A Theosophical definition of Evolution :

Evolution

As the word is used in theosophy it means the "unwrapping," "unfolding," "rolling out" of latent powers and faculties native to and inherent in the entity itself, its own essential characteristics, or more generally speaking, the powers and faculties of its own character: the Sanskrit word for this last conception is svabhava. Evolution, therefore, does not mean merely that brick is added to brick, or experience merely topped by another experience, or that variation is superadded on other variations  - not at all; for this would make of man and of other entities mere aggregates of incoherent and unwelded parts, without an essential unity or indeed any unifying principle.

In theosophy evolution means that man has in him (as indeed have all other evolving entities) everything that the cosmos has because he is an inseparable part of it. He is its child; one cannot separate man from the universe. Everything that is in the universe is in him, latent or active, and evolution is the bringing forth of what is within; and, furthermore, what we call the surrounding milieu, circumstances  - nature, to use the popular word  - is merely the field of action on and in which these inherent qualities function, upon which they act and from which they receive the corresponding reaction, which action and reaction invariably become a stimulus or spur to further manifestations of energy on the part of the evolving entity.

There are no limits in any direction where evolution can be said to begin, or where we can conceive of it as ending; for evolution in the theosophical conception is but the process followed by the centers of consciousness or monads as they pass from eternity to eternity, so to say, in a beginningless and endless course of unceasing growth.

Growth is the key to the real meaning of the theosophical teaching of evolution, for growth is but the expression in detail of the general process of the unfolding of faculty and organ, which the usual word evolution includes. The only difference between evolution and growth is that the former is a general term, and the latter is a specific and particular phase of this procedure of nature.

Evolution is one of the oldest concepts and teachings of the archaic wisdom, although in ancient days the concept was usually expressed by the word emanation. There is indeed a distinction, and an important one, to be drawn between these two words, but it is a distinction arising rather in viewpoint than in any actual fundamental difference. Emanation is a distinctly more accurate and descriptive word for theosophists to use than evolution is, but unfortunately emanation is so ill-understood in the Occident, that perforce the accepted term is used to describe the process of interior growth expanding into and manifesting itself in the varying phases of the developing entity.

Theosophists, therefore, are, strictly speaking, rather emanationists than evolutionists; and from this remark it becomes immediately obvious that the theosophist is not a Darwinist, although admitting that in certain secondary or tertiary senses and details there is a modicum of truth in Charles Darwin's theory adopted and adapted from the Frenchman Lamarck. The key to the meaning of evolution, therefore, in theosophy is the following: the core of every organic entity is a divine monad or spirit, expressing its faculties and powers through the ages in various vehicles which change by improving as the ages pass. These vehicles are not physical bodies alone, but also the interior sheaths of consciousness which together form man's entire constitution extending from the divine monad through the intermediate ranges of consciousness to the physical body. The evolving entity can become or show itself to be only what it already essentially is in itself  - therefore evolution is a bringing out or unfolding of what already preexists, active or latent, within. (See also Involution)

See also: Evolution , Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul

WIZARDRY (Middle English, wis, “wise”): A term used in various periods of history for magicians, sorcerers or witches and is seldom in use today. The wizard as a high magician was an intellectual who pursued alchemy, the Hermetic wisdom, and the doctrines of Agrippa, Dee, Paracelsus and other Neoplatonic philosophers. In archaic use, a wizard was synonomous with wise man or wise woman.

(See also: WIZARDRY, Pagan Organisations, Paganism, Pagan Dictionary, Wicca, )

Druidism: Druidism is the cultural and spiritual heritage of the Celtic peoples, a polytheistic religion originating in the archaic proto-Indo-European past. It was carried into Western Europe by Indo-European tribes speaking Celtic dialects.

Druidism is a spiritual path in harmony with the natural flow of the cosmos. It is one of the many folk or “earth” religions that can brig us back into reverence for living things and the disciplines of hard work, productivity, physical strength and health. It beckons us to follow the wisdom of our ancestors.

(See also: Druidism, Magic, Shamanism, Paganism, Wicca)

Kapila, Kapila-rishi (Sanskrit) A great sage and adept of antiquity who flourished before the middle of the 6th century BC, considered to be the founder of the Sankhya philosophy. These archaic teachers, such as Zoroaster and Hermes, were several in number, it having been a habit in archaic times for the later heads of a school to use the name of the school's founder as their own, the name thus becoming in some cases a title.

