Neophyte (Ancient Greek). A novice; a postulant or candidate for the Mysteries.

The methods of initiation varied. Neophytes had to pass in their trials through all the four elements, emerging in the fifth as glorified Initiates. Thus having passed through Fire (Deity), Water (Divine Spirit), Air (the Breath of God), and the Earth (Matter), they received a sacred mark, a tat and a tau, or a + and a ?. The latter was the monogram of the Cycle called the Naros, or Neros. As shown by Dr. E. V. Kenealy, in his Apocalypse, the cross in symbolical language (one of the seven meanings)"+ exhibits at the same time three primitive letters, of which the word LVX or Light is compounded. . . . The Initiates were marked with this sign, when they were admitted into the perfect mysteries. We constantly see the Tau and the Resh united thus ?.

Those two letters in the old Samaritan, as found on coins, stand, the first for 400, the second for 200 = 600. This is the staff of Osiris." Just so, but this does not prove that the Naros was a cycle of 600 years; but simply that one more pagan symbol had been appropriated by the Church.

(See "Naros" and "Neros" and also "I. H. S.")

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

Why Wicca is Not Celtic Paganism

There are many out there who believe that Wicca and its related forms of NeoPagism are a type of Celtic Paganism (and vice versa),  but this is simply not true. The following article is meant to be a comparison of Wicca and Celtic Paganism in order to demonstrate this, and to educate the public about Celtic Paganism. While Wicca certainly contains elements of Celtic mythology, folk magic and religious belief, its basic tenets and beliefs are radically different from those of Celtic Pagans.

Read more here: » Wicca and Celtic Paganism: Why Wicca is Not Celtic Paganism

Hinduism: Communicating with God and the Gods in Hinduism

 It is in the Hindu temple that the three worlds meet and devotees invoke the Gods of our religion. The temple is built as a palace in which the Gods live. It is the home of the Gods, a sacred place unlike every other place on the earth. The Hindu must associate himself with these Gods in a very sensitive way when he approaches the temple. Though the devotee rarely has the psychic vision of the Deity, he is aware of the God's divine presence. As he approaches the sanctum sanctorum, the Hindu is fully aware that an intelligent being, greater and more evolved than himself, is there. This God is intently aware of him, safeguarding him, fully knowing his inmost thought, fully capable of coping with any situation the devotee may mentally lay at his Holy Feet. It is important that we approach the Deity in this way - conscious and confident that our needs are known in the inner spiritual worlds.

Read more here: » Hinduism: Communicating with God and the Gods in Hinduism

Cherubim (Hebrew, Jewish) According to the Kabbalists, a group of angels, which they specially associated with the Sephira Jesod. in Christian teaching, an order of angels who are "watchers".

Genesis places Cherubim to guard the lost Eden, and the O.T. frequently refers to them as guardians of the divine glory. Two winged representations in gold were placed over the Ark of the Covenant; colossal figures of the same were also placed in the Sanctum Sanctorum of the Temple of Solomon. Ezekiel describes them in poetic language.

 Each Cherub appears to have been a compound figure with four faces - of a man, eagle, lion, and ox, and was certainly winged. Parkhurst, in voc. Cherub, suggests that the derivation of the word is from K, a particle of similitude, and RB or RUB, greatness, master, majesty, and so an image of godhead. Many other nations have displayed similar figures as symbols of deity ; e.g., the Egyptians in their figures of Serapis. as Macrohius describes in his Saturnalia; the Greeks had their triple-headed Hecate, and the Latins had three-faced images of Diana, as Ovid tells us, ecce procul ternis Hecate variata figuris. Virgil also describes her in the fourth Book of the Eneid.

Porphyry and Eusebius write the same of Proserpine. The Vandals had a many-headed deity they called Triglaf. The ancient German races had an idol Rodigast with human body and heads of the ox, eagle, and man. The Persians have some figures of Mithras with a man’s body, lion’s head, and four wings. Add to these the Chimera Sphinx of Egypt, Moloch, Astarte of the Syrians, and some figures of Isis with Bull’s horns and feathers of a bird on the head.

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

NAME

Nomen est numen. No name ever does justice to the person or thing designated by it and so, in the strictest sense, to call anything by its name is to blaspheme it.

