Paranirvana, Parinirvana (Sanskrit) [from pari + nirvana blown out from nir out + the verbal root va to blow]

That which is beyond nirvana; the period of kosmic rest (mahapralaya or Great Night of Brahma), lasting 311,040,000,000,000 terrestrial years. Likewise called the great Day Be-With-Us; the Egyptian Day of Come-To-Us; and the Christian Day of the Last Judgment which, however, has been materialized by modern dogmatism.

"The day when 'the spark will re-become the Flame (man will merge into his Dhyan Chohan) myself and others, thyself and me,' as the Stanza has it -- means this: In Paranirvana -- when Pralaya will have reduced not only material and psychical bodies, but even the spiritual Ego(s) to their original principle -- the Past, Present, and even Future Humanities, like all things, will be one and the same. Everything will have re-entered the Great Breath. In other words, everything will be 'merged in Brahma' or the divine unity" (SD 1:265-6).

The kosmic pralaya is analogous to the death of the human being. The spiritual monads are drawn into higher ranges of being, to live and evolve, while the lower elements or bodies of the universe disperse as does our physical and lower psychological vehicles after death.

See also PARANISHPANNA

(See also: Paranirvana, Parinirvana, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Bacchus (Greek) Used by both Greeks and Romans, also called Dionysos by the Greeks, Liber by the Romans, Zagreus in the Orphic mysteries, Sabazius in Phrygia and Thrace; the same as Iacchus (connected with Iao and Jehovah).

Generally represented as the son of Zeus and Semele, he is spoken of sometimes as a solar and sometimes as a lunar deity; for, like many other personifications of cosmic powers, he has both a solar and lunar (masculine or feminine) aspect. As a solar deity he has a serpent for his symbol and is a man-savior, parallel with Adonis, Osiris, Krishna, Buddha, and Christos. He is often called the god of wine, natural fertility, etc.

The original, pure Bacchic rites pertained to high initiation, in which the candidate becomes conscious of his oneness with divinity. Thus Bacchus, with his symbolic serpent and wine, stands for divine inspiration. But when the keys of the sacred science were lost and symbols were interpreted literally, the rites degenerated and often became profligate.

Bacchus-Dionysos also figures as the inspirer of dramatic and representative art, inspiring the individual with the divine afflatus or mystic frenzy. Originally this meant the inner communion of the candidate with his own inner god and the consequent inspiration; on a lower plane it signifies the fleeting inspiration of poet and artist, and finally it degenerated into hysteria and morbid psychic states.

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

Ectoplasm (from Greek ektos without + plasma a thing formed)

Used by observers interested in psychic research and kindred subjects to denote the filmy matter which appears at times to exude from the body of a medium. Inasmuch as purported photographs have been shown representing this matter in close proximity to the body of a medium, and even as clearly issuing from it, it is quite evident that physical or quasi-physical matter must be associated with this ectoplasm.

When this ectoplasm is genuine (for it may of course be simulated for a photograph), it occurs because the constitution of the medium is loosely knit together and thus an exudation becomes possible from the medium's linga-sarira or model-body upon which the physical body is built.

In cases of genuine ectoplasmic projection, because of the peculiar, exceptional magnetic and vital condition surrounding a medium's body, atoms are also drawn to the medium by electromagnetic attraction, such as molecules of air or dust particles of physical and pranic substance with which the air is laden. These tiny particles of often invisible physical substance fuse with the exuding material from the linga-sarira of the medium, giving it substance and even the appearance of physical matter.

Thus when the ectoplasm is touched, it feels warm and vital; occasionally even a throbbing sensation may be felt due to the pulse-beat coming from the heart of the medium.

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

Hypnotism (from Greek hypnos sleep)

One name for an artificially produced somnambulistic, entranced, or psychologized state. A better word for the procedure is psychologization, hypnotism being but one phase of the general subject which includes fascination, multiple or double personality, some religious ecstasies, and different methods of psychic healing. All these things operate in and upon the important intermediate part between our spiritual and physical-astral self and usually affect the latter self very strongly. This intermediate part is the human soul of the reincarnating entity -- the man or woman we see and know. As this includes the psychomental-emotional powers and faculties, it is intimately related to intelligence and sanity, to emotions and conduct, and to health.

Theosophy holds that mesmerism is not hypnotism. In hypnotism the subject's intermediate nature is disjoined from its natural relations with his physical and astral body and put out of the control of the person himself, becoming susceptible to other influences. This process is a reversal of all evolutionary currents which in every being unfold and manifest from conscious centers within. Such a reversal is dangerous and far-reaching in its results, spiritually, mentally, morally, psychically, and physically.

Moreover, the hypnotizer endangers himself by such intimate linking with the lower mind and feeling of his subject -- whose spiritual nature is always beyond another's control. From the operator's entrance into, and operation of, the subject's physico-astral body, there results a mutual infection with each other's faulty human nature. Whoever thus changes the forces and trend of another's life, obligates himself to share karmically in those changes to the end.

Psychologizing a person to heal him of disease or rid him of some injurious habit is also harmful. Bodily ills, in themselves, are the cleansing processes by which past inner wrongs of thought and feeling, having reached the material plane, can be worked out of the system. As for karmic faults and failings in character, the person restrained from them by hypnotism or psychologization merely loses a timely opportunity to develop his spiritual will by which alone every human being must consciously work out his own destiny. The apparent cure of disease, or of a weakness, means that these have been driven inwards, dammed back, inevitably to reappear with accumulated force at a less opportune time in this or a future life. Nor does the practice of self-hypnotization or self-psychologization prevent a disjunction of the person's intermediate nature from his immortal self. The results finally appear as mental disease resulting in crime or as physical disease which is the minor evil.

