Count Alessandro di Cagliostro "A famous Adept, whose real name is claimed (by his enemies) to have been Joseph Balsamo. He was a native of Palermo, and studied under some mysterious foreigner (called Althotas)

of whom little has been ascertained. . . . his real history has never been told. His fate was that of every human being who proves that he knows more than do his fellow-creatures; he was 'stoned to death' by persecutions, lies, and infamous accusations, and yet he was the friend and adviser of the highest and mightiest of every land he visited. He was finally tried and sentenced in Rome as a heretic, and was said to have died during his confinement in a State prison. . . . Yet his end was not utterly undeserved, as he had been untrue to his vows in some respects, had fallen from his state of chastity and yielded to ambition and selfishness" (TG 72).

Commenting upon the strange tales related concerning Cagliostro and Balsamo, Purucker wrote that

"it is upon the document issued from the Vatican containing the story of the so-called trial and condemnation of Cagliostro that most later students and historians of the checkered and wonderful career of that remarkable man assume that Cagliostro and Guiseppe Balsamo were one individual.

"I can only say that there is a strange mystery involved in the story of these two: Balsamo and Cagliostro. How strange is the statement, if true, that both had the name Pellegrini, which means Pilgrims! How strange is it that Giuseppe Balsamo is the Italian form of the name Joseph Balm, suggesting a healing influence; and that 'Balsamo,' whether rightly or wrongly, can be traced to a compound Semitic word which means 'Lord of the Sun' -- 'Son of the Sun'; while the Hebrew name Joseph signifies 'increase' or 'multiplication.'. . . How strange it is that Cagliostro was called an 'orphan,' the 'unhappy child of Nature'! Every initiate . . . is an 'orphan' without father, without mother, because mystically speaking every initiate is self-born. How strange it is that other names under which Cagliostro is stated to have lived at various times have in each instance a singular esoteric signification! . . .

"Perhaps I might go one shade of thought farther: to every Cagliostro who appears there is always a Balsamo. Closely accompanying and indeed inseparable from every Messenger there is his 'Shadow.' With every Christ appears a Judas" (SOPh 30-1).

(See also: Count Alessandro di Cagliostro, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism 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)

Cainite(s). See ROOT-RACE, FOURTH

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

Caitanya. See CHAITANYA

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

Caitya. See CHAITYA

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

Cakra. See CHAKRA

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

Cyclops Kyklops (Greek) (from kyklos circle, round + ops eye)

Plural cyclopes. Round-eyed giants; Homer locates them in Sicily as a lawless race of giants with one central eye, devouring men and caring naught for Zeus; their chief is Polyphemus. For Hesiod, they are three sons of Heaven and Earth, named Arges, Brontes, and Steropes, titan of flame, thunder, and lightning respectively. Later they were considered assistants of Hephaestus in his workshops under volcanoes and their number was no longer confined to three.

The history of human evolution has passed down to us transfigured by the progressive accretion of myths, so that the name cyclopes was handed down to various owners until it meant merely giants who built vast walls. Hesiod's original three were the last three subraces of the Lemurians, the one eye was the wisdom eye, the other eyes not being fully developed as physical organs until the beginning of the fourth root-race.

Odysseus, a fourth-race hero, though he destroys a barbarous race in the interests of culture, nevertheless puts out the third eye. It is an allegory of the passage from a simpler Cyclopean civilization of huge stone buildings to the more sensual civilization of the Atlanteans (SD 2:769). Disciples of the initiates of the fourth root-race were said to hand over divine knowledge to their cyclopes, sons of cycles or of the infinite (SD 1:208), while the cyclopes supposed to have built walls were masons in the sense of initiators (SD 2:345).

The legend of the cyclops with the third eye is also found in ancient Ireland. De Jubainville parallels the three cyclopes of Hesiod with the three famous Irish smiths, Goibniu (Gavida) and his brothers. Goibniu slew the wicked Fomorian Balor -- also a cyclops with one eye in the middle of his forehead -- to give victory to the Tuatha De Danaan (gods of day and life) (Irish Mythological Cycle 122).

(See also: Cyclops, Kyklops, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Mt Cyllene In Greek mythology, mountain in Arcadia where Hermes or Mercury was born.

See also Mountains, Mundane. (SD 2:541)

(See also: Mt Cyllene, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Cymry (Welsh) The Welsh people. Many derivations of this word have been suggested; the accepted one nowadays gives Cymry the meaning of "associated peoples" (from Old Welsh combrox compatriot from com with + bro district, region)

, and assumes that it came into vogue in that lost period of history during which England changed from Latin and Celtic to Germanic or Anglo-Saxon in speech; and Wales, from being mainly Gaelic, became Brythonic or Cymric in speech -- the language being called Cymraeg. George Borrow identified the word with the Sanskrit kumara; others see in it cyn mru (first womb, or first mother).

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

Cynocephalus (from Latin canus dog + cephalus head)

The dog-headed ape (Simia hamadryas) which in Egyptian mythology was called Amemet (eater of the dead) whose master was Thoth or Tehuti. In the Judgment scene in The Egyptian Book of the Dead, Amemet is represented as seated by Thoth, ready to inform his master when the pointer marks the middle of the beam on the balance, when the heart is being weighed in the scales. After Thoth makes his announcement to the gods concerning the result of the weighing of the heart, the company of the gods decree that Amemet shall not be permitted to prevail over the successful candidate.

