Egyptian Book of the Dead

Nut (Egyptian) Also Noot, Noun, Nout, Nu. Goddess of the sky or cosmic space -- whether of the solar system or the galaxy -- daughter of Shu and Tefnut, wife of Seb (the cosmic earth or outspread space), mother of Osiris and Isis, and of Set and Nephthys or Neith; the heavens personified.

Some manuscripts distinguish between Nut, the day sky, and Naut, the night sky, although the two are but lower and higher aspects of one cosmic divinity. Her attributes partake of those of the other nature goddesses in the Egyptian pantheon: she is addressed as Lady of Heaven, who gave birth to all the gods. The favorite representation of Nut is of a woman bending so that her body forms a semicircle -- a part of the endless circle of space -- upon which the stars are portrayed, while her consort, Seb, prostrate beneath her, completes the circle. Again, the solar boat is represented sailing up over the lower limbs, in order to pursue its journey over the day sky; and sailing down her arms to complete its cycle in the night sky.

Nut is an important goddess of the Underworld and figures largely in the Egyptian Book of the Dead. She is one of the twelve deities who judge the deceased. Her office was to supply food and water, enabling the one entering the Underworld (Tuat) to rise in a renewed body, even as Ra, the sun god, arose from the egg produced by Seb and Nut. Thus, wherever possible, the sarcophagus had the figure of the goddess represented upon it, her protective wings spread over the deceased, her hands holding the emblems of celestial water and air.

The Greek nous

"was the designation given to the Supreme deity (third logos) by Anaxagoras. Taken from Egypt where it was called Nout, it was adopted by the Gnostics for their first conscious AEon which, with the Occultists, is the third logos, cosmically, and the third 'principle' (from above) or manas, in man. . . .

"In the Pantheon of the Egyptians it meant the 'One-only-One,' because they did not proceed in their popular or exoteric religion higher than the third manifestation which radiates from the Unknown and the Unknowable, the first unmanifested and the second logoi in the esoteric philosophy of every nation. The Nous of Anaxagoras was the Mahat of the Hindu Brahma, the first manifested Deity -- 'the Mind or Spirit self-potent'; this creative Principle being of course the primum mobile of everything in the Universe -- its Soul and Ideation" (TG 234).

Some of the most abstract attributes connected with Nut place her at times as the Second Logos; but because the Second contains the Third Logos, and therefore the Mother being in a sense identical with her Daughter, it follows that not infrequently the attributes of Nut place her as the higher portion of the Third Logos.

(See also: Nut, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Typhoeus, Typhon (Greek) Typhoeus in Hesiodic theogony is a son of Tartarus and Gaia, a fire-breathing titan with a hundred heads and begetter of destructive hurricanes. He rebels against the gods and is killed by Zeus with a thunderbolt and buried under Mount Etna. Typhon was originally his son -- post-type of himself -- but the two were later identified. He represents the necessary counterpart of Zeus, as darkness is of light, Set of Osiris, or Satan of God. He is the Dragon Apophis, the Accuser in The Egyptian Book of the Dead, murderer of Osiris, destroyed by Horus; the dark side of Zeus, as Set is the dark side of Osiris, and night the dark side of day; Python, Loki, Rahu, and falling demons in general. In one form he is the dragon slain by St. Michael or St. George.

The original meaning is sublime, for Typhon in its prototypal significance is chaos, the unorganized womb or fountain of production, which calls forth the creative energy by resisting it, and is equally necessary with the former. When humanity falls into matter, then these dark-side potencies of nature acquire for mankind a distinctly evil connotation, and their names can be given to vast destructive forces which the misuse of the human will has engendered.

In a more restricted sense as connected with our earth, Typhon was not only the causative agent, but likewise the symbol of all seismic and volcanic phenomena, as well as being, even according to ancient Greek philosophical thought, in intimate connection with meteorological phenomena as evidenced by winds and storms.

See also SET; CROCODILE

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

Fish In ancient theologic or mystical thought, fish is cognate with water and the matrix; in the Stanzas of Dzyan, the Mother is called the Fiery Fish of Life, and the defunct in the Egyptian Book of the Dead says, "I am the Fish of the Great Horus." The esoteric meaning of the fish symbol is divine, but the theological is almost universally phallic.

Pisces, the Fishes (Sanskrit Mina), is the last sign of the zodiac, and therefore marks the end of one cycle and the initiatory stage of the succeeding cycle. The fish-avatara of Vishsu is both the first and the tenth or last; and this applies both to mahakalpas and to minor cycles within them, likewise to a division of the present and former manvantara. Though Pisces as now understood refers to cyclic junctions in general, with their accompanying world saviors and floods, it has particular reference for Occidentals to Jesus and the entry of the equinoctial point into Pisces.

Out of the Greek ichthys (fish) has been made the acrostic Jesus Christos Theou Yios Soter (Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior). Jesus, Bacchus, the Chaldean Dagon and Oannes, the Akkadian Ea, the Babylonian Xisuthrus, and the Hindu Vishsu and Vaivasvata-Manu mystically are all fish characters, and hence connected with floods and avataras.

