Transformation The process by which a substance takes on a new form, as for example when oxide of hydrogen appears first as water and then as steam. Colloquially we say that the water has changed into steam, but it would be more accurate to say that something which manifested as water manifests now as steam.

The distinction is important because of the serious errors made by overlooking it. As applied to evolution it means that a soul takes on different bodies. It is the soul or monad that is transformed, rather than the form. Wherever there is change of form there is an underlying substance, power, or essence which remains the same throughout the changes, the same in essence but different in form. The Greek equivalent is metamorphosis.

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Image. Occultism permits no other image than that of the living image of divine man (the symbol of Humanity) on earth. The Kabbala teaches that this divine Image, the copy of the sublime and holy upper Image (the Elohim) has now changed into another similitude, owing to the development of men’s sinful nature. It is only the upper divine Image (the Ego) which is the same; the lower (personality) has changed, and man, now fearing the wild beasts, has grown to bear on his face the similitude of many of them. (Zohar I. fol. 71a.) In the early period of Egypt there were no images; but later, as Lenormand says, "In the sanctuaries of Egypt they divided the properties of nature and consequently of Divinity (the Elohim, or the Egos), into seven abstract qualities, characterised each by an emblem, which are matter, cohesion, fluxion, coagulation, accumulation, station and division ". These were all attributes symbolized in various images.

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Desire A word whose shades of meaning range from mere animal desire to that of cosmic kama or eros which "first arose in It," bringing spirit into union with matter and giving rise to the creation or emanation of various classes of beings.

It can also be lofty spiritual aspiration, the yearning upwards with the undying desire for the divine, or impersonal love, or again, the urge to become united or one with others. Many words overlap it in meaning, such as will, attraction, love, and cupidity, and it is generally used as a translation of the Sanskrit kama.

Philosophically, it is often synonymous with abstract will, as when kama is called sometimes desire and sometimes will, so that will and desire seem to blend into one on the higher ranges. In the saying, behind will stands desire, will is a colorless force set in motion by desire, much as a current is set up by an electromotive force. From another viewpoint, will, as an abstract motor in the human constitution, arises from the higher or spiritual-intellectual ranges of the kama principle itself, for "Will and Desire are the higher and lower aspects of one and the same thing" (BCW 12:702).

See also KAMA; EROS

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Esoteric (Ancient Greek). Hidden, secret. From the Greek esotericos, "inner" concealed.

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Bembo, Tablet of; or Mensa Isiaca. A brazen tablet inlaid with designs in Mosaic (now in the Museum at Turin) which once belonged to the famous Cardinal Bembo. Its origin and date are unknown. It is covered with Egyptian figures and hieroglyphics, and is supposed to have been an ornament in an ancient Temple of Isis. The learned Jesuit Kircher wrote a description of it, and Montfaucon has a chapter devoted to it.

The only English work on the Isiac Tablet is by Dr. W. Wynn Westcott, who gives a photogravure in addition to its history, description, and occult significance.

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Wind Often used synonymously with spirit and breath, which are denoted by similar or identical words in many languages. In the New Testament (John 3:8) Jesus uses the simile of wind for spirit: "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit." Another equally exact translation reads: "The Spirit breathes wither it will, and you hear its voice (or power), but know not whence it comes and whither its destination; thus is everyone who arises out of the spirit."

Wind is also used alternatively with air. The regents of the cosmic forces of north, south, east, and west -- the four Maharajas connected with karma -- have as their material agents the four corresponding winds or spirits, which mightily influence all living things.

With the Greeks, "the cave of the winds was the earth, and the winds were the winds of the spirit, the circulations of the universe figurated as winds: a cave of which the north gate was made of horn through which they ascend also, but mainly descend. And the south gate of the earth, or of the cave of the winds, was made of ivory, signifying the elephants of the south, as the horn does the tusks of the animals of the north. And out of the south gate go the hordes of men" (SOPh 321-2).

See also ANIMA; PNEUMA; SPIRITUS

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Ain Soph (Hebrew, Jewish). The "Boundless" or Limitless; Deity emanating and extending.

Ain Soph is also written En Soph and Ain Suph, no one, not even Rabbis, being sure of their vowels. In the religious metaphysics of the old Hebrew philosophers, the ONE Principle was an abstraction, like Parabrahmam, though modern Kabbalists have succeeded now, by dint of mere sophistry and paradoxes, in making a "Supreme God" of it and nothing higher. But with the early Chaldean Kabbalists Ain Soph is "without form or being", having "no likeness with anything else" (Franck, Die Kabbala, p. 126).

That Ain Soph has never been considered as the "Creator" is proved by even such an orthodox Jew as Philo calling the "Creator" the Logos, who stands next the "Limitless One", and the "Second God". "The Second God is its (Ain Soph’s) wisdom", says Philo (Quaest. et Solut.). Deity is NO-THING; it is nameless, and therefore called Ain Soph; the word Ain meaning NOTHING. (See Franck’s Kabbala, p. 153 ff.)

