THE
THEOSOPHICAL GLOSSARY
BY
H. P. BLAVATSKY
AUTHOR OF "ISIS UNVEILED", “THE SECRET DOCTRINE", " THE KEY TO THEOSOPHY"
P.—The 16th letter in both the Greek and the English alphabets, and the 17th in the Hebrew, where it is called pé or pay, and is symbolized by the mouth, corresponding also, as in the Greek alphabet, to number 80. The Pythagoreans also made it equivalent to 100, and with a dash thus ( P) it stood for 400,000. The Kabbalists associated with it the sacred name of Phodeh (Redeemer), though no valid reason is given for it.
P and Cross, called generally the Labarum of Constantine. It was, however, one of the oldest emblems in Etruria before the Roman Empire. It was also the sign of Osiris. Both the long Latin and the Greek pectoral crosses are Egyptian, the former being very often seen in the hand of Horus. “The cross and Calvary so common in Europe, occurs on the breasts of mummies” (Bonwick).
Pachacamac (Peruv.). The name given by the Peruvians to the Creator of the Universe, represented as a host of creators. On his altar only the first-fruits and flowers were laid by the pious.
Pacis Bull. The divine Bull of Hermonthes, sacred to Amoun-Horus, the Bull Netos of Heliopolis being sacred to Amoun-Ra.
Padârthas (Sk.). Predicates of existing things; so-called in the Vaiseshika or “atomic” system of philosophy founded by Kanâda. This school is one of the six Darshanas.
Padmâ (Sk.). The Lotus; a name of Lakshmi, the Hindu Venus, who is the wife or the female aspect, of Vishnu.
Padma Âsana (Sk.). A posture prescribed to and practised by some Yogis for developing concentration.
Padma Kalpa (Sk.). The name of the last Kalpa or the preceding Manvantara, which was a year of Brahmâ.
Padma Yoni (Sk). A title of Brahmâ (also called Abjayoni), or the “lotus-born”.
Pćan (Gr.). A hymn of rejoicing and praise in honour of the sun-god Apollo or Helios.
Pagan (Lat.). Meaning at first no worse than a dweller in the country or the woods; one far removed from the city-temples, and therefore unacquainted with the state religion and ceremonies. The word “heathen” has a similar significance, meaning one who lives on the heaths and in the country. Now, however, both come to mean idolaters.
Pagan Gods. The term is erroneously understood to mean idols. The philosophical idea attached to them was never that of something objective or anthropomorphic, but in each case an abstract potency, a virtue, or quality in nature. There are gods who are divine planetary spirits (Dhyan Chohans) or Devas, among which are also our Egos. With this exception, and especially whenever represented by an idol or in anthropomorphic form, the gods represent symbolically in the Hindu, Egyptian, or Chaldean Pantheons—formless spiritual Potencies of the “Unseen Kosmos”.
Pahans (Prakrit) Village priests.
Paksham (Sk.). An astronomical calculation; one half of the lunar month or 14 days; two paksham (or paccham) making a month of mortals, but only a day of the Pitar devata or the “father-gods”.
Palćolithic A newly-coined term meaning in geology “ancient stone” age, as a contrast to the term neolithic, the “newer” or later stone age.
Palâsa Tree (Sk.) Called also Kanaka (butea frondosa) a tree with red flowers of very occult properties.
Pâli. The ancient language of Magadha, one that preceded the more refined Sanskrit. The Buddhist Scriptures are all written in this language.
Palingenesis (Gr.). Transformation; or new birth.
Pan (Gr.). The nature-god, whence Pantheism; the god of shepherds, huntsmen, peasants, and dwellers on the land. Homer makes him the son of Hermes and Dryope. His name means ALL. He was the inventor of the Pandćan pipes; and no nymph who heard their sound could resist the fascination of the great Pan, his grotesque figure not withstanding. Pan is related to the Mendesian goat, only so far as the latter represents, as a talisman of great occult potency, nature’s creative force. The whole of the Hermetic philosophy is based on nature’s hidden secrets, and as Baphomet was undeniably a Kabbalistic talisman, so was the name of Pan of great magic efficiency in what Eliphas Lévi would call the “ Conjuration of the Elementals”. There is a well-known pious legend which has been current in the Christian world ever since the day of Tiberias, to the effect that the “great Pan is dead”. But people are greatly mistaken in this; neither nature nor any of her Forces can ever die. A few of these may be left unused, and being forgotten lie dormant for long centuries. But no sooner are the proper conditions furnished than they awake, to act again with tenfold power.
Panćnus(Gr.). A Platonic philosopher in the Alexandrian school of Philaletheans.
Pancha Kosha (Sk.). The five “sheaths”. According to Vedantin philosophy, Vijnânamaya Kosha, the fourth sheath, is composed of Buddhi, or is Buddhi. The five sheaths are said to belong to the two higher principles—Jivâtma and Sâkshi, which represent the Upathita and An-upahita, divine spirit respectively. The division in the esoteric teaching differs from this, as it divides man’s physical-metaphysical aspect into seven principles.
Pancha Krishtaya (Sk.). The five races.
Panchakâma (Sk.). Five methods of sensuousness and sensuality.
Panchakritam (Sk.). An element combined with small portions of the other four elements.
Panchama (Sk.). One of the five qualities of musical sound, the fifth, Nishâda and Daivata completing the seven; G of the diatonic scale.
Panchânana (Sk.). “Five-faced”, a title of Siva; an allusion to the five races (since the beginning of the first) which he represents, as the ever reincarnating Kumâra throughout the Manvantara. In the sixth root-race he will be called the “six-faced”.
Panchâsikha (Sk.). One of the seven Kumâras who went to pay worship to Vishnu on the island of Swetadwipa in the allegory.
Panchen Rimboche (Tib.). Lit., “the great Ocean, or Teacher of Wisdom”. The title of the Teshu Lama at Tchigadze; an incarnation of Amitabha the celestial “father” of Chenresi, which means to say that he is an Avatar of Tson-kha-pa (See “Sonkhapa”). De jure the Teshu Lama is second after the Dalaї Lama; de facto, he is higher, since it is Dharma Richen, the successor of Tson-kha-pa at the golden monastery founded by the latter Reformer and established by the Gelukpa sect (yellow caps) who created the Dalaї Lamas at Llhassa, and was the first of the dynasty of the “ Panchen Rimboche”. While the former (Dalaї Lama are addressed as “ Jewel of Majesty”, the latter enjoy a far higher title, namely “Jewel of Wisdom”, as they are high Initiates.
Pândavâranî (Sk.). Lit., the “Pandava Queen”; Kunti, the mother of the Pandavas. (All these are highly important personified symbols in esoteric philosophy.)
Pandavas (Sk.). The descendants of Pandu.
Pandora
(Gr.). A beautiful woman created by the gods under the orders of Zeus to
be sent to Epimetheus, brother of Prometheus; she had charge of a casket in
which all the evils, passions and plagues which torment humanity were locked up.
This casket Pandora, led by curiosity, opened, and
thus set free all the ills which prey on mankind.
Pandu (Sk.). “The Pale”, literally; the father of the Pandavas Princes, the foes of the Kurava in the Mahâbhârata.
Pânini (Sk.). A celebrated grammarian, author of the famous work called Pâninîyama; a Rishi, supposed to have received his work from the god Siva. Ignorant of the epoch at which he lived, the Orientalists place his date between 600 B.C. and 300 A.D.
Pantacle
(Gr.). The same as
Pentalpha; the triple triangle of Pythagoras or the five-pointed star. It was
given the name because it reproduces the letter A (alpha) on the five
sides of it or in five different positions—its number, moreover, being composed
of the first odd ( and the first even (2) numbers. It is very occult. In
Occultism and the Kabala it stands for man or the Microcosm, the “Heavenly Man”,
and as such it was a powerful talisman for keeping at bay evil spirits or the
Elementals. In Christian theology it refers to the five wounds of Christ; its
interpreters failing, however, to add that these “five wounds” were themselves
symbolical of the Microcosm, or the “Little Universe”, or again, Humanity, this
symbol pointing out the fall of pure Spirit (Christos) into matter (Iassous,
“life”, or man). In esoteric philosophy the Pentalpha, or five-pointed star, is
the symbol of the EGO or the Higher Manas. Masons use it, referring to it as the
five-pointed star, and connecting it with their own fanciful interpretation.
(See the word “Pentacle” for its difference in meaning from “Pantacle”.)
Pantheist. One who identifies God with Nature and vice versa. Pantheism is often objected to by people and regarded as reprehensible. But how can a philosopher regard Deity as infinite, omnipresent and eternal unless Nature is an aspect of IT, and IT informs every atom in Nature?
Panther (Heb.). According to the Sepher Toldosh Jeshu, one of the so-called Apocryphal Jewish Gospels, Jesus was the son of Joseph Panther and Mary, hence Ben Panther. Tradition makes of Panther a Roman soldier. [w.w.w.]
Pâpa-purusha (Sk.). Lit., “Man of Sin”: the personification in a human form of every wickedness and sin. Esoterically, one who is reborn, or reincarnated from the state of Avitchi—hence, “Soulless”.
Para (Sk.). “Infinite” and “supreme” in philosophy—the final limit. Param is the end and goal of existence; Parâpara is the boundary of boundaries.
Parabrahm (Sk.). “Beyond Brahmâ”, literally. The Supreme Infinite Brahma, “Absolute”—the attributeless, the secondless reality. The impersonal and nameless universal Principle.
Paracelsus. The symbolical name adopted by the greatest Occultist
of the middle ages—Philip Bombastes Aureolus Theophrastus von Hohenheim—born in the canton of Zurich in 1493. He was the cleverest physician of his age, and the most renowned for curing almost any illness by the power of talismans prepared by himself. He never had a friend, but was surrounded by enemies, the most bitter of whom were the Churchmen and their party. That he was accused of being in league with the devil stands to reason, nor is it to be wondered at that finally he was murdered by some unknown foe, at the early age of forty-eight. He died at Salzburg, leaving a number of works behind him, which are to this day greatly valued by the Kabbalists and Occultists. Many of his utterances have proved prophetic. He was a clairvoyant of great powers, one of the most learned and erudite philosophers and mystics, and a distinguished Alchemist. Physics is indebted to him for the discovery of nitrogen gas, or Azote.
Paradha (Sk.). The period of one-half the Age of Brahmâ.
Parama (Sk.). The “one Supreme”.
Paramapadâtmava (Sk.). Beyond the condition of Spirit, “supremer” than Spirit, bordering on the Absolute.
Paramapadha
(Sk.).
The place where—according to Visishtadwaita Vedantins—bliss is enjoyed by those
who reach Moksha (Bliss). This “place” is not material but made, says the
Catechism of that sect,
“of Suddhasatwa, the essence of which the body of Iswara”, the lord, “is
made”.
Paramapaha (Sk) A state which is already a conditioned existence.
Paramartha (Sk) Absolute existence.
Pâramârthika (Sk.). The one true state of existence according to Vedânta.
Paramarshis
(Sk.).
Composed of two words: parama, “supreme”, and Rishis,
or supreme Rishis—Saints.
Paramâtman (Sk.). The Supreme Soul of the Universe.
Paranellatons. In ancient Astronomy the name was applied to certain stars and constellations which are extra Zodiacal, lying above and below the constellations of the Zodiac; they were 36 in number: allotted to the Decans, or one-third parts of each sign. The paranellatons ascend or descend with the Decans alternately, thus when Scorpio rises, Orion in its paranellaton sets, also Auriga; this gave rise to the fable that the horses of Phaeton, the Sun, were frightened by a Scorpion, and the Charioteer fell into the River Po; that is the constellation of the River Eridanus which lies below Auriga the star. [w.w.w.]
Paranirvâna (Sk.). Absolute Non-Being, which is equivalent to absolute Being or “Be-ness”, the state reached by the human Monad at the end of the
great cycle (See Secret Doctrine I, 135). The same as Paraniskpanna.
Parasakti (Sk.). “The great Force”—one of the six Forces of Nature; that of light and heat.
Parâsara (Sk.). A Vedic Rishi, the narrator of Vishnu Purâna.
Paratantra (Sk.). That which has no existence of, or by itself, but only through a dependent or causal connection.
Paroksha (Sk.). Intellectual apprehension of a truth.
Parsees. Written also Parsis. The followers of Zoroaster. This is the name given to the remnant of the once-powerful Iranian nation, which remained true to the religion ‘of its forefathers—the fire-worship. This remnant now dwells in India, some 50,000 strong, mostly in Bombay and Guzerat.
Pâsa (Sk.). The crucifixion noose of Siva, the noose held in his right hand in some of his representations.
Paschalis, Martinez. A very learned man, a mystic and occultist. Born about 1700, in Portugal. He travelled extensively, acquiring knowledge wherever he could in the East, in Turkey, Palestine, Arabia, and Central Asia. He was a great Kabbalist. He was the teacher of the Initiator of the Marquis de St. Martin, who founded the mystical Martinistic School and Lodges. Paschalis is reported to have died in St. Domingo about 1779, leaving several excellent works behind him.
Pasht (Eg.). The cat-headed goddess, the Moon, called also Sekhet. Her statues and representations are seen in great numbers at the British Museum. She is the wife or female aspect of Ptah (the son of Kneph), the creative principle, or the Egyptian Demiurgus. She is also called Beset or Bubastis, being then both the re-uniting and the separating principle. Her motto is: “punish the guilty and remove defilement”, and one of her emblems is the cat. According to Viscount Rouge, her worship is extremely ancient (B.c. 3000), and she is the mother of the Asiatic race, the race that settled in Northern Egypt. As such she is called Ouato.
Pashut (Heb.). “Literal interpretation.” One of the four modes of interpreting the Bible used by the Jews.
Pashyantî (Sk.). The second of the four degrees (Parâ, Pashyantî, Madhyamâ and Vaikharî), in which sound is divided according to its differentiation.
Pass not, The Ring. The circle within which are confined all those who still labour under the delusion of separateness.
Passing of the River (Kab.). This phrase may be met with in works
referring to medićval magic: it is the name given to a cypher alphabet used by Kabbalistic Rabbis at an early date ; the river alluded to is the Chebar—the name will also be found in Latin authors as Literć Transitus. [w.w.w.]
Pastophori (Gr.). A certain class of candidates for initiation, those who bore in public processions (and also in the temples) the sacred coffin or funeral couch of the Sun-gods—killed and resurrected, of Osiris, Tammuz (or Adonis), of Atys and others. The Christians adopted their coffin from the pagans of antiquity.
Pâtâla (Sk). The nether world, the antipodes; hence in popular superstition the infernal regions, and philosophically the two Americas, which are antipodal to India. Also, the South Pole as standing opposite to Meru, the North Pole.
Pâtaliputra (Sk.). The ancient capital of Magadha, a kingdom of Eastern India, now identified with Patna.
Pâtanjala (Sk.). The Yoga philosophy; one of the six Darshanas or Schools of India.
Patanjali (Sk.). The founder of the Yoga philosophy. The date assigned to him by the Orientalists is 200 B.C.; and by the Occultists nearer to 700 than 600 B.C. At any rate he was a contemporary of Pânini.
Pâvaka (Sk.). One of the three personified fires eldest sons of Abhimânim or Agni, who had forty-five sons ; these with the original son of Brahmâ, their father Agni, and his three descendants, constitute the mystic 49 fires. Pâvaka is the electric fire.
Pavamâna (Sk.). Another of the three fires (vide supra)—the fire produced by friction.
Pavana (Sk) God of the wind; the alleged father of the monkey-god Hanuman (See “Râmâyana”).
Peling (Tib.). The name given to all foreigners in Tibet, to Europeans especially.
Pentacle (Gr.). Any geometrical figure, especially that known as the double equilateral triangle, the six-pointed star (like the theosophical pentacle) ; called also Solomon’s seal, and still earlier “the sign of Vishnu” ; used by all the mystics, astrologers, etc.
Pentagon (Gr.), from pente “five”, and gonia “angle” ; in geometry a plane figure with five angles.
Per-M-Rhu (Eg.). This name is the recognised pronunciation of the ancient title of the collection of mystical lectures, called in English The Book of the Dead. Several almost complete papyri have been found, and there are numberless extant copies of portions of the work. [w.w.w.]
Personality. In Occultism—which divides man into seven principles, considering him under the three aspects of the divine, the thinking or the rational, and the animal man—the lower quaternary or the purely astrophysical being; while by Individuality is meant the Higher Triad, considered as a Unity. Thus the Personality embraces all the characteristics and memories of one physical life, while the Individuality is the imperishable Ego which re-incarnates and clothes itself in one personality after another.
Pesh-Hun (Tib.). From the Sanskrit pesuna “spy”; an epithet given to Nârada, the meddlesome and troublesome Rishi.
Phala (Sk.). Retribution; the fruit or result of causes.
Phâlguna (Sk.). A name of Arjuna; also of a month.
Phallic (Gr.). Anything belonging to sexual worship; or of a sexual character externally, such as the Hindu lingham and yoni—the emblems of the male and female generative power—which have none of the unclean significance attributed to it by the Western mind.
Phanes (Gr.). One of the Orphic triad—Phanes, Chaos and Chronos. It was also the trinity of the Western people in the pre-Christian period.
Phenomenon (Gr.). In reality “an appearance”, something previously unseen, and puzzling when the cause of it is unknown. Leaving aside various kinds of phenomena, such as cosmic, electrical, chemical, etc., and holding merely to the phenomena of spiritism, let it be remembered that theosophically and esoterically every “miracle”—from the biblical to the theumaturgic—is simply a phenomenon, but that no phenomenon is ever a miracle, i.e., something supernatural or outside of the laws of nature, as all such are impossibilities in nature.
Philaletheans (Gr.). Lit., “the lovers of truth”; the name is given to the Alexandrian Neo-Platonists, also called Analogeticists and Theosophists. (See Key to Theosophy, p. 1, et seq.) The school was founded by Ammonius Saccas early in the third century, and lasted until the fifth. The greatest philosophers and sages of the day belonged to it.
Philalethes, Eugenius. The Rosicrucian name assumed by one Thomas Vaughan, a medićval English Occultist and Fire Philosopher. He was a great Alchemist. [w.w.w.]
Philć (Gr.). An island in Upper Egypt where a famous temple of that name was situated, the ruins of which may be seen to this day by travellers.
Philo Judćus. A Hellenized Jew of Alexandria, and a very famous historian and writer; born about 30 B.C, died about 45 A.D. He
ought thus to have been
well acquainted with the greatest event of the 1st century of our era, and the
facts about Jesus, his life, and the drama of the Crucifixion. And yet he is
absolutely silent upon the subject, both in his careful enumeration of the then
existing Sects and Brotherhoods in Palestine and in his
accounts of the Jerusalem of his day. He was a great mystic and his works abound
with metaphysics and noble ideas, while in esoteric knowledge he had no rival
for several ages among the best writers.
[ under “Philo Judćus” in the Glossary
of the Key to Theosophy.]
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. Called also the “Powder of Projection”. It is the Magnum Opus of the Alchemists, an object to be attained by them at all costs, a substance possessing the power of transmuting the baser metals into pure gold. Mystically, however, the Philosopher’s Stone symbolises the transmutation of the lower animal nature of man into the highest and divine.
Philostratus (Gr.). A biographer of Apollonius of Tyana, who described the life, travels and adventures of this sage and philosopher.
Phla (Gr.). A small island in the lake Tritonia, in the days of Herodotus.
Phlegić (Gr.). A submerged ancient island in prehistoric days and identified by some writers with Atlantis; also a people in Thessaly.
Pho (Chin.). The animal Soul.
Phśbe (Gr.). A name given to Diana, or the moon.
Phśbus-Apollo (Gr.). Apollo as the Sun, “the light of life and of the world”.
Phoreg
(Gr.).
The name of the seventh Titan not mentioned in the cosmogony of Hesiod.
The “mystery” Titan.
Phorminx (Gr.). The seven-stringed lyre of Orpheus.
Phoronede (Gr.). A poem of which Phoroneus is the hero; this work is no longer extant.
Phoroneus (Gr.). A Titan; an ancestor and generator of mankind. According to a legend of Argolis, like Prometheus he was credited with bringing fire to this earth (Pausanias). The god of a river in Peloponnesus.
Phren (Gr.). A Pythagorean term denoting what we call the Kâma-Manas still overshadowed by the Buddhi-Manas.
Phtah (Eg.). The God of death; similar to Siva, the destroyer. In later Egyptian mythology a sun-god. It is the seat or locality of the Sun and its occult Genius or Regent in esoteric philosophy.
Phta-Ra (Eg.). One of the 49 mystic (occult) Fires.
Picus, John, Count of Mirandola. A celebrated Kabbalist and Alchemist, author of a treatise “on gold” and other Kabbalistic works. He defied Rome and Europe in his attempt to prove divine Christian truth in the Zohar. Born in 1463, died 1494.
Pillaloo Codi (Tamil). A nickname in popular astronomy given to the Pleiades, meaning “hen and chickens”. The French also, curiously enough call this constellation, “Poussiničre”.
Pillars, The Two. Jachin and Boaz were placed at the entrance to the Temple of Solomon, the first on the right, the second on the left. Their symbolism is developed in the rituals of the Freemasons.
Pillars,
The Three. When the ten Sephiroth are arranged in the Tree of Life, two
vertical lines
separate them into 3 Pillars, namely the Pillar of Severity, the Pillar of
Mercy, and the central
Pillar of Mildness. Binah, Geburah, and Hod form the first, that of Severity;
Kether, Tiphereth,
Jesod and Malkuth the central pillar; Chokmah, Chesed and Netzach the Pillar of
Mercy. [w.w.w.]
Pillars of Hermes. Like the “pillars of Seth” (with which they are identified) they served for commemorating occult events, and various esoteric secrets symbolically engraved on them. It was a universal practice. Enoch is also said to have constructed pillars.
Pingala (Sk.). The great Vedic authority on the Prosody and chhandas of the Vedas. Lived several centuries B.C.
Pippala (Sk.). The tree of knowledge : the mystic fruit of that tree “upon which came Spirits who love Science”. This is allegorical and occult.
Pippalâda (Sk.). A magic school wherein Atharva Veda is explained founded by an Adept of that name.
Pisâchas (Sk.). In the Purânas, goblins or demons created by Brahmâ. In the southern Indian folk-lore, ghosts, demons, larvć and vampires—generally female—who haunt men. Fading remnants of human beings in Kâmaloka, as shells and Elementaries.
Pistis Sophia (Sk.). “Knowledge-Wisdom.” A sacred book of the early Gnostics or the primitive Christians.
Pitar Devata (Sk.). The “Father-Gods”, the lunar ancestors of mankind.
Pitaras (Sk.). Fathers, Ancestors. The fathers of the human races.
Pitris (Sk.). The ancestors, or creators of mankind. They are of seven classes, three of which are incorporeal, arupa, and four corporeal. In popular theology they are said to be created from Brahmâ’s side. They are variously genealogized, but in esoteric philosophy they are as given
in the Secret Doctrine. In Isis Unveiled it is said of them “It is generally believed that the Hindu term means the spirits of our ancestors, of disembodied people, hence the argument of some Spiritualists that fakirs (and yogis) and other Eastern wonder-workers, are mediums. This is in more than one sense erroneous. The Pitris are not the ancestors of the present living men, but those of the human kind, or Adamic races; the spirits of human races, which on the great scale of descending evolution preceded our races of men, and they were physically, as well as spiritually, far superior to our modern pigmies. In Mânava Dharma Shâstra they are called the Lunar Ancestors.” The Secret Doctrine has now explained that which was cautiously put forward in the earlier Theosophical volumes.
Pîyadasi (Pali). “The beautiful”, a title of King Chandragupta (the “Sandracottus” of the Greeks) and of Asoka the Buddhist king, his grandson. They both reigned in Central India between the fourth and third centuries B.C., called also Devânâmpiya, “the beloved of the gods”.
Plaksha (Sk.). One of the seven Dwipas (continents or islands) in the Indian Pantheon and the Purânas.
Plane. From the Latin planus (level, flat) an extension of space or of something in it, whether physical or metaphysical, e.g., a “plane of consciousness”. As used in Occultism, the term denotes the range or extent of some state of consciousness, or of the perceptive power of a particular set of senses, or the action of a particular force, or the state of matter corresponding to any of the above.
Planetary Spirits. Primarily the rulers or governors of the planets. As our earth has its hierarchy of terrestrial planetary spirits, from the highest to the lowest plane, so has every other heavenly body. In Occultism, however, the term “Planetary Spirit” is generally applied only to the seven highest hierarchies corresponding to the Christian archangels. These have all passed through a stage of evolution corresponding to the humanity of earth on other worlds, in long past cycles. Our earth, being as yet only in its fourth round, is far too young to have produced high planetary spirits. The highest planetary spirit ruling over any globe is in reality the “Personal God” of that planet and far more truly its “over-ruling providence” than the self-contradictory Infinite Personal Deity of modern Churchianity.
Plastic Soul. Used in Occultism in reference to the linga sharira or the astral body of the lower Quaternary. It is called “plastic” and also “Protean” Soul from its power of assuming any shape or form and moulding or modelling itself into or upon any image impressed in the
astral light around it, or in the minds of the medium or of those present at séances for materialization. The linga sharira must not be confused with the mayavi rupa or “thought body”—the image created by the thought and will of an adept or sorcerer ; for while the “astral form” or linga sharira is a real entity, the “thought body” is a temporary illusion created by the mind.
Plato. An Initiate into the Mysteries and the greatest Greek philosopher, whose writings are known the world over. He was the pupil of Socrates and the teacher of Aristotle. He flourished over 400 years before our era.
Platonic School, or the “Old Akadéme”, in contrast with the later or Neo-Platonic School of Alexandria (See “Philalethean”).
Pleroma (Gr.). “Fulness”, a Gnostic term adopted to signify the divine world or Universal Soul. Space, developed and divided into a series of ćons. The abode of the invisible gods. It has three degrees.
Plotinus. The noblest, highest and grandest of all the Neo-Platonists after the founder of the school, Ammonius Saccas. He was the most enthusiastic of the Philaletheans or “lovers of truth”, whose aim was to found a religion on a system of intellectual abstraction, which is true Theosophy, or the whole substance of Neo-Platonism. If we are to believe Porphyry, Plotinus has never disclosed either his birth-place or connexions, his native land or his race. Till the age of twenty-eight he had never found teacher or teaching which would suit him or answer his aspirations. Then he happened to hear Ammonius Saccas, from which day he continued to attend his school. At thirty-nine he accompanied the Emperor Gordian to Persia and India with the object of learning their philosophy. He died at the age of sixty-six after writing fifty-four books on philosophy. So modest was he that it is said he “blushed to think he had a body”. He reached Samâdhi (highest ecstasy or “re-union with God” the divine Ego) several times during his life. As said by a biographer, “so far did his contempt for his bodily organs go, that he refused to use a remedy, regarding it as unworthy of a man to use means of this kind”. Again we read, “as he died, a dragon (or serpent) that had been under his bed, glided through a hole in the wall and disappeared”—a fact suggestive for the student of symbolism. He taught a doctrine identical with that of the Vedantins, namely, that the Spirit-Soul emanating from the One deific principle was, after its pilgrimage, re-united to It.
Point within a Circle. In its esoteric meaning the first unmanifested logos appearing on the infinite and shoreless expanse of Space, represented by the Circle. It is the plane of Infinity and Absoluteness. This is
only one of the numberless and hidden meanings of this symbol, which is the most important of all the geometrical figures used in metaphysical emblematology. As to the Masons, they have made of the point “an individual brother” whose duty to God and man is bounded by the circle, and have added John the Baptist and John the Evangelist to keep company with the “brother”, representing them under two perpendicular parallel lines.
Popes-Magicians. There are several such in history; e.g., Pope Sylvester II., the artist who made an “oracular head”, like the one fabricated by Albertus Magnus, the learned Bishop of Ratisbon. Pope Sylvester was considered a great “enchanter and sorcerer” by Cardinal Benno, and the “head” was smashed to pieces by Thomas Aquinas, because it talked too much. Then there were Popes Benedict IX., John XX., and the VIth and VIIth Gregory, all regarded by their contemporaries as magicians. The latter Gregory was the famous Hildebrand. As to Bishops and lesser Priests who studied Occultism and became expert in magic arts, they are numberless.
Popol Vuh. The Sacred Books of the Guatemalians. Quiché MSS., discovered by Brasseur de Bourbourg.
Porphyry, or Porphyrius. A Neo-Platonist and a most distinguished writer, only second to Plotinus as a teacher and philosopher. He was born before the middle of the third century A.D., at Tyre, since he called himself a Tyrian and is supposed to have belonged to a Jewish family. Though himself thoroughly Hellenized and a Pagan, his name Melek (a king) does seem to indicate that he had Semitic blood in his veins. Modern critics very justly consider him the most practically philosophical, and the soberest, of all the Neo-Platonists. A distinguished writer, he was specially famous for his controversy with Iamblichus regarding the evils attendant upon the practice of Theurgy. He was, however, finally converted to the views of his opponent. A natural-born mystic, he followed, as did his master Plotinus, the pure Indian Râj-Yoga training, which leads to the union of the Soul with the Over-Soul or Higher Self (Buddhi-Manas). He complains, however, that, all his efforts notwithstanding, he did not reach this state of ecstacy before he was sixty, while Plotinus was a proficient in it. This was so, probably because while his teacher held physical life and body in the greatest contempt, limiting philosophical research to those regions where life and thought become eternal and divine, Porphyry devoted his whole time to considerations of the hearing of philosophy on practical life. “The end of philosophy is with him morality”, says a biographer, “we might almost say, holiness—the healing of man’s infirmities, the imparting to him a purer and more vigorous life. Mere knowledge, however true, is
not of itself sufficient ;
knowledge has for its object life in accordance with Nous”—“reason”,
translates the biographer. As we interpret Nous, however, not as Reason,
but mind (Manas) or the divine eternal Ego in man, we would translate the
idea esoterically, and make it read “the occult or secret knowledge has
for its object terrestrial life in accordance with Nous, or our
everlasting reincarnating Ego”, which would be more consonant with
Porphyry’s idea, as it is with esoteric philosophy. (See Porphyry’s De
Abstinentia ., 29.) Of all the Neo-Platonists, Porphyry approached the
nearest to real Theosophy as now taught by the Eastern secret school. This is
shown by all our modern critics and writers on the Alexandrian school, for “he
held that the Soul should be as far as possible freed from the bonds of matter,
. . . be ready . . . to cut off the whole body”. (Ad Marcellam, 34.) He
recommends the practice of abstinence, saying that “we should be like the gods
if we could abstain from vegetable as well as animal food”. He accepts with
reluctance theurgy and mystic incantation as those are “powerless to purify the
noëtic (manasic) principle of the soul”: theurgy can “but cleanse the
lower or psychic portion, and make it capable of perceiving lower beings, such
as spirits, angels and gods” (Aug. De Civ. Dei.
X.,
9), just as Theosophy teaches. “Do not defile the divinity”, he adds, with the
vain imaginings of men you will not injure that which is for ever blessed
(Buddhi-Manas) but you will blind yourself to the perception of the greatest and
most vital truths”. (Ad Marcellam,18.) “If we would he free from the
assaults of evil spirits, we must keep ourselves clear of those things over
which evil spirits have power, for they attack not the pure soul which has no
affinity with them”. (De Abstin. ii., 43.) This is again our teaching.
The Church Fathers held Porphyry as the bitterest enemy, the most irreconcilable
to Christianity. Finally, and once more as in modern Theosophy, Porphyry—as all
the Neo-Platonists, according to St. Augustine—“praised Christ while they
disparaged Christianity”; Jesus, they contended, as we contend, “said nothing
himself against the pagan deities, but wrought wonders by their help”. “They
could not call him as his disciples did, God, but they honoured him as one of
the best and wisest of men”. (De Civ. Dei.,
X1X.,
23.) Yet, “even in the storm of controversy, scarcely a word seems to have been
uttered against the private life of Porphyry. His system prescribed purity and .
. . he practised it”.
(See A Dict. of Christian Biography, Vol. IV., “Porphyry”.)
Poseidonis (Gr.). The last remnant of the great Atlantean Continent. Plato’s island Atlantis is referred to as an equivalent term in Esoteric Philosophy.
Postel, Guillaume. A French adept, born in Normandy in 1510.
His learning brought him to the notice of Francis I., who sent him to the Levant in search of occult MSS., where he was received into and initiated by an Eastern Fraternity. On his return to France he became famous. He was persecuted by the clergy and finally imprisoned by the Inquisition, but was released by his Eastern brothers from his dungeon. His Clavis Absconditorum, a key to things hidden and forgotten, is very celebrated.
Pot-Amun. Said to be a Coptic term. The name of an Egyptian priest and hierophant who lived under the earlier Ptolemies. Diogenes Laertius tells us that it signifies one consecrated to the “Amun”, the god of wisdom and secret learning, such as were Hermes, Thoth, and Nebo of the Chaldees. This must be so, since in Chaldea the priests consecrated to Nebo also bore his name, being called the Neboїm, or in some old Hebrew Kabbalistic works, “Abba Nebu”. The priests generally took the names of their gods. Pot-Amun is credited with having been the first to teach Theosophy, or the outlines of the Secret Wisdom-Religion, to the uninitiated.
Prabhavâpyaya (Sk.). That whence all originates and into which all things resolve at the end of the life-cycle.
Prachetâs (Sk.). A name of Varuna, the god of water, or esoterically—its principle.
Prâchetasas
(Sk.).
See Secret Doctrine, II., 176 et seq. Daksha is the son of the
Prâchetasas, the ten sons of Prachinavahis. Men endowed with magic powers in the
Purânas who, while practising religious austerities, remained immersed at
the bottom of the sea for 10,000 years.
The name also of Daksha, called Prâchetasa.
Pradhâna (Sk.). Undifferentiated substance, called elsewhere and in other schools—Akâsa; and Mulaprakriti or Root of Matter by the Vedantins. In short, Primeval Matter.
Pragna
(Sk.) or Prajna. A synonym of Mahat the Universal Mind. The
capacity for perception.
(S. D., I.
139) Consciousness.
Prahlâda (Sk.). The son of Hiranyakashipu, the King of the Asuras. As Prahlâda was devoted to Vishnu, of whom his father was the greatest enemy, he became subjected in consequence to a variety of tortures and punishments. In order to save his devotee from these, Vishnu assumed the form of Nri-Sinha (man-lion, his fourth avatar) and killed the father.
Prajâpatis (Sk.). Progenitors; the givers of life to all on this Earth. They are seven and then ten—corresponding to the seven and ten Kabbalistic Sephiroth; to the Mazdean Amesha-Spentas, &c. Brahmâ the creator, is called Prajâpati as the synthesis of the Lords of Being.
Prâkrita (Sk.). One of the provincial dialects of Sanskrit—“the language of the gods”, and therefore, its materialisation.
Prâkritika Pralaya (Sk.). The Pralaya succeeding to the Age of Brahmâ, when everything that exists is resolved into its primordial essence (or Prakriti).
Prakriti (Sk.). Nature in general, nature as opposed to Purusha— spiritual nature and Spirit, which together are the “two primeval aspects of the One Unknown Deity”. (Secret Doctrine, I. 51.)
Pralaya (Sk.). A period of obscuration or repose—planetary, cosmic or universal—the opposite of Manvantara (S. D., I. 370.).
Pramantha (Sk.). An accessory to producing the sacred fire by friction. The sticks used by Brahmins to kindle fire by friction.
Prameyas (Sk.). Things to be proved; objects of Pramâna or proof.
Pram-Gimas (Lithuanian). Lit., “Master of all”, a deity-title.
Pramlochâ (Sk.). A female Apsaras—a water-nymph who beguiled Kandu. (See “Kandu”.)
Prâna (Sk.). Life-Principle ; the breath of Life.
Prânamâya Kosha (Sk.). The vehicle of Prâna, life, or the Linga Sarîra a Vedantic term.
Pranâtman (Sk.). The same as Sutrâtmâ, the eternal germ-thread on which are strung, like beads, the personal lives of the EGO.
Pranava (Sk.). A sacred word, equivalent to Aum.
Prânâyâma (Sk.). The suppression and regulation of the breath in Yoga practice.
Pranidhâna (Sk.). The fifth observance of the Yogis; ceaseless devotion. (See Yoga Shâstras, ii. 32.)
Prâpti (Sk.). From Prâp, to reach. One of the eight Siddhis (powers) of Râj-Yoga. The power of transporting oneself from one place to another, instantaneously, by the mere force of will ; the faculty of divination, of healing and of prophesying, also a Yoga power.
Prasanga Madhyamika (Sk.). A Buddhist school of philosophy in Tibet. it follows, like the Yogâchârya system, the Mahâyâna or “Great Vehicle” of precepts; but, having been founded far later than the Yogâchârya, it is not half so rigid and severe. It is a semi-exoteric and very popular system among the literati and laymen.
Prashraya,
or Vinaya (Sk.).
“The progenetrix of affection.” A title bestowed upon the Vedic Aditi, the
“Mother of the Gods”.
Pratibhâsika (Sk.). The apparent or illusory life.
Pratisamvid (Sk.). The four “unlimited forms of wisdom” attained
by an Arhat; the last of
which is the absolute knowledge of and power over the twelve Nidânas.
(See
“Nidâna”.)
Pratyâbhâva (Sk.). The state of the Ego under the necessity of repeated births.
Pratyagâtmâ (Sk.). The same as Jivâtmâ, or the one living Universal Soul—Alaya.
Pratyâhâra (Sk.). The same as “Mahâpralaya”.
Pratyâharana (Sk.). The preliminary training in practical Râj -Yoga.
Pratyaksha (Sk). Spiritual perception by means of senses.
Pratyasarga (Sk.). In Sankhya philosophy the “intellectual evolution of the Universe” ; in the Purânas the 8th creation.
Pratyęka Buddha (S.k). The same as “Pasi-Buddha”. The Pratyęka Buddha is a degree which belongs exclusively to the Yogâchârya school, yet it is only one of high intellectual development with no true spirituality. It is the dead-letter of the Yoga laws, in which intellect and comprehension play the greatest part, added to the strict carrying out of the rules of the inner development. It is one of the three paths to Nirvâna, and the lowest, in which a Yogi—“without teacher and without saving others”—by the mere force of will and technical observances, attains to a kind of nominal Buddhaship individually; doing no good to anyone, but working selfishly for his own salvation and himself alone. The Pratyękas are respected outwardly but are despised inwardly by those of keen or spiritual appreciation. A Pratyęka is generally compared to a “Khadga” or solitary rhinoceros and called Ekashringa Rishi, a selfish solitary Rishi (or saint). “As crossing Sansâra (‘the ocean of birth and death’ or the series of incarnations), suppressing errors, and yet not attaining to absolute perfection, the Pratyęka Buddha is compared with a horse which crosses a river swimming, without touching the ground.” (Sanskrit-Chinese Dict.) He is far below a true “Buddha of Compassion”. He strives only for the reaching of Nirvâna.
Pre-existence. The term used to denote that we have lived before. The same as reincarnation in the past. The idea is derided by some, rejected by others, called absurd and inconsistent by the third yet it is the oldest and the most universally accepted belief from an immemorial antiquity. And if this belief was universally accepted by the most subtle philosophical minds of the pre-Christian world, surely it is not amiss that some of our modern intellectual men should also believe in it, or at least give the doctrine the benefit of the doubt. Even the Bible hints at it more than once, St. John the Baptist being regarded as the reincarnation of Elijah, and the Disciples asking whether the blind man was born blind because of his sins, which is equal to saying that he had lived and sinned
before being born blind. As Mr. Bonwick well says: it was “the work of spiritual progression and soul discipline. The pampered sensualist returned a beggar; the proud oppressor, a slave ; the selfish woman of fashion, a seamstress. A turn of the wheel gave a chance for the development of neglected or abused intelligence and feeling, hence the popularity of reincarnation in all climes and times. . . . thus the expurgation of evil was . . . gradually but certainly accomplished.” Verily “an evil act follows a man, passing through one hundred thousand transmigrations” (Panchatantra). “All souls have a subtle vehicle, image of the body, which carries the passive soul from one material dwelling to another” says Kapila; while Basnage explains of the Jews: “By this second death is not considered hell, but that which happens when a soul has a second time animated a body”. Herodotus tells his readers, that the Egyptians “are the earliest who have spoken of this doctrine, according to which the soul of man is immortal, and after the destruction of the body, enters into a newly born being. When, say they, it has passed through all the animals of the earth and sea, and all the birds, it will re-enter the body of a new born man.” This is Pre-existence. Deveria showed that the funeral books of the Egyptians say plainly “that resurrection was, in reality, but a renovation, leading to a new infancy, and a new youth. (See “Reincarnation”.)
Prętas (Sk.). “Hungry demons in popular folk-lore. “ Shells”, of the avaricious and selfish man after death; “ Elementaries” reborn as Prętas, in Kâma-loka, according to the esoteric teachings;
Priestesses.
