Schools of the Prophets. Schools established by Samuel for the training of the Nabiim (prophets). Their method was pursued on the same lines as that of a Chela or candidate for initiation into the occult sciences, i.e., the development of abnormal faculties or clairvoyance leading to Seership. Of such schools there were many in days of old in Palestine and Asia Minor. That the Hebrews worshipped Nebo, the Chaldean god of secret learning, is quite certain, since they adopted his name as an equivalent of Wisdom.

(See also: Schools of the Prophets, Theosophy, Spirituality, Body mind and Soul, Spiritual Dictionary, )

Kirlian Photography:

A lenseless electrical photographic technique invented by Russian parapsychologists S. D. and V. Kirlian in 1939 and which can be used to record energy fields around living or once living objects and beings. Although the “Kirlian auras” vary with emotional excitement and intent, there is as yet no proof that they are the same as the “psychic auras” traditionally seen by clairvoyants. Time will tell.

(See also: Kirlian Photography, Pagan, Paganism, Pagan Dictionary)

GARGOPHIAS

The 13th guardian of the dark Tarot. A parallel of the High Priestess. Grant calls it batrachian witchcraft, Hecate's, the goddess Frog-Head. As the High Priestess watches implacably at the cliff edge of the Abyss for the magician to make his solitary leap, Gargophias waits for him to leap into the depths of sexual union (the mating of Chaos and Time). Her magic is dream interpretation and clairvoyance. The disease of Gargophias is menstrual malfunction.

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

magical herbalism (herbal magic): Branch of herbalism expounded by freelance writer Scott Cunningham (1956-1993), who defined herbs as magical substances, infused with the energy of the Earth.

For the removal of sickness, Cunningham recommended a procedure that involves digging a hole, dropping into it a bean for every sickness, and saying something like: As this bean decays, so my sickness will go away. Magical herbalism encompasses clairvoyant diagnosis, absent healing, and the use of amulets.

(See also: Magical herbalism, Body Mind and Soul, Alternative Health, Alternative Health Dictionary)

The Cayce Approach to Health and Healing: Holistic approach to healing and wellness that encompasses breathwork, energy field work, Self-Applied Health Enhancement Methods, and remedies (e.g., the apple diet) related to the readings of clairvoyant Edgar Cayce (1877-1945).

Its theory posits reincarnation and a triune body (physical body, mental body, and spiritual body) and defines healing as the process of awakening the God-pattern within humans.

(See also: Cayce Approach to Health and Healing, Body Mind and Soul, Alternative Health, Alternative Health Dictionary)

Directed Esoteric Toning: Form of Toning whose principle is that a combination of

(a)           vowel sounds and

(b)          prana-carrying breath can open specific regions of the body or consciousness. Its theory posits chakras, clairaudience, clairvoyance, kundalini, a spiritual self, and a correlation of specific vowel sounds and bodily parts, systems, and processes.

(See also: Directed Esoteric Toning, Body Mind and Soul, Alternative Health, Alternative Health Dictionary)

intuitive diagnosis (intuitive diagnostics): Form of clairvoyant diagnosis that rests on accurate intuition. The ostensible diagnostics of Edgar Cayce (see The Cayce Approach to Health and Healing) exemplifies intuitive diagnosis. Its apparent principle is that the conscious ignores signals surrounding humans, but that such information is obtainable if one's mind functions as a super-receiver.

(See also: Intuitive diagnosis, Body Mind and Soul, Alternative Health, Alternative Health Dictionary)

Diktamnon (Ancient Greek), or Dictemnus (Dittany). A curious plant possessing very occult and mystical properties and well-known from ancient times.

It was sacred to the Moon-Goddesses. Luna, Astarte, Diana. The Cretan name of Diana was Diktynna, and as such the goddess wore a wreath made of this magic plant. The Dihtamnon is an evergreen shrub whose contact, as claimed in Occultism, develops and at the same time cures somnambulism. Mixed with Verbena it will produce clairvoyance and ecstasy.

Pharmacy attributes to the Dihtamnon strongly sedative and quieting properties. It grows in abundance on Mount Dicte, in Crete, and enters into many magical performances resorted to by the Cretans even to this day.

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

Schools of the Prophets "Schools established by Samuel for the training of the Nabiim (prophets).

Their method was pursued on the same lines as that of a Chela or candidate for initiation into the occult sciences, i.e., the development of abnormal faculties or clairvoyance leading to Seership. Of such schools there were many in days of old in Palestine and Asia Minor. That the Hebrews worshipped Nebo, the Chaldean god of secret learning, is quite certain, since they adopted his name as an equivalent of Wisdom" (TG 294).

Blavatsky points so specifically to the Hebrew and other similar schools in Asia Minor because these are the best known; yet similar schools of the prophets, under other names, have existed in all countries and ages, as for instance in Greece, where they were called Mysteries, and in Egypt.

(See also: Schools of the Prophets, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Lymphasizing (The Art of Lymphatic System Activation, The Art of Lymphasizing, The Fine Art of Lymphasizing, The Science of Lymphasizing): Healing system originated by chemist and lymphologist Dr. C. Samuel West, author of The Golden Seven Plus One.

According to the system's theory, the human body is essentially a confluence of electrical fields, and health, strength, and endurance depend on the structural integrity of the energy currents that run through it. Advocates of Lymphasizing include clairvoyant naturopath William J. Walks Sacred Martin, of Detroit, Michigan, and acupuncturist Philip L. Gruber, a teacher of Sacred Geometrical Healing.

(See also: Lymphasizing, Body Mind and Soul, Alternative Health, Alternative Health Dictionary)

Cup A container, vehicle, upadhi; having in certain connections the same general sense as graal, solar boat, ark, crescent moon, etc.; so that it answers to buddhi among human principles and to mahabuddhi cosmically, as the vahana or container of atman or paramatman.

 It may contain wine, the symbol of spiritual life. The cup figures in the Bacchic and Orphite Mysteries, a sacred cup being handed around; this has become the chalice of the Christian Eucharist. The Grail or Graal cup is well known in European legend.

The cup has always been one means of divination, whether by looking into it, or looking into water in it, or shaking up tea leaves or coffee grounds. These last gestures are physical adjuncts to the use of the clairvoyant vision. In the Tarots, the second suite was the cups, answering to the hearts in playing cards.

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

Yaksha yaksa (Sanskrit) [from the verbal root yaksh to devour]

A class of ethereal, astral, or semi-astral beings, regarded as attendants of Kubera or Kuvera, the deity of riches; occasionally they are associated with Vishnu. The yakshas are variously described as the sons of Pulastya, Pulaha, Kasyapa, Khasa, or Krodha. One legend represents them as springing from the feet of Brahma, while one Puranic account shows them as springing from the body of Brahma with the rakshasas and immediately attempting to devour his body. However, frequently the yakshas are regarded as beings beneficent to humans. In Kalidasa's Meghaduta, the hero is a yaksha, represented as a banished lover who employs a cloud to bear a message to his beloved.

In later popular folklore the yakshas are associated with and classed with the pisachas, and therefore regarded with dread and made responsible for many demoniacal obsessions. "In esoteric science they are simply evil (elemental) influences, who in the sight of seers and clairvoyants descend on men, when open to the reception of such influences, like a fiery comet or a shooting star" (TG 375).

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

Paracelsus. The symbolical name adopted by the greatest Occultist of the middle ages - Philip Bombastes Aureolus Theophrastus von Hohenheim - born in the canton of Zurich in 1493. He was the cleverest physician of his age, and the most renowned for curing almost any illness by the power of talismans prepared by himself.

He never had a friend, but was surrounded by enemies, the most bitter of whom were the Churchmen and their party. That he was accused of being in league with the devil stands to reason, nor is it to be wondered at that finally he was murdered by some unknown foe, at the early age of forty-eight. He died at Salzburg, leaving a number of works behind him, which are to this day greatly valued by the Kabbalists and Occultists.

Many of his utterances have proved prophetic. He was a clairvoyant of great powers, one of the most learned and erudite philosophers and mystics, and a distinguished Alchemist. Physics is indebted to him for the discovery of nitrogen gas, or Azote.

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

Uchnicha, also Buddhochnicha (Sanskrit). Explained as "a protuberance on Buddha’s cranium, forming a hair-tuft ". This curious description is given by the Orientalists, varied by another which states that Uchnicha was "originally a conical or flame-shaped hair tuft on the crown of a Buddha, in later ages represented as a fleshy excrescence on the skull itself ". This ought to read quite the reverse; for esoteric philosophy would say: Originally an orb with the third eye in it, which degenerated later in the human race into a fleshy protuberance, to disappear gradually, leaving in its place but an occasional flame- coloured aura, perceived only through clairvoyance, and when the exuberance of spiritual energy causes the (now concealed) "third eye to radiate its superfluous magnetic power. At this period of our racial development, it is of course the "Buddhas" or Initiates alone who enjoy in full the faculty of the "third eye" , as it is more or less atrophied in everyone else.

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

Rohanee ruhani (Arabic) Used by the modern Sufis, in some senses equivalent to the Sanskrit gupta-vidya (secret knowledge); "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" (TG 280).

(See also: Rohanee, ruhani, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

radionics (psionics): Ill-defined offshoot of radiesthesia founded and named by San Francisco-born neurologist Albert Abrams, M.D., M.A. (1863-1924), author of Spondylotherapy (1910) and New Concepts of Diagnosis and Treatment (1916).

Radionics, which encompasses radionic diagnosis and radionic therapy, is a combination of clairvoyant diagnosis, distant diagnosis (remote diagnosis), and psychic healing. Abrams associated different diseases with different radio waves emitted by various parts of the body and by tissue samples. He invented an ostensibly diagnostic electrical system whose components included: a Dynamizer - a receptacle for blood or tissue samples; three rheostats (devices that regulate electric current); and an electrode, which the practitioner would affix to the patient's forehead. Abrams claimed that one could even ascertain a patient's religion with his system, and that the patient's autograph could substitute for blood in the Dynamizer. For treatment, he recommended his Oscilloclast: a device designed to emit curative vibrations.

(See also: Radionics, Body Mind and Soul, Alternative Health, Alternative Health Dictionary)

Therapeutic Touch (TT, Krieger-Kunz Method of Therapeutic Touch): A derivative of the laying on of hands. Dolores Krieger, Ph.D., R.N., and Dora van Gelder Kunz, a clairvoyant born in the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia), initiated TT in 1972. Nursing professor emerita Dolores Krieger is the author of Accepting Your Power to Heal: The Personal Practice of Therapeutic Touch (Bear and Company, 1993), Foundations for Holistic Health Nursing Practices: The Renaissance Nurse, Living the Therapeutic Touch: Healing As a Lifestyle, The Therapeutic Touch: How to Use Your Hands to Help or to Heal (Simon & Schuster, 1992), and the Therapeutic Touch Inner Workbook: Ventures in Transpersonal Healing (Bear and Company, 1996). TT theory posits chakras and manually transmittable human energies.

(See also: Therapeutic Touch, Body Mind and Soul, Alternative Health, Alternative Health Dictionary)

Er Mei Qi Gong (Er Mei, Er Mei Chi Gong Therapy, Er Mei Qi Gong Therapy, Er Mei Qi Gong Therapy External Energy Diagnosis and Treatment system, Er Mei system): Form of Qigong therapy founded in 1227 by a Buddhist who had been a Taoist priest.

Er Mei theory posits spiritual channels, a third eye, and Qi (chi, ki, qi energy, vital energy). The Er Mei Sudden Enlightenment School has described Qi as an amazing, unique form of matter that is audible, palpable, visible, tastable, and usable for miraculous healing.

The focus of Er Mei is development of the ability to transmit Qi to others with the intention of furthering their healing and/or spiritual empowerment. In practitioners, it develops clairvoyance and precognitive and telepathic abilities. It includes acu-meridian energy transmission bodywork. (Er Mei is also the name of a mountain visited by the system's founder.)

(See also: Er Mei Qi Gong, Body Mind and Soul, Alternative Health, Alternative Health Dictionary)

Divination (from Latin divination a soothsayer from divus spiritual being, god)

The art of obtaining hidden knowledge by the aid of spiritual or ethereal beings. It is divisible into two main kinds: the inducing of seership or clairvoyance, and the interpretation of signs. Under the former come the oracular responses of the Pythian priestess, of the Cumaean Sibyl, and many similar instances, including all cases where the diviner induces trance or clairvoyance, whether in himself by natural power or by incantations, drugs, or other preparations; or in a subject, as when ink is poured into the palm of a child, who sees visions in it, or by some kind of hypnotism.

Under the second head come geomancy, augury, the reading of the marks on the liver of a slaughtered animal, reading cards, Chinese throwing-sticks, predictive astrology, palmistry, numerology, and a great variety of other forms. Between the two classes are ranged such practices as gazing into crystal or water, where external means and interior vision both play a part in the result. Often it is a means of utilizing one's own inner faculties, whether by natural or induced clairvoyance, or by employing the agencies which regulate events apparently casual such as the fall of the cards, the marks in the sand, the drawing of lots; and this last is related to the subject of omens.

The universal correspondences in nature, the interrelation of all things, imply that the most apparently casual and trivial events have of necessity connection with other events, so that the one can be interpreted by means of the other, provided only that the diviner knows the rules and has the insight and skill. Thus, in cartmancy, one deals the cards with a mind concentrated on the knowledge desired, and their fall is determined by these unseen and little understood influences. It is evident, however, that the condition and capacities of the diviner play an essential part in the success of the operation; hence the instructions as to fasting, continence, and the like, so often laid down as preliminaries.

The art of divining is and always has been universally diffused. Today this art, in common with many other items of ancient lore, has fallen into disrepute on account of the great abuse to which it has been subjected, as in the case of the abuses of black magic and sorcery. The same remarks would apply as are made in the case of psychism, seances, etc. -- that a large proportion of humanity is neither wise enough nor well-balanced enough to meddle with such methods; and there is too much tendency to use the methods for the gratification of mere personal desires or curiosity. We do far better to attend to the cultivation of our spiritual faculties, incomparably more powerful and effective, such as intuition.

It may be added that such practices as the slaughter of animals in order to read the entrails can scarcely be regarded, in any age, as pertaining to divine or white magic.

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

siddhi: (Sanskrit) "Power, accomplishment; perfection."

Extraordinary powers of the soul, developed through consistent meditation and deliberate, grueling, often uncomfortable tapas, or awakened naturally through spiritual maturity and yogic sadhana.

Through the repeated experience of Self Realization, siddhis naturally unfold according to the needs of the individual. Before Self Realization, the use or development of siddhis is among the greatest obstacles on the path because it cultivates ahamkara, I-ness, and militates against the attainment of prapatti, complete submission to the will of God, Gods and guru. Six siddhis in particular are considered primary obstacles to samadhi:

-       clairvoyance (adarsha siddhi or divya siddhi),

-       clairaudience (shravana siddhi or divyashravana),

-       divination (pratibha siddhi),

-       super-feeling (vedana siddhi) and

-       super-taste (asvadana siddhi),

-       supersmell (varta siddhi).

The eight classical siddhis are:

1)    anima: to be as small as an atom;

2)    mahima: to become infinitely large;

3)    laghima: super-lightness, levitation;

4)    prapti: pervasiveness, extension, to be anywhere at will;

5)    prakamya: fulfillment of desires;

6)    vashitva: control of natural forces;

7)    ishititva: supremacy over nature;

8)    kama-avasayitva: complete satisfaction.

The supreme siddhi (parasiddhi) is realization of the Self, Parasiva.

See: ahamkara, prapatti, siddha yoga, psychic ability.

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

Hysteria This protean disorder is regarded as a functional neurosis with abnormal sensations, emotions, or paroxysms, manifesting itself chiefly by emotional instability, by the ease with which it is influenced, in negativism and impulsiveness, a tendency to make sensations, a remarkable egotism, desire to talk, to fabricate, and to simulate. There is constant, capricious change of mood and activity. No other disorder can counterfeit so many diseases as hysteria.

The psychic faculties at times displayed in clairvoyance, hallucinations, cataleptic and somnambulistic states, etc., show an active functioning in the astral body; while convulsive and other abnormal movements, and mental absences in which the actor does and says bizarre, unwonted, and inexplicable things for various periods of which only a vague or no remembrance is retained, point to the play of some astral entity, as occurs in other obsessions.

The theosophical interpretation of hysteria is that some obsessing astral entity, not always excarnate human or wholly human, is playing upon the human being in unnatural and useless ways. The patient's unconscious includes his various past lives in which he developed the neurotic tendencies which now attract harmful psychic influences. Among the various types and grades of astral entities from which the normal body and mind are a protection, there are the elementaries dominated and enslaved by some special form or forms of desire. Of such, there may be those with the intense love of attention and the egoism which is so generally marked in hysterical types.

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

Hysteria This protean disorder is regarded as a functional neurosis with abnormal sensations, emotions, or paroxysms, manifesting itself chiefly by emotional instability, by the ease with which it is influenced, in negativism and impulsiveness, a tendency to make sensations, a remarkable egotism, desire to talk, to fabricate, and to simulate. There is constant, capricious change of mood and activity. No other disorder can counterfeit so many diseases as hysteria.

The psychic faculties at times displayed in clairvoyance, hallucinations, cataleptic and somnambulistic states, etc., show an active functioning in the astral body; while convulsive and other abnormal movements, and mental absences in which the actor does and says bizarre, unwonted, and inexplicable things for various periods of which only a vague or no remembrance is retained, point to the play of some astral entity, as occurs in other obsessions.

The theosophical interpretation of hysteria is that some obsessing astral entity, not always excarnate human or wholly human, is playing upon the human being in unnatural and useless ways. The patient's unconscious includes his various past lives in which he developed the neurotic tendencies which now attract harmful psychic influences. Among the various types and grades of astral entities from which the normal body and mind are a protection, there are the elementaries dominated and enslaved by some special form or forms of desire. Of such, there may be those with the intense love of attention and the egoism which is so generally marked in hysterical types.

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