An Egyptian hieroglyphic that is widely used as a symbol for
life, love, and reincarnation

(See also: ankh , Magic, Shamanism, Pagan Dictionary)

Nidana (Sanskrit). The 12 causes of existence, or a chain of causation, "a concatenation of cause and effect in the whole range of existence through 12 links". This is the fundamental dogma of Buddhist thought, "the understanding of which solves the riddle of life, revealing the insanity of existence and preparing the mind for Nirvana". (Eitel’s Sans. Chin. Dict.)

The 12 links stand thus in their enumeration.

(1)  Jail, or birth, according to one of the four modes of entering the stream of life and reincarnation - or Chatur Yoni (q.v.), each mode placing the being born in one of the six Gati (q.v.).

(2)  Jararnarana, or decrepitude and death, following the maturity of the Skandhas (q.v.).

(3)  Bhava, the Karmic agent which leads every new sentient being to be born in this or another mode of existence in the Trailokya and Gati.

(4)  Upadana, the creative cause of Bhava which thus becomes the cause of Jati which is the effect; and this creative cause is the clinging to life.

(5)  Trishna, love, whether pure or impure.

(6)  Vedana, or sensation; perception by the senses, it is the 5th Skandha.

(7)  Sparsa, the sense of touch.

(8)  Chadayatana, the organs of sensation.

(9)  Namarupa, personality, i.e., a form with a name to it, the symbol of the unreality of material phenomenal appearances.

(10)              Vijnana, the perfect knowledge of every perceptible thing and of all objects in their concatenation and unity.

(11)              Samskara, action on the plane of illusion.

(12)              (12) Avidya, lack of true perception, or ignorance. The Nidanas belonging to the most subtle and abstruse doctrines of the Eastern metaphysical system, it is impossible to go into the subject at any greater length.

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

punarjanma: (Sanskrit) "Reincarnation." From punah, "again and again," and janma, "taking birth."

See: reincarnation.

(See also: Punarjanma , Hinduism, Body Mind and Soul)

garbhadhana: (Sanskrit) "Womb-placing." The rite of conception.

See: reincarnation, samskaras of birth.

(See also: Garbhadhana , Hinduism, Body Mind and Soul)

A Theosophical definition of Rebirth :

Rebirth

One of the several aspects or branches of the general doctrine of reimbodiment. A word of large and generalized significance. Signifying merely a succession of rebirths, the definition becomes generalized, excluding specific explanations as to the type or kind of reimbodiment. The likeness between the idea comprised in this word and that belonging to the term reincarnation is very close, yet the two ideas are quite distinct. (For this difference see Reincarnation; also Preexistence, Metempsychosis, Transmigration, etc.)

See also: Rebirth , Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul

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)

Resurrection

The word resurrection has positive and miracles implications. Jesus resurrected on the third day, and he also resurrected Lazarus. The theme of resurrection is explored in all cultures and religions. It is always something awesome and wondrous. Dreaming about resurrection may point to the awakening of your spiritual nature. If you came into knowledge or "enlightenment" that you never had before, the dream could be referring to the resurrection of the spirit. This dream could also represent insight a new energy. Some think that dreams about resurrection are symbolic of reincarnation.

Source: Dream Lover Incorporated, http://www.dreamloverinc.com

(See also: Dream Archives, Meaning of Dreams, Dream Interpretation, Dream Dictionary, Dream Dictionary - Resurrection , Meaning of Dreams about Resurrection , Dream Interpretation Resurrection )

Ascension

The rise of the "Christ-consciousness" in man-kind to the point that the individual is beyond the powers of reincarnation and karma. The word "resurrection" as found in the New Testament is best translated as "ascension". After millenia of reincarnation, the soul finally gets off the wheel of karma in "ascension". (See Ascension)

(See also: Ascension , New Age Spirituality, Body Mind and Soul)

A dictionary of parapsychology. Please note that words in grey are hyperlinked to a corresponding archive with articles related to that particular topic.

