ANKH (Crux Ansata)

The hieroglyph of a sandalstrap or knot, indicating "life". When the knot is fully undone, life is done. Ankh is the "knot" linking the Uas (a forked stick) and the Djed (Osiris's spinal column). The uas is the first manifestation of life (fire), as it arises naturally out of the void. The Egyptians made a practice of elaborately ornamenting and gilding this stick to show the inevitable corruption of life. Thus it is transformed from a natural branch into a "wand" or sceptre. To emphasize even more completely the fall of spirit the top was carved to resemble an ass's head. The ankh follows the uas and represents the continuity of life - the sandal used in walking. Finally, at death, comes the dismemberment of the God. Being divine, however, even the dismembered bones of Osiris are immortal. Hence the djed is the support , or pillar of eternity. When these three are contained within the Nebet or "basket", the four all together become the four elements. The nebet is "earth," which contains and gives form to the elemental potentialities of uas, ankh and djed. When held by Ptah, the four together become the tools with which he creates the world.

(See also: ANKH, Crux Ansata , Magick, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul,)

Mano (Gnost.). The Lord of Light. Rex Lucis, in the Codex Nazareus. He is the Second "Life" of the second or manifested trinity "the heavenly life and light, and older than the architect of heaven and earth" (Cod. Naz., Vol. I. p. 145). These trinities are as follows. The Supreme Lord of splendour and of light, luminous and refulgent, before which no other existed, is called Corona (the crown); Lord Ferho, the unrevealed life which existed in the former from eternity; and Lord Jordan - the spirit, the living water of grace (Ibid. II pp. 45-51). He is the one through whom alone we can be saved. These three constitute the trinity in abscondito.

The second trinity is composed of the three lives. The first is the similitude of Lord Ferho, through whom he has proceeded forth; and the second Ferho is the King of Light - MANO. The second life is Ish Amon (Pleroma), the vase of election, containing the visible thought of the Jordanus Maximus - the type (or its intelligible reflection), the prototype of the living water, who is the "spiritual Jordan". (Ibid. II., p. 211.) The third life, which is produced by the other two, is ABATUR (Ab, the Parent or Father). This is the mysterious and decrepit "Aged of the Aged", the Ancient "Senem sui obtegentem et grandevum mundi." This latter third Life is the Father of the Demiurge Fetahil, the Creator of the world, whom the Ophites call llda-Baoth (q.v.), though Fetahil is the only-begotten one, the reflection of the Father, Abatur, who begets him by looking into the "dark water".

Sophia Achamoth also begets her Son Ilda-Baoth the Demiurge, by looking into the chaos of matter. But the Lord Mano, "the Lord of loftiness, the Lord of all genii", is higher than the Father, in this kabalistic Codex - one is purely spiritual, the other material. So, for instance, while Abatur’s "only-begotten" one is the genius Fetahil, the Creator of the physical world, Lord Mano, the "Lord of Celsitude", who is the son of Him, who is "the Father of all who preach the Gospel", produces also an "only-begotten" one, the Lord Lehdaio, "a just Lord". He is the Christos, the anointed, who pours out the "grace" of the Invisible Jordan, the Spirit of the Highest Crown. (See for further information Isis Unveiled. Vol. II., pp. 227, et. seq.)

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

Orphic Mysteries or Orphica (Ancient Greek). These followed, but differed greatly from, the mysteries of Bacchus.

The system of Orpheus is one of the purest morality and of severe asceticism. The theology taught by him is again purely Indian. With him the divine Essence is inseparable from whatever is in the infinite universe, all forms being concealed from all eternity in It. At determined periods these forms are manifested from the divine Essence or manifest themselves.

Thus through this law of emanation (or evolution) all things participate in this Essence, and are parts and members instinct with divine nature, which is omnipresent. All things having proceeded from, must necessarily return into it; and therefore, innumerable transmigrations or reincarnations and purifications are needed before this final consummation can take place. This is pure Vedanta philosophy. Again, the Orphic Brotherhood ate no animal food and wore white linen garments, and had many ceremonies like those of the Brahmans.

(See also: Orphic Mysteries, Orphica , Theosophy, Spirituality, Body mind and Soul, Spiritual Dictionary,)

Jains, Jainas (from jina victorious)

Followers of the jinas; one of the major Indian religions. Scholars place their origin in the 5th century BC, believing them to be the last direct representatives of the philosophical schools which then flourished.

Jainism, however, became overshadowed with the rise of Buddhism, which it closely resembles; but came to the front when the Buddhist fervor waned in India. The first recorded Jain teacher is Vaddhamana (known as Mahavira, "the great hero"), a contemporary of Gautama Buddha; the Jains themselves state that there was a succession of teachers antedating him, and enumerate 24 Jinas or Tirthankaras.

Jains deny the authority of the Vedas and do not believe in any personal supreme god. They have a complex religious philosophy which includes belief in the eternity of matter, the periodicity of the universe, and the immortality of human's and animal's minds. They are particularly known for avoiding harming any living thing.

(See also: Jains, Jainas , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Seal of the Theosophical Society

Composed of a serpent in the form of a circle (Ananta-sesha) biting its tail -- standing for eternity and boundless wisdom.

Its scales signify the illimitable diversity of wisdom or truth, and likewise the innumerable smaller cycles within boundless duration. The circumscribed swastika at the meeting point of the head and tail is a practically universal ancient emblem portraying evolution, the endless movement of spirit in and through matter.

Within the large circle formed by the serpent are two interlaced triangles (called in India the seal of Vishnu, in the West the seal of Solomon). The white triangle pointing upwards denotes the spiritual fire of consciousness, concealed wisdom, or spirit. The downward-pointing black triangle, sometimes colored blue or red, refers to the manifested worlds of matter, or to wisdom revealed in the worlds of manifestation. The two triangles interlaced form a six-pointed star, which means the manifested Logos, or the third cosmic emanation of the ineffable One. Again, the six-pointed star refers to the six general forces or powers of nature, the six principles, the six planes -- which are represented as being all synthesized by their origin, the seventh, when a point or dot is placed within the star, for this point is what Pythagoras called the Monas monadum (the monad of monads).

"The double triangle -- the Satkiri Chakram of Vishnu -- or the six-pointed star, is the perfect seven. In all the old Sanskrit works -- Vedic and Tantrik -- you find the number 6 mentioned more often than the 7 -- this last figure, the central point being implied, for it is the germ of the six and their matrix. It is then thus . . . {drawing]

-- the central point standing for seventh, and the circle, the Mahakasha -- endless space -- for the seventh Universal Principle. In one sense, both are viewed as Avalokitesvara, for they are respectively the Macrocosm and the microcosm. The interlaced triangles -- the upper pointing one -- is Wisdom concealed, and the downward pointing one -- Wisdom revealed (in the phenomenal world). The circle indicates the bounding, circumscribing quality of the All, the Universal Principle which, from any given point expands so as to embrace all things, while embodying the potentiality of every action in the Cosmos. As the point then is the centre round which the circle is traced -- they are identical and one, and though from the standpoint of Maya and Avidya -- (illusion and ignorance) -- one is separated from the other by the manifested triangle, the 3 sides of which represent the three gunas -- finite attributes. In symbology the central point is Jivatma (the 7th principle), and hence Avalokitesvara, the Kwan-Shai-yin, the manifested 'Voice' (or Logos), the germ point of manifested activity; -- hence -- in the phraseology of the Christian Kabalists 'the Son of the Father and Mother,' and agreeably to ours -- 'the Self manifested in Self' -- Yih-sin, the 'one form of existence,' the child of Dharmakaya (the universally diffused Essence), both male and female. Parabrahm or 'Adi-Buddha' while acting through that germ point outwardly as an active force, reacts from the circumference inwardly as the Supreme but latent Potency. The double triangles symbolize the Great Passive and the Great Active; the male and female; Purusha and Prakriti. Each triangle is a Trinity because presenting a triple aspect. The white represents in its straight lines: Gnanam -- (Knowledge); Gnata -- (the Knower); and Gnayam -- (that which is known). The black -- form, colour, and substance, also the creative, preservative, and destructive forces and are mutually correlating . . ." (ML 345-6).

Within the star is placed the crux ansata, the handled cross or tau, one aspect of which is the particularized functions or activity of spirit in matter so far as our own world is concerned, and more especially insofar as intelligence is working upon cosmic matter. It is a symbol often associated with the adept or initiate as typifying his union with spiritual intelligence rather than with the powers and potencies of unspiritualized life in the material world.

When Blavatsky and Colonel Olcott went to India in 1879, the Sanskrit word Aum was placed above the seal, while below it was added the phrase: Satyan nasti paro dharmah (there is no religion [law]

higher than truth [reality]) which was adopted as the motto of the Theosophical Society.

In some respects the seal of the Theosophical Society is similar to the personal seal of Blavatsky: however, in place of the tau within the interlaced triangles, her seal had the initials E B (E standing for Elena, pronounced Yelena in Russian, and B for Blavatsky). Inside the circle are astrological and Qabbalistic signs stated by some to refer to Blavatsky herself, while above the seal is a countess' coronet belonging to her family.

The seal of the Theosophical Society can be said to refer to a universe expanding into manifestation from its origin in cosmic spirit, emanation picturated by the comprehending serpent of space and duration. Just as the serpent periodically sheds its old skin, a universe, after a period of rest or dormancy, is again emanated, the child of its former self, for another period of cosmic manifestation.

(See also: Seal of the Theosophical Society , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Yeheedah (Hebrew, Jewish). Lit., "Individuality "; esoterically, the highest individuality or Atma-Buddhi-Manas, when united in one.

