General Reference Glossaries

Of Interest to Theosophists

 

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A.     

Absoluteness. When predicated of the UNIVERSAL PRINCIPLE, it denotes an abstraction, which is more correct and logical than to apply the adjective “absolute” to that which can have neither attributes nor limitations. 

Adam Kadmon (Heb.) “Archetypal man, Humanity. The “Heavenly man” not fallen into sin. Kabalists refer it to the Ten Sephiroth on the plane of human perception.” In the Kabala Adam Kadmon is the manifested Logos corresponding to our third Logos, the unmanifested being the first paradigmic ideal man, and symbolizing the universe in abscondito, or in its “privation” in the Aristotelean sense.  The first Logos is “the light of the World,” the second and the third, its gradually deepening shadows.

Adept (Lat. adeptus). In Occultism, one who has reached the stage of initiation and become a master in the Science of Esoteric Philosophy. 

Aether (Gr.) With the Ancients, the Divine luminiferous substance which pervades the whole universe; the “garment” of the Supreme Deity, Zeus, or Jupiter. With the Moderns, Ether, for the meaning of which, in physics and chemistry, see Webster’s Dictionary, or some other. In Esotericism, AEther is the third principle of the Kosmic Septenary, matter (earth) being the lowest, and Akasa, the highest.

Agathon (Gr.) Plato’s Supreme Deity, lit. “the good.” Our ALAYA or the Soul of the World.

Agnostic. A word first used by Professor Huxley, to indicate one who believes nothing which cannot be demonstrated by the senses. 

Ahankara (Sans.) The conception of “I,” self-consciousness or self-identity; the “I,” or egoistical and mayavic principle in man, due to our ignorance which separates our “I” from the Universal ONE-Self. Personality, egoism also. 

Ain-Soph (Heb.) The “Boundless” or “Limitless” Deity emanating and extending.  Ain-Soph is also written En-Soph and Ain-Suph, for no one, not even the Rabbis, are quite sure of their vowels. In the religious metaphysics of the old Hebrew philosophers, the ONE Principle was an abstraction like Parabrahm, though modern Kabalists have succeeded by mere dint of sophistry and paradoxes in making a “Supreme God” of it, and nothing higher. But with the early Chaldean Kabalists Ain-Soph was “without form or being” with “no likeness with anything else.” (Franck’s Die Kabbala, p. 126.) That Ain-Soph has never been considered as the “Creator” is proved conclusively by the fact that such an orthodox Jew as Philo calls “creator” the Logos, who stands next the “Limitless One,” and is “the SECOND God.” “The Second God is in its (Ain-Soph’s) wisdom,” says Philo in Quaest et Solut. Deity is NO-THING; it is nameless, and therefore called Ain-Soph—the word Ain meaning nothing. (See also Franck’s Kabbala, p. 153.)

Alchemy, in Arabic Ul-Khemi, is as the name suggests, the chemistry of nature.  Ul-Khemi or Al-Kimia, however, is really an Arabianized word, taken from the Greek chemeia from chumos “juice,” extracted from a plant. Alchemy deals with the finer forces of nature and the various conditions of matter in which they are found to operate. Seeking under the veil of language, more or less artificial, to convey to the uninitiated so much of the Mysterium Magnum as is safe in the hands of a selfish world, the Alchemist postulates as his first principle, the existence of a certain Universal Solvent in the homogeneous substance from which the elements were evolved; which substance he calls pure gold, or summum materiae. This solvent, also called menstruum universale, possesses the power of removing all the seeds of disease out of the human body, of renewing youth, and prolonging life. Such is the lapis philosophorum (philosopher’s stone). Alchemy first penetrated into Europe through Geber, the great Arabian sage and philosopher, in the eighth century of our era; but it was known and practised long ages ago in China and Egypt. Numerous papyri on Alchemy, and other proofs that it was the favourite study of Kings and Priests, have been exhumed and preserved under the generic name of Hermetic treatises (see Tabula Smaragdina). Alchemy is studied under three distinct aspects, which admit of many different interpretations, viz.: the Cosmic, the Human, and the Terrestrial.

These three methods were typified under the three alchemical properties—sulphur, mercury, and salt. Different writers have stated that these are three, seven, ten and twelve processes respectively; but they are all agreed there is but one object in Alchemy, which is to transmute gross metals into pure gold.  But what that gold really is, very few people understand correctly. No doubt there is such a thing in Nature as transmutation of the baser metal into the nobler; but this is only one aspect of Alchemy, the terrestrial, or purely material, for we see logically the same process taking place in the bowels of the earth. Yet, besides and beyond this interpretation, there is in Alchemy a symbolical meaning, purely psychic and spiritual. While the Kabalist-Alchemist seeks for the realization of the former, the Occultist-Alchemist, spurning the gold of the earth, gives all his attention to and directs his efforts only towards the transmutation of the baser quaternary into the divine upper trinity of man, which when finally blended, is one. The spiritual, mental, psychic, and physical planes of human existence are in Alchemy compared to the four elements -- fire, air, water, and earth, and are each capable of a three-fold constitution, i. e., fixed, unstable, and volatile. Little or nothing is known by the world concerning the origin of this archaic branch of philosophy; but it is certain that it antedates the construction of any known Zodiac, and as dealing with the personified forces of nature, probably also any of the mythologies of the world. Nor is there any doubt that the true secrets of transmutation (on the physical plane) were known in the days of old, and lost before the dawn of the so-called historical period. Modern chemistry owes its best fundamental discoveries to Alchemy, but regardless of the undeniable truism of the latter, that there is but one element in the universe, chemistry placed metals in the class of elements, and is only now beginning to find out its gross mistake. Even some encyclopedists are forced to confess that if most of the accounts of transmutation are fraud or delusion, “yet some of them are accompanied by testimony which renders them probable. By means of the galvanic battery even the alkalis have been discovered to have a metallic basis. The possibility of obtaining metal from other substances which contain the ingredients composing it, of changing one metal into another . . . must therefore be left undecided. Nor are all Alchemists to be considered impostors.  Many have laboured under the conviction of obtaining their object, with indefatigable patience and purity of heart, which is soundly recommended by Alchemists as the principal requisite for the success of their labours.” (Pop.  Encyclop.)

Alexandrian Philosophers (or School). This famous school arose in Alexandria, Egypt, which city was for long ages the seat of learning and philosophy. It was famous for its library, founded by Ptolemy Soter at the very beginning of his reign (Ptolemy died in 283 B. C.) -- a library which once boasted 700,000 rolls, or volumes (Aulus Gellius), for its museum, the first real Academy of Sciences and Arts, for world-renowned scholars, such as Euclid, the father of scientific geometry; Apollonius of Perga, the author of the still extant work on conic sections; Nicomachus, the arithmetician: for astronomers, natural philosophers, anatomists such as Herophilus and Erasistratus; physicians, musicians, artists, etc. But it became still more famous for its eclectic, or new Platonic school, founded by Ammonius Saccas in 173 A. D., whose disciples were Origen, Plotinus, and many other men now famous in history. The most celebrated schools of the Gnostics had their origin in Alexandria. Philo-Judaeus, Josephus, Iamblichus, Porphyry, Clement of Alexandria, Eratosthenes the astronomer, Hypatia, the virgin philosopher, and numberless other stars of second magnitude, all belonged at various times to these great schools, and helped to make of Alexandria one of the most justly renowned seats of learning that the world has ever produced.  Altruism, from Alter, other. A quality opposed to Egoism. Actions tending to do good to others, regardless of self.

Ammonius Saccas. A great and good philosopher who lived in Alexandria between the 2nd and 3rd centuries of our Era, the founder of the Neo-Platonic School of the Philalethians or “lovers of truth.” He was of poor birth and born of Christian parents, but endowed with such prominent, almost divine goodness as to be called Theodidaktos, the “God-taught.” He honoured that which was good in Christianity, but broke with it and the Churches at an early age, being unable to find in Christianity any superiority over the old religions.  Analogeticists. The disciples of Ammonius Saccas (vide supra) so called because of their practice of interpreting all sacred legends, myths, and mysteries by a principle of analogy and correspondence, which rule is now found in the Kabalistic system, and pre-eminently so in the schools of Esoteric philosophy in the East. (Vide “The Twelve Signs of the Zodiac,” by T. Subba Row in “Five years of Theosophy.”)

Ananda (Sans.) Bliss, joy, felicity, happiness. A name of a favourite disciple of Gautama, the Lord Buddha.

Anaxagoras. A famous Ionian philosopher, who lived 500 B. C., studied philosophy under

Anaximenes of Miletus, and settled in the days of Pericles, at Athens.  Socrates, Euripides,

Archelaus, and other distinguished men and philosophers were among his disciples and pupils. He was a most learned astronomer, and was one of the first to explain openly that which was taught by Pythagoras secretly -- viz., the movements of the planets, the eclipses of the sun and moon, etc. It was he who taught the theory of chaos, on the principle that “nothing comes from nothing,” ex nihilo nihil fit—and of atoms, as the underlying essence and substance of all bodies, “of the same nature as the bodies which they formed.” These atoms, he taught, were primarily put in motion by nous (universal intelligence, the Mahat of the Hindus), which nous is an immaterial, eternal, spiritual entity; by this combination the world was formed, the material gross bodies sinking down, and the ethereal atoms (or fiery ether) rising and spreading in the upper celestial regions. Ante-dating modern science by over 2,000 years, he taught that the stars were of the same material as our earth, and the sun a glowing mass; that the moon was a dark uninhabitable body, receiving its light from the sun; and beyond the aforesaid science he confessed himself thoroughly convinced that the real existence of things, perceived by our senses, could not be demonstrably proved. He died in exile at Lampsacus, at the age of seventy-two.

Anima Mundi (Lat.) The “Soul of the World,” the same as Alaya of the Northern Buddhists; the divine Essence which pervades, permeates, animates, and informs all things, from the smallest atom of matter to man and god. It is in a sense “the seven-skinned Mother” of the stanzas in the Secret Doctrine; the essence of seven planes of sentiency, consciousness, and differentiation, both moral and physical. In its highest aspect it is Nirvana; in its lowest, the Astral Light.  It was feminine with the Gnostics, the early Christians, and the Nazarenes; bisexual with other sects, who considered it only in its four lower planes, of igneous and ethereal nature in the objective world of forms, and divine and spiritual in its three higher planes. When it is said that every human soul was born by detaching itself from the Anima Mundi, it is meant, esoterically, that our higher Egos are of an essence identical with It, and Mahat is a radiation of the ever unknown Universal ABSOLUTE.

Anoia (Gr.) is “want of understanding folly”; and is the name applied by Plato and others to the lower Manas when too closely allied with Kama, which is characterised by irrationality (agnoia). The Greek agnoia is evidently a derivative of the Sanskrit ajnana (phonetically agnyana), or ignorance, irrationality, and absence of knowledge.

Anthropomorphism. From the Greek Anthropos, man. The act of endowing God or the gods with a human form and human attributes or qualities.  Anugita (Sans.) One of the Upanishads. A very occult treatise. (Vide Clarendon Press series “The Sacred Books of the East.”)

Apollo Belvidere. Of all the ancient statues of Apollo, the son of Jupiter and Latona, called Phoebus, Helios, the radiant, and the Sun—the best and most perfect is the one of this name, which is in the Belvidere Gallery in the Vatican, at Rome. It is called the Pythian Apollo, as the god is represented in the moment of his victory over the serpent Python. The statue was found in the ruins of Antium in 1503.

Apollonius of Tyana. A wonderful philosopher born in Cappadocia about the beginning of the first century; an ardent Pythagorean, who studied the Phoenician sciences under Euthydemus, and Pythagorean philosophy and other subjects under Euxenus of Heraclea. According to the tenets of the Pythagorean school he remained a vegetarian the whole of his long life, ate only fruit and herbs, drank no wine, wore vestments made only of plant fibres, walked barefooted and let his hair grow to the full length, as all the Initiates have done before and after him. He was initiated by the priests of the temple of AEculapius (Asclepios) at AEgae, and learnt many of the “miracles” for healing the sick wrought by the God of medicine. Having prepared himself for a higher initiation by a silence of five years, and by travel—visiting Antioch, Ephesus, and Pamphylia and other parts—he repaired via Babylon to India, alone, all his disciples having abandoned him as they feared to go to the “land of enchantments.” A casual disciple, Damis, whom he met on his way, accompanied him, however, on his travels. At Babylon he got initiated by the Chaldees and Magi, according to Damis, whose narrative was copied by one named Philostratus one hundred years later. After his return from India, he showed himself a true Initiate in that the pestilence, earthquakes, deaths of kings and other events, which he prophesied, duly happened.

At Lesbos, the priests of Orpheus got jealous of him, and refused to initiate him into their peculiar mysteries, though they did so several years later. He preached to the people of Athens and other States the purest and noblest ethics, and the phenomena he produced were as wonderful as they were numerous, and well authenticated. “How is it,” inquires Justin Martyr, in dismay, “how is it that the talismans (telesmata) of Apollonius have power, for they prevent, as we see, the fury of the waves, and the violence of the winds, and the attacks of wild beasts; and whilst our Lord’s miracles are preserved by tradition alone, those of Apollonius are most numerous, and actually manifested in present facts?” (Quest. XXIV.) But an answer is easily found to this, in the fact that, after crossing the Hindu Koosh, Apollonius had been directed by a king to the abode of the Sages, whose abode it may be to this day, and who taught him their unsurpassed knowledge. His dialogues, with the Corinthian Menippus, give to us truly the esoteric catechism, and disclose (when understood) many an important mystery of nature. Apollonius was the friend, correspondent, and guest of kings and queens, and no wonderful or “magic” powers are better attested than his.  Towards the close of his long and wonderful life he opened an esoteric school at Ephesus, and died at the ripe old age of one hundred years.  Archangel. Highest, supreme angel. From the two Greek words, arch, “first,” and angelos, “messenger.”

Arhat (Sans.), also pronounced and written Arahat, Arhan, Rahat, etc., “the worthy one”; a perfected Arya, one exempt from reincarnation; “deserving Divine honours.” This was the name first given to the Jain, and subsequently to the Buddhist holy men initiated into the esoteric mysteries. The Arhat is one who has entered the last and highest path, and is thus emancipated from rebirth.  Arians. The followers of Arius, a presbyter of the Church in Alexandria in the fourth century. One who holds that Christ is a created and human being, inferior to God the Father, though a grand and noble man, a true adept, versed in all the divine mysteries.

Aristobulus. An Alexandrian writer, and an obscure philosopher. A Jew who tried to prove that Aristotle explained the esoteric thoughts of Moses.  Aryan (Sans.) Lit., “the holy”; those who had mastered the Aryasatyani and entered the Aryamarga path to Nirvana or Moksha, the great “fourfold” path. They were originally known as Rishis. But now the name has become the epithet of a race, and our Orientalists, depriving the Hindu Brahmans of their birthright, have made Aryans of all Europeans. Since, in esotericism the four paths or stages can only be entered through great spiritual development and “growth in holiness,” they are called the Aryamarga. The degrees of Arhatship, called respectively Srotapatti, Sakridagamin, Anagamin, and Arhat, or the four classes of Aryas, correspond to the four paths and truths.  Aspect. The form (rupa) under which any principle in septenary man or nature manifests is called an aspect of that principle in Theosophy.  Astral Body. The ethereal counterpart or double of any physical body—Doppelganger.

 

Astrology. The science which defines the action of celestial bodies upon mundane affairs, and claims to foretell future events from the positions of the stars.  Its antiquity is such as to place it among the very earliest records of human learning. It remained for long ages a secret science in the East, and its final expression remains so to this day, its esoteric application only having been brought to any degree of perfection in the West during the lapse of time since Varaha Mihira wrote his book on Astrology, some 1400 years ago. Claudius Ptolemy, the famous geographer and mathematician who founded the system of Astronomy known under his name, wrote his Tetrabiblos, which is still the basis of modern Astrology, 135 A. D. The science of Horoscopy is studied now chiefly under four heads, viz.: (1). Mundane, in its application to meteorology, seismology, husbandry. (2). State or Civic, in regard to the future of nations, Kings, and rulers. (3). Horary, in reference to the solving of doubts arising in the mind upon any subject. (4). Genethliacal, in connection with the future of individuals from birth unto death. The Egyptians and the Chaldees were among the most ancient votaries of Astrology, though their modes of reading the stars and the modern methods differ considerably. The former claimed that Belus, the Bel or Elu of the Chaldees, a scion of the Divine Dynasty, or the dynasty of the King-gods, had belonged to the land of Chemi, and had left it to found a colony from Egypt on the banks of the Euphrates, where a temple, ministered by priests in the service of the “lords of the stars,” was built. As to the origin of the science, it is known on the one hand that Thebes claimed the honour of the invention of Astrology; whereas, on the other hand, all are agreed that it was the Chaldees who taught that science to the other nations. Now Thebes antedated considerably, not only “Ur of the Chaldees,” but also Nipur, where Bel was first worshipped—Sin, his son (the moon), being the presiding deity of Ur, the land of the nativity of Terah, the Sabean and Astrolater, and of Abram, his son, the great Astrologer of Biblical tradition. All tends, therefore, to corroborate the Egyptian claim. If later on the name of Astrologer fell into disrepute in Rome and elsewhere, it was owing to the frauds of those who wanted to make money of that which was part and parcel of the Sacred Science of the Mysteries, and who, ignorant of the latter, evolved a system based entirely on mathematics, instead of transcendental metaphysics with the physical celestial bodies as its upadhi or material basis. Yet, all persecutions notwithstanding, the number of adherents to Astrology among the most intellectual and scientific minds was always very great. If Cardan and Kepler were among its ardent supporters, then later votaries have nothing to blush for, even in its now imperfect and distorted form. As said in Isis Unveiled (I., 259), “Astrology is to exact astronomy, what psychology is to exact physiology. In astrology and psychology one has to step beyond the visible world of matter and enter into the domain of transcendent spirit.”

Athenagoras. A Platonic Philosopher of Athens, who wrote an apology for the Christians in 177 A. D., addressed to Marcus Aurelius, to prove that the accusations brought against them, viz., that they were incestuous and ate murdered children, were untrue.

Atman, or Atma (Sans.) The Universal Spirit, the divine monad, “the seventh Principle,” so called, in the exoteric “septenary” classification of man. The Supreme Soul.

Aura (Gr. and Lat.) A subtile invisible essence or fluid that emanates from human, animal, and other bodies. It is a psychic effluvium partaking of both the mind and the body, as there is both an electro-vital and at the same time an electro-mental aura; called in Theosophy the Akasic or magnetic aura. In R. C.  Martyrology, a Saint.

Avatara (Sans.) Divine incarnation. The descent of a god or some exalted Being who has progressed beyond the necessity for rebirth, into the body of a simple mortal. Krishna was an Avatar of Vishnu. The Dalai-Lama is regarded as an Avatar of Avalokiteswara and the Teschu-Lama as one of Tson-Kha-pa, or Amitabha. These are two kinds of Avatars: one born from woman and the other “parentless”— Anupadaka.

 

 

B.     

Beness. A term coined by Theosophists to render more accurately the essential meaning of the untranslatable word Sat. The latter word does not mean “Being,” for the term “Being” presupposes a sentient consciousness of existence. But as the term Sat is applied solely to the absolute principle, that universal, unknown, and ever unknowable principle which philosophical Pantheism postulates, calling it the basic root of Kosmos and Kosmos itself, it could not be translated by the simple term “Being.” Sat, indeed, is not even, as translated by some Orientalists, “the incomprehensible Entity”; for it is no more an “Entity” than a non-entity, but both. It is as said absolute BENESS, not “Being”; the one, secondless, undivided and indivisible ALL—the root of nature both visible and invisible, objective and subjective, comprehensible and -- never to be fully comprehended.

Bhagavat-Gita (Sans.) Lit., “the Lord’s Song,” a portion of the Mahabharata, the great epic poem of India. It contains a dialogue wherein Krishna—the “Charioteer” and Arjuna his chela have a discussion upon the highest spiritual philosophy. The work is pre-eminently occult or esoteric.  Black Magic. Sorcery; necromancy, or the raising of the dead and other selfish abuses of abnormal powers. This abuse may be unintentional; still it has to remain “black” magic whenever anything is produced phenomenally simply for one’s own gratification.

Boehme (Jacob). A mystic and great philosopher, one of the most prominent Theosophists of the mediaeval ages. He was born about 1575 at Old Diedenberg, some two miles from Gorlitz (Silesia), and died in 1624, being nearly fifty years old. When a boy he was a common shepherd, and, after learning to read and write in a village school, became an apprentice to a poor shoemaker at Gorlitz.  He was a natural clairvoyant of the most wonderful power. With no education or acquaintance with science he wrote works which are now proved to be full of scientific truths; but these, as he himself says of what he wrote, he “saw as in a Great Deep in the Eternal.” He had “a thorough view of the universe, as in chaos,” which yet opened itself in him, from time to time, “as in a young planet,” he says. He was a thorough born mystic, and evidently of a constitution which is most rare; one of those fine natures whose material envelope impedes in no way the direct, even if only occasional, intercommunication between the intellectual and spiritual Ego. It is this Ego which Jacob Boehme, as so many other untrained mystics, mistook for God. “Man must acknowledge,” he writes, “that his knowledge is not his own, but from God, who manifests the Ideas of Wisdom to the Soul of Man in what measure he pleases.” Had this great Theosophist been born 300 years later he might have expressed it otherwise. He would have known that the “God” who spoke through his poor uncultured and untrained brain was his own Divine Ego, the omniscient Deity within himself, and that what that Deity gave out was not “what measure he pleased,” but in the measure of the capacities of the mortal and temporary dwelling IT informed.  Book of the Keys. An ancient Kabalistic work. The original is no longer extant, though there may be spurious and disfigured copies and forgeries of it.  Brahm (Sans.) The student must distinguish between the neuter Brahma, and the male Creator of the Indian Pantheon, Brahma. The former Brahma or Brahman is the impersonal, Supreme, and uncognizable Soul of the Universe, from the essence of which all emanates, and into which all returns; which is incorporeal, immaterial, unborn, eternal, beginningless and endless. It is all-pervading, animating the highest god as well as the smallest mineral atom. Brahma, on the other hand, the male and the alleged Creator, exists in his manifestation periodically only, and passes into pralaya, i. e., disappears and is annihilated as periodically. (Vide infra.)

Brahma’s Day. A period of 2,160,000,000 years, during which Brahma, having emerged out of his Golden Egg (Hiranya Garbha), creates and fashions the material world (for he is simply the fertilizing and creative force in Nature).  After this period the worlds being destroyed in turn by fire and water, he vanishes with objective nature; and then comes Brahma’s Night. A period of equal duration, in which Brahma is said to be asleep. Upon awakening he recommences the process, and this goes on for an AGE of Brahma composed of alternate “Days” and “Nights,” and lasting for 100 years of 2,160,000,000 each. It requires fifteen figures to express the duration of such an age, after the expiration of which the Mahapralaya or Great Dissolution sets in, and lasts in its turn for the same space of fifteen figures.  Brahm-Vidya (Sans.) The knowledge or Esoteric Science about the true nature of the two Brahmas.

Buddha (Sans.) “The enlightened.” Generally known as the title of Gautama Buddha, the Prince of Kapilavastu, the founder of modern Buddhism. The highest degree of knowledge and holiness. To become a Buddha one has to break through the bondage of sense and personality; to acquire a complete perception of the real Self, and learn not to separate it from all the other Selves; to learn by experience the utter unreality of all phenomena, foremost of all the visible Kosmos; to attain a complete detachment from all that is evanescent and finite, and to live while yet on earth only in the immortal and everlasting.  Buddhi (Sans.) Universal Soul or Mind. Mahabuddhi is a name of Mahat (q. v.); also the Spiritual Soul in man (the sixth principle exoterically), the vehicle of Atma, the seventh, according to the exoteric enumeration.  Buddhism is the religious philosophy taught by Gautama Buddha. It is now split into two distinct churches: the Southern and Northern. The former is said to be the purer, as having preserved more religiously the original teachings of the Lord Buddha. The Northern Buddhism is confined to Thibet, China, and Nepaul. But this distinction is incorrect. If the Southern Church is nearer, and has not, in fact, departed, except perhaps in trifling dogmas, due to the many councils held after the death of the MASTER from the public or exoteric teachings of Sakyamuni, the Northern Church is the outcome of Siddharta Buddha’s esoteric teachings which he confined to his elect Bikshus and Arhats. Buddhism, in fact, cannot be justly judged in our age either by one or the other of its exoteric popular forms. Real Buddhism can be appreciated only by blending the philosophy of the Southern Church and the metaphysics of the Northern Schools. If one seems too iconoclastic and stern, and the other too metaphysical and transcendental, events being overcharged with the weeds of Indian exotericism—many of the gods of its Pantheon having been transplanted under new names into Thibetan soil -- it is due to the popular expression of Buddhism in both churches.  Correspondentially, they stand in their relation to each other as Protestantism to Roman Catholicism. Both err by an excess of zeal and erroneous interpretations, though neither the Southern nor the Northern Buddhist clergy have ever departed from Truth consciously, still less have they acted under the dictates of priestocracy, ambition, or an eye to personal gain and power, as the later churches have.

Buddhi-Taijasi (Sans.) A very mystic term, capable of several interpretations.  In Occultism, however, and in relation to the human “Principles” (exoterically), it is a term to express the state of our dual Manas, when, reunited during a man’s life, it bathes in the radiance of Buddhi, the Spiritual Soul. For “Taijasi” means the radiant, and Manas, becoming radiant in consequence of its union with Buddhi, and being, so to speak, merged into it, is identified with the latter; the trinity has become one; and, as the element of Buddhi is the highest, it becomes Buddhi-Taijasi. In short, it is the human soul illuminated by the radiance of the divine soul, the human reason lit by the light of the Spirit or Divine SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS.

 

 

C.

Caste. Originally the system of the four hereditary classes into which Indian population was divided: Brahman, Kshatriya, Vaisya and Shoodra -- (a) descendants of Brahma; (b) warrior; (c) mercantile, and (d) the lowest or agricultural Shoodra class. From these four, hundreds of divisions and minor castes have sprung.

Causal Body. This “body,” which is in reality no body at all, either objective or subjective, but Buddhi the Spiritual Soul, is so-called because it is the direct cause of the Sushupti state leading to the Turya state, the highest state of Samadhi. It is called Karanopadhi, “the basis of the cause,” by the “Taraka Raj” Yogis, and in the Vedanta System corresponds to both the Vignanamaya and Anandamaya Kosha (the latter coming next to Atma, and therefore being the vehicle of the Universal Spirit). Buddhi alone could not be called a “Causal body,” but becomes one in conjunction with Manas, the incarnating Entity or EGO.