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

Osiris (Greek) As-ar, Us-ar (Egyptian) The most famous deity of the Egyptian pantheon, corresponding to Zagreus-Bacchus of the Eleusinian Mysteries. In Plutarch's On Isis and Osiris, Osiris is represented as the son of Nut, space and primordial matter (equivalent to the Greek Rhea) by Seb, celestial fire (Kronos). He became king of Egypt, teaching the people the worship of the gods, and husbandry, and formulating laws. His brother Set, filled with envy, brought about his destruction. Isis, his distraught wife, set out in search of the body, and finally recovered it. But Set then dismembered the body into fourteen pieces, scattering them over Egypt, of which Isis recovered all but one.

After meeting with death on earth Osiris became resurrected, and then became the ruler of the other world (Khenti-Amentet). His death and resurrection depict the drama of the initiation chamber which is one interpretation of glorification or osirification of the defunct human, as mystically portrayed in the Book of the Dead.

Cosmologically, Osiris is the Third Logos, containing in himself the seeds of all things and beings in the universe to be unrolled from the Logos:

"the self-existent and self-creative god, the first manifesting deity (our third Logos), identical with Ahura Mazda and other 'First Causes.' For as Ahura Mazda is one with, or the synthesis of, the Amshaspends, so Osiris, the collective unit, when differentiated and personified, becomes Typhon, his brother, Isis and Nephtys his sisters, Horus his son and his other aspects. . . . The four chief aspects of Osiris were -- Osiris-Phtah (Light), the spiritual aspect; Osiris-Horus (Mind), the intellectual manasic aspect; Osiris-Lunus, the 'Lunar' or psychic, astral aspect; Osiris-Typhon, Daimonic, or physical, material, therefore passional turbulent aspect. In these four aspects he symbolizes the dual ego -- the divine and the human, the cosmico-spiritual and the terrestrial" (TG 243).

Osiris' place in cosmological mythology is seen to be that of the cosmic creator; thus on a more abstract scale Osiris is equivalent to the svabhavat of Buddhist thought. As in other archaic religions and philosophies, when Osiris is considered as an individual divinity, he becomes the cosmic source from which flow forth in hierarchical series of emanations the gradually descending groups of the hierarchy of Light; and from this aspect he is the chief of all initiates of the right-hand path, who thus trace their spiritual ascendance and origin directly to the Third Logos itself.

(See also: Osiris, As-ar, Us-ar, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Typhon (Egypt, Egyptian). An aspect or shadow of Osiris.

Typhon is not, as Plutarch asserts, the distinct " Evil Principle " or the Satan of the Jews; but rather the lower cosmic "principles " of the divine body of Osiris, the god in them - Osiris being the personified universe as an ideation, and Typhon as that same universe in its material realization.

The two in one are Vishnu-Siva. The true meaning of the Egyptian myth is that Typhon is the terrestrial and material envelope of Osiris, who is the indwelling spirit thereof. In chapter 42 of the Ritual (" Book of the Dead"), Typhon is described as "Set, formerly called Thoth".

Orientalists find themselves greatly perplexed by discovering Set-Typhon addressed in some papyri as "a great and good god ", and in others as the embodiment of evil. But is not Siva, one of the Hindu Trimurti, described in some places as "the best and most bountiful of gods ", and at other times, "a dark, black, destroying, terrible " and " fierce god"? Did not Loki, the Scandinavian Typhon, after having been described in earlier times as a beneficent being, as the god of fire, the presiding genius of the peaceful domestic hearth, suddenly lose caste and become forthwith a power of evil, a cold-hell Satan and a demon of the worst kind? There is a good reason for such an invariable transformation. So long as these dual gods, symbols of good and necessary evil, of light and darkness, keep closely allied, i.e., stand for a combination of differentiated human qualities, or of the element they represent - they are simply an embodiment of the average personal god.

No sooner, however, are they separated into two entities, each with its two characteristics, than they become respectively the two opposite poles of good and evil, of light and darkness ; they become in short, two independent and distinct entities or rather personalities. It is only by dint of sophistry that the Churches have succeeded to this day in preserving in the minds of the few the Jewish deity in his primeval integrity. Had they been logical they would have separated Christ from Jehovah, light and goodness from darkness and badness. And this was what happened to Osiris Typhon ;but no Orientalist has understood it, and thus their perplexity goes on increasing. Once accepted - as in the case of the Occultists -  as an integral part of Osiris, just as Ahriman is an inseparable part of Ahura Mazda, and the Serpent of Genesis the dark aspect of the Elohim, blended into our "Lord God " - every difficulty in the nature of Typhon disappears. Typhon is a later name of Set, later but ancient - as early in fact as the fourth Dynasty; for in the Ritual one reads: " 0 Typhon-Set ! I invoke thee, terrible, invisible, all-powerful god of gods, thou who destroyest and renderest desert ". Typhon belongs most decidedly to the same symbolical category as Siva the Destroyer, and Saturn - the "dark god ". In the Book of the Dead, Set, in his battle with Thoth (wisdom)_who is his spiritual counterpart  -  is emasculated as Saturn-Kronos was and Ouranos before him. As Siva is closely connected with the bull Nandi - an aspect of Brahma-Vishnu, the creative and preserving powers - so is Set-Typhon allied with the bull Apis, both bulls being sacred to, and allied with, their respective deities. As Typhon was originally worshipped as an upright stone, the phallus, so is Siva to this day represented and worshipped as a lingham. Siva is Saturn. Indeed, Typhon-Set seems to have served as a prototype for more than one god of the later ritualistic cycle, including even the god of the Jews, some of his ritualistic observances having passed bodily into the code of laws and the canon of religious rites of the "chosen people". Who of the Bible-worshippers knows the origin of the scape-goat (ez or aza) sent into the wilderness as an atonement ? Do they know that ages before the exodus of Moses the goat was sacred to Typhon, and that it is over the head of that Typhonic goat that the Egyptians confessed their sins, after which the animal was turned into the desert?

