Ether Dictionary

ether: Akasha. Space, the most subtle of the five elements.

See: akasha, tattva.

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

Aether, Ether (Greek) (from aitho shining, fire)

The upper or purer air as opposed to aer, the lower air; the clear sky; the abode of the gods. In Classical antiquity it denoted primordial substance, Proteus or protyle, the unitary source both of all substances and energies, the mask of all kosmic phenomena. Often used loosely to embrace a domain which extends from the All-Father himself down to the atmosphere of our earth. Vergil speaks of "Jupiter omnipotens aether," and Cicero describes aether as the ultimate zone of heaven encircling, embracing, and permeating all things. At one time a member of the pantheon and object of veneration, at another the quest of the alchemist in search of the "absolute element" which would give him power over nature, and finally a hypothetical medium of science for conveying light waves.

Sometimes aether is used in translating the Sanskrit akasa, which has the same etymological and philosophical meaning. Here it is an element or principle coming after manas and kama and before the astral light and ether. Again, it is a high aspect of akasa, having itself also seven subordinate aspects. There are in kosmic space at least seven aethers or prakritis, which exist one within the other in a rising scale of spirituality. Collectively they may be called spirit-aether or akasa.

Generally in The Secret Doctrine it is the fifth kosmic element from below, a link between kosmic mind or mahat and the lower manifested world, the vehicle of the former and the parent of the latter. Looking at aether in a more general kosmic way, it is the field of activity of the kosmic Third Logos, Brahma-prakriti, and therefore the great womb of manifested being, the treasure house of all kosmic types, forth from which they flow at the opening of manifestation and back into which they will again be ingathered at the beginning of kosmic pralaya. It is in consequence the great mother-substance out of which all the hierarchies are built.

It interpenetrates everything, lasting from the beginning of the universal manvantara to its end, and indeed, may be said to continue, in its most spiritualized form throughout kosmic pralaya as the seed-house or storehouse from which everything will flow into manifestation again when the new period of kosmic activity arrives. Considered as the cosmic mother of all things, aether in its highest feminine aspect is the same as the Vedic Aditi or the Hera or Juno of Greece and Rome. Thus in one sense it is also mulaprakriti, the generator or producer of the seeds of beginnings and things. The Old Testament refers to aether as the kosmic waters. In its highest parts it is mystically alaya (the kosmic spirit-soul) or what in Northern Buddhism is called svabhavat, more mystically adi-buddhi.

See also ACTIO IN DISTANS; AKASA

(See also: Aether, Ether , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Ether. Students are but too apt to confuse this with Akasa and with Astral Light. It is neither, in the sense in which ether is described by physical Science. Ether is a material agent, though hitherto undetected by any physical apparatus; whereas Akasa is a distinctly spiritual agent, identical, in one sense, with the Anima Mundi, while the Astral Light is only the seventh and highest principle of the terrestrial atmosphere, as undetectable as Akasa and real Ether, because it is something quite on another plane. The seventh principle of the earth’s atmosphere, as said, the Astral Light, is only the second on the Cosmic scale. The scale of Cosmic Forces, Principles and Planes, of Emanations - on the metaphysical - and Evolutions - on the physical plane - is the Cosmic Serpent biting its own tail, the Serpent reflecting the Higher, and reflected in its turn by the lower Serpent. The Caduceus explains the mystery, and the four-fold Dodecahedron on the model of which the universe is said by Plato to have been built by the manifested Logos - synthesized by the unmanifested First-Born - yields geometrically the key to Cosmogony and its microcosmic reflection - our Earth.

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

Ether (Ancient Greek). With the ancients the divine luminiferous substance which pervades the whole universe, the "garment" of the Supreme Deity, Zeus, or Jupiter. With the moderns, Ether, for the meaning of which in physics and chemistry see Webster’s Dictionary or any other. In esotericism Ether is the third principle of the Kosmic Septenary; the Earth being the lowest, then the Astral light, Ether and Akasa (phonetically Akasha) the highest.

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

Ether. See AETHER; ETHEREAL

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

Ether:

A hypothetical “substance” filling all space and conveying waves of energy. See Space-Time Continuum.

(See also: Ether , Pagan, Paganism, Pagan Dictionary)

akasa:

akasa (aakaasha). Sky, space, ether.

