A Wisdom Archive on Famous Psychic

Cayce has variously been referred to as a "prophet" (cf. Jess Stearn's book, The Sleeping Prophet), a "mystic", a "seer" (Harmon Bro favors this term), and a "clairvoyant". Cayce's business card presented him as a "psychic diagnostician". Cayce became famous for answering questions while in what appeared to be a trance or "sleeping" state. The trance was "conducted" by one person, usually on behalf of the person requesting the session (who need not have been present). The information thus given came to be called "readings". At ...

Read more here: » Edgar Cayce: Encyclopedia II - Edgar Cayce - Claimed abilities

Fire-Philosophers. The name given to the Hermetists and Alchemists of the Middle Ages, and also to the Rosicrucians. The latter, the successors of the Theurgists, regarded fire as the symbol of Deity. It was the source, not only of material atoms, but the container of the spiritual and psychic Forces energizing them. Broadly analyzed, fire is a triple principle; esoterically, a septenary, as are all the rest of the Elements. As man is composed of Spirit, Soul and Body, plus a four fold aspect: so is Fire.
 
As in the works of Robert Fludd (de Fluctibus) one of the famous Rosicrucians, Fire contains
(1) a visible flame (Body);
(2) an invisible, astral fire (Soul); and
(3) Spirit. The four aspects are heat (life), light (mind), electricity (Kamic, or molecular powers) and the Synthetic Essence, beyond Spirit, or the radical cause of its existence and manifestation. For the Hermetist or Rosicrucian, when a flame is extinct on the objective plane it has only passed from the seen world unto the unseen, from the knowable into the unknowable.

 
(See also: Fire-Philosophers, Theosophy, Spirituality, Body mind and Soul, Spiritual Dictionary,  )

For more dictionary entries, see » Famous Psychic Dictionary

Loch Ness Monster: A legendary animal which lives in the depths of Loch Ness, a lake in the Highlands of northern Scotland. The size of this monster, Nessie as it is fondly called, is 12-15 m (40-50 ft) and it has a long, snake-like neck. It is popularly believed to be female.
 
The sightings date back to 565 CE when the Irish Saint Columba claimed he saw the Niseag (the Celtic name for Nessie) when he attended a burial for a man who had been bitten to death by the monster. While it has been sighted in the subsequent centuries, it was not until the 19th century that the sightings become more frequent.
 
The most famous encounter was perhaps in the summer of 1933. On that day Mr. and Mrs. Spicer, returning from a trip to London, saw a monster cross the road, with an animal in his jaws, and submerge in the lake. This incident drew the attention of the world press and Nessie became an international phenomena. There have been many expeditions since, but none as successful as to prove its existence. Also the many sightings, photos and films have been inconclusive.

 
(See also: Loch Ness Monster, Psychic, Psychic Dictionary, Parapsychology, Parapsychology Dictionary )

For more dictionary entries, see » Famous Psychic Dictionary

Seance
A gathering of people seeking communication with deceased loved ones or famous historical figures through a medium. Also gathering for the purpose of investigating or experiencing supernormal phenomena.
 
In the past they were sometimes called "circles", because participants, called 'sitters', sat around a table (or on chairs arranged in a circle) in order to link hands, in the belief that this boosted the psychic forces which encourage paranormal manifestations.
 
Generally seances involve a medium who enters a tance-like state and contacts a 'spirit friend' or 'spirit helper'. The spirit then communicates with the gathering through the medium or shannel, either mentally, or directly using the medium's vocal chords.
 
In the 19th century, seances were dominated by physical manifestations, such as rappings, strange smells, levitation, and materialization, many episodes of which were eventually exposed as fraudulent. Because of these fraudulent associations, the term 'seance' has fallen into disuse.

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

For more dictionary entries, see » Famous Psychic Dictionary

Fire-philosophers Philosophers of medieval Europe who regarded fire as the supreme principle. Their ideas were largely those of Oriental occult or semi-occult bodies; hence they may be described as either the Persian Magi, or the European followers of Robert Fludd (1574-1637), a student of Paracelsus who taught the analogy of macrocosm and microcosm and the four elements.
 
"The name given to the Hermetists and Alchemists of the Middle Ages, and also to the Rosicrucians. The latter, the successors of the Theurgists, regarded fire as the symbol of Deity. It was the source, not only of material atoms, but the container of the spiritual and psychic Forces energizing them. Broadly analyzed, fire is a triple principle; esoterically, a septenary, as are all the rest of the Elements. As man is composed of Spirit, Soul and Body, plus a fourfold aspect: so is Fire. As in the works of Robert Fludd (de Fluctibus) one of the famous Rosicrucians, Fire contains (1) a visible flame (Body); (2) an invisible, astral fire (Soul); and (3) Spirit. The four aspects are heat (life), light (mind), electricity (Kamic, or molecular powers) and the Synthetic Essence, beyond Spirit, or the radical cause of its existence and manifestation. For the Hermetist or Rosicrucian, when a flame is extinct on the objective plane it has only passed from the seen world unto the unseen, from the knowable into the unknowable" (TG 119-20).

 
(See also: Fire-philosophers, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary )

For more dictionary entries, see » Famous Psychic Dictionary

Osiris (Greek) As-ar, Us-ar (Egyptian) The most famous deity of the Egyptian pantheon, corresponding to Zagreus-Bacchus of the Eleusinian Mysteries. In Plutarch''s On Isis and Osiris, Osiris is represented as the son of Nut, space and primordial matter (equivalent to the Greek Rhea) by Seb, celestial fire (Kronos). He became king of Egypt, teaching the people the worship of the gods, and husbandry, and formulating laws. His brother Set, filled with envy, brought about his destruction. Isis, his distraught wife, set out in search of the body, and finally recovered it. But Set then dismembered the body into fourteen pieces, scattering them over Egypt, of which Isis recovered all but one.
 
After meeting with death on earth Osiris became resurrected, and then became the ruler of the other world (Khenti-Amentet). His death and resurrection depict the drama of the initiation chamber which is one interpretation of glorification or osirification of the defunct human, as mystically portrayed in the Book of the Dead.
 
Cosmologically, Osiris is the Third Logos, containing in himself the seeds of all things and beings in the universe to be unrolled from the Logos:
 
"the self-existent and self-creative god, the first manifesting deity (our third Logos), identical with Ahura Mazda and other ''First Causes.'' For as Ahura Mazda is one with, or the synthesis of, the Amshaspends, so Osiris, the collective unit, when differentiated and personified, becomes Typhon, his brother, Isis and Nephtys his sisters, Horus his son and his other aspects. . . . The four chief aspects of Osiris were -- Osiris-Phtah (Light), the spiritual aspect; Osiris-Horus (Mind), the intellectual manasic aspect; Osiris-Lunus, the ''Lunar'' or psychic, astral aspect; Osiris-Typhon, Daimonic, or physical, material, therefore passional turbulent aspect. In these four aspects he symbolizes the dual ego -- the divine and the human, the cosmico-spiritual and the terrestrial" (TG 243).
 
Osiris'' place in cosmological mythology is seen to be that of the cosmic creator; thus on a more abstract scale Osiris is equivalent to the svabhavat of Buddhist thought. As in other archaic religions and philosophies, when Osiris is considered as an individual divinity, he becomes the cosmic source from which flow forth in hierarchical series of emanations the gradually descending groups of the hierarchy of Light; and from this aspect he is the chief of all initiates of the right-hand path, who thus trace their spiritual ascendance and origin directly to the Third Logos itself.

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

For more dictionary entries, see » Famous Psychic Dictionary

Porphyry, or Porphyrius. A Neo-Platonist and a most distinguished writer, only second to Plotinus as a teacher and philosopher.
 
He was born before the middle of the third century A.D., at Tyre, since he called himself a Tyrian and is supposed to have belonged to a Jewish family. Though himself thoroughly Hellenized and a Pagan, his name Melek (a king) does seem to indicate that he had Semitic blood in his veins. Modern critics very justly consider him the most practically philosophical, and the soberest, of all the Neo-Platonists. A distinguished writer, he was specially famous for his controversy with Iamblichus regarding the evils attendant upon the practice of Theurgy. He was, however, finally converted to the views of his opponent.
 
A natural-born mystic, he followed, as did his master Plotinus, the pure Indian Raj-Yoga training, which leads to the union of the Soul with the Over-Soul or Higher Self (Buddhi-Manas). He complains, however, that, all his efforts notwithstanding, he did not reach this state of ecstacy before he was sixty, while Plotinus was a proficient in it. This was so, probably because while his teacher held physical life and body in the greatest contempt, limiting philosophical research to those regions where life and thought become eternal and divine, Porphyry devoted his whole time to considerations of the hearing of philosophy on practical life. "The end of philosophy is with him morality", says a biographer, "we might almost say, holiness - the healing of man’s infirmities, the imparting to him a purer and more vigorous life. Mere knowledge, however true, is not of itself sufficient ; knowledge has for its object life in accordance with Nous" - "reason", translates the biographer.
 
As we interpret Nous, however, not as Reason, but mind (Manas) or the divine eternal Ego in man, we would translate the idea esoterically, and make it read "the occult or secret knowledge has for its object terrestrial life in accordance with Nous, or our everlasting reincarnating Ego", which would be more consonant with Porphyry’s idea, as it is with esoteric philosophy. (See Porphyry’s De Abstinentia ., 29.) Of all the Neo-Platonists, Porphyry approached the nearest to real Theosophy as now taught by the Eastern secret school. This is shown by all our modern critics and writers on the Alexandrian school, for "he held that the Soul should be as far as possible freed from the bonds of matter, . . . be ready . . . to cut off the whole body". (Ad Marcellam, 34.) He recommends the practice of abstinence, saying that "we should be like the gods if we could abstain from vegetable as well as animal food". He accepts with reluctance theurgy and mystic incantation as those are "powerless to purify the noëtic (manasic) principle of the soul": theurgy can "but cleanse the lower or psychic portion, and make it capable of perceiving lower beings, such as spirits, angels and gods" (Aug. De Civ. Dei. X., 9), just as Theosophy teaches. "Do not defile the divinity", he adds, with the vain imaginings of men you will not injure that which is for ever blessed (Buddhi-Manas) but you will blind yourself to the perception of the greatest and most vital truths". (Ad Marcellam,18.)
 
"If we would he free from the assaults of evil spirits, we must keep ourselves clear of those things over which evil spirits have power, for they attack not the pure soul which has no affinity with them". (De Abstin. ii., 43.) This is again our teaching. The Church Fathers held Porphyry as the bitterest enemy, the most irreconcilable to Christianity. Finally, and once more as in modern Theosophy, Porphyry - as all the Neo-Platonists, according to St. Augustine - "praised Christ while they disparaged Christianity"; Jesus, they contended, as we contend, "said nothing himself against the pagan deities, but wrought wonders by their help". "They could not call him as his disciples did, God, but they honoured him as one of the best and wisest of men". (De Civ. Dei., X1X., 23.) Yet, "even in the storm of controversy, scarcely a word seems to have been uttered against the private life of Porphyry. His system prescribed purity and . . . he practised it".
(See A Dict. of Christian Biography, Vol. IV., "Porphyry".)

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

For more dictionary entries, see » Famous Psychic Dictionary