Lévi, Éliphas. The real name of this learned Kabalist was Abbé Alphonse Louis Constant. Eliphas Lévi Zahed was the author of several works on philosophical magic. Member of the Fratres Lucis (Brothers of Light), he was also once upon a time a priest, an abbé of the Roman Catholic Church, which promptly proceeded to unfrock him, when he acquired fame as a Kabalist.

He died some twenty years ago, leaving five famous works  - Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie (1856); Histoire de la Magie (1860); La Clef des grands Mystères (1861); Legendes et Symboles (1862); and La Science des Esprits (1865) ; besides some other works of minor importance. His style is extremely light and fascinating; but with a rather too strong characteristic of mockery and paradox in it to be the ideal of a serious Kabalist.

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

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The funny thing about life is that there usually isn't much to laugh about!

"I'm not very happy most of the time," quipped Woody Allen. "The rest of the time I'm not happy at all."

On television, the joke is on someone else, so we laugh. Someone else's slip-up, struggles, loss of face, sleepless nights. In real life, however, the joke is usually on us. Maybe comedies bring us relief from our own frustrations and failures by drawing our attention to the fictional disasters of others. Or is it that we get to view a reflection of ourselves in those characters on the screen and so present a disguised opportunity to see the humorous angle of what happens to all of us; a form of catharsis; a chance to unwind and ease the tension of our troubled minds?

(See also: Love and Happiness, Life and Beyond, Body Mind and Soul)

Read more here: » Love and Happiness: Listen to the Cosmic Laughter

We are all familiar with chemical addictions to intoxicating substances such as alcohol or cocaine. Sex, work and Internet use are also frequently mentioned as aspects of life that can be used addictively. The least recognized addiction in our society, however, may be the addiction to drama that manifests in so many relationships. While drama is a legitimate category of cinema and theater, as an addictive process in relationships it refers to an ongoing dysfunctional need to continually recreate unsafe and unhealthy emotional intensity in one's relationships.

Read more here: » Relationships: Are You Or Your Partner Addicted To Drama?

Shutukt (Tibet, Tibetan). A collegiate monastery in Tibet of great fame, containing over 30,000 monks and students.

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

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PRATISHTA: reputation, fame

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

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Cheru (Scandianvian Norse) Or Heru. A magic sword, a weapon of the "sword god" Heru. In the Edda, the Saga describes it as destroying its possessor, should he be unworthy of wielding it. It brings victory and fame only in the hand of a virtuous hero.

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

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Michel Nostrodamus

(1503- 1566) French physician and astrologer whose predictions of the future have fascinated people for centuries. Nostradamus acquired fame as a doctor by treating victims of the plague, but he eventually turned more to astrology and metaphysics.

In 1555 he completed the Centuries, a book of more than 900 predictions about the fate of France, the world, and celebrated persons of his time. The title of the book refers to the fact that the contents are arranged in sections of 100 verses each. An expanded version was published in 1558.

His prophecies are written as four-lined rhymed verses (quatrains) in vague, often cryptic language. The fact that they are written in a French dialect that has not been spoken for 400 years complicates interpretation of his predictions.

Some interpreters say the verses can be applied to anything, or nothing, whereas others claim that various verses foretold the Great Fire of London in 1666, the deaths of several monarchs, details of the French Revolution, the rise of Napoleon and Hitler and World War II.

Because Nostradamus included very few dates in his prophecies and because, additionally, he did not organize them into a chronological order, the verses have been constantly reinterpreted since their publication.

The Centuries remains a classic of the occult literature and hundreds of studies of it have been published.

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

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Sons of Ad (Chaldean?) Used by Mahatma KH in response to a question asked by Sinnett whether there had ever been civilizations "as great as our own in regard to intellectual development": "Do you know that the Chaldees were at the apex of their Occult fame before what you term as the 'bronze Age'? That the 'Sons of Ad' or the children of the Fire Mist preceded by hundreds of centuries the Age of Iron, which was an old age already, when what you now call the Historical Period . . . had hardly begun" (ML 145, 153).