Suggestion has a dual power: for good or for ill, the results depending upon both the motive and the method of its use. The conscious and unconscious use of it for self-interest is unfortunately met with everywhere; as a part of modern training in high-power salesmanship, it pervades the methods popular in both commercial and professional circles. However, suggestion has a power of noble appeal to the intelligence and spiritual will of others whose better nature responds to a good example, impersonal teaching, and pure and helpful thoughts and feelings. Hypnotism and other such practices are dangerous because they so often fall into black magic or sorcery.

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

Hypnotism (from Greek hypnos sleep)

One name for an artificially produced somnambulistic, entranced, or psychologized state. A better word for the procedure is psychologization, hypnotism being but one phase of the general subject which includes fascination, multiple or double personality, some religious ecstasies, and different methods of psychic healing. All these things operate in and upon the important intermediate part between our spiritual and physical-astral self and usually affect the latter self very strongly. This intermediate part is the human soul of the reincarnating entity -- the man or woman we see and know. As this includes the psychomental-emotional powers and faculties, it is intimately related to intelligence and sanity, to emotions and conduct, and to health.

Theosophy holds that mesmerism is not hypnotism. In hypnotism the subject's intermediate nature is disjoined from its natural relations with his physical and astral body and put out of the control of the person himself, becoming susceptible to other influences. This process is a reversal of all evolutionary currents which in every being unfold and manifest from conscious centers within. Such a reversal is dangerous and far-reaching in its results, spiritually, mentally, morally, psychically, and physically.

Moreover, the hypnotizer endangers himself by such intimate linking with the lower mind and feeling of his subject -- whose spiritual nature is always beyond another's control. From the operator's entrance into, and operation of, the subject's physico-astral body, there results a mutual infection with each other's faulty human nature. Whoever thus changes the forces and trend of another's life, obligates himself to share karmically in those changes to the end.

Psychologizing a person to heal him of disease or rid him of some injurious habit is also harmful. Bodily ills, in themselves, are the cleansing processes by which past inner wrongs of thought and feeling, having reached the material plane, can be worked out of the system. As for karmic faults and failings in character, the person restrained from them by hypnotism or psychologization merely loses a timely opportunity to develop his spiritual will by which alone every human being must consciously work out his own destiny. The apparent cure of disease, or of a weakness, means that these have been driven inwards, dammed back, inevitably to reappear with accumulated force at a less opportune time in this or a future life. Nor does the practice of self-hypnotization or self-psychologization prevent a disjunction of the person's intermediate nature from his immortal self. The results finally appear as mental disease resulting in crime or as physical disease which is the minor evil.

Suggestion has a dual power: for good or for ill, the results depending upon both the motive and the method of its use. The conscious and unconscious use of it for self-interest is unfortunately met with everywhere; as a part of modern training in high-power salesmanship, it pervades the methods popular in both commercial and professional circles. However, suggestion has a power of noble appeal to the intelligence and spiritual will of others whose better nature responds to a good example, impersonal teaching, and pure and helpful thoughts and feelings. Hypnotism and other such practices are dangerous because they so often fall into black magic or sorcery.

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

Osiris (Greek) As-ar, Us-ar (Egyptian) The most famous deity of the Egyptian pantheon, corresponding to Zagreus-Bacchus of the Eleusinian Mysteries. In Plutarch's On Isis and Osiris, Osiris is represented as the son of Nut, space and primordial matter (equivalent to the Greek Rhea) by Seb, celestial fire (Kronos). He became king of Egypt, teaching the people the worship of the gods, and husbandry, and formulating laws. His brother Set, filled with envy, brought about his destruction. Isis, his distraught wife, set out in search of the body, and finally recovered it. But Set then dismembered the body into fourteen pieces, scattering them over Egypt, of which Isis recovered all but one.

After meeting with death on earth Osiris became resurrected, and then became the ruler of the other world (Khenti-Amentet). His death and resurrection depict the drama of the initiation chamber which is one interpretation of glorification or osirification of the defunct human, as mystically portrayed in the Book of the Dead.

Cosmologically, Osiris is the Third Logos, containing in himself the seeds of all things and beings in the universe to be unrolled from the Logos:

"the self-existent and self-creative god, the first manifesting deity (our third Logos), identical with Ahura Mazda and other 'First Causes.' For as Ahura Mazda is one with, or the synthesis of, the Amshaspends, so Osiris, the collective unit, when differentiated and personified, becomes Typhon, his brother, Isis and Nephtys his sisters, Horus his son and his other aspects. . . . The four chief aspects of Osiris were -- Osiris-Phtah (Light), the spiritual aspect; Osiris-Horus (Mind), the intellectual manasic aspect; Osiris-Lunus, the 'Lunar' or psychic, astral aspect; Osiris-Typhon, Daimonic, or physical, material, therefore passional turbulent aspect. In these four aspects he symbolizes the dual ego -- the divine and the human, the cosmico-spiritual and the terrestrial" (TG 243).

Osiris' place in cosmological mythology is seen to be that of the cosmic creator; thus on a more abstract scale Osiris is equivalent to the svabhavat of Buddhist thought. As in other archaic religions and philosophies, when Osiris is considered as an individual divinity, he becomes the cosmic source from which flow forth in hierarchical series of emanations the gradually descending groups of the hierarchy of Light; and from this aspect he is the chief of all initiates of the right-hand path, who thus trace their spiritual ascendance and origin directly to the Third Logos itself.

(See also: Osiris, As-ar, Us-ar, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Kama-rupa (Sanskrit) (from kama desire + rupa body, form)

The desire body; the portion of the human inner constitution in which inhere the various mental and psychic energies. After death it becomes the vehicle in the kama-loka of the usually unconscious higher principles of the person that was.