(See also: akasa , Hinduism, Hinduism Dictionary, Sanskrit Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul)

Father-Aether or -Ether. See ARCHAEUS

(See also: Father-Aether, -Ether , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Nervous Ether The name given by Dr. Benjamin Ward Richardson to a hypothetical fluid or medium regarded by him as intervening between the minute structural elements of the human body and serving as the means of interaction between these elements.

Dr. Richardson was a highly honored 19th century English physician, and his views though unorthodox commanded respect. He used the word ether in a way similar to that in which it was used by physicists: if the elements of a body are regarded as separate from one another, a medium of some sort must account for their mutual actions.

Such a medium must differ in certain respects from ordinary physical matter, so whether it is a form of matter or of energy is left open. This theory is one of a numerous family -- vital fluid, animal magnetism, odic force -- a loose generalization covering a great many things, or as a first crude guess. It is inadequate compared with the complex analysis of the bodily structure and functions presented by Hindu books.

Prana and linga-sarira are general terms for the energic and vehicular aspects of our physical constitution, and Dr. Richardson's nervous ether in many respects fits in with both of them. But the scientist begins with the physical structure, which he assumes as a self-existent basis, and then proceeds to add something to it; while the theosophist begins with the life principle and derives the physical structure from it. For the latter, every cell, every atom, is a living unit, endowed with its own power of movement; and no outside nervous ether need be added for the production of the phenomena of life or vitality.

(See also: Nervous Ether , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Chi

(Chinese, "ether," "matter-energy," "vital energy," "material force")

An important and multifaceted term in Chinese religion, philosophy, and science, the root meaning of which is "moist vapor" or "breath. "

• Early Chinese teachers spoke of chi as a vital spirit or energy that animated living beings. As such, it had to be properly nourished.
• For Confucians, that required moral cultivation so that one's chi, undistracted by external things, would conform to the dictates of will.
• For Taoists, it required mastery of the self through meditation, breath control, diet, yoga, and other techniques so as to harmonize one's chi with the material force of the universe ordered by the Tao (undifferentiated unity).

Traditional Chinese medicine attributed illnesses primarily to imbalances in the chi that pulsed through the body. Acupuncture, moxibustion (placing burning cones made of the dried leaves of the Artemisia moxa plant on the patient's skin), and other techniques helped to restore its balanced circulation.

Chi was also an important concept in the correlative philosophy that blossomed in the early Han dynasty (206 BC-AD 8) systematizing the correspondences between like things that explained their mutual interactions.

In the Neo-Confucian metaphysics of the Northern and Southern Sung dynasties (960-1279), all phenomena were said to be manifest through the intrinsic relation of principle (li) and material force (chi). Li constituted the essential, unchanging, perfect nature of all things, while chi represented their corporeal, transitory, and potentially flawed aspect. Individuals were instructed to perfect their humanity, to purify and harmonize their chi with their true Heavenendowed nature through the external investigation of things and mental introspection. Also Ki.

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

Actio in Distans (Latin) Action at a distance. Can force be transmitted across an empty space? On the automechanical theory of the universe, such action is inexplicable and yet inevitable, for if the universe consists entirely of matter made of atoms separated from each other by empty spaces, the transmission of force from one atom to another cannot be explained except by supposing some medium to intervene. If this medium is atomic, the old difficulty reappears; if it is continuous, there is no reason for supposing it, since matter might in the first place have been supposed to be continuous.

Thus if we choose to represent reality as a system of points in space, we must assume actio in distans as an axiom. The difficulty that a body cannot act where it is not, may be gotten over by stating that wherever it can act, there it is. Scientific theories, carried to a logical conclusion, support the idea that all things in the universe are connected with each other, so that whatever affects one part affects every other part. Notions of physical space do not enter to the realm of mind, thought, and feeling.

To meet this difficulty of action at a distance, early European scientists invented various kinds of ethers to bridge the supposed gap of nothingness between atom and atom or body and body. These finally were abandoned, with the exception of the luminiferous or light-carrying ether, which remained until the Michelson-Morley experiment, after which it was abandoned.

