Genesis Dictionary

Genesis. The whole of the Book of Genesis down to the death of Joseph, is found to he a hardly altered version of the Cosmogony of the Chaldeans, as is now repeatedly proven from the Assyrian tiles.

The first three chapters are transcribed from the allegorical narratives of the beginnings common to all nations.

Chapters four and five are a new allegorical adaptation of the same narration in the secret Book of Numbers; chapter six is an astronomical narrative of the Solar year and the seven cosmocratores from the Egyptian original of the Pymander and the symbolical visions of a series of Enoichioi (Seers) - from whom came also the Book of Enoch.

The beginning of Exodus, and the story of Moses is that of the Babylonian Sargon, who having flourished (as even that unwilling authority Dr. Sayce tells us) 3750 B.C. preceded the Jewish lawgiver by almost 2300 years. (See Secret Doctrine, vol. II., pp. 691 et seq.)

Nevertheless, Genesis is an undeniably esoteric work. It has not borrowed, nor has it disfigured the universal symbols and teachings on the lines of which it was written, but simply adapted the eternal truths to its own national spirit and clothed them in cunning allegories comprehensible only to its Kabbalists and Initiates.

The Gnostics have done the same, each sect in its own way, as thousands of years before, India, Egypt, Chaldea and Greece, had also dressed the same incommunicable truths each in its own national garb. The key and solution to all such narratives can be found only in the esoteric teachings.

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

Genesis (Greek) Beginning; generation; birth, production; the first book in the Bible as translated into Greek, whose opening chapters deal with the genesis of worlds and creatures. The Book of Genesis is based on the cosmogony of the Chaldeans.

"The first three chapters are transcribed from the allegorical narratives of the beginnings common to all nations. Chapters four and five are a new allegorical adaptation of the same narration in the secret Book of Numbers; chapter six is an astronomical narrative of the Solar year and the seven cosmocratores from the Egyptian original of the Pymander and the symbolical visions of a series of Enoichioi (Seers) -- from whom came also the Book of Enoch.

The beginning of Exodus, and the story of Moses is that of the Babylonian Sargon, who having flourished . . . 3750 B.C. preceded the Jewish lawgiver by almost 2300 years. (See Secret Doctrine, vol. II., pp. 691 et seq.) Nevertheless, Genesis is an undeniably esoteric work. It has not borrowed, nor has it disfigured the universal symbols and teachings on the lines of which it was written, but simply adapted the eternal truths to its own national spirit and clothed them in cunning allegories comprehensible only to its Kabbalists and Initiates" (TG 127).

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

Meaning of Dreams in Islam

Few Western dream researchers have any familiarity with the rich dream traditions of Islam. The Muslim faith first emerged in seventh century B.C.E. Arabia as a profound revisioning of early Jewish and Christian beliefs and practices. One theme the Prophet Muhammed (pbuh) drew from the scriptures of those two religions was a reverence for dreaming. In the Quran, as in the Jewish Torah and the Christian New Testament, dreams serve as a vital medium by which God communicates with humans. Dreams offer divine guidance and comfort, warn people of impending danger, and offer prophetic glimpses of the future. Although the three religions drastically differ on many other topics, they find substantial agreement on this particular point: dreaming is a valuable source of wisdom, understanding, and inspiration. Indeed, as I will propose in this brief essay, Islam has historically shown greater interest in dreams than either of the other two traditions, and has done more to weave dreaming into the daily lives of its members. From the first revelatory visions of Muhammed to the myriad dream practices of present-day Muslims, Islam has developed and sustained a complex, multifaceted tradition of active engagement with the dreaming imagination.

Read more here: » Meaning of Dreams in Islam: Reflections on the Dream Traditions of Islam

Adam Kadmon

In the Qabala, Christ, the Logos, the only begotten son of God as found in Genesis 1: 1, not to be confused with the emanations of Adam Kadom (also called Adam or Eden) as found in Genesis 2 (consciousness) or Genesis 3 (matter and life) or Genesis 4(humanity)

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

Hinduism (Hindu Dharma): (Sanskrit) India's indigenous religious and cultural system, followed today by nearly one billion adherents, mostly in India, but with large populations in many other countries. Also called Sanatana Dharma, "eternal religion" and Vaidika Dharma, "religion of the Vedas."

Hinduism is the world's most ancient religion and encompasses a broad spectrum of philosophies ranging from pluralistic theism to absolute monism.

It is a family of myriad faiths with four primary denominations:

• Saivism,
• Vaishnavism,
• Shaktism and
• Smartism.

These four hold such divergent beliefs that each is a complete and independent religion. Yet, they share a vast heritage of culture and belief:

• karma,
• dharma,
• reincarnation,
• all-pervasive Divinity,
• temple worship,
• sacraments,
• manifold Deities,
• the guru-shishya tradition and
• a reliance on the Vedas as scriptural authority.

From the rich soil of Hinduism long ago sprang various other traditions. Among these were Jainism, Buddhism and Sikhism, which rejected the Vedas and thus emerged as completely distinct religions, disassociated from Hinduism, while still sharing many philosophical insights and cultural values with their parent faith.

Though the genesis of the term is controversial, the consensus is that the term Hindu or Indu was used by the Persians to refer to the Indian peoples of the Indus Valley as early as 500 bce. Additionally, Indian scholars point to the appearance of the related term Sindhu in the ancient Rig Veda Samhita. Janaki Abhisheki writes (Religion as Knowledge: The Hindu Concept, p. 1): "Whereas today the word

Hindu connotes a particular faith and culture, in ancient times it was used to describe those belonging to a particular region. About 500 bce we find the Persians referring to 'Hapta Hindu.' This referred to the region of Northwest India and the Punjab (before partition).

The Rig Veda (the most ancient literature of the Hindus) uses the word Sapta Sindhu singly or in plural at least 200 times. Sindhu is the River Indus. Panini, the great Sanskrit grammarian, also uses the word Sindhu to denote the country or region.

While the Persians substituted h for s, the Greeks removed the h also and pronounced the word as 'Indoi.' Indian is derived from the Greek Indoi."

Dr. S. Radhakrishnan similarly observed,

"The Hindu civilization is so called since its original founders or earliest followers occupied the territory drained by the Sindhu (the Indus) River system corresponding to the Northwest Frontier Province and the Punjab. This is recorded in the Rig Veda, the oldest of the Vedas, the Hindu scriptures, which give their name to this period of Indian history. The people on the Indian side of the Sindhu were called Hindus by the Persians and the later Western invaders. That is the genesis of the word Hindu" (The Hindu View of Life, p. 12).

See: Hindu.

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

Eve Hawwah (Hebrew) (from hawah to breathe, live)

Mystically the mother of all living, an allegorical yet actual figure in all archaic cosmogonies. Genesis describes three Eves:

1)    the archetypal Eve, the feminine aspect of the divine androgyne which is on the one hand `Adam Qadmon, and on the other hand Sephirah-Eve (ch. l);

2)    the Eve of the early third root-race, after the separation of the sexes but before the awakening of mind (ch. 2); and

3)    Eve the mother of Abel and of Seth, here beginning the course of human history after the awakening of mind.

The first Eve was no woman but, like the first Adam, the spiritual feminine aspect of an archetypal spiritual host; the second was no woman but womankind; while the third was woman and mother as now known. They companion and correspond to the three Adams: the first, the spiritual albeit masculine type of the archetypal host; the second, the mindless first human race; and the third, "the race that (had fully)

separated, whose eyes are opened" (SD 2:46n). Between the Eve of Genesis and Eve the mother of Seth (Genesis 4) passed long ages, involving millions of years during which the archetypal preparation of the globe for human habitation was followed by distinct root-races and three Edens, with millions of years between even these latter.

The original from which the Hebrew Genesis was later compiled is lost. Yet even as the latter has reached us -- first veiled, then probably remodeled by Ezra with shiftings that confuse the chronology -- despite important words and clauses mistranslated by European scholars, its resemblance to the esoteric account is unmistakable. For Jehovah, who gave the human body and (physical) breath of life, is the hyparxis of Saturn and an earthly, not a celestial, hierarchy.

The human mind and spirit are essentially emanations from the immortal spiritual monad coeval with the universe, and subsequent human evolutionary development was both from and aided by the elohim, a spiritual host. Adam and Eve, once mind appeared in them, enter the path of self-directed evolution, a reference to the second and third Eves mentioned above. The eating of the fruit of the tree is the awakening or lighting of mind in man. It shows Eve as consorting with spiritual, not demoniacal, forces and incidentally reconciles the two creation stories.

Like the serpent, the tree is an ancient and universal symbol of sacred and esoteric knowledge. To eat of its fruit is to acquire the knowledge that only the gods possess, and the possession confers immortality under the law.

There is neither relationship nor historic nor philosophic resemblance between Eve and Lilith, Adam's "first wife."

(See also: Eve, Hawwah , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Water of Life The Book of Dzyan says that light is cold flame, flame is fire, and fire produces heat, which yields the water of life in the great mother; Blavatsky explained that all these are, on our plane, the progeny of electricity -- which is perhaps the most important physical manifestation of the cosmic jiva or life, emanating from fohat, or vice versa.

Also a synonym for Chaos, the great cosmic deep, as in the opening verses of Genesis, when the soul of the 'Elohim or hierarchy of dhyani-chohans moved through and over the waters.

Again, in myth and folktales, a magic liquid that cures all illnesses, brings the dead to life, or gives immortality. For example, in the Babylonian myth of Ishtar and Tammuz, the goddess descends to the underworld seeking the water of life to restore Tammuz to life.

See also AB-E-HAYAT

(See also: Water of Life , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body mind and Soul)

Ancient Astronauts

Astronauts from other planets which allegedly visited Earth in spaceships in ancient times. This theory claims to explain Fortean mysteries and the evidence of ancient sophisticated technology, and primitive societies feats of engineering.

Ancient astronaut writers say also that Man did not evolve only from earthly beings like Adam and Eve. A misreading of Genesis leads one to believe that a second strain not from this world but from a 'heavenly source', was added to the human gene-pool (Genesis chapter

Devotees of this theory like to quote the myths and legends of ancient or primitive peoples in an attempt to justify their case. According to the folklore and mythology of many peoples, the gods gave fire and the skills of agriculture to mankind. However, this fact alone does not mean that the gods of the ancients were extraterrestrial beings, and that our ancestors were so simple minded that they could not have discovered these things by themselves.

In 1968 Erich von DŠniken published a book, Chariots of the Gods?, in which he argued the ancient astronauts theory, presenting supposedly 'proof' of his claims. Zecharia Sitchin is a more modern author who claims to translated ancient Sumerian manuscripts which tell the story of Ancient Astronauts.

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

Adam 'adam (Hebrew) (from 'adam to be red, ruddy)

Used in Genesis for man, original mankind; the Qabbalah enumerates four Adams. The Archetypal or Heavenly Man ('Adam Qadmon) is the prototype for the second, androgyne Adam. From these two emanates the third Adam, preterrestrial and innocent, though still further removed from the divine prototype Adam Qadmon. The fourth Adam is "the Third Adam as he was after the Fall," the terrestrial Adam of the Garden of Eden, our earthly sexual humanity (Qabbalah Myer 418).

With regard to the elohim bringing man forth "in their own image" (tselem), Blavatsky says: "The sexless Race was their first production, a modification of and from themselves, the pure spiritual existences; and this as Adam solus. Thence came the second Race: Adam-Eve or Jod-Heva, inactive androgynes; and finally the Third, or the 'Separating Hermaphrodite,' Cain and Abel, who produce the Fourth, Seth-Enos, etc." (SD 2:134). Again, "finally, even the four 'Adams' (symbolizing under other names the four preceding races) were forgotten; and passing from one generation in to another, each loaded with some additional myths, got at last drowned in that ocean of popular symbolism called the Pantheons. Yet they exist to this day in the oldest Jewish traditions, as the Tzelem, 'the Shadow-Adam' (the Chhayas of our doctrine); the 'model' Adam, the copy of the first, and the 'male and female' of the exoteric genesis (chap. i); the third, the 'earthly Adam' before the Fall, an androgyne; and the Fourth -- the Adam after his fall, i.e. separated into sexes, or the pure Atlantean. The Adam of the garden of Eden, or the forefather of our race -- the fifth -- is an ingenious compound of the above four" (SD 2:503).

See also `OLAM; SEPHIRAH

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

Akkadians, Accadians A non-Semitic race which preceded the Semites in Babylonia, evidence for whom is mainly found in some of the cuneiform inscriptions. The name comes from the city of Agade, the capital of Sargon I. Blavatsky says in The Secret Doctrine that the Akkadians were not Turanian, but were emigrants from India and were the Aryan instructors of the later Babylonians. There is an Akkadian Genesis, which stands in the line of descent leading to the Biblical Genesis.

The ethnology of the ancient peoples inhabiting Mesopotamia is extremely obscure. The records of occult history show that in a previous geological period, all that portion of western and central-western Asia, which includes Persia, Babylonia, Turkestan, Baluchistan, Afghanistan, etc., was once a highly fertile and well-populated portion of the earth's surface, not only bearing once famous and brilliant civilizations, but likewise the seat of different peoples living side by side.

When immense climatic and geological changes took place, this vast stretch of territory became the seeding-place or focus whence spread to the east, south, and west various emigrant offshoots which populated what were then less fertile territories, which in time became on the one hand northern India, Afghanistan, Baluchistan, and Turkestan, and on the southwest Iran, Mesopotamia, Asia Minor, and the Caucasus district.

It was far later that a reverse current of emigration left what is now northern India and proceeded westward settling to a certain extent in the lands of their ancient forefathers, and this accounts not only for the similarities between the west and east of this district, but the Indian influence perceptible in Mesopotamia and the close linguistic and other links that existed between the ancient Zoroastrians and the Brahmanical streams of thought.

(See also: Akkadians, Accadians , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Creative Math of the Origins of Universe

For the creation of anything three causes are required to be fulfilled: Material cause, instrumental cause and supporting cause. In Creation, Brahman is all of these three causes. He evolves Himself into Mulaprakriti or primordial matter.

Read more here: » Vedic Genesis: Creative Math of the Origins of Universe

Berosus (Chald.). A priest of the Temple of Belus who wrote for Alexander the Great the history of the Cosmogony, as taught in the Temples, from the astronomical and chronological records preserved in that temple. The fragments we have in the soi-disant translations of Eusebius are certainly as untrustworthy as the biographer of the Emperor Constantine - of whom he made a saint (!!) - could make them.

The only guide to this Cosmogony may now be found in the fragments of the Assyrian tablets, evidently copied almost bodily from the earlier Babylonian records; which, say what the Orientalists may, are undeniably the originals of the Mosaic Genesis, of the Flood, the tower of Babel, of baby Moses set afloat on the waters, and of other events. For, if the fragments from the Cosmogony of Berosus, so carefully re-edited and probably mutilated and added to by Eusebius, are no great proof of the antiquity of these records in Babylonia - seeing that this priest of Belus lived three hundred years after the Jews were carried captive to Babylon, and they may have been borrowed by the Assyrians from them - later discoveries have made such a consoling hypothesis impossible.

 It is now fully ascertained by Oriental scholars that not only "Assyria borrowed its civilization and written characters from Babylonia," but the Assyrians copied their literature from Babylonian sources. Moreover, in his first Hibbert lecture, Professor Sayce shows the culture both of Babylonia itself and of the city of Eridu to have been of foreign importation; and, according to this scholar, the city of Eridu stood already "6,000 years ago on the shores of the Persian gulf," i.e., about the very time when Genesis shows the Elohim creating the world, sun, and stars out of nothing.

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

Pentateuch [from Greek pente five + teuchos books]

A work in five books; the first five books of the Bible, containing stories of creation, of a flood, of the wanderings and settlement of the Hebrews, and the so-called Law of Moses. To these is sometimes added Joshua, sometimes also Judges and Ruth.

Jewish belief in the authorship of Moses was adopted by the Christian Church, but internal evidence has now caused this to be rejected; and the form in which we have the present Pentateuch is usually attributed to Ezra, who reestablished the Jewish religion after the return of the Jews from the Babylonian captivity. If he did not write it, he certainly rewrote it. For Christians, the literal acceptance of this work as being divinely inspired has thrown a dark cloud over their faith.

The Pentateuch forms part of one of the world's sacred scriptures, being preceded by the Hindu, Mazdean, Egyptian, and Chaldean, counting only some of those well known to modern scholarship; so that we find the ancient teachings as they have reached us in a very confused and altered form.

The Pentateuch is, exoterically, a collection of allegorical legends; but, in the light of the Zohar, the main book of the modern Jewish Qabbalah, the first four chapters at least of Genesis are a fragment of a highly philosophical page in archaic cosmogony. "Left in their symbolical disguise, they are a nursery tale, an ugly thorn in the side of science and logic, an evident effect of Karma. To have let them serve as a prologue to Christianity was a cruel revenge on the part of the Rabbis, who knew better what their Pentateuch meant" (SD 1:11).

If the Jehovistic portions are eliminated, the Mosaic books are found full of occult and priceless knowledge, especially in the first six chapters, even changed as they are and often veiled with thick garmentings of allegory. The Elohistic texts were written, according to the ideas of some Biblical scholars, 500 years after the date of Moses, and the Jehovistic 800 years. But these dates seem to be wholly arbitrary and repose upon modern Biblical speculation. Archeological excavations on the Biblical sites may or may not support to some extent the Bible narratives, but such narratives, at least those of the early part of Genesis, are merely the raw material for the later allegory constructed around them.

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

Jehovah (Hebrew, Jewish). The Jewish "Deity name J’hovah, is a compound of two words, viz of Jah (y, i, or j, Yodh, the tenth letter of the alphabet) and hovah (Havah, or Eve)," says a Kabalistic authority, Mr. J. Ralston Skinner of Cincinnati, U.S.A. And again, "The word Jehovah, or Jah-Eve, has the primary meaning of existence or being as male female".

It means Kabalistically the latter, indeed, and nothing more; and as repeatedly shown is entirely phallic. Thus, verse 26 in the IVth chapter of Genesis, reads in its disfigured translation . . . . "then began men to call upon the name of the Lord", whereas it ought to read correctly . . . . "then began men to call themselves by the name of Jah-hovah" or males and females, which they had become after the separation of sexes. In fact the latter is described in the same chapter, when Cain (the male or Jah) "rose up against Abel, his (sister, not) brother and slew him"(spilt his blood, in the original). Chapter IV of Genesis contains in truth, the allegorical narrative of that period of anthropological and physiological evolution which is described in the Secret Doctrine when treating of the third Root race of mankind.

It is followed by Chapter V as a blind; but ought to be succeeded by Chapter VI, where the Sons of God took as their wives the daughters of men or of the giants. For this is an allegory hinting at the mystery of the Divine Egos incarnating in mankind, after which the hitherto senseless races "became mighty men, . . . men of renown" (v. 4), having acquired minds (manas) which they had not before.

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

Bardesanes or Bardaisan. A Syrian Gnostic, erroneously regarded as a Christian theologian, born at Edessa (Edessene Chronicle) in 155 of our era (Assemani Bibl.. Orient. i. 389).

He was a great astrologer following the Eastern Occult System. According to Porphyry (who calls him the Babylonian, probably on account of his Chaldeeism or astrology), "Bardesanes . . . . held intercourse with the Indians that had been sent to the Cesar with Damadamis at their head" (De Abst. iv. 17), and had his information from the Indian gymnosophists.

The fact is that most of his teachings, however much they may have been altered by his numerous Gnostic followers, can be traced to Indian philosophy, and still more to the Occult teachings of the Secret System. Thus in his Hymns he speaks of the creative Deity as "Father-Mother", and elsewhere of "Astral Destiny" (Karma) of "Minds of Fire" (the Agni-Devas) &c. He connected the Soul (the personal Manas) with the Seven Stars, deriving its origin from the Higher Beings (the divine Ego); and therefore "admitted spiritual resurrection but denied the resurrection of the body", as charged with by the Church Fathers. Ephraim shows him preaching the signs of the Zodiac, the importance of the birth-hours and "proclaiming the seven".

Calling the Sun the "Father of Life" and the Moon the "Mother of Life", he shows the latter "laying aside her garment of light (principles) for the renewal of the Earth". Photius cannot understand how, while accepting "the Soul free from the power of genesis (destiny of birth)" and possessing free will, he still placed the body under the rule of birth (genesis). For "they (the Bardesanists) say, that wealth and poverty and sickness and health and death and all things not within our control are works of destiny" (Bibl. Cod. 223, p.221 - f). This is Karma, most evidently, which does not preclude at all free-will. Hippolytus makes him a representative of the Eastern School.

Speaking of Baptism, Bardesanes is made to say (loc. cit. pp. 985-ff "It is not however the Bath alone which makes us free, but the Knowledge of who we are, what we are become, where we were before, whither we are hastening, whence we are redeemed; what is generation (birth), what is re-generation (re.birth)". This points plainly to the doctrine of re-incarnation.

His conversation (Dialogue) with Awida and Barjamina on Destiny and Free Will shows it. "What is called Destiny, is an order of outflow given to the Rulers (Gods) and the Elements, according to which order the Intelligences (Spirit-Egos) are changed by their descent into the Soul, and the Soul by its descent into the body". (See Treatise, found in its Syriac original, and published with English translation in 1855 by Dr. Cureton, Spicileg. Syriac. in British Museum.)

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

Cain qayin (Hebrew) (from qayin spear)

In the Bible, the son of Adam and Eve, and a tiller of the ground. Becoming jealous of the offering which his brother Abel presents to the Lord, Cain according to the legend slays him (Genesis 4). This allegory signifies that "Jehovah-Cain, the male part of Adam the dual man, having separated himself from Eve, creates in her 'Abel,' the first natural woman, and sheds the Virgin blood" (SD 2:388). Cain and Abel represent the third root-race or the "Separating Hermaphrodite" (SD 2:134).

Again "beginning with Cain, the first murderer, every fifth man in his line of descent is a murderer. . . . In the Talmud this genealogy is given complete, and thirteen murderers range themselves in line below the name of Cain. This is no coincidence. Siva is the Destroyer, but he is also the Regenerator. Cain is a murderer, but he is also the creator of nations, and an inventor" (IU 2:447-8).

In Biblical genealogy, the line of Cain is Enoch, Irad, Mehujael, Methusael, and Lemech, whose sons were Jubal, Jabal, and Tubal-cain; the line of Seth, the third son of Adam and Eve, is Enos (Enoch), Cainan, Mehalaleel, Jarad (or Irad), Enoch, Methuselah, Lamech, and Noah (Genesis 4-5). Blavatsky calls it "fruitless (to) attempt to disconnect the genealogies of Cain and of Seth, or to conceal the identity of names under a different spelling. . . . all these are symbols (Kabalistically) of solar and lunar years, of astronomical periods, and of physiological (phallic) functions, just as in any other pagan symbolical creed" (SD 2:391n).

See also ABEL

(See also: Cain qayin , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Qelippoth (Hebrew) Shells, rinds, the outer covering or body of any entity. Because beings in the lowest world of the Qabbalah are considered shells infilled with a certain proportion of degenerate spiritual powers and functions, these beings are often called demons.

In the Qabbalah, the lowest of the four worlds, `olam `asiyyah, is therefore likewise called `olam qelippoth, in that all the beings pertaining to this sphere need the use of a vehicle, termed a rind or shell, which though subject to formation, birth, change, and dissolution as a form, is not so as to its essential life-atoms -- except as these life-atoms themselves undergo rebirth and change, but not dissolution as do the shells.

Just as in the superior `olams there are the analogic divisions into the ten Sephiroth, likewise in this lowest sphere there are ten degrees, each growing denser and darker in its descent farther from the Sephirothic ray. The first two degrees of this descending scale are considered as absence of visible form -- termed in Genesis Tohu Bohu. The third degree is termed the abode of darkness (the darkness which covered the face of the earth of Genesis). Then follow, in descent, the seven infernal halls Sheba` Heichaloth, or hells in which are distributed the various princes of darkness and entities undergoing purgation -- the prince of the whole region being Sama'el (the angel of "venom" or death).

"note what we read in the Zohar (ii. 43a): 'For the service of the Angelic World, the Holy . . . made Samael and his legions, i.e., the world of action, who are as it were the clouds to be used (by the higher or upper Spirits, our Egos) to ride upon in their descent to the earth, and serve, as it were, for their horses.' This, in conjunction with the fact that Q'lippoth contains the matter of which stars, planets, and even men are made, shows that Samael with his legions is simply chaotic, turbulent matter, which is used in its finer state by spirits to robe themselves in. For speaking of the 'vesture' or form (rupa) of the incarnating Egos, it is said in the Occult Catechism that they, the Manasaputras or Sons of Wisdom, use for the consolidation of their forms, in order to descend into lower spheres, the dregs of Swabhavat, or that plastic matter which is throughout Space, in other words, primordial ilus. And these dregs are what the Egyptians have called Typhon and modern Europeans Satan, Samael, etc., etc. Deus est Demon inversus -- the Demon is the lining of God" (TG 269).

Thus Qelippoth has a dual meaning: first and less customary, the unorganized matter of space out of which spiritual beings build their bodies in order to manifest on this physical plane; second and more customary, is the physical bodies themselves as thus built, containing the vital and other characteristics of living beings. The word corresponds to the rupa-worlds -- the imbodied beings of this world or sphere.

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

Gnosticism

(from Gk. gnosis, "knowledge")

A pre- Christian category of religions which emphasizes that a personal experience, or knowlege, is essential to salvation.

The oldest oldest known Christian scriptures, The Nag Hammadi Library, are Gnostic. Neither unequivocally Christian, Jewish, Greek, nor Iranian, Gnosticism is not a clearly delineated religion, but rather a specific religious interpretative perspective.

Gnosticism lives mainly in or on the edges of Christianity and Judaism and it bears a number of philosophical, astrological, and magical marks loosely belonging in the Near Eastern and Inner Mediterranean areas.

Common to many Gnostic texts and systems are an emphasis on dualistic speculations (e. g. , light vs. darkness, good vs. evil, the earthly realm vs. the heavenly world, or the Lightworld); a reevaluation of many biblical traditions (especially Genesis and the New Testament) so that the Old Testament God, for instance, becomes an inferior figure ignorant of Lightworld entities above and prior to himself; and a keen interest in the salvation of the human soul, which, due to its Lightworld origin, is opposed to the body it inhabits and possesses a superior knowledge.

Gnostic mythologies offer intricate, detailed speculations on cosmic geographies, provide emotional descriptions of the fate of the soul in its material prison, and, in frequently impressive poetry, describe the soul's journey back to its lofty home.

In brief, Gnosticism exemplifies the common religious and creative response of Late Antiquity to a feeling of alienation toward bodily, material, even social existence, and a burning interest in arriving at a higher, more authentic level of life. Far from leading to paralytic pessimism, this orientation caused Gnostics to create mythologies, ideologies, rituals, and organized communities.

Subversive Gnostic interpretations, especially of the biblical traditions, elicited horrified, swift denunciations from the early fathers of the church, who rightly perceived the Gnostics as a menace to the budding Christian orthodoxy. Much of what we know about Gnostic doctrines and practices comes from these church fathers, but their accounts are unavoidably colored by a strong hostility toward Gnostics.

Direct Gnostic testimonies are available from numerous sources: the Nag Hammadi texts (a cache of fifty-odd documents unearthed in Egypt in 1945); manuscripts found or bought by European scholars in recent centuries; and voluminous texts from two Gnostic groups-the Manichaeans (whose system became a "world religion" stretching from North Africa to China) and the Mandaeans (a still-extant community of Gnostics in Iran and Iraq). Various Gnostic texts show strong affinities with Greek philosophy, Syriac Christianity, and Iranian traditions.

Gnostic speculations tend to pose a "prehistory" to the creation accounts in Genesis, imagining a number of Lightworld angelic (aeonic) beings emanating or springing from one or more original, ineffable entities. A progression of male and female emanations eventually result in the lowest levels of aeons where the Old Testament God belongs. Ignorant of-or rebelling against-his more elevated predecessors, this god (sometimes called Samael, "the blind one") creates the visible, material world, the human body (an androgynous Adam or the pair Adam and Eve), and imprisons the human soul in it.

Having thus separated the supreme god from the creator god, Gnostics give a negative evaluation of the latter and his minions. In parallel, heroic figures in the Bible turn into villains and vice versa, so that the serpent in paradise and Cain become principles of the light and of gnosis, while Noah turns into a collaborator with the ignorant creator. Gnostic ideas about Jesus tend toward splitting his personality, with Christ, the Lightworld aspect of Jesus, escaping crucifixion, while the bodily Jesus, a mere shadow of his real self, is destroyed on the cross.

 The principle of evil originates within the Lightworld itself, results unavoidably from the emanation process, or exists as a separate, anti-Lightworld entity from the beginning of creation. Personified (or hypostasized) evil is in many Gnostic myths portrayed as a tragic figure: he (it is usually male) knows of his wrongdoing and ignorance but seems unable to act differently, though he still hopes for his own, final redemption and return to home in the upper worlds. His mother, personified Wisdom or Error, is likewise tragic, but possesses more insight than her son. Human responsibilities include knowledge about the good and evil principles, the numerous aeonic beings populating the spheres between earth and Lightworld, and a firm sense of cosmic geography so that the ascending soul may know its way home.

 Anthropological models often correspond to cosmic maps: the upper human component is the spirit, the mid-level is the soul, and the material body roughly correlates with the macrocosm. Gnostic religions undoubtedly possessed a rich cultic life alongside the mythological/speculative component, but except for Manichaeism and Mandaeism-and a few scattered texts from other, less delineated traditions-we have only hazy evidence of the intricacies of Gnostic rituals. Initiations, baptisms, sacred meals, rituals for the dead, and techniques for ecstatic experiences are attested in various traditions. Community ethics, class divisions based on levels of gnosis, and aggressively polemical interests against "normative" Christianity and Judaism testify to organized Gnostic schools and groups eager to define themselves against outsiders and against one another.

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

2005-04-23

Lamech lemech (Hebrew) In the Bible, a son of Methusael (a descendant of Cain), and also a son of Methuselah (a descendant of Seth) and the father of Noah (Genesis 4:18-24; 5:25-31). Genesis 4:16 through ch 5 "give purely historical facts; though the latter were never correctly interpreted. . . . Every woman is an euhemerized land or city; every man and patriarch a race, a branch, or a subdivision of a race. The wives of Lamech give the key to the riddle which some good scholar might easily master, even without studying the esoteric sciences" (IU 1:579).

The individuals in these archaic genealogies are also by ringing the analogical changes at one time to be considered as men, at another time as races or subdivisions of races, while on a cosmic scale they stand for various spiritual powers or celestial energies imbodied in constellations of the zodiac; whereas their wives or consorts are equivalent to the Hindu saktis, their manifested powers, attributes, or faculties in, by, and through which they express themselves. Thus the wife of such an individual is not only his companion, but the veil, sheath, or garment which encloses him.

Lamech's length of life is given as 777 years. As each patriarch represents in one sense a new race or subrace, the number of years refers to a cycle. In the signs of the zodiac, Lamech stands for Aquarius. Assigning each patriarch to one of the Sephiroth, Lamech represents the ninth, Yesod.

(See also: Lamech, lemech , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)