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, )

Ceremonies, Ceremonials Originally and essentially acts of magic, designed to bring about particular and definite results, but now almost wholly ritual observances performed from habit, from unthinking reverence to misunderstood tradition, or merely to impress the devotional imagination.

The anointing of a candidate in the Mysteries was actually the completion of a process which began on higher planes and in the candidate's inner nature, not a mere symbol intended to fix his attention or to impress his mind. In two of its ecclesiastical analogs, baptism and confirmation, we find them regarded by some churches as the "outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace," and by others as an actual conveying of grace to the candidate; and the same with other Church sacraments.

In real ceremonial magic this is fully recognized, and success depends upon the exact fulfillment of the necessary conditions; similarly in white magic, but the knowledge and proficiency required for the fulfillment of the requisite conditions is apparently beyond the attainments of the great multitude of people today. It comes only in higher degrees of chelaship and is carefully guarded from profanation. For ceremonial magic, whether white or black, means the evocation of various forces of nature, stronger or weaker depending upon their nature, demanding for their control a resolute will, an inflexible mind, and an immaculately pure heart. Ceremonies performed in ignorance may be as barren of results as a static electric machine worked in a fog.

There is a thread-soul of quasi-intuitive understanding running through the traditions of human history which impels people to keep up, however ignorantly, forms and ceremonies through the ages, often when their real significance is lost, like seeds preserved in an ark to await the time when the flood waters shall recede.

(See also: Ceremonies, Ceremonials, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Lemminkainen (Finnish) A hero of the Kalevala, the son of Lempi. He does battle with the serpent of Tuoni (death) in the Finnish version of the archaic tale, so common in ancient mythologies. Lemminkainen, however, does not slay the serpent, but conquers it by means of the magic words:

"But the hero, quick recalling, speaks the master-words of knowledge, words that came from distant ages, words his ancestors had taught him, words his mother learned in childhood" (rune 26).

Of especial interest is the account of the hero's journey to the regions of the dead (Tuonela), thence to bring back with him the black swan. He is sent thither with but one arrow and his bow; but he is unsuccessful in returning to the upper regions, owing to the fact that he does not know the magic words enabling him to counteract the bite of an adder from the Stream of the Dead. Similar to the Egyptian account in the story of Osiris, there is the plaint of the bereaved mother, the search for her son, and finally the recovery of the body of Lemminkainen, which had been severed into five pieces and cast into the river of death. The mother is unable to restore her son to life, however, even though with divine aid she was able to make the body whole and heal the wounds with balsam obtained by a honeybee (Mehilainen). Finally she instructs the bee how to fly to the greatest deity, Ukko, on the seventh heaven: by way of the moon and the Great Bear. The honeybee makes the fight successfully, returning with the life-giving essence (the balm of the Creator), and the mother brings her son back to life once more.

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

Babel babah (Hebrew) The inner meaning of the Tower of Babel, by which it was hoped that divinity might be reached or attained, is a house of initiation, a gate, portal, opening, or entrance to the divine.

The physical tower was both the building set aside to house and protect the initiation chambers, together with the ceremonies that take place in them, and an architectural emblem to signify a raising up towards heaven.

The tower may have either a divine or evil significance, either haughty pride and self-sufficiency or spiritual aspiration. Similar is the lightning-struck tower of the Tarot cards, and the Arabian Nights story of the man who built a palace completely except only for a roc's egg to hang in the dome, and when the egg is thus hung, the whole palace collapses. The work of the black magician, building from below upwards, is impermanent and, when it strikes the sky, is blasted. If such a tower and system be followed by adepts of the left-hand path for ultimate and foredestined confusion, it is one thing; but if the tower and its inner mysteries be in the charge of adepts of the right-hand path, it is another. The concentration of the narrator in the Bible concerning the Tower of Babel seems to have been entirely upon its aspect of left-hand magic.

