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Below are some short introductions. Click on the blue hyperlinked word to get more related articles.
Masonic Druids - Members of several Masonic and Rosicrucian fraternal orders founded in the 1700’s (and since) in England, France and elsewhere; some claim to go back to the original Druids.
Cazotte - Cazotte, Jacques. The wonderful Seer, who predicted the beheading of several royal personages and his own decapitation, at a gay supper some time before the first Revolution in France. He was born at Dijon in 1720, and studied mystic philosophy in the school of Martinez Pasqualis at Lyons. On the 11th of September 1791, he was arrested and condemned to death by the president of the revolutionary government, a man who, shameful to state, had been his fellow-student and a member of the Mystic Lodge of Pasqualis at Lyons. Cazotte was executed on the 25th of September on the Place du Carrousel.
Cesar - Cesar. A far-famed astrologer and "professor of magic," i.e., an Occultist, during the reign of Henry IV of France. "He was reputed to have been strangled by the devil in 1611," as Brother Kenneth Mackenzie tells us.
Celtic Lands - CELTIC LANDS: The areas of the world which are still populated by the decendants of the Celts are well known to most: England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and Brittany. Before and during their scattered migration to these places the Celts had flourishing Kingdoms in numerous places in Europe and the Middle East. Gual, in western coastal Europe, is the best known of these.
Other strongholds included Galatia in central Turkey, Galacia in northwestern Spain, Gallia Cisalpina nestled between the Alps and the Appennine mountains in central Europe, and numerous smaller settlements in what are now the countries of Germany, Switzerland, Austria, and southern France.
Cecco Dascoli - Cecco d’Ascoli. Surnamed "Francesco Stabili." He lived in the thirteenth century, and was considered the most famous astrologer in his day. A work of his published at Basle in 1485, and called Commentarii in Sphaeram Joannis de Sacrabosco, is still extant. He was burnt alive by the Inquisition in 1327.
Traditional - TRADITIONAL: Many branches of the craft claim to be pre-Gardnerian. These usually call themselves Traditional. This covers a lot of territory and depends on the area of origin (i.e. Wales, Scotland, Ireland, France, Germany, Italy, Basque, etc.).
Raelian - Raelians are members of a UFO group that follow Claude Vorilhon, a Frenchman who calls himself Rael. He claims that on December 13, 1973, he was in a volcano near Clermont-Ferrand, France, when he saw a UFO. He says a radiant being emerged and entrusted him with a message revealing the true origin of mankind. They told him that henceforth he would be known as Rael, which means "messenger. " His followers consider him to be "the prophet of the third millennium. " Rael expects is followers to support him. A 10% tithe is the norm. His followers believe he was taken to the planet of the Elohim in a flying saucer in 1975, where he was introduced to noted spiritual teachers of Earth, such as Jesus, Buddha, Joseph Smith and Confucius.
The Elohim, small human-shaped beings with pale green skin and almond eyes, were apparently the original inspiration for the Judeo-Christian God. They informed Vorilhon that he is the final prophet - sent to relay a message of peace and sensual meditation to humankind under his new name of Rael - before the Elohim will return to Jerusalem in 2025. Rael claims that the human race was created from the DNA of aliens some 25,000 years ago. (In fact, all life on earth was created in alien laboratories. )
Among other things, Rael has also learned that cloning is the way to immortality and there is no God or soul. According to Rael, our alien creators want us to be beautiful and sexy and enjoy a sensuous life, free from the restrictions of traditional Judeo-Christian morality. The Raelian headquarters are in Montreal but the group is international and claims to have some 50,000 members in 85 countries.
Mesmerism - An 18th century movement begun in France by the Austrian doctor Franz Anton Mesmer, who believed that astrological influence on humans was conveyed through a force or substance similar to magnetism.
He first began treating patients with magnets or charged fluids but quickly modified his position, theorizing that cures were actually coming from an energy or mysterious “magnetic fluid” coming from the hands, voice, or nervous system of the practitioner.
This invisible substance or magnetism was thought to be similar to electro-magnetism and was dubbed “Animal Magnetism. ” Mesmer''s pupils were later able to induce a “magnetic sleep” (trance state or hypnotic condition) in their patients. The term Mesmerism eventually became analogous with hypnosis .
Waldenses - Waldenses A movement arising in the last quarter of the 12th century in the south of France, when Peter Waldo, a rich merchant of Lyons, distributed his wealth among the poor and went forth as a preacher of voluntary poverty, likewise preaching the doctrines of the Christ. He had the Bible translated into the language of the Provence, which he and his followers read and interpreted in their own way. This brought upon them the wrath of the clergy. At length Pope Alexander prohibited them from preaching without the permission of the bishops (1179).
To this Waldo replied that he must obey God rather than man -- for which he was excommunicated by Lucius III in 1184, which brought on a persecution of the Waldenses which continued through the Middle Ages. During the cruel and bloody crusade against the Albigenses, the Waldenses were also attacked and almost exterminated: they survived by fleeing into the mountains and secluded valleys of the Alps. Nevertheless the persecution continued inasmuch as their doctrines were called heretical. Many adherents joined the various reforming movements which arose in Europe from time to time -- such as the Hussite, Lutheran, and Protestant -- although a center remained in the valleys of the Vaudois even to the present day.
Kardecists - Kardecists. The followers of the spiritistic system of Allan Kardec, the Frenchman who founded the modern movement of the Spiritist School. The Spiritists of France differ from the American and English Spiritualists in that their "Spirits" teach reincarnation, while those of the United States and Great Britain denounce this belief as a heretical fallacy and abuse and slander those who accept it. "When Spirits disagree..."
George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff - (ca. 1877-1949)
Russian-born spiritual teacher and a major influence on twentieth-century alternative spirituality. He is best known for the community of disciples, which included well-known literary figures, that he established in Fontainebleau, France, in the 1920s.
His basic teaching was that human beings are asleep and need to be awakened, so that instead of acting merely out of mechanical habit they can truly control their lives.
Gurdjieff strove to awaken his pupils through seemingly erratic demands, rapid changes of activity or circumstance, sacred dance, and self-observation. Some groups in the Gurdjieff tradition still operate. His early life reads like a collection of tales from the Arabian Nights. Born in Alexandropol, Russia, followers began to organize around him in 1913. He is considered by some to have been the greatest mystical teacher of all times.
Carnac - Carnac. A very ancient site in Brittany (France) of a temple of cyclopean structure, sacred to the Sun and the Dragon; and of the same kind as Karnac, in ancient Egypt, and Stonehenge in England. (See the "Origin of the Satanic Myth" in Archaic Symbolism.)
It was built by the prehistoric hierophant-priests of the Solar Dragon, or symbolized Wisdom (the Solar Kumaras who incarnated being the highest). Each of the stones was personally placed there by the successive priest-adepts in power, and commemorated in symbolic language the degree of power, status, and knowledge of each. (See further Secret Doctrine II. 381, et seq., and also " Karnac".)
Labyrinth - maze, archetype of the circuitous quest for wisdom; the five great ones in antiquity were Crossus and Gortyna Crete; Lemos, Greece; Clusium, Etrusca; and lake Moerus, Egypt. Labyrinths have also been depicted on pillar scratches at Pompeii in floor tiles of Toussaints Abbey in France, 18th c. Rajasthani manuscripts, in traditional Zuni sand drawings, the notebook of Paul klee and among Chiriqui rock drawing in Panama, adj. labyrinthine (from Latin via Greek) (NAD)
Cromagnon Man - Cromagnon Man A highly advanced type of prehistoric mankind existing before the Neolithic Period, supposed to be separated into several distinct races. The first remains discovered consisted of four skeletons found in a rock shelter at Cromagnon in southwestern France in 1868; but many specimens have been found since which show that the Cromagnons were widely spread in Europe -- although they are not found outside of Europe -- in the last third of the Glacial Age, at the close of the Mousterian and during the Aurignacian period.
The Cromagnons were a magnificent race with splendid physical development. The capacity of the skull is 1550 cm cubed while that of the Neanderthal skull is only 1200 cm cubed. "If I had to seek for the people which most nearly represent the Cromagnon blood in the modern world, I would seek them among the tall races of the Punjab in India" (Keith, The Antiquity of Man). Some of the Cromagnons said to show a marked African negroid strain are found on the Mediterranean coast on the frontiers of France and Italy.
The attempt to fit the Cromagnons into a graduated scale leading back to the immediately preceding European race, the more brutal Neanderthals, has not been successful, and the progress of anthropological discovery renders such attempts ever more difficult. The problem becomes more complicated the farther back we go; the earliest remains of humanity yet found show distinctions of racial type as marked, or more so, as those of contemporary races.