Kapila is also one of the three secret kumaras who are the progenitors of the true spiritual self in the physical human being. In many of the old writings Kapila is also symbolic of cosmic spirit, or of the individual spiritual self who represents the highest state reached on earth. Hence the Puranas and the Ramayana relate that Sagara's 60,000 sons were reduced to ashes by a mere glance of Kapila's eye. This allegory symbolizes the personifications of human emotions, both passional and mental, being completely reduced to inactivity by the spiritual wisdom and purity of the sage -- here the personification of wisdom itself.

Kapila is also a primeval sage of the satya yuga who imparted true wisdom to all creatures.

See also SANKYA.

(See also: Kapila, Kapila-rishi, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

A Theosophical definition of Astrology :

Astrology

The astrology of the ancients was indeed a great and noble science. It is a term which means the "science of the celestial bodies." Modern astrology is but the tattered and rejected outer coating of real, ancient astrology; for that truly sublime science was the doctrine of the origin, of the nature, of the being, and of the destiny of the solar bodies, of the planetary bodies, and of the beings who dwell on them. It also taught the science of the relations of the parts of kosmic nature among themselves, and more particularly as applied to man and his destiny as forecast by the celestial orbs. From that great and noble science sprang up an exoteric pseudo-science, derived from the Mediterranean and Asian practice, eventuating in the modern scheme called astrology  - a tattered remnant of ancient wisdom.

In actual fact, genuine archaic astrology was one of the branches of the ancient Mysteries, and was studied to perfection in the ancient Mystery schools. It had throughout all ancient time the unqualified approval and devotion of the noblest men and of the greatest sages. Instead of limiting itself as modern so-called astrology does to a system based practically entirely upon certain branches of mathematics, in archaic days the main body of doctrine which astrology then contained was transcendental metaphysics, dealing with the greatest and most abstruse problems concerning the universe and man. The celestial bodies of the physical universe were considered in the archaic astrology to be not merely time markers, or to have vague relations of a psychomagnetic quality as among themselves  - although indeed this is true  - but to be the vehicles of starry spirits, bright and living gods, whose very existence and characteristics, individually as well as collectively, made them the governors and expositors of destiny.

See also: Astrology , Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul

Sutrantaka (Sanskrit) [from sutra maxim, precept + anta inner meaning, final meaning]

One who follows the inner and spiritual meaning of the Buddhist Sutras or teachings. Everywhere Buddhism predominates, there are two distinct classes of Buddhists: those who adhere closely to the spirit of the Buddha's original teachings, and those who not only make the teaching popular, but who perhaps also are followers of their letter.

These are another phase of the two methods said to have been taught by the Buddha, called the heart doctrine and the eye doctrine: the former was the doctrine of occult wisdom and deep mystery; the latter, containing the same teaching but expressed in such a way as to be more easily understood, was the outer teaching, and came to be called the doctrine of the Buddha's eye. Likewise these two aspects might be called the doctrine of the spirit, and the doctrine of the intellect. To one who understands both, and coalesces the two into a single unity, full illumination comes regarding the complete content of the archaic wisdom-religion which Gautama Buddha taught.

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

Carnac. A very ancient site in Brittany (France) of a temple of cyclopean structure, sacred to the Sun and the Dragon; and of the same kind as Karnac, in ancient Egypt, and Stonehenge in England. (See the "Origin of the Satanic Myth" in Archaic Symbolism.)

It was built by the prehistoric hierophant-priests of the Solar Dragon, or symbolized Wisdom (the Solar Kumaras who incarnated being the highest). Each of the stones was personally placed there by the successive priest-adepts in power, and commemorated in symbolic language the degree of power, status, and knowledge of each. (See further Secret Doctrine II. 381, et seq., and also " Karnac".)

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

Tat, Tad (Sanskrit) That; used by Vedic and archaic Hindu writers to describe the unutterable Principle or boundless All, from which all in a universe springs, in contrast to idam (this), the manifested universe. The old sages would ask their disciples, "Kas twam asi?" (who are you?); and then would tell them, "Tat twam asi" (That [the Boundless] you are). The ancient wisdom teaches as one of its fundamental postulates, that we are inseparable parts of the universe, and therefore we have all within us, whether active or latent, that the universe contains.