"After death . . . there occurs what is called the 'second death,' which is the separation of the immortal part of the second or intermediate Duad from the lower portions of this Duad, which lower portions remain as the kama-rupa in the etheric or higher astral spheres which are intermediate between the devachanic and the earthly spheres. In time this kama-rupa gradually fades out in its turn, its life-atoms at such dissolution passing on to their various and unceasing peregrinations.

"It is this kama-rupa which legend and story in the various ancient world-religions or philosophies speak of as the 'shade,' and which it has been customary in the Occident to call the 'spook,' or 'ghost.' It is, in short, all the mortal elements of the human soul that was. The kama-rupa is an exact astral duplicate, in appearance and mannerism, of the man who died; it is his eidolon or 'image' " (OG 76-7).

"Bereft as it is of its higher mind, spirit and physical senses, if left alone to its own senseless devices, it will gradually fade out and disintegrate. But, if forcibly drawn back into the terrestrial sphere whether by the passionate desires and appeals of the surviving friends or by regular necromantic practices -- one of the most pernicious of which is mediumship -- the 'spook' may prevail for a period greatly exceeding the span of the natural life of its body. Once the Kamarupa has learnt the way back to living human bodies, it becomes a vampire, feeding on the vitality of those who are so anxious for its company. In India these eidolons are called Pisachas, and are much dreaded . . ." (TG 172).

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

A Theosophical definition of Bhuta (Bhutas) :

Bhuta (Bhutas)

(Sanskrit) The past participle of the verb-root bhu, meaning "to be," or "to become"; hence bhutas literally means "has beens"  - entities that have lived and passed on. The bhutas are "shells" from which all that is spiritual and intellectual has fled: all that was the real entity has fled from this shell, and naught is left but a decaying astral corpse. The bhutas are the spooks, ghosts, simulacra, reliquiae, of dead men; in other words, the astral dregs and remnants of human beings. They are the "shades" of the ancients, the pale and ghostly phantoms living in the astral world, or the astral copies of the men that were; and the distinction between the bhuta and the kama-rupa is very slight.

Bereft of all that pertains to the real entity, the genuine man, the bhuta is as much a corpse in the astral realms as is the decaying physical body left behind at physical death; and consequently, astral or psychical intercourse of any kind with these shells is productive only of evil. The bhutas, although belonging in the astral world, are magnetically attracted to physical localities similar in type to the remnants of impulses still inhering in them. The bhuta of a drunkard is attracted to wine cellars and taverns; the bhuta of one who has lived a lewd life is attracted to localities sympathetic to it; the thin and tenuous bhuta of a good man is similarly attracted to less obnoxious and evil places. All over the ancient world and throughout most of even the modern world these eidola or "images" of dead men have been feared and dreaded, and relations of any kind with them have been consistently and universally avoided. (See also Eidolon)

See also: Bhuta (Bhutas, Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul)

A Theosophical definition of Manas :

Manas

(Sanskrit) The root of this word means "to think," "to cogitate," "to reflect"  - mental activity, in short. The center of the ego-consciousness in man and in any other quasi-self-conscious entity. The third substance-principle, counting downwards, of which man's constitution is composed.

Manas springs forth from buddhi (the second principle) as the fruit from the flower; but manas itself is mortal, goes to pieces at death  - insofar as its lower parts are concerned. All of it that lives after death is only what is spiritual in it and that can be squeezed out of it, so to say  - the "aroma" of the manas; somewhat as the chemist takes from the rose the attar or essence of roses. The monad or atma-buddhi thereupon takes that "all" with it into the devachan, after the second death has taken place. Atman, with buddhi and with the higher part of manas, becomes thereupon the spiritual monad of man. Strictly speaking, this is the divine monad within its vehicle  - atman and buddhi  - combined with the human ego in its higher manasic element; but they are joined into one after death, and are hence spoken of as the spiritual monad.

The three principles forming the upper triad exist each on its own plane in consciousness and power; and as human beings we continuously feel their influence despite the enshrouding veils of a psychical and astral-physical character. We know of each principle only what we have so far evolved forth of it. All we know, for instance, of the third principle (counting from the top), the manas, is what we have so far assimilated of it in this fourth round. The manas will not be fully developed in us until the end of the next round. What we now call our manas is a generalizing term for the reincarnating ego, the higher manas.

See also: Manas, Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul)

A Theosophical definition of Right-hand Path :

Right-hand Path

From time immemorial, in all countries of the earth, among all races of men, there have been existent two opposing and antagonistic schools of occult or esoteric training, the one often technically called the Path of Light, and the other the Path of Darkness or of the Shadows.

These two paths likewise are much more commonly called the right-hand path and the left-hand path, and although these are technical names in the rather shaky occultism of the Occident, the very same expressions have prevailed all over the world, and are especially known in the mystical and esoteric literature of Hindustan.

The right-hand path is known in Sanskrit writings by the name dakshina-marga, and those who practice the rules of conduct and follow the manner of life enjoined upon those who follow the right-hand path are technically known as dakshinacharins, and their course of life is known as dakshinachara. Conversely, those who follow the left-hand path, often called Brothers of the Shadow, or by some similar epithet, are called vamacharins, and their school or course of life is known as vamachara. An alternative expression for vamachara is savyachara. The white magicians or Brothers of Light are therefore dakshinacharins, and the black magicians or Brothers of the Shadow, or workers of spiritual and intellectual and psychical evil, are therefore vamacharins.

