Interesting links with good reading
Below are some short introductions. Click on the blue hyperlinked word to get more related articles.
Calvinism - A system of Christian interpretation initiated by John Calvin. It emphasizes predestination and salvation. The five points of Calvinism were developed in response to the Arminian position (See Arminianism). Calvinism teaches: 1) Total depravity: that man is touched by sin in all parts of his being: body, soul, mind, and emotions, 2) Unconditional Election: that God’s favor to Man is completely by God’s free choice and has nothing to do with Man. It is completely undeserved by Man and is not based on anything God sees in man (Eph. 1:1-11), 3) Limited atonement: that Christ did not bear the sins of every individual who ever lived, but instead only bore the sins of those who were elected into salvation (John 10:11,15), 4) Irresistible grace: that God''s call to someone for salvation cannot be resisted, 5) Perseverance of the saints: that it is not possible to lose one''s salvation (John 10:27-28).
Crescent - Crescent (from Latin crescere to increase)
The moon in its first quarter, or the figure of a circular arc or lune; a symbol of the moon, which in its highest signification is the Queen of Heaven, Diana, the great mother of the earth, as the sun is the great father of all. It is associated in Egypt with Isis, in Greece and Rome with Aphrodite and Venus, in Asia Minor with Astarte or Astaroth and many other lunar goddesses, who are often represented with cow''s horns.
The Roman Catholic Mary is sometimes represented as standing on the crescent moon, and when Venus-Lucifer became transformed into Satan, its crescent became the devil''s horns. The symbol also parallels that of the ark or argha and appears in the Egyptian symbol of the solar boat, where it indicates that the moon is the sun''s vehicle.
But the moon is a triple symbol, and may stand for the lower astral light, the linga-sarira, and the female generative function. In the symbol of Mercury, which represents the human being, we have the crescent representing the lower mind or soul; the circle, heart or spirit; and the cross, functions or body. This symbolism appears in other planetary symbols: in Saturn, for instance, the cross is over the crescent, while in Jupiter the crescent is over the cross. Also, the crescent and star (or sun) is the emblem of the Moslem faith.
Depravity - Moral corruption, a state of corruption or sinfulness. Total depravity is the teaching that sin has touched all aspects of the human: body, soul, spirit, emotions, mind, etc.
Disintegration - The separation of the essential organization or harmony of the subject''s personality. Such disunity of body, mind, soul, spirit, psyche can be brought about by an overload, over-extension or misuse of one''s use of ESP
Epilepsy - Epilepsy A disorder recognized in antiquity as an obsession or possession by an elementary which ousts temporarily the astral-vital soul from the physical body and for the time being assumes control of the bodily mechanism. The mind thereby loses direct connection with its physical vehicle and unconsciousness results.
The theosophical teaching about elementaries -- astral entities whose intense desires draw them to neurotic, mediumistic, and negatively sensitive natures -- gives the key to the injurious, purposeless explosions of force in the person who has been dissociated from his body and brain.
Of the various bizarre sensations which usher in many typical attacks, one of the most common is the sudden look of fear or terror with which the sufferer stares fixedly as if held in thrall by some gruesome astral sight. The frequent hallucinations are, as a rule, of the same quality which the alcoholic senses in delirium tremens. Blavatsky says that epileptic fits "are the first and strongest symptoms of genuine mediumship" (Key 195).
Modern medicine reports that some cases of essential or idiopathic epilepsy often are normal individuals between attacks, and also that many autopsies reveal no organic disease to account for such marked disorder.
Epithumia - Epithumia (Greek) In Greek metaphysics, equivalent in the human constitution to kama or the desire principle. Psyche or soul was a union of bios (physical vitality, prana), epithumia, and phren or mens (mind, manas). (BCW 1:292, 365) "Pythagoras and Plato both divided soul into two representative parts, independent of each other -- the one, the rational soul, or ((logos)), the other irrational, ((alogos))-- the latter being again subdivided into two parts or aspects the ((thymichon)) and the ((epithymichon)), which, with the divine soul and its spirit and the body, make the seven principles of Theosophy" (BCW 7:229).
See also PRINCIPLES
Individual Mind - At the microcosmic level of individual souls, mind is consciousness and its faculties of memory, desire, thought and cognition. Individual mind is chitta (mind, consciousness) and its three-fold expression is called antahkarana, "inner faculty" composed of:
buddhi ("intellect, reason, logic," higher mind);
ahamkara ("I-maker," egoity);
manas ("lower mind," instinctive-intellectual mind, the seat of desire).
From the perspective of the 36 tattvas (categories of existence), each of these is a tattva which evolves out of the one before it. Thus, from buddhi comes ahamkara and then manas. Manas, buddhi and ahamkara are faculties of the manomaya kosha (astral or instinctive-intellectual sheath). Anukarana chitta, subsuperconsciousness, the knowing mind, is the mind-state of the vijnanamaya kosha (mental or intuitive-cognitive sheath). The aspect of mind corresponding directly to the anandamaya kosha (causal body) is karana chitta, superconsciousness.
See: mind, ahamkara, antahkarana, buddhi, chitta, manas, universal mind, consciousness.
Kama - Kama (Sanskrit) (from the verbal root kam to desire)
Desire; the fourth substance-principle of which the human constitution is composed: its desire principle or the driving, impelling force. Born from the interaction of atman, buddhi, and manas, kama per se is a colorless force, good or bad according to the way the mind and soul use it. It is the seat of the living electric impulses, desires, aspirations, considered in their energic aspect. When a person follows his lower impulses and centers his consciousness in the body and astral nature, he is directing that force downwards. When he aspires and opens his heart and mind to the influence of his higher manas and buddhi, he is directing that force upwards and thus progressing in evolution.
"This fourth principle is the balance principle of the whole seven. It stands in the middle, and from it the ways go up or down. It is the basis of action and the mover of the will. As the old Hermetists say: ''Behind will stands desire.'' For whether we wish to do well or ill we have to first arouse within us the desire for either course. . . . On the material and scientific side of occultism, the use of the inner hidden powers of our nature, if this principle of desire be not strong the master power of imagination cannot do its work, because though it makes a mould or matrix the will cannot act unless it is moved, directed, and kept up to pitch by desire. . . .
"This fourth principle is like the sign Libra in the path of the Sun through the Zodiac; when the Sun (who is the real man) reaches that sign he trembles in the balance. Should he go back the worlds would be destroyed; he goes onward, and the whole human race is lifted up to perfection" (Ocean 45-7).
Cosmic kama or desire, equivalent to the Greek eros, is the source of fohat, the driving intelligent energies of the universe. It is impersonal compassion and sympathy.
Karana Chitta - (Sanskrit) "Causal mind."
The intuitivesuperconscious mind of the soul. It corresponds to the anandamaya kosha, bliss sheath, also called karana sharira, causal body.
See: kosha, mind (five states), soul.
Mental Body - The higher-mind layer of the subtle or astral body in which the soul functions in Maharloka of the Antarloka or subtle plane. In Sanskrit, the mental body is vijnanamaya kosha, "sheath of cognition."
See: intellectual mind, kosha, subtle body.: : : : : : : : : :
Metapattern - As used in this text, the sum and gestalt of all the interlocking patterns that make up an individual, including the body (or bodies), the various levels of mind or awareness, the psychic and artistic abilities, memory and intellectual capacities, and perhaps whatever it is that is usually called “the soul.”
Nut - Nut (Egyptian) Also Noot, Noun, Nout, Nu. Goddess of the sky or cosmic space -- whether of the solar system or the galaxy -- daughter of Shu and Tefnut, wife of Seb (the cosmic earth or outspread space), mother of Osiris and Isis, and of Set and Nephthys or Neith; the heavens personified.
Some manuscripts distinguish between Nut, the day sky, and Naut, the night sky, although the two are but lower and higher aspects of one cosmic divinity. Her attributes partake of those of the other nature goddesses in the Egyptian pantheon: she is addressed as Lady of Heaven, who gave birth to all the gods. The favorite representation of Nut is of a woman bending so that her body forms a semicircle -- a part of the endless circle of space -- upon which the stars are portrayed, while her consort, Seb, prostrate beneath her, completes the circle. Again, the solar boat is represented sailing up over the lower limbs, in order to pursue its journey over the day sky; and sailing down her arms to complete its cycle in the night sky.
Nut is an important goddess of the Underworld and figures largely in the Egyptian Book of the Dead. She is one of the twelve deities who judge the deceased. Her office was to supply food and water, enabling the one entering the Underworld (Tuat) to rise in a renewed body, even as Ra, the sun god, arose from the egg produced by Seb and Nut. Thus, wherever possible, the sarcophagus had the figure of the goddess represented upon it, her protective wings spread over the deceased, her hands holding the emblems of celestial water and air.
The Greek nous
"was the designation given to the Supreme deity (third logos) by Anaxagoras. Taken from Egypt where it was called Nout, it was adopted by the Gnostics for their first conscious AEon which, with the Occultists, is the third logos, cosmically, and the third ''principle'' (from above) or manas, in man. . . .
"In the Pantheon of the Egyptians it meant the ''One-only-One,'' because they did not proceed in their popular or exoteric religion higher than the third manifestation which radiates from the Unknown and the Unknowable, the first unmanifested and the second logoi in the esoteric philosophy of every nation. The Nous of Anaxagoras was the Mahat of the Hindu Brahma, the first manifested Deity -- ''the Mind or Spirit self-potent''; this creative Principle being of course the primum mobile of everything in the Universe -- its Soul and Ideation" (TG 234).
Some of the most abstract attributes connected with Nut place her at times as the Second Logos; but because the Second contains the Third Logos, and therefore the Mother being in a sense identical with her Daughter, it follows that not infrequently the attributes of Nut place her as the higher portion of the Third Logos.
Psychography - Psychography Soul-writing; coined by theosophical writers on occult phenomena for various kinds of inspirational or phenomenally produced writing.
In its highest sense it may mean writing under the influence of inspiration from a high source, whether within or without the nature of the writer, as when one writes things which in his ordinary state of mind he would be incapable of rising to. Or it may refer to physical mediumship, where the writing is produced unconsciously by the astrally controlled hand of the medium, and the ideas come from some source in the astral light.
It can also include automatic writing of various kinds, and writing by precipitation. As regards the advisability of seeking or cultivating such powers, any practice which involves a surrender of control, either of the mind or the body, to an extraneous influence is detrimental.
A writer in full possession of his faculties may by sincere aspiration draw upon higher sources within himself or upon the aid given by those Helpers who stand ready to respond to such aspirations. Self-deception, however, is one of the commonest failings of human nature.
Soulless Beings - Soulless Beings Men and women who are still connected, but usually quite unconsciously, with the monad, the spiritual essence within them, but not self-consciously so; they live very largely in the brain-mind and in the fields of sensuous consciousness.
"We elbow soulless men in the streets at every turn," wrote Blavatsky. This does not mean that those people have no soul, but that the spiritual part of these human beings is unable to manifest itself through the unawakened brain-mind and feelings.
They are animate humans with an animate working brain-mind, but otherwise soulless in the sense that the soul is insufficiently expressive. This is what Pythagoras meant when he spoke of the living dead, or the spiritually useless portion of mankind. They live in the ordinary mind and in the body, thinking only of and in these small and restricted spheres of consciousness. Such "soulless" people are very numerous. Soulless beings are not to be confused with lost souls.
Spirit - Soul and body are what the world sees. The mind connects them. The spirit, however, is one''s own thing. It can be connected to the Cosmic Spirit or partly to itself and others on a lower level.
Theurgy Theurgia - Theurgy theurgia (Greek) [from theos god + ergon work]
Mystery-term popularized by Iamblichus for a method of individual communion with the gods, or bringing the gods down to earth. It consisted in purifying the psycho-astral links between the mind and its divine counterpart, whereby the theurgist was not only brought into conscious communion with his own higher self, but also with other divine entities. The first school in the Christian period
"was founded by Iamblichus among certain Alexandrian Platonists. The priests, however, who were attached to the temples of Egypt, Assyria, Babylonia and Greece, and whose business it was to evoke the gods during the celebration of the Mysteries, were known by this name, or its equivalent in other tongues, from the earliest archaic period. Spirits (but not those of the dead, the evocation of which was called Necromancy) were made visible to the eyes of mortals. Thus a theurgist had to be a hierophant and an expert in the esoteric learning of the Sanctuaries of all great countries. The Neo-platonists of the school of Iamblichus were called theurgists, for they performed the so-called ''ceremonial magic,'' and evoked the simulacra or the images of the ancient heroes, ''gods,'' and daimonia ( {Greek char} divine, spiritual entities). In the rare cases when the presence of a tangible and visible ''spirit'' was required, the theurgist had to furnish the weird apparition with a portion of his own flesh and blood -- he had to perform the theopaea, or the ''creation of gods,'' by a mysterious process well known to the old, and perhaps some of the modern, Tantrikas and initiated Brahmans of India" (TG 329-30).
The varied uses by different writers shows the term''s applicability to a considerable range of practices.
"The popular prevailing idea is that the theurgists, as well as the magicians, worked wonders, such as evoking the souls or shadows of the heroes and gods, and other thaumaturgic works, by supernatural powers. But this never was the fact. They did it simply by the liberation of their own astral body, which, taking the form of a god or hero, served as a medium or vehicle through which the special current preserving the ideas and knowledge of that hero or god could be reached and manifested" (TG 330).
Plotinus was opposed to theurgy, and Porphyry says that it can but cleanse the lower or psychic portion and make it capable of perceiving lower beings, such as spirits, angels, and gods; it is powerless to purify the noetic or manasic (intellectual) principle. But Porphyry was persuaded by his master Iamblichus to concede the value of theurgy under certain limitations. Porphyry''s views highlight the difference between raja yoga and hatha yoga. In the case of such a person as Iamblichus, practices might be quite safe which would be fraught with nothing but harm in the hands of another or without the help of such a teacher. For once the barriers are down a way is opened for communion with all kinds of undesirable entities, against which the experimenter will not know how to protect himself.
In the ancient Mysteries, theurgy was divided into different degrees. To illustrate, in one of the highest initiatory degrees the initiant was brought face to face with the divinity within himself, and in order to accomplish this the initiant had to give of his own spiritual and intellectual substance and vitality so that his inner god might imbody itself on inner and invisible planes, the rite thus providing a temporary and illusory divorce which was really an essential union of the divine in man with the spiritual-intellectual -- the latter recognizing for the time being its own divine origin and coalescing with it. In a less perfect form of such theurgical practice, and in a lower degree of the Mysteries, the initiant gave of his own astral and physical substance, the effluvia of his astral body and of his flesh and blood, to provide a vehicle through which a spiritual entity might have a tangible, although very temporary, imbodiment; and for the time being the initiant was thus enabled to see, touch, and converse with a being of the inner worlds who otherwise would have been utterly unable to enter our physical sphere except by those spiritual-akasic currents of forces which human beings recognize as inspiration.
Total Depravity - The doctrine that fallen man is completely touched by sin and that he is completely a sinner. He is not as bad as he could be, but in all areas of his being, body, soul, spirit, mind, emotions, etc., he is touched by sin. In that sense he is totally depraved. Because man is depraved, nothing good can come out of him (Rom. 3:10-12) and God must account the righteousness of Christ to him. This righteousness is obtainable only through faith in Christ and what He did on the cross.
Total depravity is generally believed by the Calvinist groups and rejected by the Arminian groups.
Uraeus - Uraeus [from Greek ouraios of the tail]
Refers to the sacred serpent of Egypt (aar, aart, aartu in Egyptian); usually only the head and neck of the serpent are represented by the ancient Egyptians in the headdress of many divinities, and in the headdress of royal persons as a symbol of power, both occult and temporal. Egyptologists state that the physical basis of the symbol is supposed to be the Egyptian asp or cobra -- Naja haje, naja being closely akin to the Sanskrit naga: "Occultism explains that the uraeus is the symbol of initiation and also of hidden wisdom, as the serpent always is" (TG 355). Generally, the representation of the sacred uraeus in headdresses -- before the symbol became degraded into a mere ritualistic, formalistic emblem -- meant that the individual wearing it had become an initiate and bore the badge of wisdom. Two deities in particular were always represented with the uraeus, Isis and Nephthys (Neith), therefore they were termed by the Egyptians snake goddesses (aarti). The uraeus crown itself was named tept.
Sometimes the uraeus is represented with a circle over its head, and again with the winged solar disk, a variant of the serpent and egg symbol met with in so many forms among ancient peoples. Egyptologists interpret the uraeus placed on either side of the winged solar disk as emblematic of the supremacy of the sun, of good over evil, or of Horus over Set; but also the uraeus is associated with the immortal human principles, for one of its identities in The Book of the Dead is the flame. In Aanroo or Aaru -- one of the divisions of the underworld -- the soul of the spirit is devoured after death by the uraeus (ch 99). Blavatsky in explaining this verse speaks of the uraeus as "the Serpent, Son of the earth (in another sense the primordial vital principles in the sun)," and says further that "the Astral body of the deceased or the ''Elementary'' fades out and disappears in the ''Son of the earth,'' limited time. The soul quits the fields of Aanroo and goes on earth under any shape it likes to assume" (SD 1:674n).
In its universal aspect the uraeus is the serpent emblem of the cosmic fire -- thus, in its universal aspect, being a symbol either of kosmic mahat (kosmic mind) or of fohat (kosmic vital-electrical fire).
|
