Illusion Dictionary

PERICHORESIS

The word is Greek, as you might imagine: peri "around" + choreio "dance." But for the Greeks "dancing" wasn't the aimless shuffling we do. It was more like ballet. "Choreography" is a lot closer to the idea -- in which particular movements are carefully planned and executed. Travel from one dimension to another occurs simultaneously on all levels of reality. We travel in and out of the astral during sleep every night and think nothing of it. And, as you know, when the shaman interfaces with the earth by taking narcotic mushrooms or cacti into his system, he's moving deliberately and consciously between universes.

Parallel worlds stretch horizontally from sinister to dexter, or rather, from increasing shades of darkness to increasing degrees of light. Beings entering from the darkside are perceived by us not as merely ignorant but as demonic, whereas the wisdom of the beings from the lightside stands so far beyond our recognition that we see them simply as angelic beings. Depending on the level of reality that we happen to occupy, the dark and light worlds are perceived as more or less similar to the world we currently inhabit. On some levels of reality, the transfiguration is reversed and we perceive them as inhabiting regions above and below a horizontal plane of reality that stretches into inaccessible temporal limits of Past and Future. In such a world, reality is a given that is perceived as revealing itself only at such Past and Future vanishing points -- Alpha and Omega.

Everywhere horizontal parallel plane meets vertical parallel levels and an Aeon is established, symbolized by a cross. If the cross, however is not circumscribed by a circle (the familiar symbol of cross in circle, representing "earth"), there is no cohesion and the center does not hold. The so-called "extremes," in fact, are not extremes at all, but merely their own opposites in a spinning circle.

Because of the nature of infinity, we have to recognize that we may never stand at any of the four extremities, but always only at the exact center of the omniverse.

Notice also that in any formal religious painting, the god or saint is always placed in the exact center. If he is raised too high from the center, the lower world is given undue importance and power, because, after all, in completely "secular" pictures, the God has been raised so high as to have been left out of the picture altogether! Placing the God too far down divests him of his divinity because his intensity looks, on our level, simply grotesque. Likewise, if the God is placed too far to the left or right, an imbalance is also created.

Thus, uncircumscribed, the ends of the cross stretch unchecked into the infinite four directions and an uncontrollable wickedness is set forth into all manifestations. Without the "earthing" of the cross, there is no manifestation. The extremities lead only into infinite "otherness" and delusion. It is the inner being at the solar plexus that is the heart of the universe. When we nail (i.e., Christianize) the higher spirit of man to an ancient quadratic event, the center is blocked and closed forever. Moreover, the center has been locked in the past, away from the Eternal Now. Until the nail (Xtianity) has been pulled out, no further evolution is possible and Death will prevail.

The way out is toward the central, innermost point.

The parallel world-planes are accessible at all times. We move in and out of them constantly, but are mostly unaware of having done so. Occasionally we get the feeling that "things are suddenly different" or that "something is about to happen" and that means we've inadvertently stepped into a new probable world that is much different from the ones we've hitherto occupied. You can move back into the world you've just left, only if you do so at once.

Whatever can be imagined, exists, will exist or has existed. Whatever has existed or will exist continues to exist now because time is one of the four real dimensions of things. Alongside this Reality there are an infinite number of co-existent realities of equal "solidity" and "substance." There are also an infinite number of "probable" realities and an infinite number of "possible" worlds. A moment's reflection will show that if this is so, then, obviously, available access to them must not be merely possible, but inevitable. Jane Robert's Seth describes the infinite "probable worlds" stretching out in either direction from this one. The closest ones being hardly distinguishable from this, as we progress outward, the probable worlds become stranger, increasingly incomprehensible and frighteningly unpredictable. In the fifth dimensional world, four dimensional objects have their own much more complete and solid "substance" which we cannot perceive so long as we inhabit lower planes of being.

You can, however, willingly and deliberately get up and walk from this world into the nearest adjacency and from there to the next, and the next. The only problem is that you're playing roulette. There's no way of telling what kind of world you are moving into.

If you are seeking to avoid some trouble in this world, be advised that things could be a lot worse in the world next door. Moreover, if you leave unsolved problem behind, your karma will continue to take you back there in future lives until eventually you are forced to solve them. On top of that, if you leave muddy footprints behind you as you run through world after world, you'll have added onto your present karma the extra burden of going back to mop them up.

Actual entrance/exit sites are a matter of intuitive perception. Dimensional doorways are not likely, for instance, to be found in your living room. They need to be places you've never crossed before (except as interdimensional thresholds). It's best to look for two pillars to pass between -- a couple of tall trees in a forest or park make excellent pillars. The more difficult the access the better. And the direction and angle of entrance are crucial. Select a "picture" framed by the trees as most nearly representing the world you want to leave behind you and before you a picture of what intuitively or esthetically looks to be an improvement of that. Make sure that nothing passes across your line of vision as you are actually walking through. If necessary, keep your eyes closed or look down at your feet.

At first the difference between adjacent worlds is scarcely discernible. Variations only become immediately evident at some distance. But if you are observant, you will eventually begin to notice tiny, subtle changes for the better (or worse). By the time these changes become evident, it's already too late to go back where you came from. The metaphors of artistic symbolism, religion and magic can also assist in perichoretic travel. With the enhanced ability to will and to imagine, the human mind can perceive parts of alternate realities with increasing clarity and may begin to see how to transform the reality we normally inhabit. In fact, so many are the pathways to alternate experience, it's a wonder anyone still believes that reality has but a single face!

There is, to be sure, ultimately only the One Plenum in which everything else transpires, but that sphere transcends experience in the Void of Nirvana.

Although, as we've seen above, there are relatively easy methods of interplanary travel (between planes), the ability to discover significant doorways into alternate dimensions, advanced perichoresis, not only requires an out-of-the-ordinary state of consciousness, but is a difficult technique in its own right, mastered properly only by experienced shamans. For instance, travel through time in the past requires us to move "forward" (i.e., towards the Beginning of Time) simply by ignoring vast areas of experience and being -- as we also do in the present -- in order to maintain a strict continuity of our own. Travel from the future (i.e., the End of Time), however, even though employing the same declination, creates an ever-thickening wall behind us, preventing all possibility of return to the starting point.

Kenneth Grant (Outside the Circles of Time) provides us with insights into the sexual avenue of interdimensional perichoresis and at the same time describes the procedure for creating a "moonchild." In his system, the door to our world opens inward in order for us to receive extratellurian immigrants.

Bipolar human sexuality, explains Grant, parallels cosmogenesis and the sacred void corresponds to the female vagina. Everything comes out of and falls back into this same eternal darkness. The creative light is sucked into its bottomless depths where it is swallowed up by vampiric blackness. Therefore, the doorway to the vacuum or zero of space is a priestess who has been chosen for her "master of the art of dream control." By allowing herself to become a mirror of impression-reception, she is able to generate illusions, "for all form is fantasy, and exists only in the dreaming mirror of the mind."

A material looking glass is placed above her, slanted to receive the starlight. Now, by her psychic ability she can project whatever star morph the magician requires onto the looking glass. A second mirror, creating an infinite regression reflection is placed 11 feet away, eleven being the number of the famous 11th Pathway of Black Magic. The circle of Daath is the corresponding doorway in the Qabalah.

Thereupon the priest uses his penis as the intergalactic conduit of the astro-seminal energy. His vibrations and invocations encourage the dream-manipulating priestess to focus the desired star-morph entity onto the mirrors. In the ultimate orgasm of priest, priestess and dream-entity, the eldolon rises briefly to life and erupts from the mirror as its starseed transmission runs down from the star to impregnate her. The zygote achieved by this cosmocopulation is a unique blend of human and extraterrestrial "genes."

According to most students, monstrous beings invisible to ordinary consciousness are entering our universe in unprecedented numbers, through this same interdimensional sexual doorway. (Apparently our time is a vector of unique significance.) The fantasy film, Ghostbusters, was a facetious rendering of this understanding, but revealed a good deal more than most viewers realized. Kenneth Grant teaches a heterosexual tantrism by which one may ride out again through the same door on the back of one of these demonic beasts and thereby escape. He calls this, again, the 11th Pathway. Others propose that there are homosexual and even solitary practices what serve this purpose equally well.

Sex and death are the two most common and well-known methods of conveyance between worlds, but such exclusively Scorpionic merkabahs are by no means the only ones. All of these methods follow the horizontal direction of planes to left and right, from darkness into light, or vice versa. There is also travel in the vertical direction from layers of reality and consciousness above and below. These cris-crossing horizontal and vertical planes endlessly extend out and recede into the vastnesses. Some of the planes are commonly thought, by the average person, to be "schizophrenic" because they appear to leave the traveller suspended in his "own little world." But such planes are of great importance to the magician or yogin. Reality, we must understand, is entirely a matter of the manipulation of illusion. The teacher, Gurdjieff, once pointed out that there is only one thing in the entire universe, but it is repeated endlessly in order to provide the illusion of "difference." Even chemistry and physics bear this out. The difference between each element is simply a difference in the number of their atomic electrons: Hydrogen 1, Helium 2, Lithium 3...

Some writers believe that there are denizens of other dimensions who use various perichoretic chariots that resemble the astral projections of those whose time and locality they visit. For Ezekiel and Daniel it was a fiery wheel bearing the tetramorph. For the Dogons it was a star ship. For our great grandfathers in the 19th Century it was frequently an airship. But they aren't just psychic experiences, say the witnesses, ufo's leave evidence behind ... a burned-out circle on the lawn, a map with indecipherable writing, MIBs, etc.

My own interdimensional visits to "the Other Side" have been neither A.D.E.'s nor OOBE's. They have occurred either through true-dreaming or by psychotropic methods, i.e., strictly via astral travel. In all, I have several times visited the "conventional" Astral Plane -- or abode of the (after-dead) spirits, three or four times encountered higher beings (although only at a distance), dwelt in the All-Consciousness of All-Phyla and once visited a previous time. Lately I have begun experimenting with ordinary consciousness as a routine means of perichoresis. The occult path I've travelled (until now) has always been the lonely one of the hermit. The beings I've encountered have been the traditional custodians of the pathways, that is to say, those archetypes hovering somewhere between being and non-being. Else they comprise the angels, Gods and daimones of pantheons we already know. But I have increasingly come under the purview of something more important: the existence of what seems to be an infinite number of Eternal Doorways between worlds. These doorways are available to us, of course, under very special circumstances -- that is to say, in altered psychic states lying clearly outside normal consciousness: Yoga, Tantra, sex magic, primitive rites of passage, repetitive rhythms (micro-events), sensory deprivation or stimulation, pain, extreme trauma, trance, all the multifarious REM/sleep/hypnotic states, rushes of adrenaline or fatigue intoxication, epilepsy, metamorphic anomaly, drug intoxication, illness, psychosis proper, thanatolepsy and death. (See SOLIPSISM.)

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

MAGICIAN: used in reference to one following a system of Ceremonial or High Magick. To the public it often means the same as a Witch; one who practices slight of hand or illusion.

(See also: MAGICIAN , Witchcraft, Wicca, Paganism, Pagan Dictionary)

Reality Words such as reality, truth, and good are understood in reference to their opposites; and the opposite of reality is appearance or illusion. There can be but one fundamental or all-pervading reality, and the word in this sense becomes an equivalent to the one All, parabrahman, by contrast with which all else is maya or appearance.

Reality when implying various conceptions is therefore a relative term, and we can but say that one thing is real by comparison with another thing which is relatively unreal. A dream seems real enough until we awake, and then our waking mind seems real; yet this also will seem unreal when we awake to a still higher consciousness.

Reality, like truth and unity, cannot be an object of knowledge except by intuition, which then functions on its own plane; for any mental faculty beneath intuition is itself relatively unreal, and its findings or deductions partake of the nature of their source; and all such deductions are understandable only by reference to their opposites. It is precisely this existence in nature of opposites which brings about the various mayas under which human understanding necessarily labors.

(See also: Reality , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Plastic Soul. Used in Occultism in reference to the linga sharira or the astral body of the lower Quaternary. It is called "plastic" and also "Protean" Soul from its power of assuming any shape or form and moulding or modelling itself into or upon any image impressed in the astral light around it, or in the minds of the medium or of those present at séances for materialization. The linga sharira must not be confused with the mayavi rupa or "thought body" - the image created by the thought and will of an adept or sorcerer ; for while the "astral form" or linga sharira is a real entity, the "thought body" is a temporary illusion created by the mind.

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

Maya: The illusive power of Brahman; the veiling and the projecting power of the universe, the power of Cosmic Illusion..

(See also: Maya , Hinduism, Hinduism Dictionary, Sanskrit Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul)

Tamasha (East Indian) Used by Hindus and Anglo-Indians to signify show, representation, phenomenon, hence often illusion.

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

A Dictionary of Spiritual Terms. From Acupuncture to Zoroaster.

Please note that all words in grey, like "yoga", "enlightenment" or "kundalini" are hyperlinked to archives further explaining the term. At the corresponding archive you will also find articles related to the term.

Manas: The level of consciousness where illusion is generated, it is the subconscious.

 (See also: Manas , Buddhism, Body Mind and Soul)

Dead, Dead People, Dead Father, Dead Mother, Dead Relative, Dead Relatives

• To dream of the dead, is usually a dream of warning. If you see and talk with your father, some unlucky transaction is about to be made by you. Be careful how you enter into contracts, enemies are around you. Men and women are warned to look to their reputations after this dream.
• To see your mother, warns you to control your inclination to cultivate morbidness and ill will towards your fellow creatures. A brother, or other relatives or friends, denotes that you may be called on for charity or aid within a short time.
• To dream of seeing the dead, living and happy, signifies you are letting wrong influences into your life, which will bring material loss if not corrected by the assumption of your own will force.
• To dream that you are conversing with a dead relative, and that relative endeavors to extract a promise from you, warns you of coming distress, unless you follow the advice given you. Disastrous consequences could often be averted if minds could grasp the inner workings and sight of the higher or spiritual self. The voice of relatives is only that higher self taking form to approach more distinctly the mind that lives near the material plane. There is so little congeniality between common or material natures that persons should depend upon their own subjectivity for true contentment and pleasure.
• [52] Paracelsus says on this subject: ``It may happen that the soul of persons who have died perhaps fifty years ago may appear to us in a dream, and if it speaks to us we should pay special attention to what it says, for such a vision is not an illusion or delusion, and it is possible that a man is as much able to use his reason during the sleep of his body as when the latter is awake; and if in such a case such a soul appears to him and he asks questions, he will then hear that which is true. Through these solicitous souls we may obtain a great deal of knowledge to good or to evil things if we ask them to reveal them to us. Many persons have had such prayers granted to them. Some people that were sick have been informed during their sleep what remedies they should use, and after using the remedies, they became cured, and such things have happened not only to Christians, but also to Jews, Persians, and heathens, to good and to bad persons.''
• The writer does not hold that such knowledge is obtained from external or excarnate spirits, but rather through the personal Spirit Glimpses that is in man.--AUTHOR.

Source: 10 000 Dream Interpretations, by Gustavus Hindman Miller

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

Nataraj:

(lit., king of the dance) A name of Shiva, referring to the dancing Shiva. The object of his dance is to free all souls from the fetters of illusion.

(See also: Nataraj , Yoga, Yoga Dictionary, Siddha Yoga, Siddha Yoga Dictionary)

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V X Y Z

Aja (Sanskrit). "Unborn", uncreated; an epithet belonging to many of the primordial gods, but especially to the first Logos - a radiation of the Absolute on the plane of illusion.

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

 Lord division of Self and World and the assumption that what is good  for the Self is all that matters. Good magic is based on the understanding  that Self and World are one. Therefore, what is good for the world is  automatically good for the Self. Intelligent though that sounds on the  surface, it's illogical and amounts to wishful thinking. Whats good for  the head isn't necessarily good for the feet and what's good for the world  isn't always good for the self. Exploiters of evil are quick to point out  the disadvantages of self-sacrifice and altruism.

The wicked prosper because Evil is ignorant and any development of the  ego, being an act of ignorance, automatically rides over doubt. Thus  egotism propels itself forward with confidence. Egolessness, on the other  hand, lacking self-assurance, falters and is exploited. So we come back to  words. Illusion, ignorance and darkness are just synonyms for the Ego,  whose main job is to protect the body from destruction. Enlightenment is a  synonym for the elimination of the ego and the relingquishment of its  protection. From a materialistic point of view, therefore, the functions  of Good and Evil are reversed. It is only the highly advanced spiritual  understanding that accepts death not merely as inevitable, but as a  strange paradox: the non-existence of existence. What we mean by advanced  spiritual understanding is the recognition that since death is also an  illusion, then there really is no separation of self from other.

We really are crucibles for the testing of character. If we maintain  our materialistic selfishness, we're heaped with worldly rewards. If we maintain our faith in self-denial, we earn injustice, if not crucifixion.  Good can triumph on earth only if the Self really does benefit more from  its connection to the world than from its separation. So we have to move  beyond Good and Evil, to the World beyond the world and to the Self  beyond the self, to the ultimate paradoxical truth: the only self that  matters is the individual, or that very idiosyncrasy which maintains the  strongest expression of self within the context of World or Other.

Self draws strength, in other words, not from identity, but from  contrast. This means that if we want to raise the self to a higher level,  we somehow have to raise the world first. Archimedes can do nothing in an  anthill. The materialist, on the other hand, being concerned only with his  isolation, sees the world in a parasitic fashion, strictly as his  life-support system. Thus Evil stands revealed as self-preoccupation at the expense of the world and Good as the Self striving to be an  enhancement of the world. More esoterically, we can define Positive  Evil as that which goes against the evolutionary current, Negative  Evil as the opposition of an interior momentum not yet overcome.

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

a-samsari:

a-samsari (-samsaari). Not bound by worldly illusion.

(See also: a-samsari , Hinduism, Hinduism Dictionary, Sanskrit Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul)

Avidya (Sanskrit) (from a not + vidya knowledge, wisdom)

Nescience rather than ignorance; it implies absence of wisdom rather than inherent incapacity, and is the result of illusion producing ignorance. Hence ignorance of spiritual things.

See also VIDYA

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

Maya: illusion

(See also: Maya , Hinduism, Hinduism Dictionary, Sanskrit Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul)

IMMORTALITY

The fourth and shallowest of ego desires. The difference between the initiate and the ordinary person is that the initiate knows that he, along with everything in the universe, is already immortal. Ordinary people see the truth in such ideas but choose to live as if the illusion of commonplace, middle-class job and family are more "practical" or "real" than metaphysical truth.

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

Avidya (Sanskrit). Opposed to Vidya, Knowledge. Ignorance which proceeds from, and is produced by the illusion of the Senses or Viparyaya.

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

a-vidya-maya:

a-vidya-maya (-vidhyaa-maayaa). Ignorance-based illusion.

(See also: a-vidya-maya , Hinduism, Hinduism Dictionary, Sanskrit Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul)

Ginnungagap (Scandianvian Norse). The "cup of illusion" literally ; the abyss of the great deep, or the shoreless, beginningless, and endless, yawning gulf; which in esoteric parlance we call the "World’s Matrix", the primordial living space. The cup that contains the universe, hence the "cup of illusion".

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

A Theosophical definition of Avidya :

Avidya

(Sanskrit) A compound word: a, "not"; vidya, "knowledge"; hence nonknowledge, ignorance  - perhaps a better translation would be nescience  - ignorance or rather lack of knowledge of reality, produced by illusion or maya.

See also: Avidya , Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul

YOGAMAYA: the power of divine illusion

(See also: YOGAMAYA , Hinduism, Hinduism Dictionary, Sanskrit Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul)

Gupta-maya (Sanskrit) (from gupta secret + maya illusion)

Secret illusion; the art used by Hindu street "magicians" to make mango trees appear to grow rapidly, to allow a boy to climb a rope fastened in the clouds, etc. Blavatsky holds that such phenomena arise from the psychological power of the "magician" to project a fascination or glamour on the spectators. (BCW 12:321, 326)

(See also: Guph, Guf, Guff , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)