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

Magic, Magician (from Persian magus a wise man, great; cf magi)

The great art; a knowledge of the mysteries of nature and the power to apply them. In its true sense it is gupta-vidya (divine knowledge), the aim of those who tread the path of wisdom; but in ages of decline its chief secrets are withdrawn from public access, and what remains passes through transformations and gradually degenerates.

"The ancients believed in the power of man by magic practices to command the services of the gods: which gods, are in truth, but the occult powers or potencies of Nature, personified by the learned priests themselves, in which they reverenced only the attributes of the one unknown and nameless Principle. As Proclus the Platonist ably puts it: 'Ancient priests, when they considered that there is a certain alliance and sympathy in natural things to each other, and of things manifest to occult powers, and discovered that all things subsist in all, fabricated a sacred science from this mutual sympathy and similarity. . . . and applied for occult purposes, both celestial and terrene natures, by means of which, through a certain similitude, they deduced divine virtues into this inferior abode.' Magic is the science of communicating with and directing supernal, supramundane Potencies, as well as of commanding those of the lower spheres; a practical knowledge of the hidden mysteries of nature known to only the few, because they are so difficult to acquire, without falling into sins against nature" (TG 197).

White magic or theurgy is knowledge used for impersonal and beneficent purposes, the bringing into human life of the pattern and powers of nature as these exist on the spiritual planes. Black magic or goetia is knowledge used for selfishly personal or evil purposes. Natural magic is the knowledge and employment of the natural powers, forces, and substances of nature -- practically what today is called science. If the knowledge gained through the study of natural science is distorted in its use to selfish or ignoble ends, it becomes de facto black magic. While a hard and fast distinction may not be applicable to all cults of magic, where the student or practitioner has not yet made a conscious choice between the two paths, yet in the end he must choose the one or the other. For nature's forces must be controlled, either by a pure or an impure will, if the practicer is not to fall victim to them. The motive and use that a person makes of his faculties and will are the deciding factors as to whether the magic is beneficent or maleficent. Any selfish, self-seeking, or selfishly restricted use of nature's laws or powers is against the impersonality and universality of nature:

"The smallest attempt to use one's abnormal powers for the gratification of self makes of these powers sorcery or Black Magic" (Key 346).

In theosophical writings, advanced students of occultism who have acquired some knowledge and use of spiritual powers but misuse them for selfish purposes are called black magicians, Brothers of the Shadow, followers of the left-hand path, or sometimes dugpas. In their highest class they are adepts in spiritual evil.

Whenever the forces of nature are used for selfish purposes, such misuse by anyone marks such person as a black magician, whether conscious or unconscious. Those who follow the pathway of self-renunciation, self-sacrifice, self-conquest, and an expansion of the heart, mind, and consciousness in love and service for all that lives are called white magicians or Sons of Light.

(See also: Magic, Magician , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Occultism [from Latin occultus hid]

The science of things behind the veils of nature both visible and invisible, things hidden from the multitudes. In theosophy frequently synonymous with the esoteric philosophy or secret doctrine. The study of genuine occultism signifies penetrating deep into the causal mysteries of universal being; the occult arts, by contrast, include psychism, black magic, hypnotism, psychologization, and similar uninstructed or malevolent uses of astral and mental forces.

The term occult has noble, but largely forgotten origins. It properly defines anything which is undisclosed, concealed, or not easily perceived. Early theologians, for example, spoke of "the occult judgment of God," while "occult philosopher" was a designation for the pre-Renaissance scientist who sought the unseen causes regulating nature's phenomena. In astronomy, the term is still used when one stellar body "occults" another by passing in front of it, temporarily hiding it from view. Writing a century ago, when the word had not acquired today's mixed connotations, H.P. Blavatsky defined occultism as "altruism pure and simple" -- the divine wisdom or hidden theosophy within all religions.

As the study or science of things which are hid and secret, occultism is a generalizing term because what is hid or secret in one age may readily be in a succeeding age more or less commonly known and open to public investigation. Many things that in medieval Europe were distinctly secret and therefore occult, are today the field of scientific investigation; and what is now considered to be occult, if science continues in its progress and research, may in the succeeding age in its turn become open and matter of common knowledge. Occultism then will simply have shifted its field of investigation and study to matters still more secret, still more recondite, still more deeply hid in fields of nature which are now scarcely suspected.

Theosophy or the wisdom-religion is the study of the ancient wisdom of the gods, and comprises in any one period that particular portion of knowledge which has been delivered to those who study it; whereas occultism in any age is that portion of the ancient wisdom dealing with matters which at such time are secret, hid, and unknown to the multitude.

Thus occultism is that portion of theosophy which has not yet been openly and publicly promulgated. Occultism is founded on the principle that Divinity is concealed -- transcendent yet immanent -- within every living being. As a spiritual discipline occultism is the renunciation of selfishness; it is the "still small path" which leads to wisdom, to the right discrimination between good and evil, and the practice of altruism.

(See also: Occultism , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Abhichara:

Abhichara. Black magic.

(See also: Abhichara , Tantra, Tantra Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul)

Yellow-faced Used in an archaic commentary on the Book of Dzyan (q SD 2:427-8), referring to people on Atlantis, the continent of the fourth root-race, who remained true to their teachers, in contradistinction to the Black-faced -- those who followed their sorcerer-leaders in practices of black magic -- who were engulfed in the cataclysm which submerged Atlantis. The Yellow-faced, the ancestors of the succeeding fifth root-race, were led to safety by their teachers, the Sons of Wisdom. Thus the fifth root-race -- sometimes referred to as Aryans because the Aryan Hindus are the descendants of the first subrace of the fifth root-race -- are said to be the descendants of "the yellow Adams, the gigantic and highly civilized Atlanto-Aryan race"; "they 'of the yellow hue' are the forefathers of those whom Ethnology now classes as the Turanians, the Mongols, Chinese and other ancient nations; and the land they fled to was no other than Central Asia. There entire new races were born; there they lived and died until the separation of the nations. . . . Nearly two-thirds of one million years have elapsed since that period" (SD 2:426, 425).

The foregoing does not mean that the modern Chinese, for instance, are the first subrace of the fifth root-race; for actually the true Chinese are the remains existing today of the last or seventh subrace of the fourth root-race, although indeed, due to many millennia of intermarriage with more truly Aryan stocks, the Chinese today are to be classed as part of the fifth root-race.

There is an old legend prevalent among many peoples that the color of human skin changes from light to dark as the ages slowly pass by: the legend stating that the first in any new great racial group or stock is light-colored or moon-colored, slowly changing to a more ruddy shade verging into cream or yellow, becoming gradually brown and darker brown, and ending with chocolate or what is called black. Yet the meaning is not that every race runs through these changing tints from light to dark during the course of its evolution, but that the different minor racial groupings, appearing each in its day during the course of the slow evolution of a root-race, gradually range from the root-race's beginning from the light, and passing gradually through the different stages to the chocolate. Nor is it again to be understood that theosophy teaches that all mankind sprang either from an original pair, as metaphorically taught in the Bible, but that in the beginnings of time seven primary seed-groupings appeared on earth from inner realms, each with its own tint or color as we would now say, and each of the seven having its own karmically defined position on the ladder of evolution.

The Negroes or people of chocolate-tinted skin are nevertheless not to be understood as being the seventh or last subrace of the fourth root-race, for the Chinese were these last. The chocolate-skinned men arose as a racial group at the very close of the Atlantean cycle, and are thus racially not degenerated from a previous higher evolutionary state, but are a human seed-stock born at the end of Atlantean development, destined in time through racial miscegenation to be one of the racial contributories to the humanity of the future.

See also YELLOW RACE

(See also: Yellow-faced , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body mind and Soul)

PENTACLE

In a general sense it stands for all magical symbols and talismans. Specifically, as the pentagram, or five-pointed star, it is the symbol of itself. Therefore, it is the magician's sine qua non. It is the representative of the material world and human mastery over it -- hence when it is depicted on a coin or disk it is the element of "earth." When it points upward, it refers to "white" magic, or self as part of the world. When it points downward, it indicates "black" magic, self opposed to the world. The stars in the American flag are based on the same Masonic principle. Each state is an independent sovereign, master of its own destiny, in the same way that the magician is master of his own world.

The Magician must understand that he lives on earth, encased in flesh, and that is only through matter and material reality that he can operate. The pentacle reminds him that philosophy and abstract principles are useless without concrete material implementation.

(See also: PENTACLE , Magick, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul,)

Jadoo (Hind.). Sorcery, black magic, enchantment.

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

Ri-thlen. Lit., "snake-keeping". It is a terrible kind of sorcery practised at Cherrapoonjee in the Khasi-Hills. The former is the ancient capital of the latter.