This doctrine is in the Chaldean Book of Numbers, which teaches a septenary division of human "principles", so-called, as does the Kabalah in the Zohar, according to the Book of Solomon (iii.,Io4a so as translated in I. Myer’s Qabbalah). At the time of the conception, the Holy "sends a d’yook-nah, or the phantom of a shadow image" like the face of a man. it is designed and sculptured in the divine tzelem, i.e., the shadow image of the Elohim. " Elohim created man in his (their) tzelem " or image, says Genesis (i. 27). It is the tzelem that awaits the child and receives it at the moment of its conception, and this tzelem is our linga sharira. "

The Rua’h forms with the Nephesh the actual personality of the man ", and also his individuality, or, as expressed by the Kabbalist, the combination of the two is called, if he (man) deserves it, Yeheedah. This combination is that which the Theosophist calls the dual Manas, the Higher and the Lower Ego, united to Atma-Buddhi and become one. For as explained in the Zohar (i., 205b, 206a, Brody Ed.): "Neshamah, soul (Buddhi), comprises three degrees, and therefore she has three names, like the mystery above: that is, Nephesh, Rua’h, Neshamah ", or the Lower Manas, the Higher Ego, and Buddhi, the Divine Soul. "It is also to be noted that the Neshamah has three divisions;" says Myer’s Qabbalah, "the highest is the Ye-hee-dah " - or Atma-Buddhi-Manas, the latter once more as a unit; "the middle principle is Hay-yak " - or Buddhi and the dual Manas; "and the last and third, the Neshamah, properly speaking " - or Soul in general. "They manifest themselves in Ma’hshabah, thought, Tzelem, phantom of the image, Zurath, prototypes (mayavic forms, or rupas), and the D'yooknah, shadow of the phantom image.

The D’mooth, likeness or similitude (physical body), is a lower manifestation" (p. 392). Here then, we find the faithful echo of Esoteric science in the Zohar and other Kabbalistic works, a perfect Esoteric septenary division. Every Theosophist who has studied the doctrine sketched out first in Mr. Sinnett’s Occult World and Esoteric Buddhism, and later in the Theosophist, Lucifer, and other writings, will recognise them in the Zohar. Compare for instance what is taught in Theosophical works about the pre- and post-mortem states of the three higher and the four lower human principles, with the following from the Zohar: " Because all these three are one knot like the above, in the mystery of Nephesh, Rua’h, Neshamah, they are all one, and bound in one. Nephesh (Kama-Manas) has no light from her own substance; and it is for this reason that she is associated with the mystery of guff, the body, to procure enjoyment and food and everything which it needs.

Rua’h (the Spirit) is that which rides on that Nephesh (the lower soul) and rules over her and lights (supplies) her with everything she needs [ with the light of reason], and the Nephesh is the throne [ of that Ru’ah. Neshamah (Divine Soul) goes over to that Rua’h, and she rules over that Rua’h and lights to him with that Light of Life, and that Rua’h depends on the Neshamah and receives light from her, which illuminates him. . . When the ‘upper’ Neshamah ascends (after the death of the body), she goes to . . . the Ancient of the Ancient, the Hidden of all the Hidden, to receive Eternity. The Rua’h does not

[ go to Gan Eden [ because he is [ up with] Nephesh the Rua’h goes up to Eden, but not so high as the soul, and Nephesh [ animal principle, lower soul] remains in the grave below [ Kamaloka]

(Zohar, ii., 142a, Cremona Ed., ii., fol. 63b col. 252). It would be difficult not to recognise in the above our Atma (or the "upper" Neshamah), Buddhi (Neshamah),. Manas (Rua’h), and Kama-Manas (Nephesh) or the lower animal soul; the first of which goes after the death of man to join its integral whole, the second and the third proceeding to Devachan, and the last, or the Kamarupa, "remaining in its grave", called other wise the Kamaloka or Hades.

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

Daksha (Sanskrit) A form of Brahma and his son in the Puranas But the Rig Veda states that "Daksha sprang from Aditi, and Aditi from Daksha", which proves him to be a personified correlating Creative Force acting on all the planes.

The Orientalists seem very much perplexed what to make of him; but Roth is nearer the truth than any, when saying that Daksha is the spiritual power, and at the same time the male energy that generates the gods in eternity, which is represented by Aditi.

The Puranas as a matter of course, anthropomorphize the idea, and show Daksha instituting "sexual intercourse on this earth", after trying every other means of procreation. The generative Force, spiritual at the commencement, becomes of course at the most material end of its evolution a procreative Force on the physical plane ; and so far the Puranic allegory is correct, as the Secret Science teaches that our present mode of procreation began towards the end of the third Root-Race.