"And Aaron shall take the scapegoat (Azazel) and lay his hands upon the head of the live goat, and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel . . . and shall send him away . . . into the wilderness" (Levit., xvi.). And as the goat of the Egyptians made an atonement with Typhon, so the goat of the Israelites "made an atonement before the Lord" (Ibid., v. 10). Thus, if one only remembers that every anthropomorphic creative god was with the philosophical ancients the "Life-giver" and the "Death-dealer " - Osiris and Typhon, Ahura Mazda and Ahriman, etc., etc. - it will be easy for him to comprehend the assertion made by the Occultists, that Typhon was but a symbol for the lower quaternary, the ever conflicting and turbulent principles of differentiated chaotic matter, whether in the Universe or in Man, while Osiris symbolized the higher spiritual triad. Typhon is accused in the Ritual of being one who "steals reason from the soul ". Hence, he is shown fighting with Osiris and cutting him into fourteen (twice seven) pieces, after which, left without his counterbalancing power of good and light, he remains steeped in evil and darkness. I

n this way the fable told by Plutarch becomes comprehensible as an allegory. He asserts that, overcome in his fight with Horus, Typhon "fled seven days on an ass, and escaping begat the boys Ierosolumos and Ioudaios ". Now as Typhon was worshipped at a later period under the form of an ass, and as the name of the ass is AO, or (phonetically) IAO, the vowels mimicking the braying of the animal, it becomes evident that Typhon was purposely blended with the name of the Jewish God, as the two names of Judea and Jerusalem, begotten by Typhon - sufficiently imply.

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

Thoth, Thot (Greek) Tehuti (Egyptian) Egyptian goddess of wisdom, equivalent to the Greek Hermes, Thoth was often represented as an ibis-headed deity, and also with a human head, especially in his aspect of Aah-Tehuti (the moon god), and as the god of Mendes he is depicted as bull-headed. Although best known in his character of the scribe or recorder of the gods, holding stylus and tablet, this is but another manner of showing that Thoth is the god of wisdom, inventor of science and learning; thus to him is attributed the establishment of the worship of the gods and the hymns and sacrifices, and the author of every work on every branch of knowledge both human and divine. He is described in the texts as "self-created, he to whom none hath given birth; the One; he who reckons in heaven, the counter of the stars; the enumerator and measurer of the earth [cosmic space]

and all that is contained therein: the heart of Ra cometh forth in the form of the god Tehuti" -- for he represents the heart and tongue of Ra, reason and the mental powers of the god and the utterer of speech. It has been suggested that Thoth is thus the equivalent of the Platonic Logos. Many are his epithets: his best known being "thrice greatest" -- in later times becoming Hermes Trismegistus.

In The Egyptian Book of the Dead, the deceased must learn to master everything he encounters in the underworld, and does this through the instruction of Thoth, who also teaches the pilgrim the way of procedure. Finally when the deceased reaches the stage of judgment, it is Thoth who records the decree pointed out to him by the dog-headed ape on the balance, the scales of which weigh the heart against the feather. The gods receive the verdict from Thoth, who in turn announce it to Osiris, enabling the candidate to enter the realm of Osiris, as being one osirified. Thus Thoth is the inner spiritual recorder of the human constitution, who registers and records the karmic experiences and foretells the future destiny of the deceased, showing that each person is judged by himself -- for Thoth here is the person's own higher ego; as regards cosmic space, Thoth is not only the cosmic Logos, but its aspect as the intelligent creative urge inherent in that Intelligence.

Thoth was also arbiter of the gods as in the battle between the god of light and the god of darkness, restoring the equilibrium which had been destroyed during the conflict. Similarly in the fights between Horus and Set, when the evil has a temporary ascendancy, Thoth restores harmony. Interestingly,

"Thoth remains changeless from the first to the last Dynasty. . . . the celestial scribe, who records the thoughts, words and deeds of men and weighs them in the balance, liken him to the type of the esoteric Lipikas. His name is one of the first that appears on the oldest monuments. He is the lunar god of the first dynasties, the master of Cynocephalus -- the dog-headed ape who stood in Egypt as a living symbol and remembrance of the Third Root-Race" (TG 331).