Nevertheless, theosophy postulates the existence of atomic and subatomic ethers of various degrees of tenuity, ranging from physical to spiritual. Collectively these ethers are the different planes or ranges of akasa, the fundamental substratum of the universe and the garment in which the kosmic divinity clothes itself -- the various prakritis as outlined especially in the Sankhya philosophy. Any scientific ether is not the akasa or aether, but solely the lowest plane of the akasic plenum, some of the ranges of the astral light, which in one sense is the highest principle of the earth's atmosphere -- a subtle ethereal energy-stuff permeant through and interpenetrating physical matter of all kinds.

See also Aether; Ether

(See also: Actio in Distans , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Akasa (Sanskrit) (from akas to be visible, appear, shine, be brilliant)

The shining; ether, cosmic space, the fifth cosmic element. The subtle, supersensuous spiritual essence which pervades all space. It is not the ether of science, but the aether of the ancients, such as the Stoics, which is to ether what spirit is to matter. In the Brahmanical scriptures, akasa is used for what the Northern Buddhists call svabhavat, more mystically adi-buddhi (primeval buddhi); it is also mulaprakriti, cosmic spirit-substance, the reservoir of being and of beings. Genesis refers to it as the waters of the deep. It is universal substantial space, and mystically in its highest elements is alaya.

As universal space, it is also known as Aditi, in which lies inherent the eternal and continuously active ideation of the universe producing its ever-changing aspects on the planes of matter and objectivity; and from this ideation radiates the First Logos. This is why the Puranas state that akasa has but one attribute, namely sound, for sound is but the translated symbol of logos (speech) in its mystic sense. Akasa as primordial spatial substance is thus the upadhi (vehicle) of divine thought. Further, it is the playground of all the intelligent and semi-intelligent forces in nature, the fountainhead of all terrestrial life, and the abode of the gods.

Akasa is the noumenon and spiritual substratum of differentiated prakriti, otherwise the seven or ten prakritis, the root or roots of all in the universe. These prakritis are not merely in akasa, but are the manifestations of akasa in its various grades or degrees of evolutionary development. All the ancient nations mythologically deified akasa in one or another of its aspects and powers (cf IU 1:125 for a descriptive listing of the many names anciently used for akasa). It is the indispensable agent in all religious or profane magic: occult electricity, the universal solvent, in another aspect kundalini. "Akasa is the mysterious fluid termed by scholastic science, 'the all-pervading ether'; it enters into all the magical operations of nature, and produces mesmeric, magnetic, and spiritual phenomena. As, in Syria, Palestine, and India, meant the sky, life, and the sun at the same time; the sun being considered by the ancient sages as the great magnetic well of our universe" (IU 1:140n).

Sometimes the astral light is used as a convenient but inaccurate phrase for akasa. In clarifying the difference between these Blavatsky says: "The Astral Light is that which mirrors the three higher planes of consciousness, and is above the lower, or terrestrial plane; therefore it does not extend beyond the fourth plane, where, one may say, the Akasa begins.

"There is one great difference between the Astral Light and the Akasa which must be remembered. The latter is eternal, the former is periodic. The Astral Light changes not only with the Mahamanvantaras but also with every sub-period and planetary cycle or Round. . . .

"The Akasa is the eternal divine consciousness which cannot differentiate, have qualities, or act; action belongs to that which is reflected or mirrored from it. The unconditioned and infinite can have no relation with the finite and conditioned. . . . We may compare the Akasa and the Astral Light . . . to the germ in the acorn. The latter, besides containing in itself the astral form of the future oak, conceals the germ from which grows a tree containing millions of forms. These forms are contained in the acorn potentially, yet the development of each particular acorn depends upon extraneous circumstances, physical forces, etc." (TBL 75-6; also IU 1:197).

The astral light is the tablet of memory of earth and of its child the animal-man; while akasa is the tablet of memory of the hierarchy of the planetary spirits controlling our chain of globes, and likewise of their child, each spiritual ego. The astral light is simply the dregs or lowers vehicles of akasa. Gautama Buddha held only two things as eternal: akasa and nirvana. In the Chandogya Upanishad (7:12:1-2) akasa (ether, space) is equated with Brahman.

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

Astral Light (Occult) The invisible region that surrounds our globe, as it does every other, and corresponding as the second Principle of Kosmos (the third being Life, of which it is the vehicle) to the Linga Sharira or the Astral Double in man.

