Judaism Dictionary

Judaism

World religion founded approximately 1500 BC by the prophet Moses (Thothmoses - prince and high-priest of Egypt)

The foundation of Judaism is the Torah (Genesis through Deuteronomy), which is said to have been written by Moses. The Israelites returned to the promised land of Canaan and became a small but powerful nation there under the rule of King David and his son Solomon.

After Solomon's death the kingdom split into a northern kingdom called Israel and a southern kingdom called Judah (the name of David's tribe). The northern kingdom was conquered and decimated by the Assyrians in 722 BC, after which the term Judeans, or Jews, gradually came into use to refer to all Israelites.

The Jews suffered conquests by a succession of foreign powers - the Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, and finally the Romans in the first century BC. Throughout this period the Jews developed a strong sense of national identity, identification with the Promised Land, and anticipation of a coming Messiah (ÒAnointed PrinceÓ).

There are three main branches of modern Judaism: Orthodox (traditional, literal adherence to the Torah as interpreted by the Talmud), Conservative (a middle position advocating traditional beliefs and practices up to a point), and Reform (liberal, non-literal stance on the Torah and Talmud; often non-religious or secular with emphasis on Jewish culture).

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

Judaism

Religion based on the belief that all people have a right to justice, purity, and truth which even the power of the king cannot erase

(See also: Judaism , Body Mind and Soul)

Zionism

A plan or movement of the Jewish people to return from the Diaspora to Palestine. Zionism originated aimed at the re-establishment of a Jewish national homeland and state in Palestine. It is now concerned with the development and support of Israel.

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

PAGANISM (Latin,  paganus, "a peasant, rustic"): Roman soldiers used the word in the pejorative sense of "hick, yokel, country bumpkin"; and this usage was continued by the early Roman Christians - who were mainly city-dwellers - to refer to everyone who preferred to continue to worship pre-Christian divinities. Hence "Paganism" refers to the worship of Pagan Deities: the Gods and Goddesses of the Old Religions that predate Judaism, Islam, or Christianity.

As such, "Paganism" is actually an umbrella term covering a broad family of religions, which may be divided into three broad sub-categories:

• survivalist - those whose religious practice has continued unbroken from their ancestors;
• revivalist - those whose religious practice attempts to revive that of their ancestors, whether by actual descent or by personal spiritual affinity and inclination;
• reconstructionist - those whose religious practice is an adaptation and reinterpretation of what they regard as the best of pre-Christian Pagan religions, adjusted to modern contemporary religious thought.

(See also: PAGANISM , Pagan Organisations, Paganism, Pagan Dictionary, Wicca,)

RELIGION

The word "religion" derives from the Latin prefix, re (an intensive) + ligio, "to tie, to bind," hence "a practice designed to tie down tightly, as though by a spell-binding force." If religions were not impervious to change, they would quickly dissolve into the chaos of the occult.

Religion is worship. It is based on the strict separation of divinity and humanity. Magic, on the contrary, is the invocation or evocation of spirits or divinity based on kinship or identity with them.

Living religions begin by being as creative, spontaneous and iconoclastic as the arts. But that creative fire quickly damps down to immutable dogma and robot-priests. Worship for its own sake amounts to little more than useless idolatry. It is utterly infra dig for any intelligent human being. The sole purpose of ritual is the arousal of consciousness in the participant. When such awakening fails to take place, it is time to throw the ikons to the dogs. The universe is self-created and everything in it created itself and goes on creating itself. There are higher beings, to be sure, but it is a perilous mistake to worship "The Creator" who is as far from perfect as you can get and still live on this side of Nothing. Nor should we consider humanity, in its present condition, to be anything but imperfect. Along with Nietzsche, we should see man as capable of infinite improvement. But Nietzsche's so-called "superman" will never evolve without struggle -- and not be the easy struggle of fascistic tyranny over material forms, but by the infinitely more difficult way of universal internal enlightenment.