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

Hippopotamus In ancient Egypt, a symbol connected with every goddess, especially Rert or Rertu, Apet, and Ta-urt. It was used as a kindly guardian of the dead in the underworld in the Book of the Dead. In a contrary aspect, the monster Am-mit, which appears in the judgment scene, has the hindquarters of a hippopotamus. It represents the horrors and fear of the astral world awaiting the defunct, which spring into life if that person's karma has brought about awakening self-consciousness in kama-loka.

The hippopotamus, the crocodile, and the frog were all either aquatic or amphibious animals, and as all ancient zoocosmology took its figures of speech from the surrounding world, these animals were chosen as symbolic of the early creative action in the waters of space, out of which arose the world. In an equally important sense, however, the hippopotamus has distinct reference to the astral world, and hence so far as the individual is concerned, to the post-mortem peregrination of the latter in kama-loka.

In another aspect the hippopotamus goddess was the female counterpart of Set and the mother of the sun god, whom she brought into the world at Ombos.

"In Egyptian symbolism Typhon was called 'the hippopotamus who slew his father and violated his mother,' Rhea (mother of the gods). His father was Chronos. As applied therefore to Time and Nature (Chronos and Rhea), the accusation becomes comprehensible. The type of Cosmic Disharmony, Typhon, who is also Python, the monster formed of the slime of the Deluge of Deucalion, 'violates' his mother Primordial Harmony, whose beneficence was so great that she was called 'The Mother of the Golden Age.' It was Typhon, who put an end to the latter, i.e., produced the first war of the elements" (TG 142).

In ancient Persia the hippopotamus appears as a symbol in connection with the twelve-legged steed of Hushang. It also appears as a divine symbol in Mexico.

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

Hippopotamus In ancient Egypt, a symbol connected with every goddess, especially Rert or Rertu, Apet, and Ta-urt. It was used as a kindly guardian of the dead in the underworld in the Book of the Dead. In a contrary aspect, the monster Am-mit, which appears in the judgment scene, has the hindquarters of a hippopotamus. It represents the horrors and fear of the astral world awaiting the defunct, which spring into life if that person's karma has brought about awakening self-consciousness in kama-loka.

The hippopotamus, the crocodile, and the frog were all either aquatic or amphibious animals, and as all ancient zoocosmology took its figures of speech from the surrounding world, these animals were chosen as symbolic of the early creative action in the waters of space, out of which arose the world. In an equally important sense, however, the hippopotamus has distinct reference to the astral world, and hence so far as the individual is concerned, to the post-mortem peregrination of the latter in kama-loka.

In another aspect the hippopotamus goddess was the female counterpart of Set and the mother of the sun god, whom she brought into the world at Ombos.

"In Egyptian symbolism Typhon was called 'the hippopotamus who slew his father and violated his mother,' Rhea (mother of the gods). His father was Chronos. As applied therefore to Time and Nature (Chronos and Rhea), the accusation becomes comprehensible. The type of Cosmic Disharmony, Typhon, who is also Python, the monster formed of the slime of the Deluge of Deucalion, 'violates' his mother Primordial Harmony, whose beneficence was so great that she was called 'The Mother of the Golden Age.' It was Typhon, who put an end to the latter, i.e., produced the first war of the elements" (TG 142).

In ancient Persia the hippopotamus appears as a symbol in connection with the twelve-legged steed of Hushang. It also appears as a divine symbol in Mexico.

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

Ophites (Ancient Greek). A Gnostic Fraternity in Egypt, and one of the earliest sects of Gnosticism, or Gnosis (Wisdom, Knowledge), known as the "Brotherhood of the Serpent".

It flourished early in the second century, and while holding some of the principles of Valentinus had its own occult rites and symbology. A living serpent, representing the Christos-principle (i.e., the divine reincarnating Monad, not Jesus the man), was displayed in their mysteries and reverenced as a symbol of wisdom, Sophia, the type of the all-good and all-wise.

 The Gnostics were not a Christian sect, in the common acceptation of this term, as the Christos of pre-Christian thought and the Gnosis was not the "god-man" Christ, but the divine EGO, made one with Buddhi. Their Christos was the "Eternal Initiate", the Pilgrim, typified by hundreds of Ophidian symbols for several thousands of years before the " Christian" era, so- called.

One can see it on the "Belzoni tomb" from Egypt, as a winged serpent with three heads (Atma-Buddhi-Manas), and four human legs, typifying its androgynous character; on the walls of the descent to the sepulchral chambers of Rameses V., it is found as a snake with vulture’s wings - the vulture and hawk being solar symbols. "The heavens are scribbled over with interminable snakes ‘ writes Herschel of the Egyptian chart of stars. "The Meissi (Messiah?) meaning the Sacred Word, was a good serpent", writes Bonwick in his Egyptian Belief. "This serpent of goodness, with its head crowned, was mounted upon a cross and formed a sacred standard of Egypt." The Jews borrowed it in their "brazen serpent of Moses".

It is to this "Healer" and "Saviour", therefore, that the Ophites referred, and not to Jesus or his words, "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so it behoves the Son of Man to be lifted up" - when explaining the meaning of their ophis. Tertullian, whether wittingly or unwittingly, mixed up the two. The four-winged serpent is the god Chnuphis. The good serpent bore the cross of life around its neck, or suspended from its mouth. The winged serpents become the Seraphim (Seraph, Saraph) of the Jews. In the 87th chapter of the Ritual (the Book of the Dead) the human soul transformed into Bata, the omniscient serpents says: - " I am the serpent Ba-ta, of long years, Soul of the Soul, laid out and born daily; I am the Soul that descends on the earth", i.e., the Ego.

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

Wordpassing, Passwords Communication or passing of the word or words in two contexts: 1) in the sacred Mysteries, by one hierophant just before his death to his successor; and 2) as the culminating act of initiation, from the initiate to the candidate or neophyte, as in Freemasonry by the Master of the Lodge, representing King Solomon, to the candidate after his raising.

In the first case, the hierophant could either offer his pure life "as a sacrifice for his race to the gods whom he hoped to rejoin," or an animal victim. This last is a blind, for no initiate of the right-hand path ever sacrificed the life of an animal or any life. The sacrifice performed is the complete conquest of the lower, animal nature, either in this or a lower degree; hence the alternative. The sacrifice of their lives "depended entirely on their own will. At the last moment of the solemn 'new birth,' the initiator passed 'the word' to the initiated, and immediately after that the latter had a weapon placed in his right hand, and was ordered to strike. This is the true origin of the Christian dogma of atonement" (IU 2:42). Blavatsky mentions a widespread superstition among the Slavs and Russians that a magician or wizard cannot die before he has passed the word to a successor, which she traces to the ancient Mysteries.

In the Egyptian initiatory rites taking place in the Great Pyramid, the neophyte, "upon returning -- received the Word, with or without the 'heart's blood' of the Hierophant.

"Only in truth the Hierophant was never killed -- neither in India or elsewhere, the murder being simply feigned -- unless the Initiator had chosen the Initiate for his successor and had decided to pass to him the last and supreme Word, after which he had to die -- only one man in a nation had the right to know that word . . .

"But he died, he was not killed. For killing, if really done, would belong to black, not to divine Magic. It is the transmission of light, rather than a transfer of life, of life spiritual and divine, and it is the shedding of Wisdom, not of blood" (BCW 14:262-4).

That the initiate was compelled to kill the initiator was allegorical and exoteric.

Turning to the second meaning, in Freemasonry every degree has its password or words, which are given to the neophyte during initiation into that degree, the possession of which is a requisite for admission into the working of that degree, and to the conferring of it upon others. By means of it, initiates, as of Freemasonry, may become known to one another. In the ancient Mysteries such words were key words, words of power -- not mere words or phrases which could be communicated to anyone merely after taking part in a ceremony however symbolic, but only to those who were inwardly qualified and worthy of receiving them; who, in fact, had achieved the right of demanding them. Thus in a sense such words were ineffable, not only not to be uttered but unutterable to anyone not entitled to receive them, anyone who had not attained through aspiration, self-conquest, and inner development of mind and heart that stage wherein an understanding of them would be possible. Such inner development must in fact have been begun before one could be truly initiated even into the lowest degree, and must be attained progressively in greater and greater measure as an indispensable qualification for advancement into a higher degree. This use of passwords is also seen in the Egyptian Book of the Dead.

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

Kabalist. From Q B L H, KABALA, an unwritten or oral tradition.

The kabalist is a student of "secret science", one who interprets the hidden meaning of the Scriptures with the help of the symbolical Kabala, and explains the real one by these means. The Tanaim were the first kabalists among the Jews; they appeared at Jerusalem about the beginning of the third century before the Christian era. The books of Ezekiel, Daniel, Henoch, and the Revelation of St. John, are purely kabalistical.

This secret doctrine is identical with that of Chaldeans, and includes at the same time much of the Persian wisdom, or "magic". History catches glimpses of famous kabalists ever since the eleventh century.

The Medieval ages, and even our own times, have had an enormous number of the most learned and intellectual men who were students of the Kabala (or Qabbalah, as some spell it).

The most famous among the former were Paracelsus, Henry Khunrath, Jacob Bohmen, Robert Fludd, the two Van Helmonts, the Abbot John Trithemius, Cornelius Agrippa, Cardinal Nicolao Cusani, Jerome Carden, Pope Sixtus IV., and such Christian scholars as Raymond Lully, Giovanni Pico de la Mirandola, Guillaume Postel, the great John Reuchlin, Dr. Henry More, Eugenius Philalethes (Thomas Vaughan), the erudite Jesuit Athanasius Kircher, Christian Knorr (Baron) von Rosenroth; then Sir Isaac Newton., Leibniz, Lord Bacon, Spinosa, etc., etc., the list being almost inexhaustible.

As remarked by Mr. Isaac Myer, in his Qabbalah, the ideas of the Kabalists have largely influenced European literature. "Upon the practical Qabbalah, the Abbé ,de Villars (nephew of de Montfaucon) in 1670, published his celebrated satirical novel, ‘The Count de Gabalis’, upon which Pope based his ‘Rape of the Lock’. Qabbalism ran through the Medieval poems, the ‘Romance of the Rose’, and permeates the writings of Dante." No two of them, however, agreed upon the origin of the Kabala, the Zohar, Sepher Yetzirah, etc. Some show it as coming from the Biblical Patriarchs, Abraham, and even Seth; others from Egypt, others again from Chaldea.

