Cakravartin. See CHAKRAVARTIN

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

Cakshu. See CHAKSHU

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Calendar A formal table of time measures based on the motions of the heavenly bodies. Where esoteric knowledge is intact, these cyclic motions and the periods they mark are inseparably connected with all other parts of the esoteric system.

Nowadays, the original calendars having been lost and reconstructed for purely civil or ecclesiastical purposes, they have no other significance. But formerly they likewise indicated the courses of cosmic evolution and the succession of human races. The Surya-Siddhanta gives the number of revolutions of the planets in 4,320,000 years, among other such data; and the work itself claims to be the result of observation over an immensely long period, based on a knowledge of the mathematics underlying the cosmic and terrestrial cycles. This calendar or astronomical-astrological work claims to be the original production of the Atlantean astronomer and magician Asuramaya.

The Mayas of Yucatan had a calendar system, deciphered at least in part, that extended far back into the past. In this calendar we find not only the familiar cycles of the lunation and of the solar year, but others such as the synodical revolution of Venus, and exact periods of 250, 280, or 360 days. The Egyptians in their calendar time-measurements used three different years, one of which was a year of 365 days, adapted to the Julian year by a Sothic period of 1460 years.

The lunar year of 12 lunations is one of immense antiquity, and formerly of almost universal usage, frequently combined with the solar year; and the lunar year is still used, with various systems of intercalation to adapt it to the tropical year. As to such periods as 280 and 260 days, one may wonder whether these numbers were merely used as convenient for computation, or whether they rest on actual cycles not recognized by modern astronomy.

The 280 is evidently connected with the human gestation and prenatal period. The position of the equinoctal point in relation to the stellar zodiac is often referred to as an indication of the dates of ancient events; and cycles of successive conjunctions of all or most of the planets are frequently mentioned in the archaic literatures of different peoples.

It seems evident that the structure of the map of time must give keys to the understanding of the evolution of worlds and races; and one may well anticipate that a knowledge of all the cycles and their intersections and combinations would suffice to reduce what now seems chaos into a symmetrical and thoroughly scientific system.

See also ANNUS MAGNUS.

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

Calf Generally in ancient symbology the calf stood for the earth. The Puranic allegory "which shows 'the Rishis milking the earth, whose calf was Soma, the Moon,' has a deep cosmographical meaning; for it is neither our earth which is milked, nor was the moon, which we know, the calf. . . . in every Purana, the calf changes name.

In one it is Manu Swayambhuva, in another Indra, in a third the Himavat (Himalayas) itself, while Meru was the milker" (SD 1:398 & n).

See also COW

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

Caloric According to a formerly widely accepted scientific theory of heat, when a hot body communicates heat to a cold body, there passes from the former to the latter an "imponderable" fluid, called caloric or phlogiston; and the heat developed by friction is due to a squeezing of caloric out from the body.

This theory, misunderstood in later times, was abandoned when it was proved that the amount of heat which can thus be obtained from a body is unlimited, depending only on the amount of labor used in generating it. The error lay in considering that there was a definite, limited amount of caloric which, once extracted, left no further caloric to be extracted until the body had accumulated it anew, quite forgetting that the caloric or phlogiston theory held that caloric was a part of the substance of material things, just as modern electrical theory holds that material substances are themselves formed of electricity. One might as well hold that every material body possesses a certain amount of electricity, of which, when once extracted, the body can no longer furnish a further supply.

Scientists were doubtless quite right logically in abandoning the caloric theory from their viewpoint which arose out of a misunderstanding of the ancient teaching. While it is obvious that the temperature of contiguous bodies, by the natural process of heat-transference, finally becomes equalized; equally, someday science will discover that any body can be made under proper processes to be an unending source of heat, which is the very heart of the ancient caloric theory. Heat, just as any form of energy, is one of the forms of living matter, a manifestation of cosmic electricity or fohat.

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

Calvary. See GOLGOTHA

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Calypso Kalypso (Greek) A nymph, daughter of Atlas, who lived on Ogygia and kept Odysseus with her there for seven years. (SD 2:762, 769n)

(See also: Calypso Kalypso, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Cambrian Period. See GEOLOGICAL ERAS

(See also: Cambrian Period, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Camillus. See CADMUS; KADMILOS

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Canaan, Canaanites A Biblical term most often applied to the pre-Isrealite people of the land west of the Jordan, although not so ancient as the Amorites. Augustine mentions that the Phoenicians called their land Canaan. Seti I and Rameses III mention the Kan'na, probably referring to the lands of western Syria and Palestine.