Circle. There are several "Circles" with mystic adjectives attached to them. Thus we have:

(1) the  "Decussated or Perfect Circle" of Plato, who shows it decussated in the form of the letter X ;

(2) the "Circle-dance" of the Amazons, around a Priapic image, the same as the dance of the Gopis around the Sun (Krishna), the shepherdesses representing the signs of the Zodiac ;

(3) the "Circle of Necessity"  of 3,000 years of the Egyptians and of the Occultists, the duration of the cycle between rebirths or reincarnations being from 1,000 to 3,000 years on the average. This will be treated under the term

"Rebirth" or "Reincarnation".

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

Hinduism (Hindu Dharma): (Sanskrit) India's indigenous religious and cultural system, followed today by nearly one billion adherents, mostly in India, but with large populations in many other countries. Also called Sanatana Dharma, "eternal religion" and Vaidika Dharma, "religion of the Vedas."

Hinduism is the world's most ancient religion and encompasses a broad spectrum of philosophies ranging from pluralistic theism to absolute monism.

It is a family of myriad faiths with four primary denominations:

• Saivism,
• Vaishnavism,
• Shaktism and
• Smartism.

These four hold such divergent beliefs that each is a complete and independent religion. Yet, they share a vast heritage of culture and belief:

• karma,
• dharma,
• reincarnation,
• all-pervasive Divinity,
• temple worship,
• sacraments,
• manifold Deities,
• the guru-shishya tradition and
• a reliance on the Vedas as scriptural authority.

From the rich soil of Hinduism long ago sprang various other traditions. Among these were Jainism, Buddhism and Sikhism, which rejected the Vedas and thus emerged as completely distinct religions, disassociated from Hinduism, while still sharing many philosophical insights and cultural values with their parent faith.

Though the genesis of the term is controversial, the consensus is that the term Hindu or Indu was used by the Persians to refer to the Indian peoples of the Indus Valley as early as 500 bce. Additionally, Indian scholars point to the appearance of the related term Sindhu in the ancient Rig Veda Samhita. Janaki Abhisheki writes (Religion as Knowledge: The Hindu Concept, p. 1): "Whereas today the word

Hindu connotes a particular faith and culture, in ancient times it was used to describe those belonging to a particular region. About 500 bce we find the Persians referring to 'Hapta Hindu.' This referred to the region of Northwest India and the Punjab (before partition).

The Rig Veda (the most ancient literature of the Hindus) uses the word Sapta Sindhu singly or in plural at least 200 times. Sindhu is the River Indus. Panini, the great Sanskrit grammarian, also uses the word Sindhu to denote the country or region.

While the Persians substituted h for s, the Greeks removed the h also and pronounced the word as 'Indoi.' Indian is derived from the Greek Indoi."

Dr. S. Radhakrishnan similarly observed,

"The Hindu civilization is so called since its original founders or earliest followers occupied the territory drained by the Sindhu (the Indus) River system corresponding to the Northwest Frontier Province and the Punjab. This is recorded in the Rig Veda, the oldest of the Vedas, the Hindu scriptures, which give their name to this period of Indian history. The people on the Indian side of the Sindhu were called Hindus by the Persians and the later Western invaders. That is the genesis of the word Hindu" (The Hindu View of Life, p. 12).

See: Hindu.

(See also: Hinduism , Hinduism, Body Mind and Soul)

ANIMA, ANIMUS: Jungarian concept that ANIMA, is the buried feminine element in a man's psyche & that ANIMUS is the buried masculine element in the female. This then fits to the Pagan views that Self and, or Soul, is both male & female, and with the concepts of reincarnation.

(See also: ANIMA, ANIMUS , Witchcraft, Wicca, Paganism, Pagan Dictionary)

HINDUISM: The main religious and social system in India. Hinduism has various sects with the commonality of the belief in reincarnation, polytheism and an ordained caste system as its social base.

(See also: HINDUISM , Magickal Traditions, Magickal Paths, Paganism, Pagan Dictionary)

liberation: Moksha, release from the bonds of pasha, after which the soul is liberated from samsara (the round of births and deaths). In Saiva Siddhanta, pasha is the threefold bondage of anava, karma and maya, which limit and confine the soul to the reincarnational cycle so that it may evolve. Moksha is freedom from the fettering power of these bonds, which do not cease to exist, but no longer have the power to fetter or bind the soul.