The Egyptians -- certainly Ra and Isis -- insisted that the names of the Gods were even more powerful than the Gods themselves. Everything has a secret name which is its real name. "To be" and "to name" are the same thing in the Babylonian language. Amongst the Dogon so means "real" language as distinct from the howling of beasts or the gibberish of foreign tongues.

It was because the ancient Egyptians believed so strongly in the vitality of names that a person's name (ren) was considered one of his "bodies." All magicians experiment with assuming different names because our names determine the nature of the events that gravitate toward us. We must never forget, however, that no one is his name. To identify totally with any name is to turn to stone.

Names are also like clothes -- they can become you or you can become them. Along with all the other bodies we inhabit, the Egyptians also had the renpit ("name" body), an extra post-life soul. "John" or "Mary" are actually manifestations of you. We can assume these masks as we need them -- or not, if we don't. Those who have been disfigured and must undergo plastic surgery and skin grafts must dwell in the lowest circle of their own private hell. They actually become the horrible demon, Yog-Sothoth, God of Infernal Transitions and Lord of the Abyss, with the bulging eyes, tentacles, etc. But what such patients become is really only the renpit body of the monster, so they identify with it only long enough to draw on its hideous strength. Otherwise they wouldn't have anything to hold onto. It is in this way that the ugliest devils and most dangerous dragons can also serve as resources for us. Later on, with a bit of effort, supposedly, we can return to being the Buddha or Odin or Apollo.

Note: To disguise the true nature of a thing, just give it a new name!

NEBUCHADNEZZAR

Jehovah punished this king of Babylon for the hubris of presuming himself to be divine, by causing him to behave like an animal and eat grass.

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

There is a lot of talk about the importance of 2012 as the ending of the Mayan Calendar but some say that November 8th 2003 is the correct corresponding Gregorian year. This article by John Mirehiel explore the importance of November 8th 2003 as a stepping stone towards to coming Golden Age.

Read more here: » Harmonic Concordance, November 8th 2003, The Real 2012?

Semothees [possible corruption of Greek hemitheos half-god, demigod]

Applied to the Druids of the Gauls (IU 1:18); like the true dvija (twice-born), one who is born of the spirit as well as of matter, and therefore, following the mystical language of archaic times, was the offspring of the divine spiritual parent on one side, and of human parenthood on the other, like the Greek heroes and demigods.

(See also: Semothees , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Hells are not imaginary fiction as ordinarily conceived of by the modern rationalistic mind. The empiricist believes only in experience of sense-contact and feels himself unable to rise above the dictates of the intellect. But it does not mean that man has reason to overlook facts beyond his comprehension

This is an excerpt from the book What Becomes Of The Soul After Death by Sri Swami Sivananda.

Read more here: » Lokas Or Planes: Hell Or Naraka

Book of Dzyan (probably from Sanskrit dhyana intense spiritual meditation, wisdom, divine knowledge)

An archaic work of enormous antiquity upon which Blavatsky based her Secret Doctrine. Dzyan has been variously spelled or transliterated, and under this form is a derivative of the Tibetan. Dzyan, dzen, or ch'an is the general term for the esoteric schools and their literature.

Blavatsky describes the Book of Dzyan, saying: "An Archaic Manuscript -- a collection of palm leaves made impermeable to water, fire, and air, by some specific unknown process -- is before the writer's eye. On the first page is an immaculate white disk within a dull black ground. On the following page, the same disk, but with a central point" (SD 1:1).

"The 'very old Book' is the original work from which the many volumes of Kiu-ti were complied. Not only this latter and the Siphrah Dzeniouta but even the Sepher Jezirah, the work attributed by the Hebrew Kabbalists to their Patriarch Abraham (!), the book of Shu-king, China's primitive Bible, the sacred volumes of the Egyptian Thoth-Hermes, the Puranas in India, and the Chaldean Book of Numbers and the Pentateuch itself, are all derived from that one small parent volume.