Chela (Sans.) A disciple. The pupil of a Guru or Sage, the follower of some Adept, or a school of philosophy.

Chrestos (Gr.) The early gnostic term for Christ. This technical term was used in the fifth century B. C. by AEschylus, Herodotus and others. The Manteumata pythocresta, or the “Oracles delivered by a Pythian God” through a pythoness, are mentioned by the former (Cho. 901), and Pythocrestos is derived from chrao.  Chresterion is not only “the test of an oracle,” but an offering to, or for, the oracle. Chrestes is one who explains oracles, a “prophet and soothsayer,” and Chresterios, one who serves an oracle or a God. The earliest Christian writer, Justin Martyr, in his first Apology, calls his co-religionists Chrestians. “It is only through ignorance that men call themselves Christians, instead of Chrestians,” says Lactantius (lib. IV., cap. VII.). The terms Christ and Christians, spelt originally Chrest and Chrestians, were borrowed from the Temple vocabulary of the Pagans. Chrestos meant, in that vocabulary, “a disciple on probation,” a candidate for hierophantship; who, when he had attained it, through Initiation, long trials and suffering, and had been anointed (i. e., “rubbed with oil,” as Initiates and even Idols of the Gods were, as the last touch of ritualistic observance), was changed into Christos—the “purified” in esoteric or mystery language. In mystic symbology, indeed, Christes or Christos meant that the “way,” the Path, was already trodden and the goal reached; when the fruits of the arduous labour, uniting the personality of evanescent clay with the indestructible INDIVIDUALITY, transformed it thereby into the immortal EGO. “At the end of the way stands the Christes,” the Purifier; and the union once accomplished, the Chrestos, the “man of sorrow” became Christos himself.  Paul, the Initiate, knew this, and meant this precisely, when he is made to say in bad translation, “I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you” (Gal. iv., 19), the true rendering of which is, “ . . . . until you form the Christos within yourselves.” But the profane, who knew only that Chrestos was in some way connected with priest and prophet, and knew nothing about the hidden meaning of Christos, insisted, as did Lactantius and Justyn Martyr, on being called Chrestians instead of Christians. Every good individual, therefore, may find Christ in his “inner man,” as Paul expresses it, (Ephes. iii., 16, 17) whether he be Jew, Mussulman, Hindu or Christian.  Christ (see CHRESTOS).

Christian Scientist. A newly-coined term for denoting the practitioners of a healing art by will. The name is a misnomer, since Buddhist or Jew, Hindu or Materialist can practise this new form of Western Yoga with like success if he can only guide and control his will with sufficient firmness. “Mental Scientists” is another rival school. These work by a universal denial of every disease and evil imaginable, and claim, syllogistically, that since Universal Spirit cannot be subject to the ailings of flesh, and since every atom is Spirit and in Spirit, and since, finally, they—the healers and the healed—are all absorbed in this Spirit or Deity, there is not, nor can there be, such a thing as disease. This prevents in nowise both Christian and Mental Scientists from succumbing to disease and nursing chronic diseases for years in their own bodies just like other ordinary mortals.

Clairaudience. The faculty—whether innate or acquired by occult training—to hear things at whatever distance.

Clairvoyance. A faculty of seeing with the inner eye or spiritual sight. As now used, it is a loose and flippant term, embracing under its meaning both a happy guess due to natural shrewdness or intuition, and also that faculty which was so remarkably exercised by Jacob Boehme and Swedenborg. Yet even these two great seers, since they could never rise superior to the general spirit of the Jewish Bible and Sectarian teachings, have sadly confused what they saw, and fallen far short of true clairvoyance.

Clemens Alexandrinus. A Church Father and voluminous writer, who had been a Neo-Platonist and a disciple of Ammonius Saccas. He was one of the few Christian philosophers between the second and third centuries of our era, at Alexandria.  College of Rabbis. A college at Babylon; most famous during the early centuries of Christianity, but its glory was greatly darkened by the appearance in Alexandria of Hellenic teachers, such as Philo-Judaeus, Josephus, Aristobulus and others. The former avenged themselves on their successful rivals by speaking of the Alexandrians as Theurgists and unclean prophets. But the Alexandrian believers in thaumaturgy were not regarded as sinners and impostors when orthodox Jews were at the head of such schools of “hazim.” There were colleges for teaching prophecy and occult sciences. Samuel was the chief of such a college at Ramah; Elisha, at Jericho. Hillel had a regular academy for prophets and seers; and it is Hillel, a pupil of the Babylonian College, who was the founder of the sect of the Pharisees and the great orthodox Rabbis.  Cycle (Gr.) KUKLOS. The ancients divided time into endless cycles, wheels within wheels, all such periods being of various durations, and each marking the beginning or end of some event either cosmic, mundane, physical or metaphysical.  There were cycles of only a few years, and cycles of immense duration, the great Orphic cycle referring to the ethnological change of races lasting 120,000 years, and that of Cassandrus of 136,000, which brought about a complete change in planetary influences and their correlations between men and gods—a fact entirely lost sight of by modern astrologers.

 

 

D.     

Deist. One who admits the possibility of the existence of a God or gods, but claims to know nothing of either, and denies revelation. An agnostic of olden times.

Deva (Sans.) A god, a “resplendent” Deity, Deva-Deus, from the root div, “to shine.” A Deva is a celestial being—whether good, bad or indifferent—which inhabits “the three worlds,” or the three planes above us. There are 33 groups or millions of them.

Devachan (Sans.) The “Dwelling of the Gods.” A state intermediate between two earth-lives, and into which the Ego (Atma-Buddhi-Manas, or the Trinity made one) enters after its separation from Kama Rupa, and the disintegration of the lower principles, after the death of the body, on Earth.  Dhammapada (Sans.) A work containing various aphorisms from the Buddhist Scriptures.

Dhyana (Sans.) One of the six Paramitas of perfection. A state of abstraction which carries the ascetic practising it far above the region of sensuous perception, and out of the world of matter. Lit., “contemplation.” The six stages of Dhyan differ only in the degrees of abstraction of the personal Ego from sensuous life.

Dhyan Chohans (Sans.) Lit., “The Lords of Light.” The highest gods, answering to the Roman Catholic Archangels. The divine Intelligences charged with the supervision of Kosmos.

Double. The same as the Astral body or “Doppelganger.”

 

 

E.

Ecstasis (Gr.) A psycho-spiritual state; a physical trance which induces

clairvoyance, and a beatific state which brings on visions.

Ego (Lat.) "I"; the consciousness in man of the "I am I," or the feeling of

I-am-ship. Esoteric philosophy teaches the existence of two Egos in man, the

mortal or personal, and the higher, the divine or impersonal, calling the former

"personality," and the latter "individuality."

Egoity (from the word "Ego"). Egoity means "individuality" -- indifferent --

never "personality," as it is the opposite of Egoism or "selfishness," the

characteristic par excellence of the latter.

Eidolon (Gr.) The same as that which we term the human phantom, the Astral form.

 

Elementals, or Spirits of the Elements. The creatures evolved in the Four

Kingdoms, or Elements -- Earth, Air, Fire, and Water. They are called by the

Kabalists, Gnomes (of the Earth), Sylphs (of the Air), Salamanders (of the

Fire), and Undines (of the Water), except a few of the higher kinds and their

rulers. They are rather the forces of nature than ethereal men and women. These

forces, as the servile agents of the occultist, may produce various effects; but

if employed by elementaries (Kamarupas)-- in which case they enslave the mediums

-- they will deceive. All the lower invisible beings generated on the fifth,

sixth, and seventh Planes of our terrestrial atmosphere are called Elementals --

Peris, Devs, Djins, Sylvans, Satyrs, Fauns, Elves, Dwarfs, Trolls, Norns,

Kobolds, Brownies, Nixies, Goblins, Pinkies, Banshees, Moss People, White

Ladies, Spooks, Fairies, etc., etc.

Eleusinia (Gr.) The Eleusinian Mysteries were the most famous and the most

ancient of all the Greek mysteries (save the Samothracian), and were performed

near the hamlet of Eleusis, not far from Athens. Epiphanius traces them to the

days of Iacchos (1800 B. C.) They were held in honour of Demeter, the great

Ceres, and the Egyptian Isis; and the last act of the performance referred to a

sacrificial victim of atonement and a resurrection, when the Initiate was

admitted to the highest degree of Epopt. The festival of the Mysteries began in

the month of Boedromion (September), the time of grape-gathering, and lasted

from the 15th to the 22nd -- seven days. The Hebrew Feast of Tabernacles -- the

feast of ingatherings -- in the month of Ethanim (the seventh) also began on the

15th and ended on the 22nd of that month. The name of the month (Ethanim) is

derived, according to some, from Adonim, Adonia, Attenim, Ethanim, and was in

bonour of Adonai, or Adonis (Tham), whose death was lamented by the Hebrews in

the groves of Bethlehem. The sacrifice of "Bread and Wine" was performed both in

the Eleusinia and during the Feast of Tabernacles.

Emanation (The doctrine of) is in its metaphysical meaning opposed to evolution,

yet one with it. Science teaches that, physiologically, evolution is a mode of

generation in which the germ that develops the foetus pre-exists already in the

parent, the development and final form and characteristics of that germ being

accomplished by nature; and that (as in its cosmology) the process takes place

blindly, through the correlation of the elements and their various compounds.

Occultism teaches that this is only the apparent mode, the real process being

Emanation, guided by intelligent forces under an immutable LAW. Therefore, while

the Occultists and Theosophists believe thoroughly in the doctrine of Evolution

as given out by Kapila and Manu, they are Emanationists rather than

Evolutionists. The doctrine of Emanation was at one time universal. It was

taught by the Alexandrian, as well as by the Indian philosophers, by the

Egyptian, the Chaldean, and Hellenic Hierophants, and also by the Hebrews (in

their Kabala, and even in Genesis). For it is only owing to deliberate

mistranslation that the Hebrew word asdt was translated "angels" from the

Septuagint, while it means Emanations, AEons, just as with the Gnostics. Indeed,

in Deuteronomy (xxxiii. 2) the word asdt or ashdt is translated as "fiery law,"

whilst the correct rendering of the passage should be, "from his right went (not

a fiery law, but) a fire according to law," viz., that the fire of one flame is

imparted to and caught up by another -- like as in a trail of inflammable

substance. This is precisely Emanation, as shown in Isis Unveiled. "In

Evolution, as it is now beginning to be understood, there is supposed to be in

all matter an impulse to take on a higher form -- a supposition clearly

expressed by Manu and other Hindoo philosophers of the highest antiquity. The

philosopher's tree illustrates it in the case of the zinc solution. The

controversy between the followers of this school and the Emanationists may be

briefly stated thus: The Evolutionist stops all inquiry at the borders of 'the

unknowable'; the Emanationist believes that nothing can be evolved -- or, as the

word means, unwombed or born -- except it has first been involved, thus

indicating that life is from a spiritual potency above the whole."

Esoteric. Hidden, secret. From the Greek Esotericos -- "inner," concealed.

Esoteric Bodhism. Secret wisdom or intelligence, from the Greek Esotericos,

"inner," and the Sanskrit Bodhi, "knowledge," in contradistinction to Buddhi,

"the faculty of knowledge or intelligence," and Buddhism, the philosophy or Law

of Buddha (the Enlightened). Also written "Budhism," from Budha (Intelligence,

Wisdom) the Son of Soma.

Exoteric (Gr.) Outward, public; the opposite of esoteric or hidden.

Extra-Cosmic, i. e., outside of Kosmos or Nature. A nonsensical word invented to

assert the existence of a personal god independent of or outside Nature per se;

for as Nature, or the Universe, is infinite and limitless there can be nothing

outside it. The term is coined in opposition to the Pantheistic idea that the

whole Kosmos is animated or informed with the Spirit of Deity, Nature being but

the garment, and matter the illusive shadows, of the real unseen Presence.

Eurasians. An abbreviation of "European-Asians." The mixed coloured races; the

children of the white fathers, and the dark mothers of India, and vice versa.

 

 

 

F.

Ferho (Gnostic). The highest and greatest creative power with the Nazarene

Gnostics (Codex Nazaraeus).

Fire-Philosophers. The name given to the Hermetists and Alchemists of the Middle

Ages, and also to the Rosicrucians. The latter, the successors of Theurgists,

regarded fire as the symbol of Deity. It was the source, not only of material

atoms, but the container of the Spiritual and Psychic Forces energising them.

Broadly analysed, Fire is a triple principle; esoterically, a septenary, as are

all the rest of the elements. As man is composed of Spirit, Soul, and Body, plus

a four-fold aspect; so is Fire. As in the works of Robert Flood (de Fluctibus),

one of the famous Rosicrucians, fire contains -- Firstly, a visible flame

(body); secondly, an invisible, astral fire (soul); and thirdly, spirit. The

four aspects are (a) heat (life), (b) light (mind), (c) electricity (Kamic or

molecular powers, and (d) the synthetic essences, beyond spirit, or the radical

cause of its existence and manifestation. For the Hermetist or Rosicrucian, when

a flame is extinct on the objective plane, it has only passed from the seen

world into the unseen; from the knowable into the unknowable.

 

 

 

G.

Gautama (Sans.) A name in India. It is that of the Prince of Kapilavastu, son of

Sudhodana, the Sakhya King of a small territory on the borders of Nepaul, born

in the seventh century B. C., now called the "Saviour of the world." Gautama or

Gotama was the sacerdotal name of the Sakya family. Born a simple mortal, he

rose to Buddha-ship through his own personal and unaided merit; a man -- verily

greater than any God!

Gebirol. Salomon Ben Jehudah, called in literature Avicebron. An Israelite by

birth, a philosopher, poet and kabalist; a voluminous writer and a mystic. He

was born in the eleventh century at Malaga (1021), educated at Saragossa, and

died at Valencia in 1070, murdered by a Mahomedan. His fellow-religionists

called him Salomon, the Sephardi, or the Spaniard, and the Arabs, Abu Ayyub

Suleiman-ben ya'hya Ibn Dgebirol, whilst the Scholastics named him Avicebron

(see Myers' Quabbalah). Ibn Gebirol was certainly one of the greatest

philosophers and scholars of his age. He wrote much in Arabic, and most of his

MSS have been preserved. His greatest work appears to be The Megoy Hayyim, i.

e., The Fountain of Life, "one of the earliest exposures of the secrets of the

Speculative Kabbalah," as his biographer informs us.

Gnosis (Gr.) Lit. "knowledge." The technical term used by the schools of

religious philosophy, both before and during the first centuries of so-called

Christianity, to denote the object of their enquiry. This spiritual and sacred

knowledge, the Gupta Vidya of the Hindus, could only be obtained by Initiation

into Spiritual Mysteries of which the ceremonial "Mysteries" were a type.

Gnostics (Gr.) The philosophers who formulated and taught the "Gnosis" or

knowledge. They flourished in the first three centuries of the Christian Era.

The following were eminent: Valentinus, Basilides, Marcion, Simon Magus, etc.

Golden Age. The ancients divided the life cycle into the Golden, Silver, Bronze

and Iron Ages. The Golden was an age of primeval purity, simplicity and general

happiness.

Great Age. There were several "Great Ages" mentioned by the ancients. In India

it embraced the whole Maha-Manvantara, the "Age of Brahma," each "Day" of which

represents the Life Cycle of a chain, i. e., it embraces a period of Seven

Rounds (vide "Esoteric Buddhism," by A. P. Sinnett). Thus while a "Day" and a

"Night" represent, as Manvantara and Pralaya, 8,640,000,000 years, an "age"

lasts through a period of 311,040,000,000,000; after which the Pralaya or

dissolution of the universe becomes universal. With the Egyptian and Greeks the

"Great Age" referred only to the Tropical, or Sidereal year, the duration of

which is 25,868 solar years. Of the complete age -- that of the Gods -- they

said nothing, as it was a matter to be discussed and divulged only at the

Mysteries, and during the Initiation Ceremonies. The "Great Age" of the Chaldees

was the same in figures as that of the Hindus.

Guhya Vidya (Sans.) The secret knowledge of mystic-mantras.

Gupta Vidya (Sans.) The same as Guhya Vidya. Esoteric or secret science,

knowledge.

Gyges. "The ring of Gyges" has become a familiar metaphor in European

literature. Gyges was a Lydian, who, after murdering the King Candaules, married

his widow. Plato tells us that Gyges descending once into a chasm of the earth,

discovered a brazen horse, within whose opened side was the skeleton of a man of

gigantic stature, who had a brazen ring on his finger. This ring when placed on

his own finger made him invisible.

 

 

 

H.

Hades (Gr.), or Aides, the "invisible," the land of shadows; one of whose

regions was Tartarus, a place of complete darkness, as was also the region of

profound dreamless sleep in Amenti. Judging by the allegorical description of

the punishments inflicted therein, the place was purely Karmic. Neither Hades

nor Amenti were the Hell still preached by some retrograde priests and

clergymen; and whether represented by the Elysian Fields or by Tartarus, they

could only be reached by crossing the river to the "other shore." As well

expressed in the "Egyptian Belief," the story of Charon, the ferryman (of the

Styx) is to be found not only in Homer, but in the poetry of many lands. The

River must be crossed before gaining the Isles of the Blest. The Ritual of Egypt

described a Charon and his boat long ages before Homer. He is Khu-en-na, "the

hawk-headed steersman." (See Hell.)

Hallucinations. A state produced sometimes by physiological disorders, sometimes

by mediumship, and at others by drunkenness. But the cause that produces the

visions has to be sought deeper than physiology. All such, particularly when

produced through mediumship, are preceded by a relaxation of the nervous system,

generating invariably an abnormal magnetic condition which attracts to the

sufferer waves of astral light. It is these latter that furnish the various

hallucinations, which, however, are not always, as physicians would explain

them, mere empty and unreal dreams. No one can see that which does not exist --

i. e., which is not impressed -- in or on the astral waves. But a seer may

perceive objects and scenes (whether past, present or future) which have no

relation whatever to himself; and perceive, moreover, several things entirely

disconnected with each other at one and the same time, so as to produce the most

grotesque and absurd combinations. But drunkard and seer, medium and adept see

their respective visions in the astral light; only while the drunkard, the

madman, and the untrained medium, or one in a brain fever, see, because they

cannot help it, and evoke jumbled visions unconsciously to themselves without

being able to control them, the adept and the trained Seer have the choice and

the control of such visions. They know where to fix their gaze, how to steady

the scenes they wish to observe, and how to see beyond the upper outward layers

of the astral light. With the former such glimpses into the waves are

hallucinations; with the latter they become the faithful reproduction of what

actually has been, is, or will be taking place. The glimpses at random, caught

by the medium, and his flickering visions in the deceptive light, are

transformed under the guiding will of the adept and seer into steady pictures,

the truthful representation of that which he wills to come within the focus of

his perception.

Hell. A term which the Anglo-Saxon race has evidently derived from the name of

the Scandinavian goddess, Hela, just as the word ad, in Russian and other

Slavonian tongues expressing the same conception, is derived from the Greek

Hades, the only difference between the Scandinavian cold Hell, and the hot Hell

of the Christians, being found in their respective temperatures. But even the

idea of these overheated regions is not original with the Europeans, many people

having entertained the conception of an under-world climate; as well we may, if

we localise our Hell in the centre of the earth. All exoteric religions -- the

creeds of the Brahmans, Buddhists, Zoroastrians, Mahomedans, Jews, and the rest,

made their Hells hot and dark, though many were more attractive than frightful.

The idea of a hot Hell is an afterthought, the distortion of an astronomical

allegory. With the Egyptians Hell became a place of punishment by fire not

earlier than the 17th or 18th Dynasty, when Typhon was transformed from a God

into a Devil. But at whatever time they implanted this dread superstition in the

minds of the poor ignorant masses, the scheme of a burning Hell and souls

tormented therein is purely Egyptian. Ra (the Sun) became the Lord of the

Furnace, in Karr, the Hell of the Pharaohs, and the sinner was threatened with

misery "in the heat of infernal fires." "A lion was there," says Dr. Birch, "and

was called the roaring monster." Another describes the place as "the bottomless

pit and lake of fire, into which the victims are thrown" (compare Revelation).

The Hebrew word gai-hinnom (gehena) had never really the significance given to

it in Christian orthodoxy.

Hermas, an ancient Greek writer, of whose works only a few fragments now remain

extant.

Hierogrammatists (Gr.) The title given to those Egyptian priests who were

entrusted with the writing and reading of the sacred and secret records. The

"scribes of the secret records" literally. They were the instructors of the

neophytes preparing for initiation.

Hierophant. From the Greek Hierophantes, literally "he who explains sacred

things"; a title belonging to the highest adepts in the temples of antiquity,

who were the teachers and expounders of the Mysteries, and the Initiators into

the final great Mysteries. The Hierophant stood for the Demiurge, and explained

to the postulants for Initiation the various phenomena of creation that were

produced for their tuition. "He was the sole expounder of the exoteric secrets

and doctrines. It was forbidden even to pronounce his name before an uninitiated

person. He sat in the East, and wore as symbol of authority, a golden globe,

suspended from the neck. He was also called Mystagogus." (Kenneth R. H.

Mackenzie, IX., F. T. S., in The Royal Masonic Cyclopoedia.)

Hillel. A great Babylonian Rabbi of the century preceding the Christian Era. He

was the founder of the sect of the Pharisees, a learned and a saintly man.

Hinayana (Sans.) The "Smaller Vehicle"; a Scripture and a School of the

Buddhists, contrasted with the Mahayana, "The Greater Vehicle." Both schools are

mystical. (See Mahayana.) Also in exoteric superstition, the lowest form of

transmigration.

Homogeneity. From the Greek words homos, "the same"; and genos, "kind." That

which is of the same nature throughout, undifferentiated, non-compound, as gold

is supposed to be.

Hypnotism (Gr.) A name given by Dr. Braid to the process by which one man of

strong will-power plunges another of weaker mind into a kind of trance; once in

such a state the latter will do anything suggested to him by the hypnotiser.

Unless produced for beneficial purposes, the Occultists would call it black

magic or sorcery. It is the most dangerous of practices, morally and physically,

as it interferes with the nerve fluids.

 

 

 

I.

Iamblichus. A great Theosophist and an Initiate of the third century. He wrote a

great deal about the various kinds of demons who appear through evocation, but

spoke severely against such phenomena. His austerities, purity of life and

earnestness were great. He is credited with having been levitated ten cubits

high from the ground, as are some modern Yogis, and mediums.

Illusion. In Occultism everything finite (such as the Universe and all in it) is

called Illusion or Maya.

Individuality. One of the names given in Theosophy and Occultism to the human

Higher Ego. We make a distinction between the immortal and divine and the mortal

human Ego which perishes. The latter or "Personality" (personal Ego) survives

the dead body but for a time in Kama Loka: the Individuality prevails for ever.

Initiate. From the Latin Initiatus. The designation of anyone who was received

into and had revealed to him the mysteries and secrets of either Masonry or

Occultism. In times of antiquity they were those who had been initiated into the

arcane knowledge taught by the Hierophants of the Mysteries; and in our modern

days those who have been initiated by the adepts of mystic lore into the

mysterious knowledge, which, notwithstanding the lapse of ages, has yet a few

real votaries on earth.

Iswara (Sans.) The "Lord" or the personal god, divine spirit in man. Literally

Sovereign (independent) existence. A title given to Siva and other gods in

India. Siva is also called Iswaradeva, or sovereign deva.

Iu-Kabar Zivo, Gnostic term. The "Lord of the AEons" in the Nazarene system. He

is the procreator (Emanator) of the seven holy lives (the seven primal Dhyan

Chohans or Archangels, each representing one of the cardinal virtues), and is

himself called the third life (third Logos). In the Codex he is addressed as the

Helm and Vine of the food of life. Thus he is identical with Christ (Christos)

who says: "I am the true vine and my Father is the husbandman." (John xv. 1.) It

is well known that Christ is regarded in the Roman Catholic Church as the "Chief

of the AEons," as also is Michael, "who is as God." Such also was the belief of

the Gnostics.

 

 

 

J.

Javidan Khirad (Pers.) A work on moral precepts.

Jhana (Sans.) or Jnana, Knowledge: Occult Wisdom.

Josephus Flavius. A historian of the first century; a Hellenized Jew who lived

in Alexandria and died at Rome. He was credited by Eusebius with having written

the 16 famous lines relating to Christ, which were most probably interpolated by

Eusebius himself, the greatest forger among the Church Fathers. This passage, in

which Josephus, who was an ardent Jew and died in Judaism, is nevertheless made

to acknowledge the Messiaship and divine origin of Jesus, is now declared

spurious both by most of the Christian Bishops (Lardner among others) and even

by Paley (see his Evidence of Christianity). It was for centuries one of the

weightiest proofs of the real existence of Jesus, the Christ.

 

 

 

K.

Kabbalah (Heb.), or Kabbala. "The hidden wisdom of the Hebrew Rabbis of the

middle ages derived from the older secret doctrines concerning divine things and

cosmogony, which were combined into a theology after the time of the captivity

of the Jews in Babylon." All the works that fall under the esoteric category are

termed Kabalistic.

Kamaloka (Sans.) The semi-material plane, to us subjective and invisible, where

the disembodied "personalities," the astral forms called Kama Rupa, remain until

they fade out from it by the complete exhaustion of the effects of the mental

impulses that created these eidolons of the lower animal passions and desires.

(See Kama Rupa.) It is the Hades of the ancient Greeks and the Amenti of the

Egyptians -- the land of Silent Shadows.

Kama Rupa (Sans.) Metaphysically and in our esoteric philosophy it is the

subjective form created through the mental and physical desires and thoughts in

connection with things of matter, by all sentient beings: a form which survives

the death of its body. After that death, three of the seven "principles" -- or,

let us say, planes of the senses and consciousness on which the human instincts

and ideation act in turn -- viz., the body, its astral prototype and physical

vitality, being of no further use, remain on earth; the three higher principles,

grouped into one, merge into a state of Devachan (q. v.), in which state the

Higher Ego will remain until the hour for a new reincarnation arrives, and the

eidolon of the ex-personality is left alone in its new abode. Here the pale copy

of the man that was, vegetates for a period of time, the duration of which is

variable according to the element of materiality which is left in it, and which

is determined by the past life of the defunct. Bereft as it is of its higher

mind, spirit and physical senses, if left alone to its own senseless devices, it

will gradually fade out and disintegrate. But if forcibly drawn back into the

terrestrial sphere, whether by the passionate desires and appeals of the

surviving friends or by regular necromantic practices -- one of the most

pernicious of which is mediumship -- the "spook" may prevail for a period

greatly exceeding the span of the natural life of its body. Once the Kama Rupa

has learnt the way back to living human bodies, it becomes a vampire feeding on

the vitality of those who are so anxious for its company. In India these

Eidolons are called Pisachas, -- and are much dreaded.