To speak in the mystical language of ancient Greece, the dakshinacharins or Brothers of Light pursue the winding ascent to Olympus, whereas the vamacharins or Brothers of the Left-hand follow the easy but fearfully perilous path leading downwards into ever more confusing, horrifying stages of matter and spiritual obscuration. The latter is the faciles descensus averno (Aeneid, 6.126) of the Latin poet Virgil. Woe be to him who, refusing to raise his soul to the sublime and cleansing rays of the spiritual sun within him, places his feet upon the path which leads downwards. The warnings given to students of occultism about this matter have always been solemn and urgent, and no esotericist should at any moment consider himself safe or beyond the possibilities of taking the downward way until he has become at one with the divine monitor within his own breast, his own inner god.

See also: Right-hand Path, Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul)

Epidemics (from Greek epi upon + demos the people)

The causes usually assigned to epidemic diseases are: individual susceptibility; earth conditions of heat, moisture, soil, water, hygiene, and sanitation; and mass movements of people, as in wars, pilgrimages, etc. While all these factors provide physical and psychological conditions favorable for the spread of certain epidemic diseases and emotional disorders, there remain potent invisible causes to be reckoned with.

Blavatsky discusses unusual and serious effects of certain causes which in some cases are cosmic rather than bacterial (BCW 13: 109). She explains that all such mysterious epidemics as influenza are due to an exuberance of ozone in the air, where an excess of oxygen has become ozone under the powerful stimulus of electricity.

The pranic life-atoms of the human body make an electrical field which, permeating our astral-vital-physical constitution, puts us in contact with the natural flow of ethereal currents of electric and magnetic force. These forces emanate from great cosmic entities who are the intelligent agencies for the karmic action of the so-called laws of nature. They function in the noumenal realm of causes which are due to appear on earth as phenomena of all kinds. These entities, leaving aside solar forces, are the regents of the seven sacred planets, who help to build the body and oversee the destiny of both humanity and the earth. They act automatically and impersonally in harmony with the combined causes and effects of ethereal and terrestrial conditions.

The sun, moon, planets, earth, and human brain are all magnets in contact with a common network of "live" wires of consciousness. The atoms in the solar system not only probably change their combining equivalents on every planet, but they undergo a certain change in their rapid passage through our atmosphere: concerning "the Spirit, the noumenon of that which becomes in its grossest form oxygen and hydrogen and nitrogen on Earth. . . . Before these gases and fluids become what they are in our atmosphere, they are interstellar Ether; still earlier and on a deeper plane -- something else, and so on in infinitum" (SD 1:626). These fluids and gases, then, have been stepped down, plane after plane, bringing to us the karmic influences of the hierarchies of entities which compose the solar organism. They are the tangible carriers of the cosmic electrical fire of divine, spiritual, mental, psychic, astral, and material forces which infill the universe. Here, in brief, are the astrological causative influences in typical epidemics, which are variously operating in other karmic diseases and mental and emotional disorders such as popular uprisings, fanatical movements, and waves of crime and vice. Happily, the same impersonal agents of the karmic law, under the influences of far higher spiritual agents, are equally active and helpful during human cycles of ethical and spiritual aspiration and progress.

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

A Theosophical definition of Life-Atoms :

Life-Atoms

The physical body is composed essentially of energy, of energies rather, in the forms that are spoken of in modern physical science as electrons and protons. These are in constant movement; they are incessantly active, and are what theosophists call the imbodiments or manifestations of life-atoms. These life-atoms are inbuilt into man's body during the physical life which he leads on earth, although they are not derivative from outside, but spring forth from within himself  - at least a great majority of them are such. This is equivalent to saying that they compose both his physical as well as his intermediate nature, which latter is obviously higher than the physical.

When the man dies  - that is to say, when the physical body dies  - its elements pass, each and all, into their respective and appropriate spheres: some into the soil, to which those that go there are drawn by magnetic affinity, an affinity impressed upon their life-energies by the man when alive, whose overshadowing will and desires, whose overlordship and power, gave them that direction. Others pass into the vegetation from the same reason that the former are impelled to the mineral kingdom; others pass into the various beasts with which they have, at the man's death, magnetic affinity, psychic affinity more accurately, an affinity which the man has impressed upon them by his desires and various impulses; and those which take this path go to form the interior or intermediate apparatus of the beasts into which they pass. So much for the course pursued by the life-atoms of the man's lowest principles.

But there are other life-atoms belonging to him. There are life-atoms, in fact, belonging to the sphere of each one of the seven principles of man's constitution. This means that there are life-atoms belonging to his intermediate nature and to his spiritual nature and to all grades intermediate between these two higher parts of him. And in all cases, as the monad "ascends" or "rises" through the spheres, as he goes step by step higher on his wonderful postmortem journey, on each such step he discards or casts off the life-atoms belonging to each one of these steps or stages of the journey. With each step, he leaves behind the more material of these life-atoms until, when he has reached the culmination of his wonderful postmortem peregrination, he is, as Paul of the Christians said, living in "a spiritual body"  - that is to say, he has become a spiritual energy, a monad.

Nature permits no absolute standing still for anything, anywhere. All things are full of life, full of energy, full of movement; they are both energy and matter, both spirit and substance; and these two are fundamentally one  - phases of the underlying reality, of which we see but the maya or illusory forms.

The life-atoms are actually the offspring or the off-throwings of the interior principles of man's constitution. It is obvious that the life-atoms which ensoul the physical atoms in man's body are as numerous as the atoms which they ensoul; and there are almost countless hosts of them, decillions upon decillions of them, in practically incomputable numbers. Each one of these life-atoms is a being which is living, moving, growing, never standing still  - evolving towards a sublime destiny which ultimately becomes divinity.