Tradition says, that it was taken down in Senzar, the secret sacerdotal tongue, from the words of the Divine Beings, who dictated it to the sons of Light, in Central Asia, at the very beginning of the 5th (our) race; for there was a time when its language (the Sen-zar) was known to the Initiates of every nation, when the forefathers of the Toltec understood it as easily as the inhabitants of the lost Atlantis, who inherited it, in their turn, from the sages of the 3rd Race, the Manushis, who learnt it direct from the Devas of the 2nd and 1st Races. . . . The old book, having described Cosmic Evolution and explained the origin of everything on earth, including physical man, after giving the true history of the races from the First down to the Fifth (our) race, goes no further" (SD 1:xliii).

See also STANZAS OF DZYAN.

(See also: Book of Dzyan , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Karma Yoga Lesson IX

All worship began as the worship of the dead, The offer of thilah, good thoughts, and akshatas undying affection to the manes; The tarpana; The fire mystery; The use of incense; the modern fire worship suggested; The Lord's prayer and Fateha; The obligations to other lives in Nature; The Eucharist; The duty to the Universal Mind, Brahma.

Read more here: » Karma Yoga: Karma Yoga - Lesson IX (of XI )

Oannes. (Ancient Greek). Musarus Oannes, the Annedotus, known in the Chaldean "legends", transmitted through Berosus and other ancient writers, as Dag or Dagon, the "man-fish".

Oannes came to the early Babylonians as a reformer and an instructor. Appearing from the Erythrean Sea, he brought to them civilisation, letters and sciences, law, astronomy and religion, teaching them agriculture, geometry and the arts in general. There were Annedoti who came after him, five in number (our race being the fifth ) - "all like Oannes inform and teaching the same"; but Musarus Oannes was the first to appear, and this he did during the reign of Ammenon, the third of the ten antediluvian Kings whose dynasty ended with Xisuthrus, the Chaldean Noah (See "Xisuthrus").

Oannes was "an animal endowed with reason whose body was that of a fish, but who had a human head under the fish’s with feet also below, similar to those of a man, subjoined to the fish’s tail, and whose voice and language too were articulate and human" (Polyhistor and Apollodorus). This gives the key to the allegory. It points out Oannes, as a man and a "priest", an Initiate. Layard showed long ago (See Nineveh) that the "fish’s head" was simply a head gear, the mitre worn by priests and gods, made in the form of a fish’s head, and which in a very little modified form is what we see even now on the heads of high Lamas and Romish Bishops. Osiris had such a mitre. The fish’s tail is simply the train of a long stiff mantle as depicted on some Assyrian tablets, the form being seen reproduced in the sacerdotal gold cloth garment worn during service by the modern Greek priests.

This allegory of Oannes, the Annedotus, reminds us of the "Dragon" and "Snake-Kings "; the Nagas who in Buddhist legends instruct people in wisdom on lakes and rivers, and end by becoming converts to the good Law and Arhats. The meaning is evident. The " fish" is an old and very suggestive symbol in the Mystery-language, as is also "water". Ea or Hea was the god of the sea and Wisdom, and the sea serpent was one of his emblems, his priests being "serpents " or Initiates. Thus one sees why Occultism places Oannes and the other Annedoti in the group of those ancient "adepts" who were called "marine" or "water dragons" - Nagas. Water typified their human origin (as it is a symbol of earth and matter and also of purification), in distinction to the "fire Nagas" or the immaterial, Spiritual Beings, whether celestial Bodhisattvas or Planetary Dhyanis, also regarded as the instructors of mankind.

The hidden meaning becomes clear to the Occultist, once he is told that "this being (Oannes) was accustomed to pass the day among men, teaching; and when the Sun had set, he retired again into the sea, passing the night in the deep, "for he was amphibious", i.e., he belonged to two planes: the spiritual and the physical. For the Greek word amphibios means simply "life on two planes", from amphi, "on both sides", and bios, "life". The word was often applied in antiquity to those men who, though still wearing a human form, had made themselves almost divine through knowledge, and lived as much in the spiritual supersensuous regions as on earth. Oannes is dimly reflected in Jonah, and even in John, the Precursor, both connected with Fish and Water.

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

"Who do you say I am?" (Luke 9:20, NIV) The question was first asked of Peter by Christ nineteen centuries ago, and has continued since then to the present day to be the litmus test of spiritual authenticity. Perhaps never in the history of the Christian church has this question been more relevant than it is today. One reason for this is that New Agers have taken the New Testament sculpture (if you will) of Christ, crafted an esoteric/mystical chisel, and hammered away at this sculpture until a completely new image has been formed.

Read more here: » New Age Movement: The Christ of the New Age Movement Ð Part II

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,)

Malvin Artley gives an exciting mythological background to Venus in connection to the forthcoming Venus Transits of 2004 and 2012. A must read if you are interested in the significance of the Venus Transit.

Read more here: » Venus Transit: The Venus Conjunction June 8 2004

Sruti (Sanskrit) [from the verbal root sru to hear]

What is heard; teachings handed down in traditional writing, distinguished from smritis, the unwritten teachings handed down by tradition by word of mouth. The Srutis in India are considered to be divine in origin and everlasting, for they are the teachings of the divine oral revelation. Yet exactly the same observation may be made regarding the smritis -- the unwritten tradition. The Srutis comprise first and foremost the Vedas, including the Mantras, Brahmanas, and Upanishads. The Hindu Srutis are all written in more or less metaphorical language.

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

 The word "yoga" often brings to mind a classroom of students attired in exercise clothing attempting to stretch their bodies into different postures. A more traditional yoga class will even include instruction in breathing techniques, concentration, meditation, and positive thinking. In the media today, yoga is often associated with health benefits such as stress reduction, lower blood pressure, and an overall decrease in illness and hospitalization rates. This is the Western idea of yoga. If we look to the Eastern approach, where yoga is a part of the great Hindu and Buddhist traditions, we find that yoga is all of these things but much, much more as well.

Read more here: » Yoga: Serve, Love, Meditate, Realize - The Inner Teachings of Yoga

Buddha Siddharta (Sanskrit) The name given to Gautama, the Prince of Kapilavastu, at his birth. It is an abbreviation of sarvartthasiddha and means, the "realization of all desires".

Gautama, which means, on earth (gau) the most victorious (tama) "was the sacerdotal name of the Sakya family, the kingly patronymic of the dynasty to which the father of Gautama, the King Suddhodhana of Kapilavastu, belonged. Kapilavastu was an ancient city, the birth-place of the Great Reformer and was destroyed during his life time. In the title Sakyamuni, the last component, muni, is rendered as meaning one mighty in charity, isolation and silence", and the former Sakya is the family name.

Every Orientalist or Pundit knows by heart the story of Gautama, the Buddha, the most perfect of mortal men that the world has ever seen, but none of them seem to suspect the esoteric meaning underlying his prenatal biography, i.e., the significance of the popular story. The Lalitavistura tells the tale, but abstains from hinting at the truth. The 5,000 jatakas, or the events of former births (re-incarnations) are taken literally instead of esoterically.

Gautama, the Buddha, would not have been a mortal man, had he not passed through hundreds and thousands of births previous to his last. Yet the detailed account of these, and the statement that during them he worked his way up through every stage of transmigration from the lowest animate and inanimate atom and insect, up to the highest - or man, contains simply the well-known occult aphorism: "a stone becomes a plant, a plant an animal, and an animal a man". Every human being who has ever existed, has passed through the same evolution. But the hidden symbolism in the sequence of these re-births (jataka) contains a perfect history of the evolution on this earth, pre and post human, and is a scientific exposition of natural facts. One truth not veiled but bare and open is found in their nomenclature, viz., that as soon as Gautama had reached the human form he began exhibiting in every personality the utmost unselfishness, self-sacrifice and charity.

Buddha Gautama, the fourth of the Sapta (Seven) Buddhas and Sapta Tathagatas was born according to Chinese Chronology in 1024 B.C; but according to the Singhalese chronicles, on the 8th day of the second (or fourth) moon in the year 621 before our era. He fled from his father’s palace to become an ascetic on the night of the 8th day of the second moon, 597 BC., and having passed six years in ascetic meditation at Gaya, and perceiving that physical self-torture was useless to bring enlightenment, be decided upon striking out a new path, until he reached the state of Bodhi. He became a full Buddha on the night of the 8th day of the twelfth moon, in the year 592, and finally entered Nirvana in the year 543 according to Southern Buddhism. The Orientalists, however, have decided upon several other dates. All the rest is allegorical. He attained the state of Bodhisattva on earth when in the personality called Prabhapala. Tushita stands for a place on this globe, not for a paradise in the invisible regions. The selection of the Sakya family and his mother Maya, as "the purest on earth," is in accordance with the model of the nativity of every Saviour, God or deified Reformer.

The tale about his entering his mother’s bosom in the shape of a white elephant is an allusion to his innate wisdom, the elephant of that colour being a symbol of every Bodhisattva. The statements that at Gautama’s birth, the newly born babe walked seven steps in four directions, that an Udumbara flower bloomed in all its rare beauty and that the Naga kings forthwith proceeded ‘‘to baptise him ", are all so many allegories in the phraseology of the Initiates and well-understood by every Eastern Occultist. The whole events of his noble life are given in occult numbers, and every so-called miraculous event - so deplored by Orientalists as confusing the narrative and making it impossible to extricate truth from fiction - is simply the allegorical veiling of the truth, it is as comprehensible to an Occultist learned in symbolism, as it is difficult to understand for a European scholar ignorant of Occultism.

Every detail of the narrative after his death and before cremation is a chapter of facts written in a language which must be studied before it is understood, otherwise its dead letter will lead one into absurd contradictions. For instance, having reminded his disciples of the immortality of Dharmakaya Buddha is said to have passed into Samadhi, and lost himself in Nirvana - from which none can return., and yet, notwithstanding this, the Buddha is shown bursting open the lid of the coffin, and stepping out of it ; saluting with folded hands his mother Maya who had suddenly appeared in the air, though she had died seven (days after his birth, &c., &c.

As Buddha. was a Chakravartti (he who turns the wheel of the Law), his body at its cremation could not be consumed by common fire. What happens Suddenly a jet of flame burst out of the Swastica on his breast, and reduced his body to ashes. Space prevents giving more instances. As to his being one of the true and undeniable Saviours of the World, suffice it to say that the most rabid orthodox missionary, unless he is hopelessly insane, or has not the least regard even for historical truth, cannot find one smallest accusation against the life and personal character of Gautama, the "Buddha".

Without any claim to divinity, allowing his followers to fall into atheism, rather than into the degrading superstition of deva or idol-worship, his walk in life is from the beginning to the end, holy and divine. During the years of his mission it is blameless and pure as that of a god - or as the latter should be. He is a perfect example of a divine, godly man. He reached Buddhaship - i.e., complete enlightenment - entirely by his own merit and owing to his own individual exertions, no god being supposed to have any personal merit in the exercise of goodness and holiness. Esoteric teachings claim that he renounced Nirvana and gave up the Dharmakaya vesture to remain a "Buddha of compassion" within the reach of the miseries of this world.

And the religious philosophy he left to it has produced for over 2,000 years generations of good and unselfish men. His is the only absolutely bloodless religion among all the existing religions tolerant and liberal, teaching universal compassion and charity, love and self-sacrifice, poverty and contentment with one’s lot, whatever it may he.

No persecutions, and enforcement of faith by fire and sword, have ever disgraced it. No thunder-and-lightning-vomiting god has interfered with its chaste commandments; and if the simple, humane and philosophical code of daily life left to us by the greatest Man-Reformer ever known, should ever come to he adopted by mankind at large, then indeed an era of bliss and peace would dawn on Humanity.

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

Temple of Solomon The building of this temple, according to the Bible, was first projected by King David, but on command of the Lord was not carried out by him because he had "shed much blood." David, however, assembled materials and workmen. To aid him in building the Temple, his son Solomon appealed to Hiram or Huram, King of Tyre, to send him a skillful artisan, and King Hiram sent Hiram Abif to Solomon, also workmen and additional supplies of timber.

According to the Biblical account the Temple was completely built, while according to Masonic tradition the building was left unfinished on account of the death of Hiram Abif. The temple after its completion retained its original splendor for only 33 years when the Egyptian King Shishak made war upon Rehoboam, Solomon's son, captured Jerusalem, and took away all the treasures of the temple and of the king's house. Its history is one of repeated profanation and of alternate spoilations and repairs, until finally in 588 BC it was entirely destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar in the reign of Zedekiah. Yet Herodotus who, some 150 years later, visited Tyre and described the temple of Melkarth and Astoreth, does not even mention the Temple of Solomon, supporting the view that there never was such a structure actually built.

Granting that there may be some historical background for the Biblical account, it is nevertheless allegorical throughout. Blavatsky compares the measurements given in the Bible with those of the Great Pyramid and the Tabernacle of Moses, all of which were constructed upon the same abstract formula derived from the number of years in the precessional cycle, and also upon integral values of pi, the ratio of the circumference of a circle to the diameter. Moses symbolized these "under the form and measurements of the tabernacle, that he is supposed to have constructed in the wilderness. On these data the later Jewish High Priests constructed the allegory of Solomon's Temple -- a building which never had a real existence, any more than had King Solomon himself, who is simply, and as much a solar myth as is the still later Hiram Abif, of the Masons, as Ragon has well demonstrated. Thus, if the measurements of this allegorical temple, the symbol of the cycle of Initiation, coincide with those of the Great Pyramid, it is due to the fact that the former were derived from the latter through the Tabernacle of Moses" (SD 1:314-5). And she refers to "the undeniable, clear, and mathematical proofs that the esoteric foundations, or the system used in the building of the Great Pyramid, and the architectural measurements in the Temple of Solomon (whether the latter be mythical or real), Noah's ark, and the ark of the Covenant, are the same" (SD 2:465).

The key to the meaning of Solomon's Temple is given by W. Q. Judge: it

"means man whose frame is built up, finished and decorated without the least noise. But the materials had to be found, gathered together and fashioned in other and distant places. . . . Man could not have his bodily temple to live in until all the matter in and about his world had been found by the Master, who is the inner man, when found the plans for working it required to be detailed. They then had to be carried out in different detail until all the parts should be perfectly ready and fit for placing in the final structure. So in the vast stretch of time which began after the first almost intangible matter had been gathered and kneaded, the material and vegetable kingdoms had sole possession here with the Master -- man -- who was hidden from sight within carrying forward the plans for the foundations of the human temple. All of this requires many, many ages, since we know that nature never leaps. And when the rough work was completed, when the human temple was erected, many more ages would be required for all the servants, the priests, and the counselors to learn their parts properly so that man, the Master, might be able to use the temple for its best and highest purposes" (Ocean 20).

Thus David, who collected materials for the building but was not permitted actually to build the temple, represents the evolutionary and preparatory work of earlier rounds and of the earlier root-races preceding the middle of the third root-race of this round, when humanity appeared upon the scene -- Solomon, David's son -- takes up the task of the actual building of the human temple. David thus mystically may stand for the lunar or barhishad-pitris, and Solomon for the solar or agnishvatta-pitris.

According to the Old Testament, the building of the temple was completed, but it was used for its high purposes only briefly. Allegorically this was during the Golden Age of the childhood of the human race -- the building was complete only as regards childhood when the gods walked among mankind and were their divine instructors; but humanity was not yet truly human, for manas (mind) had not yet been awakened by the manasaputras of whom Hiram Abif was a type. It is here that Masonic tradition should be studied together with the Biblical account. Then with the awakening of manas, and the eating from the Tree of Knowledge and hence the power to choose between good and evil -- in other words, with the beginning of self-directed evolution, the temple was desecrated again and again. "The building of the Temple of Solomon is the symbolical representation of the gradual acquirement of the secret wisdom, or magic; the erection and development of the spiritual from the earthly; the manifestation of the power and splendor of the spirit in the physical world, through the wisdom and genius of the builder. The latter, when he has become an adept, is a mightier king than Solomon himself, the emblem of the sun or Light himself -- the light of the real subjective world, shining in the darkness of the objective universe. This is the 'Temple' which can be reared without the sound of the hammer, or any tool of iron being heard in the house while it is 'in building' " (IU 2:391).

Again, the building of a temple, sanctuary, Holy of Holies, etc., always signified in the occult language of ancient days the founding and dissemination throughout the world or a portion of mankind of a secret doctrine of nature. In a more restricted sense, the building of a temple referred to the actual establishment of an initiation center, where not only for such territory the ancient wisdom and its divine significances were taught, but disciples were trained and brought to the "new" or "second" birth, and thenceforth themselves became adepts or initiates. On these lines the building of Solomon's Temple was the inauguration and establishment of the teaching of nature's occult wisdom in Judea and surrounding territory.

(See also: Temple of Solomon , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body mind and Soul)

Serpent One of the most fundamental and prolific symbols of the mystery-language. Its most basic meaning is of the eternal, alternating, cyclic motion during cosmic manifestation.

For motion, which to the physicist and the philosopher alike seems an abstraction, is for the ancient wisdom a primordial principle or axiom, of the same order as space and time, existing per se. Never does motion cease utterly even during kosmic pralaya. And motion is essentially circular: where physics would derive circular motion from a composition of rectilinear motions, the opposite procedure would be that of the ancient wisdom. This circular motion, compounding itself into spirals, helixes, and vortices, is the builder of worlds, bringing together the scattered elements of chaos; motion per se is essential cosmic intelligence. This circular motion, returning upon itself like a serpent swallowing its tail, represents the cycles of time.

This conscious energy in spirals whirls through all the planes of cosmos as fohat and his innumerable sons -- the cosmic energies and forces, fundamentally intelligent, operating in every scale or grade of matter. The caduceus of Hermes, twin serpents wound about a staff, represents cosmically the mighty drama of evolution, in its twin aspects, the staff or tree standing for the structural aspect, the serpent for the fohatic forces that animate the structure.

The serpent is characteristically a dual symbol. In the beginnings of creation two poles were emanated, spirit and matter; and forthwith began interaction between the downward forces of the one and the upward forces of the other. Hermes, Mercury, intelligence, may represent a sage or a thief; the serpentine wisdom may work in every plane of materiality. The perverse will of man may turn natural forces to evil purposes, and thus we speak of the good serpent and the bad, of Agathodaemon and Kakodaemon, of Ophis and Ophiomorphos. A serpent can be a sage or a sorcerer.

The dragon is the eternally vigilant one, guardian of the sacred treasures; but he is the ruthless destroyer of him who attempts to gain by force the riches to which he has not won a title. To gain knowledge, we must know how to tame the serpent which rules the nether worlds, as the Christ refuses to make obeisance to Satan.

The seven sacred planets, or again the seven human principles, form a serpent, often collocated with the sun and moon as making a triad. One form of this spiraling conscious energy, when manifesting in man, is kundalini-sakti, the serpentine power, which in the ordinary person today lies relatively sleeping and performing merely automatic vital functions; but when aroused can ether waft to sublime heights of vision and power or blast like a lightning-stroke.

The power which a serpent has of casting its old skin is analogous to what the earth does at the commencement of each round, and to the clothing of the human jiva with a new body when it enters the womb. Again, the astral light is called a serpent; its lowest strata are dangerous and deceptive, while it extends through all planes up to the highest akasa, the vehicle of divine wisdom.

In early Christianity there arose more than one Gnostic sect using the snake as a symbol, such as the Ophites, which in the vision of certain ecclesiastic Fathers was designated devil worship, or by other uncomplimentary names.

See also NAGA; WORLD-SERPENT

(See also: Serpent , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

E. - The fifth letter of the English alphabet. The he (soft) of the Hebrew alphabet becomes in the Ehevi system of reading that language an E. Its numerical value is five, and its symbolism is a window; the womb, in the Kabbala. In the order of the divine names it stands for the fifth, which is Hadoor or the "majestic" and the "splendid."

(See also: E - Letter E , Theosophy, Spirituality, Body mind and Soul, Spiritual Dictionary,)

Karshipta (Mazd.). The holy bird of Heaven in the Mazdean Scriptures, of which Ahura Mazda says to Zaratushta that "he recites the Avesta in the language of birds" (Bund. xix. et seq.). The bird is the symbol of "Soul" of Angel and Deva in every old religion. It is easy to see, therefore, that this "holy bird" means the divine Ego of man, or the "Soul". The same as Karanda (q.v.).

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

HERMES

Since he connects all the others and serves as a link between human and divine reality, he is the greatest of the Gods. His counterpart occurs in all mythologies (Odin, Mercury, Thoth). Hermes is the God of language, hence the inspiration of all writers (also frequently the pen-name of ancient writers who felt they were merely the God's amanuensis). It was Thoth-Hermes whom the scribes of Egypt always honored with a libation of ink before beginning their day's work.

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