Since there are infinite levels of enlightenment the majority of people are incapable of consensus or agreement, hence any idea of a religious "congregation" is absurd. As for the profane multitudes... unaware that omniscience, omnipotence and immortality comprise the deepest foundation of existence, they consider their own confusion to be the highest expression of consciousness. The ultimate purpose of creation is to know itself through the experience of eternal expansion of the mind. It is physical or fiscal expansion, however, that is of primary interest to homo vulgaris.

The mission of the magician isn't necessarily to bring down the traditional houses of religion -- especially the monoliths: Islam, Christendom or Judaism. But neither can he support them. For it is a truism that there is wisdom in the individual and it is difference that we should value, not sameness. For the magician, far more acceptable alternatives to monotheism can be found in India, Egypt, Tibet, etc. with their practices of Lamaism, Tantrism, Yoga and so on, or in the atheistic systems of the Tao and Buddhism. But always -- though he understands and honors tradition, the magus creates his own rituals and observances, tailored to his own needs. He does not serve established orders. As Madame Blavatsky so hopefully put it, "There is no religion higher than truth."

RING-PASS-NOT

As the magician draws his circle to keep the demons from entering his world, so other monads draw their own circles to keep out the magician. The ring-pass-not is that Level of attainment beyond which you cannot go. In occult literature, according to Alice Bailey, it is a term used "to denote the periphery of the sphere of influence of any central life force, and is applied equally to all atoms, from the atom of matter as dealt with by the physicist or chemist through the human planetary atoms up to the great atom of a solar system. The ring- pass-not of the average person is the spheroidal form of his mental body which extends considerably beyond the physical and enables him to function on the lower levels of the mental plane."

HPB (The Secret Doctrine) defines the RPN as: "The circumference of the sphere of influence of any center of positive life. This includes the fire sphere of magnetic work of the solar orb, viewing it as the body of manifestation of a Solar Logos or to a planetary scheme and could equally well be applied to the sphere of activity of the human Ego."

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

Kabbalah

(Also spelled Kabbala, Kabalah, Kabala, Cabala, Cabbala, Cabalah, Cabbalah, Qabala, Qabbala, Qabalah and Qabbalah - there are potentially 36 ways of spelling it. )

Generically, Jewish mysticism in all its forms.

The Kabbalah is an ancient esoteric Jewish mystic system as it appeared in the 12th and following centuries. Kabbalah has always been essentially an oral tradition in that initiation into its doctrines and practices is conducted by a personal guide to avoid the dangers inherent in mystical experiences.

Esoteric Kabbala is also "tradition" inasmuch as it lays claim to secret knowledge of the unwritten Torah (divine revelation) that was communicated by God to Moses and Adam. Though observance of the Law of Moses remained the basic tenet of Judaism, Kabbalah provided a means of approaching God directly.

The word Kabbalah is derived from the root 'to receive, to accept', and in many cases is used synonymously with 'tradition'. or 'secret oral tradition' The principle at the root of the Kabbalahis the teaching that the Torah was written in code whcih deciphered will reveal great spiritual teachings.

The word was coined by an eleventh century Spanish philosopher, Ibn Gabirol. Kabbalistic interest, at first confined to a select few, became the preoccupation of large numbers of Jews following their expulsion from Spain (1492) and Portugal (1495). The philosophy was developed in Babylon during the middle ages from earlier Hebrew speculation and numerology. The classic document of the Kabbalistic tradition, The Zohar, was compiled by Moses de Leon about 1290. The doctrine of creation was built on a theory of emanations and asserted that the world derived from the transcendent and unknowable God through a series of increasingly material manifestations (sephirot).

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

Thummim (Hebrew, Jewish). "Perfections." An ornament on the breastplates of the ancient High Priests of Judaism. Modern Rabbins and Hebraists may well pretend they do not know the joint purposes of the Thummim and the Urim; but the Kabbalists do and likewise the Occultists.

They were the instruments of magic divination and oracular communication -  theurgic and astrological. This is shown in the following well-known facts  -

(1) upon each of the twelve precious stones was engraved the name of one of the twelve sons of Jacob, each of these "sons" personating one of the signs of the zodiac;

(2) both were oracular images, like the teraphim, and uttered oracles by a voice, and both were agents for hypnotisation and throwing the priests who wore them into an ecstatic condition.

The Urim and Thummim were not original with the Hebrews, but had been borrowed, like most of their other religious rites, from the Egyptians, with whom the mystic scarabeus worn on the breast by the Hierophants, had the same functions. They were thus purely heathen and magical modes of divination ; and when the Jewish "Lord God" was called upon to manifest his presence and speak out his will through the Urim by preliminary incantations, the modus operandi was the same as that used by all the Gentile priests the world over.

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

Rabbis (Hebrew, Jewish). Originally teachers of the Secret Mysteries, the Qabbalah; later, every Levite of the priestly caste became a teacher and a Rabbin. (See the series of Kabbalistic Rabbis by w.w.w.)

1 Rabbi Abulafia of Saragossa born in 1240, formed a school of Kabbalah named after him; his chief works were The Seven Paths of the Law and The Epistle to Rabbi Solomon.

2 Rabbi Akiba. Author of a famous Kabbalistic work, the "Alphabet of R.A.", which treats every letter as a symbol of an idea and an emblem of some sentiment; the Book of Enoch was originally a portion of this work, which appeared at the close of the eighth century. It was not purely a Kabbalistic treatise.

3 Rabbi Azariel ben Menachem (A.D. 1160). The author of the Commentary on the Ten

Sephiroth, which is the oldest purely Kabbalistic work extant, setting aside the Sepher Yetzirah, which although older, is not concerned with the Kabbalistic Sephiroth. He was the pupil of Isaac the Blind, who is the reputed father of the European Kabbalah, and he was the teacher of the equally famous R. Moses Nachmanides.

4 Rabbi Moses Botarel (1480). Author of a famous commentary on the Sepher Yetzirah; he taught that by ascetic life and the use of invocations, a man’s dreams might be made prophetic.

5 Rabbi Chajim Vital (1600) ( The great exponent of the Kabbalah as taught R. Isaac Loria: author of one of the most famous works, Otz Chiim, or Tree of Life; from this Knorr von Rosenroth has taken the Book on the Rashith ha Gilgalim, revolutions of souls, or scheme of reincarnations.

6 Rabbi Ibn Gebirol. A famous Hebrew Rabbi, author of the hymn Kether Malchuth, or Royal Diadem, which appeared about 1050; it is a beautiful poem, embodying the cosmic doctrines of Aristotle, and it even now forms part of the Jewish special service for the evening preceding the great annual Day of Atonement (See Ginsburg and Sachs on the Religious Poetry of the Spanish Jews). This author is also known as Avicebron.

7 Rabbi Gikatilla. A distinguished Kabbalist who flourished about 1300: he wrote the famous books, The Garden of Nuts, The Gate to the Vowel Points, The mystery of the shining Metal, and The Gates of Righteousness. He laid especial stress on the use of Gematria, Notaricon and Temura.

8 Rabbi Isaac the Blind of Posquiero. The first who publicly taught in Europe, about A.D. 1200, the Theosophic doctrines of the Kabbalah.

9 Rabbi Loria (also written Luria, and also named Ari from his initials). Founded a school of the Kabbalah circa 1560. He did not write any works, but his disciples treasured up his teachings, and R. Chajim Vital published them.

10 Rabbi Moses Cordovero (A.D.1550). The author of several Kabbalistic works of a wide reputation, viz., A Sweet Light, The Book of Retirement, and The Garden of Pomegranates; this latter can be read in Latin in Knorr von Rosenroth’s Kabbalah Denudata, entitled Tractatus de Animo, ex libro Pardes Rimmonim. Cordovero is notable for an adherence to the strictly metaphysical part, ignoring the wonder-working branch which Rabbi Sabbatai Zevi practised, and almost perished in the pursuit of.

11 Rabbi Moses de Leon (circa 1290 A,D.). The editor and first publisher of the Zohar, or "Splendour", the most famous of all the Kabbalistic volumes, and almost the only one of which any large part has been translated into English. This Zohar is asserted to be in the main the production of the still more famous Rabbi Simon ben Jochai, who lived in the reign of the Emperor Titus.

12 Rabbi Moses Maimonides (died 1304). A famous Hebrew Rabbi and author, who condemned the use of charms and amulets, and objected to the Kabbalistic use of the divine names.

13 Rabbi Sabbatai Zevi (born 1641). A very famous Kabbalist, who passing beyond the dogma became of great reputation as a thaumaturgist, working wonders by the divine names. Later in life he claimed Messiahship and fell into the hands of the Sultan Mohammed IV. of Turkey, and would have been murdered, but saved his life by adopting the Mohammedan religion. (See Jost on Judaism and its Sects.)

14 Rabbi Simon ben Jochai (circa A.D. 70-80). It is round this name that cluster the mystery and poetry of the origin of the Kabbalah as a gift of the deity to mankind.

Tradition has it that the Kabbalah was a divine theosophy first taught by God to a company of angels, and that some glimpses of its perfection were conferred upon Adam; that the wisdom passed from him unto Noah; thence to Abraham, from whom the Egyptians of his era learned a portion of the doctrine. Moses derived a partial initiation from the land of his birth, and this was perfected by direct communications with the deity. From Moses it passed to the seventy elders of the Jewish nation, and from them the theosophic scheme was handed from generation to generation; David and Solomon especially became masters of this concealed doctrine. No attempt, the legends tell us, was made to commit the sacred knowledge to writing until the time of the destruction of the second Temple by Titus, when Rabbi Simon ben Jochai, escaping from the besieged Jerusalem, concealed himself in a cave, where he remained for twelve years. Here he, a Kabbalist already, was further instructed by the prophet Elias. Here Simon taught his disciples, and his chief pupils, Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Abba, committed to writing those teachings which in later ages became known as the Zohar, and were certainly published afresh in Spain by Rabbi Moses de Leon, about 1280. A fierce contest has raged for centuries between the learned Rabbis of Europe around the origin of the legend, and it seems quite hopeless to expect ever to arrive at an accurate decision as to what portion of the Zohar, if any, is as old as Simon ben Jochai. (See "Zohar".)

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

Cabala: Cabala...is a system of mysticism with its origins in Judaism, stemming in part from the "chariot" visions of first-century mystics, in part from Gnosticism and Neoplatonism, in part from the theological speculations of medieval Spanish Jews, and in part from later thinkers. For many centuries, cabala was the accepted form of mysticism and theology within Judaism, but for the most part it has now fallen out of favor in religious contexts. Nevertheless, many rabbis and Jewish scholars still take an interest in it. As a philosophy and as a way of looking at God and the universe, it survives in yet wider quarters. Especially in the form developed by Christian enthusiasts in the Italian Renaissance and by 19th-centur Christian and pagan occultists, cabalism retains vast importance as the key to mystical thinking outside of the mainstream and to the practice of ceremonial magic.

Also See: Kabbalah, Qabalah, Qabala

(See also: Cabala , Magic, Shamanism, Paganism, Wicca)

Elohim 'elohim (Hebrew) (from 'eloah goddess + im masculine plural ending)

The monotheistic proclivities, not only of the Jews but of Christian translators, have led to this word always being translated as God; yet the word itself is a plural form, nor is it in any sense necessarily a plural of majesty, as suggested by some monotheistic scholars. A correct rendering should denote both masculine and feminine characteristics, such as androgyne divinities.

In spite of the ideas imbodied in the word itself, the later development of Judaism caused 'elohim to be almost entirely translated in paraphrase as the "one true God"; but in earlier times 'elohim (or rather benei 'elohim or benei 'elim -- sons of gods, members of the classes of divine beings) meant spiritual beings or cosmic spirits of differing hierarchical grades: a collective class of cosmic spirits among whom is found the familiar Jewish Yahweh or Jehovah. Thus, strictly speaking and as viewed in the original Qabbalah, the 'elohim meant the angelic hierarchies of many varying grades of spirituality or ethereality; and in cosmogonic or astrological matters, the 'elohim were often mentally aggregated under the generalized term tseba'oth (fem pl from the verbal root tsaba' a host, an army) as in the expression "host of heaven."

In the Jewish Qabbalah the 'elohim, however, are the sixth hierarchical group in derivation from the first or Crown, Kether: cosmogonically they represent the manifested formers or weavers of the cosmos. In this Qabbalistic system, Jehovah was the third angelic potency (counting from the first, Kether). Blavatsky calls all these hierarchicies symbols "emblematic, mutually and correlatively, of Spirit, Soul and Body (man); of the circle transformed into Spirit, the Soul of the World, and its body (or Earth). Stepping out of the Circle of Infinity, that no man comprehendeth, Ain-Soph (the Kabalistic synonym for Parabrahm, for the Zeroana Akerne, of the Mazdeans, or for any other 'Uunknowable') becomes 'One' -- the Echos, the Eka, the Ahu -- then he (or it) is transformed by evolution into the One in many, the Dhyani-Buddhas or the Elohim, or again the Amshaspends, his third Step being taken into generation of the flesh, or 'Man.' And from man, or Jah-Hova, 'male female,' the inner divine entity becomes, on the metaphysical planes, once more the Elohim" (SD 1:113).

The opening words of the Bible refer directly to the activities of the 'elohim, for this is the sole divine name mentioned in Genesis 1:1-2. De Purucker translates these verses from the original Hebrew as:

"In a host (or multitude), the gods (Elohim) formed themselves into the heavens and the earth. And the earth became ethereal. And darkness upon the face of the ethers. And the ruah (the spirit-soul) of the gods (of Elohim) fluttered or hovered, brooding" (cf Fund 99-100). He goes on to say that "we see that the Elohim evolved man, humanity, out of themselves, and told them to become, then to enter into and inform these other creatures. Indeed, these sons of the Elohim are, in our teachings, the children of light, the sons of light, which are we ourselves, and yet different from ourselves, because higher, yet they are our own very selves inwardly. In fact, the Elohim, became, evolved into, their own offspring, remaining in a sense still always the inspiring light within, or rather above . . . the Elohim projected themselves into the nascent forms of the then 'humanity,' which thenceforward were 'men,' however imperfect their development still was" (Fund 101-2).

The 'elohim, then, correspond to both classes of the pitris mentioned in theosophical literature: the higher or more spiritual-intellectual of the 'elohim are the agnishvatta-pitris, and the lower groups are the barhishad-pitris. As the agnishvatta-pitris are devoid of the astral-vital-physical productive fire because they are too high and distinctly intellectual, they leave the work of production to the lower 'elohim or barhishads, who "being the lunar spirits more closely connected with Earth, became the creative Elohim of form, or the Adam of dust" (SD 2:78).

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

Zion

1)  a hill in Jerusalem (variously identified, but probably the Temple Mount). In the Bible, it is the place from which God rules the earth.

2)  the Jewish people as a group, or the Jewish homeland as a symbol of Judaism.

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

Talmud (Hebrew) [from the verbal root lamadh to teach, train in learning, discipline]

Study of and instruction in anything (whether by anyone else or by oneself); learning acquired; style, system (as such it is synonymous with Mishnah -- oral tradition -- in one of its meanings); theory in contradistinction to practice; interpretation of the Mosaic law as is apparent on the surface and not requiring further disquisition; the noncanonical tradition (Barayetha'); the oldest commentary on the canonical tradition (Gemara'); the texts of tradition and commentary combined -- this last meaning being the one commonly applied. The Talmud is the body of Rabbinical commentaries on Judaism.

There are two recensions of the Talmud: 1) that of Palestine called the Jerusalem Talmud although the work was prepared by the pupils of Rabbi Yohanan ben 'El`azar in the school of Tiberias situated some 45 miles north of Jerusalem: it was entitled Talmud of the Benei Me-`arba' (of the Sons of the West) by early writers; 2) that of Babylon composed principally in the 5th century from old oral courses by Rabbi 'Ashshei bar Sinai, headmaster of the Academy at Sura' and completed in the 6th century by Rabbi Yosei. These works are not the religious or natural philosophy of the Jews, but oral traditions and discussion of the rabbis upon these legends. Christian Orientalists have given most attention to the Palestinian recension, although the Babylonian is preferred by the rabbis who call it the Shas -- i.e., Shishshah Sedarim -- six books ordered or arranged. The Babylonian is four times as large as the Jerusalem.

The Talmud proved the greatest factor for keeping alive the religious ideas of the Jewish people, especially after the fall of Jerusalem and its temple, together with the Old Testament becoming the Bible of the Hebrews. Both were regarded reverentially, for whereas the Pentateuch was the Torah or written word of Moses, the Talmud was believed to be the prophet's oral teaching transmitted.

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

Excommunication

A religious sanction that removes an individual from the ritual and social community of the church when that member has transgressed some law or regulation of the church. In some churches, upon repentance, the person is welcomed back into fellowship within the church.

Because Judaism has no central authority, excommunication, forced isolation from the Jewish community to punish improper behavior or belief, is usually decreed by a local rabbinical court and applies primarily within that community. There is no formal court procedure or presentation of evidence for excommunication, and any rabbinical court can lift a decree.

Under the ordinary form of excommunication, called nidduy (Heb. ), the excommunicant behaves like a mourner (except for the ritual tearing of clothes), lives only with family, is shunned by others, and is not counted for the quorum required for worship. The excommunicant's coffin is stoned at burial.

Nidduy is announced by the head of the court. A more severe form, called herem ("devoted thing," something forbidden for common use) requires, in addition, that the excommunicant study alone and make a living only from a small shop.

The procedure for decreeing a herem entails a proclamation in the synagogue either before the open ark or with Torah scroll in hand, the sounding of the shofar (ram's horn), the congregational extinguishing of candles, and the recitation of biblical curses against and warnings about associating with the excommunicant. In medieval times, the excommunicant was treated as a non-Jew. That status often was extended to the excommunicant's spouse and children, who might also be ostracized.

Talmudic and medieval rabbinic literature lists various reasons for excommunication. Among other causes, a person could be ostracized for causing the public profanation of God's name, ignoring prescribed religious behavior or hindering the public performance of it, incorrect business practices, breaking a vow, improper sexual conduct, violating the Torah on the basis of spurious analogies, insulting a scholar, or decreeing excommunication without sufficient reason.

Over time, particularly in Orthodox communities, excommunication was applied so routinely and automatically to any unacceptable behavior that it lost its punitive and coercive effect.

Excommunication in the Christian tradition is an action taken by church authorities by which a person is cut off from participation in the worship life of a congregation because of some serious fault or breach of church discipline. Most commonly, the individual is barred from the sacraments. In certain communities such persons are also socially ostracized in a practice called "shunning. ".

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

Gnosticism

(from Gk. gnosis, "knowledge")

A pre- Christian category of religions which emphasizes that a personal experience, or knowlege, is essential to salvation.

The oldest oldest known Christian scriptures, The Nag Hammadi Library, are Gnostic. Neither unequivocally Christian, Jewish, Greek, nor Iranian, Gnosticism is not a clearly delineated religion, but rather a specific religious interpretative perspective.

Gnosticism lives mainly in or on the edges of Christianity and Judaism and it bears a number of philosophical, astrological, and magical marks loosely belonging in the Near Eastern and Inner Mediterranean areas.

Common to many Gnostic texts and systems are an emphasis on dualistic speculations (e. g. , light vs. darkness, good vs. evil, the earthly realm vs. the heavenly world, or the Lightworld); a reevaluation of many biblical traditions (especially Genesis and the New Testament) so that the Old Testament God, for instance, becomes an inferior figure ignorant of Lightworld entities above and prior to himself; and a keen interest in the salvation of the human soul, which, due to its Lightworld origin, is opposed to the body it inhabits and possesses a superior knowledge.

Gnostic mythologies offer intricate, detailed speculations on cosmic geographies, provide emotional descriptions of the fate of the soul in its material prison, and, in frequently impressive poetry, describe the soul's journey back to its lofty home.

In brief, Gnosticism exemplifies the common religious and creative response of Late Antiquity to a feeling of alienation toward bodily, material, even social existence, and a burning interest in arriving at a higher, more authentic level of life. Far from leading to paralytic pessimism, this orientation caused Gnostics to create mythologies, ideologies, rituals, and organized communities.

Subversive Gnostic interpretations, especially of the biblical traditions, elicited horrified, swift denunciations from the early fathers of the church, who rightly perceived the Gnostics as a menace to the budding Christian orthodoxy. Much of what we know about Gnostic doctrines and practices comes from these church fathers, but their accounts are unavoidably colored by a strong hostility toward Gnostics.

Direct Gnostic testimonies are available from numerous sources: the Nag Hammadi texts (a cache of fifty-odd documents unearthed in Egypt in 1945); manuscripts found or bought by European scholars in recent centuries; and voluminous texts from two Gnostic groups-the Manichaeans (whose system became a "world religion" stretching from North Africa to China) and the Mandaeans (a still-extant community of Gnostics in Iran and Iraq). Various Gnostic texts show strong affinities with Greek philosophy, Syriac Christianity, and Iranian traditions.

Gnostic speculations tend to pose a "prehistory" to the creation accounts in Genesis, imagining a number of Lightworld angelic (aeonic) beings emanating or springing from one or more original, ineffable entities. A progression of male and female emanations eventually result in the lowest levels of aeons where the Old Testament God belongs. Ignorant of-or rebelling against-his more elevated predecessors, this god (sometimes called Samael, "the blind one") creates the visible, material world, the human body (an androgynous Adam or the pair Adam and Eve), and imprisons the human soul in it.

Having thus separated the supreme god from the creator god, Gnostics give a negative evaluation of the latter and his minions. In parallel, heroic figures in the Bible turn into villains and vice versa, so that the serpent in paradise and Cain become principles of the light and of gnosis, while Noah turns into a collaborator with the ignorant creator. Gnostic ideas about Jesus tend toward splitting his personality, with Christ, the Lightworld aspect of Jesus, escaping crucifixion, while the bodily Jesus, a mere shadow of his real self, is destroyed on the cross.

 The principle of evil originates within the Lightworld itself, results unavoidably from the emanation process, or exists as a separate, anti-Lightworld entity from the beginning of creation. Personified (or hypostasized) evil is in many Gnostic myths portrayed as a tragic figure: he (it is usually male) knows of his wrongdoing and ignorance but seems unable to act differently, though he still hopes for his own, final redemption and return to home in the upper worlds. His mother, personified Wisdom or Error, is likewise tragic, but possesses more insight than her son. Human responsibilities include knowledge about the good and evil principles, the numerous aeonic beings populating the spheres between earth and Lightworld, and a firm sense of cosmic geography so that the ascending soul may know its way home.

 Anthropological models often correspond to cosmic maps: the upper human component is the spirit, the mid-level is the soul, and the material body roughly correlates with the macrocosm. Gnostic religions undoubtedly possessed a rich cultic life alongside the mythological/speculative component, but except for Manichaeism and Mandaeism-and a few scattered texts from other, less delineated traditions-we have only hazy evidence of the intricacies of Gnostic rituals. Initiations, baptisms, sacred meals, rituals for the dead, and techniques for ecstatic experiences are attested in various traditions. Community ethics, class divisions based on levels of gnosis, and aggressively polemical interests against "normative" Christianity and Judaism testify to organized Gnostic schools and groups eager to define themselves against outsiders and against one another.

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

Sabean, Sabaean, Sabian, Sabianism [from Hebrew tsaba host, army, celestial hosts]

A name given by the Shemitic peoples to those who worship the spiritual beings in the universe; and because the celestial bodies were the most evident manifestations of some classes of these spiritual beings, this religion naturally became confused with the worship of the celestial bodies themselves as the dwellings or mansions of the regents above, in, and behind the visible orbs. Hence the Sabeans were called astrolaters or star-worshipers; but it was not the physical bodies of the celestial orbs which were worshiped, but the spiritual entities, powers, or spirits which ensouled these orbs. This was one of the very archaic religions of the human race, found all over the globe in various forms; and in its origins Sabianism was undoubtedly an outpouring of occult teaching from the archaic Mysteries.