The later Atlanteans were noted for their magic powers, wickedness, and defiance of the gods, and this tradition is preserved in many legends, such as the Biblical Tower of Babel, which derived from still older Chaldean scriptures. The legendary stories of wicked antediluvian giants warring against heaven are common in every mythology. The defeat of the giants, in some at least of these legends, results in the confusion of tongues -- the break-up and dispersal of a great racial division of mankind.

(See also: Babel, babah, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Psychopomp (Greek) A conductor of souls; applied to Charon, Apollo, and especially to Hermes, who was the conductor of souls to Hades or the Underworld and back again, an office assigned by Christians to Jesus Christ after his resurrection.

The mystery of death, descent into Hades, and resurrection were enacted in initiation ceremonies, as depicted in Egyptian glyphs, where the dog-headed Anubis -- the Egyptian Hermes -- conducts the candidate.

"Mercury in his psychopompic character, conducting and guiding with the caduceus the souls of the dead to Hades and even raising the dead to life with it, . . . shows the dual power of the Secret Wisdom: the black and the white magic. It shows this personified Wisdom guiding the Soul after death, and its power to call to life that which is dead -- a very deep metaphor . . ." (SD 2:364).

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

Tulku sprul sku (Tibetan) [short for sprul pa'i sku (tul-pe-ku) from sprul pa phantom, disembodied spirit; cf Sanskrit nirmanakaya body of magical transformation]

Applied to a lama of high rank, often to the head abbot of a monastery; specifically, to those lamas who have proved their ability of remembering their office and standing in a former incarnation, e.g., by selecting articles belonging previously to themselves, describing details of a former life, surroundings, etc. The two most important tulkus in the Tibetan Buddhist hierarchy are the Tashi and Dalai Lamas. Tulku is often referred to as an incarnation but, outside of the many varieties of an incarnating or imbodying power or energy, incarnation in popular usage is the direct continuance of a previous imbodiment. These so-called living buddhas of Tibet are one kind of tulku -- the transmission of a spiritual power or energy from one Buddha-lama of a Tibetan monastery when he dies, to a child or adult successor. If the transmission is successful, the result is tulku.

Tulku is of many different kinds and very closely parallels the Hindu doctrine of avatara. Taking Jesus as an example: here was a life-long tulku, a ray from a divinity; a tulku of that divinity so far as that ray goes, a divine manifestation, and hence a true avatara in the Brahmanical sense. Again, Gautama Buddha was tulku of his own inner buddha or inner god. The average person, however, is merely overshadowed occasionally, if he really aspires, by a touch of the divine flame from within the higher parts of his own constitution, and yet even for these fugitive instants such person is tulku. But when Gautama attained buddhahood, he was relatively infilled with his own inner buddha, and therefore was that god's human tulku. That was for Siddhartha the man, nirvana; he then entered dharmakaya and this portion of him was then known of men no more: that portion of him was a man become divine.

Another kind of tulku is where a human mahatma will send a ray from himself, or a part of himself, to take imbodiment, perhaps only temporarily, perhaps almost for a lifetime, in a neophyte-messenger that this mahatma is sending out into the world to teach. The messenger in this instance acts as a transmitter of the spiritual and divine powers of the mahatma. Blavatsky was such a tulku, imbodying frequently the very life of, and hence guided by, her own teacher. While this incarnation of the teacher's higher essence lasted, she was tulku. When for one reason or another the influence or ray was withdrawn for a longer or shorter period, tulku then and there became nonexistent.

Still another aspect of the tulku doctrine is illustrated by the case of Blavatsky. Where is she now? Blavatsky has not yet again reincarnated -- she has not yet been born as a child -- but she has at certain times, and for one certain individual, with that individual's consent, organized as it were tulku for that individual. For the time being, therefore, we can say that Blavatsky has partially imbodied in that chosen individual for the purpose of special transmission. In all cases of tulku, they are incarnations or appearances. If Blavatsky, for instance, were to make tulku of a person for a month or a year, for the time being that person would be tulku, but when that particular work was done, the influence would be withdrawn and tulku would stop.