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

East (from Old English est; cf Latin aurora, Greek auos dawn)

One of the four quarters of the globe, different quarters being considered sacred in archaic religio-philosophy, sometimes said to be the place whence wisdom comes: there are the wise men from the East, the star in the East; Christian churches are orientated with the altar to the east.

It is the place of the rising sun, and that part of the celestial equator which the ecliptic intersects at the spring equinox. Hence, as European symbology goes back to a time when the equinox was in Taurus, its corresponding figure among the four sacred animals is the bull.

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

Pururavas (Sanskrit) In Hindu philosophical mysticism and epic literature, the son of Budha, regent of the planet Mercury and equivalent to cosmic wisdom. Budha is given as the son of Soma, the moon, and Ila or Ida, the ethereal earth. Pururavas is an extremely occult character, mentioned both in the Vedas and Puranas.

In the Vedas he seems to be connected with the functions of the sun, Surya, while according to later writers he is one of the ten belonging to the class of visvadevas. His cosmic functions are those belonging to the realms of mahat or cosmic mind, and therefore Pururavas is that faculty of cosmic intelligence which guides cosmic evolution and directs it. The visvadevas are entities whose fields of activity are the intermediate region of our universe.

In the epics, Pururavas is the famous prince of the Soma-vansa (lunar dynasty), the father of Ayus and the ancestor of Puru, Dushyanta, Bharata, Kuru, Bhritarashtra, and Pandu. He is supposed to have instituted the three sacrificial fires, and is likewise the hero of the Vikramorvasi.

According to the Vedas and Puranas was famous for being the first to produce the sacred triad of fires by the friction of two sticks as many finger-breadths long as there are syllables in the Gayatri, and made of the wood of the asvattha tree (the tree of wisdom). This legend is full of occult meaning hid under archaic allusions.

Pururavas is a generalized name for the human monad which in imbodiment is at once the son of divine wisdom and spirit, and of space or mystic earth. The triad of sacred fires are the fire of spirit or inspiration and intuition, the fire of intellect, and the fires of matter or space; and the union of these three into the one generalized fire of the human constitution forms in a sense the field of self-consciousness as well as of the self-conscious ego itself.

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

Pistis Sophia An important treatise on Gnostic teachings, discovered in a Coptic manuscript in the British Museum by the Orientalist Schwartze, who rendered it into Latin and published the original text and his translation in 1851. It was translated into English by G. R. S. Mead and annotated by Blavatsky.

The original version contains many Greek technical terms having no Coptic equivalents and preserved also in the later translations. The tile itself is two such words, the names of two principal Aeons in the Gnostic system. Sophia means wisdom, enlightenment; pistis means intuitive trust, firm belief based on inner conviction, ardent devotion, that quality in the disciple which corresponds to the heart, as wisdom relates to his understanding -- rather than merely faith.

As the opening verses show, these are the esoteric teachings said in the treatise itself to have been given by Jesus to his disciples, when he was rising from the dead and teaching them for eleven years. This means that the teacher had passed eleven degrees of initiation, awaiting only the final degree. The work is a highly veiled version of some of the teachings of the archaic wisdom; it quotes abundantly from the Book of Enoch, and the doctrines of the Upanishads have, at least in degree, passed into it.

(See also: Pistis Sophia, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

A Theosophical definition of Ethics :

Ethics

The theosophical teachings are essentially and wholly ethical. It is impossible to understand the sublime wisdom of the gods, the archaic wisdom-religion of the ancients, without the keenest realization of the fact that ethics run like golden threads throughout the entire system or fabric of doctrine and thought of the esoteric philosophy. Genuine occultism, divorced from ethics, is simply unthinkable because impossible. There is no genuine occultism which does not include the loftiest ethics that the moral sense of mankind can comprehend, and one cannot weigh with too strong an emphasis upon this great fact.

Ethics in the theosophical philosophy are not merely the products of human thought existing as a formulation of conventional rules proper for human conduct. They are founded on the very structure and character of the universe itself. The heart of the universe is wisdom-love, and these are intrinsically ethical, for there can be no wisdom without ethics, nor can love be without ethics, nor can there be ethics deprived of either love or wisdom.

The philosophic reason why the ancients set so much store by what was commonly known as virtus among the Latins, from which we have our modern word "virtue," is because by means of the teaching originating in the great Mystery schools, they knew that virtues, ethics, were the offspring of the moral instinct in human beings, who derived them in their turn from the heart of the universe  - from the kosmic harmony. It is high time that the Occidental world should cast forever into the limbo of exploded superstitions the idea that ethics is merely conventional morality, a convenience invented by man to smooth the asperities and dangers of human intercourse.