Every ancient religion had its priestesses in the temples. In Egypt
they were called the Sâ and served the altar of Isis
and in the temples of other goddesses. Canephorś was the name given by
the Greeks to those consecrated priestesses who bore the baskets of the gods
during the public festivals of the Eleusinian Mysteries. There were female
prophets in Israel
as in Egypt, diviners of dreams and oracles; and Herodotus mentions the
Hierodules, the virgins or nuns dedicated to the Theban Jove, who were
generally the Pharaohs’ daughters and other Princesses of the Royal House.
Orientalists speak of the wife of Cephrenes, the builder of the so-called second
Pyramid, who was a priestess of Thoth.
(See “Nuns”.)
Primordial Light. In Occultism, the light which is born in, and through the preternatural darkness of chaos, which contains “the all in all”, the seven rays that become later the seven Principles in Nature.
Principles. The Elements or original essences, the basic differentiations upon and of which all things are built up. We use the term to denote the seven individual and fundamental aspects of the One Universal Reality in Kosmos and in man. Hence also the seven aspects in the
manifestation in the human being—divine, spiritual, psychic, astral, physiological and simply physical.
Priyavrata (Sk.). The name of the son of Swâyambhűva Manu in exoteric Hinduism. The occult designation of one of the primeval races in Occultism.
Proclus (Gr.). A Greek writer and mystic philosopher, known as a Commentator of Plato, and surnamed the Diadochus. He lived in the fifth century, and died, aged 75, at Athens A.D. 485. His last ardent disciple and follower and the translator of his works was Thomas Taylor of Norwich, who, says Brother Kenneth Mackenzie, “was a modern mystic who adopted the pagan faith as being the only veritable faith, and actually sacrificed doves to Venus, a goat to Bacchus and designed to immolate a bull to Jupiter” but was prevented by his landlady.
Prometheus (Gr.). The Greek logos; he, who by bringing on earth divine fire (intelligence and consciousness) endowed men with reason and mind. Prometheus is the Hellenic type of our Kumâras or Egos, those who, by incarnating in men, made of them latent gods instead of animals. The gods (or Elohim) were averse to men becoming “as one of us (Genesis iii., 22), and knowing “good and evil”. Hence we see these gods in every religious legend punishing man for his desire to know. As the Greek myth has it, for stealing the fire he brought to men from Heaven, Prometheus was chained by the order of Zeus to a crag of the Caucasian Mountains.
Propator (Gr) Gnostic term. The “Depth” of Bythos, or En-Aiôr, the unfathomable light. The latter is alone the Self-Existent and the Eternal—Propator is only periodical.
Protogonos (Gr.). The “first-born”; used of all the manifested gods and of the Sun in our system.
Proto-îlos (Gr.). The first primordial matter.
Protologoi (Gr.). The primordial seven creative Forces when anthropomorphized into Archangels or Logoi.
Protyle (Gr.). A newly-coined word in chemistry to designate the first homogeneous, primordial substance.
Pschent (Eg.). A symbol in the form of a double crown, meaning the presence of Deity in death as in life, on earth as in heaven. This Pschent is only worn by certain gods.
Psyche (Gr.). The animal, terrestrial Soul; the lower Manas.
Psychism, from the Greek psyche. A term now used to denote very loosely every kind of mental phenomena, e.g., mediumship, and the
higher sensitiveness, hypnotic receptivity, and inspired prophecy, simple clairvoyance in the astral light, and real divine seership; in short, the word covers every phase and manifestation of the powers and potencies of the human and the divine Souls.
Psychography. A word first used by theosophists; it means writing under the dictation or the influence of one’s “soul-power”, though Spiritualists have now adopted the term to denote writing produced by their mediums under the guidance of returning “Spirits”.
Psychology. The Science of Soul, in days of old: a Science which served as the unavoidable basis for physiology. Whereas in our modern day, it is psychology that is being based (by our great scientists) upon physiology.
Psychometry. Lit., “Soul-measuring”; reading or seeing, not with the physical eyes, but with the soul or inner Sight.
Psychophobia. Lit., “Soul-fear,” applied to materialists and certain atheists, who become struck with madness at the very mention of Soul or Spirit.
Psylli (Gr.). Serpent-charmers of Africa and Egypt.
Ptah, or Pthah (Eg.). The son of Kneph in the Egyptian Pantheon. He is the Principle of Light and Life through which “creation” or rather evolution took place. The Egyptian logos and creator, the Demiurgos. A very old deity, as, according to Herodotus, he had a temple erected to him by Menes, the first king of Egypt. He is “giver of life” and the self-born, and the father of Apis, the sacred bull, conceived through a ray from the Sun. Ptah is thus the prototype of Osiris, a later deity. Herodotus makes him the father of the Kabiri, the mystery-gods; and the Targum of Jerusalem says: “Egyptians called the wisdom of the First Intellect Ptah”; hence he is Mahat the “divine wisdom”; though from another aspect he is Swabhâvat, the self-created substance, as a prayer addressed to him in the Ritual of the Dead says, after calling Ptah “father of fathers and of all gods, generator of all men produced from his substance”: “Thou art without father, being. engendered by thy own will; thou art without mother, being born by the renewal of thine own substance from whom proceeds substance”.
Pâjâ (Sk.). An offering; worship and divine honours offered to an idol or something sacred.
Pulastya (Sk.). One of the seven “mind-born sons” of Brahmâ; the reputed father of the Nâgas (serpents, also Initiates) and other symbolical creatures.
Pums (Sk.). Spirit, supreme Purusha, Man.
Punarjanma (Sk.). The power of evolving objective manifestations; motion of forms ; also, re-birth.
Pundarîk-aksha (Sk.). Lit., “lotus-eyed”, a title of Vishnu. “Supreme and imperishable glory”, as translated by some Orientalists.
Pűraka (Sk.). Inbreathing process; a way of breathing as regulated according to the prescribed rules of Hatha ‘yoga.
Purânas (Sk.). Lit., “ancient”. A collection of symbolical and allegorical writings—eighteen in number now—supposed to have been composed by Vyâsa, the author of Mahâbhârata.
Purohitas (Sk.). Family priests; Brahmans.
Pururavas (Sk.). The son of Budha the son of Soma (the moon), and of Ila famous for being the first to produce fire by the friction of two pieces of wood, and make it (the fire) triple. An occult character.
Purusha
(Sk.).
“Man”, heavenly man. Spirit, the same as Nârâyana in another aspect.
“The Spiritual Self.”
Purusha Nârâyana (Sk.). Primordial male—Brahmâ.
Purushottama (Sk.). Lit., “best of men”; metaphysically, however, it is spirit, the Supreme Soul of the universe; a title of Vishnu.
Pűrvaja (Sk.). “ Pregenetic”, the same as the Orphic Protologos; a title of Vishnu.
Purvashadha (Sk.). An asterism.
Pűshan (Sk.). A Vedic deity, the real meaning of which remains unknown to Orientalists. It is qualified as the “Nourisher”, the feeder of all (helpless) beings. Esoteric philosophy explains the meaning. Speaking of it the Taittirîya Brâhmana says that, “When Prajâpati formed living beings, Pűshan nourished them”. This then is the same mysterious force that nourishes the fśtus and unborn babe, by Osmosis, and which is called the“atmospheric (or akâsic) nurse”, and the “father nourisher”. When the lunar Pitris had evolved men, these remained senseless and helpless, and it is “Pűshan who fed primeval man”. Also a name of the Sun.
Pushkala (Sk) or Puskola. A palm leaf prepared for writing on, used in Ceylon. All the native books are written on such palm leaves, and last for centuries.
Pushkara (Sk.). A blue lotus; the seventh Dwîpa or zone of Bhâratavarsha (India). A famous lake near Ajmere; also the proper name of several persons.
Pűto (Sk.). An island in China where Kwan-Shai-Yin and Kwan-Yin have a number of temples and monasteries.
Putra (Sk.). A son.
Pu-tsi K’iun-ling (Chin.). Lit., “the Universal Saviour of all beings”. A title of Avalokiteswara, and also of Buddha.
Pygmalion (Gr.). A celebrated sculptor and statuary in the island of Cyprus, who became enamoured of a statue he had made. So the Goddess of beauty, taking pity on him, changed it into a living woman (Ovid, Met.). The above is an allegory of the soul.
Pymander (Gr.). The “Thought divine”. The Egyptian Prometheus and the personified Nous or divine light, which appears to and instructs Hermes Trismegistus, in a hermetic work called “Pymander”.
Pyrrha (Gr.). A daughter of Epimatheos and Pandora, who was married to Deucalion. After a deluge when mankind was almost annihilated, Pyrrha and Deucalion made men and women out of stones which they threw behind them.
Pyrrhonism (Gr). The doctrine of Scepticism as first taught by Pyrrho, though his system was far more philosophical than the blank denial of our modern Pyrrhonists.
Pythagoras (Gr.). The most famous of mystic philosophers, born at Samos, about 586 B.C. He seems to have travelled all over the world, and to have culled his philosophy from the various systems to which he had access. Thus, he studied the esoteric sciences with the Brachmanes of India, and astronomy and astrology in Chaldea and Egypt. He is known to this day in the former country under the name of Yavanâchârya (“Ionian teacher”). After returning he settled in Crotona, in Magna Grecia, where he established a college to which very soon resorted all the best intellects of the civilised centres. His father was one Mnesarchus of Samos, and was a man of noble birth and learning. It was Pythagoras. who was the first to teach the heliocentric system, and who was the greatest proficient in geometry of his century. It was he also who created the word “philosopher”, composed of two words meaning a “lover of wisdom”—philo-sophos. As the greatest mathematician, geometer and astronomer of historical antiquity, and also the highest of the metaphysicians and scholars, Pythagoras has won imperishable fame. He taught reincarnation as it is professed in India and much else of the Secret Wisdom.
Pythagorean Pentacle (Gr.). A Kabbalistic six-pointed star with an eagle at the apex and a bull and a lion under the face of a man; a mystic symbol adopted by the Eastern and Roman Christians, who place these animals beside the four Evangelists.
Pythia or Pythoness (Gr.). Modern dictionaries inform us that the term means one who delivered the oracles at the temple of Delphi, and “any female supposed to have the spirit of divination in her—a witch” (Webster). This is neither true, just nor correct. On the authority of Iamblichus, Plutarch and others, a Pythia was a priestess chosen among the sensitives of the poorer classes, and placed in a temple where oracular
powers were exercised. There she had a room secluded from all but the chief Hierophant and Seer, and once admitted, was, like a nun, lost to the world. Sitting on a tripod of brass placed over a fissure in the ground, through which arose intoxicating vapours, these subterranean exhalations, penetrating her whole system, produced the prophetic mania, in which abnormal state she delivered oracles. Aristophanes in Vćstas “ I., reg. 28, calls the Pythia ventriloqua vates or the “ventriloquial prophetess”, on account of her stomach-voice. The ancients placed the soul of man (the lower Manas) or his personal self-consciousness, in the pit of his stomach. We find in the fourth verse of the second Nâbhânedishta hymn of the Brahmans: “Hear, 0 sons of the gods, one who speaks through his name (nâbhâ), for he hails you in your dwellings!” This is a modern somnambulic phenomenon. The navel was regarded in antiquity as “the circle of the sun”, the seat of divine internal light. Therefore was the oracle of Apollo at Delphi, the city of Delphus, the womb or abdomen—while the seat of the temple was called the omphalos, navel. As well-known, a number of mesmerized subjects can read letters, hear, smell and see through that part of their body. In India there exists to this day a belief (also among the Parsis) that adepts have flames in their navels, which enlighten for them all darkness and unveil the spiritual world. It is called with the Zoroastrians the lamp of Deshtur or the “High Priest”; and the light or radiance of the Dikshita (the initiate) with the Hindus.
Pytho (Gr.). The same as Ob—a fiendish, devilish influence; the ob through which the sorcerers are said to work.
Q._The seventeenth letter of the English Alphabet. It is the obsolete Ćolian Qoppa and the Hebrew Koph. As a numeral it is 100, and its symbol is the back of the head from the ears to the neck. With the Ćolian Occultists it stood for the symbol of differentiation.
Qabbalah (Heb.). The ancient Chaldean Secret Doctrine, abbreviated into Kabala. An occult system handed clown by oral transmission; but which, though accepting tradition, is not in itself composed of merely traditional teachings, as it was once a fundamental science, now disfigured by the additions of centuries, and by interpolation by the Western Occultists, especially by Christian Mystics. It treats of hitherto esoteric interpretations of the Jewish Scriptures, and teaches several methods of interpreting Biblical allegories. Originally the doctrines were transmitted “from mouth to ear” only, says Dr. W. Wynn Westcott, “in an oral manner from teacher to pupil who received them; hence the name Kabbalah, Qabalah, or Cabbala from the Hebrew root QBL, to receive. Besides this Theoretic Kabbalah, there was created a Practical branch, which is concerned with the Hebrew letters, as types a like of Sounds, Numbers, and Ideas.” (See “Gematria”, “Notaricon”, “ Temura”.) For the original book of the Qabbalah—the Zohar—see further on. But the Zohar we have now is not the Zohar left by Simeon Ben Jochai to his son and secretary as an heirloom. The author of the present approximation was one Moses de Leon, a Jew of the XIIIth century. (See “Kabalah” and “Zohar”.)
Qadmon, Adam, or Adam Kadmon (Heb.). The Heavenly or Celestial Man, the Microcosm (q.v.), He is the manifested Logos; the third Logos according to Occultism, or the Paradigm of Humanity.
Qai-yin (Heb.). The same as Cain.
Qaniratha
(Mazd.). Our earth,
in the Zoroastrian Scriptures, which is placed, as taught in the Secret
Doctrine, in the midst of the other six Karshwars, or globes of
the terrestrial chain.
(See Secret Doctrine, II. p. 759.)
Q’lippoth (Heb.), or Klippoth. The world of Demons or Shells; the same as the Aseeyatic World, called also Olam Klippoth. It is the residence of Samâel, the Prince of Darkness in the Kabbalistic allegories.
But note what we read in the Zohar (ii.43a) “For the service of the Angelic World, the Holy. . . . made Samâel and his legions, i.e., the world of action, who are as it were the clouds to be used (by the higher or upper Spirits, our Egos) to ride upon in their descent to the earth, and serve, as it were, for their horses”. This, in conjunction with the fact that Q’lippoth contains the matter of which stars, planets, and even men are made, shows that Samâel with his legions is simply chaotic, turbulent matter, which is used in its finer state by spirits to robe themselves in. For speaking of the “vesture” or form (rupa) of the incarnating Egos, it is said in the Occult Catechism that they, the Mânasaputras or Sons of Wisdom, use for the consolidation of their forms, in order to descend into lower spheres, the dregs of Swabhavat, or that plastic matter which is throughout Space, in other words, primordial ilus. And these dregs are what the Egyptians have called Typhon and modern Europeans Satan, Samâel, etc., etc. Deus est Demon inversus—the Demon is the lining of God.
Quadrivium (Lat.). A term used by the Scholastics during the Middle Ages to designate the last four paths of learning—of which there were originally seven. Thus grammar, rhetoric and logic were called the trivium, and arithmetic, geometry, music and astronomy (the Pythagorean obligatory sciences) went under the name of quadrivium.
Quetzo-Cohuatl (Mex.). The serpent-god in the Mexican Scriptures and legends. His wand and other “land-marks” show him to be some great Initiate of antiquity, who received the name of “Serpent” on account of his wisdom, long life and powers. To this day the aboriginal tribes of Mexico call themselves by the names of various reptiles, animals and birds.
Quiche Cosmogony.
Called Popol Vuh; discovered by the Abbé Brasseur de Bourbourg.
(See “Popol Vuh”.)
Quietists. A religious sect founded by a Spanish monk named Molinos. Their chief doctrine was that contemplation (an internal state of complete rest and passivity) was the only religious practice possible, and constituted the whole of religious observances. They were the Western Hatha Yogis and passed their time in trying to separate their minds from the objects of sense. The practice became a fashion in France and also in Russia during the early portion of this century.
Quinanes. A very ancient race of giants, of whom there are many traditions, not only in the folk-lore but in the history of Central America. Occult science teaches that the race which preceded our own human race was one of giants, which gradually decreased, after the Atlantean deluge had almost swept them off the face of the earth, to the present size of man.
Quindecemvir (Lat.). The Roman priest who had charge of the Sibylline books.
Qű-tamy (Chald.). The name of the mystic who receives the revelations of the moon-goddess in the ancient Chaldean work, translated into Arabic, and retranslated by Chwolsohn into German, under the name of Nabathean Agriculture.
R .—The eighteenth letter of the alphabet; “the canine”, as its sound reminds one of a snarl. In the Hebrew alphabet it is the twentieth, and its numeral is 200. It is equivalent as Resh to the divine name Rahim (clemency); and its symbols are, a sphere, a head, or a circle.
Ra (Eg.). The divine Universal Soul in its manifested aspect—the ever-burning light; also the personified Sun.
Rabbis (Heb.). Originally teachers of the Secret Mysteries, the Qabbalah; later, every Levite of the priestly caste became a teacher and a Rabbin. (See the series of Kabbalistic Rabbis by w.w.w.)
1 Rabbi Abulafia of Saragossa born in 1240, formed a school of Kabbalah named after him; his chief works were The Seven Paths of the Law and The Epistle to Rabbi Solomon.
2 Rabbi Akiba. Author of a famous Kabbalistic work, the “Alphabet of R.A.”, which treats every letter as a symbol of an idea and an emblem of some sentiment; the Book of Enoch was originally a portion of this work, which appeared at the close of the eighth century. It was not purely a Kabbalistic treatise.
3 Rabbi Azariel ben
Menachem (A.D.
1160). The author of the Commentary on the Ten
Sephiroth, which is the oldest purely Kabbalistic work extant, setting
aside the Sepher Yetzirah, which although older, is not concerned with
the Kabbalistic Sephiroth. He was the pupil of Isaac the Blind, who is the
reputed father of the European Kabbalah, and he was the teacher of the equally
famous R. Moses Nachmanides.
4 Rabbi Moses Botarel (1480). Author of a famous commentary on the Sepher Yetzirah; he taught that by ascetic life and the use of invocations, a man’s dreams might be made prophetic.
5 Rabbi Chajim Vital (1600) ( The great exponent of the Kabbalah as taught R. Isaac Loria : author of one of the most famous works, Otz Chiim, or Tree of Life; from this Knorr von Rosenroth has taken the Book on the Rashith ha Gilgalim, revolutions of souls, or scheme of reincarnations.
6 Rabbi Ibn Gebirol. A famous Hebrew Rabbi, author of the hymn Kether Malchuth, or Royal Diadem, which appeared about 1050; it is a beautiful poem, embodying the cosmic doctrines of Aristotle, and it even
now forms part of the Jewish special service for the evening preceding the great annual Day of Atonement (See Ginsburg and Sachs on the Religious Poetry of the Spanish Jews). This author is also known as Avicebron.
7 Rabbi Gikatilla. A distinguished Kabbalist who flourished about 1300 : he wrote the famous books, The Garden of Nuts, The Gate to the Vowel Points, The mystery of the shining Metal, and The Gates of Righteousness. He laid especial stress on the use of Gematria, Notaricon and Temura.
8 Rabbi Isaac the Blind of Posquiero. The first who publicly taught in Europe, about A.D. 1200, the Theosophic doctrines of the Kabbalah.
9 Rabbi Loria (also written Luria, and also named Ari from his initials). Founded a school of the Kabbalah circa 1560. He did not write any works, but his disciples treasured up his teachings, and R. Chajim Vital published them.
10 Rabbi Moses Cordovero (A.D.1550). The author of several Kabbalistic works of a wide reputation, viz., A Sweet Light, The Book of Retirement, and The Garden of Pomegranates; this latter can be read in Latin in Knorr von Rosenroth’s Kabbalah Denudata, entitled Tractatus de Animo, ex libro Pardes Rimmonim. Cordovero is notable for an adherence to the strictly metaphysical part, ignoring the wonder-working branch which Rabbi Sabbatai Zevi practised, and almost perished in the pursuit of.
11 Rabbi Moses de Leon (circa 1290 A,D.). The editor and first publisher of the Zohar, or “Splendour”, the most famous of all the Kabbalistic volumes, and almost the only one of which any large part has been translated into English. This Zohar is asserted to be in the main the production of the still more famous Rabbi Simon ben Jochai, who lived in the reign of the Emperor Titus.
12 Rabbi Moses Maimonides (died 1304). A famous Hebrew Rabbi and author, who condemned the use of charms and amulets, and objected to the Kabbalistic use of the divine names.
13 Rabbi Sabbatai Zevi (born 1641). A very famous Kabbalist, who passing beyond the dogma became of great reputation as a thaumaturgist, working wonders by the divine names. Later in life he claimed Messiahship and fell into the hands of the Sultan Mohammed IV. of Turkey, and would have been murdered, but saved his life by adopting the Mohammedan religion. (See Jost on Judaism and its Sects.)
14 Rabbi Simon ben Jochai (circa A.D. 70-80). It is round this name that cluster the mystery and poetry of the origin of the Kabbalah as a gift of the deity to mankind. Tradition has it that the Kabbalah was a
divine theosophy first taught by God to a company of angels, and that some glimpses of its perfection were conferred upon Adam; that the wisdom passed from him unto Noah; thence to Abraham, from whom the Egyptians of his era learned a portion of the doctrine. Moses derived a partial initiation from the land of his birth, and this was perfected by direct communications with the deity. From Moses it passed to the seventy elders of the Jewish nation, and from them the theosophic scheme was handed from generation to generation; David and Solomon especially became masters of this concealed doctrine. No attempt, the legends tell us, was made to commit the sacred knowledge to writing until the time of the destruction of the second Temple by Titus, when Rabbi Simon ben Jochai, escaping from the besieged Jerusalem, concealed himself in a cave, where he remained for twelve years. Here he, a Kabbalist already, was further instructed by the prophet Elias. Here Simon taught his disciples, and his chief pupils, Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Abba, committed to writing those teachings which in later ages became known as the Zohar, and were certainly published afresh in Spain by Rabbi Moses de Leon, about 1280. A fierce contest has raged for centuries between the learned Rabbis of Europe around the origin of the legend, and it seems quite hopeless to expect ever to arrive at an accurate decision as to what portion of the Zohar, if any, is as old as Simon ben Jochai. (See “Zohar”.) [w.w.w.]
Râdhâ (Sk.). The shepherdess among the Gopis (shepherdesses) of Krishna, who was the wife of the god.
Râga (Sk). One of the five Kleshas (afflictions) in Patânjali’s Yoga philosophy. In Sânkhya Kârikâ, it is the “obstruction” called love and desire in the physical or terrestrial sense. The five Kleshas are: Avidyâ, or ignorance; Asmitâ, selfishness, or “I-am-ness” ; Râga, love; Dwesha, hatred; and Abhinivesa, dread of suffering.
Ragnarök (Scand.). A kind of metaphysical entity called the “Destroyer” and the “Twilight of the Gods”, the two-thirds of whom are destroyed at the “Last Battle” in the Edda. Ragnarök lies in chains on the ledge of a rock so long as there are some good men in the world; but when all laws are broken and all virtue and good vanish from it, then Ragnarok will he unbound and allowed to bring every imaginable evil and disaster on the doomed world.
Ragon, J. M. A French Mason, a distinguished writer and great symbologist, who tried to bring Masonry back to its pristine purity. He was born at Bruges in 1789, was received when quite a boy into the Lodge and Chapter of the “Vrais Amis”, and upon removing to Paris founded the Society of the Trinosophes. it is rumoured that he was the possessor of a number of papers given to him by the famous Count de
St. Germain, from which he had all his remarkable knowledge upon early Masonry. He died at Paris in 1866, leaving a quantity of books written by himself and masses of MSS., which were bequeathed by him to the “Grand Orient”. Of the mass of his published works very few are obtainable, while others have entirely disappeared. This is due to mysterious persons (Jesuits, it is believed) who hastened to buy up every edition they could find after his death. In short, his works are now extremely rare.
Rahasya (Sk.). A name of the Upanishads. Lit., secret essence of knowledge.
Rahat. The same as “Arhat”; the adept who becomes entirely free from any desires on this plane, by acquiring divine knowledge and powers.
Ra’hmin Seth (Heb.). According to the Kabala (or Qabbalah), the “soul-sparks”, contained in Adam (Kadmon), went into three sources, the heads of which were his three sons. Thus, while the “soul spark” (or Ego) called Chesed went into Habel, and Geboor-ah into Qai-yin (Cain)—Ra’hmin went into Seth, and these three sons were divided into seventy human species, called “the principal roots of the human race”.
Râhu (Sk.). A Daitya (demon) whose lower parts were like a dragon’s tail. He made himself immortal by robbing the gods of some Amrita— the elixir of divine life—for which they were churning the ocean of milk. Unable to deprive him of his immortality, Vishnu exiled him from the earth and made of him the constellation Draco, his head being called Râhu and his tail Ketu—astronomically, the ascending and descending nodes. With the latter appendage he has ever since waged a destructive war on the denouncers of his robbery, the sun and the moon, and (during the eclipses) is said to swallow them. Of course the fable has a mystic and occult meaning.
Rahula (Sk.). The name of Gautama Buddha’s son.
Raibhyas (Sk.). A class of gods in the 5th Manvantara.
Raivata Manvantara
(Sk.).
The life-cycle presided over by Raivata Manu. As he is the fifth of the fourteen
Manus (in Esotercism, Dhyan Chohans), there being seven root-Manus
and seven seed-Manus for the seven Rounds of our terrestrial chain of
globes (See Esot. Buddhism by A. P. Sinnett, and the
Secret Doctrine, Vol.1., “Brahminical Chronology”), Raivata presided over
the third Round and was its root-Manu.
Râjâ (Sk.). A Prince or King in India.
Râjagriha (Sk.). A city in Magadha famous for its conversion to Buddhism in the days of the Buddhist kings. It was their residence from Bimbisara to Asoka, and was the seat of the first Synod, or Buddhist Council, held 510 B.C..
Râjârshis (Sk.). The King-Rishis or King-Adepts, one of the three classes of Rishis in India; the same as the King-Hierophants of ancient Egypt.
Râjas (Sk.). The “quality of foulness” (i.e., differentiation), and activity in the Purânas. One of the three Gunas or divisions in the correlations of matter and nature, representing form and change.
Rajasâs (Sk.). The elder Agnishwattas — the Fire-Pitris, “fire” standing as a symbol of enlightenment and intellect.
Râja-Yoga (Sk.). The true system of developing psychic and spiritual powers and union with one’s Higher Self—or the Supreme Spirit, as the profane express it. The exercise, regulation and concentration of thought. Râja-Yoga is opposed to Hatha-Yoga, the physical or psycho physiological training in asceticism.
Râkâ (Sk.). The day of the full moon: a day for occult practices.
Râkshâ (Sk.). An amulet prepared during the full or new moon.
Râkshasas
(Sk.).
Lit., “raw eaters”, and in the popular superstition evil spirits, demons.
Esoterically, however, they are the Gibborim (giants) of the Bible, the
Fourth Race or the Atlanteans.
(See Secret Doctrine, II., 165.)
Râkshasi-Bhâshâ (Sk.). Lit., the language of the Râkshasas. In reality, the speech of the Atlanteans, our gigantic forefathers of the fourth Root-race.
Ram Mohum Roy (Sk.). The well-known Indian reformer who came to England in 1833 and died there.
Râma (Sk.). The seventh avatar or incarnation of Vishnu; the eldest son of King Dasaratha, of the Solar Race. His full name is Râma-Chandra, and he is the hero of the Râmâyana. He married Sîta, who was the female avatar of Lakshmi, Vishnu’s wife, and was carried away by Râvana the Demon-King of Lanka, which act led to the famous war.
Râmâyana (Sk.). The famous epic poem collated with the Mahâbhârata. It looks as if this poem was either the original of the Iliad or vice versa, except that in Râmâyana the allies of Râma are monkeys, led by Hanuman, and monster birds and other animals, all of whom fight against the Râkshasas, or demons and giants of Lankâ.
Râsa (Sk.). The mystery-dance performed by Krishna and his Gopis, the shepherdesses, represented in a yearly festival to this day, especially in Râjastan. Astronomically it is Krishna—the Sun—around whom circle the planets and the signs of the Zodiac symbolised by the Gopis. The same as the “circle-dance” of the Amazons around the priapic image, and the dance of the daughters of Shiloh (Judges xxi.), and that of
King David around the ark. (See Isis Unveiled, II., pp. 45, 331 and 332.)
Râshi (Sk.). An astrological division, the sixth, relating to Kanya (Virgo) the sixth sign in the Zodiac.
Rashi-Chakra (Sk.), The Zodiac.
Rasit (Heb.). Wisdom.
Rasollâsâ (Sk.). The first of the eight physical perfections, or Siddhis (phenomena), of the Hatha Yogis. Rasollâsâ is the prompt evolution at will of the juices of the body independently of any nutriment from without.
Rasshoo (Eg.). The solar fires formed in and out of the primordial “waters”, or substance, of Space.
Ratnâvabhâsa Kalpa (Sk.). The age in which all sexual difference will have ceased to exist, and birth will take place in the Anupâdaka mode, as in the second and third Root-races. Esoteric philosophy teaches that it will take place at the end of the sixth and during the seventh and last Root-race in this Round.
Râtri (Sk.). Night; the body Brahmâ assumed for purposes of creating the Râkshasas or alleged giant-demons.
Raumasa (Sk.). A class of devas (gods) said to have originated from the pores of Verabhadra’s skin. An allusion to the pre-Adamic race called the “sweat-born”. (Secret Doctrine, Vol. II.)
Ravail. The true name of the Founder of modern Spiritism in France, who is better known under the pseudonym of Allan Kardec.
Râvana (Sk.). The King-Demon (the Râkshasas), the Sovereign of Lankâ (Ceylon), who carried away Sîta, Râma’s wife, which led to the great war described in the Râmâyana.
Ravi (Sk.). A name of the Sun.
Rechaka (Sk.). A practice in Hatha Yoga, during the performance of Prânâyâma or the regulation of breath : namely, that of opening one nostril and emitting breath therefrom, and keeping the other closed; one of the three operations respectively called Pűraka, Kumbhaka and Rechaka—operations very pernicious to health.
Red Colour. This has always been associated with male characteristics, especially by the Etruscans and Hindoos. In Hebrew it is Adam, the same as the word for “earth” and “the first man”. It seems that nearly all myths represent the first perfect man as white. The same word without the initial A is Dam or Dem, which means Blood, also of red colour. [w.w.w.]
The colour of the fourth Principle in man—Kâma, the seat of desires is represented red.
Reincarnation. The doctrine of rebirth, believed in by Jesus and the Apostles, as by all men in those days, but denied now by the Christians. All the Egyptian converts to Christianity, Church Fathers and others, believed in this doctrine, as shown by the writings of several. In the still existing symbols, the human-headed bird flying towards a mummy, a body, or “the soul uniting itself with its sahou (glorified body of the Ego, and also the kâmalokic shell) proves this belief. “The song of the Resurrection” chanted by Isis to recall her dead husband to life, might be translated “Song of Rebirth”, as Osiris is collective Humanity. “Oh! Osiris [here follows the name of the Osirified mummy, or the departed], rise again in holy earth (matter), august mummy in the coffin, under thy corporeal substances”, was the funeral prayer of the priest over the deceased. “Resurrection” with the Egyptians never meant the resurrection of the mutilated mummy, but of the Soul that informed it, the Ego in a new body. The putting on of flesh periodically by the Soul or the Ego, was a universal belief; nor can anything be more consonant with justice and Karmic law. (See “Pre-existence”.)
Rekh-get-Amen (Eg.). The name of the priests, hierophants, and teachers of Magic, who, according to Lenormant, Maspero, the Champollions, etc., etc., “could levitate, walk the air, live under water, sustain great pressure, harmlessly suffer mutilation, read the past, foretell the future, make themselves invisible, and cure diseases” (Bonwick, Religion of Magic). And the same author adds: “Admission to the mysteries did not confer magical powers. These depended upon two things: the possession of innate capacities, and the knowledge of certain formulć employed under suitable circumstances”. Just the same as it is now.
Rephaim (Heb.). Spectres, phantoms. (Secret Doctrine, II., 279.)
Resha-havurah (Heb., Kab.). Lit., the “White Head”, from which flows the fiery fluid of life and intelligence in three hundred and seventy streams, in all the directions of the Universe. The “White Head” is the first Sephira, the Crown, or first active light.
Reuchlin, John. Nicknamed the “Father of the Reformation”; the friend of Pico di Mirandola, the teacher and instructor of Erasmus, of Luther and Melancthon. He was a great Kabbalist and Occultist.
Rig Veda (Sk.). The first and most important of the four Vedas. Fabled to have been “created” from the Eastern mouth of Brahmâ; recorded in Occultism as having been delivered by great sages on Lake Man(a)saravara beyond the Himalayas, dozens of thousands of years ago.
Rik (Sk.). A verse of Rig-Veda.
Riksha (Sk.). Each of the twenty-seven constellations forming the Zodiac. Any fixed star, or constellation of stars.
Rimmon (Heb.). A Pomegranate, the type of abundant fertility; occurs in the Old Testament; it figures in Syrian temples and was deified there, as an emblem of the celestial prolific mother of all; also a type of the full womb. [w.w.w.]
Rings, Magic. These existed as talismans in every folk-lore. In Scandinavia such rings are always connected with the elves and dwarfs who were alleged to be the possessors of talismans and who gave them occasionally to human beings whom they wished to protect. In the words of the chronicler: “These magic rings brought good luck to the owner so long as they were carefully preserved ; but their loss was attended with terrible misfortunes and unspeakable misery”.
Rings and Rounds. Terms employed by Theosophists in explanation of Eastern cosmogony. They are used to denote the various evolutionary cycles in the Elemental, Mineral, &c., Kingdoms, through which the Monad passes on any one globe, the term Round being used only to denote the cyclic passage of the Monad round the complete chain of seven globes. Generally speaking, Theosophists use the term ring as a synonym of cycles, whether cosmic, geological, metaphysical or any other.
Riphćus (Gr.). In mythology a mountain chain upon which slept the frozen-hearted god of snows and hurricanes. In Esoteric philosophy a real prehistoric continent which from a tropical ever sunlit land has now become a desolate region beyond the Arctic Circle.
Rishabha (Sk.). A sage supposed to have been the first teacher of the Jain doctrines in India.
Rishabham (Sk). The Zodiacal sign Taurus.
Rishi-Prajâpati (Sk.). Lit., “revealers”, holy sages in the religious history of Âryavarta. Esoterically the highest of them are the Hierarchies of “Builders” and Architects of the Universe and of living things on earth; they are generally called Dhyan Chohans, Devas and gods.
Rishis (Sk.). Adepts; the inspired ones. In Vedic literature the term is employed to denote those persons through whom the various Mantras were revealed.
Ri-thlen. Lit., “snake-keeping”. It is a terrible kind of sorcery practised at Cherrapoonjee in the Khasi-Hills. The former is the ancient capital of the latter. As the legend tells us : ages ago a thlen (serpent-dragon) which inhabited a cavern and devoured men and cattle was put to death by a local St. George, and cut to pieces, every piece being sent out to a different district to be burnt. But the piece received
by the Khasis was preserved by them and became a kind of household god, and their descendants developed into Ri-thlens or “snake keepers”, for the piece they preserved grew into a dragon (thlen) and ever since has obsessed certain Brahmin families of that district. To acquire the good grace of their thlen and save their own lives, these “keepers” have often to commit murders of women and children, from whose bodies they cut out the toe and finger nails, which they bring to their thlen, and thus indulge in a number of black magic practices connected with sorcery and necromancy.
Roger Bacon. A very famous Franciscan monk who lived in England in the thirteenth century. He was an Alchemist who firmly believed in the existence of the Philosopher’s Stone, and was a great mechanician, chemist, physicist and astrologer. In his treatise on the Admirable Force of Art and Nature, he gives hints about gunpowder and predicts the use of steam as a propelling power, describing besides the hydraulic press, the diving-bell and the kaleidoscope. He also made a famous brazen head fitted with an acoustic apparatus which gave out oracles.
Ro and Ru (Eg.). The gate or outlet, the spot in the heavens whence proceeded or was born primeval light; synonymous with “cosmic womb”.
Rohinilâ (Sk.). The ancient name of a monastery visited by Buddha Sâkyamuni, now called Roynallah, near Balgada, in Eastern Behar.
Rohit (Sk.). A female deer, a hind; the form assumed by Vâch (the female Logos and female aspect of Brahmâ who created her out of one half of his body) to escape the amorous pursuits of her “father”, who transformed himself for that purpose into a buck or red deer (the colour of Brahmâ being red).
Rohitaka Stupa (Sk.). The “red stupa”, or dagoba, built by King Asoka, and on which Maitribala-râjâ fed starving Yakshas with his blood. The Yakshas are inoffensive demons (Elementaries) called pynya-janas or “good people”.
Rosicrucians (Mys.). The name was first given to the disciples of a learned Adept named Christian Rosenkreuz, who flourished in Germany, circa 1460. He founded an Order of mystical students whose early history is to be found in the German work, Fama Fraternitatis (1614), which has been published in several languages. The members of the Order maintained their secrecy, but traces of them have been found in various places every half century since these dates. The Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia is a Masonic Order, which has adopted membership in the “outer”; the Chabrath Zereh Aur Bokher, or Order of the G. D., which has a very complete scheme of initiation into the Kabbalah and the Higher Magic of the Western or Hermetic type, and admits both
sexes, is a direct descendant from medićval sodalities of Rosicrucians, themselves descended from the Egyptian Mysteries. [w.w.w.]
Rostan. Book of the Mysteries of Rostan; an occult work in manuscript.
Rowhanee (Eg.) or Er-Roohanee. is the Magic of modern Egypt, supposed to proceed from Angels and Spirits, that is Genii, and by the use of the mystery names of Allah; they distinguish two forms—Ilwee, that is the Higher or White Magic; and Suflee and Sheytanee, the Lower or Black Demoniac Magic. There is also Es-Seemuja, which is deception or conjuring. Opinions differ as to the importance of a branch of Magic called Darb el Mendel, or as Barker calls it in English, the Mendal: by this is meant a form of artificial clairvoyance, exhibited by a young boy before puberty, or a virgin, who, as the result of self-fascination by gazing on a pool of ink in the hand, with coincident use of incense and incantation, sees certain scenes of real life passing over its surface. Many Eastern travellers have narrated instances, as E. W. Lane in his Modern Egyptians and his Thousand and One Nights, and E. B. Barker; the incidents have been introduced also into many works of fiction, such as Marryat’s Phantom Ship, and a similar idea is interwoven with the story of Rose Mary and the Beryl stone, a poem by Rossetti. For a superficial attempt at explanation, see the Quarterly Review, No.117. [w.w.w.]
Ruach (Heb.). Air, also Spirit; the Spirit, one of the “human principles” (Buddhi-Manas).
Ruach Elohim (Heb.). The Spirit of the gods; corresponds to the Holy Ghost of the Christians. Also the wind, breath and rushing water. [w.w.w.]
Rudra (Sk.). A title of Siva, the Destroyer.
Rudras (Sk.). The mighty ones; the lords of the three upper worlds. One of the classes of the “fallen” or incarnating spirits; they are all born of Brahmâ.
Runes (Scand.). The Runic language and characters are the mystery or sacerdotal tongue and alphabet of the ancient Scandinavians. Runes are derived from the word rűna (secret). Therefore both language and character could neither be understood nor interpreted without having the key to it. Hence while the written runes consisting of sixteen letters are known, the ancient ones composed of marks and signs are indecipherable. They are called the magic characters. “It is clear”, says E. W. Anson, an authority on the folk-lore of the Norsemen, “that the runes were from various causes regarded even in Germany proper as full of mystery and endowed with supernatural power”. They are said to have been invented by Odin.
Rűpa (Sk.). Body; any form, applied even to the forms of the gods, which are subjective to us.
Ruta (Sk.). The name of one of the last islands of Atlantis, which perished ages before Poseidonis, the “Atlantis” of Plato.
Rutas (Sk.). An ancient people that inhabited the above island or continent in the Pacific Ocean.
S—The
nineteenth letter; numerically, sixty. In Hebrew it is the fifteenth
letter, Samech, held as holy because “the sacred name of god is Samech”.
Its symbol is a prop, or a pillar, and a phallic egg. In occult geometry it is
represented as a circle quadrated by a cross,
.
In the Kabbalah the “divisions of
Gan-Eden or paradise” are similarly
divided.
Sa or Hea (Chald.). The synthesis of the seven Gods in Babylonian mythology.
Sabalâswâs (Sk.). Sons of Daksha (Secret Doctrine, II., 275).
Sabao (Gr.). The Gnostic name of the genius of Mars.
Sabaoth
(Heb.). An army or host, from Sâbô go to war; hence the name of the
fighting god—the
“ Lord of Sabaoth ”.
Sabda (Sk.). The Word, or Logos.
