Asava (Sanskrit, Pali) (from the verbal root su to distill, make a decoction)

A distilling or a decoction; a Buddhist term, difficult to render in European languages, signifying the distillation or decoction which the mind makes or produces from the impact upon it of outside energies or substances, whether these latter be thoughts or suggestions automatically arising and acting from outside upon us, or such as impinge upon the human consciousness from another consciousness striving to affect the former.

Thus it corresponds in some respects to the Christian idea of temptation. Asava signifies attachments rising in the mind from the impact upon it of outside influences, and the ideas born of outside influences which intoxicate the mind, born in the mind or flowing into it and presenting its being held upon higher lines. Freedom from the asavas constitutes the essential of arhatship, which involves self-mastery in all its phases. The four asavas are enumerated in Southern Buddhism as 1) sensuousness and sensuality (kama); 2) hunger for life (bhava); 3) dreamy speculation (dittha); and 4) nescience (avijja).

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

Pert Em Hru (Egyptian) [from pert to come + em forth in + hru day]

To come forth in day; the title of several chapters of the Theban Recension of the papyrus manuscripts found placed with the Egyptian dead, generally called the Book of the Dead. The phrase itself refers to the successful entrance of the deceased into the realms of Osiris, after passing through the Judgment Hall.

A more significant meaning of the coming forth in the day or coming forth into light, relates to the fact that these papyri give in veiled language the rites of initiation as it was practiced from earliest times by the Egyptians, the light meaning the spiritual and intellectual splendor which clothes one who has successfully passed from darkness into light.

(See also: Pert Em Hru , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Christos (Greek) Anointed; applied in the Greek Mysteries to a candidate who had passed the last degree and become a full initiate. Also the immanent individual god in a person, equivalent in some respects to Dionysos, Krishna, etc.

The Hebrew word for anointed (mashiah) is generally written in English as Messiah. What we know as Christianity is a syncretism of borrowings from Neoplatonism, neo-Pythogoreanism, Greek Gnosticism, and Hebrew religion. Christos was commonly used in the Greek translation of the Bible as a title of the Jewish Kings, those who had been anointed for reigning -- a symbolic rite taken originally from the Mysteries. St. Paul's use of the word shows that he understood its true mystical meaning, but spoke with precaution in his public epistles or writings.

The first two letters of the Greek word, , superimposed in a monogram, were on the military standard of the later Christian emperors of Rome, probably dating from Constantine, and have a significance as geometrical symbols besides.

See also CHRESTOS

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

Reincarnation Reimbodiment; specifically reinfleshment, the repeated imbodiment of the reincarnating ego in vehicles of human flesh on this earth. The unexhausted desire for earth-life draws the ego back to this globe, where it gathers to itself the material for a reincarnation and thus is finally born from a human womb. The process is repeated almost numberless times until the evolution of the inspiriting monad has reached a stage when reincarnation is no longer required. The interval between successive incarnations may be roughly estimated at 100 times the length of the preceding earth-life -- a rule obviously subject to many exceptions.

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Tanjur Bstan-hgyur, bstan 'gyur (ten-gyur, ten-jur) (Tibetan) Translation of the sastras; the second part of the Tibetan Buddhist canon, the first part being the Kanjur (both words came into Western languages via Mongolian).

The Tanjur is divided into three parts: a one-volume collection of hymns or praises to the Buddha, and two voluminous collections of sastras: tantra commentaries and sutra commentaries. Although called commentaries, these also include independent treatises, and the sutra-commentaries section also includes miscellaneous works such as letters, dictionaries, grammars, medical works, etc.

The Tanjur is even larger than the Kanjur, containing up to 225 volumes. Four editions are known in the West: Narthang, Peking, Derge, and Cone (cho-ne) -- all 18th century blockprints, although the Tanjur is much older as a manuscript collection. The Tanjur contains works assumed to be Tibetan translations of the works of Indian Buddhist masters, other than the Buddha himself. Compositions by Tibetan masters, however authoritative, are not included in the Tanjur.

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

Showbread, Shewbread The bread placed by the ancient Jews every Sabbath before Jehovah on the table made of shittim wood, which was set in the holy place on the north side of the altar of incense.

The bread itself was made of fine flour and baked into twelve cakes, as commanded by Moses: "two tenth deals shall be in one cake. And thou shalt set them in two rows, six on a row, upon the pure table before the Lord. And thou shalt put pure frankincense upon each row" (Lev 24:4-8). The bread remained on the golden table throughout the week, and was then removed to the sanctuary and eaten by the priests alone.