Kapilavastu (Sans.) The birthplace of the Lord Buddha, called the "yellow

dwelling," the capital of the monarch who was the father of Gautama Buddha.

Kardec, Allan. The adopted name of the Founder of the French Spiritists, whose

real name was Rivaille. It was he who gathered and published the trance

utterances of certain mediums and afterwards made a "philosophy" of them between

the years 1855 and 1870.

Karma (Sans.) Physically, action; Metaphysically, the LAW of RETRIBUTION; the

Law of Cause and Effect or Ethical Causation. It is Nemesis only in the sense of

bad Karma. It is the eleventh Nidana in the concatenation of causes and effects

in orthodox Buddhism; yet it is the power that controls all things, the

resultant of moral action, the metaphysical Samskara, or the moral effect of an

act committed for the attainment of something which gratifies a personal desire.

There is the Karma of merit and the Karma of demerit. Karma neither punishes nor

rewards; it is simply the one Universal LAW which guides unerringly and, so to

say, blindly, all other laws productive of certain effects along the grooves of

their respective causations. When Buddhism teaches that "Karma is that moral

Kernel (of any being) which alone survives death and continues in

transmigration" or reincarnation, it simply means that there remains nought

after each personality, but the causes produced by it, causes which are undying,

i. e., which cannot be eliminated from the Universe until replaced by their

legitimate effects, and so to speak, wiped out by them. And such causes, unless

compensated during the life of the person who produced them with adequate

effects, will follow the reincarnated Ego and reach it in its subsequent

incarnations until a full harmony between effects and causes is fully

re-established. No "personality" -- a mere bundle of material atoms and

instinctual and mental characteristics -- can, of course, continue as such in

the world of pure spirit. Only that which is immortal in its very nature and

divine in its essence, namely, the Ego, can exist for ever. And as it is that

Ego which chooses the personality it will inform after each Devachan, and which

receives through these personalities the effects of the Karmic causes produced,

it is, therefore, the Ego, that Self, which is the "moral Kernel" referred to,

and embodied Karma itself, that "which alone survives death."

Kether (Heb.) "The Crown, the highest of the ten Sephiroth; the first of the

supernal Triad. It corresponds to the Macroprosopus, Vast Countenance, or Arikh

Anpin, which differentiates into Chokmah and Binah."

Krishna (Sans.) The most celebrated Avatar of Vishnu, the "Saviour" of the

Hindus and the most popular god. He is the eighth Avatar, the son of Devaki, and

the nephew of Kansa, the Indian Herod, who while seeking for him among the

shepherds and cowherds who concealed him slew thousands of their newly-born

babes. The story of Krishna's conception, birth and childhood are the exact

prototype of the New Testament story. The missionaries, of course, try to show

that the Hindus stole the story of the Nativity from the early Christians who

came to India.

Kshetragna, or Kshetragneswara (Sans.)Embodied Spirit in Occultism, the

conscious Ego in its highest manifestations; the reincarnating Principle, or the

"Lord" in us.

Kumara (Sans.) A virgin boy or young celibate. The first Kumaras are the seven

sons of Brahma, born out of the limbs of the god in the so-called Ninth

Creation. It is stated that the name was given to them owing to their formal

refusal to "procreate" their species, and thus they "remained Yogis" according

to the legend.

 

 

 

L.

Labro, St. A Roman Saint solemnly beatified a few years ago. His great holiness

consisted in sitting at one of the gates of Rome night and day for forty years,

and remaining unwashed through the whole of that time, the result of which was

that he was eaten by vermin to his bones.

Lao-Tze (Chin.) A great Sage, Saint, and Philosopher, who preceded Confucius.

Law of Retribution (vide Karma).

Linga Sharira (Sans.) "Astral body," i. e., the aerial symbol of the body. This

term designates the doppelganger, or the "astral body" of man or animal. It is

the eidolon of the Greeks, the vital and prototypal body, the reflection of the

man of flesh. It is born before man and dies or fades out with the disappearance

of the last atom of the body.

Logos (Gr.) The manifested deity with every nation and people; the outward

expression or the effect of the Cause which is ever concealed. Thus, speech is

the logos of thought; hence, in its metaphysical sense, it is aptly translated

by the terms "Verbum," and the "Word."

Long Face. A Kabalistic term, Areekh Anpeen in Hebrew; or "Long Face"; in Greek,

Macroprosopos, as contrasted with "Short Face," or Zeir Anpeen, the

Microprosopos. One relates to Deity, the other to man, the "little image of the

great form."

Longinus, Dionysius Cassius. A famous critic and philosopher, born in the very

beginning of the third century (about 213). He was a great traveller, and

attended at Alexandria the lectures of Ammonius Saccas, the founder of

Neoplatonism, but was rather a critic than a follower. Porphyry (the Jew Malek

or Malchus) was his pupil before he became the disciple of Plotinus. It is said

of him that he was a living library and a walking museum. Towards the end of his

life he became the instructor in Greek literature of Zenobia, Queen of Palmyra.

She repaid his services by accusing him before the Emperor Aurelius of having

advised her to rebel against the latter, a crime for which Longinus, with

several others, was put to death by the Emperor in 273.

 

 

 

M.

Macrocosm (Gr.) The "Great Universe" or Kosmos, literally.

Magic. The "great" Science. According to Deveria and other Orientalists, "Magic

was considered as a sacred science inseparable from religion" by the oldest and

most civilised and learned nations. The Egyptians, for instance, were a most

sincerely religious nation, as were, and are still, the Hindus. "Magic consists

of, and is acquired by, the worship of the gods," says Plato. Could, then, a

nation which, owing to the irrefragable evidence of inscriptions and papyri, is

proved to have firmly believed in magic for thousands of years, have been

deceived for so long a time? And is it likely that generations upon generations

of a learned and pious hierarchy, many among whom led lives of self-martyrdom,

holiness and asceticism, would have gone on deceiving themselves and the people

(or even only the latter) for the pleasure of perpetuating belief in "miracles"?

Fanatics, we are told, will do anything to enforce belief in their god or idols.

To this we reply: -- In such cases Brahmans and Egyptian Rekhget-amens or

Hierophants, would not have popularised the belief in the power of man by magic

practices, to command the services of the gods: which gods are in truth but the

occult powers or potencies of Nature, personified by the learned priests

themselves, who reverenced only in them the attributes of the one unknown and

nameless Principle. As Proclus, the Platonist, ably puts it: "Ancient priests,

when they considered that there is a certain alliance and sympathy in natural

things to each other, and of things manifest to occult powers, and discovered

that all things subsist in all, fabricated a sacred science from this mutual

sympathy and similarity. . . . and applied for occult purposes both celestial

and terrene natures, by means of which, through a certain similitude, they

deduced divine natures into this inferior abode." Magic is the science of

communicating with, and directing supernal supramundane potencies, as well as

commanding those of lower spheres; a practical knowledge of the hidden mysteries

of nature which are known only to the few, because they are so difficult to

acquire without falling into sin against the law. Ancient and mediaeval mystics

divided magic into three classes -- Theurgia, Goetia and Natural Magic.

"Theurgia has long since been appropriated as the peculiar sphere of the

Theosophists and metaphysicians," says Kenneth Mackenzie. "Goetia is black

magic, and 'natural' or white magic has risen with healing in its wings to the

proud position of an exact and progressive study." The remarks added by our late

learned brother are remarkable: "The realistic desires of modern times have

contributed to bring magic into disrepute and ridicule. . . . Faith (in one's

own self) is an essential element in magic, and existed long before other ideas

which presume its pre-existence. It is said that it takes a wise man to make a

fool; and a man's idea must be exalted almost to madness, i. e., his brain

susceptibilities must be increased far beyond the low miserable status of modern

civilisation, before he can become a true magician, for a pursuit of this

science implies a certain amount of isolation and an abnegation of self." A very

great isolation certainly, the achievement of which constitutes a wonderful

phenomenon, a miracle in itself. Withal, magic is not something supernatural. As

explained by Iamblichus, "they, through the sacerdotal theurgy, announce that

they are able to ascend to more elevated and universal essences, and to those

that are established above fate, viz., to god and the demiurgos: neither

employing matter, nor assuming any other things besides, except the observation

of a sensible time." Already some are beginning to recognise the existence of

subtle powers and influences in nature, in which they have hitherto known

nought. But, as Dr. Carter Blake truly remarks, "the nineteenth century is not

that which has observed the genesis of new, nor the completion of old, methods

of thought"; to which Mr. Bonwick adds, that "if the Ancients knew but little of

our mode of investigation into the secrets of Nature, we know still less of

their mode of research."

Magic, Black (vide supra). Sorcery, abuse of powers.

Magic, Ceremonial. Magic, according to Kabalistic rites worked out, as alleged

by the Rosicrucians and other mystics, by invoking Powers higher spiritually

than Man, and commanding Elementals who are far lower than himself on the scale

of being.

Magic, White, or "Beneficent Magic," so called, is divine magic, devoid of

selfishness, love of power, of ambition or lucre, and bent only on doing good to

the world in general and one's neighbour in particular. The smallest attempt to

use one's abnormal powers for the gratification of self makes of these powers

sorcery or Black Magic.

Mahamanvantara (Sans.) Lit., the great interludes between the Manus -- the

period of universal activity. Manvantara here implies simply a period of

activity as opposed to Pralaya or rest -- without reference to the length of the

cycle.

Mahat (Sans.) Lit. "The Great One." The first principle of Universal

Intelligence and consciousness. In the Puranic philosophy, the first product of

root-nature or Pradhana (the same as Mulaprakriti); the producer of Manas the

thinking principle, and of Ahankara, Egotism or the feeling of "I am I" in the

lower Manas.

Mahatma (Sans.) Lit., "Great Soul." An adept of the highest order. An exalted

being, who having attained to the mastery over his lower principles, is

therefore living unimpeded by the "man of flesh." Mahatmas are in possession of

knowledge and power commensurate with the stage they have reached in their

spiritual evolution. Called in Pali Rahats and Arthas.

Mahayana (Sans.) A school of Buddhistic philosophy; lit., the "Great Vehicle." A

mystical system founded by Nagarjuna. Its books were written in the second

century B. C.

Manas (Sans.) Lit., the "Mind." The mental faculty which makes of a man an

intelligent and moral being, and distinguishes him from the mere animal; a

synonym of Mahat. Esoterically, however, it means, when unqualified, the Higher

Ego or the sentient reincarnating Principle in man. When qualified it is called

by Theosophists Buddhi-Manas, or the spiritual soul, in contradistinction to its

human reflection -- Kama-Manas.

Manasaputra (Sans.) Lit., the "Sons of Mind" or mind-born Sons; a name given to

our Higher Egos before they incarnated in mankind. In the exoteric though

allegorical and symbolical Puranas (the sacred and ancient writings of Hindus),

it is the title given to the mind-born Sons of Brahma, the Kumara.

Manas Sutratma (Sans.) Two words meaning "mind" (Manas) and "Thread Soul"

(Sutratma). It is, as said, the synonym of our Ego, or that which reincarnates.

It is a technical term of Vedantic philosophy.

Manas Taijasi(Sans.) Lit., the "radiant" Manas; a state of the Higher Ego which

only high metaphysicians are able to realize and comprehend. The same as "Buddhi

Taijasi," which see.

Mantras (Sans.) Verses from the Vedic works, used as incantations and charms. By

Mantras are meant all those portions of the Vedas which are distinct from the

Brahmanas, or their interpretation.

Manu (Sans.) The great Indian legislator. The name comes from the Sanskrit root

man to think, MAN really standing only for Swayambhuva, the first of the Manus,

who started from Swayambhu, the Self-Existent, who is hence the Logos and the

progenitor of mankind. Manu is the first legislator -- almost a divine being.

Manvantara (Sans.) A period of manifestation, as opposed to Pralaya (dissolution

or rest); the term is applied to various cycles, especially to a Day of Brahma

-- 4,320,000,000 Solar years -- and to the reign of one Manu -- 308,448,000.

Lit., Manuantara -- "between Manus." (See Secret Doctrine, Vol. 11, p. 68, et

seq.)

Master. A translation from the Sanskrit Guru, "Spiritual teacher," and adopted

by the Theosophists to designate the Adepts, from whom they hold their

teachings.

Materialisations. In Spiritualism the word signifies the objective appearance of

the so-called "spirits of the dead," who re-clothe themselves occasionally in

matter; i. e., they form for themselves out of the materials at hand found in

the atmosphere and the emanations of those present, a temporary body bearing the

human likeness of the defunct, as he appeared when alive. Theosophists accept

the phenomenon of "materialisation," but they reject the theory that it is

produced by "Spirits," i. e., the immortal principles of disembodied persons.

Theosophists hold that when the phenomena are genuine -- which is a fact of

rarer occurrence than is generally believed -- they are produced by the larvae,

the eidolons, or Kamalokic "ghosts" of the dead personalities. (See "Kamaloka"

and "Kamarupa.") As Kamaloka is on the earth-plane and differs from its degree

of materiality only in the degree of its plane of consciousness, for which

reason it is concealed from our normal sight, the occasional apparition of such

shells is as natural as that of electric balls and other atmospheric phenomena.

