Urd, Urdr (Scandinavian, Icelandic) [cf Swedish ur original, fundamental; Anglo-Saxon wyrd, English weird]

Also Urdar. The principal of the three norns (Fates) in Norse mythology, representing the past in the sense of causation: all that has gone before, giving rise to the present. Her sister norns are Verdande (becoming), usually translated as the present; and Skuld (debt), obligations yet to be repaid. The past and present create the third sister, norn of the future, which is suggestive of karma, where the future is the outcome of all past and present acts.

The three norns are pictured by the fountain of Urd who from that source (the past) waters one of the three roots of the Tree of Life. Of the other two roots one is watered by the spring of mother matter, the other by that from which flow the many rivers of lives: the forms taken by all the kingdoms of nature.

Every individual's Tree of Life is watered by these three springs and, after each death, the past life is evaluated at the well of Urd by its divine judge, its Odin, whose decrees are determined by the advice of Urd. Before each birth Urd also is instrumental in selecting the future life and destiny.

(See also: Urd, Urdr, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body mind and Soul)

Round In connection with a planetary chain, when the life-wave of any planet passes through the seven root-races of one of its globes, this is called a globe-round. But the life-wave also passes in turn through the seven or twelve globes, beginning with globe A, and after an interglobal rest, passes to globe B, on the next lower subplane, then to globe C in similar manner, and following it, to globe D, which is on the lowest plane for that planetary chain. Rising then it in like manner passes through the three higher globes, E, F, and G. The circuit of these seven or twelve globes is called a planetary round, after which there is a planetary or chain-nirvana before the second round begins, which is made on a more advanced degree of evolution than was the first round.

Seven planetary rounds equal one kalpa, manvantara, or Day of Brahma. When seven planetary rounds (49 globe-rounds) have been thus accomplished, there ensues a still higher nirvana than that occurring between globes G and A after each planetary round. This higher nirvana is coincident with what is called a pralaya of that planetary chain, which lasts until a new planetary chain forms, containing the same hosts of living beings as on the preceding chain.

When seven such planetary chains with their various kalpas or manvantaras and pralayas have passed away, this sevenfold grand cycle is one solar manvantara, and then the solar system sinks into the solar or cosmic pralaya.

There are outer rounds and inner rounds. An inner round comprises the passage of the life-wave in any one planetary chain once from globe A to G, or from the first globe to the twelfth, and this takes place seven or twelve times in a planetary manvantara. The outer round comprises the passage of the entirety of a life-wave of a planetary chain along the circulations of the solar system, from one of the seven sacred planets to another, and in a specific serial order; and this seven or twelve times. Outer round can refer to two different events: the grand outer round, during which the spiritual monad makes a stay of varying length in each planetary chain; and the minor or small outer round, which is the post-mortem journey of the monad, after the death of an individual, to each of the planetary chains, but in this latter case its stay in each chain is relatively short.

See also INNER ROUND; OUTER ROUND

(See also: Round, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Caduceus (Latin) A herald's staff; specially, the wand of Mercury or Hermes, god of wisdom, corresponding to Thoth. It consists of a rod or tree with two serpents wound in opposite directions round it, their tails meeting below, and their heads approaching each other above.

At the top of the rod in the Greek version is a knob, in the earlier Egyptian form a serpent's head, from which spring a pair of wings. From the central head between the wings grew the heads of the entwined serpents (spirit and matter), which descended along the tree of life, crossing the neutral laya-centers between the different planes of being, to manifest where the two tails joined on earth (SD 1:549-50).

The analogy is found in every known cosmogony, all of which begin with a circle, head, or egg surrounded by darkness. From this circle of infinity -- the unknown All -- comes forth the manifestations of spirit and matter. The emblem of the evolution of gods and atoms is shown by the two forces, positive and negative, ascending and descending and meeting. Its symbology is directly connected with the globes of the planetary chain and the circulations of the beings or life-waves on these globes, as well as with the human constitution and the afterdeath states.

Significantly, in ancient Greek mythology, Hermes is the psychopomp, psychagog, or conductor of souls after death to the various inner spheres of the universe, such as the Elysian Plains or the Meads of Asphodel. The Caduceus also signifies the dual aspect of wisdom by its twin serpents, Agathodaimon and Kakodaimon, good and evil in a relative sense.

(See also: Caduceus, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Resurrection A rising again, implying a previous descent; a rebirth after death. In its widest sense, the universal law of cyclic renewal manifested in cosmic, solar, terrestrial, and human phenomena, applying to manvantaras, and to reawakenings of the earth and of man -- whether humanity as a whole, races, or individuals.

In the last case it means regeneration, the second birth, initiation, symbolized by the resurrection of the mystic Christ enacted in the Mysteries, when the candidate rose from that cruciform couch which he had undergone the experiences of death. In Christianity this has become an actual physical or bodily resurrection of Jesus, supported by the stories of the empty tomb and the appearances to the disciples.

The dogma of the resurrection of the body, however, is pointedly related to the teaching of the migration of the life-atoms, whereby the reincarnating entity draws together the elements which it had previously discarded. There is an Arabic legend of the bone Luz, said to be one of the bones at the bottom of the spinal column, the os coccygis, as indestructible and forming the nucleus of the resurrection body.

In the adytum or Holy of Holies of ancient temples was found a sarcophagus symbolizing the universal process of resurrection, but in degenerate times it was occasionally turned by ignorance into a symbol of physical procreation. Other emblems of resurrection are the frog, phoenix, and egg.

(See also: Resurrection, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Elementaries The earth-bound disimbodied human souls of people who were evil or depraved when imbodied: the conscious or quasi-conscious astral souls of people who on earth refused all spiritual light, remained and died deeply immersed in the mire of matter, and from whose souls or intermediate, personal nature the immortal spirit has gradually separated.

These may exist for centuries before completely dissolving. Blavatsky writes of the spiritual death leading to this condition:

"When one falls into a love of self and love of the world, with its pleasures, losing the divine love of God and of the neighbor, he falls from life to death. The higher principles which constitute the essential elements of his humanity perish, and he lives only on the natural plane of his faculties. Physically he exists, spiritually he is dead. . . . This spiritual death results from disobedience of the laws of spiritual life, which is followed by the same penalty as the disobedience of the laws of natural life. But the spiritually dead have still their delights; they have their intellectual endowments and power, and intense activities. All the animal delights are theirs, and to multitudes of men and women these constitute the highest ideal of human happiness. The tireless pursuit of riches, of the amusements and entertainments of social life; the cultivation of graces of manner, of taste in dress, of social preferment, of scientific distinction, intoxicate and enrapture these dead-alive . . ." (IU 1:318).

When highly developed, this class of people, during incarnation on earth, is known in the East as the Brothers of the Shadow, a title rightly applied also to their astral shades, which are often quite fully conscious in the lower parts of nature, "cunning, low, vindictive, and seeking to retaliate their sufferings upon humanity, they become, until final annihilation, vampires, ghouls, and prominent actors. These are the leading 'stars' on the great spiritual stage of 'materialization,' which phenomena they perform with the help of the more intelligent of the genuine-born 'elemental' creatures, which hover around and welcome them with delight in their own spheres" (IU 1:3l9).

In popular modern theosophical literature, the word has also been applied to the phantoms or kama-rupic shades of disimbodied persons in general, especially to the case of grossly materialistic humans whose evil impulses and appetites, still inhering in the kama-rupic phantom, draw these phantoms to physical spheres congenial to them. Even these last are a real danger to the psychological health and sanity of imbodied humans, and literally haunt living human beings possessing tendencies akin to their own. Such soulless astral shells are less dangerous than actual elementaries because far less conscious, but are still filled with energies of a depraved and ignoble type. Their destiny is like that of all other pretas or bhutas -- ultimate disintegration; for the gross astral atoms composing them slowly dissolve after the manner of a dissolving column of smoke.

Both these classes of astral souls or phantoms are attracted to and thickly cluster about the grossest and most material places and beings of the physical sphere. Any person of spiritual character and aspiring soul, however, repels these astral entities by a type of psychomagnetic antipathy.

(See also: Elementaries, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Transmigration The belief that human souls after death pass into other bodies either human or animal, and mistakenly given as a synonym for reincarnation, metempsychosis, etc. Transmigration in general means the passing of an entity from one imbodiment to another, without regard to the status of the entity or the form of the imbodiments, so that it includes various specific meanings denoted by other terms.

Actually the word refers to the transmigration of life-atoms, especially those of the human vehicles after dissolution. According to their own affinities and degree of development, these life-atoms which have composed the lower human principles transmigrate to other physical psychomental bodies, there to pursue each its own further specific evolution, unretarded by the temporary association with its former body. Eventually, when the proper cyclic time arrives, they are all again attracted back to the reincarnating human entity to which they formerly belonged. The teaching as to the transmigration of the life-atoms is very important in elucidation of the unity of all life, the interaction of all nature, and the working of karma.

The meanings of transmigration, metempsychosis, metensomatosis, the Hebrew gilgulim, etc., are not synonymous. Each one of these words has its own particular significance, although many of these different words overlap to a certain extent. Thus a being who reincarnates on earth -- takes up a body of flesh -- likewise transmigrates in the sense of passing over from one condition of life to another, followed by a third and yet others; and that during this process there is a certain change of the condition of the soul or migrating entity which is the particular meaning of metempsychosis; and furthermore, the assumption of a new physical body which is part of the meaning of reincarnation appears in the specific term metensomatosis, and yet again the phase of rebirth is likewise involved. Each one of these different terms, and others, sets forth one particular aspect of the destiny and adventures of the peregrinating entity.

(See also: Transmigration, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body mind and Soul)

Karma (Sanskrit). Physically, action: metaphysically, the LAW OF RETRIBUTION, the Law of cause and effect or Ethical Causation. Nemesis, only in one sense, that of bad Karma.

It is the eleventh Nidana in the concatenation of causes and effects in orthodox Buddhism ; yet it is the power that controls all things, the resultant of moral action, the meta physical Samskara, or the moral effect of an act committed for the attainment of something which gratifies a personal desire.

There is the Karma of merit and the Karma of demerit. Karma neither punishes nor rewards, it is simply the one Universal LAW which guides unerringly, and, so to say, blindly, all other laws productive of certain effects along the grooves of their respective causations.

When Buddhism teaches that "Karma is that moral kernel (of any being) which alone survives death and continues in transmigration ‘ or reincarnation, it simply means that there remains nought after each Personality but the causes produced by it ; causes which are undying, i.e., which cannot be eliminated from the Universe until replaced by their legitimate effects, and wiped out by them, so to speak, and such causes - unless compensated during the life of the person who produced them with adequate effects, will follow the reincarnated Ego, and reach it in its subsequent reincarnation until a harmony between effects and causes is fully reestablished. No "personality" - a mere bundle of material atoms and of instinctual and mental characteristics - can of course continue, as such, in the world of pure Spirit.

Only that which is immortal in its very nature and divine in its essence, namely, the Ego, can exist for ever. And as it is that Ego which chooses the personality it will inform, after each Devachan, and which receives through these personalities the effects of the Karmic causes produced, it is therefore the Ego, that self which is the "moral kernel" referred to and embodied karma, "which alone survives death."

(See also: Karma, Theosophy, Spirituality, Body mind and Soul, Spiritual Dictionary, )

Immortality That which is not subject to death, deathlessness. Death is the dissolution of a compound entity, where the compound itself ceases to exist, though its elements do not perish. Nor does the ensouling entity perish because of the dissolution of its physical, astral, or other vehicle. Hence in a restricted sense certain elements can be said to be immortal, relative to the compound they form.

Theosophy teaches the constant rebirths of the identic spiritual-intellectual individuality throughout the manvantara; and that, even after union into paranirvana, the individuality, precisely because it is then on its own higher plane or sphere of life, is not lost and will reemerge at a new manvantara to pursue its own particular cycle. This eternal monad, the spiritual-intellectual individuality, is the real and truly immortal essence of the person; and within this supreme cycle of immortality are a series of less immortalities, each representing the life cycle of one of the imbodiments of the monad. Death therefore of necessity becomes a recurrent process, precisely like birth or rebirth, and of many degrees, and simply means the dissolution of some group of lower sheaths enclosing the individual in imbodiment.

Viewing the question from the consciousness aspect, death means the exchange of one mode of consciousness for others. We cannot say offhand that we are either mortal or immortal, since we contain various elements of both kinds. The essence of the individuality is unconditionally immortal, its sheaths or bodies are mortal in various and relative degrees.

Immortality is conditional for the human soul: if it aspires to its inner god and allies itself therewith, the human soul becomes immortal because it is at one with its spiritual parent, the upper triad or monad. But if the personal or human soul refuse to recognize its spiritual essence and allies itself with increasing fullness with the complex compound of the lower human nature, it loses its chance of immortality and becomes but a psychological mortal compound itself.

The Buddha's statement that "nothing composite endures and consequently that as man is a composite entity there is in him no immortal and unchanging 'soul,' is the key. The 'soul' of man is changing from instant to instant -- learning, growing, expanding, evolving -- so that at no two consecutive seconds of time or of experience is it the same. Therefore it is not immortal. For immortality means enduring continually as you are. If you evolve you change, and therefore you cannot be immortal in the part which evolves, because you are growing into something greater" (FSO 385). In this sense, portions of an entity may endure for long periods of time, and thus be called immortal; but they are not immortal in the sense of continuing to exist unchanged or in a state identical to what they are now.

(See also: Immortality, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Definition and meaning of Christianity

Christianity - [World History]

Christianity is a religion and philosophy with a belief in one God and in Jesus Christ as the messiah who freed followers from Roman rule and fulfilled the prophesy of the scriptures. (The Greek word for messiah is Christos and followers of Jesus became known as Christians). The Christian Bible incorporates the Old Testament and the New Testament . The New Testament chronicles the life of Jesus Christ in four books, the Gospels, written by his disciples after his death. Christianity was influenced by the ancient philosophy of the Greek Stoics who stressed self-discipline, courage, and moral conduct. Christian teachings were heavily influenced by the Hebrew faith. Jesus taught followers to believe in one God, obey the Ten Commandments, adhere to the Old Testament, and feel compassion for others. All were central to the ethical world view of Judaism. The 12 apostles of Jesus spread his teachings through expansion diffusion. They were persecuted by officials of the Roman Empire because they refused to worship the emperor. Many suffered and died for their beliefs, becoming martyrs, but this strengthened, instead of weakened, the new faith. A hierarchical church structure evolved with the pope as "father of the Church." This hierarchy was challenged by Henry VIII when he created the Church of England. Others revised doctrines and formed new denominations of Christianity. These include the Lutheran, Presbyterian, Methodist, and Baptist churches, as well as other evangelical faiths. Christianity in its different forms has spread worldwide through both expansion and relocation diffusion.

