such the Riksha and Chitrasikhandinas, bright-crested.
(WG) Saptarshi, (also SAPTA-RISHI), the first seven sages or great teachers of men. ( sapta, seven; rishi, sage
(TG) Sapta Samudra {Sans}. The “seven oceans”. These have an occult significance on a higher plane.
(TG) Sapta Sindhava {Sans}. The “seven sacred rivers”. A Vedic term. In Zend works they are called Hapta Heando. These rivers are closely united with the esoteric teachings of the Eastern schools, having a very occult significance.
(TG) Sapta Tathagata {Sans}. The chief seven Nirmanakayas among the numberless ancient world-guardians. Their names are inscribed on a heptagonal pillar kept in a secret chamber in almost all Buddhist temples in China and Tibet. The Orientalists are wrong in thinking that these are “the seven Buddhist substitutes for the Rishis of the Brahmans.” (See “Tathagata-gupta”).
(TG) Sar or Saros {Chald}. A Chaldean god from whose name, represented by a circular horizon, the Greeks borrowed their word Saros, the cycle.
(TG) Sarama {Sans}. In the Vedas, the dog of Indra and mother of the two dogs called Sarameyas. Sarama is the “divine watchman” of the god and the same as he who watched “over the golden flock of stars and solar rays”; the same as Mercury, the planet, and the Greek Hermes, called Sarameyas.
(TG) Saraph {Hebr}. A flying serpent.
(TG) Sarasvati {Sans}. The same as Vach, wife and daughter of Brahma, produced from one of the two halves of his body. She is the goddess of speech and of sacred or esoteric knowledge and wisdom. Also called Sri .
(WG) Sarasvati, the wife or female sakti of Brahma. (Literally, “watery.”)
(TG) Sarcophagus {Greek}. A stone tomb, a receptacle for the dead; sarc = flesh, and phagein = to eat. Lapis assius, the stone of which the sarcophagi were made, is found in Lycia, and has the property of consuming the bodies in a very few weeks. In Egypt sarcophagi were made of various other stones, of black basalt, red granite, alabaster and other materials, as they served only as outward receptacles for the wooden coffins containing the mummies. The epitaphs on some of them are as remarkable as they are highly ethical, and no Christian could wish for anything better. One epitaph, dating thousands of years before the year one of our modern era, reads: — “I have given water to him who was thirsty, and clothing to him who was naked. I have done harm to no man.” Another: “I have done actions desired by men and those which are commanded by the gods”. The beauty of some of these tombs may be judged by the alabaster Sarcophagus of Oimenephthah I., at Sir John Soane’s Museum, Lincoln’s Inn. “It was cut out of a single block of fine alabaster stone, and is 9 ft. 4 in. long, by 22 to 24 in. in width, and 27 to 32 in. in height. . . . Engraved dots, etc., outside were once filled with blue copper to represent the heavens. To attempt a description of the wonderful figures inside and out is beyond the scope of this work. Much of our knowledge of the mythology of the people is derived from this precious monument, with its hundreds of figures to illustrate the last judgment, and the life beyond the grave. Gods, men, serpents, symbolical animals and plants are there most beautifully carved.” (Funeral Rites of the Egyptians
(TG) Sargon {Chald}. A Babylonian king. The story is now found to have been the original of Moses and the ark of bulrushes in the Nile.
(MO) Sarimner {Nors} (say-rim-ner) [ sar sea + rimner computation, calendar] One of the boars that feed the One-harriers
(TG) Sarira {Sans}. Envelope or body.
(FY) Sarira, body.
(WG) Sarira, body; attributes. The sarira of Parabrahmam may be spoken of as qualities.
(OG) Sarira — {Sans} From a root which can best be translated by saying that it means what is easily dissolved, easily worn away; the idea being something transitory, foam-like, full of holes, as it were. Note the meaning hid in this — it is very important. A term which is of common usage in the philosophy of Hindustan, and of very frequent usage in modern theosophical philosophy. A general meaning is a composite body or vehicle of impermanent character in and through which an ethereal entity lives and works. ( See also Linga-Sarira; Sthula-Sarira)
(SP) Sarira — body [See upadhi]. sthula-sarira — the gross body linga-sarira — the subtle body karana-sarira — the causal body.
(WG) Sariri, substances.
(TG) Sarisripa {Sans}. Serpents, crawling insects, reptiles, “the infinitesimally small”.
(TG) Sarku {Chald}. Lit., the light race; that of the gods in contradistinction to the dark race called zahmat gagnadi, or the race that fell, i.e., mortal men.
(TG) Sarpas {Sans}. Serpents, whose king was Sesha, the serpent, or rather an aspect of Vishnu, who reigned in Patala.
(TG) Sarpa-rajni {Sans}. The queen of the serpents in the Brahmanas.
(WG) Sarupya, having body or shape, similar to that of Isvara.
(TG) Sarvada {Sans}. Lit., “all-sacrificing”. A title of Buddha, who in a former Jataka (birth) sacrificed his kingdom, liberty, and even life, to save others.
(TG) Sarvaga {Sans}. The supreme “World-Substance”.
(WG) Sarva-jna, omniscient. ( sarva, all; jna, knowing
(TG) Sarva Mandala {Sans}. A name for the “Egg of Brahma”.
(WG) Sarva-sakti, omnipotent. ( sarva, all; sakti, power
(TG) Sarvatma {Sans}. The supreme Soul; the all-pervading Spirit.
(TG) Sarvesha {Sans}. Supreme Being. Controller of every action and force in the universe.
(TG) Sat {Sans}. The one ever-present Reality in the infinite world; the divine essence which is, but cannot be said to exist, as it is Absoluteness, Be-ness itself.
(VS) changeless Sat (II 5) [[p. 26]] SAT, the one eternal and Absolute Reality and Truth, all the rest being illusion.
(FY) Sat, the real, Purusha.
(WG) Sat, truth, “be-ness,” self-existence; one of the aspects of Parabrahmam.
(OG) Sat — {Sans} A word meaning the real, the enduring fundamental essence of the world. In the ancient Brahmanical teachings the terms sat, chit, ananda, were used to signify the state of what one may call the Absolute: sat meaning “pure being”; chit, “pure thought”; ananda, “bliss,” and these three words were compounded as sachchidananda . ( See also Asat)
(GH) Sat Being, or rather Be-ness — the state of existence. The term is used as the Real (true being), in contradistinction to Asat (the illusory world). In the Vedanta it is equivalent to the self-existent or Universal Spirit (Brahman). “Sat is in itself neither the ‘existent,’ nor ‘being.’ SAT is the immutable, the ever present, changeless and eternal root, from and through which all proceeds. But it is far more than the potential force in the seed, which propels onward the process of development, or what is now called evolution. It is the ever becoming, though the never manifesting.” ( Secret Doctrine, II, p. 449) (present participle of (The following word is derived from the verbal root:) as, to be. Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 119)
(SKv) Sat, Asat Sat is ‘Reality,’ ‘Truth,’ the ‘Be-ness’ or ‘Essence’ of all things, that which is enduring. Sat is a name given by the Vedantins to Brahman, the Universal Self. Asat is ‘unreality,’ ‘untruth,’ ‘non-being,’ that which does not endure. Asat is usually applied to the illusory or mayavi realms of the manifested universe, to the shadowy or reflecting side of nature, and to the vehicles and bodies through which the Self evolves. But Asat may also be rendered in a highly mystical sense as ‘that which is beyond Sat,’ that which is so lofty and divine that it seems to us as non-existence. It is that boundless and eternal Space or Parabrahman out of which Sat itself springs. The word Sat is the present participle-form of the verb-root as — to be; hence ‘being.’
(IN) Sat {Sans} “Truth, reality, pure being” — the essence of Brahman.
(SP) Sat — reality, being. The opposite of asat, unreality, nonbeing.
(TG) Sata rupa {Sans}. The “hundred-formed one”; applied to Vach, who to be the female Brahma assumes a hundred forms, i.e., Nature.
(WG) Satchitananda, that which is all truth (sattwa), all intelligence (chit), and all bliss (ananda). See respectively those words.
(SKf) Sachchidananda; Sat, Chit, Ananda Sat — pure being, reality; Chit — pure thought, intelligence, and consciousness; and Ananda — pure bliss, the highest happiness; are three words used to describe the state of being of Brahman, the Highest Being or Self of our universe. A human being or god who has attained Moksha or Nirvana, or atonement with the highest in our universe, is also said to enjoy Sat, Chit, and Ananda, or compounded in one word — Sachchidananda.
(TG) Sati {Egyp}. The triadic goddess, with Anouki of the Egyptian god Khnoum.
(WG) Sat-karyyam, existent effect.
(TG) Satta, {Sans}. The “one and sole Existence” — Brahma (neut.
(TG) Satti or Suttee, {Sans}. The burning of living widows together with their dead husbands — a custom now happily abolished in India; lit., “a chaste and devoted wife”.
(TG) Sattva {Sans}. Understanding; quiescence in divine knowledge. It follows generally the word Bodhi when used as a compound word, e.g., “Bodhisattva”.
(TG) Sattva or Satwa, {Sans}. Goodness; the same as Sattva, or purity, one of the trigunas or three divisions of nature.
(FY) Sattwa, purity.
(FY) Satva, goodness.
(WG) Sattva, being, existence, entity, life; truth, reality; in philosophy, the highest of the three gunas.
(WG) Sattwa, the same as Sattva .
(OG) Sattva — {Sans} One of the trigunas or “three qualities,” the other two being rajas and tamas. Sattva is the quality of truth, goodness, reality, purity. These three gunas or qualities run all through the web or fabric of nature like threads inextricably mingled, for, indeed, each of these three qualities participates likewise of the nature of the other two, yet each one possessing its predominant (which is its own svabhava) or intrinsic characteristic. One who desires to gain some genuine understanding of the manner in which the archaic wisdom looks upon these three phases of human intellectual and spiritual activity must remember that not one of these three can be considered apart from the other two. The three are fundamentally three operations of the human consciousness, and essentially are that consciousness itself.
(GH) Sattva (or Sattwa) The quality of truth, goodness, purity: one of the three qualities (Trigunas) running through the web or fabric of Nature. (See Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. chapters. 14 and 18 (sat, being; tva — a noun-suffix, hence: ‘true essence.’ Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 16)
(TG) Satya {Sans}. Supreme truth.
(WG) Satya, real, true; truth, unconditioned reality.
(SK)o Satya Truth, reality; derived from the word sat or ‘that which really is.’ Sat is a participial form of the verb-root as — to be.
(SP) Satya — truth.
(WG) Satyaki, a great hero, an allegorical personification introduced in the battle described in the Bhagavad-Gita.
(GH) Satyaki A member of the Vrishni family, kinsman of Krishna, and acting as his charioteer. He also lent his aid to the Pandavas in the battle to regain their kingdom. ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 4)
(TG) Satya Loka {Sans}. The world of infinite purity and wisdom, the celestial abode of Brahma and the gods.
(FY) Satya Loka, the abode of Truth, one of the subjective spheres in our solar system.
(WG) Satya-loka, the highest heaven; place of truth.
(SK) Satyan nasti paro dharmah There is no Religion higher than Truth. (Satyan — than truth; nasti, a compound of na — not, and asti — is ; paro — higher; and dharmah — the nominative form of dharma — truth, or religion
(TG) Satyas {Sans}. One of the names of the twelve great gods.
(GH) Satyavati The daughter of Uparichara, a king of Chedi and Adrika, about whom it is related that although an Apsaras (‘celestial nymph’), she was doomed to live on earth in the form of a fish. Satyavati was the mother of Vyasa by the Rishi Parasara, giving birth to him on an island (dvipa) -hence he was called Dvaipayana. Later Satyavati wedded king Santanu (king of the Kurus) giving birth to Chitrangada and Vichitravirya . ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. iii)
(TG) Satya Yuga {Sans}. The golden age, or the age of truth and purity; the first of the four Yugas, also called Krita Yuga.
(WG) Satya-yuga, the first of the four ages, the golden age, containing 1,728,000 of mortal years. (See YUGA
(WG) Savitra, the sun; the divine sun. According to Sayana, Savitri is the sun before rising, and after rising until its setting it is called Surya. (Literally, “the vivifier.”)
(WG) Sawan, Siamese for heaven.
(WG) Sayujya, a state of moksha (supreme bliss), which includes salokya and sarupya, but does not mean absolute union with Parabrahmam.
(TG) Scarabaeus. In Egypt, the symbol of resurrection, and also of rebirth; of resurrection for the mummy or rather of the highest aspects of the personality which animated it, and of rebirth for the Ego, the spiritual body of the lower, human Soul. Egyptologists give us but half of the truth, when in speculating upon the meaning of certain inscriptions, they say, the justified soul, once arrived at a certain period of its peregrinations (simply at the death of the physical body) should be united to its body (i.e., the Ego) never more to be separated from it . (Rouge What is this so-called body? Can it be the mummy? Certainly not, for the emptied mummified corpse can never resurrect. It can only be the eternal, spiritual vestment, the EGO that never dies but gives immortality to whatsoever becomes united with it. The delivered Intelligence (which) retakes its luminous envelope and (re)becomes Daimon, as Prof. Maspero says, is the spiritual Ego; the personal Ego or Kama-Manas, its direct ray, or the lower soul, is that which aspires to become Osirified, i.e., to unite itself with its god; and that portion of it which will succeed in so doing, will never more be separated from it (the god), not even when the latter incarnates again and again, descending periodically on earth in its pilgrimage, in search of further experiences and following the decrees of Karma. Khem, the sower of seed, is shown on a stele in a picture of Resurrection after physical death, as the creator and the sower of the grain of corn, which, after corruption, springs up afresh each time into a new ear, on which a scarabaeus beetle is seen poised; and Deveria shows very justly that Ptah is the inert, material form of Osiris, who will become Sokari (the eternal Ego) to be reborn, and afterwards be Harmachus, or Horus in his transformation, the risen god. The prayer so often found in the tumular inscriptions, the wish for the resurrection in one’s living soul or the Higher Ego, has ever a scarabaeus at the end, standing for the personal soul. The scarabaeus is the most honoured, as the most frequent and familiar, of all Egyptian symbols. No mummy is without several of them; the favourite ornament on engravings, household furniture and utensils is this sacred beetle, and Pierret pertinently shows in his Livre des Morts that the secret meaning of this hieroglyph is sufficiently explained in that the Egyptian name for the scarabaeus, Kheper, signifies to be, to become, to build again.
(TG) Scheo {Egyp}. The god who, conjointly with Tefnant and Seb, inhabits Aanroo, the region called the land of the rebirth of the gods.
(TG) Schesoo-Hor {Egyp}. Lit., the servants of Horus; the early people who settled in Egypt and who were Aryans. WW Scholastics You will remember that I said that the Christians had no philosophy. They had none such in the sense that the Hindu religions have a philosophy, which is a component part, the greater and nobler part, of their religion. But during all the Middle Ages the Christians had different schools of thinkers, hairsplitting dialectitians and logicians they were, quarreling about abstractions; the differences between them frequently so minute that it is a marvel to a man of modern times how thinking beings could indulge in such acrimonious and bitter controversies over subjects so uninspiring. Some of these latter however, are not unworthy of thought. Take an example which is often quoted by modern writers as typical of the uselessness of abstract discussion: How many angels or similar beings can find place on the point of a needle? This is often quoted as a singularly efficient argument against the scholastics, as the so-called philosophers and learned men of the Middle Ages were called. But if we consider that even from the standpoint of modern science and particularly from the discoveries of late years there is a world of infinitesimal electrons composing the atom of physics and chemistry — the atom having been shown by the latest researches to be composed of a multitude of these smaller entities — then perhaps we may see another way of looking at it. The atom may be conceived of as an atomic solar system. The electrons are conceived of as planets circling, as our planets do, around our sun, around some mysterious and wonderful center in the atom. Now this thought shows us that perhaps in these strange speculations of the schoolmen or the scholastics there may have been some instinctive notion of things as they exist in other spheres, on other planes, if you like, on the lowest etheric plane. When a man is asked to decide how many angels can perform or evolve on the point of a needle, if his mind is not thoughtful and inclined to reflection, he may take the inquirer to be a lunatic. But what are angels? They are not men; they are not creatures, according to the theory, below men. According to the theory they are creatures above man. The point of a needle as contrasted with an atom, is immense; it is an extensive universe; armies of spiritual beings on their groups of electronic spheres, might be conceived as executing their evolutions on the point of a needle. Take our own world, our own solar system, our own universe, which includes all that is visible to the eye; it is conceivable, and I believe true, that it all can be thought of as a point by some intelligence so infinitely superior to ours that it conceives of and knows things which are utterly beyond our ken. Sometimes the ideas of the scholastics (in fact usually, rather than sometimes) were puerile. Their arguments seemed to be principally to hair-split definitions. They indulged in vain and empty speculations on abstract subjects, and it is small wonder that the world since the decline and fall of scholasticism has looked upon the huge and monumental tomes of their writings as mental wilderness. Few men read, fewer still search them. Scholasticism arose in Europe after a period of intellectual night called the Dark Ages, which we may place between the 6th and 9th centuries. Then, when Charlemagne had extended his conquests over most of Europe, he began to found schools, and to strengthen those which already existed, to enlarge their sphere of activities. He was a great man, a bigot perhaps, but he had a love for the arts, and a love of learning, and he knew his duty in the lofty position which he held. And from that time we may date the rise of scholasticism. The word scholastic itself meant, about the time of the fall of the Roman Empire, a teacher of rhetoric in the schools, and the scholastics were called so because they were schoolmen, from schole, school. They were the learned men of the times and naturally they were theologians. Some specialized in the branches of philosophy which in their barbarous and rude form had come down to them from the schools of the Roman Empire; had slowly through the centuries, filtered into the benighted intellects of the Europeans from the intellectual splendor of Alexandria, early Constantinople, and Antioch. But there was very little of it. They even knew little of Aristotle, who later became their favorite. He became to them the model of all a philosopher should be. There were three of these scholastics who towered above their fellows — Albertus Magnus, a German born in Lauingen(?), in Suabia; a Scot (or an Irishman, as some think) Duns Scotus; and a third, an Italian, Thomas Aquinas or Aquino. Duns Scotus is usually supposed to have been born in the town of Dunse in Scotland. From the name of this man, by the way, has originated our word dunce . He was one of the most learned men of his age, a Franciscan friar, and he was called the doctor subtilissimus , or the most subtle (religious) teacher, on account of the supposed intellectual subtlety of his writing. And consequently after his death whenever a man showed unusual learning or unusual ability in acquiring knowledge, he became another Duns. Afterwards the name was applied derisively, and to say You are a Duns implied that the man addressed was of slow and bovine intellect or what we call a dunce. Now this man Thomas Aquinas was a Dominican. The two great orders of the Roman Church, the Dominicans and the Franciscans, have each their chosen intellectual philosophy. The Franciscan’s authority is Duns Scotus, naturally as he was a Franciscan friar; the Dominicans recognized Thomas of Aquino as their philosophical head. Thomas Aquinas was a close and earnest student of the writings of Dionysius the Areopagite, so much so that later writers, most of them Roman Catholic writers, have said that if the works of Thomas Aquinas disappeared, they could reconstruct all he had ever written from the writings of Dionysius the Areopagite. The writings of Thomas Aquinas are of tremendous authority in the Roman Church. If I am not mistaken, it is within three or four years that the Pope issued an encyclical condemning the advance of modernism in that church, and reiterated the necessity of holding to the theology (the Apex or ne plus ultra of theology) of Thomas Aquinas. Now as this work is considered in the church of Rome to be one of the best guides of their priests, it practically represents the standard of their theology, the touchstone of their faith. As Thomas Aquinas’ great work is derived to such a great extent from the writings of the Greek Christian Dionysius the Areopagite, whose works have been proved to have been derived from Neoplatonic sources, that is to say from pagan sources, we have the paradox that the Roman Church has chosen as its theological touchstone a work based on pagan philosophy. It is of a piece with what Protestant theologians have often pointed out, that Rome, Papal Rome, in its theology as well as in its hierarchy, its institutions, and its ritual, is a copy, more or less degraded, of pagan institutions, pagan thought, and pagan temple ceremonial. Roman Catholic theologians, to a certain extent, do not deny this. They ascribe it to the greatness of their faith, its ability to absorb other faiths, and to the fact that its own majesty never suffers diminution by absorption, but absorbs to transmute, and much more in similar vein.
The scholastics had a curious reputation among later men. It has been said of them that they discussed about everything in heaven and in earth, and about some things besides — de omnibus rebus caelo terra, — et de quibusdam aliis . Possibly that is one of the reasons why the Roman church boasts of itself as follows: quod semper, quod ab omnibus, quod ubique, — i.e. that it is always, that it is recognized by everybody, that it is everywhere — a proud boast indeed. The only thing, I think, that will fit the description conveyed in that Latin saying is the sublime science which we believe in, of which we may truly say that it is always, that it is accepted by everybody, that it is everywhere, because we can prove — and it will be our effort to prove it in our studies — that in one form or other, in all times, and under whatever names it may have been set forth, there has been one Truth, as there has been one effort to reach the truth by men, and that that Truth contains those principles of being, those principal heads of thought, which we call Theosophy. TG Schools of the Prophets. Schools established by Samuel for the training of the Nabiim (prophets). Their method was pursued on the same lines as that of a Chela or candidate for initiation into the occult sciences, i.e ., the development of abnormal faculties or clairvoyance leading to Seership. Of such schools there were many in days of old in Palestine and Asia Minor. That the Hebrews worshipped Nebo, the Chaldean god of secret learning, is quite certain, since they adopted his name as an equivalent of Wisdom.
(OG) Science — An operation of the human spirit-mind in its endeavor to understand the how of things — not any particular science whatsoever, but the thing in itself, science per se — ordered and classified knowledge. One phase of a triform method of understanding the nature of universal nature and its multiform and multifold workings; and this phase cannot be separated from the other two — philosophy and religion — if we wish to gain a true picture of things as they are in themselves .
Science is the aspect of human thinking in the activity of the mentality in the latter’s inquisitive, researching, and classifying functions.
(TG) Seance. A word which has come to mean with Theosophists and Spiritualists a sitting with a medium for phenomena, the materialisation of spirits and other manifestations.
(KT) Seance. A term now used to denote a sitting with a medium for sundry phenomena. Used chiefly among the spiritualists.
(TG) Seb {Egyp}. The Egyptian Saturn; the father of Osiris and Isis. Esoterically, the sole principle before creation, nearer in meaning to Parabrahm than Brahma. From as early as the second Dynasty, there were records of him, and statues of Seb are to be seen in the museums represented with the goose or black swan that laid the egg of the world on his head. Nout or Neith, the Great Mother and yet the Immaculate Virgin, is Seb’s wife; she is the oldest goddess on record, and is to be found on monuments of the first dynasty, to which Mariette Bey assigns the date of almost 7000 years B.C.
(OG) Second Death — This is a phrase used by ancient and modern mystics to describe the dissolution of the principles of man remaining in kama-loka after the death of the physical body. For instance, Plutarch says: Of the deaths we die, the one makes man two of three, and the other, one out of two. Thus, using the simple division of man into spirit, soul, and body: the first death is the dropping of the body, making two out of three; the second death is the withdrawal of the spiritual from the kama-rupic soul, making one out of two. The second death takes place when the lower or intermediate duad (manas-kama) in its turn separates from, or rather is cast off by, the upper duad; but preceding this event the upper duad gathers unto itself from this lower duad what is called the reincarnating ego, which is all the best of the entity that was, all its purest and most spiritual and noblest aspirations and hopes and dreams for betterment and for beauty and harmony. Inherent in the fabric, so to speak, of the reincarnating ego, there remain of course the seeds of the lower principles which at the succeeding rebirth or reincarnation of the ego will develop into the complex of the lower quaternary. ( See also Kama-Rupa)
(VS) Open and the Secret (II 35) [[p. 41]] The Open and the Secret Path or the one taught to the layman, the exoteric and the generally accepted, and the other the Secret Path the nature of which is explained at initiation.
(TG) Secret Doctrine. The general name given to the esoteric teachings of antiquity.
(TG) Sedecla {Hebr}. The Obeah woman of Endor.
(TG) Seer. One who is a clairvoyant; who can see things visible, and invisible — for others — at any distance and time with his spiritual or inner sight or perceptions.
(TG) Seir Anpin, or Zauir Anpin {Hebr}. In the Kabbalah, the Son of the concealed Father, he who unites in himself all the Sephiroth. Adam Kadmon, or the first manifested Heavenly Man, the Logos.
(MO) Sejd {Nors} (sayd) Prophecy
(TG) Sekhem {Egyp}. The same as Sekten.
(TG) Sekhet {Egyp}. See Pasht.
(TG) Sekten {Egyp}. Devachan; the place of post mortem reward, a state of bliss, not a locality.
(KT) Self. There are two Selves in men — the Higher and the Lower, the Impersonal and the Personal Self. One is divine, the other semi-animal. A great distinction should be made between the two.
(VS) Knower of All Self (I 9) [[p. 5]] The Tatwagyanee is the knower or discriminator of the principles in nature and in man; and Atmagyanee is the knower of ATMAN or the Universal, ONE SELF.
(VS) That way begins and ends outside of Self (II 28) [[p. 39]] Meaning the personal lower Self.
(VS) unites thee to thy silent Self (II 12) [[p. 30]] The Higher Self the seventh principle.
(OG) Self — Man is a sheaf or bundle of forces or energies and material elements combined; and the power controlling all and holding them together, making out of the composite aggregate a unity, is what theosophists call the Self — not the mere ego, but the Self, a purely spiritual unit, in its essence divine, which is the same in every man and woman on earth, the same in every entity everywhere in all the boundless fields of limitless space, as we understand space. If one closely examine his own consciousness, he will very soon know that this is the pure consciousness expressed in the words, I am — and this is the Self; whereas the ego is the cognition of the I am I . Consider the hierarchy of the human being growing from the Self as its seed — ten stages: three on the arupa or immaterial plane; and seven (or perhaps better, six) on the planes of matter or manifestation. On each one of these seven planes (or six planes), the Self or paramatman develops a sheath or garment, the upper ones spun of spirit, or light if you will, and the lower ones spun of shadow or matter; and each such sheath or garment is a soul; and between the Self and a soul — any soul — is an ego.
(TG) Sena {Sans}. The female aspect or Sakti of Karttikeya; also called Kaumara.
(TG) Senses. The ten organs of man. In the exoteric Pantheon and the allegories of the East, these are the emanations of ten minor gods, the terrestrial Prajapati or progenitors. They are called in contradistinction to the five physical and the seven superphysical, the elementary senses. In Occultism they are closely allied with various forces of nature, and with our inner organisms, called cells in physiology.
(TG) Senzar. The mystic name for the secret sacerdotal language or the Mystery-speech of the initiated Adepts, all over the world.
(WG) Senzar, the Mystery-language of the ancient Initiated Adepts, known to all schools all over the world.
(IN) Senzar Mystic name for the secret sacerdotal language, the Mystery-speech of initiated adepts; original language of the Stanzas of Dzyan.
(TG) Sepher Sephiroth {Hebr}. A Kabbalistic treatise concerning the gradual evolution of Deity from negative repose to active emanation and creation. [W.W.W.]
(TG) Sepher Yetzirah {Hebr}. The Book of Formation. A very ancient Kabbalistic work ascribed to the patriarch Abraham. It illustrates the creation of the universe by analogy with the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet, distributed into a triad, a heptad, and a dodecad, corresponding with the three mother letters, A, M, S, the seven planets, and the twelve signs of the Zodiac. It is written in the Neo-Hebraic of the Mishnah. [W.W.W.]
(TG) Sephira {Hebr} An emanation of Deity; the parent and synthesis of the ten Sephiroth when she stands at the head of the Sephirothal Tree; in the Kabbalah, Sephira, or the Sacred Aged, is the divine Intelligence (the same as Sophia or Metis), the first emanation from the Endless or Ain-Suph.
(TG) Sephiroth {Hebr}. The ten emanations of Deity; the highest is formed by the concentration of the Ain Soph Aur, or the Limitless Light, and each Sephira produces by emanation another Sephira. The names of the Ten Sephiroth are — 1. Kether — The Crown; 2. Chokmah — Wisdom; 3. Binah — Understanding; 4. Chesed — Mercy; 5. Geburah — Power; 6. Tiphereth — Beauty; 7. Netzach — Victory; 8. Hod — Splendour; 9. Jesod — Foundation; and 10. Malkuth — The Kingdom.
The conception of Deity embodied in the Ten Sephiroth is a very sublime one, and each Sephira is a picture to the Kabbalist of a group of exalted ideas, titles and attributes, which the name but faintly represents. Each Sephira is called either active or passive, though this attribution may lead to error; passive does not mean a return to negative existence; and the two words only express the relation between individual Sephiroth, and not any absolute quality. [W.W.W.]
(KT) Sephiroth. A Hebrew Kabalistic word, for the ten divine emanations from Ain-Soph, the impersonal, universal Principle, or DEITY. (Vide Theos. Gloss
(WG) Sephiroth, the ten emanations of Deity in the Hebrew Kabalah. They are, Kether , crown; Chokmah, wisdom; Binah, understanding; Chesed , mercy; Geburah, power; Tiphereth, beauty; Netzach, victory; Hod, splendor; Jesod , foundation; Malkuth, the kingdom.
(IN) Sephiroth {Hebr} In the Kabbalah, the ten divine emanations from Ain Soph (the Boundless) which form the Tree of Life or tenfold universe.
(WG) Septenary, the collection of six principles synthesized in the seventh or Atman, and constituting man. The first four are given under Quaternary , and the remaining three under Triad . The symbol of the septenary is a square and a triangle combined.
(TG) Septerium {Latin}. A great religious festival held in days of old every ninth year at Delphi, in honour of Helios, the Sun, or Apollo, to commemorate his triumph over darkness, or Python; Apollo-Python being the same as Osiris-Typhon in Egypt.
(TG) Seraphim {Hebr}. Celestial beings described by Isaiah (vi., 2,) as of human form with the addition of three pair of wings. The Hebrew word is ShRPIM, and apart from the above instance, is translated serpents, and is related to the verbal root ShRP, to burn up . The word is used for serpents in Numbers and Deuteronomy. Moses is said to have raised in the wilderness a ShRP or Seraph of Brass as a type. This bright serpent is also used as an emblem of Light.
Compare the myth of AEsculapius, the healing deity, who is said to have been brought to Rome from Epidaurus as a serpent, and whose statues show him holding a wand on which a snake is twisted. (See Ovid, Metam., lib. xv. The Seraphim of the Old Testament seem to be related to the Cherubim . In the Kabbalah the Seraphim are a group of angelic powers allotted to the Sephira Geburah — Severity. [W.W.W.]
(TG) Serapis {Egyp}. A great solar god who replaced Osiris in the popular worship, and in whose honour the seven vowels were sung. He was often made to appear in his representations as a serpent, a Dragon of Wisdom. The greatest god of Egypt during the first centuries of Christianity.
(TG) Sesha {Sans} Ananta, the great Serpent of Eternity, the couch of Vishnu; the symbol of infinite Time in Space. In the exoteric beliefs Sesha is represented as a thousand-headed and seven-headed cobra; the former the king of the nether world, called Patala, the latter the carrier or support of Vishnu on the Ocean of Space.
(WG) Sesha, name of the thousand-headed serpent — also called Ananta — sometimes represented as forming the couch and canopy of Vishnu while he sleeps during the night of Brahma. It is a symbol of eternal matter.
(TG) Set or Seth {Egyp}. The same as the Son of Noah and Typhon — who is the dark side of Osiris. The same as Thoth and Satan, the adversary, not the devil represented by Christians.
(OG) Seven Principles of Man — Every one of the seven principles of man, as also every one of the seven elements in him, is itself a mirror of the universe. ( See also Principles of Man)
(OG) Seven Sacred Planets — The ancients spoke of seven planets which they called the seven sacred planets, and they were named as follows: Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury, and Moon. Each one of these seven globes is a body like our own Earth in that each is a septenary chain, sevenfold in composition: six other superior globes of finer and more ethereal matter above the physical sphere or globe. Only those globes which are on the same cosmic plane of nature or being are physically visible to each other. For instance, we can see only the fourth-plane planetary globe of each of the other planetary or sidereal chains, because we ourselves are on the fourth cosmic plane, as they also are. There is a very important and wide range of mystical teaching connected with the seven sacred planets which it would be out of place to develop here.
(TG) Sevekh {Egyp}. The god of time; Chronos; the same as Sefekh. Some Orientalists translate it as the Seventh.
(TG) Shaberon {Tibe}. The Mongolian Shaberon or Khubilgan (or Khubilkhans) are the reincarnations of Buddha, according to the Lamaists; great Saints and Avatars, so to say.
(TG) Shaddai, El {Hebr}. A name of the Hebrew Deity, usually translated God Almighty, found in Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, Ruth and Job. Its Greek equivalent is Kurios Pantokrator; but by Hebrew derivation it means rather the pourer forth, shad meaning a breast, and indeed shdi is also used for a nursing mother. [W.W.W.]
(VS) O Victim of thy Shadows (II 13) [[p. 30]] Our physical bodies are called Shadows in the mystic schools.
(VS) Thy shadows live and vanish (II 18) [[p. 31]]Personalities or physical bodies called shadows are evanescent.
(VS) Shakya-Thub-pa [[p. 37]] Buddha.
(TG) Shamans. An order of Tartar or Mongolian priest-magicians, or as some say, priest-sorcerers. They are not Buddhists, but a sect of the old Bhon religion of Tibet. They live mostly in Siberia and its borderlands. Both men and women may be Shamans. They are all magicians, or rather sensitives or mediums artificially developed. At present those who act as priests among the Tartars are generally very ignorant, and far below the fakirs in knowledge and education.
(IU) Shamans, or Samaneans. An order of Buddhists among the Tartars, especially those of Siberia. They are possibly akin to the philosophers anciently known as Brachmanes , mistaken sometimes for Brahmans. [From the accounts of Strabo and Megasthenes, who visited Palibothras, it would seem that the persons termed by him Samanean, or Brachmane priests, were simply Buddhists. The singularly subtile replies of the Samanean or Brahmin philosophers, in their interview with this conqueror, will be found to contain the spirit of the Buddhist doctrine, remarks Upham. (See the History and Doctrine of Buddhism; and Hale’s Chronology, vol. iii., p. 238] They are all magicians, or rather sensitives or mediums artificially developed. At present those who act as priests among the Tartars are generally very ignorant, and far below the fakirs in knowledge and education. Both men and women may be Shamans.
(FY) Shamanism, spirit worship; the oldest religion of Mongolia.
(WG) Shamans, Tartar Magicians and priests, male or female, of the ancient Bhon religion of Thibet. They are found chiefly in Siberia.
(TG) Shanah {Hebr}. The Lunar Year.
(TG) Shangna {Sans}. A mysterious epithet given to a robe or vesture in a metaphorical sense. To put on the Shangna robe means the acquirement of Secret Wisdom, and Initiation. (See Voice of the Silence, pp. 84 and 85, Glossary
(VS) Shangna robe (II 22) [[p. 32]] The Shangna robe, from Shangnavesu of Rajagriha the third great Arhat or Patriarch as the Orientalists call the hierarchy of the 33 Arhats who spread Buddhism. Shangna robe means metaphorically, the acquirement of Wisdom with which the Nirvana of destruction (of personality ) is entered. Literally, the initiation robe of the Neophytes. Edkins states that this grass cloth was brought to China from Tibet in the Tong Dynasty. When an Arhan is born this plant is found growing in a clean spot says the Chinese as also the Tibetan legend.
(TG) Shastra or S’astra {Sans}. A treatise or book; any work of divine or accepted authority, including law books. A Shastri means to this day, in India, a man learned in divine and human law.
(WG) Sastra, a religious or scientific treatise, any sacred book or standard authority.
(SK)o Sastra A scripture; a religious or scientific writing; derived from the verb-root sas — to rule, to teach, to proclaim.
(SP) Sastra — a Sanskrit scholastic text or treatise, meant to instruct students in a specialized area of knowledge.
(WG) Shat-kona, a symbol consisting of two interlaced triangles, one pointing up, the other down — Indra’s thunderbolt with the Hindus, Solomon’s seal with the Jews. ( shat, six; kona , angle, point
(TG) Shedim {Hebr}. See Siddim.
(TG) Shekinah {Hebr}. A title applied to Malkuth, the tenth Sephira, by the Kabbalists; but by the Jews to the cloud of glory which rested on the Mercy-seat in the Holy of Holies. As taught, however, by all the Rabbins of Asia Minor, its nature is of a more exalted kind, Shekinah being the veil of Ain-Soph, the Endless and the Absolute; hence a kind of Kabbalistic Mulaprakriti. [W.W.W.]
(TG) Shells. A Kabbalistic name for the phantoms of the dead, the spirits of the Spiritualists, figuring in physical phenomena; so named on account of their being simply illusive forms, empty of their higher principles.
(TG) Shemal {Chald}. Samael, the spirit of the earth, its presiding ruler and genius.
(TG) Shemhamphorash {Hebr}. The separated name. The mirific name derived from the substance of deity and showing its self-existent essence. Jesus was accused by the Jews of having stolen this name from the Temple by magic arts, and of using it in the production of his miracles.
(TG) Sheol {Hebr}. The hell of the Hebrew Pantheon; a region of stillness and inactivity as distinguished from Gehenna, .
(TG) Shien-Sien {Chin}. A state of bliss and soul-freedom, during which a man can travel in spirit where he likes.
(TG) Shiites {Pers}. A sect of Mussulmen who place the prophet Ali higher than Mohammed, rejecting Sunnah or tradition.
(TG) Shila (Pali). The second virtue of the ten Paramitas of perfection. Perfect harmony in words and acts.
(TG) Shinto #jap. The ancient religion of Japan before Buddhism, based upon the worship of spirits and ancestors.
(TG) Shoel-ob {Hebr}. A consulter with familiar spirits; a necromancer, a raiser of the dead, or of their phantoms.
(TG) Shoo {Egyp}. A personification of the god Ra; represented as the great cat of the Basin of Persea in Anu.
(VS) to the other shore (III 7) [[p. 47]] Arrival at the shore is with the Northern Buddhists synonymous with reaching Nirvana through the exercise of the six and the ten Paramitas (virtues)
(TG) Shudala Madan #tam. The vampire, the ghoul, or graveyard spook.
(TG) Shule Madan #tam. The elemental which is said to help the jugglers to grow mango trees and do other wonders.
(TG) Shutukt {Tibe}. A collegiate monastery in Tibet of great fame, containing over 30,000 monks and students.
(TG) Sibac (Quiche). The reed from the pith of which the third race of men was created, according to the scripture of the Guatemalans, called the Popol Vuh.
(TG) Sibika {Sans}. The weapon of Kuvera, god of wealth (a Vedic deity living in Hades, hence a kind of Pluto), made out of the parts of the divine splendour of Vishnu, residing in the Sun, and filed off by Visvarkarman, the god Initiate.
(WG) Siddha, one who has attained psychic powers by proficiency in occult sciences; perfect; one who has attained perfection; he who has acquired siddhis.
(TG) Siddhanta {Sans}. Any learned work on astronomy or mathematics, in India.
(TG) Siddhartha {Sans}. A name given to Gautama Buddha.
(WG) Siddhartha, a title of Gautama Buddha.
(SP) Siddhartha — the personal name of Sakyamuni or Gautama Buddha.
(TG) Siddhas {Sans}. Saints and sages who have become almost divine also a hierarchy of Dhyan Chohans.
(WG) Siddhas, demi-gods, with superhuman powers.
(GH) Siddhas A class of semi-divine beings of great purity and perfection, represented as possessing the eight supernatural faculties (the Siddhis), and inhabiting Bhuvar-loka (the region between earth and heaven). In later mythology they are often confused with the Sadhyas . According to the Occult teachings, however, Siddhas are the Nirmanakayas or the ‘spirits’ (in the sense of an individual, or conscious spirit) of great sages from spheres on a’ higher plane than our own, who voluntarily incarnate in mortal bodies in order to help the human race in its upward progress. Hence their innate knowledge, wisdom and powers. ( Secret Doctrine, II, p. 636) (The following word is derived from the verbal root:) sidh, to attain; hence ‘the perfected ones.’ Bhagavad-Gita , W. Q. Judge, p. 81)
(TG) Siddhasana {Sans}. A posture in Hatha-yoga practices.
(FY) Siddhasana, one of the postures enjoined by the system of Hatha Yoga.
(WG) Siddhasana, a particular posture in religious meditation, described as putting the left heel under the body and the right heel in front of it.
(TG) Siddha-Sena {Sans}. Lit., the leader of Siddhas; a title of Karttikeya, the mysterious youth (kumara guha).
(TG) Siddhis {Sans}. Lit., attributes of perfection; phenomenal powers acquired through holiness by Yogis.
(FY) Siddhi, abnormal power obtained by spiritual development.
(WG) Siddhi, magic power; extraordinary power that may be acquired by man through spiritual development.
(SKv) Siddhi, Iddhi The Siddhis are psychic faculties; derived from the verb-root sidh — to attain. H. P. Blavatsky warns in The Voice of the Silence: There are two kinds of Siddhis. One group embraces the lower, coarse, psychic and mental energies; the other is one which exacts the highest training of Spiritual powers. — Fragment I, note 1
Krishna says to Arjuna in the Bhagavad – Gita: He who is engaged in the performance of Yoga, who has subdued his senses and who has concentrated his mind in me, such Yogins all the Siddhis stand ready to serve.
Iddhi is the Pali word for the Sanskrit Siddhi.
(TG) Siddim {Hebr}. The Canaanites, we are told, worshipped these evil powers as deities, the name meaning the pourers forth; a valley was named after them. There seems to be a connection between these, as types of Fertile Nature, and the many-bosomed Isis and Diana of Ephesus. In Psalm 106., 37, the word is translated devils, and we are told that the Canaanites shed the blood of their sons and daughters to them. Their title seems to come from the same root ShD, from which the god name El Shaddai is derived. [W.W.W.]
The Arabic Shedim means Nature Spirits, Elementals; they are the afrits of modern Egypt and djins of Persia, India, etc.
(TG) Sidereal. Anything relating to the stars, but also, in Occultism, to various influences emanating from such regions, such as sidereal force, as taught by Paracelsus, and sidereal (luminous), ethereal body, etc.
(TG) Si-dzang {Chin}. The Chinese name for Tibet; mentioned in the Imperial Library of the capital of Fo Kien, as the great seat of Occult learning, 2,207 years B.C. (Secret Doctrine, I., p. 271
(IN) Sien-Tchan {Chinese} The material universe, world of illusion.
(PV) Sierpe Spanish, serpent. A sacred term for the Seven Ahpu, the serpent being their divine nahual. It is also the totem of the Mayas ( chan ). The sierpes are in eternal opposition to the culebras.
(MO) Sif {Nors} (seev) [ sif affinity, the sanctity of marriage] An Asynja: Thor’s wife. Her golden hair is the harvest
(TG) Sige {Greek}. Silence; a name adopted by the Gnostics to signify the root whence proceed the AEons of the second series.
(TG) Sighra or Sighraga {Sans}. The father of Moru, who is still living through the power of Yoga, and will manifest himself in the beginning of the Krita age in order to re-establish the Kshattriyas in the nineteenth Yuga say the Puranic prophecies. Moru stands here for Morya, the dynasty of the Buddhist sovereigns of Pataliputra which began with the great King Chandragupta, the grandsire of King Asoka. It is the first Buddhist Dynasty. (Secret Doctrine, I., 378
(TG) Sigurd {Nors}. The hero who slew Fafnir, the Dragon, roasted his heart and ate it, after which he became the wisest of men. An allegory referring to Occult study and initiation.
(MO) Sigyn {Nors} (seeg-in) Loki’s wife
(GH) Sikhandin A son of Drupada, king of Panchala, who accomplished the death of Bhishma in the great conflict. The story regarding Sikhandin, is one of the specific instances portraying reincarnation, with which the Mahabharata is studded. The epic relates that the eldest daughter of the king of Kasi Amba, was rejected by her betrothed through the fault of Bhishma, whereupon she retired into the forest and by severe penances and sacrifices obtained a boon from Siva promising her immediate rebirth as a man in order to mete out judgment upon her wrongdoer, Bhishma. She thereupon ascended her funeral pyre and was forthwith reborn as Sikhandin. ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 4)
(WG) Sila, morality.
(OG) Silent Watcher — A term used in modern theosophical esoteric philosophy to signify a highly advanced spiritual entity who is, as it were, the summit or supreme chief of a spiritual-psychological hierarchy composed of beings beneath him and working under the Silent Watcher’s direct inspiration and guidance. The Silent Watchers, therefore, are relatively numerous, because every hierarchy, large or small, high or low, has as its own particular hierarch or supreme head a Silent Watcher. There are human Silent Watchers, and there is a Silent Watcher for every globe of our planetary chain. There is likewise a Silent Watcher of the solar system of vastly loftier state or stage, etc. Silent Watcher is a graphic phrase, and describes with fair accuracy the predominant trait or characteristic of such a spiritual being — one who through evolution having practically gained omniscience or perfect knowledge of all that he can learn in any one sphere of the kosmos, instead of pursuing his evolutionary path forwards to still higher realms, remains in order to help the multitudes and hosts of less progressed entities trailing behind him. There he remains at his self-imposed task, waiting and watching and helping and inspiring, and so far as we humans are concerned, in the utter silences of spiritual compassion. Thence the term Silent Watcher. He can learn nothing more from the particular sphere of life through which he has now passed, and the secrets of which he knows by heart. For the time being and for ages he has renounced all individual evolution for himself out of pure pity and high compassion for those beneath him.
(IN) Silent Watcher The summit of a hierarchy; the terrestrial Silent Watcher is the Mahaguru, the Great Sacrifice, who renounces nirvana and individual progress for the sake of all lower sentient beings.
(TG) Simeon-ben-Jochai. An Adept-Rabbin, who was the author of the Zohar, .
(TG) Simon Magus. A very great Samaritan Gnostic and Thaumaturgist, called the great Power of God.
(TG) Simorgh {Pers}. The same as the winged Siorgh, a kind of gigantic griffin, half phoenix, half lion, endowed in the Iranian legends with oracular powers. Simorgh was the guardian of the ancient Persian Mysteries. It is expected to reappear at the end of the cycle as a gigantic bird-lion. Esoterically, it stands as the symbol of the Manvantaric cycle. Its Arabic name is Rakshi.
(TG) Sinai {Hebr}. Mount Sinai, the Nissi of Exodus (xvii., 15), the birthplace of almost all the solar gods of antiquity, such as Dionysus, born at Nissa or Nysa, Zeus of Nysa, Bacchus and Osiris, . Some ancient people believed the Sun to be the progeny of the Moon, who was herself a Sun once upon a time. Sin-ai is the Moon Mountain, hence the connexion.
(MO) Sindre {Nors} (sin-dreh) [dross] A dwarf: the vegetable kingdom
(TG) Sing Bonga. The Sun-spirit with the Kollarian tribes.
(FY) Sing Bonga, sun spirit of the Kolarian tribes.
(TG) Singha {Sans}. The constellation of Leo; Singh meaning lion.
(TG) Sinika {Sans}. Also Sinita and Sanika, etc., as variants. The Vishnu Purana gives it as the name of a future sage who will be taught by him who will become Maitreya, at the end of Kali Yuga, and adds that this is a great mystery.
(TG) Sinivali {Sans}. The first day of the new moon, which is greatly connected with Occult practices in India.
(MO) Sinmara {Nors} (sin-mah-ra) Hag who guards the caldron of matter, experience in the underworld
(TG) Siphra Dtzeniouta {Chald}. The Book of Concealed Mystery; one division of the Zohar. (See Mathers’ Kabbalah Unveiled
(TG) Sirius {Greek}. In Egyptian, Sothis. The dog-star: the star worshipped in Egypt and reverenced by the Occultists; by the former because its heliacal rising with the Sun was a sign of the beneficent inundation of the Nile, and by the latter because it is mysteriously associated with Thoth-Hermes, god of wisdom, and Mercury, in another form. Thus Sothis-Sirius had, and still has, a mystic and direct influence over the whole living heaven, and is connected with almost every god and goddess. It was Isis in the heaven and called Isis-Sothis, for Isis was in the constellation of the dog, as is declared on her monuments. The soul of Osiris was believed to reside in a personage who walks with great steps in front of Sothis, sceptre in hand and a whip upon his shoulder. Sirius is also Anubis, and is directly connected with the ring Pass me not; it is, moreover, identical with Mithra, the Persian Mystery god, and with Horus and even Hathor, called sometimes the goddess Sothis. Being connected with the Pyramid, Sirius was, therefore, connected with the initiations which took place in it. A temple to Sirius-Sothis once existed within the great temple of Denderah. To sum up, all religions are not, as Dufeu, the French Egyptologist, sought to prove, derived from Sirius, the dog-star, but Sirius-Sothis is certainly found in connection with every religion of antiquity.
(TG) Sishta {Sans}. The great elect or Sages, left after every minor Pralaya (that which is called obscuration in Mr. Sinnett’s Esoteric Buddhism), when the globe goes into its night or rest, to become, on its re-awakening, the seed of the next humanity. Lit . remnant.
(WG) Sishta, chastened, corrected, taught, instructed, ruled.
(OG) Sishta(s) — ( Sista , Sanskrit) This is a word meaning remainders, or remains, or residuals — anything that is left or remains behind. In the especial application in which this word is used in the ancient wisdom, the sishtas are those superior classes — each of its own kind and kingdom — left behind on a planet when it goes into obscuration, in order to serve as the seeds of life for the inflow of the next incoming life-wave when the dawn of the new manvantara takes place on that planet. When each kingdom passes on to its next globe, each one leaves behind its sishtas, its lives representing the very highest point of evolution arrived at by that kingdom in that round, but leaves them sleeping as it were: dormant, relatively motionless, including life-atoms among them. Not without life, however, for everything is as much alive as ever, and there is no dead matter anywhere; but the sishtas considered aggregatively as the remnants or residuals of the life-wave which has passed on are sleeping, dormant, resting. These sishtas await the incoming of the life-waves on the next round, and then they re-awaken to a new cycle of activity as the seeds of the new kingdom or kingdoms — be it the three elemental kingdoms or the mineral or vegetable or the beast or the next humanity. In a more restricted and still more specific sense, the sishtas are the great elect, or sages, left behind after every obscuration.
(SKf) Sishta Sishtas literally mean ‘remainders’; derived from the verb-root sish — to remain. Mystically the Sishtas refer to those entities from every kingdom who remain behind on a Globe or a Planet when the main stream of lives moves on, and whose duty it is to become the ‘remainder-forms’ or ‘seeds of life’ so that when the hosts of lives of all classes return they will find appropriate bodies ready for them. These Sishtas are always from among the highest representatives of each kingdom or class of beings. Thus they are able to provide for the more evolved entities returning in the next cycle.
(IN) Sishta(s) {Sans} Residue, remainders, those left behind; the most evolved representatives of each kingdom which remain behind at the end of a cycle to serve as seeds for that kingdom in the next cycle.
(SP) Sista [sishta] — residue, remains of one manvantara as seeds for the next.
(TG) Sisthrus {Chald}. According to Berosus, the last of the ten kings of the dynasty of the divine kings, and the Noah of Chaldea. Thus, as Vishnu foretells the coming deluge to Vaivasvata-Manu, and, forewarning, commands him to build an ark, wherein he and seven Rishis are saved; so the god Hea foretells the same to Sisithrus (or Xisuthrus) commanding him to prepare a vessel and save himself with a few elect. Following suit, almost 800,000 years later, the Lord God of Israel repeats the warning to Noah. Which is prior, therefore? The story of Xisuthrus, now deciphered from the Assyrian tablets, corroborates that which was said of the Chaldean deluge by Berosus, Apollodorus, Abydenus, etc., etc. (See eleventh tablet in G. Smith’s Chaldean Account of Genesis, page 263, et seq. This tablet xi. covers every point treated of in chapters six and seven of Genesis — the gods, the sins of men, the command to build an ark, the Flood, the destruction of men, the dove and the raven sent out of the ark, and finally the Mount of Salvation in Armenia (Nizir-Ararat); all is there. The words the god Hea heard, and his liver was angry, because his men had corrupted his purity, and the story of his destroying all his seed, were engraved on stone tablets many thousand years before the Assyrians reproduced them on their baked tiles, and even these most assuredly antedate the Pentateuch, written from memory by Ezra, hardly four centuries B.C.
(TG) Sistrum {Greek}. Egyptian ssesh or kemken. An instrument, usually made of bronze but sometimes of gold or silver, of an open circular form, with a handle, and four wires passed through holes, to the end of which jingling pieces of metal were attached; its top was ornamented with a figure of Isis, or of Hathor. It was a sacred instrument, used in temples for the purpose of producing, by means of its combination of metals, magnetic currents, and sounds. To this day it has survived in Christian Abyssinia, under the name of sanasel, and the good priests use it to drive devils from the premises, an act quite comprehensible to the Occultist, even though it does provoke laughter in the sceptical Orientalist. The priestess usually held it in her right hand during the ceremony of purification of the air, or the conjuration of the elements, as E. Levi would call it, while the priests held the Sistrum in their left hand, using the right to manipulate the key of life — the handled cross or Tau .
(TG) Sisumara {Sans}. An imaginary rotating belt, upon which all the celestial bodies move. This host of stars and constellations is represented under the figure of Sisumara, a tortoise (some say a porpoise!), dragon, crocodile, and what not. But as it is a symbol of the Yoga-meditation of holy Vasudeva or Krishna, it must be a crocodile, or rather, a dolphin, since it is identical with the zodiacal Makara. Dhruva, the ancient pole-star, is placed at the tip of the tail of this sidereal monster, whose head points southward and whose body bends in a ring. Higher along the tail are the Prajapati, Agni, etc., and at its root are placed Indra, Dharma, and the seven Rishis (the Great Bear), etc., etc. The meaning is of course mystical.
(TG) Siva {Sans}. The third person of the Hindu Trinity (the Trimurti). He is a god of the first order, and in his character of Destroyer higher than Vishnu, the Preserver, as he destroys only to regenerate on a higher plane. He is born as Rudra, the Kumara, and is the patron of all the Yogis, being called, as such, Maha-Yogi, the great ascetic, His titles are significant: Trilochana, the three-eyed, Mahadeva, the great god, Sankara, etc., etc., etc.
(FY) Siva, one of the Hindu gods, with Brahma and Vishnu, forming the Trimurti or Trinity; the principle of destruction.
(WG) Siva, one of the Hindu trinity (Brahma, Vishnu and Siva), the destroyer, or transformer. (Literally, the gracious one, an euphemism for Rudra, the howler, the horrible one
(GH) Siva The third aspect of the Hindu Trimurti commonly called the destroyer, but with the idea intimately associated therewith of regeneration, hence also the regenerator. The name Siva does not appear in the Vedas, nor does the concept of the Trimurti; but the deity Rudra does occur (associated in the Vedas with Agni the fire god), and in later times Siva is known under the name of Rudra, hence the association of the two has been made. Rudra is hailed in the Rig-Veda as the lord of songs and sacrifices, the lord of nourishment, he who drives away diseases and removes sin — the beneficent aspect of Siva. In the Mahabharata, Siva’s place in the Trimurti is maintained, although he is not quite as prominent as Vishnu (the preserver), nevertheless the deity comes in for his share of reverence.
Siva is described as the beautiful white deity with a blue throat — blue because of the poisons he drinks in order to preserve mankind thereby; his hair is of a reddish color and piled on his head in matted locks — for Siva is the patron deity of ascetics. He is depicted with three eyes, one placed in the center of his forehead, representing the eye of wisdom (Called by Occultists the eye of Siva or the third eye): the three eyes represent Time, present, past, and future. A crescent moon above his forehead indicates Time measured by the phases of the moon, while a serpent around his neck indicates the measure of Time by cycles: a second necklace (of human skulls) refers to the races of men which Siva continuously destroys in order to regenerate new races. The serpents which surround him represent the deity as king of the Nagas , standing also for symbols of spiritual immortality. Siva is often represented with five faces — representing the five manifested elements.
(IN) many of the Puranas Siva is regarded as the greatest of deities, hence he is called Mahadeva (the great god). He is also spoken of as the patron deity of Esotericists and as the divine protector of the mystic Occultists. For Siva is the howling and terrific destroyer of human passions and physical senses, which are ever in the way of the development of the higher spiritual perceptions and the growth of the inner eternal man — mystically, ( Secret Doctrine, I, p. 459).
Siva, although the destroying deity, is Evolution and Progress personified, he is the regenerator at the same time; who destroys things under one form but to recall them to life under another more perfect type. ( Secret Doctrine, II, p. 182)
(IN) the Bhagavad-Gita Siva is referred to under his alternative name of Sankara ( Bhagavad-Gita , W. Q. Judge, p. 73).
(TG) Siva-Rudra {Sans}. Rudra is the Vedic name of Siva, the latter being absent from the Veda.
(FY) Sivite, a worshipper of Siva, the name of a sect among the Hindus.
(VS) six (I 27) [[p. 10]] The six principles; meaning when the lower personality is destroyed and the inner individuality is merged into and lost in the Seventh or Spirit.
(MO) Skade {Nors} (skah-deh) Sister-wife of Njord, daughter of the giant Tjasse
(MO) Skald {Nors} Bard
(MO) Skaldemjod {Nors} (skal-deh-myeud) [ skald poet + mjod mead] Inspiration
(TG) Skandha or Skhanda {Sans}. Lit., “bundles”, or groups of attributes; everything finite, inapplicable to the eternal and the absolute. There are five — esoterically, seven — attributes in every human living being, which are known as the Pancha Skandhas. These are (1) form, rupa; (2) perception, vidana; (3) consciousness, sanjna ; (4) action, sanskara; (5) knowledge, vidyana . These unite at the birth of man and constitute his personality. After the maturity of these Skandhas, they begin to separate and weaken, and this is followed by jaramarana, or decrepitude and death.
(KT) Skandhas. The attributes of every personality, which after death form the basis, so to say, for a new Karmic reincarnation. They are five in the popular or exoteric system of the Buddhists: i.e., Rupa, form or body, which leaves behind it its magnetic atoms and occult affinities; Vedana, sensations, which do likewise; Sanna, or abstract ideas, which are the creative powers at work from one incarnation to another; Samkhara, tendencies of mind; and Vinnana, mental powers.
(FY) Skandhas, the impermanent elements which constitute a man.
(WG) Skandas, the impermanent elements that enter into man’s constitution and which he assumes upon incarnating. (Literally, “branches,” “ramifications.”)
(WG) Skanda, a name of Karttikeya, son of Siva and god of war. (Literally, “leaping.”) (See Karttikeya
(GH) Skanda The name of the god of war, also known as Karttikeya (so called because he was reared by the six Pleiades, Krittikas), hence he is described as six-headed. For the purpose of destroying the Daitya Taraka, who had become a potential source of trouble to the deities because of the austerities he had performed and his strict religious observances, Skanda was produced, springing from the seed of Siva which had been cast into the fire and then carried to Ganga (the Ganges river). He is represented as riding the peacock, Paravani holding a bow in one hand and an arrow in the other.
(GH) Skanda is also the regent of the planet Mars. ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 74)
(OG) Skandha(s) — {Sans} Literally “bundles,” or groups of attributes, to use H. P. Blavatsky’s definition. When death comes to a man in any one life, the seeds of those causes previously sown by him and which have not yet come forth into blossom and full-blown flower and fruit, remain in his interior and invisible parts as impulses lying latent and sleeping: lying latent like sleeping seeds for future flowerings into action in the next and succeeding lives. They are psychological impulse-seeds lying asleep until their appropriate stage for awakening into action arrives at some time in the future. In the case of the cosmic bodies, every solar or planetary body upon entering into its pralaya, its prakritika-pralaya — the dissolution of its lower principles — at the end of its long life cycle, exists in space in the higher activity of its spiritual principles, and in the dispersion of its lowest principles, which latter latently exist in space as skandhas in a laya-condition. When a laya-center is fired into action by the touch of wills and consciousnesses on their downward way, becoming the imbodying life of a solar system, or of a planet of a solar system, the center manifests first on its highest plane, and later on its lower plane. The skandhas are awakened into life one after another: first the highest ones, next the intermediate ones, and lastly the inferior ones, cosmically and qualitatively speaking.
The term skandhas in theosophical philosophy has the general significance of bundles or groups of attributes, which together form or compose the entire set of material and also mental, emotional, and moral qualities. Exoterically the skandhas are “bundles” of attributes five in number, but esoterically they are seven. These unite at the birth of man and constitute his personality. After the death of the body the skandhas are separated and so remain until the reincarnating ego on its downward path into physical incarnation gathers them together again around itself, and thus reforms the human constitution considered as a unity. In brief, the skandhas can be said to be the aggregate of the groups of attributes or qualities which make each individual man the personality that he is; but this must be sharply distinguished from the individuality.
(SK)o Skandha Literally Skandha means ‘aggregate’ or ‘bundle.’ Philosophically the Skandhas are the groups of manifested attributes of character, such as bodily form, sensations, perceptions, and physical, mental, and moral tendencies, which together form the finite parts of any being. The Skandhas therefore create those causal vibrations which attract the Reincarnating Ego back to Earth-life; and as the Ego returns from the higher worlds it gathers up its Skandhas or ‘impulse-seeds’ and they are awakened once more into activity and build the new personality of the Reincarnating Ego.
(SP) Skandha — literally “bundle,” the psycho-physical constituents of persons.
(MO) Skidbladnir {Nors} (sheed-blahd-neer) [skid slat + blad leaf] Ship created by dwarfs for Frey. The planet earth
(TG) Skrymir {Nors}. One of the famous giants in the Eddas.
(MO) Skirner {Nors} (sheer-ner) [radiance] Ray of the god Frey, an emissary to the giant world
(MO) Sleipnir {Nors} (slayp-neer) [slider] Odin’s eight-legged steed
(TG) Sloka, {Sans}. The Sanskrit epic metre formed of thirty-two syllables: verses in four half-lines of eight, or in two lines of sixteen syllables each.
(FY) Slokas, stanzas {Sans}.
(OG) Sloka — {Sans} “The Sanskrit epic meter formed of thirty-two syllables: verses in four half lines of eight, or in two lines of sixteen syllables each” (H. P. Blavatsky, Theosophical Glossary ).
(GH) Sloka A stanza, especially a particular kind of epic meter, also called the Anushtubh, which consists of 4 padas (quarter verses) of 8 syllables each; or it may be 2 lines each containing 16 syllables. The syllables of each line may be altered as desired except for the 5th, 13th, 14th, and 15th syllables which have a fixed method for composition. The following indicates this: . . . ., . . . | . . . ., -, .
The dots represent syllables which may be either long or short. The 6th and 7th syllables should be long; but if the 6th is a short syllable then the 7th is short also. As an example the first sloka of the Bhagavad-Gita is given illustrating this (although the 14th syllable is short in both lines): dharma-kshetre kuru-kshetre samaveta yuyutsavah, , ,,, /, ,,, |, ,, – /, ,, , mamakah pandavaschaiva kimakurvata sanjaya. -, – / -, – -, |, ,, ,, /,, ,
The Ramayana relates that the first sloka was composed by Valmiki who was moved to such sorrow by seeing the mate of a bird killed by a hunter during the wooing of the pair, that in his grief he developed the spirit of poesy. The word sloka means sound, or noise; in the Rig-Veda it means a hymn of praise. (cf. (The following word is derived from the verbal root:) sru, to hear. Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. i)
(SKs) Sloka A verse. A Sloka is generally formed of verses in half-lines of eight, or in two lines of sixteen syllables each. This Sloka is the Sanskrit epic-metre formed of thirty-two syllables.
(IN) Sloka {Sans} Verse of a stanza; the usual Sanskrit epic meter of 32 syllables.
(SP) Sloka — the usual Sanskrit epic meter, or a 32-syllable stanza in that meter.
(TG) Smaragdine Tablet of Hermes. As expressed by Eliphas Levi, “this Tablet of Emerald is the whole of magic in a single page”; but India has a single word which, when understood, contains “the whole of magic”. This is a tablet, however, alleged to have been found by Sarai, Abraham’s wife (!) on the dead body of Hermes. So say the Masons and Christian Kabbalists. But in Theosophy we call it an allegory. May it not mean that Sarai-swati, the wife of Brahma, or the goddess of secret wisdom and learning, finding still much of the ancient wisdom latent in the dead body of Humanity, revivified that wisdom? This led to the rebirth of the Occult Sciences, so long forgotten and neglected, the world over. The tablet itself, however, although containing the “whole of magic”, is too long to be reproduced here.
The Emerald Tablet by Hermes Trismegistus
(TG) Smartava {Sans}. The Smarta Brahmans; a sect founded by Sankaracharya.
(TG) Smriti {Sans}. Traditional accounts imparted orally, from the word Smriti, “Memory” a daughter of Daksha. They are now the legal and ceremonial writings of the Hindus; the opposite of, and therefore less sacred, than the Vedas, which are Sruti, or “revelation”.
(FY) Smriti, legal and ceremonial writings of the Hindus.
(WG) Smriti, remembrance; tradition; laws handed down by human authors, not “revealed,” as sruti.
(SKs) Smriti, Sruti The Smritis were the original unwritten esoteric teachings or ‘what has been remembered’ and handed down by tradition. They were the truths and legends that were passed on orally from one generation to the next, and which were finally written down. The Smritis comprise the Vedanta, the Sutras, the Mahabharata, the Ramayana, the Puranas, and the Dharma-Sastras. Smriti is derived from the verb-root smri — to remember.
The Srutis are those teachings ‘that have been heard’; derived from the verb-root sru — to hear. They are those direct oral revelations received by the Rishis of old from divine beings. The Srutis comprise the Vedas and their including works, the Mantras, Brahmanas, and Upanishads.
(SP) Smrti [smriti] — literally “remembering”; tradition, a class of Hindu scriptures (including the Dharma Sastras and the Epics) for which the remembered meaning, but not the exact wording, is authoritative.
(TG) Sod {Hebr}. An “Arcanum”, or religious mystery. The Mysteries of Baal, Adonis and Bacchus, all sun-gods having serpents as symbols, or, as in the case of Mithra, a “solar serpent”. The ancient Jews had their Sod also, symbols not excluded, since they had the “brazen serpent” lifted in the Wilderness, which particular serpent was the Persian Mithra, the symbol of Moses as an Initiate, but was certainly never meant to represent the historical Christ. “The secret (Sod) of the Lord is with them that fear him”, says David, in Psalm 25 14. But this reads in the original Hebrew, “Sod Ihoh (or the Mysteries) of Jehovah are for those who fear him”. So terribly is the Old Testament mistranslated, that verse 7 in Psalm 89, which stands in the original “Al (El) is terrible in the great Sod of the Kedeshim” (the Galli, the priests of the inner Jewish mysteries), reads now in the mutilated translation “God is greatly to be feared in the assembly of the saints”. Simeon and Levi held their Sod, and it is repeatedly mentioned in the Bible. “Oh my soul”, exclaims the dying Jacob, “come not thou into their secret (Sod, in the orig,) unto their assembly”, i.e., into the Sodality of Simeon and Levi (Gen. 49,6). (See Dunlap, Sod, the Mysteries of Adoni