As the legend tells us: ages ago a thlen (serpent-dragon) which inhabited a cavern and devoured men and cattle was put to death by a local St. George, and cut to pieces, every piece being sent out to a different district to be burnt. But the piece received by the Khasis was preserved by them and became a kind of household god, and their descendants developed into Ri-thlens or "snake keepers", for the piece they preserved grew into a dragon (thlen) and ever since has obsessed certain Brahmin families of that district.

To acquire the good grace of their thlen and save their own lives, these "keepers" have often to commit murders of women and children, from whose bodies they cut out the toe and finger nails, which they bring to their thlen, and thus indulge in a number of black magic practices connected with sorcery and necromancy.

(See also: Ri-thlen , Theosophy, Spirituality, Body mind and Soul, Spiritual Dictionary,)

Dugpas (Tibet, Tibetan). Lit., "Red Caps," a sect in Tibet.

Before the advent of Tsong-ka-pa in the fourteenth century, the Tibetans, whose Buddhism had deteriorated and been dreadfully adulterated with the tenets of the old Bhon religion, - were all Dugpas. From that century, however, and after the rigid laws imposed upon the Gelukpas (yellow caps) and the general reform and purification of Buddhism (or Lamaism), the Dugpas have given themselves over more than ever to sorcery, immorality, and drunkenness.

Since then the word Dugpas has become a synonym of "sorcerer", "adept of black magic" and everything vile. There are few, if any, Dugpas in Eastern Tibet, but they congregate in Bhutan, Sikkim, and the borderlands generally.

 Europeans not being permitted to penetrate further than those borders, the Orientalists never having studied Buddho-Lamaism in Tibet proper, but judging of it on hearsay and from what Cosmo di Koros, Schlagintweit, and a few others have learnt of it from Dugpas, confuse both religions and bring them under one head. They thus give out to the public pure Dugpaism instead of Buddho-Lamaism. In short Northern Buddhism in its purified, metaphysical form is almost entirely unknown.

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

abhichara:

black magic.

(See also: abhichara , Hinduism, Hinduism Dictionary, Sanskrit Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul)

Yogacharya yogacarya (Sanskrit) [from yoga union + acharya teacher]

A teacher of yoga; a mystic and highly esoteric school founded by the original Aryasangha, who lived at a date long preceding the pseudo-Aryasangha of the 5th or 6th century who taught the doctrines of the Tantra besides some of the elements of the Yogacharya system.

The earlier Aryasangha was an arhat and founded the original Yogacharya school, a thoroughly esoteric institution; the latter's school is a branch of the Mahayana, and is of a truly spiritual type, its teachings being identical in essence with those of theosophy.

This Yogacharya school must not be confused with the Mahatantra school which was founded by Samantabhadra, whose teachings were later collected and glossed around the 6th century by the pseudo-Aryasangha in connection with litanies, formularies, spells, etc. This school is wholly exoteric, popular, and its works are largely composite of Tantric worship and ritualism that can lead the student only to black magic and sorcery.

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

Sooniam. A magical ceremony for the purpose of removing a sickness from one person to another. Black magic, sorcery.

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

Goetia (Greek) (from goes enchanter, sorcerer)

Also goety. One who uses incantations by song or speech, one who holds others under the spell of sound, chants, or incantations. Porphyry condemns it as black magic, distinguishing it from theurgy or divine magic; and it has in general been so contrasted.

(See also: God-wisdom , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Yogacharya (Sanskrit).

(1) A mystic school.

(2) Lit., a teacher (acharya) of Yoga, one who has mastered the doctrines and practices of ecstatic meditation - the culmination of which are the Mahasiddhis. It is incorrect to confuse this school with the Tantra, or Mahatantra school founded by Samantabhadra, for there are two Yogacharya Schools, one esoteric, the other popular.

The doctrines of the latter were compiled and glossed by Asamgha in the sixth century of our era, and his mystic tantras and mantras, his formularies, litanies, spells and mudra would certainly, if attempted without a Guru, serve rather purposes of sorcery and black magic than real Yoga. Those who undertake to write upon the subject are generally learned missionaries and haters of Eastern philosophy in general. From these no unbiassed views can be expected.

Thus when we read in the Sanskrit -Chinese Dictionary of Eitel, that the reciting of mantras (which he calls " spells"!) " should he accompanied by music and distortions of the fingers (mudra), that a state of mental fixity (Samadhi} might he reached ‘ - one acquainted, however slightly,. with the real practice of Yoga can only shrug his shoulders.