(Source: The Social Studies Center at Texas University )

Also see these pages:  Social Studies, Social Studies Sitemap, History, History Sitemap

Definition and meaning of Christianity

Christianity - [World History]

Christianity is a religion and philosophy with a belief in one God and in Jesus Christ as the messiah who freed followers from Roman rule and fulfilled the prophesy of the scriptures. (The Greek word for messiah is Christos and followers of Jesus became known as Christians). The Christian Bible incorporates the Old Testament and the New Testament . The New Testament chronicles the life of Jesus Christ in four books, the Gospels, written by his disciples after his death. Christianity was influenced by the ancient philosophy of the Greek Stoics who stressed self-discipline, courage, and moral conduct. Christian teachings were heavily influenced by the Hebrew faith. Jesus taught followers to believe in one God, obey the Ten Commandments, adhere to the Old Testament, and feel compassion for others. All were central to the ethical world view of Judaism. The 12 apostles of Jesus spread his teachings through expansion diffusion. They were persecuted by officials of the Roman Empire because they refused to worship the emperor. Many suffered and died for their beliefs, becoming martyrs, but this strengthened, instead of weakened, the new faith. A hierarchical church structure evolved with the pope as "father of the Church." This hierarchy was challenged by Henry VIII when he created the Church of England. Others revised doctrines and formed new denominations of Christianity. These include the Lutheran, Presbyterian, Methodist, and Baptist churches, as well as other evangelical faiths. Christianity in its different forms has spread worldwide through both expansion and relocation diffusion.

(Source: The Social Studies Center at Texas University )

Also see these pages:  Social Studies, Social Studies Sitemap, History, History Sitemap

Trishna trisna (Sanskrit) Thirst, longing; equivalent to the Pali tanha (thirst for life); the thirst or desire which draws the intermediate nature or human ego back into incarnation in earth-life.

"After death has released the intermediate nature, and during long ages has given to it its period of bliss and rest and psychical recuperation -- much as a quiet and reposeful night's sleep is to the tired physical body -- then, just as a man reawakens by degrees, so does this intermediate nature or human ego by degrees recede or awaken from that state of rest and bliss called Devachan. And the seeds of thoughts, the seeds of actions which it had done in former lives, are now laid by the fabric of itself -- seeds whose natural energy is still unexpended and unexhausted -- and inhere in that inner psychical fabric, for they have nowhere else in which to inhere, since the man produced them there and they are a part of him. These seeds of former thoughts and acts, of former emotions, desires, loves, hates, yearnings, and aspirations, each one of such begins to make itself felt as an urge earthwards, towards the spheres and planes in which they are native, and where they naturally grow and expand and develop" (OG 175-6).

Also the fifth of the twelve nidanas; because every human faculty has its nobler aspect, trishna can likewise mean love, signifying pure devotion. The pure love and desire that a bodhisattva expresses when becoming a nirmanakaya is the spiritual aspect of trishna.

(See also: Trishna, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body mind and Soul)

Wordpassing, Passwords Communication or passing of the word or words in two contexts: 1) in the sacred Mysteries, by one hierophant just before his death to his successor; and 2) as the culminating act of initiation, from the initiate to the candidate or neophyte, as in Freemasonry by the Master of the Lodge, representing King Solomon, to the candidate after his raising.

In the first case, the hierophant could either offer his pure life "as a sacrifice for his race to the gods whom he hoped to rejoin," or an animal victim. This last is a blind, for no initiate of the right-hand path ever sacrificed the life of an animal or any life. The sacrifice performed is the complete conquest of the lower, animal nature, either in this or a lower degree; hence the alternative. The sacrifice of their lives "depended entirely on their own will. At the last moment of the solemn 'new birth,' the initiator passed 'the word' to the initiated, and immediately after that the latter had a weapon placed in his right hand, and was ordered to strike. This is the true origin of the Christian dogma of atonement" (IU 2:42). Blavatsky mentions a widespread superstition among the Slavs and Russians that a magician or wizard cannot die before he has passed the word to a successor, which she traces to the ancient Mysteries.

In the Egyptian initiatory rites taking place in the Great Pyramid, the neophyte, "upon returning -- received the Word, with or without the 'heart's blood' of the Hierophant.

"Only in truth the Hierophant was never killed -- neither in India or elsewhere, the murder being simply feigned -- unless the Initiator had chosen the Initiate for his successor and had decided to pass to him the last and supreme Word, after which he had to die -- only one man in a nation had the right to know that word . . .

"But he died, he was not killed. For killing, if really done, would belong to black, not to divine Magic. It is the transmission of light, rather than a transfer of life, of life spiritual and divine, and it is the shedding of Wisdom, not of blood" (BCW 14:262-4).

That the initiate was compelled to kill the initiator was allegorical and exoteric.