In Genesis 10, Canaan (kena`an) is named among the four sons of Ham, and some scholars have suggested that the name here refers to tribes in Arabia which later settled in Palestine; further that the Phoenicians were members of the second great Semitic migration, carrying the name Canaan into the lands which they settled.

The chief deity of the Canaanites would seem to be Ashtart (Astarte) from the number of her images discovered, although images closely resembling Egyptian deities have likewise been exhumed. Nebo, the ancient Chaldean god of wisdom, was also reverenced by the Canaanites.

(See also: Canaan, Canaanites, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Mount Carmel A mountain spur in Palestine, projecting into the sea south of Haifa, Israel; traditionally a sacred place and refuge, it is mentioned in the Bible (1 Kings 28:19) as the spot where Elijah publicly challenged the priests of Ba`al. Mt. Carmel was noted for its oracle, which was consulted by the emperor Vespasian.

It became a refuge for early Christian anchorites, and a monastery dedicated to Elijah existed there by 570. About 1156 the order of Carmelites was founded, dedicated to continuing on Mt. Carmel the way of life of Elijah, pictured as a monk and the founder of monasticism, and a monastery was built. St. John of the Cross, among others, uses it in metaphors for the mystic and spiritual journey. Blavatsky connects it with the Essenes.

See also MOUNTAINS, MUNDANE (BCW 11:256-7)

(See also: Mount Carmel, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Carnac A village in Brittany celebrated for the enormous number of ancient stone monuments in its vicinity, to be classed with similar monuments found in many parts of the world and with the so-called Dracontia or serpent-mounds.

They are records in symbol of the world's history, designed to be enduring, and in more than one sense actually or mystically the work of giants. "The archaic records show the Initiates of the Second Sub-race of the Aryan family moving from one land to the other for the purpose of supervising the building of menhirs and dolmens, of colossal Zodiacs in stone, and places of sepulchre to serve as receptacles for the ashes of generations to come" (SD 2:750).

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

Cartesian System The system of Descartes, the great French philosopher (1596-1650), representing the first great attempt in Europe to develop philosophy on strict mathematical and scientific lines, as opposed to what seemed to him the futile subtilties of the Schoolmen.

Descartes is usually spoken of as a strong dualist. Defining substance as a thing which exists independently of any other thing, he says there can only be one real substance, God; but besides this one independent substance there exist realities dependent on God, which he calls created substances. These are of two kinds -- thinking and corporeal; the nature of the former being thought, and of the latter, extension. He made this dualism of the created world so absolute that only the continual interference of God could account for the harmony. Spirit differs radically from matter, a finite spirit is independent of its body, so that the physical universe is unhampered by spiritual law. The human body is a machine; and although human beings have souls, animals are entirely mechanical. This view of the universe laid the foundations of modern mechanistic science; and the independence of extended substance leads to the conclusion that every body is independent of every other.

This system contrasts with those of Spinoza and Leibnitz, Spinoza accentuating the monistic view and Leibnitz regarding Descartes's two substances as aspects of the One Substance (SD 1:628-9). It is stated, furthermore, that a combination of Spinoza with Leibnitz would give the essence of theosophical philosophy, according to which the universe, though essentially a unity, appears as a plurality of monads, manifesting under the dual -- yet essentially illusory -- aspects of spirit and matter. There is therefore no essential difference between spirit and matter, these being but mutually contrasted aspects of the one underlying and all-pervading substance.

In his theory of the physical universe Descartes recognizes one universally diffused matter which, by rotatory or vortical motion aggregates into planetary globes or into the physical elements, thus anticipating both the vortex theory of Thomson and the idea put forward by Crookes that the chemical elements are various modifications of an underlying protyle.

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Carvaka. See CHARVAKA

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Castes, Hindu. See CHATUR-VARNA

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Castor. See DIOSCURI

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Cat Egyptian symbol of the moon (SD 1:304-5, 387-8; 2:545-6, 552n)

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

Cataclysms (from Greek kataklysmos flood)

The term originated among the Stoics, who taught that the world is visited periodically and alternately by deluge (cataclysm) and conflagration (ekpyrosis, "burning up"). This last teaching was taken over into early Christian theology in the idea that the world will perish in flame.

The meaning of cataclysm, however, now includes both deluges and volcanic action. Theosophy holds that the earth is visited periodically and at long intervals by comparatively sudden changes, varying in geographic importance from a continental to merely local catastrophes. The whole period of the cataclysm includes a gradual beginning, a progressive intensification, a culmination, and a gradual diminution. Local transformations are often sudden, sharp, or violent, whereas those embracing a wide geographical field are usually much slower or of longer period, frequently seeming to be nothing more than the merely secular changes which human experience recognizes as customary.

