A Wisdom Archive on attraction

Introduction and links to related topics

Lost Soul - Lost Soul An entity who through a series of rebirths has been slowly following the easy descent to Avernus. A lost soul is one who is not merely "soulless" in the ordinary theosophical usage, but is one who has lost the last link, the last delicate thread of consciousness, connecting him with his inner god.

This loss of the soul cannot ensue as long as even one spiritual aspiration remains functionally active. When not one single, quivering aspiration spiritward remains, the soul is lost for that manvantara; its essence, as it were, is inverted, and its tendency is downwards into avichi where, depending upon the power over nature acquired by the soul, circumstances may bring about an almost immediate annihilation of it or, perhaps, a manvantara of avichi-nirvana, a fearful state indeed, contrasted with the wondrous nirvana of the dhyani-chohans.

But this horrible fate, the easy descent, is brought about gradually. Passing from human birth to an inferior human birth, and then to one still more inferior, the degenerate astral monad -- all that remains of the human being that once was -- may finally even enter the body of some beast to which it feels attracted (and this is one side of the teaching of transmigration, which has been so badly misunderstood); some finally go even to plants perhaps, at the last, and will ultimately vanish. The astral monad will then have faded out. Such lost souls are exceedingly rare.

The lost soul is at one pole of consciousness and the master at the other. It is between the higher human soul, and the human soul (or man proper) that lies the psychological frontier over which one must pass forwards or backwards, into regeneration or degeneration. The first leads to masterhood, the second to final annihilation. For, as attraction to matter increases, the egoic soul-quality deteriorates, and through attrition the link is broken, and the soul finally sinks into the Eighth Sphere, the Planet of Death.

Amenti - Amenti, Amentet (Egyptian) The underworld (Tuat), the hidden place or secret region. The 15th or last house (Aat) of the Tuat, called Amentet-nefert (beautiful Amenti) and described as the dwelling place of the gods, where they live upon cakes and ale -- in this respect similar to the Scandinavian Valhalla, the heaven world or devachan. The afterworlds were also referred to as Sekhet-hetep or -hetepet (the fields of peace), called in Greece the Elysian Fields, under the dominion of Osiris, lord of Amenti. Some of the texts speak of Amenti as situated far to the north of Egypt, although it is more commonly referred to as the Silent Land of the West. Other texts place it either below or above the earth, and the deceased is pictured as needing a ladder to ascend to the region.

The deceased, entering the domain as a khu, performs the same activities that he did on earth: plowing, reaping, sailing his boat, and making love. On entering Amenti, Anubis conducts the soul to the hall of Osiris where it is judged by the 42 judges and its heart is weighed against the feather of truth. If the soul passes the test, it goes to the fields of Aalu.

If the names of the 15 Aats, the 7 Arrets (circles), the 21 Pylons, as well as the gods and guardians of these domains are all known, the deceased is enabled to pass from one mansion to the other, and finally to enter the Night Boat of the Sun, which passes through the Tuat on its way to arise in the heavens. The shades who miss this boat, the unprogressed egos, must remain in the afterworld or kama-loka, while those who enter the boat are carried to the heaven world or devachan where they wander about until they return to earth for rebirth.

This refers to the passing from world to world by the ego proficient in knowledge of the "names," and thereafter entering the secret or invisible pathways to the sun. The knowledge of the names indicates spiritual, intellectual, and psychic development, by which the ego of the defunct is no longer attracted to the lower spheres, but having knowledge of them correctly answers the challenges and thereafter follows the attraction upwards and onwards.

Writing on the symbol of the egg which is often depicted as floating above a mummy, Blavatsky says: "This is the symbol of hope and the promise of a second birth for the Osirified dead; his Soul, after due purification in the Amenti, will gestate in this egg of immortality, to be reborn from it into a new life on earth. For this Egg, in the esoteric Doctrine, is the Devachan, the abode of Bliss; the winged scarabeus being alike a symbol of it" (SD 1:365).

The mystical and mythologic teachings concerning Amenti were all more or less symbolic descriptions of the series of afterdeath states and adventures experienced by the excarnate entity. Thus kama-loka, devachan, and the postmortem peregrinations of the excarnate monad are all combined under the one term Amenti.

Diagnosis Process - Diagnosis Process
The imbalance of doshas and the course they follow to cause disease is termed samprapti or pathogenesis. Since diseases develop in distinct stages, a good knowledge of those helps in early recognition of disease. Ayurveda thus elaborates a six stage process for diagnosis called Kriya (action) Kal (time). The first 4 stages being unique to Ayurveda in that they permit recognition and elimination of the disease before it ventures into differentiated clinical symptoms.

One who knows the various stages of pathogenesis accumulation (sanchaya), provocation (prakopa) spread or migration (prasara), deposition or augmentation (sthana samshaya), manifestation (vyakti) and the differentiation (bheda) is entitled to be a physician.

Stage One: Accumulation (Sanchaya)
Weak digestive power and excess of dosha is responsible for such a condition.
Here toxins (ama) produced by improper digestion collects in the gastro-intestinal (GI) tract.
Toxins resulting from a kapha imbalance accumulates in the stomach, those associated with a pitta imbalance collects in the small intestine, and that related to vata malfunction amasses in the colon.
Due to the presence of one of these toxins, mild and ill-defined symptoms may show.
We should recognise and eliminate the cause instead of ignoring or suppressing it.
Causes aversion to similar things and attraction for contraries.

Stage Two : Aggravation (Prokapa)

The accumulated, stagnant doshas are now `excited’ by factors as ahara, vihara & seasons.
The toxins amass in such degree to get provoked in the site of production in the GI tract.

Stage Three : Spread (Prasara)

Bi-sexual - Of or characterized by sexual attraction for members of both genders.
See: heterosexual, homosexual, sexuality.

Dzu-trul - Dzu-trul rDzu-''phrul (Tibetan) mesmeric attraction {BCW 6:107}.

Ethrobacy - Ethrobacy (Ancient Greek). Lit., walking on, or being lifted into the air with no visible agent at work; "levitation". It may be conscious or unconscious; in the one case it is magic, in the other either disease or a power which requires a few words of elucidation.

We know that the earth is a magnetic body; in fact, as some scientists have found, and as Paracelsus affirmed some 300 years ago, it is one vast magnet. It is charged with one form of electricity - let us call it positive - which it evolves continuously by spontaneous action, in its interior or centre of motion. Human bodies, in common with all other forms of matter, are charged with the opposite form of electricity, the negative.

That is to say, organic or inorganic bodies, if left to themselves will constantly and involuntarily charge themselves with and evolve the form of electricity opposite to that of the earth itself. Now, what is weight? Simply the attraction of the earth. "Without the attraction of the earth you would have no weight", says Professor Stewart; "and if you had an earth twice as heavy as this, you would have double the attraction".

How then, can we get rid of this attraction? According to the electrical law above stated, there is an attraction between our planet and the organisms upon it, which keeps them upon the surface of the globe. But the law of gravitation has been counteracted in many instances, by levitation of persons and inanimate objects. How account for this?

The condition of our physical systems, say theurgic philosophers, is largely dependent upon the action of our will. If well- regulated, it can produce "miracles"; among others a change of this electrical polarity from negative to positive; the man’s relations with the earth-magnet would then become repellent, and "gravity"for him would have ceased to exist. It would then be as natural for him to rush into the air until the repellent force had exhausted itself, as, before, it had been for him to remain upon the ground.

The altitude of his levitation would be measured by his ability, greater or less, to charge his body with positive electricity. This control over the physical forces once obtained, alteration of his levity or gravity would be as easy as breathing. (See Isis Unveiled, Vol. I., page xxiii.)

Naimittika Pralaya - Naimittika Pralaya and Naimittika Manvantara (Sanskrit) [from naimittika occasional, unusual, due to external cause from nimitti]

Occasional dissolution or manifestation; in Hindu literature, pralayas or manvantaras which are unusual or occasional because occurring at wide intervals, either of time or circumstance, especially those separated by Brahma''s Days and Nights. A naimittika pralaya occurs when Brahma slumbers: it is the destruction of all that lives and has form, but not of the substance, which remains more or less in statu quo till the new dawn after that Night of Brahma.

At the end of a Day of Brahma there occurs what is called in the Puranas a recoalescence of the universe, called Brahma''s "contingent or naimittika recoalescence or pralaya," because Brahma is this universe itself. A naimittika pralaya is thus similar to the bhaumika or planetary pralaya (cf SD 1:371-2, 376-7).

As another example of its usage, when a human being through a series of high initiation casts off the chains of material existence although retaining sufficient attraction to bring about a return to such existence, this could be called a naimittika event.

Levitation - Levitation (from Latin levis light in weight)

The act of rising in the air at will or unconsciously, in opposition to gravitation. However, theosophy does not view gravitation in the Newtonian sense, but sees in it magnetic attraction and repulsion.

Levitation is due to a change in the polarity of a body becoming identical with the polarity of the earth on which the body rests, which then repels the body or ceases to attract it. The height attained being dependent upon the strength or potentiality of the electric polar energy resident in the rising body. It is possible, and indeed easy, for the adept to change the polarity of his body at will.

In ancient Greece levitation was called aithrobates (from which aethrobacy), meaning the art of walking in the ether or air.

Repulsion - Repulsion.

See ATTRACTION AND REPULSION

Pothos - Pothos (Greek) Desire; the divine love felt by spirit for its own principles (Chaos), thus the root of eros and cupido. Just as is the case with the various meanings given to the Sanskrit kama, so with pothos. Abstract kama is identic with abstract pothos, pothos itself; and as from abstract kama, spiritual divine love, springs forth the lower kama of the manifested worlds, just so from pothos mystically spring forth first eros, cosmic attraction on all planes, and then on a still lower and more material series of planes was born cupido, or attraction and yearning.

Dand - Dand, Danda (Sanskrit) "The three and seven-knotted bamboo of Sannyasis given to them as a sign of power, after their initiation" (BCW 2:119). Used by raja yogis to store the essence of the yogi''s power: "recognizing this power in himself, he endows the given object with it and concentrates it in the object, . . . Then, when occasion arises, using his own will and discretion, he aims, in one direction or another, this power, the twofold quality of which is attraction and repulsion. . . . By such means he transforms also the wand or danda into a vahana, filling it with his own power and spirit and giving it for the time being his own properties" {Caves and Jungles 594; also 596-8}

Magne - Magne (Icelandic) (from magn main, strength)

Thor, Norse god of thunder and lightning, in his capacity as electromagnetism in the infinite reaches of space, has two sons: Mode and Magne.

Both mean power, though Mode has the connotation of anger (as in "mood," German Muth wrath), suggesting a repelling force, whereas Magne connotes power that is granted one. These two sons of Thor may represent attraction and repulsion, or gravitation and radiation on the cosmic level.

Theophilanthropists - Theophilanthropists Love of God and man, or of God through man; a modern sect headed by Revelliere-Lepeaux, a member of the French Directory (1795-99) and a bitter opponent of ecclesiastical religion (especially Roman Catholicism), who seized a moment of attraction towards the Revolutionary ideas to forward his new religion and turn churches into Theophilanthropic temples.

It was a species of deism, believing in God but not in a special revelation or any of the church doctrines; and seems to have been one form of the generally vague quasi-religious, quasi-philosophical ideas which were current in the latter part of the 18th century in France and ran like wildfire over the whole country.

Akarsha - Akarsha akarsa (Sanskrit) (from a near to, towards + krish to draw, pull, lead)

Drawing towards oneself, attraction, fascination as by magnetism. The law of attraction, and its alter ego repulsion, is a fundamental and universal operation of nature and is active on all planes and in all spaces and times. It is, in another sense, one of the functions of that unceasing motion which is an inherent attribute of cosmic consciousness. "Motion is the eternal order of things and affinity or attraction its handmaid of all works" (ML 67).

Sex - Sex As applied to the organism as a whole, the differentiation of the reproductive function and the character of being male and female.

Organisms reproduce their kind in various ways: fission, gemmation, parthenogenesis, hermaphrodite reproduction, and sexual reproduction. In the course of evolution, organisms pass from one method to another; the passage from the hermaphrodite method to the one in which the sexes are in separate individuals took place in the animals in the third root-race of this round on this globe, and shortly afterwards in humanity (SD 2:184), the latter then being in the fifth subrace of the third root-race.

The process of separation did not occur suddenly, but slowly. This is often called the Fall, and is so in one sense, since it is a descent from spirit toward matter, and was an initiation of the beasts. "THEY (the animals) BEGAN TO BREED. The TWOFOLD MAN (then) SEPARATED ALSO. HE (man) SAID: "LET US AS THEY: LET US UNITE AND MAKE CREATURES.'' THEY DID" (ibid.). But from another viewpoint, it was simply a following of the natural course of unfolding progress in evolution. The separation is symbolized by a circle with a vertical diameter.

The hermaphroditic state is repeated in the developing embryo where the organs of both sexes arise from the same germinal layer of cells, and the differentiation does not occur until near the middle of the viable period of fetal life. Today, the orderly unfolding of embryonic cells into a human form is due to following the invisible model which, in keeping with the imbodying ego''s karma, is directed by creative spiritual entities and forces.

"Before man could become male and female physically, his prototype, the creating Elohim, had to arrange his Form on this sexual plane astrally. That is to say, the atoms and the organic forces, descending into the plane of the given differentiation, had to be marshaled in the order intended by Nature, so as to be ever carrying out, in an immaculate way, that law which the Kabala calls the balance, through which everything that exists does so as male and female in its final perfection, in this present stage of materiality. Chochmah, Wisdom, the Male Sephiroth, had to diffuse itself in, and through, Binah, intelligent Nature, or Understanding" (SD 2:84). After the separation, the third eye began to disappear, and death as we now understand it was not known until then.

Thus the primeval polarity of all things differentiated on the material plane -- including sexual humanity -- was of immaculate origin and purpose. This sublime ancient teaching has been degraded generally in theological interpretations of cosmic sex symbols in crude physiological terms, such as the substitution of a Jehovistic god of generation for an ineffable, unknown deity.

The originating causes of sex are not rooted in the higher principles or elements of the human composite constitution. It is the effect of former thought-deposits, of emotional and mental tendencies and biases given way to in preceding lives on earth. "The predominating and it may perhaps truly be said that the main cause of sex-change in incarnation is strong attraction to the opposite sex during the few -- or in rare cases it may be a fairly large number -- preceding lives on earth. This attraction, which is the instrumental cause of the tendencies and biases spoken of, arising out of thought and emotional energy, feminizes the life-atoms, or masculinizes them, as the individual case may be, and the natural consequence is incarnation in a body of the sex to which attraction leads" (ET 666). Thus a reincarnating ego may have several incarnations in bodies of one sex, and then incarnate in bodies of the opposite sex for a number of times in succeeding incarnations. How many times, therefore, a reincarnating ego may imbody in a male or a female body is not subject to any arbitrary rule but depends solely upon the karmic impulse laid aside in the treasury of psychomental experiences.

Though the distinction of sex is biologically regarded as a profound and nearly universal attribute of organized beings, yet knowledge of composite human nature shows that it does not reach into the roots of the human constitution. Its causes go no deeper than the lower part of the human ego or soul, the psychophysiological nature. It is an evolutionary condition or cycle of the reincarnating ego''s development in this present stage of materiality. Therefore, it is a transitory event in its bipolar earthly experience. As sex has been nature''s plan for the race for some 18 million years, it will continue to be the natural plan for some ages to come. Some ages hence, sex differentiation will have given way to the activities of impersonal, spiritual creative energies.