Turning to the second meaning, in Freemasonry every degree has its password or words, which are given to the neophyte during initiation into that degree, the possession of which is a requisite for admission into the working of that degree, and to the conferring of it upon others. By means of it, initiates, as of Freemasonry, may become known to one another. In the ancient Mysteries such words were key words, words of power -- not mere words or phrases which could be communicated to anyone merely after taking part in a ceremony however symbolic, but only to those who were inwardly qualified and worthy of receiving them; who, in fact, had achieved the right of demanding them. Thus in a sense such words were ineffable, not only not to be uttered but unutterable to anyone not entitled to receive them, anyone who had not attained through aspiration, self-conquest, and inner development of mind and heart that stage wherein an understanding of them would be possible. Such inner development must in fact have been begun before one could be truly initiated even into the lowest degree, and must be attained progressively in greater and greater measure as an indispensable qualification for advancement into a higher degree. This use of passwords is also seen in the Egyptian Book of the Dead.

(See also: Wordpassing, Passwords, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body mind and Soul)

Kama-loka (Sanskrit) (from kama desire + loka world, sphere)

Desire world; a semi-material plane, subjective and invisible to us, the astral region penetrating and surrounding the earth. It is the original of the Christian purgatory, where the soul undergoes purification from its evil deeds and the material side of its nature. It is equivalent to the Hades of the Greeks and the Amenti of the Egyptians, the land of Silent Shadows.

Kama-loka is the abode of the disimbodied astral forms called kama-rupas and of the still highly vitalized astral entities who quit physical existence as suicides and executed criminals who, thus violently hurled out of their bodies before the term of natural death, are as fully alive as ever they were on earth, lacking only the physical body and its linga-sarira. In addition the kama-loka contains elementaries and lost souls tending to avichi. All these entities remain in kama-loka until they fade out from it by the complete exhaustion of the effects of the mental and emotional impulses that created these eidolons of human and animal passions and desires. The second death takes place in kama-loka, after the upper duad frees itself of the lower, material human elements before entering devachan.

"If, contrariwise, the entity in the kama-loka is so heavy with evil and is so strongly attracted to earth-spheres that the influence of the monad cannot withdraw the Reincarnating Ego from the Kama-rupa, then the latter with its befouled 'soul' sinks lower and lower and may ever enter the Avichi. If the influence of the monad succeeds, as it usually does, in bringing about the 'second death,' then the kama-rupa becomes a mere phantom or kama-rupic spook, and begins instantly to decay and finally vanishes away, its component life-atoms pursuing each one the road whither its attractions draw it" (OG 76). The highest regions of kama-loka blend into the lowest regions of devachan, while the grossest and lowest regions of kama-loka bend into the highest regions of avichi.

(See also: Kama-loka, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Nirvani (Sanskrit). One who has attained Nirvana - an emancipated soul.

That Nirvana means nothing of the kind asserted by Orientalists every scholar who has visited China, India and Japan is well aware. It is "escape from misery" but only from that of matter, freedom from Klesha, or Kama, and the complete extinction of animal desires.

If we are told that Abidharma defines Nirvana "as a state of absolute annihilation", we concur, adding to the last word the qualification "of everything connected with matter or the physical world", and this simply because the latter (as also all in it) is illusion, maya. Sakya-muni Buddha said in the last moments of his life that "the spiritual body is immortal" (See Sans. Chin. Dict.). As Mr. Eitel, the scholarly Sinologist, explains it: "The popular exoteric systems agree in defining Nirvana negatively as a state of absolute exemption from the circle of transmigration; as a state of entire freedom from all forms of existence; to begin with, freedom from all passion and exertion; a state of indifference to all sensibility" and he might have added "death of all compassion for the world of suffering". And this is why the Bodhisattvas who prefer the Nirmanakaya to the Dharmakaya vesture, stand higher in the popular estimation than the Nirvanis.

But the same scholar adds that: "Positively (and esoterically) they define Nirvana as the highest state of spiritual bliss, as absolute immortality through absorption of the soul (spirit rather) into itself, but preserving individuality so that, e.g., Buddhas, after entering Nirvana, may reappear on earth" - i.e., in the future Manvantara.

(See also: Nirvani, Theosophy, Spirituality, Body mind and Soul, Spiritual Dictionary, )

Ptah (Egyptian) [from to engrave, carve, fashion]

One of the most ancient deities, and in his higher attributes one of the most abstract, whose worship goes back to the earliest part of the dynastic period; the principal deity of Memphis (Men-nefer), also known as Het-ka-Ptah (the city of Ptah). The deity is also called Ptah-neb-ankh (giver of life). He was addressed as the "father of beginnings; creator of the eggs of the sun and moon, he who created his own image, who fashioned his own body"; and was depicted as fashioning the world-egg upon a potter's wheel.

Together with Khnemu, he carried out the commands of Thoth for the creation of the universe. While Khnemu fashioned man and the animals, whether of the cosmos or of earth, Ptah was engaged in the construction of the heavens and the earth. In later times the Greeks associated him with Hephaestos, the Latins with Vulcan; but in addition to the attributes connected with the earth, in the Underworld (Tuat) Ptah was regarded as the fashioner of the bodies for the pilgrims who entered that realm after death.

Ptah is the spiritual side of the demiurgic Third Logos, as Osiris was the more manifest side or aspect -- Ptah being the cosmogonical prototype of Osiris. In his association with Osiris as Ptah-Seker, Ptah represents a personification of the union of the primeval creative power with a form of the inert powers of darkness, the creative powers before manifestation during pralaya. In his connection with the primeval god Tenen, Ptah-Tenen is portrayed as bearing the hook and flail of Osiris and to him is allocated certain regions of the Underworld.

(See also: Ptah, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

PHALLUS

It may be seen as an emblem of the present moment, whose worship is a denial of past and future. That's also why the "historical" west fears it so, but Carpe diem ("Seize the day!") was the classical rule. For Aleister Crowley, just as the Sun was the supreme deity whence all life derives, so on earth the phallus was its "vice-regent" and the supreme power as giver of life.

With the advent of monotheistic religions, the phallus became an object of taboo in an effort to disguise its "holiness." But this was not everywhere true. Until recently in Naples and other Italian cities, giant images of the phallus were carried in religious processions, along with the saints and other holy artifacts.

The God Priapus, attempted to rape the sleeping goddesses and mortal maidens after an Olympic feast. In punishment by Zeus he was banished to his bees and vines, to hide himself forever from the sight of men. Ever since, in revenge, winged phalloi have surreptitiously dominated historical erotic art. The wings portray the phalloi in their extremis as totally liberated and unconnected to any distracting mere person. The phallus is, in fact, the destroyer of ego and individualism bar none.

Of course the phallus remains an object of fascination and obsession for homosexual and savage alike. Even for the ordinary man, however, it engages him for life in an unconscious participation mystique with his brothers, from which he never really departs. It is symbolized by an endless parade of objects: the key, the wand, the baton, the scepter, the sword, the maypole, the battering ram, the Tibetan stupa, the Egyptian obelisk, the cathedral, the American skyscraper, the automobile, the airplane, the horse, the serpent, the bull, volcanoes, monoliths, trees, flowers of all kinds and even fire. In the modern American male's domain, also loom large the pistol and the rifle -- serving in countermeasure, as instruments capable of expelling the seeds of death, as the penis expels the seeds of life.

For the magician the phallus is much more than an organ of generation or a source of debauchery. It is a font of energy that can be channeled and funneled in a variety of ways. On the other hand, the power of the witch sometimes, though not as a general rule, derives from an astute understanding of how to subvert or divert this organ to her own purposes. The feminine mystique, however, is infinitely more complicated than males understand and finds its center far beyond the genital zone.

In our era of total damnation, however, since semen now carries death as well as life, the scientists who created the HIV plague have made a mockery of procreation. (See NIANTIEL.)

(See also: PHALLUS, Magick, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul, )

Linga-sarira (Sanskrit) (from linga characteristic mark, model, pattern + sarira form from the verbal root sri to moulder, waste away)

A pattern or model that is impermanent; the model-body or astral body, only slightly more ethereal than the physical body; the second principle in the ascending scale of the sevenfold human constitution. It is the astral model around which the physical body is built, and from which the physical body flows or develops as growth proceeds.

"These astral realms are not one single plane, but a series of planes growing gradually more ethereal or spiritual as they approach the inward spheres of Nature's constitution or structure. The Linga-sarira is formed before the body is formed, and thus serves as a model or pattern around which the physical body is molded and grows to maturity; it is as mortal as is the physical body, and disappears with the physical body" (OG 88), dissolving atom by atom with the atoms of the physical corpse.

The linga-sarira has great tensile strength. It changes continuously during a lifetime, although these changes never depart from the fundamental human type or pattern, just as the physical body alters every moment. It also possesses the ability to exteriorize itself to a certain distance from its physical encasement, but in no case more than a few feet. It is composed of electromagnetic matter, which is somewhat more refined than the matter of our physical body. The whole world was composed of such matter in far past ages before it became the dense physical sphere it now is. After long ages the astral form had evolved and perfected, so that it has the form that the human races had during the early period of the third root-race -- a more or less materialized concretion of the still more ethereal astrals of the first and second root-races. After another long period, during which the cycle of further descent into matter progressed, the gradually thickening astral form oozed forth from itself a coat of skin, corresponding to the Hebrew allegory of the Garden of Eden. Thus the present physical flesh-form of mankind appears.

The astral form sustains and permeates the body, containing the real or causal organs corresponding to the physical outer sense organs. It has its own complete system of nerves and arteries for conveying the various astral auric fluids, which are to that body as our blood, nervous energy, and pranic currents are to the physical. Hence, the linga-sarira is the real personal body.

Amongst others of its functions, it automatically registers and retains all the effects, including the physical memories, of earth-life, and thus automatically and of necessity repeats after death, in accordance with its limited powers, what the person knew, said, thought, and saw during life. If properly understood, the workings of the linga-sarira during life would give the key to many of what are now called the mysteries and problems of psychological and physiological science.

(See also: Linga-sarira, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Skandhas (Sanskrit) Bundles, groups of various attributes forming the compound constitution of the human being. They are the manifested qualities and attributes forming the human being on all six planes of Being, beneath the spiritual monad or atma-buddhi, making up the totality of the subjective and objective person.

They have to do with everything that is finite in the human being, and are therefore inapplicable to the relatively eternal and absolute. Every vibration of whatever kind, mental, emotional, or physical, that an individual has undergone or made, is derivative of and from one of the skandhas composing his constitution. Skandhas are the elements of limited existence.

The five skandhas of every human being are:

1)    rupa (form), the material properties or attributes;

2)    vedana (sensations, perceptions);

3)    sanjna (consciousness, abstract ideas);

4)    sanskara (action), tendencies both physical and mental;

5)    vijnana (knowledge), mental and moral predispositions.

Two further, unnamed skandhas "are connected with, and productive of Sakkayaditthi, the 'heresy or delusion of individuality' and of Attavada 'the doctrine of Self,' both of which (in the case of the fifth principle the soul) lead to the maya of heresy and belief in the efficacy of vain rites and ceremonies; in prayers and intercession"; "The 'old being' is the sole parent -- father and mother at once -- of the 'new being.' It is the former who is the creator and fashioner, of the latter, in reality; and far more so in plain truth, than any father in flesh. And once that you have well mastered the meaning of Skandhas you will

See what I mean" (ML 111). The human skandhas are the causal activities which by their action and interaction attract the reincarnating ego back to earth-life. The exoteric skandhas have to do with objective man; the esoteric with inner and subjective man.

At death the seeds of causes sown which have not yet been realized remain latent in our inner principles as "psychological impulse-seeds" awaiting expression in future lives. The skandhas "unite at the birth of man and constitute his personality. After the death of the body the Skandhas are separated and so remain until the Reincarnating Ego on its downward path into physical incarnation gathers them together again around itself, and thus reforms the human constitution considered as a unity" (OG 158).

Similarly with suns and planets: at pralaya, the lower principles of such a cosmic body exist latent in space in a laya-condition while its spiritual principles are active in higher realms. "When a laya-center is fired into action by the touch of wills and consciousnesses on their downward way, becoming the imbodying life of a solar system, or of a planet of a solar system, the center manifests first on its highest plane, and later on its lower plane. The Skandhas are awakened into life one after another: first the highest ones, next the intermediate ones, and lastly the inferior ones, cosmically and qualitatively speaking" (ibid.).

The skandhas are likewise closely connected with the karmic pictures in the astral light, which also is the medium as well as the register of impressions.

(See also: Skandhas, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Ambrosia (Greek) (from ambrotos immortal from a not + mortos or brotos mortal; cf Sanskrit amrita from a not + the verbal root mri to die; Latin immortalus from in not + mors death)

In Classical myths variously the food, drink, or unguent of the gods or divine wisdom, connected with nectar; anything that confers or promotes immortality. Equivalent to the Sanskrit amrita and soma and the northern European mead. In a Chinese allegory, the flying Dragon drinks of ambrosia and falls to earth with his host.

The laws of evolution entail a so-called curse or fall upon virtually all the hosts of monads frequently called angels, whereby they are cast down to the nether pole and undergo peregrinations in the realms of matter; in the case of many such "fallen angels," this involves imbodiment or incarnation on earth. Man himself at a stage of his evolution experiences a similar "descent" and speeding-up, due to the impulses of the immortal urge within his breast to grow, progress, evolve, and become cognizant of larger reaches of truth. This is evident in the highly mystical Hebrew story of the forbidden Tree and in the various legends pertaining to soma in Hindu literature.

Yet on the upward arc of an evolutionary cycle, partaking of this sacred ambrosial food signifies initiation, the partaking by the initiant in the Mysteries of the "drink" of spiritual immortality. This drink is symbolized by the cup and its contained liquid, but actually is the receiving into the consciousness from the inner nature of the life-giving streams, the draught of everlasting life, or the elixir of life.

After partaking of this ambrosial elixir, brought about by lives of selflessness and by final initiation, the adept learns to live in the minor and intermediate spheres of the solar system as a fully self-conscious co-laborer with the gods in their cosmic work. Such are the higher nirmanakayas, true buddhas, etc.

(See also: Ambrosia, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Avichi avici (Sanskrit) (from a not + vichi waves, pleasure)

Waveless, having no waves or movement; without happiness; without repose. "A generalized term for places of evil realizations, but not of 'punishment' in the Christian sense; where the will for evil, and the unsatisfied evil longings for pure selfishness, find their chance for expansion -- and final extinction of the entity itself. Avichi has many degrees or grades. Nature has all things in her; if she has heavens where good and true men find rest and peace and bliss, so has she other spheres and states where gravitate those who must find an outlet for the evil passions burning within. They, at the end of their avichi, go to pieces and are ground over and over, and vanish away finally like a shadow before the sunlight in the air -- ground over in Nature's laboratory" (OG 16-17).

Avichi is a state, not a locality per se; nevertheless, an entity, whatever state it may be in, must have location, and consequently so far as the human race is concerned, avichi is Myalba, our earth in certain of its lowest aspects. Furthermore, in avichi, although it can be looked upon as being the representation of stagnation of life and being in immobility, nevertheless this refers to the temporary or quasi-inability to rise along the evolutionary ladder -- yet not completely so. Beings entirely in avichi are born and reborn uninterruptedly, with scarcely intermissions of time periods. But "suppose a case of a monster of wickedness, sensuality, ambition, avarice, pride, deceit, etc.: but who nevertheless has a germ or germs of something better, flashes of a more divine nature -- where is he to go?

