Tradition, Wicca - An organized, structured, specific Wiccan subgroup. Much like Christianity has denominations each with their own style, Wicca has many traditions (and some Wicca follow no specific tradition see eclectic Wicca). Common examples include Garnerian, Seax (not sex), Dianic, Faery, Pecti, Teutonic, Caledoni, Alexandrian, and there are many others...

(See also: Tradition, Wicca , Pagan, Wicca Pagan Dictionary)

Dowsing - The act of using a pendulum or stick to locate a person,place,thing, or element.Dowsing can also be used to answer yes or no questions.

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Baptismal Regeneration

The Christian belief that baptism is essential to salvation, that it is the means where forgiveness of sins is made real to the believer. An extreme version of baptismal regeneration denies salvation to those baptized outside some particular church group.

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

Eschatology

General term for teachings concerning the "last things," the end of the world and processes of salvation.

In Christianity, eschatology includes teachings concerning death, judgment, heaven, hell, and the coming of Christ (Gk. parousia). The term itself was first used in the nineteenth century with the rise of critical biblical studies. One significant early finding was that both Jesus and the apostle Paul seemed convinced that God would terminate history soon.

Studies of Jesus' use of "the reign of God" and of Paul's treatment of the return of Christ brought a reevaluation of the relations between the end of history and the new era that Jesus had ushered in. For current Christian theology, eschatology raises important issues about history. If Christian faith says that the crucial victory occurred in Christ's death, resurrection, and sending of the Holy Spirit, what value should believers place on temporal matters? The mainstream of theologians seems to have reached a consensus that both the New Testament and subsequent faith seek a balance between "now" and "not yet. "

The substance of salvation (God's forgiveness and eternal life) is available now, in virtue of Christ. But the full expression of salvation can only occur beyond history, where God is all in all, and so does not yet exist. The study of the teachings in the Bible concerning the end times, or of the period of time dealing with the return of Christ and the events that follow.

Eschatological subjects include the Resurrection, the Rapture, the Tribulation, the Millennium, the Binding of Satan, the Three witnesses, the Final Judgment, Armageddon, and The New Heavens and the New Earth. In one form or another most of the books of the Bible deal with end times subjects. But some that are more prominently eschatological are Daniel, Ezekiel, Isaiah, Joel, Zechariah, Matthew, Mark, Luke, 2 Thessalonians, and of course Revelation.

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

buddhi: (Sanskrit) "Intellect, reason, logic." The intellectual or disciplined mind. Buddhi is characterized by discrimination (viveka), voluntary restraint (vairagya), cultivation of calmness (shanti), contentment (santosha) and forgiveness (kshama). It is a faculty of manomaya kosha, the instinctive-intellectual sheath. See: intellectual mind, kosha, mind (individual).

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

Chalice - The chalice, or cup represents water and the west. Also a representation of the femenine.

(See also: Chalice , Pagan, Wicca Pagan Dictionary)

Beltane - Pronounced "Bal-tene". The Irish festival of May 1. Called Bealtiunn in Scotland, Shenn da Boaldyn in the Isle of Man, and Galan-Mai in Wales

(See also: Beltane , Pagan, Wicca Pagan Dictionary)

Call - Invoking divine forces.

(See also: Call , Pagan, Wicca Pagan Dictionary)

Eneidfaddeu (Welsh) (from enaid soul + maddeu to forgive)

The Druidic doctrine that the soul was cleared of its sins by suffering, that suffering was both the result and the forgiveness of wrong thinking and doing; the law of karma.

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

Charms - An amulet or talisman that has been chamged by saying an incantation oover it and instilling it with energy for a specific purpose.

(See also: Charms , Pagan, Wicca Pagan Dictionary)

Buddhi (Sanskrit) (from the verbal root budh to awaken, enlighten, know)

The spiritual soul, the faculty of discriminating, the channel through which streams divine inspiration from the atman to the ego, and therefore that faculty which enables us to discern between good and evil -- spiritual conscience. The qualities of the buddhic principle when awakened are higher judgment, instant understanding, discrimination, intuition, love that has no bounds, and consequent universal forgiveness.

In the theosophical scheme, it is the sixth principle counting upwards in the human constitution: the vehicle of pure, universal spirit, hence an inseparable garment or vehicle of atman. In its essence of the highest plane of akasa or alaya, buddhi stands in the same relation to atman as, on the cosmic scale, mulaprakriti does to parabrahman.

Buddhi uses manas as its garment, and in the former are likewise stored the fruitages of the many incarnations on earth; hence buddhi is often called both the seed and flower of manas. Buddhi is truly the center of spiritual consciousness and therefore its qualities are enduring. The purer and higher part of manas must awaken, by rising to it, this essential energy that inherently resides in buddhi so that the latter may become active in a person's life. Buddha and Christ are examples of sages who had become human imbodiments of the usually latent qualities of buddhi. Buddhi becomes more or less conscious on this plane by the flowerings it draws from manas after every incarnation of the ego. "Buddhi would remain only an impersonal spirit without this element which it borrows from the human soul, which conditions and makes of it, in this illusive Universe, as it were something separate from the universal soul for the whole period of the cycle of incarnation" (Key 159-60).

"No purely spiritual Buddhi (divine Soul) can have an independent (conscious) existence before the spark which issued from the pure Essence of the Universal Sixth principle, -- or the over-soul, -- has (a) passed through every elemental form of the phenomenal world of that Manvantara, and (b) acquired individuality, first by natural impulse, and then by self-induced and self-devised efforts (checked by its Karma), thus ascending through all the degrees of intelligence, from the lowest to the highest Manas, from mineral and plant, up to the holiest archangel (Dhyani-Buddha)" (SD 1:17).

In the human constitution buddhi is a ray from the cosmic principle mahabuddhi or adi-buddhi, a synonym for alaya, pradhana, or the Second Logos, while akasa in its higher reaches is identic with alaya.

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

dharma: (Sanskrit) "Righteousness." From dhri, "to sustain; carry, hold."

Hence dharma is "that which contains or upholds the cosmos." Dharma, religion, is a complex and all-inclusive term with many meanings, including: divine law, law of being, way of righteousness, religion, ethics, duty, responsibility, virtue, justice, goodness and truth. Essentially, dharma is the orderly fulfillment of an inherent nature or destiny. Relating to the soul, it is the mode of conduct most conducive to spiritual advancement, the right and righteous path.

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

Aka - Cord between the physical and astral bodies.

(See also: Aka , Pagan, Wicca Pagan Dictionary)

Akasha - The all-pervading spiritual *ether*.

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Dedication - acceptance of the Craft as a path and a vow to study and learn the lore and information to become an adept.

(See also: Dedication , Pagan, Wicca Pagan Dictionary)

Altar - A sacred space. Often a small table or shelf for sacred objects which vary by tradition

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

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Conviction

See also: Conviction , Christianity, Body Mind and Soul

Blood Atonement

The Mormon doctrine, first taught by Brigham Young, that for certain sins the sinnerÕs own blood must be shed to receive forgiveness. No longer taught by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

To this day, Utah allows condemned murders to face execution by firing squad rather than methods that do not shed the criminalÕs blood, such as lethal injection or the electric chair.

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

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

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Efficacy

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Confession

1)    A personal and/or communal statement of beliefs, as in the primitive Christian confession that "Jesus is Lord. " Later, the concept was elaborated into longer, more cognitively detailed statements of belief on the theological level.

2)    A verbal avowal of personal misdeeds. In the Christian era, a ritualized group avowal of sin as part of Sunday worship. In the Roman Catholic Church confession is only one part of the entire sacrament of penance (also known as the rite of reconciliation) that leads up to the act of absolution (forgiveness). In Judaism the parallel phenomenon developed communally in the annual congregational confession of sins on the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur). In Eastern and Western Christianity there also developed the individual confession.

3)    Among New Age churches, the semi-formal rite of relating one's sins or trespasses to absolve oneself of guilt.

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

Charging - The act of empowering an herb stone or other magickal object with one's own energies directoed towards a magickal purpose.

(See also: Charging , Pagan, Wicca Pagan Dictionary)