Conception Dictionary

Immaculate Conception A dogma of the Roman Catholic Church that Mary, mother of Jesus, was born immaculate, that is without original sin in the Christian sense. It is a misapprehension of ancient Mystery-teachings which entered into the original Church through some of the early Fathers who had been initiated in the Mystery schools of their time. The origin of the idea is in the primordial cosmic triad or trinity of Father-Mother-Son, where the principle personified as Mother must be conceived of as immaculate both in original and in productive power and action.

From this truly sublime cosmic idea there flowed forth coordinate ideas having application to the individual human being. For the individual human triad of atma-buddhi-manas is a reflection or ray from the cosmic triad; so that what the cosmic Father is to the universe, atman is in the human triad; the cosmic Mother corresponds to buddhi; and the cosmic Son to manas. And as the humanity of an individual resides in the manas and can become spiritual and immortal, or a christos, by alliance upwards with the other two individuals of the triad, the dogma gradually became materialized to signify that a human child was born of an immaculate mother, who in her turn was immaculately conceived without sin.

(See also: Immaculate Conception , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Immaculate Conception

A Roman Catholic doctrine about Mary's sinlessness, declared as a divinely revealed dogma by Pope Pius IX (1854) that she was from conception, by the singular grace of God, free from all stain of original sin. The feast day is celebrated December 8.

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

conception: Power to imagine, conceive or create. Moment when a pregnancy is begun, a new earthly body generated.

the point of conception; the apex of creation: The simple instant that precedes any creative impulse and is therefore the source and summit of the powers of creation or manifestation. To become conscious of the point of conception is a great siddhi.

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

IMMACULATE CONCEPTION

Refers not to a "virgin woman," but to the descent from the Perfect Void.

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

A Christian theological definition of Immaculate Conception according to CARM - The Christian Apologetics & Research Ministry:

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Immaculate Conception

See also: Immaculate Conception , Christianity, Body Mind and Soul

Chaos (Ancient Greek) The Abyss, the "Great Deep". It was personified in Egypt by the Goddess Ne?th, anterior to all gods. As Deveria says, "the only God, without form and sex, who gave birth to itself, and without fecundation, is adored under the form of a Virgin Mother".

She is the vulture-headed Goddess found in the oldest period of Abydos, who belongs, accordingly to Mariette Bey, to the first Dynasty, which would make her, even on the confession of the time-dwarfing Orientalists, about 7,000 years old. As Mr. Bonwick tells us in his excellent work on Egyptian belief - "Ne?th, Nut, Nepte, Nuk (her names as variously read !) is a philosophical conception worthy of the nineteenth century after the Christian era, rather than the thirty-ninth before it or earlier than that". And he adds: " Neith or Nout is neither more nor less than the Great Mother, a yet the Immaculate Virgin, or female God from whom all things proceeded". Ne?th is the

"Father-mother" of the Stanzas of the Secret Doctrine, the Swabhavat of the Northern Buddhists, the immaculate Mother indeed, the prototype of the latest "Virgin" of all; for, as Sharpe says, "the Feast of Candlemas - in honour of the goddess Ne?th -  is yet marked in our Almanacs as Candlemas day, or the Purification of the Virgin Mary"; and Beauregard tells us of "the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin, who can henceforth, as well as the Egyptian Minerva, the mysterious Ne?th, boast of having come from herself, and of having given birth to God". He who would deny the working of cycles and the recurrence of events, let him read what Ne?th was years ago, in the conception of the Egyptian Initiates, trying to popularize a philosophy too abstract for the masses; and then remember the subjects of dispute at the Council of Ephesus in 431, when Mary was declared Mother of God; and her Immaculate Conception forced on the World as by command of God, by Pope and Council in 1858. Ne?th is Swabhdvat and also the Vedic Aditi and the Puranic Akasa, for "she is not only the celestial vault, or ether, but is made to appear in a tree, from which she gives the fruit of the Tree of Life (like another Eve) or pours upon her worshippers some of the divine water of life". Hence she gained the favourite appellation of "Lady of the Sycamore", an epithet applied to another Virgin (Bonwick).

The resemblance becomes still more marked when Ne?th is found on old pictures represented as a Mother embracing the ram-headed god, the "Lamb". An ancient stele declares her to be "Neut, the luminous, who has engendered the gods" - the Sun included, for Aditi is the mother of the Marttanda, the Sun - an Aditya. She is Naus, the celestial ship ; hence we find her on the prow of the Egyptian vessels, like Dido on the prow of the ships of the Phœnician mariners, and forth with we have the Virgin Mary, from Mar, the "Sea", called the "Virgin of the Sea", and the "Lady Patroness" of all Roman Catholic seamen.

The Rev. Sayce is quoted by Bonwick, explaining her as a principle in the Babylonian Bahu (Chaos, or confusion) i.e., "merely the Chaos of Genesis . . . and perhaps also Mot, the primitive substance that was the mother of all the gods". Nebuchadnezzar seems to have been in the mind of the learned professor, since he left the following witness in cuneiform language, "I built a temple to the Great Goddess, my Mother".

We may close with the words of Mr. Bonwick with which we thoroughly agree "She (Ne?th) is the Zerouana of the Avesta, ‘time without limits’. She is the Nerfe of the Etruscans, half a woman and half a fish" (whence the connection of the Virgin Mary with the fish and pisces) ; of whom it is said: "From holy good Nerfe the navigation is happy. She is the Bythos of the Gnostics, the One of the Neoplatonists, the All of German metaphysicians, the Anaita of Assyria."

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

A Theosophical definition of Evolution :

Evolution

As the word is used in theosophy it means the "unwrapping," "unfolding," "rolling out" of latent powers and faculties native to and inherent in the entity itself, its own essential characteristics, or more generally speaking, the powers and faculties of its own character: the Sanskrit word for this last conception is svabhava. Evolution, therefore, does not mean merely that brick is added to brick, or experience merely topped by another experience, or that variation is superadded on other variations  - not at all; for this would make of man and of other entities mere aggregates of incoherent and unwelded parts, without an essential unity or indeed any unifying principle.

In theosophy evolution means that man has in him (as indeed have all other evolving entities) everything that the cosmos has because he is an inseparable part of it. He is its child; one cannot separate man from the universe. Everything that is in the universe is in him, latent or active, and evolution is the bringing forth of what is within; and, furthermore, what we call the surrounding milieu, circumstances  - nature, to use the popular word  - is merely the field of action on and in which these inherent qualities function, upon which they act and from which they receive the corresponding reaction, which action and reaction invariably become a stimulus or spur to further manifestations of energy on the part of the evolving entity.

There are no limits in any direction where evolution can be said to begin, or where we can conceive of it as ending; for evolution in the theosophical conception is but the process followed by the centers of consciousness or monads as they pass from eternity to eternity, so to say, in a beginningless and endless course of unceasing growth.

Growth is the key to the real meaning of the theosophical teaching of evolution, for growth is but the expression in detail of the general process of the unfolding of faculty and organ, which the usual word evolution includes. The only difference between evolution and growth is that the former is a general term, and the latter is a specific and particular phase of this procedure of nature.

Evolution is one of the oldest concepts and teachings of the archaic wisdom, although in ancient days the concept was usually expressed by the word emanation. There is indeed a distinction, and an important one, to be drawn between these two words, but it is a distinction arising rather in viewpoint than in any actual fundamental difference. Emanation is a distinctly more accurate and descriptive word for theosophists to use than evolution is, but unfortunately emanation is so ill-understood in the Occident, that perforce the accepted term is used to describe the process of interior growth expanding into and manifesting itself in the varying phases of the developing entity.

Theosophists, therefore, are, strictly speaking, rather emanationists than evolutionists; and from this remark it becomes immediately obvious that the theosophist is not a Darwinist, although admitting that in certain secondary or tertiary senses and details there is a modicum of truth in Charles Darwin's theory adopted and adapted from the Frenchman Lamarck. The key to the meaning of evolution, therefore, in theosophy is the following: the core of every organic entity is a divine monad or spirit, expressing its faculties and powers through the ages in various vehicles which change by improving as the ages pass. These vehicles are not physical bodies alone, but also the interior sheaths of consciousness which together form man's entire constitution extending from the divine monad through the intermediate ranges of consciousness to the physical body. The evolving entity can become or show itself to be only what it already essentially is in itself  - therefore evolution is a bringing out or unfolding of what already preexists, active or latent, within. (See also Involution)

See also: Evolution , Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul

Anthropomorphism The ascription of human qualities, attributes, and possibly human form to divine beings; also, more generally, the degradation of symbolism by giving it a humanized, materialistic, or animalistic interpretation.

This error has a more or less mystical origin: because human beings are children of the universe, imbodying in themselves all qualities, attributes, powers, and functions that the universe has on the macrocosmic scale, it is easy through careless thinking to slip into the idea that therefore the divinities must be copies of humans.

As form in religious and philosophic conception took precedence over the spirit, the original religious, philosophic, and mystical ideas became clothed or imbodied, and the spirit then was more or less lost sight of.

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

Phanes, Phanes-Protogonos (Greek) [from phaino to make visible, appear, shine forth + protogonos first-born]

In Orphic mythogony, Aether (the Father, spirit) and Chaos (the Mother, primordial matter) produce the world-egg, silvery and gleaming white, out of which Phanes, the Third Logos, is born. He is the Orphic counterpart of Eros, the divine love which sets the atoms of spirit in motion, and is both male and female, mythologically said to have golden wings which carry him everywhere and four eyes gazing in every direction.

As Phanes, he is the first of the five cosmic rulers successively to appear; parent of the gods, the demiurge and creator of the world. Being thus the primordial father of gods, of the world, and hence of men, every such derivative offspring from Phanes contains Phanes in itself. Thus man, as an individual, contains Phanes as the primordial essence or original force of this own being. From another point of view, Phanes is equivalent to cosmic mahat, which as the universal formative spiritual power of the universe is at once the parent as well as the primordial substance of whatever is -- as well as cosmic intelligence.

Nux (night) is associated with Phanes as both mother and wife. Zeus does not appear in the Orphic mythogony until later, as the fourth in the line of succession; but eventually, due to a loss in popular conception of the ancient verity, he absorbs his great prototype, who apparently did not figure largely in popular mythology.

Phanes was connected mystically and esoterically with four animal symbols of the zodiac -- Aries the ram, Taurus the bull, Leo the lion, and Draco the dragon or serpent.

(See also: Phanes, Phanes-Protogonos , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

reincarnation: "Re-entering the flesh." Punarjanma; metempsychosis. The process wherein souls take on a physical body through the birth process.

Reincarnation is one of the fundamental principles of Hindu spiritual insight, shared by the mystical schools of nearly all religions, including Jainism, Sikhism, Buddhism (and even by Christianity until it was cast out by the Nicene Council in 787). It is against the backdrop of this principle of the soul's enjoying many lives that other aspects of Hinduism can be understood. It is a repetitive cycle, known as punarjanma, which originates in the subtle plane (Antarloka), the realm in which souls live between births and return to after death. Here they are assisted in readjusting to the "in-between" world and eventually prepared for yet another birth.

The quality and nature of the birth depends on the merit or demerit of their past actions (karma) and on the needs of their unique pattern of development and experience (dharma). The mother, the father and the soul together create a new body for the soul. At the moment of conception, the soul connects with and is irrevocably bound to the embryo. As soon as the egg is fertilized, the process of human life begins. It is during the mid-term of pregnancy that the full humanness of the fetus is achieved and the soul fully inhabits the new body, a stage which is acknowledged when the child begins to move and kick within the mother's womb. (Tirumantiram, 460: "There in the pregnant womb, the soul lay in primordial quiescence [turiya] state. From that state, Maya [or Prakriti] and Her tribe aroused it and conferred consciousness and maya's evolutes eight- desires and the rest. Thus say scriptures holy and true.")

Finally, at birth the soul emerges into earth consciousness, veiled of all memory of past lives and the inner worlds. The cycle of reincarnation ends when karma has been resolved and the Self God (Parasiva) has been realized. This condition of release is called moksha. Then the soul continues to evolve and mature, but without the need to return to physical existence. How many earthly births must one have to attain the unattainable? Many thousands to be sure, hastened by righteous living, tapas, austerities on all levels, penance and good deeds in abundance.

See: reincarnation, evolution of the soul, karma, moksha, nonhuman birth, samsara, soul.

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

samskaras of birth: From the rite of conception to the blessings of the new-born child.

-       garbhadhana: "Wombplacing." Rite of conception, where physical union is consecrated with the intent of bringing into physical birth an advanced soul.

-       punsavana: (Sanskrit) "Male rite; bringing forth a male." A rite performed during the third month of pregnancy consisting of prayers for a son and for the well-being of mother and child. A custom, found in all societies, based on the need for men to defend the country, run the family business and support the parents in old age. The need for male children in such societies is also based on the fact that women outlive men and leave the family to join their husband's family. -

-       simantonnayana: "Hair-parting." A ceremony held between the fourth and seventh months in which the husband combs his wife's hair and expresses his love and support.

-       jatakarma: "Rite of birth." The father welcomes and blesses the new-born child and feeds it a taste of ghee and honey.

See: samskara, samskaras.

(See also: Samskaras of birth , Hinduism, Body Mind and Soul)

A Theosophical definition of Brothers of the Shadow :

Brother(s) of the Shadow

A term given in occultism and especially in modern esotericism to individuals, whether men or women, who follow the path of the shadows, the left-hand path. The term "shadow" is a technical expression and signifies more than appears on the surface: i.e., the expression is not to be understood of individuals who live in actual physical obscurity or actual physical shadows, which literalism would be simply absurd; but applies to those who follow the path of matter, which from time immemorial in the esoteric schools in both Orient and Occident has frequently been called shadow or shadows.

The term originally arose, without doubt, in the philosophical conception of the word maya, for in early Oriental esotericism maya, and more especially maha-maya, was a term applied in one of its many philosophical meanings to that which was contrary to and, indeed, in one sense a reflection of, light. Just as spirit may be considered to be pure energy, and matter, although essentially crystallized spirit, may be looked upon as the shadow world or vehicular world in which the energy or spirit or pure light works, just so is maya, as the garment or expression or sakti of the divine energy, the vehicle or shadow of the divine side of nature, in other words its negative or nether pole, as light is the upper or positive pole.

The Brothers of the Shadow are therefore those who, being essentially of the nature of matter, instinctively choose and follow the path along which they are most strongly drawn, that is, the path of matter or of the shadows. When it is recollected that matter is but a generalizing term, and that what this term comprises actually includes an almost infinite number of degrees of increasing ethereality from the grossest physical substance, or absolute matter, up to the most ethereal or spiritualized substance, we immediately see the subtle logic of this technical term  - shadows or, more fully, the Path of the Shadows, hence the Brothers of the Shadow.

They are the so-called black magicians of the Occident, and stand in sharp and notable contrast with the white magicians or the Sons of Light who follow the pathway of self-renunciation, self-sacrifice, self-conquest, perfect self-control, and an expansion of the heart and mind and consciousness in love and service for all that lives. (See also Right-hand Path)

The existence and aims of the Brothers of the Shadow are essentially selfish. It is commonly, but erroneously, supposed that the Brothers of the Shadow are men and women always of unpleasant or displeasing personal appearance, and no greater error than this could possibly be made. Multitudes of human beings are unconsciously treading the path of the shadows and, in comparison with these multitudes, it is relatively only a few who self-consciously lead and guide with subtle and nefast intelligence this army of unsuspecting victims of maya. The Brothers of the Shadow are often highly intellectual men and women, frequently individuals with apparent great personal charm, and to the ordinary observer, judging from their conversation and daily works, are fully as well able to "quote scripture" as are the Angels of Light!

See also: Brothers of the Shadow , Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul

Seven The fundamental number of manifestation, frequently found in the different cosmogonies as well as in many religious dogmas and observances of the different ancient peoples.

Although ten was called one of the perfect numbers by the Pythagoreans, seven was unique in their series of numbers because it has all the "perfection of the Unit -- the number of numbers. For as absolute unity is uncreated, and impartite (hence number-less) and no number can produce it, so is the seven: no digit contained within the decade can beget or produce it" (SD 2:582). Seven is the number of the manifested universe, while ten or twelve is the number of the unmanifested universe.

Pythagoras taught that seven was composed of the numbers three and four, explaining that "on the plane of the noumenal world, the triangle was, as the first conception of the manifested Deity, its image: 'Father-Mother-Son'; and the Quaternary, the perfect number, was the noumenal, ideal root of all numbers and things on the physical plane" (ibid.). Further, seven was called by the Pythogoreans the vehicle of life for it consisted of body and spirit: the body was held to consist of four principal elements, while the spirit was in manifestation triple, comprising the monad, intellect or essential reason, and mind.

There are innumerable instances of sevening -- the seven days of the week, the seven colors of the spectrum, the seven notes of the musical scale -- while special emphasis is placed upon the seven human and cosmic principles; the seven senses (five senses now in manifestation and two more to be attained in the future through evolutionary unfolding); the seven cosmic elements; the seven root-races and seven subraces; the seven kingdoms, human and below; the seven rounds; the seven lokas and talas; the seven manifested globes of the planetary chain; the seven sacred planets; the seven racial buddhas; the seven dhyani-bodhisattvas and -buddhas; the seven Logoi; etc.

Man as well as nature is called saptaparna (seven-leaved plant), symbolized by the triangle above the square {illust}. While the senary was applied to man in all ranges from the physical to the spiritual, when completed by the atman, thus making the septenary, the latter signified the entire range of the constitution, whether of man or nature, crowned by the immortal spirit.

In Hindu literature the number seven continually appears: the saptarshis (the seven sages), the seven superior and inferior worlds, the seven hosts of deities, the seven holy cities, the seven holy islands, seas, or mountains, the seven deserts, the seven sacred trees, etc. In Greece seven was often connected with the gods and goddesses: Mars had seven attendants, seven was sacred to Pallas Athene and to Phoebus Apollo -- the latter with his seven-stringed lyre playing hymns to septenary nature as well as to the seven-rayed sun; Niobe's seven sons and seven daughters, etc.

Apart from mythological considerations, in physical life manifestations of the number seven occur continuously: "if the mysterious Septenary Cycle is a law in nature, and it is one, as proven; if it is found controlling the evolution and involution (or death) in the realms of entomology, ichthyology and ornithology, as in the Kingdoms of the Animal, mammalia and man -- why cannot it be present and acting in Kosmos, in general, in its natural (though occult) divisions of time, races, and mental development?" (SD 2:623n).

Seven is indeed the sacred number of life, and with the circle and the cross it forms a triad of primordial symbols of the ancient wisdom.

(See also: Seven , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Nominalists, Nominalism [from Latin nomen name]

In the 11th century, Scholastic controversy arose between the Nominalists and Realists, as to whether substantive reality should be ascribed to particulars or to universals. The Nominalists held that nothing exists but individuals, and that universals are mere names invented to express the qualities of particular things. Thus the conception "man" is a mere abstract idea, a figment of the mind, devised to express certain qualities which we have abstracted from our experience of individual men, but having no existence except as a name. The Realists, on the contrary, maintained that universals alone have substantive reality, and that they exist independently of, and prior to, the individuals, which are derivative from them or expressive of them. The controversy dates back to Aristotle's question as to whether genera, species, and abstract nouns are real or only convenient abstractions and ways of speaking.

Intermediate between these doctrines is that of the Conceptualists, identified with the name of Abelard, who held that universals, while they exist only in the mind, yet correspond to real similarities in things, which previous to creation existed in the mind of God. These notions are well illustrated by the question as to the meaning of such words as motion, force, heat, or light. Are the things studied by science under those names generalizing terms, existing only in the mind and posterior to the objects which manifest them; or are they realities in themselves, prior to the objects, and of which the objects are manifestations? Science often unconsciously uses such words in both senses at once; force, for example, is treated as though it were at the same time a result of motion in matter and a cause of that motion.

Theosophy, because of the confusion arising in scholastic and modern disputes, points directly to all the phenomena of nature as expressed in beings, objects, entities, and things as arising in spiritual realms, or noumena. The hidden or invisible noumena of beings and things are both real and mere abstract names. Thus force -- electricity, for instance -- is both an existing emanation from cosmic entities, and yet also a "name" or abstraction because it is an aggregate of effects derivative from a hid cause which is the cosmic being or beings. All natural phenomena arise in and are therefore derivative from and emanations from causal and originating cosmic intelligences, which perdure in essence throughout eternity, but express themselves by means of phenomena or effects in comic manvantaras. Thus the phenomena which human intelligence cognizes are transitory but yet are real in their essence, because that essence lies in the perduring intelligence or intelligences from which they flow.

(See also: Nominalists, Nominalism , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Chnouphis (Ancient Greek). Nouf in Egyptian. Another aspect of Ammon, and the personification of his generative power in actu, as Kneph is of the same in potentia. He is also ram-headed.

 If in his aspect as Kneph he is the Holy Spirit with the creative ideation brooding in him, as Chnouphis, he is the angel who "comes in" into the Virgin soil and flesh. A prayer on a papyrus, translated by the French Egyptologist Chabas, says; ‘ 0 Sepui, Cause of being, who hast formed thine own body! 0 only Lord, proceeding from Noum ! 0 divine substance, created from itself! 0 God, who hast made the substance which is in him! 0 God, who has made his own father and impregnated his own mother."

This shows the origin of the Christian doctrines of the Trinity and immaculate conception. He is seen on a monument seated near a potter’s wheel, and forming men out of clay. The fig-leaf is sacred to him, which is alone sufficient to prove him a phallic god - an idea which is carried out by the inscription: "he who made that which is, the creator of beings, the first existing, he who made to exist all that exists." Some see in him the incarnation of Ammon-Ra, but he is the latter himself in his phallic aspect, for, like Ammon, he is " his mother’s husband", i.e., the male or impregnating side of Nature.

His names vary, as Cnouphis, Noum, Khem, and Khnum or Chnoumis. As he represents the Demiurgos (or Logos) from the material, lower aspect of the Soul of the World, he is the Agathodemon, symbolized sometimes by a Serpent ; and his wife Athor or Maut (Mot mother), or Sate, "the daughter of the Sun", carrying an arrow on a sunbeam (the ray of conception), stretches "mistress over the lower portions of the atmosphere". below the constellations, as Ne?th expands over the starry heavens. (See "Chaos".)

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

Ahamkara (Sanskrit) (from aham ego, I + kara maker, doer from the verbal root kri to do)

I-maker; conception of egoity or I-am-I-ness. In its lower aspect, the egoistical and mayavi principle, born of avidya (ignorance), which produces the notion of the personal ego as being different from the universal self. In Sankhya philosophy ahamkara is the third emanation: from prakriti (primal nature or substance) issues mahat (the great), standing for universal mind, which in turn produces ahamkara, selfhood, individuality; from ahamkara come forth the five tanmatras, the subtle forms of the elements or principles and "the two series of sense organs" (Samkhya-Sutra 1:61).

In the Bhagavad-Gita (7:4), prakriti manifests in eight portions -- "earth, water, fire, air, ether (space: kham-akasa), mind (manas), understanding (buddhi) and egoity, self-sense (ahamkara)

" -- all of which relate to the object side, which gives an erroneous sense of identity or egoity.

As universal self-consciousness, ahamkara has "a triple aspect, as also Manas. For this conception of 'I,' or one's Ego, is either sattwa, 'pure quietude,' or appears as rajas, 'active,' or remains tamas, 'stagnant,' in darkness. It belongs to Heaven and Earth, and assumes the properties of either" (SD 1:335n).

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

INTUITION -

1. undoubting conception of a pure and attentive mind which come from the light of reason alone. (Descartes)

2. harmonizing the self with totality, the infinite universe perceiving far away or future things seeing if someone can be healed or seeing his or her destiny; the judgment of the infinite working through us, received primarily by the mid-brain and the body as a whole. (Michio Kushi) (NAD)

(See also: INTUITION , Wiccan Pagan, Paganism, Pagan Dictionary)

Bhrantidarsanatah (Sanskrit) (from the verbal root bhram to wander + drish to see, know, perceive)

False comprehension or false apprehension; perplexity or confusion in understanding due to false apprehension. Used to describe the illusions arising out of the egotistical, imperfect human mind in its attempts to understand reality, because this imperfectly evolved human mind is extremely apt to mistake illusions for verities, presentiments for realities, and appearances for the fundamental substratum of being. Any partially developed intellect or understanding can de facto have only an illusory conception of the manifestations of the supreme spirit.

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

Virgin In ancient mystic philosophy the feminine potency of nature as well as cosmic space which is often referred to as the immaculate celestial virgin (cosmogonically undifferentiated cosmic matter, alaya, mahabuddhi, etc.), or the astral light which is sometimes called the celestial virgin. Again, it refers to the numerous Queens of Heaven, such as Isis, Moon, Ashtoreth, Nuah (the Chaldean feminine Noah considered as one with the cosmic arc), Belita, Diana, Artemis, Ark, etc. -- most of these names having reference to the moon.

However, a sharp distinction should be made between the idea of the virgin connected with the lower planes of matter, including celestial bodies such as the moon, and the immaculate or undifferentiated cosmic virgin which is the immaculate spatial mother of the cosmic deep. On lower planes the Mother-Virgin is the various wombs of hierarchies, a feminine Manu or Prajapati, through whom pour the seeds of life from higher cosmic planes. The cosmic virgin is immaculate, and the zodiacal sign Virgo is her emblem; in human affairs she represents the nature of humanity before the division into sexes, in commemoration of which the sign Virgo became divided into Virgo and Scorpio. The name may also be used of a virgin male such as a kumara.

The ideas of the Virgin Mary in orthodox Christianity have been taken over from the pagans, as for example from the mother in the triad which heads all cosmogonies of the countries surrounding the Mediterranean Sea (Isis, Juno, etc.). The word Mary from the Hebrew would seem etymologically cognate with the Latin mare (sea); the Hebrew word meaning bitter, and the sea likewise being bitter it is also cognate with other words meaning water, as in the Jewish expression, the waters of space, or the feminine productive principle.

See also IMMACULATE CONCEPTION; VIRGIN BIRTH

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

Trimurti (Sanskrit). Lit., "three faces", or "triple form" - the Trinity.

In the modern Pantheon these three persons are Brahma, the creator, Vishnu, the preserver, and Shiva, the destroyer. But this is an after thought, as in the Vedas neither Brahma nor Shiva is known, and the Vedic trinity consists of Agni, Vayu and Surya; or as the Nirukta explains it, the terrestrial fire, the atmospheric (or aërial) and the heavenly fire, since Agni is the god of fire, Vayu of the air, and Surya is the sun. As the Padma Purana has it: "In the beginning, the great Vishnu, desirous of creating the whole world, became threefold: creator, preserver, destroyer.

In order to produce this world, the Supreme Spirit emanated from the right side of his body, himself, as Brahma then, in order to preserve the universe, he produced from the left side of his body Vishnu; and in order to destroy the world he produced from the middle of his body the eternal Shiva. Some worship Brahma, some Vishnu, others Shiva; but Vishnu, one yet threefold, creates, preserves, and destroys, therefore let the pious make no difference between the three."

The fact is, that all the three "persons" of the Trimurti are simply the three qualificative gunas or attributes of the universe of differentiated Spirit-Matter, self-formative, self-preserving and self-destroying, for purposes of regeneration and perfectibility. This is the correct meaning; and it is shown in Brahma being made the personified embodiment of Rajoguna, the attribute or quality of activity, of desire for procreation, that desire owing to which the universe and everything in it is called into being.

Vishnu is the embodied Sattvaguna, that property of preservation arising from quietude and restful enjoyment, which characterizes the intermediate period between the full growth and the beginning of decay; while Shiva, being embodied Tamoguna - which is the attribute of stagnancy and final decay - becomes of course the destroyer. This is as highly philosophical under its mask of anthropomorphism, as it is unphilosophical and absurd to hold to and enforce on the world the dead letter of the original conception.

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