The said spark smouldering under a heap of dirt will counteract, nevertheless, the attraction of the eighth sphere, whither fall but absolute nonentities; 'failures of nature' to be remodelled entirely, whose divine monad separated itself from the five principles during their life-time, . . . and who have lived as soulless human beings. . . . Well, the first named entity then, cannot, with all its wickedness go to the eighth sphere -- since his wickedness is of a too spiritual, refined nature. He is a monster -- not a mere Soulless brute. He must not be simply annihilated but punished; for, annihilation, i.e. total oblivion, and the fact of being snuffed out of conscious existence, constitutes per se no punishment, and as Voltaire expressed it: 'le neant ne laisse pas d'avoir du bon.' Here is no taper-glimmer to be puffed out by a zephyr, but a strong, positive, maleficent energy, fed and developed by circumstances, some of which may have really been beyond his control. There must be for such a nature a state corresponding to Devachan, and this is found in Avitchi -- the perfect antithesis of devachan -- vulgarized by the Western nations into Hell and Heaven . . . " (ML 196-7).

As long as the entity does not sink by attraction into the Eighth Sphere, or Sphere of Death, it still has within it the possibility of regaining its foothold on the ascending evolutionary ladder and rising again. Rare indeed are those who succeed in so rising, but the case is not absolutely hopeless. And finally, an entity may be in avichi not only after death, but also during life on earth, as avichi is a state and not a place per se.

(See also: Avichi, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

KURGASIAX

 The 21st kala is the dark equivalent of the Wheel of Fortune, based not on Fate or Chance, but upon curse and malevolence. The accompanying depiction of the card isn't quite perfect. Anubis should be more gleeful and the woman more obviously a corpse. The wheel itself should be slightly smaller, so that the wicked witch can hold it in her hand, since she is a guise of Heimarmene and in charege of it. Her crown should more obscurely resemble the crown of Maat. Nightmares (she is the deliverer thereof) ought to be visible in the smoke shapes rising up out of the flames of burning civilization.

 The wheel is the mark of the beast or Set, which, in turning, activates the powers of the sphinx. The cross is the place of crossing over (Daath), gateway to the Abyss. The tails are the three backward entries connecting to Daath in the sephiroth of Pluto, Jupiter and Venus (Kether, Chesed and Netzach).

Kurgasiax, more than any other of the dungeons, illlustrates how the dark and light sides are inextricably linked. This is the same wheel as the Wheel of Fortune, except that it is viewed here as descending. The Wheel of Kurgasiax moves from high to low, day to night, life to death, whereas the the Wheel of Fortune is rising out ot the negative into the positive. It's called "The Roasting Spit" because it turns to face the the flames of hell after every revolution. (See WHEEL.)

Nevertheless, the magical siddha is "ascendancy", since what sinks most deeply is a reflection of the highest. So the Ray of the Scepter is the weapon of choice in the magickal working. Grant says Crowley regarded this as the formula of Gomorrah (number 315). In esoteric tradition Sodom is the masculine mode and Gomorrah the feminine.

(See also: KURGASIAX, Magick, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul, )

Pythagoreans The school founded at Crotona, Italy in the 6th century BC by Pythagoras of Samos. Pythagoras was an initiate not only into the Mysteries of his own native state, but also into those of the ancient Orient, where he had pursued extensive studies. His special work was to translate his esoteric knowledge into terms of the Grecian thought of that period. He shows the ultimate derivation of his wisdom and consequent teaching both by the content of his philosophical doctrines and by his insistence upon purity and self-mastery in life as a prime requisite to the attainment of wisdom.

His word metempsychoses is given as meaning the transference of the soul from one body to another; whereas by its Greek etymology it should mean the various highly occult transformations undergone by the soul-ego after death, and preceding the process of reensoulment -- something of larger significant content than what the word reincarnation has mainly come to mean today, as implying merely soul-reimbodiment. It is the teaching of the various successive karmic transformations and imbodiments of a monad during its evolutionary cycle -- not only in the larger sense of cosmic destiny, but also in the smaller sense of its karmic transformations between death and the succeeding physical birth.

Pythagoras is famous for his use of numerical and geometrical keys, which he illustrated by reference to the geometrical figures, the musical scale, astronomy, etc. He is supposed to have "discovered" the Divine Section, the regular polyhedra, and the proposition relating to the square of the hypotenuse; what he did was to show that these were keys to the interpretation of mysteries. Porphyry reports that the numerals of Pythagoras were "hieroglyphical symbols by means whereof he explained ideas concerning the nature of things: (Vita Pythag) or, Blavatsky adds, "the origin of the universe" (SD 1:361). His tetraktys is a gem of condensed esoteric symbolism.

The influence of his school may be traced in subsequent Greek history, inspiring such characters as Epaminondas; "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' -- philosophos. 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" (TG 266).

(See also: Pythagoreans, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)