(See also: Sons of Ad , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

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Skanda Sashti

Lord Subramanya, the Supreme Being, who is the ruler of this universe, who is the indweller of our hearts, who is the second son of Lord Siva, who is the beloved of Valli and Deivayanai, who bestows boons easily on His devotees, who is the embodiment of power, wisdom, love and bliss.

From Hindu Fasts & Festivals by Sri Swami Sivananda.

Read more here: » Skanda Sashti: Hindu Worship - Skanda Sashti

tenth house

Segment of the horoscope dealing with life's work, honor, fame, government

(See also: Tenth house , Body Mind and Soul)

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SRI HANUMAN is worshipped all over India - either alone or together with Sri Rama. Every temple of Sri Rama has the murti or idol of Sri Hanuman. Hanuman is the Avatara of Lord Shiva. He was born of the Wind-God and Anjani Devi. His other names are Pavanasuta, Marutsuta, Pavankumar, Bajrangabali and Mahavira.

From Hindu Fasts & Festivals by Sri Swami Sivananda.

Read more here: » Hanuman Jayanti: Hindu Worship -Hanuman Jayanti

We tend to pray to God only for our worldly needs, which are much more than our requirements. Krishna says in the Gita, "Four types of devotees worship me: the distressed ones, those seeking knowledge, those seeking wealth and others seeking wisdom. Of all such devotees, the one who seeks wisdom is dearest to me".

Shrishti or creation means projection and expansion coming out of One. That is the evolution of the world. Krishna also says that at the end of a Kalpa, the whole universe - all the souls, whether in the state of birth and death or in moksha, including Brahma - will dissolve within Me.

(See also: Amarnath , Indian Festivals, Spiritual Guidance, God and Religion, Peace on Earth, Peace of Mind, Love and Happiness, Life and Beyond, Body Mind and Soul)

Read more here: » Amarnath: Amarnath Journey Prompts Reflection  

Man takes birth in this world with a definite purpose. It is not for mere sensual enjoyment that man is born in this world. The goal of life is Self-realisation or God-consciousness. The various activities of life should ultimately lead to that ideal or goal; or else the life is wasted. There is no difference between the life of a beast and that of a man if he does not attempt to attain the goal of life.
In the Gita you will find: “Whosoever leaving the body goes forth remembering Me alone, at the time of death, he attains My being; there is no doubt about this.”

The death and dying and the life after death has always fascinated man. This is an excerpt from the book What Becomes Of The Soul After Death by Sri Swami Sivananda.

Read more here: » Sraaddha: Prayer For The Dead - Why Scriptures Are Read To A Dying Man?

Grihastha vs Sanyas - The Eternal Dilemma

Once, a king asked his guru: Who is superior, a sanyasi or a householder? In response, the guru took him to a kingdom where the king had announced that his daughter's husband would be given half the kingdom. The princess chose a sanyasi , who refused to marry her. Even after the king offered his entire kingdom, the sanyasi walked away. The guru and his king-disciple followed the princess, whom they found crying in the forest where the sanyasi had disappeared. Hungry and lost, the three lit a fire for warmth.

Read more here: » Sanyasi: Grihastha vs Sanyas - The Eternal Dilemma

Vastu Shastra: Role of Destiny

All the defects, blasphemy and curses by sages on the house site should be expiated by performing suitable purification ceremonies and worships before one attempts to start the construction work of a house on such a site. Maya, the celestial architect, had explained the easy ways and means of identifying the nature of the soil. According to Maya, the master of the house who is going to construct the house should with his own hands dig out a square pit one cubit side and one cubit depth at the eastern direction or at the middle of the site (Brahmasthala).

Read more here: » Vastu Shastra: Role of Destiny

The word Jain has been derived from Jina, which means conqueror, implying one who has overcome all human passions. The Tattvarth Sutra, a book of supreme wisdom, was written by Umaswati, Kundkundacharya's disciple.

The opening aphorism of Tattvarth Sutra talks about enlightened faith, knowledge and conduct leading to final emancipation. The enlightened faith comprises Jiva or life, Ajiva or non-life, Asharva or flow of karma, Bandha or bondage of karma, Samvar or shedding of karma-particles and Moksha.

(See also: Life and Death, Life and Beyond, Death and Dying, Body Mind and Soul)

Read more here: » Life and Death: Prevent the Influx of Karma Particles

An article published talked about how 10 per cent of your life is made up of what happens to you, whereas 90 per cent is decided by how you react. So most of the situations we find ourselves in are possibly self-created; maybe only 10 per cent are nature-generated. A self-audit can help us find out how much this applies to us.

I often think about the importance of self-audit - especially when I see the way a majority of youngsters today are faced with increasing pressures from family, peer groups and the outside world. Many find it difficult to handle all this with an even mind. The manner in which the youth is expending itself and the direction it is headed toward is somewhat alarming.

(See also: Love and Happiness, Life and Beyond, Body Mind and Soul)

Read more here: » Love and Happiness: Come Alive! Try Zero Tolerance

Hinduism and Polytheism

According to the tenets of Hinduism, God is one as well as many. He is to be found every where and in every thing. He is there in the sky, in the rivers, in the plants and trees and even in a particle of dust. He is an enigma, because He is in many things at a time and is many things at a time. He is visible as well as invisible. He is here and He is there. He is above and He is below. He is with forms and also without form. He speaks and He speaks not. He is the self and also the not'self. To say that this is God and this is not is perhaps much more sacrilegious, if there is anything like sacrilegious in the world of God, than seeing God in images and idols and worshipping Him.

Read more here: » Hinduism and Polytheism: Why do Hindus worship so many gods and goddesses?

Meaning of dream including the meaning of dreams about: Dagger, Dahlia, Dairy, Daisy, Damask Rose, Damson, Dance, Dancing Master, Dandelion, Danger, Dark, Dates, Daughter, Daughter-in-law, David, Day, Daybreak, Dead, Death, Debt, December, Deck, Decorate, Deed, Deer, Delay,

For more dream interpretation, see: Meaning of Dreams or Dream Dictionary

For articles about dreams, see: Dreams

Read more here: » Meaning of a Dream: Meaning of Dream from; Dagger to Dead / Death

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,)

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Guru Nanak Meets Bahlol In Baghdad

Baghdad was, in Nanak's time, a centre of Muslim culture - it was home to pirs and sufi fakirs. Guru Nanak stayed in Baghdad for four months and interacted with the holy men there, one of whom was Bahlol.

Guru Nanak sang of the infinity of God and His infinite creation. Bahlol said that the Qur'an had mentioned seven earths and seven heavens only. Guru Nanak urged that the universe was not confined to seven earths and seven heavens but had millions and millions of planets and worlds and the Guru greeted all in the name of Sat Kartar.

Read more here: » Guru Nanak: Guru Nanak Meets Bahlol In Baghdad

Many are excited about the upcoming New Age movie, "Indigo," written, produced, and directed by three renowned individuals who now live in Ashland - James Twyman, Neale Donald Walsch, and Stephen Simon. Appealing are the career opportunities, the camaraderie of movie-making, the promoting of spirituality and messages of peace and love. Promoters say it will stimulate the local economy and help our schools. But after examining the Indigo Child movement, and specifically the activities of co-writer/producer James Twyman, I see potential consequences for the community -- and for children.

A critical view on the Indigo Phenomenon by Lorie Andersson.

(See also: Indigo Children, What is Indigo Children, Parenting Indigo Children, Adult Indigo, Indigo Children Channeling)

Read more here: » Indigo Children: Indigo- The Color of Money