There is again another kind of avataric incarnation or tulku, a temporary physical appearance of an adept in the mayavi-rupa. Certain Tibetan lamas are known to be able to perform this feat, and thus they too have been properly called tulkus, which is the type of tulku that certain Orientalists have referred to as "an appearance."

Another type of tulku of an opposite and essentially evil character is that brought about by a hypnotist who temporarily displaces the psychological nature of his entranced subject through psychologization or even hypnosis plus mesmerism. This, however, is more often than not an act of black magic and fraught with grave dangers, both to the hypnotist and the one entranced. Every clever hypnotist actually makes a tulku of his victim in a black magic sense. When he puts an idea into the brain of his victim, that one week from now at three o'clock in the afternoon he is going to do some essentially foolish or undignified act -- for the time being that hypnotist is working a black magic tulku on that victim, and every psychologist and hypnotist knows the possibility of this fact, though the scientific explanation of the term may be strange to him. A key example of black magic tulku was what the medieval Europeans used to call werewolves. This doctrine of the tulku, however, is at heart beautiful and sublime, and hence highly reverenced by the Tibetans.

(See also: Tulku, sprul sku, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body mind and Soul)

Sod (Hebrew) Originally to appoint, place, or found; later an assembly, people placed or appointed or founded to do some duty or work; hence a secret or occult assembly or company of individuals united for some specific purpose, corresponding almost exactly to the Greek mysterion (mystery).

Sod occurs frequently in the Old Testament, translated as secret or assembly, where Mysteries would be a more correct rendering: e.g., "Jacob called unto his sons, and said . . . Simeon and Levi are brethren; instruments of cruelty are in their habitations. . . . come not thou into their secret; unto their assembly" (Genesis 49:1, 5-6). The Bible is "a series of historical records of the great struggle between white and black Magic, between the Adepts of the right path, the Prophets, and those of the left, the Levites, the clergy of the brutal masses. . . . The great schism that arose between the sons of the Fourth Race, as soon as the first Temples and Halls of Initiation had been erected under the guidance of 'the Sons of God,' is allegorized in the Sons of Jacob. That there were two schools of Magic, and that the orthodox Levites did not belong to the holy one, is shown in the words pronounced by the dying Jacob" (SD 2:211).

The secret learning of the Hebrews was often termed Sod (plural, Sodim), Sodei Torah (secrets or mysteries of the Law), or Razei Torah.

(See also: Sod, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

BÖN or BÖNPA

The aboriginal magicians of Tibet, prior to Buddhism, at first much opposed to the Lamas, but eventually joining them in their adoption of Tantric Buddhism. Like all major movements, Buddhism did not become popular until it learned how to take in and alter local beliefs. Dhyana (meditation) was used in Tibet before passing to Japan as Zen, though one cant be sure if its a non-stop link from Tibet to Japan. If it is, then why not Obon/Bon equivalence, as well? Bon was (is) very back-woodsy and little is known about it. Christmas Humphreys says it has roots in Asiatic (Mongol) Shamanism: nature worship, sex magic and psychic arts. Modern Bon are called black hats and are sorcerers of the Dug-pa sects of Bhutan and Ladak.

(See also: BÖN, BÖNPA, Magick, Mysticism, Mysticism 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)

Repercussion Striking back, as when a wave rebounds from a surface.

In theosophical literature, applied to the phenomenon in which a blow aimed at the phantom of a living person takes effect on the person himself, as though it rebounded. It can occur in spiritualistic seances, when something done to a materialized form takes effect on the body of the medium. It is one of the secrets of black magical practices, such as that where a wax image of a person is made, and objects stuck into it, thus causing equivalent injury to the living person aimed at.

A similar effect may be produced in an unborn child by something which happens to the mother. A mental picture, an astral form, and a physical form are three linked stages in a series; which explains how a sorcerer can use his imagination for his evil purposes, and how the imagination of a mother can affect the body of the unborn child.

(See also: Repercussion, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Ri-thlen (East Indian) Snake-keeping; "a terrible kind of sorcery practised at Cherrapoonjee in the Khasi-Hills. . . . 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" (TG 278-9).

(See also: Ri-thlen, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Occult Arts Blavatsky in "Occultism versus the Occult Arts" (Studies in Occultism), distinguishes between occultism (gupta-vidya, the path of wisdom) and occult arts (evil occultism, sorcery, black magic, spells, incantations, etc.).

While true occultism completely renounces self, the occult arts are practiced with selfish motives or from love of evil. Even where there is no sinister motive in one who ventures upon the occult arts, yet he enters a field where danger and destruction threaten unless he is protected by a training in true occultism. He will arouse in himself forces with which he cannot cope, open doors which later he seeks in vain to close, and put himself at the mercy of evil wills probably stronger than his own.

(See also: Occult Arts, Mysticism, Mysticism 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, )

NIANTIEL

The watcher of the 24th Tunnel. This figure from The Nightside of Eden corresponds to death in the conventional Tarot In Kenneth Grant's distortion, however, this is the path of sodomy, the reverse of Tiphareth, the "infernal sun in Amenta, the phallus in anus as distinct from the supernal sun." He also includes the scorpion and beetle as symbols of the "Dark Sun." The mysteries here evoked are sex magic and death magic, naturally, as well as "black magic" and Voodoo generally.

The sickness attributed to Niantiel was cancer, even before the advent of AIDS. The engineers of this disease, however, have sealed themselves off from all possibility of Salvation. The evil that Kenneth Grant saw -- to turn the Qliphah of Death into sodomy -- has at last been realized and the Kingdom of Hell is complete. The path between Tiphareth and Netzach is now the paved highroad between Belphagor and Baal.

999

Eternal Evolution (past, present, future). This is the most mystical number of all. It is the number of the Archon of the Ending Aeons. 999 is the year in which Kukulcan (Quetzalcoatl) died. It is the name of a very high IQ Society. 999 is the final transmutation of the current that began with 333, reached its culmination of evil mysticism in 666 and which will unlock the gates of the Otherworld at the end of this cycle's unfolding. It has also been appropriated by the J. R. "Bob" Dodds mock-cult (The Church of the Sub-Genius) as its seal, but is (for them) totally without significance or occult purpose, except as another symbol to subvert in their addiction to chaos.

9 to the 9th power is 387,420,489, which is sure to have some important meaning. Breaking that

down, 3 + 8 + 7 = 18 = 9; 4 + 2 + 0 = 6; 4 + 8 + 9 = 21 = 3; and ultimately 9 + 6 + 3 = 18 =

1 + 8 = 9. (See NUMEROLOGY.)

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

HELL-HOUND

There have been many. Cerberus and Orthos, the guardians of the Gates of Hell are notorious enough, but there was also Garn, the Moon dog; the hellhound of Arwan; Falinis, the hound of Lush; the Hound of the Baskervilles; the whelp of King Ioruaidhe (who turned water into wine) -- and numerous others, from Egypt's most exalted Psychopomp of the Dead, the Dog-God, Anubis, to Walt Disney's gentle pup, Pluto, who was indeed named (tongue well in cheek) after the self-same God of the Underworld.

Dogs are quite naturally associated with death and the lower reaches. It is fitting that it should be they, after death, who conduct us who led them in life. Not only do our canine friends watch over us by night, guarding against every intruder and nocturnal peril that menaces the sleeping household, but they are quite at home in underground caves and even expert at digging. They are unperturbed by corpses or corruption. And, although their vocabularies of human words are exasperatingly limited, they are, as every dog owner knows, fluent in the silent, non-linguistic communication of ESP.

For the above and many other reasons, demons were once believed to take the form of dogs, especially black dogs. The Devil himself, in fact, has a black dog as his companion. White dogs are more likely the companions of white magic.

(See also: HELL-HOUND, Magick, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul, )

Occult Sciences. The science of the secrets of nature - physical and psychic, mental and spiritual; called Hermetic and Esoteric Sciences.

 In the West, the Kabbalah may be named; in the East, mysticism, magic, and Yoga philosophy, which latter is often referred to by the Chelas in India as the seventh "Darshana" (school of philosophy), there being only six Darshanas in India known to the world of the profane.