See also: Life-Atoms, Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul)

Astral Light (Occult) The invisible region that surrounds our globe, as it does every other, and corresponding as the second Principle of Kosmos (the third being Life, of which it is the vehicle) to the Linga Sharira or the Astral Double in man.

A subtle Essence visible only to a clairvoyant eye, and the lowest but one (viz., the earth), of the Seven Akasic or Kosmic Principles. Eliphas Levi calls it the great Serpent and the Dragon from which radiates on Humanity every evil influence. This is so; but why not add that the Astral Light gives out nothing but what it has received; that it is the great terrestrial crucible, in which the vile emanations of the earth (moral and physical) upon which the Astral Light is fed, are all converted into their subtlest essence, and radiated back intensified, thus becoming epidemics -  moral, psychic and physical. Finally, the Astral Light is the same as the Sidereal Light of Paracelsus and other Hermetic philosophers. "Physically, it is the ether of modern science.

Metaphysically, and in its spiritual, or occult sense, ether is a great deal more than is often imagined. In occult physics, and alchemy, it is well demonstrated to enclose within its shoreless waves not only Mr. Tyndall’s ‘promise and potency of every quality of life’, but also the realization of the potency of every quality of spirit. Alchemists and Hermetists believe that their astral, or sidereal ether, besides the above properties of sulphur, and white and red magnesia, or magnes, is the anima mundi, the workshop of Nature and of all the Kosmos, spiritually, as well as physically.

The ‘grand magisterium’ asserts itself in the phenomenon of mesmerism, in the ‘levitation’ of human and inert objects; and may be called the ether from its spiritual aspect. The designation astral is ancient, and was used by some of the Neo-platonists, although it is claimed by some that the word was coined by the Martinists. Porphyry describes the celestial body which is always joined with the soul as ‘immortal, luminous, and star-like’. The root of this word may be found, perhaps, in the Scythic Aist-aer - which means star, or the Assyrian Istar, which, according to Burnouf has the same sense." (Isis Unveiled.)

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

Left-hand Path or path of shadows, those taking it called in theosophy brothers of the shadow. One of the two fundamental paths or courses in nature, the left-hand path or path of matter in contrast to the right-hand path or path of spirit.

Shadow signifies matter, for spirit may be considered to be pure energy, and matter, although essentially crystallized spirit, may be looked upon as the shadow world or vehicular world in which the energy, spirit, or pure light works. Matter is but a generalizing term, comprised of an almost infinite number of degrees of increasing ethereality from the grossest physical substance, or absolute matter, up to the most ethereal or spiritualized substance, providing the logic of calling this the path of shadows. Those on this path are often called black magicians in contrast to white magicians or sons of light who follow the path of self-renunciation, self-conquest, and an expansion of the heart, mind, and consciousness in love and service for all that lives.

A Sanskrit equivalent for the left-hand path is pratyeka-yana (from pratyeka every one for himself + yana path). Those who follow this path are also called vamacharins, and their school or course of life is known as vamachara or savyachara. They follow the easy but perilous path leading downwards into ever more confusing, horrifying stages of matter and final spiritual obscuration and personal annihilation.

After death the lower classes of those on the left-hand path become the terrestrial or earthly elementaries. Cunning, low, vindictive, and seeking to retaliate their sufferings upon imbodied humanity, they become, until final annihilation, astral vampires, and therefore a constant psychic and even physical menace to those who open the doors of communication with them.

The higher classes of the brothers of the shadow, those who may be called spiritual sorcerers, mentioned in the New Testament as entities of spiritual wickedness, have a longer life period than have the lower classes. These spiritual sorcerers, depending upon the degree of unfolding of spiritual energy which they have attained and prostituted to evil uses, may even endure till the end of the globe manvantara, reincarnating themselves at repeated, rapid intervals; but their pathway is downwards into still deeper ranges of matter, and involves a progressively greater loss of inner spiritual light reaching them from their spiritual monad.

"Multitudes of human beings are unconsciously treading the Path of the Shadows, and in comparison with these multitudes it is relatively only a few who self-consciously lead and guide with subtle and wicked intelligence this army of unsuspecting victims of Maya. The Brothers of the Shadow are often highly intellectual men and women, frequently individuals with apparent great personal charm, and to the ordinary observer, judging from their conversation and daily works, are fully as well able to 'quote scripture' as are the Angels of Light!" (OG 22).

The warnings given to students of occultism about this matter have always been very solemn and urgent, and no one should at any moment consider himself safe or beyond the possibilities of taking the downward way until he has become at one with the divine monitor within, his own inner god. At every step, with every morn, at every choice, we face the right- or the left-hand path and are forced to choose.

(See also: Left-hand Path, Path of Shadows, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

A Theosophical definition of Involution :

Involution

The reverse process or procedure of evolution. As evolution means the unfolding, the unwrapping, the rolling forth, of what already exists and is latent, so involution means the inwrapping, the infolding, the ingoing of what previously exists or has been unfolded, etc. Involution and evolution never in any circumstances can be even conceived of properly as operative the one apart from the other: every act of evolution is an act of involution, and vice versa.

To illustrate, as spirit and matter are fundamentally one and yet eternally coactive and interactive, so involution and evolution are two names for two phases of the same procedure of growth, and are eternally coactive and interactive.

As an example, the so-called descent of the monads into matter means an involution or involving or infolding of spiritual potencies into material vehicles which coincidently and contemporaneously, through the compelling urge of the infolding energies, unfold their own latent capacities, unwrap them, roll them forth; and this is the evolution of matter. Thus what is the involution of spirit is contemporaneously and pari passu the evolution of matter. Contrariwise, on the ascending or luminous arc when the involved monadic essences begin to rise towards their primordial spiritual source they begin to unfold or unwrap themselves as previously on the descending arc they had infolded or inwrapped themselves. But this process of unfolding or evolution of the monadic essences is contemporaneous with and pari passu with the infolding and inwrapping, the involution, of the material energies and powers.

Human birth and death are outstanding illustrations or examples of the same thing. The child is born, and as it grows to its full efflorescence of power it evolves or rolls forth certain inherent characteristics or energies or faculties, all derived from the human being's svabhava or ego. Contrariwise, when the decline of human life begins, there is a slow infolding or inwrapping of these same facilities which thus seem gradually to diminish. These facilities and energies thus evolved forth in earth-life are the working of the innate spiritual and intellectual and psychical characteristics impelling and compelling the vehicular or body sides of the human constitution to express themselves as organs becoming more and more perfect as the child grows to maturity.

After death the process is exactly the reverse. The material or vehicular side of the being grows less and less strong and powerful, more and more involved, and becoming with every step in the process more dormant. But contemporaneously and coincidently the distinctly spiritual and intellectual powers and faculties themselves become released from the vehicles and begin to expand into ever larger efflorescence, attaining their maximum in the devachan. It is only the usual carelessness in accurate thinking that induces the idea that evolution is one distinct process acting alone, and that involution  - about which by the way very little is heard  - is another process acting alone. The two, as said above, are the two phases of activity of the evolving monads, and these phases exist contemporaneously at any moment, each of the two phases continually acting and interacting with the other phase. They are inseparable.

Just so with spirit and matter. Spirit is not something radically distinct from and utterly separate from matter. The two are fundamentally one, and the two are eternally coactive and interactive.

There are several terms in Sanskrit which correspond to what the theosophist means by evolution, but perhaps the best general term is pravritti, meaning to "revolve" or to "roll forwards," to unroll or to unwrap. Again, the reverse procedure or involution can probably best be expressed in Sanskrit by the term nivritti, meaning "rolling backwards" or "inwrapping" or "infolding." A term which is frequently interchangeable with evolution is emanation. (See also Evolution)

See also: Involution, Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul)

Tree A variant of the cross or tau, to be considered in connection with the serpent which is wound round it. The two together symbolize the world tree with the spiritual, intellectual, psychic, and psychological aggregate of forces encircling the world tree and working in and through it -- these forces often grouped in the Orient under the name of kundalini. In minor significance, the two together symbolize the life-waves, or any life-wave, passing through the planes, spirit circling through matter, fohat working in the kosmos. Thus the tree symbol stands for the universe, and correspondentially for man, in whom the monadic ray kindles activity on the several planes; while the physiological key of interpretation applies to the analogies in the human body with its various structures through which play the pranic currents.

The tree, by its form, represents evolution, for it begins with a root and spreads out into branches and twigs; only as applied to the kosmos the root is conceived to be on high and the branches to extend downwards. Thus there is the Asvattha tree of India or bodhi tree, the Norse Yggdrasil, the tree Ababel in the Koran, the Sephirothal Tree which is 'Adam Qadmon. In the Garden of Eden it is stated that there were two trees, the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, which signifies the two knowledges. It is said in Gnosticism that Ennoia (divine thought) and Ophis (serpent), as a unity, are the Logos; as separated they are the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge, the former spiritual, the latter manasic. Adam eats the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge which means in one important allegory of human evolution that mankind after the separation of the sexes became endowed with manas, or that when humanity began to be endowed with dual manas, the rays then separated into the opposite sexes; and lest he should partake of the Tree of Life and become immortal, in the then imperfect state of evolution, he is turned out of Eden.

 It is stated that buddhi becomes transformed into the tree whose fruit is emancipation and which finally destroys the roots of the Asvattha, which here is the symbol of the mayavi life. This latter tree is also the emblem of secret and sacred knowledge, guarded by serpents or dragons; it may also refer to a sacred scripture. Dragons guarded the tree with the golden apples of the Hesperides; the trees of Meru were guarded by a serpent; Juno, on her wedding with Jupiter, gave him a tree with golden fruit, as Eve gave the fruit to Adam. Blavatsky says of Eve: "She it was who first led man to the Tree of Knowledge and made known to him Good and Evil; and if she had been left in peace to do quietly that which she wished to do, she would have conducted him to the Tree of Life and would thus have rendered him immortal" (La Revue Theosophique 2:10).

See also ASVATTHA, YGGDRASIL

Both adepts and sorcerers were called trees. Tree worship in decadent times degenerated into a variety of phallicism.

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

Marut, Maruts (Sanskrit) A class of spiritual or highly ethereal beings, properly classed as belonging to the middle sphere between heaven and earth. They are one of the classes of agnishvattas, and hence in strait union with the asuras -- indeed leaving mythologic legends about the maruts aside, there are times when the distinctions between the maruts and asuras vanish.

In the Vedas the maruts are described as children of heaven (spiritual spheres) and ocean (cosmic space), armed with golden weapons, such as lightning and thunderbolts, as having iron teeth and roaring like lions, and residing in the north, as riding in golden cars drawn by ruddy horses -- all of which is merely mythologic elaborations of symbolic fancy. The maruts are mythologically represented as storm gods and the friends and allies of Indra. Esoterically they belong to the hierarchies of those dhyani-chohans who enlightened the early races of mankind. In one sense they are our human egos as emanations from the manasaputras, and from another viewpoint, they are the manasaputras themselves, a class of the agnishvattas. Hence the allegory of Siva transforming the lumps of flesh into boys and calling them maruts, to show senseless men transformed by becoming the vehicles of the solar pitris or fire-maruts, and thus rational beings. Again, they are the adepts who incarnate on earth to help mankind.