Philo Judaeus states that Moses instituted the showbread with twelve loaves in order to represent the twelve tribes of Israel; and that he divided the nation into twelve tribes in order to represent the twelve signs of the zodiac.

(See also: Showbread, Shewbread , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Ajita (Sanskrit) (from a not + the verbal root ji to conquer, triumph)

The invisible, unsurpassed; in the Vayu-Purana, the highest of twelve gods, named jayas, who were created by Brahma to aid him at the beginning of the manvantara. But because they neglected his directives, Brahma "cursed" them to be born in each succeeding manvantara until the seventh, the Vaivasvata-manvantara (cf VP 1:15; n2, p. 26). These twelve jayas are the Hindu equivalent of the twelve great gods of Greco-Roman mythology. Because of their all-permeant character, on a lower scale these divinities are identical with the manasa, the jnana-devas, the rudras, and other classes of manifested deities. In these lower manifestations of their functions, they are identical with those dhyani-chohanic groups which "refuse to incarnate," spoken of in The Secret Doctrine.

Also the name of the second of the 24 Tirthankaras or Jain teachers.

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

Idol, Idolotry (from Greek eidolon image, idol)

The use of images of divinities, which pertains to exotericism, as do visible symbols, ceremonies, and rituals in general. Attitudes vary among religions: Judaism, Islam, and Protestant Christianity absolutely forbid it; Orthodox Christianity permits icons, such as pictures of saints; Roman Catholicism, Hinduism, and Buddhism permit it altogether.

Varying degrees of ignorance or enlightenment may regard an idol as in itself a species of imbodied divinity, as transmitting the influence of a divinity or, more spiritually, as a reminder of a divinity. In a real sense, idolatry is the attaching of undue importance to the form rather than to the spirit, and often becomes degraded into worshiping the images made in our imagination and imbodied in work of the hands.

"Esoteric history teaches that idols and their worship dies out with the Fourth Race, until the survivors of the hybrid races of the latter (Chinamen, African Negroes, etc.) gradually brought the worship back. The Vedas countenance no idols; all the modern Hindu writings do" (SD 2:723).

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Lebanon (Hebrew) A mountain range in Syria and Palestine of two principal chains, Lebanon or Libanus on the west and Antilibanus on the east. In this region dwell the brotherhood of the Druzes and likewise the Nabatheans.

Lebanon is most often associated with its cedars; however, the phrase cedars of Lebanon also meant initiants who "were called the 'trees of Righteousness,' and the cedars of Lebanon, as also were come kings of Israel" (SD 2:494). In India too adepts of the right- and left-hand path were often called trees. It depended upon the tree which was selected as being beneficent or maleficent as, for instance, the upas tree of the left-hand, or the bodhi tree of the right-hand.

While the range of mountains in Syria and Palestine is called Lebanon (white), nevertheless there is a direct ancient mystical reference here to the moon or lunar influence; as a meaning of this range as envisaged by the ancient inhabitants would be the lunar range of mountains, points directly to esoteric observances connected with the moon and its malignant and unwholesome influences.

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

Phenomena [from Greek phainomena appearances from phainomai to appear]

The impermanent, ever-changing outward appearances of things, as opposed to onta, the permanent enduring realities behind. Also, objects of perception as opposed to objects of cognition; that which is perceived by the senses, contrasted with that which is conceived by the mind.

The word correlates with both meanings of noumena. Under the first meaning it may be said that, in one sense, everything is phenomenal except the one Reality; but the word may also be used relatively.

Under the second meaning, we may speak of phenomena as a word stressing the mechanical aspect of things, as contrasted with the unseen intelligences behind, as in the contrast between the forces of science and the intelligent noumena of which they are merely the manifestations.

In modern popular use it also denotes a supernormal event, such as an exercise of occult or magical powers, or again a portent, what the Latins would have called a prodigy.

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

Aja (Sanskrit) (from a not + the verbal root jan to be born, produced)

Unborn; title given to many of the primordial gods. In the Rig-Veda, the equivalent of the First Logos, which is a radiation or first manifestation on the plane of illusion of the cosmic One -- the Absolute or cosmic paramatman. The Purusha-Sukta or Hymn of Man (RV 10:90) states that the thousand-headed Purusha is dismembered at the foundation of the world so that from his remains the universe might arise. This is the foundation of the later Christian symbol of the sacrificial lamb, for there is here a play on words: Aja the "unborn" -- Purusha or manvantaric spirit -- may also be derived from the verbal root aj (to drive, propel), whose meanings include a he-goat, a ram, and the sign Aries. Spirit disappears -- dies, metaphorically -- the more it becomes involved in cosmic matter, and hence the sacrifice of the unborn, the lamb, or the ram (cf TBL 56).

Aja when derived from the verbal root aj, is also a title given to various Vedic divinities such as Rudra, Indra, Angi, the sun, the maruts, and in post-Vedic works to Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, as well as to cosmic Kama, counterpart of the Greek cosmic Eros -- all these gods being considered leaders of their respective hierarchies in the sense of urging, driving, or propelling life and intelligence therein.

In its feminine form, aja signifies maya (illusion) and hence prakriti (evolving nature).

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

Fairies. See ELEMENTALS

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Aeon, Aeons (Latin) Aion (Greek) (from aion time)

An age, a period of time; used alone, equivalent to the word logos, but the usual meaning includes a spiritual being considered as an emanation from the divine essence and also a period of time which is brought about by the existence of this spiritual being.

In the Gnostic systems it signified the various creative powers issuing from the demiurgic Logos, and varying in degree from the most spiritual or ethereal planes to the most gross. Valentinus held that a perfect aion called Propator, equivalent to the First Logos, existed before bythos or the spatial deep (equivalent to the Second Logos).

Blavatsky explains that it is "Aion, who springs as a Ray from Ain-Soph (who does not create), and Aion, who creates, or through whom, rather, everything is created, or evolves" (SD 1:349). This twofold use of a word to denote a period of time and a deific power, also appears in Manu, and in the names of the Biblical patriarchs and the periods assigned to their respective lifetimes. (See FSO 194-5 for more detail)

The adjective aeonios occurs frequently in the New Testament, where it is mistranslated as eternal or everlasting.

(See also: Aeon, Aeons , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Rebecca, Rebekah Ribeqah (Hebrew) In the Bible the wife of Isaac, mother of Esau and Jacob. When Rebecca was about to become a mother, she felt that the children were struggling within her, so she inquired of the Lord as to the meaning of this, and received the answer: "Two nations are in thy womb, and two manner of people shall be separated from thy bowels; and the one people shall be stronger than the other people; and the elder shall serve the younger" (Genesis 25:23). Rebecca gave birth to twins, "and the first came out red, all over like an hairy garment; and they called his name Esau" (25:25); and the other was called Jacob.

Genesis 25:24-34 contains "the allegorical history of the birth of the Fifth Race," as explained in Jewish allegorical fashion; and "Esau represents in the Bible the race which stands between the Fourth and the Fifth, the Atlantean and the Aryan" (SD 2:705).

(See also: Rebecca, Rebekah, Ribeqah , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Beelzebub, Beelzebul ba`al zebub (Hebrew) (from ba`al lord + zebub fly)

Lord of the flies; a god of the Philistines, popularly worshiped as the destroyer of flies, to whom was erected a temple at Ekron. The mythical zoology of the ancients points directly to an inner and mystical significance: "flies" is used not in the sense of the insect, but for a certain class of elementals whose "flying" around and through the earth is governed directly by lunar influences. Thus Beelzebub is in this connection a lunar divinity.

Ba`al-zebul, a form in the Old and New Testaments, is translated as Lord of the High House or Lord of the Habitation, the reference here being to the moon as the habitation or receptacle of these elemental souls at a certain time of their existence.

In Christian demonology, Beelzebub is one of the gubernatores of the infernal kingdom under Lucifer: thus in Milton's Paradise Lost he is second to Satan. In Matthew 12:24, Beelzebub is referred to as the prince of the devils.

(See also: Beelzebub, Beelzebul, ba`al zebub , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Arimaspi, Arimaspes arimastioi (Greek) In Greek mythology, a one-eyed people of the extreme northeast of Scythia, perhaps near the region of eastern Altai, mentioned by Aristeas of Proconnesus, from whom Herodotus derives his account.

They stole gold from the griffins who guarded it, and Apollo destroyed them with his shafts. The allegory, which is mixed up with history in Herodotus' account, refers to the supersession of a degraded remnant of third-eye people by the coming fifth root-race, as in the case of the Cyclopes.

