Aahla (Egypt, Egyptian). One of the divisions of the Kerneter or infernal regions, or Amenti ; the word means the "Field of Peace".

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

Taoer (Egypt, Egyptian). The female Typhon, the hippopotamus, called also Ta-ur, Ta-op-oer, etc. ; she is the Thoueris of the Greeks. This wife of Typhon was represented as a monstrous hippopotamus, sitting on her hind legs with a knife in one hand and the sacred knot in the other the pasa of Siva). Her back was covered with the scales of a crocodile, and she had a crocodile’s tail. She is also called Teb, whence the name of Typhon is also, sometimes, Tebh. On a monument of the sixth dynasty she is called "the nurse of the gods". She was feared in Egypt even more than Typhon. (See " Typhon".)

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

Neter, Neteru (Egyptian) Egyptian "gods" or powers. "Elohim" of the Egyptians. {SD 1:675; BCW 14:218}

(See also: Neter, Neteru , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

GOD

Anything from a psychic projection to a full macrocosmic individual. Einstein, shunning Judeo-Xtian pleadings, defined God as the ultimate natural order. Deus est homo. Man is God. Indeed all beings are Gods or immortal entities. The Gods, as such, however, inhabit various levels of substantiality and, as superior entities, exist independently in their own right. And this is not just because strong personalities (as well as human society in general) create and batten projections and archetypes, but because semi-being actually wills itself to be born into that state between Matter and the Void. the Gods are being itself, rather than any particular substance. That is, they are pure substance or the conscious potentiality behind substance. Every mortal, Theosophy has pointed out, has his divine counterpart, his celestial doppelganger or heavenly prototype. It is this personal archetype that we call The Father (or Guardian Angel). Theophany is the rare union (in adepts) of the heavenly counterpart with its earth shadow-self. The divine archetypes are not confined to ordinary human beings, moreover, but ascend to ever more infinite celestial monads themselves. When we speak of The Gods or the God beyond the Gods, such as Allfather Odin or Zeus, Father of the Gods we refer to just these higher monads.

It is difficult to remember that all seemingly separate things -- all individuals -- created themselves out of the Original Void and go on forever creating themselves. Thus, spirit manifests itself through matter; we never cease to embody and demonstrate divinity -- sometimes wisely, more often not. It is the gravest error to reproduce and propagate life indiscriminately. Such attempts to reincarnate oneself on the merely material plane, to maintain the same identity perptually through the generation of progeny -- this form of lust vitiates the Spirit and greedily confines matter disproportionately to a single, inferior and separationist aim. That in turn results in premature entropy and the abortion of Cosmic Purpose.

We should distinguish between various divine synonyms. Daimon, for instance, did not, amongst the Greeks, have our sense of demon, but was rather a spirit or higher self. Socrates spoke often of his daimon who conversed with him. The Sanskrit deva, although translated god, amongst the Hindus means any God, but in the Zend Avesta it is always a malevolent spirit. In Buddhism deva refers to almost anything from a legendary hero to a hobgoblin, but pure Buddhism attaches no importance to Gods of any kind. It considers them to be illusions, like everything else.

Whether reflective of reality or not, it is easy enough to plot an origin for God in the singular, but whence the proliferation of multi-deities? In Egypt they were seen simply as the natures of things (neteru). Iamblichus asks of the Egyptians, however, what the cause of the distinction between them is and whether it is from their energies, or their passive motions, or from things that are consequent, or from their different arrangement with respect to bodies. By the latter, he goes on to say that he means, for example, that Gods inhabit the ethereal, that demons inhabit the air and that souls inhabit terrestrial bodies.

Of course, it is differentiation that being comes to be in the first place. Before differentiation there is nothing but tohu-bohu -- indeed between the Void and confusion (or chaos), there is little difference. With the utterance of the command Be! the zero is annihilated.

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

Pschent (Egypt, Egyptian). A symbol in the form of a double crown, meaning the presence of Deity in death as in life, on earth as in heaven. This Pschent is only worn by certain gods.

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

Magi (Latin). The name of the ancient hereditary priests and learned adepts in Persia and Media, a word derived from Maha great, which became later mog or mag, a priest in Pehlevi. Porphyry describes them (Abst. iv. 16) as "The learned men who are engaged among the Persians in the service of the Deity are called Magi", and Suidas informs us that "among the Persians the lovers of wisdom (philalethai) are called Magi"

The Zendavesta (ii. 171, 261) divides them into three degrees:

(1) The Herbeds or " Noviciates" ;

(2) Mobeds or " Masters" ;

(3) Destur Mobeds, or Perfect Masters". The Chaldees had similar colleges, as also the Egyptians, Destur Mobeds being identical with the Hierophants of the mysteries, as practised in Greece and Egypt.

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

Frog One of the oldest symbols in Egypt, for although associated particularly with the frog goddess Heqet, the four primeval gods of Egypt -- Heh, Kek, Nau, and Amen -- were each depicted with a frog's head, the reference here being to the cosmic waters of space, out of which all things arose in the beginnings. Frog gods and goddesses were associated with the beginning or formation of the world, the symbol of the frog itself being that of resurrection and hence of renewed birth.

"There must have been some very profound and sacred meaning attached to this symbol, since, notwithstanding the risk of being charged with a disgusting form of zoolatry, the early Egyptian Christians adopted it in their Churches. A frog or toad enshrined in a lotus flower, or simply without the latter emblem, was the form chosen for the Church lamps, on which were engraved the words 'I am the resurrection" . . . These frog goddesses are also found on all the mummies" (SD 1:386).

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

Noo (Egypt, Egyptian). Primordial waters of space called "Father-Mother"; the "face of the deep" of the Bible; for above Noo hovers the Breath of Kneph, who is represented with the Mundane Egg in his mouth.

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

Scarabeus, In Egypt, the symbol of resurrection, and also of rebirth; of resurrection for the mummy or rather of the highest aspects of the personality which animated it, and of rebirth for the Ego, the "spiritual body" of the lower, human Soul.

Egyptologists give us but half of the truth, when in speculating upon the meaning of certain inscriptions, they say, "the justified soul, once arrived at a certain period of its peregrinations (simply at the death of the physical body) should be united to its body (i.e., the Ego) never more to be separated from it ". (Rougé.) What is this so-called body? Can it be the mummy? Certainly not, for the emptied mummified corpse can never resurrect. It can only be the eternal, spiritual vestment, the EGO that never dies but gives immortality to whatsoever becomes united with it.

"The delivered Intelligence (which) retakes its luminous envelope and (re)becomes Da?mon ", as Prof. Maspero says, is the spiritual Ego; the personal Ego or Kama Manas, its direct ray, or the lower soul, is that which aspires to become Osirified, i.e., to unite itself with its "god "; and that portion of it which will succeed in so doing, will never more be separated from it (the god), not even when the latter incarnates again and again, descending periodically on earth in its pilgrimage, in search of further experiences and following the decrees of Karma. Khem, "the sower of seed ", is shown on a stele in a picture of Resurrection after physical death, as the creator and the sower of the grain of corn, which, after corruption, springs up afresh each time into a new ear, on which a scarab beetle is seen poised; and Deveria shows very justly that "Ptah is the inert, material form of Osiris, who will become Sokari (the eternal Ego) to be reborn, and afterwards be Harmachus ", or Horus in his transformation, the risen god.

The prayer so often found in the tumular inscriptions, "the wish for the resurrection in one’s living soul" or the Higher Ego, has ever a scarabeus at the end, standing for the personal soul. The scarabeus is the most honoured, as the most frequent and familiar, of all Egyptian symbols. No mummy is without several of them; the favourite ornament on engravings, house hold furniture and utensils is this sacred beetle, and Pierret pertinently shows in his Livre des Morts that the secret meaning of this hieroglyph is sufficiently explained in that the Egyptian name for the scarabeus Kheper signifies to be, to become, to build again.

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

Hathor (Greek) Het-Hert (Egyptian) (from het-hert the house above)

One of the oldest known Egyptian deities. Het-Hert refers to the sky or heaven, known by the Greeks as Hathor. Originally, Hathor was a cosmic goddess, consort of Ra, mother of light -- the production of which was considered the opening act in cosmogony, producer of the twin deities Shu and Tefnut (the sky and the moisture of the sky). Later she was regarded as the great Mother, bringing forth all the gods and goddesses -- Mother Nature personified. She has been associated with all the goddesses of Egypt, partaking of all their attributes; but her principal title was Lady of Amentet (the Holy Land or underworld).

The Greeks identified Hathor with Aphrodite, for she was the patron deity of beauty and joy in life, of artists and their creative work as was the celestial and earthly Venus. Her chief position, however, was goddess of the Underworld, providing the deceased with food and drink.

Astronomically she was associated with the star Sept (Sothis or Sirius), which rose heliacally on the first day of the Egyptian New Year. When the sun god Ra entered his boat, Hathor went with him and took up her position as a crown upon his forehead.

Hathor was closely connected with Neith (at Sais), and in Ptolemaic times with Nekhebet, Uatchet, and Bast.

"Hathor is the infernal Isis, the goddess pre-eminently of the West or the nether world" (SD 1:400). Yet this was but the lower aspect of Hathor, Neith, and Isis. Neith, or the celestial Hathor, was one of the most spiritual, recondite, and abstract of all the deities of the Egyptian pantheon, in this sense the celestial womb of light, out of which came in hierarchical procession the world or the cosmos and all in and of it.

See also NEITH

(See also: Hatha Yoga , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Batria (Egypt, Egyptian). According to tradition, the wife of the Pharaoh and the teacher of Moses.

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

Ark of Isis In ancient Egypt deities were frequently associated with a boat in the temple ceremonies. "At the great Egyptian annual ceremony, which took place in the month of Athyr, the boat of Isis was borne in procession by the priests . . . This was in commemoration of the weeping of Isis for the loss of Osiris . . ." (TG 30).

See also ARK

(See also: Ark of Isis , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Bubasté (Egypt, Egyptian) A city in Egypt which was sacred to the cats, and where was their principal shrine. Many hundreds of thousands of cats were embalmed and buried in the grottoes of Beni-Hassan-el Amar. The cat being a symbol of the moon was sacred to Isis, her goddess. It sees in the dark and its eyes have a phosphorescent lustre which frightens the night-birds of evil omen. The cat was also sacred to Bast, and thence called "the (destroyer of the Sun’s (Osiris’) enemies".

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

Taht Esmun (Egypt, Egyptian). The Egyptian Adam; the first human ancestor.

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

Benoo (Egypt, Egyptian). A word applied to two symbols, both taken to mean "Phœnix". One was the Shen-shen (the heron), and the other a nondescript bird, called the Rech (the red one), and both were sacred to Osiris. It was the latter that was the regular Phœnix of the great Mysteries, the typical symbol of self-creation and resurrection through death - a type of the Solar Osiris and of the divine Ego in man.

Yet both the Heron and the Rech were symbols of cycles; the former, of the Solar year of 365 days; the latter of the tropical year or a period covering almost 26,000 years. In both cases the cycles were the types of the return of light from darkness, the yearly and great cyclic return of the sun-god to his birth-place, or - his Resurrection.

The Rech-Benoo is described by Macrobius as living 660 years and then dying; while others stretched its life as long as 1,460 years. Pliny, the Naturalist, describes the Rech as a large bird with gold and purple wings, and a long blue tail.

As every reader is aware, the Phœnix on feeling its end approaching, according to tradition, builds for itself a funeral pile on the top of the sacrificial altar, and then proceeds to consume himself thereon as a burnt-offering. Then a worm appears in the ashes, which grows and developes rapidly into a new Phœnix, resurrected from the ashes of its predecessor.

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

Aanroo, Aanre (Egyptian) More fully, Sekhet-Aanre (the fields of the reeds); more often called Aarru or Sekhet-Aarru; also Aanru, Aaru. The first region of the Afterworlds (Amenti) reached by the deceased in the afterdeath state, which he enters as a khu. "The second division of Amenti. The celestial field of Aanroo is encircled by an iron wall. The field is covered with wheat, and the 'Defunct' are represented gleaning it, for the 'Master of Eternity'; some stalks being three, others five, and the highest seven cubits high. Those who reached the last two numbers entered the state of bliss (which is called in Theosophy Devachan); the disembodied spirits whose harvest was but three cubits high went into lower regions (Kamaloka). Wheat was with the Egyptians the symbol of the Law of Retribution or Karma. The cubits had reference to the seven, five and three human 'principles' " (TG 1).

Beyond Aanroo, in Amenti, are seven halls with guardians, associated with kama-loka by Blavatsky: "Those only of the dead, who know the names of the janitors of the 'seven halls,' will be admitted into Amenti for ever; i.e., those who have passed through the seven races of each round -- otherwise they will rest in the lower fields; and it represents also the seven successive Devachans, or lokas" (SD 1:674n).

See also AMENTI; TUAT

(See also: Aanroo, Aanre , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Cynocephalus (from Latin canus dog + cephalus head)

The dog-headed ape (Simia hamadryas) which in Egyptian mythology was called Amemet (eater of the dead) whose master was Thoth or Tehuti. In the Judgment scene in The Egyptian Book of the Dead, Amemet is represented as seated by Thoth, ready to inform his master when the pointer marks the middle of the beam on the balance, when the heart is being weighed in the scales. After Thoth makes his announcement to the gods concerning the result of the weighing of the heart, the company of the gods decree that Amemet shall not be permitted to prevail over the successful candidate.

"There was a notable difference between the ape-headed gods and the 'Cynocephalus' . . . , a dog-headed baboon from upper Egypt. The latter, whose sacred city was Hermopolis, was sacred to the lunar deities and Thoth-Hermes, hence an emblem of secret wisdom -- as was Hanuman, the monkey god of India, and later, the elephant-headed Ganesha. The mission of the Cynocephalus was to show the way for the Dead to the Seat of Judgment and Osiris, whereas the ape-gods were all phallic" (TG 92).

"The dog-headed ape was a glyph to symbolise the sun and moon, in turn, though the Cynocephalus is more a Hermetic than a religious symbol. For it is the hieroglyph of Mercury, the planet, as of the Mercury of the Alchemical philosophers, 'as,' say the Alchemists, 'Mercury has to be ever near Isis, as her minister, as without Mercury neither Isis nor Osiris can accomplish anything in the great work.' Cynocephalus, whenever represented with the Caduceus, the Crescent, or the Lotus, is a glyph of the 'philosophical' Mercury; but when seen with a reed, or a roll of parchment, he stands for Hermes, the secretary and adviser of Isis, as Hanuman filled the same office with Rama" (SD 1:388).

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

Ra (Egyptian) In the dynastic period, the deity of the sun, regarded as the maker of all visible things, of heaven and all its gods, and of the Underworld (Tuat) and its denizens. More generally, Ra was the cosmic formative activity of the universal soul or Logos, and therefore in one sense of the anima mundi in its highest parts. Hence another facet of its meaning is the everlasting light which dwells forever in the cosmic darkness which is -- itself.

The worship of the sun was of very ancient origin in Egypt. Like Horus, Ra was depicted in a hawk-headed form known as Amen-Ra (Heru-khuti). The principal seat of the worship of Ra was at An or Heliopolis. The original deity of this city was Tem, but when the priests of Ra became more powerful during the 5th dynasty, they combined the two deities into one as Ra-Tem.

In later dynastic times, although the priests of Ra were the most powerful in Egypt, the common people clung to their ideas of Osiris so tenaciously that eventually the priests placed Osiris as the deity of the sun -- and this movement may have been initiated from within the sacerdotal sanctuary itself, because the attributes of Osiris and of Ra were alike, Osiris being a more limited entity than the abstract Ra of cosmic space.

(See also: Ra , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Konx-om-pax (Greek) Mystic words used in the Eleusinian Mysteries, said to be an imitation of Egyptian words used in the mystical Isiac rites, whose meaning is still unknown. Possibly an ancient Atlantean phrase brought over into Egypt from the Atlantic island which Plato calls Atlantis, when Atlantean emigrants left their island for the purpose of colonizing the Egyptian delta and brought their mysteries with them.

(See also: Konx-om-pax , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Hiram Abif, Huram Abif Huram 'abiu or 'abiv (Hebrew) (from hawar to become white or pale; or from harah to burn (as with ardor), be noble or free-born; or haram to devote, consecrate as to religion or destruction, be killed or destroyed)

The last derivation is descriptive of the character and fate (according to Masonic tradition) of Hiram Abif; while the second derivation befits the character of Hiram King of Tyre. Hiram Abif is described as a widow's son of the tribe of Naphtali (1 Kings 7:14), and a skillful, knowledgeable man, a worker in gold, silver, brass, and iron, as was his father (2 Chron 2:12). Hiram Abif was sent by Hiram King of Tyre to King Solomon to aid in the building of his Temple.

In Freemasonry Hiram Abif is the central figure in the drama of the Third or Master Mason's degree, and one of the Three Ancient Grand Masters of the Craft (the other two being King Solomon and Hiram King of Tyre). Before the completion of the building of the Temple he was slain by three ruffians because he refused to communicate to them the Master Mason's Word, which on account of his death was said to be lost, for it can be communicated only when all the Three Ancient Grand Masters are present. Hiram Abif was hastily buried in a shallow grave marked by a sprig of acacia or myrtle, which led to its discovery and the subsequent raising of Hiram Abif by the power of a Substitute Word which, it was decreed, should be used until the Lost Word be again found.

The Masonic initiation was modeled on that of the Lesser Mysteries of Egypt, also used in India from time immemorial with Loka-chaksu (eye of the world) and Dinkara (day-maker or the sun).

"In Egypt the third degree was called Porte de la Mort (the gate of death) . . . in the modern rite, one finds the reproduction of this Egyptian myth, except that in place of Osiris, inventor of the arts, or the Sun, one finds the name of Hiram, which signifies raised -- eleve, (the epithet which belongs to the Sun) and who is skillful in the arts" (Ragon, Orthodoxie Ma�onnique 101-2). The slaying of Hiram signifies the annual slaying of the sun by the last three months of the year, the sun being reborn or raised at the winter solstice, one of the four great initiation periods celebrated in antiquity.

Hiram Abif is a type-figure of all the saviors of humanity who sacrificed themselves for the salvation of mankind, a direct human representative of its prototype among the divinities, such as Odin and Visvakarman, the builder and artificer of the gods. Hiram Abif is also the type-figure of the individual's inner god, crucified upon the cross of material existence.

The legend and drama of the Master Mason's degree constitutes an indisputable link between Freemasonry and the ancient Mysteries, and few have fathomed the esoteric significance of this degree and of the legend of Hiram Abif: 1) the relation of the upper triad to the lower quaternary of the sevenfold human nature; 2) the incarnation or sacrifice of the manasaputras; 3) the symbolism of Solomon's Temple; 4) the instruments with which the death of Hiram Abif was accomplished; and 5) the reference to Hiram as a potter (2 Chron 4:16), which connects him with Kneph in the Egyptian Mysteries as creator of the mundane egg. A variant of the Hiramic legend is given in the parable of the householder and the vineyard, whose servants and finally son whom he sent to receive the fruits of the harvest were slain (Matt 21:33).

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

Ma, Mut (Egypt, Egyptian). The goddess of the lower world, another form of Isis, as she is nature, the eternal mother. She was the sovereign and Ruler of the North wind, the precursor of the overflow of the Nile, and thus called "the opener of the nostrils of the living". She is represented offering the ankh, or cross, emblem of physical life to her worshippers, and is called the "Lady of Heaven".

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

Maat (Egyptian) The goddess personifying physical and moral law, order, and truth, regarded as the feminine counterpart of Thoth (Tehuti).

 She is represented as standing with Thoth in the boat of Ra when the sun god first rose above the waters of the primeval spatial abyss of Nu. She is called the daughter of Ra, the eye of Ra, lady of heaven, queen of the earth, and mistress of the Underworld, who guides the course of the sun.

The type and symbol of the goddess is the ostrich feather; the word maat is represented by the hieroglyph of the feather and means primarily that which is orderly and direct, hence in a moral sense, right, truth, justice, including a reference to the fact that these supreme attributes weigh light as a feather in the scales of judgment, and yet are as weighty in importance as the universe itself. Maat was regarded by the Egyptians, in connection with her moral power, as the greatest of goddesses, for she was the chief lady of the Judgment Hall, into which the deceased must enter (called the Hall of Maati, "double truth").

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