The Vayu-Purana shows that the Maruts, "the oldest as the most incomprehensible of all the secondary or lower gods in the Rig Veda -- 'are born in every manvantara (Round) seven times seven (or 49); that in each Manvantara, four times seven (or twenty-eight) they obtain emancipation, but their places are filled up by persons reborn in that character.' " In the Ramayana Diti, the lower or manifested aspect of Aditi, "anxious to obtain a son who would destroy Indra, is told by Kasyapa the Sage, that 'if, with thoughts wholly pious and person entirely pure, she carries the babe in her womb for a hundred years' she will get such a son. But Indra foils her in the design. With his thunderbolt he divides the embryo in her womb into seven portions, and then divides every such portion into seven pieces again, which become the swift-moving deities, the Maruts. These deities are only another aspect, or a development of the Kumaras [or agnishvattas], who are Rudras in their patronymic, like many others" (SD 2:613).

The maruts have their representatives on lower planes, which causes much of the confusion and apparently contradictory statements about them. "The Maruts represent

(a)  the passions that storm and rage within every candidate's breast, when preparing for an ascetic life -- this mystically;

(b)  the occult potencies concealed in the manifold aspects of Akasa's lower principles -- her body, or sthula sarira, representing the terrestrial, lower, atmosphere of every inhabited globe -- this mystically and sidereally;

(c)   actual conscious Existences, Beings of a cosmic and psychic nature" (SD 2:615).

(See also: Marut, Maruts, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Atonement Reconciliation brought about by a re-formation of the lower, so that it may become at one with the higher. Hence a number of Occidental mystics refer to the processes of atonement involving the foregoing idea as at-one-ment.

In its best sense atonement means the becoming at one between the human ego and its spiritual counterpart, where the life or vitality of the lower personal man is offered up as a sacrifice, willing and utterly joyful, to the higher self.

Thus the life which the hierophant is enjoined to offer is not his physical life, but the undesirable and imperfect life of his lower self, the selfish personality. The custom of sacrificing helpless animals -- a custom protested against by Gautama Buddha in particular -- is but an instance of the way in which lofty spiritual teachings or initiatory ceremonies can degenerate into repellent or cruel rites.

Nevertheless, "the atonements by blood -- blood-covenants and blood transferences from gods to men, and by men, as sacrifices to the gods -- are the first keynote struck in every cosmogony and theogony; soul, life and blood were synonymous words in every language . . . The mystic meaning of the injunction, 'Verily, verily, I say unto you, except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, ye have not life in yourselves' (John 6:53). . . (has) to be interpreted with the help of three keys -- one opening the psychic door, the second that of physiology, and the third that which unlocks the mystery of terrestrial being, by unveiling the inseparable blending of theogony with anthropology" (BCW 8:181-2).

The relation between the atonement and the intellectual and moral evolution of mankind may be explained as follows: "The Higher Manas or ego is essentially divine, and therefore pure; . . . Yet by the very fact that, though dual and during life the Higher is distinct from the Lower, 'the Father and Son' are one, and because that in reuniting with the parent Ego, the Lower Soul fastens and impresses upon it of all its bad as well as good actions, the Higher Ego -- though innocent and without blemish -- has to bear the punishment of the misdeeds committed by the lower Self together with it in their future incarnation. The whole doctrine of atonement is built upon this old esoteric tenet; . . . The Secret Doctrine shows that the Manasa-Putras or incarnating Egos have taken upon themselves, voluntarily and knowingly, the burden of all the future sins of their future personalities. . . . It is, then, true to say that when we remain deaf to the Voice of our Conscience, we crucify the Christos within us" (TBL 55-6).

See also VICARIOUS ATONEMENT

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

Germ Cell The early physical vehicle or carrier of the ' "spiritual plasm' that dominates the germinal plasm" in the development of the embryo (SD 1:219):

"every germ-cell, human or other, is the physical expression of inner, ethereal, and psycho-magnetic activities, and is a compact or bundle or sheaf of inner forces and substances ranging from the divine through intermediate degrees down to the astral and the physical, just as man, but on a much larger scale, himself is" (ET 899).

Each germ-cell is the precipitation or projection on and into the physical plane of an inner, psycho-ethereal radiation, an incarnation of a ray point originating in the inner worlds and contacting physical matter by psychomagnetic affinity, and thus arousing a proper particle or molecular aggregate of living physical substance into becoming a reproductive cell.

This ray point or tip of the imbodying ray or radiance, is not the reincarnating ego itself, but the tip of the projected ray issuing from the reimbodying ego. When this ego -- itself a ray from the spiritual monad -- reaches its own intermediate sphere, after leaving its parent-monad, it descends no farther into matter from that plane. But its radiated influence, its psychomagnetic ray, having stronger affinities for material worlds than itself, goes deeper into matter and there awakens into activity the life-atoms in each of the various planes between that of the reimbodying ego and the grossest matter of physical earth.

When this psycho-vital-electric or -magnetic ray awakens some particular life-atom in gross physical matter on earth, that life-atom so chosen belonged to the same reimbodying ego before, and therefore responds to its own "parent." It may even be regarded as the tip of the reimbodying ray from which it is precipitated into matter, "which physical matter, as atoms, is thus attracted around this tip, building first the material imbodiment of the said life-atom and by progressive accretion finally becoming the living germ-cell" (ET 900).

This descent of the ray tip into, and selection of, suitable earth of matter, has been the basis of all the various methods of procreation. The process began in the huge avoid form of the ethereal first root-race by simple division of this human cell, as the embryo today repeats in beginning its rapid review of racial records.