The system is certainly very old; but like all the rest of systems, whether religious or philosophical, the Kabala is derived directly from the primeval Secret Doctrine of the East; through the Vedas, the Upanishads, Orpheus and Thales, Pythagoras and the Egyptians. Whatever its source, its substratum is at any rate identical with that of all the other systems from the Book of the Dead down to the later Gnostics. The best exponents of the Kabala in the Theosophical Society were among the earliest, Dr. S. Pancoast, of Philadelphia, and Mr. G. Felt; and among the latest, Dr. W. Wynn Westcott, Mr. S. L. Mac Gregor Mathers (both of the Rosicrucian College) and a few others. (See " Qabbalah ".)

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

Orphism, Orphic Mysteries [from Greek orphikos]

Orphism originally taught of the Causeless Cause on which all speculation is impossible; the periodical appearance and disappearance of all things, from atom to universe; reimbodiment; cyclic law; the essential divinity of all beings and things; and the duality in manifestation of the universe. It postulated seven emanations from the Boundless: aether (spirit) and chaos (matter), from which two spring the world egg, out of which is born Phanes, the First Logos; then Uranus (and Gaia) the Second Logos, with Kronos (and Rhea, mother of the Olympian gods) a later phase of the Second Logos; and Zeus, the Third Logos or Demiurge -- who starts a minor sevenfold hierarchy of emanation by begetting Zagreus-Dionysos the god-man, the divine son.

Characteristic of Orphic cosmogony is the important place given to the number seven. "The rise of the Orphic worship of Dionysos is the most important fact in the history of Greek religion, and marks a great spiritual awakening. Its three great ideas are (1) a belief in the essential Divinity of humanity and the complete immortality or eternity of the soul, its pre-existence and its post-existence; (2) the necessity for individual responsibility and righteousness; and (3) the regeneration or redemption of man's lower nature by his own higher Self" (F. S. Darrow).

The Orphic teachings were kept intact by the Golden or Hermetic Chain of Succession down to the days of the Neoplatonists after which (as symbolically told in the archaic story of Eurydice) they were killed -- obscured or lost, so far as the public was concerned. Their keynote was consecration to the mandates of the god within: perfect purity, perfect impersonal love, perfect understanding, and devotion to the interests of humanity.

The three Orphic mystery-gods were Zeus, the divine All-father; Demeter-Kore, the earth goddess as both mother and maid; and Zagreus-Dionysos, the divine son. This trinity finds its counterpart in Egyptian, Indian, Chaldean, Christian, and other religions. There were two forms of baptism, one purification by water, later adopted into the Christian ritual; and the other a ceremony in which the face of the neophyte was cleansed with a mixture of earth and bran, symbolizing the washing away of stains from the soul.

The ceremony of the Eucharist was also adopted by the Christians and as Orphic ritual forbade the use of wine (substituting for it a mead of honey and milk), in the rite as adopted by the primitive Christians the neophyte drank not only wine but also milk and honey. Under Orphism, the honey symbolized not only purification and preservation, or endless life and bliss, but the secret knowledge obtained during initiation. Bees, the gatherers of honey, were emblems of the reincarnating soul, as was the butterfly; and as the bees gathered the nectar from flowers and made it into honey, so the human soul in its various peregrinations gathers from the beings and things of life the mystic experience and stores it away in the chambers of the soul. Milk symbolized knowledge, which fed the inner man, as a child of eternity, just as milk feeds the human child.

Orphism flourished from before the 14th until the 6th century BC, and again, after some five centuries of obscuration, during the first four centuries of the Christian era. Plato, Empedocles, the Pythagorean teachings, some of the Greek dramatists and poets are our main source material for the earlier period, as well as the various Orphic fragments including the Orphic Tablets.

These Tablets, with the Orphic Hymns, consist of eight gold plates containing inscriptions, dating from about the 4th century BC. They consist of instructions given to the soul for its journey through the afterdeath worlds or states very reminiscent of the Egyptian Book of the Dead. The keynote is spoken by the soul: "I am a child of earth and of starry Heaven, but my race is of Heaven (alone). . . . Lo, I am parched with thirst . . ." For the later period we have the writings of the Neoplatonists and their opponents, the early Christian Fathers.

That the entire Orphic mythogony is intentionally allegorical does not invalidate that a great prehistoric religious reformer named Orpheus lived, worked, taught, and founded a religion as the outgrowth of a genuine Mystery school.

(See also: Orphism, Orphic Mysteries, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Qabbalah (Hebrew) [from qabal to receive, hand down]

Also Cabala, Kabala, Kabbalah, etc. Tradition, that which is handed down; the theosophy of the Jews. Originally these truths were passed on orally by one initiate to chosen disciples, hence were referred to as the Tradition. The first one historically alleged to have reduced a large part of the secret Qabbalah of the Chaldees into systematic, and perhaps written, form was the Rabbi Shim`on ben Yohai, in the Zohar; but the work of this name that has come down to the present day -- through the medieval Qabbalists -- is but a compilation of the 13th century, presumably by Moses de Leon.