"There was a notable difference between the ape-headed gods and the 'Cynocephalus' . . . , a dog-headed baboon from upper Egypt. The latter, whose sacred city was Hermopolis, was sacred to the lunar deities and Thoth-Hermes, hence an emblem of secret wisdom -- as was Hanuman, the monkey god of India, and later, the elephant-headed Ganesha. The mission of the Cynocephalus was to show the way for the Dead to the Seat of Judgment and Osiris, whereas the ape-gods were all phallic" (TG 92).

"The dog-headed ape was a glyph to symbolise the sun and moon, in turn, though the Cynocephalus is more a Hermetic than a religious symbol. For it is the hieroglyph of Mercury, the planet, as of the Mercury of the Alchemical philosophers, 'as,' say the Alchemists, 'Mercury has to be ever near Isis, as her minister, as without Mercury neither Isis nor Osiris can accomplish anything in the great work.' Cynocephalus, whenever represented with the Caduceus, the Crescent, or the Lotus, is a glyph of the 'philosophical' Mercury; but when seen with a reed, or a roll of parchment, he stands for Hermes, the secretary and adviser of Isis, as Hanuman filled the same office with Rama" (SD 1:388).

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

Cythraul (Welsh) The principle of evil, later personified as the Devil.

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

Cytoblastema An obsolete biological word for the formative material from which cells were supposed to arise.

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

Cyuta. See CHYUTA

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

Cupunika. See CHUPUNIKA

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

Curbati (Latin) Curved; ancient divinities of the stars and celestial orbs, interpreted as devils by the Catholic Church (SD 1:331)

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

Curds In connection with the evolution of a universe, the first differentiation in manifestation of cosmic or primordial matter in its early differentiated forms. Astronomically, the curds are irresolvable nebulae and sometimes, in accordance with older European astronomical views, the Milky Way.

The primordial matter, radical and cool, becomes at the reawakening of cosmic motion scattered through space; appearing in its early differentiated forms in clusters and lumps, like curds in whey. These are the cosmic seeds of future worlds and world systems. Particles of the curds become comets, then stars (the centers of vortices), or solar systems with their individual sun and planets.

See also CHURNING OF THE OCEAN

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

Curetes Kouretes (Greek) The priests in the Mysteries of Rhea Cybele in Crete, and in Classical mythology daemons or demigods to whom Cybele entrusted the infant Zeus. Identified with the kabiri, who belong to the septenary creative groups of dhyan-chohans which incarnated in the elect of the third and fourth root-races -- Zeus is said to be the god of the fourth race (SD 2:360, 766, 776).

In connection with the Mysteries of Cybele in Crete, initiation in the temples of the Curetes was extremely arduous, lasting a lunar month (27 days), during which the initiant was left by himself in a crypt, undergoing the severest kind of tests; Pythagoras is stated to have successfully undergone initiation in these rites (TG 91).

(See also: Curetes, Kouretes, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Cush kush (Hebrew) Black; the eldest son of Ham, grandson of Noah, and father of Nimrod. Also applied to his descendants, usually translated Ethiopians, and to a region vaguely defined as Ethiopia. An old tradition states that Ham stole seven books out of Noah's Ark and gave them to Cush; and Mas'udi, the Arabic historian, says that the Nabathaeans were those descendants of Ham who settled under the leadership of Nimrod.

(See also: Cush, kush, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Cutha Tablets Tablets found at Cutha, an ancient city in Babylonia, containing fragments of the ancient Chaldean account of creation.

(See also: Cutha Tablets, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Cybele Kybele (Greek) A Phrygian goddess of caves and mountains, vines and agriculture, and town life, first worshiped at Pessinus; later throughout Asia Minor and in Greece.

The equivalent in Phrygia and Crete of Rhea, the Magna Mater (great mother), wife of Kronos and mother of Zeus. Her worship was celebrated exoterically, especially in later degenerate times, by wild dances by her votaries. In one of her phases Cybele was closely connected with the moon and its extremely recondite functions.

 The moon is at once a sexless potency, to be well studied because to be dreaded, and a female deity for exoteric purposes. Cybele is "the personification and type of the vital essence, whose source was located by the ancients between the Earth and the starry sky, and who was regarded as the very fons vitae of all that lives and breathes" (BCW 12:214). The breath of Cybele, equivalent in its highest substance to akasa-tattva -- "is the one chief agent, and it underlays the so-called 'miracles' and 'supernatural' phenomena in all ages, as in every clime" (BCW 12:215).

See also CORYBANTES; CURETES

(See also: Cybele, Kybele, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Cycles (from Greek kyklos circle, wheel)

The law of cycles arises out of the ever-unceasing alternations of the Great Breath of spirit in the universe. Abstract absolute motion, as the worlds evolve, assumes an ever-growing tendency to circular movement.

Hence arise the wheels and globes of cosmic evolution and the rounds of the evolutionary life-waves. Motion is repetitive, ever returning to similar, but not identical, points. The geometrical symbol is the helix, which combines the cyclic with the progressive motion; if the axis of the helix is itself a circle, a vortex results, and thus wheels within wheels as the process advances to further degrees of complexity.

"The ancients divided time into endless cycles, wheels within wheels, all such periods being of various durations, and each marking the beginning or end of some event either cosmic, mundane, physical or metaphysical. There were cycles of only a few years, and cycles of immense duration, the great Orphic cycle referring to the ethnological change of races lasting 120,000 years, and that of Cassandrus of 136,000, which brought about a complete change in planetary influences and their correlations between men and gods . . ." (Key 327).

See also BRAHMA'S DAY; HESIOD, AGES OF; ROOT-RACE; ROUND; YUGA; etc.

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

Cycle of Necessity. See CIRCLE OF NECESSITY

(See also: Cycle of Necessity, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)