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Wheel Perpetual gyratory motion; a vortex, a center of revolving force. Matter is not only motion itself in low ranges of the cosmos, but has likewise many modes of motion, although not in the sense in which this phrase was used in the 19th century.

Lord Kelvin's vortex-atoms illustrate the point, for he showed that many of the properties attributed to atoms could be represented by regarding atoms as vortices in a frictionless, incompressible fluid. More recent analysis of the atom has failed to resolve it into anything more than electric particles whose properties are functions of their motions. "Atoms are called 'Vibrations' in Occultism . . . " (SD 2:633). Fohat traces spiral lines and forms wheels or centers of force around which primordial cosmic matter expands and contracts and passes through stages of consolidation ending in globes, and later through stages of etherealization. Vortical motion is a universal law, as seen in the stellar universe and in the electronic constitution of the physical atom, giving a fuller meaning to the word cycle.

Wheel, cycle, globes, and revolutions all pertain to the same fundamental conception of whirling, revolving, or gyratory motion of beings and substances; and as no motion can take place except in matter, space, and time, the whirlings and revolutions of beings and things include likewise the time periods or cyclic returns of beings and events throughout duration. Wherever there is a whirling or turning, whether of matter or of an event in time, it is because it is a being or thing which is active in reproducing itself in cyclic events (cf Ezekiel 1:15-21). This is one of the archaic ways of understanding what is now called the principle of Relativity. Indeed, so intimate and entangled are the actor and the act -- the being and its movements in time -- that it is not always easy to distinguish the actor inherent and moving from the effects in space and time of such movement; so that when we speak of a cycle of time we are perforce obliged to conceive of a moving entity producing the cycle, albeit the moving entity may not be visible to us and indeed may be incomprehensible. Hence, the frequent and often perplexing usage of wheel or wheelings found in ancient occult writings.

See also WINGED WHEEL; GLOBE, WINGED

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Circle. There are several "Circles" with mystic adjectives attached to them. Thus we have:

(1) the  "Decussated or Perfect Circle" of Plato, who shows it decussated in the form of the letter X ;

(2) the "Circle-dance" of the Amazons, around a Priapic image, the same as the dance of the Gopis around the Sun (Krishna), the shepherdesses representing the signs of the Zodiac ;

(3) the "Circle of Necessity"  of 3,000 years of the Egyptians and of the Occultists, the duration of the cycle between rebirths or reincarnations being from 1,000 to 3,000 years on the average. This will be treated under the term

"Rebirth" or "Reincarnation".

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Double Sexed. See ANDROGYNE; HERMAPHRODITE

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Agneyastra (Sanskrit). The fiery missiles or weapons used by the Gods in the exoteric Puranas and the Mahabharata the magic weapons said to have been wielded by the adept-race (the fourth), the Atlanteans.

This "weapon of fire" was given by Bharadwaja to Agnivesa, the son of Agni, and by him to Drona, though the Vishnu Purana contradicts this, saying that it was given by the sage Aurva to King Sagara, his chela. They are frequently mentioned in the Mahabharata and the Ramayana.

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Bergelmir (Scandianvian Norse). The one giant who escaped in a boat the general slaughter of his brothers, the giant Ymir’s children, drowned in the blood of their raging Father. He is the Scandinavian Noah, as he, too, becomes the father of giants after the Deluge. The lays of the Norsemen show the grandsons of the divine Bun - Odin, Wili, and We -  conquering and killing the terrible giant Ymir, and creating the world out of his body.

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Abiegnus Mons (Latin). A mystic name, from whence as from a certain mountain, Rosicrucian documents are often found to be issued -  "Monte Abiegno". There is a connection with Mount Meru, and other sacred hills.

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Darkness In theosophical philosophy light is not regarded as self-existent, but as primordially the spiritual effect of a spiritual cause, the emanation from something grander and more radical beyond it.

This unknown divine substratum, the original superspiritual intelligence-substance of the universe, is sometimes called darkness; likewise, it is spoken of as absolute light. Thus absolute light and absolute darkness are the same, so that manifested light sprang from unmanifested light or darkness.

Philosophically, non-ego -- which is freedom from the limitations of egoity and manifested particularities -- voidness, and darkness are a three-in-one, darkness being Father-Mother and light, their Son. Night or darkness preceded day and light in cosmogony, as is recognized in Genesis, where darkness broods over the face of the deep. The creation of light, or the emanation of light from darkness, is the first step in cosmic manifestation. Light thus is truly called original substance or spiritual matter; darkness, purest spirit. Synonymous with this darkness are 'eyn soph, the Boundless, the bridgeless abyss, the unmanifest, the ever-invisible robes of the eternal parent.

Light and darkness on manifested planes constitute a duality, correlative and interdependent, neither conceivable without the other. But what is darkness to our physical senses may be light to our inner senses.

Darkness is also used to denote the shadow side of things, and hence in popular speech evil as opposed to good, ignorance to knowledge.

See also DAWN; LIGHT; USHAS

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Ammon (Egypt, Egyptian). One of the great gods of Egypt. Ammon or Amoun is far older than Amoun-Ra, and is identified with Baal. Hammon, the Lord of Heaven. Amoun-Ra was Ra the Spiritual Sun, the "Sun of Righteousness", etc., for - "the Lord God is a Sun".

He is the God of Mystery and the hieroglyphics of his name are often reversed. He is Pan, All-Nature esoterically, and therefore the universe, and the "Lord of Eternity". Ra, as declared by an old inscription, was "begotten by Neith but not engendered". He is called the "self- begotten" Ra,, and created goodness from a glance of his fiery eye, as Set-Typhon created evil from his. As Ammon (also Amoun and Amen), Ra, he is "Lord of the worlds enthroned on the Sun’s disk and appears in the abyss of heaven".

A very ancient hymn spells the name "Amen-ra", and hails the "Lord of the thrones of the earth...Lord of Truth, father of the gods, maker of man, creator of the beasts, Lord of Existence, Enlightener of the Earth, sailing in heaven in tranquillity. . . All hearts are softened at beholding thee, sovereign of life, health and strength We worship thy spirit who alone made us", etc., etc. (See Bonwick’s Egyptian Belief.)

Ammon Ra is called "his mother’s husband" and her son. (See "Chnourmis" and "Chnouphis" and also Secret Doctrine I, pp. 91 and It was to the "ram-headed" god that the Jews sacrificed lambs, and the lamb of Christian theology is a disguised reminiscence of the ram.

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Anumitis (Sanskrit). Inference, deduction in philosophy.

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Abhimanim (Sanskrit). The name of Agni (fire) the "eldest son of Brahma", in other words, the first element or Force produced in the universe at its evolution (the fire of creative desire). By his wife Swaha, Abhimanim had three sons (the fires) Pavaka, Pavamana and Suchi, and these had "forty-five sons, who, with the original son of Brahma and his three descendants, constitute the forty-nine fires" of Occultism.

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Adam Kadmon (Heb). Archetypal Man; Humanity. The "Heavenly Man" not fallen into sin; Kabalists refer it to the Ten Sephiroth on the plane of human perception.

In the Kabalah Adam Kadmon is the manifested Logos corresponding to our Third Logos; the Unmanifested being the first paradigmic ideal Man, and symbolizing the Universe in abscondito, or in its "privation" in the Aristotelean sense. The First Logos is the "Light of the World", the Second and the Third - its gradually deepening shadows.

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Anandamaya-Kosha (Sanskrit). "The illusive Sheath of Bliss", i.e., the mayavic or illusory form, the appearance of that which is formless. "Bliss", or the higher soul. The Vedantic name for one of the five Koshas or "principles" in man; identical with our Atma-Buddhi or the Spiritual Soul.

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Amitabha. The Chinese perversion of the Sanskrit Amrita Buddha, or the "Immortal Enlightened", a name of Gautama Buddha. The name has such variations as Amita, Abida, Amitaya, etc., and. is explained as meaning both "Boundless Age" and "Boundless Light". The original conception of the ideal of an impersonal divine light has been anthrdpomorphized with time.

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Asmoneans. Priest-kings of Israel whose dynasty reigned over the Jews for 126 years. They promulgated the Canon of the Mosaic Testament in contradistinction to the "Apocrypha" (q.v.) or Secret Books of the Alexandrian Jews, the Kabbalists, and maintained the dead-letter meaning of the former. Till the time of John Hyrcanus, they were Ascedeans (Chasidim) and Pharisees; but later they became Sadducees or Zadokites, asserters of Sacerdotal rule as contradistinguished from Rabbinical.

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Antahkarana (Sanskrit)., or Antaskarana. The term has various meanings, which differ with every school of philosophy and sect. Thus Sankaracharya renders the word as "understanding"; others, as "the internal instrument, the Soul, formed by the thinking principle and egoism"; whereas the Occultists explain it as the path or bridge between the Higher and the Lower Manas, the divine Ego, and the personal Soul of man.

It serves as a medium of communication between the two, and conveys from the Lower to the Higher Ego all those personal impressions and thoughts of men which can, by their nature, be assimilated and stored by the undying Entity, and be thus made immortal with it, these being the only elements of the evanescent Personality that survive death and time. It thus stands to reason that only that which is noble, spiritual and divine in man can testify in Eternity to his having lived.

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