Science has not yet solved the problem of the origin of the Cromagnons. Blavatsky hints that they came indirectly from Atlantis by way of Africa: "The earliest Palaeolithic men in Europe -- about whose origin Ethnology is silent, and whose very characteristics are but imperfectly known . . . were of pure Atlantean and ''Africo''-Atlantean stocks. . . . As to the African tribes -- themselves diverging offshoots of Atlanteans modified by climate and conditions -- they crossed into Europe over the peninsula which made the Mediterranean an inland sea. Fine races were many of these European cave-men; the Cro-Magnon, for instance. But, as was to be expected, progress is almost non-existent through the whole of the vast period allotted by Science to the Chipped Stone-Age. The cyclic impulse downwards weighs heavily on the stocks thus transplanted -- the incubus of the Atlantean Karma is upon them" (SD 2:740-1).
Pillaloo-codi - Pillaloo-codi pillalu-kodi (Tamil) Hen and chickens; popularly applied to the group of stars known as the Pleiades. In France the same idea is prevalent, where it is called Poussiniere.
Druid - ‘oakwise’ member of an order of Celtic priests, poets, healers and judges in pre christian Britain, Ireland and France. (NAD)
Falk - Falk, Ca?n Chenul. A Kabbalistic Jew, reputed to have worked "miracles". Kenneth Mackenzie quotes in regard to him from the German annalist Archenoiz’ work on England (1788) : - "
There exists in London an extraordinary man who for thirty years has been celebrated in Kabbalistic records. He is named Ca?n Chenul Falk. A certain Count de Rautzow, lately dead in the service of France, with the rank of Field-Marshal, certifies that he has seen this Falk in Brunswick, and that evocations of spirits took place in the presence of credible witnesses."
These "spirits" were Elementals, whom Falk brought into view by the conjurations used by every Kabbalist. His son, Johann Friedrich Falk, likewise a Jew, was also a Kabbalist of repute, and was once the head of a Kabbalistic college in London. His occupation was that of a jeweller and appraiser of diamonds, and he was a wealthy man. To this day the mystic writings and rare Kabbalistic works bequeathed by him to a trustee may be perused in a certain half-public library in London, by every genuine student of Occultism. Falk’s own writings are all still in MS., and some in cypher.
Quietists - Quietists. A religious sect founded by a Spanish monk named Molinos. Their chief doctrine was that contemplation (an internal state of complete rest and passivity) was the only religious practice possible, and constituted the whole of religious observances. They were the Western Hatha Yogis and passed their time in trying to separate their minds from the objects of sense. The practice became a fashion in France and also in Russia during the early portion of this century.
Kadosh - Kadosh (from Hebrew qodesh consecrated, holy)
One of the degrees pertaining to Freemasonry, associated with the Knights Templars, instituted at Lyons, France, 1743.
See also QODESH
Mandala - A circular geometric design that represents the cosmos and the spirit''s journey. It is a tool in the pilgrimage to enlightenment. One of the most famous mandalas appears on the floor of the Chartres Cathedral in France.
Saint Martin - Saint Martin, Louis Claude de. Born in France (Amboise), in 1743. A great mystic and writer, who pursued his philosophical and theosophical studies at Paris, during the Revolution. He was an ardent disciple of Jacob Boehme, and studied under Martinez Paschalis, finally founding a mystical semi-Masonic Lodge, "the Rectified Rite of St. Martin ", with seven degrees. He was a true Theosophist. At the present moment some ambitious charlatans in Paris are caricaturing him and passing themselves off as initiated Martinists, and thus dishonouring the name of the late Adept.
Breton - BRETON: The name for a person from Brittany, that Celtic part of France where the population has always considered itself more Celtic than French.
Spiritism - A particular form of spiritualism developed in the nineteenth century in France by Alan Kardec. Very popular in South America.
Postel - Postel, Guillaume. A French adept, born in Normandy in 1510. His learning brought him to the notice of Francis I., who sent him to the Levant in search of occult MSS., where he was received into and initiated by an Eastern Fraternity. On his return to France he became famous. He was persecuted by the clergy and finally imprisoned by the Inquisition, but was released by his Eastern brothers from his dungeon. His Clavis Absconditorum, a key to things hidden and forgotten, is very celebrated.
Ravail - Ravail. The true name of the Founder of modern Spiritism in France, who is better known under the pseudonym of Allan Kardec.
Existentialism - Compare the following two dictionary definitions:
Funk & Wagnall, 1947:
"Sartre''s development. Concerned with man''s responsibility for what he is. A man is a sum total of his acts, not of his ambitions or potentialities. He exists only in his fulfillment. He is confronted with choice, but is alone in his choosing, lacking external aid, authority or value."
Webster, 1966:
"Literary, philosophical cult of nihilism and pessimism, popularized in France after WWII, chiefly by Sartre: it holds that each man exists as an individual in a purposeless universe, and that he must oppose his hostile environment through the exercise of his free will. "
Cistercians - A Christian monastic order, also known as the White Monks because of their plain, unbleached habits. Repelled by the lavishness of much of contemporary monasticism and desiring to live in stricter conformity to the Rule of St. Benedict, Robert of Molesme and his followers founded in 1098 the monastery of Citeaux (Lat. Cistercium), just south of Dijon, France. By the mid-twelfth century the order numbered over 350 houses, many located in remote parts of Europe. The rapid growth and popularity of the order was stimulated by the charismatic figure of Bernard of Clairvaux (ca. 1090-1153).
The Cistercians aimed at cohesiveness and uniformity and to this end created a strong centralized system of government. The Cistercians have suffered serious decline since the Middle Ages in both numbers and prestige, although there was a brief resurgence with the founding of the Trappists, a Cistercian offshoot in 1664.
All Saints Day - All Saints'' Day, All-Hallows, Hallowmas (Halloween) A festival originally on the first of May, said to have been instituted for the martyrs in European countries about the 4th or 5th centuries. In the 7th century, Pope Boniface instituted it on May 13 to replace a pagan festival of the dead. In 834 the day was moved to November 1st by Gregory III and was then celebrated for all the saints.
The Greek Church celebrates it on the first Sunday after Pentecost. Closely connected with the celebration was the keeping of the preceding evening, known as the vigil of Hallowmas or Halloween. This was especially kept in Scotland and in Brittany, France. In Scotland an important item was the lighting of a bonfire at each house.
The Celts kept two festivals, one called Beltane (Bealtine or Beiltine) in which fires were lighted on the eve of May 1st, and the other called Samtheine on the eve of November 1st, in which people jumped over two fires placed very close together. "The Druids understood the meaning of the Sun in Taurus, therefore, when, while all the fires were extinguished on the 1st of November, their sacred and inextinguishable fires alone remained to illumine the horizon, like those of the Magi and the modern Zoroastrians" (SD 2:759).
The Germanic nations had their Osterfeuer and Johannisfeuer.
Theophilanthropism - Theophilanthropism (Ancient Greek). Love to God and man, or rather, in the philosophical sense, love of God through love of Humanity. Certain persons who during the first revolution in France sought to replace Christianity by pure philanthropy and reason, called themselves theophilanthropists.
Jacques Coeur - Jacques Coeur. A famous Treasurer of France, born in 1408, who obtained the office by black magic. He was reputed as a great alchemist and his wealth became fabulous; but he was soon banished from the country, and retiring to the Island of Cyprus, died there in 1460, leaving behind enormous wealth, endless legends and a bad reputation.
Druid - Member of an order of Celtic priests, poets, healers, and judges in pre-Christian Britain, Ireland, and France
Martinists - Martinists. A Society in France, founded by a great mystic called the Marquis de St. Martin, a disciple of Martinez Pasqualis. It was first established at Lyons as a kind of occult Masonic Society, its members believing in the possibility of communicating with Planetary Spirits and minor Gods and genii of the ultramundane Spheres. Louis Claude de St. Martin, born in 1743, had commenced life as a brilliant officer in the army, but left it to devote himself to study and the belles lettres, ending his career by becoming an ardent Theosophist and a disciple of Jacob Boehmen.
He tried to bring back Masonry to its primeval character of Occultism and Theurgy, but failed. He first made his "Rectified Rite" to consist of ten degrees, but these were brought down owing to the study of the original Masonic orders - to seven. Masons complain that he introduced certain ideas and adopted rites "at variance with the archeological history of Masonry"; but so did Cagliostro and St Germain before him, as all those who knew well the origin of Free masonry.
Rosicrucianism - (Literally the “Rose cross”) The name was first given to the disciples of an adept known as Christian Rosenkreuz, who supposedly lived Germany around 1460. He is said to be the founder of an order of mystical students whose early history is to be found in the German work, Fama Fraternitatis (1614), which has been published in several languages.
The members of the Order maintained their secrecy, but traces of them have been found in various places every half century since these dates. This organization which was extremely Christian in its orientation, apparently died out around the beginning of the 19th century. The best-known modern Rosicrucian organization, the Ancient and Mystical Order of the Rosy Cross (AMORC), was founded shortly after the turn of the 20th century and derived its charter from an organization in France which evolved from an organization founded by Aliester Crowley. There is no obvious connection between the original 17th century Rosicrucians and any modern group using the name
The first Rosicrucian society in the United States was founded in Pennsylvania in 1694. In 1909 Harvey Spencer Lewis founded The Ancient Mystical Order Rosae Crucis (AMORC) which now has its headquarters in San Jose, California. Lewis claimed to have been initiated into the Brotherhood in France. The AMORC is an international fraternal order that operates through a system of lodges and fosters the Rosicrucian philosophy of developing humankind''s highest potentialities and psychic powers.
Through study and practice, members strive for the perfection with the ultimate goal being admittance into the Lodge and the attainment of true knowledge, or cosmic consciousness. Students progress through twelve degrees of mastery, with the tenth through twelfth degrees conferred psychically, usually in the Order''s temples in the East. As in Theosophy, such perfection comes only after various reincarnations, each devoted to achieving a greater oneness with the Supreme Being. Rosicrucians claim influence on Freemasonry, especially since the eighteenth Masonic degree is the Sovereign Prince Rose Croix of Heredom.
Albigenses - A heresy during the middle ages that developed in the town Albi in Southern France. This error taught that there were two gods: the good god of light usually referred to as Jesus in the New Testament and the god of darkness and evil usually associated with Satan and the "God of the Old Testament." Anything material was considered evil including the body which was created by Satan. The soul, created by the good god, was imprisoned in the evil flesh and salvation was possible only through holy living and doing good works. Please see Heresies for more information.
Werewolf - A shapeshifter. Also werwolf and lycanthrope. A legendary being who who at night transforms himself or, during the full moon, is transformed into a wolf (a process called lycanthropy) in form and appetite, and roams at night in search of human victims to devour.
This transformation was either temporary or permanent, and was supposedly brought about by supernatural influences, by witchcraft, or voluntarily. The werewolf must return to human form at daybreak by shedding his wolf''s skin and hiding it. If it is found and destroyed, the werewolf dies. A werewolf who is wounded immediately reverts to his human form and can be detected by the corresponding wound on his body.
Similar creatures exist in folklore worldwide: the tiger, boar, hyena, and even the cat, are ''wereanimals'' in areas where wolves are not found. Belief in wer (or man) animals was common in the Middle Ages, and was probably a relic from early cannibalism. In 16th century France the superstition regarding werewolves seems to have been widespread and prevalent, as evidenced by the numerous trials in which it was shown clearly murder and cannibalism, all attributed to lycanthropy. This belief is now all but extinct.
Knights Templars - Knights Templars A religio-military order, a brotherhood in arms, founded in the 12th century by Hugh de Payens and Geoffrey de St. Omer (Godfrey de St. Aldemar), and seven other knights for the purpose of protecting the Holy Sepulcher of the Christians, taking its name from the palace of the Latin kings in Jerusalem, which was called Solomon''s Temple.
The Order being partly monastic, the knights took the usual vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. The Order spread rapidly throughout Europe and the Near East, the Order being under the governance of an elected Grand Master, the first being Hugh de Payens elected in 1118, and the last, the 22nd, being Jacques do Molay, elected in 1297.
"The Temple was the last European secret organization which, as a body, had in its possession some of the mysteries of the East" (IU 2:380). The Order of the Temple was linked with the earlier Essenes and Gnostics, and the true Rosicrucians of the Middle Ages, and Freemasonry in its highest and oldest degrees, notably the third or Master Mason''s degree.
The high purposes for which the Order was founded were, however, gradually lost sight of due to the adoption of certain purely ecclesiastical rites and ceremonies. In the early years of the 14th century the Order, which had gained greatly in power and wealth, especially in France, was suppressed by Philip IV acting under the authority of Pope Clement V. In 1310 54 of the knights were publicly burnt, and in 1313 Jacques de Molay, the last Grand Master of the Order, suffered the same fate.
The Knight Templar degree of modern Freemasonry claims descent from the original Order.
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