Bath Qol, Bath Kol (Hebrew) (from bath daughter + qol voice)

Daughter of the voice; used in the Qabbalah to signify the female side of the logos, the daughter of the primordial light, Shechinah, and is equivalent to the Hindu Vach and the Chinese Kwan-yin. It likewise signifies the wisdom that was received by initiates -- figurated as a voice -- this wisdom being the daughter of cosmic all-wisdom. "Bath Kol, the filia Vocis, the daughter of the divine voice of the Hebrews, responding from the mercy seat within the veil of the temple . . ." (SD 1:431).

(See also: Bath Qol, Bath Kol, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

YAMA

Lord of the Underworld, our first father and the angel of our death. Yama is the Hindu equivalent of Pluto, the guardian of Hell. But along with the dreaded Yama is the even more intimidating Yamataka, Yama's destroyer who is both a bodhisattva and an aspect of Shiva. He is black, has many heads, eyes, legs and arms bearing mystic implements and human skulls. He is engaged in intercourse with a female bodhisattva, a concubine/succubus. Another of his names is Varja-Bhairava ("Terrible Lightning") and he is the protective God of the Tibetan temple of Gelugpa.

(See also: YAMA, Magick, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul, )

Eggs (Easter). Eggs were symbolical from an early time. There was the "Mundane Egg", in which Brahma gestated, with the Hindus the Hiranya-Gharba, and the Mundane Egg of the Egyptians, which proceeds from the mouth of the "unmade and eternal deity", Kneph, and which is the emblem of generative power.

Then the Egg of Babylon, which hatched Ishtar, and was said to have fallen from heaven into the Euphrates. Therefore coloured eggs were used yearly during spring in almost every country, and in Egypt were exchanged as sacred symbols in the spring-time, which was, is, and ever will be, the emblem of birth or rebirth, cosmic and human, celestial and terrestrial.

They were hung up in Egyptian temples and are so suspended to this day in Mahometan mosques.

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

Nuns Women of any age vowed to a celibate and meditative life. Nuns have existed in organized communities in all parts of the world, apparently in all ages, for there were convents or similar groups in ancient Egypt, Rome, Hindustan, Greece, ancient Peru, and elsewhere.

Before the nuns, who in Christendom were consecrated to the Virgin Mary, there were the Vestal Virgins of Rome, the maidens of Isis in Egypt, and the Devadasis of the Hindu temples, who originally "lived in great chastity, and were objects of the most extraordinary veneration" (IU 2:210). "They were the 'virgin brides' of their respective (Solar) gods. Says Herodotus, 'The brides of Ammon are excluded from all intercourse with men,' they are 'the brides of Heaven'; and virtually they became dead to the world, just as they are now. In Peru they were 'Pure Virgins of the Sun,' and the Pallakists [Pallakides]

of Ammon-Ra are referred to in some inscriptions as the 'divine spouses' " (TG 234).

(See also: Nuns, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Nagkon Wat (Nakhon Wat) An imposing temple -- situated about five miles south of Nakhon or Ankhor, the ancient capital of Kampuchea (Cambodia) -- composed of three concentric rectangular enclosures, each rising above the other. "After the Pyramids this is the most occult edifice in the whole world. . . . entirely built of stone, the roof included, . . . the stones fitting so closely that the joints are even now hardly discernible" (TG 223).

Native historians attribute the foundation of the temple to the Prince of Roma, a legendary hero, while European scholars place it in the 13th century under Buddhist influence. This does not account for the preponderating scenes from ancient Hindu mythology, for the figures sculptured in the Egyptian manner (the side turned toward the front), for the man-fish deity (similar to Dagon of ancient Babylon) sculptured several times on the walls, or for the kabeirian gods of Samothrace, with their parent Vulcan.

Though the Kabiri were once universally worshiped as the most ancient of the Asiatic mystery-gods, this worship was abandoned 200 years BC, and the Samothracian Mysteries had been completely altered by that time (IU 1:566).

(See also: Nagkon Wat, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Pythia or Pythoness (Ancient Greek). Modern dictionaries inform us that the term means one who delivered the oracles at the temple of Delphi, and "any female supposed to have the spirit of divination in her - a witch" (Webster).

This is neither true, just nor correct. On the authority of Iamblichus, Plutarch and others, a Pythia was a priestess chosen among the sensitives of the poorer classes, and placed in a temple where oracular powers were exercised. There she had a room secluded from all but the chief Hierophant and Seer, and once admitted, was, like a nun, lost to the world. Sitting on a tripod of brass placed over a fissure in the ground, through which arose intoxicating vapours, these subterranean exhalations, penetrating her whole system, produced the prophetic mania, in which abnormal state she delivered oracles. Aristophanes in Vestas " I., reg. 28, calls the Pythia ventriloqua vates or the "ventriloquial prophetess", on account of her stomach-voice.

The ancients placed the soul of man (the lower Manas) or his personal self-consciousness, in the pit of his stomach. We find in the fourth verse of the second Nabhanedishta hymn of the Brahmans: "Hear, 0 sons of the gods, one who speaks through his name (nabha), for he hails you in your dwellings!" This is a modern somnambulic phenomenon.

The navel was regarded in antiquity as "the circle of the sun", the seat of divine internal light. Therefore was the oracle of Apollo at Delphi, the city of Delphus, the womb or abdomen - while the seat of the temple was called the omphalos, navel. As well-known, a number of mesmerized subjects can read letters, hear, smell and see through that part of their body. In India there exists to this day a belief (also among the Parsis) that adepts have flames in their navels, which enlighten for them all darkness and unveil the spiritual world. It is called with the Zoroastrians the lamp of Deshtur or the "High Priest"; and the light or radiance of the Dikshita (the initiate) with the Hindus.

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

Haoma (Avestan) Hum (Pahlavi) Homa (Persian) The Tree of Life; there are two haomas: the yellow or golden earthly haoma, which when prepared and used as an offering for sacrifice is the king of healing plants, the most sacred and powerful of all the offerings prescribed in the Mazdean scriptures. This haoma is equivalent to the Hindu soma -- the sacred drink used in the temples, and is said to endow he who drinks it with the property of mind.

The white haoma (or hom) is called the Gokard, the sacred tree of eternal life created by Ahura Mazda which grows up in the middle of the Farakhard ocean (unbounded ocean or the waters of space), surrounded by the ten thousand healing plants, created by Ahura Mazda to counteract the 99,999 diseases created by Angra Mainyu. By the drinking of the Gokard men will become immortal on the day of the resurrection, according to the Bundahish. From the white haoma was also cut the sacred baresma of the Mobeds.

In later esoteric Persian literature, Simorgh takes the place of haoma at the top of Mount Alborz. It finally becomes the mythical bird that brings happiness and good fortune to those he protects.

The fruit of the haoma was the fruit of the tree of knowledge and wisdom (later transformed into the forbidden fruit), similar to the apples of wisdom and the pippala.

See also ASVATTHA

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

Jagannatha (Sanskrit) (from jagat world + natha protector, lord)

World protector, governor or lord of the world; title of Vishnu and Krishna, especially in his avataric manifestation from Vishnu; also of Rama, a previous avatara.

"This deity is worshipped equally by all the sects of India. . . . He is the god of the Mysteries, and his temples, which are most numerous in Bengal, are all of a pyramidal form" (IU 2:301). Applied specifically to the idol of Vishnu-Krishna at Puri in Orissa, Bengal, which is drawn through the street in a huge vehicle, under the wheels of which devotees were supposed to allow themselves to be crushed -- the modern English form is Juggernaut, meaning any law, custom, or belief that demands blind devotion and ruthless sacrifice.

In cosmology, Jagannatha is the cosmic hierarch of a particular cosmic unit out of which all flows in evolutionary procession, forming the periods of that universe's manifestation, and back into which in due course all again is gathered, to reissue forth again when the new cosmic manvantara opens. Thus in a sense Jagannatha parallels the productive member of the Hindu triad, Brahma.

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

Cow The ancients employed certain animals as symbols to convey specific aspects of philosophical and religious teachings to the multitude, and "the cow-symbol is one of the grandest and most philosophical among all others in its inner meaning" (SD 2:470).

Generally, the cow represents the fructifying power in nature -- the Divine Mother or feminine principle. Among the Scandinavians that which first appeared at the birth of the universe was the divine cosmic cow, Audhumla, from whom flowed four streams of milk, providing sustenance to all the beings that followed.

Among the Greeks the founding of a new race was associated with the cow -- as instances, Io and Europa. In Egypt the goddesses representing the aspect of the Universal Mother are associated with cow symbols, principally Hathor and Isis. In India the cow symbol is reverenced: Kamaduh or Surabhi (the cow of plenty) represents the nourishing and sustaining vital and productive principle in nature. The goddesses of lunar type are found to be connected in symbology with the cow.

"The cow was in every country the symbol of the passive generative power of nature, Isis, Vach, Venus -- the mother of the prolific god of love, Cupid, but, at the same time, that of the Logos whose symbol became with the Egyptians and the Indians -- the bull -- as testified to by Apis and the Hindu bulls in the most ancient temples. In esoteric philosophy the cow is the symbol of creative nature, and the Bull (her calf) the spirit which vivifies her, or 'the Holy Spirit' " (SD 2:418n).

See also BULL; CALF

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

Atash-Bahram, Atash Behram (Persian) Verethraghna (Avestan), Varhran, Varhram (Pahlavi) The sacred fire of the Parsis, kept perpetually burning on the altars; the third fire in the septenary system represents the first created fire, the fire of consciousness. Philosophically it alludes to the idea of becoming.

It corresponds to the Hindu akasa (SD 1:338). Bahram (victorious) is one of the seven planets which rules over the first month of the Iranian year, Farvardin (Aries). In Vedic literature he is known as the slayer of the demon Vritra. In Islamic mystical writings Bahram is referred to as the fifth sphere or intellect. "As the earthly representative of the heavenly fire, it is the sacred center to which every earthly fire longs to return, in order to be united again, as much as possible, with its native abode.

The more it has been defiled by worldly uses, the greater is the merit acquired by freeing it from defilement" (Vendidad 113). The Vestals in ancient Rome also kept a fire burning perpetually on their altars, as did the Greeks in the temple on the Acropolis, thus keeping the remembrance of the "living fire" by means of a visible manifestation.

The fundamental idea in these various manners of adoring fire was that, because of the warming and life-giving functions of this universal element, it symbolized the vital and all-penetrating activity of cosmic life. Furthermore, because the sun was the focus or heart through which pours the life of any solar system, therefore the ideas connected with ancient fire worship are likewise intimately connected with the teachings concerning the solar orb and its indwelling divinity.

See also FIRE WORSHIP

(See also: Atash-Bahram, Atash Behram, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Haoma (Avestan) Hum (Pahlavi) Homa (Persian) The Tree of Life; there are two haomas: the yellow or golden earthly haoma, which when prepared and used as an offering for sacrifice is the king of healing plants, the most sacred and powerful of all the offerings prescribed in the Mazdean scriptures. This haoma is equivalent to the Hindu soma -- the sacred drink used in the temples, and is said to endow he who drinks it with the property of mind.

The white haoma (or hom) is called the Gokard, the sacred tree of eternal life created by Ahura Mazda which grows up in the middle of the Farakhard ocean (unbounded ocean or the waters of space), surrounded by the ten thousand healing plants, created by Ahura Mazda to counteract the 99,999 diseases created by Angra Mainyu. By the drinking of the Gokard men will become immortal on the day of the resurrection, according to the Bundahish. From the white haoma was also cut the sacred baresma of the Mobeds.

In later esoteric Persian literature, Simorgh takes the place of haoma at the top of Mount Alborz. It finally becomes the mythical bird that brings happiness and good fortune to those he protects.

The fruit of the haoma was the fruit of the tree of knowledge and wisdom (later transformed into the forbidden fruit), similar to the apples of wisdom and the pippala.

See also ASVATTHA

(See also: Hanuman, Hanumat, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Masonry Operative masonry, the art of building in stone; speculative and emblematic Freemasonry, called such since 1717 when four English Lodges of operative masons established the Grand Lodge of England of Speculative and Emblematic Freemasonry, so called because building materials, tools, and instruments are symbolically and analogically used in the building of the universe and of man as a temple enshrining a god.

Originally, however, among the ancient Masons, and today throughout the Orient "wherever magic and the wisdom-religion are studied, its practitioners and students are known among their craft as Builders -- for they build the temple of knowledge, of secret science. Those of the adepts who are active, are styled practical or operative Builders, while the students, or neophytes are classed as speculative or theoretical. The former exemplify in works their control over the forces of inanimate as well as animate nature; the latter are but perfecting themselves in the rudiments of the sacred science" (IU 2:392).

Modern Freemasonry includes many Rites and Degrees, all the so-called higher degrees being based upon the three fundamental craft degrees -- 1) Entered Apprentice; 2) Fellow Craft; and 3) Master Mason -- which degrees alone comprise true Masonic secrets and have any valid claim to descent from ancient Masonry. The lessons or keynotes of these three degrees are respectively 1) ethical, to subdue the passions; 2) intellectual, the training of the mind, the seven liberal arts and sciences, and the mounting of the stairway of wisdom; and 3) spiritual, the conquest of death. The lessons in each degree are enforced and illustrated by appropriate symbols and allegories. The central theme of modern Masonry is the building of King Solomon's Temple; the death of Hiram Abif and the consequent loss of the Word; the raising of Hiram Abif, and the communication of a Substitute Word.

"Modern Masonry is undeniably the dim and hazy reflection of primeval Occult Masonry, of the teaching of those divine Masons who established the Mysteries of the prehistoric and prediluvian Temples and Initiation, raised by truly superhuman Builders" (SD III 165).

"The Temple was the last European secret organization which, as a body, had in its possession some of the mysteries of the East. True, there were in the past century (and perhaps still are) isolated 'Brothers' faithfully and secretly working under the direction of Eastern Brotherhoods. But these, when they did belong to European societies, invariably joined them for objects unknown to the Fraternity, though at the same time for the benefit of the latter. It is through them that modern Masons have all they know of importance; and the similarity now found between the Speculative Rites of antiquity, the mysteries of the Essences, Gnostics, and the Hindus, and the highest and oldest of the Masonic degrees well prove the fact. . . .

"Freedom of intellectual thought and the restoration of one and universal religion was their secret object" (IU 2:380, 382).

"The simple truth is that modern Masonry is a sadly different thing from what the once universal secret fraternity was . . ." and "the time has come to remodel Masonry and restore those ancient landmarks, borrowed from the early sodalities, which the eighteenth century founders of speculative Freemasonry meant to have incorporated in the fraternity" (IU 2:387, 377).

Freemasonry in fact was started as a minor theosophical movement as also were the original Order of the Temple, and the Rosicrucian Order, each of which was designed with the purpose of keeping alive in the outer world as far as the times permitted a knowledge of the ancient wisdom-teachings.

(See also: Masonry, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Holy of Holies Equivalent to the Latin Sanctum sanctorum, referring to the sacred place in temples or churches from which all but the chief priest or hierophant were excluded. In pre-Christian times the ancient temples each had its especial sanctuary, in which was placed an altar or receptacle of some kind, be it ark, box, or some similar thing, perhaps even a sarcophagus.

The Holy of Holies in theory was the seat, residence, or sanctuary of the god or goddess to whom the temple had been consecrated; and piety always considered that the divine power was present there. A similar series of ideas clothes the chancel and its contained altar in Christian Churches even today.

The Holy of Holies, however, must not be confused with initiation chambers also contained in many temples and caves of antiquity, in which during the rites of initiation the neophyte entered, was initiated, and thereafter left the sacred precincts as reborn. In ancient Egypt the holy of holies par excellence of this latter type was the King's Chamber in the Great Pyramid; and the coffer there was the sarcophagus used for initiation purposes. The sarcophagus was symbolic of the female principle, as from the feminine principle of nature, as a mother, was born the new "child" or disciple, now become a twice-born. The idea of the twice-born was that the physical birth came from the human mother, while the mystic birth took place from the womb of nature, of which the initiation chamber was the emblem. Hence at a much later date arose the phallic idea of the Jews that the human female womb was the maqom (the place).

Although part of the Hindu ceremonies necessitated a passing through the golden cow, as an emblem of Mother Nature, the neophyte did this in the same stooping position that was done in passing through the gallery in the ancient pyramids of Egypt.

"The ceremony of passing through the Holy of Holies (now symbolized by the cow), in the beginning through the temple Hiranya gharba (the radiant Egg) -- in itself a symbol of Universal, abstract nature -- meant spiritual conception and birth, or rather the re-birth of the individual and his regeneration: the stooping man at the entrance of the Sanctum Sanctorum, ready to pass through the matrix of mother nature, or the physical creature ready to re-become the original spiritual Being, pre-natal Man" (SD 2:469-70).

Holy of Holies has a specific meaning in connection with the Jewish tabernacle, as explained in Exodus, referring to the inner part, the western division of the tabernacle. Three of the sides of the holy place were the walls of the tabernacle itself, while the fourth or eastern end of the sanctum was closed by a curtain or veil -- upon which were the figures of the cherubim -- suspended from four pillars of shittim wood overlaid with gold. The intention was to have this Holy of Holies in the shape of a perfect cube, the length, breath, and height being each ten cubits. In this sanctuary was placed the Ark of the Covenant or Testament, made of shittim wood overlaid with gold.

Upon the Ark was the golden mercy-seat (the kapporeth), also two golden cherubim facing towards the center. Instead of being a "sarcophagus (the symbol of the matrix of Nature and resurrection) as in the Sanctum sanctorum of the pagans, they had the ark made still more realistic in its construction by the two cherubs set up on the coffer or ark of the covenant, facing each other, with their wings spread in such a manner as to form a perfect yoni (as now seen in India). Besides which, this generative symbol had its significance enforced by the four mystic letters of Jehovah's name, namely ; or  meaning Jod (membrum Virile, see Kabala);  (He, the womb);  (Vau, a crook or a hook, a nail), and  again, meaning also 'an opening'; the whole forming the perfect bisexual emblem or symbol or Y(e)H(o)V(a)H, the male and female symbol" (SD 2:460). However, "the worship of the 'god in the ark' dates only from David; and for a thousand years Israel knew of no phallic Jehovah" (SD 2:469).

See also ARK

(See also: Holy of Holies, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Holy of Holies Equivalent to the Latin Sanctum sanctorum, referring to the sacred place in temples or churches from which all but the chief priest or hierophant were excluded. In pre-Christian times the ancient temples each had its especial sanctuary, in which was placed an altar or receptacle of some kind, be it ark, box, or some similar thing, perhaps even a sarcophagus.

The Holy of Holies in theory was the seat, residence, or sanctuary of the god or goddess to whom the temple had been consecrated; and piety always considered that the divine power was present there. A similar series of ideas clothes the chancel and its contained altar in Christian Churches even today.

The Holy of Holies, however, must not be confused with initiation chambers also contained in many temples and caves of antiquity, in which during the rites of initiation the neophyte entered, was initiated, and thereafter left the sacred precincts as reborn. In ancient Egypt the holy of holies par excellence of this latter type was the King's Chamber in the Great Pyramid; and the coffer there was the sarcophagus used for initiation purposes. The sarcophagus was symbolic of the female principle, as from the feminine principle of nature, as a mother, was born the new "child" or disciple, now become a twice-born. The idea of the twice-born was that the physical birth came from the human mother, while the mystic birth took place from the womb of nature, of which the initiation chamber was the emblem. Hence at a much later date arose the phallic idea of the Jews that the human female womb was the maqom (the place).

Although part of the Hindu ceremonies necessitated a passing through the golden cow, as an emblem of Mother Nature, the neophyte did this in the same stooping position that was done in passing through the gallery in the ancient pyramids of Egypt.

"The ceremony of passing through the Holy of Holies (now symbolized by the cow), in the beginning through the temple Hiranya gharba (the radiant Egg) -- in itself a symbol of Universal, abstract nature -- meant spiritual conception and birth, or rather the re-birth of the individual and his regeneration: the stooping man at the entrance of the Sanctum Sanctorum, ready to pass through the matrix of mother nature, or the physical creature ready to re-become the original spiritual Being, pre-natal Man" (SD 2:469-70).

Holy of Holies has a specific meaning in connection with the Jewish tabernacle, as explained in Exodus, referring to the inner part, the western division of the tabernacle. Three of the sides of the holy place were the walls of the tabernacle itself, while the fourth or eastern end of the sanctum was closed by a curtain or veil -- upon which were the figures of the cherubim -- suspended from four pillars of shittim wood overlaid with gold. The intention was to have this Holy of Holies in the shape of a perfect cube, the length, breath, and height being each ten cubits. In this sanctuary was placed the Ark of the Covenant or Testament, made of shittim wood overlaid with gold.

Upon the Ark was the golden mercy-seat (the kapporeth), also two golden cherubim facing towards the center. Instead of being a "sarcophagus (the symbol of the matrix of Nature and resurrection) as in the Sanctum sanctorum of the pagans, they had the ark made still more realistic in its construction by the two cherubs set up on the coffer or ark of the covenant, facing each other, with their wings spread in such a manner as to form a perfect yoni (as now seen in India). Besides which, this generative symbol had its significance enforced by the four mystic letters of Jehovah's name, namely ; or  meaning Jod (membrum Virile, see Kabala);  (He, the womb);  (Vau, a crook or a hook, a nail), and  again, meaning also 'an opening'; the whole forming the perfect bisexual emblem or symbol or Y(e)H(o)V(a)H, the male and female symbol" (SD 2:460). However, "the worship of the 'god in the ark' dates only from David; and for a thousand years Israel knew of no phallic Jehovah" (SD 2:469).

See also ARK

(See also: Holy Ghost, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Tantra

Tantra (noun) refers to a Hindu or Buddhist spiritual Sadhana, that is performed using Yantra, Mantra, and specific rituals. One of the ways in which Tantra is explained is: Tanu trayate itii Tantra (which liberates from the limitations of the body). From point-of-view of spiritual practice, Tantra means:

Yantra ku Mantrare Bhediba hiin Tantra (Oriya), i.e. To pierce through an Yantra by applying a Mantra is Tantra.

One who practises Tantra is a Tantrik (also Tantric).

Tantra is infact the best way of Spiritual practice to attain Siddhis. In the times of Guru Matsyendranath, Guru Gorakhnath, Guru Viswamitra etc., tantra was a much respected and evolved science. However, with time, tantra became a Taboo, partly because of misuse-of-capabilites by certain Greedy individuals, and partly because the real knowledge was made very confined due to the fear of misuse and slowly got extinct. In recent times, the word has been associated with a variety of strange things, by people with orientation-less or poor imagination, which has nothing really to do with Tantra.

Tantra is a vast Science, with many different ways, Siddhis, rituals and know-hows of six-abilites: Shanti, (peace), Vashikaran (hypnotism and control), Stambhan (paralyze someone), Vidveshana (create conflict between persons), Uchhatan (driving away), and Maarana (destroy or kill someone). It is the misuse of such capabilities that led to extinction of the divine knowledge, however, these are never the main aims of tantra. The fear of tantra-practising is unfounded.

The construction of the Jagannath temple at Puri is based on the principle of Tantra. The temple is constructed in the form of Shri-Yantra and the deities are placed on Maha-Vairabh Yantra which was designed using 100000 special black stones (saalagrama).

The word dates back from the 7th century (at least) or earlier and the origin is from Sanskrit (from tan 'stretch'). [The word is accepted in New English Oxford Dictionary].€€€

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

Nebo, Nabu, Nabi' nebo (Hebrew) The proclaimer by prophecy; one of the chief deities of the Chaldean or Babylonian pantheon, the god of wisdom, recognized as fully by the ancient Hebrews as by the Chaldeans. The name and function of the divinity correspond to the Greek Hermes, the Egyptian Thoth, and the Hindu Budha, all of which are related to the regent of the planet Mercury.

Mercury throughout antiquity was always called the interpreter, often in the sense of a prophet or of one able to prophesy; Nebo from time immemorial has been the name for an initiate, an adept, particularly among certain Shemitic peoples, such as the Hebrews. Among other Shemites, such as the Assyrians and Chaldeans, this name forms a part of compound proper names, such as Nebuchadnezzar, Nabopolassar, and Nabonassar.

Nebo was among the Chaldeans and other peoples a god of the secret wisdom, and that particular divinity in those lands guiding the inner development of his children or little ones -- names for initiated adepts.

The principal seat of his worship appears to have been at Borsippa (opposite the city of Babylon) where a temple-school flourished until the end of the neo-Babylonian empire -- even surviving the conquest of Babylonia by Cyrus (538 BC). His original character cannot now be determined and he may have been a solar deity, although associated with water. His consort, Tashmit, is occasionally invoked with him. Nebo's worship flourished before that of Marduk (the Biblical Merodach, probably the planet Mars and its regent), and when the latter was elevated to the chief position of the Babylonian pantheon, Nebo was regarded as his son and the two thereafter are more or less inseparable.

Even in Assyria the worship of Nebo was made more prominent than the chief deity, Assur ('Ashshur) by some of the monarchs (e.g., Assurbanipal, 668-626 BC). His hieroglyph was the stylus, for he was regarded as the god of writing, prophecy, sacred chanting, and hence of song, having charge of the tablets of fate, on which he inscribed the names of men and forecast their destiny. His wisdom was likewise associated with the study of the heavenly bodies, hence the temple-school became famed for its astrologers. "Nebo is a creator, like Budha, of the Fourth and also of the Fifth Race. For the former starts a new race of Adepts, and the latter, the Solar-Lunar Dynasty, or the men of these Races and Round. Both are the Adams of their respective creatures" (SD 2:456).

In the Bible Nebo is the name of a mountain near Jericho whereon Moses dies; also an adjacent city (Deut 32-4). "The fact that Moses is made to die and disappear on the mount sacred to Nebo, shows him an initiate and a priest of that god under another name . . ." (ibid.).

(See also: Nebo, Nabu, Nabi' nebo, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Maharaja (Sanskrit) [from maha great + raja king]

Great king; in Hindu literature four are spoken of as the mystical regents and protectors of the four quarters of the earth -- north, south, east, and west -- because they are the mystical regents and guardians of cosmic space in our solar system.

In Egyptian temples the parti-colored curtain separating the holy recess from the place for the congregation was drawn over the five pillars symbolizing our five senses as well as the five root-races, while the four colors of the curtain represented the four cardinal points and the four as yet evolved cosmico-terrestrial elements. This grouping, among other things, thus symbolized that it is through the four high rulers of the four cosmic quarters that our five senses become cognizant of the hidden truths of nature. The same mystic symbolism is found in the Tabernacle and the square courtyard prepared by Moses in the wilderness, "in the Zoroastrian caves, in the rock-cut temples of India, as in all the sacred square buildings of antiquity that have survived to this day. This is shown definitely by Layard, who finds the four cardinal points, and the four primitive elements, in the religion of every country, under the shape of square obelisks, the four sides of the pyramids . . . Of these elements and their points the four Maharajahs were the regents and the directors" (SD 1:126).

The four Maharajas correspond to the cherubim, seraphim, the winged globes, fiery or winged wheels, the gandharvas (sweet singers), asuras, kinnaras, and celestial nagas. In Chinese Buddhism the Maharajas are called the four hidden dragons of wisdom: the Regent of the North is called the Black Warrior, of the East the White Tiger, of the South the Vermilion Bird, and of the West the Azure Dragon.

There are profound, highly mystical differences which distinguish the Maharajas from the lipikas. The Maharajas, who are both the protectors of mankind on earth and the agents of karma, are those highly evolved spiritual powers or individualized cosmic beings who belong to the light-side of universal nature, to the hierarchies of compassion representing beings of unfolded evolutionary development who by the very nature of their essence become almost the automatic guardians of light and cosmic order which the semi-intelligent and so-called unintelligent forces and energies of nature automatically obey.

The lipikas, on the other hand, are cosmic spiritual entities who might almost be called the viceroys of the sublime cosmic hierarch of our galaxy. For this reason their actions or functions are of so widely impersonal a character, for they operate not so much from power and consciousness belonging solely to the solar system, but in obedience to the spiritual vital mandates of the galactic sphere, to which they are wholly subservient and of whose flow of intelligent impersonal forces they are but impartial ministers in almost instinctual obedience. They represent what might be called the impersonal flow of cosmic destiny.

(See also: Maharaja, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Chandra-vansa (Sanskrit) The "Lunar Race", in contradistinction to Suryavansa, the "Solar Race". Some Orientalists think it an inconsistency that Krishna, a Chandravansa (of the Yadu branch) should have been declared an Avatar of Vishnu, who is a manifestation of the solar energy in Rig -Veda, a work of unsurpassed authority with the Brahmans.

This shows, however, the deep occult meaning of the Avatar ; a meaning which only esoteric philosophy can explain. A glossary is no fit place for such explanations; but it may be useful to remind those who know, and teach those who do not, that in Occultism, man is called a solar-lunar being, solar in his higher triad, and lunar in his quaternary. Moreover, it is the Sun who imparts his light to the Moon, in the same way as the human triad sheds its divine light on the mortal shell of sinful man.

Life celestial quickens life terrestrial. Krishna stands metaphysically for the Ego made one with Atma-Buddhi, and performs mystically the same function as the Christos of the Gnostics, both being "the inner god in the temple" - man. Lucifer is "the bright morning star", a well known symbol in Revelations, and, as a planet, corresponds to the EGO. Now Lucifer (or the planet Venus) is the Sukra-Usanas of the Hindus ; and Usanas is the Daitya-guru, i.e., the spiritual guide and instructor of the Danavas and the Daityas. The latter are the giant-demons in the Puranas, and in the esoteric interpretations, the antetypal symbol of the man of flesh, physical mankind. The Daityas can raise themselves, it is said, through knowledge "austerities and devotion" to "the rank of the gods and of the ABSOLUTE".

All this is very suggestive in the legend of Krishna ; and what is more suggestive still is that just as Krishna, the Avatar of a great God in India, is of time race of Yadu, so is another incarnation, "God incarnate himself" - or the "God-man Christ", also of the race Iadoo - the name for the Jews all over Asia. Moreover, as his mother, who is represented as Queen of Heaven standing on the crescent, is identified in Gnostic philosophy, and also in the esoteric system, with the Moon herself, like all the other lunar goddesses such as Isis, Diana, Astarte and others - mothers of the Logoi, so Christ is called repeatedly in the Roman Catholic Church, the Sun-Christ, the Christ-Soleil and so on. If the later is a metaphor so also is the earlier.

(See also: Chandra-vansa, Theosophy, Spirituality, Body mind and Soul, Spiritual Dictionary, )

Medicine As the healing art, medicine is as old as thinking man. Before the latent fires of mind were lighted in the third root-race, disease and death were unknown. However, with the physicalization of protoplastic humanity, and the separation of the sexes, the unnatural linking with the animals in the third and fourth root-races disordered the harmonious relations between man and nature. In addition, self-conscious man's continued evolution into matter, with the involution of his spiritual nature, brought about forms of disorder, disease, and physical death. Then, beings from higher spheres descended, and dynasties of divine kings and spiritual guides taught men, leading them to the invention of all the arts and sciences, including the medical use of plants (cf SD 2:364).

Medicine was originally a divine science, providing for the well-being of the spiritual, mental, psychic, astral, and physical man. Archaic medicine included a profound knowledge of genuine astrology, of true alchemy, of occult physiology, of the finer forces vibrating as sound, color, form, thought, and feeling, and whatever related man to his home universe of natural law and order. This was the basis of the natural "magic" which tradition has linked with the medical art. This knowledge was dual in its power to work for life or death, for good or evil ends. Its full comprehension required not only a trained intellect, but the intuitive understanding of a pure spiritual nature. Nevertheless, the Atlanteans acquired enough knowledge of the use of dangerous powers that they became -- albeit with numerous and noteworthy exceptions -- a nation of sorcerers. Then, the white magicians established the Mystery schools in which to safeguard the sacred teachings from evildoers and to protect humanity from their influence. Thus, the deeper truths of the healing art have ever since been entrusted only to pledged disciples and initiates. Such fragments of it as have been rediscovered by intuitive physicians from time to time have usually been in keeping with the general cultural level of their civilization. The exceptions have been men who have frequently been too far ahead of their times to be understood. Such a man was Paracelsus in medieval Europe, persecuted for heretical teachings such as the psychoelectric and magnetic play of sidereal forces which linked man with the stars -- the spiritus vitae in man came from the spiritus mundi.

Of the archaic history of medicine -- as of the race -- little is to be found. However, echoes of the primitive wisdom have survived, and every country having a literature of its ancient periods has some account of the healing art. The Hindu sacred scriptures -- the oldest literature extant -- have treatises upon medicine and surgery, showing a profound and intimate knowledge of the subject. This high standard was not maintained when the Vedic writings became misunderstood and mutilated by later commentators. The exclusive Brahmins' assumption of the right to all knowledge also prevented original thought and research. What writings are available today are of little practical value without the lost key. Even our typically matter-of-fact interpretation of legendary and classical beliefs and customs, and of archaeological findings, overlooks that what is known of ancient medical practice is largely exoteric, symbolic of a deeper teaching than we possess.

Records of ancient medicine in Babylonia, Egypt, Greece, etc., tell of the temples being used as hospitals, with priest-physicians supported by the state giving every care to the sick who came, both rich and poor. In addition to material means of treatment -- many of which we have rediscovered -- these devotees of the gods of healing used special incense, prayers, the "temple sleep," invocations, music, astrology, etc., which we regard as harmless superstition of an earlier day. However, such conditions, intelligently adapted to each case, in making a pure, serene, uplifting atmosphere around the sick person, would invoke the influences of wholeness within and without him. By putting the inner man in tune with his body, his disordered nature-forces manifesting as disease would tend to flow freely in the currents of health. Natural magic is as practical as the unknown alchemy which transmutes our digested daily bread into molecules of our living body.

There is a mystic science attached to the caduceus, the classical emblem of medicine. To the priest-physicians in the temples, this symbol was sacred not only to the god of wisdom and healing, but stood for profound cosmic truths, knowledge of which was held in common by all initiates. It symbolized the tree of life and being. Cosmically this symbol stood for the concealed root or origin of universal duality which manifests as positive and negative, good and evil, subjective and objective, light and darkness, male and female, health and sickness, life and death.

(See also: Medicine, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Phoenix [from Greek phoinix phoenix, date palm, Phoenician]

The sacred bird possibly taken from the Egyptian benu. The most familiar legend about it in Europe, dating from the early medieval period, is that a bird from India lives on air for 500 years when, leaving its native land, it flies to the temple at Heliopolis, with its wings laden with spices. Flying to the altar, it burns itself to ashes on the sacred fire, whence arises a new or young phoenix. This bird is already feathered on the day following the suicide of its parent which was its former self and, having its wings full grown on the third day, it wings its way forth. Pliny and Herodotus give slightly different versions. Ancient art pictured the phoenix as a bird with wings partly golden and partly red in color; in outline and size it was drawn to resemble an eagle.

The ancients gave different time periods as the extent of the cycle for which the phoenix stood as a symbol: 500 years, 600 years (the Babylonian naros), 1461 years, and others, as the phoenix did not symbolize any one cycle but was a general emblem of cycles themselves.

"The Phoenix -- called by the Hebrews Onech (from Phenoch, Enoch, symbol of a secret cycle and initiation), and by the Turks, Kerkes -- lives a thousand years, after which, kindling a flame, it is self-consumed; and then, reborn from itself -- it lives another thousand years, up to seven times seven . . . when comes the day of Judgment. The 'seven times seven,' 49, are a transparent allegory, and an allusion to the forty-nine 'Manus,' the Seven rounds, and the seven times seven human cycles in each Round on each globe. The Kerkes and the Onech stand for a race cycle, and the mystical tree Ababel -- the 'Father Tree' in the Kuran -- shoots out new branches and vegetation at every resurrection of the Kerkes or Phoenix; the 'Day of Judgment' meaning a 'minor Pralaya' . . . 'The Phoenix is very plainly the same as the Simorgh, the Persian roc, and the account which is given us of this last bird, yet more decisively establishes the opinion that the death and revival of the Phoenix exhibit the successive destruction and reproduction of the world, which many believed to be effected by the agency of a fiery deluge' . . . and a watery one in turn" (SD 2:617).

One equivalent in Hindu literature is Karttikeya riding on his peacock. In China the phoenix is the king of birds, eating only bamboo sprouts, drinking only spring water. His resting place is the tung tree.

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

Apollonius of Tyana (Ancient Greek). A wonderful philosopher born in Cappadocia about the beginning of the first century; an ardent Pythagorean, who studied the Phœnician sciences under Euthydemus; and Pythagorean philosophy and other studies under Euxenus of Heraclea.

According to the tenets of this school he remained a vegetarian the whole of his long life, fed only on fruit and herbs, drank no wine, wore vestments made only of plant-fibres, walked barefooted, and let his hair grow to its full length, as all the Initiates before and after him.

He was initiated by the priests of the temple of Esculapius (Asciepios) at Egae, and learnt many of the "miracles" for healing the sick wrought by the god of medicine. Having prepared himself for a higher initiation by a silence of five years, and by travel, visiting Antioch, Ephesus, Pamphylia and other parts, he journeyed via Babylon to India, all his intimate disciples having abandoned him, as they feared to go to the "land of enchantments".

A casual disciple, Damis, however, whom he met on his way, accompanied him in his travels. At Babylon he was initiated by the Chaldees and Magi, according to Damis, whose narrative was copied by one named Philostratus a hundred years later. After his return from India, he showed himself a true Initiate, in that the pestilences and earthquakes, deaths of kings and other events, which he prophesied duly happened. At Lesbos, the priests of Orpheus, being jealous of him, refused to initiate him into their peculiar mysteries, though they did so several years later.

He preached to the people of Athens and other cities the purest and noblest ethics, and the phenomena he produced were as wonderful as they were numerous and well attested. "How is it", enquires Justin Martyr in dismay - " how is it that the talismans (telesmata) of Apollonius have power, for they prevent, as we see, the fury of the waves and the violence of the winds, and the attacks of the wild beasts; and whilst our Lord’s miracles are preserved by tradition alone, those of Apollonius are most numerous and actually manifested in present facts?"

. (Quaest, XXIV.). But an answer is easily found to this in the fact that after crossing the Hindu Kush, Apollonius had been directed by a king to the abode of the Sages, whose abode it may be to this day, by whom he was taught unsurpassed knowledge. His dialogues with the Corinthian Menippus indeed give us the esoteric catechism and disclose (when understood) many an important mystery of nature. Apollonius was the friend, correspondent and guest of kings and queens, and no marvellous or "magic" powers are better attested than his. At the end of his long and wonderful life he opened an esoteric school at Ephesus, and died aged almost one hundred years.

(See also: Apollonius of Tyana, Theosophy, Spirituality, Body mind and Soul, Spiritual Dictionary, )