Of course every scholar knows that the words morals and ethics come from the Latin and Greek respectively, as signifying the customs or habits which it is proper to follow in civilized communities. But this fact itself, which is unquestionable, is in a sense disgraceful, for it would almost seem that we had not yet brought forth a word adequately describing the instinct for right and truth and troth and justice and honor and wisdom and love which we today so feebly express by the words ethics or morals. "Theosophist is who Theosophy does," wrote H. P. Blavatsky, and wiser and nobler words she never wrote. No one can be a theosophist who does not feel ethic-ally and think ethically and live ethically in the real sense that is hereinbefore described. (See also Morals)

See also: Ethics , Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul

Will-born Used in The Secret Doctrine as equivalent to mind-born -- referring specifically to those beings in the early third root-race "while it was yet in its state of purity" who were created by means of will power through kriyasakti by the Sons of Wisdom.

This progeny is termed the Sons of Ad, Sons of the Fire-mist, or Sons of Will and Yoga. "It was not a Race, this progeny. It was at first a wondrous Being, called the 'Initiator,' and after him a group of semi-divine and semi-human beings. 'Set apart' in Archaic genesis for certain purposes, they are those in whom are said to have incarnated the highest Dhyanis, 'Munis and Rishis from previous Manvantaras' -- to form the nursery for future human adepts, on this earth and during the present cycle" (SD 1:207). Theosophy teaches that in future ages generation by means of will power through krisyasakti will again be the method of producing offspring.

The Puranas also refer to will-born progeny, termed chhandajas.

(See also: Will-born, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body mind and Soul)

Sattva (Sanskrit) [from sat being]

True essence, spiritual essence, reality, true being. Also one of the trigunas (three qualities), the other two being rajas and tamas. "Sattwa is the quality of truth, goodness, reality, purity. These three gunas or qualities run all through the web or fabric of Nature like threads inextricably mingled, for, indeed, each of these three qualities participate likewise in the nature of the other two, yet each one possessing its predominant (which is its own Swabhava) or intrinsic characteristic.

One who desires to gain some genuine understanding of the manner in which the Archaic Wisdom looks upon these three phases of human intellectual and spiritual activity must remember that not one of these three can be considered apart from the other two. The three are fundamentally three operations of the human consciousness, and essentially are that consciousness itself" (OG 153-4). As the human being is the microcosm of the macrocosm, the same gunas can be discovered in the cosmos.

(See also: Sattva, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Hierophant (from Greek hierophantes from hieros sacred + phainein to show)

A revealer of sacred mysteries; title given to the highest adepts in the temples of antiquity, who taught and expounded the Mysteries. The attributes of a hierophant were those of Hermes or Mercury, being both expounder and mystagog or conductor of souls. In Hebrew an equivalent is found in the hierarchy of the 'elohim. Many names of man-gods refer to archaic hierophants, such as Orpheus, Enoch, etc.

The hierophants of ancient Egypt handed down the sacred teachings, some of which were, however, lost by the deaths of hierophants before they had completed their message because, due to the degeneration which had come upon the West, they were unable to find appropriate pupils to receive the wisdom.

During the celebration of the ancient Mysteries, the hierophant in the drama of the Mysteries represented the demiurge, the Third Logos, opening or revealing the mysteries of the universe and, in consequence, of human nature to the neophytes. He was thus the sacred teacher.

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

Hierophant (from Greek hierophantes from hieros sacred + phainein to show)

A revealer of sacred mysteries; title given to the highest adepts in the temples of antiquity, who taught and expounded the Mysteries. The attributes of a hierophant were those of Hermes or Mercury, being both expounder and mystagog or conductor of souls. In Hebrew an equivalent is found in the hierarchy of the 'elohim. Many names of man-gods refer to archaic hierophants, such as Orpheus, Enoch, etc.

The hierophants of ancient Egypt handed down the sacred teachings, some of which were, however, lost by the deaths of hierophants before they had completed their message because, due to the degeneration which had come upon the West, they were unable to find appropriate pupils to receive the wisdom.

During the celebration of the ancient Mysteries, the hierophant in the drama of the Mysteries represented the demiurge, the Third Logos, opening or revealing the mysteries of the universe and, in consequence, of human nature to the neophytes. He was thus the sacred teacher.

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

Alexandrian School Alexandria flourished from the 4th century BC to the 7th AD, being a remarkable center of learning due to the blending of Greek and Oriental influences, its favorable situation and commercial resources, and the enlightened energy of some of the Macedonian Dynasty of the Ptolemies ruling over Egypt.

The Alexandrian school was formed of the Neoplatonist philosophers whose appearance marks the later outburst of Alexandrian culture; and with them may perhaps be classed those Gnostic schools which originated there. This philosophy is a characteristic presentation of parts of the archaic wisdom-religion, being derived from contact with India and with knowledge still then accessible in Egypt.

The Macedonian rulers had established here one of the most famous centers of learning known to history including a museum and a library with its famous collections of books; and the injury done to this center of learning and philosophy by various Roman potentates and Moslem invaders was a disaster for ensuing ages.

(See also: Alexandrian School, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

A Theosophical definition of Sattva :

Sattva

(Sanskrit) One of the trigunas or "three qualities," the other two being rajas and tamas. Sattva is the quality of truth, goodness, reality, purity. These three gunas or qualities run all through the web or fabric of nature like threads inextricably mingled, for, indeed, each of these three qualities participates likewise of the nature of the other two, yet each one possessing its predominant (which is its own svabhava) or intrinsic characteristic.

One who desires to gain some genuine understanding of the manner in which the archaic wisdom looks upon these three phases of human intellectual and spiritual activity must remember that not one of these three can be considered apart from the other two. The three are fundamentally three operations of the human consciousness, and essentially are that consciousness itself.

See also: Sattva , Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul

Smaragdine Tablet The emerald tablet, alleged mystically to be of the Egyptian Hermes or Thoth, on which was inscribed, according to the Hermeticists, "the whole of magic in a single page."

In a letter to the Sophists, Paracelsus says: "The ancient Emerald Table shows more art and experience in Philosophy, Alchemy, Magic, and the like than ever could be taught by you or your crowd of followers."

Masons and Christian Qabbalists alleged it to have been found on the dead body of Hermes by Sarai, Abraham's wife; this allegory may mean that Sarasvati (wife of Brahma and a legendary prototype of Sarai) found much of the ancient wisdom latent in the dead body of humanity and revivified it. It is also said that the Emerald Tablet was found at Hebron, the city of the kabeiroi or cabiri (the gibborim, the Four Mighty Ones), by an Essenian initiate (TG 302, SD 2:556). It exists only in a late Latin form referred to the 7th century.

Hermes was the Greek god of mystical thinking and interpretations, corresponding to the Egyptian Thoth, both divinities being overseers or hierophants of works of initiation concealing the archaic secrets of the god-wisdom. Thus the ascription to Hermes of profoundly mystical allegories is properly assigned, whoever their actual writers may have been.

A fundamental law of interpretation -- analogy -- is expressed in the Emerald Tablet in the famous aphorism, "That which is above is as that which is below; and that which is below, is as that which is above, for performing the marvels of the Kosmos. As all things are from the One, by the mediation of the One so all things arose out of this One Thing by evolving . . ."

(See also: Smaragdine Tablet, Emerald tablet, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

A Theosophical definition of Buddhism :

Buddhism

The teachings of Gautama the Buddha. Buddhism today is divided into two branches, the Northern and the Southern. The Southern still retains the teachings of the "Buddha's brain," the "eye doctrine," that is to say his outer philosophy for the general world, sometimes inadequately called the doctrine of forms and ceremonies. The Northern still retains his "heart doctrine"  - that which is hid, the inner life, the heart-blood, of the religion: the doctrine of the inner heart of the teaching.

The religious philosophy of the Buddha-Sakyamuni is incomparably nearer to the ancient wisdom, the esoteric philosophy of the archaic ages, than is Christianity. Its main fault today is that teachers later than the Buddha himself carried its doctrines too far along merely formal or exoteric lines; yet, with all that, to this day it remains the purest and holiest of the exoteric religions on earth, and its teachings even exoterically are true  - once they are properly understood. They need but the esoteric key in interpretation of them. As a matter of fact, the same may be said of all the great ancient world religions. Christianity, Brahmanism, Taoism, and others all have the same esoteric wisdom behind the outward veil of the exoteric formal faith. See: exoteric. esoteric

See also: Buddhism , Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul