Holy Spirit Dictionary

Holy Water As practiced in the Roman Catholic Church the rite is virtually identical with that of the ancient Egyptians: the water which has been blessed or consecrated is used to sprinkle the worshipers and objects used in the church service.

It was unquestionably adopted from the ancient Mysteries, and became a rite of external symbolic purification. In Egypt and pagan Rome, it "accompanied the rite of bread and wine. 'Holy water was sprinkled by the Egyptian priest alike upon his gods' images and the faithful. It was both poured and sprinkled.

A brush has been found, supposed to have been used for that purpose, as at this day.' (Bonwick's Egyptian Belief (p. 418)) As to the bread, 'the cakes of Isis . . . were placed upon the altar. Gliddon writes that they were "identical in shape with the consecrated cake of the Roman and Eastern Churches." Melville assures us "the Egyptians marked this holy bread with St. Andrew's cross." The Presence bread was broken before being distributed by the priests to the people, and was supposed to become the flesh and blood of the Deity. The miracle was wrought by the hand of the officiating priest, who blessed the food. . . . Rouge tells us "the bread offerings bear the imprint of the fingers, the mark of consecration".' (Ibid, page 418)" (TG 144-5).

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

Holy Spirit, The

The third person of the Christian godhead. He is called the Spirit of God, the Holy Ghost, and Eternal Spirit in Christian scripture.

The Holy Ghost was considered female until around the fifth century. (See Trinity and Holy Spirit. )

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

Celtic Marriage

This article is not just for those interested in the traditions of Celtic Marriage, it is also a look into the complex body of law that governed the ancient Celts.

For the ancient Celts, marriage was a very different thing than what we conceive of as "marriage" today. For them, marriage or handfasting as some know it was a form of contract that had several purposes. These included the protection of property rights, the care of progeny (children), and the rights of the individuals involved in the relationships themselves.

Read more here: » Ancient Celts: Celtic Marriage

Filioque Dogma (from Latin filioque or et filio and from the Son)

Originally the Christian Creed stated simply a belief in the Holy Ghost or Spirit, and to this was added qui ex Patre procedit (who proceeds from the Father); still later the clause filioque or et filio was added by one of the Councils of the Western Church. The position of the insertion of this clause in the Creed marks one of the main distinctions between the Western and Eastern Churches, the former holding that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and from the Son, whereas the latter has always held the more original Christian thought that the Holy Ghost proceeded from the Father, and being of a feminine nature, from both these proceeded the Son.

Thus the procession so called in the Western Church: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; whereas in the Eastern Church it has always been Father, Holy Spirit, and Son. This difference in the procession of the Holy Spirit was one of the main causes of the breaking of the Christian Church into its two main original branches, the earlier or Greek Orthodox Church, and the Western, of which the Roman Church is the typical and largest example.

(See also: Filioque Dogma , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Rituals in Buddhism: Buddhist Funeral Rites

Theravadins Buddhist follow the Indian custom of burning the body at death. The BuddhaÕs body was cremated and this set the example for many Buddhists, even in the West. When someone is dying in a Burmese home, monks come to comfort them. They chant verses to them, such as:

Read more here: » Rituals in Buddhism: Buddhist Funeral Rites

A Christian theological definition of Conviction according to CARM - The Christian Apologetics & Research Ministry:

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Conviction

See also: Conviction , Christianity, Body Mind and Soul

A Christian theological definition of Trinity according to CARM - The Christian Apologetics & Research Ministry:

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Trinity

See also: Trinity , Christianity, Body Mind and Soul

Holy Spirit

1. Spirit that is whole. 2. Action or agent of the Supreme Being. 3. Light

(See also: Holy Spirit , Body Mind and Soul)

Hydranos (Ancient Greek). Lit., the "Baptist". A name of the ancient Hierophant of the Mysteries who made the candidate pass through the "trial by water", wherein he was plunged thrice. This was his baptism by the Holy Spirit which moves on the waters of Space. Paul refers to St. John as Hydranos, the Baptist. The Christian Church took this rite from the ritualism of the Eleusinian and other Mysteries.

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

Holy Ghost (from Greek hagion pneuma holy spirit or breath)

The Holy Ghost or Spirit in the Occident usually means the Third Person of the Christian Trinity or Triune God. The typical form of the primary philosophic and cosmogonic triad is Father-Mother-Son with the female potency figuring both as mother, wife, and daughter of the Son. The Holy Ghost is strictly speaking the feminine principle in the Christian Trinity, and in primitive Christianity was counted the second in serial order or procession, although in later times the West, led by the Roman Catholic Church, transferred the position of the Holy Ghost from second to third.

Thus the original series was Father, Holy Ghost or Mother, and Son, whereas the Occident now reckons the series in the procession as Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; and this difference of opinion which arose in the Middle Ages was one of the great factors splitting the Christian Church into the Eastern or Greek Orthodox and the Western. In Christianity, the Son is said to be God made manifest in a particular man; the Holy Ghost is the divine spirit which works in all men and brings them into conformity with the image of the Son or Christ.

The Holy Ghost is the spiritual ray from the central sun, which passes down through the planes of manifestation, penetrating all hierarchies in its course and therefore likewise the human mind when it is permitted ingress into his soul. It is equivalent to the Light of the Logos, daiviprakriti, the Gnostic Sophia, the Qabbalistic Shechinah (or perhaps Sephirah), the Mother of the Ogdoad, and in Indian thought the feminine sakti. But while daiviprakriti is the Light of the Logos, this is only because the Logos transmits to itself the light from above.

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

Kundalini Awakening

Kundalini awakening or pranic awakening and its cross-tradition similars-the spontaneous spinal rockings known in Judaism as davening and in Sufisim as zikr; the "taken-over" gyrations of gospel "holy ghost" shaking and dancing and charismatic/pentacostal "mani-festations"; the Dionysian "revel"; QuakerismÕs and Shakerism's autonomic quaking and shaking; Tai Chi guided by chi itself; the shamanic trance-dance; BuddhismÕs and Raja-YogaÕs effortless "straight back" (uju-kaya) meditation; the yogically derived ecstatic belly-dance and Flamenco; and even the full-bodied, spontaneous Reichian "reflex"-literally embody the spiritual path.

Read more here: » Kundalini Awakening: Kundalini and Sahaja Yoga (Spontaneous Yoga)

Holy Spirit:

The Holy Spirit is the Presence of God that makes God knowable and known. The Holy Spirit carries that Presence and Personality outward so that one may become baptized 'In' it, saturated within it and refreshed within God so that one might live with God. The Holy Spirit is the Water of Life Itself that washes over all levels of Creation and Manifestation so that Life can Happen.

(See also: Holy Spirit , Psychic, Psychic Dictionary, Parapsychology, Parapsychology Dictionary)

Woman In philosophy, symbolizes the mother aspect of nature or feminine characteristic of the universe always found in the triads of Father-Mother-Son (changed in the Christian scheme to Father, Son, and Holy Ghost -- the Holy Spirit in primitive Christianity always being considered feminine). From time immemorial it has been customary to associate primordial spirit-substance, later becoming matter, with the cosmic feminine principle represented symbolically by a horizontal line); and spirit has always been associated with the masculine principle (represented by a vertical line); but the words feminine and masculine are merely borrowed from human beings, and the characteristics of originating cosmic principles were far better expressed by pairs of opposites such as negative and positive.

In cosmogenesis, the feminine principle is represented by the waters of space or great deep, often called the womb of nature. From this figure of speech was born the conception found in some ancient cosmogonies, such as the Hebrew, of the ark, containing all the germs of lives of a universe and pictured as resting or moving on the cosmic waters. Another symbol for the feminine principle was that of the lotus, which likewise rests upon the water, finally rising above it when it blossoms. One symbol of the universe in germ before any aspect of manifestation occurs is the matripadma or closed "mother lotus," before the cosmic blossom has been quickened by spirit into expanding into becoming the universe. It is also referred to as devamatri (the divine mother), the matrix from which all the suns and planets were born.

In the cosmogony of the Hebrew Qabbalah, the first Sephirah which emanates from latent divinity is at times represented as feminine; yet when this feminine emanation becomes creative it is then represented as conjoining masculine traits with its own, so that at this stage it is envisaged as masculine-feminine. This first spiritual emanation, emanating from itself the next phase of cosmogonical production, is termed the Shechinah, the mother of all the successively emanated Sephiroth. Thus the Shechinah is an echo of archaic Hindu cosmogonic speculation, corresponding to pradhana or prakriti.

In theosophic cosmogony space is often called the Great Mother before cosmic activity commences and, at the opening of manvantara, Father-Mother with space becomes emanative and is called svabhavat or mother-space. Svabhavat is the emanation from cosmic space or darkness -- so called because its utter and undiluted essential spirit is virtually beyond the reach of the light of mind as manifested in humanity.

Metaphors such as woman and mother are always symbolical when referring to motherhood, and have no associations with physical sex, for "esotericism ignores both sexes. Its highest Deity is sexless as it is formless, neither Father nor Mother; and its first manifested beings, celestial and terrestrial alike, become only gradually androgynous and finally separate into distinct sexes" (SD 1:136n). This was clearly understood originally, so that there was no degrading or misinterpreting of these figures of speech. With descending cycles, however, humanity's religious conceptions equally materialized: the key ideas having been forgotten or lost, abstractions became concreted into materializations, a masculine Creator or feminine Creatrix were then placed at the summit of the various pantheons, and early religious philosophy -- which was as scientific as it was religious and philosophical -- cast upon the background of the spatial universe images of human surroundings and way of life; so that the deities in the mythologies finally became human images, more powerful but equally swayed by passion, driven by impulse, and restricted by these even as human beings are. Such projection of human attributes into the cosmic spaces led to a still more materialized visioning of the divinities, so that the feminine or productive characteristics of nature in the popular religious mythologies finally gave way before the masculine, and the earlier, essentially beautiful idea of the mother of nature was swallowed up in the purely masculine traits of national divinities, many of them distinctly male and evil, such as the Jewish Jehovah, who waxed wroth and smelt the sweet savor of burnt sacrifices, or again the Greek Zeus swayed by ignoble passions.

"No exoteric religious system has ever adopted a female Creator, and thus woman was regarded and treated, from the first dawn of popular religions, as inferior to man. It is only in China and Egypt that Kwan-yin and Isis were placed on a par with the male gods" (SD 1:136n). The aspects of Isis, for instance, are familiar enough: as the mother with her child, and as the faithful spiritual consort of Osiris -- these were for easier understanding by the populace; but in the sanctuary Isis remained universal cosmic nature, the cosmic producing mother, the goddess whose veil of nature no mere human had ever raised. Plutarch recorded an inscription addressed to Isis: "I am everything which has been, and which is, and which shall be, and no one has ever drawn my veil" (De Iside at Osiride); to which were added "the fruit of my womb became the Sun" (Proclus, Commentary on the Timaeus, 1:82).

In China, however, the ideal cosmic feminine was named Kwan-yin, the mother of mercy and knowledge, what in Hindustan is called mahat or cosmic buddhi; she is called the triple of Kwan-shai-yin "because in her correlations, metaphysical and cosmical, she is the 'Mother, the Wife and the Daughter,' of the Logos, just as in the later theological translations she became 'the Father Son and (the female) Holy Ghost' -- the Sakti or Energy -- the Essence of the three" (SD 1:136).

With the Gnostics truth itself was portrayed as a disrobed divinity, every part of her cosmic form being numbered and lettered. This divine wisdom they called Sophia, virtually the same as the Qabbalistic Shechinah. Even in the modern Occident, instinct has determined that justice shall be pictured as feminine, as also liberty and peace. "The Gnostic Sophia, 'Wisdom' who is 'the Mother' of the Ogdoad . . . is the Holy Ghost and the Creator of all, as in the ancient systems. The 'father' is a far later invention. The earliest manifested Logos was female everywhere -- the mother of the seven planetary powers" (SD 1:72n).

(See also: Woman , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body mind and Soul)

Christian Meditation: Trinity Divine and the Holy Streams 

"You have learnt that the laws of the Son of Man are seven. Now you shall know of the mystery of the three Holy Streams and the ancient way to traverse them; so shall you bathe in the light of heaven and at last behold the revelation of the mystery of mysteries: the law of God, which is One."

---The Teachings of The Elect from The Essene Gospel of Peace

This quote from one of JesusÕ little-known teachings provides not only a metaphor but also a much deeper insight as how to approach meditation.

Read more here: » Christian Meditation: Trinity Divine and the Holy Streams Trinity Divine and the Holy Streams

The word ' Yog ’ is derived from the verb yuj which means to yoke, to join, to connect. The end of life is to yoke oneself to the holy spirit i.e., the Paramchaitanya. Hindu scriptures enlighten us on the various ways or margas of doing so. The union with the holy spirit is possible through Gyan Yog, Karma Yog, Bhakti Marg, Mantra Yog, Raj Yog, Sanyas Marg or Hath Yog.

The rishi-munis have particularly adopted the Gyan Yog which is possible only through Dhyan . For the householder, Karma Yog and Bhakti Marg are the most practical ways of attaining moksha. Ascetics have developed the knowledge of mantra-tantra . Hath Yogis have evolved various Aasanas, postures and occult practices for awakening the Kundalini. Shri Aadishakti Shri Mataji Nirmaladevi has advocated the Sahaj Yog for householders to attain the Parmachaitanya through the raising of the Kundalini.

(See also: Sahaj Yog , God and Religion, Peace on Earth, Peace of Mind, Love and Happiness, Life and Beyond, Body Mind and Soul)

Read more here: » Sahaj Yog: Raising Kundalini With Sahaj Yog  

A Christian theological definition of Born Again according to CARM - The Christian Apologetics & Research Ministry:

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Born Again

See also: Born Again , Christianity, Body Mind and Soul

Dream Interpretation Three, third

Religion sees in the number three the Trinity: God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Wherever the three appears, there is also energy. In general, three always points to something new that is created from things that have already existed. Three is an effective, holy, but also dangerous number.

Source: Dream-Land, http://www.dream-land.info

(See also: Dream Archives, Meaning of Dreams, Dream Interpretation, Dream Dictionary, Dream Dictionary - Three, third , Meaning of Dreams about Three, third , Dream Interpretation Three, third )

A Christian theological definition of Miracle according to CARM - The Christian Apologetics & Research Ministry:

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Miracle

See also: Miracle , Christianity, Body Mind and Soul

Kabbala: Mystical Dimension Of Jewish Thought

The word Kabbala originally meant Ôreception' and related to the oral Jewish tradition handed down by Rabbis from generation to generation. The mainspring of the Kabbala is a deep rooted belief in a perpetual inter-relationship between God as the infinite power and man in the physical world as we know it.

Man can get close to God by subduing his own negative inclinations and bring about spiritual regeneration of mankind, through prayers, meditation and interpretation of the divine mysteries hidden in the Torah. Kabbalists emphasise the importance of mystical formulas in the recitation of prayers.

Read more here: » Kabbala: Mystical Dimension Of Jewish Thought

Holy Spirit. See HOLY GHOST

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