A subtle Essence visible only to a clairvoyant eye, and the lowest but one (viz., the earth), of the Seven Akasic or Kosmic Principles. Eliphas Levi calls it the great Serpent and the Dragon from which radiates on Humanity every evil influence. This is so; but why not add that the Astral Light gives out nothing but what it has received; that it is the great terrestrial crucible, in which the vile emanations of the earth (moral and physical) upon which the Astral Light is fed, are all converted into their subtlest essence, and radiated back intensified, thus becoming epidemics -  moral, psychic and physical. Finally, the Astral Light is the same as the Sidereal Light of Paracelsus and other Hermetic philosophers. "Physically, it is the ether of modern science.

Metaphysically, and in its spiritual, or occult sense, ether is a great deal more than is often imagined. In occult physics, and alchemy, it is well demonstrated to enclose within its shoreless waves not only Mr. Tyndall’s ‘promise and potency of every quality of life’, but also the realization of the potency of every quality of spirit. Alchemists and Hermetists believe that their astral, or sidereal ether, besides the above properties of sulphur, and white and red magnesia, or magnes, is the anima mundi, the workshop of Nature and of all the Kosmos, spiritually, as well as physically.

The ‘grand magisterium’ asserts itself in the phenomenon of mesmerism, in the ‘levitation’ of human and inert objects; and may be called the ether from its spiritual aspect. The designation astral is ancient, and was used by some of the Neo-platonists, although it is claimed by some that the word was coined by the Martinists. Porphyry describes the celestial body which is always joined with the soul as ‘immortal, luminous, and star-like’. The root of this word may be found, perhaps, in the Scythic Aist-aer - which means star, or the Assyrian Istar, which, according to Burnouf has the same sense." (Isis Unveiled.)

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

Liquor Vitae (Latin) Life-fluid; used by Paracelsus to describe the life principle in the nerves, apparently the same as prana or Dr. B. W. Richardson's nervous ether. Prana is but a generalizing term for the five or seven distinct pranas which collectively form the life principle or vital essences in the human constitution.

(See also: Liquor Vitae , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

A Theosophical definition of Vahana :

Vahana

(Sanskrit) A "vehicle" or carrier. This word has a rather wide currency in philosophical and esoteric and occult thought. Its signification is a bearer or vehicle of some entity which, through this carrier or vehicle, is enabled to manifest itself on planes or in spheres or worlds hierarchically inferior to its own. Thus the vahana of man is, generally speaking, his body, although indeed man's constitution comprises a number of vahanas or vehicles, each one belonging to  - and enabling the inner man, or manifesting spiritual or intellectual entity, to express itself on  - the plane where the vahana is native.

Vahana is thus seen to have a number of different meanings, or, more accurately, applications. E.g., the vahana of man's spiritual monad is his spiritual soul; the vahana of man's human ego is his human soul; and the vahana of man's psycho-vital-astral monad is the linga-sarira working through its vahana or carrier, the sthula-sarira or physical body. The wire which carries the current of electricity can be said to be the vahana of the electric current; or again, the intermolecular ether is the vahana of many of the radioactive forces of the world around us, etc. Every divine being has a vahana or, in fact, a number of vahanas, through which it works and through which it is enabled to express its divine powers and functions on and in worlds and planes below the sphere or world or plane in which it itself lives. (See also Soul; Upadhi)

See also: Vahana , Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul

Vidya-dhara (Sanskrit). And Vidya-dhari, male and female deities. Lit., "possessors of knowledge".

They are also called Nabhas-chara, "moving in the air", flying, and Priyam-vada, "sweet-spoken ". They are the Sylphs of the Rosicrucians; inferior deities inhabiting the astral sphere between the earth and ether; believed in popular folk-lore to be beneficent, but in reality they are cunning and mischievous, and intelligent Elementals, or "Powers of the air ". They are represented in the East, and in the West, as having intercourse with men (" intermarrying ", as it is called in Rosicrucian parlance; see Count de Gabalis).

In India they are also called Kama-rupins, as they take shapes at will. It is among these creatures that the "spirit-wives" and " spirit-husbands" of certain modern spiritualistic mediums and hysteriacs are recruited. These boast with pride of having such pernicious connexions (e.g., the American "Lily ", the spirit-wife of a well-known head of a now scattered community of Spiritualists, of a great poet and well-known writer), and call them angel-guides, maintaining that they are the spirits of famous disembodied mortals.