Electricity as a fluid, or atomic matter (for Occultists hold with Maxwell that

it is atomic), is ever, though invisibly, present in the air and manifests under

various shapes, but only when certain conditions are present to "materialise"

the fluid, when it passes from its own on to our plane and makes itself

objective. Similarly with the eidolons of the dead. They are present around us,

but being on another plane do not see us any more than we see them. But whenever

the strong desires of living men and the conditions furnished by the abnormal

constitutions of mediums are combined together, these eidolons are drawn -- nay

pulled down from their plane on to ours and made objective. This is necromancy;

it does no good to the dead, and great harm to the living, in addition to the

fact that it interferes with a law of nature. The occasional materialisation of

the "astral bodies" or doubles of living persons is quite another matter. These

"astrals" are often mistaken for the apparitions of the dead, since,

chameleon-like, our own "elementaries" along with those of the disembodied and

cosmic Elementals, will often assume the appearance of those images which are

strongest in our thoughts. In short, at the so-called "materialisation seances,"

it is those present and the medium who create the peculiar apparition.

Independent "apparitions" belong to another kind of psychic phenomena.

Materialist. Not necessarily only one who believes in neither God nor soul, nor

the survival of the latter, but also any person who materializes the purely

spiritual; such as believe in an anthropomorphic deity, in a soul capable of

burning in hell fire, and a hell and paradise as localities instead of states of

consciousness. American "Substantialists," a Christian sect, are materialists,

as also the so-called Spiritualists.

Maya (Sans.) Illusion; the cosmic power which renders phenomenal existence and

the perceptions thereof possible. In Hindu philosophy that alone which is

changeless and eternal is called reality: all that which is subject to change

through decay and differentiation, and which has, therefore, a beginning and an

end, is regarded as MAYA -- illusion.

Mediumship. A word now accepted to indicate that abnormal psycho-physiological

state which leads a person to take the fancies of his imagination, his

hallucinations, real or artificial, for realities. No entirely healthy person on

the physiological and psychic planes can ever be a medium. That which mediums

see, hear, and sense, is "real" but untrue; it is either gathered from the

astral plane, so deceptive in its vibrations and suggestions, or from pure

hallucinations, which have no actual existence, but for him who perceives them.

"Mediumship" is a kind of vulgarised mediatorship in which one afflicted with

this faculty is supposed to become an agent of communication between a living

man and a departed "Spirit." There exist regular methods of training for the

development of this undesirable acquirement.

Mercavah, or Mercabah (Heb.) "A chariot. The Kabbalists say that the Supreme,

after he had established the ten Sephiroth -- which, in their totality, are Adam

Kadmon, the Archetypal Man, used them as a chariot or throne of glory in which

to descend upon the souls of men."

Mesmerism. The term comes from Mesmer, who rediscovered this magnetic force and

its practical application toward the year 1775, at Vienna. It is a vital current

that one person may transfer to another; and through which he induces an

abnormal state of the nervous system that permits him to have a direct influence

upon the mind and will of the subject or mesmerized person.

Metaphysics. From the Greek meta, beyond, and physica, the things of the

external material world. It is to forget the spirit and hold to the dead letter,

to translate it beyond nature or supernatural, as it is rather beyond the

natural, visible, or concrete. Metaphysics, in ontology and philosophy is the

term to designate that science which treats of the real and permanent being as

contrasted with the unreal, illusionary or phenomenal being.

Microcosm. The "little" Universe meaning man, made in the image of his creator,

the Macrocosm, or "great" Universe, and containing all that the latter contains.

These terms are used in Occultism and Theosophy.

Mishnah (Heb.) Lit., "a repetition" from the word Shanah, "to repeat" something

said orally. A summary of written explanations from the oral traditions of the

Jews and a digest of the Scriptures on which the later Talmud was based.

Moksha (Sans.) The same as Nirvana; a post-mortem state of rest and bliss of the

"Soul-pilgrim."

Monad. It is the Unity, the ONE; but in occultism it often means the unified

duad, Atma-Buddhi, -- or that immortal part of man which incarnating in the

lower kingdoms and gradually progressing through them to Man, finds thence way

to the final goal -- Nirvana.

Monas (Gr.) The same as the Latin Monad; "the only," a Unit. In the Pythagorean

system the Duad emanates from the higher and solitary Monas, which is thus the

First Cause.

Monogenes (Gr.) Literally, the "only-begotten"; a name of Proserpine and other

gods and goddesses, as also of Jesus.

Mundakya Upanishad (Sans.) Lit., the "Mundaka esoteric doctrine." A work of high

antiquity; it has been translated by Raja Ram Mohun Roy.

Mysteries (Sacred). They were enacted in the ancient temples by the initiated

Hierophants for the benefit and instruction of candidates. The most solemn and

occult were certainly those which were performed in Egypt by "the band of

secret-keepers," as Mr. Bonwick calls the Hierophants. Maurice describes their

nature very graphically in a few lines. Speaking of the Mysteries performed in

Philae (the Nile-island), he says: -- "It was in these gloomy caverns that the

grand mystic arcana of the goddess (Isis) were unfolded to the adoring aspirant,

while the solemn hymn of initiation resounded through the long extent of these

stony recesses." The word "mystery" is derived from the Greek muo, "to close the

mouth," and every symbol connected with them had a hidden meaning. As Plato and

many of the other sages of antiquity affirm, these mysteries were highly

religious, moral, and beneficent as a school of ethics. The Grecian Mysteries,

those of Ceres and Bacchus, were only imitations of the Egyptian, and the author

of "Egyptian Belief and Modern Thought" informs us that our own word "chapel or

capella is said to be the caph-el or college of El, the solar divinity." The

well-known Kabeiri are associated with the mysteries.

In short, the Mysteries were in every country a series of dramatic performances,

in which the mysteries of Cosmogony and nature in general were personified by

the priests and neophytes, who enacted the parts of various gods and goddesses,

repeating supposed scenes (allegories) from their respective lives. These were

explained in their hidden meaning to the candidates for initiation and

incorporated into philosophical doctrines.

Mystery Language. The sacerdotal secret "jargon" used by the initiated priests,

and employed only when discussing sacred things. Every nation had its own

"mystery" tongue, unknown to all save those admitted to the Mysteries.

Mystic, from the Greek word mysticos. In antiquity, one belonging to those

admitted to the ancient mysteries; in our own times, one who practises

mysticism, holds mystic, transcendental views, etc.

Mysticism. Any doctrine involved in mystery and metaphysics, and dealing more

with the ideal worlds than with our matter-of-fact, actual universe.

 

 

N.

Nazarene Codex. The Scriptures of the Nazarenes and of the Nabotheans also.

According to sundry Church Fathers, Jerome and Epiphanius especially, they were

heretical teachings, but are in fact one of the numerous Gnostic readings of

cosmogony and theogony, which produced a distinct sect.

Necromancy. The raising of the images of the dead, considered in antiquity and

by modern occultists as a practice of Black Magic. Iamblichus, Porphyry and

other theurgists deprecated the practice no less than Moses, who condemned the

"witches" of his day to death, the said witches being often only mediums, e.g.,

the case of the Witch of Endor and Samuel.

Neoplatonists. A school of philosophy which arose between the second and third

century of our era, and was founded by Ammonius Saccas, of Alexandria. The same

as the Philalethians, and the Analogeticists; they were also called Theurgists

and by various other names. They were the Theosophists of the early centuries.

Neo-Platonism is Platonic philosophy plus ecstasy, divine Raj-yoga.

Nephesh (Heb.) "Breath of Life, Anima, Mens Vitae, appetites. The term is used

very loosely in the Bible. It generally means Prana, 'life'; in the Kabbalah it

is the animal passions and the animal soul." Therefore, as maintained in

theosophical teachings, Nephesh is the Prana-Kamic Principle, or the vital

animal soul in man.

Nirmanakaya (Sans.) Something entirely different in esoteric philosophy from the

popular meaning attached to it, and from the fancies of the Orientalists. Some

call the Nirmanakaya body "Nirvana with remains" (Schlagintweit), on the

supposition, probably, that it is a kind of Nirvanic condition during which

consciousness and form are retained. Others say that it is one of the Trikaya

(three bodies) with "the power of assuming any form of appearance in order to

propagate Buddhism" (Eitel's idea); again, that "it is the incarnate avatara of

a deity" (ibid.)Occultism, on the other hand, says ("Voice of the Silence") that

Nirmanakaya, although meaning literally a transformed "body," is a state. The

form is that of the Adept or Yogi who enters, or chooses, that post-mortem

condition in preference to the Dharmakaya or absolute Nirvanic state. He does

this because the latter Kaya separates him for ever from the world of form,

conferring upon him a state of selfish bliss, in which no other living being can

participate, the adept being thus precluded from the possibility of helping

humanity, or even devas. As a Nirmanakaya, however, the adept leaves behind him

only his physical body, and retains every other "principle" save the Kamic, for

he has crushed this out for ever from his nature during life, and it can never

resurrect in his post-mortem state. Thus, instead of going into selfish bliss,

he chooses a life of self-sacrifice, an existence which ends only with the

life-cycle, in order to be enabled to help mankind in an invisible, yet most

effective, manner. (See "Voice of the Silence," third Treatise, "The Seven

Portals.") Thus a Nirmanakaya is not, as popularly believed, the body "in which

a Buddha or a Bodhisattva appears on earth," but verily one who, whether a

Chutuktu or a Khubilkhan, an adept or a Yogi during life, has since become a

member of that invisible Host which ever protects and watches over humanity

within Karmic limits. Mistaken often for a "Spirit," a Deva, God himself, &c., a

Nirmanakaya is ever a protecting, compassionate, verily a guardian, angel to him

who is worthy of his help. Whatever objection may be brought forward against

this doctrine, however much it is denied, because, forsooth, it has never

hitherto been made public in Europe, and therefore, since it is unknown to

Orientalists, it must needs be a "myth of modern invention" -- no one will be

bold enough to say that this idea of helping suffering mankind at the price of

one's own almost interminable self-sacrifice, is not one of the grandest and

noblest that was ever evolved from the human brain.

Nirvana (Sans.) According to the Orientalists, the entire "blowing-out," like

the flame of a candle, the utter extinction of existence. But in the exoteric

explanations it is the state of absolute existence and absolute consciousness,

into which the Ego of a man who had reached the highest degree of perfection and

holiness during life, goes after the body dies, and occasionally, as is the case

of Gautama Buddha and others, during life.

Nirvanee (Sans.) One who has attained Nirvana -- an emancipated Soul. That

Nirvana means something quite different from the puerile assertions of

Orientalists, every scholar who has visited India, China, or Japan, is well

aware. It is "escape from misery," but only from that of matter, freedom from

Klesha, or Kama, and the complete extinction of animal desires. If we are told

that Abhidharma defines Nirvana as "a state of absolute annihilation" we concur,

adding to the last word the qualification "of everything connected with matter

or the physical world," and this simply because the latter (as also all in it)

is illusion or Maya. Sakyamuni Buddha said in the last moments of his life: --

"the spiritual body is immortal." (Vide "Sans.-Chin. Dict.") As Mr. Eitel, the

scholarly Sinologist, explains it: "The popular exoteric systems agree in

defining Nirvana negatively as a state of absolute exemption from the circle of

transmigration; as a state of entire freedom from all forms of existence, to

begin with, freedom from all passion and exertion; a state of indifference to

all sensibility" -- and he might have added "death of all compassion for the

world of suffering." And this is why the Bodhisattvas who prefer the Nirmanakaya

to the Dharmakaya vesture stand higher in the popular estimation than the

Nirvanees. But the same scholar adds that "Positively (and esoterically) they

define Nirvana as the highest state of spiritual bliss, as absolute immortality

through absorption of the Soul (Spirit rather) into itself, but preserving

individuality, so that, e. g., Buddhas, after entering Nirvana, may re-appear on

earth -- i. e., in the future Manvantara."

Noumena (Gr.) The true essential nature of Being as distinguished from the

illusive objects of sense.

Nous (Gr.) A Platonic term for the Higher Mind or Soul. It means Spirit as

distinct from animal-Soul, Psyche; divine consciousness or mind in man. The name

was adopted by the Gnostics for their first conscious AEon, which, with the

Occultists, is the third logos, cosmically, and the third "principle" (from

above) or Manas, in man. (Vide infra, "Nout.")

Nout (Eg.) In the Egyptian Pantheon it meant the "One-only-One," because it does

not proceed in the popular or exoteric religion higher than the third

manifestation which radiates from the Unknowable and the Unknown in the esoteric

philosophy of every nation. The Nous of Anaxagoras was the Mahat of the Hindus

-- Brahma, the first manifested deity -- "the Mind or spirit Self-potent." This

creative principle is the primum mobile of everything to be found in the

Universe -- its Soul or Ideation. (Vide "Seven Principles" in man.)

 

 

 

O.

Occultism. See OCCULT SCIENCES.