Cataclysms are due to the influence of the sun, moon, planets, and ultimately also to the constellations. As all physical phenomena are manifestations of what originally occurs in the realms of mind and consciousness, the movements of the earth's crust reflect the movements in the minds of the beings inhabiting it, for all nature is an organism and all things are ineluctably knitted together by cosmic forces.

All the cataclysms are accompanied by both deluges and volcanism, but one or the other of these is accentuated at alternately different times. The forthcoming cataclysms at the end of the fifth root-race are stated to be especially marked by the action of the element fire. Lemuria, the third continental system, is said to have perished by subterranean convulsion, tremendous volcanic activity, and other phenomena arising in the igneous element, and the consequent breaking of the sea floor; whereas that of Atlantis, or the fourth great continental system, was mainly caused by axial disturbance, leading to subsidence of lands, tremendous consequent tidal waves, and the shifting of large portions of the oceanic system. "Therefore, it is absolutely false, . . . that all the great geological changes and terrible convulsions have been produced by ordinary and known physical forces. For these forces were but the tools and final means for the accomplishment of certain purposes, acting periodically, and apparently mechanically, through an inward impulse mixed up with, but beyond their material nature. There is a purpose in every important act of Nature, whose acts are all cyclic and periodical" (SD 1:640).

Conflagration was also used by Blavatsky to denote the destruction of the earth in pralayas, greater or less.

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

Catacombs Subterranean caverns and galleries, some of the most celebrated being in and around Rome. These were constructed for sepulcher, but such was not the original purpose of many in other parts of the world, though many of these also were later used for burial and hence contain bones. This latter class was originally used as secret temples for the enactment of initiatory rites. "There were numerous catacombs in Egypt and Chaldea, some of them of a very vast extent.

The most renowned of them were the subterranean crypts of Thebes and Memphis. The former, beginning on the western side of the Nile, extended towards the Lybian desert, and were known as the Serpent's catacombs, or passages. It was there that were performed the sacred mysteries of the kuklos anagkes, the 'Unavoidable Cycle,' more generally known as 'the circle of necessity'; the inexorable doom imposed upon every soul after the bodily death, and when it has been judged in the Amenthian region" (SD 2:379).

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

Catalepsy katalepsis (Greek) (from kata down + lambanein to seize)

A psychomotor condition of morbid sleep, associated with a peculiar plastic rigidity of the muscles which may be made to assume strained attitudes and retain them for an indefinite time. There is more or less profound loss of consciousness and of the skin sensibility. The origin of the name reflects the ancient view that the attacks are due to the sudden seizure of the victim by some supernatural influence, such as an evil spirit; the causes assigned by medical writers are extremely varied and oftentimes absurd.

The cataleptic state may occur in attacks of epilepsy, hysteria, chronic alcoholism, in various functional and organic mental and nervous diseases, and in that variety of dementia praecox known as catatonia. This list of diseases, characterized by general nervous and emotional instability, suggests the rationale of the ancient view that catalepsy is one of the many types of astral obsession. Textbook descriptions of typical cases are consistent pictures of an abnormal displacement of the conscious human ego whose helpless body then is subjected to purposeless, unnatural, and strained conditions and attitudes by some low-grade astral entity.

The cataleptic phenomena are sometimes induced in a profound hypnotic state, where the operator's will manifests through the intermediate nature of his subject. This explains the public hypnotic exhibitions of an unconscious person, rigidly stretched out, with only head and feet supported, while the body sustains excessive weight placed upon it. It is also possible, at times, for a person who is naturally psychic, or who has dabbled in attempts to cultivate psychic phenomena, to become dissociated from his normal physical status and, in a trance-like condition, to manifest the cataleptic state of beclouded consciousness and the wax-like rigidity of body. In such cases there is always danger that the lower quaternary including the unconscious body may be invaded by some astral entity which thus becomes an insidious and injurious link with kama-loka and its denizens.

Medical studies of catalepsy refer to the literary record of many classical examples of it, and claim that it has a close relationship with the ecstatic and trance-like states of mystics, but there is a marked contrast between the unnatural attitudes of the negative, unconscious cataleptic person, who remembers nothing of his entranced state, and the generally exalted spiritual consciousness of the genuine mystic who retains full memory of his self-induced experience.

(See also: Catalepsy, Cataleptic state, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Candrayana. See CHANRAYANA

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