"One infinitesimal cell, out of millions of others at work in the formation of an organism, determining alone and unaided, by means of constant segmentation and multiplication, the correct image of the future man (or animal) in its physical, mental, and psychic characteristics. . . . those germinal cells do not have their genesis at all in the body of the individual, but proceed directly from the ancestral germinal cell passed from father to son through long generations" (SD 1:223n).

See also HEREDITY; PROCREATION; REPRODUCTION

(See also: Germ Cell, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Mulaprakriti mulaprakrti (Sanskrit) [from mula root + prakriti nature]

Root-nature; undifferentiated cosmic substance in its highest form, the abstract substance or essence of what later through various differentiations become the prakritis, the various forms of matter, concrete or sublimate. It is precosmic root-substance, the root-principle of the world stuff and all in the world; that aspect of parabrahman or space which underlies all the ethereally or materially objective planes or space of universal nature.

It is again unmanifested primordial stuff or substance, divine-spiritual, undifferentiated, and therefore indestructible, eternal, parentless, and abstractly the Mother -- space itself, and the vehicle, lining, or alter ego of parabrahman. It is "the noumenon of undifferentiated Cosmic Matter. It is not matter as we know it, but the spiritual essence of matter, and is co-eternal and even one with Space in its abstract sense. Root-nature is also the source of the subtile invisible properties in visible matter. It is the Soul, so to say, of the one infinite Spirit. The Hindus call it Mulaprakriti, and say that it is the primordial substance, which is the basis of the Upadhi or vehicle of every phenomenon, whether physical, mental or psychic. It is the source from which Akasa radiates" (SD 1:35).

Mulaprakriti along with parabrahman are the two aspects of the one universal principle which is unconditioned to any human conception, and similarly eternal. Parabrahman is unconditioned and undifferentiated reality, and mulaprakriti is its veil or inseparable vehicle. To the First Logos or cosmic ego emerging in parabrahman, "once this ego starts into existence as a conscious being having objective consciousness of its own, we shall have to see what the result of this objective consciousness will be with reference to the one absolute and unconditioned existence from which its starts into manifested existence.

From its objective standpoint, Parabrahmam appears to it as Mulaprakriti. . . . Parabrahmam by itself cannot be seen as it is. It is seen by the Logos with a veil thrown over it, and that veil is the mighty expanse of cosmic matter" (N on BG 20-1). Mulaprakriti stands in the same relation to parabrahman as the Qabbalistic Life of Space does to 'Eyn Soph; similarly on lower planes, it is what pradhana is to Brahman, or what prakriti is to Brahma.

(See also: Mulaprakriti, mulaprakrti, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Lycanthropy (from Greek lykanthropos wolf-man)

In all times and places there has been prevalent the belief that human beings can become transformed into wolves or other animals, obsessed by the spirits of these animals, or even assume this condition at will through sorcery; the object being to gratify hatred or to satisfy voracious instincts. People thus affected are said to have appeared both to themselves and to others in the form of wolves and to have attacked animals, but especially human beings.

The English name for such a person was werewolf (man-wolf). The belief was very prevalent in medieval Europe, and was the occasion for numerous legal executions. It has disappeared before the advance of our present culture, but it was a fact, depending upon little understood mysteries of psychologization, and the belief still holds among some people.

The phenomenon is a variety of black magic, involving both the practice of psychologization and in certain cases the subjection of the victim to astral obsession: either an involuntary astral seizure on the part of a mediumistic person, or a deliberate act of sorcery on the part of a degraded one. The lower realms of the astral light harbor baneful exuviae of various sorts, with which a pernicious commerce may be had through various forms of moral depravity and psychic weakness. It was an exaggerated and specialized form of obsessions which takes place in our day in people transported by passion or afflicted with violent insanity; hence it is often found convenient to describe it simply as a form of insanity, which however does not explain how the appearances of a wolf were caused.

 In extreme cases, however, the craving for physical life and the dread of personal extinction in a human kama-rupa may be so great that it may seize and enter the body of a living animal.

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

Annihilation Complete destruction of consciousness is an impossibility in nature, for there can be no annihilation of the consciousness which makes the essential person. The universe is built of illimitable hosts of evolving entities existing in all-various grades of evolutionary unfoldment. All are passing through a continual series of changes -- comprising the shedding of sheath after sheath -- involving their essential consciousness.

These entities continuously modify the vehicles through which they express themselves on the various cosmic planes. When the elements forming a compound become dissociated, the compound as such ceases to exist, at least temporarily; but there still exists that which brought the elements into the compound union.

The human personality is constantly changing, even during a single life, and even more greatly through rebirth; indeed, the higher states of individualized consciousnesses, though they may endure for periods so vast as to seem to be everlasting, must disappear for a time during the kosmic pralaya. Even then, when the physical, psychic, and spiritual vehicles are reduced to unity, it is not annihilation any more than a person in dreamless sleep is annihilated while his higher self is in its original state of absolute consciousness, though it leaves no impression on the sleeping and therefore unconscious brain. "Nor is the individuality -- nor even the essence of the personality, if any be left behind -- lost, because re-absorbed. For, however limitless -- from a human standpoint -- the paranirvanic state, it has yet a limit in Eternity. Once reached, the same monad will re-emerge therefrom, as a still higher being, on a far higher plane, to recommence its cycle of perfected activity" (SD 1:266).

Nirvana, then, does not mean utter annihilation, nor did the Buddha teach utter annihilation or wiping out. Thus fundamental consciousness is uninterrupted from eternity to eternity, although undergoing continual change. But such change is not a difference of essence, but a continuously enlarging and ever greater unfolding of the inner essence.

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