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

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

"

Trinity

See also: Trinity , Christianity, Body Mind and Soul

Aanroo (Egypt, Egyptian). 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

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

AMENTI

In Theosophy, the Realm of God. "Those only who know the names of the seven janitors will be admitted into Amenti forever", i.e. those who have passed through the seven races of each round - otherwise they will rest in the lower fields. In Amenti one becomes pure spirit, for eternity; while in Aanroo the soul of the spirit or the defunct is devoured each time by Uraeus - "the Serpent, Son of the Earth". Soon the astral body 'fades out' and the soul quits the fields of Aanroo and goes on earth in any shape one likes to assume." - HPB, The Secret Doctrine.

The Egyptian who entered Amenti was led by Anubis to Osiris's court of 42 judges, whence he either passed on to Aaru or was thrown to the hippocrocodile, Ammit. In Amenti the Egyptian soul was required to till the fields and for this reason kings had buried with them in their tombs figures called Ushabti who were translated into replicas of the king who could do the work for him.

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

Mano (Gnostic) In the Codex Nazaraeus, chief scripture of the Nazarene Gnostics, the chief of the aeons, the King of Splendor, from whom shoot forth five refulgent rays of divine light. The Codex describes Mano as the supreme King of Light, the great first one: he who first emanates from Ferho, the unknown formless life, generally equivalent to the Second Logos in theosophy.

"He is the Second 'Life' of the second or manifested trinity 'the heavenly life and light, and older than the architect of heaven and earth' (Cod. Naz., Vol. I, p. 145). These trinities are as follows.

• The Supreme Lord of splendour and of light, luminous and refulgent, before which no other existed, is called Corona (the crown); Lord Ferho, the unrevealed life which existed in the former from eternity; and Lord Jordan -- the spirit, the living water of grace (Ibid. II., pp. 45-51). He is the one through whom alone we can be saved. These three constitute the trinity in abscondito.

• The second trinity is composed of the three lives. The first is the similitude of Lord Ferho, through whom he has proceeded forth; and the second Ferho is the King of Light -- Mano. The second life is Ish Amon (Pleroma), the vase of election, containing the visible thought of the Jordanus Maximus -- the type (or its intelligible reflection), the prototype of the living water, who is the 'spiritual Jordan.' (Ibid. II., p. 211)

• The third life, which is produced by the other two, is Abatur (Ab, the Parent or Father). This is the mysterious and decrepit 'Aged of the Aged,' the Ancient 'Senem sui obtegentem et grandaevum mundi.' This latter third Life is the Father of the Demiurge Fetahil, the Creator of the world, whom the Ophites call Ilda-Baoth . . . though Fetahil is the only-begotten one, the reflection of the Father, Abatur, who begets him by looking into the 'dark water.' Sophia Achamoth also begets her Son Ilda-Baoth the Demiurge, by looking into the chaos of matter. But the Lord Mano, 'the Lord of loftiness, the Lord of all genii,' is higher than the Father, in this kabalistic Codex -- one is purely spiritual, the other material. So, for instance, while Abatur's 'only-begotten' one is the genius Fetahil, the Creator of the physical world, Lord Mano, the 'Lord of Celsitude,' who is the son of Him, who is 'the Father of all who preach the Gospel,' produces also an 'only-begotten' one, the Lord Lehdaio, 'a just Lord.' He is the Christos, the anointed, who pours out the 'grace' of the Invisible Jordan, the Spirit of the Highest Crown . . ." (TG 204-5).

The trinity of Mano, Spiritus, and Lehdaio is equivalent to the Father, Mother, and Son of the Christian system. From one standpoint Mano is comparable also to the Hindu Manu (cf IU 2:229).

(See also: Mano , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Four Virtues

The four Nirvanic virtues:

(1)  Eternity or permanence;

(2)  Joy;

(3)  Personality;

(4)  Purity.

These four important virtues are affirmed by the sutra in the transcendental or nirvana-realm.

 (See also: Four Virtues , Buddhism, Body Mind and Soul)

Charaka caraka (Sanskrit) (from the verbal root char to wander, roam about)

Wanderer; a branch or school following the practices enjoined in the Yajur-Veda; in the plural, the teachings as well as the followers of the doctrine taught in a branch of the black Yajur-Veda.

Also the name of a legendary muni and physician, born in Panchanada, Kashmir, said to have been the physician of Indo-Scythian King Kanishka (1st or 2nd century). Once Sesha, the King of the Serpents, visiting the earth, found only sickness and suffering everywhere. Being the recipient from a divine source of the Ayur-Veda and having knowledge of all cures, he became filled with pity and determined to incarnate as the son of a muni in order to alleviate the ills of mankind.