The principal doctrines of the Qabbalah deal with the nature of the divine incomprehensible All ('eyn soph); the divine emanations of the Sephiroth; cosmogony; the creation or emanation of angels and men, and of their destiny. The Jewish Qabbalah was derived from the Chaldean Qabbalah, and "mistaken is he who accepts the Kabalistic works of to-day, and the interpretations of the Zohar by the Rabbis, for the genuine Kabalistic lore of old! For no more to-day than in the day of Frederick von Schelling does the Kabala accessible to Europe and America, contain much more than 'ruins and fragments, much distorted remnants still of that primitive system which is the key to all religious systems' . . . The oldest system and the Chaldean Kabala were identical. The latest renderings of the Zohar are those of the Synagogue in the early centuries" (SD 2:461-2).

Blavatsky refers to a work no longer extant, the Chaldean Book of Numbers, as the basis for the Qabbalah. Tentative mention is also made of an alleged manuscript left by Count Saint-Germain giving keys for interpreting the Qabbalah.

"The kabalist is a student of 'secret science,' one who interprets the hidden meaning of the Scriptures with the help of the symbolical Kabalah, and explains the real one by these means. The Tanaim were the first kabalists among the Jews; they appeared at Jerusalem about the beginning of the third century before the Christian era. The books of Ezekiel, Daniel, Henoch, and the Revelation of St. John, are purely kabalistical. This secret doctrine is identical with that of the Chaldeans, and includes at the same time much of the Persian wisdom, or 'magic.' History catches glimpses of famous kabalists ever since the eleventh century. The Mediaeval ages, and even our own times, have had an enormous number of the most learned and intellectual men who were students of the Kabala . . . The most famous among the former were Paracelsus, Henry Khunrath, Jacob Bohmen, Robert Fludd, the two Van Helmonts, the Abbot John Trithemius, Cornelius Agrippa, Cardinal Nicolao Cusani, Jerome Carden, Pope Sixtus IV., and such Christian scholars as Raymond Lully, Giovanni Pico de la Mirandola, Guillaume Postel, the great John Reuchlin, Dr. Henry More, Eugenius Philalethes (Thomas Vaughan), the erudite Jesuit Athanasius Kircher, Christian Knorr (Baron) von Rosenroth; then Sir Isaac Newton, Leibniz, Lord Bacon, Spinosa, etc., etc., the list being almost inexhaustible. As remarked by Mr. Isaac Myer, in his Qabbalah [p. 170], the ideas of the Kabalists have largely influenced European literature. 'Upon the practical Qabbalah, the Abbe de Villars (nephew of de Montfaucon) in 1670, published his celebrated satirical novel, "The Count de Gabalis," upon which Pope based his "Rape of the Lock." Qabbalism ran through the Mediaeval poems, the "Romance of the Rose," and permeates the writings of Dante.' No two of them, however, agreed upon the origin of the Kabala, the Zohar, Sepher Yetzirah, etc. Some show it as coming from the Biblical Patriarchs, Abraham, and even Seth; others from Egypt, others again from Chaldea. The system is certainly very old; but like all the rest of systems, whether religious or philosophical, the Kabala is derived directly from the primeval Secret Doctrine of the East; through the Vedas, the Upanishads, Orpheus and Thales, Pythagoras and the Egyptians. Whatever its source, its substratum is at any rate identical with that of all the other systems from the Book of the Dead down to the later Gnostics" (TG 167-8).

The Jewish Qabbalah even in its present partial or mutilated form is a more or less faithful echo of that once universal archaic wisdom-religion of mankind, which as the Qabbalah itself plainly states was originally delivered by " 'Divinity' to a select company of angels in Paradise," and from these angels -- occult initiates or adepts -- disseminated as the ages passed more or less faithfully among the different races of mankind.

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

Ancient Egyptian Funerary Texts - Late New Kingdom. Books of the Sky Book of Nut Book of the Day Book of the Night Book of the Heavenly Cow ...

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Ancient Egyptian Funerary Texts, Ancient Egyptian Funerary Texts - Old Kingdom, Ancient Egyptian Funerary Texts - Middle Kingdom, Ancient Egyptian Funerary Texts - New Kingdom, Ancient Egyptian Funerary Texts - Late New Kingdom, Ancient Egyptian Funerary Texts - Late Period, Ancient Egyptian Funerary Texts - Ptolemaic, Ancient Egyptian Funerary Texts - External References

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The Ka (k3) was the concept of life force, the difference between a living and a dead person, death occurring when the ka left the body. The Ka was thought to be created by Chnum on a potter's wheel, or passed on to children via their father's semen. The Egyptians also believed that the ka was sustained through food and drink. For this reason food and drink offerings were presented to the dead, though it was the kau (k3w) within the offerings (also known as kau) that was consumed, not t ...