Sabda Brahmam (Sk.). “The Unmanifested Logos.” The Vedas; “Ethereal Vibrations diffused throughout Space ”.
Sabhâ (Sk.). An assembly; a place for meetings, social or political. Also Mahâsabhâ , “the bundle of wonderful (mayavic or illusionary) things” the gift of Mayâsur to the Pândavas (Mahâbhârata.)
Sabianism. The religion of the ancient Chaldees. The latter believing in one impersonal, universal, deific Principle, never mentioned It, but offered worship to the solar, lunar, and planetary gods and rulers, regarding the stars and other celestial bodies as their respective symbols.
Sabians.
Astrolaters, so called; those who worshipped the stars, or rather their
“regents ”.
(See “ Sabianism ”.)
Sacha Kiriya (Sk.). A power with the Buddhists akin to a magic mantram with the Brahmans. It is a miraculous energy which can be exercised by any adept, whether priest or layman, and “most efficient when accompanied by bhâwanâ ” (meditation). It consists in a recitation of one’s “acts of merit done either in this or some former birth”—as the Rev. Mr. Hardy thinks and puts it, but in reality it depends on the intensity of one’s will, added to an absolute faith in one’s own powers, whether of yoga—willing—or of prayer, as in the case of Mussulmans and Christians. Sacha means “true”, and Kiriyang, “action”. It is the power of merit, or of a saintly life.
Sacrarium (Lat.). The name of the room in the houses of the ancient Romans, which contained the particular deity worshipped by the family; also the adytum of a temple.
Sacred Heart. In Egypt, of Horus; in Babylon, of the god Bel; and the lacerated heart of Bacchusin Greece and elsewhere. Its symbol was the persea. The pear-like shape of its fruit, and of its kernel especially, resembles the heart in form. It is sometimes seen on the head of Isis, the mother of Horus, the fruit being cut open and the heart-like kernel exposed to full view. The Roman Catholics have since adopted the worship of the “sacred heart” of Jesus and of the Virgin Mary.
Sacred Science. The name given to the inner esoteric philosophy, the secrets taught in days of old to the initiated candidates, and divulged during the last and supreme Initiation by the Hierophants.
Sadaikarűpa (Sk.). The essence of the immutable nature.
Sadducees. A sect, the followers of one Zadok, a disciple of Anti-gonus Saccho. They are accused of having denied the immortality of the (personal) soul and that of the resurrection of the (physical and personal) body. Even so do the Theosophists; though they deny neither the immortality of the Ego nor the resurrection of all its numerous and successive lives, which survive in the memory of the Ego. But together with the Sadducees—a sect of learned philosophers who were to all the other Jews that which the polished and learned Gnostics were to the rest of the Greeks during the early centuries of our era—we certainly deny the immortality of the animal soul and the resurrection of the physical body. The Sadducees were the scientists and the learned men of Jerusalem, and held the highest offices, such as of high priests and judges, while the Pharisees were almost from first to last the Pecksniffs of Judća.
Sâdhyas (Sk.). One of the names of the “twelve great gods” created by Brahmâ. Kosmic gods; lit., “divine sacrificers”. The Sâdhyas are important in Occultism.
Sadik. The same as the Biblical Melchizedec, identified by the mystic Bible-worshippers with Jehovah, and Jesus Christ. But Father Sadik’s identity with Noah being proven, he can be further identified with Kronos-Saturn.
Safekh (Eg.). Written also Sebek and Sebakh, god of darkness and night, with the crocodile for his emblem. In the Typhonic legend and transformation he is the same as Typhon. He is connected with both Osiris and Horus, and is their great enemy on earth. We find him often called the “triple crocodile ”. In astronomy he is the same as Mâkâra or Capricorn, the most mystical of the signs of the Zodiac.
Saga (Scand.). The goddess “who sings of the deeds of gods and
heroes ”, and to whom the black ravens of Odin reveal the history of the Past and of the Future in the Norsemen’s Edda.
Sâgara (Sk.). Lit., “the Ocean”; a king, the father of 6o,ooo Sons, who, for disrespect shown to the sage Kapila, were reduced to ashes by a single glance of his eye.
Sagardagan. One of the four paths to Nirvana.
Saha (Sk.). “The world of suffering”; any inhabited world in the chilio-cosmos.
Sahampati (Sk.). Maha or Parabrahm.
Saharaksha (Sk.). The fire of the Asuras; the name of a son of Pavamâna, one of the three chief occult fires.
Saint Martin, Louis Claude de. Born in France (Amboise), in 1743. A great mystic and writer, who pursued his philosophical and theosophical studies at Paris, during the Revolution. He was an ardent disciple of Jacob Boehme, and studied under Martinez Paschalis, finally founding a mystical semi-Masonic Lodge, “the Rectified Rite of St. Martin ”, with seven degrees. He was a true Theosophist. At the present moment some ambitious charlatans in Paris are caricaturing him and passing themselves off as initiated Martinists, and thus dishonouring the name of the late Adept.
Sais (Eg.). The place where the celebrated temple of Isis-Neith was found, wherein was the ever-veiled statue of Neith (Neith and Isis being interchangeable), with the famous inscription, “I am all that has been, and is, and shall be, and my peplum no mortal has withdrawn ”. (See “Sirius”.)
Saka (Sk.). Lit., “the One”, or the Ekas; used of the “Dragon of Wisdom” or the manifesting deities, taken collectively.
Saka (Sk.). According to the Orientalists the same as the classical Sacć. It is during the reign of their King Yudishtira that the Kali Yuga began.
Sâka Dwîpa (Sk.). One of the seven islands or continents mentioned in the Purânas (ancient works).
Sakkayaditthi. Delusion of personality; the erroneous idea that “I am I ”, a man or a woman with a special name, instead of being an inseparable part of the whole.
Sakradagamin (Sk.). Lit., “he who will receive birth (only) once more” before Nirvâna is reached by him; he who has entered the second of the four paths which lead to Nirvana and has almost reached perfection.
Sakshi (Sk.). The name of the hare, who in the legend of the” moon
and the hare” threw himself into the fire to save some starving pilgrims who would not kill him. For this sacrifice Indra is said to have transferred him to the centre of the moon.
Sakti (Sk.). The active female energy of the gods; in popular Hinduism, their wives and goddesses; in Occultism, the crown of the astral light. Force and the six forces of nature synthesized. Universal Energy.
Sakti-Dhara (Sk.). Lit., the “Spear-holder ”, a title given to Kartikeya for killing Târaka, a Daitya or giant-demon. The latter, demon though he was, seems to have been such a great Yogin, owing to his religious austerities and holiness, that he made all the gods tremble before him. This makes of Kartikeya, the war god, a kind of St. Michael.
Sakwala. This is a bana or “word” uttered by Gautama Buddha in his oral instructions. Sakwala is a mundane, or rather a solar system, of which there is an infinite number in the universe, and which denotes that space to which the light of every sun extends. Each Sakwala contains earths, hells and heavens (meaning good and bad spheres, our earth being considered as hell, in Occultism); attains its prime, then falls into decay and is finally destroyed at regularly recurring periods, in virtue of one immutable law. Upon the earth, the Master taught that there have been already four great “continents” (the Land of the Gods, Lemuria, Atlantis, and the present “continent” divided into five parts of the Secret Doctrine), and that three more have to appear. The former did not communicate with each other ”, a sentence showing that Buddha was not speaking of the actual continents known in his day (for Pâtâla or America was perfectly familiar to the ancient Hindus), but of the four geological formations of the earth, with their four distinct root-races which had already disappeared.
Sâkya (Sk.). A patronymic of Gautama Buddha.
Sâkyamuni Buddha (Sk.). A name of the founder of Buddhism, the great Sage, the Lord Gautama.
Salamanders. The Rosicrucian name for the Elementals of Fire. The animal, as well as its name, is of most occult significance, and is widely used in poetry. The name is almost identical in all languages. Thus, in Greek, Latin, French, Spanish, Italian, etc., it is Salamandra, in Persian Samandel, and in Sanskrit Salamandala.
Salmalî (Sk.). One of the seven zones; also a kind of tree.
Sama (Sk.). One of the bhâva pushpas, or “flowers of sanctity Sama is the fifth, or “resignation”. There are eight such flowers, namely: clemency or charity, self-restraint, affection (or love for others), patience, resignation, devotion, meditation and veracity. Sama is also the repression of any mental perturbation,
Sâma Veda (Sk.). Lit., “the Scripture, or Shâstra, of peace”. One of the four Vedas.
Samâdhâna (Sk.). That state in which a Yogi can no longer diverge from the path of spiritual progress; when everything terrestrial, except the visible body, has ceased to exist for him.
Samâdhi (Sk.). A state of ecstatic and complete trance. The term comes from the words Sam-âdha, “self-possession ”. He who possesses this power is able to exercise an absolute control over all his faculties, physical or mental; it is the highest state of Yoga.
Samâdhindriya
(Sk.).
Lit., “the root of concentration”; the fourth of the five roots called Pancha
Indriyâni, which are said in esoteric philosophy to be the agents in producing a
highly moral life, leading to sanctity and liberation ; when these are reached,
the two spiritual roots lying latent in the body (Atmâ and Buddhi) will
send out shoots and blossom. Samâdhindriya is the organ of ecstatic
meditation in
Râj-yoga practices.
Samael (Heb.). The Kabbalistic title of the Prince of those evil spirits who represent incarnations of human vices; the angel of Death. From this the idea of Satan has been evolved. [w.w.w.]
Samajna (Sk.). Lit., “an enlightened (or luminous) Sage ”. Translated verbally, Samgharana Samajna, the famous Vihâra near Kustana (China), means “the monastery of the luminous Sage”.
Samâna (Sk.). One of the five breaths (Prânas) which carry on the chemical action in the animal body.
Sâmanęra. A novice; a postulant for the Buddhist priesthood.
Samanta Bhadra (Sk.). Lit., “Universal Sage ”. The name of one of the four Bodhisattvas of the Yogâchârya School, of the Mâhâyana (the Great Vehicle) of Wisdom of that system. There are four terrestrial and three celestial Bodhisattvas: the first four only act in the present races, but in the middle of the fifth Root-race appeared the fifth Bodhisattva, who, according to an esoteric legend, was Gautama Buddha, but who, having appeared too early, had to disappear bodily from the world for a while.
Sâmanta Prabhâsa (Sk.). Lit., “universal brightness” or dazzling light. The name under which each of the 500 perfected Arhats reappears on earth as Buddha.
Sâmânya (Sk.). Community, or commingling of qualities, an abstract notion of genus, such as humanity.
Samâpatti (Sk.). Absolute concentration in Râja-Yoga; the process of development by which perfect indifference (Sams) is reached (apatti).
This state is the last stage of development before the possibility of entering into Samâdhi is reached.
Samaya (Sk.). A religious precept.
S’ambhala (Sk). A very mysterious locality on account of its future associations. A town or village mentioned in the Purânas, whence, it is prophesied, the Kalki Avatar will appear. The “Kalki”is Vishnu, the Messiah on the White Horse of the Brahmins; Maitreya Buddha of the Buddhists, Sosiosh of the Parsis, and Jesus of the Christians (See Revelations). All these “ messengers” are to appear “ before the destruction of the world “, says the one; before the end of Kali Yuga say the others. It is in S’ambhala that the future Messiah will be born. Some Orientalists make modern Murâdâbâd in Rohilkhand (N.W.P.) identical with S’ambhala, while Occultism places it in the Himalayas. It is pronounced Shambhala.
Sambhogakâya (Sk.). One of the three “Vestures” of glory, or bodies, obtained by ascetics on the “Path”. Some sects hold it as the second, while others as the third of the Buddhahshętras; or forms of Buddha. Lit., the “Body of Compensation” (See Voice of the Silence, Glossary iii). Of such Buddhakshętras there are seven, those of Nirmanakâya, Sambhogakáya and Dharmakâya, belonging to the Trikâya, or three-fold quality.
Samgha (Sk.). The corporate assembly, or a quorum of priests; called also Bhikshu Samgha; the word “church” used in translation does not at all express the real meaning.
Samkhara (Pali). One of the five Shandhas or attributes in Buddhism.
Samkhara (Pali). “Tendencies of mind” (See“ Skandhas”).
Samma Sambuddha (Pali). The recollection of all of one’s past incarnations; a yoga phenomenon.
Samma Sambuddha (Pali). A title of the Lord Buddha, the “Lord of meekness and resignation”; it means “perfect illumination ”.
Samothrace (Gr.). An island famous for its Mysteries, perhaps the oldest ever established in our present race. The Samothracian Mysteries were renowned all over the world.
Samothraces (Gr.). A designation of the Five gods worshipped at the island of that name during the Mysteries. They are considered as identical with the Cabeiri, Dioscuri and Corybantes. Their names were mystical, denoting Pluto, Ceres or Proserpine, Bacchus and Ćsculapius, or Hermes.
Sampajnâna (Sk.). A power of internal illumination.
Samskâra (Sk.). Lit., from Sam and Krî, to improve, refine, impress. In Hindu philosophy the term is used to denote the impressions left upon
the mind by individual actions or external circumstances, and capable of being developed on any future favourable occasion—even in a future birth. The Samskâra denotes, therefore, the germs of propensities and impulses from previous births to be developed in this, or the coming janmâs or reincarnations. In Tibet, Samskâra is called Doodyed, and in China is defined as, or at least connected with, action or Karma. It is, strictly speaking, a metaphysical term, which in exoteric philosophies is variously defined; e.g., in Nepaul as illusion, in Tibet as notion, and in Ceylon as discrimination. The true meaning is as given above, and as such is connected with Karma and its working.
Samtan (Tib.). The same as Dhyâna or meditation.
Samvara (Sk.). A deity worshipped by the Tantrikas.
Samvarta (Sk.). A minor Kalpa. A period in creation after which a partial annihilation of the world occurs.
Samvartta Kalpa
(Sk.).
The Kalpa or period of destruction, the same as Pralaya. Every root-race
and sub-race is subject to such Kalpas of destruction; the fifth root-race
having sixty-four such
Cataclysms periodically; namely: fifty-six by fire, seven by water, and one
small Kalpa by winds or cyclones.
Samvat (Sk.). The name of an Indian chronological era, supposed to have commenced fifty-seven years B.C.
Samvriti (Sk.). False conception—the origin of illusion.
Samvritisatya (Sk.). Truth mixed with false conceptions (Samvriti); the reverse of absolute truth—or Paramârthasatya, self-consciousness in absolute truth or reality.
Samyagâjiva (Sk.). Mendicancy for religious purposes: the correct profession. It is the fourth Mârga (path), the vow of poverty, obligatory on every Arhat and monk.
Samyagdrishti (Sk.). The ability to discuss truth. The first of the eight Mârga (paths) of the ascetic.
Samyakkarmânta (Sk.). The last of the eight Mârgas. Strict purity and observance of honesty, disinterestedness and unselfishness, the characteristic of every Arhat.
Samyaksamâdhi (Sk.). Absolute mental coma. The sixth of the eight Mârgas; the full attainment of Samâdhi.
Samyaksambuddha (Sk.) or Sammâsambuddha as pronounced in Ceylon. Lit., the Buddha of correct and harmonious knowledge, and the third of the ten titles of Sâkyamuni.
Samyattaka Nikaya (Pali). A Buddhist work composed mostly of dialogues between Buddha and his disciples.
Sana (Sk.). One of the three esoteric Kumâras, whose names are Sana, Kapila and Sanatsujâta, the mysterious triad which contains the mystery of generation and reincarnation.
Sana or Sanaischara (Sk.). The same as Sani or Saturn the planet. In the Hindu Pantheon he is the son of Surya, the Sun, and of Sanjna, Spiritual Consciousness, who is the daughter of Visva-Karman, or rather of Chhâyâ the shadow left behind by Sanjna. Sanaischara, the “slow- moving ”.
Sanaka (Sk.). A sacred plant, the fibres of which are woven into yellow robes for Buddhist priests.
Sanat Kumâra (Sk.). The most prominent of the seven Kumâras, the Vaidhâtra the first of which are called Sanaka, Sananda, Sanâtana and Sanat Kumâra; which names are all significant qualifications of the degrees of human intellect.
Sanat Sujâtîya (Sk.). A work treating of Krishna’s teachings, such as in Bhagavad Gitâ and Anugîta.
Sancha-Dwîpa (Sk.). One of the seven great islands Sapta-Dwîpa.
Sanchoniathon (Gr.). A pre-christian writer on Phśnician Cosmogony, whose works are no longer extant. Philo Byblus gives only the so-called fragments of Sanchoniathon.
Sandalphon (Heb.). The Kabbalistic Prince of Angels, emblematically represented by one of the Cherubim of the Ark.
Sandhyâ (Sk.). A period between two Yugas, morning-evening; anything coming between and joining two others. Lit., “twilight”; the period between a full Manvantara, or a “Day ”, and a full Pralaya or a “Night of Brahmâ”.
Sandhyâmsa (Sk.). A period following a Yuga.
Sanghai Dag-po (Tib.). The “concealed Lord”; a title of those who have merged into, and identified themselves with, the Absolute. Used of the “ Nirvânees” and the “Jîvanmuktas
Sangye Khado (Sk.). The Queen of the Khado or female genii; the Dâkini of the Hindus and the Lilith of the Hebrews.
Sanjnâ (Sk.). Spiritual Consciousness. The wife of Surya, the Sun.
Sankara (Sk.). The name of Siva. Also a great Vedantic philosopher.
Sânkhya (Sk.). The system of philosophy founded by Kapila Rishi, a system of analytical metaphysics, and one of the six Darshanas or schools of philosophy. It discourses on numerical categories and the meaning of the twenty-five tatwas (the forces of nature in various degrees). This “atomistic school”, as some call it, explains nature by the inter-
action of twenty-four elements with purusha (spirit) modified by the three gunas (qualities), teaching the eternity of pradhâna (primordial, homogeneous matter), or the self-transformation of nature and the eternity of the human Egos.
Sânkhya Kârikâ (Sk.). A work by Kapila, containing his aphorisms.
Sânkhya Yoga (Sk.). The system of Yoga as set forth by the above school.
Sanna (Pali). One of the five Skandhas, namely the attribute of abstract ideas.
Sannyâsi (Sk.). A Hindu ascetic who has reached the highest mystic knowledge; whose mind is fixed only upon the supreme truth, and who has entirely renounced everything terrestrial and worldly.
Sansâra (Sk.). Lit., “rotation”; the ocean of births and deaths. Human rebirths represented as a continuous circle, a wheel ever in motion.
Sanskrit
(Sk.).
The classical language of the Brahmans, never known nor spoken in its true
systematized form (given later approximately by Pânini), except by
the initiated Brahmans, as it was
pre-eminently “a mystery language”. It has now degenerated into the so-called
Prâkrita.
Santa (Sk.). Lit., “placidity ”. The primeval quality of the latent, undifferentiated state of elementary matter.
Santatih (Sk.). The “offspring.”
Saphar (Heb.). Sepharim; one of those called in the Kabbalah— Sepher, Saphar and Sipur, or “Number, Numbers and Numbered ”, by whose agency the world was formed.
Sapta (Sk.). Seven.
Sapta Buddhaka (Sk.). An account in Mahânidâna Sűtra of Sapta Buddha, the seven Buddhas of our Round, of which Gautama Sâkyamuni is esoterically the fifth, and exoterically, as a blind, the seventh.
Sapta Samudra (Sk.). The “seven oceans ”. These have an occult significance on a higher plane.
Sapta Sindhava (Sk.). The “seven sacred rivers ”. A Vedic term. In Zend works they are called Hapta Heando. These rivers are closely united with the esoteric teachings of the Eastern schools, having a very occult significance.
Sapta Tathâgata (Sk.). The chief seven Nirmânakâyas among the numberless ancient world-guardians. Their names are inscribed on a heptagonal pillar kept in a secret chamber in almost all Buddhist temples in China and Tibet. The Orientalists are wrong in thinking that these are “the seven Buddhist substitutes for the Rishis of the Brahmans.” (See “Tathâgata-gupta”).
Saptadwîpa (Sk.). The seven sacred islands or “continents” in the Purânas.
Saptaloka (Sk.). The seven higher regions, beginning from the earth upwards.
Saptaparna (Sk.). The “sevenfold”. A plant which gave its name to a famous cave, a Vihâra, in Râjâgriha, now near Buddhagaya, where the Lord Buddha used to meditate and teach his Arhats, and where after his death the first Synod was held. This cave had seven chambers, whence the name. In Esotericism Saptaparna is the symbol of the “seven fold Man-Plant”.
Saptarshi (Sk.). The seven Rishis. As stars they are the constellation of ‘the Great Bear, and called as such the Riksha and Chitrasikhandinas, bright-crested.
Sar or Saros (Chald.). A Chaldean god from whose name, represented by a circular horizon, the Greeks borrowed their word Saros, the cycle.
Saramâ (Sk.). In the Vedas, the dog of Indra and mother of the two dogs called Sârameyas. Saramâ is the “divine watchman” of the god and the same as he who watched “over the golden flock of stars and solar rays”; the same as Mercury, the planet, and the Greek Hermes, called Sârameyas.
Saraph (Heb.). A flying serpent.
Sarasvati (Sk.). The same as Vâch, wife and daughter of Brahmâ produced from one of the two halves of his body. She is the goddess of speech and of sacred or esoteric knowledge and wisdom. Also called Sri.
Sarcophagus (Gr.). A stone tomb, a receptacle for the dead; sarc = flesh, and phagein = to eat. Lapis assius, the stone of which the sarcophagi were made, is found in Lycia, and has the property of consuming the bodies in a very few weeks. In Egypt sarcophagi were made of various other stones, of black basalt, red granite, alabaster and other materials, as they served only as outward receptacles for the wooden coffins containing the mummies. The epitaphs on some of them are as remarkable as they are highly ethical, and no Christian could wish for anything better. One epitaph, dating thousands of years before the year one of our modern era, reads :—“ I have given water to him who was thirsty, and clothing to him who was naked. I have done harm to no man.” Another: “I have done actions desired by men and those which are commanded by the gods”. The beauty of some of these tombs may be judged by the alabaster sarcophagus of Oimenephthah I., at Sir John Soane’s Museum, Lincoln’s Inn. “It was cut out of a single block of fine alabaster stone, and is 9 ft. 4 in.. long, by 22 to 24 in. in width, and 27 to 32 in. in height. . . . Engraved dots, etc., outside were once
filled with blue copper to represent the heavens. To attempt a description of the wonderful figures inside and out is beyond the scope of this work. Much of our knowledge of the mythology of the people is derived from this precious monument, with its hundreds of figures to illustrate the last judgment, and the life beyond the grave. Gods, men, serpents, symbolical animals and plants are there most beautifully carved.” (Funeral Rites of the Egyptians.)
Sargon (Chald.). A Babylonian king. The story is now found to have been the original of Moses and the ark of bulrushes in the Nile.
Sarîra (Sk.). Envelope or body.
Sarisripa (Sk.). Serpents, crawling insects, reptiles, “the infinitesimally small”.
Sarku
(Chald.). Lit., the light race; that of the gods in contradistinction to
the dark race called
zahmat gagnadi, or the race that fell, i.e., mortal men.
Sarpas (Sk.). Serpents, whose king was Sesha, the serpent, or rather an aspect of Vishnu, who reigned in Pâtâla.
Sârpa-rajnî (Sk.). The queen of the serpents in the Brâhmanas.
Sarva Mandala (Sk.) A name for the “Egg of Brahmâ”.
Sarvada (Sk.). Lit., “all-sacrificing ” A title of Buddha, who in a former Jataha (birth) sacrificed his kingdom, liberty, and even life, to save others.
Sarvaga (Sk.). The supreme “World-Substance”.
Sarvâtmâ (Sk.). The supreme Soul; the all-pervading Spirit.
Sarvęsha (Sk.). Supreme Being. Controller of every action and force in the universe.
Sat (Sk.). The one ever-present Reality in the infinite world; the divine essence which is, but cannot be said to exist, as it is Absoluteness, Be-ness itself.
Sata rűpa (Sk.). The “hundred-formed one”; applied to Vâch, who to be the female Brahmâ assumes a hundred forms, i.e., Nature.
Sati (Eg.). The triadic goddess, with Anouki of the Egyptian god Khnoum.
Sattâ (Sk.). The “one and sole Existence ”—Brahma (neut.).
Satti or Suttee, (Sk.). The burning of living widows together with their dead husbands—a custom now happily abolished in India; lit., “a chaste and devoted wife”.
Sattva (Sk.). Understanding; quiescence in divine knowledge. It follows ‘generally the word Bodhi when used as a compound word, e.g., “Bodhisattva”.
Sattva or Satwa, (Sk.). Goodness; the same as Sattva, or purity, one of the trigunas or three divisions of nature.
Satya (Sk.). Supreme truth.
Satya Loka (Sk.). The world of infinite purity and wisdom, the celestial abode of Brahmâ and the gods.
Satya Yuga (Sk.). The golden age, or the age of truth and purity; the first of the four Yugas, also called Krita Yuga.
Satyas (Sk.). One of the names of the twelve great gods.
Scarabćus, In Egypt, the symbol of resurrection, and also of rebirth; of resurrection for the mummy or rather of the highest aspects of the personality which animated it, and of rebirth for the Ego, the “spiritual body” of the lower, human Soul. Egyptologists give us but half of the truth, when in speculating upon the meaning of certain inscriptions, they say, “the justified soul, once arrived at a certain period of its peregrinations (simply at the death of the physical body) should be united to its body (i.e., the Ego) never more to be separated from it ”. (Rougé.) What is this so-called body? Can it be the mummy? Certainly not, for the emptied mummified corpse can never resurrect. It can only be the eternal, spiritual vestment, the EGO that never dies but gives immortality to whatsoever becomes united with it. “The delivered Intelligence (which) retakes its luminous envelope and (re)becomes Daїmon ”, as Prof. Maspero says, is the spiritual Ego; the personal Ego or Kâma Manas, its direct ray, or the lower soul, is that which aspires to become Osirified, i.e., to unite itself with its “god ”; and that portion of it which will succeed in so doing, will never more be separated from it (the god), not even when the latter incarnates again and again, descending periodically on earth in its pilgrimage, in search of further experiences and following the decrees of Karma. Khem, “the sower of seed ”, is shown on a stele in a picture of Resurrection after physical death, as the creator and the sower of the grain of corn, which, after corruption, springs up afresh each time into a new ear, on which a scarab beetle is seen poised; and Deveria shows very justly that “Ptah is the inert, material form of Osiris, who will become Sokari (the eternal Ego) to be reborn, and afterwards be Harmachus ”, or Horus in his transformation, the risen god. The prayer so often found in the tumular inscriptions, “the wish for the resurrection in one’s living soul” or the Higher Ego, has ever a scarabćus at the end, standing for the personal soul. The scarabćus is the most honoured, as the most frequent and familiar, of all Egyptian symbols. No mummy is without several of them; the favourite ornament on engravings, house hold furniture and utensils is this sacred beetle, and Pierret pertinently
shows in his Livre des Morts that the secret meaning of this hieroglyph is sufficiently explained in that the Egyptian name for the scarabćus Kheper signifies to be, to become, to build again.
Scheo (Eg.). The god who, conjointly with Tefnant and Seb, inhabits Aanroo, the region called “the land of the rebirth of the gods ”.
Schesoo-Hor (Eg.). Lit., the servants of Horus; the early people who settled in Egypt and who were Aryans.
Schools of the Prophets. Schools established by Samuel for the training of the Nabiim (prophets). Their method was pursued on the same lines as that of a Chela or candidate for initiation into the occult sciences, i.e., the development of abnormal faculties or clairvoyance leading to Seership. Of such schools there were many in days of old in Palestine and Asia Minor. That the Hebrews worshipped Nebo, the Chaldean god of secret learning, is quite certain, since they adopted his name as an equivalent of Wisdom.
Séance. A word which has come to mean with Theosophists and Spiritualists a sitting with a medium for phenomena, the materialisation of “spirits” and other manifestations.
Seb (Eg.). The Egyptian Saturn; the father of Osiris and Isis. Esoterically, the sole principle before creation, nearer in meaning to Parabrahm than Brahmâ. From as early as the second Dynasty, there were records of him, and statues of Seb are to be seen in the museums represented with the goose or black swan that laid the egg of the world on his head. Nout or Neith, the “Great Mother” and yet the “Immaculate Virgin ”, is Seb’s wife; she is the oldest goddess on record, and is to be found on monuments of the first dynasty, to which Mariette Bey assigns the date of almost 7000 years B.c.
Secret Doctrine. The general name given to the esoteric teachings of antiquity.
Sedecla (Heb.). The Obeah woman of Endor.
Seer. One who is a clairvoyant; who can see things visible, and invisible—for others—at any distance and time with his spiritual or inner sight or perceptions.
Seir Anpin, or Zauir Anpin (Heb.). In the Kabbalah, “the Son of the concealed Father ”, he who unites in himself all the Sephiroth. Adam Kadmon, or the first manifested “Heavenly Man ”, the Logos.
Sekhem (Eg.). The same as Sekten.
Sekhet (Eg.). See “Pasht”.
Sekten (Eg.). Dęvâchân; the place of post mortem reward, a state of bliss, not a locality.
Senâ (Sk.). The female aspect or Sakti of Kârttikeya; also called Kaumâra.
Senses.
The ten organs of man. In the exoteric Pantheon and the allegories of the. East,
these
are the emanations of ten minor gods, the terrestrial Prajâpati or “ progenitors
”. They are called in contradistinction to the five physical and the seven
superphysical, the “elementary senses”. In
Occultism they are closely allied with various forces of nature, and with our
inner organisms, called
cells in physiology.
Senzar. The mystic name for the secret sacerdotal language or the “Mystery-speech” of the initiated Adepts, all over the world.
Sepher Sephiroth (Heb.). A Kabbalistic treatise concerning the gradual evolution of Deity from negative repose to active emanation and creation. [w.w.w.]
Sepher Yetzirah (Heb.). “The Book of Formation”. A very ancient Kabbalistic work ascribed to the patriarch Abraham. It illustrates the creation of the universe by analogy with the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet, distributed into a triad,, a heptad, and a dodecad, corresponding with the-three mother letters, A, M, S, the seven planets, and the twelve signs of the Zodiac. It is written in the Neo-Hebraic of the Mishnah. [ w.w.w.]
Sephira (Heb.) An emanation of Deity; the parent and synthesis of the ten Sephiroth when she stands at the head of the Sephirothal Tree; in the Kabbalah, Sephira,or the “ Sacred Aged ”, is the divine Intelligence (the same as Sophia or Metis), the first emanation from the “Endless” or Ain-Suph.
Sephiroth
(Heb.). The ten emanations of Deity; the highest is formed by the
concentration of the Ain Soph Aur, or the Limitless Light, and each: Sephira
produces by emanation another Sephira. The names of the Ten Sephiroth are—1.
Kether—The Crown; 2. Chokmah—Wisdom; 3. Binah—Understanding;
4. Chesed-—Mercy; Geburah—Power; 6. Tiphereth—Beauty; 7. Netzach—Victory; 8. Hod—
Splendour;
9. Jesod_Foundation; and 10. Malkuth—The Kingdom.
The conception of Deity embodied in the Ten Sephiroth is a very sublime one, and each Sephira is a picture to the Kabbalist of a group of exalted ideas, titles and attributes, which the name but faintly represents. Each Sephira is called either active or passive, though this attribution may lead to error; passive does not mean a return to negative existence; and the two words only express the relation between individual Sephiroth, and not any absolute quality. [w.w.w.]
Septerium (Lat.) A great religious festival held in days of old every ninth year at Delphi, in honour of Helios, the Sun, or Apollo, to com-
memorate his triumph over darkness, or Python; Apollo-Python being the same as Osiris-Typhon in Egypt.
Seraphim (Heb.). Celestial beings described by Isaiah (vi., 2,) as of human form with the addition of three pair of wings. The Hebrew word is ShRPIM, and apart from the above instance, is translated serpents, and is related to the verbal root ShRP, to burn up . The word is used for serpents in Numbers and Deuteronomy. Moses is said to have raised in the wilderness a ShRP or Seraph of Brass as a type. This bright serpent is also used as an emblem of Light. Compare the myth of Ćsculapius, the healing deity, who is said to have been brought to Rome from Epidaurus as a serpent, and whose statues show him holding a wand on which a snake is twisted. (See Ovid, Metam., lib. xv.). The Seraphim of the Old Testament seem to be related to the Cherubim (q.v.). In the Kabbalah the Seraphim are a group of angelic powers allotted to the Sephira Geburah—Severity. [w.w.w.]
Serapis (Eg.). A great solar god who replaced Osiris in the popular worship, and in whose honour the seven vowels were sung. He was often made to appear in his representations as a serpent, a “Dragon of Wisdom ”. The greatest god of Egypt during the first centuries of Christianity.
Sesha (Sk.) Ananta, the great Serpent of Eternity, the couch of Vishnu; the symbol of infinite Time in Space. In the exoteric beliefs Sesha is represented as a thousand-headed and seven-headed cobra; the former the king of the nether world, called Pâtâla, the latter the carrier or support of Vishnu on the Ocean of Space.
Set or Seth (Eg.). The same as the Son of Noah and Typhon—who is the dark side of Osiris. The same as Thoth and Satan, the adversary, not the devil represented by Christians.
Sevekh (Eg.). The god of time; Chronos; the same as Sefekh. Some Orientalists translate it as the “Seventh”.
Shaberon (Tib.). The Mongolian Shaberon or Khubilgan (or Khubilkhans) are the reincarnations of Buddha, according to the Lamaists; great Saints and Avatars, so to say.
Shaddai, El (Heb.). A name of the Hebrew Deity, usually translated God Almighty, found in Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, Ruth and Job. Its Greek equivalent is Kurios Pantokrator; but by Hebrew derivation it means rather “the pourer forth”, shad meaning a breast, and indeed shdi is also used for “a nursing mother”. [w.w.w.]
Shamans. An order of Tartar or Mongolian priest-magicians, or as some say, priest-sorcerers. They are not Buddhists, but a sect of the
old Bhon religion of Tibet. They live mostly in Siberia and its borderlands. Both men and women may be Shamans. They are all magicians, or rather sensitives or mediums artificially developed. At present those who act as priests among the Tartars are generally very ignorant, and far below the fakirs in knowledge and education.
Shânâh (Heb). The Lunar Year.
Shangna
(Sk.).
A mysterious epithet given to a robe or “vesture in a metaphorical sense”. To
put on the “Shangna robe” means the acquirement of Secret Wisdom, and
Initiation.
(See Voice of the Silence, pp. 84 and 85, Glossary.)
Shâstra or S’âstra (Sk.). A treatise or book; any work of divine or accepted authority, including law books. A Shâstri means to this day, in India, a man learned in divine and human law.
Shedim (Heb.). See “Siddim ”.
Shekinah (Heb.). A title applied to Malkuth, the tenth Sephira, by the Kabbalists; but by the Jews to the cloud of glory which rested on the Mercy-seat in the Holy of Holies. As taught, however, by all the Rabbins of Asia Minor, its nature is of a more exalted kind, Shekinah being the veil of Ain-Soph, the Endless and the Absolute; hence a kind of Kabbalistic Műlaprakriti. [w.w.w.]
Shells. A Kabbalistic name for the phantoms of the dead, the “spirits” of the Spiritualists, figuring in physical phenomena; so named on account of their being simply illusive forms, empty of their higher principles.
Shemal (Chald.). Samâel, the spirit of the earth, its presiding ruler and genius.
Shemhamphorash (Heb.). The separated name. The mirific name derived from the substance of deity and showing its self-existent essence. Jesus was accused by the Jews of having stolen this name from the Temple by magic arts, and of using it in the production of his miracles.
Sheol (Heb.). The hell of the Hebrew Pantheon; a region of stillness and inactivity as distinguished from Gehenna, (q.v.).
Shien-Sien (Chin.). A state of bliss and soul-freedom, during which a man can travel in spirit where he likes.
Shiites (Pers.). A sect of Mussulmen who place the prophet Ali higher than Mohammed, rejecting Sunnah or tradition.
Shîla (Pali). The second virtue of the ten Pâramitâs of perfection. Perfect harmony in words and acts.
Shinto (Jap.). The ancient religion of Japan before Buddhism, based upon the worship of spirits and ancestors.
Shoel-ob (Heb.). A consulter with familiar “spirits”; a necromancer, a raiser of the dead, or of their phantoms.
Shoo (Eg.). A personification of the god Ra; represented as the “great cat of the Basin of Persea in Anu”.
Shűdâla Mâdan (Tam.) The vampire, the ghoul, or graveyard spook.
Shűle Mâdan (Tam.). The elemental which is said to help the “jugglers” to grow mango trees and do other wonders.
Shutukt (Tib.). A collegiate monastery in Tibet of great fame, containing over 30,000 monks and students.
Sibac (Quiché). The reed from the pith of which the third race of men was created, according to the scripture of the Guatemalians, called the Popol Vuh.
Sibikâ (Sk.). The weapon of Kuvera, god of wealth (a Vedic deity living in Hades, hence a kind of Pluto), made out of the parts of the divine splendour of Vishnu, residing in the Sun, and filed off by Visvarkarman, the god Initiate.
Siddhânta (Sk.). Any learned work on astronomy or mathematics, in India.
Siddhârtha (Sk.). A name given to Gautama Buddha.
Siddhas (Sk.). Saints and sages who have become almost divine also a hierarchy of Dhyan Chohans.
Siddhâsana (Sk.). A posture in Hatha-yoga practices.
Siddha-Sena (Sk.). Lit., “the leader of Siddhas”; a title of Kârttikeya, the “mysterious youth” (kumâra guha).
Siddhis (Sk.). Lit., “attributes of perfection”; phenomenal powers acquired through holiness by Yogis.
Siddim
(Heb.). The Canaanites, we are told, worshipped these evil powers as
deities, the name meaning the “pourers forth”; a valley was named after them.
There seems to be a connection between these, as types of Fertile Nature, and
the many-bosomed Isis and Diana of Ephesus. In Psalm cvi., 37, the word is
translated “devils ”, and we are told that the Canaanites shed the blood of
their sons and daughters to them. Their title seems to come from the same root
ShD, from which the god name
El Shaddai is derived. [w.w.w.]
The Arabic Shedim means “Nature Spirits ”, Elementals; they are the afrits of modern Egypt and djins of Persia,.India, etc.
Sidereal. Anything relating to the stars, but also, in Occultism, to various influences emanating from such regions, such as “sidereal force ”, as taught by Paracelsus, and sidereal (luminous), ethereal body, etc.
Si-dzang (Chin.). The Chinese name for Tibet; mentioned in the
Imperial Library of the capital of Fo Kien, as the “great seat of Occult learning”, 2,207 years B.c. (Secret Doctrine, I., p. 271.)
Sige (Gr.). “Silence”; a name. adopted by the Gnostics to signify the root whence proceed the Ćons of the second series.
Sighra or Sighraga (Sk.). The father of Moru, “who is still living through the power of Yoga, and will manifest himself in the beginning of the Krita age in order to re-establish the Kshattriyas in the nineteenth Yuga” say the Purânic prophecies. “Moru” stands here for “Morya ”, the dynasty of the Buddhist sovereigns of Pataliputra which began with the great King Chandragupta, the grandsire of King Asoka. It is the first Buddhist Dynasty. (Secret Doctrine, I., 378.)
Sigurd (Scand.). The hero who slew Fafnir, the “Dragon”, roasted his heart and ate it, after which he became the wisest of men. An allegory referring to Occult study and initiation.
Simeon-ben-Jochai. An Adept-Rabbin, who was the author of the Zohar, (q.v.).
Simon Magus. A very great Samaritan Gnostic and Thaumaturgist, called “the great Power of God”.
Simorgh (Pers.). The same as the winged Siorgh, a kind of gigantic griffin, half phśnix, half lion, endowed in the Iranian legends with oracular powers. Simorgh was the guardian of the ancient Persian Mysteries. It is expected to reappear at the end of the cycle as a gigantic bird-lion. Esoterically, it stands as the symbol of the Manvantaric cycle. Its Arabic name is Rahshi.
Sinaї (Heb.). Mount Sinaї, the Nissi of Exodus (xvii., ii), the birth place of almost all the solar gods of antiquity, such as Dionysus, born at Nissa or Nysa, Zeus of Nysa, Bacchus and Osiris, (q.v.). Some ancient people believed the Sun to be the progeny of the Moon, who was herself a Sun once upon a time. Sin-aї is the “Moon Mountain ”, hence the connexion.
Sing Bonga. The Sun-spirit with the Kollarian tribes.
Singha (Sk.). The constellation of Leo; Singh meaning “lion”.
Sinika (Sk.). Also Sinita and Sanika, etc., as variants. The Vishnu Purâna gives it as the name of a future sage who will be taught by him who will become Maitreya, at the end of Kali Yuga, and adds that this is a great mystery.
Sinîvâlî (Sk.). The first day of the new moon, which is greatly connected with Occult practices in India.
Siphra Dtzeniouta
(Chald.). The
Book of Concealed Mystery; one division of the Zohar.
(See Mathers’ Kabbalah Unveiled.)
Sirius
(Gr.). In Egyptian,
Sothis. The dog-star: the star worshipped in Egypt and reverenced by
the Occultists; by the former because its heliacal rising with the Sun was a
sign of the beneficent inundation of the Nile,
and by the latter because it is mysteriously associated with Thoth-Hermes, god
of wisdom, and Mercury, in another form. Thus Sothis-Sirius had, and still has,
a mystic and direct influence over the whole living heaven, and is
connected with almost every god and goddess. It was “Isis
in the heaven ” and called Isis-Sothis, for Isis was “in the
constellation of the dog ”, as is declared on her monuments. “The soul of Osiris
was believed to reside in a personage who walks with great steps in front of
Sothis, sceptre in hand and a whip upon his shoulder.” Sirius is also Anuhis,
and is directly connected with the ring
“Pass me not” ; it is, moreover, identical with Mithra, the Persian Mystery god,
and with Horus and even Hathor, called sometimes the goddess Sothis. Being
connected with the Pyramid, Sirius was, therefore, connected with the
initiations which took place in it. A temple to Sirius-Sothis once existed
within the great
temple of Denderah.
To sum up, all religions are not, as Dufeu, the French Egyptologist, sought to
prove, derived from Sirius, the dog-star, but Sirius-Sothis is certainly found
in connection with every religion of antiquity.
Sishta (Sk.). The great elect or Sages, left after every minor Pralaya (that which is called “obscuration” in Mr. Sinnett’s Esoteric Buddhism), when the globe goes into its night or rest, to become, on its re-awakening, the seed of the next humanity. Lit. “remnant.”
Sisthrus (Chald.). According to Berosus, the last of the ten kings of the dynasty of the divine kings, and the “Noah” of Chaldea. Thus, as Vishnu foretells the coming deluge to Vaivasvata-Manu, and, fore warning, commands him to build an ark, wherein he and seven Rishis are saved ; so the god Hea foretells the same to Sisithrus (or Xisuthrus) commanding him to prepare a vessel and save himself with a few elect. Following suit, almost 800,000 years later, the Lord God of Israel repeats the warning to Noah. Which is prior, therefore? The story of Xisuthrus, now deciphered from the Assyrian tablets, corroborates that which was said of the Chaldean deluge by Berosus, Apollodorus, Abydenus, etc., etc. (See eleventh tablet in G. Smith’s Chaldean Account of Genesis, page 263, et seq.). This tablet xi. covers every point treated of in chapters six and seven of Genesis—the gods, the sins of men, the command to build an ark, the Flood, the destruction of men, the dove and the raven sent out of the ark, and finally the Mount of Salvation in Armenia (Nizi r-Ararat); all is there. The words “the god Hea heard, and his liver was angry, because his men had corrupted his
purity”, and the story of his destroying all his seed, were engraved on stone tablets many thousand years before the Assyrians reproduced them on their baked tiles, and even these most assuredly antedate the Pentateuch, “written from memory” by Ezra, hardly four centuries B.c.
Sistrum (Gr.). Egyptian ssesh or kemken. An instrument, usually made of bronze but sometimes of gold or silver, of an open circular form, with a handle, and four wires passed through holes, to the end of which jingling pieces of metal were attached; its top was ornamented with a figure of Isis, or of Hathor. It was a sacred instrument, used in temples for the purpose of producing, by means of its combination of metals, magnetic currents, and sounds. To this day it has survived in Christian Abyssinia, under the name of sanasel, and the good priests use it to “drive devils from the premises”, an act quite comprehensible to the Occultist, even though it does provoke laughter in the sceptical Orientalist. The priestess usually held it in her right hand during the ceremony of purification of the air, or the “conjuration of the elements”, as E. Lévi would call it, while the priests held the Sistrurn in their left hand, using the right to manipulate the “key of life”—the handled cross or Tau.
Sisumara (Sk.). An imaginary rotating belt, upon which all the celestial bodies move. This host of stars and constellations is represented under the figure of Sisumara, a tortoise (some say a porpoise !), dragon, crocodile, and what not. But as it is a symbol of the Yoga-meditation of holy Vasudeva or Krishna, it must be a crocodile, or rather, a dolphin, since it is identical with the zodiacal Makâra. Dhruva, the ancient pole-star, is placed at the tip of the tail of this sidereal monster, whose head points southward and whose body bends in a ring. Higher along the tail are the Prajâpati Agni, etc., and at its root are placed Indra, Dharma, and the seven Rishis (the Great Bear), etc., etc. The meaning is of course mystical.
Siva (Sk.). The third person of the Hindu Trinity (the Triműrti). He is a god of the first order, and in his character of Destroyer higher than Vishnu, the Preserver, as he destroys only to regenerate on a higher plane. He is born as Rudra, the Kumâra, and is the patron of all the Yogis, being called, as such, Mahâdeva the great ascetic, His titles are significant Trilochana, “the three-eyed”, Mahâdeva, “the great god ”, Sankara, etc., etc., etc.
Siva-Rudra (Sk.). Rudra is the Vedic name of Siva, the latter being absent from the Veda.
Skandha
or Skhanda (Sk.).
Lit., “bundles”, or groups of attributes; everything finite, inapplicable
to the eternal and the absolute. There are five—esoterically, seven—attributes
in every human living being,
which are known as the
Pancha Shandhas. These are (1) form, rűpa; (2) perception, vidâna;
(3) consciousness, sanjnâ; (4) action, sanskâra; (5) knowledge,
vidyâna. These unite at the birth of man and constitute his personality. After
the maturity of these Skandhas, they begin to separate and weaken,
and this is followed by jarâmarana, or decrepitude and death.
Skrymir (Scand.). One of the famous giants in the Eddas.
Sloka,
(Sk.).
The Sanskrit epic metre formed of thirty-two syllables: verses in four
half-lines of eight,
or in two lines of sixteen syllables each.
Smaragdine Tablet of Hermes. As expressed by Eliphas Lévi,“this Tablet of Emerald is the whole of magic in a single page”; but India has a single word which, when understood, contains “the whole of magic ”. This is a tablet, however, alleged to have been found by Sarai, Abraham’s wife (!) on the dead body of Hermes. So say the Masons and Christian Kabbalists. But in Theosophy we call it an allegory. May it not mean that Sarai-swati, the wife of Brahmâ, or the goddess of secret wisdom and learning, finding still much of the ancient wisdom latent in the dead body of Humanity, revivified that wisdom? This led to the rebirth of the Occult Sciences, so long forgotten and neglected, the world over. The tablet itself, however, although containing the “whole of magic ”, is too long to be reproduced here.
Smârtava (Sk.). The Smârta Brahmans; a sect founded by Sankarâchârya.
Smriti (Sk.). Traditional accounts imparted orally, from the word Smriti, “Memory” a daughter of Daksha. They are now the legal and ceremonial writings of the Hindus; the opposite of, and therefore less sacred, than the Vedas, which are Sruti, or “ revelation ”.
Sod (Heb.). An “Arcanum”, or religious mystery. The Mysteries of Baal, Adonis and Bacchus, all sun-gods having serpents as symbols, or, as in the case of Mithra, a “solar serpent”. The ancient Jews had their Sod also, symbols not excluded, since they had the “brazen serpent” lifted in the Wilderness, which particular serpent was the Persian Mithra, the symbol of Moses as an Initiate, but was certainly never meant to represent the historical Christ. “The secret (Sod) of the Lord is with them that fear him ”, says David, in Psalm xxv., 14. But this reads in the original Hebrew, “Sod Ihoh (or the Mysteries) of Jehovah are for those who fear him”. So terribly is the Old Testament mistranslated, that verse 7 in Psalm lxxxix., which stands in the original “Al (El) is terrible in the great Sod of the Kedeshim” (the Galli, the priests of the inner Jewish mysteries), reads now in the muti-
lated translation “God is greatly to be feared in the assembly of the saints”. Simeon and Levi held their Sod, and it is repeatedly mentioned in the Bible. “ Oh my soul ”, exclaims the dying Jacob, “come not thou into their secret (Sod, in the orig.), unto their assembly ”, i.e.. into the Sodalily of Simeon and Levi (Gen. xlix., 6). (See Dunlap, Sôd, the Mysteries of Adoni.)
Sodales (Lat.). The members of the Priest-colleges. (See Freund’s Latin Lexicon, iv., 448.) Cicero tells us also (De Senectute, 13) that “ Sodalities were constituted in the Idćn Mysteries of the MIGHTY MOTHER”. Those initiated into the Sod were termed the“ Companions ”.
Sodalian Oath. The most sacred of all oaths. The penalty of death followed the breaking of the Sodalian oath or pledge. The oath and the Sod (the secret learning) are earlier than the Kabbalah or Tradition, and the ancient Midrashim treated fully of the Mysteries or Sod before they passed into the Zohar. Now they are referred to as the Secret Mysteries of the Thorah, or Law, to break which is fatal.
Soham (Sk.). A mystic syllable representing involution: lit., “THAT I AM”.
Sokaris (Eg.). A fire-god; a solar deity of many forms. He is Ptah Sokaris, when the symbol is purely cosmic, and “Ptah-Sokaris-Osiris” when it is phallic. This deity is hermaphrodite, the sacred bull Apis being its son, conceived in it by a solar ray. According to Smith’s History of the East, Ptah is a “second Demiurgus, an emanation from the first creative Principle” (the first Logos). The upright Ptah, with cross and staff, is the “creator of the eggs of the sun and moon ”. Pierret thinks that he represents the primordial Force that preceded the gods and “created the stars, and the eggs of the sun and moon ”. Mariette Bey sees in him “Divine Wisdom scattering the stars in immensity ”, and he is corroborated by the Targum of Jerusalem, which states that the “Egyptians called the Wisdom of the First Intellect Ptah”.
Sokhit (Eg.). A deity to whom the cat was sacred.
Solomon’s Seal. The symbolical double triangle, adopted by the T.S. and by many Theosophists. Why it should be called “Solomon’s Seal” is a mystery, unless it came to Europe from Iran, where many stories are told about that mythical personage and the magic seal used by him to catch the djins and imprison them in old bottles. But this seal or double triangle is also called in India the “Sign of Vishnu ”, and may be seen on the houses in every village as a talisman against evil. The triangle was sacred and used as a religious sign in the far East ages before Pythagoras proclaimed it to be the first of the geometrical figures, as well as the most mysterious. it is found on pyramid and obelisk, and is
pregnant with occult meaning, as are, in fact, all triangles. Thus the pentagram is the triple triangle—the six-pointed being the hexalp ha. (See “Pentacle” and “Pentagram”.) The way a triangle points determines its meaning. If upwards, it means the male element and divine fire; downwards, the female and the waters of matter; upright, but with a bar across the top, air and astral light ; downwards, with a bar—the earth or gross matter, etc., etc. When a Greek Christian priest in blessing holds his two fingers and thumb together, he simply makes the magic sign—by the power of the triangle or “trinity ”.
Soma (Sk.). The moon, and also the juice of the plant of that name used in the temples for trance purposes; a sacred beverage. Soma, the moon, is the symbol of the Secret Wisdom. In the Upanishads the word is used to denote gross matter (with an association of moisture) capable of producing life under the action of heat. (See “ Soma-drink ”.)
Soma-drink.
Made from a rare mountain plant by initiated Brahmans. This Hindu sacred
beverage answers to the Greek ambrosia or nectar, quaffed by the gods of Olympus. A cup of Kykeôn
was also quaffed by the Mystes at the Eleusinian initiation. He who drinks it
easily reaches Bradhna, or the place of splendour (Heaven). The
Soma-drink known to Europeans is not the genuine beverage, but its
substitute; for the initiated priests alone can taste of the real Soma; and even
kings and Rajas, when sacrificing, receive the substitute. Haug, by his own
confession, shows in his Aitareya Brâhmana, that it was not the Soma that
he tasted and found nasty, but the juice from the roots of the Nyagradha, a
plant or bush which grows on the hills of Poona. We were positively informed
that the majority of the sacrificial priests of the Dekkan have lost the secret
of the true Soma. It can be found neither in the ritual books nor through oral
information. The true followers of the primitive Vedic religion are very few;
these are the alleged descendants of the Rishis, the real Agnihôtris, the
initiates of the great Mysteries. The Soma drink is also commemorated in the
Hindu Pantheon, for it is called King-Soma. He who drinks thereof is made to
participate in the heavenly king; he becomes filled with his essence, as the
Christian apostles and their converts were. filled with the Holy Ghost, and
purified of their sins. The Soma makes a new man of the initiate; he is reborn
and transformed, and his spiritual nature overcomes the physical; it bestows the
divine power of inspiration, and develops the clairvoyant faculty to the utmost.
According to the exoteric explanation the soma is a plant, but at the same time
it is an angel. It forcibly connects the inner, highest “ spirit” of man, which
spirit is an angel like the mystical Soma, with his “irrational soul ”, or
astral body, and thus united by the power of the magic drink, they soar together
above physical nature and
participate during life in the beatitude and ineffable glories of Heaven,
Thus the Hindu Soma is mystically and in all respects the same that the Eucharist supper is to the Christian. The idea is similar. By means of the sacrificial prayers—the mantras—this liquor is supposed to be immediately transformed into the real Soma, or the angel, and even into Brahmâ himself. Some missionaries have expressed themselves with much indignation about this ceremony, the more so, seeing that the Brahmans generally use a kind of spirituous liquor as a substitute. But do the Christians believe less fervently in the transubstantiation of the communion wine into the blood of Christ, because this wine happens to be more or less spirituous? Is not the idea of the symbol attached to it the same? But the missionaries say that this hour of soma-drinking is the golden hour of Satan, who lurks at the bottom of the Hindu sacrificial cup. (Isis Unveiled.)
Soma-loka (Sk.). A kind of lunar abode where the god Soma, the regent of the moon, resides. The abode of the Lunar Pitris—or Pitriloka.
Somapa (Sk.). A class of Lunar Pitris. (See “ Trisuparna.”)
Somnambulism Lit., “sleep-walking ”, or moving, acting, writing, reading and performing every function of waking consciousness in one’s sleep, with utter oblivion of the fact on awakening. This is one of the great psycho-physiological phenomena, the least understood as it is the most puzzling, to which Occultism alone holds the key.
Son-kha-pa
(Tib.). Written also Tsong-kha-pa. A famous Tibetan reformer of
the fourteenth century, who introduced a purified Buddhism into his country. He
was a great Adept, who being unable to witness any longer the desecration of
Buddhist philosophy by the false priests who made of it a marketable commodity,
put a forcible stop thereto by a timely revolution and the exile of 40,000 sham
monks and Lamas from the country. He is regarded as an Avatar of Buddha, and is
the founder of the Gelukpa
(“ yellow-cap ”) Sect, and of the mystic Brotherhood connected with its chiefs.
The “tree of the 10,000 images” (khoom boom) has, it is said, sprung from
the long hair of this ascetic, who leaving it behind him disappeared for ever
from the view of the profane.
Sooniam. A magical ceremony for the purpose of removing a sickness from one person to another. Black magic, sorcery.
Sophia (Gr.). Wisdom. The female Logos of the Gnostics; the Universal Mind; and the female Holy Ghost with others.
Sophia Achamoth (Gr.). The daughter of Sophia. The personified Astral Light, or the lower plane of Ether.
Sortes Sanctorum (Lat.). The “holy casting of lots for purposes of divination”, practised by the early and medićval Christian clergy. St. Augustine, who does not “disapprove of this method of learning futurity,
provided it be not used for worldly purposes, practised it himself ” (Life of St. Gregory of Tours). If, however, “it is practised by laymen, heretics, or heathen” of any sort, sortes sanctorum become—if we believe the good and pious fathers—sortes diabolorum or sortilegium—sorcery.
Sosiosh (Zend). The Mazdean Saviour who, like Vishnu, Maitreya Buddha and others, is expected to appear on a white horse at the end of the cycle to save mankind. (See “S´ambhala”.)
Soul. The yuch, or nephesh of the Bible; the vital principle, or the breath of life, which every animal, down to the infusoria, shares with man. In the translated Bible it stands indifferently for life, blood and soul. “ Let us not kill his nephesh ”, says the original text: “let us not kill him ”, translate the Christians (Genesis xxxvii. 21), and so on.
Sowan (Pali). The first of the “four paths” which lead to Nirvâna, in Yoga practice.
Sowanee (Pali). He who entered upon that “path”.
Sparsa (Sk). The sense of touch.
Spenta Armaita (Zend). The female genius of the earth; the “fair daughter of Ahura Mazda ”. With the Mazdeans, Spenta Armaita is the personified Earth.
Spirit. The lack of any mutual agreement between writers in the use of this word has resulted in dire confusion. It is commonly made synonymous with soul; and the lexicographers countenance the usage. In Theosophical teachings. the term “Spirit” is applied solely to that which belongs directly to Universal Consciousness, and which is its homogeneous and unadulterated emanation. Thus, the higher Mind in Man or his Ego (Manas) is, when linked indissolubly with Buddhi, a spirit; while the term “Soul”, human or even animal (the lower Manas acting in animals as instinct), is applied only to Kâma-Manas, and qualified as the living soul. This is nephesh, in Hebrew, the “breath of life”. Spirit is formless and immaterial, being, when individualised, of the highest spiritual substance—Suddasatwa, the divine essence, of which the body of the manifesting highest Dhyanis are formed. Therefore, the Theosophists reject the appellation “ Spirits” for those phantoms which appear in the phenomenal manifestations of the Spiritualists, and call them “shells”, and various other names. (See “Sukshma Sarîra”.) Spirit, in short, is no entity in the sense of having form ; for, as Buddhist philosophy has it, where there is a form, there is a cause for pain and suffering. But each individual spirit—this individuality lasting only throughout the manvantaric life-cycle—may be described as a centre of consciousness, a self-sentient and self-conscious centre; a state, not a conditioned individual. This is why there is such a wealth of words in Sanskrit to express the
different States of Being, Beings and Entities, each appellation showing the philosophical difference, the plane to which such unit belongs, and the degree of its spirituality or materiality. Unfortunately these terms are almost untranslatable into our Western tongues.
Spiritualism.
In philosophy, the state or condition of mind opposed to materialism or a
material conception of things. Theosophy, a doctrine which teaches that all
which exists is animated or informed by the Universal Soul or Spirit, and that
not an atom in our universe can be outside of this omnipresent Principle—is pure
Spiritualism. As to the belief that goes under that name, namely, belief in the
constant communication of the living with the dead, whether through the
mediumistic powers of oneself or a
so-called medium—it is no better than the materialisation of spirit, and the
degradation of the human and the divine, souls. Believers in such communications
are simply dishonouring the dead and performing constant sacrilege. It was well
called “Necromancy” in days of old. But our modern Spiritualists take offence at
being told this simple truth.
Spook. A ghost, a hobgoblin. Used of the various apparitions in the seance-rooms of the Spiritualists.
Sraddha (Sk). Lit., faith, respect, reverence.
Srâddha
(Sk.).
Devotion to the memory and care for the welfare of the manes of dead
relatives.
A post-mortem rite for newly kindred. There are also monthly rites of
Srâddha.
Srâddhadeva (Sk.). An epithet of Yama, the god of death and king of the nether world, or Hades.
Srâmana (Sk.). Buddhist priests, ascetics and postulants for Nirvâna, “they who have to place a restraint on their thoughts ”. The word Saman, now “Shaman” is a corruption of this primitive word.
Srastara (Sk.). A couch consisting of a mat or a tiger’s skin, strewn with darbha, kusa and other grasses, used by ascetics—gurus and chelas— and spread on the floor.
Sravah (Mazd.). The Amshaspends, in their highest aspect.
Srâvaka (Sk.). Lit., “he who causes to hear ”; a preacher. But in Buddhism it denotes a disciple or chela.
Sri Sankarâchârya (Sk.). The great religious reformer of India, and teacher of the Vedânta philosophy—the greatest of all such teachers, regarded by the Adwaitas (Non-dualists) as an incarnation of Siva and a worker of miracles. He established many mathams (monasteries), and founded the most learned sect among Brahmans, called the Smârtava. The legends about him are as numerous as his philosophical writings. At the age of thirty-two he went to Kashmir, and reaching Kedâranâth in
the Himalayas, entered a cave alone, whence he never returned. His followers claim that he did not die, but only retired from the world.
Sringa Giri (Sk.). A large and wealthy monastery on the ridge of the Western Ghauts in Mysore (Southern India) ; the chief matham of the Adwaita and Smârta Brahmans, founded by Sankarâchârya. There resides the religious head (the latter being called Sankarâchârya) of all the Vedantic Adwaitas, credited by many with great abnormal powers.
Sri-pâda (Sk.). The impression of Buddha’s foot. Lit., “the step or foot of the Master or exalted Lord”.
Srivatsa (Sk.). A mystical mark worn by Krishna, and also adopted by the Jains.
Sriyantra (Sk.). The double triangle or the seal of Vishnu, called also “Solomon’s seal ”, and adopted by the T. S.
Srotâpatti (Sk) Lit., “ he who has entered the stream ”, i.e., the stream or path that leads to Nirvâna, or figuratively, to the Nirvânic Ocean. The same as Sowanee.
Srotriya (Sk) The appellation of a Brahman who practises the Vedic rites he studies, as distinguished from the Vedavit, the Brahman who studies them only theoretically.
Sruti (Sk.). Sacred tradition received by revelation; the Vedas are such a tradition as distinguished from “ Smriti ” (q.v.).
St. Germain, the Count of. Referred to as an enigmatical personage by modern writers. Frederic II., King of Prussia, used to say of him that he was a man whom no one had ever been able make out. Many are his “biographies”, and each is wilder than the other. By some he was regarded as an incarnate god, by others as a clever Alsatian Jew. One thing is certain, Count de St. Germain—whatever his real patronymic may have been—had a right to his name and title, for he had bought a property called San Germano, in the Italian Tyrol, and paid the Pope for the title. He was uncommonly handsome, and his enormous erudition and linguistic capacities are undeniable, for he spoke English, Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Russian, Swedish, Danish, and many Slavonian and Oriental languages, with equal facility with a native. He was extremely wealthy, never received a sou from anyone—in fact never accepted a glass of water or broke bread with anyone made most extravagant presents of superb jewellery to all his friends, even to the royal families of Europe. His proficiency in music was marvellous; he played on every instrument, the violin being his favourite. “St. Germain rivalled Paganini himself”, was said of him by an octogenarian Belgian in 1835, after hearing the “Genoese maestro”. “It is St. Germain resurrected who plays the
violin in the body of an Italian skeleton ”, exclaimed a Lithuanian baron who had heard both.
He never laid claim to spiritual powers, but proved to have a right to such claim. He used to pass into a dead trance from thirty-seven to forty-nine hours without awakening, and then knew all he had to know, and demonstrated the fact by prophesying futurity and never making a mistake. It is he who prophesied before the Kings Louis XV. and XVI., and the unfortunate Marie Antoinette. Many were the still living witnesses in the first quarter of this century who testified to his marvellous memory; he could read a paper in the morning and, though hardly glancing at it, could repeat its contents without missing one word days afterwards; he could write with two hands at once, the right hand writing a piece of poetry, the left a diplomatic paper of the greatest importance. He read sealed letters without touching them, while still in the hand of those who brought them to him. He was the greatest adept in transmuting metals, making gold and the most marvellous diamonds, an art, he said, he had learned from certain Brahmans in India, who taught him the artificial crystallisation (“quickening”) of pure carbon. As our Brother Kenneth Mackenzie has it :—“ In 1780, when on a visit to the French Ambassador to the Hague, he broke to pieces with a hammer a superb diamond of his own manufacture, the counterpart of which, also manufactured by himself, he had just before sold to a jeweller for 5500 louis d’or”. He was the friend and confidant of Count Orloff in 1772 at Vienna, whom he had helped and saved in St. Petersburg in 1762, when concerned in the famous political conspiracies of that time; he also became intimate with Frederick the Great of Prussia. As a matter of course, he had numerous enemies, and therefore it is not to be wondered at if all the gossip invented about him is now attributed to his own confessions: e.g., that he was over five hundred years old; also, that he claimed personal intimacy “with the Saviour and his twelve Apostles, and that he had reproved Peter for his bad temper ”—the latter clashing somewhat in point of time with the former, if he had really claimed to be only five hundred years old. if he said that “he had been born in Chaldea and professed to possess the secrets of the Egyptian magicians and sages ”, he may have spoken truth without making any miraculous claim. There are Initiates, and not the highest either, who are placed in a condition to remember more than one of their past lives. But we have good reason to know that St. Germain could never have claimed “personal intimacy ” with the Saviour. How ever that may be, Count St. Germain was certainly the greatest Oriental Adept Europe has seen during the last centuries. But Europe knew him not. Perchance some may recognise him at the next Terreur which will affect all Europe when it comes, and not one country alone.
Sthâla Mâyâ (Sk.). Gross, concrete and—because differentiated— an illusion.
Sthâna (Sk.). Also Ayâna; the place or abode of a god.
Sthâvara (Sk). From sthâ to stay or remain motionless. The term for all conscious, sentient objects deprived of the power of locomotion—fixed and rooted like the trees or plants; while all those sentient things, which add motion to a certain degree of consciousness, are called Jangama, from gam, to move, to go.
Sthâvirâh,
or Sthâviranikaya (Sk.).
One of the earliest philosophical contemplative schools, founded 300
B.c.
In the year 247 before the Christian era, it split into three divisions: the
Mahâvihâra Vâsinâh (School of the great monasteries), Jętavaniyâh,
and Abhayagiri Vâsinâh. It is one of the four branches of the
Vaibhâchika School founded
by Kâtyâyana, one of the great disciples of Lord Gautama Buddha, the author of
the Abhidharma Jnana Prasthâna Shastra, who is expected to reappear as a
Buddha.
(See “Abhayagiri ”, etc.) All these schools are highly mystical. Lit.,
Stâviranikaya is translated the
“ School of the Chairman” or “President” (Chohan).
Sthirâtman (Sk.). Eternal, supreme, applied to the Universal Soul.
Sthiti (Sk.). The attribute of preservation; stability.
Sthűla (Sk.). Differentiated and conditioned matter.
Sthűla Sarîram (Sk.). In metaphysics, the gross physical body.
Sthűlopadhi
(Sk.).
A “principle” answering to the lower triad in man, i.e., body, astral form,
and life, in the Târaka Râja Yoga system, which names only three chief
principles in man. Sthűlopadhi corresponds to the jagrata, or
waking conscious state.
Stűpa (Sk.). A conical monument, in India and Ceylon, erected over relics of Buddha, Arhats, or other great men.
Subhâva (Sk.). Being; the self-forming substance, or that “substance which gives substance to itself ”. (See the Ekasloha Shâstra of Nâgârjuna.) Explained paradoxically, as “the nature which has no nature of its own ”, and again as that which is with, and without, action. (See “Svabhâvat”.) This is the Spirit within Substance, the ideal cause of the potencies acting on the work of formative evolution (not “creation” in the sense usually attached to the word); which potencies become in turn the real causes. In the words used in the Vedânta and Vyâya Philosophies: nimitta, the efficient, and upâdâna, the material, causes are contained in Subhâva co-eternally. Says a Sanskrit Sloka:
“ Worthiest of ascetics, through its potency [ that of the “efficient” cause] every created thing comes by its proper nature ”.
Substance.
Theosophists use the word in a dual sense, qualifying substance as perceptible
and imperceptible; and making a distinction between material, psychic and
spiritual substances
(see “Sudda Satwa”), into ideal (i.e., existing on higher planes) and
real substance.
Suchi (Sk.). A name of Indra; also of the third son of Abhimânin, son of Agni; i.e., one of the primordial forty-nine fires.
Su-darshana (Sk.). The Discus of Krishna; a flaming weapon that plays a great part in Krishna’s biographies.
Sudda Satwa (Sk.). A substance not subject to the qualities of matter; a luminiferous and (to us) invisible substance, of which the bodies of the Gods and highest Dhyânis are formed. Philosophically, Suddha Satwa is a conscious state of spiritual Ego-ship rather than any essence.
Suddhodana (Sk.). The King of Kapilavastu; the father of Gautama Lord Buddha.
Sudhâ (Sk.). The food of the gods, akin to amrita the substance that gives immortality.
S’udra (Sk.). The last of the four castes that sprang from Brahmâ’s body. The “servile caste” that issued from the foot of the deity.
Sudyumna (Sk.). An epithet of Ila (or Ida), the offspring of Vaivasvata Manu and his fair daughter who sprang from his sacrifice when he was left alone after the flood. Sudyumna was an androgynous creature, one month a male and the other a female.
Suffism (Gr.). From the root of Sophia, “Wisdom ”. A mystical sect in Persia something like the Vedantins; though very strong in numbers, none but very intelligent men join it. They claim, and very justly, the possession of the esoteric philosophy and doctrine of true Mohammedanism. The Suffi (or Sofi) doctrine is a good deal in touch with Theosophy, inasmuch as it preaches one universal creed, and outward respect and tolerance for every popular exoteric faith. It is also in touch with Masonry. The Suffis have four degrees and four stages of initiation:1st, probationary, with a strict outward observance of Mussulman rites, the hidden meaning of each ceremony and dogma being explained to the candidate; 2nd, metaphysical training; 3rd, the “Wisdom” degree, when the candidate is initiated into the innermost nature of things; and 4th final Truth, when the Adept attains divine powers, and complete union with the One Universal Deity in ecstacy or Samâdhi.
Sugata (Sk.). One of the Lord Buddha’s titles, having many meanings.
Sukhab (Chald.). One of the seven Babylonian gods.
Sukhâvati (Sk.). The Western Paradise of the uneducated rabble. The popular notion is that there is a Western Paradise of Amitâbha, wherein good men and saints revel in physical delights until they are carried once more by Karma into the circle of rebirth. This is an exaggerated and mistaken notion of Devâchân.
Suki (Sk.). A daughter of Rishi Kashyapa, wife of Garuda, the king of the birds, the vehicle of Vishnu; the mother of parrots, owls and crows.
Sukra (Sk.). A name of the planet Venus, called also Usanas. In this impersonation Usanas is the Guru and preceptor of the Daityas—the giants of the earth—in the Purânas.
Sűkshma Sarîra (Sk.). The dream-like, illusive body akin to Mânasarűpa or “thought-body ”. It is the vesture of the gods, or the Dhyânis and the Devas. Written also Sukshama Sharîra and called Sukshmopadhi by the Târaka Râja Yogis. (Secret Doctrine, I.,157)
Sűkshmopadhi (Sk.). In Târaka Râja Yoga the “principle” containing both the higher and the lower Manas and Kâma. It corresponds to the Manomaya Kosha of the Vedantic classification and to the Svapna state. (See “Svapna ”.)
Su-Męru (Sk.). The same as Meru, the world-mountain. The prefix Su implies the laudation and exaltation of the object or personal name which follows it.
Summerland. The name given by the American Spiritualists and Phenomenalists to the land or region inhabited after death by their “Spirits”. It is situated, says Andrew Jackson Davis, either within or beyond the Milky Way. It is described as having cities and beautiful buildings, a Congress Hall, museums and libraries for the instruction of the growing generations of young “ Spirits ”.
We are not told whether the latter are subject to disease, decay and death; but unless they are, the claim that the disembodied “Spirit” of a child and even still-born babe grows and develops as an adult is hardly consistent with logic. But that which we are distinctly told is, that in the Summerland Spirits are given in marriage, beget spiritual (?) children, and are even concerned with politics. All this is no satire or exaggeration of ours, since the numerous works by Mr. A. Jackson Davis are there to prove it, e.g., the International Congress of Spirits by that author, as well as we remember the title. It is this grossly materialistic way of viewing a disembodied spirit that has turned many of the present Theosophists away from Spiritualism and its “philosophy”. The majesty of death is thus desecrated, and its awful and solemn mystery becomes no better than a farce.
Sunasepha
(Sk.).
The Purânic “Isaac”; the son of the sage Rishika who sold him for one hundred
cows to King Ambarisha, for a sacrifice and “burnt offering” to Varuna, as a
substitute for the king’s son Rohita, devoted by his father to the god. When
already stretched on the altar Sunasepha is saved by Rishi Visvâmitra, who calls
upon his own hundred sons to take the place of the victim, and upon their
refusal degrades them to the condition of Chândâlas. After which the Sage
teaches the victim a mantram the repetition of which brings the gods to
his rescue; he then adopts Sunasepha for his elder son.
(See Râmâyana.) There are different versions of this story.
Sung-Ming-Shu (Chin.). The Chinese tree of knowledge and tree of life.
Sűnya (Sk.). Illusion, in the sense that all existence is but a phantom, a dream, or a shadow.
Sunyatâ (Sk.). Void, space, nothingness. The name of our objective universe in the sense of its unreality and illusiveness.
Suoyator (Fin.). In the epic poem of the Finns, the Kalevala, the name for the primordial Spirit of Evil, from whose saliva the serpent of sin was born.
Surabhi (Sk.). The “cow of plenty ”; a fabulous creation, one of the fourteen precious things yielded by the ocean of milk when churned by the gods. A “cow” which yields every desire to its possessor.
Surarânî (Sk.). A title of Aditi, the mother of the gods or suras.
Suras (Sk.). A general term for gods, the same as devas; the contrary to asuras or “no-gods“.
Su-rasâ (Sk.). A daughter of Daksha, Kashyapa’s wife, and the mother of a thousand many-headed serpents and dragons.
Surpa (Sk.). “Winnower.”
Surtur (Scand.). The leader of the fiery sons of Muspel in the Eddas.
Surukâya (Sk). One of the “Seven Buddhas”, or Sapta Tathâgata.
Sűryâ (Sk.). The Sun, worshipped in the Vedas. The offspring of Aditi (Space), the mother of the gods. The husband of Sanjnâ, or spiritual consciousness. The great god whom Visvakârman, his father-in-law, the creator of the gods and men, and their “carpenter”, crucifies on a lathe, and cutting off the eighth part of his rays, deprives his head of its effulgency, creating round it a dark aureole. A mystery of the last initiation, and an allegorical representation of it.
Sűryasiddhânta (Sk.). A Sanskrit treatise on astronomy.
Sűryavansa (Sk). The solar race. A Sűrayavansee is one who claims descent from the lineage headed by Ikshvâku. Thus, while Râma
belonged to the Ayodhyâ Dynasty of the Sűryavansa, Krishna belonged to the line of Yadu of the lunar race, or the Chandravansa, as did Gautama Buddha.
Sűryâvarta (Sk.). A degree or stage of Samâdhi.
Sushumnâ (Sk.). The solar ray—the first of the seven rays. Also the name of a spinal nerve which connects the heart with the Brahmarandra, and plays a most important part in Yoga practices.
Sushupti Avasthâ (Sk.). Deep sleep; one of the four aspects of Prânava.
Sűtra (Sk.). The second division of the sacred writings, addressed to the Buddhist laity.
Sűtra Period (Sk.). One of the periods into which Vedic literature is divided.
Sűtrâtman (Sk.). Lit., “the thread of spirit”; the immortal Ego, the Individuality which incarnates in men one life after the other, and upon which are strung, like beads on a string, his countless Personalities. The universal life-supporting air, Samashti prau; universal energy.
Svabhâvat (Sk.). Explained by the Orientalists as “plastic substance”, which is an inadequate definition. Svabhâvat is the world-substance and stuff, or rather that which is behind it—the spirit and essence of substance. The name comes from Subhâva and is composed of three words—su, good, perfect, fair, handsome; sva, self; and bkâva, being, or state of being. From it all nature proceeds and into it all returns at the end of the life-cycles. In Esotericism it is called “Father-Mother”. It is the plastic essence of matter.
Svâbhâvika (Sk.). The oldest existing school of Buddhism. They assigned the manifestation of the universe and physical phenomena to Svabhâva or respective nature of things. According to Wilson the Svabhâvas of things are “the inherent properties of the qualities by which they act, as soothing, terrific or stupefying, and the forms Swarűpas are the distinction of biped, quadruped, brute, fish, animal and the like ”.
Svadhâ (Sk.). Oblation; allegorically called “the wife of the Pitris ”, the Agnishwattas and Barhishads.
Svâhâ (Sk). A customary exclamation meaning “May it be perpetuated” or rather, “so be it”. When used at ancestral sacrifices (Brahmanic), it means “ May the race be perpetuated!”
Svapada (Sk.). Protoplasm, cells, or microscopic organisms.
Svapna (Sk). A trance or dreamy condition. Clairvoyance.
Svapna Avasthâ (Sk.). A dreaming state; one of the four aspects of Prânava; a Yoga practice.
Svarâj (Sk.). The last or seventh (synthetical) ray of the seven solar rays; the same as Brahmâ. These seven rays are the entire gamut of the seven occult forces (or gods) of nature, as their respective names well prove. These are: Sushumnâ (the ray which transmits sunlight to the moon); Harikesha, Visvakarman, Visvatryarchas, Sannadhas, Sarvâvasu, and Svarâj. As each stands for one of the creative gods or Forces, it is easy to see how important were the functions of the sun in the eyes of antiquity, and why it was deified by the profane.
Svarga (Sk.). A heavenly abode, the same as Indra-loka; a paradise. It is the same as—
Svar-loka (Sk.). The paradise on Mount Meru.
Svasam Vedanâ (Sk.). Lit., “the reflection which analyses itself ”; a synonym of Paramârtha.
Svastika (Sk.). In popular notions, it is the Jaina cross, or the “four-footed” cross (croix cramponnée). In Masonic teachings, “the most ancient Order of the Brotherhood of the Mystic Cross” is said to have been founded by Fohi, 1,027 B.C., and introduced into China fifty-two years later, consisting of the three degrees. In Esoteric Philosophy, the most mystic and ancient diagram. It is “the originator of the fire by friction, and of the ‘ Forty-nine Fires’.” Its symbol was stamped on Buddha’s heart, and therefore called the “ Heart’s Seal”. It is laid on the breasts of departed Initiates after their death ; and it is mentioned with the greatest respect in the Râmâyana. Engraved on every rock, temple and prehistoric building of India, and wherever Buddhists have left their landmarks; it is also found in China, Tibet and Siam, and among the ancient Germanic nations as Thor’s Hammer. As described by Eitel in his Hand-Book of Chinese Buddhism. . (1) it is “found among Bonpas and Buddhists”; (2) it is “one of the sixty-five figures of the Sripâda” ; ( it is “the symbol of esoteric Buddhism” ; (4) “the special mark of all deities worshipped by the Lotus School of China”. Finally, and in Occultism, it is as sacred to us as the Pythagorean Tetraktys, of which it is indeed the double symbol.
Svastikâsana (Sk.). The second of the four principal postures of the eighty-four prescribed in Hatha Yoga practices.
Svayambhű (Sk.). A metaphysical and philosophical term, meaning “the spontaneously self-produced” or the “self-existent being ”. An epithet of Brahmâ. Svâyambhuva is also the name of the first Manu.
Svayambhű Sűnyatâ (Sk.). Spontaneous self-evolution; self-existence of the real in the unreal, i.e., of the Eternal Sat in the periodical Asat.
Sveta (Sk.). A serpent-dragon; a son of Kashyapa.
Sveta-dwîpa (Sk.). Lit., the White Island or Continent; one of the
Sapta-dwipa. Colonel Wilford sought to identify it with Great Britain, but failed.
Sveta-lohita (Sk.). The name of Siva when he appears in the 29th Kalpa as “a moon-coloured Kumâra”.
Swedenborg, Emmanuel. The great Swedish seer and mystic. He was born on the 29th January, 1688, and was the son of Dr. Jasper Swedberg, bishop of Skara, in West Gothland; and died in London, in Great Bath Street, Clerkenwell, on March 29th, 1772. Of all mystics, Swedenborg has certainly influenced “Theosophy” the most, yet he left a far more profound impress on official science. For while as an astronomer, mathematician, physiologist, naturalist, and philosopher he had no rival, in psychology and metaphysics he was certainly behind his time. When forty-six years of age, he became a “Theosophist”, and a “seer”; but, although his life had been at all times blameless and respectable, he was never a true philanthropist or an ascetic. His clairvoyant powers, however, were very remarkable; but they did not go beyond this plane of matter; all that he says of subjective worlds and spiritual beings is evidently far more the outcome of his exuberant fancy, than of his spiritual insight. He left behind him numerous works, which are sadly misinterpreted by his followers.
Sylphs. The Rosicrucian name for the elementals of the air.
Symbolism. The pictorial expression of an idea or a thought. Primordial writing had at first no characters, but a symbol generally stood for a whole phrase or sentence. A symbol is thus a recorded parable, and a parable a spoken symbol. The Chinese written language is nothing more than symbolical writing, each of its several thousand letters being-a symbol.
Syzygy
(Gr.). A Gnostic
term, meaning a pair or couple, one active, the other passive.
Used especially of Ćons.