These distortions of the fingers or ,mudra are necessary, the author thinks, for the reaching of Samadhi, "characterized by there being neither thought nor annihilation of thought, and consisting of six-fold bodily (sic) and mental happiness (yogi) whence would result endowment with supernatural miracle-working power". Theosophists cannot be too much warned against such fantastic and prejudiced explanations.

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

Vetala-siddhi (Sanskrit) One of the practices of sorcery; a "means of obtaining power over the living by black magic, incantations, and ceremonies performed over a dead human body, during which process the corpse is desecrated" (TG 364).

(See also: Vetala-siddhi , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body mind and Soul)

Hypnotism (Ancient Greek). A name given by Dr. Braid to various processes by which one person of strong

will-power plunges another of weaker mind into a kind of trance; once in such a state the latter will do anything suggested to him by the hypnotiser. Unless produced for beneficial purposes, Occultists would call it black magic or Sorcery. It is the most dangerous of practices, morally and physically, as it interferes with the nerve fluid and the nerves controlling the circulation in the capillary blood-vessels.

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

Necromancy (Ancient Greek). The raising of the images of the dead, considered in antiquity and by modern Occultists as a practice of black magic. Iamblichus, Porphyry and other Theurgists have deprecated the practice, no less than did Moses, who condemned the "witches" of his day to death, the said witches being only Necromancers - as in the case of the Witch of Endor and Samuel.

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

incantation: Mantraprayoga. The chanting of prayers, verses or formulas for magical or mystical purposes. Also refers to such chants (mantra). Vashakriya is the subduing or bewitching by charms, incantation or drugs. Incantation for malevolent purposes (black magic) is called abhichara.

See: mantra.

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

Tantras (Sanskrit) Loom, the warp or threads in a loom; a rule or ritual for ceremonial rites. Religious treatises teaching mystical and magical formulas for the attainment of magical powers, and for the worship of the gods; treating of the evolution of the universe and its destruction; the adoration of the divinities; the attainment of desired objects, especially of six superhuman faculties; and methods of union (usually given as four) with the supreme divinity by contemplative meditation. They are mostly composed in the form of dialogues between Siva and his divine consort or sakti Durga, who is worshiped as a personified female power.

The tendency of these works for long ages has been towards black magic. "The origin of the Tantras unquestionably goes back to a very remote antiquity, and there seems to be little doubt that these works, or their originals, were heirlooms handed down from originally debased or degenerate Atlantean racial offshoots. There is, of course, a certain amount of profoundly philosophical and mystical thought running through the more important tantrika works, but the tantrika worship in many cases is highly licentious and immoral" (OG 17;1).

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

Tourmalinated Quartz: Tourmalinated quartz is a clear form of quartz with silver filaments and threads of black tourmaline running through it. Much of this stone is found in Brazil.

Tourmalinated quartz is good for dissolving fear in oneself. It can aid in eliminating negative conditioning patterns we have experienced in our lives. Use of this type of quartz kept near the body and meditated upon is said to increase mental awareness and enhance psychic ability. It soothes the central nervous system, and helps to alleviate depression and nervous exhaustion. Because tourmalinated quartz is a combination of quartz and tourmaline, it has influences and characteristics of both these gems.

(See also: Tourmalinated Quartz , Magic, Shamanism, Paganism, Wicca)

Rowhanee (Egypt, Egyptian) or Er-Roohanee. is the Magic of modern Egypt, supposed to proceed from Angels and Spirits, that is Genii, and by the use of the mystery names of Allah; they distinguish two forms - Ilwee, that is the Higher or White Magic; and Suflee and Sheytanee, the Lower or Black Demoniac Magic. There is also Es-Seemuja, which is deception or conjuring. Opinions differ as to the importance of a branch of Magic called Darb el Mendel, or as Barker calls it in English, the Mendal: by this is meant a form of artificial clairvoyance, exhibited by a young boy before puberty, or a virgin, who, as the result of self-fascination by gazing on a pool of ink in the hand, with coincident use of incense and incantation, sees certain scenes of real life passing over its surface. Many Eastern travellers have narrated instances, as E. W. Lane in his Modern Egyptians and his Thousand and One Nights, and E. B. Barker; the incidents have been introduced also into many works of fiction, such as Marryat’s Phantom Ship, and a similar idea is interwoven with the story of Rose Mary and the Beryl stone, a poem by Rossetti. For a superficial attempt at explanation, see the Quarterly Review, No.117.

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