Named Charaka, as he had come to the earth as a wanderer, he then composed a new work on medicine based on the older works of Agnivesa. He is commonly accepted as an avatara of the Serpent Sesha, "an embodiment of divine Wisdom, since Sesha-Naga, the King of the 'Serpent' race, is synonymous with Ananta, the seven-headed Serpent, on which Vishnu sleeps during the pralayas. Ananta is the 'endless' and the symbol of eternity, and as such, one with Space, while Sesha is only periodical in his manifestations. Hence while Vishnu is identified with Ananta, Charaka is only the Avatar of Sesha" (TG 78).

(See also: Charaka caraka , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Will. In metaphysics and occult philosophy, Will is that which governs the manifested universes in eternity. Will is the one and sole principle of abstract eternal MOTION, or its ensouling essence. " The will", says Van Helmont, "is the first of all powers. . . . The will is the property of all spiritual beings and displays itself in them the more actively the more they are freed from matter." And Paracelsus teaches that "determined will is the beginning of all magical operations. It is because men do not perfectly imagine and believe the result, that the (occult) arts are so uncertain, while they might he perfectly certain." Like all the rest, the Will is septenary in its degrees of manifestation. Emanating from the one, eternal, abstract and purely quiescent Will (Atma in Layam), it becomes Buddhi in its Alaya state, descends lower as Mahat (Manas), and runs down the ladder of degrees until the divine Eros becomes, in its lower, animal manifestation, erotic desire. Will as an eternal principle is neither spirit nor substance but everlasting ideation. As well expressed by Schopenhauer in his Parerga, " in sober reality there is neither matter nor spirit. The tendency to gravitation in a stone is as unexplainable as thought in the human brain. . . If matter can - no one knows why -  - fall to the ground, then it can also - no one knows why - -think. . . . As soon, even in mechanics, as we trespass beyond the purely mathematical, as soon as we reach the inscrutable adhesion, gravitation, and so on, we are faced by phenomena which are to our senses as mysterious as the WILL."

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

PARSONS, JOHN WHITESIDE

I hight Don Quixote, I live on peyote,

marijuana, morphine and  cocaine,

I never know sadness but only a madness

that burns at the  heart and the brain

I see each charwoman, ecstatic inhuman,

angelic,  demonic, divine.

Each wagon a dragon, each beer mug a flagon

that  brims with ambrosial wine.

So goes a poem written by magician Jack Parsons, head of the California lodge of the O.T.O. (1944-52), as privately printed in a 1943 issue of The Oriflamme. This was, synchronistically enough, as Robert Anton Wilson has pointed out, but a few weeks before the discovery of LSD.

All of Crowley's disciples struggled valiantly to "discover the identity of the hidden God" within them, their "True (Thelemic) Will" and to find a way to implement their knowledge. Their endings were mostly dismal. Those who claimed success in the Great Work ceased all further activity and led lives thereafter of total obscurity. One of them, Frater 210, Jack Parsons, claimed success, only to go up in flames shortly thereafter.

Jack Parsons was a co-founder of The California Institute of Technology. His contributions to the aerospace industry and nuclear research were so considerable that he has the unique distinction of being the only North American sorcerer in the 20th Century to have had a mountain on the moon named after him. He was also one of Aleister Crowley's more bizarre disciples.

He was born on October 2, 1914, in Los Angeles, California. The only offspring of divorced parents, he spent a solitary and uneventful childhood. He devoted himself, as solitary children do, to reading and daydreaming. He also harbored a grudge against authority and interference and nursed a rebellious spirit. His studies led him into aerospace technology, but by temperament he was apparently not a scientist and his life did not truly begin until 1939, when an acquaintance, Wilfred T. Smith, introduced him to Aleister Crowley's writings and invited him to join his Agap‚ Lodge of the Ordo Templi Orientis.

Wilfred T. Smith, or Frater 132, had ostensibly been a special protege of Crowley's, who had decided for astrological reasons that Smith was a god imprisoned in human flesh. This seems curious to us now, because Smith's behavior was totally psychopathic. The truth is that Smith had fallen into disfavor with Crowley, who had decided the man was turning the O.T.O.'s California Lodge into a cheap love cult, which Crowley considered a "slimy abomination." As soon as Parsons came into the order, Smith grabbed Parson's wife, Helen, as his very own familiar and had a child by her. Thereupon Parsons abandoned her and took her younger sister, Betty, as his mistress and magickal partner. This arrangement appeared to work well enough for him and he soon advanced into the inner circles of the lodge. Meanwhile, Crowley very cleverly gave Smith a specific formula for his apotheosis and ordered him to resign in order to identify this God within. This was the easiest way of getting Smith out of the Lodge so that Parsons could be put in charge. Immediately, Smith's star began to fall. He conceived a hatred for Parsons and "attacked him astrally." Kenneth Grant in his Magical Revival recounts a curious hallucination or dream that Parsons underwent with a black-caped figure whom he transfixed with knives and eventually drove away.