Occult Sciences. The science of the secrets of nature -- physical and psychic,

mental and spiritual; called Hermetic and Esoteric Sciences. In the west, the

Kabbala may be named; in the east, mysticism, magic, and Yoga philosophy. The

latter is often referred to by the Chelas in India as the seventh "Darshana"

(school of philosophy), there being only six Darshanas in India known to the

world of the profane. These sciences are, and have been for ages, hidden from

the vulgar, for the very good reason that they would never be appreciated by the

selfish educated classes, who would misuse them for their own profit, and thus

turn the Divine science into black magic, nor by the uneducated, who would not

understand them. It is often brought forward as an accusation against the

Esoteric Philosophy of the Kabbala, that its literature is full of "a barbarous

and meaningless jargon," unintelligible to the ordinary mind. But do not exact

Sciences -- medicine, physiology, chemistry, and the rest -- plead guilty to the

same impeachment? Do not official scientists veil their facts and discoveries

with a newly-coined and most barbarous Graeco-Latin terminology? As justly

remarked by our late Brother, Kenneth Mackenzie, "to juggle thus with words,

when the facts are so simple, is the art of the Scientists of the present time,

in striking contrast to those of the seventeenth century, who called spades

spades, and not 'agricultural implements.'" Moreover, whilst their "facts" would

be as simple, and as comprehensible if rendered in ordinary language, the facts

of Occult Science are of so abstruse a nature, that in most cases no words exist

in European languages to express them. Finally our "jargon" is a double

necessity -- (a) for describing clearly these facts to one who is versed in the

occult terminology; and (b) for concealing them from the profane.

Occultist. One who practises Occultism, an adept in the Secret Sciences, but

very often applied to a mere student.

Occult World. The name of the first book which treated of Theosophy, its

history, and certain of its tenets. Written by A. P. Sinnett, then editor of the

leading Indian paper, the Pioneer, of Allahabad, India.

Olympiodorus. The last Neoplatonist of fame and celebrity in the school of

Alexandria. He lived in the sixth century under the Emperor Justinian. There

were several writers and philosophers of this name in pre-Christian as in

post-Christian periods. One of these was the teacher of Proclus, another a

historian in the eighth century, and so on.

Origen. A Christian Churchman, born at the end of the second century, probably

in Africa, of whom little, if anything, is known, since his biographical

fragments have passed to posterity on the authority of Eusebius, the most

unmitigated falsifier that has ever existed in any age. The latter is credited

with having collected upwards of one hundred letters of Origen (or Origenes

Adamantius), which are now said to have been lost. To Theosophists, the most

interesting of all the works of Origen is his "Doctrine of the Pre-existence of

Souls." He was a pupil of Ammonius Saccas, and for a long time attended the

lectures of this great teacher of philosophy.

 

 

 

P.

Panaenus. A Platonic philosopher in the Alexandrian school of the Philalethians.

 

Pandora. In Greek Mythology, the first woman on earth, created by Vulcan out of

clay to punish Prometheus and counteract his gift to mortals. Each God having

made her a present of some virtue, she was made to carry them in a box to

Prometheus, who, however, being endowed with foresight, sent her away, changing

the gifts into evils. Thus, when his brother Epimetheus saw and married her,

when he opened the box, all the evils now afflicting humanity issued from it,

and have remained since then in the world.

Pantheist. One who identifies God with nature and vice versa. If we have to

regard Deity as an infinite and omnipresent Principle, this can hardly be

otherwise; nature being thus simply the physical aspect of Deity, or its body.

Parabrahm (Sans.) A Vedantin term meaning "beyond Brahma." The Supreme and the

absolute Principle, impersonal and nameless. In the Veda it is referred to as

"THAT."

Paranirvana. In the Vedantic philosophy the highest form of nirvana -- beyond

the latter.

Parsees (or Parsis). The present Persian followers of Zoroaster, now settled in

India, especially in Bombay and Guzerat; sun and fire worshippers. One of the

most intelligent and esteemed communities in the country, generally occupied

with commercial pursuits. There are between 50,000 and 60,000 now left in India

where they settled some 1,000 years ago.

Personality. The teachings of Occultism divide man into three aspects -- the

divine, the thinking or rational, and the irrational or animal man. For

metaphysical purposes also he is considered under a septenary division, or, as

it is agreed to express it in theosophy, he is composed of seven "principles,"

three of which constitute the Higher Triad, and the remaining four the lower

Quaternary. It is in the latter that dwells the Personality which embraces all

the characteristics, including memory and consciousness, of each physical life

in turn. The Individuality is the Higher Ego (Manas) of the Triad considered as

a Unity. In other words the Individuality is our imperishable Ego which

reincarnates and clothes itself in a new Personality at every new birth.

Phallic Worship, or Sex Worship; reverence and adoration shown to those gods and

goddesses which, like Siva and Durga in India, symbolise respectively the two

sexes.

Philadelphians. Lit., "those who love their brother-man." A sect in the

seventeenth century, founded by one Jane Leadly. They objected to all rites,

forms, or ceremonies of the Church, and even to the Church itself, but professed

to be guided in soul and spirit by an internal Deity, their own Ego or God

within them.

Philalethians. (Vide "Neoplatonists.")

Philo-Judaeus. A Hellenized Jew of Alexandria, a famous historian and

philosopher of the first century, born about the year 30 B. C., and died between

the years 45 and 50 A. D. Philo's symbolism of the Bible is very remarkable. The

animals, birds, reptiles, trees, and places mentioned in it are all, it is said,

"allegories of conditions of the soul, of faculties, dispositions, or passions;

the useful plants were allegories of virtues, the noxious of the affections of

the unwise and so on through the mineral kingdom; through heaven, earth and

stars; through fountains and rivers, fields and dwellings; through metals,

substances, arms, clothes, ornaments, furniture, the body and its parts, the

sexes, and our outward condition." (Dict. Christ. Biog.) All of which would

strongly corroborate the idea that Philo was acquainted with the ancient

Kabbala.

Philosopher's Stone. A term in Alchemy; called also the Powder of Projection, a

mysterious "principle" having the power of transmuting the base metals into pure

gold. In Theosophy it symbolises the transmutation of the lower animal nature of

man into the highest divine.

Phren. A Pythagorean term denoting what we call the Kama-manas, still

overshadowed by Buddhi-Manas.

Plane. From the Latin Planus (level, flat), an extension of space, whether in

the physical or metaphysical sense. In Occultism, the range or extent of some

state of consciousness, or the state of matter corresponding to the perceptive

powers of a particular set of senses or the action of a particular force.

Planetary Spirits. Rulers and governors of the Planets. Planetary Gods.

Plastic. Used in Occultism in reference to the nature and essence of the astral

body, or the "Protean Soul." (Vide "Plastic Soul" in the Theosophical Glossary.)

 

Pleroma. "Fulness"; a gnostic term used also by St. Paul. Divine world or the

abode of gods. Universal space divided into metaphysical AEons.

Plotinus. A distinguished Platonic philosopher of the third century, a great

practical mystic, renowned for his virtues and learning. He taught a doctrine

identical with that of the Vedantins, namely, that the spirit soul emanating

from the One Deific Principle was after its pilgrimage on earth reunited to it.

(Vide Theosophical Glossary.)

Porphyry (Porphyrius). His real name was Malek, which led to his being regarded

as a Jew. He came from Tyre, and having first studied under Longinus, the

eminent philosopher-critic, became the disciple of Plotinus, at Rome. He was a

Neo-Platonist and a distinguished writer, specially famous for his controversy

with Iamblichus regarding the evils attending the practice of Theurgy, but was,

however, finally converted to the views of his opponent. A natural-born mystic

he followed, like his master Plotinus, the pure Indian Raj-Yoga system, which,

by training, leads to the union of the soul with the over-soul of the universe,

and of the human with its divine soul, Buddhi-Manas. He complains, however, that

in spite of all his efforts, he reached the highest state of ecstasy only once,

and that when he was sixty-eight years of age, while his teacher Plotinus had

experienced the supreme bliss six times during his life. (Vide "Porphyry," in

the Theos. Gloss.)

Pot Amun. A Coptic term meaning "one consecrated to the god Amun," the

Wisdom-god. The name of an Egyptian priest and occultist under the Ptolemies.

Pragna, or Prajna (Sans.) A term used to designate the "Universal Mind." A

synonym of Mahat.

Pralaya (Sans.) Dissolution, the opposite of Manvantara, one being the period of

rest and the other of full activity (death and life) of a planet, or of the

whole universe.

Prana (Sans.) Life Principle, the breath of life, Nephesh.

Protean Soul. A name for Mayavi rupa or thought-body, the higher astral form

which assumes all forms and every form at the will of an adept's thought. (Vide

"Plastic Soul" in the Theos. Gloss.)

Psychism. The word is used now to denote every kind of mental phenomena, e.g.,

mediumship as well as the higher form of sensitiveness. A newly-coined word.

Puranas (Sans.) Lit., "the ancient," referring to Hindu writings or Scriptures,

of which there is a considerable number.

Pythagoras. The most famous mystic philosopher, born at Samos about 586 B. C.,

who taught the heliocentric system and reincarnation, the highest mathematics

and the highest metaphysics, and who had a school famous throughout the world.

(See for fuller particulars, Theos. Gloss.)

 

 

 

Q.

Quaternary. The four lower "principles in man," those which constitute his

personality (i.e., Body, Astral Double, Prana or life, organs of desire and

lower Manas, or brain-mind), as distinguished from the Higher Ternary or Triad,

composed of the higher Spiritual Soul, Mind and Atman (Higher Self).

 

 

 

R.

Recollection, Remembrance, Reminiscence. Occultists make a difference between

these three functions. As, however, a glossary cannot contain the full

explanation of every term in all its metaphysical and subtle differences, we can

only state here that these terms vary in their applications, according to

whether they relate to the past or the present birth, and whether one or the

other of these phases of memory emanates from the spiritual or the material

brain; or, again, from the "Individuality" or the "Personality."

Reincarnation, or Re-birth; the once universal doctrine, which taught that the

Ego is born on this earth an innumerable number of times. Now-a-days it is

denied by Christians, who seem to misunderstand the teachings of their own

gospels. Nevertheless, the putting on of flesh periodically and throughout long

cycles by the higher human Soul (Buddhi-Manas) or Ego is taught in the Bible as

it is in all other ancient scriptures, and "resurrection" means only the rebirth

of the Ego in another form. (Vide Theos. Gloss.)

Reuchlin, John. A great German philosopher and philologist, Kabbalist and

scholar. He was born at Pfortzheim in Germany, in 1455, and early in youth was a

diplomat. At one period of his life he held the high office of judge of the

tribunal at Tubingen, where he remained for eleven years. He was also the

preceptor of Melancthon, and was greatly persecuted by the clergy for his

glorification of the Hebrew Kabbala, though at the same time called the "Father

of the Reformation." He died in 1522, in great poverty, the common fate of all

who in those days went against the dead-letter of the Church.

 

 

 

S.

Sacred Science. The epithet given to the occult sciences in general, and by the

Rosicrucians to the Kabbala, and especially to the Hermetic philosophy.

Samadhi. The name in India for spiritual ecstasy. It is a state of complete

trance, induced by means of mystic concentration.

Samkhara. One of the five Buddhist Skandhas or attributes. (Vide "Skandhas.")

"Tendencies of mind."

Samma Sambuddha. The sudden remembrance of all one's past incarnations, a

phenomenon of memory obtained through Yoga. A Buddhist mystic term.

Samothrace. An island in the Grecian Archipelago, famous in days of old for the

mysteries celebrated in its temples. These mysteries were world-renowned.

Samyuttaka Nikaya. One of the Buddhist Sutras.

Sanna. One of the five Skandhas, or attributes, meaning "abstract ideas."

Seance. A term now used to denote a sitting with a medium for sundry phenomena.

Used chiefly among the spiritualists.

Self. There are two Selves in men -- the Higher and the Lower, the Impersonal

and the Personal Self. One is divine, the other semi-animal. A great distinction

should be made between the two.

Sephiroth. A Hebrew Kabalistic word, for the ten divine emanations from

Ain-Soph, the impersonal, universal Principle, or DEITY. (Vide Theos. Gloss.)

Skandhas. The attributes of every personality, which after death form the basis,

so to say, for a new Karmic reincarnation. They are five in the popular or

exoteric system of the Buddhists: i.e., Rupa, form or body, which leaves behind

it its magnetic atoms and occult affinities; Vedana, sensations, which do

likewise; Sanna, or abstract ideas, which are the creative powers at work from

one incarnation to another; Samkhara, tendencies of mind; and Vinnana, mental

powers.

Somnambulism. "Sleep walking." A psycho-physiological state, too well known to

need explanation.

Spiritism. The same as the above, with the difference that the Spiritualists

reject almost unanimously the doctrine of Reincarnation, while the Spiritists

make of it the fundamental principle in their belief. There is, however, a vast

difference between the views of the latter and the philosophical teachings of

Eastern Occultists. Spiritists belong to the French School founded by Allan

Kardec, and the Spiritualists of America and England to that of the "Fox girls,"

who inaugurated their theories at Rochester, U. S. A. Theosophists, while

believing in the mediumistic phenomena of both Spiritualists and Spiritists,

reject the idea of "spirits."

Spiritualism. The modern belief that the spirits of the dead return on earth to

commune with the living. (See "Spiritism.")

St. Germain (Count). A mysterious personage, who appeared in the last century

and early in the present one in France, England and elsewhere.

Sthula Sharira. The Sanskrit name for the human physical body, in Occultism and

Vedanta philosophy.

*Sthulopadhi. The physical body in its waking, conscious state (Jagrat).

*Sukshmopadhi. The physical body in the dreaming state (Svapna), and

Karanopadhi, "the causal body."

  *These terms belong to the teachings of the Taraka Raj Yoga School.