See: mala, jivanmukti, moksha, pasha, reincarnation, satguru, Self Realization, soul.

(See also: Liberation , Hinduism, Body Mind and Soul)

A Theosophical definition of Metempsychosis :

Metempsychosis

(Greek) A compound vocable which may be rendered briefly by "insouling after insouling," or "changing soul after soul." Metempsychosis contains the specific meaning that the soul of an entity, human or other, moves not merely from condition to condition, migrates not merely from state to state or from body to body; but also that it is an indivisible entity in its inmost essence, which is pursuing a course along its own particular evolutionary path as an individual monad, taking upon itself soul after soul; and it is the adventures which befall the soul, in assuming soul after soul, which in their aggregate are grouped together under this word metempsychosis.

In ordinary language metempsychosis is supposed to be a synonym for transmigration, reincarnation, preexistence, and palingenesis, etc., but all these words in the esoteric philosophy have specific meanings of their own, and should not be confused. It is of course evident that these words have strict relations with each other, as, for instance, every soul in its metempsychosis also transmigrates in its own particular sense; and inversely every transmigrating entity also has its metempsychosis or soul-changings in its own particular sense. But these connections or interminglings of meanings must not be confused with the specific significance attached to each one of these words.

The essential meaning of metempsychosis can perhaps be briefly described by saying that a monad during the course of its evolutionary peregrinations throws forth from itself periodically a new soul-garment or soul-sheath, and this changing of souls or soul-sheaths as the ages pass is called metempsychosis. (See also Transmigration, Reincarnation, Preexistence, Palingenesis)

See also: Metempsychosis , Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul

Preexistence:

Belief that the personality or soul exists prior to birth.

See also Reincarnation.

(See also: Preexistence , Psychic, Psychic Dictionary, Parapsychology, Parapsychology Dictionary)

Transmigration of Souls:

 See Reincarnation .

(See also: Transmigration of Souls , Psychic, Psychic Dictionary, Parapsychology, Parapsychology Dictionary)

ANKH - Egyptian hieroglyphic. A symbol of life, love and reincarnation. It a cross with a looped top (TRASB)

(See also: ANKH , Wiccan Pagan, Paganism, Pagan Dictionary)

A Theosophical definition of Preexistence :

Preexistence

This term means that the human soul did not first come into being or existence with its present birth on earth; in other words, that it preexisted before it was born on earth.

This doctrine of preexistence is by no means typically theosophical, for it likewise was a part of the early teachings of Christianity, as is evidenced in the writings that remain to us of Origen, the great Alexandrian Church Father, and of his school.

The theosophical student should be very careful in distinguishing the technical meanings that pertain to several words which in popular and mistaken usage are often employed interchangeably, as for example preexistence, metempsychosis, transmigration, reincarnation, reimbodiment, rebirth, metensomatosis, palingenesis.

Each one of these words has a specific meaning typically its own, and describes or sets forth one phase of the destiny of a reimbodying and migrating entity. In popular usage, several of these words are used as synonyms, and this usage is wrong. Preexistence, for instance, does not necessarily signify the transmigration of an entity from plane to plane nor, indeed, does it signify as does reincarnation that a migrating monad reinfleshes or reincarnates itself through its ray on earth. Preexistence signifies only that a soul, be it human or other, preexisted before its birth on earth.

The doctrine of the great Origen, as found in his works that remain to us, was that the human soul preexisted in the spiritual world, or within the influence or range of the divine essence or "God," before it began a series of reincarnations on earth. It is obvious that Origen's manner of expressing his views is a more or less faithful but distorted reflection of the teaching of the esoteric philosophy. The teaching of preexistence as outlined by Origen and his school and followers, with others of his mystical quasi-theosophical doctrines, was formally condemned and anathematized at the Home Synod held under Mennas at Constantinople about 543 of the Christian era. Thus passed out of orthodox Christian theology as a "newly discovered heresy" what was a most important and mystical body of teaching of the early centuries of the new Christian religion  - to the latter's great loss, spiritual and intellectual. The doctrines of Origen and his school may be said to have formed an important part of original Christian theosophy, a form of universal theosophy of Christianized character. (See under their respective heads the various correlated doctrines mentioned above.)

See also: Preexistence , Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul

Druids Members of a priestly hierarchy among the ancient Celts of Britain, Gaul, and Ireland, composed of the three Orders of Druids, Bards, and Ovates. According to the Gaulish reports mentioned by Julius Caesar, Druidism was founded in Britain, which remained in his time its headquarters, candidates for the priesthood being sent to that island from Gaul for their training.

The Welsh tradition confirms this, stating the The Wisdom had always existed; that in remote times it was known simply as Gwyddoniaeth (science) and its teachers as the Gwyddoniaid (sing., Gwyddon); that knowledge of it had declined until at some unknown period a wiseman named Tydain Tad Awen arose and taught it to his three disciples, Plenydd, Gwron, and Alawn, who in their turn taught it to the race of the Cymry. From that time forth it was known as Derwyddoniaeth or Druidism, "the wisdom taught in oak groves."

Classical references to the Druids are many, coming from about 200 B.C. until about 200 A.D. Those written before Caesar made his attack on Gaul speak of the Druids as possessors of a high wisdom; the very first reference says that it was held in Greece that philosophy came to the Greeks from the barbaroi or foreigners: the Brahmins of India, the Magi of Persia, the Egyptian priesthood, and the Druids.

While the Romans were fighting the Celts, writers, beginning with Caesar, repeat more or less what has been said before about the wisdom of the Druids but, following Caesar, have much to say about their atrocities. When the Romans were no longer at war with the Druidic Celts, however, the references to the Druids are similar to the early ones, with no mention of atrocities.

Blavatsky stated that Druidism was the one branch of the sacred Mysteries of antiquity in the Western world which had not degenerated; and that during the campaigns of Caesar and his forces in Gaul, three million Gauls were killed and Druidism virtually wiped out there. It is Caesar who is responsible for the current notion that the Gauls and Britons were crude savages and the Druids barbarous and cruel. He stated first that the Druids of Gaul, who were judges as well as priests, inflicted excommunication as their severest sentence, passed even on the worst criminals. Excommunication was their capital punishment. Later on in his book he describes the famous wicker cages filled with criminals (with just men added when there were not criminals enough) who were then burnt. The two statements are contradictory. The later statement is entirely unsupported; the former is not only compatible with the Druids' reputation for profound wisdom and great humanity, but is supported indirectly by practically every classical reference which mentions the Druids at all.

In Gaul in Caesar's time Druidism was very highly organized and controlled the whole civilization, a fact Caesar is known to have deliberately understated, for in many respects Gaulish civilization was more advanced than Roman. We know nothing of Druidism in Britain from the classical writers, except that Britain was its headquarters and place of origin, and that the Druids were massacred in Mona (Anglesea), an island in northwest Wales which seems to have been the Druids headquarters in Britain.

Of Druidism in Ireland we know even less: the Irish Sagas do not indicate that the Druids there were either priests or jurists, or indeed very important people; they appear rather as necromancers at the royal courts, astrologers, magicians, etc. Had Druidism been an organized system, as in Gaul and presumably in Britain, Patrick, the Christian missionary, could hardly have converted the whole island with the little trouble he had. In Britain, however, as soon as the Romans with their proscription of Druidism had departed in 410, there is every reason to think that Druidism flamed up again: Welsh literature, from the 6th to the end of the 15th century, is full of interesting references.

Greek and Roman authors all make much of the Druidic belief in reincarnation. One of them relates that you could always borrow money to be repaid in such and such a future life on earth -- showing that it was reincarnation, the coming back as a human being, and not transmigration, the coming back as an animal, that was taught. The likeness between Druidism and Pythagoreanism is often mentioned, which perhaps suggested the legend that Pythagoras studied not only under Eastern but also under Western or Druidic teachers; and that other belief, that philosophy came to Greece not only from the East, but also from the Druids.

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

Bardo

The intermediate existence between death and reincarnation -- a stage varying from seven to forty-nine days, after which the Karmic body from previous lives will certainly be reborn.

 (See also: Bardo , Buddhism, Body Mind and Soul)