These sciences are, and have been for ages, hidden from the vulgar for the very good reason that they would never be appreciated by the selfish educated classes, nor understood by the uneducated; whilst the former might misuse them for their own profit, and thus turn the divine science into black magic. It is often brought forward as an accusation against the Esoteric philosophy and the Kabbalah that their literature is full of "a barbarous and meaningless jargon" unintelligible to the ordinary mind.

But do not exact Sciences - medicine, physiology, chemistry, and the rest - do the same? Do not official Scientists equally veil their facts and discoveries with a newly coined and most barbarous Greco-Latin terminology? As justly remarked by our late brother, Kenneth Mackenzie - "To juggle thus with words, when the facts are so simple, is the art of the Scientists of the present time, in striking contrast to those of the XVIIth century, who called spades spades, and not ‘agricultural implements ‘."

Moreover, whilst their facts would be as simple and as comprehensible if rendered in ordinary language, the facts of Occult Science are of so abstruse a nature, that in most cases no words exist in European languages to express them; in addition to which our "jargon" is a double necessity -

(a) for the purpose of describing clearly these facts to him who is versed in the Occult terminology; and

(b) to conceal them from the profane.

(See also: Occult Sciences, 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, )

Poseidon (Greek) One of the twelve great Olympian deities, a son of Ouranos and Gaia, brother of Zeus and Hades; represented by the Latins as Neptunus. The brothers Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades are respectively the gods of heaven, the intermediate world or water, and of the underworld; and these represent the three great generalized powers or forces, each one ruling or vitalizing his respective third of the seven manifest cosmic planes.

Poseidon presides over water, especially the ocean, and over horses, which he brought forth by a stroke of his trident on the earth. His symbols are the dolphin, one of his executive ministers; the trident; and the horse.

It is Poseidon who shakes the earth and raises and quells storms at sea. He had numerous offspring by many wives, both mortal and immortal; mostly of a violent unruly character like himself -- titans and giants. He stands as a personation of the spirit and race of Atlantis; for he is lusty, sensual, and at war with heaven. To consummate his intrigues, he assumes the forms of various animals -- a way of alluding to bestial Atlantean black magic.

The symbol is complex, for he is also a dragon. He is related to the northern constellations of Draco, Delphinus, and Pegasus (or Equus, the horse). Equivalent to Chozzar of the Peratae Gnostics and the good serpent of the Nazarenes (cf SD 2:578). As god of the waters he parallels Idaspati, Narayana, Vishnu, and Varuna.

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

Dorje rdo rje (Tibetan) Equivalent to the Sanskrit vajra, meaning both thunderbolt and diamond. As a thunderbolt, it is represented in the hands of some of the Tibetan gods, especially the dragshed -- deities who protect human beings -- and is thus equivalent to the weapons of Indra and Zeus.

Dorje is the scepter of power, whether spiritual or temporal, and appears on the altars of the Gelukpas together with the bell and cymbals: "It is also a Mudra, a gesture and posture used in sitting for meditation. It is, in short, a symbol of power over invisible evil influences, whether as a posture or a talisman. The Bhons or Dugpas, however, having appropriated the symbol, misuse it for purposes of Black Magic. . . . With the Dugpas, it is like the double triangle reversed, the sign of sorcery" (VS 90).

One aspect of its use by the gods is the purification that ensues in those against whom the bolt is cast, as well as the gods meting out justice by its means. A more mystical reference to dorje, however, alludes to the higher triad of the human constitution which, if continually held in view, purifies the lower quaternary as the thunderstorm does the earth's atmosphere.

As diamond, dorje has a direct mystical reference to the supposedly indestructible nature of the diamond. It is the symbol of possession of siddhis or supernormal powers spiritual, intellectual, and astral. Those who wield this wand of power or diamond-thunderbolt are called vajra-panins.