Summerland. The fancy name given by the Spiritualists to the abode of their

disembodied "Spirits," which they locate somewhere in the Milky Way. It is

described on the authority of returning "Spirits" as a lovely land, having

beautiful cities and buildings, a Congress Hall, Museums, etc., etc. (See the

works of Andrew Jackson Davis.)

Swedenborg (Emanuel). A famous scholar and clairvoyant of the past century, a

man of great learning, who has vastly contributed to Science, but whose

mysticism and transcendental philosophy placed him in the ranks of hallucinated

visionaries. He is now universally known as the Founder of the Swedenborgian

sect, or the New Jerusalem Church. He was born at Stockholm (Sweden) in 1688,

from Lutheran parents, his father being the Bishop of West Gothland. His

original name was Swedberg, but on his being ennobled and knighted in 1719 it

was changed to Swedenborg. He became a Mystic in 1743, and four years later (in

1747) resigned his office (of Assessor Extraordinary to the College of Mines)

and gave himself up entirely to Mysticism. He died in 1772.

 

 

 

T.

Taijas (Sans.) From tejas "fire"; meaning the "radiant," the "luminous," and

referring to the manasa rupa, "the body of Manas," also to the stars, and the

star-like shining envelopes. A term in Vedanta philosophy, having other meanings

besides the Occult signification just given.

Taraka Raj Yoga (Sans.) One of the Brahmanical Yoga systems, the most

philosophical, and in fact the most secret of all, as its real tenets are never

given out publicly. It is a purely intellectual and spiritual school of

training.

Tetragrammaton (Gr.) The deity-name in four letters, which are in their English

form IHVH. It is a kabalistical term and corresponds on a more material plane to

the sacred Pythagorean Tetraktys. (See Theos. Gloss.)

Theodidaktos (Gr.) The "God taught," a title applied to Ammonius Saccas.

Theogony. From the Greek theogonia, lit., the "Genesis of the Gods."

Theosophia (Gr.) Lit., "divine wisdom or the wisdom of the gods." [For a fuller

explanation of such words as "Theosophy," "Theosophists," "Theosophical

Society," etc., vide the Theos. Gloss.]

Therapeutae, or Therapeuts (Gr.)A school of Jewish mystic healers, or

esotericists, wrongly referred to, by some, as a sect. They resided in and near

Alexandria, and their doings and beliefs are to this day a mystery to the

critics, as their philosophy seems a combination of Orphic, Pythagorean,

Essenian and purely Kabalistic practices. (See Theos. Gloss.)

Theurgy (from the Greek theiourgia). Rites for bringing down to earth planetary

and other Spirits or Gods. To arrive at the realization of such an object, the

Theurgist had to be absolutely pure and unselfish in his motives. The practice

of theurgy is very undesirable and even dangerous in the present day. The world

has become too corrupt and wicked for the practice of that which such holy and

learned men as Ammonius, Plotinus, Porphyry and Iamblichus (the most learned

Theurgist of all) could alone attempt with impunity. In our day theurgy or

divine, beneficent magic is but too apt to become goetic, or in other words

Sorcery. Theurgy is the first of the three subdivisions of magic, which are

theurgic, goetic and natural magic.

Thread Soul. The same as Sutratma, which see.

Thumos (Gr.) A Pythagorean and Platonic term; applied to an aspect of the human

soul, to denote its passionate Kamarupic condition: -- almost equivalent to the

Sanskrit word tamas: "the quality of darkness," and probably derived from the

latter.

Timaeus (of Locris). A Pythagorean philosopher, born at Locris. He differed

somewhat from his teacher in the doctrine of metempsychosis. He wrote a treatise

on the Soul of the World and its nature and essence, which is in the Doric

dialect and still extant.

Triad or Trinity. In every religion and philosophy -- the three in One.

 

 

 

U.

Universal Brotherhood. The sub-title of the Theosophical Society, and the first

of the three objects professed by it.

Upadhi (Sans.) Basis of something, substructure; as in Occultism -- substance is

the upadhi of Spirit.

Upanishad (Sans.) Lit., "Esoteric Doctrine." The third Division of the Vedas,

and classed with revelations (Sruti or "revealed word"). Some 150 of the

Upanishads still remain extant, though no more than about twenty can be fully

relied upon as free from falsification. These are all earlier than the sixth

century B. C. Like the Kabala, which interprets the esoteric sense of the Bible,

so the Upanishads explain the mystic sense of the Vedas. Professor Cowell has

two statements regarding the Upanishads as interesting as they are correct. Thus

he says: (1) These works have "one remarkable peculiarity, the total absence of

any Brahmanical exclusiveness in their doctrine. . . . They breathe an entirely

different spirit, a freedom of thought unknown in any earlier work except the

Rig Veda hymns themselves; and (2) the great teachers of the higher knowledge

(Gupta Vidya), and Brahmans, are continually represented as going to Kshatriya

Kings to become their pupils" (chelas). This shows conclusively that (a) the

Upanishads were written before the enforcement of caste and Brahmanical power,

and are thus only second in antiquity to the Vedas; and (b) that the occult

sciences or the "higher knowledge," as Cowell puts it, is far older than the

Brahmans in India, or even of them as a caste. The Upanishads are, however, far

later than Gupta Vidya, or the "Secret Science" which is as old as human

philosophical thought itself.

 

 

 

V.

Vahan (Sans.) "Vehicle," a synonym of Upadhi.

Vallabacharyas Sect (Sans.), or the "Sect of the Maharajas;" a licentious

phallic-worshipping community, whose main branch is at Bombay. The object of the

worship is the infant Krishna. The Anglo-Indian Government was compelled several

times to interfere in order to put a stop to its rites and vile practices, and

its governing Maharajah, a kind of High Priest, was more than once imprisoned,

and very justly so. It is one of the blackest spots of India.

Vedanta (Sans.) Meaning literally, the "end of all knowledge." Among the six

Darsanas or the schools of philosophy, it is also called Uttaramimansa, or the

"later" Mimansa. There are those who, unable to understand its esotericism,

consider it atheistical; but this is not so, as Sankaracharya, the great apostle

of this school, and its populariser, was one of the greatest mystics and adepts

of India.

Vidya (Sans.) Knowledge, or rather "Wisdom Knowledge."

Vinnana (Sans.) One of five Skandhas; meaning literally, "mental powers." (See

"Skandhas.")

 

 

 

W.

Wisdom-Religion. The same as Theosophy. The name given to the secret doctrine

which underlies every exoteric scripture and religion.

 

 

 

Y.

Yoga (Sans.) A school of philosophy founded by Patanjali, but which existed as a

distinct teaching and system of life long before that sage. It is Yajnawalkya, a

famous and very ancient sage, to whom the White Yajur Veda, the Satapatha

Brahmana and the Brihak Aranyaka are attributed and who lived in

pre-Maha-bharatean times, who is credited with inculcating the necessity and

positive duty of religious meditation and retirement into the forests, and who,

therefore, is believed to have originated the Yoga doctrine. Professor Max

Muller states that it is Yajnawalkya who prepared the world for the preaching of

Buddha. Patanjali's Yoga, however, is more definite and precise as a philosophy,

and embodies more of the occult sciences than any of the works attributed to

Yajnawalkya.

Yogi or Yogin (Sans.) A devotee, one who practises the Yoga system. There are

various grades and kinds of Yogis, and the term has now become in India a

generic name to designate every kind of ascetic.

Yuga (Sans.) An age of the world of which there are four, which follow each

other in a series, namely, Krita (or Satya) Yuga, the golden age; Treta Yuga,

Dwapara Yuga, and finally Kali Yuga, the black age -- in which we now are. (See

Secret Doctrine for a full description.)

 

 

 

Z.

Zenobia. The Queen of Palmyra, defeated by the Emperor Aurelianus. She had for

her instructor Longinus, the famous critic and logician in the third century A.

D. (See "Longinus.")

Zivo, Kabar (or Yukabar). The name of one of the creative deities in the

Nazarene Codex. (See Isis Unveiled.)

Zohar (Heb.) The "Book of Splendour," a Kabalistic work attributed to Simeon Ben

Iochai, in the first century of our era. (See for fuller explanation Theos.

Gloss.)

Zoroastrian. One who follows the religion of the Parsis, sun, or

fire-worshippers.

 

 

 

 

 

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The Ocean of Theosophy

William Quan Judge

 

Preface    Theosophy and the Masters    General Principles

 

The Earth Chain    Body and Astral Body    Kama – Desire

 

Manas    Of Reincarnation    Reincarnation Continued

 

Karma    Kama Loka    Devachan    Cycles

 

Septenary Constitution Of Man

 

Arguments Supporting Reincarnation

 

Differentiation Of Species Missing Links

 

Psychic Laws, Forces, and Phenomena

 

Psychic Phenomena and Spiritualism

 

Instant Guide to Theosophy

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What is Theosophy ?  Theosophy Defined (More Detail)

 

Three Fundamental Propositions  Key Concepts of Theosophy

 

Cosmogenesis  Anthropogenesis  Root Races

 

Ascended Masters  After Death States

 

The Seven Principles of Man  Karma

 

Reincarnation   Helena Petrovna Blavatsky

 

Colonel Henry Steel Olcott  William Quan Judge

 

The Start of the Theosophical Society

 

History of the Theosophical Society

 

Theosophical Society Presidents

 

History of the Theosophical Society in Wales

 

The Three Objectives of the Theosophical Society

 

Explanation of the Theosophical Society Emblem

 

The Theosophical Order of Service (TOS)

 

Ocean of Theosophy

William Quan Judge

 

Glossaries of Theosophical Terms

 

Worldwide Theosophical Links

 

 

 

Index of Searchable

Full Text Versions of

Definitive

Theosophical Works

 

 

H P Blavatsky’s Secret Doctrine

 

Isis Unveiled by H P Blavatsky

 

H P Blavatsky’s Esoteric Glossary

 

Mahatma Letters to A P Sinnett 1 - 25

 

A Modern Revival of Ancient Wisdom

Alvin Boyd Kuhn

 

Studies in Occultism

(Selection of Articles by H P Blavatsky)

 

The Conquest of Illusion

J J van der Leeuw

 

The Secret Doctrine – Volume 3

A compilation of H P Blavatsky’s

writings published after her death

 

Esoteric Christianity or the Lesser Mysteries

Annie Besant

 

The Ancient Wisdom

Annie Besant

 

Reincarnation

Annie Besant

 

The Early Teachings of The Masters

1881-1883

Edited by

C. Jinarajadasa

 

Study in Consciousness

Annie Besant

 

 

A Textbook of Theosophy

C W Leadbeater

 

A Modern Panarion

A Collection of Fugitive Fragments

From the Pen of

H P Blavatsky

 

The Perfect Way or,

The Finding of Christ

Anna Bonus Kingsford

& Edward Maitland

Part1

 

The Perfect Way or,

The Finding of Christ

Anna Bonus Kingsford

& Edward Maitland

Part2

 

Pistis Sophia

A Gnostic Gospel

Foreword by G R S Mead

 

The Devachanic Plane.

Its Characteristics

and Inhabitants

C. W. Leadbeater

 

Theosophy

Annie Besant

 

The

Bhagavad Gita

Translated from the Sanskrit

By

William Quan Judge

 

Psychic Glossary

 

Sanskrit Dictionary

 

Fundamentals of the Esoteric Philosophy

G de Purucker

 

In The Outer Court

Annie Besant

 

Dreams and

Dream-Stories

Anna Kingsford

 

My Path to Atheism

Annie Besant

 

From the Caves and

Jungles of Hindostan

H P Blavatsky

 

The Hidden Side

Of Things

C W Leadbeater

 

Glimpses of

Masonic History

C W Leadbeater

 

Five Years Of

Theosophy

Various Theosophical

Authors

Mystical, Philosophical, Theosophical, Historical

and Scientific Essays Selected from "The Theosophist"

Edited by George Robert Stow Mead

 

Spiritualism and Theosophy

C W Leadbeater

 

Commentary on

The Voice of the Silence

Annie Besant and

C W Leadbeater

From Talks on the Path of Occultism - Vol. II

 

Is This Theosophy?

Ernest Egerton Wood

 

In The Twilight

Annie Besant

In the Twilight” Series of Articles

The In the Twilight” series appeared during

1898 in The Theosophical Review and

from 1909-1913 in The Theosophist.

 

Incidents in the Life

of Madame Blavatsky

compiled from information supplied by

her relatives and friends and edited by A P Sinnett

 

The Friendly Philosopher

Robert Crosbie

Letters and Talks on Theosophy and the Theosophical Life

 

 

Obras Teosoficas En Espanol

 

La Sabiduria Antigua

Annie Besant

 

Glosario Teosofico

1892

H P Blavatsky

 

 

Theosophische Schriften Auf Deutsch

 

Die Geheimlehre

Von

H P Blavatsky

 

 

 

Elementary Theosophy

An Outstanding Introduction to Theosophy

By a student of Katherine Tingley

 

Elementary Theosophy Who is the Man?  Body and Soul   

 

Body, Soul and Spirit  Reincarnation  Karma

 

The Seven in Man and Nature

 

The Meaning of Death

 

 

Try these if you are looking for a local

Theosophy Group or Centre

 

 

UK Listing of Theosophical Groups

 

Worldwide Directory of 

Theosophical Links

 

International Directory of 

Theosophical Societies

 

 

THEOSOPHY

CARDIFF

 

 

Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales

Theosophy House

206 Newport Road, Cardiff, Wales, UK. CF24 -1DL