The word Sabean itself has come down to us mainly through Greek and Latin writers, but so thoroughly imbued were the ancient Hebrews with this idea of the celestial hosts or cosmic spirits that the Bible is full of references where the context even wrongly endows the celestial hosts with the properties of the Most High God, and it has been so understood by Christian theologians; forgetting, however, that manifested deities, however high, are but the manifestations of the infinite and ineffable Mystery or parabrahman, from which all the celestial hosts flow or emanate. Thus not only ancient and modern Judaism, but Christianity itself, is filled with the thought of the ancient Sabeans.

Sabeanism was unquestionably the main religious belief of the ancient Chaldeans and Assyrians, but likewise the very foundation stone of practically all the great religions of all the great peoples of the past. Upon the authority of the Jewish scholar Maimonides, scholars have considered the Sabeans as an ancient race whose principal religion was that of star-worship and closely affiliated with the Babylonians and Syrians. But the Sabeans were not a race, but those who followed and practiced the divine astrological astrolatry of the hoariest antiquity. Mohammed in the Koran mentions a sect between the Jews and Christians called Sabi una -- to whom certain privileges were granted; older Moslem theologians were agreed that the Sabeans possessed manuscripts which they regarded in the light of a revelation, and the Mandeans came under the same protection granted to the Sabeans; hence the Mandeans also came to be regarded as Sabeans. Another sect of polytheists, the Harranians (830 AD), also affiliated with the Sabeans and shielded themselves under the same privileges; they were a remnant of a Mesopotamian cult, and star-worship had a prominent place in their system.

Certain Arabian writers termed the Sabean language the science of astronomy, but what we now call astronomy was but a minor portion of ancient astrolatry; they also state that Seth or Set was the founder of Sabeanism, and that the pyramids were regarded as the place of sepulture of Seth or Agathodaimon. We see here confusion, reductions of general principles to details, and anthropomorphizations of cosmic principles. Hermes is in many senses the same as Seth, and the pyramids were consecrated to the regents of the stars, rather than to the orbs (SD 2:362).

(See also: Sabean, Sabaean, Sabian, Sabianism , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Paganism

Historically, paganism has been used as a generic term to describe non-Christian religions and superstitions - primarily, but not limited to, the old religions of Europe and Indo-Europe and ancient mythologies (Celt, Norse, Egyptian, Greek and Roman). Any religion other than Christianity, Islam, or Judaism. The term literally means "country dweller" and was originally used by Romans todescribe religions and philosophies not of Rome.

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

MONOTHEISM: The belief in one supreme deity who has no other forms and displays no other aspects. Judaism and Islam are both monotheism.

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

Sabbath

(Judaism) Sacred day requiring complete cessation from all work

(See also: Sabbath , Body Mind and Soul)

Star of David

(Mogen David) A hectacle formed two interlocking triangles, now accepted as a symbol of Judaism. It was not used as a symbol for Judaism until the late Middle Ages and was not officially accepted as such by the Jews until the 17th century.

(See also: Star of David , New Age Spirituality, Body Mind and Soul)

Numbers

Interpreting numbers that we see in dreams may be difficult. Their meaning my be very personal, such as a reflection of financial concern or any other area of daily life represented by numbers. One way to interpret numbers is to try to see how they are specifically related to you. (E.g. If you have the number 25 in your dream. Your house number is 12 while your parent's number is 13. Together they make 25, and this dream could have been addressing issues in regard to you and your parents.) On the other hand, numbers in dreams may represent global concepts and point to collective dilemmas.

Some interesting interpretations would include the following:

• even numbers might represent the feminine while odd numbers the masculine.
• Number 2 - psychic development and doubling; something new coming up with the potential for building
• Number 3 - the trinity; it is an active or a process number (something is going on in the psyche).
• Number 4 - completion and femininity
• Number 5 - life force; refers to the five fingers and five appendages of the body.
• Number 7 - sacred number in Christianity and Judaism; the highest stage of illumination and spirituality.
• Number 12 - represents time and may mark the most important cycles in life.

See also: Meaning of Dreams about Zero

Source: Dream Lover Incorporated, http://www.dreamloverinc.com

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