(TG) Sodales {Latin} The members of the Priest-colleges. (See Freund’s Latin Lexicon, iv., 448 Cicero tells us also (De Senectute, 13) that “Sodalities were constituted in the Idaean Mysteries of the MIGHTY MOTHER”. Those initiated into the Sod were termed the “Companions”.
(TG) Sodalian Oath. The most sacred of all oaths. The penalty of death followed the breaking of the Sodalian oath or pledge. The oath and the Sod (the secret learning) are earlier than the Kabbalah or Tradition, and the ancient Midrashim treated fully of the Mysteries or Sod before they passed into the Zohar. Now they are referred to as the Secret Mysteries of the Thorah, or Law, to break which is fatal.
(TG) Soham {Sans}. A mystic syllable representing involution: lit., “THAT I AM”.
(FY) Soham, a mystic syllable representing involution; (lit. “that am I.”)
(WG) So’Ham, the reverse of Hamsa, symbolizing black magic. ( sas, that; aham, I: I that very person, I myself — expressive of bad egoism — while Hamsa ( aham, I; sas, that: I am That ) is an affirmation of divine unity
(TG) Sokaris {Egyp}. A fire-god; a solar deity of many forms. He is Ptah-Sokaris, when the symbol is purely cosmic, and “Ptah-Sokaris-Osiris” when it is phallic. This deity is hermaphrodite, the sacred bull Apis being its son, conceived in it by a solar ray. According to Smith’s History of the East, Ptah is a “second Demiurgus, an emanation from the first creative Principle” (the first Logos). The upright Ptah, with cross and staff, is the “creator of the eggs of the sun and moon”. Pierret thinks that he represents the primordial Force that preceded the gods and “created the stars, and the eggs of the sun and moon”. Mariette Bey sees in him “Divine Wisdom scattering the stars in immensity”, and he is corroborated by the Targum of Jerusalem, which states that the “Egyptians called the Wisdom of the First Intellect Ptah”.
(TG) Sokhit {Egyp}. A deity to whom the cat was sacred.
(TG) Solomon’s Seal. The symbolical double triangle, adopted by the T.S. and by many Theosophists. Why it should be called “Solomon’s Seal” is a mystery, unless it came to Europe from Iran, where many stories are told about that mythical personage and the magic seal used by him to catch the djins and imprison them in old bottles. But this seal or double triangle is also called in India the “Sign of Vishnu”, and may be seen on the houses in every village as a talisman against evil. The triangle was sacred and used as a religious sign in the far East ages before Pythagoras proclaimed it to be the first of the geometrical figures, as well as the most mysterious. It is found on pyramid and obelisk, and is pregnant with occult meaning, as are, in fact, all triangles. Thus the pentagram is the triple triangle — the six-pointed being the hexalpha. (See “Pentacle” and “Pentagram” The way a triangle points determines its meaning. If upwards, it means the male element and divine fire; downwards, the female and the waters of matter; upright, but with a bar across the top, air and astral light; downwards, with a bar — the earth or gross matter, etc., etc. When a Greek Christian priest in blessing holds his two fingers and thumb together, he simply makes the magic sign — by the power of the triangle or “trinity”.
(WG) Solomon’s Seal, two interlaced triangles, one pointing tip, the other down, one dark and the other light, expressing the union of spirit and matter.
(TG) Soma {Sans}. The moon, and also the juice of the plant of that name used in the temples for trance purposes; a sacred beverage. Soma, the moon, is the symbol of the Secret Wisdom. In the Upanishads the word is used to denote gross matter (with an association of moisture) capable of producing life under the action of heat. (See “Soma-drink”
(TG) Soma-drink. Made from a rare mountain plant by initiated Brahmans. This Hindu sacred beverage answers to the Greek ambrosia or nectar, quaffed by the gods of Olympus. A cup of Kykeon was also quaffed by the Mystes at the Eleusinian initiation. He who drinks it easily reaches Bradhna, or the place of splendour (Heaven). The Soma-drink known to Europeans is not the genuine beverage, but its substitute; for the initiated priests alone can taste of the real Soma; and even kings and Rajas, when sacrificing, receive the substitute. Haug, by his own confession, shows in his Aitareya Brahmana, that it was not the Soma that he tasted and found nasty, but the juice from the roots of the Nyagradha, a plant or bush which grows on the hills of Poona. We were positively informed that the majority of the sacrificial priests of the Dekkan have lost the secret of the true Soma. It can be found neither in the ritual books nor through oral information. The true followers of the primitive Vedic religion are very few; these are the alleged descendants of the Rishis, the real Agnihotris, the initiates of the great Mysteries. The Soma-drink is also commemorated in the Hindu Pantheon, for it is called King-Soma. He who drinks thereof is made to participate in the heavenly king; he becomes filled with his essence, as the Christian apostles and their converts were filled with the Holy Ghost, and purified of their sins. The Soma makes a new man of the initiate; he is reborn and transformed, and his spiritual nature overcomes the physical; it bestows the divine power of inspiration, and develops the clairvoyant faculty to the utmost. According to the exoteric explanation the soma is a plant, but at the same time it is an angel. It forcibly connects the inner, highest “spirit” of man, which spirit is an angel like the mystical Soma, with his “irrational soul”, or astral body, and thus united by the power of the magic drink, they soar together above physical nature and participate during life in the beatitude and ineffable glories of Heaven.
Thus the Hindu Soma is mystically and in all respects the same that the Eucharist supper is to the Christian. The idea is similar. By means of the sacrificial prayers — the mantras — this liquor is supposed to be immediately transformed into the real Soma, or the angel, and even into Brahma himself. Some missionaries have expressed themselves with much indignation about this ceremony, the more so, seeing that the Brahmans generally use a kind of spirituous liquor as a substitute. But do the Christians believe less fervently in the transubstantiation of the communion wine into the blood of Christ, because this wine happens to be more or less spirituous? Is not the idea of the symbol attached to it the same? But the Missionaries say that this hour of soma-drinking is the golden hour of Satan, who lurks at the bottom of the Hindu sacrificial cup. (Isis Unveiled
(IU) Soma. — This Hindu sacred beverage answers to the Greek ambrosia or nectar, drunk by the gods of Olympus. A cup of kykeon was also quaffed by the mysta at the Eleusinian initiation. He who drinks it easily reaches Bradhna, or place of splendor (Heaven). The soma-drink known to Europeans is not the genuine beverage, but its substitute; for the initiated priests alone can taste of the real soma; and even kings and raja, when sacrificing, receive the substitute. Haug shows by his own confession, in his Aytareya-Brahmanan, that it was not the Soma that he tasted and found nasty, but the juice from the roots of the Nyagrodha, a plant or bush which grows on the hills of Poona. We were positively informed that the majority of the sacrificial priests of the Dekkan have lost the secret of the true soma. It can be found neither in the ritual books nor through oral information. The true followers of the primitive Vedic religion are very few; these are the alleged descendants from the Rishis, the real Agnihotris, the initiates of the great Mysteries. The soma-drink is also commemorated in the Hindu Pantheon, for it is called the King-Soma. He who drinks of it is made to participate in the heavenly king, because he becomes filled with it, as the Christian apostles and their converts became filled with the Holy Ghost, and purified of their sins. The soma makes a new man of the initiate; he is reborn and transformed, and his spiritual nature overcomes the physical; it gives the divine power of inspiration, and developes the clairvoyant faculty to the utmost. According to the exoteric explanation the soma is a plant, but, at the same time it is an angel. It forcibly connects the inner, highest “spirit” of man, which spirit is an angel like the mystical soma, with his “irrational soul,” or astral body, and thus united by the power of the magic drink, they soar together above physical nature, and participate during life in the beatitude and ineffable glories of Heaven.
Thus the Hindu soma is mystically, and in all respects, the same that the Eucharistic supper is to the Christian. The idea is similar. By means of the sacrificial prayers — the mantras — this liquor is supposed to be transformed on the spot into real soma — or the angel, and even into Brahma himself. Some missionaries have expressed themselves very indignantly about this ceremony, the more so, that, generally speaking, the Brahmans use a kind of spirituous liquor as a substitute. But do the Christians believe less fervently in the transubstantiation of the communion-wine into the blood of Christ, because this wine happens to be more or less spirituous? Is not the idea of the symbol attached to it the same? But the missionaries say that this hour of some-drinking is the golden hour of Satan, who lurks at the bottom of the Hindu sacrificial cup. [In their turn, the heathen may well ask the missionaries what sort of a spirit lurks at the bottom of the sacrificial beer-bottle. That evangelical New York journal, the “Independent,” says: “A late English traveller found a simple-minded Baptist mission church, in far-off Burmah, using for the communion service, and we doubt not with God’s blessing, Bass’s pale ale instead of wine.” Circumstances alter cases, it seems!]
(WG) Soma, the moon; a liquid expressed from the moon-plant.
(GH) Soma Astronomically, the Moon — an occult mystery, for the moon as a symbol stands for both good and evil. “Soma is the mystery god and presides over the mystic and occult nature in man and the Universe” ( Secret Doctrine, II, p. 45). In mystical phraseology Soma is a sacred and mystic beverage which was drunk by Brahmanas and Initiates, during their mysteries and sacrificial rites, producing mystic visions. “The partaker of Soma finds himself both linked to his external body, and yet away from it in his spiritual form. The latter, freed from the former, soars for the time being in the ethereal higher regions, becoming virtually ‘as one of the gods,’ and yet preserving in his physical brain the memory of what he sees and learns.” ( Secret Doctrine, II, p. 499). “The Soma-drink known to Europeans is not the genuine beverage, but its substitute; for the initiated priests alone can taste of the real Soma; and even kings and Rajas, when sacrificing, receive the substitute.” ( Theosophical Glossary, H. P. Blavatsky, p. 304) ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 67)
(IN) Soma {Sans} Hindu male lunar deity; also a “beverage” from a sacred plant which can induce spiritual vision.
(GH) Somadatta A favorite name in ancient times: many kings bore this appellation. The son of one so named sided with the Kurus. (Meaning of the word itself: gift of Soma. Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 3)
(TG) Soma-loka {Sans}. A kind of lunar abode where the god Soma, the regent of the moon, resides. The abode of the Lunar Pitris — or Pitriloka.
(TG) Somapa {Sans}. A class of Lunar Pitris. (See “Trisuparna.”)
(TG) Somnambulism Lit ., “sleepwalking”, or moving, acting, writing, reading and performing every function of waking consciousness in one’s sleep, with utter oblivion of the fact on awakening. This is one of the great psycho-physiological phenomena, the least understood as it is the most puzzling, to which Occultism alone holds the key.
(KT) Somnambulism. “Sleep walking.” A psycho-physiological state, too well known to need explanation.
(TG) Son-kha-pa {Tibe}. Written also Tson-kha-pa. A famous Tibetan reformer of the fourteenth century, who introduced a purified Buddhism into his country. He was a great Adept, who being unable to witness any longer the desecration of Buddhist philosophy by the false priests who made of it a marketable commodity, put a forcible stop thereto by a timely revolution and the exile of 40,000 sham monks and Lamas from the country. He is regarded as an Avatar of Buddha, and is the founder of the Gelukpa (“yellow-cap”) Sect, and of the mystic Brotherhood connected with its chiefs. The “tree of the 10,000 images” (khoom-boom) has, it is said, sprung from the long hair of this ascetic, who leaving it behind him disappeared for ever from the view of the profane.
(TG) Sooniam. A magical ceremony for the purpose of removing a sickness from one person to another. Black magic, sorcery.
(FY) Soonium, a magical ceremony for the purpose of removing a sickness from one person to another.
(TG) Sophia {Greek}. Wisdom. The female Logos of the Gnostics; the Universal Mind; and the female Holy Ghost with others.
(TG) Sophia Achamoth {Greek}. The daughter of Sophia. The personified Astral Light, or the lower plane of Ether.
(TG) Sortes Sanctorum {Latin}. The “holy casting of lots for purposes of divination”, practised by the early and mediaeval Christian clergy. St. Augustine, who does not “disapprove of this method of learning futurity, provided it be not used for worldly purposes, practised it himself” (Life of St. Gregory of Tours). If, however, “it is practised by laymen, heretics, or heathen” of any sort, sortes sanctorum become — if we believe the good and pious fathers — sortes diabolorum or sortilegium — sorcery.
(TG) Sosiosh (Zend). The Mazdean Saviour who, like Vishnu, Maitreya Buddha and others, is expected to appear on a white horse at the end of the cycle to save mankind. (See “Sambhala”
(TG) Soul. The psuche, or nephesh of the Bible; the vital principle, or the breath of life, which every animal, down to the infusoria, shares with man. In the translated Bible it stands indifferently for life, blood and soul. “Let us not kill his nephesh”, says the original text: “let us not kill him”, translate the Christians (Genesis 37. 21), and so on.
(IU) Soul is the psyche or the nephesh of the Bible ; the vital principle, or the breath of life, which every animal, down to the infusoria, shares with man. In the translated Bible it stands indifferently for life, blood, and soul. “Let us not kill his nephesh,” says the original text: “let us not kill him; ” translate the Christians ( Genesis 27., 21), and so on.
(VS) budding soul (I 5) [[p. 3]] Soul is used here for the Human Ego or Manas, that which is referred to in our Occult Septenary division as the “Human Soul” ( Vide the Secret Doctrine ) in contradistinction to the Spiritual and Animal Souls.
(VS) towards the Diamond Soul (II 4) [[p. 26]] “Diamond Soul” “Vajrasattva,” a title of the supreme Buddha, the “Lord of all Mysteries,” called Vajradhara and Adi-Buddha.
(VS) Diamond- Soul (III 19) [[p. 60]] Vide Glossary of Part II., Number 4. “Diamond-Soul” or Vajradhara presides over the Dhyani-Buddhas .
(VS) the Master- Soul is one (III 8) [[p. 50]] The “MASTER-SOUL” is Alaya, the Universal Soul or Atman, each man having a ray of it in him and being supposed to be able to identify himself with and to merge himself into it.
(OG) Soul — This word in the ancient wisdom signifies “vehicle,” and upadhi — that vehicle, or any vehicle, in which the monad, in any sphere of manifestation, is working out its destiny. A soul is an entity which is evolved by experiences; it is not a spirit, but it is a vehicle of a spirit — the monad. It manifests in matter through and by being a substantial portion of the lower essence of the spirit. Touching another plane below it, or it may be above it, the point of union allowing ingress and egress to the consciousness, is a laya-center — the neutral center, in matter or substance, through which consciousness passes — and the center of that consciousness is the monad. The soul in contradistinction with the monad is its vehicle for manifestation on any one plane. The spirit or monad manifests in seven vehicles, and each one of these vehicles is a soul. On the higher planes the soul is a vehicle manifesting as a sheaf or pillar of light; similarly with the various egos and their related vehicle-souls on the inferior planes, all growing constantly more dense, as the planes of matter gradually thicken downwards and become more compact, into which the monadic ray penetrates until the final soul, which is the physical body, the general vehicle or bearer or carrier of them all.
Our teachings give to every animate thing a soul — not a human soul, or a divine soul, or a spiritual soul — but a soul corresponding to its own type. What it is, what its type is, actually comes from its soul; hence we properly may speak of the different beasts as having one or the other, a “duck soul,” an “ostrich soul,” a “bull” or a “cow soul,” and so forth. The entities lower than man — in this case the beasts, considered as a kingdom, are differentiated into the different families of animals by the different souls within each. Of course behind the soul from which it springs there are in each individual entity all the other principles that likewise inform man; but all these higher principles are latent in the beast. Speaking generally, however, we may say that the soul is the intermediate part between the spirit which is deathless and immortal on the one hand and, on the other hand, the physical frame, entirely mortal. The soul, therefore, is the intermediate part of the human constitution. It must be carefully noted in this connection that soul as a term employed in the esoteric philosophy, while indeed meaning essentially a “vehicle” or “sheath,” this vehicle or sheath is nevertheless an animate or living entity much after the manner that the physical body, while being the sheath or vehicle of the other parts of man’s constitution, is nevertheless in itself a discrete, animate, personalized being. ( See also Vahana) WW Soul Soul is the personal center, the conscious, vitalized, personal center in man. “For of the soule the bodie forme doth take; “For soule is forme, and doth the bodie make.” — (Spenser’s “Hyme in Honor of Beautie”, line 132 This is a perfectly correct definition of what ‘soul’ is in Theosophy. When we come to study Individual and Person, and their derivatives Individuality and Personality, we shall see that the spirit is individual and the soul personal, and that while a man may truly be said to have one soul during one life, yet as his personality — the working of his person, his personance — changes almost from year to year, indeed possibly from day to day, so a man may be said to have ‘legion’ when his soul is spoken of. The soul of 1913 is not the soul of 1914; the soul of childhood is not the soul of youth, or of manhood, or of old age. The soul of youth is not the soul of maturity; but the spirit is the same always. Our souls are then legion; we live in our souls, we are souls. It is our soul in the general sense which incarnates; the spirit cannot, does not incarnate. We incarnate because the working of the soul in the between-life states brings back by attraction the monad to incarnation. The soul is semi-material. Being a creature of semi-matter, its instincts, its desires, its impulses are matterward. Being also a creature of spirit, its instincts, its impulses are spiritward, and we find therefore the dual person, the dual nature of the soul, dragged down to the dust and lifted upward to the spirit — a mixed being, as we saw when we studied hierarchies, half hero, half beast. Which shall man follow? Shall he follow the beast and go to perdition (perdition, from the word perdere, to lose), and so in the end lose the personal element? Or shall he follow the star, follow the God within, allying himself with that divine thing which is so far above his normal conception that man in ancient days spoke of it as the breath of the Deity? These words “of the Deity” are very beautiful, and when we understand them we see the reverence that is inherent in the ancient thought. Soul, then, is the ordinary personal man, thinking, cogitating, willing, loving, hating, morbid, natural, in fact possessing all the phenomena of human nature as we know it today. This soul changes, grows, becomes less, decreases, according to the line of thought which is followed, according to the choice which is made. It may sink so low that it may actually pass out of the human circle, out of humanity; it can then no longer incarnate in human bodies. What happens to it? It is no longer a human soul . Were it a human soul it could incarnate. It goes into the animals, and we have here the real meaning of the transmigration of souls so-called, based as we saw it in former studies upon a truth. This is not all the truth, but it is an adumbration of what one might say, but it is not in my place to do so. In plain words, the question of the loss of the soul you will find touched upon by H. P. Blavatsky in her esoteric writings, but the Teacher is the only one in power in this case. It is a subject which we must allude to and leave. Now this loss of the soul, we may truly say, is attended with agony unspeakable. Examine any man in a passion. Let the passion be what you will, a passion of anger, a frenzy of love. He is by so much a maniac, he is by so much insane; he has lost his mind. The better, the nobler, the higher part is gone, according to the ratio of development of the passion. If he follows this passion, he links himself with forces magnetically attracted to him, elementals, creatures of the lower sphere, the underworld, who cling to him. He feeds them, and he also draws nourishment from them, his passion does; they stimulate him; and as in physical things an over-stimulated organ, while it is worn to pieces, nevertheless may grow and become a monster, so some of the most virulent, loathsome diseases of mankind have had their origin in misuse. “Sow an act and you reap a habit; sow a habit and you reap a character; sow a character and you reap a destiny.” On the other hand man links himself with the diviner part of his nature, and he raises himself to the gods; he becomes impersonal, charitable, cleanly in life, sweet-tempered, lovable, loving and loved. It is said that the very animals and little children cling to a man like that. Not always is it that animals and little children cling to such a man, because human nature is very complex; but such a man undoubtedly is instinctively trusted by other men, and as he goes higher his brain expands, reverence grows within him, and loyalty and all other beautiful virtues, and step by step his character grows greater, his will becomes stronger, more one-pointed, less split up, the battles grow less, the struggles diminish, peace and calm rest upon his face. Why? Because these are attributes of the god within him, towards which he is raising himself. We all respect a strong man, we all admire a strong and good man, but we all love a man who is not only strong and good but trustworthy. In that one word we can sum up all the attributes of the higher nature, that which is worthy of trust. No man would instinctively trust a strong man, or even a strong and good man (though immediately with a good man trust begins to grow), but when a man is strong and in addition is trustworthy he possesses all those elements which arouse trust. This, I believe, is one of the signs by which we may judge of the spiritual stature of a man. Now we see, then, that the spirit represents the most lofty, the divine part of our nature. It is called ‘breath’ because it is so intangible, so subtle, that they of old could only liken it to that which the Deity breathed out, as it were, by an act of the will, the spiritus, the efflux. You will remember the Oriental religions speak of the inbreathing and outbreathing of Brahman. This, applied to man, is the spirit; and the soul is the personal man. The person changes, as I have said.
(OG) Soulless Beings — “We elbow soulless men in the streets at every turn,” wrote H. P. Blavatsky. This is an actual fact. The statement does not mean that those whom we thus elbow have no soul. The significance is that the spiritual part of these human beings is sleeping, not awake. They are animate humans with an animate working brain-mind, an animal mind, but otherwise “soulless” in the sense that the soul is inactive, sleeping; and this is also just what Pythagoras meant when he spoke of the “living dead.” They are everywhere, these people. We elbow them, just as H. P. Blavatsky says, at every turn. The eyes may be physically bright, and filled with the vital physical fire, but they lack soul; they lack tenderness, the fervid yet gentle warmth of the living flame of inspiration within. Sometimes impersonal love will awaken the soul in a man or in a woman; sometimes it will kill it if the love become selfish and gross. The streets are filled with such “soulless” people; but the phrase soulless people does not mean “lost souls.” The latter is again something else. The term soulless people therefore is a technical term. It means men and women who are still connected, but usually quite unconsciously, with the monad, the spiritual essence within them, but who are not self-consciously so connected. They live very largely in the brain-mind and in the fields of sensuous consciousness. They turn with pleasure to the frivolities of life. They have the ordinary feelings of honor, etc., because it is conventional and good breeding so to have them; but the deep inner fire of yearning, the living warmth that comes from being more or less at one with the god within, they know not. Hence, they are “soulless,” because the soul is not working with fiery energy in and through them.
A lost soul, on the other hand, means an entity who through various rebirths, it may be a dozen, or more or less, has been slowly following the “easy descent to Avernus,” and in whom the threads of communication with the spirit within have been snapped one after the other. Vice will do this, continuous vice. Hate snaps these spiritual threads more quickly than anything else perhaps. Selfishness, the parent of hate, is the root of all human evil; and therefore a lost soul is one who is not merely soulless in the ordinary theosophical usage of the word, but is one who has lost the last link, the last delicate thread of consciousness, connecting him with his inner god. He will continue “the easy descent,” passing from human birth to an inferior human birth, and then to one still more inferior, until finally the degenerate astral monad — all that remains of the human being that once was — may even enter the body of some beast to which it feels attracted (and this is one side of the teaching of transmigration, which has been so badly misunderstood in the Occident); some finally go even to plants perhaps, at the last, and will ultimately vanish. The astral monad will then have faded out. Such lost souls are exceedingly rare, fortunately; but they are not what we call soulless people. If the student will remember the fact that when a human being is filled with the living spiritual and intellectual fiery energies flowing into his brain-mind from his inner god, he is then an insouled being, he will readily understand that when these fiery energies can no longer reach the brain-mind and manifest in a man’s life, there is thus produced what is called a soulless being. A good man, honorable, loyal, compassionate, aspiring, gentle, and true-hearted, and a student of wisdom, is an “insouled” man; a buddha is one who is fully, completely insouled; and there are all the intermediate grades between.
(VS) Nada (I 2), the Soundless Sound [[p. 1]] The “Soundless Voice,” or the “Voice of the Silence.” Literally perhaps this would read “Voice in the Spiritual Sound,” as Nada is the equivalent word in Sanskrit, for the Sensar term.
(VS) sounds of the Akasic heights (I 35) [[p. 18]] These mystic sounds or the melody heard by the ascetic at the beginning of his cycle of meditation called Anahad-shabd by the Yogis.
(FY) Souramanam, a method of calculating time.
(TG) Sowan (Pali). The first of the “four paths” which lead to Nirvana, in Yoga practice.
(TG) Sowanee (Pali). He who entered upon that “path”.
(VS) Sowanee (III 23) [[p. 65]] Sowanee is one who practices Sowan, the first path in Dhyan, a Srotapatti.
(FY) Space, Akasa; Swabhavat
(OG) Space — Our universe, as popularly supposed, consists of space and matter and energy; but in theosophy we say that space itself is both conscious and substantial. It is in fact the root of the other two, matter and energy, which are fundamentally one thing, and this one fundamental thing is SPACE — their essential and also their instrumental cause as well as their substantial cause — and this is the reality of being, the heart of things. Our teaching is that there are many universes, not merely one, our own home-universe; therefore are there many spaces with a background of a perfectly incomprehensible greater SPACE inclosing all — a space which is still more ethereal, tenuous, spiritual, yes, divine, than the space-matter that we know or rather conceive of, which in its lowest aspect manifests the grossness of physical matter of common human knowledge. Space, therefore, considered in the abstract, is BEING, filled full, so to say, with other entities and things, of which we see a small part — globes innumerable, stars and planets, nebulae and comets. But all these material bodies are but effectual products or results of the infinitudes of the invisible and inner causal realms — by far the larger part of the spaces of Space. The space therefore of any one universe is an entity — a god. Fundamentally and essentially it is a spiritual entity, a divine entity indeed, of which we see naught but what we humans call the material and energic aspect — behind which is the causal life, the causal intelligence. The word is likewise frequently used in theosophical philosophy to signify the frontierless infinitudes of the Boundless; and because it is the very esse of life-consciousness-substance, it is incomparably more than the mere “container” that it is so often supposed to be by Occidental philosophers. ( See also Universe; Milky Way) WW Space Now the most difficult word for us in Space, difficult because it is subject to so many different interpretations by those who use the word and by those who hear it used. Look into the dictionary, and you will find that the word space is used in half a score of ways. It is used in the popular sense as meaning that which contains everything; and while the dictionaries are inclined to decry that as being vulgar or popular, it nevertheless seems to me that there is more than a foundation of good sense in the instinct which has led man to give the word space that meaning. In the first place, our word space comes from the Latin spatium, and the sense of it was extension ; and the root of this word in the Aryan tongues is the same (or a closely similar word) as the Sanskrit sphay, meaning to be big, to be fat, thence to yawn, as we say in English a “yawning abyss”, the sense of spatium, being extension, thence emptiness. The ordinary idea of space as held by psychologists today, as I understand it, seems to be that it itself is but a mental conception; space per se does not exist; but owing to the phantasmal impression produced on the retina of the eye, and to the illusory sensation of motion and touch, there follows an association of ideas in the mind by which apartness is conceived, and hence, space. The definition is not satisfactory. There are several reasons why it is not. In the first place, there still remains the fact that while our lower mind may conceive space, or rather one attribute of space, as extension, from sensory impression, yet in the working of the mind itself there is a tendency to conceive of vastness. The mind sees something which the retinal impression or the sense of contact has merely brought to view, just as in the psychological association of ideas a note of music or a forgotten voice may bring back a whole train of linked thoughts, memories. The fault of the usual definition of psychology is this: that it imports into the mind what it gathers from outside, and gives to the conception the attributes of what is outside, and then denies that the outside exists. If man gains his conception of space merely from retinal or sensory impressions, on the other hand all the phenomena of nature, all our studies, our thoughts, all exterior nature and all interior nature, are based upon one fact — that marvel, that wonder which we can only call Space. It can be conceived of as being merely emptiness, or as being a fullness. If emptiness, then it is matter in its highest manifestations, or chaos; if a fullness, then it has two meanings; either that of the visible and the invisible universe; or the fullness of the Unmanifest Deity in the pantheistic sense as comprehending All. We are in deep waters, because the difficulty is that there is no definition in any language that I am acquainted with of the word space, properly answering to that which the mind conceives. In Theosophy it means not merely all that is, but also the source of everything past, present, or future; endless, beginningless, boundless. There are, then, three ways of looking at Space: first as the all-container and source of being; second, as the psychological conception; third, the false connection of Space with the idea of material extension properly an attribute of matter in manifestation.
(TG) Sparsa {Sans}. The sense of touch.
(WG) Sparsa, tangibility, that which may be touched.
(WG) Sparsanaka, that which touches, (used in speaking of the skin
(TG) Spenta Armaita (Zend). The female genius of the earth; the “fair daughter of Ahura Mazda”. With the Mazdeans, Spenta Armaita is the personified Earth.
(TG) Spirit. The lack of any mutual agreement between writers in the use of this word has resulted in dire confusion. It is commonly made synonymous with soul; and the lexicographers countenance the usage. In Theosophical teachings the term “Spirit” is applied solely to that which belongs directly to Universal Consciousness, and which is its homogeneous and unadulterated emanation. Thus, the higher Mind in Man or his Ego (Manas) is, when linked indissolubly with Buddhi, a spirit; while the term “Soul”, human or even animal (the lower Manas acting in animals as instinct), is applied only to Kama-Manas, and qualified as the living soul. This is nephesh, in Hebrew, the “breath of life”. Spirit is formless and immaterial, being, when individualised, of the highest spiritual substance — Suddasatwa, the divine essence, of which the body of the manifesting highest Dhyanis are formed. Therefore, the Theosophists reject the appellation “Spirits” for those phantoms which appear in the phenomenal manifestations of the Spiritualists, and call them “shells”, and various other names. (See “Sukshma Sarira” Spirit, in short, is no entity in the sense of having form; for, as Buddhist philosophy has it, where there is a form, there is a cause for pain and suffering. But each individual spirit — this individuality lasting only throughout the manvantaric life-cycle — may be described as a centre of consciousness, a self-sentient and self-conscious centre; a state, not a conditioned individual. This is why there is such a wealth of words in Sanskrit to express the different States of Being, Beings and Entities, each appellation showing the philosophical difference, the plane to which such unit belongs, and the degree of its spirituality or materiality. Unfortunately these terms are almost untranslatable into our Western tongues.
(IU) Spirit. — The lack of any mutual agreement between writers in the use of this word has resulted in dire confusion. It is commonly made synonymous with soul ; and the lexicographers countenance the usage. This is the natural result of our ignorance of the other word, and repudiation of the classification adopted by the ancients. Elsewhere we attempt to make clear the distinction between the terms “spirit” and “soul.” There are no more important passages in this work. Meanwhile, we will only add that “spirit” is the nous of Plato, the immortal, immaterial, and purely divine principle in man — the crown of the human Triad ; whereas, [[SEE SOUL for continuation.]]
(OG) Spirit — In the theosophical philosophy there is a distinct and important difference in the use of the words spirit and soul . The spirit is the immortal element in us, the deathless flame within us which dies never, which never was born and which retains throughout the entire maha-manvantara its own quality, essence, and life, sending down into our own being and into our various planes certain of its rays or garments or souls which we are . The divine spirit of man is linked with the All, being in a highly mystical sense a ray of the All. A soul is an entity which is evolved by experiences; it is not a spirit because it is a vehicle of a spirit. It manifests in matter through and by being a substantial portion of the lower essence of the spirit. Touching another plane below it, or it may be above it, the point of union allowing ingress and egress to the consciousness is a laya-center. The spirit manifests in seven vehicles, and each one of these vehicles is a soul; and that particular point through which the spiritual influence passes in the soul is the laya-center, the heart of the soul, or rather the summit thereof — homogeneous soul-substance, if you like. In a kosmical sense spirit should be applied only to that which belongs without qualifications to universal consciousness and which is the homogeneous and unmixed emanation from the universal consciousness. In the case of man, the spirit within man is the flame of his deathless ego, the direct emanation of the spiritual monad within him, and of this ego the spiritual soul is the enclosing sheath or vehicle or garment. Making an application more particularly and specifically to the human principles, when the higher manas of man which is his real ego is indissolubly linked with buddhi, this, in fact, is the spiritual ego or spirit of the individual human being’s constitution. Its life term before the emanation is withdrawn into the divine monad is for the full period of a kosmic manvantara.
(OG) Spirit (in reference to Matter) — The theosophist points out that what men call spirit is the summit or acme or root or seed or beginning or noumenon — call it by any name — of any particular hierarchy existing in the innumerable hosts of the kosmic hierarchies, with all of which any such hierarchy is inextricably interblended and interworking.
When theosophists speak of spirit and substance, of which matter and energy or force are the physicalized expressions, we must remember that all these terms are abstractions, generalized expressions for certain entities manifesting aggregatively.
(SP)irit, for instance, is not essentially different from matter, and is only relatively so different, or evolutionally so different: the difference not lying in the roots of these two where they become one in the underlying consciousness-reality, but in their characters they are two evolutional forms of manifestation of that underlying reality. In other words, to use the terminology of modern scientific philosophy, spirit and matter are, each of them, respectively an “event” as the underlying reality passes through eternal duration. WW Spirit Spirit is from a Latin word spirare, to breathe; spiritus means breath; it is also used for wind, air in motion, a breeze. So the Hebrew Ruahh means wind, soul, breath. The English word soul is from an untraced source. Spirit and soul are two words which are accepted in ordinary Christian thought as almost synonymous; and yet that is improper, for often in the Bible, both in the Jewish part and in the Christian part, there is a distinction made, and a very clear one. In the biblical usage Soul seems to represent that conscious center in which thought and egoity dwell in man’s nature. Spirit is not so simple of definition. It is used to represent that highest part of the being of man, which, to use biblical phraseology, comes from the Deity, breathed into man’s soul. Spirit is used also in popular language to signify by a natural development of thought what we commonly call spook or ghost , and this evidently arose from the fact that the meaning of spirit being breath or wind, something very intangible, almost imperceptible, as when ghosts, so-called, or spooks, were seen hovering around graveyards, they had a tremulous, diaphanous, thin semi-luminous appearance, and the word spirit was popularly applied to them. We shall soon see that while that is undoubtedly the case, it is an improper usage, and there are other words used in philosophy and by the ancients in past days to describe these apparitions. Spirit, then, as used in the Bible, is closely similar to the Theosophical idea, as being the breath, in a sense, of the Deity, the first manifestation outward, from which all creatures, all beings, take their origin; therefore the highest part of man.
(OG) Spiritual Soul — The spiritual soul is the vehicle of the individual monad, the jivatman or spiritual ego; in the case of man’s principles it is essentially of the nature of atma-buddhi. This spiritual ego is the center or seed or root of the reincarnating ego. It is that portion of our spiritual constitution which is deathless as an individualized entity — deathless until the end of the maha-manvantara of the cosmic solar system.
The spiritual soul and the divine soul, or atman, combined, are the inner god — the inner buddha, the inner christ.
(KT) Spiritism. The same as the above, [[ ??? ]] with the difference that the Spiritualists reject almost unanimously the doctrine of Reincarnation, while the Spiritists make of it the fundamental principle in their belief. There is, however, a vast difference between the views of the latter and the philosophical teachings of Eastern Occultists. Spiritists belong to the French School founded by Allan Kardec, and the Spiritualists of America and England to that of the “Fox girls,” who inaugurated their theories at Rochester, U. S. A. Theosophists, while believing in the mediumistic phenomena of both Spiritualists and Spiritists, reject the idea of “spirits.”
(TG) Spiritualism. In philosophy, the state or condition of mind opposed to materialism or a material conception of things. Theosophy, a doctrine which teaches that all which exists is animated or informed by the Universal Soul or Spirit, and that not an atom in our universe can be outside of this omnipresent Principle — is pure Spiritualism. As to the belief that goes under that name, namely, belief in the constant communication of the living with the dead, whether through the mediumistic powers of oneself or a so-called medium — it is no better than the materialisation of spirit, and the degradation of the human and the divine souls, Believers in such communications are simply dishonouring the dead and performing constant sacrilege. It was well called “Necromancy” in days of old. But our modern Spiritualists take offence at being told this simple truth.
(KT) Spiritualism. The modern belief that the spirits of the dead return on earth to commune with the living. (See “Spiritism.”)
(TG) Spook. A ghost, a hobgoblin. Used of the various apparitions in the seance-rooms of the Spiritualists.
(TG) Sraddha (Sk). Lit., faith, respect, reverence.
(TG) Sraddha {Sans}. Devotion to the memory and care for the welfare of the manes of dead relatives. A post-mortem rite for newly-deceased kindred. There are also monthly rites of Sraddha.
(FY) Sraddha, faith.
(WG) Sraddha, an oblation to the manes, made at the same time as the pinda offering.
(WG) Sraddha, trust, faith.
(TG) Sraddhadeva {Sans}. An epithet of Yama, the god of death and king of the nether world, or Hades.
(TG) Sramana {Sans}. Buddhist priests, ascetics and postulants for Nirvana, “they who have to place a restraint on their thoughts”. The word Saman, now “Shaman” is a corruption of this primitive word.
(SKv) Srama, Sramana Srama is action, exertion, effort, religious exercise; derived from the verb-root gram — to labor, to make an effort. A religious ascetic is often called a Sramana, meaning ‘one who is striving consciously,’ or ‘one who is laboring for spiritual ends.’
(TG) Srastara {Sans}. A couch consisting of a mat or a tiger’s skin, strewn with darbha, kusa and other grasses, used by ascetics — gurus and chelas — and spread on the floor.
(TG) Sravah {avesta-mazdean}. The Amshaspends, in their highest aspect.
(TG) Sravaka {Sans}. Lit., “he who causes to hear”; a preacher. But in Buddhism it denotes a disciple or chela.
(VS) Sravaka (III 3) [[p. 45]] Sravaka a listener, or student who attends to the religious instructions. From the root “Sru.” When from theory they go into practice or performance of asceticism, they become Sramanas, “exercisers,” for Srama, action. As Hardy shows, the two appellations answer to the words and of the Greeks.
(SKv) Sravaka, Lanoo-Sravaka Sravaka, a word derived from the verb-root sru — to hear, means ‘a listener,’ or mystically used, a Sravaka is a disciple who receives esoteric teaching. In ancient Asiatic Mystery-Schools a Chela was also called a Lanoo. Hence Lanoo-Sravaka may be translated as ‘chela-listener.’
(FY) Sravana, receptivity, listening.
(WG) Sri, beautiful appearance, beautiful; goddess of fortune and prosperity and of beauty; also a title of honor, “the glorious,” as Sri Krishna.
(SKv) Srimad-Bhagavat A title given to the Bhagavad – Gita, that portion of the Mahabharata in which Krishna gives spiritual instruction to the despondent Arjuna. Srimad, derived from the verb-root sri — to diffuse light or radiance — is a term applied to a teacher, or even to a scripture, and signifies high spiritual quality.
(TG) Sringa Giri {Sans}. A large and wealthy monastery on the ridge of the Western Ghauts in Mysore (Southern India); the chief matham of the Adwaita and Smarta Brahmans, founded by Sankaracharya. There resides the religious head (the latter being called Sankaracharya) of all the Vedantic Adwaitas, credited by many with great abnormal powers.
(TG) Sri-pada {Sans}. The impression of Buddha’s foot. Lit., “the step or foot of the Master or exalted Lord”.
(TG) Srivatsa {Sans}. A mystical mark worn by Krishna, and also adopted by the Jains.
(TG) Sriyantra {Sans}. The double triangle or the seal of Vishnu, called also “Solomon’s seal”, and adopted by the T.S.
(TG) Srotapatti {Sans}. Lit., “he who has entered the stream”, i.e., the stream or path that leads to Nirvana, or figuratively, to the Nirvanic Ocean. The same as Sowanee.
(VS) Srotapatti (II 27) [[p. 37]] Srotapatti or “he who enters in the stream” of Nirvana, unless he reaches the goal owing to some exceptional reasons, can rarely attain Nirvana in one birth. Usually a Chela is said to begin the ascending effort in one life and end or reach it only in his seventh succeeding birth.
(VS) Srota-patti (III 6) [[p. 46]] Srotapatti (lit “he who has entered the stream” that leads to the Nirvanic ocean. This name indicates the first Path. The name of the second is the Path of Sakridagamin, “he who will receive birth (only) once more.” The third is called Anagamin, “he who will be reincarnated no more,” unless he so desires in order to help mankind. The fourth Path is known as that of Rahat or Arhat . This is the highest. An Arhat sees Nirvana during his life. For him it is no post-mortem state, but Samadhi, during which he experiences all Nirvanic bliss. [How little one can rely upon the Orientalists for the exact words and meaning, is instanced in the case of three “alleged” authorities. Thus the four names just explained are given by R. Spence Hardy as: 1. Sowan; 2. Sakradagami; 3. Anagami, and 4. Arya. By the Rev. J. Edkins they are given as: 1. Srotapanna; 2. Sagardagam; 3. Anaganim, and 4. Arhan. Schlagintweit again spells them differently, each, moreover, giving another and a new variation in the meaning of the terms.]
(VS) Srotapatti ( ) [[p. 68]] Sowan and Srotapatti are synonymous terms.
(WG) Srotapatti, one who has “entered the stream” which will bear him to the Nirvanic Ocean — the “Shining Sea”.
(SKv) Srotapatti, Sakridagamin, Anagamin, Arhat In Buddhism there are four Paths to Nirvana, or four degrees of holiness attained by an aspirant to Liberation. Srotapatti, a compound of srota — stream, and apatti — one entering, implies the beginning of that holy and spiritual life which carries one up the stream which leads to Nirvanic bliss. A Srotapatti is one who has given up the unreal for the Real, who has turned all the forces of his nature upwards in service to the Divinity within. Sakridagamin is a compound of sakrit — once, and agamin — one coming; hence ‘one who will be reborn on earth only once more,’ because he has freed himself from nearly all earthly karmic bonds. Anagamin is a compound of an — not, and agamin — one coming; hence ‘one who will be reincarnated no more,’ unless he himself chooses to return to earth to help humanity. Arhat is ‘the worthy one’; derived from the verb-root ark — to be worthy, to merit. An Arhat is one who has attained the highest degree of spirituality, one who has self-consciously become worthy of Nirvana, that glorious state of Liberation and Peace and Wisdom. Arhat was also a general name given to a worthy disciple of the Buddha.
These four terms apply not only to the Paths themselves but to the travelers on those paths, for the teaching is that one cannot follow along a spiritual Path unless he has become that Path himself.
(WG) Srotram, the ear.
(TG) Srotriya {Sans}. The appellation of a Brahman who practises the Vedic rites he studies, as distinguished from the Vedavit, the Brahman who studies them only theoretically.
(TG) Sruti {Sans}. Sacred tradition received by revelation; the Vedas are such a tradition as distinguished from “Smriti” .
(WG) Sruti, revelation; utterance; sacred utterance handed down by tradition.
(SP) Sruti — literally “hearing”; the portion of Hindu scriptures, notably the Veda, considered authoritative in its exact wording and sound.
(IN) Stanzas of Dzyan Source text of The Secret Doctrine , excerpted from Chinese, Tibetan, and Sanskrit translations of the original Senzar commentaries and glosses on the Book of Dzyan .
(VS) star which is thy goal, burns overhead (I 39) [[p. 19]] The star that burns overhead is the “the star of initiation.” The caste-mark of Saivas, or devotees of the sect of Siva, the great patron of all Yogins, is a black round spot, the symbol of the Sun now, perhaps, but that of the star of initiation, in Occultism, in days of old.
(VS) Fix thy Soul’s gaze upon the star whose ray thou art (II 17) [[p. 31]] Every spiritual EGO is a ray of a “Planetary Spirit” according to esoteric teaching.
(VS) into the fourth [[ state ]] (I 15) [[p. 5]] The Turya, that beyond the dreamless state, the one above all, a state of high spiritual consciousness.
(VS) Three Halls, O conqueror of Mara, will bring thee through three states (I 14) [[p. 5]] The three states of consciousness, which are Jagrat, the waking; Swapna, the dreaming; and Sushupti , the deep sleeping state. These three Yogi conditions, lead to the fourth, or
(TG) Sthala Maya {Sans}. Gross, concrete and — because differentiated — an illusion.
(TG) Sthana {Sans}. Also Ayana; the place or abode of a god.
(WG) Sthanbha, stiffness, rigidity, stupor, stupidity, stupefaction; a magical faculty, many kinds of which are enumerated in the Tantras.
(TG) Sthavara {Sans}. From stha to stay or remain motionless. The term for all conscious, sentient objects deprived of the power of locomotion — fixed and rooted like the trees or plants; while all those sentient things, which add motion to a certain degree of consciousness, are called Jangama, from gam, to move, to go.
(WG) Sthavara, standing, powerless of locomotion; the lower orders of created things, vegetable and mineral.
(TG) Sthavirah, or Sthaviranikaya {Sans}. One of the earliest philosophical contemplative schools, founded 300 B.C. In the year 247 before the Christian era, it split into three divisions: the Mahavihara Vasinah (School of the great monasteries), Jetavanah, and Abhayagiri Vasinah. It is one of the four branches of the Vaibhachika School founded by Katyayana, one of the great disciples of Lord Gautama Buddha, the author of the Abhidharma Jnana Prasthana Shastra, who is expected to reappear as a Buddha. (See “Abhayagiri”, etc All these schools are highly mystical. Lit., Staviranikaya is translated the “School of the Chairman” or “President” (Chohan).
(TG) Sthiratman {Sans}. Eternal, supreme, applied to the Universal Soul.
(TG) Sthiti {Sans}. The attribute of preservation; stability.
(TG) Sthula {Sans}. Differentiated and conditioned matter.
(WG) Sthula, the differentiated condition of matter.
(TG) Sthula Sariram {Sans}. In metaphysics, the gross physical body.
(KT) Sthula Sharira. The Sanskrit name for the human physical body, in Occultism and Vedanta philosophy.
(FY) Sthula-Sariram, the gross physical body.
(WG) Sthula-sarira, the gross physical body.
(OG) Sthula-Sarira — {Sans} Sthula means “coarse,” “gross,” not refined, heavy, bulky, fat in the sense of bigness, therefore, conditioned and differentiated matter; sarira, “form,” generally speaking. The lowest substance-principle of which man is composed, usually classified as the seventh in order — the physical body.
The sthula-sarira or physical hierarchy of the human body is builded up of cosmic elements, themselves formed of living atomic entities which, although subject individually to bewilderingly rapid changes and reembodiments, nevertheless are incomparably more enduring in themselves as expressions of the monadic rays than is the transitory physical body which they temporarily compose.
The physical body is composed mostly of porosity, if the expression be pardoned; the most unreal thing we know, full of holes, foamy as it were. At death the physical body follows the course of natural decay, and its various hosts of life-atoms proceed individually and collectively whither their natural attractions call them.
Strictly speaking, the physical body is not a principle at all; it is merely a house, man’s carrier in another sense, and no more is an essential part of him — except that he has excreted it, thrown it out from himself — than are the clothes in which his body is garmented. Man really is a complete human being without the sthula-sarira; and yet this statement while accurate must be taken not too literally, because even the physical body is the expression of man’s constitution on the physical plane. The meaning is that the human constitution can be a complete human entity even when the physical body is discarded, but the sthula-sarira is needed for evolution and active work on this subplane of the solar kosmos.
(SK)o Sthula – sarira The physical body of man; a compound of sthula gross, and sarira — impermanent form. The Sthula-sarira is built of the concreted forms of atomic lives flowing from the Linga-sarira. It is the lowest principle of man and the vehicle on this plane of all the other six principles: Atman, Buddhi, Manas, Karna, Prana, and Linga-sarira. It is truly the temple in which the eternal Pilgrim within gains experience here on earth. Each one of these seven principles is also sevenfold. Each has its divine, spiritual, mental, desire, vital, astral, and physical aspect.
(TG) Sthulopadhi {Sans}. A “principle” answering to the lower triad in man, i.e., body, astral form, and life, in the Taraka Raja Yoga system, which names only three chief principles in man. Sthulopadhi corresponds to the jagrata, or waking, conscious state.
(KT) Sthulopadhi. The physical body in its waking, conscious state (Jagrat). [These terms belong to the teachings of the Taraka Raj Yoga School.]
(WG) Sthulopadhi, the lowest of the three bases in the Taraka-yoga classification of the human principles, inclusive of the sthula-sarira, prana and the linga-sarira. ( sthula, physical; upadhi, basis, vehicle
(TG) Stupa {Sans}. A conical monument, in India and Ceylon, erected over relics of Buddha, Arhats, or other great men.
(GH) Subhadra The daughter of Vasudeva: a younger sister of Krishna, wife of Arjuna, and mother of Abhimanyu (the son referred to in the text of Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 2). Subba Row suggests that the gift of Krishna’s sister to Arjuna typifies the union between the sixth and fifth principles in man’s constitution, i.e., Buddhi and Manas. ( Notes on the Bhagavad-Gita, 9) (Meaning of the word itself: very auspicious. Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 2)
(TG) Subhava {Sans}. Being; the self-forming substance, or that “substance which gives substance to itself”. (See the Ekasloka Shastra of Nagarjuna Explained paradoxically, as “the nature which has no nature of its own”, and again as that which is with, and without, action. (See “Svabhavat” This is the Spirit within Substance, the ideal cause of the potencies acting on the work of formative evolution (not “creation” in the sense usually attached to the word); which potencies become in turn the real causes. In the words used in the Vedanta and Vyaya Philosophies: nimitta, the efficient, and upadana, the material, causes are contained in Subhava co-eternally. Says a Sanskrit Sloka: “Worthiest of ascetics, through its potency [that of the ‘efficient’ cause] every created thing comes by its proper nature”.
(WG) Subhava, the same as Swabhavat, which see.
(TG) Substance. Theosophists use the word in a dual sense, qualifying substance as perceptible and imperceptible; and making a distinction between material, psychic and spiritual substances (see “Sudda Satwa”), into ideal (i.e., existing on higher planes) and real substance.
(WG) Succubus, the female Incubus, which see; a “spirit bride”.
(TG) Suchi {Sans}. A name of Indra; also of the third son of Abhimanin, son of Agni; i.e ., one of the primordial forty-nine fires.
(WG) Suchi, flaming, glowing; the solar fire; the fire of passion and animal instinct.
(TG) Su-darshana {Sans}. The Discus of Krishna; a flaming weapon that plays a great part in Krishna’s biographies.
(TG) Sudda Satwa {Sans}. A substance not subject to the qualities of matter; a luminiferous and (to us) invisible substance, of which the bodies of the Gods and highest Dhyanis are formed. Philosophically, Suddha Satwa is a conscious state of spiritual Ego-ship rather than any essence.
(TG) Suddhodana {Sans}. The King of Kapilavastu; the father of Gautama Lord Buddha.
(TG) Sudha {Sans}. The food of the gods, akin to amrita the substance that gives immortality.
(TG) S’udra {Sans}. The last of the four castes that sprang from Brahma’s body. The “servile caste” that issued from the foot of the deity.
(OG) Sudra — {Sans} In ancient India a man of the servile or fourth or lowest caste, social and political, of the early civilizations of Hindustan in the Vedic and post-Vedic periods. The other three grades or classes are respectively the Brahmana or priest philosopher; the Kyshatria, the administrator — king, noble — and soldier; and third, the Vaisya, the trader and agriculturist.
(GH) Sudra The fourth and lowest of the four castes of Vedic India, whose duty consisted in serving the three higher classes. ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 69)
(SP) Sudra — a member of the servile class, the fourth of the four classes.
(TG) Sudyumna {Sans}. An epithet of Ila (or Ida), the offspring of Vaivasvata Manu and his fair daughter who sprang from his sacrifice when he was left alone after the flood. Sudyumna was an androgynous creature, one month a male and the other a female.
(TG) Suffism {Greek}. From the root of Sophia, “Wisdom”. A mystical sect in Persia something like the Vedantins; though very strong in numbers, none but very intelligent men join it. They claim, and very justly, the possession of the esoteric philosophy and doctrine of true Mohammedanism. The Suffi (or Sofi) doctrine is a good deal in touch with Theosophy, inasmuch as it preaches one universal creed, and outward respect and tolerance for every popular exoteric faith. It is also in touch with Masonry. The Suffis have four degrees and four stages of initiation: 1st, probationary, with a strict outward observance of Mussulman rites, the hidden meaning of each ceremony and dogma being explained to the candidate; 2nd, metaphysical training; 3rd, the “Wisdom” degree, when the candidate is initiated into the innermost nature of things; and 4th, final Truth, when the Adept attains divine powers, and complete union with the One Universal Deity in ecstasy or Samadhi.
(TG) Sugata {Sans}. One of the Lord Buddha’s titles, having many meanings.
(GH) Sughosha The name of the conch-shell of Nakula. (Meaning of the word itself: making a loud noise. Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 4)
(WG) Sukha, pleasure.
(TG) Sukhab {Chald}. One of the seven Babylonian gods.
(TG) Sukhavati {Sans}. The Western Paradise of the uneducated rabble. The popular notion is that there is a Western Paradise of Amitabha, wherein good men and saints revel in physical delights until they are carried once more by Karma into the circle of rebirth. This is an exaggerated and mistaken notion of Devachan.
(TG) Suki {Sans}. A daughter of Rishi Kashyapa, wife of Garuda, the king of the birds, the vehicle of Vishnu; the mother of parrots, owls and crows.
(TG) Sukra {Sans}. A name of the planet Venus, called also Usanas. In this impersonation Usanas is the Guru and preceptor of the Daityas — the giants of the earth — in the Puranas.
(WG) Sukra, the planet Venus; clean, bright.
(WG) Sukshma, atomic, intangible, small, fine; the undifferentiated condition of matter.
(TG) Sukshma Sarira {Sans}. The dream-like, illusive body akin to Manasarupa or “thought-body”. It is the vesture of the gods, or the Dhyanis and the Devas. Written also Sukshama Sharira and called Sukshmopadhi by the Taraka Raja Yogis. (Secret Doctrine, I., 157
(FY) Sukshma sariram, the subtile body.
(WG) Sukshma-sarira, the subtle body, the “double.”
(WG) Sukshmavastha, the latent condition of the attributes before evolution began.
(TG) Sukshmopadhi {Sans}. In Taraka Raja Yoga the “principle” containing both the higher and the lower Manas and Kama. It corresponds to the Manomaya Kosha of the Vedantic classification and to the Svapna state. (See “Svapna”
(KT) Sukshmopadhi. The physical body in the dreaming state (Svapna), and Karanopadhi, “the causal body.” [These terms belong to the teachings of the Taraka Raj Yoga School.]
(FY) Sukshmopadhi, fourth and fifth principles (Raja Yoga).
(WG) Sukshmopadi, the psychic body in the dreaming state; the subtle body used by the dreamer.
(TG) Su-Meru {Sans}. The same as Meru, the world-mountain. The prefix Su implies the laudation and exaltation of the object or personal name which follows it.
(VS) Sumeru (III 25) [[p. 66]] Mount Meru, the sacred mountain of the Gods.
(SKv) Sumeru, Meru Sumeru is ‘beautiful Meru,’ the Hindu Olympus. Meru (of unknown derivation) is the name of the sacred mountain or abode of the gods, and its summit, according to occult science, is situated at the North Pole. This summit corresponds to the Atman or the divinity of man. The heart of the first continent of the Human Race was also on this holy mountain of Sumeru.
(TG) Summerland. The name given by the American Spiritualists and Phenomenalists to the land or region inhabited after death by their “Spirits”. It is situated, says Andrew Jackson Davis, either within or beyond the Milky Way. It is described as having cities and beautiful buildings, a Congress Hall, museums and libraries for the instruction of the growing generations of young “Spirits”. We are not told whether the latter are subject to disease, decay and death; but unless they are, the claim that the disembodied “Spirit” of a child and even still-born babe grows and develops as an adult is hardly consistent with logic. But that which we are distinctly told is, that in the Summerland Spirits are given in marriage, beget spiritual (?) children, and are even concerned with politics. All this is no satire or exaggeration of ours, since the numerous works by Mr. A. Jackson Davis are there to prove it, e.g., the International Congress of Spirits by that author, as well as we remember the title. It is this grossly materialistic way of viewing a disembodied spirit that has turned many of the present Theosophists away from Spiritualism and its “philosophy”. The majesty of death is thus desecrated, and its awful and solemn mystery becomes no better than a farce.
(KT) Summerland. The fancy name given by the Spiritualists to the abode of their disembodied “Spirits,” which they locate somewhere in the Milky Way. It is described on the authority of returning “Spirits” as a lovely land, having beautiful cities and buildings, a Congress Hall, Museums, etc., etc. (See the works of Andrew Jackson Davis
(VS) Nyima (II 26) The Sun [[p. 36]] Nyima, the Sun in Tibetan Astrology. Migmar or Mars is symbolized by and “Eye,” and Shagpa or Mercury by a “Hand.”
(TG) Sunasepha {Sans}. The Puranic “Isaac”; the son of the sage Rishika who sold him for one hundred cows to King Ambarisha, for a sacrifice and “burnt offering” to Varuna, as a substitute for the king’s son Rohita, devoted by his father to the god. When already stretched on the altar Sunasepha is saved by Rishi Visvamitra, who calls upon his own hundred sons to take the place of the victim, and upon their refusal degrades them to the condition of Chandalas. After which the Sage teaches the victim a mantram the repetition of which brings the gods to his rescue; he then adopts Sunasepha for his elder son. (See Ramayana There are different versions of this story.
(TG) Sung-Ming-Shu {Chin}. The Chinese tree of knowledge and tree of life.
(TG) Sunya {Sans}. Illusion, in the sense that all existence is but a phantom, a dream, or a shadow.
(TG) Sunyata {Sans}. Void, space, nothingness. The name of our objective universe in the sense of its unreality and illusiveness.
(FY) Sunyata, space; nothingness.
(SK)o Sunyata The Buddhist term for what is to us ‘the Void,’ ‘the Emptiness’; hence the higher and inner reaches of the Boundless All, or the ‘Mystic Fulness of Space.’ Because this Utter Fulness of Reality is beyond all human thought and expression and seems to us but an abstraction, it has been called ‘The Void.’ Sunya means ’empty,’ ‘void’; ta is a noun-suffix.
(SP) Sunyata — voidness or emptiness; in Mahayana Buddhist philosophy, the principle that existence is devoid of any independent and unchanging essence.
(TG) Suoyator #fin In the epic poem of the Finns, the Kalevala, the name for the primordial Spirit of Evil, from whose saliva the serpent of sin was born.
(GH) Sura A king of the Yadava line of the Lunar Dynasty, who ruled over the Surasenas at Mathura. He was the father of Vasudeva and Kunti, hence the grandfather of Krishna. ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. iv)
(TG) Surabhi {Sans}. The “cow of plenty”; a fabulous creation, one of the fourteen precious things yielded by the ocean of milk when churned by the gods. A “cow” which yields every desire to its possessor.
(TG) Surarani {Sans}. A title of Aditi, the mother of the gods or suras.
(TG) Suras {Sans}. A general term for gods, the same as devas; the contrary to asuras or “no-gods”.
(FY) Suras, elementals of beneficent order; gods.
(WG) Suras, good spiritual beings, the antitheses of asuras.
(TG) Su-rasa {Sans}. A daughter of Daksha, Kashyapa’s wife, and the mother of a thousand many-headed serpents and dragons.
(TG) Surpa {Sans}. “Winnower.”
(FY) Surpa, winnower.
(GH) Sursooty The modern name of the ancient Sarasvati river: although small it was held very sacred by the Hindus. In ancient times it marked with the Drishadvati river one of the boundaries of the region Aryadesa and of the sacred district called Brahmavarta ( The Laws of Manu (Manava-Dharma-Sastra), II, p. 17). The river joins the Ganges and Jumna at Allahabad. ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. iii)
(MO) Surt {Nors} [fire] Destroyer of worlds; kenning also for Sinmara’s drink
(TG) Surtur {Nors}. The leader of the fiery sons of Muspel in the Eddas.
(TG) Surukaya {Sans}. One of the “Seven Buddhas”, or Sapta Tathagata.
(TG) Surya {Sans}. The Sun, worshipped in the Vedas. The offspring of Aditi (Space), the mother of the gods. The husband of Sanjna, or spiritual consciousness. The great god whom Visvakarman, his father-in-law, the creator of the gods and men, and their “carpenter”, crucifies on a lathe, and cutting off the eighth part of his rays, deprives his head of its effulgency, creating round it a dark aureole. A mystery of the last initiation, and an allegorical representation of it.
(WG) Surya, the sun.
(TG) Suryasiddhanta {Sans}. A Sanskrit treatise on astronomy.
(FY) Suryasiddhanta, a Sanskrit treatise on astronomy.
(SKf) Surya-Siddhanta, Asuramaya The Surya-Siddhanta is a well-known astronomical work of ancient India. According to its own statements this work is two million years old and was dictated by Solar Gods to the great sage Asuramaya, that famous Atlantean astronomer and scientist referred to in The Secret Doctrine. Surya is a name for the sun, and siddhanta is a compound of siddha — perfected, and anta — end or completion; hence meaning in combination ‘a perfected treatise of the Solar Gods.’
(TG) Suryavansa {Sans}. The solar race. A Suryavansee is one who claims descent from the lineage headed by Ikshvaku. Thus, while Rama belonged to the Ayodhya Dynasty of the Suryavansa, Krishna belonged to the line of Yadu of the lunar race, or the Chandravansa, as did Gautama Buddha.
(TG) Suryavarta {Sans}. A degree or stage of Samadhi.
(TG) Sushumna {Sans}. The solar ray — the first of the seven rays. Also the name of a spinal nerve which connects the heart with the Brahmarandra, and plays a most important part in Yoga practices.
(WG) Sushumna, one of the seven principal rays of the sun; a particular tube in the spinal cord, lying between the vessels called ida and pingala, through which the spirit passes. (See Brahma-randhra, Ida and Pingala
(TG) Sushupti Avastha {Sans}. Deep sleep; one of the four aspects of Pranava.
(FY) Sushupti Avastha, deep sleep; one of the four aspects of Pranava.
(WG) Sushupti, the state of dreamless sleep, in which the ego has real experiences of very high spiritual nature. It is entered by all persons, whether virtuous or vile. (See Avastha-traya
(TG) Sutra {Sans}. The second division of the sacred writings, addressed to the Buddhist laity.
(WG) Sutra, the sacred cord worn by the two higher Hindu castes; a religious verse, aphorism or extract.
(SKv) Sutra, Sutta A Sutra is a thread or string, a rule, an aphorism; derived from the verb-root siv — to sew; hence a Sutra is that which like a thread runs through everything: a rule or a principle. These Sutras were expressed in terse and technical language in order that they might be committed to memory and meditated upon. There are Sutras, or scriptures, containing these concise sayings on almost every subject. The Pali word for Sutra is Sutta. The Buddhist Suttas contain the moral precepts and philosophical teachings of the Buddha.
(TG) Sutra Period {Sans}. One of the periods into which Vedic literature is divided.
(FY) Sutra period, one of the periods into which Vedic literature has been divided.
(TG) Sutratman {Sans}. Lit., “the thread of spirit”; the immortal Ego, the Individuality which incarnates in men one life after the other, and upon which are strung, like beads on a string, his countless Personalities. The universal life-supporting air, Samashti prau; universal energy.
(FY) Sutratman, (lit. “the thread spirit,”) the immortal individuality upon which are strung our countless personalities.
(WG) Sutratman, in Vedantic philosophy, the spiritual essence which passes through the five subtle principles of the human being and links them together as by a thread. ( sutra, thread; atman , soul: thread-soul
(OG) Sutratman — {Sans} A compound word meaning “thread-self,” the golden thread of individuality — the stream of self-consciousness — on which all the substance-principles of man’s constitution are strung, so to say, like pearls on a golden chain. The sutratman is the stream of consciousness-life running through all the various substance-principles of the constitution of the human entity — or indeed of any other entity. Each such pearl on the golden chain is one of the countless personalities which man uses during the course of his manvantara-long evolutionary progress. The sutratman, therefore, may be briefly said to be the immortal or spiritual monadic ego, the individuality which incarnates in life after life, and therefore is rightly called the thread-self or fundamental self. It is this sutratman, this thread-self, this consciousness-stream, or rather stream of consciousness-life, which is the fundamental and individual selfhood of every entity, and which, reflected in and through the several intermediate vehicles or veils or sheaths or garments of the invisible constitution of man, or of any other being in which a monad enshrouds itself, produces the egoic centers of self-conscious existence. The sutratman, therefore, is rooted in the monad, the monadic essence.
(SKf) Sutratman ‘The Thread-Self’ or the ‘Fundamental Self’; a compound of sutra — thread, and atman — self. This Sutratman is the mystic golden thread of consciousness that binds all the Selves and Principles of man into one Individuality or human being. It is rooted in the heart of the Universe. The Sutratman is often used synonymously with Individuality, or that Eternal Pilgrim within us which is reborn in body after body.
(IN) Sutratma {Sans} “Thread-self,” the abiding self or soul which survives death, the spiritual essence (atman), stream of self-consciousness, individuality, or thread of radiance upon which the personalities of its various incarnations are strung.