These " spirit-husbands" and "wives" have not originated with the modern Spiritists and Spiritualists, but have been known in the East for thousands of years, in the Occult philosophy, under the names above given, and among the profane as - Pishathas.

(See also: Vidya-dhara , Theosophy, Spirituality, Body mind and Soul, Spiritual Dictionary,)

Sushumna susumna (Sanskrit) Astronomically, the highest of the seven principal rays or Logoi of the sun, the others being Harikesa, Visvakarman, Visvatryarchas, Sannaddha, Sarvavasu, and Svaraj. These rays "are all mystical, and each has its distinct application in a distinct state of consciousness, for occult purposes.

The Sushumna, which, as said in the Nirukta (II, 6), is only to light up the moon, is the ray nevertheless cherished by the initiated Yogis. The totality of the Seven Rays spread through the Solar system constitute, so to say, the physical Upadhi (basis) of the Ether of Science; in which Upadhi, light, heat, electricity, etc., etc., -- the forces of orthodox science -- correlate to produce their terrestrial effects. As psychic and spiritual effects, they emanate from, and have their origin in, the supra-soar Upadhi, in the ether of the Occultist -- or Akasa" (SD 1:515n).

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

Undulatory Theory The theory that light is propagated in waves, devised by Young, Fresnel, and others to explain certain phenomena, such as diffraction, which could not be explained by the corpuscular or emission theory of Newton. It has been elaborated into that branch of physics known as physical optics.

Waves imply a medium to convey them -- the hypothetical luminiferous ether, and here we encounter difficulties due to the attempt to endow it with the attributes rendered familiar by our experience of physical matter. The existence of waves is demonstrable and they can be measured; but the ether is necessarily neither gas, liquid, nor solid, and we need to wait until we have discovered more about its properties. "Atoms, Ether, or both, modern speculation cannot get out of the circle of ancient thought; and the latter was soaked through with archaic occultism. Undulatory or corpuscular theory -- it is all one. It is speculation from the aspects of phenomena, not from the knowledge of the essential nature of the cause and causes" (SD 1:528).

Light, as one of the forms of radiation, is in the view of theosophy an efflux or substance, ultimately to be traced back to a source or focus which gave it birth and from and through which it therefore pours as a radiation of vitality. Light, and most other forms of radiation, partake of both an undulatory and corpuscular character, for in one sense it is both, and in another sense it is neither, for its undulations or its discrete particles are merely the methods by which it subjects itself to human examination. In itself it is both force and substance, and as everything in the universe is in an unceasing state of vibration or constant movement, even a discrete particle -- and an aggregate of discrete particles, because of their vibrational activities -- is as readily conceivable as undulatory in character as corpuscular. The important thing about light is not so much its modes of motion or manifestation, but the fact that light is the vital efflux or substance flowing forth from a living being, whether microcosmic or macrocosmic. The same observations, mutatis mutandis, may be said of other forms of radiation -- electricity, magnetism its alter ego, heat, and even, on far higher planes, thought and consciousness.

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

Akasa-bhuta (Sanskrit) (from akasa ether, space + bhuta element, existing, being from the verbal root bhu to be, become)

The aether element, the Father-Mother element, third in the descending scale of seven cosmic bhutas which in the Upanishads are reckoned as five, and in Buddhist writings as four. Akasa-bhuta has its analog in the Third Logos, which because it is formative or creative is called Father-Mother. Not the ether, which is merely one of its lowest principles and only slightly more ethereal than physical matter.

(See also: Akasa-bhuta , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

A Theosophical definition of Akasa :

Akasa

(Sanskrit) The word means "brilliant," "shining," "luminous." The fifth kosmic element, the fifth essence or "quintessence," called Aether by the ancient Stoics; but it is not the ether of science. The ether of science is merely one of its lower elements. In the Brahmanical scriptures akasa is used for what the northern Buddhists call svabhavat, more mystically Adi-buddhi  - "primeval buddhi''; it is also mulaprakriti, the kosmical spirit-substance, the reservoir of Being and of beings. The Hebrew Old Testament refers to it as the kosmic "waters." It is universal substantial space; also mystically Alaya. (See also Mulaprakriti, Alaya)

See also: Akasa , Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul