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The Theosophical Glossary
By
H P Blavatsky
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The Secret Doctrine by H P Blavatsky
AUTHOR OF "
THE THEOSOPHICAL PUBLISHING SOCIETY,
7,
The Path Office: 132,
The Theosophist Office: ADYAR,
1892
PREFACE.
The Theosophical Glossary labours under the disadvantage of being
an almost
entirely posthumous work, of which the author only saw the first
thirty-two
pages in proof. This is all the more regrettable, for H.P.B., as
was her wont,
was adding considerably to her original copy, and would no doubt
have increased
the volume far beyond its present limits, and so have thrown light
on many
obscure terms that are not included in the present Glossary, and
more important
still, have furnished us with a sketch of the lives and teachings
of the most
famous Adepts of the East and West.
The Theosophical Glossary purposes to give information on the
principal
Sanskrit, Pahlavi, Tibetan, Pâli, Chaldean, Persian, Scandinavian,
Hebrew,
Greek, Latin, Kabalistic and Gnostic words, and Occult terms
generally used in
Theosophical literature, and principally to be found in Isis
Unveiled, Esoteric
Buddhism, The Secret Doctrine, The Key to Theosophy, etc.; and in
the monthly
magazines, The Theosophist, Lucifer and The Path, etc., and other
publications
of the Theosophical Society. The articles marked [w.w.w.] which
explain words
found in the Kabalah, or which illustrate Rosicrucian or Hermetic
doctrines,
were contributed at the special request of H.P.B. by Bro. W. W.
Westcott, M.B.,
P.M. and P.Z., who is the Secretary General of the Rosicrucian
Society, and
Præmonstrator of the Kabalah to the Hermetic Order of the G.D.
H.P.B. desired also to express her special indebtedness, as far as
the
tabulation of facts is concerned, to the Sanskrit-Chinese
Dictionary of Eitel,
The Hindu Classical Dictionary of Dowson, The Vishnu Purâna of
Royal Masonic Cyclopædia of Kenneth Mackenzie.
As the undersigned can make no pretension to the elaborate and
extraordinary
scholarship requisite for the editing of the multifarious and
polyglot contents
of H.P.B.’s last contribution to Theosophical literature, there
must necessarily
be mistakes of transliteration, etc., which specialists in
scholarship will at
once detect. Meanwhile, however, as nearly every Orientalist has
his own system,
varying transliterations may be excused in the present work, and
not be set down
entirely to the “Karma” of the editor.
G. R. S. MEAD.
THEOSOPHICAL
GLOSSARY
A
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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, thus— a. 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 AêHêIêH
or Ahih when
vowelless, and this is a Sanskrit root.
Aahla (Eg.). One of the divisions of the Kerneter or infernal
regions, or Amenti
; the word means the “Field of Peace”.
Aanroo (Eg.). 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 (Kâmaloka). 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
Aaron (Heb.). The elder brother of Moses and the first Initiate of
the
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Hebrew Lawgiver. The name means the Illuminated, or the
Enlightened. Aaron thus
heads the line, or Hierarchy, of the initiated Nabim, or Seers.
Ab (Heb.). The eleventh month of the Hebrew civil year; the fifth
of the sacred
year beginning in July.
[w.w.w.]
Abaddon (Heb.). An angel of Hell, corresponding to the Greek
Apollyon.
Abatur (Gn.). 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 Nazaræus)
Abba Amona (Heb.). 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.
Abhâmsi (
Demons, Pitris and Men. Orientalists somehow connect the name with
“waters”, but
esoteric philosophy connects its symbolism with Akâsa—the ethereal
“waters of
space”, since it is on the bosom and on the seven planes of “space”
that the
“four orders of (lower) beings” and the three higher Orders of
Spiritual Beings
are born. (See Secret Doctrine I. p. 458, and “Ambhâmsi”.)
Abhâsvaras (
upper three celestial regions (planes) of the second Dhyâna (q.v.)
A class of
gods sixty-four in number, representing a certain cycle and an
occult number.
Abhâva (
substance, or abstract objectivity.
Abhaya (
As an adjective, “Fearless,” Abhaya is an epithet given to every
Buddha,
Abhayagiri (
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
Vâsinah,, “School of the
as heretical, as the ascetics studied the doctrines of both the
“greater” and
the “smaller” vehicles— or the Mahâyâna and the Hinayâna systems
and Triyâna or
the three successive degrees of Yoga; just as a certain Brotherhood
does now
beyond the
as unsectarian as their humble admirers the Theosophists
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are now. (See “Sthâvirâh" 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 Kâtyâyana, the
favourite Chela of
Gautama, the Buddha. Tradition says that owing to bigoted
intolerance and
persecution, they left
remained ever since.
Abhidharma (
philosophical Buddhist work by Kâtyâyana.
Abhijñâ (
acquired in the night on which he reached Buddhaship. This is the
“fourth”
degree of Dhyâna (the seventh in esoteric teachings) which has to
be attained by
every true Arhat. In
powers, but in
the instantaneous view of anything one wills to see; the second, is
Divyasrotra,
the power of comprehending any sound whatever, etc., etc.
Abhimânim (
words, the first element or Force produced in the universe at its
evolution (the
fire of creative desire). By his wife Swâhâ, Abhimânim had three
sons (the
fires) Pâvaka, Pavamâna and Suchi, and these had “forty-five sons,
who, with the
original son of Brahmâ and his three descendants, constitute the
forty-nine
fires” of Occultism.
Abhimanyu (
Mahâbhârata on its second day, but was himself killed on the
thirteenth.
Abhûtarajasas (
Manvantara.
Abib (Heb.) The first Jewish
sacred month, begins in March; is also called
Nisan.
Abiegnus Mons (Lat.). 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
Ab-i-hayat (Pers.). Water of immortality. Supposed to give eternal
youth and
sempiternal life to him who drinks of it.
Abiri (Gr.). See Kabiri, also written Kabeiri, the Mighty Ones,
celestials, sons
of Zedec the just one, a group of deities worshipped in Phœnicia:
they seem to
be identical with the Titans, Corybantes, Curetes, Telchines and
Dii Magni of
Virgil. [w.w.w.]
Ablanathanalba (Gn.). 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
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from either end and was used as a charm in
(See “Abracadabra”.)
Abracadabra (Gn.). This symbolic word first occurs in a medical
treatise in
verse by Samonicus, who flourished in the reign of the Emperor
Septimus Seveus.
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. [w.w.w.]
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 (q.v.), on the breast under the garments.
Abraxas or Abrasax (Gn.). Mystic words which have been traced as
far back as
Basilides, the Pythagorean, of
for Divinity, the supreme of Seven, and as having 365 virtues. In
Greek
numeration, a. 1, b. 2, r. 100, a. I, x 60, a. I, 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.
[ w.w.w.]
Abraxas is the counterpart of the Hindu Abhimânim (q.v.) and Brahmâ
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.
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.
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.
Acacia (Gr.). 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. [w.w.w.]
Achamôth (Gn.). The name of the second, the inferior Sophia.
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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
Achamôth is but the personification of the female aspect of the
creative male
Force in nature; also the Astral Light.
Achar (Heb.). The Gods over whom (according to the Jews) Jehovah is
the God.
Âchâra (
Âchârya (
ethics”. A name generally given to Initiates, etc., and
meaning “Master”.
Achath (Heb.). 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”, Brahmâ being called ák, or eka, the one,
the first,
whence the Hebrew word and application.
Acher (Heb.). The Talmudic name of the Apostle Paul. The Talmud
narrates the
story of the four Tanaim, who entered the
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.
Acheron (Gr.). One of the rivers of Hades in Greek mythology.
Achit (
intelligence.
Achyuta (
Chyuta, “fallen”. A title of Vishnu.
Acosmism (Gr.). The precreative period, when there was no Kosmos
but Chaos
alone.
Ad (Assyr.). Ad, “the Father”. In Aramean ad means one, and ad-ad
“the only
one”.
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
Adam (Heb.). In the Kabalah Adam is the “only-begotten”, and means
also “red
earth”. (See “Adam-Adami” in the S.D. II p. 452.) It is almost
identical with
Athamas or Thomas, and is rendered into Greek by Didumos, the
“twin”—Adam, “the
first”, in chap. 1 of Genesis, being shown, “male-female.”
Adam Kadmon (Heb). Archetypal Man; Humanity. The
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“Heavenly Man” not fallen into sin; Kabalists refer it to the Ten
Sephiroth on
the plane of human perception. [w.w.w.]
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.
Adamic Earth (Alch.). Called the “true oil of gold” or the “primal
element” in
Alchemy. It is but one remove from the pure homogeneous element.
Adbhuta Brâhmana (
and various phenomena.
Adbhuta Dharma (
Buddhist works on miraculous or phenomenal events.
Adept (Lat.). 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.
Adharma (
Adhi (
Adhi-bhautika duhkha (
proceeding from external things or beings”.
Adhi-daivika duhkha (
proceeding from divine causes, or a just Karmic punishment”.
Adhishtânam (
Adhyâtmika duhkha (
proceeding from Self ”, an induced or a generated evil by Self, or
man himself.
Adhyâtma Vidyâ (
Sastras, or the Scriptures of the Five Sciences.
Âdi (Sk.) The First, the primeval.
Âdi (the Sons of). In Esoteric philosophy the “Sons of Adi” are
called the “Sons
of the Fire-mist”. A term used of certain adepts.
Âdi-bhûta (
Vishnu, the “first Element” containing all elements, “the unfathomable
deity”.
Âdi-Buddha (
Church. The Eternal Light.
Âdi-budhi (
Mind. Used of Divine Ideation, “Mahâbuddhi” being synonymous with
MAHAT.
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Âdikrit (
and uncreate, but manifesting periodically. Applied to Vishnu
slumbering on the
“waters of space” during “pralaya” (q.v.).
Âdi-nâtha (
Âdi-nidâna (
the principal cause (or the concatenation of cause and effect).
Âdi-Sakti (
in and of every male god. The Sakti in the Hindu Pantheon is always
the spouse
of some god.
Âdi-Sanat (
“ancient of days”, since it is a title of Brahmâ—called in the
Zohar the
Atteekah d’Atteekeen, or “the Ancient of the Ancients”, etc.
Âditi (
aspect of Parabrahman, though both unmanifested and unknowable. In
the Vedas
Âditi is the “Mother-Goddess”, her terrestrial symbol being
infinite and
shoreless space.
Âditi-Gæa. A compound term,
Sanskrit and Latin, meaning dual, nature in
theosophical writings—spiritual and physical, as Gæa is the goddess
of the earth
and of objective nature.
Âditya (
Âdityas (
Âdi Varsha (
first races.
Adonai (Heb.). 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”. [w.w.w.]
Adonim-Adonai, Adon. The ancient Chaldeo-Hebrew names for the
Elohim or creative
terrestrial forces, synthesized by Jehovah.
Adwaita (
philosophy founded by Sankarâchârya, the greatest of the historical
Brahmin
sages. The two other schools are the Dwaita (dualistic) and the
Visishtadwaita;
all the three call themselves Vedântic.
Adwaitin (
Adytum (Gr.). The Holy of Holies in the pagan temples. A name for
the secret and
sacred precincts or the inner chamber, into which no
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profane could enter; it corresponds to the sanctuary of the altars
of Christian
Churches.
Æbe1-Zivo (Gn.). The Metatron or anointed spirit with the Nazarene
Gnostics; the
same as the angel Gabriel.
Æolus (Gr.). The god who, according to Hesiod, binds and looses the
winds; the
king of storms and winds. A king of Æolia, the inventor of sails
and a great
astronomer, and therefore deified by posterity.
Æon or Æons (Gr.). Periods of time; emanations proceeding from the
divine
essence, and celestial beings; genii and angels with the Gnostics.
Æsir (Scand.). The same as Ases, the creative Forces personified.
The gods who
created the black dwarfs or the Elves of Darkness in Asgard. The
divine Æsir,
the Ases are the Elves of Light. An allegory bringing together
darkness which
comes from light, and matter born of spirit.
Æther (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 see
Webster’s Dictionary or any other. In esotericism Æther is the third principle
of the Kosmic Septenary; the Earth being the lowest, then the
Astral light,
Ether and Âkâsa (phonetically Âkâsha) the highest.
Æthrobacy (Gr.). 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
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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. (See Isis Unveiled, Vol. I., page xxiii.)
Afrits (Arab.). A name for native spirits regarded as devils by
Mussulmen.
Elementals much dreaded in
Agapæ (Gr.). 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. [w.w.w.].
Agastya (
reputed author of hymns in the Rig Veda, and a great hero in the
Râmâyana. 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
“
Agathodæmon (Gr.). The beneficent, good Spirit as contrasted with
the bad one,
Kakodæmon. The
“Brazen Serpent” of the Bible is the former; the flying serpents of
fire are an
aspect of Kakodæmon. The Ophites called Agathodæmon the Logos and
Divine Wisdom,
which in the Bacchanalian Mysteries was represented by a serpent
erect on a
pole.
Agathon (Gr.). Plato’s Supreme Deity. Lit., “The Good”, our ALAYA,
or “Universal
Soul”.
Aged (Kab.). One of the Kabbalistic names for Sephira, called also
the Crown, or
Kether.
Agla (Heb.). This Kabbalistic word is a talisman composed of the
initals of the
four words “Ateh Gibor Leolam Adonai”, meaning “Thou art mighty for
ever 0
Lord”. MacGregor Mathers explains it thus “A, the first; A, the
last; G, the
trinity in unity; L, the completion of the great work”. [w.w.w.]
Agneyastra (
Purânas and the Mahâbhârata the magic weapons said to have been
wielded by the
adept-race (the fourth), the Atlanteans. This
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“weapon of fire” was given by Bharadwâja to Agnivesa, the son of
Agni, and by
him to Drona, though the Vishnu Purâna contradicts this, saying
that it was
given by the sage Aurva to King Sagara, his chela. They are
frequently mentioned
in the Mahâbhârata and the Râmâyana.
Agni (
in
all the three, as he is the triple aspect of fire; in heaven as the
Sun; in the
atmosphere or air (Vâyu), as Lightning; on. earth, as ordinary
Fire. Agni
belonged to the earlier Vedic Trimûrti before Vishnu was given a
place of honour
and before Brahmâ and Siva were invented.
Agni Bâhu (
Agni Bhuvah (
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 Sec.Doct., Vol.
II., p.
550.)
Agni Dhätu Samâdhi (
Kundalini is raised to the extreme and the infinitude appears as
one sheet of
fire. An ecstatic condition.
Agni Hotri (
term Agni Hotri is one that denotes oblation.
Agni-ratha (
of in ancient works of magic in
Agnishwattas (
of men. Our solar ancestors as contrasted with the Barhishads, the
“lunar”
Pitris or ancestors, though otherwise explained in the Purânas.
Agnoia (Gr.). “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 noëtic
and the
irrational, or agnoia, sometimes written “annoia”.
Agnostic (Gr.). A word claimed by Mr. Huxley to have been coined by
him to
indicate one who believes nothing which can not be demonstrated by
the senses.
The later schools of Agnosticism give more philosophical
definitions of the
term.
Agra-Sandhânî (
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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. (See
Sec.Doct.,
Vol. I., p. 105.)
Agruerus ; A very ancient Phœnician god. The same as Saturn.
Aham (
Ahan (
Ahankâra (
“I”, the egotistical and mâyâvic principle in man, due to our
ignorance which
separates our “I” from the Universal ONE-SELF Personality, Egoism.
Aheie (Heb.). Existence. He who exists; corresponds to Kether and
Macroprosopus.
Ah-hi (Sensar), Ahi (Sk.), or Serpents. Dhyân Chohans. “Wise
Serpents” or
Dragons of Wisdom.
Ahi (
Ahti (Scand.). The “Dragon” in the Eddas.
Ahu (Scand.). “One” and the First.
Ahum (Zend). The first three principles of septenary man in the
Avesta ; the
gross living man and his vital and astral principles.
Ahura (Zend.). 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.
Ahura Mazda (Zend). 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 Dæva
(Devils).
Aidoneus (Gr.). The God and King of the Nether World; Pluto or
Dionysos
Chthonios (subterranean).
Aij Talon. The supreme deity of the Yakoot, a tribe in
Ain-Aior (Chald.). The only “Self-existent” a mystic name for
divine substance.
[w.w.w.]
Ain (Heb.). The negatively existent; deity in repose, and
absolutely passive.
[w.w.w.]
Aindrî (
Aindriya (
Indra.
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Ain Soph (Heb.). 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. (See Franck’s Kabbala, p. 153 ff.)
Ain Soph Aur (Heb.). The Boundless Light which concentrates into
the First and
highest Sephira or Kether, the Crown. [w. w. w.]
Airyamen Yaêgo (Zend). Or Airyana Vaêgo; the primeval land of bliss
referred to
in the Vendîdâd, where Ahura Mazda delivered his laws to Zoroaster
(Spitama
Zarathustra).
Airyana-ishejô (Zend). 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.).
Aish (Heb.). The word for “Man".
Aisvarikas (
supreme god ( Îsvara ), instead of seeing in the name that of a
principle, an
abstract philosophical symbol.
Aitareya (
Veda. Some of its portions are purely Vedântic.
Aith-ur (Chald.). Solar fire, divine Æther.
Aja (
gods, but especially to the first Logos—a radiation of the Absolute
on the plane
of illusion.
Ajitas (
each Manvantara. The Occultists identify them with the Kumâras.
They are called
Jnâna (or Gnâna) Devas. Also, a form of Vishnu in the second
Manvantara. Called
also Jayas.
Ajnâna (Sk.) or Agyana (Bengali). Non-knowledge; absence of
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knowledge rather than “ignorance” as generally translated. An
Ajnâni means a
“profane”.
Akar (Eg.). The proper name of that division of the Ker-neter
infernal regions,
which may be called Hell. [w. w. w.].
Akâsa (
space; the primordial substance erroneously identified with Ether.
But it is to
Ether what Spirit is to Matter, or Âtmâ to Kâma-rûpa. 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 Purânas that Âkâsa 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
Âkâsa”. In these
sacrificial mysteries Âkâsa 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 Âkâsa is the indispensable agent of
every Krityâ
(magical performance) religious or profane. The expression “to stir
up the
Brahmâ”, 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 Âkâsa—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 Brahmâ, is,
for the time being, Brahmâ himself”. (
Akbar. The great Mogul Emperor of
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
Akiba (Heb.). The only one of the four Tanaim (initiated prophets)
who entering
the
initiated while all the others failed. (See the Kabbalistic
Rabbis).
Akshara (
Akta (
and Logos in the
Rig -Veda. He is called the “Father of the Gods” and “Father of the
sacred Fire”
(See note page 101, Vol. II., Sec.Doct.).
Akûpâra (
rest.
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Al or El (Heb.). This deity-name is commonly translated “God’,
meaning mighty,
supreme. The plural is Elohim, also translated in the Bible by the
word God, in
the singular. [w.w.w.]
Al-ait (Phœn.). The God of Fire, an ancient and very mystic name in
Koptic
Occultism.
Alaparus (Chald.). The second divine king of
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).
Alaya (
The name belongs to the Tibetan system of the contemplative
Identical with Âkâsa in its mystic sense, and with Mulâprâkriti, in
its essence,
as it is the basis or root of all things.
Alba
mentioned in
Al-Chazari (Arab.). A Prince-Philosopher and Occultist. (See Book
Al-Chazari.)
Alchemists; From Al and
Chemi, fire, or the god and patriarch, Kham, also, the
name of
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
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. (
Alchemy ; in Arabic Ul-Khemi, is, as the name suggests, the
chemistry of nature.
Ui-Khemi or
Al-Kimia, however, is only an Arabianized word, taken from the
Greek chemeia,
(chemeia) from cumoz— “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
oldest-extant alchemic treatise known in
it was written by Zosimus
the Panopolite about 400 A.D.
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in the Greek language, the next oldest is by Æneas 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
menstvuum 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
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
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
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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 sonic Encyclopædists
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.)
Alcyone (Gr.), or Halcyone, daughter of Æolus, 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.
Alectromancy (Gr.). 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.]
Alethæ (Phœn) “Fire worshippers” from Al-alt, 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).
Aletheia (Gr.). Truth; also Alethia, one of Apollo’s nurses.
(
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
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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
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
learning that the world has ever produced.
Alhim (Heb.). See “Elohim”.
Alkahest (Arab.). 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 primæval essence.
Almadel; the Book. A
treatise on Theurgia or White Magic by an unknown mediæval
European author; it is not infrequently found in volumes of MSS.
called Keys of
Solomon. [ w.w.w.]
Almeh (Arab.). Dancing girls; the same as the Indian nautchies, the
temple and
public dancers.
Alpha Polaris (Lat.). The same as Dhruva, the pole-star of 31,105
years ago.
Alswider (Scand.). ‘‘ All-swift’’, the name of the horse of the
moon, in the
Eddas.
Altruism (Lat.). From alter = other. A quality opposed to egoism.
Actions
tending to do good to others, regardless of self.
Aize, 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. Eliphaz Lévi has copied it. [ w.w.w.]
Ama (Heb.)., Amia, (Chald.). Mother. A title of Sephira Binah,
whose “divine
name is Jehovah” and who is called “Supernal Mother”.
Amânasa (
Hindu gods.
Amara-Kosha (
world and the most perfect vocabulary of classical Sanskrit ; by
Amara Sinha, a
sage of the second century.
Ambâ (
married each to a Rishi belonging to the Saptariksha or the seven
Rishis of the
constellation known as the Great Bear.
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Ambhâmsi (
“waters”. This epithet will become more comprehensible when we
remember that the
later type of Sanat-Sujâta was Michael, the
Talmud “the Prince of Waters”, and in the Roman Catholic Church is regarded
as
the patron of gulfs and promontories. Sanat-Sujâta is the
immaculate son of the
immaculate mother (Ambâ or Aditi, chaos and space) or the “waters”
of limitless
space.
(See Secret Doctrine-, Vol. I., p. 460.)
Amdo (Tib.). 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.
Amên. 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”. [ w.w.w.]
But, in esoteric parlance Amen means “the concealed”. Manetho
Sebennites says
the word signifies that which is hidden and we know through
Hecatæus 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 (q.v.) who was
invoked by the
Egyptian priests under the name of Amen.
Amenti (Eg.). Esoterically and literally, the dwelling of the God
Amen, or
Amoun, or the “hidden”, secret god. Exoterically the
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-noter, the
“abode of the
gods”, and the “land of ghosts” like the “ Hades” of the Greeks
(q.v.). It was
also the “Good Father’s House” (in which there are “many mansions”).
The
fourteen divisions comprised, among many others, Aanroo (q.v.), the
hall of the
Two Truths, the
Otamer-xev, 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,
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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
absolute disbelievers, those dead from accident before their
allotted time, and
finally the dead on the threshold of Avitchi, 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”.
Amesha Spentas (Zend). 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 Prajâpatis, the Sephiroth, etc. (q.v.).
Amitâbha. 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, Amitâya, 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 anthrdpomorphized with time.
Ammon (Eg.). One of the great gods of
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
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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.
(See “Chnourmis”
and “Chnouphis” and also Secret Doctrine I, pp. 91 and 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.
Ammonius Saccas. A great and good philosopher who lived in
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 he 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.
Amrita (
immortality. The elixir of life churned out of the ocean of milk in
the Purânic
allegory. An old Vedic term applied to the sacred Soma juice in the
Mysteries.
Amûlam Mûlam (
the spiritual “root of nature”.
Amun (Copt.). The Egyptian god of wisdom, who had only Initiates or
Hierophants
to serve him as priests.
Anâ (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.
Anacalypsis (Gr.)., 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.]
Anâgâmin (
desire. One stage before becoming Arhat and ready for Nirvâna. The
third of the
four grades of holiness on the way to final Initiation.
Anâhata Chakram (
commentators.
Anâhata Shabda (
incipient stage of his meditation, The third of the four states
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of sound, otherwise called Madhyamâ—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, Parâ,
Pashyantî,
Madhyamâ and Vaikharî.
Anaitia (Chald.). A derivation from Anâ (q.v.), a goddess identical
with the
Hindu Annapurna, one of the names of Kâlî—the female aspect of
Siva—at her best.
Analogeticists. The disciples of Ammonius Saccas (q.v.), 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.)
Ânanda (
of Gautama, the Lord Buddha.
Ânanda-Lahari (
Sankarâchârya, a hymn to Pârvati, very mystical and occult.
Ânandamaya-Kosha (
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 Âtmâ-Buddhi or the Spiritual Soul.
Ananga (
Ananta-Sesha (
(lit., endless remain).
Anastasis (Gr.). The continued existence of the soul.
Anatu (Chald.). The female aspect of Anu (q.v.). 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.
Anaxagoras (Gr.) A famous Ionian philosopher who lived 500 B.C.,
studied
philosophy under Anaximenes of Miletus, and settled in the days of
Pericles at
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”.
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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.
Ancients, The. A name given by Occultists to the seven creative
Rays, born of
Chaos, or the “Deep”.
Anda-Katâha (
within which our manifested universe is encompassed.
Androgyne Goat (of Mendes). See “Baphomet”.
Androgyne Ray (Esot.). 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.
Audumla (Scand.). 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.
Angâraka (
Augiras. One of the Prajâpatis. A son of Daksha ; a lawyer, etc.,
etc.
Angirasas (
class of Pitris, the ancestors of man ; a river in Plaksha, one of
the Sapta
dwîpas (q.v).
Angra Mainyus (Zend.). The Zoroastrian name for Ahriman; the evil
spirit of
destruction and opposition who (in the Vendidâd,
Mazda to “counter-create by his witchcraft” every beautiful land
the God
creates; for “Angra Mainyu is all death”.
AnimaMundi (Lat.). 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 Nirvâna, 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
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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.
Anjala (
Prajâpatis.
Anjana (
Annamaya Kosha (
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.
Annapura (
Annedotus (Gr.). The generic name for the Dragons or Men-Fishes, of
which there
were five. The historian Berosus narrates that there rose out of
the Erythræan
Sea on several occasions a semi-dæmon named Oannes or Annedotus,
who although
part animal yet taught the Chaldeans useful arts and everything
that could
humanise them. (See Lenormant Chaldean Magic, p. 203, and also
“Oannes”.)
[w.w.w.]
Anoia (Gr.). “Want of understanding”, “folly”. Anoia is the name
given by Plato
and others to the lower Manas when too closely allied with Kâma,
which is
irrational (agnoia). The Greek word agnoia is evidently a
derivation from and
cognate to the Sanskrit word ajnâna (phonetically, agnyana) or
ignorance,
irrationality, absence of knowledge. (See “Agnoia” and “Agnostic”.)
Anouki (Eg.). A form of
Ank, life. (See “Anuki.”)
Ansumat (
sons, who were reduced to ashes by a single glance from Kapila
Rishi’s “Eye”.
Antahkarana (Sk.)., or Antaskarana. The term has various meanings,
which differ
with every school of philosophy and sect. Thus Sankârachârya
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
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only that which is noble, spiritual and divine in man can testify
in Eternity to
his having lived.
Anthesteria (Gr.). 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
Mystæ were made to pass through the “narrow gate” of Dionysus, to
emerge
therefrom as full Initiates.
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.
(
Anthropomorphism (Gr.). From “anthropos” meaning man. The act of
endowing god or
gods with a human form and human attributes or qualities.
Anu (
the infinite universe. A hint at the pantheistic nature of the god.
Anu (Chald.). One of the highest of Babylonian deities, “King of
Angels and
Spirits, Lord of the city of
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 expense 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 grapfiic and
indicate health,
purity physical and moral, antiquity and holiness. Anu was the
earliest god of
the city 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”.
Anubis (Gr.) 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
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name. He is a psychopompic deity, “the Lord of 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
Mariette Bey having found the image of this deity in tombs of the
Third Dynasty.
Anugîtâ (
Books of the East.)
Anugraha (
Anuki (Eg.). “See Anouki” supra. “The word Ank in Hebrew, means ‘my
life’, my
being, which is the personal pronoun Anocki, from the name of the
Egyptian
goddess Anouki ”, says the author of the
Hebrew Mystery, or the Source of Measures.
Anumati (
Anumitis (
Anunnaki (Chald.). Angels or Spirits of the Earth; terrestrial
Elementals also.
Anunit (Chald.) The goddess of
evening star
was Ishtar of Erech.
Anupâdaka (
“self-existing”, born without any parents or progenitors. A term
applied to
certain self-created gods, and the Dhyâni Buddhas.
Anuttara (
unrivalled intelligence”, Anuttara Dharma, unrivalled law or
religion, &c.
Anyâmsam Aniyasâm (
atomic of the atomic; smallest of the small ”. Applied to the
universal deity,
whose essence is everywhere.
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.
Apâm Napât (Zend). 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 Apâm Napât stands between the fire-yazatas and
the
water-yazatas .
(See Secret Doctrine, Vol. II., p. 400, note).
Apâna (
“expirational” and the “inspirational” breaths. It is called “vital
wind” in
Anugîta.
Apap (Eg.), 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
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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.
Aparinâmin (
that which is subject to modification, differentiation or decay.
Aparoksha (Sk.) Direct perception.
Âpava (Sk.) Lit. “He who sports in the Water”. Another aspect of
Nârâyana or
Vishnu and of Brahmâ combined, for Âpava, like the latter, divides
himself into
two parts, male and female, and creates Vishnu, who creates Virâj,
who creates
Manu. The name is explained and interpreted in various ways in
Brahmanical
literature.
Apavarga (
Apis (Eg.), 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.
Apocrypha (Gr.). Very erroneously explained and adopted as
doubtful, or
spurious. The word means simply secret, esoteric, hidden.
Apollo
Latona, called Phœbus, Helios, the radiant and the Sun, the best
and most
perfect is the one known by this name, which is in the
the moment of his victory over the serpent Python. The statue was
found in the
ruins of Antium, in 1503.
Apollonius of Tyana (Gr.). A wonderful philosopher born in
beginning of the first century; an ardent Pythagorean, who studied
the Phœnician
sciences under Euthydemus; and Pythagorean philosophy and other
studies under
Euxenus of
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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
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
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
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
earthquakes, deaths of kings and other events, which he prophesied
duly
happened. At
initiate him into their peculiar mysteries, though they did so
several years
later. He preached to the people of
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?”
. (Quaest, XXIV.). But an
answer is easily found to this in the fact that after
crossing the
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
aged almost one hundred years.
Aporrheta (Gr.). Secret instructions upon esoteric subjects given
during the
Egyptian and Grecian Mysteries.
Apsaras (
The Apsarases
are in popular belief the “wives of the gods” and called
Surânganâs, and by a
less honourable term, Sumad-âtmajâs or the “daughters of pleasure”,
for it is
fabled of them
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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.
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.
Arahat (
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 rebirth.
Arani (
womb of the world).
Arani 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.
Âranyaka (
a portion of the Vedas containing Upanishads, etc.
Araritha (Heb.). 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”. [ w.w.w.].
Arasa Maram (
mystic word.
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. [w.w.w.]
“primordial”, and angelos,
“messenger ”.
Archæus (Gr.). “The Ancient.” Used of the oldest manifested deity;
a term
employed in the Kabalah ;
“archaic ”, old, ancient.
Archobiosis (Gr.). Primeval beginning of life.
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Archetypal Universe (Kab.). The ideal universe upon which the
objective world
was built. [w.w.w.]
Archons (Gr.). In profane and biblical language “rulers” and
princes; in
Occultism, primordial planetary spirits.
Archontes (Gr.). The archangels after becoming Ferouers (q.v.) 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 Mysterüs II., Chap. 3.)
Ardath (Heb.). 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
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.]
Ardha-Nârî (
male and half female, a type of male and female energies combined.
(See occult
diagram in Isis Unveiled, Vol. II.)
Ardhanârîswara (
states of cosmic energy symbolised by the Kabalistic Sephira, Adam
Kadmon, &c.
Ares. The Greek name for Mars, god of war; also a term used by
Paracelsus, the
differentiated Force in Cosmos.
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.
Arghyanâth (
Arian. A follower of Arius, a presbyter of the Church in
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.
Aristobulus (Gr) An Alexandrian writer, and an obscure philosopher.
A Jew who
tried to prove that Aristotle explained the esoteric thoughts of
Moses.
Arithmomancy (Gr.). The science of correspondences between gods,
men, and
numbers, as taught by Pythagoras. [w.w.w.]
Arjuna (Sk.) Lit., the “white”. The third of the five Brothers
Pandu or the
reputed Sons of Indra (esoterically the same as Orpheus). A
disciple of
who visited him and married Su-bhadrâ, his
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sister, besides many other wives, according to the allegory. During
the
fratricidal war between the Kauravas and the Pândavas,
the highest philosophy, while serving as his charioteer. (See
Bhaguvad Gîtâ.)
month of Athyr, the boat of
Collyrian cakes or buns, marked with the sign of the cross (Tat),
were eaten.
This was in commemoration of the weeping of
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
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.”
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” (q.v.). 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. Thmé, plural thmin,
meant truth in
Hebrew. Wilkinson says the figure of
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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”.
(Bonwick’s
Egyp. Belief.)
Arka (Sk.). The Sun.
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 Avgha (or ark) was the
four-fold female
principle, and the flame burning over it the triple lingham.
Aroueris (Gr.). 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.
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 XIIth 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.
Artes (Eg.). The Earth; the Egyptian god Mars.
Artufas. A generic name in South America and the islands for
temples of nagalism
or serpent worship.
Arundhatî (Sk.). The “Morning Star”; Lucifer-Venus.
Arûpa (Sk.). “Bodiless”, formless, as opposed to rûpa, “body”, or form.
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Arvâksrotas (Sk.). The seventh creation, that of man, in the Vishnu
Purâna.
Arwaker (Scand.). Lit., “early waker”. The horse of the chariot of
the Sun
driven by the maiden Sol, in the Eddas.
Ârya (Sk.) Lit., “the holy”; originally the title of Rishis, those
who had
mastered the “Âryasatyâni” (q.v.) and entered the Âryanimârga path
to Nirvâna 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 Srotâpatti, Sakridâgamin, Anâgâmin, and Arhat, or the
four classes
of Âryas, correspond to these four paths and truths.
Ârya-Bhata (Sk.) The earliest Hindu algerbraist and astronomer,
with the
exception of Asura Maya (q.v.); the author of a work called Ârya
Siddhânta, a
system of Astronomy.
Ârya-Dâsa (Sk.) Lit., “Holy Teacher”. A great sage and Arhat of the
Mahâsamghika
school.
Aryahata (Sk.) The “Path of Arhatship”, or of holiness.
Âryasangha (Sk.) The Founder of the first Yogâchârya 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
Ayôdhya (Oude) about the fifth or sixth century of our era, and
taught Tântrika
worship in addition to the Yogâchârya system. Those who sought to
make it
popular, claimed that he was the same Âryasangha, that had been a
follower of
Sâkyamuni, 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 Sikhim, Bhutan, and Little
Tibet, cannot
be the same as the lofty system of the early Yogâcharya school of
pure Buddhism,
which is neither northern nor southern, but absolutely esoteric.
Though none of
the genunine Yogâchârya books (the Narjol chodpa) have ever been
made public or
marketable, yet one finds in the Yogâchârya Bhûmi Shâstra of the
pseudo-Âryasangha 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
Körös (who,
by-the-bye, never
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became acquainted with the Gelukpa (yellow-caps), but got all his
information
from “red-cap” lamas of the Borderland), places the
pseudo-Âryasangha 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 Roy. As.
Soc., Vol. VI.,
p. 240), speaking of the period when Âryasangha’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 Mahâyana
religious works were all written far before Âryasangha’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 Yogâchârya system, so
disfigured
by the Ayôdhyan imitator—the inference is that there must exist
somewhere a
genuine rendering free from popular Sivaism and left-hand magic.
Aryasatyâni (Sk.). 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) Nirôdha, that the crushing out and extinction
of all such
feelings are possible for a man “on the path”; (4) Mârga, the
narrow way, or
that path which leads to such a blessed result.
Aryavarta (Sk.). The “land of the Aryas”, or India. The ancient
name for
Northern India. 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”.
Asakrit Samâdhi (Sk.). A certain degree of ecstatic contemplation.
A stage in
Samâdhi.
Âsana (Sk.). The third stage of Hatha Yoga, one of the prescribed
postures of
meditation.
Asat (Sk.). 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.
Asathor (Scand.). The same as Thor. The god of storms and thunder,
a hero who
receives Miölnir, the “storm-hammer”, from its fabricators, the
dwarfs. With it
he conquer Alwin in a “battle of
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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 “Miölnir” and “Thor’s
Hammer”.)
Asava Samkhaya (Pali). The “finality of the stream”, one of the six
“Abhijnâs”
(q.v.). A phenomenal knowledge of the finality of the stream of
life and the
series of re-births.
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”.
Asch Metzareph (Heb.). The Cleansing Fire, a Kabbalistic treatise,
treating of
Alchemy and the relation between the metals and the planets.
[w.w.w]
Ases (Scand.). 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
Æsir.
Asgard (Scand.). 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.
Ash (Heb.). Fire, whether physical or symbolical fire; also found
written in
English as As, Aish and Esch.
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.
Asherah (Heb.). 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.]
Ashmog (Zend). 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,
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Ashtadisa (Sk.). The eight-faced space. An imaginary division of
space
represented as an octagon and at other times as a dodecahedron.
Ashta Siddhis (Sk.). The eight consummations in the practice of
Hatha Yoga.
Ashtar Vidyâ (Sk.). 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.
Ash Yggdrasil (Scand.). 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.
Asiras (Sk.). Elementals without heads; lit., “headless” ; used
also of the
first two human races.
Asita (Sk.). A proper name; a son of Bharata; a Rishi and a Sage.
Ask (Scand.) 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.
Aski-kataski-haix-tetrax-damnameneus-aision. These mystic words,
which
Athanasius Kircher tells us meant “ 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.]
Asmodeus. The Persian Aêshma-dev, the Esham-dev of the Parsis, “the
evil Spirit
of Concupiscence”, according to Bréal, 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
”.
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” (q.v.) 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.
Asoka (Sk.). A celebrated Indian king of the Môrya dynasty which
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reigned at Magadha. There were two Asokas in reality, according to
the
chronicles of Northern Buddhism, though the first Asoka—the grand
father 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 Devânam-piya “the beloved of the gods”, and
also Kâlâsoka;
while the name of his grandson was Dharmâsôká—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 totes 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 Allahahad, 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.
Asomatous (Gr.). Lit., without a material body, incorporeal; used
of celestial
Beings and Angels.
Asrama (Sk.). A sacred building, a monastery or hermitage for
ascetic purposes.
Every sect in India has its Ashrams.
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 hascheesl-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.’
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”.
l
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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.
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?”
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.
Assyrian Tree of Life. “Asherah” (q.v.). 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
Judæa. 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.
Asta-dasha (Sk.). Perfect, Supreme Wisdom; a title of Deity.
Aster’t (Heb.). Astarte, the Syrian goddess the consort of Adon, or
Adonai.
Astræa (Gr.). The ancient goddess of justice, whom the wickedness
of men drove
away from earth to heaven, wherein she now dwells as the
constellation Virgo.
Astral Body, or Astral “Double”. The ethereal counterpart or shadow
of man or
animal. The Linga Sharira, the “Doppelgäinger”. 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.
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Astral Light (Occult) 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 Akâsic 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.)
Astrolatry (Gr.). Worship of
the Stars.
Astrology (Gr.) 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
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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 Astrolatrer, 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 (1. 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.”)
Astronomos (Gr.). 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
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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.’ (Arago.)
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 at 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 Milton, Steele, and a host of noted
Rosicrucians.
Asura Mazda (Sk.). In the Zend, Ahura Mazda. The same as Ormuzd or
Mazdeô; the
god of Zoroaster and the Parsis.
Asuramaya (Sk.) Known also as Mayâsura. An Atlantean astronomer,
considered as a
great magician and sorcerer, well-known in Sanskrit works.
Asuras (Sk.). 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
Brâhmanas, 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 Prajâpati (Brahmâ) 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.
Aswamedha (Sk.) The Horse-sacrifice; an ancient Brahmanical
ceremony.
Aswattha (Sk.) The Bo-tree, the tree of knowledge, ficus religiosa.
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Aswins (Sk.), or Aswinau, dual ; or again, Aswinî-Kumârau, 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 time
“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
Pushhara-srajam, etc.,
etc. Yâska, 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 Goldstücker 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
Yâska “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 Kumâra-Egos, the reincarnating
“Principles” in this
Manvantara.
Atala (Sk). 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.
Atalanta Fugiens (Lat.). 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”. [ w.w.w.]
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
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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.
Atash Behram (Zend). The sacred fire of the Parsis, preserved
perpetually in
their fire-temples.
Atef (Eg.), or Crown of Horus. It consisted of a tall white cap
with ram’s
horns, and the urœus in front. Its two feathers represent the two
truths—life
and death.
Athamaz (Heb.). The same as Adonis with the Greeks, the Jews having
borrowed all
their gods.
Athanor (Occult.) The “astral” fluid of the Alchemists, their
Archimedean lever;
exoterically, the furnace of the Alchemist.
Atharva Veda (Sk.) The fourth Veda; lit., magic incantation
containing
aphorisms, incantations and magic formula One of the most ancient
and revered
Books of the Brahmans.
Athenagoras (Gr.) 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.
Athor (Eg.) “Mother Night.” Primeval Chaos, in the Egyptian
cosmogony. The
goddess of night.
Atîvahikâs (Sk.) 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.
Atlantidæ (Gr.) The ancestors of the Pharaohs and the forefathers
of the
Egyptians, according to some, and as the Esoteric Science teaches.
(See S.D.,
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 Atlantidæ (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 Atlantidæ.
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Atlantis (Gr.) The continent that was submerged in the Atlantic and
the Pacific
Oceans according to the secret teachings and Plato.
Atmâ (or Atman) (Sk.). The Universal Spirit, the divine Monad, the
7th
Principle, so-called, in the septenary constitution of man. The
Supreme Soul.
Atma-bhu (Sk.). Soul-existence, or existing as soul. (See “Alaya”.)
Atmabodha (Sk.). Lit., “Self-knowledge”; the title of a Vedantic
treatise by
Sankârachârya.
Atma-jnâni (Sk.) The Knower of the World-Soul, or Soul in general.
Atma-matrasu (Sk.) To enter into the elements of the “One-Self”.
(See S. D.
I.,334 Atmamâtra is the spiritual atom, as contrasted with, and
opposed to, the
elementary differentiated atom or molecule.
Atma Vidyâ (Sk.). The highest form of spiritual knowledge; lit.,
“Soul-knowledge”.
Atri, Sons of (Sk.). A class of Pitris, the “ancestors of man”, or
the so-called
Prâjapâti, “progenitors”; one of the seven Rishis who form the
constellation of
the Great Bear.
Attavada (Pali). The sin of personality.
Atyantika (Sk.) One of the four kinds of pralaya or dissolution.
The “absolute”
pralaya.
Atziluth (Heb.) The highest of the Four Worlds of the Kabbalah
referred only to
the pure Spirit of God. [w. w. w.] See “Aziluth” for another
interpretation.
Audlang (Scand.). The second heaven made by Deity above the field
of Ida, in the
Norse legends.
Audumla (Scand.) The Cow of Creation, the “nourisher”, from which
flowed four
streams of milk which fed the giant Ymir or Örgelmir (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 Bör (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.
Augoeides (Gr.). Bulwer Lytton calls it the “Luminous Self ”, or
our Higher Ego.
But Occultism makes of it something distinct from
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this. It is a mystery. The Augocides 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.
Aum (Sk.). The sacred syllable; the triple-lettered unit; hence the
trinity in
One.
Aura (Gr. and Lat.). 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 âkâsic or magnetic
aura.
Aurnavâbha (Sk.) An ancient Sanskrit commentator.
Aurva (Sk.). The Sage who is credited with the invention of the
“fiery weapon”
called Agneyâstra.
Ava-bodha (Sk.). “Mother of Knowledge.” A title of Aditi.
Avâivartika (Sk.) An epithet of every Buddha: lit., one who turns
no more back;
who goes straight to Nirvâna.
Avalokiteswara (Sk.) “The on-looking Lord” In the exoteric
interpretation, he is
Padmapâni (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
Padmapâni 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 Yogâchârya
School has
declared Avalokiteswara as Padmâpani “to be the Dhyâni Bodhisattva
of Amitâbha
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.
Avarasâila Sanghârama (Sk.). Lit., the School of the Dwellers on
the western
mountain. A celebrated Vihâra (monastery) in Dhana-kstchâka,
according to Eitel,
“built 600 B.C., and deserted A.D. 600”.
Avastan (Sk.) An ancient name for Arabia.
Avasthas (Sk.) States, conditions, positions.
Avatâra (Sk.) 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
Amitâbha. There
are two kinds of avatars: those born from woman, and the
parentless, the
anupapâdaka.
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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. [w.w.w.]
Avesta (Zend). Lit., “the Law”. From the old Persian Âbastâ, “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).
Avicenna. The latinized name of Abu-Ali al Hoséen ben Abdallah Ibn
Sina; a
Persian philosopher, born 980 AD)., 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.
Avidyâ (Sk.). Opposed to Vidyâ, Knowledge. Ignorance which proceeds
from, and is
produced by the illusion of the Senses or Viparyaya.
Avikâra (Sk.). Free from degeneration; changeless—used of Deity.
Avitchi (Sk.) 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.
Avyakta (Sk.). 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 and Brahmâ.
Axieros (Gr.). One of the Kabiri.
Axiocersa (Gr.).
" "
Axiocersus (Gr.).
" "
Ayana (Sk.) A period of time; two Ayanas complete a year, one being
the period
of the Sun’s progress northward, and the other south ward in the
ecliptic.
Ayin (Heb.). Lit., “Nothing”, whence the name of Ain-Soph.
(See“Ain”.)
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,
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Chauvin and Garnier reported on the reality of his powers. See
Colquhoun on
Magic. [ w.w.w.]
Ayur Veda (Sk.). Lit., “the Veda of Life”.
Ayuta (Sk.). 100 Kôti, or a sum equal to 1,000,000,000.
Azareksh (Zend) A place celebrated for a fire-temple of the
Zoroastrians and
Magi during the time of Alexander the Great.
Azazel (Heb.) “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.
Azhi-Dahaka (Zend) One of the Serpents or Dragons in the legends of
Iran and the
Avesta Scriptures, the allegorical destroying Serpent or Satan.
Aziluth (Heb.) 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 Doctrine.)
Azoth (Alch.). 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 Lévi”), 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.
A. and Ω Alpha and Omega, the First and the Last, the
beginning and ending of
all active existence; the Logos, hence (with the Christians)
Christ. See Rev.
xxi, 6., 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 mediæval glyph of this idea,
for the word
consists of the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, A and
Ω of the
Latin alphabet, A and Z, and of the Hebrew alphabet, A and T, or
aleph and tau.
(See also “Azoth”.) [ w.w.w.]
B
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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." (R. M. [Cyclop.]
Baal (Chald. Heb.). Baal 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 (q.v.) ? ” (Psalms XX1V. 3.) 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 xxi., et seq.) and the
same as the
leaping of the prophets of Baal (I. Kings xviii). 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.
Babil Mound (Chald. Heb.). The site of the Temple of Bel at
Babylon.
Bacchus (Gr.). 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 (q.v.),
&c., &c. 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 15. 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.
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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.
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."
Baddha (Sk.). Bound, conditioned; as is every mortal who has not
made himself
free through Nirvâna.
Bagavadam (Sk.). A Tamil Scripture on Astronomy and other matters.
Bagh-bog (Slavon.). “God”; 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.
Bahak-Zivo (Gn.). The “father of the Genii” in the Codex Nazarœus.
The Nazarenes
were an early semi-Christian sect.
Bal (Heb.). Commonly translated “Lord”, but also Bel, the Chaldean
god, and
Baal, an "idol".
Bala (Sk.), or Panchabalâni. The “five powers” to be acquired in
Yoga practice;
full trust or faith; energy ; memory; meditation ; wisdom.
Baldur (Scand.). 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 Hödur
who
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kills with it the sunny-hearted god of light. The Christmas
misletoe is probably
a reminiscence of the mistletoe that killed the Northern God of
Goodness.
Bal-ilu (Chal.). One of the many titles of the Sun.
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.
Bandha (Sk.). Bondage; life on this earth; from the same root as
Baddha.
Baphomet (Gr.). 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 bafh and mhtiz 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.
(See “Pan ”.)
Baptism (Gr.). 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 Mendæans (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 Jésus that the Aramean verb seba, the origin of the name
Sabian, is a
synonym of the Greek baptizw. The modern Sabians, the Mendæans
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-for gotten forefathers, the Chaldean Initiates.
Their religion
is one of multiplied baptisms, of seven purifications in the name
of the seven
planetary
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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. (See
“Boodhasp”.)
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 Cæsar 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) &c. 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 (loc. cit. pp. 985-ff “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
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Syriac original, and published with English translation in 1855 by
Dr. Cureton,
Spicileg. Syriac. in British Museum.)
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
Mendaїtes (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.
Baresma (Zend). A plant used by Mobeds (Parsi priests) in the fire-
temples,
wherein consecrated bundles of it are kept.
Barhishad (Sk.). 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 there-with the first man.
(See Secret
Doctrine, Vol. II.)
Basileus (Gr.). The Archon or Chief who had the outer super-vision
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 Mystæ and belonged to
the inner
mysteries.
Basilidean (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.
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.
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Bath (Heb.). Daughter.
Bath Kol (Heb.). 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 Vâch, the voice, the female essence, an aspect of
Aditi, the
mother of the gods and primæval Light; a mystery. [ w.w.w.]
Batoo (Eg.). 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.
Batria (Eg.). According to tradition, the wife of the Pharaoh and
the teacher of
Moses.
Beel-Zebub (Heb.). 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 scarabæi”, 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 Phenician god, was the healing
god, Paiàn,
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.
Bel (Chald.). The oldest and mightiest god of Babylonia, one of the
earliest
trinities,—Anu (q.v.) ; 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
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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.
Bela-Shemesh (Chald. Heb.). “The 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 Doctrine, I. 397.)
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.
[ w.w.w.]
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.
Ben (Heb.). A son; a common prefix in proper names to denote the
son of
so-and-so, e.g., Ben Solomon, Ben Ishmael, etc.
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.
Ben Shamesh (Heb.). The children or the “Sons of the Sun”. The
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term belongs to the period when the Jews were divided into sun and
moon
worshippers—Elites and Belites. (See “Bela- Shemesh”.)
Benoo (Eg.). A word applied to two symbols, both taken to mean
“Phœnix”. 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 Phœnix 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 Phœnix
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 Phœnix, resurrected from the ashes of its
predecessor.
Berasit (Heb.). 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 Jerusalern, 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.]
Berasit or Berasheth is a mystic word among the Kabbalists of Asia
Minor.
Bergelmir (Scand.). 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
Bun—Odin, Wili, and We— conquering and killing the terrible giant
Ymir, and
creating the world out of his body.
Berosus (Chald.). A priest of the Temple of Belus who wrote for
Alexander the
Great the history of the Cosmogony, as taught in the
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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.
Bes (Eg.). 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.
Bestla (Scand.). The daughter of the “Frost giants”, the sons of
Ymir; married
to Bun, and the mother of Odin and his brothers (Edda).
Beth (Heb.). House, dwelling.
Beth Elohim (Heb.). A Kabbalistic treatise treating of the angels,
souls of men,
and demons. The name means “House of the Gods".
Betyles (Phœn.). Magical stones. The ancient writers call them the
“animated
stones” ; oracular stones, believed in and used both by Gentiles
and Christians.
(See S.D. II. p. 342).
Bhadra Vihara (Sk.). Lit., “the Monastery of the Sages or
Bodhisattvas”. A
certain Vihara or Matham in Kanyâkubdja.
Bhadrakalpa (Sk.). Lit., “The Kalpa of the Sages”. Our present
period is a
Bhadra Kalpa, and the exoteric teaching makes it last 236 million
years. It is
“so called because 1,000 Buddhas or sages appear in the course of
it”. (Sanshrit
Chinese Dict.) “Four Buddhas have already appeared” it adds; but as
out of the
236 millions, over 151
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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
(q.v.).
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.
Bhadrasena (Sk.). A Buddhist king of Magadha.
Bhagats (Sk.). Also called Sokha and Sivnath by the Hindus; one who
exorcises
evil spirits.
Bhagavad-gita (Sk.). 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.
Bhagavat (Sk.). A title of the Buddha and of Krishna. “The Lord”
literally.
Bhao (Sk.). A ceremony of divination among the Kolarian tribes of
Central India.
Bhârata Varsha (Sk.). The land of Bharata, an ancient name of
India.
Bhargavas (Sk.). An ancient race in India; from the name of Bhrigu,
the Rishi.
Bhâshya (Sk) A commentary.
Bhâskara (Sk). One of the titles of Surya, the Sun; meaning “life-
giver” and
“light-maker”.
Bhava (Sk.). Being, or state of being; the world, a birth, and also
a name of
Siva.
Bhikshu (Sk.). In Pâli Bihkhu. The name given to the first
followers of
Sâkyamuni 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”.
Bhons (Tib.). The followers of the old religion of the Aborigines
of Tibet; of
pre-buddhistic temples and ritualism; the same as Dugpas,
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“red caps”, though the latter appellation usually applies only to
sorcerers.
Bhrantidarsanatah (Sk.). Lit., “false comprehension or
apprehension”; something
conceived of on false appearances as a mayavic, illusionary form.
Bhrigu (Sk.). One of the great Vedic Rishis. He is called “Son” by
Manu, who
confides to him his Institutes. He is one of the Seven Prajâpatis
or progenitors
of mankind, which is equivalent to identifying him with one of the
creative
gods, placed by the Purânas 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 Brighoo), 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
megalithic temple of Stonehenge. This, of course, is a hypothesis,
based merely
on Dr. Kenealy’s personal speculations.
Bhûmi (Sk.). The earth, called also Prithivî.
Bhur-Bhuva (Sk). A mystic incantation, as Om, Bhur, Bhuva, Swar,
meaning “Om,
earth, sky, heaven, This is
the exoteric explanation.
Bhuranyu (Sk.). “The rapid” or the swift. Used of a missile— an
equivalent also
of the Greek Phoroneus.
Bhur-loka (Sk). One of the 14, lokas or worlds in Hindu Pantheism;
our Earth.
Bhutadi (Sk.). Elementary substances, the origin and the germinal
essence of the
elements.
Bhutan. A country of heretical Buddhists and Lamaists beyond
Sikkhim, where
rules the Dharma Raja, a nominal vassal of the Dalaї
Lama.
Bhûhta-vidyâ (Sk.). The art of exorcising, of treating and curing
demoniac
possession. Literally, “Demon” or “Ghost-knowledge”.
Bhûta-sarga (Sk.). Elemental or incipient Creation, i.e., when
matter was
several degrees less material than it is now.
Bhûtesa (Sk.) Or Bhûteswara; lit., “Lord of beings or of existent
lives”. A name
applied to Vishnu, to Brahmâ and Krishna.
Bhûts (Sk.). Bhûta.: Ghosts, phantoms. To call them “demons”, as do
the
Orientalists, is incorrect. For, if on the one hand, a Bhûta 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 Bhûtas are also meant “heretics” who besmear their bodies
with ashes,
or Shaiva ascetics (Siva being held in India for the King of
Bhûtas).
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Bhuya-loka (Sk.). One of the 14 worlds.
Bhuvana (Sk). A name of Rudra or Siva, one of the Indian Trimurti
(Trinity).
Bifröst (Scand.). 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”.
Bihar Gyalpo (Tib.). A king deified by the Dugpas. A patron over
all their
religious buildings.
Binah (Heb.). Understanding. The third of the 10 Sephiroth, the
third of the
Supernal Triad; a female potency, corresponding to the letter hé of
the
Tetragrammaton IHVH. Binah is called AIMA, the Supernal Mother, and
“the great
Sea”. [ w.w.w.]
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. (”See Borsippa”.)
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 Æsir or Ases. Called also “Black Elves”.
Black Fire (Zohar.) A Kabbalistic term for Absolute Light and
Wisdom; “black”
because it is incomprehensible to our finite intellects.
Black Magic (Occult.). 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.
B’ne Alhim or Beni Elohim (Heb.). “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 Hôd.
[w. w. w.]
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”, the “Son of the Sun”.) A
blue
light—which is the “Sun’s Son”—is seen streaming from the bark. The
ancient
Egyptians taught
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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!
Boaz (Heb.). 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.]
Bodha-Bodhi (Sk.). Wisdom-knowledge.
Bodhi or Sambodhi (Sk.). Receptive intelligence, in
contradistinction to Buddhi,
which is the potentiality of intelligence.
Bodhi Druma (Sk.). The Bo or Bodhi tree; the tree of “knowledge the
Pippala or
ficus religiosa in botany. It is the tree under which Sâkymuni
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 Vihâra or temple of fame
in China,
Siam, Ceylon, and Tibet.
Bodhidharma (Sk.). 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) of Buddha”. (Chin.
San. Diet.).
Bodhidharma, who flourished in the sixth century, travelled to
China, whereto he
brought a precious relic, namely, the almsbowl of the Lord Buddha.
Bodhisattva (Sk). 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 Nirvâna. This, as applied to Manushi
(terrestrial)
Buddhas. In the metaphysical sense, Bodhisattva is a title given to
the sons of
the celestial Dhyâni Buddhas.
Bodhyanga (Sk.). 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
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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)
Samâdhi, “ecstatic contemplation”; and (7) Upeksha “absolute
indifference”.
Boehme (Jacob). A great mystic philosopher, one of the most
prominent
Theosophists of the mediæval ages. He was born about 1575 at Old
Seidenburg,
some two miles from Görlitz (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 Görlitz.
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 pleased,” but in the
measure of the
capacities of the mortal and temporary dwelling IT informed.
Bonati, Guido. A Franciscan monk, born at Florence in the XIIIth
century and
died in 1306. He became an astrologer and alchemist, but failed as
a Rosicrucian
adept. He returned after this to his monastery.
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
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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.
Bono, Peter. A Lombardian; a great adept in the Hermetic Science,
who travelled
to Persia to study Alchemy. Returning from his voyage he 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.
Boodhasp (Chald.) .An alleged Chaldean; but in esoteric teaching a
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 Ferho 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.
Book of the Dead. An ancient Egyptian ritualistic and occult work
attributed to
Thot-Hermes. Found in the coffins of ancient mummies,
Book of the Keys. An ancient Kabbalistic work.
Borj (Pers.). The Mundane Mountain, a volcano or fire-mountain; the
same as the
Indian Meru.
Borri, Joseph Francis. A great Hermetic philosopher, born at Milan
in the 17th
century. He was an adept, an alchemist and a devoted occultist. He
knew too 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.
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. (See “Birs Nimrud ”.)
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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” (q.v.).
Bragadini, Marco Antonio. A Venetian Rosicrucian of great
achievements, an
Occultist and Kabbalist who was decapitated in 1595 in Bavaria, for
making gold.
Bragi (Scand.). 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.
Brahma (Sk.). The student must distinguish between Brahma the
neuter, and
Brahmâ, 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.
Brahmâ 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.
Brahmâ’s Day. A period of 2,160,000,000 years during which Brahmâ
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 Brahmâ's Night.
Brahmâ’s Night. A period of equal duration, during which Brahmâ. is
said to be
asleep. Upon awakening he recommences the process, and this goes on
for an AGE
of Brahmâ 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.
Brahmâ Prajâpati (Sk.). “Brahmâ the Progenitor”, literally the
“Lord of
Creatures”. In this aspect Brahmâ is the synthesis of the Prajâpati
or creative
Forces.
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Brahmâ Vâch (Sk.) Male and female Brahmâ. Vâch is also some-times
called the
female logos; for Vâch means
Speech, literally. (See Manu Book I., and Vishnu
Purâna.)
Brahma Vidyâ (Sk.) The knowledge, the esoteric science, about the
two Brahmas
and their true nature.
Brahmâ Virâj. (Sk.) The same: Brahmâ separating his body into two
halves, male
and female, creates in them Vâch and Virâj. In plainer terms and
esotericlly
Brahmâ the Universe, differentiating, produced thereby material
nature, Virâj,
and spiritual intelligent Nature, Vâch—which is the Logos of Deity
or the
manifested expression of the eternal divine Ideation.
Brahmâcharî (Sk.) A Brahman ascetic; one vowed to celibacy, a monk,
virtually,
or a religious student.
Brahmajnâni (Sk.) One possessed of complete Knowledge; an
Illuminatus in
esoteric parlance.
Brâhman (Sk.) 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.
Brâhmana period (Sk.) One of the four periods into which Vedic
literature has
been divided by Orientalists.
Brâhmanas (Sk.) 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.
Brahmanaspati (Sk.). The planet Jupiter; a deity in the Rig -Veda,
known in the
exoteric works as Brihaspati, whose wife Târâ was carried away by
Soma (the
Moon). This led to a war between the gods and the Asuras.
Brahmâpuri (Sk.) Lit., “the City of Brahmâ.
Brahmâputrâs (Sk.) The Sons of Brahmâ.
Brahmarandhra (Sk.) 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.
Brahmârshîs (Sk.). The Brahminical Rishis.
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
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Mysteries of Mithras, for you either know or may know that they
also take bread
and a cup of water in the sacrifices of those that are initiated
and pronounce
certain words over it”. (See “Holy Water”.)
Briareus (Gr.) A famous giant in the Theogony of Hesiod. The son of
Cœlus and
Terra, a monster with 50 heads and 100 arms. He is conspicuous in
the wars and
battles between the gods.
Briatic World or Briah (Heb.) 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.]
Bride. The tenth Sephira, Malkuth, is called by the Kabbalists the
Bride of
Microprosopus; she is the final Hé of the Tetragrammaton ; in a
similar manner
the Christian Church is called the Bride of Christ.
[ w.w.w.]
Brihadâranyaka (Sk.) 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.
Brihaspati (Sk.) The name of a Deity, also of a Rishi. It is like
wise 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.
Briseus (Gr.) 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.
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.
Bubasté (Eg.) 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”.
Buddha (Sk.). 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 otherselves; to learn
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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.
Buddha Siddhârta (Sk.) The name given to Gautama, the Prince of
Kapilavastu, at
his birth. It is an abbreviation of sarvârtthasiddha and means, the
“realization
of all desires”. Gautama, which means, on earth (gâu) the most
victorious (tama)
“was the sacerdotal name of the Sâkya 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 Sâkyamuni, the
last
component, muni, is rendered as meaning one mighty in charity,
isolation and
silence”, and the former Sâkya 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 underlying his prenatal
biography, i.e., the significance of the popular story. The
Lalitavistûra tells
the tale, but abstains from hinting at the truth. The 5,000
jâtakas, 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
(jâtaka) 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 Tathâgatas 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
BC., and having passed six years in ascetic meditation at Gaya, and
perceiving
that physical self-torture was useless to bring enlightenment, be
decided upon
striking out a new path, until he reached the state of
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Bodhi. He became a full Buddha on the night of the 8th day of the
twelfth moon,
in the year 592, and finally entered Nirvâna 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 Prabhâpala. Tushita stands for
a place on
this globe, not for a paradise in the invisible regions. The
selection of the
Sâkya family and his mother Mâyâ, 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 Nâga 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 Dharmakâya Buddha is said to
have passed
into Samâdhi, and lost himself in Nirvâna—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 ; saluting with folded hands his mother Mâyâ
who had
suddenly appeared in the air, though she had died seven (days after
his birth,
&c., &c. 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 Swastica 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
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divine. During the 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 Nirvâna and gave up the Dharmakâya 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 he. No persecutions, and enforcement of faith by
fire and sword,
have ever disgraced it. No thunder-and-lightning-vomiting god has
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 he adopted by mankind at large, then indeed an era of bliss
and peace
would dawn on Humanity.
Buddhachhâyâ (Sk.). 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 Buddhas 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.
Buddhaphala (Sk) Lit., “the fruit of Buddha”, the fruition of
Arahattvaphalla,
or Arhatship.
Buddhi (Sk.). Universal Soul or Mind. Mahâbuddhi is a name of Mahat
(see
“Alaya”); also the spiritual Soul in man (the sixth principle), the
vehicle of
Atmâ exoterically the seventh.
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 Sâkyamuni—the
Northern Church
is the outcome of Siddhârta Buddha’s esoteric teachings which he
confined to his
elect Bhikshus and Arhats. In fact, Buddhism in the present age,
cannot he
justly judged either by one or
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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 stero:, 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 under the dictates of priestocracy, ambition, or with an eye
to personal
gain and power, as the two Christian Churches have.
Buddhochinga (Sk) 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.
Budha (Sk. “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).
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 Bull 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 milk-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 gods and the bulls as
of a phallic
character, or connect the Sun with it, are mistaken, it is only the
lunar gods
and the rams, 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, Hapi 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
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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, &c., &c., and Apis himself was a hermaphodite
and not a male
animal, which shows his cosmic character. As well call the Taurus
of the Zodiac
and all Nature phallic.
Bumapa (Tib.). A school of men, usually a college of mystic
students.
Bunda-hish. An old Eastern work in which among other things
anthropology is
treated in an allegorical fashion.
Burham-i-Kati. A Hermetic Eastern work.
Burî (Scand) “The producer”, the Son of Bestla, in Norse legends.
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.
Busardier. A Hermetic philosopher born in Bohemia who is credited
with having
made a genuine powder of 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.
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 be robbed
without
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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.
Bythos (Gr.). 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.
C
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C.—The third letter of the English alphabet, which has no equivalent
in Hebrew
except Caph, which see under K.
Cabar Zio (Gnost.). “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.
Cabeiri or Kabiri (Phœn) 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.
Cabletow (Mas.). 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.
Cadmus (Gr.). 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.
Caduceus (Gr.). 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 Æsculapius 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.Doct. I. 550.) 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.
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Cæsar. 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.
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 “ Mesmer”.) 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.
Cain or Kayn (Heb.) 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.)
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 T is the most ancient
of all forms,
and the cross or the tat (q.v.) as ancient. The crux ansata, the cross
with a
handle, is in the hands of almost every god, including Baal and the
Phœnician
Astarte. The croix cramponnée 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
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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).
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 notavicon, 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.
Canarese. The language of the Karnatic, originally called Kanara,
one of the
divisions of South India.
Capricornus (Lat.) The 10th sign of the Zodiac (Makâra 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
Amalthæa 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.
Cardan, Jérome. An astrologer, alchemist, kabbalist and mystic,
well known in
literature. He was born at Pavia in 1501, and died at Rome in 1576.
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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.) It was built by the prehistoric
hierophant-priests of the
Solar Dragon, or symbolized Wisdom (the Solar Kumâras 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”.)
Caste. Originally the system of the four hereditary classes into
which the
Indian population was divided: Brahman, Kshatriya, Vaisya, and Sudra
(or
descendants of Brahmâ, Warriors, Merchants, and the lowest or
Agriculturalists).
Besides these original four, hundreds have now grown up in India.
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 Târaka Raja
Yogis; and
in the Vedânta system it corresponds to both the Vignânamaya 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.
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.
Cecco d’Ascolî. 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.
Cerberus (Gr., Lat.). Cerberus, 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
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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 Kâmaloka and its
uncouth
monsters, the cast-off shells of mortals.
Ceres (Lat.) In Greek Demeter. As the female aspect of Pater Æther,
Jupiter, she
is esoterically the productive principle in the all-pervading
Spirit that
quickens every germ in the material universe.
Chabrat Zereh Aur Bokher (Heb.) 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.]
Chadâyatana (Sk.). 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. Chadâyatana is
one of the 12
Nidânas, which form the chain of incessant causation and effect.
Chaitanya (Sk) The founder of a mystical sect in India. A rather
modern sage,
believed to be an avatar of Krishna.
Chakna-padma-karpo (Tib.) “He who holds the lotus”, used of
Chenresi, the
Bodhisattva. It is not a genuine Tibetan word, but half Sanskrit.
Chakra (Sk.) A wheel, a disk, or the circle of Vishnu generally.
Used also of a
cycle of time, and with other meanings.
Chakshub (Sk.) The “eye ”. Loka-chakshub or “the eye of the world”
is a title of
the Sun.
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.
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.
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Chandra (Sk.) The Moon; also a deity. The terms Chandra and Soma
are synonyms.
Chandragupta (Sk.) The first Buddhist King in India, the grand-sire
of Asoka ;
the Sandracottus of the all-bungling Greek writers who went to
India in
Alexander’s time. (See “Asoka”.)
Chandra-kanta (Sk.) “The moon-stone”, a gem that is claimed to be
formed and
developed under the moon-beams, which give it occult and magical
properties. It
has a very cooling influence in fever if applied to both temples.
Chandramanam (Sk.) The method of calculating time by the Moon.
Chandrayana (Sk.) The lunar year chronology.
Chandra-vansa (Sk.) 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 Purânas, 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 time 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
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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.
Chantong (Tib.) “He of the 1,000 Eyes”, a name of Padmapani or
Chenresi
(Avalokitesvara).
Chaos (Gr.) The Abyss, the “Great Deep”. It was personified in
Egypt by the
Goddess Neїth, 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—“Neїth, 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, a yet
the Immaculate Virgin, or female God from whom all things
proceeded”. Neїth 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 Neїth— 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 Neїth, 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 Neїth was 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.
Neїth is Swabhdvat and
also the Vedic Aditi and the Purânic Akâsa, 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 Neїth is found on old
pictures represented as a
Mother embracing
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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 Phœnician mariners, and forth with 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 Môt, 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 (Neїth)
is the Zerouâna 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.”
Charaka (Sk.). 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”.)
Charnook, 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” (Royal Mas. Cyc.). Charnock
wrote his
Breviary of Philosophy in the year 1557 and the Enigma of Alchemy,
in 1574.
Charon (Gr.) 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, o this grim
ferryman of the
Styx and Acheron; therefore the ancients
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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.
Châryâka (Sk.) There were two famous beings of this name. One a
Rakshasa (demon)
who disguised himself as a Brâhman and entered Hastinâ-pura;
whereupon the
Brahmans discovered the imposture and reduced Châryâka 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
Râmâyanic
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.
Chastanier, Benedict. A French mason who established in London in
1767 a Lodge
called
“The Illuminated Theosophists”.
Chatur mukha (Sk) The “four-faced one”, a title of Brahmâ.
Chatur varna (Sk.) The four castes (lit., colours).
Châturdasa Bhuvanam (Sk.) The fourteen lokas or planes of
existence.
Esoterically, the dual seven states.
Chaturyonî (Sk.) 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).
Chava (Heb.) The same as Eve: “the Mother of all that lives” "Life"
Chavigny, Jean Aimé de. A disciple of the world-famous Nostradamus,
an
astrologer and an alchemist of the sixteenth century. He died in
the year 16O4.
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.
Chelâ (Sk.) A disciple, the pupil of a Guru or Sage, the follower
of some adept
of a school of philosophy (lit., child).
Chemi (Eg.). The ancient name of Egypt.
Chenresi (Tib.) The Tibetan Avalokitesvara. The Bodhisattva
Padmâpani, a divine
Buddha.
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Cheru (Scand) 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.
Cherubim (Heb.) 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 Macrohius describes in his Saturnalia; the Greeks had their
triple-headed
Hecate, and the Latins had three-faced images of Diana, as Ovid
tells us, ecce
procul ternis Hecate variata figuris. Virgil also describes her in
the fourth
Book of the Æneid. 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 Chimæra 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.]
Chesed (Heb.) “Mercy ”, also named Gedulah, the fourth of the ten
Sephiroth; a
masculine or active potency. [ w.w. w.]
Chhâyâ (Sk.) “Shade” or “ Shadow”. The name of a creature produced
by Sanjnâ,
the wife of Surya, from herself (astral body). Unable to endure the
ardour of
her husband, Sanjnâ left Chhâyâ in her place as a wife, going
herself away to
perform austerities. Chhâyâ is the astral image of a person in
esoteric
philosophy.
Chhandoga (Sk) A Samhitâ
collection of Sama Veda; also a priest, a chanter of
the Sama Veda.
Chhanmûka (Sk) A great
Bodhisattva with the Northern Buddhists, famous for his
ardent love of Humanity; regarded in the esoteric schools as a
Nirmanakâya.
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Chhannagarikah (Tib.). Lit., the school of six cities. A famous
philosophical
school where Chelas are prepared before entering on the Path.
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 (R.M.C.) regards them
as 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.”
Chhaya loka (Sk.) The world of Shades; like Hades, the world of the
Eidola and
Umbræ. We call it Kâmaloka.
Chiah (Heb.) Life; Vita, Revivificatio. In the Kabbala, the second
highest
essence of the human soul, corresponding to Chokmah (Wisdom).
Chichhakti (Sk.) Chih-Sakti; the power which generates thought.
Chidagnikundum (Sk.). Lit., “the fire-hearth in the heart” ; the
seat of the
force which extinguishes all individual desires.
Chidâkâsam (Sk); The field, or basis of consciousness.
Chiffilet, Jean. A Canon-Kabbalist of the XVIIth century, 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.
Chiim (Heb.) A plural noun—“lives”; found in compound names Elohim
Chum, the
gods of lives, Parkhurst translates “the living God” and Ruach
Chiim, Spirit of
lives or of life. [ w.w. w.]
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 is 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
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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.]
Chit (Sk.) Abstract Consciousness.
Chitanuth our (Heb.). Chitons, a priestly garb; the coats of skin
given by Java
Aleim to Adam and Eve after their fall,
Chitkala (Sk.). In Esoteric philosophy, identical with the Kumâras
those who
first incarnated into the men of the Third Root-Race. (See
Sec.Doct.; Vol. 1. p.
288 n.)
Chitra Gupta (Sk.) The deva (or god) who is the recorder of Yâma
(the god of
death), and who is supposed to read the account of every Soul’s life
from a
register called Agra Sandhâni, when the said soul appears before
the seat of
judgment. (See “Agra Sandhâni ”.)
Chitra Sikkandinas (Sk). The constellation of the great Bear ; the
habitat of
the seven Rishis (Sapta Riksha). Lit., “ bright-crested”.
Chnoumis (Gr) 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 (.q.v’. ). The fact
is that all
these gods are solar, and represent under various aspects the
phases of
generation and impregna tion. 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. Wilkinsen,
Kneph or Chnoumis
was “the idea of the Spirit of God” ; and Bonwick explains that, as
Av, “matter”
or “flesh”, he was criocephalic (ram- headed), 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 Narayâna, the Spirit of (
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
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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.
Chnouphis (Gr.). 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; ‘ 0 Sepui, Cause of being,
who hast formed
thine own body! 0 only Lord, proceeding from Noum ! 0 divine
substance, created
from itself! 0 God, who hast made the substance which is in him! 0
God, who has
made his own father and impregnated his own mother.” This shows the
origin of
the Christian doctrines of the Trinity and 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, Khem, 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
Agathodæmon,
symbolized sometimes by a Serpent ; and his wife Athor or Maut (Môt
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 Neїth expands over the
starry heavens. (See
“Chaos”.)
Chohan (Tib.) “Lord” or “Master” ; a chief; thus Dhyan-Chohan would
answer to
“Chief of the Dhyanis”, or celestial Lights—which in English would
he translated
Archangels.
Chokmah (Heb) 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.]
Chréstos (Gr.) The early Gnostic form of Christ. It was used in the
fifth
century B.C. by Æschylus, Herodotus, and others. The Manteumata
pythochresta, or
the “oracles delivered by a Pythian god” “through a pythoness, are
mentioned by
the former (Choeph.901). Chréstian is not only “the seat of an
oracle”, but an
offering to, or for, the oracle.
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Chréstés is one who explains oracles, “a prophet and soothsayer”,
and
Chrésterios one who serves an oracle or a god. The earliest
Christian writer,
Justin Martyr, in his first Apology calls his co-religionists
Chréstians. It is
only through ignorance that men call themselves Christians instead
of
Chréstians,” says Lactantius (lib. iv., cap. vii.). The terms
Christ and
Christians, spelt originally Chrést and Chréstians, were borrowed
from the
Temple vocabulary of the Pagans. Chréstos 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,
Christés, 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 Chréstes”,
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 Chréstés 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 Chréstians 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. Kenneth
Mackenzie seemed to think that the word Chréstos 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 (Matt.i,
23.).Great
divinities among all nations, who are represented as expiatory or
self-sacrificing, have been designated by the same title.’’ (R. M.
Cyclop.) The
Asklepios (or Æsculapius) of the Greeks had the title of Soter.
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
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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 failings 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 he,
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.
Chthonia (Gr.) Chaotic earth in the Hellenic cosmogony.
Chuang. A great Chinese philosopher.
Chubilgan (Mongol.) Or Khubilkhan. The same as Chutuktu.
Chutuktu (Tib.) 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.
Chyuta (Sk.) 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.
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”.
Clairaudience. The faculty, whether innate or acquired by occult
training, of
hearing all that is said at whatever distance.
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.
Clemens Alexandrinus. A Church Father and a voluminous writer, who
had been a
Neo-Platonist and a disciple of Ammonius Saccas. He
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lived between the second and the third centuries of our era, at
Alexandria.
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
Æsculapius,
and a the latter was called the Soter (Saviour) who raised the dead
to life, the
Socratic exclamation “We owe a cock to Æculapius”, 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.
Codex Nazaraeus (Lat.) 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
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. (Munk p. 169.) Their modern name is in
Arabic— El
Mogtasila; in European languages—the
Mendæans 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 Mendæans
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. 290, et seq.) So secretly
did they
preserve their beliefs from the very beginning, that Epiphanius who
wrote
against the Heresies in the14th 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
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some of the alleged philosophical views and doctrines of Bardesanes
are found in
the codex of the Nazarenes. (See Norberg’s Codex Nazaræous or the
“Book of
Adam”, and also “Mendæans ”.)
Coeur, Jacques. 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.
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
teleutaó,”
says Vronsky, “signifies in the active voice ‘I die’, and in the
middle voice ‘I
am initiated”. Stobæus 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 teleutan 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.”
Collanges, Gabriel de. Born in 1524. The best astrologer in the
XVlth 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.
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 Judæus, 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.
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.
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Collyridians. A sect of Gnostics who, in the ear]y 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.
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.
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 sufferings. 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
Pausan., vii., c. 17.)
Cosmic Gods. Inferior gods, those connected with the formation of
matter.
Cosmic ideation (Occult.) Eternal thought, impressed on substance
or
spirit-matter, in the eternity ; thought which becomes active at
the beginning
of every new life-cycle.
Cosmocratores (Gr.). “Builders of the Universe”, the “world
architects”, or the
Creative Forces personified.
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
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horns (crescent) prove. (See “Hathor ‘ and “isis”.) 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 Horus (the physical world)—the
“mother of all that
lives The outa was the symbolic eye of Horus, 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?
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. Cremer, 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.”
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.”
Criocephale (Gr.). Ram-headed, applied to several deities and
emblematic
figures, notably those of ancient Egypt, which were designed
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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.]
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 Brahmâ, 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 (q.v.) 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 is 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.
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
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cramponnée) on the hearts of the Buddhist adepts and Buddhas. (See
“Calvary
Cross”.)
Crux Ansata (Lat.). The handled cross,T; whereas the tau is T, 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 must
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 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, which,
left by
itself, is an androgyne symbol, and becomes purely phallic or
sexual only when
it takes the shape +.
Crypt (Gr.) 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.
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.
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.
Cycle. From the Greek Kuklos. The ancients divided time into end less
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
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change in planetary influences and their correlations between men
and gods—a
fact entirely lost sight of by modern astrologers.
Cynocephalus (Gr.) 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.
D
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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 D, 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.
Daath (Heb.) Knowledge; “the conjunction of Chokmah and Binah,
Wisdom and
Understanding”: sometimes, in error, called a Sephira. [w.w.w.]
Dabar (Heb.) D (a) B (a) R (im), meaning the “Word”, and the
“Words” in the
Chaldean Kabbala, Dabar and Logoi. (See Sec.Doct. I. p. 350, and
“Logos”, or
“Word”.)
Dabistan (Pers.) The land of Iran; ancient Persia.
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
Damascious (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.
Dactyli (Gr.) 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
healed by manipulation or mesmerism.
Dadouchos (Gr.) The torch-hearer, 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 Mackenzie’s R.M, Cyclopædia.)
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Dæmon (Gr.) In the original Hermetic works and ancient classics it
has a meaning
identical with that of “god”, “angel” or “genius”. The Dæmon 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 Dæmon (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.
Dænam (Pahlavi) Lit., “Knowledge”, the principle of understanding
in man,
rational Soul, or Manas, according to the Avesta.
Dag, Dagon (Heb.). “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.
Dâgoba (Sk.), or Stûpa. 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 sizes,
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 dhâtus (organic cells with definite vital functions in
them), Asoka is
said for this reason to have built 84,000 dhâtu-gopas or Dâgobas in
honour of
every cell of the Buddha’s body, each of which has now become a
dhârmadhâtu or
holy relic. There is in Ceylon a Dhâtu-gopa at Anurâdhapura said to
date from160
years B.C. They are now built pyramid-like, but the primitive
Dâgobas were all
shaped like towers with a cupola and several tchhatra (umbrellas)
over them.
Eitel states that the Chinese Dâgobas have all from 7 to 14
tchhatras over them,
a number which is symbolical of the human body.
Daitya Guru (Sk.) The instructor of the giants, called Daityas
(q.v.)
Allegorically, it is the title given to the planet Venus-Lucifer,
or rather to
its indwelling Ruler, Sukra, a male deity
(See Sec. Doct.. ii. p. 30).
Daityas (Sk.) 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.
Daivi-prakriti (Sk.) Primordial, homogeneous light, called by some
Indian
Occultists “the Light of the Logos” (see Notes on the Bhagavat
Gita, by T. Subba
Row, B.A., L.L.B.); when differentiated this light becomes FOHAT.
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Dâkinî (Sk.) Female demons, vampires and blood-drinkers (asra-pas).
In the
Purânas they attend upon the goddess Kâli and feed on human flesh.
A species of
evil “Elementals” (q.v.).
Daksha (Sk.) A form of Brahmâ and his son in the Purânas 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 Purânas 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 Purânic
allegory is
correct, as the Secret Science teaches that our present mode of
procreation
began towards the end of the third Root-Race.
Daladâ (Sk.)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.
Dama (Sk.). Restraint of the senses.
Dambulla (Sk.) 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 Vihâras, 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 Vihâras may he mentioned out of the many: the Maha
Râja Vihâra,
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 Dâgoba 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
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Dewiyo Vihâra, there is to be seen a gigantic figure of the dead
Gautama Buddha,
7 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 he 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 Siddhârtha reached Nirvâna. “About 50 ft. from the summit
there is a
pond which, as the priests assert, is never without water.”
(The Ceylon Almanac, 1834.)
Dammâpadan (Pali.) A Buddhist work containing moral precepts.
Dâna (Sk.). Almsgiving to mendicants, lit., “charity”, the first of
the six
Paramitas in Buddhism.
Dânavas (Sk.). Almost the same as Daityas; giants and demons, the
opponents of
the ritualistic gods.
Dangma (Sk.) In Esotericism a purified Soul. A Seer and an
Initiate; one who has
attained full wisdom.
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.
Darâsta (Sk) Ceremonial magic practised by the central Indian
tribes, especially
among the Kolarians.
Dardanus (Gr.) 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”.)
Darha (Sk.) The ancestral spirits of the Kolarians.
Darsanas (Sk.) The Schools of Indian philosophy, of which there are
six;
Shad-darsanas or six demonstrations.
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.
Dava (Tib.) The moon, in Tibetan astrology.
Davkina (Chald.) The wife of Hea, “the goddess of the lower
regions,
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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.
Dayanisi (Aram.). 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.
(See Isis Unveil. II. 526.)
Day of Brahmâ. See “Brahmâ's Day” etc.
Dayus or Dyaus (Sk). A Vedic term. The unrevealed Deity, or that
which reveals
Itself only as light and the bright day—metaphorically.
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.]
Dei termini (Lat.). 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.
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.
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
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.
Demiurgic Mind.The same as “Universal Mind”. Mahat, the first
“product” of
Brahmâ, or himself.
Demiurgos (Gr) 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.
Demon est Deus inversus (Lat) 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.
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Demonologia (Gr.). Treatises or Discourses upon Demons, or Gods in
their dark
aspects.
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.]
Demrusch (Pers.). A Giant in the mythology of ancient Iran.
Denis, Angoras. “A physician of Paris, astrologer and alchemist in
the XIVth
century” (R.M.C.).
Deona Mati. In the Kolarian dialect, one who exorcises evil
spirits.
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
sanyâsi or yogi. (See “Fakir”).
Desatir. A very ancient Persian work called the Book of Shet. It
speaks of the
thirteen Zoroasters, and is very mystical.
Deva (Sk.). 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.
Deva Sarga (Sk.). Creation: the origin of the principles, said to
be
Intelligence born of the qualities or the attributes of nature.
Devachan (Sk.). The “dwelling of the gods”. A state intermediate
between two
earth-lives, into which the EGO (Atmâ-Buddhi-Manas, or the Trinity
made One)
enters, after its separation from Kâma Rupa, and the disintegration
of the lower
principles on earth.
Devajnânas (Sk.). or Daivajna. The higher classes of celestial
beings, those who
possess divine knowledge.
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Devaki (Sk.). 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. (See “Kansa”.)
Deva-laya (Sk.). “The shrine of a Deva”. The name given to all
Brahmanical
temples.
Deva-lôkas (Sk.). The abodes of the Gods or Devas in superior
spheres. The seven
celestial worlds above Meru.
Devamâtri (Sk.). Lit., “the mother of the gods”. A title of Aditi,
Mystic Space.
Dêvanâgarî (Sk.). Lit., “the language or letters of the dêvas” 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 Pânini, but even to that sage himself That the greatest
grammarian
the world has ever produced should be ignorant of writing would
indeed be the
greatest and most incomprehensible phenomenon of all.
Devapi (Sk.). 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
Saviours of the World in their last appearance, like Sosiosh of the
Zoroastrians
and the Rider of St. Johns 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 Purânic allegory.
Devarshis, or Deva-rishi (Sk). Lit., “gods rishis” ; the divine or
god like
saints, those sages who attain a fully divine nature on earth.
Devasarman (Sk.). 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.
Dhârana (Sk). That state in Yoga practice when the mind has to be
fixed
unflinchingly on some object of meditation.
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Dhâranî(Sk.). 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 Dhâranî were all considered mystical and
practically
efficacious in their use. At present, however, it is the Yogâchârya
school alone
which proves the claim in practice. When chanted according to given
instructions
a
Dhâranî 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”).
Dharma (Sk.). The sacred Law; the Buddhist Canon.
Dharmachakra (Sk.). Lit., The turning of the “wheel of the Law”.
The emblem of
Buddhism as a system of cycles and rebirths or reincarnations.
Dharmakâya (Sk). Lit., “the glorified spiritual body” called the
“Vesture of
Bliss”. The third, or highest of the Trikâya (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 Trikâya, it is the
fourth of
the Buddhakchêtra, 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) Nirmanakâya (2)
Sambhogakâya (3) and Dharmakâya the last being the highest
and most sublimated of all, as it places the ascetic on the
threshold of
Nirvâna. (See, however, the Voice of the Silence, page 96,
Glossary, for the
true esoteric meaning.)
Dharmaprabhasa (Sk). The name of the Buddha who will appear during
the seventh
Root-race. (See “Ratnâvabhâsa Kalpa”, when sexes will exist no
longer).
Dharmasmriti Upasthâna (Sk). A very long compound word containing a
very
mystical warning. “Remember, the constituents (of human nature)
originate
according to the Nidânas, and are-not originally the Self”, which
means—that,
which the Esoteric Schools teach, and not the ecclesiastical
interpretation.
Dharmâsôka (Sk.). 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.
Dhâtu (Pali). Relics of Buddha’s body collected after his
cremation.
Dhruva (Sk). An Aryan Sage, now the Pole Star. A Kshatriya (one of
the warrior
caste) who became through religious austerities a
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Rishi, and was, for this reason, raised by Vishnu to this eminence
in the skies.
Also called Grah-Âdhâr or “the pivot of the planets”.
Dhyan Chohans (Sk). Lit., “The Lords of Light”. The highest gods,
answering to
the Roman Catholic Archangels. The divine Intelligences charged
with the
supervision of Kosmos.
Dhyâna (Sk.). 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.
Dhyani Bodhisattyas (Sk.). In Buddhism, the five sons of the
Dhyani-Buddhas.
They have a mystic meaning in Esoteric Philosophy.
Dhyani Buddhas (Sk.). They “of the Merciful Heart”; worshipped
especially in
Nepaul. These have again a secret meaning.
Dhyani Pasa (Sk.). “The rope of the Dhyanis” or Spirits; the Ring
“Pass not”
(See Sec.Doct., Stanza V., Vol. I., p. 129).
Diakka. Called by Occultists and Theosophists “spooks” and
“shells”, i.e.,
phantoms from Kâma 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 throb- lets, 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.
Dianoia (Gr.). The same as the Logos. The eternal source of
thought, “divine
ideation”, which is the root of all thought. (See “Ennoia.”)
Dido, or Elissa. Astarte; the Virgin of the Sea—who crushes the
Dragon under her
foot; The patroness of the Phoænician mariners. A Queen of Carthage
who fell in
love with Æneas according to Virgil.
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Digambara (Sk.). A naked mendicant. Lit., “clothed with Space”. A
name of Siva
in his character of Rudra, the Yogi.
Dii Minores (Lat.). The inferior or “reflected group of the twelve
gods ” or Dii
Majores, described by Cicero in his De Natura Deorum, I. 13.
Dîk (Sk). Space, Vacuity.
Diktamnon (Gr.), or Dictemnus (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
Dihtamnon 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 Dihtamnon 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.
Diksha (Sk). Initiation. Dikshit, an Initiate.
Dingir and Mul-lil (Akkad.). The Creative Gods.
Dinur (Heb.). The River of Fire whose flame burns the Souls of the
guilty in the
Kabbalistic allegory.
Dionysos (Sk.). 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 Unv. II. 165, 526.)
Dioscuri (Gr.). The name of Castor and Pollux, the sons of Jupiter
and Leda.
Their festival, the Dioscuria, was celebrated with much rejoicing
by the
Lacedæmonians.
Dîpamkara (Sk.). Lit., “the Buddha of fixed light”; a predecessor
of Gautama,
the Buddha.
Diploteratology (Gr.). Production of mixed Monsters; in
abbreviation teratology.
Dis (Gr.). In the Theogony of Damascius, the same as Protogonos,
the “first born
light”, called by that author “the disposer of all things.
Dises (Scand.). The later name for the divine women called
Walky-rics, Norns,
&c., in the Edda.
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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
Sabæans
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”(The
Gr. Dionys. Myth.)
Divyachakchus (Sk.). Lit., “celestial Eye” or divine seeing,
perception. It is
the first of the six
“Abhijnas” (q.v.) ; the faculty developed by Yoga practice to
perceive any
object in the Universe, at whatever distance.
Divyasrôtra (Sk). 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.
Djâti (Sk.). One of the twelve “Nidanas” (q.v.); the cause and the
effect in the
mode of birth taking place according to the “Chatur Yoni”(q.v.),
when in each
case a being, whether man or animal, is placed in one of the six
(esoteric
seven) Gâti 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, Asûras,
Beings in Hells, Prêtas (hungry demons), and Animals.
Djin (Arab.). Elementals ; Nature Sprites; Genii. The Djins or Jins
are much
dreaded in Egypt, Persia and elsewhere.
Djnâna (Sk), or Jnâna. Lit., Knowledge; esoterically, “supernal or
divine
knowledge acquired by Yoga”. Written also Gnyana.
Docetæ (Gr.). Lit.,“The Illusionists”. The name given by orthodox
Christians to
those Gnostics who held that Christ did not, nor could he, suffer
death
actually, but that, if such a thing had happened, it was merely an
illusion
which they explained in various ways.
Dodecahedron (Gr.). According to Plato, the Universe is built by
“the first
begotten” on the geometrical figure of the Dodecahedron. (See
Timaeus).
Dodona (Gr.). An ancient city in Thessaly, famous for its Temple of
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Jupiter and its oracles. According to ancient legends, the town was
founded by a
dove.
Donar (Scand.), or Thunar, Thor. 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 over shadowed with oak trees.
Thor, or
Donar, was the offspring of Odin, “the omnipotent God of Heaven”,
and of Mother
Earth.
Dondam-pai-den-pa (Tib.). The same as the Sanskrit term
Paramarthasatya or
“absolute truth”, the highest spiritual self-consciousness and
perception,
divine self-consciousness, a very mystical term.
Doppelgänger (Germ.). A synonym of the “Double” and of the “Astral
body” in
occult parlance.
Dorjesempa (Tib.). The “Diamond Soul”, a name of the celestial
Buddha.
Dorjeshang (Tib.). A title of Buddha in his highest aspect; a name
of the
supreme Buddha; also Dorje.
Double. The same as the “Astral body” or “Doppelgänger”.
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.
Dracontia (Gr.). 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.
Drakôn (Gr.) or Dragon. Now considered a “mythical” monster,
perpetuated in the
West only on seals,. &c., as a heraldic griffin, and the Devil
slain by St.
George, &c. 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.
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Draupnir (Scand.). 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.
Dravidians. A group of tribes inhabiting Southern India; the
aborigines.
Dravya (Sk.). Substance (metaphysically).
Drishti (Sk.). Scepticism; unbelief.
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 Cæsar 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”.
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, II 308, et seq.)
Dudaim (Heb.). Mandrakes. The Atropa Mandragova plant is mentioned
in Genesis,
XXX., 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.]
Dudaim 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.”
Dugpas (Tib.). 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
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