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Egyptian soul, Egyptian soul - Ren name, Egyptian soul - Sheut shadow, Egyptian soul - Ka corporal presence/life force, Egyptian soul - Ba soul/personality, Egyptian soul - Akh

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Please remove this notice after the article has been expanded. Details are on this talk page or at Wikipedia:Requests for expansion. In religious texts such as the Bible [1], the heart has historically been ascribed much mystical significance, either as metaphor or as an organ genuinely believed to have spiritual or divine attributes. In the Bible, this idea emerges in the earliest passages; Genesis 6:5 situates the thoughts of evil men in their hearts, and Exodus 5 through 12 speak repeatedly of the Lord ...

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Heart symbol, Heart symbol - In mythology spirituality and religion, Heart symbol - In early science and philosophy, Heart symbol - As a graphic icon

Read more here: » Heart symbol: Encyclopedia II - Heart symbol - In mythology spirituality and religion

Please remove this notice after the article has been expanded. Details are on this talk page or at Wikipedia:Requests for expansion. In religious texts such as the Bible [1], the heart has historically been ascribed much mystical significance, either as metaphor or as an organ genuinely believed to have spiritual or divine attributes. In the Bible, this idea emerges in the earliest passages; Genesis 6:5 situates the thoughts of evil men in their hearts, and Exodus 5 through 12 speak repeatedly of the Lord "harden ...

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Heart symbol, Heart symbol - In mythology spirituality and religion, Heart symbol - In early science and philosophy, Heart symbol - As a graphic icon, Heart symbol - I ♥

Read more here: » Heart symbol: Encyclopedia II - Heart symbol - In mythology spirituality and religion

Some Latter Day Saint apologists assert that Kolob derives from a Semitic root. On the origin of the word, Michael D. Rhodes states: The word most likely derives from the common Semitic root QLB, which has the basic meaning of “heart, center, middle” (Arabic qalb “heart, center”; Hebrew qereb “middle, midst”, qarab “to draw near”; Egyptian m-q3b “in the midst of”). In fact, qalb forms part of the Arabic names of several of the brightest stars i ...

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Kolob, Kolob - Description of Kolob in the Book of Abraham, Kolob - Modern Mormon interpretations of Kolob, Kolob - Literal reading, Kolob - Symbolic reading, Kolob - Theories on the origin of the word Kolob, Kolob - Representationalism, Kolob - Kolob in Pop Culture

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Wilkinson's, Reading Egyptian Art, profiles about ( 1/10th ), one tenth of the Gardiner List. The following (in 2 - 6 Eqyptian art-objects/ per page), are profiled: Gardiner's Sign List - Sets A–D. Selections (only): Men, Women, Antrhopomorphic: A1(se), A22(khenty), A28(hai), A30(dua), A40(netcher)(See Block statue (Egyptian)), C10(maat)(Maàt) (plus H6(shut)), C11(Heh)( with/M4) (See Huh (god)). Major ( + Wiki): D1(tep)(See also Canopic jar), D10(wedjat)- ...

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Gardiner's Sign List, Gardiner's Sign List - Categories in the sign list, Gardiner's Sign List - Examples, Gardiner's Sign List - The alphabet, Gardiner's Sign List - Egyptian art–philosophy profiled by the list, Gardiner's Sign List - Sets A–D, Gardiner's Sign List - Sets E–F, Gardiner's Sign List - Sets G–L, Gardiner's Sign List - Sets M–S, Gardiner's Sign List - Sets V–Unclassified

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The human history of the Dead Sea goes all the way back to remote antiquity. Just north of the Dead Sea is Jericho, the oldest continually occupied town in the world. Somewhere, perhaps on the Dead Sea's southeast shore, are the cities mentioned in the Book of Genesis which were destroyed in the times of Abraham: Sodom and Gomorra and the three other "Cities of the Plain". King David hid from Saul at Ein Gedi nearby. The Greeks knew the Dead Sea as "Lake Asphaltites", due to the naturally surfacing asphalt. Aristotle wrote abou ...

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Dead Sea, Dead Sea - Natural history, Dead Sea - Chemistry and health effects, Dead Sea - Flora and fauna, Dead Sea - Human history, Dead Sea - Saving the Dead Sea, Dead Sea - Other extremely deep points on the earth's surface

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Originally, in the Ogdoad system, he was god of the underworld, and his name is frequently thought to have reflected this, meaning something like putrefaction. He was said to have a wife, Anput, who was really just his female aspect, her name being his with an additional feminine suffix (the t), who was depicted exactly the same (though feminine). His father was originally said to be Ra, as he was the creator god, and thus his mother was said to be Hesat, Ra's wife, who later was identified as Hathor (who her identity wa ...

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Anubis, Anubis - Lord of the dead, Anubis - Embalmer, Anubis - Anubis in modern culture

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Originally, in the Ogdoad system, he was god of the underworld, and his name is frequently thought to have reflected this, meaning something like putrefaction. He was said to have a wife, Anput (who was really just his female aspect, her name being his with an additional feminine suffix: the t), who was depicted exactly the same, though feminine. His father was originally said to be Ra, as he was the creator god, and thus his mother was said to be Hesat, Ra's wife, who later was identified as Hathor (who her identity was ...

See also:

Anubis, Anubis - Lord of the dead, Anubis - Embalmer, Anubis - Anubis in modern culture

Read more here: » Anubis: Encyclopedia II - Anubis - Lord of the dead