(See also: Arimaspi, Arimaspes, arimastioi , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Anjali (Sanskrit) (from the verbal root anj to smear with, anoint, honor)

Salutation; a gesture of respect when the hands placed side by side and slightly hollowed are raised to the forehead. This salutation of reverence and benediction has been universally used by Hindus since ancient times, not only as a sign of reverence to gurus or those to whom it is desired to show special respect, but also frequently as a gesture of prayer directed to divinities.

The form anjala is used at the end of a compound. Blavatsky speaks of anjala as one of "the personified powers which spring from Brahma's body -- the Prajapatis" (TG 23).

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

Amen 'amen (Hebrew) (from 'aman to be firm, faithful, trustworthy, sure)

Firmness, permanency, durability, truth, fidelity; as an adverb truly, certainly, verily, so be it. The significance of amen is in many cases almost identic with that of the Sanskrit Aum (Om). For this reason in Christian prayers or church services it has been adopted as the final word closing a prayer -- another usage closely similar to the way in which Om is used in Sanskrit writings. In later Gnostic times Amen was one of the angelic host.

In ancient Egypt one of the great gods was called Amen or Ammon (

See also AMMON).

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Gei' Hinnom (Hebrew) Also Gai-hinnom. The valley of Hinnom, generally rendered as by the Greek Gehenna, situated south of Jerusalem, in which was Tophet where children were at one time sacrificed to Moloch (2 Kings 23:10).

 Later the place was used as a crematorium for the refuse of the city, perpetual fires being kept for that purpose. In the Bible it is translated as hell or hell of fire, but the Hebrew word bears no such interpretation. The Greek Gehenna "is identical with the Homeric Tartarus" (IU 2:507).

In the Zohar and Talmud, the place of purification. After death, Dumah (the Angel of Death, or the shadowy land of silence, the region of the astral dead -- She'ol, Hades, the underworld) leads the impure Neshamah to the dwelling of Gei' Hinnom, where it must be purified in order to proceed upon its journey (Zohar i 218b).

Just as cities need a crematorium for purifying purposes, so has the earth a gehenna, a planet like our own which is "termed by the occultists the eighth sphere . . . on which all the dross and scorification of the cosmic matter pertaining to our planet is in a continual state of remodelling" (IU 1:328).

(See also: Gei' Hinnom , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Cush kush (Hebrew) Black; the eldest son of Ham, grandson of Noah, and father of Nimrod. Also applied to his descendants, usually translated Ethiopians, and to a region vaguely defined as Ethiopia. An old tradition states that Ham stole seven books out of Noah's Ark and gave them to Cush; and Mas'udi, the Arabic historian, says that the Nabathaeans were those descendants of Ham who settled under the leadership of Nimrod.

(See also: Cush, kush , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Aerobes and Anaerobes (from Greek aer air + bios life)

Bacteria which need free oxygen for their sustenance, and those which do not, respectively. Each division includes some forms which can adapt themselves to either condition. When free oxygen is not obtainable, oxygen is obtained by decomposition of the surrounding substance, and the bacteria become destructive -- destruction means recombination, as death is rebirth. Also connected with the processes of fermentation. Pasteur's researches in fermentation are mentioned by Blavatsky as showing how so-called vital processes shade off indistinguishably into so-called inorganic or chemical processes. These physical builders and destroyers are analogous to their prototypes on the higher planes.

(See also: Aerobes and Anaerobes , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Daemon Est Deus Inversus (Latin) Daemon is divinity inverted; more commonly, the Devil is God inverted. An ancient Hermetic, and later Qabbalistic, aphorism referring to that polar power which is required by the equilibrium and harmony in nature.

The One, when manifested, becomes Two, and from the Two are unfolded or evolved all the sequence of manifest existence. Spirit and matter, good and evil, as distinct conceptions exist only by their mutual contrast. There is no evil per se, but the human notion of essential evil arises from our inability to take in the whole at a single glance.

Daemon is applicable in general to all formative power, from the highest to the lowest; in this aphorism it denotes the formative rays in their manifestation in and on the lower planes of prakriti, called by contrast the nether pole.

Western monotheism, having anthropomorphized the higher creative powers into a personal God, personified the lower powers into a Devil and demons. But Satan or the Adversary is only God's messenger, because what is below reflects what is above. This aphorism, then, states that all the manifested universe is the representation or material inversion or reflection of the divine essence and its emanations which in their aggregate compose the spiritual background and causal forces of the universe. Furthermore, a reflected image reverses.

Finally, the aphorism denotes the astral light, represented by a black triangle inverted on a white (SD 1:424).

(See also: Daemon Est Deus Inversus , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)