(MO) Suttung {Nors} A giant, keeper of the divine mead of wisdom and poetry
(WG) Svabhava, the real nature of a thing; concrete aspect of mula-prakriti, the one substance.
(OG) Svabhava — {Sans} A compound word derived from the verb-root bhu, meaning “to become” — not so much “to be” in the passive sense, but rather “to become,” to “grow into” something. The quasi-pronominal prefix sva, means “self”; hence the noun means “self-becoming,” “self-generation,” “self-growing” into something. Yet the essential or fundamental or integral Self, although following continuously its own lofty line of evolution, cannot be said to suffer the changes or phases that its vehicles undergo. Like the monads, like the One, thus the Self fundamental — which, after all, is virtually the same as the one monadic essence — sends down a ray from itself into every organic entity, much as the sun sends a ray from itself into the surrounding “darkness” of the solar universe. Svabhava has two general philosophical meanings: first, self-begetting, self-generation, self-becoming, the general idea being that there is no merely mechanical or soulless activity of nature in bringing us into being, for we brought ourselves forth , in and through and by nature, of which we are a part of the conscious forces, and therefore are our own children. The second meaning is that each and every entity that exists is the result of what he actually is spiritually in his own higher nature: he brings forth that which he is in himself interiorly, nothing else. A particular race, for instance, remains and is that race as long as the particular race-svabhava remains in the racial seed and manifests thus. Likewise is the case the same with a man, a tree, a star, a god — what not!
What makes a rose bring forth a rose always and not thistles or daisies or pansies? The answer is very simple; very profound, however. It is because of its svabhava, the essential nature in and of the seed. Its svabhava can bring forth only that which itself is, its essential characteristic, its own inner nature. Svabhava, in short, may be called the essential individuality of any monad, expressing its own characteristics, qualities, and type, by self-urged evolution . The seed can produce nothing but what it itself is, what is in it; and this is the heart and essence of the doctrine of svabhava. The philosophical, scientific, and religious reach of this doctrine is simply immense; and it is of the first importance. Consequently, each individual svabhava brings forth and expresses as its own particular vehicles its various svarupas , signifying characteristic bodies or images or forms. The svabhava of a dog, for instance, brings forth the dog body. The svabhava of a rose brings forth the rose flower; the svabhava of a man brings forth man’s shape or image; and the svabhava of a divinity or god brings forth its own svarupa or characteristic vehicle.
(SKf) Svabhava, Svabhavika Svabhava is the ‘essential characteristic’ of any being or thing. That which makes a human being different from other human beings is his Svabhava. The Svabhava of a rose is quite distinct from that of the violet. Everything becomes what it actually is in the heart of its being; hence the word Svabhava — a compound of sva — self, and bhava — becoming, derived from the verb-root bhu — to become. It is the myriads of individual qualities or Svabhavas possessed by the infinite numbers of beings in this Kosmos which give us the wondrous variety that exists everywhere. Everyone unfolds his own inherent powers, and hence evolution is self-directed. Svabhavika is the adjectival form of Svabhava. It is the name given to a certain mystic school of Buddhism whose fundamental tenet is this idea of ‘Self-becoming’.
(SP) Svabhava [swabhava] — self-becoming, essential or inherent nature; to be distinguished from svabhavat [swabhavat] — the self-existent.
(TG) Svabhavat {Sans}. Explained by the Orientalists as “plastic substance”, which is an inadequate definition. Svabhavat is the world-substance and stuff, or rather that which is behind it — the spirit and essence of substance. The name comes from Subhava and is composed of three words — su, good, perfect, fair, handsome; sva , self; and bhava, being, or state of being. From it all nature proceeds and into it all returns at the end of the life-cycles. In Esotericism it is called “Father-Mother”. It is the plastic essence of matter.
(FY) Svabhavat, Akasa; undifferentiated primary matter; Prakriti.
(WG) Svabhavat, the “world stuff” or substance with energy. The Spirit within substance. That which is the basis of all manifested things. The “create uncreate”.
(OG) Svabhavat — {Sans} The neuter present participle of a compound word derived from the verb-root bhu, meaning “to become,” from which is derived a secondary meaning “to be,” in the sense of growth. Svabhavat is a state or condition of cosmic consciousnesssubstance, where spirit and matter, which are fundamentally one, no longer are dual as in manifestation, but one: that which is neither manifested matter nor manifested spirit alone, but both are the primeval unity — spiritual akasa — where matter merges into spirit, and both now being really one, are called “Father-Mother,” spirit-substance. Svabhavat never descends from its own state or condition, or from its own plane, but is the cosmic reservoir of being, as well as of beings, therefore of consciousness, of intellectual light, of life; and it is the ultimate source of what science, in our day, so quaintly calls the energies of nature universal. The northern Buddhists call svabhavat by a more mystical term, Adi-buddhi, “primeval buddhi”; the Brahmanical scriptures call it akasa; and the Hebrew Old Testament refers to it as the cosmic “waters.”
The difference in meaning between svabhavat and svabhava is very great and is not generally understood; the two words often have been confused. Svabhava is the characteristic nature, the type-essence, the individuality, of svabhavat — of any svabhavat, each such svabhavat having its own svabhava. Svabhavat, therefore, is really the world-substance or stuff, or still more accurately that which is causal of the world-substance, and this causal principle or element is the spirit and essence of cosmic substance. It is the plastic essence of matter, both manifest and unmanifest. ( See also Akasa)
(SKf) Svabhavat, Adi-Buddhi The Buddhist term Svabhavat is a compound of sva — self, and bhavat -‘that which is becoming’; hence Svabhavat is ‘that which is self-becoming,’ the spiritual essence or source or the ‘Very Self’ of all manifested things. The Svabhavat of the Buddhists is equivalent to the ‘Father-Mother’ of manifestation, to the Vedantic Parabrahman-Mulaprakriti — ‘Superspirit-Root-matter,’ or to that spiritual Akasa where spirit and matter are a Unity, or to Adi-Buddhi, literally meaning ‘Original divine intelligence.’ Adi-Buddhi has been described by Master K. H. in The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett as “the mystic universally diffused essence,” and as “the aggregate intelligence of the universal intelligences including that of the Dhyan Chohans even of the highest order.”
(IN) Svabhavat {Sans} “Self-existent,” cosmic consciousness-substance, the reservoir of Being, akasa.
(TG) Svabhavika {Sans}. The oldest existing school of Buddhism. They assigned the manifestation of the universe and physical phenomena to Svabhava or respective nature of things. According to Wilson the Svabhavas of things are “the inherent properties of the qualities by which they act, as soothing, terrific or stupefying, and the forms Swarupas are the distinction of biped, quadruped, brute, fish, animal and the like”.
(WG) Svabhavika, a sect of Buddhist philosophers who accounted for all things by the laws of nature.
(TG) Svadha. {Sans}. Oblation; allegorically called “the wife of the Pitris”, the Anishwattas and Barhishads.
(TG) Svaha {Sans}. A customary exclamation meaning “May it be perpetuated” or rather, “so be it”. When used at ancestral sacrifices (Brahmanic), it means “May the race be perpetuated!”
(MO) Svadilfare {Nors} (svah-dil-fahreh) [ svad slippery + fare travel] A mythical steed, father of Odin’s eightlegged Sleipnir
(MO) Svafner {Nors} (svahv-ner) [closer] Odin at the end of a cycle
(FY) Swami, (lit. “a master”), the family idol.
(WG) Svami, master, lord; spiritual preceptor.
(TG) Svapada {Sans}. Protoplasm, cells, or microscopic organisms.
(TG) Svapna {Sans}. A trance or dreamy condition. Clairvoyance.
(FY) Svapna, dreamy condition, clairvoyance.
(WG) Svapna, the dreaming state, intermediate between jagrata and sushupti. (See Avastha-traya
(WG) Swapna, the same as Svapna .
(TG) Svapna Avastha {Sans}. A dreaming state; one of the four aspects of Pranava; a Yoga practice.
(SKs) Svara Svara means ‘mystic sound,’ ‘tone’; derived from the verb root svri — to utter sound. Every atom, every being, has its own Svara, its own particular vibration or note. When one knows how to create the equivalent Svara of a person or any living entity he can exercise a magic power of control over that being. The mysteries of sound are very occult, because, not only do they involve White Magic and communication with higher beings, but also Black Magic and misuse of power, and association with lower elemental forces and all the dangers attached thereto. When one lives harmoniously he is in tune with Nature’s symphony of vibrations, with its key-Svara.
(TG) Svaraj {Sans}. The last or seventh (synthetical) ray of the seven solar rays; the same as Brahma. These seven rays are the entire gamut of the seven occult forces (or gods) of nature, as their respective names well prove. These are: Sushumna (the ray which transmits sunlight to the moon); Harikesha, Visvakarman, Visvatryarchas, Sannadhas, Sarvavasu, and Svaraj. As each stands for one of the creative gods or Forces, it is easy to see how important were the functions of the sun in the eyes of antiquity, and why it was deified by the profane.
(TG) Svarga {Sans}. A heavenly abode, the same as Indra-loka; a paradise. It is the same as — [[Svar-loka]]
(WG) Svarga, heaven, Indra’s paradise, said to be situated on the mountain Meru. It is a state in which the disembodied soul enjoys bliss — under karmic limitations — for a space of time commensurate with the spiritual energy which produced the state.
(WG) Swarga, the same as Svarga .
(SKf) Svarga The general word for ‘heaven.’ Svarga literally means (going or leading to the abode of light’; derived from svar — abode of light; and ga — going.
(TG) Svar-loka {Sans}. The paradise on Mount Meru.
(TG) Svasam Vedana {Sans}. Lit., “the reflection which analyses itself”; a synonym of Paramartha.
(SKv) Swa-samvedana Swa-samvedana is a compound of sva — self, and the root vid — to know, plus the preposition sam meaning in combination ‘to know thoroughly, to understand’; hence the full word implies ‘full Self-Consciousness or Self-Realization.’ One who reaches Paramartha-satya, the ‘Highest Truth’ enjoys Swa-samvedana. The grandeur and glory of Nirvana can be fully enjoyed only by one who has attained Swa-samvedana. Those who enter Paranirvana at the close of the Maha-manvantara without having reached Swa-samvedana will merely enter into a state of unconsciousness, because they will not have unfolded the spiritual powers to cognise such spiritual grandeur.
(GH) Svasti An interjection: well, happily: hence a salutation meaning, may it be well with thee! hail! so be it! (As a noun the word means success, prosperity. Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 81)
SWASTIKA
As differentiated from the swaustika, which is similar but has its legs take off from the ends of the cross to the right, implying counter-clockwise direction — counter to the currents of Nature; and the swastika has legs which take off from the ends of the cross to the left, implying clockwise direction, and therefore ‘with’ the currents of Nature. The symbol which Hitler used for the Nazi party was actually a swaustika.
(TG) Svastika {Sans}. In popular notions, it is the Jaina cross, or the “four-footed” cross (croix cramponnee). In Masonic teachings, “the most ancient Order of the Brotherhood of the Mystic Cross” is said to have been founded by Fohi, 1,027 B.C., and introduced into China fifty-two years later, consisting of the three degrees. In Esoteric Philosophy, the most mystic and ancient diagram. It is “the originator of the fire by friction, and of the ‘Forty-nine Fires’.” Its symbol was stamped on Buddha’s heart, and therefore called the “Heart’s Seal”. It is laid on the breasts of departed Initiates after their death; and it is mentioned with the greatest respect in the Ramayana. Engraved on every rock, temple and prehistoric building of India, and wherever Buddhists have left their landmarks; it is also found in China, Tibet and Siam, and among the ancient Germanic nations as Thor’s Hammer. As described by Eitel in his Hand-Book of Chinese Buddhism: (1) it is “found among Bonpas and Buddhists”; (2) it is “one of the sixty-five figures of the Sripada”; (3) it is “the symbol of esoteric Buddhism”; (4) “the special mark of all deities worshipped by the Lotus School of China”. Finally, and in Occultism, it is as sacred to us as the Pythagorean Tetraktys, of which it is indeed the double symbol.
(WG) Svastika, any lucky or auspicious object; a sign shaped like a Greek cross, with the extremities of the four arms bent at right angles in the same direction.
(SKs) Swastika A mystical cross with its arms bent at right angles suggesting a whirling motion; also, a symbol of good fortune and blessing. Swastika is a compound of su — a particle meaning ‘auspicious,’ ‘blessed,’ ‘virtuous,’ ‘beautiful,’ and ‘rightly’; and astika derived from the verb-root as — to be; hence ‘that which is blessed and excellent.’ The Swastika is a very archaic and sacred symbol which can be found in the religious relics of every ancient nation, for it depicts the whole story of the cosmos and man, their contrasting dual aspects, the four directions of space, the revolution of worlds, cyclic progression, and the union of spirit and matter at the heart of things. In H. P. Blavatsky’s words: Within its mystical precincts lies the master-key which opens the door of every science, physical as well as spiritual. It symbolizes our human existence, for the circle of life circumscribes the four points of the cross, which represent in succession birth, life, death, and IMMORTALITY. — The Secret Doctrine, II, 556-7
(TG) Svastikasana {Sans}. The second of the four principal postures of the eighty-four prescribed in Hatha Yoga practices.
(TG) Svayambhu {Sans}. A metaphysical and philosophical term, meaning “the spontaneously self-produced” or the “self-existent being”. An epithet of Brahma. Svayambhuva is also the name of the first Manu.
(WG) Svayam-bhuva, the first Manu. ( svayam, himself; bhuva , being, existing: self-existing
(FY) Swapna Avastha, dreaming state; one of the four aspects or Pranava.
(TG) Svayambhu Sunyata {Sans}. Spontaneous self-evolution; self-existence of the real in the unreal, i.e., of the Eternal Sat in the periodical Asat.
(TG) Sveta {Sans}. A serpent-dragon; a son of Kashyapa.
(TG) Sveta-dwipa {Sans}. Lit., the White Island or Continent; one of the Sapta-dwipa. Colonel Wilford sought to identify it with Great Britain, but failed.
(TG) Sveta-lohita {Sans}. The name of Siva when he appears in the 29th Kalpa as “a moon-coloured Kumara”.
(MO) Svipdag {Nors} (sveep-dahg) [ svip flash + dag day] The successful initiant
(MO) Svitjod {Nors} (sveet-yod) [the cold, the great] Sweden Tables Stars and planets whereat the Aesir feast
(TG) Swedenborg, Emmanuel. The great Swedish seer and mystic. He was born on the 29th January, 1688, and was the son of Dr. Jasper Swedberg, bishop of Skara, in West Gothland; and died in London, in Great Bath Street, Clerkenwell, on March 29th, 1772. Of all mystics, Swedenborg has certainly influenced “Theosophy” the most, yet he left a far more profound impress on official science. For while as an astronomer, mathematician, physiologist, naturalist, and philosopher he had no rival, in psychology and metaphysics he was certainly behind his time. When forty-six years of age, he became a “Theosophist”, and a “seer”; but, although his life had been at all times blameless and respectable, he was never a true philanthropist or an ascetic. His clairvoyant powers, however, were very remarkable; but they did not go beyond this plane of matter; all that he says of subjective worlds and spiritual beings is evidently far more the outcome of his exuberant fancy, than of his spiritual insight. He left behind him numerous works, which are sadly misinterpreted by his followers.
(KT) Swedenborg (Emanuel). A famous scholar and clairvoyant of the past century, a man of great learning, who has vastly contributed to Science, but whose mysticism and transcendental philosophy placed him in the ranks of hallucinated visionaries. He is now universally known as the Founder of the Swedenborgian sect, or the New Jerusalem Church. He was born at Stockholm (Sweden) in 1688, from Lutheran parents, his father being the Bishop of West Gothland. His original name was Swedberg, but on his being ennobled and knighted in 1719 it was changed to Swedenborg. He became a Mystic in 1743, and four years later (in 1747) resigned his office (of Assessor Extraordinary to the College of Mines) and gave himself up entirely to Mysticism. He died in 1772.
(TG) Sylphs. The Rosicrucian name for the elementals of the air.
(WG) Sylph, an elemental of the Air (Rosicrucian).
(TG) Symbolism. The pictorial expression of an idea or a thought. Primordial writing had at first no characters, but a symbol generally stood for a whole phrase or sentence. A symbol is thus a recorded parable, and a parable a spoken symbol. The Chinese written language is nothing more than symbolical writing, each of its several thousand letters being a symbol.
(TG) Syzygy {Greek}. A Gnostic term, meaning a pair or couple, one active, the other passive. Used especially of AEons.
(TG) T. — The twentieth letter of the alphabet. In the Latin Alphabet its value was 160, and, with a dash over it signified 160,000. It is the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet, the Tau whose equivalents are T, TH, and numerical value 400. Its symbols are as a tau, a cross +, the foundation framework of construction; and as a teth (T), the ninth letter, a snake and the basket of the Eleusinian mysteries.
(TG) Taaroa #tah. The creative power and chief god of the Tahitians.
(TG) Tab-nooth {Hebr}. Form; a Kabbalistic term.
(TG) Tad-aikya {Sans}. “Oneness”; identification or unity with the Absolute. The universal, unknowable Essence (Parabrahm) has no name in the Vedas but is referred to generally as Tad, “That”.
(TG) Tafne {Egyp}. A goddess; daughter of the sun, represented with the head of a lioness.
(TG) Tahmurath {Pers}. The Iranian Adam, whose steed was Simorgh Anke, the griffin-phoenix or infinite cycle. A repetition or reminiscence of Vishnu and Garuda.
(TG) Tahor {Hebr}. Lit., Mundus, the world; a name given to the Deity, which identification indicates a belief in Pantheism.
(TG) Taht Esmun {Egyp}. The Egyptian Adam; the first human ancestor.
(TG) Taijasi {Sans}. The radiant, flaming — from Tejas “fire”; used sometimes to designate the Manasa-rupa, the “thought-body”, and also the stars.
(KT) Taijas {Sans} From tejas “fire”; meaning the “radiant,” the “luminous,” and referring to the manasa rupa, “the body of Manas,” also to the stars, and the star-like shining envelopes. A term in Vedanta philosophy, having other meanings besides the Occult signification just given.
(WG) Taijasi, bright, luminous, brilliant; in Vedanta philosophy, the “radiant one,” i . e ., manas illuminated by atma-buddhi.
(WG) Taijasi, illuminated, radiant. From Tejas — Fire. See Manasa- Taijasi .
(TG) Tairyagyonya {Sans}. The fifth creation, or rather the fifth stage of creation, that of the lower animals, reptiles, etc. (See “Tiryaksrotas”
(TG) Taittriya {Sans}. A Brahmana of the Yajur Veda.
(OG) Tala — {Sans} A word which is largely used in the metaphysical systems of India, both in contrast and at the same time in conjunction with loka. As the general meaning of loka is “place” or rather “world,” so the general meaning of tala is “inferior world.” Every loka has as its twin or counterpart a corresponding tala. Wherever there is a loka there is an exactly correspondential tala, and in fact the tala is the nether pole of its corresponding loka. Lokas and talas, therefore, in a way of speaking, may be considered to be the spiritual and the material aspects or substance-principles of the different worlds which compose and in fact are the kosmic universe. It is impossible to separate a tala from its corresponding loka — quite as impossible as it would be to separate the two poles of electricity. The number of talas as generally outlined in the exoteric philosophies of Hindustan is usually given as seven, there being thus seven lokas and seven talas; but, as a matter of fact, this number varies. If we may speak of a loka as the spiritual pole, we may likewise call it the principle of any world; and correspondentially when we speak of the tala as being the negative or inferior pole, it is quite proper also to refer to it as the element of its corresponding loka or principle. Hence, the lokas of a hierarchy may be called the principles of a hierarchy, and the talas, in exactly the same way, may be called the elements or substantial or material aspects of the hierarchy.
It should likewise be remembered that all the seven lokas and all the seven talas are continuously and inextricably interblended and interworking; and that the lokas and the talas working together form the universe and its various subordinate hierarchies that encompass us around. The higher lokas with the higher talas are the forces or energies and substantial parts of the spiritual and ethereal worlds; the lowest lokas and their corresponding talas form the forces or energies and substantial parts of the physical world surrounding us; and the intermediate lokas with their corresponding talas form the respective energies and substantial parts of the intermediate or ethereal realms. Briefly, therefore, we may speak of a tala as the material aspect of the world where it predominates, just as when speaking of a loka we may consider it to be the spiritual aspect of the world where it predominates. Every loka, it should be always remembered, is coexistent with and cannot be separated from its corresponding tala on the same plane. As an important deduction from the preceding observations, be it carefully noted that man’s own constitution as an individual from the highest to the lowest is a hierarchy of its own kind, and therefore man himself as such a subordinate hierarchy is a composite entity formed of lokas and talas inextricably interworking and intermingled. In this subordinate hierarchy called man live and evolve vast armies, hosts, multitudes, of living entities, monads in this inferior stage of their long evolutionary peregrination, and which for convenience and brevity of expression we may class under the general term of life-atoms.
(TG) Talapoin #sia. A Buddhist monk and ascetic in Siam; some of these ascetics are credited with great magic powers.
(TG) Talisman. From the Arabic tilism or tilsam, a “magic image”. An object, whether in stone, metal, or sacred wood; often a piece of parchment filled with characters and images traced under certain planetary influences in magical formulae, given by one versed in occult sciences to one unversed, either with the object of preserving him from evil, or for the accomplishment of certain desires. The greatest virtue and efficacy of the talisman, however, resides in the faith of its possessor: not because of the credulity of the latter, or that it possesses no virtue, but because faith is a quality endowed with a most potent creative power; and therefore — unconsciously to the believer — intensifies a hundredfold the power originally imparted to the talisman by its maker.
(TG) Talmidai Hakhameem {Hebr}. A class of mystics and Kabbalists whom the Zohar calls “Disciples of the Wise”, and who were Sarisim or voluntary eunuchs, becoming such for spiritual motives. (See Matthew xix., 11-12, a passage implying the laudation of such an act
(TG) Talmud {Hebr}. Rabbinic Commentaries on the Jewish faith. It is composed of two parts, the older Mishnah, and the more modern Gemara. Hebrews, who call the Pentateuch the written law, call the Talmud the unwritten or oral law. [W.W.W.] The Talmud contains the civil and canonical laws of the Jews, who claim a great sanctity for it. For, save the above-stated difference between the Pentateuch and the Talmud, the former, they say, can claim no priority over the latter, as both were received simultaneously by Moses on Mount Sinai from Jehovah, who wrote the one and delivered the other orally.
(FY) Tama, indifference, dulness.
(TG) Tamala Pattra {Sans}. Stainless, pure, sage-like. Also the name of a leaf of the Laurus Cassia, a tree regarded as having various very occult and magical properties.
(TG) Tamarisk, or Erica. A sacred tree in Egypt of great occult virtues. Many of the temples were surrounded with such trees, pre-eminently one at Philae, sacred among the sacred, as the body of Osiris was supposed to lie buried under it.
(TG) Tamas {Sans}. The quality of darkness, “foulness” and inertia; also of ignorance, as matter is blind. A term used in metaphysical philosophy. It is the lowest of the three gunas or fundamental qualities.
(FY) Tamas, ignorance or darkness.
(WG) Tamas, darkness; the gloom of hell; a division of hell; mental darkness, constituting one of the five forms of avidya — ignorance — in the Sankhya philosophy; the lowest of the three qualities of matter. (See Guna, also Tamoguna
(OG) Tamas — {Sans} One of the three gunas or qualities or essential attributes of manifested beings and things. Tamas is the quality of darkness, illusion, ignorance; it also means, in a quite different sense, quiescence, passivity, repose, rest, inertia. It becomes immediately obvious from the distinctions that these two series of words show, that there is both a good and an evil side to tamas, just as indeed there is a good and evil side to rajas, and even to sattva. The condition of manifested existence in the state of cosmic pralaya is in one sense of the word the tamasic condition, signifying quiescence or rest. When the universe is in the stage of active manvantaric manifestation, we may in a generalizing sense say that the universe is in the rajasic state or condition; and that aspect of the universe which we may call the divine-spiritual, whether in the universe itself or in the manvantara or in the pralaya of a globe, can be spoken of as the sattvic state or condition. From these observations it should be evident that the three gunas — sattva, rajas, tamas — not only can exist contemporaneously and coincidently, but actually do so exist, and that in fact the three are inextricably interblended. They are really three phases or conditions of imbodied consciousnesses, and each has its noble and each its “evil” side.
(GH) Tamas One of the three gunas — essential attributes or characteristics of manifested beings and things: the quality of darkness, illusion, ignorance. In a different sense Tamas also means passivity, repose, inertia. (See Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. chapters 14 and 18 ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 41)
(WG) Tamasha, show, display; trick, jugglery, performance of phenomena.
(WG) Tamisra, gloom; darkness of mind, illusion.
(TG) Tammuz #syr. A Syrian deity worshipped by idolatrous Hebrews as well as by Syrians. The women of Israel held annual lamentations over Adonis (that beautiful youth being identical with Tammuz). The feast held in his honour was solstitial, and began with the new moon, in the month of Tammuz (July), taking place chiefly at Byblos in Phoenicia; but it was also celebrated as late as the fourth century of our era at Bethlehem, as we find St. Jerome writing (Epistles p. 49) his lamentations in these words: “Over Bethlehem, the grove of Tammuz, that is of Adonis, was casting its shadow! And in the grotto where formerly the infant Jesus cried, the lover of Venus was being mourned.” Indeed, in the Mysteries of Tammuz or Adonis a whole week was spent in lamentations and mourning. The funereal processions were succeeded by a fast, and later by rejoicings; for after the fast Adonis-Tammuz was regarded as raised from the dead, and wild orgies of joy, of eating and drinking, as now in Easter week, went on uninterruptedly for several days.
(PV) Tamoanchan “Place of the Hawk and the Serpent.” The ancestral homeland of the Mayas, which was the Pacific coast of Guatemala. The mythological place of origin of the Mayas, where the hawk brought the blood of the serpent from the sea, to knead with the maize which entered into the formation of man of the Fourth Age.
(WG) Tamoguna, the lowest of the three qualities of nature, predominating in earth and water, and in human beings productive of sloth, indifference and inaction. ( tamas, darkness; guna , quality
(TG) Tamra-Parna {Sans}. Ceylon, the ancient Taprobana.
(TG) Tamti {Chald}. A goddess, the same as Belita. Tamti-Belita is the personified Sea, the mother of the City of Erech, the Chaldean Necropolis. Astronomically, Tamti is Astoreth or Istar, Venus.
(TG) Tanaim {Hebr}. Jewish Initiates, very learned Kabbalists in ancient times. The Talmud contains sundry legends about them and gives the chief names among them.
(TG) Tanga-Tango #prv. An idol much reverenced by the Peruvians. It is the symbol of the Triune or the Trinity, “One in three, and three in One”, and existed before our era.
(TG) Tanha (Pali). The thirst for life. Desire to live and clinging to life on this earth. This clinging is that which causes rebirth or reincarnation.
(VS) Kill love of life, but if thou slayest tanha (I 34) [[p. 13]] Tanha “the will to live,” the fear of death and love for life, that force or energy which causes the rebirths.
(VS) Tanha’s (III 30) [[p. 69]] Tanha, the will to live, that which causes rebirth.
(FY) Tanha, thirst; desire for life; that which produces re-birth.
(WG) Tanha, desire; the will to live; thirst for life.
(OG) Tanha — (Pali) A word familiar in Buddhism and signifying the “thirst” for material life. It is this thirst or yearning to return to familiar scenes that brings the reincarnating ego back to earth-life — and this yearning is more effectual as an individual cause for reincarnation, perhaps, than all else. ( See also Trishna)
(SK)o Tanha (Pali) Literally ‘thirst.’ Philosophically Tanha is that thirst for physical life, for sensation, which is one of the causes of reincarnation. The Buddhists believe Tanha to be the source of sorrow in the world, and they consider one who has freed himself of Tanha to be an Arhat, a spiritual Initiate.
(TG) Tanjur {Tibe}. A collection of Buddhist works translated from the Sanskrit into Tibetan and Mongolian. It is the more voluminous canon, comprising 225 large volumes on miscellaneous subjects. The Kanjur, which contains the commandments or the “Word of the Buddha”, has only 108 volumes.
(TG) Tanmatras {Sans}. The types or rudiments of the five Elements; the subtile essence of these, devoid of all qualities and identical with the properties of the five basic Elements — earth, water, fire, air and ether; i.e., the tanmatras are, in one of their aspects, smell, taste, touch, sight, and hearing.
(FY) Tanmatras, the subtile elements, the abstract counterpart of the five elements, earth, water, fire, air and ether, consisting of smell, taste, feeling, sight and sound.
(WG) Tan-matra, a subtle element, or rudiment of elementary matter, of which five are popularly enumerated, viz : sabda, sparsa, rupa, rasa and gandha, from which are produced the five gross elements. ( tat, that; matra, element
(SKs) Tanmatra, Sabda, Sparsa, Rupa, Rasa, Gandha Tanmatra literally means ‘merely that,’ ‘only a trifle’; a compound of tat — that, and matra — trifle, or a unit of measure. The five Tanmatras are the ‘rudimentary elements’ from which the ‘gross elements’ or Mahabhutas of earth, water, air, fire, and aether arise. These five Tanmatras are Sabda — sound, Sparsa — touch, Rupa — form or sight, Rasa — taste, and Gandha — smell. Sabda gives birth to Aether, Sparsa to Fire, Rupa to air, Rasa to taste, and Gandha to earth.
(TG) Tantra {Sans}. Lit., “rule or ritual”. Certain mystical and magical works, whose chief peculiarity is the worship of the female power, personified in Sakti. Devi or Durga (Kali, Siva’s wife) is the special energy connected with sexual rites and magical powers — the worst form of black magic or sorcery.
(FY) Tantras, works on Magic.
(WG) Tantra, a religious or magical treatise. The Tantras are very numerous in India, and are usually in the form of a dialogue between Siva and Durga. They comprise five subjects, viz ,: the creation; the destruction of the world; the worship of the gods; the attainment of all objects, especially the six mystic yoga powers; the four methods of attaining union with the Supreme Spirit. Though many of them contain noble philosophy, the practice, by uninitiated persons, of the rites and formularies contained in the Tantras leads invariably to black magic.
(OG) Tantra(s) — {Sans} A word literally meaning a “loom” or the warp or threads in a loom, and, by extension of meaning, signifying a rule or ritual for ceremonial rites. The Hindu Tantras are numerous works or religious treatises teaching mystical and magical formulae or formularies for the attainment of magical or quasi-magical powers, and for the worship of the gods. They are mostly composed in the form of dialogs between Siva and his divine consort Durga, these two divinities being the peculiar objects of the adoration of the Tantrins. In many parts of India the authority of the Tantras seems almost to have superseded the clean and poetical hymns of the Vedas. Most tantric works are supposed to contain five different subjects: (1) the manifestation or evolution of the universe; (2) its destruction; (3) the worship or adoration of the divinities; (4) the achievement or attainment of desired objects and especially of six superhuman faculties; (5) modes or methods of union, usually enumerated as four, with the supreme divinity of the kosmos by means of contemplative meditation.
Unfortunately, while there is much of interest in the tantric works, their tendency for long ages has been distinctly towards what in occultism is known as sorcery or black magic. Some of the rites or ceremonies practiced have to do with revolting details connected with sex. Durga, the consort of Siva, his sakti or energy, is worshiped by the Tantrins as a distinct personified female power. The origin of the Tantras unquestionably goes back to a very remote antiquity, and there seems to be little doubt that these works, or their originals, were heirlooms handed down from originally debased or degenerate Atlantean racial offshoots. There is, of course, a certain amount of profoundly philosophical and mystical thought running through the more important tantric works, but the tantric worship in many cases is highly licentious and immoral.
(SKv) Tantra, Tantrika, Sakti, Sakta Tantra is a word meaning rite or ritual. The Tantras are religious scriptures which give instruction in regard to magical rites and ceremonies to be performed for the attainment of certain powers and desires. These writings are in the form of a dialog between the god Siva and his Sakti or feminine aspect, often called in popular Hinduism his divine consort. These Saktis of the gods of Hindu myths are simply the symbolic presentations of the manifested aspects of a divinity, its energies, qualities, and powers. The Saktis or wives of the gods of the Hindu pantheon, esoterically explained, are the ‘active spiritual powers of these gods. Sakti is derived from the verb-root sak — to be able. This symbol of the feminine aspect of the gods has been degraded into a personal feminine divinity, and worship and ceremonies of an immoral character are practised by many who call themselves Tantrikas or followers of the Tantras. Tantrika is the adjectival form of Tantra. A Sakta, the adjectival form of Sakti, is a worshiper of Sakti or the feminine personification of Siva. The Saktas, Vaishnavas, and Saivas are known as the three principal sects of modern Hinduism. Some of the Tantrika works contain mystical and occult philosophical teachings, but they are veiled in symbolism. The material of these magical treatises could very likely be traced back to Atlantean times when magic, white and black, was prevalent. Sakti has also been interpreted as follows: Mulaprakriti, or root-matter, or Universal Mother-stuff, develops into three different aspects: Prakriti, that fundamental part of matter which gives birth to manifested things; Sakti, the driving power or force of matter; and Maya, that portion of matter which gives rise to illusion.
(SP) Tantra — literally “a text,” specifically a class of esoteric Hindu or Buddhist texts dealing with ritual, yogic, and magical practices.
(TG) Tantrika {Sans}. Ceremonies connected with the above worship. Sakti having a two-fold nature, white and black, good and bad, the Saktas are divided into two classes, the Dakshinacharis and Vamacharis, or the right-hand and the left-hand Saktas, i.e., “white” and “black” magicians. The worship of the latter is most licentious and immoral.
(FY) Tantrika, ceremonies connected with the worship of the goddess Sakti, who typifies Force.
(WG) Tantrika, one versed in the Tantras; also, a black magician.
(OG) Tantrik or Tantrika — {Sans} The adjective corresponding to tantra. This adjective, however, is sometimes employed to signify one who is deeply versed in some study — a scholar; but more particularly the adjective concerns the Tantras and the doctrines contained in them.
(SP) Tantrika — the adjective for tantra, or a follower of tantric practices.
(TG) Tao {Chin}. The name of the philosophy of Lao-tze.
(TG) Taoer {Egyp}. The female Typhon, the hippopotamus, called also Ta-ur, Ta-op-oer, etc.; she is the Thoueris of the Greeks. This wife of Typhon was represented as a monstrous hippopotamus, sitting on her hind legs with a knife in one hand and the sacred knot in the other (the pasa of Siva). Her back was covered with the scales of a crocodile, and she had a crocodile’s tail. She is also called Teb, whence the name of Typhon is also, sometimes, Tebh . On a monument of the sixth dynasty she is called “the nurse of the gods”. She was feared in Egypt even more than Typhon. (See “Typhon”
(TG) Tao-teh-king {Chin}. Lit., “The Book of the Perfectibility of Nature” written by the great philosopher Lao-tze. It is a kind of cosmogony which contains all the fundamental tenets of Esoteric Cosmogenesis. Thus he says that in the beginning there was naught but limitless and boundless Space. All that lives and is, was born in it, from the “Principle which exists by Itself, developing Itself from Itself”, i.e., Swabhavat. As its name is unknown and its essence is unfathomable, philosophers have called it Tao (Anima Mundi), the uncreate, unborn and eternal energy of nature, manifesting periodically. Nature as well as man when it reaches purity will reach rest, and then all become one with Tao, which is the source of all bliss and felicity. As in the Hindu and Buddhistic philosophies, such purity and bliss and immortality can only be reached through the exercise of virtue and the perfect quietude of our worldly spirit; the human mind has to control and finally subdue and even crush the turbulent action of man’s physical nature; and the sooner he reaches the required degree of moral purification, the happier he will feel. (See Annales du Musee Guimet, Vols. XI. and XII.; Etudes sur la Religion des Chinois, by Dr. Groot As the famous Sinologist, Pauthier, remarked: “Human Wisdom can never use language more holy and profound”.
(TG) Tapas {Sans}. “Abstraction”, “meditation”. “To perform tapas” is to sit for contemplation. Therefore ascetics are often called Tapasas.
(WG) Tapas, burning, heat; self-castigation, asceticism; devotion.
(TG) Tapasa-taru {Sans}. The Sesamum Orientale, a tree very sacred among the ancient ascetics of China and Tibet.
(WG) Tapasvin, an ascetic, one who practices religious austerities.
(WG) Tapasya, asceticism, worship, devotion, silent meditation.
(TG) Tapasvi {Sans}. Ascetics and anchorites of every religion, whether Buddhist, Brahman, or Taoist.
(TG) Taphos {Greek}. Tomb, the sarcophagus placed in the Adytum and used for purposes of initiation.
(TG) Tapo-loka {Sans}. The domain of the fire-devas named Vairajas. It is known as the “world of the seven sages”, and also “the realm of penance”. One of the Shhashhta-loka (six worlds) above our own, which is the seventh.
(TG) Tara {Sans}. The wife of Brihaspati (Jupiter), carried away by King Soma, the Moon, an act which led to the war of the Gods with the Asuras. Tara personifies mystic knowledge as opposed to ritualistic faith. She is the mother (by Soma) of Buddha, “Wisdom”.
(TG) Taraka {Sans}. Described as a Danava or Daitya, i.e ., a “Giant-Demon”, whose superhuman austerities as a yogi made the gods tremble for their power and supremacy. Said to have been killed by Karttikeya. (See Secret Doctrine, II., 382
(TG) Tarakamaya {Sans}. The first war in Heaven through Tara.
(TG) Taraka Raja Yoga {Sans}. One of the Brahminical Yoga systems for the development of purely spiritual powers and knowledge which lead to Nirvana.
(KT) Taraka Raj Yoga {Sans} One of the Brahmanical Yoga systems, the most philosophical, and in fact the most secret of all, as its real tenets are never given out publicly. It is a purely intellectual and spiritual school of training.
(FY) Taraka Yog, one of the Brahmanical systems for the development of psychic powers and attainment of spiritual knowledge.
(SKs) Taraka-Raja-Yoga, Karanopadhi, Sukshmopadhi, Sthulopadhi The Taraka-Raja-Yoga School is one of the most philosophical and most esoteric of the Brahmanical Yoga systems. Taraka is derived from the causative form of the verb-root tri — to cross; hence it means ‘to cause to pass ‘to liberate.’ This School trains its disciples along those purely intellectual and spiritual lines which lead to the highest states of consciousness known to man. According to their teachings man is divided into Atman or Divinity and its three bases called Upadhis.
The Karanopadhi is the vehicle of the child of Atman, the Causal or Spiritual Monad, and corresponds with Buddhi and the Anandamaya-kosa; a compound of karana, derived from the causative form of the verb-root kri — to do, hence ‘that which causes to do or act’; and upadhi — base. The Sukshmopadhi is the subtil or fine vehicle comprised of the lower mind and the desire principle, and corresponds to the union of Lower Manas and Kama, or to the combination of Vijnanamaya-kosa and Manomaya-kosa; a compound of sukshma — fine, and upadhi. The Sthulopadhi is composed of vitality, astral body, and physical body, and corresponds to the lower triad of man’s constitution, and to the combination of the Pranamaya-kosa and Annamaya-kosa.
The Sthulopadhi is used by humans while in the conscious waking state, the Sukshmopadhi in the sleeping-dreaming state, and the Karanopadhi in the deep dreaming state. The Karanopadhi is that body which lasts from life to life. Each one of these three Upadhis is dual in aspect, each has its consciousness-side and its vehicle-side; hence they correspond, together with Atman, to the seven principles in man. H. P. Blavatsky describes this division of man’s constitution as the best for practical purposes, and further states: Though there are seven principles in man, there are but three distinct Upadhis (bases), in each of which his Atma may work independently of the rest. These three Upadhis can be separated by an Adept without killing himself. He cannot separate the seven principles from each other without destroying his constitution. — The Secret Doctrine, I, 158
(TG) Targum {Chald}. Lit., “Interpretation”, from the root targem, to interpret. Paraphrases of Hebrew Scriptures. Some of the Targums are very mystical, the Aramaic (or Targumatic) language being used all through the Zohar and other Kabbalistic works. To distinguish this language from the Hebrew, called the “face” of the sacred tongue, it is referred to as ahorayim, the “back part”, the real meaning of which must be read between the lines, according to certain methods given to students. The Latin word tergum, “back”, is derived from the Hebrew or rather Aramaic and Chaldean targum. The Book of Daniel begins in Hebrew, and is fully comprehensible till chap. ii., v. 4, when the Chaldees (the Magician-Initiates) begin speaking to the king in Aramaic — not in Syriac, as mistranslated in the Protestant Bible. Daniel speaks in Hebrew before interpreting the king’s dream to him; but explains the dream itself (chap. vii in Aramaic. “So in Ezra iv., v. and vi., the words of the kings being there literally quoted, all matters connected therewith are in Aramaic”, says Isaac Myer in his Qabbalah. The Targumim are of different ages, the latest already showing signs of the Massoretic or vowel-system, which made them still more full of intentional blinds. The precept of the Pirke Aboth (c.i., § 1), “Make a fence to the Thorah” (law), has indeed been faithfully followed in the Bible as in the Targumim; and wise is he who would interpret either correctly, unless he is an old Occultist-Kabbalist.
(TG) Tashilhumpa {Tibe}. The great centre of monasteries and colleges, three hours’ walk from Tchigadze, the residence of the Teshu Lama for details of whom see “Panchen Rimboche”. It was built in 1445 by the order of Tson-kha-pa.
(TG) Tassissudun {Tibe}. Lit., ” the holy city of the doctrine”; inhabited, nevertheless, by more Dugpas than Saints. It is the residential capital in Bhutan of the ecclesiastical Head of the Bhons — the Dharma Raja. The latter, though professedly a Northern Buddhist, is simply a worshipper of the old demon-gods of the aborigines, the nature-sprites or elementals, worshipped in the land before the introduction of Buddhism. All strangers are prevented from penetrating into Eastern or Great Tibet, and the few scholars who venture on their travels into those forbidden regions, are permitted to penetrate no further than the border-lands of the land of Bod. They journey about Bhutan, Sikkhim, and elsewhere on the frontiers of the country, but can learn or know nothing of true Tibet; hence, nothing of the true Northern Buddhism or Lamaism of Tsong-kha-pa. And yet, while describing no more than the rites and beliefs of the Bhons and the travelling Shamans, they assure the world they are giving it the pure Northern Buddhism, and comment on its great fall from its pristine purity!
(TG) Tat {Egyp}. An Egyptian symbol: an upright round standard tapering toward the summit, with four cross-pieces placed on the top. It was used as an amulet. The top part is a regular equilateral cross. This, on its phallic basis, represented the two principles of creation, the male and the female, and related to nature and cosmos; but when the tat stood by itself, crowned with the atf (or atef), the triple crown of Horus — two feathers with the uraeus in front — it represented the septenary man; the cross, or the two cross-pieces, standing for the lower quaternary, and the atf for the higher triad. As Dr. Birch well remarks: “The four horizontal bars . . . represent the four foundations of all things, the tat being an emblem of stability”.
(WG) Tat, that, the Absolute.
(OG) Tat — {Sans} A pronominal neuter particle which is often used as a noun having the signification THAT. By this word the Vedic sages and archaic scriptural writers of India described the unutterable principle from which all in a single kosmic universe sprang, contrasting it with the pronominal particle idam, meaning “this” and signifying the manifested universe. ( See also Parabrahman)
(GH) Tat (also Tad) The word used by Vedic sages to represent that which is beyond expression, the unnameable principle — rendered THAT — in contradistinction to the manifested world, Idam (This). (The neuter form of a pronominal particle used as a noun. Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 119)
(SK)o Tat A pronoun meaning ‘that.’ The Vedic Sages often used Tat as a noun to express the Boundless, the All, or that Infinite Unutterable Principle from which all in the Kosmos sprang. They would ask of their disciples: “Kas twam asi?”, “Who art thou?”, and then instructed them: “Tat twam asi” “THAT (the Boundless), thou art.” The ancient wisdom teaches that we are children of the Boundless, therefore we have all within us that the Boundless contains; and it is evolution through all the spheres of life that will in time bring this forth.
(SP) Tat — literally “that,” the indescribable reality, in contrast to idam, literally “this,” the manifested universe.
(TG) Tathagata {Sans}. “One who is like the coming”; he who is, like his predecessors (the Buddhas) and successors, the coming future Buddha or World-Saviour. One of the titles of Gautama Buddha, and the highest epithet, since the first and the last Buddhas were the direct immediate avatars of the One Deity.
(VS) he who has followed in the footsteps of his predecessors [[ Tathagata ]] (III 15) [[p. 57]] “One who walks in the steps of his predecessors” or “those who came before him,” is the true meaning of the name Tathagata .
(WG) Tathagata, a name of Buddha — used in his discourses when he speaks of himself. (Literally, “going the same way [[as his predecessors.]]”)
(SKv) Tathagata Tathagata is a compound that may be interpreted in two ways: tatha — thus, plus gata — gone; or tatha — thus, plus agata — come. Hence we find this descriptive title given to the Buddhas because they come in a serial line through the ages and carry on the lofty spiritual work undertaken by those who have gone before, their predecessors.
(SP) Tathagata — a title for a Buddha, meaning literally either “he who comes thus” or “he who goes thus”; what the Buddha calls himself in the Buddhist texts.
(TG) Tathagatagupta {Sans}. Secret or concealed Tathagata, or the “guardian” protecting Buddhas: used of the Nirmanakayas.
(TG) Tattwa {Sans}. Eternally existing “That”; also, the different principles in Nature, in their occult meaning. Tattwa Samasa is a work of Sankhya philosophy attributed to Kapila himself. Also the abstract principles of existence or categories, physical and metaphysical. The subtle elements — five exoterically, seven in esoteric philosophy — which are correlative to the five and the seven senses on the physical plane; the last two senses are as yet latent in man, but will be developed in the two last root-races.
(FY) Tatwa, eternally existing “that;” the different principles in Nature.
(WG) Tattva, truth, reality as opposed to illusion. The Sankhya system has twenty-five tattvas, viz .: avyakta, buddhi, ahankara, the five tan-matras, the five maha-bhutas, the eleven organs and purusha. The Mahesvaras enumerate five tattvas, corresponding with the five elements. In Vedantic philosophy tattva is called maha-vakya, “the great word,” by which the identity of the whole universe with Brahma is expressed. ( tat, that; tva, thou: that art thou
(OG) Tattvas — {Sans} A word the meaning of which is the elementary principles or elements of original substance, or rather the different principles or elements in universal, intelligent, conscious nature when considered from the standpoint of occultism. The word tattva perhaps may be literally translated or rendered as “thatness,” reminding one of the “quiddity” of the European Scholastics. The number of tattvas or nature’s elemental principles varies according to different systems of philosophy. The Sankhya, for instance, enumerates twenty-five tattvas. The system of the Mahesvaras or worshipers of Siva with his consort Durga, reckons five principles, which are simply the five elements of nature found in all ancient literatures. Occultism, of course, recognizes seven tattvas, and, indeed, ten fundamental element-principles or element-substances or tattvas in universal nature, and each one of these tattvas is represented in the human constitution and active therein. Otherwise, the human constitution could not cohere as an organic entity.
(SKf) Tattva, Mahabhuta The word Tattva means the ‘reality’ or ‘that-ness’ (tat-tva) of a thing. The seven Tattvas are the Principles or Essences of the Cosmos, the conscious and directing forces, the sources of the manifested Elements or rudimentary stuffs of the Cosmos, which last are known as the Maha-bhutas or the ‘Great has-beens.’ These great Elements are not the earth, air, water, and fire we perceive here; these latter are but presentiments of these great Maha-bhutas. The two highest of these Tattvas and Bhutas are not as yet recognised by humans, but will be in future ages. Taijasa and Apas are the adjectival forms of tejas fire, and apas — water.
Like the Lokas and Talas, each Tattva and Bhuta gives birth to the Tattva. and Bhuta below it and retains a portion of all the other tattvas and bhutas within it and yet manifests its own dominant characteristic. Each Tattva has a corresponding Bhuta of the same name. Below are the seven Tattvas with their meaning: Adi-tattva — Original Principle or THE ONE Anupapadaka-tattva — Parentless Principle or The Spiritual Akasa-tattva — Aether Principle Taijasa or Tejas-tattva — Fire Principle Vayu-tattva — Air Principle Apas or Apas-tattva — Water Principle Prithivi-tattva — Earth Principle
(IN) order to explain the planets and Constellations of the Zodiac, as given in the large diagram, I quote from Dr. de Purucker’s Fundamentals of the Esoteric Philosophy, page 488: are the Sanskrit and There is a strict and close correspondence between each of the seven Sacred Planets and one of the globes of our Earth-Chain, respectively; and between each one of the globes and one of the constellations of the Zodiac — one of the Houses of the Circle of Life, as the Greeks called it. But while it is true that the Seven Sacred Planets of the ancients, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the Sun (as a substitute for a secret planet), Venus, Mercury, and the Moon (as a substitute for another secret planet), do actually build and oversee our Planetary Chain as a whole (one of the Sacred Planets respectively to one of the Globes), nevertheless while the influences of the other six of the Seven Sacred Planets are at work therein also, yet the one predominating power over each globe comes from its especial sacred Planet. Likewise, while each one of these twelve globes of the Planetary Chain is under the particular oversight, or overseeing, of one of the constellations of the Zodiac, that is to say of the predominating Genius or Rector of that constellation of the Zodiac, nevertheless each one of the other eleven constellations is also at work in each of the twelve globes of the Chain. There can be no separation of forces, for everything works together in Nature towards a common end which is one of the noblest proofs we have of our doctrine of Universal Brotherhood.
Below English names of the seven Sacred Planets and the twelve Constellations of the Zodiac:
CONSTELLATIONS OF ZODIAC — THE SEVEN SACRED PLANETS Mesha – The Ram — Sani – Saturn Rishaba – The Bull — Brihaspati – Jupiter Mithuna – The Twins — Angaraka – Mars Karkataka – The Crab — Surya – Sun Simha – The Lion — Usanas-Sukra – Venus Kanya – The Virgin — Budha – Mercury Tula – The Scales — Soma – Moon Vrischika – The Scorpion Dhanus – The Archer Makara – The Sea-Goat Kumbha – The Watering Man Mina – The Fish
Not only do the seven Lokas and Talas have their correspondences with the seven Tattvas and Bhutas and with the twelve Globes of the Planetary Chain, but they likewise correspond to the seven principles in man (see [[SKo]]), and also to the development of the seven senses, as shown in the large diagram. just as two of the Cosmic Elements are as yet unknown to us, so are two of the senses. Intuition, a harbinger of the sense of Spiritual Understanding, is just beginning to be recognised. As the ages roll by and the Sixth Race men appear, this spiritual sense will become more and more evident. It will only be in the next, or fifth, Round that the fifth Element, Ether the gross body of Akasa, if it can be called even that-will, by becoming a familiar fact of Nature to all men, as air is familiar to us now, cease to be as at present hypothetical, and also an “agent” for so many things. And only during that Round will those higher senses, the growth and development of which Akasa subserves, be susceptible of a complete expansion. As already indicated, a partial familiarity with the characteristic of matter-permeability -which should be developed concurrently with the sixth sense, may be expected to develop at the proper period in this Round. But with the next element added to our resources in the next Round, permeability will become so manifest a characteristic of matter, that the densest forms of this will seem to man’s perceptions as obstructive to him as a thick fog, and no more. — The Secret Doctrine, Vol. I, pp. 257-8
(SP) Tattva [tattwa] — a fundamental principle or substance.
(FY) Tatwams, the abstract principles of existence or categories, physical and metaphysical.
(TG) Tau {Hebr}. That which has now become the square Hebrew letter tau, but was ages before the invention of the Jewish alphabet, the Egyptian handled cross, the crux ansata of the Latins, and identical with the Egyptian ankh . This mark belonged exclusively, and still belongs, to the Adepts of every country. As Kenneth R. F. Mackenzie shows, “It was a symbol of salvation and consecration, and as such has been adopted as a Masonic symbol in the Royal Arch Degree”. It is also called the astronomical cross, and was used by the ancient Mexicans — as its presence on one of the palaces at Palenque shows — as well as by the Hindus, who placed the tau as a mark on the brows of their Chelas.
(WG) Tau (Greek), the letter T; the cross of that shape.
(TG) Taurus {Latin}. A most mysterious constellation of the Zodiac, one connected with all the “First-born” solar gods. Taurus is under the asterisk A, which is its figure in the Hebrew alphabet, that of Aleph; and therefore that constellation is called the “One”, the “First”, after the said letter. Hence, the “First-born”, to all of whom it was made sacred. The Bull is the symbol of force and procreative power — the Logos; hence, also, the horns on the head of Isis, the female aspect of Osiris and Horus. Ancient mystics saw the ansated cross, in the horns of Taurus (the upper portion of the Hebrew Aleph) pushing away the Dragon, and Christians connected the sign and constellation with Christ. St. Augustine calls it “the great City of God”, and the Egyptians called it the “interpreter of the divine voice”, the Apis-Pacis of Hermonthis. (See “Zodiac”
(TG) Taygete {Greek}. One of the seven daughters of Atlas — the third, who became later one of the Pleiades. These seven daughters are said to typify the seven sub-races of the fourth root-race, that of the Atlanteans.
(TG) Tebah {Hebr}. Nature; which mystically and esoterically is the same as its personified Elohim, the numerical value of both words — Tebah and Elohim (or Aleim) being the same, namely 86.
(TG) Tefnant {Egyp}. One of the three deities who inhabit “the land of the rebirth of gods” and good men, i.e., Aamroo (Devachan). The three deities are Scheo, Tefnant, and Seb.
(WG) Tejas, flame; radiance, brilliance.
(SP) Tejas — brightness, the element of fire. Taijasa is the corresponding adjective, fiery.
(TG) Telugu. One of the Dravidian languages spoken in Southern India.
(FY) Telugu, a language spoken in Southern India.
(TG) Temura {Hebr}. Lit., “Change”. The title of one division of the practical Kabalah, treating of the analogies between words, the relationship of which is indicated by certain changes in position of the letters, or changes by substituting one letter for another.
(TG) Ten Pythagorean Virtues. Virtues of Initiation,, necessary before admission. (See “Pythagoras” They are identical with those prescribed by Manu, and the Buddhist Paramitas of Perfection.
(PV) Tepeu {quiche-maya} One of six hypostases of Cabahuil. Especially associated with Cabahuil itself and with another hypostasis, Gucumatz, as the three suns of the line of parallel (rising, at zenith, setting). Corresponds to the sun at rising.
(PV) Tepexpan The site in Mexico where in 1947 a human skull and a considerable part of the skeleton were unearthed in association with bones of extinct mammoths and bone and stone artifacts. Tepexpan man is given a geological horizon of 11-12,000 years before the present.
(TG) Teraphim {Hebr}. The same as Seraphim, or the Kabeiri Gods; serpent-images. The first Teraphim, according to legend, were received by Dardanus as a dowry, and brought by him to Samothrace and Troy. The idol-oracles of the ancient Jews. Rebecca stole them from her father Laban.
(TG) Teratology. A Greek name coined by Geoffroi St. Hilaire to denote the pre-natal formation of monsters, both human and animal.
(FY) Tesshu Lama, the head of the Tibetan Church.
(TG) Tetragrammaton. The four-lettered name of God, its Greek title: the four letters are in Hebrew “yod, he, vau, he” or in English capitals, IHVH. The true ancient pronunciation is now unknown; the sincere Hebrew considered this name too sacred for speech, and in reading the sacred writings he substituted the title “Adonai”, meaning Lord. In the Kabbalah, I is associated with Chokmah, H with Binah, V with Tiphereth, and H final with Malkuth. Christians in general call IHVH Jehovah, and many modern Biblical scholars write it Yahveh. In the Secret Doctrine, the name Jehovah is assigned to Sephira Binah alone, but this attribution is not recognised by the Rosicrucian school of Kabbalists, nor by Mathers in his translation of Knorr Von Rosenroth’s Kabbalah Denudata: certain Kabbalistic authorities have referred Binah alone to IHVH, but only in reference to the Jehovah of the exoteric Judaism. The IHVH of the Kabbalah has but a faint resemblance to the God of the Old Testament. [W.W.W.] The Kabbalah of Knorr von Rosenroth is no authority to the Eastern Kabbalists; because it is well known that in writing his Kabbalah Denudata he followed the modern rather than the ancient (Chaldean) MSS.; and it is equally well known that those MSS. and writings of the Zohar that are classified as “ancient”, mention, and some even use, the Hebrew vowel or Massoretic points. This alone would make these would-be Zoharic books spurious, as there are no direct traces of the Massorah scheme before the tenth century of our era, nor any remote trace of it before the seventh. (See “Tetraktys”
(KT) Tetragrammaton {Greek} The deity-name in four letters, which are in their English form IHVH. It is a kabalistical term and corresponds on a more material plane to the sacred Pythagorean Tetraktys. (See Theos. Gloss
(WG) Tetragrammaton, the four-lettered name of God with the Greeks.
(TG) Tetraktys (Gr). or the Tetrad. The sacred “Four” by which the Pythagoreans swore, this being their most binding oath. It has a very mystic and varied signification, being the same as the Tetragrammaton. First of all it is Unity, or the “One” under four different aspects; then it is the fundamental number Four, the Tetrad containing the Decad, or Ten, the number of perfection; finally it signifies the primeval Triad (or Triangle) merged in the divine Monad. Kircher, the learned Kabbalist-Jesuit, in his OEdipus AEgypticus (II., p. 267), gives the Ineffable Name IHVH — one of the Kabbalistic formulae of the 72 names — arranged in the shape of the Pythagorean Tetrad. Mr. I. Myer gives it in this wise:
1 — [I] — 10 2 The Ineffable — [IH] — 15 3 Name thus — [IHV] — 21 4 — [IHVH] — 26 10 — 72 [Totals]
He also shows that “the sacred Tetrad of the Pythagoreans appears to have been known to the ancient Chinese”. As explained in Isis Unveiled (I, xvi: The mystic Decad, the resultant of the Tetraktys, or the 1+2+3+4 = 10, is a way of expressing this idea. The One is the impersonal principle ‘God’; the Two, matter; the Three, combining Monad and Duad and partaking of the nature of both, is the phenomenal world; the Tetrad, or form of perfection, expresses the emptiness of all; and the Decad, or sum of all, involves the entire Kosmos.
(TG) Thalassa {Greek}. The sea. (See “Thallath”
(TG) Thales {Greek}. The Greek philosopher of Miletus (circa 600 years B.C who taught that the whole universe was produced from water, while Heraclitus of Ephesus maintained that it was produced by fire, and Anaximenes by air. Thales, whose real name is unknown, took his name from Thallath, in accordance with the philosophy he taught.
(TG) Thallath {Chald}. The same as Thalassa. The goddess personifying the sea, identical with Tiamat and connected with Tamti and Belita. The goddess who gave birth to every variety of primordial monster in Berosus’ account of cosmogony.
(TG) Tharana {Sans}. “Mesmerism”, or rather self-induced trance or self-hypnotisation; an action in India, which is of magical character and a kind of exorcism. Lit., “to brush or sweep away” (evil influences, tharhn meaning a broom, and tharnhan, a duster); driving away the bad bhuts (bad aura and bad spirits) through the mesmeriser’s beneficent will.
(TG) Thaumaturgy. Wonder or “miracle-working”; the power of working wonders with the help of gods. From the Greek words thauma, “wonder”, and thergia, “divine work”.
(TG) Theanthropism. A state of being both god and man; a divine Avatar .
(TG) Theiohel {Hebr}. The man-producing habitable globe, our earth in the Zohar.
(TG) Theli {Chald}. The great Dragon said to environ the universe symbolically. In Hebrew letters it is TLI = 400+30+10 = 440: when “its crest [initial letter] is repressed”, said the Rabbis, 40 remains, or the equivalent of Mem; M = Water, the waters above the firmament. Evidently the same idea as symbolised by Sesha — the Serpent of Vishnu.
(TG) Theocrasy. Lit., “mixing of gods”. The worship of various gods, as that of Jehovah and the gods of the Gentiles in the case of the idolatrous Jews.
(TG) Theodicy. “Divine right”, i.e., the privilege of an all-merciful and just God to afflict the innocent, and damn those predestined, and still remain a loving and just Deity: theologically — a mystery.
(TG) Theodidaktos {Greek}. Lit., “God-taught”. Used of Ammonius Saccas, the founder of the Neo-Platonic Eclectic School of the Philalethae, in the fourth century at Alexandria.
(KT) Theodidaktos {Greek} The “God taught,” a title applied to Ammonius Saccas.
(FY) Theodidaktos ( Lit. “God taught”), a school of philosophers in Egypt.
(TG) Theogony. The genesis of the gods; that branch of all non-Christian theologies which teaches the genealogy of the various deities. An ancient Greek name for that which was translated later as the “genealogy of the generation of Adam and the Patriarchs” — the latter being all “gods and planets and zodiacal signs”.
(KT) Theogony. From the Greek theogonia, Lit., the “Genesis of the Gods.” WW Theology This word is from theos ( theos ) and logos ( logos ). Logos literally means word, but it has many literary colorings. It may mean discourse, pronouncement, anything which is given out by vocables, by words, and it also had a particular application in the mysteries of Greece as referring to the sayings or pronouncements of the hierophant, or, the chief functionary in the celebration of the mysteries. The words of Jesus are a case in point. Now, we may see that per se, in itself, ‘theology’ has a close similarity to the word ‘Theosophy’. Very much the same meanings are involved in both, but theology has come to signify in Christian countries the dogmas, doctrines, tenets, and beliefs, which belong to the Christian system. The word is not of Christian usage originally. It is found first in Plato and Aristotle, and was used by them to signify very much what we mean by Theosophy — the words or discourses or pronouncements or expositions concerning the Gods. That also was the brief way they had of describing the study of the causal physiology of the Universe.
(TG) Theomachy. Fighting with, or against the gods, such as the “War of the Titans”, the “War in Heaven” and the Battle of the Archangels (gods) against their brothers the Arch-fiends (ex-gods, Asuras, etc.
(TG) Theomancy. Divination through oracles, from theos, a god, and manteia, divination.
(TG) Theopathy. Suffering for one’s god. Religious fanaticism.
(TG) Theophilanthropism {Greek}. Love to God and man, or rather, in the philosophical sense, love of God through love of Humanity. Certain persons who during the first revolution in France sought to replace Christianity by pure philanthropy and reason, called themselves theophilanthropists.
(TG) Theophilosophy. Theism and philosophy combined.
(TG) Theopneusty. Revelation; something given or inspired by a god or divine being. Divine inspiration.
(TG) Theopoea {Greek}. A magic art of endowing inanimate figures, statues, and other objects, with life, speech, or locomotion.
(TG) Theosophia {Greek}. Wisdom-religion, or “Divine Wisdom”. The substratum and basis of all the world-religions and philosophies, taught and practised by a few elect ever since man became a thinking being. In its practical bearing, Theosophy is purely divine ethics; the definitions in dictionaries are pure nonsense, based on religious prejudice and ignorance of the true spirit of the early Rosicrucians and mediaeval philosopliers who called themselves Theosophists.
(KT) Theosophia {Greek} Lit., “divine wisdom or the wisdom of the gods.” [[For a fuller explanation of such words as “Theosophy,” “Theosophists,” “Theosophical Society,” etc., vide the Theos. Gloss.]]
(FY) Theosophy, the Wisdom-Religion taught in all ages by the sages of the world.
(WG) Theosophy, divine wisdom; the wisdom of the Gods, obtained through the Gods, not however by revelation, but through individual aspiration and experience.
(OG) Theosophy — A compound Greek word: theos, a “divine being,” a “god”; sophia, “wisdom”; hence divine wisdom. Theosophy is the majestic wisdom-religion of the archaic ages and is as old as thinking man. It was delivered to the first human protoplasts, the first thinking human beings on this earth, by highly intelligent spiritual entities from superior spheres. This ancient doctrine, this esoteric system, has been passed down from guardians to guardians to guardians through innumerable generations until our own time. Furthermore, portions of this original and majestic system have been given out at various periods of time to various races in various parts of the world by those guardians when humanity stood in need of such extension and elaboration of spiritual and intellectual thought. Theosophy is not a syncretistic philosophy-religion-science, a system of thought or belief which has been put together piecemeal and consisting of parts or portions taken by some great mind from other various religions or philosophies. This idea is false. On the contrary, theosophy is that single system or systematic formulation of the facts of visible and invisible nature which, as expressed through the illuminated human mind, takes the apparently separate forms of science and of philosophy and of religion. We may likewise describe theosophy to be the formulation in human language of the nature, structure, origin, destiny, and operations of the kosmical universe and of the multitudes of beings which infill it. It might be added that theosophy, in the language of H. P. Blavatsky ( Theosophical Glossary, p. 328), is “the sub-stratum and basis of all the world-religions and philosophies, taught and practiced by a few elect ever since man became a thinking being. In its practical bearing, Theosophy is purely divine ethics ; the definitions in dictionaries are pure nonsense, based on religious prejudice and ignorance.” ( See also Universal Brotherhood)
“Theosophy is the art of living.” — Helena Petrovna Blavatsky
Quotes from Leaders on Theosophy:
That we, the devoted followers of that spirit incarnate of absolute self sacrifice, of philanthropy, divine kindness, as of all the highest virtues attainable on this earth . . . should ever allow the Theosophical Society to represent the embodiment of selfishness, the refuge of the few with no thought in them for the many, is a strange idea, my brothers. — Chohan
Theosophy is no new candidate for the world’s attention, but only the restatement of principles which have been recognised from the very infancy of mankind. — K.H.
The sun of Theosophy must shine for all, not for a part. — M.
Theosophy is the shoreless ocean of universal truth, love, and wisdom, reflecting its radiance on earth, while the Theosophical Society is only a visible bubble on that reflection. Theosophy is divine nature, visible and invisible, and its Society human nature trying to ascend to its divine parent. Theosophy, finally is the fixed eternal sun, and its Society the evanescent comet trying to settle in an orbit to become a planet, ever revolving within the attraction of the sun of truth. It was formed to assist in showing to men that such a thing as Theosophy exists, and to help them to ascend towards it by studying and assimilating its eternal verities. — H. P. Blavatsky, The Key to Theosophy
Theosophy is that ocean of knowledge which spreads from shore to shore of the evolution of sentient beings; unfathomable in its deepest part, it gives the greatest minds their fullest scope, yet, shallow enough at its shores, it will not overwhelm the understanding of a child. — William Quan Judge
Think of theosophy not so much as a body of philosophic or other teaching, but as the highest law of conduct, which is the enacted expression of divine love or compassion. — Katherine Tingley
We have no dogmas or creeds in the Theosophical Society nor in its work; and thus it is that we have Hindu theosophists, Buddhist theosophists, Christian theosophists, Mohammedan theosophists, and Jewish theosophists, as well as other theosophists who belong to no religion — except to theosophy as the religion of religions. Hence it is our bounden duty to cultivate in our hearts the spirit of true brotherly love towards all, however much they may differ from us in philosophical and religious or scientific opinions; but while we are thus absolutely free as members in our choice of religion and philosophy, we all hold to the primeval prerequisite of a theosophist, which is a belief in universal brotherhood and an adherence to the sublime ethics which theosophy teaches. — Gottfried de Purucker
[[As a man]] learns to understand and to be able to assist others, so in turn does this strengthen his knowledge of his own inner being and make him more truly a worker for the sacred cause of universal brotherhood. — Arthur L. Conger
View theosophy, literally, as “knowledge of things divine.” If we can consider it in this sense, we will realize that the essence of pure religion and philosophy — and of science too when considered as pure “knowledge” which is what the word means — is theosophia with a small t, that quality of “wisdom” which the greatest Seers of mankind have attained through direct perception of “things as they are.” — James A. Long
(IN) its broadest sense, theosophy connotes the stream of inspiration and wisdom that has been, is, and ever will be transmitted by generations of sages — in proportion to the receptivity of an aspirant or people. — Grace F. Knoche
There is no religion higher than Truth. — Motto of The Theosophical Society
Objects of The Theosophical Society: To diffuse among men a knowledge of the laws inherent in the universe; To promulgate the knowledge of the essential unity of all that is, and to demonstrate that this unity is fundamental in nature; To form an active brotherhood among men; To study ancient and modern religion, science, and philosophy; To investigate the powers innate in man.
Biographies and Information on Leaders of The Theosophical Society:
(Helena P. Blavatsky, William Q. Judge, Katherine Tingley, Gottfried de Purucker, Arthur L. Conger, James A. Long)
Chronology of H.P.B. and The Theosophical Society
(TG) Theosophical Society, or “Universal Brotherhood”. Founded in 1875 at New York, by Colonel H. S. Olcott and H. P. Blavatsky, helped by W. Q. Judge and several others. Its avowed object was at first the scientific investigation of psychic or so-called “spiritualistic” phenomena, after which its three chief objects were declared, namely (1) Brotherhood of man, without distinction of race, colour, religion, or social position; (2) the serious study of the ancient world-religions for purposes of comparison and the selection therefrom of universal ethics; (3) the study and development of the latent divine powers in man. At the present moment it has over 250 Branches scattered all over the world, most of which are in India, where also its chief Headquarters are established. It is composed of several large Sections — the Indian, the American, the Australian, and the European Sections.
(TG) Theosophists. A name by which many mystics at various periods of history have called themselves. The Neo-Platonists of Alexandria were Theosophists; the Alchemists and Kabbalists during the mediaeval ages were likewise so called, also the Martinists, the Quietists, and other kinds of mystics, whether acting independently or incorporated in a brotherhood or society. All real lovers of divine Wisdom and Truth had, and have, a right to the name, rather than those who, appropriating the qualification, live lives or perform actions opposed to the principles of Theosophy. As described by Brother Kenneth R. Mackenzie, the Theosophists of the past centuries — “entirely speculative, and founding no schools, have still exercised a silent influence upon philosophy; and, no doubt, when the time arrives, many ideas thus silently propounded may yet give new directions to human thought. One of the ways in which these doctrines have obtained not only authority, but power, has been among certain enthusiasts in the higher degrees of Masonry. This power has, however, to a great degree died with the founders, and modern Freemasonry contains few traces of theosophic influence. However accurate and beautiful some of the ideas of Swedenborg, Pernetty, Paschalis, Saint Martin, Marconis, Ragon, and Chastanier may have been, they have but little direct influence on society.” This is true of the Theosophists of the last three centuries, but not of the later ones. For the Theosophists of the current century have already visibly impressed themselves on modern literature, and introduced the desire and craving for some philosophy in place of the blind dogmatic faith of yore, among the most intelligent portions of human-kind. Such is the difference between past and modern THEOSOPHY.
(IU) Theosophists. — In the mediaeval ages it was the name by which were known the disciples of Paracelsus of the sixteenth century, the so-called fire-philosophers or Philosophi per ignem . As well as the Platonists they regarded the soul ( psyche ) and the divine spirit, nous ( nous ), as a particle of the great Archos — a fire taken from the eternal ocean of light. The Theosophical Society, to which these volumes are dedicated by the author as a mark of affectionate regard, was organized at New York in 1875. The object of its founders was to experiment practically in the occult powers of Nature, and to collect and disseminate among Christians information about the Oriental religious philosophies. Later, it has determined to spread among the “poor benighted heathen” such evidences as to the practical results of Christianity as will at least give both sides of the story to the communities among which missionaries are at work. With this view it has established relations with associations and individuals throughout the East, to whom it furnishes authenticated reports of the ecclesiastical crimes and misdemeanors, schisms and heresies, controversies and litigations, doctrinal differences and biblical criticisms and revisions, with which the press of Christian Europe and America constantly teems. Christendom has been long and minutely informed of the degradation and brutishness into which Buddhism, Brahmanism, and Confucianism have plunged their deluded votaries, and many millions have been lavished upon foreign missions under such false representations. The Theosophical Society, seeing daily exemplifications of this very state of things as the sequence of Christian teaching and example — the latter especially — thought it simple justice to make the facts known in Palestine, India, Ceylon, Cashmere, Tartary, Thibet, China, and Japan, in all which countries it has influential correspondents. It may also in time have much to say about the conduct of the missionaries to those who contribute to their support. WW Theosophist The word comes from the Greek word theos, a god (not necessarily the supreme arbiter of the universe, or the great architect of the cosmos, but a god in the general sense as understood by the ancients, a divine being), and sophia, wisdom. In one sense the word Theosophy can be considered as expressing “Divine Wisdom”; in a better and larger sense as the “Wisdom of Divine Beings”. Let us consider this definition: it is dual. First, the Wisdom of Divine Beings, i.e. how they consider the universe, subjectively, through processes of intellection rather than thought, because it is doubtful, I fancy, if we can speak of divine beings, the spiritual entities who govern the cosmos, as thinking, in our sense of the word; so possibly we may use the word intellection. And the second aspect is the “Wisdom of Divine Beings”, i.e. concerning those matters, things, concerns, which are the objects of their intellection. It is very interesting in this connection to remember that this is a descriptive definition of the Qabbalah, and that the Jewish philosophers who represent the Theosophy of Judaism have given practically that definition of the Qabbalah — the study of divine things as the higher spiritual entities conceive them . It thus becomes apparent that Theosophy is far removed from the ordinary conception of it such as we have just read in the encyclopedia. You see immediately, I presume, that it is not uncanny, it is not weird, it is not superstition, it is not even hypothetical; and as we progress in our studies, it will be our duty to come to a firm and positive understanding of the doctrines of Theosophy; and having arrived at this point, having grasped the reality of the conception, we shall instinctively perceive that we may say with truth and with logic that Theosophy is real, that it is not founded on simple hypothesis, because it appeals to the ultimate tribunal of judgment which all men have within them, and that is intelligence. In the nature of things all proofs are submitted to the mind; it depends upon the mind of the one who receives how a subject is conceived. For instance, take a court of law; to a court of law matters in dispute are presented, the jury may sit and hear, the judge sits and judges; but during the course of the trial it is what may come up in the shape of proof, the testimony of witnesses, the evidence that is presented — it is this that counts. What is the tribunal which renders the final decision? It is the sense of justice, of truth, of reality innate in us, and it is this faculty which we must try and awaken in our studies in Theosophy.
(TG) Therapeutae {Greek}. or Therapeutes. A school of Esotericists, which was an inner group within Alexandrian Judaism and not, as generally believed, a “sect”. They were “healers” in the sense that some “Christian” and “Mental” Scientists, members of the T.S., are healers, while they are at the same time good Theosophists and students of the esoteric sciences. Philo Judaeus calls them “servants of god”. As justly shown in A Dictionary of . . . Literature, Sects, and Doctrines (Vol. IV., art. “Philo Judaeus”) in mentioning the Therapeutes — “There appears no reason to think of a special ‘sect’, but rather of an esoteric circle of illuminati, of ‘wise men’ . . . They were contemplative Hellenistic Jews.”
(KT) Therapeutae, or Therapeuts {Greek} A school of Jewish mystic healers, or esotericists, wrongly referred to, by some, as a sect. They resided in and near Alexandria, and their doings and beliefs are to this day a mystery to the critics, as their philosophy seems a combination of Orphic, Pythagorean, Essenian and purely Kabalistic practices. (See Theos. Gloss
(TG) Thermutis {Egyp}. The asp-crown of the goddess Isis; also the name of the legendary daughter of Pharaoh who is alleged to have saved Moses from the Nile.
(TG) Thero (Pali). A priest of Buddha. Therunnanse, also .
(TG) Theurgia, or Theurgy {Greek}. A communication with, and means of bringing down to earth, planetary spirits and angels — the “gods of Light”. Knowledge of the inner meaning of their hierarchies, and purity of life alone can lead to the acquisition of the powers necessary for communion with them. To arrive at such an exalted goal the aspirant must be absolutely worthy and unselfish.
(KT) Theurgy (from the Greek theiourgia). Rites for bringing down to earth planetary and other Spirits or Gods. To arrive at the realization of such an object, the Theurgist had to be absolutely pure and unselfish in his motives. The practice of theurgy is very undesirable and even dangerous in the present day. The world has become too corrupt and wicked for the practice of that which such holy and learned men as Ammonius, Plotinus, Porphyry and Iamblichus (the most learned Theurgist of all) could alone attempt with impunity. In our day theurgy or divine, beneficent magic is but too apt to become goetic, or in other words Sorcery. Theurgy is the first of the three subdivisions of magic, which are theurgic, goetic and natural magic.
(WG) Theurgy, divine Magic, or power to work phenomena through Divine aid or by the aid of the “Gods”, or powers of nature. See Magic.
(TG) Theurgist. The first school of practical theurgy (from theos , god, and ergon, work,) in the Christian period, was founded by Iamblichus among certain Alexandrian Platonists. The priests, however, who were attached to the temples of Egypt, Assyria, Babylonia and Greece, and whose business it was to evoke the gods during the celebration of the Mysteries, were known by this name, or its equivalent in other tongues, from the earliest archaic period. Spirits (but not those of the dead, the evocation of which was called Necromancy) were made visible to the eyes of mortals. Thus a theurgist had to be a hierophant and an expert in the esoteric learning of the Sanctuaries of all great countries. The Neoplatonists of the school of Iamblichus were called theurgists, for they performed the so-called “ceremonial magic”, and evoked the simulacra or the images of the ancient heroes, “gods”, and daimonia ( daimonia, divine, spiritual entities). In the rare cases when the presence of a tangible and visible “spirit” was required, the theurgist had to furnish the weird apparition with a portion of his own flesh and blood — he had to perform the theopaea, or the “creation of gods”, by a mysterious process well known to the old, and perhaps some of the modern, Tantrikas and initiated Brahmans of India. Such is what is said in the Book of Evocations of the pagodas. It shows the perfect identity of rites and ceremonial between the oldest Brahmanic theurgy and that of the Alexandrian Platonists. The following is from Isis Unveiled: “The Brahman Grihasta (the evocator) must be in a state of complete purity before he ventures to call forth the Pitris. After having prepared a lamp, some sandal-incense, etc., and having traced the magic circles taught him by the superior Guru, in order to keep away bad spirits, he ceases to breathe, and calls the fire (Kundalini) to his help to disperse his body.” He pronounces a certain number of times the sacred word, and “his soul (astral body) escapes from its prison, his body disappears, and the soul (image) of the evoked spirit descends into the double body and animates it”. Then “his (the theurgist’s) soul (astral) re-enters its body, whose subtile particles have again been aggregating (to the objective sense), after having formed from themselves an aerial body for the deva (god or spirit) he evoked” . . . . And then, the operator propounds to the latter questions “on the mysteries of Being and the transformation of the imperishable”. The popular prevailing idea is that the theurgists, as well as the magicians, worked wonders, such as evoking the souls or shadows of the heroes and gods, and other thaumaturgic works, by supernatural powers. But this never was the fact. They did it simply by the liberation of their own astral body, which, taking the form of a god or hero, served as a medium or vehicle through which the special current preserving the ideas and knowledge of that hero or god could be reached and manifested. (See “Iamblichus”
(IU) Theurgist. — From Theos, god, and Ergon, work. The first school of practical theurgy in the Christian period was founded by Iamblichus among the Alexandrian Platonists; but the priests attached to the temples of Egypt, Assyria, and Babylonia, and who took an active part in the evocations of the gods during the Sacred Mysteries, were known by this name from the earliest archaic period. The purpose of it was to make spirits visible to the eyes of mortals. A theurgist was one expert in the esoteric learning of the Sanctuaries of all the great countries. The Neo-platonists of the school of Iamblichus were called theurgists, for they performed the so-called “ceremonial magic,” and evoked the “spirits” of the departed heroes, “gods,” and Daimonia ( daimonia, divine, spiritual entities). In the rare cases when the presence of a tangible and visible spirit was required, the theurgist had to furnish the weird apparition with a portion of his own flesh and blood — he had to perform the theopoea, or the “creation of gods,” by a mysterious process well known to the modern Fakirs and initiated Brahmans of India. This is what is said in the Book of Evocations of the pagodas. It shows the perfect identity of rites and ceremonial between the oldest Brahmanic theurgy and that of the Alexandrian Platonists: “The Brahmana Grihasta (the evocator) must be in a state of complete purity before he ventures to call forth the Pitris.”
After having prepared a lamp, some sandal, incense, etc., and having traced the magic circles taught to him by the superior guru, in order to keep away bad spirits, he “ceases to breathe, and calls the fire to his help to disperse his body.” He pronounces a certain number of times the sacred word, and “his soul escapes from his body, and his body disappears, and the soul of the evoked spirit descends into the double body and animates it.” Then “His (Grihasta’s) soul reenters into his body, whose subtile particles have again been aggregating, after having formed of their emanations an aerial body to the spirit he evoked.” And now, that he has formed for the Pitri a body with the particles the most essential and pure of his own, the grihasta is allowed, after the ceremonial sacrifice is over, to “converse with the souls of the ancestors and the Pitris, and offer them questions on the mysteries of the Being and the transformations of the imperishable .” “Then after having blown out his lamp he must light it again, and set at liberty the bad spirits shut out from the place by the magical circles, and leave the sanctuary of the Pitris.” [Book of Brahmanical Evocations, part iii.]
The school of Iamblichus was distinct from that of Plotinus and Porphyry, who were strongly against ceremonial magic and practical theurgy as dangerous, though these two eminent men firmly believed in both. “The theurgic or benevolent magic, the Goetic, or dark and evil necromancy, were alike in preeminent repute during the first century of the Christian era.” [Bulwer-Lytton: “Last Days of Pompeii,” p. 147, Bulwer-Lytton, Last Days of Pompeii, Book II, ch. viii..] But never have any of the highly moral and pious philosophers, whose fame has descended to us spotless of any evil deed, practiced any other kind of magic than the theurgic, or benevolent, as Bulwer-Lytton terms it. “Whoever is acquainted with the nature of divinely luminous appearances ( GREEK ) knows also on what account it is requisite to abstain from all birds (animal food), and especially for him who hastens to be liberated from terrestrial concerns and to be established with the celestial gods,” says Porphyry. [“Select Works,” p. 159.] Though he refused to practice theurgy himself, Porphyry, in his Life of Plotinus , mentions a priest of Egypt, who, “at the request of a certain friend of Plotinus (which friend was perhaps Porphyry himself, remarks T. Taylor), exhibited to Plotinus, in the temple of Isis at Rome, the familiar daimon, or, in modern language, the guardian angel of that philosopher.” [Ibid., p. 92.] The popular, prevailing idea was that the theurgists, as well as the magicians, worked wonders, such as evoking the souls or shadows of the heroes and gods, and doing other thaumaturgic works by supernatural powers.
(WG) Thirty-Two Characteristics, the thirty-two marks some or all of which are found on spiritually developed men, or Bodhisattvas. On Buddha all were found.
(TG) Thirty-two Ways of Wisdom {Hebr}. The Zohar says that Chochmah or Hokhmah (wisdom) generates all things “by means of (these) thirty-two paths”. (Zohar iii., 290a). The full account of them is found in the Sepher Yetzirah, wherein letters and numbers constitute as entities the Thirty-two Paths of Wisdom, by which the Elohim built the whole Universe. For, as said elsewhere, the brain “hath an outlet from Zeir Anpin, and therefore it is spread and goes out to thirty-two ways”. Zeir Anpin, the “Short Face” or the “Lesser Countenance”, is the Heavenly Adam, Adam Kadmon, or Man. Man in the Zohar is looked upon as the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet to which the decad is added; and hence the thirty-two symbols of his faculties or paths.
(TG) Thohu-Bohu {Hebr}. From Tohoo — “the Deep” and Bohu “primeval Space” — or the Deep of Primeval Space, loosely rendered as “Chaos” “Confusion” and so on. Also spelt and pronounced ” tohu-bohu”.
(TG) Thomei {Egyp}. The Goddess of Justice, with eyes bandaged and holding a cross. The same as the Greek Themis.
(TG) Thor {Nors}. From Thonar to “thunder”. The son of Odin and Freya, and the chief of all Elemental Spirits. The god of thunder, Jupiter Tonans. The word Thursday is named after Thor. Among the Romans Thursday was the day of Jupiter, Jovis dies, Jeudi in French — the fifth day of the week, sacred also to the planet Jupiter.
(MO) Thor {Nors} [ thorr, thonor, thur thunder, consecrator, guileless power] An Ase: god of power, life force, electricity, and of the planet Jupiter. Also called Trudgalmer, Vior, Lorride in different applications
(TG) Thorah {Hebr}. “Law”, written down from the transposition of the letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Of the “hidden Thorah” it is said that before At-tee-kah (the “Ancient of all the Ancients”) had arranged Itself into limbs (or members) preparing Itself to manifest, It willed to create a Thorah; the latter upon being produced addressed It in these words: “It, that wishes to arrange and to appoint other things, should first of all, arrange Itself in Its proper Forms”. In other words, Thorah, the Law, snubbed its Creator from the moment of its birth, according to the above, which is an interpolation of some later Talmudist. As it grew and developed, the mystic Law of the primitive Kabbalist was transformed and made by the Rabbins to supersede in its dead letter every metaphysical conception; and thus the Rabbinical and Talmudistic Law makes Ain Soph and every divine Principle subservient to itself, and turns its back upon the true esoteric interpretations.
(TG) Thor’s Hammer. A weapon which had the form of the Svastika; called by European Mystics and Masons the “Hermetic Cross”, and also “Jaina Cross “, croix cramponnee; the most archaic, as the most sacred and universally respected symbol. (See “Svastika”
(TG) Thoth {Egyp}. The most mysterious and the least understood of gods, whose personal character is entirely distinct from all other ancient deities. While the permutations of Osiris, Isis, Horus, and the rest, are so numberless that their individuality is all but lost, Thoth remains changeless from the first to the last Dynasty. He is the god of wisdom and of authority over all other gods. He is the recorder and the judge. His ibis-head, the pen and tablet of the celestial scribe, who records the thoughts, words and deeds of men and weighs them in the balance, liken him to the type of the esoteric Lipikas. His name is one of the first that appears on the oldest monuments. He is the lunar god of the first dynasties, the master of Cynocephalus — the dog-headed ape who stood in Egypt as a living symbol and remembrance of the Third Root-Race. (Secret Doctrine, II. pp. 184 and 185). He is the “Lord of Hermopolis” — Janus, Hermes and Mercury combined. He is crowned with an atef and the lunar disk, and bears the “Eye of Horus”, the third eye, in his hand. He is the Greek Hermes, the god of learning, and Hermes Trismegistus, the “Thrice-great Hermes”, the patron of physical sciences and the patron and very soul of the occult esoteric knowledge. As Mr. J. Bonwick, F.R.G.S., beautifully expresses it: “Thoth . . . has a powerful effect on the imagination . . . in this intricate yet beautiful phantasmagoria of thought and moral sentiment of that shadowy past. It is in vain we ask ourselves however man, in the infancy of this world of humanity, in the rudeness of supposed incipient civilization, could have dreamed of such a heavenly being as Thoth. The lines are so delicately drawn, so intimately and tastefully interwoven, that we seem to regard a picture designed by the genius of a Milton, and executed with the skill of a Raphael.” Verily, there was some truth in that old saying, “The wisdom of the Egyptians”. . . . “When it is shown that the wife of Cephren, builder of the second Pyramid, was a priestess of Thoth, one sees that the ideas comprehended in him were fixed 6,000 years ago”. According to Plato, “Thoth-Hermes was the discoverer and inventor of numbers, geometry, astronomy and letters”. Proclus, the disciple of Plotinus, speaking of this mysterious deity, says: “He presides over every species of condition, leading us to an intelligible essence from this mortal abode, governing the different herds of souls”. In other words Thoth, as the Registrar and Recorder of Osiris in Amenti, the Judgment Hall of the Dead was a psychopompic deity; while Iamblichus hints that “the cross with a handle (the thau or tau) which Tot holds in his hand, was none other than the monogram of his name”. Besides the Tau, as the prototype of Mercury, Thoth carries the serpent-rod, emblem of Wisdom, the rod that became the Caduceus. Says Mr. Bonwick, “Hermes was the serpent itself in a mystical sense. He glides like that creature, noiselessly, without apparent exertion, along the course of ages. He is . . . a representative of the spangled heavens. But he is the foe of the bad serpent, for the ibis devoured the snakes of Egypt.”
(TG) Thothori Nyan Tsan {Tibe} A King of Tibet in the fourth century. It is narrated that during his reign he was visited by five mysterious strangers, who revealed to him how he might use for his country’s welfare four precious things which had fallen down from heaven, in 331 A.D., in a golden casket and “the use of which no one knew”. These were (1) hands folded as the Buddhist ascetics fold them; (2) a be-jewelled Shorten (a Stupa built over a receptacle for relics); (3) a gem inscribed with the “Aum mani padme hum”; and (4) the Zamatog, a religious work on ethics, a part of the Kanjur. A voice from heaven then told the King that after a certain number of generations every one would learn how precious these four things were. The number of generations stated carried the world to the seventh century, when Buddhism became the accepted religion of Tibet. Making an allowance for legendary licence, the four things fallen from heaven, the voice, and the five mysterious strangers, may be easily seen to have been historical facts. They were without any doubt five Arhats or Bhikshus from India, on their proselytising tour. Many were the Indian sages who, persecuted in India for their new faith, betook themselves to Tibet and China.
(OG) Thought Transference — The power of transferring one’s thoughts without a word — voiceless speech. This is no psychical power. Its psychical aspect, commonly called thought transference or telepathy, is but a feeble manifestation of a truly sublime power, and is illusory, because it is but a reflected light of the real spiritual power within. True thought transference is a spiritual faculty. Having this spiritual power you can transfer your thought and your consciousness and your will to any part of the earth — and actually be there, see what goes on, know what is happening there. No merely psychical power will ever enable you to do that. In Tibet this power is called by the generalizing name hpho-wa. Having this power your conscious and percipient inner self can pass through stone walls as easily as the electric current runs along or through the copper wire. ( See also Mayavi-Rupa)
(TG) Thraetaona {avesta-mazdean} The Persian Michael, who contended with Zohak or Azhi-Dahaka, the destroying serpent. In the Avesta Azhi-Dahaka is a three-headed monster, one of whose heads is human, and the two others Ophidian. Dahaka, who is shown in the Zoroastrian Scriptures as coming from Babylonia, stands as the allegorical symbol of the Assyrian dynasty of King Dahaka (Az-Dahaka) which ruled Asia with an iron hand, and whose banners bore the purple sign of the dragon, purpureum signum draconis. Metaphysically, however, the human head denotes the physical man, and the two serpent heads the dual manasic principles — the dragon and serpent both standing as symbols of wisdom and occult powers.
(TG) Thread Soul. The same as Sutratma .
(KT) Thread Soul. The same as Sutratma, which see.
(WG) Thread-Soul, see Sutratman .
(VS) sacred three (I 38) [[p. 19]] Every stage of development in Raja Yoga is symbolised by a geometrical figure. This one is the sacred Triangle and precedes Dharana . The is the sign of the high chelas, while another kind of triangle is that of high Initiates. It is the symbol “I” discoursed upon by Buddha and used by him as a symbol of the embodied form of Tathagata when released from the three methods of the Prajna . Once the preliminary and lower stages passed, the disciple sees no more the but the the abbreviation of the, the full Septenary. Its true form is not given here, as it is almost sure to be pounced upon by some charlatans and desecrated in its use for fraudulent purposes.
(TG) Three Degrees (of Initiation). Every nation had its exoteric and esoteric religion, the one for the masses, the other for the learned and elect. For example, the Hindus had three degrees with several sub-degrees. The Egyptians had also three preliminary degrees, personified under the “three guardians of the fire” in the Mysteries. The Chinese had their most ancient Triad Society: and the Tibetans have to this day their “triple step”; which was symbolized in the Vedas by the three strides of Vishnu. Everywhere antiquity shows an unbounded reverence for the Triad and Triangle — the first geometrical figure. The old Babylonians had their three stages of initiation into the priesthood (which was then esoteric knowledge); the Jews, the Kabbalists and mystics borrowed them from the Chaldees, and the Christian Church from the Jews. “There are Two”, says Rabbi Simon ben Jochai, “in conjunction with One; hence they are Three, and if they are Three, then they are One.”
(TG) Three Faces. The Trimurti of the Indian Pantheon; the three persons of the one godhead. Says the Book of Precepts: “There are two Faces, one in Tushita (Devachan) and one in Myalba (earth); and the Highest Holy unites them and finally absorbs both.”
(TG) Three Fires (Occult). The name given to Atma-Buddhi-Manas, which when united become one.
(TG) Thsang Thisrong tsan {Tibe}. A king who flourished between the years 728 and 787, and who invited from Bengal Pandit Rakshit, called for his great learning Bodhisattva, to come and settle in Tibet, in order to teach Buddhist philosophy to his priests.
(TG) Thumi Sambhota {Sans}. An Indian mystic and man of erudition, the inventor of the Tibetan alphabet.
(TG) Thummim {Hebr}. “Perfections.” An ornament on the breastplates of the ancient High Priests of Judaism. Modern Rabbins and Hebraists may well pretend they do not know the joint purposes of the Thummim and the Urim ; but the Kabbalists do and likewise the Occultists. They were the instruments of magic divination and oracular communication — theurgic and astrological. This is shown in the following well-known facts: — (1) upon each of the twelve precious stones was engraved the name of one of the twelve sons of Jacob, each of these “sons” personating one of the signs of the zodiac; (2) both were oracular images, like the teraphim, and uttered oracles by a voice, and both were agents for hypnotisation and throwing the priests who wore them into an ecstatic condition. The Urim and Thummim were not original with the Hebrews, but had been borrowed, like most of their other religious rites, from the Egyptians, with whom the mystic scarabaeus, worn on the breast by the Hierophants, had the same functions. They were thus purely heathen and magical modes of divination; and when the Jewish “Lord God” was called upon to manifest his presence and speak out his will through the Urim by preliminary incantations, the modus operandi was the same as that used by all the Gentile priests the world over.
(TG) Thumos {Greek}. The astral, animal soul; the Kama-Manas; Thumos means passion, desire and confusion and is so used by Homer. The word is probably derived from the Sanskrit Tamas, which has the same meaning.
(KT) Thumos ( Gr. ) A Pythagorean and Platonic term; applied to an aspect of the human soul, to denote its passionate Kamarupic condition: — almost equivalent to the Sanskrit word tamas: “the quality of darkness,” and probably derived from the latter.
(MO) Thurse {Nors} [dull, stupid] Uninspired matter giant
(WG) Thvak, the skin as the organ of touch.
(TG) Tia-Huanaco #prv. Most magnificent ruins of a pre-historic city in Peru.
(TG) Tiamat {Chald}. A female dragon personifying the ocean; the great mother or the living principle of chaos. Tiamat wanted to swallow Bel, but Bel sent a wind which entered her open mouth and killed Tiamat.
(TG) Tiaou {Egyp}. A kind of Devachanic post mortem state.
(TG) Tien-Hoang {Chin}. The twelve hierarchies of Dhyanis.
(TG) Tien-Sin {Chin}. Lit., the heaven of mind, or abstract, subjective, ideal heaven. A metaphysical term applied to the Absolute.
(TG) Tikkun {Chald}. Manifested Man or Adam Kadmon, the first ray from the manifested Logos.
(FY) Tikkun, Adam Kadmon, the ray from the Great Centre.
(KT) Timaeus (of Locris). A Pythagorean philosopher, born at Locris. He differed somewhat from his teacher in the doctrine of metempsychosis. He wrote a treatise on the Soul of the World and its nature and essence, which is in the Doric dialect and still extant.
TIME
On Time by H. P. Blavatsky
(WG) Time, kala, is divided by the Hindus as follows: 15 nimishas (twinklings of the eye) equal 1 kashta; 30 kashtas equal 1 kala; 30 kalas equal 1 kshana; 12 kshanas equal 1 muhurtta; 30 muhurttas equal 1 day and night.
(IU) [[ Time Periods –]] To complete the list, we will now add that in the course of the following chapters, whenever we use the term Archaic, we mean before the time of Pythagoras; when Ancient, before the time of Mahomet; and when Mediaeval, the period between Mahomet and Martin Luther. It will only be necessary to infringe the rule when from time to time we may have to speak of nations of a pre-Pythagorean antiquity, and will adopt the common custom of calling them ancient.
(MO) Ting, Thing {Nors} [costly articles, inventory] Parliament
TINGLEY, Katherine A. — link to biography and books
(TG) Tiphereth {Hebr}. Beauty; the sixth of the ten Sephiroth, a masculine active potency, corresponding to the Vau, V, of the Tetragrammaton IHVH; also called Melekh or King; and the Son. It is the central Sephira of the six which compose Zauir Anpin, the Microprosopus, or Lesser Countenance. It is translated Beauty and Mildness.
(WG) Tiphereth, {Hebr}, beauty. The sixth of the ten Sephiroth of the Kabalah. A male potency.
(TG) Tirthakas, or Tirthika and Tirthyas (Sk. ). Heretical teachers. An epithet applied by the Buddhist ascetics to the Brahmans and certain Yogis of India.
(VS) Tirthikas, the unbelievers [[p. 28]] Brahman ascetics.
(WG) Tirthika, a pilgrim.
(SKv) Tirthika Tirthika literally means ‘one belonging to a tirtha or holy place,’ hence ‘a worthy and holy man,’ a Brahmana. Later when Brahmanism, Jainism, and Buddhism became antagonistic to one another, this word was applied to a follower or leader of a religion or philosophy other than one’s own. For instance, the Buddhists called the Jainas, ‘Tirthikas,’ or ironically ‘Brahmanical ascetics,’ or ‘unbelievers.’ The Jainas, in their turn, called the Buddhists ‘Tirthikas,’ also implying ‘infidels,’ ‘unbelievers.’
(TG) Tirthankara {Sans}. Jaina saints and chiefs, of which there are twenty-four. It is claimed that one of them was the spiritual Guru of Gautama Buddha. Tirthankara is a synonym of Jaina.
(WG) Tirthankara, (also Tirthankar), a Jaina term signifying nearly the same as Avatara; a Jaina Arhat. (Literally, bathing in holy water
(TG) Tiryaksrota {Sans}. From tiryak crooked, and srotas (digestive) canal. The name of the creation by Brahma of men or beings, whose stomachs were, on account of their erect position as bipeds, in a horizontal position. This is a Puranic invention, absent in Occultism.
(TG) Tishya {Sans}. The same as Kaliyuga, the Fourth Age.
(TG) Titans {Greek}. Giants of divine origin in Greek mythology who made war against the gods. Prometheus was one of them.
(TG) Titiksha {Sans}. Lit., long-suffering, patience. Titiksha, daughter of Daksha and wife of Dharma (divine law) is its personification.
(VS) Titiksha state (III 22) [[p. 64]] (22). Titiksha is the fifth state of Raja Yoga one of supreme indifference; submission, if necessary, to what is called pleasures and pains for all, but deriving neither pleasure nor pain from such submission in short, the becoming physically, mentally, and morally indifferent and insensible to either pleasure or pain.
(FY) Titiksha, renunciation.
(WG) Titiksha, endurance, patience, resignation, forbearance.
(SKv) Titiksha Patience, resignation, and endurance; derived from the desiderative or wishing form of the verb-root tij — to endure, to suffer. In The Voice of the Silence it is said:
Titiksha is the fifth state of Raja Yoga — one of supreme indifference; submission, if necessary, to what is called pleasures and pains for all, but deriving neither pleasure nor pain from such submission-in short, the becoming physically, mentally, and morally indifferent and insensible to either pleasure or pain. — Fragment III, note 22
(MO) Tjalfe {Nors} (chal-veh) [speed] Son of Egil and servant of Thor
(MO) Tjasse {Nors} (chass-eh) A giant: an earlier life period
(MO) Tjodvitner {Nors} (chod-veet-ner) [ tjod tether + vitner witness] Fenris; wolf that fishes for the souls of men
(TG) Tobo {Gnos}. In the Codex Nazaraeus, a mysterious being which bears the soul of Adam from Orcus to the place of life, and thence is called the liberator of the soul of Adam.
(TG) Todas. A mysterious people of India found in the unexplored fastnesses of Nilgiri (Blue) Hills in the Madras Presidency, whose origin, language and religion are to this day unknown. They are entirely distinct, ethnically, philologically, and in every other way, from the Badagas and the Mulakurumbas, two other races found on the same hills.
(FY) Toda, a mysterious tribe in India that practise black magic.
(VS) Secret Path is unattainable this day, it is within thy reach to – morrow (II 24) [[p. 34]] To-morrow means the following rebirth or reincarnation.
(MO) Tomte {Nors} (tom-teh) [ tom empty] Nature sprite, helpful
(TG) Toom {Egyp}. A god issued from Osiris in his character of the Great Deep Noot. He is the Protean god who generates other gods, assuming the form he likes. He is Fohat. (Secret Doctrine, I., 673
(TG) To On {Greek}. The Being, the Ineffable All of Plato. He whom no person has seen except the Son.
(TG) Tope. An artificial mound covering relics of Buddha or some other great Arhat. The Topes are also called Dagobas.
(TG) Tophet {Hebr}. A place in the valley of Gehenna, near Jerusalem, where a constant fire was kept burning, in which children were immolated to Baal. The locality is thus the prototype of the Christian Hell, the fiery Gehenna of endless woe.
(TG) Toralva, Dr. Eugene. A physician who lived in the fourteenth century, and who received as a gift from Friar Pietro, a great magician and a Dominican monk, a demon named Zequiel to be his faithful servant. (See Isis Unveiled, II., 60
(TG) Toyambudhi {Sans}. A country in the northern part of which lay the White Island — Shveta Dwipa — one of the seven Puranic islands or continents.
(OG) Transmigration — This word is grossly misunderstood in the modern Occident, as also is the doctrine comprised under the old Greek word metempsychosis, both being modernly supposed to mean, through the common misunderstanding of the ancient literatures, that the human soul at some time after death migrates into the beast realm and is reborn on earth in a beast body. The real meaning of this statement in ancient literature refers to the destiny of what theosophists call the life-atoms, but it has absolutely no reference to the destiny of the human soul, as an entity. Theosophy accepts all aspects of the ancient teaching, but explains and interprets them. Our doctrine in this respect unless, indeed, we are treating of the case of a “lost soul,”is “once a man, always a man.” The human soul can no more migrate over and incarnate in a beast body than can the psychical apparatus of a beast incarnate in human flesh. Why? Because in the former case, the beast vehicle offers to the human soul no opening at all for the expression of the spiritual and intellectual and psychical powers and faculties and tendencies which make a man human. Nor can the soul of the beast enter into a human body, because the impassable gulf of a psychical and intellectual nature, which separates the two kingdoms, prevents any such passage from the one up into another so much its superior in all respects. In the former case, there is no attraction for the man beastwards; and in the latter case there is the impossibility of the imperfectly developed beast mind and beast soul finding a proper lodgment in what to it is truly a godlike sphere which it simply cannot enter. Transmigration, however, has a specific meaning when the word is applied to the human soul: the living entity migrates or passes over from one condition to another condition or state or plane, as the case may be, whether these latter be in the invisible realms of nature or in the visible realms, and whether the state or condition be high or low. The specific meaning of this word, therefore, implies nothing more than a change of state or of condition or of plane: a migrating of the living entity from one to the other, but always in conditions or estates or habitudes appropriate and pertaining to its human dignity.
(IN) its application to the life-atoms, to which are to be referred the observations of the ancients with regard to the lower realms of nature, transmigration means briefly that the particular life-atoms, which in their aggregate compose man’s lower principles, at and following the change that men call death migrate or transmigrate or pass into other bodies to which these life-atoms are attracted by similarity of development — be these attractions high or low, and they are usually low, because their own evolutionary development is as a rule far from being advanced. Nevertheless, it should be remembered that these life-atoms compose man’s inner — and outer — vehicles or bodies, and that in consequence there are various grades or classes of these life-atoms, from the physical upwards (or inwards if you please) to the astral, purely vital, emotional, mental, and psychical. This is, in general terms, the meaning of transmigration. The word means no more than the specific senses just outlined, and stops there. But the teaching concerning the destiny of the entity is continued and developed in the doctrine pertaining to the word metempsychosis. WW Transmigration The subject is so difficult for the reason that it touches upon esoteric matters, and there is a great deal that cannot be said for reasons I think should be obvious to you all. But this much it will be proper to say: first, transmigration in one or another form was recognized by all the ancient world, in the sense that there is a close relationship between the ‘souls’ of all beings lower than man, commonly set forth under the saying the ‘animal world’ — and this belief also includes the vegetable and the mineral. The popular conception of transmigration, as we explained at our first class, is that if a man does not reincarnate in a human body, he may, according to the unworthy life he may have led in a previous existence, find his next embodiment in an animal form. As we then remarked, that was what is called the so-called Pythagorean idea of metempsychosis, which however, was denounced by several of the most prominent ancient philosophers, as absurd, or ludicrous, or impossible. Syrianus, Iamblichus, Porphyry, Plotinus, Proclus, Hierocles, Plutarch the biographer, and indeed all the Neo-Platonic school refused to accept the so-called Pythagorean metempsychosis, that is to say, as it has been misunderstood in Christian times. Yet each and every one of these philosophers, and, as I have said, the whole of the ancient world, and the vast majority of mankind today, believe that there is a relation between the soul of man after death and the kingdoms of nature below man. Now there is a certain truth in transmigration, using the word in its popular and misunderstood sense of the soul of man passing over or transmigrating into animals. It is this: the Higher Triad, that is to say Atma-Buddhi-Manas, can under no circumstances incarnate in an animal (sub-human) body; with one exception — and I touch on this most reluctantly — where it is conceivable that one of the Teachers or some other perfected being belonging to mankind, might under extraordinary circumstances find it advisable or necessary to enter an animal body. It is, however, an almost unheard-of and inconceivable probability, but it is a possibility; it can be done. The lower quaternary, or the inferior four principles composing Man, is animal in its nature. At death it breaks up and goes to pieces, as the body breaks up and goes to pieces, returning the elements of which it was composed to the earth, to the astral world, and to the lower manasic sphere, from each of which it drew its respective elements. But those elements have been somewhat individualized with the power, the dignity, the divinity of human thought; and that impress persists, remains on the elements which compose man’s lower nature. These elements inform, that is to say ensoul, the lower creatures. The higher of these lower elements which made up the lower quaternary of man will form the souls of the higher animals; the middle will form the souls of animals inferior to those, and the lowest portions, the dregs of the lower quaternary, will go to form the sensitive parts of plants. This does not mean that animals have no principles in the sense of our seven principles, except such as are drawn from the human dross and dregs and lees, which man casts off or leaves behind him after death. But the animals, the plants, even the mineral, draw this in; they aspire toward them. There is an old saying that the Gods eat men, live on men. We aspire to the Gods, to the spiritual beings higher than ourselves in the universe. From them we get our higher principles, from them we draw our inspiration, flashes of intuition, impulses to good; our moral sense is strengthened. In other words, everything which is higher than ourselves is like sunlight to us, enlightening us on our forward way as we progress; we live in the light of those who have gone beyond us. Even so are we gods to the lower creatures, strengthening them, leading them upward, feeding them, as it were, on what we have left behind. Therefore the coarse, ignorant, evil life which some men may have led stamps the atoms of his lower nature with a coarse, evil, and bestial impulse, and by a species of attraction, like to like, they seek out and are sought out by creatures similar to themselves.
(WG) Treta, third; name of the second of the four yugas or ages. It contains 1,296,000 years of mortals. (See Yuga
(TG) Trees of Life. From the highest antiquity trees were connected with the gods and mystical forces in nature. Every nation had its sacred tree, with its peculiar characteristics and attributes based on natural, and also occasionally on occult properties, as expounded in the esoteric teachings. Thus the peepul or Ashvattha of India, the abode of Pitris (elementals in fact) of a lower order, became the Bo-tree or ficus religiosa of the Buddhists the world over, since Gautama Buddha reached the highest knowledge and Nirvana under such a tree. The ash tree, Yggdrasil, is the world-tree of the Norsemen or Scandinavians. The banyan tree is the symbol of spirit and matter, descending to the earth, striking root, and then re-ascending heavenward again. The triple-leaved palasa is a symbol of the triple essence in the Universe — Spirit, Soul, Matter. The dark cypress was the world-tree of Mexico, and is now with the Christians and Mahomedans the emblem of death, of peace and rest. The fir was held sacred in Egypt, and its cone was carried in religious processions, though now it has almost disappeared from the land of the mummies; so also was the sycamore, the tamarisk, the palm and the vine. The sycamore was the Tree of Life in Egypt, and also in Assyria. It was sacred to Hathor at Heliopolis; and is now sacred in the same place to the Virgin Mary. Its juice was precious by virtue of its occult powers, as the Soma is with Brahmans, and Haoma with the Parsis. “The fruit and sap of the Tree of Life bestow immortality.” A large volume might be written upon these sacred trees of antiquity, the reverence for some of which has survived to this day, without exhausting the subject.
(TG) Trefoil. Like the Irish shamrock, it has a symbolic meaning, “the three-in-one mystery” as an author calls it. It crowned the head of Osiris, and the wreath fell off when Typhon killed the radiant god. Some see in it a phallic significance, but we deny this idea in Occultism. It was the plant of Spirit, Soul, and Life.
(TG) Treta Yuga {Sans}. The second age of the world, a period of 1,296,000 years.
(TG) Triad, or the Three. The ten Sephiroth are contemplated as a group of three triads: Kether, Chochmah and Binah form the supernal triad; Chesed, Geburah and Tiphereth, the second; and Netzach, Hod and Yesod, the inferior triad. The tenth Sephira, Malkuth, is beyond the three triads. [W.W.W.]
The above is Orthodox Western Kabalah. Eastern Occultists recognise but one triad — the upper one (corresponding to Atma-Buddhi and the “Envelope” which reflects their light, the three in one) — and count seven lower Sephiroth, every one of which stands for a “principle”, beginning with the Higher Manas and ending with the Physical Body — of which Malkuth is the representative in the Microcosm and the Earth in the Macrocosm.
(KT) Triad or Trinity. In every religion and philosophy — the three in One.
(WG) Triad, the triad consists of Atma-Buddhi-Manas, and is the reincarnating man. It is the upper third of the Septenary ; which see. Its symbol is an equilateral triangle.
(TG) Tri-bhuvana, or Tri-loka {Sans}. The three worlds — Swarga, Bhumi, Patala — or, Heaven, Earth, and Hell in popular beliefs; esoterically, these are the Spiritual and Psychic (or Astral) regions, and the Terrestrial sphere.
(WG) Tribhuvana, the words called Swarga, Bhumi, and Patala; vulgarly heaven, earth, and hell, but in occultism the Terrestrial, Psychic, and Spiritual spheres. See also Tri-Lokas .
(TG) Tridandi {Sans}. The name generally given to a class or sect of Sanyasis, who constantly keep in the hand a kind of club (danda) branching off into three rods at the top. The word is variously etymologized, and some give the name to the triple Brahmanical thread.
(FY) Tridandi ( tri, “three,” danda, “chastisement”), name of Brahmanical thread.
(TG) Tri-dasha {Sans}. Three times ten or “thirty”. This is in round numbers the sum of the Indian Pantheon — the thirty-three crores of deities — the twelve Adityas, the eight Vasus, the eleven Rudras and the two Ashvins, or thirty-three kotis, or 330 millions of gods.
(IN) Tridasa {Sans} “Thrice ten,” in round numbers the sum of the Hindu pantheon, 330 million deities (lives).
(TG) Trigunas {Sans}. The three divisions of the inherent qualities of differentiated matter — i.e ., of pure quiescence (satva), of activity and desire (rajas), of stagnation and decay (tamas). They correspond with Vishnu, Brahma, and Shiva. (See “Trimurti”
(TG) Trijnana, {Sans}. Lit., “triple knowledge”. This consists of three degrees: (1) belief on faith; (2) belief on theoretical knowledge; and (3) belief through personal and practical knowledge.
(TG) Trikaya {Sans}. Lit., three bodies, or forms. This is a most abstruse teaching which, however, once understood, explains the mystery of every triad or trinity, and is a true key to every three-fold metaphysical symbol. In its most simple and comprehensive form it is found in the human Entity in its triple division into spirit, soul, and body, and in the universe, regarded pantheistically, as a unity composed of a Deific, purely spiritual Principle, Supernal Beings — its direct rays — and Humanity. The origin of this is found in the teachings of the pre-historic Wisdom Religion, or Esoteric Philosophy. The grand Pantheistic ideal, of the unknown and unknowable Essence being transformed first into subjective, and then into objective matter, is at the root of all these triads and triplets. Thus we find in philosophical Northern Buddhism (1) Adi-Buddha (or Primordial Universal Wisdom); (2) the Dhyani-Buddhas (or Bodhisattvas); (3) the Manushi (Human) Buddhas. In European conceptions we find the same: God, Angels and Humanity symbolized theologically by the God-Man. The Brahmanical Trimurti and also the three-fold body of Shiva, in Shaivism, have both been conceived on the same basis, if not altogether running on the lines of Esoteric teachings. Hence, no wonder if one finds this conception of the triple body — or the vestures of Nirmanakaya, Sambhogakaya and Dharmakaya, the grandest of the doctrines of Esoteric Philosophy — accepted in a more or less disfigured form by every religious sect, and explained quite incorrectly by the Orientalists. Thus, in its general application, the three-fold body symbolizes Buddha’s statue, his teachings and his stupas; in the priestly conceptions it applies to the Buddhist profession of faith called the Triratna, which is the formula of taking “refuge in Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha”. Popular fancy makes Buddha ubiquitous, placing him thereby on a par with an anthropomorphic god, and lowering him to the level of a tribal deity; and, as a result, it falls into flat contradictions, as in Tibet and China. Thus the exoteric doctrine seems to teach that while in his Nirmanakaya body (which passed through 100,000 kotis of transformations on earth), he, Buddha, is at the same time a Lochana (a heavenly Dhyani-Bodhisattva), in his Sambhogakaya “robe of absolute completeness”, and in Dhyana, or a state which must cut him off from the world and all its connections; and finally and lastly he is, besides being a Nirmanakaya and a Sambhogakaya, also a Dharmakaya “of absolute purity”, a Vairotchana or Dhyani-Buddha in full Nirvana! (See Eitel’s Sanskrit-Chinese Dictionary This is the jumble of contradictions, impossible to reconcile, which is given out by missionaries and certain Orientalists as the philosophical dogmas of Northern Buddhism. If not an intentional confusion of a philosophy dreaded by the upholders of a religion based on inextricable contradictions and guarded “mysteries”, then it is the product of ignorance. As the Trailokya, the Trikaya, and the Triratna are the three aspects of the same conceptions, and have to be, so to say, blended in one, the subject is further explained under each of these terms. (See also in this relation the term “Trisharana”
(SKv) Trikaya, Dharmakaya, Sambhogakaya, Nirmanakaya The Trikaya or the three glorious vestures in which the Hierarchies of spiritual beings clothe themselves are the Dharmakaya, Sambhogakaya, and the Nirmanakaya. These glorious vestures which are composed of spiritual, ethereal, and astral substances are unfolded and strengthened as a man progresses on the upward path to Nirvana. The highest Cosmic Spirits function in the Dharmakaya, the intermediate grades of spiritual beings in the Sambhogakaya, and the guardian spirits of humanity, such as a Buddha of Compassion, in the Nirmanakaya. The highest robe, the Dharmakaya or the body (kaya) of the Law (dharma), is that vesture in which all Nirvanins live. One who chooses to live in the Dharmakaya loses all sense of egoity and is freed from all the limitations and sufferings of the worlds of form beneath — “The dew-drop slips into the shining sea” of Oneness with Reality. The second and intermediate robe, the Sambhogakaya, or the vesture of sambhoga — delightful participation — is that lofty ethereal body in which a Buddha or a god may partake of a certain portion of the wisdom and bliss and repose of Nirvana and the freedom from earthly concerns and at the same time retain his self-consciousness as an individual. The third and lowest vesture of an astral texture, the Nirmanakaya, or the ‘creating’ or ‘forming’ kaya or body, is chosen by a Bodhisattva who becomes a Buddha of Compassion. He gives up the unspeakable bliss of Nirvana in order to live a ‘Secret Life’ of service to humanity.
Dr. de Purucker in his Occult Glossary describes a Nirmanakaya thus: He is one who lives on the plane of being next superior to the physical plane, and his purpose in so doing is to save men from themselves by being with them, and by continuously instilling thoughts of self-sacrifice, of self-forgetfulness, of spiritual and moral beauty, of mutual help, of compassion, and of pity.
The Nirmanakaya is sometimes considered as the highest vesture because of the wondrous self-sacrifice involved. When Gautama the Buddha died, his Divine Ego entered the Dharmakaya, his Spiritual Ego the Sambhogakaya, and his enlightened Human Ego or the Bodhisattva-part of him chose the Nirmanakaya.
(TG) Tri-kuta {Sans}. Lit., “three peaks’. The mountain on which Lanka (modern Ceylon) and its city were built. It is said, allegorically, to be a mountain range running south from Meru. And so no doubt it was before Lanka was submerged, leaving now but the highest summits of that range out of the waters. Submarine topography and geological formation must have considerably changed since the Miocene period. There is a legend to the effect that Vayu, the god of the wind, broke the summit off Meru and cast it into the sea, where it forthwith became Lanka.
(TG) Trilcohana {Sans}. Lit., “three-eyed”, an epithet of Shiva. It is narrated that while the god was engaged one day on a Himalayan summit in rigid austerities, his wife placed her hand lovingly on his third eye, which burst from Shiva’s forehead with a great flame. This is the eye which reduced Kama, the god of love (as Mara, the tempter), to ashes, for trying to inspire him during his devotional meditation with thoughts of his wife.
(TG) Trailokya, or Trilokya {Sans}. Lit., the “three regions” or worlds; the complementary triad to the Brahmanical quaternary of worlds named Bhuvanatraya. A Buddhist profane layman will mention only three divisions of every world, while a non-initiated Brahman will maintain that there are four. The four divisions of the latter are purely physical and sensuous, the Trailokya of the Buddhist are purely spiritual and ethical. The Brahmanical division may be found fully described under the heading of Vyahritis, the difference being for the present sufficiently shown in the following parallel: —
Brahmanical Division of the Worlds. — Buddhist Division of the Regions.
1. Bhur, earth. — 1. World of desire, Kamadhatu or Kamaloka. 2. Bhuvah, heaven, firmament. — 2. World of form, Rupadhatu. 3. Swar, atmosphere, the sky. — 3. The formless world, Arupadhatu. 4. Mahar, eternal luminous essence. — [See 3 above]
All these are the worlds of post mortem states. For instance, Kamaloka or Kamadhatu, the region of Mara, is that which mediaeval and modern Kabalists call the world of astral light, and the “world of shells”. Kamaloka has, like every other region, its seven divisions, the lowest of which begins on earth or invisibly in its atmosphere; the six others ascend gradually, the highest being the abode of those who have died owing to accident, or suicide in a fit of temporary insanity, or were otherwise victims of external forces. It is a place where all those who have died before the end of the term allotted to them, and whose higher principles do not, therefore, go at once into Devachanic state — sleep a dreamless sweet sleep of oblivion, at the termination of which they are either reborn immediately, or pass gradually into the Devachanic state. Rupadhatu is the celestial world of form, or what we call Devachan. With the uninitiated Brahmans, Chinese and other Buddhists, the Rupadhatu is divided into eighteen Brahma or Devalokas; the life of a soul therein lasts from half a Yuga up to 16,000 Yugas or Kalpas, and the height of the “Shades” is from half a Yojana up to 16,000 Yojanas (a Yojana measuring from five and a half to ten miles!!), and such-like theological twaddle evolved from priestly brains. But the Esoteric Philosophy teaches that though for the Egos for the time being, everything or everyone preserves its form (as in a dream), yet as Rupadhatu is a purely mental region, and a state, the Egos themselves have no form outside their own consciousness. Esotericism divides this “region” into seven Dhyanas, “regions”, or states of contemplation, which are not localities but mental representations of these. Arupadhatu: this “region” is again divided into seven Dhyanas, still more abstract and formless, for this “World” is without any form or desire whatever. It is the highest region of the post mortem Trailokya; and as it is the abode of those who are almost ready for Nirvana, and is, in fact, the very threshold of the Nirvanic state, it stands to reason that in Anupadhatu (or Arupavachara) there can be neither form nor sensation, nor any feeling connected with our three dimensional Universe.
(WG) Tri-lokas, the three worlds — of men, gods and semi-divine beings. ( tri, three; lokas, worlds
(TG) Trimurti {Sans}. Lit., “three faces”, or “triple form” — the Trinity. In the modern Pantheon these three persons are Brahma, the creator, Vishnu, the preserver, and Shiva, the destroyer. But this is an after-thought, as in the Vedas neither Brahma nor Shiva is known, and the Vedic trinity consists of Agni, Vayu and Surya; or as the Nirukta explains it, the terrestrial fire, the atmospheric (or aerial), and the heavenly fire, since Agni is the god of fire, Vayu of the air, and Surya is the sun. As the Padma Purana has it: “In the beginning, the great Vishnu, desirous of creating the whole world, became threefold: creator, preserver, destroyer. In order to produce this world, the Supreme Spirit emanated from the right side of his body, himself, as Brahma; then, in order to preserve the universe, he produced from the left side of his body Vishnu; and in order to destroy the world he produced from the middle of his body the eternal Shiva. Some worship Brahma, some Vishnu, others Shiva; but Vishnu, one yet threefold, creates, preserves, and destroys, therefore let the pious make no difference between the three.” The fact is, that all the three “persons” of the Trimurti are simply the three qualificative gunas or attributes of the universe of differentiated Spirit-Matter, self-formative, self-preserving and self-destroying, for purposes of regeneration and perfectibility. This is the correct meaning; and it is shown in Brahma being made the personified embodiment of Rajoguna, the attribute or quality of activity, of desire for procreation, that desire owing to which the universe and everything in it is called into being. Vishnu is the embodied Sattvaguna, that property of preservation arising from quietude and restful enjoyment, which characterizes the intermediate period between the full growth and the beginning of decay; while Shiva, being embodied Tamoguna — which is the attribute of stagnancy and final decay — becomes of course the destroyer. This is as highly philosophical under its mask of anthropomorphism, as it is unphilosophical and absurd to hold to and enforce on the world the dead letter of the original conception.
(FY) Trimurti, the Indian Trinity — Brahma, Vishnu and Siva, Creator, Preserver and Destroyer.
(WG) Trimurti, the name of the Hindu trinity, of Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, or creation, preservation, and destruction. In some old pictures the Trimurti is shown appearing on a lotus which springs from Krishna’s body.
(SKv) Trimurti, Brahma, Vishnu, Siva The Trimurti is the Hindu Solar Triad; a compound of tri — three, and murti — manifestation or form. This Trimurti or ‘Trinity’ is composed of Brahma, the Emanator or Evolver, Vishnu, the Sustainer or Preserver, and Siva, the Beneficent Destroyer and Regenerator. Brahma is derived from the verb-root brih — to expand; and Vishnu from the verb-root vis — to pervade. Siva is a word meaning ‘kindly,’ ‘auspicious’; thus Siva is often called ‘the Propitious One,’ because she destroys the old and worn out and degenerate, and awakens something higher and more spiritual. Imagine life, if the old never died, if all things remained the same forever! Could anything more terrible be conceived of in a Universe which is built up of beings permeated with the impulse of becoming?
The One Mightiest God of the Solar System is called Brahma when he becomes Rajasic or active and brings forth the Solar System; is called Vishnu when by means of his Sattvika quality of purity and truth he preserves all created things through the successive cycles of existence; is called Siva when, filled with the quality of Tamas, he destroys the Solar System and dies, and then reposes for a long cycle in the depths of some greater being than himself, only to come forth refreshed again to evolve still higher.
(IN) Isis Unveiled, Volume II, pages 277-8, H. P. Blavatsky says that Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva “are a trinity in a unity, and like the Christian trinity, they are mutually convertible. In the esoteric doctrine they are one and the same manifestation of him ‘whose name is too sacred to be imagined.’ “
(SP) Trimurti — the triple form or trinity of Hinduism:
Brahma — the creator Visnu — the preserver Siva — the destroyer.
(TG) Trinity. Everyone knows the Christian dogma of the “three in one” and “one in three “; therefore it is useless to repeat that which may be found in every catechism. Athanasius, the Church Father who defined the Trinity as a dogma, had little necessity of drawing upon inspiration or his own brain power; he had but to turn to one of the innumerable trinities of the heathen creeds, or to the Egyptian priests, in whose country he had lived all his life. He modified slightly only one of the three “persons”. All the triads of the Gentiles were composed of the Father, Mother, and the Son. By making it “Father, Son, and Holy Ghost”, he changed the dogma only outwardly, as the Holy Ghost had always been feminine, and Jesus is made to address the Holy Ghost as his “mother” in every Gnostic Gospel. WW Trinity (Christian) I would like to develop the Christian doctrine concerning the Trinity, because upon it hangs a good comprehension of what the Christians regard as one of the greatest mysteries of their faith Let us take the question of the Trinity first. You will remember that we came to the conclusion that the Christians were Trinitarians: they believe in a Trinity. This Trinity was composed of three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. The Trinity is not an original Christian doctrine. It was born in the early centuries of Christianity, and the reference to what are called the “three witnesses”, in the well-known verse, I John 7, 8, has been proved to be an interpolation; the three oldest codices — the Sinaitic, the Vatican, the Alexandrian, do not have it. The early Christian teaching about the Trinity was substantially this: all three persons of the Trinity are co-eternal, co-substantial, have one will; yet as there are three persons in one god-head, it is conceived to be in the nature of the Trinity that these three persons can exist, each one not separate, not apart, from the other two, but in some indefinable manner can have an individual being — as they put it, three persons in one God; not three Gods but one God, yet three persons. We can figure it possibly as a triangle, looking at it from a theosophical point of view. I do not know that the Christians will so accept it, but at least it will give some conception of what their idea seems to be. We will call this (pointing to the apex) the Father, this (pointing to left-hand corner) the Son, and this the Holy Ghost. Some of the greatest quarrels in the history of Christianity have arisen with regard to the mutual relations and dignities of the three persons, especially as concerned in the ‘incarnation’ and status of the Word, Jesus Christ. In the early centuries of Christianity, as said, there was no set doctrine; ideas were inchoate, vague, floating, before they crystallized in the Nicene Symbol (the Nicene Creed The word Nicene is from the name of a town in Bithynia, in Asia Minor, Nicaes, Nikaia in Greek, (and it is commonly called Nice in English, hence ‘Nicene’). A council was held there in the beginning of the 4th century, in 325 A.D., which had been convoked by the Emperor Constantine to determine certain theological quarrels, and here the dogmas of the Christian faith found their embodiment or exposition in the Nicene Symbol or the Nicene Creed, that settled — since this Council is considered ‘ecumenical’ or universal — so far as those churches which accepted the Nicene Creed were concerned, the dogma of the divinity of the Son, leaving the status of the Holy Ghost still rather vague. Then later, the Council held at Constantinople in 381 (the ‘second general’ Council) settled a quarrel regarding the divinity of the Holy Ghost. It set forth that the three persons are one Godhead: the Father and the Holy Ghost and the Son; the son was from God, “begotten, not made.” Being of one substance with the Father, the Holy Ghost was considered as co-essential, that is, of the same essence, co-substantial; therefore, Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost are one. In the present Nicene Creed as used by the Western Church (not by the Greek) there are the words “and from the Son” — the famous ‘filioque’ clause. Those words were first put in the Nicene Creed as an interpolation in the 6th Century. The Greek church does not recognize that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son. The Greek says that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father alone. Up until the 9th century the Roman Catholic church fought strongly for the same conception, although the Filioque Clause , meaning ” and from the son ” (“the Holy Ghost proceedeth from the Father and from the Son, who together with the Father and the Son is worshiped and glorified”) was finally accepted. We thus see that this creed is an evolution, a fruit of changing ideas. The Latin Church, that is the Church of Rome, now professes what is called the “Double procession”, that is to say, the procession, emanation of the Holy Ghost from the Father — one; and from the Son — two. The Greek Church holds to the “single procession,” to wit, that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father alone. Historically, from the standpoint of priority of belief, they are correct. Mystically, possibly as much can be said for the one as for the other; but unquestionably the early Christian faith was “from the Father”, and “and from the Son”. The Filioque Clause, about which there have been so many quarrels, was an interpolation of the 6th century. In the 9th century, as said before, the Roman Church still strongly opposed it; but in the 11th century it was the accepted and orthodox symbol, or form rather, of faith, of the Western Church. This includes the Church of Rome and nearly all Churches which in the West have more or less taken their origin from the Church of Rome — the Anglican Communion, the Lutheran Communion, etc. [[Elsewhere]] I have a great deal more to say about these things and the degree and amount by which the new faith, later called Christianity, was affected by the golden thread of Theosophy running down from archaic ages.
(TG) Tripada {Sans}. “Three-footed”, fever, personified as having three feet or stages of development — cold, heat and sweat.
(TG) Tripitaka {Sans}. Lit., “the three baskets”; the name of the Buddhist canon. It is composed of three divisions: (1) the doctrine; (2) the rules and laws for the priesthood and ascetics; (3) the philosophical dissertations and metaphysics: to wit, the Abhidharma, defined by Buddhaghosa as that law (dharma) which goes beyond (abhi) the law. The Abhidharma contains the most profoundly metaphysical and philosophical teachings, and is the store-house whence the Mahayana and Hinayana Schools got their fundamental doctrines. There is a fourth division — the Samyakta Pitaka. But as it is a later addition by the Chinese Buddhists, it is not accepted by the Southern Church of Siam and Ceylon.
(WG) Tri-pitakas, the three classes of the sacred books of the Buddhists, viz : Sutra-Pitaka, Vinaya-Pitaka and Abhidharma-Pitaka. ( tri, three; pitaka, basket, collection
(TG) Triratna, or Ratnatraya {Sans}. The Three Jewels, the technical term for the well-known formula “Buddha, Dharma and Sangha” (or Samgha), the two latter terms meaning, in modern interpretation, “religious law” (Dharma), and the “priesthood” (Sangha). Esoteric Philosophy, however, would regard this as a very loose rendering. The words “Buddha, Dharma and Sangha”, ought to be pronounced as in the days of Gautama, the Lord Buddha, namely “Bodhi, Dharma and Sangha”; and interpreted to mean “Wisdom, its laws and priests”, the latter in the sense of “spiritual exponents”, or adepts. Buddha, however, being regarded as personified “Bodhi” on earth,. a true avatar of Adi-Buddha, Dharma gradually came to be regarded as his own particular law, and Sangha as his own special priesthood. Nevertheless, it is the profane of the later (now modern) teachings who have shown a greater degree of natural intuition than the actual interpreters of Dharma, the Buddhist priests. The people see the Triratna in the three statues of Amitabha, Avalokiteshvara and Maitreya Buddha; i.e., in “Boundless Light” or Universal Wisdom, an impersonal principle which is the correct meaning of Adi-Buddha; in the “Supreme Lord” of the Bodhisattvas, or Avalokiteshvara; and in Maitreya Buddha, the symbol of the terrestrial and human Buddha, the “Manushi Buddha”. Thus, even though the uninitiated do call these three statues “the Buddhas of the Past, the Present and the Future”, still every follower of true philosophical Buddhism — called “atheistical” by Mr. Eitel — would explain the term Triratna correctly. The philosopher of the Yogacharya School would say — as well he could — Dharma is not a person but an unconditioned and underived entity, combining in itself the spiritual and material principles of the universe, whilst from Dharma proceeded, by emanation, Buddha [‘reflected’ Bodhi rather], as the creative energy which produced, in conjunction with Dharma, the third factor in the trinity, viz ., ‘Samgha’, which is the comprehensive sum total of all real life.” Samgha, then, is not and cannot be that which it is now understood to be, namely, the actual “priesthood”; for the latter is not the sum total of all real life, but only of religious life. The real primitive significance of the word Samgha or “Sangha” applies to the Arhats or Bhikshus, or the “initiates”, alone, that is to say to the real exponents of Dharma — the divine law and wisdom, coming to them as a reflex light from the one “boundless light”. Such is its philosophical meanings. And yet, far from satisfying the scholars of the Western races, this seems only to irritate them; for E. J. Eitel, of Hongkong, remarks, as to the above: “Thus the dogma of a Triratna, originating from three primitive articles of faith, and at one time culminating in the conception of three persons, a trinity in unity, has degenerated into a metaphysical theory of the evolution of three abstract principles “! And if one of the ablest European scholars will sacrifice every philosophical ideal to gross anthropomorphism, then what can Buddhism with its subtle metaphysics expect at the hands of ignorant missionaries?
(TG) Trisharana {Sans}. The same as “Triratna” and accepted by both the Northern and Southern Churches of Buddhism. After the death of the Buddha it was adopted by the councils as a mere kind of formula fidei, enjoining “to take refuge in Buddha to take refuge in Dharma”, and “to take refuge in Sangha”, or his Church, in the sense in which it is now interpreted; but it is not in this sense that the “Light of Asia” would have taught the formula. Of Trikaya, Mr. E. J. Eitel, of Hongkong, tells us in his Handbook of Chinese Buddhism that this “tricho-tomism was taught with regard to the nature of all Buddhas. Bodhi being the characteristic of a Buddha” — a distinction was made between “essential Bodhi” as the attribute of the Dharmakaya, i.e ., “essential body”; “reflected Bodhi” as the attribute of Sambhogakaya; and “practical Bodhi” as the attribute of Nirmanakaya. Buddha combining in himself these three conditions of existence, was said to be living at the same time in three different spheres. Now, this shows how greatly misunderstood is the purely pantheistical and philosophical teaching. Without stopping to enquire how even a Dharmakaya vesture can have any “attribute” in Nirvana, which state is shown, in philosophical Brahmanism as much as in Buddhism, to be absolutely devoid of any attribute as conceived by human finite thought — it will be sufficient to point to the following: — (1) the Nirmanakaya vesture is preferred by the “Buddhas of Compassion” to that of the Dharmakaya state, precisely because the latter precludes him who attains it from any communication or relation with the finite, i.e., with humanity; (2) it is not Buddha (Gautama, the mortal man, or any other personal Buddha) who lives ubiquitously in “three different spheres, at the same time”, but Bodhi, the universal and abstract principle of divine wisdom, symbolised in philosophy by Adi-Buddha. It is the latter that is ubiquitous because it is the universal essence or principle. It is Bodhi, or the spirit of Buddhaship, which, having resolved itself into its primordial homogeneous essence and merged into it, as Brahma (the universe) merges into Parabrahm, the ABSOLUTENESS — that is meant under the name of “essential Bodhi”. For the Nirvanee, or Dhyani-Buddha, must be supposed — by living in Arupadhatu, the formless state, and in Dharmakaya — to be that “essential Bodhi” itself. It is the Dhyani Bodhisattvas, the primordial rays of the universal Bodhi, who live in “reflected Bodhi” in Rupadhatu, or the world of subjective “forms”; and it is the Nirmanakayas (plural) who upon ceasing their lives of “practical Bodhi”, in the “enlightened” or Buddha forms, remain voluntarily in the Kamadhatu (the world of desire), whether in objective forms on earth or in subjective states in its sphere (the second Buddha-kshetra). This they do in order to watch over, protect and help mankind. Thus, it is neither one Buddha who is meant, nor any particular avatar of the collective Dhyani Buddhas, but verily Adi- Bodhi — the first Logos, whose primordial ray is Mahabuddhi, the Universal Soul, ALAYA, whose flame is ubiquitous, and whose influence has a different sphere in each of the three forms of existence, because, once again, it is Universal Being itself or the reflex of the Absolute. Hence, if it is philosophical to speak of Bodhi, which “as Dhyani Buddha rules in the domain of the spiritual” (fourth Buddha-kshetra or region of Buddha); and of the Dhyani Bodhisattvas “ruling in the third Buddha-kshetra” or the domain of ideation; and even of the Manushi Buddhas, who are in the second Buddha-kshetra as Nirmanakayas — to apply the “idea of a unity in trinity” to three personalities — is highly unphilosophical.
(TG) Trishna {Sans}. The fourth Nidana; spiritual love.
(WG) Trishna, thirst; thirst for life.
(OG) Trishna — {Sans} The meaning of this word is “thirst” or “longing,” but it is a technical term imbodying the idea that it is this “thirst” for the things which the human ego formerly knew, and which it wills and desires to know again — things familiar and akin to it from past experiences — which draws the intermediate nature or human ego of man back again to incarnation in earth-life. It is attracted anew to what is to it old and familiar worlds and scenes; it thirsts for the manifested life comprising them, for the things which it formerly made akin to itself; and thus is it attracted back to those spheres which it left at some preceding period of its evolutionary journey through them, when death overtook it. Its attraction to return to earth is naught but an operation of a law of nature. Here the intermediate nature or human ego sowed the seeds of thought and of action in past lives, and here therefore must it of necessity reap their fruits. It cannot reap where it has not sown, as is obvious enough. It never goes whither it is not attracted or drawn. After death has released the intermediate nature, and during long ages has given to it its period of bliss and rest and psychical recuperation — much as a quiet and reposeful night’s sleep is to the tired physical body — then, just as a man reawakens by degrees, so does this intermediate nature or human ego by degrees recede or awaken from that state of rest and bliss called devachan. And the seeds of thoughts, the seeds of actions which it had done in former lives, are now laid by in the fabric of itself — seeds whose natural energy is still unexpended and unexhausted — and inhere in that inner psychical fabric, for they have nowhere else in which to inhere, since the man produced them there and they are a part of him. These seeds of former thoughts and acts, of former emotions, desires, loves, hates, yearnings, and aspirations, each one of such begins to make itself felt as an urge earthwards, towards the spheres and planes in which they are native, and where they naturally grow and expand and develop. In this our present life, all of us are setting in motion causes in thought and in action which will bring us back to this earth in the distant future. We shall then reap the harvest of the seeds of thought and action that we are in this present life planting in the fields of our human nature. In the Pali books of the Orient this word is called tanha.
(SKf) Trishna Literally ‘thirst’ or ‘desire’; derived from the verb-root trish — to thirst, to desire. In Eastern philosophy Trishna is applied to that desire for manifested life which brings humans back and back again into earth-life. Trishna is synonymous with the Pali word Tanha (q. v.
(SP) Trsna [trishna] — thirst or craving. Pali tanha.
(TG) Trishula {Sans}. The trident of Shiva.
(TG) Trisuparna {Sans}. A certain portion of the Veda, after thoroughly studying which a Brahman is also called a Trisuparna.
(TG) Trithemius. An abbot of the Spanheim Benedictines, a very learned Kabbalist and adept in the Secret Sciences, the friend and instructor of Cornelius Agrippa.
(TG) Triton {Greek}. The son of Poseidon and Amphitrite, whose body from the waist upwards was that of a man and whose lower limbs were those of a dolphin. Triton belongs in esoteric interpretation to the group of fish symbols — such as Oannes (Dagon), the Matsya or Fish-avatar, and the Pisces, as adopted in the Christian symbolism. The dolphin is a constellation called by the Greeks Capricornus, and the latter is the Indian Makara. It has thus an anagrammatical significance, and its interpretation is entirely occult and mystical, and is known only to the advanced students of Esoteric Philosophy. Suffice to say that it is as physiological as it is spiritual and mystical. (See Secret Doctrine II., pp. 578 and 579
(WG) Triveni, the junction of the three minor currents respectively called Ida, Pingala, and Sushumna, called also best of all places of pilgrimage or Tirtharaja . This is because the discovery of these powers and currents is made by effort or pilgrimage to them, and when the spot is found complete mastery over self becomes possible.
(TG) Trividha Dvara {Sans}. Lit., the “three gates”, which are body, month, and mind; or purity of body, purity of speech, purity of thought -the three virtues requisite for becoming a Buddha.
(TG) Trividya {Sans}. Lit., “the three knowledges” or “sciences”. These are the three fundamental axioms in mysticism: — (a) the impermanency of all existence, or Anitya; (b) suffering and misery of all that lives and is, or Dukha; and (c) all physical, objective existence as evanescent and unreal as a water-bubble in a dream, or Anatma.
(TG) Trivikrama {Sans}. An epithet of Vishnu used in the Rig Veda in relation to the “three steps of Vishnu”. The first step he took on earth, in the form of Agni; the second in the atmosphere, in the form of Vayu, god of the air; and the third in the sky, in the shape of Surya, the sun.
(TG) Triyana {Sans}. “The three vehicles” across Sansara — the ocean of births, deaths, and rebirths — are the vehicles called Sravaka, Pratyeka Buddha and Bodhisattva, or the three degrees of Yogaship. The term Triyana is also used to denote the three schools of mysticism — the Mahayana, Madhymayana and Hinayana schools; of which the first is the “Greater”, the second the “Middle”, and the last the “Lesser” Vehicle. All and every system between the Greater and the Lesser Vehicles are considered “useless”. Therefore the Pratyeka Buddha is made to correspond with the Madhyimayana. For, as explained, “this (the Pratyeka Buddha state) refers to him who lives all for himself and very little for others, occupying the middle of the vehicle, filling it all and leaving no room for others”. Such is the selfish candidate for Nirvana.
(MO) Troll {Nors} Nature sprite, mischievous
(MO) Trudgalmer {Nors} (trood-yell-mer) Cosmic Thor
(VS) four modes of Truth (I 43) [[p. 20]] The “four modes of truth” are, in Northern Buddhism, Ku “suffering or misery”; Tu the assembling of temptations; Mu “their destructions” and Tau, the “path.” The “five impediments” are the knowledge of misery, truth about human frailty, oppressive restraints, and the absolute necessity of separation from all the ties of passion and even of desires. The “Path of Salvation” is the last one.
(VS) Hast not thou entered Tau, “the Path” that leads to knowledge the fourth truth ? (I 45) [[p. 22]] This is the fourth “Path” out of the five paths of rebirth which lead and toss all human beings into perpetual states of sorrow and joy. These “paths” are but sub-divisions of the One, the Path followed by Karma.
(MO) Trym {Nors} (trim) [noise, battle] A giant: our physical planet Earth
(TG) Tsanagi-Tsanami #jap. A kind of creative god in Japan.
(TG) Tsien-Sin {Chin}. The “Heaven of Mind”, Universal Ideation and Mahat, when applied to the plane of differentiation: “Tien-Sin” when referring to the Absolute.
(TG) Tsien-Tchan {Chin}. The universe of form and matter.
(TG) Tsi-tsai {Chin}. The “Self-Existent” or the “Unknown Darkness”, the root of Wuliang Sheu, “Boundless Age”, all Kabbalistic terms, which were used in China ages before the Hebrew Kabbalists adopted them, borrowing them from Chaldea and Egypt.
(TG) Tubal-Cain {Hebr}. The Biblical Kabir, “an instructor of every artificer in brass and iron”, the son of Zillah and Lamech; one with the Greek Hephaestos or Vulcan. His brother Jubal, the son of Adah and the co-uterine brother of Jabal, one the father of those “who handle the harp and organ”, and the other the father “of such as have cattle”, are also Kabiri: for, as shown by Strabo, it is the Kabiri (or Cyclopes in one sense) who made the harp for Kronos and the trident for Poseidon, while some of their other brothers were instructors in agriculture. Tubal-Cain (or Thubal-Cain) is a word used in the Master-Mason’s degree in the ritual and ceremonies of the Freemasons.
(TG) Tullia {Latin}. A daughter of Cicero, in whose tomb, as claimed by several alchemists, was found burning a perpetual lamp, placed there more than a thousand years previously.
(TG) Tum, or Toom. The “Brothers of the Tum”, a very ancient school of Initiation in Northern India in the days of Buddhist persecution. The “Tum B’hai” have now become the “Aum B’hai”, spelt, however, differently at present, both schools having merged into one. The first was composed of Kshatriyas, the second of Brahmans. The word “Tum” has a double meaning, that of darkness (absolute darkness), which as absolute is higher than the highest and purest of lights, and a sense resting on the mystical greeting among Initiates, “Thou art thou, thyself”, equivalent to saying “Thou art one with the infinite and the All”.
(MO) Tund {Nors} [tinder] A river: time
(TG) Turiya {Sans}. A state of the deepest trance — the fourth state of the Taraka Raja Yoga, one that corresponds with Atma, and on this earth with dreamless sleep — a causal condition.
(TG) Turiya Avastha {Sans}. Almost a Nirvanic state in Samadhi, which is itself a beatific state of the contemplative Yoga beyond this plane. A condition of the higher Triad, quite distinct (though still inseparable) from the conditions of Jagrat (waking), Svapna (dreaming), and Sushupti (sleeping).
(FY) Turiya Avastha, the state of Nirvana.
(WG) Turiyavastha, the fourth state of consciousness, not attainable by the ordinary man but only by Initiates. ( turiya , fourth; avastha, state
(WG) Turiyatita, a state of consciousness beyond turiyavastha; name of an Upanishad. ( turiya, fourth; atita, having passed beyond
(TG) Tushita {Sans}. A class of gods of great purity in the Hindu Pantheon. In exoteric or popular Northern Buddhism, it is a Deva-loka, a celestial region on the material plane, where all the Bodhisattvas are reborn, before they descend on this earth as future Buddhas.
(WG) Tushti, satisfaction; acquiescence; indifference.
(WG) Tyaga, forsaking; abandonment of the world of illusion.
(TG) Tyndarus {Greek}. King of Lacedaemon, the fabled husband of Leda, the mother of Castor and Pollux and of Helen of Troy.
(TG) Typhaeus {Greek}. A famous giant, who had a hundred heads like those of a serpent or dragon, and who was the reputed father of the Winds, as Siva was that of the Maruts — also “winds”. He made war against the gods, and is identical with the Egyptian Typhon.
(TG) Typhon {Egyp}. An aspect or shadow of Osiris. Typhon is not, as Plutarch asserts, the distinct “Evil Principle” or the Satan of the Jews; but rather the lower cosmic “principles” of the divine body of Osiris, the god in them — Osiris being the personified universe as an ideation, and Typhon as that same universe in its material realization. The two in one are Vishnu-Siva. The true meaning of the Egyptian myth is that Typhon is the terrestrial and material envelope of Osiris, who is the indwelling spirit thereof. In chapter 42 of the Ritual (” Book of the Dead”), Typhon is described as “Set, formerly called Thoth”. Orientalists find themselves greatly perplexed by discovering Set-Typhon addressed in some papyri as “a great and good god”, and in others as the embodiment of evil. But is not Siva, one of the Hindu Trimurti, described in some places as “the best and most bountiful of gods”, and at other times, “a dark, black, destroying, terrible” and “fierce god”? Did not Loki, the Scandinavian Typhon, after having been described in earlier times as a beneficent being, as the god of fire, the presiding genius of the peaceful domestic hearth, suddenly lose caste and become forthwith a power of evil, a cold-hell Satan and a demon of the worst kind? There is a good reason for such an invariable transformation. So long as these dual gods, symbols of good and necessary evil, of light and darkness, keep closely allied, i.e ., stand for a combination of differentiated human qualities, or of the element they represent — they are simply an embodiment of the average personal god . No sooner, however, are they separated into two entities, each with its two characteristics, than they become respectively the two opposite poles of good and evil, of light and darkness; they become in short, two independent and distinct entities or rather personalities. It is only by dint of sophistry that the Churches have succeeded to this day in preserving in the minds of the few the Jewish deity in his primeval integrity. Had they been logical they would have separated Christ from Jehovah, light and goodness from darkness and badness. And this was what happened to Osiris-Typhon; but no Orientalist has understood it, and thus their perplexity goes on increasing. Once accepted — as in the case of the Occultists — as an integral part of Osiris, just as Ahriman is an inseparable part of Ahura Mazda, and the Serpent of Genesis the dark aspect of the Elohim, blended into our “Lord God” — every difficulty in the nature of Typhon disappears. Typhon is a later name of Set, later but ancient — as early in fact as the fourth Dynasty; for in the Ritual one reads: “O Typhon-Set! I invoke thee, terrible, invisible, all-powerful god of gods, thou who destroyest and renderest desert”. Typhon belongs most decidedly to the same symbolical category as Siva the Destroyer, and Saturn — the “dark god”. In the Book of the Dead, Set, in his battle with Thoth (wisdom) — who is his spiritual counterpart — is emasculated as Saturn-Kronos was and Ouranos before him. As Siva is closely connected with the bull Nandi — an aspect of Brahma-Vishnu, the creative and preserving powers — so is Set-Typhon allied with the bull Apis, both bulls being sacred to, and allied with, their respective deities. As Typhon was originally worshipped as an upright stone, the phallus, so is Siva to this day represented and worshipped as a lingham. Siva is Saturn. Indeed, Typhon-Set seems to have served as a prototype for more than one god of the later ritualistic cycle, including even the god of the Jews, some of his ritualistic observances having passed bodily into the code of laws and the canon of religious rites of the “chosen people”. Who of the Bible-worshippers knows the origin of the scape-goat ( ez or aza) sent into the wilderness as an atonement? Do they know that ages before the exodus of Moses the goat was sacred to Typhon, and that it is over the head of that Typhonic goat that the Egyptians confessed their sins, after which the animal was turned into the desert? “And Aaron shall take the scapegoat (Azazel) . . . . and lay his hands upon the head of the live goat, and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel . . . and shall send him away . . . into the wilderness” (Leviticys.16. And as the goat of the Egyptians made an atonement with Typhon, so the goat of the Israelites “made an atonement before the Lord ” (Ibid., v. 10). Thus, if one only remembers that every anthropomorphic creative god was with the philosophical ancients the “Life-giver” and the “Death-dealer” — Osiris and Typhon, Ahura Mazda and Ahriman, etc., etc. — it will be easy for him to comprehend the assertion made by the Occultists, that Typhon was but a symbol for the lower quaternary, the ever conflicting and turbulent principles of differentiated chaotic matter, whether in the Universe or in Man, while Osiris symbolized the higher spiritual triad. Typhon is accused in the Ritual of being one who “steals reason from the soul”. Hence, he is shown fighting with Osiris and cutting him into fourteen (twice seven) pieces, after which, left without his counterbalancing power of good and light, he remains steeped in evil and darkness. In this way the fable told by Plutarch becomes comprehensible as an allegory. He asserts that, overcome in his fight with Horus, Typhon “fled seven days on an ass, and escaping begat the boys Ierosolumos and Ioudaios”. Now as Typhon was worshipped at a later period under the form of an ass, and as the name of the ass is AO, or (phonetically) IAO, the vowels mimicking the braying of the animal, it becomes evident that Typhon was purposely blended with the name of the Jewish God, as the two names of Judea and Jerusalem, begotten by Typhon — sufficiently imply.
(TG) Twashtri {Sans}. The same as Vishwakarman, “the divine artist”, the carpenter and weapon-maker of the gods. (See “Vishwakarman”
(MO) Tyr {Nors} (teer) [Ase, god] A divine power, also the regent of Mars. Tyr sacrificed his hand to help bind Fenris
(TG) Tzaila {Hebr}. A rib; see Genesis for the myth of the creation of the first woman from a rib of Adam, the first man. It is curious that no other myth describes anything like this “rib” process, except the Hebrew Bible. Other similar Hebrew words are “Tzela”, a “fall”, and Tzelem, “the image of God”. Inman remarks that the ancient Jews were fond of punning conceits, and sees one here — that Adam fell, on account of a woman, whom God made in his image, from a fall in the man’s side. [W.W.W.]
(PV) Tzakol {quiche-maya} One of six hypostases of Cabahuil. Especially associated with three other hypostases: Bitol, Alom, and Cajolom; these four are regent gods of the 4 cosmic angles. Their mediation produces light.
(TG) Tzelem {Hebr}. An image, a shadow. The shadow of the physical body of a man, also the astral body — Linga Sharira. ( See “Tzool-mah”
(TG) Tzim-tzum {Hebr}. Expansion and contraction, or, as some Kabbalists explain it — “the centrifugal and centripetal energy”.
(TG) Tziruph {Hebr}. A set of combinations and permutations of the Hebrew letters, designed to shew analogies and preserve secrets. For example, in the form called Atbash, A and T were substitutes, B and Sh, G and R, etc. [w.w.w.]
(PV) Tzolkin A sacred 260-day period, the Maya ritual calendar, called cholquih in Quiche. This 260-day count, calculated as 13 times the 20-day month, was intricately connected with other time-reckoning cycles, and applied to all important acts in life.
(FY) Tzong-ka-pa, celebrated Buddhist reformer of Tibet, who instituted the order of Gelugpa Lamas.
(TG) Tzool-mah {Hebr}. Lit., “shadow”. It is stated in the Zohar (I., 218 a, i. fol. 117 a, col. 466, that during the last seven nights of a man’s life, the Neshamah, his spirit, leaves him and the shadow, tzool-mah, acts no longer, his body casting no shadow; and when the tzool-mah disappears entirely, then Ruach and Nephesh — the soul and life — go with it. It has been often urged that in Kabbalistic philosophy there were but three, and, with the Body, Guff, four “principles”. It can be easily shown there are seven, and several subdivisions more, for there are the “upper” and the “lower “, Neshamah (the dual Manas); Ruach, Spirit or Buddhi ; Nephesh (Kama) which “has no light from her own substance”, but is associated with the Guff, Body; Tzelem, “Phantom of the Image”; and D’yooknah, Shadow of the Phantom Image, or Mayavi Rupa. Then come the Zurath, Prototypes, and Tab-nooth, Form; and finally, Tzurah, “the highest Principle (Atman) which remains above”, etc., etc. (See Myer’s Qabbalah, pp. 400 et. seq
(TG) Tzuphon {Hebr}. A name for Boreas, the Northern Wind, which some of the old Israelites deified and worshipped.
(TG) Tzurah {Hebr}. The divine prototype in the Kabbalah. In Occultism it embraces Atma-Buddhi-Manas, the Highest Triad; the eternal divine Individual. The plural is tzurath.
(TG) Tzure {Hebr}. Almost the same as the above: the prototype of the “Image ” tzelem; a Kabbalistic term used in reference to the so-called creation of the divine and the human Adam, of which the Kabala (or Kabbalah) has four types, agreeing with the root-races of men. The Jewish Occultists knew of no Adam and, refusing to recognise in the first human race Humanity with its Adam, spoke only of “primordial sparks”.
(TG) U. — The twenty-first letter of the Latin alphabet, which has no equivalent in Hebrew. As a number, however, it is considered very mystical both by the Pythagoreans and the Kabbalists, as it is the product of 3 x 7. The latter consider it the most sacred of the odd numbers, as 21 is the sum of the numerical value of the Divine Name aeie, or eiea, or again aheihe — thus (read backward, aheihe ): he i he a 5 + 10 + 5 + 1 = 21.
(IN) Alchemy it symbolizes the twenty-one days necessary for the transmutation of baser metals into silver.
(TG) Uasar {Egyp}. The same as Osiris, the latter name being Greek. Uasar is described as the “Egg-born”, like Brahma. “He is the egg-sprung Eros of Aristophanes, whose creative energy brings all things into existence; the demiurge who made and animates the world, a being who is a sort of personification of Amen, the invisible god, as Dionysos is a link between mankind and the Zeus Hypsistos” ( The Great Dionysiak Myth, Brown). Isis is called Uasi , as she is the Sakti of Osiris, his female aspect, both symbolizing the creating, energising, vital forces of nature in its aspect of male and female deity.
(TG) Uchchaih-Sravas {Sans}. The model-horse; one of the:fourteen precious things or jewels produced at the Churning of the Ocean by the gods. The white horse of Indra, called the Raja of horses.
(GH) Uchchaihsravas The white horse produced by the gods at the churning of the ocean (see Ananta). He became the steed of Indra , and is regarded as the model horse, ‘the king of horses.’ (Meaning of the word itself: neighing aloud. Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 74)
(TG) Uchnicha, also Buddhochnicha {Sans}. Explained as “a protuberance on Buddha’s cranium, forming a hair-tuft”. This curious description is given by the Orientalists, varied by another which states that Uchnicha was “originally a conical or flame-shaped hair tuft on the crown of a Buddha, in later ages represented as a fleshy excrescence on the skull itself”. This ought to read quite the reverse; for esoteric philosophy would say: Originally an orb with the third eye in it, which degenerated later in the human race into a fleshy protuberance, to disappear gradually, leaving in its place but an occasional flame-coloured aura, perceived only through clairvoyance, and when the exuberance of spiritual energy causes the (now concealed) “third eye” to radiate its superfluous magnetic power. At this period of our racial development, it is of course the “Buddhas” or Initiates alone who enjoy in full the faculty of the “third eye”, as it is more or less atrophied in everyone else.
(TG) Udana {Sans}. Extemporaneous speeches; also Sutras. In philosophy the term applies to the physical organs of speech, such as tongue, mouth, voice, etc. In sacred literature in general, it is the name of those Sutras which contain extemporaneous discourses, in distinction to the Sutras that contain only that subject matter which is introduced by questions put to Gautama the Buddha and his replies.
(WG) Udasini, indifferent, free from affection; a stoic philosopher; a religious mendicant. ( ud, apart; asini, sitting: sitting apart
(TG) Udayana {Sans}. Modern Peshawer. “The classic land of sorcery “, according to Hiouen-Thsang.
(TG) Udayana Raja {Sans}. A king of Kausambi, called Vatsaraja, who was the first to have a statue of Buddha made before his death; in consequence of which, say the Roman Catholics, who build statues of Madonnas and Saints at every street corner — he “became the originator of Buddhist IDOLATRY”.
(TG) Udra Ramaputra {Sans}. Udra, the son of Rama. A Brahmin ascetic, who was for some years the Guru of Gautama Buddha.
(TG) Udumbara {Sans}. A lotus of gigantic size, sacred to Buddha: the Nila Udumbara or “blue lotus”, regarded as a supernatural omen whenever it blossoms, for it flowers but once every three thousand years. One such, it is said, burst forth before the birth of Gautama, another, near a lake at the foot of the Himalayas, in the fourteenth century, just before the birth of Tsong-kha-pa, etc., etc. The same is said of the Udumbara tree (ficus glomerata) because it flowers at intervals of long centuries, as does also a kind of cactus, which blossoms only at extraordinary altitudes and opens at midnight.
(SKv) Udumbara, Nilodumbara The Udumbara (of unknown derivation) is the Ficus glomerata, one of the varieties of the fig-tree which is held sacred in India. Udumbara is also applied to a species of lotus, called the Nila-Udumbara or Nilodumbara, ‘the blue-lotus.’ The blossom of this plant is of such rare occurrence that it is considered to presage some great event. The Voice of the Silence says: Arhans and Sages of the boundless Vision are rare as is the blossom of the Udumbara tree. — Fragment II
(IN) H. P. Blavatsky’s Theosophical Glossary we find under the word Udumbara :
A lotus of gigantic size, sacred to Buddha: the Nila-Udumbara or “blue lotus,” regarded as a supernatural omen whenever it blossoms, for it flowers but once every three thousand years. One such, it is said, burst forth before the birth of Gautama, another, near a lake at the foot of the Himalayas, in the fourteenth century, just before the birth of Tsong-kha-pa, etc., etc. The same is said of the Udumbara tree ( ficus glomerata ) because it flowers at intervals of long centuries, as does also a kind of cactus, which blossoms only at extraordinary altitudes and opens at midnight.
(TG) Ullambana {Sans}. The festival of “all souls”, the prototype of All Souls’ Day in Christian lands. It is held in China on the seventh moon annually, when both “Buddhist and Tauist priests read masses, to release the souls of those who died on land or sea from purgatory, scatter rice to feed Pretas [thirty-six classes of demons ever hungry and thirsty], consecrate domestic ancestral shrines, . . . . recite Tantras . . . accompanied by magic finger-play (mudra) to comfort the ancestral spirits of seven generations in Naraka” (a kind of purgatory or Kama Loka ). The author of the Sanskrit-Chinese Dictionary thinks that this is the old Tibetan (Bohn) “Gtorma ritual engrafted upon Confucian ancestral worship,” owing to Dharmaraksha translating the Ullambana Sutra and introducing it into China. The said Sutra is certainly a forgery, as it gives these rites on the authority of Sakyamuni Buddha, and “supports it by the alleged experiences of his principal disciples, Ananda being said to have appeased Pretas by food offerings”. But as correctly stated by Mr. Eitel, “the whole theory, with the ideas of intercessory prayers, priestly litanies and requiems, and ancestral worship, is entirely foreign to ancient and Southern Buddhism”. And to the Northern too, if we except the sects of Bhootan and Sikkim, of the Bhon or Dugpa persuasion — the red caps, in short. As the ceremonies of All Saints’ Day, or days, are known to have been introduced into China in the third century (265-292), and as the same Roman Catholic ceremonial and ritual for the dead, held on November 2nd, did not exist in those early days of Christianity, it cannot be the Chinese who borrowed this religious custom from the Latins, but rather the latter who imitated the Mongolians and Chinese.
(TG) Uller {Nors}. The god of archery, who “journeys over the silvery ice-ways on skates”. He is the patron of the chase during that period when the Sun passes over the constellation of Sagittarius; and lives in the “Home of the Light-Elves” which is in the Sun and outside of Asgard.
(MO) Ull {Nors} An Ase: the god of a highly spiritual, unmanifest world
(TG) Ulom {Phoen}. The intelligible deity. The objective or material Universe, in the theogony of Mochus. The reflection of the ever-concealed deity; the Pleroma of the Gnostics.
(TG) Ulphilas {Nors}. A schoolman who made a new alphabet for the Goths in the fourth century — a union of Greek letters with the form of the runic alphabet, since which time the runes began to die out and their secret was gradually lost. (See “Runes” He translated the Bible into Gothic, preserved in the Codex Argenteus .
(TG) Ulupi {Sans}. A daughter of Kauravya, King of the Nagas in Patala (the nether world, or more correctly, the Antipodes, America). Exoterically, she was the daughter of a king or chief of an aboriginal tribe of the Nagas, or Nagals (ancient adepts) in pre-historic America — Mexico most likely, or Uruguay. She was married to Arjuna, the disciple of Krishna, whom every tradition, oral and written, shows travelling five thousand years ago to Patala (the Antipodes). The Puranic tale is based on a historical fact. Moreover, Ulupi, as a name, has a Mexican ring in it, like “Atlan”, “Aclo”, etc.
(TG) Uma-Kanya {Sans}. Lit., “Virgin of Light”; a title ill-befitting its possessor, as it was that of Durga Kali, the goddess or female aspect of Siva. Human flesh was offered to her every autumn; and, as Durga, she was the patroness of the once murderous Thugs of India, and the special goddess of Tantrika sorcery. But in days of old it was not as it is now. The earliest mention of the title “Uma-Kanya” is found in the Kena-Upanishad ; in it the now blood-thirsty Kali, was a benevolent goddess, a being of light and goodness, who brings about reconciliation between Brahma and the gods. She is Saraswati and she is Vach. In esoteric symbology, Ka1i is the dual type of the dual soul — the divine and the human, the light and the dark soul of man.
(TG) Umbra {Latin}. The shadow of an earth-bound spook. The ancient Latin races divided man (in esoteric teachings) into seven principles, as did every old system, and as Theosophists do now. They believed that after death Anima, the pure divine soul, ascended to heaven, a place of bliss; Manes (the Kama Rupa) descended into Hades (Kama Loka); and Umbra (or astral double, the Linga Sharira ) remained on earth hovering about its tomb, because the attraction of physical, objective matter and affinity to its earthly body kept it within the places which that body had impressed with its emanations. Therefore, they said that nothing but the astral image of the defunct could be seen on earth, and even that faded out with the disintegration of the last particle of the body which had been so long its dwelling.
(TG) Una {Sans}. Something underlying; subordinate; secondary also, and material.
(TG) Undines {Latin}. Water nymphs and spooks. One of the four principal kinds of elemental spirits, which are Salamanders (fire), Sylphs (air), Gnomes (earth), and Undines (water).
UNIVERSAL BROTHERHOOD
Katherine Tingley:
There should be in all things one single devotion, one motive, one desire and aspiration. Differences of nature and mind are inevitable; each should therefore accord to all the same toleration he asks for himself, and then the single thread of devotion will unite all into one Universal Brotherhood. The power would be immense; if this were put into operation it would send to all, along the invisible but real currents, a stream of help for mind, soul, and body, uniting all on the inner plane, and thus show the world the real power of co-operation on all the planes of force and consciousness . . . None can grow in the truest sense spiritually, unless he has suffered till his mind and heart are attuned to the heartache of the world.
(KT) Universal Brotherhood. The sub-title of the Theosophical Society, and the first of the three objects professed by it.
(OG) Universal Brotherhood — Universal brotherhood as understood in the esoteric philosophy, and which is a sublime natural fact of universal nature, does not signify merely sentimental unity, or a simple political or social cooperation. Its meaning is incomparably wider and profounder than this. The sense inherent in the words in their widest tenor or purport is the spiritual brotherhood of all beings ; particularly, the doctrine implies that all human beings are inseparably linked together, not merely by the bonds of emotional thought or feeling, but by the very fabric of the universe itself, all men — as well as all beings, both high and low and intermediate — springing forth from the inner and spiritual sun of the universe as its hosts of spiritual rays. We all come from this one source, that spiritual sun, and are all builded of the same life-atoms on all the various planes. It is this interior unity of being and of consciousness, as well as the exterior union of us all, which enables us to grasp intellectually and spiritually the mysteries of the universe; because not merely ourselves and our own fellow human beings, but also all other beings and things that are, are children of the same kosmic parent, great Mother Nature, in all her seven (and ten) planes or worlds of being. We are all rooted in the same kosmic essence, whence we all proceeded in the beginning of the primordial periods of world evolution, and towards which we are all journeying back. This interlocking and interblending of the numberless hierarchies of beings forming the universe itself extends everywhere, in the invisible worlds as well as in the worlds which are visible. Finally, it is upon this fact of the spiritual unity of all beings and things that reposes the basis and foundation of human ethics when these last are properly understood. In the esoteric philosophy ethics are no mere human convention or rules of action convenient and suitable for the amelioration of the asperities of human intercourse, but are fundamental in the very structure and inextricably coordinated operations of the universe itself.
(FY) Universal Manas, the universal spirit.
(OG) Universal Self — The universal self is the heart of the universe, for these two phrases are but two manners of expressing the same thing. It is the source of our being; it is also the goal whither we are all marching, we and the hierarchies above us as well as the hierarchies and the entities which compose them inferior to us. All come from the same ineffable source, the heart of being, the universal self. All pass at one period of their evolutionary journey through the stage of humanity, gaining thereby self-consciousness or the ego-self, the “I am I,” and they find this ego-self or consciousness, as they advance along this evolutionary path, expanding gradually into universal consciousness — an expansion, however, which never has an end, because the universal consciousness is endless, limitless, boundless, and without any frontiers whatsoever. ( See also Paramatman; Self)
(OG) Universe — The theosophical philosophy divides the universe into two general functional portions — one the consciousness side, the abode or dwelling place, and at the same time the aggregate, of all the self-conscious, thinking entities that the boundless universe contains; and the other, the material side of nature, which is their schoolhouse, their home, and their playground too. This so-called material side is a practically infinite aggregate of monads or consciousness-centers passing through that particular phase of their evolutionary journey. This universe, therefore, is a vast aggregate of consciousnesscenters in both the two functional portions of it; and these consciousness-centers theosophists call monads. They are entities conscious in differing degrees, stretching along the boundless scale of the universal life; but in that particular phase which passes through what we humans call matter, those monads belonging to and forming that side of the universe, in the course of their long, long, evolutionary journey have not yet attained self-conscious powers or faculties. And furthermore, what we call matter, in its last analysis is actually an aggregate of these monads manifesting in their physical expressions as life-atoms. The consciousness side of universal nature, which also consists of countless hosts of self-conscious entities, works in and through this other or material side; for these hosts of consciousnesses self-express themselves through this other or material function or side, through these other countless hosts of younger and inferior and embryo entities, which are the life-atoms — embryo gods. The universe is therefore actually and literally imbodied consciousnesses. WW Universe Now Universe is the most general term of the four before us. I am subject to correction, but I believe that in my reading in English it has always struck me as being properly applied as signifying all the immensity of what is commonly called creation, all the immensity of visible being, and would include of course not only our solar system, but other solar systems, the galaxy, etc. If then, the Universe means the immensity of visible being, Pleroma would mean the immensity of the interior spheres. But Universe is best applied as meaning all that is — both inner and outer.
(WG) Upachaya, accumulation, aggregation.
(TG) Upadana {Sans}. Material Cause; as flax is the cause of linen.
(TG) Upadana Karanam {Sans}. The material cause of an effect.
(FY) Upadana Karnam, the material cause of an effect.
(TG) Upadhi {Sans}. Basis; the vehicle, carrier or bearer of something less material than itself: as the human body is the upadhi of its spirit, ether the upadhi of light, etc., etc.: a mould; a defining or limiting substance.
(KT) Upadhi {Sans} Basis of something, substructure; as in Occultism — substance is the upadhi of Spirit.
(VS) Upadhi (I 40) of the Flame [[p. 19]] The basis (upadhi) of the ever unreachable “FLAME,” so long as the ascetic is still in this life.
(FY) Upadhis, bases.
(WG) Upadhi, foundation, basis.
(OG) Upadhi — {Sans} A word which is used in various senses in Indian philosophy, the vocable itself meaning “limitation” or “a peculiarity” and hence “a disguise”; and from this last meaning arises the expression “vehicle,” which it often bears in modern theosophical philosophy. The gist of the word signifies “that which stands forth following a model or pattern,” as a canvas, so to say, upon which the light from a projecting lantern plays. An upadhi therefore, mystically speaking, is like a play of shadow and form, when compared with the ultimate reality, which is the cause of this play of shadow and form. Man may be considered as a being composed of three (or even four) essential upadhis or bases.
(SKv) Upadhi ‘An appearance, a disguise’; derived from the verb-root dha plus the prepositional prefix upa, meaning in combination ‘to put on.’ In Hindu philosophy an Upadhi is a ‘vehicle’ or ‘base,’ that which is the mere appearance of some unseen Reality or consciousness center.
(IN) Upadhi {Sans} “Vehicle” or body on any plane.
(SP) Upadhi — a vehicle or body [See sarira]. sthulopadhi — the gross body karanopadhi — the causal body suksmopadhi — the subtle body
(WG) Upadrashta, the absolute consciousness within us.
(TG) Upadvipas {Sans}. The root (underlying) of islands; dry land.
(VS) Upadya (III 1) [p. 45] Upadya is a spiritual preceptor, a Guru. The Northern Buddhists choose these generally among the “Narjol,” saintly men, learned in gotrabhu-gnyana and gnyana-dassana-suddhi teachers of the Secret Wisdom.
(WG) Upamana, comparison, analogy; in Nyaya philosophy, the third of the four means of correct knowledge.
(FY) Upamiti, analogy.
(FY) Upanayana, investure with the Brahmanical thread.
(WG) Upanayana, the ceremony of investiture with the sacred thread of the two higher Hindu castes; initiation. (Literally, “leading to [a teacher.]”)
UPANISHAD
(IN)vocation — Katherine Tingley
Oh my Divinity! Thou dost blend with the earth and fashion for thyself Temples of mighty power.
Oh my Divinity! Thou livest in the heart-life of all things and dost radiate a Golden Light that shineth forever and doth illumine even the darkest corners of the earth.
Oh my Divinity! Blend thou with me that from the corruptible I may become Incorruptible; that from imperfection I may become Perfection; that from darkness I may go forth in Light.
(TG) Upanishad {Sans}. Translated as “esoteric doctrine”, or interpretation of the Vedas by the Vedanta methods. The third division of the Vedas appended to the Brahmanas and regarded as a portion of Sruti or “revealed” word. They are, however, as records, far older than the Brahmanas — with the exception of the two, still extant, attached to the Rig-Veda of the Aitareyins. The term Upanishad is explained by the Hindu pundits as “that which destroys ignorance, and thus produces liberation” of the spirit, through the knowledge of the supreme though hidden truth; the same, therefore, as that which was hinted at by Jesus, when he is made to say, “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” ( John viii. 32). It is from these treatises of the Upanishads — themselves the echo of the primeval Wisdom-Religion — that the Vedanta system of philosophy has been developed. (See “Vedanta” Yet old as the Upanishads may be, the Orientalists will not assign to the oldest of them more than an antiquity of 600 years B.C. The accepted number of these treatises is 150, though now no more than about twenty are left unadulterated. They treat of very abstruse, metaphysical questions, such as the origin of the Universe; the nature and the essence of the Unmanifested Deity and the manifested gods: the connection, primal and ultimate, of spirit and matter; the universality of mind and the nature of the human Soul and Ego. The Upanishads must be far more ancient than the days of Buddhism, as they show no preference for, nor do they uphold, the superiority of the Brahmans as a caste. On the contrary, it is the (now) second caste, the Kshatriya, or warrior class, who are exalted in the oldest of them. As stated by Professor Cowell in Elphinstone’s History of India — “they breathe a freedom of spirit unknown to any earlier work except the Rig-Veda .” The great teachers of the higher knowledge and Brahmans are continually represented as going to Kshatriya Kings to become their pupils .” The “Kshatriya Kings” were in the olden times, like the King-Hierophants of Egypt, the receptacles of the highest divine knowledge and wisdom, the Elect and the incarnations of the primordial divine Instructors — the Dhyani Buddhas or Kumaras. There was a time, aeons before the Brahmans became a caste, or even the Upanishads were written, when there was on earth but one “lip”, one religion and one science, namely, the speech of the gods, the Wisdom-Religion and Truth. This was before the fair fields of the latter, overrun by nations of many languages, became overgrown with the weeds of intentional deception, and national creeds invented by ambition, cruelty and selfishness, broke the one sacred Truth into thousands of fragments.
(KT) Upanishad {Sans} Lit., “Esoteric Doctrine.” The third Division of the Vedas, and classed with revelations ( Sruti or “revealed word”). Some 150 of the Upanishads still remain extant, though no more than about twenty can be fully relied upon as free from falsification. These are all earlier than the sixth century B.C. Like the Kabala, which interprets the esoteric sense of the Bible, so the Upanishads explain the mystic sense of the Vedas. Professor Cowell has two statements regarding the Upanishads as interesting as they are correct. Thus he says: (1) These works have “one remarkable peculiarity, the total absence of any Brahmanical exclusiveness in their doctrine. . . . They breathe an entirely different spirit, a freedom of thought unknown in any earlier work except the Rig Veda hymns themselves; and (2) the great teachers of the higher knowledge (Gupta Vidya), and Brahmans, are continually represented as going to Kshatriya Kings to become their pupils” (chelas). This shows conclusively that ( a ) the Upanishads were written before the enforcement of caste and Brahmanical power, and are thus only second in antiquity to the Vedas; and ( b ) that the occult sciences or the “higher knowledge,” as Cowell puts it, is far older than the Brahmans in India, or even of them as a caste. The Upanishads are, however, far later than Gupta Vidya, or the “Secret Science” which is as old as human philosophical thought itself.
(FY) Upanishads, Brahmanical Scriptures appended to the Vedas, containing the esoteric doctrine of the Brahmans.
(WG) Upanishads, ancient Sanskrit mystical writings, by many authors. The actual number of Upanishads is not known. Muller placed them at 149 in 1865; Weber at 235; there are, however, many more. Those translated and edited by Muller are: Chandogya, Talavakara, Aitareya, Kaushitaka, Vajaseneya, Sanhita, Katha, Mundaka, Taitiriyaka, Brihadaranyaka, Svetasvatara, Prasna, and Maitreyana-Brahmana. (Literally, “secret knowledge.”)
(OG) Upanishad — {Sans} A compound, composed of upa “according to,” “together with,” ni “down,” and the verbal root sad , “to sit,” which becomes shad by Sanskrit grammar when preceded by the particle ni : the entire compound thus signifying “following upon or according to the teachings which were received when we were sitting down.” The figure here is that of pupils sitting in the Oriental style at the feet of the teacher, who taught them the secret wisdom or rahasya, in private and in forms and manners of expression that later were written and promulgated according to those teachings and after that style. The Upanishads are examples of literary works in which the rahasya — a Sanskrit word meaning “esoteric doctrine” or “mystery” — is imbodied. The Upanishads belong to the Vedic cycle and are regarded by orthodox Brahmans as a portion of the sruti or “revelation.” It was from these wonderful quasi-esoteric and very mystical works that was later developed the highly philosophical and profound system called the Vedanta. The Upanishads are usually reckoned today as one hundred and fifty in number, though probably only a score are now complete without evident marks of literary change or adulteration in the way of excision or interpolation. The topics treated of in the Upanishads are highly transcendental, recondite, and abstruse, and in order properly to understand the Upanishadic teaching one should have constantly in mind the master-keys that theosophy puts into the hand of the student. The origin of the universe, the nature of the divinities, the relations between soul and ego, the connections of spiritual and material beings, the liberation of the evolving entity from the chains of maya, and kosmological questions, are all dealt with, mostly in a succinct and cryptic form. The Upanishads, finally, may be called the exoteric theosophical works of Hindustan, but contain a vast amount of genuine esoteric information.
(IN) Upanishad {Sans} Esoteric doctrine; philosophical texts belonging to the Vedic cycle.
(SP)upanishad — a philosophical text belonging to the fourth layer of the Veda .
(TG) Upanita {Sans}. One who is invested with the Brahmanical thread, Lit., “brought to a spiritual teacher or Guru”.
(FY) Upanita, one who is invested with the Brahmanical thread; ( lit. “brought to a spiritual teacher”).
(TG) Uparati {Sans}. Absence of outgoing desires; a Yoga state.
(FY) Uparati, absence of out-going desires.
(WG) Uparati, ceasing, stopping; the renunciation of all formal religion — the third qualification of a disciple.
(TG) Upasaka {Sans}. Male chelas or rather devotees. Those who without entering the priesthood vow to preserve the principal commandments.
(SKs) Upasaka, Upasika An Upasaka is a disciple or chela, a devoted servant and follower of the Higher Laws of Life, or of a spiritual teacher. Upasika is the feminine form of Upasaka. Upasaka is derived from the verb-root as — to sit, and upa — near; hence implying ‘to serve,’ ‘to honor.’ In Buddhism an Upasaka is a lay-disciple, or one who follows the Pancha Sila or ‘Five Precepts.’
(SP) Upasaka — a Buddhist layman; upasika a Buddhist laywoman.
(WG) Upasama, cessation, stopping; quiet; tranquillity; patience.
(WG) Upasana, devotion, adoration; religious meditation. (Literally, “sitting by the side of [Isvara.]”)
(FY) The Laws of Upasanas, chapter in the Book iv. of Kiu-te on the rules for aspirants for chelaship.
(TG) Upasika {Sans}. Female chelas or devotees.
(TG) Upasruti {Sans}. According to Orientalists a ” supernatural voice which is heard at night revealing the secrets of the future”. According to the explanation of Occultism, the voice of any person at a distance — generally one versed in the mysteries of esoteric teachings or an adept — endowed with the gift of projecting both his voice and astral image to any person whatsoever, regardless of distance. The upasruti may “reveal the secrets of the future”, or may only inform the person it addresses of some prosaic fact of the present; yet it will still be an upasruti — the “double” or the echo of the voice of a living man or woman.
(WG) Upaya, that by which one reaches an aim, expedient, means.
(TG) Upeksha {Sans}. Lit., Renunciation. In Yoga a state of absolute indifference attained by self-control, the complete mastery over one’s mental and physical feelings and sensations.
(TG) Ur {Chald} . The chief seat of lunar worship; the Babylonian city where the moon was the chief deity, and whence Abram brought the Jewish god, who is so inextricably connected with the moon as a creative and generative deity.
(TG) Uraeus {Greek}. In Egyptian Urhek, a serpent and a sacred symbol. Some see in it a cobra, while others say it is an asp. Cooper explains that “the asp is not a uraeus but a cerastes, or kind of viper, i.e., a two-horned viper. It is the royal serpent, wearing the pschent . . . the naya haje .” The uraeus is “round the disk of Horus and forms the ornament of the cap of Osiris, besides overhanging the brows of other divinities” (Bonwick). Occultism explains that the uraeus is the symbol of initiation and also of hidden wisdom, as the serpent always is. The gods were all patrons of the hierophants and their instructors.
(TG) Uragas {Sans}. The Nagas (serpents) dwelling in Patala, the nether world or hell, in popular thought; the Adepts, High Priests and Initiates of Central and South America, known to the ancient Aryans; where Arjuna wedded the daughter of the king of the Nagas — Ulupi. Nagalism or Naga-worship prevails to this day in Cuba and Hayti, and Voodooism, the chief branch of the former, has found its way into New Orleans. In Mexico the chief “sorcerers”, the “medicine men”, are called Nagals to this day; just as thousands of years ago the Chaldean and Assyrian High Priests were called Nargals , they being chiefs of the Magi (Rab-Mag), the office held at one time by the prophet Daniel. The word Naga, “wise serpent”, has become universal, because it is one of the few words that have survived the wreck of the first universal language. In South as well as in Central and North America, the aborigines use the word, from Behring Straits down to Uruguay, where it means a “Chief”, a “teacher”, and a “serpent”. The very word Uraga may have reached India and been adopted through its connection, in prehistoric times, with South America and Uruguay itself, for the name belongs to the American Indian vernacular. The origin of the Uragas, for all that the Orientalists know, may have been in Uruguai, as there are legends about them which locate their ancestors the Nagas in Patala , the antipodes, or America.
(WG) Uragas, an order of celestial beings, higher elementals, who possess great knowledge. They are usually represented as semi-divine serpents, having human heads of great beauty. ( uras , breast; ga, going: going upon the breast
(GH) Uragas A class of semi-divine serpents, usually associated with the Nagas and represented as a serpent with a human face. W. Q. Judge comments “it must refer to the great Masters of Wisdom, who were often called Serpents.” ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 80) (Meaning of the word itself: breast-going, i.e., a serpent
(TG) Uranides {Greek}. One of the names of the divine Titans, those who rebelled against Kronos, the prototypes of the Christian “fallen” angels.
(WG) Urdhva-loka, the world above, heaven. ( urdhva, upper; loka, world
(TG) Urim {Hebr}. See “Thummim”. The “Urim and Thummim” originated in Egypt, and symbolized the Two Truths, the two figures of Ra and Thmei being engraved on the breastplate of the Hierophant and worn by him during the initiation ceremonies. Diodorus adds that this necklace of gold and precious stones was worn by the High Priest when delivering Judgment. Thme (plural Thmin ) means “Truth” in Hebrew. “The Septuagint translates thummim, as Truth ” (Bonwick). The late Mr. Proctor, the astronomer, shows the Jewish idea “derived directly from the Egyptians”. But Philo Judaeus affirms that Urim and Thummim were “the two small images of Revelation and Truth, put between the double folds of the breastplate”, and passes over the latter, with its twelve stones typifying the twelve signs of the Zodiac, without explanation.
(TG) Urlak {Nors}. The same as “Orlog” . Fate; an impersonal power bestowing gifts “blindly” on mortals; a kind of Nemesis.
(FY) Urvanem, spiritual ego; sixth principle.
(TG) Urvasi {Sans}. A divine nymph, mentioned in the Rig-Veda , whose beauty set the whole heaven ablaze. Cursed by the gods she descended to earth and settled there. The loves of Pururavas (the Vikrama), and the nymph Urvasi are the subject of Kalidasa’s world-famous drama, the Vikramorvasi.
(TG) Usanas {Sans}. The planet Venus or Sukra; or rather the ruler and governor of that planet.
(WG) Usanas, the planet Venus.
(GH) Usanas An ancient sage and prophet-seer, descendant of the Kavyas or Kavyas. (Also the name of the planet Venus and its regent ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 76)
(TG) Ushas {Sans}. The dawn, the daughter of heaven; the same as the Aurora of the Latins and the aos of the Greeks. She is first mentioned in the Vedas, wherein her name is also Ahana and Dyotana (the illuminator), and is a most poetical and fascinating image. She is the ever-faithful friend of men, of rich and poor, though she is believed to prefer the latter. She smiles upon and visits the dwelling of every living mortal. She is the immortal, ever-youthful virgin, the light of the poor, and the destroyer of darkness.
(WG) Ushmapa, a spirit of an inferior order, a deceased ancestor. (Literally, “feeder on warmth.”)
(GH) Ushmapas A class of semi-divine beings, associated with the Pitris . (from ushma, heat, vapor, steam. Bhagavad-Gita , W. Q. Judge, p. 81)
(SKf) Ushnisha A diadem or crown symbolizing ‘the Buddhic or Christos fire,’ or the spiritual illumination that surrounds the bead of a spiritually enlightened man or Bodhisattva. Ushnisha is derived from ush — to be flaming, to be fiery.
(FY) Ushtanas, vital force; second principle.
(GH) Uttamaujas A warrior on the side of the Pandavas. (Meaning of the word itself: of excellent valor. Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 2)
(TG) Uttara Mimansa {Sans}. The second of the two Mimansas — the first being Purva (first) Mimansa, which form respectively the fifth and sixth of the Darshanas or schools of philosophy. The Mimansa are included in the generic name of Vedanta, though it is the Uttara (by Vyasa) which is really the Vedanta .
(PV) Uuc-cheknal The god-Seven of Maya mythology, identical with the Seven Ahpu or god-Seven of Quiche myth.
(TG) Uzza {Hebr}. The name of an angel who, together with Azrael, opposed, as the Zohar teaches, the creation of man by the Elohim, for which the latter annihilated both.
(TG) V. — The twenty-second letter of the Latin alphabet. Numerically it stands for 5; hence the Roman V (with a dash) stands for 5,000. The Western Kabbalists have connected it with the divine Hebrew name IHVH. The Hebrew Vau, however, being number 6, it is only by being identical with the W, that it can ever become a proper symbol for the male-female, and spirit-matter. The equivalent for the Hebrew Vau is YO, and in numerals 6.
(TG) Vach {Sans}. To call Vach “speech” simply, is deficient in clearness. Vach is the mystic personification of speech, and the female Logos, being one with Brahma, who created her out of one-half of his body, which he divided into two portions; she is also one with Viraj (called the “female” Viraj) who was created in her by Brahma. In one sense Vach is “speech” by which knowledge was taught to man; in another she is the “mystic, secret speech” which descends upon and enters into the primeval Rishis, as the “tongues of fire” are said to have “sat upon” the apostles. For, she is called “the female creator”, the “mother of the Vedas “, etc., etc. Esoterically, she is the subjective Creative Force which, emanating from the Creative Deity (the subjective Universe, its “privation”, or ideation) becomes the manifested “world of speech “, i.e., the concrete expression of ideation, hence the “Word” or Logos. Vach is “the male and female” Adam of the first chapter of Genesis, and thus called “Vach-Viraj” by the sages. (See Atharva Veda She is also “the celestial Saraswati produced from the heavens”, a “voice derived from speechless Brahma” (Mahabharata); the goddess of wisdom and eloquence. She is called Sata-rupa, the goddess of a hundred forms.
(FY) Vach, speech; the Logos; the mystic Word.
(WG) Vach, speech, word; the mystic Word, the Logos or collective host of Dhyan Chohans.
(OG) Vach — {Sans} A term which means “speech” or “word”; and by the same procedure of mystical thought which is seen in ancient Greek mysticism, wherein the Logos is not merely the speech or word of the Divinity, but also the divine reason, so Vach has come to mean really more than merely word or speech. The esoteric Vach is the subjective creative intelligent force which, emanating from the subjective universe, becomes the manifested or concrete expression of ideation, hence Word or Logos. Mystically, therefore, Vach may be said to be the feminine or vehicular aspect of the Logos, or the power of the Logos when enshrined within its vehicle or sheath of action. Vach in India is often called Sata-rupa, “the hundred-formed.” Cosmologically in one sense daiviprakriti may be said to be a manifestation or form of Vach.
(MO) Vac or Vach {Sans} voice, speech] Hindu first sound. See also Audhumla
(SP) Vac [vach] — speech or word.
(TG) Vacuum {Latin}. The symbol of the absolute Deity or Boundless Space, esoterically.
(MO) Vaftrudnir {Nors} (vahv-trood-ner) [ vaf wrap, weave + thrudr doughy] The weaver of strong webs (of illusion)
(MO) Vagtam {Nors} (vayg-tahm) [ vag way + tam wont] Pilgrim
(TG) Vahana {Sans}. A vehicle, the carrier of something immaterial and formless. All the gods and goddesses are, therefore, represented as using vahanas to manifest themselves, which vehicles are ever symbolical. So, for instance, Vishnu has during Pralayas, Ananta “the infinite” (Space), symbolized by the serpent Sesha, and during the Manvantaras — Garuda the gigantic half-eagle, half-man, the symbol of the great cycle; Brahma appears as Brahma, descending into the planes of manifestations on Kalahamsa, the “swan in time or finite eternity”; Siva (Shiva) appears as the bull Nandi; Osiris as the sacred bull Apis; Indra travels on an elephant; Karttikeya, on a peacock; Kamadeva on Makara, at other times a parrot; Agni, the universal (and also solar) Fire-god, who is, as all of them are, “a consuming Fire”, manifests itself as a ram and a lamb, Aja, “the unborn”; Varuna, as a fish; etc., etc., while the vehicle of MAN is his body.
(KT) Vahan {Sans} “Vehicle,” a synonym of Upadhi.
(WG) Vahan, vehicle, carrier.
(OG) Vahana — {Sans} A “vehicle” or carrier. This word has a rather wide currency in philosophical and esoteric and occult thought. Its signification is a bearer or vehicle of some entity which, through this carrier or vehicle, is enabled to manifest itself on planes or in spheres or worlds hierarchically inferior to its own. Thus the vahana of man is, generally speaking, his body, although indeed man’s constitution comprises a number of vahanas or vehicles, each one belonging to — and enabling the inner man, or manifesting spiritual or intellectual entity, to express itself on — the plane where the vahana is native. Vahana is thus seen to have a number of different meanings, or, more accurately, applications. E.g., the vahana of man’s spiritual monad is his spiritual soul; the vahana of man’s human ego is his human soul; and the vahana of man’s psycho-vital-astral monad is the linga-sarira working through its vahana or carrier, the sthula-sarira or physical body. The wire which carries the current of electricity can be said to be the vahana of the electric current; or again, the intermolecular ether is the vahana of many of the radioactive forces of the world around us, etc. Every divine being has a vahana or, in fact, a number of vahanas, through which it works and through which it is enabled to express its divine powers and functions on and in worlds and planes below the sphere or world or plane in which it itself lives. ( See also Soul; Upadhi)
(IN) Vahana {Sans} “Vehicle” or form imbodying a consciousness.
(SP) Vahana — vehicle.
(TG) Vaibhachikas {Sans}. The followers of the Vibhacha Shastra, an ancient school of materialism; a philosophy that held that no mental concept can be formed except through direct contact between the mind, via the senses, such as sight, touch, taste, etc., and external objects. There are Vaibhachikas, to this day, in India.
(TG) Vaidhatra {Sans}. The same as the Kumaras.
(TG) Vaidyuta {Sans}. Electric fire, the same as Pavaka, one of the three fires which, divided, produce forty-nine mystic fires.
(TG) Vaihara {Sans}. The name of a cave-temple near Rajagriha, whereinto the Lord Buddha usually retired for meditation.
(TG) Vaijayanti {Sans}. The magic necklace of Vishnu, imitated by certain Initiates among the temple Brahmans. It is made of five precious stones, each symbolizing one of the five elements of our Round; namely, the pearl, ruby, emerald, sapphire and diamond, or water, fire, earth, air and ether, called “the aggregate of the five elemental rudiments” — the word “powers” being, perhaps, more correct than “rudiments”.
(TG) Vaikhari Vach {Sans}. That which is uttered; one of the four forms of speech.
(WG) Vaikriti, modification, change.
(WG) Vaikritika, constructive; incidental.
(TG) Vaikuntha {Sans}. One of the names of the twelve great gods, whence Vaikunthaloka, the abode of Vishnu.
(TG) Vairajas {Sans}. In the popular belief, semi-divine beings, shades of saints, inconsumable by fire, impervious to water, who dwell in Tapo-loka with the hope of being translated into Satya-loka — a more purified state which answers to Nirvana. The term is explained as the aerial bodies or astral shades of “ascetics, mendicants, anchorites, and penitents, who have completed their course of rigorous austerities”. Now in esoteric philosophy they are called Nirmanakayas, Tapo-loka being on the sixth plane (upward) but in direct communication with the mental plane. The Vairajas are referred to as the first gods because the Manasaputras and the Kumaras are the oldest in theogony, as it is said that even the gods worshipped them (Matsya Purana) ; those whom Brahma ” with the eye of Yoga beheld in the eternal spheres, and who are the gods of gods ” ( Vayu Purana ).
(TG) Vairochana {Sans}. “All-enlightening”. A mystic symbol, or rather a generic personification of a class of spiritual beings described as the embodiment of essential wisdom ( bodhi ) and absolute purity. They dwell in the fourth Arupa Dhatu (formless world) or Buddha-kshetra, and are the first or the highest hierarchy of the five orthodox Dhyani Buddhas. There was a Sramana (an Arhat) of this name (see Eitel’s Sanskrit Chinese Dictionary a native of Kashmir, “who introduced Buddhism into Kustan and laboured in Tibet” (in the seventh century of our era). He was the best translator of the semi-esoteric Canon of Northern Buddhism, and a contemporary of the great Samantabhadra .
(WG) Vairagya, (also Viraga), freedom from worldly passion, absence of all worldly desires.
(TG) Vaisakha {Sans}. A celebrated female ascetic, born at Sravasti, and called Sudatta, “virtuous donor”. She was the mother-abbess of a Vihara, or convent of female Upasikas, and is known as the builder of a Vihara for Sakyamuni Buddha. She is regarded as the patroness of all the Buddhist female ascetics.
(TG) Vaisheshika {Sans}.One of the six Darshanas or schools of philosophy, founded by Kanada. It is called the Atomistic School, as it teaches the existence of a universe of atoms of a transient character, an endless number of souls and a fixed number of material principles, by the correlation and interaction of which periodical cosmic evolutions take place without any directing Force, save a kind of mechanical law inherent in the atoms; a very materialistic school.
(TG) Vaishnava {Sans}. A follower of any sect recognising and worshipping Vishnu as the one supreme God. The worshippers of Siva are called Saivas.
(FY) Vaishyas, cattle breeders; artisans; the third caste among the Hindus.
(WG) Vaisva-nara, the internal fire which causes digestion; in Vedanta philosophy, the spirit of humanity, the collective consciousness of mankind; an epithet of Savitri. ( vaisva , pervading, common to all; nara, man, mankind
(OG) Vaisya — {Sans} The third of the four castes or social classes into which the inhabitants of ancient India were divided. The Vaisya is the trader and agriculturist. ( See also Brahmana; Kshatriya; Sudra)
(GH) Vaisya literally ‘A man who settles on the soil’ thus a peasant or working-man. The third of the four social classes or castes into which society was divided in Hindusthan. It also referred to one whose occupation was that of trade as well as of agriculture. ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 69)
(SP) Vaisya — a member of the mercantile or artisan class, the third of the four classes.
(TG) Vaivaswata {Sans}. The name of the Seventh Manu, the forefather of the post-diluvian race, or our own fifth humankind. A reputed son of Surya (the Sun), he became, after having been saved in an ark (built by the order of Vishnu) from the Deluge, the father of Ikshwaku, the founder of the solar race of kings. (See “Suryavansa”
(WG) Vaivasvata-Manu, the Manu reigning during the present manvantara. (See MANU
(GH) Vaivasvata-Manu The name of the seventh Manu who presides over the present Manvantara: literally the sun-born Manu, also called Satya-vrata because of his piety. He is sometimes described as one of the 12 Adityas, and is regarded as the progenitor of the present race of living beings. In the Mahabharata Vaivasvata is the hero of the deluge. As the story runs, while he was observing his devotions by the side of the river, he was interrupted in his worship by a small fish who entreated the monarch to shield him from the larger fish who was about to seize his victim. Being moved by compassion, Vaivasvata placed the little fish in a vase, but was very soon astonished to find that the receptacle could no longer contain it. Whereupon the fish was placed in a larger vessel. But the fish kept on growing, so that in time no tank was large enough to hold him, therefore the river became his abode. Still the fish grew so much in girth, that he had to be transferred to the ocean. Then the fish commanded Vaivasvata to build a ship and place himself and the 7 Rishis on it, and fasten the prow to his horn, for a deluge would soon overwhelm the earth. Having done as he was bid, upon entering the vessel, Vaivasvata and the Rishis were towed off by the fish and were thus saved from the flood. Finally they were brought to Himavat (the Himalayas), where Vaivasvata landed and thereafter repeopled the earth. “In the Satapatha Brahmana, Manu finds that ‘the Flood had swept away all living creatures, and he alone was left’ — i.e., the seed of life alone remained from the previous dissolution of the Universe, or Maha -pralaya, after a ‘Day of Brahma’; and the Mahabharata refers simply to the geological cataclysm which swept away nearly all the Fourth Race to make room for the Fifth. Therefore is Vaivasvata Manu shown under three distinct attributes in our esoteric Cosmogony: (a) as the ‘Root-Manu’ on Globe A in the First Round; (b) as the ‘seed of life’ on Globe D in the Fourth Round; and (c) as the ‘Seed of Man’ at the beginning of every Root-Race — in our Fifth Race especially.” ( Secret Doctrine, II, pp. 146-7) ( from vivasvat, the sun. Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 30)
(TG) Vajra {Sans}. Lit., “diamond club” or sceptre. In the Hindu works, the sceptre of Indra, similar to the thunderbolts of Zeus, with which this deity, as the god of thunder, slays his enemies. But in mystical Buddhism, the magic sceptre of Priest-Initiates, exorcists and adepts — the symbol of the possession of Siddhis or superhuman powers, wielded during certain ceremonies by the priests and theurgists. It is also the symbol of Buddha’s power over evil spirits or elementals. The possessors of this wand are called Vajrapani .
(SKv) Vajra, Vajra-dhara, Vajra-sattva, Vajra-panin Vajra literally means ‘diamond’ or ‘thunderbolt.’ In mystical philosophy the diamond or Vajra was used as a symbol of indestructibility, of the highest degree of clarity and reflecting power, and of impersonality. The heart of a compassionate Initiate resembles a diamond. It is clear and transparent and insensible to its own suffering, but reflects divinity as well as the imperfections and sufferings of the world, and though it can hold all within it, holds nothing as its own. Vajra-dhara — ‘the Diamond-holder,’ and Vajra-sattva — ‘the Diamond-heart or Diamond-essence’ were titles given to Adi-Buddha, the Divine Guardian of spiritual evolution. Sometimes full Mahatmans, Bodhisattvas, and Buddhas are called Vajra-sattva to express the wondrous adamantine quality of their spiritual attainments. Vajra, as a ‘thunderbolt’ represented in Hindu literature that magic scepter, or in other words, those developed superhuman and occult powers which make a man a master of the evil forces. A Vajra-panin or ‘Wielder of the Diamond-Thunderbolt’ is therefore one who because of his spiritual accomplishments and purity has power over evil spirits; hence the Buddha was called a Vajra-panin.
(TG) Vajracharya {Sans}. The spiritual acharya (guru, teacher) of the Yogacharyas. The “Supreme Master of the Vajra”.
(TG) Vajradhara {Sans}. The Supreme Buddha with the Northern Buddhists.
(TG) Vajrapani {Sans}, or Manjushri, the Dhyani-Bodhisattva (as the spiritual reflex, or the son of the Dhyani-Buddhas, on earth) born directly from the subjective form of existence; a deity worshipped by the profane as a god, and by Initiates as a subjective Force, the real nature of which is known only to, and explained by, the highest Initiates of the Yogacharya School.
(TG) Vajrasattva {Sans}. The name of the sixth Dhyani-Buddha (of whom there are but five in the popular Northern Buddhism) — in the Yogacharya school, the latter counting seven Dhyani-Buddhas and as many Bodhisattvas — the “mind-sons” of the former. Hence, the Orientalists refer to Vajrasattva as “a fictitious Bodhisattva”.
(WG) Vajra-sattva, having a heart of adamant. ( vajra , adamantine; sattva, soul, heart
(FY) Vakya Sanyama, control over speech.
(TG) Wala {Nors}. A prophetess in the songs of the Edda (Norse mythology). Through the incantations of Odin she was raised from her grave, and made to prophesy the death of Baldur.
(MO) Vala, volva {Nors} (vah-la, veul-va) [sibyl, prophetess] Indelible record of cosmic life
(TG) Vallabacharya {Sans}. The name of a mystic who was the chela (disciple) of Vishnu Swami, and the founder of a sect of Vaishnavas. His descendants “are called Goswani Maharaj, and have much landed property and numerous mandirs (temples) in Bombay. They have degenerated into a shamefully licentious sect.
(KT) Vallabacharyas Sect {Sans}, or the “Sect of the Maharajas;” a licentious phallic-worshipping community, whose main branch is at Bombay. The object of the worship is the infant Krishna. The Anglo-Indian Government was compelled several times to interfere in order to put a stop to its rites and vile practices, and its governing Maharajah, a kind of High Priest, was more than once imprisoned, and very justly so. It is one of the blackest spots of India.
(TG) Wali {Nors}. The son of Odin who avenges the death of Baldur, “the well-beloved”.
(MO) Vale {Nors} (vah-leh) A son of Odin
(TG) Walhalla {Nors}. A kind of paradise (Devachan) for slaughtered warriors, called by the Norsemen “the hall of the blessed heroes”; it has five hundred doors.
(MO) Valhalla {Nors} [ val choice or slain + ball hall] Odin’s hall where Old Warriors [[Oneharriers]] celebrate
(TG) Walkyries {Nors}. Called the “choosers of the dead”. In the popular poetry of the Scandinavians, these goddesses consecrate the fallen heroes with a kiss, and bearing them from the battle-field carry them to the halls of bliss and to the gods in Valhalla.
(MO) Valkyries {Nors} [ val choice or slain + kyrja chooser] Odin’s agents
(SKv) Vamachara, Dakshinachara Vamachara refers to the evil and ‘left-hand’ practices, while Dakshinachara refers to the pure and ‘right-hand’ teachings of the Tantras. Vama means ‘left,’ dakshina — right, and achara — behavior or practice, derived from the verb-root achar — to behave, to practise.
(TG) Vamana {Sans}. The fifth avatar of Vishnu, hence the name of the Dwarf whose form was assumed by that god.
(TG) Wanes {Nors}. A race of gods of great antiquity, worshipped at the dawn of time by the Norsemen, and later by the Teutonic races.
(MO) Van, Vanagod, Vanagiant {Nors} (vahn-a-) Gods superior to the Aesir; unmanifest deities and corresponding giants
(TG) Vara {avesta-mazdean}. A term used in the Vendidad, where Ahura-mazda commands Yima to build Vara. It also signifies an enclosure or vehicle, an ark (argha), and at the same time MAN (verse 30). Vara is the vehicle of our informing Egos, i.e. the human body, the soul in which is typified by the expression a “window self-shining within ” .
(TG) Varaha {Sans}. The boar-avatar of Vishnu; the third in number.
(WG) Varanaka, surrounding, enveloping, covering.
(TG) Varna {Sans}. Caste; lit., “colour”. The four chief castes named by Manu — the Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaisya and Sudra — are called Chatur-varna.
(GH) Varna-sankara (or – samkara ) Confusion or mixture of castes through intermarriage. (Compound varna, a caste — referring especially to the four castes as enumerated in the Bhagavad-Gita; samkara, mixing or blending together. Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 7)
(TG) Varsha {Sans}. A region, a plain; any stretch of country situated between the great mountain-ranges of the earth.
(GH) Varsha A district. The geography of the Mahabharata depicts seven dvipas, the central one, Jambu-dvipa, corresponding to our earth (Globe D). This dvipa is divided into nine parts termed varshas as follows: (1) Bharata, or India, situated south of the Himalayas, the southernmost division; (2) Kimpurusha; (3) Harivarsha; (4) Ila-vrita, the central varsha containing Mount Meru; (5) Ramyaka; (6) Hi-ran-maya; (7) Uttara-Kuru; (8) Bhadrasva, east of Ila-vrita; (9) Ketu-mala, west of the central varsha. Uttara-Kuru was the varsha of the northern Kurus, described as a country of eternal beatitude. ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. ii)
(GH) Varaha-Upanishad The name of a text of the Varaha School of the Krishna-Yajur-Veda : not one of the Vedic Upanishads. ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 31)
(TG) Varuna {Sans}. The god of water, or marine god, but far different from Neptune, for in the case of this oldest of the Vedic deities, Water means the “Waters of Space”, or the all-investing sky, Akasa, in one sense. Varuna or Ooaroona (phonetically), is certainly the prototype of the Ouranos of the Greeks. As Muir says: “The grandest cosmical functions are ascribed to Varuna. Possessed of illimitable knowledge. . . . he upholds heaven and earth, he dwells in all worlds as sovereign ruler. . . . He made the golden . . . sun to shine in the firmament. The wind which resounds through the atmosphere is his breath. . . . Through the operation of his laws the moon walks in brightness and the stars . . . mysteriously vanish in daylight. He knows the flight of birds in the sky, the paths of ships on the ocean, the course of the far travelling wind, and beholds all the things that have been or shall be done. . . . He witnesses men’s truth and falsehood. He instructs the Rishi Vasishta in mysteries; but his secrets and those of Mitra are not to be revealed to the foolish.” . . . “The attributes and functions ascribed to Varuna impart to his character a moral elevation and sanctity far surpassing that attributed to any other Vedic deity.”
(FY) Varuna or Pracheta, the Neptune of India.
(GH) Varuna One of the most ancient deities of the Vedas, regarded therein as the personification of the all-embracing sky, maker and upholder of heaven and earth: the king of the universe, king of gods and earth and possessor of illimitable knowledge, ruling principally, however, over the night while Mitra reigned over the day. In later times Varuna was regarded as chief of the Adityas ; later still he was allocated to the waters as god of the sea and rivers, riding upon the Makara . In the Vedas Varuna is connected with the ‘element of water’ and the ‘waters of space,’ but with descending cycles the original spiritual idea associated with the deities of the ancients being lost sight of in the effort to attach material significance to the gods, Varuna — in common with other deities — became associated with the visible fluids. Varuna is made the regent of the Western quarter. A moral character is also associated with the deity: he is represented as binding all guilty mortals with a noose ( i.e., the mortal was bound in the net of his own actions). “Varuna, ‘without whom no creature can even wink,’ was degraded like Uranos [Ouranos], and, like him, he fell into generation, his functions. . . . having been lowered down from heaven to earth by exoteric anthropomorphism.” ( Secret Doctrine, II, p. 268) ( Bhagavad-Gita , W. Q. Judge, p. 75)
(WG) Vasana, knowledge derived from memory; an impression remaining unconsciously in the mind from past good or evil actions, and hence producing pleasure or pain.
(GH) Vasava A name applied to Indra, especially in his character of leader of the Vasus . ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 73)
(TG) Vasishta {Sans}. One of the primitive seven great Rishis, and a most celebrated Vedic sage.
(FY) Vasishta, a great Indian sage, one of those to whom the Rig Veda was revealed in part.
(WG) Vasita, one of the eight superhuman faculties. The power to subjugate any person or being by magic. See Vibhuti .
(TG) Vasudeva {Sans}. The father of Krishna. He belonged to the Yadava branch of the Somavansa, or lunar race.
(WG) Vasu-Deva, name of the father of Krishna, who was also the brother of Pritha, or Kunti, the mother of the five Pandu princes. ( vasu, excellent; deva, a god
(GH) Vasudeva literally ‘Son of Vasudeva’ — a name applied to Krishna, because of his birth in the family of Vasudeva and Devaki. The Mahabharata also explains that Krishna is thus called from his dwelling (vasanat) in all beings, from his issuing as a Vasu from a divine womb. ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 55)
Vasudevah Sarvam The God of divine Riches is ALL.
(GH) Vasuki The king of the Nagas in Patala. He is sometimes made the same as the serpent of Vishnu, Sesha or Ananta. ; again he is distinct (as in the text of Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 74).
(TG) Vasus {Sans}. The eight evil deities attendant upon Indra. Personified cosmic phenomena, as their names show.
(GH) Vasus A particular class of deities, eight in number, associated with Indra: they form one of the nine Ganas (classes of deities) mentioned in the Vedas. The Vasus are named: Apa (water), Dhruva (the pole-star), Soma (the Moon), Dhara or Dhava (the Earth), Anila (wind), Pavaka or Anala (fire), Prabhasa (dawn), Pratyusha (light). The Ramayana regards them as children of Aditi. A verse in The Laws of Manu (Manava-Dharma-Sastra) says: “The wise call our fathers Vasus” (iii, p. 284). ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 74)
(FY) Vata, air.
(TG) Vayu {Sans}. Air: the god and sovereign of the air; one of the five states of matter, namely the gaseous; one of the five elements, called, as wind, Vata. The Vishnu Purana makes Vayu King of the Gandharvas. He is the father of Hanuman, in the Ramayana. The trinity of the mystic gods in Kosmos closely related to each other, are “Agni (fire) whose place is on earth; Vayu (air, or one of the forms of Indra), whose place is in the air; and Surya (the sun) whose place is in the air”. (Nirukta In esoteric interpretation, these three cosmic principles, correspond with the three human principles, Kama, Kama-Manas and Manas, the sun of the intellect.
(FY) Vayu, the wind.
(WG) Vayu, air, wind.
(GH) Vayu The god of the wind, also called Pavana. In the Vedas he is associated with Indra, and rides in the golden chariot of the god of the sky. One hymn calls him the son-in-law of Tvashtri (the artificer of the gods), while another gives his origin as arising from the breath of Purusha . His particular regency is the northwest quarter of the heavens. In the Mahabharata the god of the wind is represented as the father of Bhima, and also the father of Hanuman. The Vishnu-Purana makes Vayu the king of the Gandharvas . The ancient meaning attaching to ‘air’ was “one of the five states of matter, namely the gaseous; one of the five elements, called, as wind, Vata . . . . The trinity of the mystic gods in Kosmos closely related to each other, are ‘Agni (fire) whose place is on earth; Vayu (air, or one of the forms of Indra), whose place is in the air; and Surya (the sun) whose place is in the air.’ (Nirukta In esoteric interpretation, these three cosmic principles, correspond with the three human principles, Kama, Kama-Manas and Manas, the sun of the intellect.” ( Theosophical Glossary, H. P. Blavatsky, p. 361) ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 85)
(FY) Vayu Puranas, one of the Puranas.
(TG) We {Nors}. One of the three gods — Odin, Wili and We — who kill the giant Ymir (chaotic force), and create the world out of his body, the primordial substance.
(MO) Ve, Vi {Nors} (vay, vee) [awe] Cosmic prototype of Honer
(TG) Vedana {Sans}. The second of the five Skandhas (perceptions, senses). The sixth Nidana.
(WG) Vedana, sensation, knowledge obtained through the senses.
(TG) Vedanta {Sans}. A mystic system of philosophy which has developed from the efforts of generations of sages to interpret the secret meaning of the Upanishads . It is called in the Shad-Darshanas (six schools or systems of demonstration), Uttara Mimansa, attributed to Vyasa, the compiler of the Vedas, who is thus referred to as the founder of the Vedanta. The orthodox Hindus call Vedanta — a term meaning literally the “end of all (Vedic) knowledge” — Brahma-jnana, or pure and spiritual knowledge of Brahma. Even if we accept the late dates assigned to various Sanskrit schools and treatises by our Orientalists, the Vedanta must be 3,300 years old, as Vyasa is said to have lived 1,400 years B.C. If, as Elphinstone has it in his History of India, the Brahmanas are the Talmud of the Hindus, and the Vedas the Mosaic books, then the Vedanta may be correctly called the Kabalah of India. But how vastly more grand! Sankaracharya, who was the popularizer of the Vedantic system, and the founder of the Adwaita philosophy, is sometimes called the founder of the modern schools of the Vedanta.
(KT) Vedanta {Sans} Meaning literally, the “end of all knowledge.” Among the six Darsanas or the schools of philosophy, it is also called Uttaramimansa, or the “later” Mimansa. There are those who, unable to understand its esotericism, consider it atheistical; but this is not so, as Sankaracharya, the great apostle of this school, and its populariser, was one of the greatest mystics and adepts of India.
(WG) Vedanta, a system of philosophy. (See Purva-Mimansa
(OG) Vedanta — {Sans} From the Upanishads and from other parts of the wonderful cycle of Vedic literature, the ancient sages of India produced what is called today the Vedanta — a compound word meaning “the end (or completion) of the Veda” — that is to say, instruction in the final and most perfect exposition of the meaning of the Vedic tenets. The Vedanta is the highest form that the Brahmanical teachings have taken, and under the name of the Uttara-Mimamsa attributed to Vyasa, the compiler of the Vedas, the Vedanta is perhaps the noblest of the six Indian schools of philosophy. The Avatara Sankaracharya has been the main popularizer of the Vedantic system of philosophical thought, and the type of Vedantic doctrine taught by him is what is technically called the Advaita-Vedanta or nondualistic. The Vedanta may briefly be described as a system of mystical philosophy derived from the efforts of sages through many generations to interpret the sacred or esoteric meaning of the Upanishads. In its Advaita form the Vedanta is in many, if not all, respects exceedingly close to, if not identical with, some of the mystical forms of Buddhism in central Asia. The Hindus call the Vedanta Brahma-jnana .
(GH) Vedanta literally ‘End of the Veda,’ i.e., complete knowledge of the Veda. The name is particularly associated with the Uttara-mimansa school (the third of the six Hindu systems of philosophy), as this school especially studied the latter portion of the Veda. The reputed founder of the Vedanta is Vyasa, but its chief exponent was Sankaracharya, who especially taught the Advaita (‘non-dual’) aspect, hence his followers are called Advaita-Vedantins. In brief: the Advaita system teaches that nothing real exists but the One Self, or Soul of the Universe, called Brahman or Paramatman, and that the Jivatman (individual human soul or monad), and in fact all phenomenal manifestations of nature, are really identical with Paramatman; their apparent separate existence is due to Ajnana (nescience, ‘non-wisdom’). A proper understanding of the Vedanta removes this Ajnana. “The Vedas are, and will remain for ever, in the esotericism of the Vedanta and the Upanishads, ‘the mirror of the eternal Wisdom.’ ” ( Secret Doctrine, II, p. 484) The nearest exponent of the Esoteric philosophy “is the Vedanta as expounded by the Advaita Vedantists,” ( Secret Doctrine, I, p. 55). ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 108)
(IN) Vedanta {Sans} “End or completion of the Vedas”; one of the six main Brahmanical schools.
(SP) Vedanta literally “end or completion of the Veda,” the Upanisads or the philosophy based on them. Advaita-vedanta [adwaita-] is the Nondualist school of Vedanta philosophy.
(FY) Vedantists, followers of the Vedanta School of Philosophy, which is divided into two branches, monists and dualists.
VEDAS
The Sacred Vedic Verse
Veda Janani — The Mother of the Vedas
Aum, — the light of the Universe, the omniscient and omnipresent; the all containing, in whose womb move all the orbs of heaven; the self-effulgent, from whom the sun and stars borrow their light; whose knowledge is perfect and immutable, whose glory is superlative; who is deathless, the life of life and dearer than life, who gives bliss to those who earnestly desire it, saves from all calamities his genuine devotees, and gives them peace and comfort; the all intelligent, who keeps in order and harmony all and each by permeating all things, on whom is dependent all that exist, the creator and giver of all glory, the illuminator of all souls and giver of every bliss, who is worthy to be embraced; the all-knowledge and all-holiness, — we contemplate and worship that He may enlighten our intellect and conscience.
Salutation (From the Sanskrit)
Listen to the Salutation of the Dawn. Look to this Day, for it is Life, the very Life of Life. In its brief course lie all the possibilities and realities of your existence. The Bliss of Growth — The Glory of Action — The Splendor of Beauty — For yesterday is already a dream and tomorrow is only a vision: but today well-lived makes every yesterday a dream of happiness and every tomorrow a vision of hope. Look well therefore to this day. Such is the Salutation of the dawn.
(TG) Vedas {Sans}. The “revelation”, the scriptures of the Hindus, from the root vid, “to know”, or “divine knowledge”. They are the most ancient as well as the most sacred of the Sanskrit works.
The Vedas — on the date and antiquity of which no two Orientalists can agree, are claimed by the Hindus themselves, whose Brahmans and Pundits ought to know best about their own religious works, to have been first taught orally for thousands of years and then compiled on the shores of Lake Manasa-Sarovara (phonetically, Mansarovara) beyond the Himalayas, in Tibet. When was this done? While their religious teachers, such as Swami Dayanand Saraswati, claim for them an antiquity of many decades of ages, our modern Orientalists will grant them no greater antiquity in their present form than about between 1,000 and 2,000 B.C. As compiled in their final form by Veda-Vyasa, however, the Brahmans themselves unanimously assign 3,100 years before the Christian era, the date when Vyasa flourished. Therefore the Vedas must be as old as this date. But their antiquity is sufficiently proven by the fact that they are written in such an ancient form of Sanskrit, so different from the Sanskrit now used, that there is no other work like them in the literature of this eldest sister of all the known languages, as Prof. Max Muller calls it. Only the most learned of the Brahman Pundits can read the Vedas in their original. It is urged that Colebrooke found the date 1400 B.C. corroborated absolutely by a passage which he discovered, and which is based on astronomical data. But if, as shown unanimously by all the Orientalists and the Hindu Pundits also, that (a) the Vedas are not a single work, nor yet any one of the separate Vedas; but that each Veda, and almost every hymn and division of the latter, is the production of various authors; and that (b) these have been written (whether as sruti, “revelation”, or not) at various periods of the ethnological evolution of the Indo-Aryan race, then — what does Mr. Colebrooke’s discovery prove? Simply that the Vedas were finally arranged and compiled fourteen centuries before our era; but this interferes in no way with their antiquity. Quite the reverse; for, as an offset to Mr. Colebrooke’s passage, there is a learned article, written on purely astronomical data by Krishna Shastri Godbole (of Bombay), which proves as absolutely and on the same evidence that the Vedas must have been taught at least 25,000 years ago. (See Theosophist, Vol. II., p. 238 et seq., Aug., 1881 This statement is, if not supported, at any rate not contradicted by what Prof. Cowell says in Appendix VII., of Elphinstone’s History of India : “There is a difference in age between the various hymns, which are now united in their present form as the Sanhita of the Rig-Veda: but we have no data to determine their relative antiquity, and purely subjective criticism, apart from solid data, has so often failed in other instances, that we can trust but little to any of its inferences in such a recently opened field of research as Sanskrit literature. [Not a fourth part of the Vaidik literature is as yet in print, and very little of it has been translated into English (1866).] The still unsettled controversies about the Homeric poems may well warn us of being too confident in our judgments regarding the yet earlier hymns of the Rig-Veda . . . . When we examine these hymns . . . they are deeply interesting for the history of the human mind, belonging as they do to a much older phase than the poems of Homer or Hesiod.” The Vedic writings are all classified in two great divisions, exoteric and esoteric, the former being called Karma-Kanda, “division of actions or works”, and the Jnana-Kanda, “division of (divine) knowledge”, the Upanishads coming under this last classification. Both departments are regarded as Sruti or revelation. To each hymn of the Rig-Veda, the name of the Seer or Rishi to whom it was revealed is prefixed. It, thus, becomes evident on the authority of these very names (such as Vasishta, Viswamitra, Narada, etc, all of which belong to men born in various manvantaras and even ages, that centuries, and perhaps millenniums, must have elapsed between the dates of their composition.
(FY) Vedas, the most authoritative of the Hindu Scriptures. The four oldest sacred books — Rig, Yajur, Sama and Atharva — revealed to the Rishis by Brahma.
(WG) Vedas, the sacred books of the earlier Hindu religion. Originally there were three Vedas, but a later work called the Atharva-Veda has been added to these and constitutes the fourth Veda. Collectively they are termed Sruti, “revelation,” or “utterance” — the sacred utterance handed down by tradition. Rig-Veda signifies “Veda of verses,” from rig, a spoken stanza; Sama-Veda, Veda of chants, from saman, a song or chant; Yajur-Veda, “Veda of sacrificial formulas,” from yajus, a sacrificial text. The distinctive quality of the Vedas is the power of invocation. ( veda, knowledge, divine knowledge
(OG) Veda(s) — {Sans} From a verbal root vid signifying “to know.” These are the most ancient and the most sacred literary and religious works of the Hindus. Veda as a word may be described as “divine knowledge.” The Vedas are four in number: the Rig-Veda , the Yajur-Veda, the Sama-Veda, and the Atharva-Veda, this last being commonly supposed to be of later date than the former three. Manu in his Work on Law always speaks of the three Vedas, which he calls “the ancient triple Brahman” — sanatanam trayam brahma .” Connected with the Vedas is a large body of other works of various kinds, liturgical, ritualistic, exegetical, and mystical, the Veda itself being commonly divided into two great portions, outward and inner: the former called the karma-kanda, the “Section of Works,” and the latter called jnana-kanda or “Section of Wisdom.” The authorship of the Veda is not unitary, but almost every hymn or division of a Veda is ascribed to a different author or rather to various authors; but they are supposed to have been compiled in their present form by Veda-Vyasa. There is no question in the minds of learned students of theosophy that the Vedas run back in their origins to enormous antiquity, thousands of years before the beginning of what is known in the Occident as the Christian era, whatever Occidental scholars may have to say in objection to this statement. Hindu pandits themselves claim that the Veda was taught orally for thousands of years, and then finally compiled on the shores of the sacred lake Manasa-Sarovara, beyond the Himalayas in a district of what is now Tibet.
(GH) Vedas The ancient sacred literature of the Hindus. There are four Vedas known as the Rig-Veda, the Yajur-Veda, the Sama-Veda, and the Atharva-Veda. Their origin is ascribed to divine revelation (sruti), and Hindus as well as Theosophical students place their period at many thousands of years before the Christian era. They state that the Vedas were taught orally for thousands of years and then finally were compiled on the shores of the sacred lake Manasa-Sarovara by Veda-Vyasa (about 3100 B.C. It is quite apparent that the original authorship is not by one person, inasmuch as various hymns are attributed to various Vedic Sages. They are written in a style of Sanskrit different from any other literary works. The Vedas are divided into two main portions: the mantra part (hymns in verse), and the Brahmana part consisting of liturgical, ritualistic and mystic treatises in prose. With the latter are closely connected the Aranyakas and Upanishads. “Between the Vedas and the Puranas there is an abyss of which, both are the poles, like the seventh (atmic) and the first or lowest principle (the physical body) in the Septenary constitution of man. The primitive, purely spiritual language of the Vedas, conceived many decades of millenniums earlier, had found its purely human expression for the purpose of describing events taking place 5,000 years ago, the date of Krishna’s death (from which day the Kali Yuga, or Black-Age, began for mankind).” ( Secret Doctrine, II, p. 527) (The following word is derived from the verbal root:) vid, to know. Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 15)
(SK)o Veda, Mantra, Brahmana, Aranyaka, Upanishad Veda literally means ‘knowledge,’ derived from the verb-root vid — to know. The Vedas are the most ancient and most sacred Sanskrit writings of the Hindus. Their origin dates back to at least some 20,000 years ago. They are a body of occult writings, some of which are veiled in symbolic form. These Vedas are divided into two main sections — the Mantra and the Brahmana. The Mantra-portion is composed of poetic hymns, prayers, and incantations, all of which are endowed with occult powers when properly chanted. The word Mantra means ‘an instrument of thought,’ derived from the verb-root man — to think. The Brahmana-portion consists of treatises in prose which give the rituals and forms of religious worship and their interpretations, rules for the proper chanting of the sacred Mantras at the sacrificial ceremonies, and the explanations in detail of these sacrifices, as well as legends and stories. Closely connected and often included in the Brahmana-portions are treatises in prose and verse known as Aranyakas and Upanishads. The Aranyakas or writings relating to aranya or the ‘forest,’ are philosophical and ritualistic works intended especially for religious recluses who have retired from the world. The Upanishads are writings of a mystical and highly theosophical and recondite nature. Their essential purpose is to overcome ignorance and its consequent suffering by revealing the secret spiritual wisdom about man and the Universe. The word Upanishad means ‘esoteric doctrine.’ It is a compound of upa — according to, ni — down, and the verb-root sad — to sit; implying, therefore, writings that accord with sacred instruction received when sitting down in the Oriental way at the feet of the teacher. H. P. Blavatsky calls the Upanishads “the mirror of the eternal Wisdom.”
(IN) Veda(s) {Sans} “Knowledge,” oldest, most sacred collection of Hindu scriptures: Rig-veda, Sama-veda, Yajur-veda, and Atharva-veda, each containing 4 divisions of text — Samhita, Brahmana, Aranyaka, and Upanishad.
(SP) Veda — literally “knowledge,” the oldest, most sacred collections of Hindu scriptures. There are four collections the Rg-veda, Sama-veda, Yajur-veda, and Atharva-veda — each containing four layers of text, called: Samhita, Brahmana, Aranyaka, and Upanisad.
(FY) Vedic, pertaining to the Vedas.
(TG) Veda-Vyasa {Sans}. The compiler of the Vedas .
(TG) Veddhas {Sing} The name of a wild race of men living in the forests of Ceylon. They are very difficult to find.
(WG) Vehicle, a carriage. That through which anything expresses itself. Thus the body is the vehicle of the soul. Same as Vahan .
(TG) Vehicle of Life (Mystic). The “Septenary” Man among the Pythagoreans, “number seven” among the profane. The former “explained it by saying, that the human body consisted of four principal elements (principles), and that the soul is triple (the higher triad)”. (See Isis Unveiled, Vol. II., p. 418, New York, 1877 It has been often remarked that in the earlier works of the Theosophists no septenary division of man was mentioned. The above quotation is sufficient warrant that, although with every caution, the subject was more than once approached, and is not a new-fangled theory or invention.
(TG) Vendidad (Pahlavi). The first book (Nosk) in the collection of Zend fragments usually known as the Zend-Avesta. The Vendidad is a corruption of the compound-word “Vidaevo-datem”, meaning “the anti-demoniac law”, and is full of teachings how to avoid sin and defilement by purification, moral and physical — each of which teachings is based on Occult laws. It is a pre-eminently occult treatise, full of symbolism and often of meaning quite the reverse of that which is expressed in its dead-letter text. The Vendidad, as claimed by tradition, is the only one of the twenty-one Nosks (works) that has escaped the auto-da-fe at the hands of the drunken Iskander the Rumi, he whom posterity calls Alexander the Great — though the epithet is justifiable only when applied to the brutality, vices and cruelty of this conqueror. It is through the vandalism of this Greek that literature and knowledge have lost much priceless lore in the Nosks burnt by him. Even the Vendidad has reached us in only a fragmentary state. The first chapters are very mystical, and therefore called “mythical” in the renderings of European Orientalists. The two “creators” of “spirit-matter” or the world of differentiation — Ahura-Mazda and Angra-Mainyu (Ahriman) — are introduced in them, and also Yima (the first man, or mankind personified). The work is divided into Fargards or chapters, and a portion of these is devoted to the formation of our globe, or terrestrial evolution. (See Zend-Avesta
(WG) Vendidad, one of the Nosks (works) of the Zend, the first of the fragments collected together in that which is known as the Zend-Avesta .
(TG) Vetala {Sans}. An elemental, a spook, which haunts burial grounds and animates corpses.
(TG) Vetala Siddhi {Sans}. A practice of sorcery; means of obtaining power over the living by black magic, incantations, and ceremonies performed over a dead human body, during which process the corpse is desecrated. (See “Vetala”
(TG) Vibhavasu {Sans}. A mystic fire connected with the beginning of pralaya, or the dissolution of the universe.
(WG) Vibhu, pervading all natural things, omnipresent.
(TG) Vibhutayah {Sans}. The same as Siddhis or magic powers.
(WG) Vibhuti, great power, might, dominion, supremacy, dignity; superhuman power, consisting of the eight faculties of anima, to become minute; laghima, extreme lightness; prapti, power to attain anything; prakamya, irresistible will; mahima, illimitable bulk; isita, supreme dominion; vasita, subjugation by magic; kamavasayita, power to suppress all desire. Also the name given to the ashes with which Siva besmeared himself.
(GH) Vichitravirya The younger son of Santanu and Satyavati who became king of the Kurus when his elder brother Chitrangada (an arrogant and proud man) was killed as a young man in a battle with a Gandharva of the same name. Vichitravirya married Ambika and Ambalika, the two daughters of the king of Kasi but died childless. ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. iii)
(MO) Vidar {Nors} (vee-dahr) A son of Odin, successor of Balder
(WG) Vidarsana, the attaining, by reflection, of wisdom that transcends the normal wisdom of the race.
(MO) Vidofner {Nors} (veed-awv-ner) [wide opener] Cock in the crown of the Tree of Life
(TG) Vidya {Sans}. Knowledge, Occult Science.
(KT) Vidya {Sans} Knowledge, or rather “Wisdom Knowledge.”
(FY) Vidya, secret knowledge.
(WG) Vidya, knowledge, learning science.
(OG) Vidya — {Sans} The word (derived from the same verbal root vid from which comes the noun Veda ) for “knowledge,” “philosophy,” “science.” This is a term very generally used in theosophical philosophy, having in a general way the three meanings just stated. It is frequently compounded with other words, such as: atma-vidya — “knowledge of atman” or the essential Self; Brahma-vidya — “knowledge of Brahman,” knowledge of the universe, a term virtually equivalent to theosophy; or, again, guhya-vidya — signifying the “secret knowledge” or the esoteric wisdom. Using the word in a collective but nevertheless specific sense, vidya is a general term for occult science.
(SK)o Vidya, Atma – Vidya Vidya is knowledge or science; derived from the verb-root vid — to know. Atma-Vidya is Self-Knowledge or the science of the Atman or Divine Being within every man. It is verily Universal Wisdom.
(IN) Vidya {Sans} “Wisdom, knowledge,” esoteric science.
(SP) Vidya — knowledge.
(TG) Vidya-dhara {Sans}. And Vidya-dhari, male and female deities. Lit., “possessors of knowledge”. They are also called Nabhas-chara, “moving in the air”, flying, and Priyam-vada, “sweet-spoken”. They are the Sylphs of the Rosicrucians; interior deities inhabiting the astral sphere between the earth and ether; believed in popular folk-lore to be beneficent, but in reality they are cunning and mischievous, and intelligent Elementals, or “Powers of the air”. They are represented in the East, and in the West, as having intercourse with men (“intermarrying”, as it is called in Rosicrucian parlance; see Count de Gabalis). In India they are also called Kama-rupins, as they take shapes at will. It is among these creatures that the “spirit-wives” and “spirit-husbands” of certain modern spiritualistic mediums and hysteriacs are recruited. These boast with pride of having such pernicious connections ( e.g., the American “Lily”; the spirit-wife of a well-known head of a now scattered community of Spiritualists, of a great poet and well-known writer), and call them angel-guides, maintaining that they are the spirits of famous disembodied mortals. These “spirit-husbands” and “wives” have not originated with the modern Spiritists and Spiritualists, but have been known in the East for thousands of years, in the Occult philosophy, under the names above given, and among the profane as — Pishachas.
(WG) Vignana, act of perceiving; worldly knowledge of any kind.
(MO) Vigridsslatten {Nors} (vee-grids-slett-en) [ viga consecrate + slatt plain] The battlefield of life
(TG) Vihara {Sans}. Any place inhabited by Buddhist priests or ascetics; a Buddhist temple, generally a rock-temple or cave. A monastery, or a nunnery also. One finds in these days Viharas built in the enclosures of monasteries and academies for Buddhist training in towns and cities; but in days of yore they were to be met with only in unfrequented wild jungles, on mountain tops, and the most deserted places.
(WG) Vihara, a Buddhist or Jaina temple or convent.
(SKf) Vihara A Buddhist temple, generally a rock-temple or cave; derived from the verb-root hri — to take, and vi — apart; hence ‘that which is removed’ from the busy marts of men.
(TG) Viharaswamin {Sans}. The superior (whether male or female) of a monastery or convent, Vihara. Also called Karmadana, as every teacher or guru, having authority, takes upon himself the responsibility of certain actions, good or bad, committed by his pupils or the flock entrusted to him.
(FY) Vija, the primitive germ which expands into the universe.
(FY) Vijnana-maya-kosha, the sheath of knowledge; the fourth sheath of the divine monad; the fifth principle in man (Vedanta).
(TG) Vijnanam {Sans}. The Vedantic name for the principle which dwells in the Vijnanamaya Kosha (the sheath of intellect) and corresponds to the facilities of the Higher Manas.
(WG) Vikalpa, distinction; duality; doubt.
(GH) Vikama One of the hundred sons of Dhritarashtra, following the lead of his elder brother, Duryodhana. ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 3)
(WG) Vikara, (also Vikriti), change, alteration; in Sankhya philosophy, a production, or that which is evolved from a previous pra-kriti or producer.
(TG) Vikarttana {Sans}. Lit., “shorn of his rays”; a name of the Sun, and the type of the initiated neophyte. (See Secret Doctrine, I., p. 322, n
(WG) Vikshepa, casting asunder; refuting in argument.
(WG) Vikshepa-sakti, centrifugal force or power.
(MO) Vile {Nors} (vee-leh) [will] Cosmic prototype of Lodur
(TG) Vimoksha {Sans}. The same as Nirvana.
(TG) Vina {Sans}. A kind of large guitar used in India and Tibet, whose invention is attributed variously to Siva, Narada, and others.
(VS) chant of Vina (I 26) [[p. 10]] Vina is an Indian stringed instrument like a lute.
(WG) Vina, the Indian lute, a seven-stringed instrument of the guitar kind, said to have been invented by Narada.
(SKv) Vina The Indian lute (derivation unknown).
(TG) Vinata {Sans}. A daughter of Daksha and wife of Kashyapa (one of the “seven orators” of the world). She brought forth the egg from which Garuda the seer was born.
(MO) Vingner, Vingthor {Nors} [winged Thor] Epithets for Thor
(KT) Vinnana {Sans} One of five Skandhas; meaning literally, “mental powers.” (See “Skandhas.”)
(MO) Vior {Nors} (vee-or) Thor as vital force in beings
(WG) Viparaiti-gnana, confounding one thing with another, the effect of imperfect and consequently confused knowledge. ( viparaiti, turned around, inverted; gnana, knowing
(TG) Viprachitti {Sans}. The chief of the Danavas — the giants that warred with the gods: the Titans of India.
(TG) Virabhadra {Sans}. A thousand-headed and thousand-armed monster, “born of the breath” of Siva Rudra, a symbol having reference to the “sweat-born”, the second race of mankind (Secret Doctrine, II., p. 182).
(VS) Viraga (III 13) [[p. 53]] Viraga is that feeling of absolute indifference to the objective universe, to pleasure and to pain. “Disgust” does not express its meaning, yet it is akin to it.
(VS) Viraga [[p. 53]] Ibid. [ Vide supra the enumeration of the golden keys – Paramitas.]
(WG) Viraga . (See Vairagya
(FY) Viraj, the material universe.
(TG) Viraj {Sans}. The Hindu Logos in the Puranas; the male Manu, created in the female portion of Brahma’s body (Vach) by that god. Says Manu: “Having divided his body into two parts, the lord (Brahma) became with the one half a male and with the other half a female; and in her he created Viraj”. The Rig-Veda makes Viraj spring from Purusha, and Purusha spring from Viraj. The latter is the type of all male beings, and Vach, Sata-rupa (she of the hundred forms), the type of all female forms.
(WG) Viraj, the Logos ; the male half of Vach. WW Virgin Birth We know (as indeed every educated man knows today) that other dogmas of Christian theology, such as the Virgin Birth, are as old as the former are. The Mother of the Savior, or of the founder or first propagator of a religion or of a political society or of an ethical sodality in ancient times, was not infrequently a virgin. Sometimes it was an immaculate mother, not a virgin, in the sense that the maiden or the woman had indeed a husband, but she was supposed to have brought forth by contact, by impregnation, of a Deity. So the early Christians tried to explain how the Logos incarnated in Mary, the Jewish maiden, by saying that her body was pervious to the divine influence as glass is pervious to light. The idea, at least, if not the simile, is an ancient one. Some of the developments concerning the virgin birth of Jesus and the virginity of his mother are rather extraordinary. There is an Irish tale of how the Virgin brought forth her son Jesus through the crown of her head: “Ri-ro-gena-ir, ni bine, do mulluchnah-inginc — a king was born, without sin, from the crown of the head of the virgin — Saltair na Rann, lines 7529-7530. In the Anglo-Saxon Adrian and Rithens, Jesus was born ” purh paet swidre breast ,” or, through her right breast. It seemed to the Christians that if the divine child were born in the ordinary way, it must de facto destroy the virginity of the mother. Some early Christian writers go to great pains to show that the known processes of birth are quite inconsistent with the reverence in which the Virgin Mother of the Christian Savior should be held. This Virgin Birth, so far as the Christian system is concerned, seems to have had its prototype in the worship of Isis and the child Horus, which during two or three hundred years preceding the accepted beginning of the Christian era had spread very largely all over the ancient world, and later throughout the dominion, which of course, at the time of the Christian era, included almost all of the civilized western world except Parthia and a few outlying countries. In almost every town of importance at the beginning of the Christian era, was a temple of Isis, and she was represented suckling the divine child Horus. Her figure is one of the commonest things to be found in ancient iconography, that is, pictorial representation (from a Greek word eikon ([[greek char]]) meaning a figure or a portrait Now Isis was indeed the wife, to use the words according to the popular Egyptian myth, of the god Osiris, but she was also called the Virgin Mother, as later Mary the Christian virgin was called, and is so called today. She was called the Queen of Heaven, which is also a title in the Roman Catholic Church for Mary the Virgin; she was also Queen or Lady of the Sea, which is also a title of Mary, the Christian Virgin. In the little town of La Jolla not far from us there is a church called Our Lady by the Sea. There is something about this divine femininity (or rather the ascription of femininity to God) which is very attractive to the religious heart; perhaps not to the philosophical mind, but to the religious heart. Theodore Parker, the Christian theologian and rationalist, was right when he spoke of “God the Mother”; it appeals particularly to the feminine element, or rather the unthinking feminine element of humanity. The mother, the child, the tenderness, the sacredness of motherhood, the wonderful mystery of birth — all these things are involved; and wise were the ancients, and clever indeed the Christians, to have adopted that theory of facts in their faiths. The Protestants are undoubtedly more accurate and more correct philosophically in their abstracted Deity who stands apart, where the Jewish thinkers put their Jewish Lord, in silent majesty; but the human heart, the religious heart, as the word is popularly used, craves something more tangible, something tenderer, gentler, sweeter. This craving is not altogether a noble one. It is an aspect of that stage of evolution where mankind now stands. Man sees the world through his own mind, and the civilizations of today are the offspring of his mind. The mind of mankind in the past had different civilizations, and the mind of mankind in the future will bring forth still other types of civilization. Indeed sex itself is but a transitory phase of human development, using the word transitory to include vast epochs of time. And it is rather unfortunate that the archaic knowledge is not more generally known today among men because then the sex crazes which afflict mankind, particularly at certain epochs, and of which we seem today to be undergoing the scourge, would have less force, less grip on our hearts and on our ideas.
(GH) Virata The raja of Virata (a country in the midland or northwest districts of India — in about the position of the modern province of Berar). It was at the court of this king that the Pandavas spent the last year of their exile in disguise — as imposed upon them by Duryodhana. Because of the many services rendered to him by the Pandavas, Virata lent his aid to the sons of Pandu. ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 2)
(WG) Viseshas, species; the distinctions existent between objects.
(WG) Vishada, despondency, distress of mind, despair; stupefaction.
(WG) Vishaya, an object sense. Five vishayas are enumerated, one for each indriya, or organ of sense, and each corresponds with one of the five elements.
(TG) Vishnu {Sans}. The second person of the Hindu Trimurti (trinity), composed of Brahma, Vishnu and Siva. From the root vish, “to pervade”. In the Rig-Veda, Vishnu is no high god, but simply a manifestation of the solar energy, described as “striding through the seven regions of the Universe in three steps and enveloping all things with the dust (of his beams” Whatever may be the six other occult significances of the statement, this is related to the same class of types as the seven and ten Sephiroth, as the seven and three orifices of the perfect Adam Kadmon, as the seven “principles” and the higher triad in man, etc., etc. Later on this mystic type becomes a great god, the preserver and the renovator, he “of a thousand names — Sahasranama”.
(GH) Vishnu The second aspect of the Hindu Trimurti (Brahma being the first and Siva the third): the most prominent of deities, especially in his character of Sustainer and Preserver of all manifestation — equivalent to the Logos. In the Vedas, however, the conception of the Trimurti is not present: Vishnu is mentioned with the other gods as the personification of the sun and light, he is described as striding across the heavens in three paces, explained as the three manifestations of light — fire, lightning, and the sun. It is in the epic poems and Puranas that Vishnu becomes the most worshiped deity, riding on Garuda, or again resting on Ananta . Brahma (‘the creator’) is represented as springing from a lotus arising from Vishnu’s navel, while the latter slept on the waters of space; while Siva (‘the destroyer’) sprang from his forehead. In his character of the preserver, Vishnu manifests in the world in the form of Avataras, ten principal ones being enumerated, the seventh and eighth being Rama and Krishna. (See Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, pp. 30-31) “Vishnu is, as well as Adam Kadmon, the expression of the universe itself; and . . . his incarnations are but concrete and various embodiments of the manifestations of this ‘Stupendous Whole.”‘ (Isis Unveiled, II, p. 277) (The following word is derived from the verbal root:) vis, to enter, to pervade. Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 73)
(FY) Vishnu, the second member of the Hindu trinity; the principle of preservation.
(WG) Vishnu, the second member of the Hindu trinity. (Literally, “all-pervading.”)
(FY) Vishnuite or Vishnuvite, (Vishnavas) a worshipper of Vishnu, the name of a sect among the Hindus.
(TG) Vishwakarman {Sans}. The “Omnificent”. A Vedic god, a personification of the creative Force, described as the One “all-seeing god, . . . . the generator, disposer, who . . . is beyond the comprehension of (uninitiated) mortals”. In the two hymns of the Rig-Veda specially devoted to him, he is said “to sacrifice himself to himself ” . The names of his mother, “the lovely and virtuous Yoga-Siddha ” (Puranas), and of his daughter Sanjna (spiritual consciousness), show his mystic character. (See Secret Doctrine, sub voc As the artificer of the gods and maker of their weapons, he is called Karu, “workman”, Takshaka “carpenter”, or “wood-cutter”, etc., etc.
(WG) Vishwakarman, the artificer and carpenter of the Gods in the Vedas . From this has sprung the idea of Jesus as a carpenter.
(TG) Vishwatryarchas {Sans}. The fourth solar (mystic) ray of the seven. (See Secret Doctrine, I., p. 515, n
(VS) boundless Vision (II 30) [[p. 39]] Boundless Vision or psychic, superhuman sight. An Arhan is credited with “seeing” and knowing all at a distance as well as on the spot.
(WG) Visishta, separated, set apart by itself; distinguished.
(WG) Visva-Devas, a class of deities particularly worshipped at the sraddhas, or funeral ceremonies.
(GH) Visvas (also Visve-devas ) A class of deities: according to the Puranas represented as the sons of Visva (the daughter of Daksha), and named: Vasu, Satya, Kratu, Daksha, Kala, Kama, Dhriti Kuru, Pururavas, Madravas, Rochaka (or Lochana), Dhvani. They are particularly worshiped at Sraddhas — a ceremony of reverential homage unto deceased relatives performed by the offering of water daily (as recommended by The Laws of Manu (Manava-Dharma-Sastra); and supplicated at Pinda services — balls of rice and meal offered at regular intervals (see Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 7). (Meaning of the word itself: all-pervading. Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 81)
(GH) Vittesa literally ‘Lord of wealth,’ the name of Kuvera (or Kubera), the god of wealth. In the Vedas, Kuvera is represented as the chief of the evil beings or spirits of darkness (having the name Vaisravana, i.e., the son of Visravas by Idavida). In later times Kuvera is represented as the lord of riches and wealth, the chief of the Yakshas, and the regent of the northern quarter, thus answering to one of the four great Guardians (Maharajas). In the Ramayana, Kuvera was the possessor of Lanka, but he was expelled therefrom by his half-brother, Ravana; whereupon he performed such austerities that he was granted the regency of the domain of wealth, and named guardian of the northern quarter. He is described as a white man greatly deformed in body, having three legs and only eight teeth. ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 73)
(TG) Vivaswat {Sans}. The “bright One”, the Sun.
(WG) Vivasvat, the sun; the first manifestation of divine wisdom at the season of creation.
(GH) Vivasvat literally ‘The brilliant one’ — a name of the Sun. In epic poetry (and also in the Rig-Veda ) regarded as the father of Vaivasvata-Manu, the seventh or present Manu. (The following word is derived from the verbal root:) vi-vas, to shine forth. Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 30)
(WG) Viveka, discrimination, good judgment; in Vedanta philosophy, the power of separating the invisible spirit from the visible world, spirit from matter, truth from untruth, reality from illusion. (Literally, “a separating apart.”)
(TG) Viwan {Sans}. Some kind “of air-vehicle”, like a balloon, mentioned but not described in the old Sanskrit works, which the Atlanteans and the ancient Aryas seem to have known and used.
(MO) Volsungar {Nors} (veul-s-ungar) [ volsi phallus + ungr children] Early bisexual humanity
(MO) Volund {Nors} (veu-lund) Name of a mythic smith and skillful artisan. The soul of the fourth humanity
(TG) Voluspa {Nors}. A poem called “The Song of the Prophetess”, or “Song of Wala”.
(MO) Voluspa {Nors} (veu-luss-paw) [ vala sibyl + spa to prophesy] Principal lay of the elder Edda
(IN) Voluspa “The Sibyl’s Prophecy,” mystic poem opening the Elder Edda, the Norse theosophy.
(TG) Voodooism, or Voodoos. A system of African sorcery; a sect of black magicians, to which the New Orleans negroes are much addicted. It flourishes likewise in Cuba and South America.
(TG) Voordalak {slav}. A vampire; a corpse informed by its lower principles, and maintaining a kind of semi-life in itself by raising itself during the night from the grave, fascinating its living victims and sucking out their blood. Roumanians, Moldavians, Serbians, and all the Slavonian tribes dwelling in the Balkans, and also the Tchechs (Bohemians), Moravians, and others, firmly believe in the existence of such ghosts and dread them accordingly.
(TG) Votan #azt. The deified hero of the Mexicans, and probably the same as Quetzal-Coatl; a “son of the snakes”, one admitted “to the snake’s hole”, which means an Adept admitted to the Initiation in the secret chamber of the Temple. The missionary Brasseur de Bourbourg, seeks to prove him a descendant of Ham, the accursed son of Noah. (See Isis Unveiled, I., pp. 545 et seq
(TG) Vrata {Sans}. Law, or power of the gods.
(TG) Vratani {Sans}. Varuna’s “active laws”, courses of natural action. (See Rig-Vedic Hymns, X., 90-1
(TG) Vriddha Garga {Sans}. From Vriddha, “old”, and Garga, an ancient sage, one of the oldest writers on astronomy.
(TG) Vriddha Manava {Sans} The laws of Manu.
(FY) Vrishalas, outcasts.
(GH) Vrishni A descendant of Yadu, the first of the Yadava line, which became extinct with Krishna. Krishna was therefore called Varshneya, ‘descendant of Vrishni.’ Yadu was also the half-brother of Puru (the ancestor of the Kurus and founder of the Paurava line). ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 27)
(TG) Vritra {Sans}. The demon of drought in the Vedas, a great foe of Indra, with whom he is constantly at war. The allegory of a cosmic phenomenon.
(TG) Vritra-han {Sans}. An epithet or title of Indra, meaning “the slayer of Vritra”.
(WG) Vritti, event; procedure, action; established rule; occupation, means of subsistence.
(PV) Vukup Cakix {quiche-maya} “Seven Macaw,” or “Seven Feathers of Fire.” A false creator deity of the First Age in the Popol Vuh who, while the world was still enveloped in semi-obscurity, pretended to be the true solar or illuminating deity. After being vanquished by Hunahpu and Ixbalamque, he and his wife Chimalmat and two sons, Zipacna and Caprakan, four giants, were transformed into four cosmic bearers.
(PV) Vucup Hunahpu {quiche-maya} The god-Seven of Quiche myth, identical with Uuc-cheknal of the Mayas. The Seven Ahpu, produced by the Supreme Pair, Ixpiyacoc and Ixmucane. Hypostases of the Supreme Being (Ixpiyacoc). Their nahual is the old Fire god, oldest in the Maya pantheon, who is the father of the Maize god (Hunahpu). Their celestial ideogram is the constellations Orion and Ursa Major. Identical with Heart of Heaven (Cabahuil) and the Agrarian or Creative deity (Hunrakan). “The Descendant of Seven Generations.”
(TG) Vyahritis {slav}. Lit., “fiery”, words lit by and born of fire. The three mystical, creative words, said by Manu to have been milked by the Prajapati from the Vedas: bhur, from the Rig- Veda; bhuvah, from the Yajur-Veda: and Swar, from the Sama-Veda (Manu II., 76). All three are said to possess creative powers. The Satapatha Brahmana explains that they are “the three luminous essences” extracted from the Vedas by Prajapati (“lords of creation”, progenitors), through heat. “He (Brahma) uttered the word bhur, and it became the earth; bhuvah, and it became the firmament; and swar, which became heaven”. Mahar is the fourth “luminous essence”, and was taken from the Atharva-Veda. But, as this word is purely mantric and magical, it is one, so to say, kept apart.
(WG) Vyakta, discrete, discernible, manifest, evident.
(TG) Vyasa {Sans}. Lit., one who expands or amplifies: an interpreter, or rather a revealer; for that which he explains, interprets and amplifies is a mystery to the profane. This term was applied in days of old to the highest Gurus in India. There were many Vyasas in Aryavarta; one was the compiler and arranger of the Vedas; another, the author of the Mahabharata — the twenty-eighth Vyasa or revealer in the order of succession — and the last one of note was the author of Uttara Mimansa, the sixth school or system of Indian philosophy. He was also the founder of the Vedanta system. His date, as assigned by Orientalists (see Elphinstone, Cowell, etc, is 1,400 B.C., but this date is certainly too recent. The Puranas mention only twenty-eight Vyasas, who at various ages descended to the earth to promulgate Vedic truths — but there were many more.
(FY) Vyasa, the celebrated Rishi, who collected and arranged the Vedas in their present form.
(WG) Vyasa, a mythical Indian sage and poet, to whom the compilation of the Vedas, the Maha-bharata and other works is ascribed. The Vishnu-Purana enumerates twenty-eight Vyasas, and the first Vyasa is said to have been Svayambhuva, or Brahma himself.
(GH) Vyasa The celebrated sage and author, regarded as the original compiler and arranger of the Vedas and Vedanta-sutras (hence called Veda-vyasa — vyasa meaning an arranger, a compiler). In the Mahabharata it is related that Vyasa was the half brother of Vichitravirya and Bhishma, his parents being the Rishi Parasara and Satyavati. Because of his dark complexion he was called Krishna, and on account of being born on a dvipa (island) in the Jumna, he received the name Dvaipayana. Although he had retired into the wilderness in order to become a hermit, his mother implored him to wed the childless widowed wives (Ambika and Ambalika) of Vichitravirya, and he thus became the father of Dhritarashtra and Pandu — parents of the Kurus and Pandavas respectively, by whom the great conflict was waged. Vyasa is also regarded as the compiler of the Mahabharata, the narrator of the Bhagavata-Purana, and author of other Puranas. The Puranas mention 28 Vyasas — represented as incarnations of Brahma or Vishnu, descending upon earth for the purpose of arranging and promulgating the Vedas and other sastras. ‘Vyasa’ is indeed a term applied to the highest gurus in India, “for that which he explains, interprets and amplifies is a mystery to the profane. . . . There were many Vyasas in Aryavarta; one was the compiler and arranger of the Vedas; another, the author of the Mahabharata — the twenty-eighth Vyasa or revealer in the order of succession — and the last one of note was the author of Uttara Mimansa, the sixth school or system of Indian philosophy. He was also the founder of the Vedanta system.” ( Theosophical Glossary, H. P. Blavatsky, p. 367) ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. pp. iii and 72)
(WG) Vyashti-sarga, specific and individual creation. ( Vyashti , manifold; sarga, creation
(FY) Vyavaharika, objective existence; practical.
(TG) W. — The 23rd letter. Has no equivalent in Hebrew. In Western Occultism some take it as the symbol for celestial water, whereas M stands for terrestrial water.
(VS) Walker of the Sky (I 25) [[p. 9]] Keshara or “sky-walker” or “goer.” As explained in the 6th. Adhyaya of that king of mystic works the Dhyaneswari the body of the Yogi becomes as one formed of the wind; as “a cloud from which limbs have sprouted out,” after which “he (the Yogi) beholds the things beyond the seas and stars; he hears the language of the Devas and comprehends it, and perceives what is passing in the mind of the ant.”
(TG) Wara {Nors}. One of the maidens of Northern Freya; “the wise Wara”, who watches the desires of each human heart, and avenges every breach of faith.
(TG) Water. The first principle of things, according to Thales and other ancient philosophers. Of course this is not water on the material plane, but in a figurative sense for the potential fluid contained in boundless space. This was symbolised in ancient Egypt by Kneph, the “unrevealed” god, who was represented as the serpent — the emblem of eternity — encircling a water-urn, with his head hovering over the waters, which he incubates with his breath. “And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” ( Gen . i The honey-dew, the food of the gods and of the creative bees on the Yggdrasil, falls during the night upon the tree of life from the “divine waters, the birth-place of the gods”. Alchemists claim that when pre-Adamic earth is reduced by the Alkahest to its first substance, it is like clear water . The Alkahest is “the one and the invisible, the water, the first principle, in the second transformation”.
Werdandi {Nors}. See “Norns”, the three sister-goddesses who represent the Past, the Present and the Future. Werdandi represents the ever-present time.
(WG) Wheel of Samsara, being reborn on earth over and over again; reincarnation; called a wheel because we whirl about from one life to another so long as we are overcome by desire.
(TG) Whip of Osiris. The scourge which symbolises Osiris as the “judge of the dead”. It is called the nekhekh, in the papyri, or the flagellum. Dr,.Pritchard sees in it a fan or van, the winnowing instrument. Osiris, “whose fan is in his hand and who purges the Amenti of sinful hearts as a winnower sweeps his floor of the fallen grains and locks the good wheat into his garner”. (Compare Matthew, iii. 12
(TG) White Fire {Hebr}. The Zohar treating of the “Long Face” and “Short Face”, the symbols of Macrocosm and Microcosm, speaks of the hidden White Fire, radiating from these night and day and yet never seen. It answers to vital force (beyond luminiferous ether), and electricity on the higher and lower planes. But the mystic “White Fire” is a name given to Ain-Soph. And this is the difference between the Aryan and the Semitic philosophies. The Occultists of the former speak of the Black Fire, which is the symbol of the unknown and unthinkable Brahm, and declare any speculation on the “Black Fire” impossible. But the Kabbalists who, owing to a subtle permutation of meaning, endow even Ain-Soph with a kind of indirect will and attributes, call its “fire” white, thus dragging the Absolute into the world of relation and finiteness.
(TG) White Head. In Hebrew Resha Hivra, an epithet given to Sephira, the highest of the Sephiroth, whose cranium “distils the dew which will call the dead again to life”.
(TG) White Stone. The sign of initiation mentioned in St. John’s Revelation . It had the word prize engraved on it, and was the symbol of that word given to the neophyte who, in his initiation, had successfully passed through all the trials in the MYSTERIES. It was the potent white cornelian of the mediaeval Rosicrucians, who took it from the Gnostics. “To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna (the occult knowledge which descends as divine wisdom from heaven), and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written (the ‘mystery name’ of the inner man or the EGO of the new Initiate), which no man knoweth saving him that receiveth it.” (Revelation, ii. 17
(TG) Widow’s Son. A name given to the French Masons, because the Masonic ceremonies are principally based on the adventures and death of Hiram Abif, “the widow’s son”, who is supposed to have helped to build the mythical Solomon’s Temple.
(TG) Will. In metaphysics and occult philosophy, Will is that which governs the manifested universes in eternity. Will is the one and sole principle of abstract eternal MOTION, or its ensouling essence. “The will”, says Van Helmont, “is the first of all powers. . . . The will is the property of all spiritual beings and displays itself in them the more actively the more they are freed from matter.” And Paracelsus teaches that “determined will is the the beginning of all magical operations. It is because men do not perfectly imagine and believe the result, that the (occult) arts are so uncertain, while they might be perfectly certain.” Like all the rest, the Will is septenary in its degrees of manifestation. Emanating from the one, eternal, abstract and purely quiescent Will (Atma in Layam), it becomes Buddhi in its Alaya state, descends lower as Mahat (Manas), and runs down the ladder of degrees until the divine Eros becomes, in its lower, animal manifestation, erotic desire. Will as an eternal principle is neither spirit nor substance but everlasting ideation. As well expressed by Schopenhauer in his Parerga, “in sober reality there is neither matter nor spirit . The tendency to gravitation in a stone is as unexplainable as thought in the human brain . . If matter can — no one knows why — fall to the ground, then it can also — no one knows why — think. . . . As soon, even in mechanics, as we trespass beyond the purely mathematical, as soon as we reach the inscrutable adhesion, gravitation, and so on, we are faced by phenomena which are to our senses as mysterious as the WILL.”
(TG) Wisdom. The “very essence of wisdom is contained in the Non-Being”, say the Kabbalists; but they also apply the term to the WORD or Logos, the Demiurge, by which the universe was called into existence. “The one Wisdom is in the Sound”, say the Occultists; the Logos again being meant by Sound, which is the substratum of Akasa. Says the Zohar, the “Book of Splendour”: “It is the Principle of all the Principles, the mysterious Wisdom, the crown of all that which there is of the most High” ( Zohar, iii., fol. 288, Myer’s Qabbalah And it is explained, “Above Kether is the Ayin, or Ens, i.e ., Ain, the NOTHING”. “It is so named because we do not know, and it is impossible to know, that which there is in that Principal, because . . . it is above Wisdom itself .” (iii., fol. 288 This shows that the real Kabbalists agree with the Occultists that the essence, or that which is in the principle of Wisdom, is still above that highest Wisdom.
(TG) Wisdom Religion. The one religion which underlies all the now-existing creeds. That “faith” which, being primordial, and revealed directly to human kind by their progenitors and informing EGOS (though the Church regards them as the “fallen angels”), required no “grace “, nor blind faith to believe, for it was knowledge . (See “Gupta Vidya”, Hidden Knowledge It is on this Wisdom Religion that Theosophy is based.
(KT) Wisdom-Religion. The same as Theosophy. The name given to the secret doctrine which underlies every exoteric scripture and religion.
(WG) Wisdom-Religion, the one religion which underlies all creeds, and which is to be found hidden under the text of all holy books in all nations.
(TG) Witch. From the Anglo-Saxon word wicce, German wissen, “to know”, and wikken, “to divine”. The witches were at first called “wise women”, until the day when the Church took it unto herself to follow the law of Moses, which put every “witch” or enchantress to death.
(TG) Witchcraft. Sorcery, enchantment, the art of throwing spells and using black magic.
(TG) Witches’ Sabbath. The supposed festival and gathering of witches in some lonely spot, where the witches were accused of conferring directly with the Devil. Every race and people believed in it, and some believe in it still. Thus the chief headquarters and place of meeting of all the witches in Russia is said to be the Bald Mountain (Lyssaya Gora ), near Kief, and in Germany the Brocken, in the Harz Mountains. In old Boston, U.S.A., they met near the “Devil’s Pond”, in a large forest which has now disappeared. At Salem, they were put to death almost at the will of the Church Elders, and in South Carolina a witch was burnt as late as 1865. In Germany and England they were murdered by Church and State in thousands, being forced to lie and confess under torture their participation in the “Witches’ Sabbath”.
(TG) Wittoba {Sans}. A form of Vishnu. Moor gives in his Hindu Pantheon the picture of Wittoba crucified in Space : and the Rev. Dr. Lundy maintains (Monumental Christianity) that this engraving is anterior to Christianity and is the crucified Krishna, a Saviour, hence a concrete prophecy of Christ. (See Isis Unveiled, II., 557, 558
(TG) Wizard. A wise man. An enchanter, or sorcerer.
(TG) Wodan (Saxon). The Scandinavian Odin, Votan, or Wuotan.
(TG) World. As a prefix to mountains, trees, and so on, it denotes a universal belief. Thus the “World-Mountain” of the Hindus was Meru. As said in Isis Unveiled : “All the world-mountains and mundane eggs, the mundane trees, and the mundane snakes and pillars, may be shown to embody scientifically demonstrated truths of natural philosophy. All of these mountains contain, with very trifling variations, the allegorically-expressed description of primal cosmogony; the mundane trees, that of subsequent evolution of spirit and matter; the mundane snakes and pillars, symbolical memorials of the various attributes of this double evolution in its endless correlation of cosmic forces. Within the mysterious recesses of the mountain — the matrix of the universe — the gods (powers) prepare the atomic germs of organic life, and at the same time the life-drink, which, when tasted, awakens in man-matter the man- spirit . The Soma, the sacrificial drink of the Hindus, is that sacred beverage. For, at the creation of the prima materia, while the grossest portions of it were used for the physical embryo-world, its more divine essence pervaded the universe, invisibly permeating and enclosing within its ethereal waves the newly-born infant, developing and stimulating it to activity as it slowly evolved out of the eternal chaos. From the poetry of abstract conception, these mundane myths gradually passed into the concrete images of cosmic symbols, as archaeology now finds them.” Another and still more usual prefix to all these objects is “Mundane”. (See “Mundane Egg”, “Mundane Tree”, and “Yggdrasil” WW World [[I]]n proceeding to consider these four words: World, Kosmos, Universe, Space, we must be careful that we are not led astray by false analogical reasoning. Now World comes from two Anglo-Saxon words: wer, man and yldo , age, generation. World, therefore, would mean a generation of man; not a globe, not a sphere. But, as you will remember, in our first study we pointed out that in philosophy there is a close relationship between time, which is the mayavic extension or flower of duration, and matter, which is the flower or extension of substance. Hence, as the extension of time was conceived in a physical sense as something huge, spatial, so the name was applied — that is the name world was applied — to the extension of matter, substance, and hence came to mean, by a natural progress of thought, the physical globe, as for instance, our planet, Terra, the planet Mars, or any other sphere. So it is proper to apply the term world , according to present usage, to a globe, a physical sphere, a planet. But we should remember that the signification of the word itself was originally an epoch of time, and therefore the term world is not applicable to the close reasoning which we shall be obliged to follow in the future, as the word sphere, or any other equivalent term that you may care to employ. Still, the word world is perfectly proper at the present time in popular parlance; and the definitions, as I think will be obvious to all of us, which we are now considering, are for the purpose of having terms among ourselves, when we are studying together, which by their accuracy and point, form a kind of mental shorthand, mental stenography, a mental cipher. It is the same as in mathematics in solving intricate equations, it would be a most tedious and endless process to explain the derivation of every mathematical formula if we had to stop at each word and obtain an exact definition of what it meant. For instance, take: cos a = cos b + cos c + sin b + sin c + cos a . This is perfectly clear. But suppose that we had to stop and explain what cosine meant, and what a spherical triangle was, and what the cosine of — and the sin of — meant, you will realize that we would have to cover several blackboards in explaining what is clearly set forth in that formula to anyone who has studied spherical trigonometry. In that same way, by pursuing our studies along exact lines, by laying down definitions, when the words defined come up, he who hears understands immediately that a certain definite thing is meant: there is no vagueness.
(TG) Worlds, the Four . The Kabbalists recognise Four Worlds of Existence: viz ., Atziluth or archetypal; Briah or creative, the first reflection of the highest; Yetzirah or formative; and Assiah, the World of Shells or Klippoth, and the material universe. The essence of Deity concentrating into the Sephiroth is first manifested in the Atziluthic World, and their reflections are produced in succession in each of the four planes, with gradually lessening radiance and purity, until the material universe is arrived at. Some authors call these four planes the Intellectual, Moral, Sensuous, and Material Worlds. [W.W.W.]
(TG) Worlds, Inferior and Superior . The Occultists and the Kabbalists agree in dividing the universe into superior and inferior worlds, the worlds of Idea and the worlds of Matter. “As above, so below”, states the Hermetic philosophy. This lower world is formed on its prototype — the higher world; and “everything in the lower is but an image (a reflection) of the higher” (Zohar, 2. fol. 20 a
(VS) seven worlds (I 16) worlds of Rest Eternal [[p. 5]] Some Sanskrit mystics locate seven planes of being, the seven spiritual lokas or worlds within the body of Kala Hamsa, the Swan out of Time and Space, convertible into the Swan in Time, when it becomes Brahma instead of Brahma (neuter).
(VS) all three worlds (III 27) [[p. 66]] These three worlds are the three planes of being, the terrestrial, astral and the spiritual.
(VS) abode of the World’s Mother (I 24) [[p. 9]] The “Power” and the “World-mother” are names given to Kundalini one of the mystic “Yogi powers.” It is Buddhi considered as an active instead of a passive principle (which it is generally, when regarded only as the vehicle, or casket of the Supreme Spirit ATMA). It is an electro-spiritual force, a creative power which when aroused into action can as easily kill as it can create.
(TG) X. — This letter is one of the important symbols in the Occult philosophy. As a numeral X stands, in matheinatics, for the unknown quantity; in occult numerals, for the perfect number 10; when placed horizontally, it means 1,000; the same with a dash over it over it for 10,000; and by itself, in occult symbolism, it is Plato’s logos (man as a microcosm ) decussated in space in the form of the letter X. The [[symbol as described]], or cross within the circle, has moreover a still clearer significance in Eastern occult philosophy: it is MAN within his own spherical envelope.
(TG) Xenophilus . A Pythagorean adept and philosopher, credited by Lucian (de Macrob, Pliny and others with having lived to his 170th year, preserving all his faculties to the last. He wrote on music and was surnamed the “Musician”.
(PV) Xibalba {quiche-maya} The underworld, as a locale and an inferior cosmic plane, but having additional meanings. The abode of the Lords of Death (Came). In Maya cosmogony, it appears later than the time of creation of the universe, at an interval of eight stages or epochs removed from that of formation of heaven and earth.
(TG) Xisusthrus {Greek}. The Chaldean Noah, on the Assyrian tablets, who is thus described in the history of the ten kings by Berosus, according to Alexander Polyhistor: “After the death of (the ninth) Ardates, his son Xisusthrus reigned eighteen sari. In his time happened a great deluge.” Warned by his deity in a vision of the forthcoming cataclysm, Xisusthrus was ordered by that deity to build an ark, to convey into it his relations, together with all the different animals, birds, etc., and trust himself to the rising waters. Obeying the divine admonition, Xisusthrus is shown to do precisely what Noah did many thousand years after him. He sent out birds from the vessel which returned to him again; then a few days after he sent them again, and they returned with their feet coated with mud; but the third time they came back to him no more. Stranded on a high mountain of Armenia, Xisusthrus descends and builds an altar to the gods. Here only, comes a divergence between the polytheistic and monotheistic legends. Xisusthrus, having worshipped and rendered thanks to the gods for his salvation, disappeared, and his companions “saw him no more”. The story informs us that on account of his great piety Xisusthrus and his family were translated to live with the gods, as he himself told the survivors. For though his body was gone, his voice was heard in the air, which, after apprising them of the occurrence, admonished them to return to Babylon, and pay due regard to virtue, religion, and the gods. This is more meritorious than to plant vines, get drunk on the juice of the grape, and curse one’s own son.
(TG) Y. — The twenty-fifth letter of the English alphabet, and the tenth of the Hebrew — the Yod. It is the litera Pythagorae, the Pythagorean letter and symbol, signifying the two branches, or paths of virtue and vice respectively, the right leading to virtue, the left to vice. In Hebrew Kabbalistic mysticism it is the phallic male member, and also as number ten, the perfect number. Symbolically, it is represented by a hand with bent forefinger. Its numerical equivalent is ten.
(TG) Yadava {Sans}. A descendant of Yadu; of the great race in which Krishna was born. The founder of this line was Yadu, the son of King Yayati of the Somavansa or Lunar Race. It was under Krishna — certainly no mythical personage — that the kingdom of Dwaraka in Guzerat was established; and also after the death of Krishna (3102 B.C that all the Yadavas present in the city perished, when it was submerged by the ocean. Only a few of the Yadavas, who were absent from the town at the time of the catastrophe, escaped to perpetuate this great race. The Rajas of Vijaya-Nagara are now among the small number of its representatives.
(GH) Yadu The ruler of the country west of the Jumna river, whose father was Yayati and mother, Devayani. His half brother, Puru, was the founder of the Paurava line of the Chandravansa (Lunar Dynasty), to which the Kurus and Pandus belonged. Yadu inaugurated the Yadava branch of this dynasty to which Vasudeva and Krishna belonged, hence Krishna is referred to as ‘son of Yadu.’ But the Yadava line became extinct with Krishna. ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 85)
(SKf) Yadyad devata kamayate, tattad devata bhavati . Whatever a divine being desires, that very thing the divine being becomes
(TG) Yah {Hebr}. The word, as claimed in the Zohar, through which the Elohim formed the worlds. The syllable is a national adaptation and one of the many forms of the “mystery name” IAO. (See “Iaho” and “Yaho”
(TG) Yaho {Hebr}. Furst shows this to be the same as the Greek Iao. Yaho is an old Semitic and very mystic name of the supreme deity, while Yah is a later abbreviation which, from containing an abstract ideal, became finally applied to, and connected with, a phallic symbol — the lingham of creation. Both Yah and Yaho were Hebrew “mystery names” derived from Iao, but the Chaldeans had a Yaho before the Jews adopted it, and with them, as explained by some Gnostics and Neo-Platonists, it was the highest conceivable deity enthroned above the seven heavens and representing Spiritual Light (Atman, the universal), whose ray was Nous, standing both for the intelligent Demiurge of the Universe of Matter and the Divine Manas in man, both being Spirit. The true key of this, communicated to the Initiates only, was that the name of IAO was “triliteral and its nature secret”, as explained by the Hierophants. The Phoenicians too had a supreme deity whose name was triliteral, and its meanings secret, this was also Iao; and Y-ha-ho was a sacred word in the Egyptian mysteries, which signified “the one eternal and concealed deity” in nature and in man; i.e., the “universal Divine Ideation”, and the human Manas, or the higher Ego.
(TG) Yajna {Sans}. “Sacrifice”, whose symbol or representation is now the constellation Mriga-shiras (deer-head), and also a form of Vishnu. “The Yajna”, say the Brahmans, “exists from eternity, for it proceeded from the Supreme, in whom it lay dormant from no beginning ” . It is the key to the Trai-Vidya, the thrice sacred science contained in the Rig-Veda verses, which teaches the Yajna or sacrificial mysteries. As Haug states in his Introduction to the Aitareya Brahmana — the Yajna exists as an invisible presence at all times, extending from the Ahavaniya or sacrificial fire to the heavens, forming a bridge or ladder by means of which the sacrificer can communicate with the world of devas, “and even ascend when alive to their abodes”. It is one of the forms of Akasa, within which the mystic WORD (or its underlying “Sound”) calls it into existence. Pronounced by the Priest-Initiate or Yogi, this WORD receives creative powers, and is communicated as an impulse on the terrestrial plane through a trained Will-power.
(IU) Yajna. — “The Yajna,” say the Brahmans, exists from eternity, for it proceeded forth from the Supreme One, the Brahma-Prajapati, in whom it lay dormant from ” no beginning.” It is the key to the TRAI-VIDYA the thrice sacred science contained in the Rig verses, which teaches the Yagus or sacrificial mysteries. “The Yajna exists as an invisible thing at all times, it is like the latent power of electricity in an electrifying machine, requiring only the operation of a suitable apparatus in order to be elicited. It is supposed to extend from the Ahavaniya or sacrificial fire to the heavens, forming a bridge or ladder by means of which the sacrificer can communicate with the world of gods and spirits, and even ascend when alive to their abodes. [“Aitareya Brahmanan,” Introduction.] This Yajna is again one of the forms of the Akasa, and the mystic word calling it into existence and pronounced mentally by the initiated Priest is the Lost Word receiving impulse through WILL-POWER.
(FY) Yajna Sutra, the name of the Brahmanical thread.
(GH) Yajur (or Yajus ) A sacrificial prayer or formula: also a technical term for mantras to be muttered in a particular manner at a sacrifice, generally written in prose and hence distinguished from the Rik and Saman . Also the name of the second of the four Vedas. ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 66)
(TG) Yakin and Boaz {Hebr}. A Kabbalistic and Masonic symbol. The two pillars of bronze (Yakin, male and white; Boaz, female and red), cast by Hiram Abif of Tyre, called “the Widow’s Son”, for Solomon’s supposed (Masonic) Temple, Yakin was the symbol of Wisdom (Chokmah), the second Sephira; and Boaz, that of Intelligence (Binah); the temple between the two being regarded as Kether, the Crown, Father-Mother.
(TG) Yaksha {Sans}. A class of demons, who, in popular Indian folk-lore, devour men. In esoteric science they are simply evil (elemental) influences, who in the sight of seers and clairvoyants descend on men, when open to the reception of such influences, like a fiery comet or a shooting star.
(WG) Yakshas, sprites, ghosts, elementals who guard treasures. (Literally, “restless ones.”)
(GH) Yakshas A class of celestial beings generally associated with Kuvera, the god of wealth, and stationed in the seventh of the eight lokas of material existence (Yaksha-loka). They are considered to be beneficent to humanity and are therefore called Punya-janas (‘good people’) in the scriptures. In the popular folk-lore of India, however, they are regarded as evil demons, obsessing men at times, etc. H. P. Blavatsky gives the following explanation: “In esoteric science they are simply evil (elemental) influences, who in the sight of seers and clairvoyants descend on men, when open to the reception of such influences, like a fiery comet or a shooting star.” ( Theosophical Glossary, H. P. Blavatsky, p. 375) ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 73)
(TG) Yama {Hebr}. The personified third root-race in Occultism. In the Indian Pantheon Yama is the subject of two distinct versions of the myth. In the Vedas he is the god of the dead, a Pluto or a Minos, with whom the shades of the departed dwell (the Kamarupas in Kamaloka). A hymn speaks of Yama as the first of men that died, and the first that departed to the world of bliss (Devachan). This, because Yama is the embodiment of the race which was the first to be endowed with consciousness (Manas), without which there is neither Heaven nor Hades. Yama is represented as the son of Vivaswat (the Sun). He had a twin-sister named Yami, who was ever urging him, according to another hymn, to take her for his wife, in order to perpetuate the species. The above has a very suggestive symbolical meaning, which is explained in Occultism. As Dr. Muir truly remarks, the Rig-Veda — the greatest authority on the primeval myths which strike the original key-note of the themes that underlie all the subsequent variations — nowhere shows Yama “as having anything to do with the punishment of the wicked”. As king and judge of the dead, a Pluto in short, Yama is a far later creation. One has to study the true character of Yama-Yami throughout more than one hymn and epic poem, and collect the various accounts scattered in dozens of ancient works, and then he will obtain a consensus of allegorical statements which will be found to corroborate and justify the Esoteric teaching, that Yama-Yami is the symbol of the dual Manas, in one of its mystical meanings. For instance, Yama-Yami is always represented of a green colour and clothed with red, and as dwelling in a palace of copper and iron. Students of Occultism know to which of the human “principles” the green and the red colours, and by correspondence the iron and copper, are to be applied. The “twofold-ruler” — the epithet of Yama-Yami — is regarded in the exoteric teachings of the Chino-Buddhists as both judge and criminal, the restrainer of his own evil doings and the evil-doer himself. In the Hindu epic poems Yama-Yami is the twin-child of the Sun (the deity) by Sanjna (spiritual consciousness); but while Yama is the Aryan “lord of the day”, appearing as the symbol of spirit in the East, Yami is the queen of the night (darkness, ignorance) “who opens to mortals the path to the West” — the emblem of evil and matter. In the Puranas Yama has many wives (many Yamis) who force him to dwell in the lower world (Patala, Myalba, etc., etc; and an allegory represents him with his foot lifted, to kick Chhaya, the handmaiden of his father (the astral body of his mother, Sanjna, a metaphysical aspect of Buddhi or Alaya). As stated in the Hindu Scriptures, a soul when it quits its mortal frame, repairs to its abode in the lower regions (Kamaloka or Hades). Once there, the Recorder, the Karmic messenger called Chitra-gupta (hidden or concealed brightness), reads out his account from the Great Register, wherein during the life of the human being, every deed and thought are indelibly impressed — and, according to the sentence pronounced, the “soul” either ascends to the abode of the Pitris (Devachan), descends to a “hell” (Kamaloka), or is reborn on earth in another human form. The student of Esoteric philosophy, will easily recognize the bearings of the allegories.
(FY) Yama, law, the god of death.
(WG) Yama, forbearance; the first stage of yoga; the god of death. Yama and his sister Yami constituted the first human pair, in allegorical Vedic tradition, and he is consequently so honored as the father of mankind and king of the pitaras, or ancestors. Later he becomes “the restrainer,” and, as “the punisher,” rules the dead in the underworld.
(GH) Yama The god of the Underworld. In the Vedas Yama is represented as the son of the Sun, Vivasvat: he it is who first died and first departed to the celestial world. The interpretation of this is, that “Yama is the embodiment of the race which was the first to be endowed with consciousness (Manas), without which there is neither Heaven nor Hades.” ( Theosophical Glossary, H. P. Blavatsky, p. 375) In the epic poems Yama is the son of Sanjna (Conscience) by Vivasvat and brother of Manu. His office is to judge the dead: seated on his throne of judgment (Vicharabhu) in his palace (Kalichi). The soul of a departed mortal enters the regions of the dead (Yamapura) and appears before Yama, while the recorder, Chitragupta, reads out his record from the great register (Agra-samdhani). In the sentence which follows, the deceased is assigned to the abode of the Pitris (Devachan) if guilty he must go to one of the 21 hells according to the degree of his guilt; or he is sent to be born again on earth in another form. Because of his judging, Yama is also called the god of justice, Dharma. He is represented as riding upon a buffalo armed with mace and noose, with which he secures those about to go to his realms. Yama had a twin sister, Yami who, according to an ancient hymn, is ever urging him to take her as his wife. The Esoteric teaching is “that Yama-Yami is the symbol of the dual Manas, in one of its mystical meanings. For instance, Yama-Yami is always represented of a green colour and clothed with red, and as dwelling in a palace of copper and iron.” ( Theosophical Glossary, H. P. Blavatsky, p. 376)
“The Hindu Chitra-Gupta who reads out the account of every Soul’s life from his register, called Agra-Sandhani; the ‘Assessors’ who read theirs from the heart of the defunct, which becomes an open book before (whether) Yama, Minos, Osiris, or Karma — are all so many copies of, and variants from the Lipika, and their Astral Records.” ( Secret Doctrine, I, p. 105) ( Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 75)
(SKv) Yama ‘Self-control’; derived from the verb-root yam — to hold, to check. In Yoga-discipline Yama includes the age-old and great moral laws of non-injury known as Ahimsa, the laws of negative ethics and compassion: “Thou shalt not kill,” etc.
(TG) Yamabooshee, or Yamabusi #jap. A sect in Japan of very ancient and revered mystics. They are monks “militant” and warriors, if needed, as are certain Yogis in Rajputana and the Lamas in Tibet. This mystic brotherhood dwell chiefly near Kioto, and are renowned for their healing powers, says the Encyclopaedia, which translates the name “Hermit Brothers”: “They pretend to magical arts, and live in the recesses of mountains and craggy steeps, whence they come forth to tell fortunes (?), write charms and sell amulets. They lead a mysterious life and admit no one to their secrets, except after a tedious and difficult preparation by fasting and a species of severe, gymnastic exercise ” (!!).
(VS) the greater Yana (III 2) [[p. 45]] Yana vehicle: thus Mahayana is the “Great Vehicle,” and Hinayana, the “Lesser Vehicle,” the names for two schools of religious and philosophical learning in Northern Buddhism.
(FY) Yashts, the Parsi prayer-books.
(TG) Yasna, or Yacna #pah. The third portion of the first of the two parts of the Avesta, the Scripture of the Zoroastrian Parsis. The Yasna is composed of litanies of the same kind as the Visperad (the second portion) and of five hymns or gathas. These gathas are the oldest fragments of Zoroastrian literature known to the Parsis, for they are written “in a special dialect, older than the general language of the Avesta ” (Darmesteter). (See “Zend”
(FY) Yasna, religious book of the Parsis.
(FY) Yasodhara, the wife of Buddha.
(WG) Yatana-deha, a body evolved from the sukshma-sarira, in which the soul is clothed during its stay in naraka — hell. ( yatana, requital, pains of hell; deha, body
(TG) Yati {Sans}. A measure of three feet.
(IN) Yati A measure of length, about 3 feet.
(TG) Yatus, or Yatudhanas {Sans}. A kind of animal-formed demons. Esoterically, human animal passions.
(FY) Yavanacharya, the name given to Pythagoras in the Indian books.
(FY) Yavanas, the generic name given by the Brahmanas to younger peoples.
(TG) Yazathas (Zend). Pure celestial spirits, whom the Vendidad shows once upon a time sharing their food with mortals, who thus participate in their existence.
(TG) Years of Brahma . The whole period of “Brahma’s Age” (100 Years). Equals 311,040,000,000,000 years. (See “Yuga”
(WG) Year of Brahma, 360 days and 360 nights of Brahma. 3,110,400,000,000 solar years.
(TG) Yeheedah {Hebr}. Lit., “Individuality”; esoterically, the highest individuality or Atma-Buddhi-Manas, when united in one. This doctrine is in the Chaldean Book of Numbers, which teaches a septenary division of human “principles”, so-called, as does the Kabalah in the Zohar, according to the Book of Solomon (iii., 104a, as translated in I. Myer’s Qabbalah ). At the time of the conception, the Holy “sends a dyook-nah, or the phantom of a shadow image” like the face of a man. It is designed and sculptured in the divine tzelem, i.e., the shadow image of the Elohim.” “Elohim created man in his (their) tzelem ” or image, says Genesis (i. 27). It is the tzelem that awaits the child and receives it at the moment of its conception, and this tzelem is our linga sharira. “The Rua’h forms with the Nephesh the actual personality of the man” and also his individuality, or, as expressed by the Kabbalist, the combination of the two is called, if he (man) deserves it, Yeheedah. This combination is that which the Theosophist calls the dual Manas, the Higher and the LOWER EGO, united to Atma-Buddhi and become one. For as explained in the Zohar (i., 205b, 206a, Brody Ed: ” Neshamah, soul (Buddhi), comprises three degrees, and therefore she has three names, like the mystery above: that is, Nephesh, Rua’h, Neshamah “, or the Lower Manas, the Higher Ego, and Buddhi, the Divine Soul. “It is also to be noted that the Neshamah has three divisions;” says Myer ‘ s Qabbalah, “the highest is the Ye-hee-dah ” — or Atma-Buddhi-Manas, the latter once more as a unit; “the middle principle is Hay-yah ” — or Buddhi and the dual Manas; “and the last and third, the Neshamah, properly speaking” — or Soul in general. “They manifest themselves in Ma’hshabah, thought, Tzelem, phantom of the image, Zurath, prototypes (mayavic forms, or rupas ), and the D’yooknah, shadow of the phantom image. The D’mooth, likeness or similitude (physical body), is a lower manifestation” (p. 392). Here then, we find the faithful echo of Esoteric science in the Zohar and other Kabbalistic works, a perfect Esoteric septenary division. Every Theosophist who has studied the doctrine sketched out first in Mr. Sinnett’s Occult World and Esoteric Buddhism, and later in the Theosophist, Lucifer, and other writings, will recognise them in the Zohar. Compare for instance what is taught in Theosophical works about the pre- and post-mortem states of the three higher and the four lower human principles, with the following from the Zohar: “Because all these three are one knot like the above, in the mystery of Nephesh, Ruah, Neshamah, they are all one, and bound in one. Nephesh (Kama-Manas) has no light from her own substance; and it is for this reason that she is associated with the mystery of guff, the body, to procure enjoyment and food and everything which it needs. . . . Rua’h (the Spirit) is that which rides on that Nephesh (the lower soul) and (supplies) her with everything she needs [ i.e. , with the light of reason], and the Nephesh is the throne [vehicle] of that Ru’ah. Neshamah (Divine Soul) goes over to that Rua’h, and she rules over that Rua’h and lights to him with that Light of Life, and that Rua’h depends on the Neshamah and receives light from her, which illuminates him. . . . When the ‘upper’ Neshamah ascends (after the death of the body), she goes to . . . the Ancient of the Ancient, the Hidden of all the Hidden, to receive Eternity. The Rua’h does not [yet] go to Gan Eden [Devachan] because he is [mixed up with] Nephesh . . . the Rua’h goes up to Eden, but not so high as the soul, and Nephesh [the animal principle, lower soul] remains in the grave below [or Kamaloka] (Zohar, ii., 142 a, Cremona Ed., ii., fol. 63 b, col. 252). It would be difficult not to recognise in the above our Atma (or the “upper” Neshamah), Buddhi (Neshamah), Manas (Rua’h), and Kama-Manas (Nephesh) or the lower animal soul; the first of which goes after the death of man to join its integral whole, the second and the third proceeding to Devachan, and the last, or the Kamarupa, “remaining in its grave”, called otherwise the Kamaloka or Hades.
(TG) Yene, Anganta. The meaning of the Anganta Yene is known to all India. It is the action of an elemental (bhut), who, drawn into the sensitive and passive body of a medium, takes possession of it. In other words, anganta yene means literally “obsession”. The Hindus dread such a calamity now as strongly as they did thousands of years ago. “No Hindu, Tibetan, or Sinhalese, unless of the lowest caste and intelligence, can see, without a shudder of horror, the signs of ‘mediumship’ manifest themselves in a member of his family, or without saying, as a Christian would do now, ‘he hath the devil’. This ‘gift, blessing, and holy mission’, so called in England and America, is, among the older peoples, in the cradle-lands of our race, where longer experience than ours has taught them more spiritual wisdom, regarded as a dire misfortune.”
(TG) Yesod {Hebr}. The ninth Sephira; meaning Basis or Foundation.
(TG) Yetzirah {Hebr}. The third of the Four Kabbalistic Worlds, referred to the Angels; the “World of Formation”, or Olam Yetzirah . It is also called Malahayah, or “of the Angels”. It is the abode of all the ruling Genii (or Angels) who control and rule planets, worlds and spheres.
(TG) Yeu {Chin}. “Being”, a synonym of Subhava; or “the Substance giving substance to itself”.
(TG) Yggdrasil {Nors}. The “World Tree of the Norse Cosmogony; the ash Yggdrasil; the tree of the Universe, of time and of life”. It has three roots, which reach down to cold Hel, and spread thence to Jotunheim, the land of the Hrimthurses, or “Frost Giants”, and to Midgard, the earth and dwelling of the children of men. Its upper boughs stretch out into heaven, and its highest branch overshadows Walhalla, the Devachan of the fallen heroes. The Yggdrasil is ever fresh and green, as it is daily sprinkled by the Norns, the three fateful sisters, the Past, the Present, and the Future, with the waters of life from the fountain of Urd that flows on our earth. It will wither and disappear only on the day when the last battle between good and evil is fought; when, the former prevailing, life, time and space pass out of life and space and time. Every ancient people had their world-tree. The Babylonians had their “tree of life”, which was the world-tree, whose roots penetrated into the great lower deep or Hades, whose trunk was on the earth, and whose upper boughs reached Zikum, the highest heaven above. Instead of in Walhalla, they placed its upper foliage in the holy house of Davkina, the “great mother” of Tammuz, the Saviour of the world — the Sun-god put to death by the enemies of light.
(MO) Yggdrasil {Nors} (ig-dra-seel) [Odin’s steed, Odin’s gallows] The Tree of Life
(TG) Yi-King {Chin}. An ancient Chinese work, written by generations of sages.
(TG) Yima (Zend). In the Vendidad, the first man, and, from his aspect of spiritual progenitor of mankind, the same as Yama . His further functions are not given in the Zend books, because so many of these ancient fragments have been lost, made away with, or otherwise prevented from falling into the hands of the profane. Yima was not born, for he represents the first three human Root-races, the first of which is “not born”; but he is the “first man who dies “, because the third race, the one which was informed by the rational Higher Egos, was the first one whose men separated into male and female, and “man lived and died, and was reborn”. (See Secret Doctrine, II., pp. 609 et seq
(TG) Ymir {Nors}. The personified matter of our globe in a seething condition. The cosmic monster in the form of a giant, who is killed in the cosmogonical allegories of the Eddas by the three creators, the sons of Bor, Odin, Wili and We, who are said to have conquered Yimir and created the world out of his body. This allegory shows the three principal forces of nature — separation, formation and growth (or evolution) — conquering the unruly, raging “giant” matter, and forcing it to become a world, or an inhabited globe. It is curious that an ancient, primitive and uncultured pagan people, so philosophical and scientifically correct in their views about the origin and formation of the earth, should, in order to be regarded as civilized, have to accept the dogma that the world was created out of nothing!
(MO) Ymer {Nors} (ee-mer) [frost giant] Orgalmer
(TG) Yod {Hebr}. The tenth letter of the alphabet, the first in the fourfold symbol of the compound name Jah-hovah (Jehovah) or Jah-Eve, the hermaphrodite force and existence in nature. Without the later vowels, the word Jehovah is written IHVH (the letter Yod standing for all the three English letters y, i, or j, as the case may require), and is male-female. The letter Yod is the symbol of the lingham, or male organ, in its natural triple form, as the Kabalah shows. The second letter He, has for its symbol the yoni, the womb or “window-opening”, as the Kabalah has it; the symbol of the third letter, the Vau, is a crook or a nail (the bishop’s crook having its origin in this), another male letter, and the fourth is the same as the second — the whole meaning to be or to exist under one of these forms or both. Thus the word or name is pre-eminently phallic. It is that of the fighting god of the Jews, “Lord of Hosts”; of the “aggressive Yod” or Zodh, Cain (by permutation), who slew his female brother, Abel, and spilt his (her) blood. This name, selected out of many by the early Christian writers, was an unfortunate one for their religion on account of its associations and original significance; it is a number at best, an organ in reality. This letter Yod has passed into God and Gott.
(TG) Yoga {Sans}. (1) One of the six Darshanas or schools of India; a school of philosophy founded by Patanjali, though the real Yoga doctrine, the one that is said to have helped to prepare the world for the preaching of Buddha, is attributed with good reasons to the more ancient sage Yajnawalkya, the writer of the Shatapatha Brahmana, of Yajur Veda, the Brihad Aranyaka, and other famous works. (2) The practice of meditation as a means of leading to spiritual liberation. Psychospiritual powers are obtained thereby, and induced ecstatic states lead to the clear and correct perception of the eternal truths, in both the visible and invisible universe.
(KT) Yoga {Sans} A school of philosophy founded by Patanjali, but which existed as a distinct teaching and system of life long before that sage. It is Yajnawalkya, a famous and very ancient sage, to whom the White Yajur Veda, the Satapatha Brahmana and the Brihak Aranyaka are attributed and who lived in pre-Maha-bharatean times, who is credited with inculcating the necessity and positive duty of religious meditation and retirement into the forests, and who, therefore, is believed to have originated the Yoga doctrine. Professor Max Muller states that it is Yajnawalkya who prepared the world for the preaching of Buddha. Patanjali’s Yoga, however, is more definite and precise as a philosophy, and embodies more of the occult sciences than any of the works attributed to Yajnawalkya.
(WG) Yoga, the second of the two divisions of the Sankhya philosophy, teaching the means of attaining complete union with the Supreme. Eight stages or means of yoga, mental concentration and union with Isvara, are enumerated, viz: yama, forbearance, freedom from cruelty; niyama, restraint, religious observances; asana, bodily postures; pranayama, regulation of the breath; pratyahara, full control of thoughts and feelings; dharana, steadying of the mind; dhyana, contemplation; samadhi, perfect meditation, the highest of mystic trances. To the system of mental and ethical training the term raja-yoga, “kingly union,” is applied, while physical and psychic practices in the line of black magic and spiritualism are called hatha-yoga, violent control. (yoga, yoking, union
(OG) Yoga — {Sans} Literally “union,” “conjunction,” etc. In India it is the technical name for one of the six Darsanas or schools of philosophy, and its foundation is ascribed to the sage Patanjali. The name Yoga itself describes the objective of this school, the attaining of union or at-one-ness with the divine-spiritual essence within a man. The yoga practices when properly understood through the instructions of genuine teachers — who, by the way, never announce themselves as public lecturers or through books or advertisements — are supposed to induce certain ecstatic states leading to a clear perception of universal truths, and the highest of these states is called samadhi. There are a number of minor forms of yoga practice and training such as the karma yoga, hatha yoga, bhakti yoga, raja yoga, jnana yoga, etc. Similar religious aspirations or practices likewise exist in Occidental countries, as, for instance, what is called salvation by works, somewhat equivalent to the Hindu karma yoga or, again, salvation by faith — or love, somewhat similar to the Hindu bhakti yoga; while both Orient and Occident have, each one, its various forms of ascetic practices which may be grouped under the term hatha yoga. No system of yoga should ever be practiced unless under the direct teaching of one who knows the dangers of meddling with the psychomental apparatus of the human constitution, for dangers lurk at every step, and the meddler in these things is likely to bring disaster upon himself, both in matters of health and as regards sane mental equilibrium. The higher branches of yoga, however, such as the raja yoga and jnana yoga, implying strict spiritual and intellectual discipline combined with a fervid love for all beings, are perfectly safe. It is, however, the ascetic practices, etc., and the teachings that go with them, wherein lies the danger to the unwary, and they should be carefully avoided.
(GH) Yoga The word literally means a union, a joining together. It is the name of one of the six Schools of Philosophy or systems of Hindu thought (Darsanas), being so called because it sought the attainment of union or at-one-ness with the divine-spiritual essence within a man, this being virtually identical with the spiritual essence or Logos of the universe. This school was founded by Patanjali and his teachings are extant in a work written by him known as Yoga Aphorisms. However, even before his time a far grander and more inclusive system had been inculcated for ages, an ancient sage, Yajnavalkya, having outlined the same tenets. There are many systems based on Yoga, all derivative from the original system and hence all using the name yoga, thus: Jnana-Yoga, Raja-Yoga, Bhakti-Yoga, Karma-Yoga, etc. Each of these stresses one particular aspect of the teaching. The Bhagavad-Gita itself is a text-book of the highest system of Yoga. (The following word is derived from the verbal root:) yuj, to join, to yoke. Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 15)
(SK)o Yoga, Yogin A Yogin is a devotee who undergoes a certain form of discipline in order to attain Yoga or self-conscious union with his Higher Self. Yoga is derived from the verb-root yuj — to unite. just as there are many methods of attaining spiritual enlightenment, so are there many kinds of Yoga-training.
(SKs) Hatha-Yoga, Bhakti-Yoga, Karma-Yoga, Raja-Yoga , Jnana-Yoga, Brahma-Yoga In India there are many schools of Yoga, each with its own type of discipline. Yoga is ‘Union with the Divinity within’; derived from the verbal root yuj — to unite. Hatha-Yoga is that system of discipline which trains the lower psychical and physical nature of man. Hatha means ‘violence,’ ‘force,’ derived from the verb-root hath — to oppress. Hatha-Yoga is in the end a slow, indirect, and dangerous way of attaining mental quietude. Results of this training are only temporary and lead to serious physical disease if the higher types of Yoga are not practised at the same time. What Hatha-Yoga accomplishes at great risk, the higher types of Yoga training bring about in a safer, quicker, more direct and lasting manner. Bhakti-Yoga is that discipline that comes through devotion and trust and love. Bhakti means ‘devotion,’ derived from the verb-root bhaj — to trust and love. Karma-Yoga is the discipline of work and unselfish service. Karma means ‘action,’ derived from the verb-root kri — to act, to do. Raja-Yoga is ‘Royal Union,’ or that self-directed discipline that the Rajans or kings and leaders of Ancient India underwent in order to become true spiritual guides of their peoples. Jnana-Yoga is that union attained by wisdom, by a study and understanding and application of the knowledge of the ages. Brahma-Yoga is ‘Divine Union.’ This discipline includes the best and purest practices of all the schools of Yoga. It is truly that highest law of conduct taught all down the ages by spiritual teachers. It is that Theosophical discipline or training in chelaship given in the Esoteric Schools of the Ages, the Mystery-Schools. Brahma means ‘divinity’; derived from the verb-root brih — to expand.
(SP) Yoga — union with spiritual reality or a discipline by which such union is attained. There are many types of yoga in the second sense, including: jnana-yoga — discipline through knowledge karma-yoga — discipline through action bhakti-yoga — discipline through devotion hatha-yoga — physical discipline through ascetic exercises raja-yoga — the “royal” discipline brahma-yoga — the “divine” discipline.
(IN) the yoga system of Patanjali there are eight stages of discipline: 1. yama — restraint 2. niyama — religious observance 3. asana — posture 4. pranayama — breath control 5. pratyahara — withdrawal from the senses 6. dharana — attention 7. dhyana — contemplation 8. samadhi — concentration or oneness.
(WG) Yoga-bala, the force of devotion; the power of magic.
(TG) Yogacharya {Sans}. (1) A mystic school. (2) Lit., a teacher (acharya) of Yoga, one who has mastered the doctrines and practices of ecstatic meditation — the culmination of which are the Mahasiddhis. It is incorrect to confuse this school with the Tantra, or Mahatantra school founded by Samantabhadra, for there are two Yogacharya Schools, one esoteric, the other popular. The doctrines of the latter were compiled and glossed by Asamgha in the sixth century of our era, and his mystic tantras and mantras, his formularies, litanies, spells and mudras, would certainly, if attempted without a Guru, serve rather purposes of sorcery and black magic than real Yoga. Those who undertake to write upon the subject are generally learned missionaries and haters of Eastern philosophy in general. From these no unbiased views call be expected. Thus when we read in the Sanskrit-Chinese Dictionary of Eitel, that the reciting of mantras (which he calls “spells”!) “should be accompanied by music and distortions of the fingers (mudra) that a state of mental fixity (Samadhi) might be reached” — one acquainted, however slightly, with the real practice of Yoga can only shrug his shoulders. These distortions of the fingers or mudra are necessary, the author thinks, for the reaching of Samadhi, “characterized by there being neither thought nor annihilation of thought, and consisting of six-fold bodily (sic) and mental happiness (yogi) whence would result endowment with supernatural miracle-working power”. Theosophists cannot be too much warned against such fantastic and prejudiced explanations.
(WG) Yogacharya, a teacher of magic; a teacher of the yoga philosophy. (yoga, philosophy; acharya, teacher
(SKv) Yogacharya, Aryasangha The Yogacharya School was originally a school of pure Buddhism founded by the first Aryasangha, an Arhat and a direct disciple of Gautama the Buddha, of the 6th century B. C. The teachings of this school were very spiritual and were identical with the esoteric wisdom. The second Aryasangha of the 6th century A.D. taught ritualistic Tantra worship of an inferior order, and has often been confused with the first Aryasangha. This later school, also known as the Yogacharya, is not of a spiritual type, but tends rather to forms of black magic and undesirable Tantric practices. Yogacharya is a compound of Yoga — spiritual union, and acharya — teacher. Aryasangha is a compound of arya — worthy, holy, and sangha — assemblage, host.
(FY) Yoga Sutras, a treatise on Yoga philosophy by Patanjali.
(FY) Yog Vidya, the science of Yoga; the practical method of uniting one’s own spirit with the universal spirit.
(WG) Yoga-vidya, knowledge of yoga, divine knowledge.
(TG) Yogi {Sans}. (1) Not “a state of six-fold bodily and mental happiness as the result of ecstatic meditation” (Eitel); but a state which, when reached, makes the practitioner thereof absolute master of his six “principles”, he now being merged in the seventh. It gives him full control, owing to his knowledge of SELF and Self, over his bodily, intellectual and mental states, which, unable any longer to interfere with, or act upon, his Higher Ego, leave it free to exist in its original, pure, and divine state. (2) Also the name of the devotee who practise Yoga.
(KT) Yogi or Yogin {Sans} A devotee, one who practises the Yoga system. There are various grades and kinds of Yogis, and the term has now become in India a generic name to designate every kind of ascetic.
(FY) Yogis, mystics, who develop themselves according to the system of Patanjali’s “Yoga Philosophy.”
(WG) Yogi, (also Yogin), a follower of the yoga system, a contemplative saint; a magician.
(OG) Yogi — (Yogin, Sanskrit) A yogi is a devotee, one who practices the Yoga system or one or more of its various subordinate branches.
(IN) some cases, yogis are those who strive in various ways to conquer the body and physical temptations, for instance by torture of the body. They also study more or less some of the magnificent philosophical teachings of India coming down from far distant ages of the past; but mere mental study will not make a man a mahatma, nor will any torture of the body bring about the spiritual vision — the vision sublime. (See also Yoga)
(GH) Yogi (nominative case: dictionary form or ‘crude form’: Yogin) A devotee: one who practises the Yoga-system. In ancient times such devotees practised the highest ethics without recourse to the prescribed religious observances and sacrifices: in modern times, however, the word is often applied to any devotee in India, whether practising Yoga or not. (Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 44)
(SP) Yogin — a practitioner of yoga.
(TG) Yong-Grub {Tibe}. A state of absolute rest, the same as Paranirvana.
(TG) Yoni {Sans}. The womb, the female principle.
(GH) Yudhamanyu A warrior on the side of the Pandavas. (Meaning of the word itself: having a warlike spirit. Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 2)
(TG) Yudishthira {Sans}. One of the heroes of the Mahabharata. The eldest brother of the Pandavas, or the five Pandu princes who fought against their next of kin, the Kauravas, the sons of their maternal uncle. Arjuna, the disciple of Krishna, was his younger brother. The Bhagavad Gita gives mystical particulars of this war. Kunti was the mother of the Pandavas, and Draupadi the wife in common of the five brothers — an allegory. But Yudishthira is also, as well as Krishna, Arjuna, and so many other heroes, an historical character, who lived some 5,000 years ago, at the period when the Kali Yuga set in.
(FY) Yudhishthira, the eldest of the five brothers, called Pandavas, whose exploits are celebrated in the great Sanskrit epic “Mahabharata.”
(GH) Yudhishthira The eldest son of Kunti and the god of justice, Dharma. In the Mahabharata Yudhishthira is not represented as a valorous warrior but is portrayed as excelling in the kingly virtues of justice and wise sovereignty over his kingdom of Indraprastha, which was given to him by Dhritarashtra and was adjacent to Hastinapura. Through the scheming of the Kauravas under Duryodhana, Yudhishthira lost his kingdom (as it was made the stake at a game of dice), and as the result of a second game he and his four brothers were compelled to exile themselves for 13 years. At the end of the period of exile Yudhishthira commenced negotiations for a peaceful restoration of his kingdom, in which Krishna assisted. He was unsuccessful and a conflict was imminent. Yudhishthira was dissuaded from withdrawing from the battle by Krishna, who assured him of victory. At the end of the war he was enthroned at Indraprastha, as well as at Hastinapura by Dhritarashtra, and his eminence was later assured through the performance of the Asvamedha sacrifice. After the death of Krishna, the Pandavas decided to abandon the world, and the closing book of the epic describes their journey and their death, one by one, except that of Yudhishthira. He descends into hell and then ascends to heaven (Svarga) but renounces it because his faithful dog was refused entrance with him; because of his compassion, he is readmitted, however, by his parent, the god Dharma. “Yudhishthira — the first King of the Sacea, who opens the Kali Yuga era, which has to last 432,000 years — ‘an actual King and man who lived 3102 years B.C.,’ applies also, name and all, to the great Deluge at the time of the first sinking of Atlantis. He is the ‘Yudhishthira born on the mountain of the hundred peaks at the extremity of the world beyond which nobody can go’ and ‘immediately after the flood. (Secret Doctrine, I, pp. 369-70) Symbolically Yudhishthira represents the Higher Ego in man. (Meaning of the word itself: firm or steady in battle. Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 4)
(TG) Yuga {Sans}. A 1,000th part of a Kalpa. An age of the World of which there are four, and the series of which proceed in succession during the manvantaric cycle. Each Yuga is preceded by a period called in the Puranas Sandhya, twilight, or transition period, and is followed by another period of like duration called Sandhyansa, “portion of twilight”. Each is equal to one-tenth of the Yuga. The group of four Yugas is first computed by the divine years, or “years of the gods” — each such year being equal to 360 years of mortal men. Thus we have, in “divine” years:
1. Krita or Satya Yuga 4,000 …………………..Sandhya 400 ………………Sandhyansa 400 ————————— 4,800
2. Treta Yuga 3,000 ……….Sandhya 300 …..Sandhyansa 300 —————- 3,600
3. Dwapara Yuga 2,000 …………….Sandhya 200 ………..Sandhyansa 200 ——————— 2,400
4. Kali Yuga 1,000 ………Sandhya 100 ….Sandhyansa 100 ————— 1,200
Total 12,000
This rendered in years of mortals equals: 4800 x 360 = 1,728,000 3600 x 360 = 1,296,000 2400 x 360 = 864,000 1200 x 360 = 432,000 Total 4,320,000
The above is called a Mahayuga or Manvantara. 2,000 such Maha-Yugas, or a period of 8,640,000,000 years, make a Kalpa: the latter being only a “day and a night”, or twenty-four hours, of Brahma. Thus an “age of Brahma”, or one hundred of his divine years, must equal 311,040,000,000,000 of our mortal years. The old Mazdeans or Magi (the modern Parsis) had the same calculation, though the Orientalists do not seem to perceive it, for even the Parsi Mobeds themselves have forgotten it. But their “Sovereign Time of the Long Period” (Zervan Daregho Hvadata) lasts 12,000 years, and these are the 12,000 divine years of a Mahayuga as shown above, whereas the Zervan Akarana (Limitless Time), mentioned by Zarathustra, is the Kala, out of space and time, of Parabrahm.
(KT) Yuga {Sans} An age of the world of which there are four, which follow each other in a series, namely, Krita (or Satya) Yuga, the golden age; Treta Yuga, Dwapara Yuga, and finally Kali Yuga, the black age — in which we now are. (See Secret Doctrine for a full description
(WG) Yuga, an age; a cycle. There are four ages of the world, the durations of which constitute together a maha-yuga, or great age. They are thus set forth in Brahmanical computations: Krita-yuga contains 1,728,000 solar years; treta-yuga, 1,296,000; dvapara-yuga, 864,000; kali-yuga, 432,000. These four make one maha-yuga, of 4,320,000 years, and 71 such maha-yugas form the period of the reign of one Manu, containing 306,720,000 years. The reigns of 14 Manus (embracing the duration of 994 maha-yugas) equal 4,294,080,000 years; and, adding to these the sandhis (twilights), equal to 6 maha-yugas, or 25,920,000 years, the total of these reigns and interregnums of 14 Manus is 1,000 maha-yugas, which constitute a kalpa, or “day of Brahma,” amounting to 4,320,000,000 solar years. As Brahma’s “night” is of equal duration, one day and night of Brahma would contain 8,640,000,000 solar years; and 360 such days and nights make a year of Brahma, containing 3,110,400, 000, 000 solar years; while 100 such years of Brahma constitute the whole period of Brahma’s age, comprising 311,040,000,000,000 years of mortals. Among lesser yugas is an astronomical cycle of five years. (yuga, a yoke, a yoking [of human beings], and so, human generation, a generation of men, an age of the world. The four yugas have received their names from the marks on dice, the best mark being four points and the worst one: krita is the side of a die marked with four points; treta, the side having three spots; dvapara, two spots; and kali, one spot
(OG) Yuga — {Sans} A word meaning an “age,” a period of time. A yuga is a period of mundane time, and four of these periods are usually enumerated in “divine years”:
1. Krita or Satya Yuga. . . . 4,000 Sandhya. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 400 Sandhyamsa. . . . . . . . . . . . . 400 Total . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4,800
2. Treta Yuga. . . . . . . . . . . 3,000 Sandhya. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300 Sandhyamsa. . . . . . . . . . . . . 300 Total . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3,600
3. Dvapara Yuga. . . . . . . . 2,000 Sandhya. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200 Sandhyamsa. . . . . . . . . . . . . 200 Total . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2,400
4. Kali Yuga. . . . . . . . . . . . 1,000 Sandhya. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100 Sandhyamsa. . . . . . . . . . . . . 100 Total . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,200
TOTAL . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . .12,000
This rendered in years of mortals equals: 4,800 x 360 = 1,728,000 3,600 x 360 = 1,296,000 2,400 x 360 = 1,864,000 1,200 x 360 = 1,432,000 . . . . . .Total 4,320,000
Of these four yugas, our present racial period is the fourth or kali yuga, often called the “iron age” or the “black age.” It is stated to have commenced at the moment of Krishna’s death, usually given as 3,102 years before the Christian era. There is a very important point of the teaching in connection with the yugas which must not be forgotten. It is the following: The four yugas as above outlined refer to what modern theosophical philosophy calls a root-race, although indeed a root-race from its individual beginning to its individual ending is about double the length of the composite yuga above set forth in columnar form. The racial yugas, however, overlap because each new great race is born at about the middle period of the parent race, although the individual length of any one race is as above stated. Thus it is that by the overlapping of the races, a race and its succeeding race may for a long time be contemporaneous on the face of the globe.
As the four yugas are a reflection in human history of what takes place in the evolution of the earth itself and of the planetary chain, therefore the same scheme of yugas applies also on a cosmic scale — there exist the four series of satya yuga, treta yuga, dvapara yuga, and kali yuga, in the evolution of the earth, and on a still larger scale in the evolution of a planetary chain. Of course these cosmic yugas are very much longer than the racial yugas, but the same general scheme of 4, 3, 2 applies throughout. For further details of the teaching concerning the yugas, the student should consult H. P. Blavatsky’s The Secret Doctrine, and the work by the present author, Fundamentals of the Esoteric Philosophy.
(GH) Yuga An age or period, referring especially to an age of the world, of which there are four enumerated in Hindu chronology as follows: (1) Krita-yuga or Satya-yuga, fit. ‘golden age’ — the age of purity and innocence when virtue reigns and there is no injustice in the world, lasting for a period of 4,000 years of the gods; (2) Treta-yuga, ‘age of triads,’ or the ‘age of the three sacred fires,’ i.e., three of the four sacred fires being worshiped — the Silver Age, lasting for 3,000 years of the gods; (3) Dvaparayuga, ‘age of the number two,’ — all sacred things are halved, the Bronze Age, of 2,000 years of the gods; (4) Kali-yuga, age of darkness, or the Black Age, when strife prevails, the Iron Age, whose duration is 1,000 years of the gods. Each yuga is preceded by a period called a Sandhya (twilight — or a transition period, or dawn), which is followed by a period named Sandhyansa (‘a portion of a twilight’): each of these two periods is equivalent in length to a tenth of its accompanying year of the gods. As a year of the gods is figured as 360 days of the mortals, and adding the Sandhyas and Sandhyansas, the yugas are: Krita-yuga 1,728,000 years Treta-yuga 1,296,000 years Dvapara-yuga 864,000 years Kali-yuga 432,000 years
The total of the 4 yugas is equivalent to 1 Maha-yuga — 4,320,000 years.
The reference (in Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 61) to the Day of Brahma as equivalent to a thousand revolutions of the yugas, has reference to Mahayugas, i.e., the total of the reigns of 14 Manus (each with its accompanying Sandhyas and Sandhyansas) totaling 4,320,000,000 years, or a ‘Day of Brahma.’ Brahma’s Night is of equivalent length.
(IN) the Mahabharata the symbol of the four yugas is a bull: during the Krita-yuga the bull stands firm on his four feet and justice prevails; in the Treta-yuga, the bull has three legs, three-fourths of justice is administered; in the Dvapara-yuga, the bull is supported by only two legs, justice only half rules the world; but in Kali-yuga, with only one leg left for the bull, only a quarter of justice is present and injustice is rampant. The life of man during the yugas is decreased by 100 years, in the series 4, 3, 2 — commencing with 400 years for the Krita-yuga.
“In the Hindu Yuga Kalpa, we have the regular descending series 4, 3, 2, with ciphers multiplied as occasion requires for esoteric purposes, . . .” (Secret Doctrine, II, p. 307)
“All races have their own cycles, which fact causes a great difference. For instance, the Fourth Sub-Race of the Atlanteans was in its Kali-Yug, when destroyed, whereas the Fifth was in its Satya or Krita Yuga. The Aryan Race is now in its Kali Yuga, and will continue to be in it for 427,000 years longer,” (Secret Doctrine, II, p. 147). (Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 61)
(SK)o Yuga, Maha -yuga, Satya -yuga, Krita -yuga, Treta -yuga , Dwapara -yuga, Kali -yuga A Yuga is a specific ‘Age’ or period of time; derived from the verb-root yuj — to unite. The evolutionary periods through which each of the Seven Great Root-Races of our earth passes are known as the Yugas: Satya-yuga, Treta-yuga, Dwapara-yuga, and Kali-yuga. The duration of each is respectively 1,728,000, 1,296,000, 864,000, 432,000 human years, a ratio of 4, 3, 2, 1. This ratio is found to prevail in many sacred computations. The four Yugas together make 4,320,000 earth-years or what is called a Maha-Yuga or Great Age.
The four Yugas play an important part in the qualitative aspect of the development of every Root-Race. But the yuga-periods in connexion with the Root-Race tell but part of the chronological story. The Root-Races preceding our own were all of greater length than the one Maha-yuga for each. The Kali-yuga, which is the last and fourth of the cycles, is but the mid-point of a Race. It is at this point that the Race undergoes certain cyclic catastrophes; nevertheless it keeps lasting on for another four cycles while the new Race is growing up, born from the middle of the preceding one, as Dr. de Purucker writes in the Occult Glossary:”. . . a Root-Race from its individual beginning to its individual ending is about double the length of the composite yuga. . . . These succeeding Yugas or series of development are but a reflexion in human Racial history of what takes place on a greater scale in the evolution of a Globe or of a planet.
The Satya-yuga, also called Krita-yuga, is the age of innocence, of innate goodness, the age when Dharma or Truth prevails. Satya means ‘truth,’ and Krita is often rendered as ‘perfect,’ ‘well-done,’ being the past participle of the verb-root kri — to do. The Treta-yuga is the age of only three-fourths of the truth, from treta meaning ‘three.’ The material forces then begin to exert their opposing influence. The Dwapara-yuga is the age of two parts or one-half of the truth, from dwapara meaning ‘twofold.’ Material darkness increases and brings about a decline of spiritual powers. The Kali-yuga, or the Dark-Age, is the Yuga in which only one part of the Truth prevails, because materiality and ignorance with their evil relations of selfishness and anger and indifference hold sway over men’s hearts. We are now in the Kali-yuga of our present Fifth Root-Race. This Dark Age commenced at the death of Krishna at midnight between February 17th and 18th in the year 3102 B.C.
(SP) Yuga — an age. A maha-yuga or “great age” consists of four ages, named for the four possible throws in the ancient Indian dice game:
krta-yuga [krita-] or satya-yuga — the golden age treta-yuga — the silver age dvapara-yuga [dwapara-] — the bronze age kali-yuga — iron or dark age, our present period.
(TG) Yurbo Adonai. A contemptuous epithet given by the followers of the Nazarene Codex, the St. John Gnostics, to the Jehovah of the Jews.
(TG) Yurmungander {Nors}. A name of the Midgard snake in the Edda, whose brother is Wolf Fenris, and whose sister is the horrible monster Hel — the three children of wicked Loki and Angurboda (carrier of anguish), a dreaded giantess. The mundane snake of the Norsemen, the monster created by Loki but fashioned by the constant putrid emanations from the body of the slain giant Ymir (the matter of our globe), and producing in its turn a constant emanation, which serves as a veil between heaven and earth, i.e., the Astral Light.
(GH) Yuyudhana One of the names of Satyaki. A kinsman of Krishna, for whom he acted as charioteer, fighting on the side of the Pandavas. (Meaning of the word itself: warlike. Bhagavad-Gita, W. Q. Judge, p. 2) TG Z. — The 26th letter of the English alphabet. It stands as a numeral for 2,000, and with a dash over it, equals 2,000,000. It is the seventh letter in the Hebrew alphabet — zayin, its symbol being a kind of Egyptian sceptre, a weapon. The zayin is equivalent to number seven. The number twenty-six is held most sacred by the Kabbalists, being equal to the numerical value of the letters of the Tetragrammaton — thus: he vau he yod
(TG) Zabulon {Hebr}. The abode of God, the tenth Devachan in degree. Hence Zabulon, the tenth son of Jacob.
(TG) Zacchai {Hebr}. One of the deity-names.
(TG) Zadok {Hebr}. According to Josephus (see Antiquities, x, 8, Sec. 6), Zadok was the first High-Priest Hierophant of Solomon’s High Temple. Masons connect him with some of their degrees.
(TG) Zalmat Gaguadi {akkadian} Lit., the dark race, the first that fell into generation in the Babylonian legends. The Adamic race, one of the two principal races that existed at the time of the Fall of Man (hence our third Root-race), the other being called Sarku, or the light race. (Secret Doctrine, II., 5
(TG) Zampun {Tibe}. The sacred tree of life, having many mystic meanings.
(TG) Zarathustra {avesta}. The great lawgiver, and the founder of the religion variously called Mazdaism, Magism, Parseeism, Fire-worship, and Zoroastrianism. The age of the last Zoroaster (for it is a generic name) is not known, and perhaps for that very reason. Xanthus of Lydia, the earliest Greek writer who mentions this great lawgiver and religious reformer, places him about six hundred years before the Trojan War. But where is the historian who can now tell when the latter took place? Aristotle and also Eudoxus assign him a date of no less than 6,000 years before the days of Plato, and Aristotle was not one to make a statement without a good reason for it. Berosus makes him a king of Babylon some 2,200 years B.C.; but then, how can one tell what were the original figures of Berosus, before his MSS. passed through the hands of Eusebius, whose fingers were so deft at altering figures, whether in Egyptian synchronistic tables or in Chaldean chronology? Haug refers Zoroaster to at least 1,000 years B.C.; and Bunsen (God in History, Vol. I., Book III., ch. vi., p. 276) finds that Zarathustra Spitama lived under the King Vistaspa about 3,000 years B.C., and describes him as one of the mightiest intellects and one of the greatest men of all time. It is with such exact dates in hand, and with the utterly extinct language of the Zend, whose teachings are rendered, probably in the most desultory manner, by the Pahlavi translation — a tongue, as shown by Darmsteter, which was itself growing obsolete so far back as the Sassanides — that our scholars and Orientalists have presumed to monopolise to themselves the right of assigning hypothetical dates for the age of the holy prophet Zurthust. But the Occult records claim to have the correct dates of each of the thirteen Zoroasters mentioned in the Dabistan. Their doctrines, and especially those of the last (divine) Zoroaster, spread from Bactria to the Medes; thence, under the name of Magism, incorporated by the Adept-Astronomers in Chaldea, they greatly influenced the mystic teachings of the Mosaic doctrines, even before, perhaps, they had culminated into what is now known as the modern religion of the Parsis. Like Manu and Vyasa in India, Zarathustra is a generic name for great reformers and law-givers. The hierarchy began with the divine Zarathustra in the Vendidad, and ended with the great, but mortal man, bearing that title, and now lost to history. There were, as shown by the Dabistan, many Zoroasters or Zarathustras. As related in the Secret Doctrine, Vol. II., the last Zoroaster was the founder of the Fire-temple of Azareksh, many ages before the historical era. Had not Alexander destroyed so many sacred and precious works of the Mazdeans, truth and philosophy would have been more inclined to agree with history, in bestowing upon that Greek Vandal the title of the Great.
(TG) Zarpanitu {akkadian} The goddess who was the supposed mother, by Merodach, of Nebo, god of wisdom. One of the female Serpents of Wisdom.
(TG) Zelator . The lowest degree in the exoteric Rosicrucian system; a kind of probationer or low chela.
(FY) Zend, the sacred language of ancient Persia.
(TG) Zend-Avesta #pah. The general name for the sacred books of the Parsis, fire or sun worshippers, as they are ignorantly called. So little is understood of the grand doctrines which are still found in the various fragments that compose all that is now left of that collection of religious works, that Zoroastrianism is called indifferently Fire-worship, Mazdaism, or Magism, Dualism, Sun-worship, and what not. The Avesta has two parts as now collected together, the first portion containing the Vendidad, the Visperad and the Yasna; and the second portion, called the Khorda Avesta (Small Avesta), being composed of short prayers called Gah, Nyayish, etc. Zend means a commentary or explanation, and Avesta (from the old Persian abashta, the law. (See Darmsteter As the translator of the Vendidad remarks in a foot note (see Int. 30: what it is customary to call ‘the Zend language’, ought to be named ‘the Avesta language’, the Zend being no language at all; and if the word be used as the designation of one, it can be rightly applied only to the Pahlavi. But then, the Pahlavi itself is only the language into which certain original portions of the Avesta are translated. What name should be given to the old Avesta language, and particularly to the special dialect, older than the general language of the Avesta (Darmst, in which the five Gathas in the Yasna are written? To this day the Orientalists are mute upon the subject. Why should not the Zend be of the same family, if not identical with the Zen-sar, meaning also the speech explaining the abstract symbol, or the mystery language, used by Initiates?
(KT) Zenobia. The Queen of Palmyra, defeated by the Emperor Aurelianus. She had for her instructor Longinus, the famous critic and logician in the third century A. D. (See Longinus
(TG) Zervana Akarna, or Zrvana Akarna #pah. As translated from the Vendidad (Fargard xix), lit., Boundless, or Limitless Time”, or Duration in a Circle. Mystically, the Beginningless and the Endless One Principle in Nature; the Sat of the Vedanta; and esoterically, the Universal Abstract Space synonymous with the Unknowable Deity. It is the Ain-Soph of the Zoroastrians, out of which radiates Ahura Mazda, the eternal Light or Logos, from which, in its turn, emanates everything that has being, existence and form.
(TG) Zeus {Greek}. The Father of the gods. Zeus-Zen is AEther, therefore Jupiter was called Pater Aether by some Latin races.
(FY) Zhing, subtle matter; Kama Rupa, or fourth principle (Chinese).
(TG) Zicu {akkadian} Primordial matter, from Zi, spirit-substance, Zikum and Zigarum.
(TG) Zio {Nors}. Also Tyr and Tius. A god in the Eddas who conquers and chains Fenris-Wolf, when the latter threatened the gods themselves in Asgard, and lost a hand in the battle with the monster. He is the god of war, and was greatly worshipped by the ancient Germans.
(PV) Zipacna {quiche-maya} Son of Vukup Cakix, brother of Caprakan. His mother is Chimalmat. These four are the primeval giants of the Popol Vuh, transformed into the four cosmic bearers after being vanquished by Hunahpu and Ixbalamque. Zipacna causes the death of the Four Hundred Boys (associated with the Pleiades), who are resuscitated by the divine twins.
(TG) Zipporah {Hebr}. Lit., the shining, the radiant. In the Biblical allegory of Genesis, Zipporah is one of the seven daughters of Jethro, the Midianite priest, the Initiator of Moses, who meets Zipporah (or spiritual light) near the well (of occult knowledge) and marries her.
(TG) Zirat-banit {Chald}. The wife of the great, divine hero of the Assyrian tablets, Merodach. She is identified with the Succoth Benoth of the Bible.
(TG) Ziruph {Hebr}. More properly Tziruph, a mode of divination by Temura, or permutation of letters, taught by the mediaeval Kabbalists. The school of Rabbis Abulafia and Gikatilla laid the most stress on the value of this process of the Practical Kabalah. [W.W.W.]
(KT) Zivo, Kabar (or Yukabar). The name of one of the creative deities in the Nazarene Codex.
(TG) Zodiac {Greek}. From the word zodion, a diminutive of zoon, animal. This word is used in a dual meaning; it may refer to the fixed and intellectual Zodiac, or to the movable and natural Zodiac. In astronomy, says Science, it is an imaginary belt in the heavens 16 degrees or 18 degrees broad, through the middle of which passes the suns path (the ecliptic). It contains the twelve constellations which constitute the twelve signs of the Zodiac, and from which they are named. As the nature of the zodiacal light — that elongated, luminous, triangular figure which, lying almost in the ecliptic, with its base on the horizon and its apex at greater and smaller altitudes, is to be seen only during the morning and evening twilights — is entirely unknown to science, the origin and real significance and occult meaning of the Zodiac were, and are still, a mystery, to all save the Initiates. The latter preserved their secrets well. Between the Chaldean star-gazer and the modern astrologer there lies to this day a wide gulf indeed; and they wander, in the words of Albumazar, ‘twixt the poles, and heavenly hinges, ‘mongst eccentricals, centres, concentricks, circles and epicycles, with vain pretence to more than profane human skill. Yet, some of the astrologers, from Tycho Brahe and Kepler of astrological memory, down to the modern Zadkiels and Raphaels, have contrived to make a wonderful science from such scanty occult materials as they have had in hand from Ptolemy downwards. (See Astrology To return to the astrological Zodiac proper, however, it is an imaginary circle passing round the earth in the plane of the equator, its first point being called Aries 0 degrees. It is divided into twelve equal parts called Signs of the Zodiac, each containing 30 degrees of space, and on it is measured the right ascension of celestial bodies. The movable or natural Zodiac is a succession of constellations forming a belt of 47 degrees in width, lying north and south of the plane of the ecliptic. The precession of the Equinoxes is caused by the motion of the sun through space, which makes the constellations appear to move forward against the order of the signs at the rate of 50 1/3 seconds per year. A simple calculation will show that at this rate the constellation Taurus (Heb. Aleph) was in the first sign of the Zodiac at the beginning of the Kali Yuga, and consequently the Equinoctial point fell therein. At this time, also, Leo was in the summer solstice, Scorpio in the autumnal Equinox, and Aquarius in the winter solstice; and these facts form the astronomical key to half the religious mysteries of the world — the Christian scheme included. The Zodiac was known in India and Egypt for incalculable ages, and the knowledge of the sages (magi) of these countries, with regard to the occult influence of the stars and heavenly bodies on our earth, was far greater than profane astronomy can ever hope to reach to. If, even now, when most of the secrets of the Asuramayas and the Zoroasters are lost, it is still amply shown that horoscopes and judiciary astrology are far from being based on fiction, and if such men as Kepler and even Sir Isaac Newton believed that stars and constellations influenced the destiny of our globe and its humanities, it requires no great stretch of faith to believe that men who were initiated into all the mysteries of nature, as well as into astronomy and astrology, knew precisely in what way nations and mankind, whole races as well as individuals, would be affected by the so-called signs of the Zodiac.
(OG) Zodiac — The Greeks called the zodiac the circle of life, and they divided it into twelve houses or signs, named as follows: Aries, the Ram; Taurus, the Bull; Gemini, the Twins; Cancer, the Crab; Leo, the Lion; Virgo, the Virgin; Libra, the Scales; Scorpio, the Scorpion; Sagittarius, the Archer; Capricornus, the Goat; Aquarius, the Water-bearer; Pisces, the Fishes. The entrance of the sun into each one of the twelve zodiacal constellations or signs brings with it a new cosmic force into operation, not merely on our earth, but distributively speaking throughout our own individual lives. The entering into the present astrological era which is now under way will inaugurate the development in the human race, in a certain line, of powers to come that will be nobler than were those of the last astrological zodiacal era. There is a strict and close correspondence between each one of the globes of our earth-chain, and a respective one of the constellations of the zodiac — each such constellation being one of the houses of the circle of life.
(TG) Zohak, or Azhi Dahaka. The personification of the Evil One or Satan under the shape of a serpent, in the Zend Avesta. This serpent is three-headed, one of the heads being human. The Avesta describes it as dwelling in the region of Bauri or Babylonia. In reality Zohak is the allegorical symbol of the Assyrian dynasty, whose banner had on it the purple sign of the dragon. (Isis
(TG) Zohar, or Sohar. A compendium of Kabbalistic Theosophy, which shares with the Sepher Yetzirah the reputation of being the oldest extant treatise on the Hebrew esoteric religious doctrines. Tradition assigns its authorship to Rabbi Simeon ben Jochai, A.D. 80, but modern criticism is inclined to believe that a very large portion of the volume is no older than 1280, when it was certainly edited and published by Rabbi Moses de Leon, of Guadalaxara in Spain. The reader should consult the references to these two names. In Lucifer (Vol. I., p. 141) will be found also notes on this subject: further discussion will be attainable in the works of Zunz, Graetz, Jost, Steinschneider, Frankel and Ginsburg. The work of Franck (in French) upon the Kabalah may be referred to with advantage. The truth seems to lie in a middle path, viz., that while Moses de Leon was the first to produce the volume as a whole, yet a large part of some of its constituent tracts consists of traditional dogmas and illustrations, which have come down from the time of Simeon ben Jochai and the Second Temple. There are portions of the doctrines of the Zohar which bear the impress of Chaldee thought and civilization, to which the Jewish race had been exposed in the Babylonish captivity. Yet on the other hand, to condemn the theory that it is ancient in its entirety, it is noticed that the Crusades are mentioned; that a quotation is made from a hymn by Ibn Gebirol, A.D. 1050; that the asserted author, Simeon ben Jochai, is spoken of as more eminent than Moses; that it mentions the vowel-points, which did not come into use until Rabbi Mocha (A.D. 570) introduced them to fix the pronunciation of words as a help to his pupils, and lastly, that it mentions a comet which can be proved by the evidence of the context to have appeared in 1264. There is no English translation of the Zohar as a whole, nor even a Latin one. The Hebrew editions obtainable are those of Mantua, 1558; Cremona, 1560; and Lublin, 1623. The work of Knorr von Rosenroth called Kabbala Denudata includes several of the treatises of the Zohar, but not all of them, both in Hebrew and Latin. MacGregor Mathers has published an English translation of three of these treatises, the Book of Concealed Mystery, the Greater and the Lesser Holy Assembly, and his work includes an original introduction to the subject. The principal tracts included in the Zohar are: — The Hidden Midrash, The Mysteries of the Pentateuch, The Mansions and Abodes of Paradise and Gaihinnom, The Faithful Shepherd, The Secret of Secrets, Discourse of the Aged in Mishpatim (punishment of souls), The Januka or Discourse of the Young Man, and The Tosephta and Mathanithan, which are additional essays on Emanation and the Sephiroth, in addition to the three important treatises mentioned above. In this storehouse may be found the origin of all the later developments of Kabbalistic teaching. [W.W.W.]
(KT) Zohar {Hebr} The Book of Splendour, a Kabalistic work attributed to Simeon Ben Iochai, in the first century of our era
(TG) Zoroaster. Greek form of Zarathustra .
(FY) Zoroaster, the prophet of the Parsis.
(KT) Zoroastrian. One who follows the religion of the Parsis, sun, or fire-worshippers.
(TG) Zumyad Yasht {avesta}. Or Zamyad Yasht as some spell it. One of the preserved Mazdean fragments. It treats of metaphysical questions and beings, especially of the Amshaspends or the Amesha Spenta — the Dhyan Chohans of the Avesta books.
(TG) Zuni. The name of a certain tribe of Western American Indians, a very ancient remnant of a still more ancient race. (Secret Doctrine, II., p. 628

AUTHOR William Dougherty

COLLATION OF THEOSOPHICAL GLOSSARIES

LIST OF TEXTS EXCERPTED (in order arranged in this text)

Two-letter Glossary Reference Code | Title of Text – Date of Original Publication | Other information or links to text
TG | Theosophical Glossary – 1892 Posthumous publication edited by G. R. S. Mead; included in its entirety
IU | Isis Unveiled – 1877 | Terms from “Before the Veil,” pp. xxiii-xliv
KT | Key to Theosophy – 1889 | The complete Glossary
VS | Voice of the Silence – 1889 | The Glossary and some footnotes; link to full text online of this book
FY | Five Years of Theosophy – 1885 | Glossary from this collection of articles from the first five years of the Theosophist magazine
WG | The Working Glossary – 1892 | Included in its entirety
WGa Terms from The Working Glossary Appendix
OG | Occult Glossary – 1933 | The 1996 edition was used in this collation; link to full text online of this book
WW | Word Wisdom in the Esoteric Tradition – 1980 | A series of class lectures given at Point Loma in 1913-14. Copyright Point Loma Publications, Inc.
GH | Gods and Heroes of the Bhagavad Gita – 1939 GEOFFREY A. BARBORKA Now out of print; included in its entirety
SK | Sanskrit Keys the Wisdom Religion – 1940 JUDITH TYBERG Sections defining terms included
SKo Sanskrit terms from The Ocean of Theosophy, by William Q. Judge, 1893.
SKv Sanskrit terms from The Voice of the Silence, by H. P. Blavatsky, 1889.
SKf Sanskrit terms from Fundaentals of the Esoteric Philosophy, by G. de Purucker, 1932.
SKs Sanskrit terms from The Secret Doctrine, by H. P. Blavatsky, 1888.
PV | Esotericism of the Popol Vuh – 1979 | Copyright RAPHAEL GIRARD Theosophical University Press. Only the Glossary, compiled by translator Blair A. Moffett, is included
MO | The Masks of Odin – 1985 | ELSA-BRITA TITCHENELL Copyright Theosophical University Press. Glossary from end of book
GRACE F. KNOCHE IN | An Invitation to the Secret Doctrine – 1988 | Small glossary from end of book; link to full text online
SP | Sanskrit Pronunciation – 1992 BRUCE CAMERON HALL Copyright Theosophical University Press. Brief definitions from booklet

COMPILER’S NOTES

This Collation of Theosophical Glossaries is not a new set of “definitions” or “explanations,” but rather a gathering of some major theosophical glossaries into one place and a collation of their entries into an encyclopedic format, thus making it a single, comprehensive resource for students.

The order of glossaries follows generally the lineage of The Theosophical Society. This is partially due to the fact that Blavatsky’s Theosophical Glossary has the most entries, and therefore was placed first. It also seemed valuable to keep the glossaries by the same author next to each other, for those who might want a close comparison.

The order of entries was in many cases revised to provide for two things. First, terms were arranged in alphabetical order disregarding breaks between words. Second, the terms were then arranged to allow for common entries to be grouped together, even if out of alphabetical order due to differences in spelling between glossaries.

The style and form of each entry follows generally that of the Theosophical Glossary, with main words in bold upper and lower case letters. Entries from all other glossaries have been modified to fit this format for clarity and uniformity.

All diacritical marks have been eliminated from this edition. This is due in part to the current limitations of ASCII characters, and in part to enhance search capabilities. This is regretted, especially in the case of “Brahma” and “Brahmâ,” with which one can readily see the problem. In this case the user will have to rely on the original texts for clarification, as should be the case with any in-depth inquiry.

All Greek characters have been translated into Latin characters. Symbols, drawings, and some tables appearing in the original text have been inserted as pictures. These may in some cases be hard to read, in which case consult the original.

Some small punctuation and formatting items have been made consistent among the original texts for clarity and readability. It must be noted, however that NO changes have been made to the glossary texts whatsoever, in any attempt to correct, clarify, or otherwise modify them. Any discrepancy between the originals and the entries is due entirely to errors arising from converting the printed pages to electronic format. The compiler accepts all responsibility for same. Please email any such items to: theosnw@theosophy-nw.org for subsequent review and correction. Thank you in advance for your diligent help in this matter.

Voice of the Silence was the most difficult glossary to include because of the use of portions of the text as the reference and the glossary definition as the entry. The main word was often not in the text, so it was subjectively entered [[in brackets like these]] in the entry and bolded for format. Also included is the section and page numbers of the location in the original text where the entry appears. Some footnotes with explanations have been included, when they include definition-like information.

Horizontal lines have been included to highlight entries which appeared in more than one glossary, and in some locations where there was the opportunity to reference additional items.

All references with “ENTRY — SEE ANOTHER ENTRY” or “SEE ANOTHER ENTRY” in upper case letters are references inserted by the compiler. In addition, the compiler has included, as double-bracketed text or hyperlinks, some information originally referenced within the text, as well as some explanatory items deemed prudent by the editor. All these items have been included within double-brackets to note they have been added by the compiler. All other items (such as cross-references) which are not fully upper case or in double-brackets are directly from the original glossaries.

Lastly, I would like to thank and acknowledge Jean Crabbendam, Sally Dougherty, and Doreen Melbrod for all their help and support in scanning, organizing, proofing, and editing this work. It was truly a collaborative effort.

Scott J. Osterhage,
May 18, 1997

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Theosophical Glossary Collation