Communion Dictionary

Samadhi:

Ecstasy, trance, complete concentration, communion with God.

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

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V X Y Z

Hindu: (Sanskrit) A follower of, or relating to, Hinduism.

Generally, one is understood to be a Hindu by being born into a Hindu family and practicing the faith, or by declaring oneself a Hindu. Acceptance into the fold is recognized through the name-giving sacrament, a temple ceremony called namakarana samskara, given to born Hindus shortly after birth, and to self-declared Hindus who have proven their sincerity and been accepted by a Hindu community. Full conversion is completed through disavowal of previous religious affiliations and legal change of name.

While traditions vary greatly, all Hindus rely on the Vedas as scriptural authority and generally attest to the following nine principles:

1)    There exists a one, all-pervasive Supreme Being who is both immanent and transcendent, both creator and unmanifest Reality.

2)    The universe undergoes endless cycles of creation, preservation and dissolution.

3)    All souls are evolving toward God and will ultimately find moksha: spiritual knowledge and liberation from the cycle of rebirth. Not a single soul will be eternally deprived of this destiny.

4)    Karma is the law of cause and effect by which each individual creates his own destiny by his thoughts, words and deeds.

5)    The soul reincarnates, evolving through many births until all karmas have been resolved.

6)    Divine beings exist in unseen worlds, and temple worship, rituals, sacraments, as well as personal devotionals, create a communion with these devas and Gods.

7)    A spiritually awakened master or satguru is essential to know the transcendent Absolute, as are personal discipline, good conduct, purification, self-inquiry and meditation.

8)    All life is sacred, to be loved and revered, and therefore one should practice ahimsa, nonviolence.

9)    No particular religion teaches the only way to salvation above all others. Rather, all genuine religious paths are facets of God's pure love and light, deserving tolerance and understanding.

See: Hinduism.

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

Essene way of self-healing: means of tapping psychic and healing powers of the universe. It encompasses affirmations, visualizations, color therapies, and communion with the angels of the Earthly Mother and Heavenly Spirit. (The Essenes, also called Physicians, were a Jewish sect that preceded Christianity. Their specialty was faith healing.)

(See also: Essene way of self-healing , Body Mind and Soul, Alternative Health, Alternative Health Dictionary)

puja: (Sanskrit) "Worship, adoration."

An Agamic rite of worship performed in the home, temple or shrine, to the murti, sri paduka, or other consecrated object, or to a person, such as the satguru. Its inner purpose is to purify the atmosphere around the object worshiped, establish a connection with the inner worlds and invoke the presence of God, Gods or one's guru.

During puja, the officiant (pujari) recites various chants praising the Divine and beseeching divine blessings, while making offerings in accordance with established traditions. Puja, the worship of a murti through water, lights and flowers in temples and shrines, is the Agamic counterpart of the Vedic yajna rite, in which offerings are conveyed through the sacred homa fire. These are the two great streams of adoration and communion in Hinduism.

Central steps of puja include:

1)    achamana, water sipping for purification;

2)    Ganapati prarthana, prayers to Ganesha;

3)    sankalpa, declaration of intent;

4)    ghanta, ringing bell, inviting devas and dismissing asuras;

5)    avahana, inviting the Deity ;

6)    mantras and dhyana, meditating on the Deity;

7)    svagata, welcoming;

8)    namaskara, obeisance;

9)    arghyam, water offerings;

10) pradakshina, circumambulation;

11) abhisheka, bathing the murti;

12) dhupa, incense-offering;

13) dipa, offering lights;

14) 1naivedya, offering food;

15) archana, chanting holy names;

16) arati, final offering of lights;

17) prarthana, personal requests;

18) visarjana, dismissal-farewell.

Also central are pranayama (breath control), guru vandana (adoration of the preceptor), nyasa (empowerment through touching) and mudra (mystic gestures). Puja offerings also include pushpa (flowers), arghya (water), tambula (betel leaf) and chandana (sandalpaste).

-       atmartha puja: Karana Agama, v. 2, states: Atmartha cha parartha cha puja dvividhamuchyate, "Worship is two-fold: for the benefit of oneself and for the benefit of others." Atmartha puja is done for oneself and immediate family, usually at home in a private shrine.

-       parartha puja: "Puja for others." Parartha puja is public puja, performed by authorized or ordained priests in a public shrine or temple.

See: pujari, puja, yajna.

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

A Christian theological definition of Lord's Supper according to CARM - The Christian Apologetics & Research Ministry:

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Lord's Supper

See also: Lord's Supper , Christianity, Body Mind and Soul

Annie Besant

(1847-1933) The daughter of William Wood and Emily Morris. Her father, a doctor, died when she was only five years old. Without any savings, Annie's mother found work looking after boarders at Harrow School. Mrs. Wood was unable to care for Annie and she persuaded a friend, Ellen Marryat, to take responsibility for her upbringing. In 1866 Annie met Rev. Frank Besant.

By the time she was twenty-three Annie had two children. Deeply unhappy because her independent spirit clashed with the traditional views of her husband she began to question her religious beliefs. When Annie refused to attend communion, Frank Besant ordered her to leave the family home. A legal separation was arranged. After leaving her husband Annie Besant completely rejected Christianity and in 1874 joined the Secular Society. Annie soon acquired a job working for the National Reformer and during the next few years wrote many articles on issues such as marriage and women's rights.

In 1877 Annie Besant and Charles Bradlaugh decided to publish The Fruits of Philosophy, Charles Knowlton's book advocating birth control. Besant and Bradlaugh were charged with publishing material that was "likely to deprave or corrupt those whose minds are open to immoral influences". They were both found guilty of publishing an "obscene libel" and sentenced to six months in prison. At the Court of Appeal the sentence was quashed.

Besant also join the socialist group, the Fabian Society, and in 1889 contributed to the influencial book, Fabian Essays. Edited by George Bernard Shaw, the book sold 27,000 copies in two years. In the 1890s Annie Besant became a supporter of Theosophy, a religious movement founded by Madame Blavatsky in 1875. While in India, Annie joined the struggle for Indian Home Rule, and during the First World War was interned by the British authorities. She died in India in 1933.

(See also: Annie Besant , New Age Spirituality, Body Mind and Soul)

 Yukta:

joined with, one who has attained the communion with the supreme spirit

(See also:  Yukta , Body Mind and Soul)

nir-vikalpa-samadhi:

nir-vikalpa-samadhi (-samaadhi). Undifferentiated deep communion, transcendental absorption.

(See also: nir-vikalpa-samadhi , Hinduism, Hinduism Dictionary, Sanskrit Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul)

Bhakthi Yoga:

Bhakthi Yoga: Linking with the Supreme Lord (Krishna) by devotional service. "Union through devotion." Bhakti yoga is the practice of devotional disciplines, worship, prayer, chanting and singing with the aim of awakening love in the heart and opening oneself to God's grace. Bhakti may be directed toward God, Gods or one's spiritual preceptor. Bhakti yoga seeks communion and ever closer rapport with the Divine, developing qualities that make communion possible, such as love, selflessness and purity.

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

Theosophy [from Greek theosophia from theos god, divinity + sophia wisdom]

Divine wisdom, the knowledge of things divine; often described as attainable by direct experience, by becoming conscious of the essential, divine part of our nature, self-identification with the inner god, leading to communion with other similar divine beings. Theosophy actually is the "substratum and basis of all the world-religions and philosophies, taught and practised by a few elect ever since man became a thinking being" (TG 328). Also called by such names as the secret doctrine and the esoteric tradition, its teachings have been preserved, checked and rechecked with every new generation of its guardians and adepts.

The word became familiar to Greeks in the 3rd century with Ammonius Saccas and the Alexandrian Neoplatonists or Theurgists, who taught of divine emanations, whereby the entire universe as well as humans and all other beings are shown to be descendants of the highest gods. Theosophist is also applied to mystics in later times such as Eckhart, Boehme, and Paracelsus. It was adopted in 1875 by H. P. Blavatsky and others associated with her at the founding of the Theosophical Society as the name for the modern form of the archaic wisdom-religion which she promulgated. This wisdom-religion "was ever one and being the last word of possible human knowledge, was, therefore, carefully preserved. It preceded by long ages the Alexandrian Theosophists, reached the modern, and will survive every other religion and philosophy" (Key 7-8).

"The Secret Doctrine is the accumulated Wisdom of the Ages, and its cosmogony alone is the most stupendous and elaborate system: e.g., even in the exotericism of the Puranas. But such is the mysterious power of Occult symbolism, that the facts which have actually occupied countless generations of initiated seers and prophets to marshal, to set down and explain; in the bewildering series of evolutionary progress, are all recorded on a few pages of geometrical sign and glyphs. The flashing gaze of those seers has penetrated into the very kernel of matter, and recorded the soul of things there, where an ordinary profane, however learned, would have perceived but the external work of form. But modern science believes not in the 'soul of things,' and hence will reject the whole system of ancient cosmogony. It is useless to say that the system in question is no fancy of one or several isolated individuals. That it is the uninterrupted record covering thousands of generations of Seers whose respective experiences were made to test and to verify the traditions passed orally by one early race to another, of the teachings of higher and exalted beings, who watched over the childhood of Humanity. That for long ages, the 'Wise Men' of the Fifth Race, of the stock saved and rescued from the last cataclysm and shifting of continents, had passed their lives in learning, not teaching. How did they do so? It is answered: by checking, testing, and verifying in every department of nature the traditions of old by the independent visions of great adepts; i.e., men who have developed and perfected their physical, mental, psychic, and spiritual organisations to the utmost possible degree. No vision of one adept was accepted till it was checked and confirmed by the visions -- so obtained as to stand as independent evidence -- of other adepts, and by centuries of experiences" (SD 1:272-3).

G. de Purucker wrote: "There has existed in the world for almost innumerable ages, a completely coherent and fully comprehensive system of religious philosophy, or of philosophical, scientific religion, which from time to time has been given out to man when the world needed a fuller revealing of spiritual truth than it then at such time had. Further, this wonderful system has been for all those past ages in the safe guardianship of the relatively perfected men . . . [the mahatmas]; and, still further, the present Theosophical Movement is, in our age, one of such fuller revelations or renewals of that wonderful System" (ET 33-4).

One of the mahatmas referring to the guardianship of the divine wisdom, wrote: "For countless generations hath the adept builded a fane of imperishable rocks, a giant's Tower of Infinite Thought, wherein the Titan dwelt, and will yet, if need be, dwell alone, emerging from it but at the end of every cycle, to invite the elect of mankind to co-operate with him and help in his turn enlighten superstitious man. And we will go on in that periodical work of ours; we will not allow ourselves to be baffled in our philanthropic attempts until that day when the foundations of a new continent of thought are so firmly built that no amount of opposition and ignorant malice guided by the Brethren of the Shadow will be found to prevail" (ML 51).

See also THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY

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

A Christian theological definition of Means of Grace according to CARM - The Christian Apologetics & Research Ministry:

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Means of Grace

See also: Means of Grace , Christianity, Body Mind and Soul

Sacrifice The performance of sacred rites, but with the more restricted sense of ceremonies of invocation, communion, or propitiation between man and gods. Scholars, in studying these universal rites, are at a loss to find an essential significance by which to gather them all into one class, and as to which to include and which to exclude from such a class.

Sacrifices may take the form of a meal offered to the gods or shared with them, an oblation of first fruits of the harvest or flocks, or a propitiation or act of atonement. The Romans dedicated a portion of food or a libation to the lares or other deities; the Hebrews offered the first fruits of the harvest or the yearlings of the flock. The word also has the meaning of an act of self-dedication for a noble cause.

Christianity, in addition to a great many so-called pagan ideas, also inherited and adapted Jewish sacrificial ideas, but the word became limited to the sacrifice of Christ for the sins of the world, and the sacrifice by man of his personal desires to the behests of his divinity. The true origin of the Christian atonement is in the Mysteries, when the hierophant offered his pure and sinless life as a sacrifice for his race to the gods whom he hoped to rejoin (IU 2:42). The general sense in theosophy is that of sacrificing one's temporal interests to a lofty ideal.

(See also: Sacrifice , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Mysteries, The [from Greek mysteria Mysteries from mystes one initiated into the Mysteries from mueo to initiate from muo to close the eyes or lips]

Applies chiefly to Greece, but once extended to Asiatic cults of religio-philosophical character, it acquired a wider range under the Romans, and is used in The Secret Doctrine in reference to equivalent institutions in any part of the world. The most celebrated in Greece were those of Eleusis pertaining to Demeter and Persephone, which gave rise to many branches and influenced schools of older foundation.

Others were those of Samothrace, the Orphic Mysteries, and the Festivals devoted to Dionysos. Schools like that of Pythagoras diffused their influence, as did Academies such as that of Plato. The history of Greece furnishes notable examples of great men who had been initiated into such Mysteries. The Mysteries came into Greece from India and Egypt, and their origin goes back to Atlantean times. They were in historic times, what remained of the means whereby man's divine ancestors communicated truths concerning the mysteries of cosmos and of human nature and of the communion divinity and man.

In times when sacred knowledge was whole and not divided into sacred and profane, the human body, not yet desecrated, was held as sacred as any other part of function of human nature; so that the teaching embraced medicine, hygiene, singing, dancing, the useful arts and crafts; and the teachers of religion, philosophy, science, and of crafts, the founders of cities, and great artists derived their powers from this source.

The Mysteries were divided into the Greater and Less, inner and outer, esoteric and partly exoteric; and, as the former were guarded by well-observed secrecy the sources of ordinary information are mostly based on the latter. The more recondite Mysteries could not, from their very nature, be publicly divulged; they were revelations, appreciable only by an awakened spiritual perception and incommunicable to anyone not thus awakened. The Greater Mysteries were successive initiations for prepared candidates. The Less consisted of symbolic and dramatic representations for the public, in which, among other things, the profound symbology of the Greek mythology was employed.

The elevating and unifying influence of these institutions was acknowledged by Greek and Roman authorities and is apparent from a study of Greek history. With the advance of a cycle of materialism, the Mysteries became degraded, especially in Asia Minor in Roman times; the symbolism was perverted and even made to palliate licentious practices. What little was left to abolish was formally abolished by Justinian, who closed the mystic and quasi-esoteric Neoplatonic School of Athens in 529.

In a recognition of the ancient Mysteries we find a clue to the meaning of the universal prevalence, among peoples fallen into a degenerate and falsely called primitive state of life, of strange rites and black magical practices. These are the very dregs and distortions of the ancient holy teachings; but even here unprejudiced inquirers find that, when sympathetically approached, the existence of secret cults which preserve at least remnants of some of the essential teachings of the ancient wisdom.

As formal institutions, the Mysteries had their earliest origin during the fourth root-race, Atlantis, after its fourth subrace. Indeed, the still more primitive roots of the Mysteries can be traced to a much earlier time, probably during the third subrace of the Atlanteans, when the rapid degeneration of mankind into the worship of matter had brought about the absolute need of segregating the nobler and finer spirits of the human race into groups or schools where they could, under the vows of inviolable secrecy, study the deeper mysteries of nature and their own oneness with the divine. From that time the Mysteries became with every subrace more and more secret and entrance into them became ever more difficult. After the fifth root-race came upon the scene, the Mysteries had become well established in all countries of the globe, and their rites and functions, both of the Greater and the Less, were conducted as functions of the State.

Even from the time of the incarnation of the manasaputras in the third root-race, there has been an unbroken line, stream, or succession of lofty spiritual teachers guarding the ancient god-wisdom received in primordial ages from the dhyanis; and the Mysteries, even in their heyday of splendor and in their most secret lines of work, were the outer side of clothing of this inner stream of inspiration and sublime teaching. The light has not yet died from off the earth, and the spiritual stream still exists and does its work in the world, although for ages it has been acting more secretly and esoterically than ever. However, the time is coming when the Mysteries will again be reestablished and will receive the common reverence and respect from mankind that in former ages they universally had.

(See also: Mysteries , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Eucharist

The principal act of worship of the Christian religion, otherwise known as the Divine Liturgy, Holy Communion, Lord's Supper, or Mass.

This name has been used from at least the second century, and comes from the thanksgiving prayer that constitutes a principal element in the rite.

Christian myths tells the story of the last supper eaten by Jesus with his disciples on the night before he died, when he performed a Jewish grace-ritual before the meal (taking bread into his hands, saying a short blessing of God for it, breaking the bread, and sharing it with those present) and the customary festal thanksgiving prayer over a shared cup of wine at the end of the meal . The myth relates that these actions signified his imminent death, interpreting the bread as his body "given for you" and the wine as his blood, and as having instructed his disciples to perform them in future in remembrance of him.

The eucharistic observances of the earliest Christians were more than a memorial meal: in some traditions believers claimed to experience the living presence of the resurrected Christ in these communal gatherings. Historically, the rite of Mass (Mazd) was adopted by the Catholic Church from the religion of Sol Invictus in which is was a reinactment of a sacramental meal performed by Mithras.

(See also: Eucharist , New Age Spirituality, Body Mind and Soul)

To attain jitendriyata is to achieve full control over ones senses. This leads to what is called God-realisation. In this controlled state all pain and suffering cease permanently.

There are different paths to achieve this height: Gyan yoga, karma yoga, bhakti yoga, raja yoga, hatha yoga, swara yoga, nada yoga, astanga yoga; all of these lead to the same goal of achieving communion with God. The shortest and most suitable path ordained in this Kali Yuga is bhakti yoga.

Read more here: » Bhakti Yoga: Lasting Happiness Through Bhakti Yoga

Toward Ultimate Communion: Yoga

 Hindus look to God and the Gods for very practical assistance - from affairs of employment, family, heart to knowledge both secular and superconscious. A Hindu devoutly believes that the Gods from their dwelling in the Third World are capable of consciously working with the forces of evolution in the universe and they could then certainly manage a few simpler problems. He devoutly believes that the Gods are given to care for man on the planet and see him through his tenure on earth and that their decisions are vast in their implications. Their overview spans time itself, and yet their detailed focus upon the complicated fabric of human affairs is just as awesome.

Read more here: » Hinduism: Toward Ultimate Communion - Yoga

SOTHIS

The Star of the Tarot. Greek for Sirius, the Dog Star, the Egyptian Soped. Sothis, bearing a star in her crown, is the Nilotic goddess of inundation. Her Egyptian title was "Ruler of the Stars." At Elephantine she was known as Hathor and elsewhere as Satis, another aspect of Isis. Sothis is also called "The Star of Set and is represented by the Silver Star of the Great White Brotherhood.

Colin Wilson says that an "Egyptian treatise attributed to Hermes Trismegistus" asserts that Hermes landed on earth to teach mankind civilization and then returned to the stars. Sirius continues, however, Grant tells us, through the focus of the Andromeda connection, via Soror Andahadna and others, to "equilibrate" groups like the O.T.O. (transmitting through beings such as Lam, Aossic-Aiwass, etc.) and to bombard the "Interior Planes" with Maatian Age emanations.

In the Maatian system, according to Grant's theory, everything is conscious, with galaxies being super-evolved complexes of consciousness. Sirius (like all stars) not only has "Sirians" in bodies like ours, but also has star consciousness, just as Earth has a planetary consciousness. Each galaxy is responsible for assigned "solar" systems and there are many cosmic streams with termini scattered through the continuum of the space-time warp, from interstellar to interplanetary to intermolecular. The Sol-Sirius link is just one of these termini. Other binodal power lines are Isis (a not yet discovered planet) and the Andromeda galaxy, Uranus-Algol and Jupiter-Betelgeuse. Our own Milky Way connects star systems at more than Andromedan distances. The termini act as giant transformers or power-relay systems, focussing the galactic emanations like laser beams. One such ray is relayed to Sirius, "the Sun beyond the sun," which thereupon bibranches for a number of subsequent star-systems, including Sol, which decodes the "message" and serves as its own laser focus for the planets.

Man in reacting to all the cosmic influences unconsciously and unsystematically erupts with energy of his own. Human energy, like the energy of other races in the Comity of Stars (see COMITY OF STARS) being sent along their respective links, arrives at Andromeda through the Isidian connection. Andromeda is our primary broadcaster, Sothis is the amplifier and cpu, Sol the receiver and decoder. Through the Sothian circuit we receive back some of what we have emitted, as direction and information. Thus, K.G. tells us, we obtain the words to define the Age of Maat. R.A. Wilson mentions some of the Sirian manifestations in his book, The Cosmic Trigger: The Final Secret of the Illuminati. The only flaw is his demonstration of the active intervention of Sothis in the affairs of planet earth is the omission of the fact that Sothis (Sirius) is the Star of Set and that Shaitan-Aiwass (commonly known as Satan) is its inhabiting spirit. That Gurdjieff was also receiving inspiration from the Star of Set is not surprising in view of the nature of his work, which was, in many ways, similar to Crowley's. Also, Wilson fails to detect the presence of the invisible twin of this influence and its astral level manifestations. Said influence has resulted in the so-called "New Age" (or Maatian consciousness). In mythology, Andromeda was sacrificed to the Fish Goat (esoterically understood to refer to the Aeon of Maat).

An unfortunate few (such as Whitley Streiber has shown in his diary, Communion) now suffer pseudo-nightmares on a regular basis. These dream shapes, terrible though they be, collectively serve to concentrate and steady the door-frames enabling magicians at will to enter the Tunnels of Set and pass over into the unknown "Universe B." The portals leading into the Space Battlefield (Armageddon on the Astral Plane) are located between Shaitan's eleven-pyloned Towers. We can also understand the Sothian current as a variation on the Ophidian Current (Great Old Ones).

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

Chela

(Sanskrit) A student (of a guru) An apprentice to an Adept. One who earnestly desires to work for the betterment of humankind. The Adept imparts teaching and wisdom otherwise unattainable, and helps the Chela by communion and inspiration.

(See also: Chela , New Age Spirituality, Body Mind and Soul)

Vaishnavism

The system of Hindu beliefs and practices that honor Vishnu/Krishna as Supreme God; probably the most widely followed kind of Hinduism. Bhakti yoga is the primary practice of this religion, the final reward of which is eternal communion with God.

The most famous of this god's many names are Vishnu, Narayana, Hari, Bhagavan, Krishna, and Rama; hence the usage Vishnu/Krishna. Vaishnavism's ancient name, Bhagavata ("followers of the Blessed Lord, i. e. , Bhagavan"), may clarify its beginnings, for it makes a connection with the movement's two most important literary works: the Bhagavad Gita (first put in print ca. 150 BC) and the Bhagavata Purana (Shrimad Bhagavatam, ca. 850-900).

Though the tradition began earlier, two things became clear by about 200 BC: the Bhagavatas related to their god, Krishna, by devotion and accepted the Vedas and Upanishads, the scriptures of Brahmanic Hindu religion. In this process the Brahmanic deities Vishnu and Narayana became identified with Bhagavan Krishna. Thereafter, Krishna has been viewed as an incarnation (avatara) of the Supreme God Vishnu (by South Indian Vaishnavas), and Vishnu has been viewed as a subordinate form of the Supreme God Krishna (by North Indian Vaishnavas).

The Bhagavad Gita is the earliest full statement of the Bhagavata synthesis. Krishna teaches a path of salvation: desire-free performance of one's born duty should be combined with the meditative wisdom of the Upanishads, suffused by and culminating in loving devotion to Krishna.

(See also: Vaishnavism , New Age Spirituality, Body Mind and Soul)

Antahkarana (Sanskrit) (from antar interior, within + karana sense organ)

Interior organ or instrument; defined variously as the seat of thought and feeling, the thinking faculty, the heart, mind, soul, and conscience. In Vedanta philosophy, it is looked upon as a fourfold inner instrument or intermediary between spirit and body, with mind being the go-between or bridge.

One could say that there are several antahkaranas in the human septenary constitution: one for every path or bridge between any two monadic centers. Man is a unity in diversity, and the antahkaranas are the links of vibrating consciousness-substance uniting these various centers (cf OG 5).

Blavatsky describes it as "the path that lies between thy Spirit and thy self, the highway of sensations, the rude arousers of Akankara" (the sense of egoity); and that when the two have merged into the One and the personal sacrificed to self impersonal, then the antahkarana vanishes because no longer useful as a functioning bridge between the two. Further, the antankarana is "the lower Manas, the Path of communication or communion between the personality and the higher Manas or human Soul. At death it is destroyed as a Path or medium of communication, and its remains survive in a form as the Kamarupa -- the 'shell' " (VS 56, 88-9).

Antahkarana also has the general sense of an intermediary between something or someone that is low to one that is high. Every messenger of truth and light is an antahkarana between the Masters of Wisdom and mankind. Likewise every great and good man or woman is an antahkarana between humanity and the spiritual essence of his or her own inner god. A person living in the noblest and loftiest part of his being, becomes such a bridge between the spiritual realm he is in touch with and all other entities and things contacted by him which belong to human life.

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

Necromancy [from Greek nekros corpse + manteia divination]

The art of obtaining information by invoking the image or shade of the departed. The practice is dangerous to the sorcerer and baneful to the astral entity whose fading remnants are thus temporarily revivified and disturbed.

The practice was ancient and widespread among the lower orders of the Greek and Roman peoples, and is expressly condemned by an uninterrupted testimony dating from archaic times, ancient legislators and philosophers condemning it, for it is a perversion of the real communion of the genuine spiritual theurgist with his own inner god.

Modern Spiritualism is an unconscious blundering into necromancy; if the astral remains of the dead are really called up, then the normal processes of their dissolution are interfered with. If they are not called up, then they have been impersonated by still more harmful and dangerous denizens of the lower astral light.

(See also: Necromancy , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)