But now Parsons, determined to repeat his initial disasters, brought in a mysterious "Frater X" as his secretary and who seemed a promising candidate for the lodge which Parsons had now taken over. His new friend, however, also proved to be a rogue and quickly wormed out of Parsons the top-secret psycho-sexual and magical techniques of the Agape Lodge. Soon thereafter, Frater X got him to enter a business venture with him, with Parson's money as the lion's share of the investment. Next Frater X persuaded him to sell the property that was the headquarters of the Lodge. Then he and Betty went on a yachting cruise around the world. Now that Frater X had reduced him to poverty, Parsons had to earn his living in an "aircraft company." What it is about the occult that could possibly interest dreary U.S. government agents defies the imagination, but Parsons was, after all, working for the government. So by now the O.T.O. was swarming with U.S. intelligence agents posing as members!

Since his mistress had also been stolen from him, Parsons set about, by evocation (and ritual masturbation supervised by Frater X), to obtain an Elemental Spirit to take the place of Betty. And in 1946 he wrote to Crowley that he had actually found such an elemental -- a woman named Marjorie Cameron. She soon became his second wife. Crowley wrote to warn him to avoid excessive devotion to an elemental, but his warning had little effect... Now Parsons contacted an "Intelligence" who spoke to him, directly at first. It was not long, however, before he began speaking through Fr. X, who, it seems, had returned and been forgiven! This time Frater X informed Parsons that he was "overshadowed by an Angel with flaming hair." Parsons now set about to make a Moonchild -- a procedure that must take place at a time when the moon is "void of course" or without earth influence. This endeavor annoyed the dying Crowley very much. In fact, by now, Crowley was thoroughly disgusted with Parsons and the Californians. At this point Parsons took the "Oath of the Abyss" and the magical name of "Belarion Armilus All Dajjal Anti-Christ." In 1948 he took the oath of the Antichrist and in 1949 penned his autobiographies. Finally he took up the "Black Pilgrimage," a terrible path forcing him to chose between suicide, madness and the Oath of the Abyss. In this endeavor he would open himself up to the influence of the demon, Choronzon.

Not long after that, in June of 1952, Parsons began a dangerous invocation in a last ditch effort to release his Will. He called upon an Aethyr who had already brought disaster to a fellow magus (Kelley), backed up by a sexual magick of his own. In his further rituals with the woman of the flaming hair and the invocation of the Lady of Babalon (not to be confused with "Babylon") there are constant calls to fire and flame, "Flame is out Lady, flame is her hair. I am flame" (In this case, "fire" refers to its opposite, "blood.") Suddenly, while working in his lab in Pasadena, he dropped a phial of fulminate of mercury and burst up in a terrible explosion -- ordinary fire being the opposite and balancing complement of blood.

Twenty years after his fiery death, official maps depicting the dark side of the moon prominently honored his many aerospace contributions with "Parson's Crater." Perhaps this act was fully intended as a deliberate pyrrhic mockery, suggesting mythic figures of old who were translated to the skies as immortal stars. Parsons is not the only mortal to have achieved celestial recognition without apotheosis, but he's the only one who deliberately tried, failed and then made it by default.

What makes Parsons so intriguing, no doubt, is that he appears in so many footnotes by so many different authors and yet hardly anything is known about him. Moreover, trying to cut a path through his zigzagging life is extremely frustrating for the biographer. Most lives, whether dull or interesting, tend to tell us something about the person, but Parsons' life seems almost deliberately labyrinthine. His writings are not easily unearthed and jealously guarded. The reason for that isn't hard to discern. Parsons was a social and intellectual rebel during an era of rigid conformity. He was not only the author of the two-volume book about the Anti- Christ: The Black Pilgrimage and The Manifesto of the Anti-Christ (which eponym he conferred on himself) but also claimed, says Colin Wilson, that he had been advised by a Higher Power "to declare war on all authority that is not based on courage and manhood... the authority of lying priests, conniving judges, blackmailing police and to call an end to restriction and inhibition, conscription, compulsion, regimentation and the tyranny of the laws."

The "Higher Power," it turned out, was an even more elusive character: our old friend, the sinister Frater X.

Until quite recently the Identity of Frater X remained unknown. Rumor had it that he had lived to a very old age in fame and luxury from the misuses of the magickal secrets that he had stolen. His identity remained a mystery until the late 1980's when it was revealed in several places at once that Frater X was none other than L. Ron Hubbard, father of Dianetics and Scientology.

Even initiates may not always recognize the daring, inspired and cosmic scope of Parson's effort. How much Hubbard was involved is uncertain, but that extraterrestrial contact of some kind was made through Parsons' rift in the wall between worlds was revealed, according to Kenneth Grant, by the Babalon working. He and Achad began this only a year before Crowley's death in 1947 and that year coincided with the first wave of ufo "invasions." "Parsons opened a door and something flew in" says Grant. Whatever that may be, something more than Babalon and channeled writings, we now realize, erupted into our world and continues to pour in, moving at weird and mocking variance to our sublunary science and reality systems. Crowley's and Achad's initiations, says Grant in his Outside the Circles of Time, led up to the "40's framed by AL. III. 46, the number of Mu, Cry of the Vulture of Maat and key of the mysteries" and that in turn finally "fulminated in Hiroshima of 1945." Grant wrote those words in 1980, before AIDS and the greenhouse effect, quoting from Crowley: "Now the 80's cower before me and are abased."

Ego and Initiation run the same hurdles. Ego interferes with the natural course of apotheosis. And for Grant, psychiatry is out of the question. It exposes the sensitive, personal and private talismans and techniques needed for reshaping social progress to the killing glare of mindless immediacy and expediency. Initiation, says Parsons himself, must proceed as best it can through and past the barriers... "until the misty bastions of infantile Trawenfells change into the rocks and crags of eternity; the garden of Klingsor into the City of God."

The Xtian idea of a God descending to become a man is the exact reverse of Magick. If Crowley's goal was to release the God hidden inside every human being, Jack Parsons dared to go a step further. His intention was to raise Hell to earth's level, to elevate our hellworld a step closer to Heaven! Since he was by nature a quiet and humble man, such a fusilary and hubristic ambition proved so powerful a charge for him that it burst out of the astral plane and destroyed him on the physical plane.

(See also: PARSONS, JOHN WHITESIDE , Magick, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul,)

Little Flock

In the teaching of the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, this phrase (Luke 12: 32) refers to the 144,000 Jehovah's Witnesses who will be allowed to go to heaven(Anointed Class). All other worthy Jehovah's Witnesses (the Òother sheepÓ cf. John 10: 16) will live for eternity on a new paradise earth.

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

Karma (Sanskrit) (from the verbal root kri to do, make, denoting action)

Action, the causes and consequences of action; that which produces change. One of the primary postulates of every comprehensive system of philosophy, described as a universal law, unceasingly active throughout universal nature and rooted in cosmic harmony, in its operations existing from eternity, inevitable, inherent in the very nature of things. It is action, absolute harmony, the adjuster; it preserves equilibrium by compensating and adjusting all actions, excessive or defective.

Hence it is called the law of retribution, implying neither reward nor punishment, based on nature's own urge of harmonious equilibrium. As such it has been personalized as Nemesis and by many other names, a practice which lends itself to popular imagining of avenging deities, such as God or Gods, Furies, Fates, Destiny, etc. As there are no such things as inanimate beings in the universe, it is not surprising to hear of karmic agents and of scribes or lipika who record karma. Karma must necessarily be transmitted by living beings of one grade or another, because there is no other means possible, and universal nature is but a vast, virtually frontierless being whose entire structure, laws, and operations are the innumerable hierarchies of beings in all-various grades, which thus not only condition nature, but are in fact universal nature itself. By our acts we create living beings which act upon other people and ultimately react upon ourselves. These beings, then, are agents of karma on one plane; on higher planes other orders of beings are such agents.

"An Occultist or a philosopher will not speak of the goodness or cruelty of Providence; but, identifying it with Karma-Nemesis, he will teach that nevertheless it guards the good and watches over them in this, as in future lives; and that it punishes the evil-doer -- aye, even to his seventh rebirth. So long, in short, as the effect of his having thrown into perturbation even the smallest atom in the Infinite World of harmony, has not been finally readjusted. For the only decree of Karma -- an eternal and immutable decree -- is absolute Harmony in the world of matter as it is in the world of Spirit. It is not, therefore, Karma that rewards or punishes, but it is we, who reward or punish ourselves according to whether we work with, through and along with nature, abiding by the laws on which that Harmony depends, or -- break them.

"Nor would the ways of Karma be inscrutable were men to work in union and harmony, instead of disunion and strife. For our ignorance of those ways -- which one portion of mankind calls the ways of Providence, dark and intricate; while another sees in them the action of blind Fatalism; and a third, simple chance, with neither gods nor devils to guide them -- would surely disappear, if we would but attribute all these to their correct cause. With right knowledge, or at any rate with a confident conviction that our neighbours will no more work to hurt us than we would think of harming them, the two-thirds of the World's evil would vanish into thin air. Were no man to hurt his brother, Karma-Nemesis would have neither cause to work for, nor weapons to act through. . . . We stand bewildered before the mystery of our own making, and the riddles of life that we will not solve, and then accuse the great Sphinx of devouring us. But verily there is not an accident in our lives, not a misshapen day, or a misfortune, that could not be traced back to our own doings in this or in another life" (SD 1:643-4).

The effect of karma on human beings is merely the natural reaction from their actions, which may be described as only half-actions, for they are not completed until the reaction has ensued. Since the consequences of acts do not necessarily ensue immediately, it follows that at any stage of our career we may experience the results of actions performed a long time in the past.

Karma does not obviate free will or imply fatalism or mechanistic determinism. It is not merely a mechanical or mechanistic chain of linked cause and effect, by which every act is predetermined by some previous act and by no other cause. Man is a divine spark expressing itself through a series of vehicles, forming by means of these vehicles a series of egos, each conscious and operative on its own plane. Through his contract with higher planes, he has the power of bringing new forces into operation, so he is not inexorably bound in a mechanistic sense by his karma. On the other hand, to speak of an absolutely free will is meaningless; the will becomes more and more emancipated from conditions as we penetrate deeper into the recesses of our nature; but it must always be actuated by motive of some kind, and hence, being conditioned by motive, it comes under the operation of the universal law of karma.

There are many types of karma, such as human, racial, national, family, individual, etc. A chain of causation, stretched out in time, will be intersected by any given present moment; so that in speaking of a person, we may say he sums up in himself both his past and his future, he is his own karma. Since the whole universe and all the beings which compose it are linked and blended together, it follows that no person can have exclusive interests and that the karma of all beings is linked and, in a profound sense, identical. Karma in its moral aspect is cosmic justice. It should not interfere in any way with helping others, nor does it render futile the exercise of compassion, for we incur as much responsibility by refraining from action as by acting.

"Sow kindly acts and thou shalt reap their fruition. Inaction in a deed of mercy becomes an action in a deadly sin" (VS 31).

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

Jainas (Sanskrit). A large religious body in India closely resembling Buddhism, but who preceded it by long centuries. They claim that Gautama, the Buddha, was a disciple of one of their Tirtankaras, or Saints. They deny the authority of the Vedas and the existence of any personal supreme god, but believe in the eternity of matter, the periodicity of the universe and the immortality of men’s minds (Manas) as also of that of the animals. An extremely mystic sect.

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

Charaka (Sanskrit). A writer on Medicine who lived in Vedic times. He is believed to have been an incarnation (Avatara) of the Serpent Sesha, i.e., an embodiment of divine Wisdom, since Sesha-Naga, the King of the "Serpent" race, is synonymous with Ananta, the seven-headed Serpent, on which Vishnu sleeps during the pralayas. Ananta is the "endless" and the symbol of eternity, and as such, one with Space, while Sesha is only periodical in his manifestations. Hence while Vishnu is identified with Ananta, Charaka is only the Avatar of Sesha. (See "Ananta" and "Sesha".)

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

Vahana (Sanskrit). A vehicle, the carrier of something immaterial and formless.

All the gods and goddesses are, therefore, represented as using vahanas to manifest themselves, which vehicles are ever symbolical. So, for instance, Vishnu has during Pralayas, Ananta the infinite" (Space), symbolized by the serpent Sesha, and during the Manvantaras - Garuda the gigantic half-eagle, half-man, the symbol of the great cycle; Brahma appears as Brahma, descending into the planes of manifestations on Kalahamsa, the "swan in time or finite eternity"; Siva (phonet, Shiva) appears as the bull Nandi; Osiris as the sacred bull Apis; Indra travels on an elephant; Karttikeya, on a peacock; Kamadeva on Makara, at other times a parrot; Agni, the universal (and also solar) Fire-god, who is, as all of them are, "a consuming Fire", manifests itself as a ram and a lamb, Aja, "the unborn"; Varuna, as a fish; etc., etc., while the vehicle of MAN is his body.

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

Bennu (Egyptian) Also Benu, Benoo. A bird of the heron species, identified with the phoenix. It was prominent in Egyptian mythology, being associated with the sun: it was said to have come into being from the fire which burned at the top of the sacred Persea Tree; that the renewed morning sun rose in the form of the bennu; and that it was the soul of Ra, the sun god.

The sanctuary of the bennu was likewise that of Ra and of Osiris. A hymn in the Book of the Dead says: "I go in like the Hawk, and I come forth like the Bennu, the Morning Star (i.e., the planet Venus) of Ra" (xiii 2). Blavatsky terms the bennu "the bird of resurrection in Eternity . . . in whom night follows the day, and day the night -- an allusion to the periodical cycles of cosmic resurrection and human re-incarnation" (SD 1:312).

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

Netzach: The beams of Chesed and of Tiphareth meet in Netzach and thence in Netzach arises a green, pure, brilliant, liquid, and gleaming like an emerald. And the Sphere of its operations is that of Nogah of External Splendour, producing zeal, love, harmony, and it ruleth the Sphere of Action of the Planet Venus and the nature of the vegetable World. And Jehovah Tzabaoth is a God of Hosts and of Armies, of Triumph and of Victory, ruling the Universe in justice and Eternity. And its Archangel Hanial is the Prince of Love and Harmony, and the Name of the Order of Angels is Elohim or Gods who are also called the Order of Principalities. The Angel Cerviel is also referred unto this Sephira.

(See also: Netzach , Magic, Shamanism, Paganism, Wicca)