(See also: Dorje rdo rje, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Prayer As usually understood in the West, prayer implies the existence -- whether actually so in nature or not -- of a divine entity, such as God, Christ, an angel or saint, to whom petitions may be addressed and by whose favor benefits may be obtained, a view of prayer held in nearly all exoteric religious systems. Yet even among those who believe in personal divinities, some take a higher view of prayer than that of asking for special favors, rather looking upon it as an act of resignation to the divine will: "Not my will, but thine, be done."

Theosophy speaks of this as the endeavor of the aspiring human mind to establish individual communion between the personal man and his spiritual counterpart or inner god, the true meaning of the injunction to pray to our Father which is in secret. Thus prayer takes the form of aspiration combined with deep meditation, as has been the case with mystics, Eastern and Western. This involves a laying aside of personal wishes and a conscious desire for intuitive perception of the truth and for the power to follow it.

If a personal wish is present, precisely because all personal wishes in the last analysis are restricted, and hence either physically or spiritually selfish, the act becomes one of black magic, for the person is seeking to evoke interior powers in furtherance of his own purposes, which in such cases are usually founded in self-seeking of some kind. Also, a well-intentioned person, praying on behalf of another, may unwittingly exercise on that other an interference with the latter's will, similar in many respects to that of hypnotism.

The absurdity of warring nations praying to the same God for victory over each other is often commented on; and the practice of many people combining together to pray for the conversion of people of another sect, or even for worse objects, is equally open to reprobation. This kind of prayer is merely a survival of one of the lower magic arts, where religious practice consists mainly in the invocation of tribal and local deities.

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

VOODOO

(Or VOUDON; from Tovodun, the Dahomean gods.) The West African religion together with its transplanted form in Haiti and elsewhere in the Caribbean and Gulf. It derives from Dahomey or Yoruban vodun, "god" or "spirit" and the chief spirits are Legba, Ogoun, Ghede and, in the new world, Baron Samedi, Piquant and Cimitère. Rites are said to involve serpent worship, sexual magic, cannibalism and corpses (see ZOMBIE). Another name for spirits, those that actually possess the worshippers, are the loa.

According to Michael Bertiaux, latterday priest or Hungan, Voodoo is not an evil religion and is much misunderstood. He heads La Couleuvre Noire, or modern "Black Serpent" Voodoo Cult working with the so-called "Ophidian Current" and "the leapers of the paths" on the other side of the Tree of Life. The latter practice is associated with Juju, another "modern" African religion.

Esoteric Voodoo is actually a highly practical procedure for leading us into making contact with our deepest levels of being and most ancient modes of consciousness, through the dark spirits of the universe that operate on the same frequencies.

Michael Bertiaux's Voudon Gnostic Workbook is probably the most comprehensive and illuminating contemporary work on the subject, both from the practical and from the philosophical, mystical points of view. It ranges in mind from the basic desires of the most ignorant levels of society to the esoteric abstractions of the heights of untrammeled consciousness.

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

VAMPIRE

A demon, succubus, incubus, bat, zombie or night-thing between being and non-being who lives off the stolen "blood" of the living. Such blood can be literal blood, divine "Ambrosia," soma, physical energy, menses, semen, life itself or merely the mind or psyche. In languages around the world, words for "cruelty", "red" and "blood" have similar roots: Ainu fure ("red"); Latin burrus ("reddish"); Albanian vras ("hurt"; "kill"); Finnish verta ("blood"); Serbian vampir (vampire); Turkish uber ("witch"); Hungarian vé'r ("blood") and so on.

In his novel, Bat Wing, Sax Rohmer describes a particularly intelligent and horrible Central American vampire bat that has learned how to crawl under the mosquito netting of its sleeping donor.

Vampires, along with other automata and hell-beings created by the sick fantasies of human invention, swell in the qliphotic regions of the nightside of the Tree of Life. The magician crossing the qliphotic path of Characith (whose kala is cunnilingus) is warned to avoid lingering here too long lest he become an addict and vampire. In some black magic practices, the priestess is sacrificed and her soul turned into a familiar for the magician. Here the line between vampire and zombie has been almost deliberately blurred.

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