Kingdom Dictionary

Ayodhya

The capital of the Koshala kingdom, inherited by Lord Ramachandra from His ancestors. It is located in south-central Uttar Pradesh. The original Ayodhya in the eternal kingdom of God lies above the other Vaikuntha worlds and below Goloka Vrindavana.

(See also: Ayodhya , Bhakti, Bhakti Yoga, Bhakti Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul)

Primates In modern zoology, the highest order of mammalia, which includes man, apes, monkeys, and lemurs. Divided by some scientists into bimana (man) and quadrumana (the others); or again into the suborders of simiae (man, apes, and monkeys) and prosimiae (lemurs).

Theosophy does not admit the foregoing classification, for the reason that man comprises a kingdom by himself. The confusion arises because of the similarity of the apes and certain others of the higher mammalia with man's physical structure, explained theosophically by the fact that in former ages the originants of the apes as well as of the monkeys and lemurs sprang from man.

While the human kingdom, among its other physical bodily characteristics, belongs to the mammalia, this is not enough to classify man as belonging to the same kingdom as that of the beasts.

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

Law of Retardation and Acceleration The working of the inherent law of progressive development in every entity is modified by this law. When an entity occupies a dominant place in the evolutionary scale, the inferior and subordinate entities under its sway can no longer find a fully free field for their own self-expression, and consequently their evolution is said to be retarded. Thus the hosts of subordinate entities which compose the human body are retarded because their activities must be coordinated with that of the dominating human; while the evolution of the latter is unimpeded except for higher retardative elements, and at certain periods has its own phases of acceleration. This is part of the give-and-take policy by which corporate action among individuals of all hierarchical classes is rendered not only possible, but necessary.

The law of retardation means that certain individuals or groups are from time to time retarded in their forward development because the field of evolution immediately before them is already occupied by a superior aggregate group of evolving entities, which superior group exercises upon the inferior group an influence retarding the full expression of the evolving faculties of the individuals of the lower group. This can be illustrated by considering the evolution of the life-waves, or kingdoms, which run the rounds on our own planetary chain. The beasts are thus subject to a very definite law of retardation, because their immediate and future field of evolutionary unfolding is occupied by the evolving human kingdom, although it is equally true that the human kingdom exercises upon the beast kingdom beneath it a stimulating and elevating power. In the kingdoms of the planetary chain, if one such kingdom has not already reached a certain evolutionary standing on the ladder of life, it will have to wait in a more or less inactive or dormant evolutionary condition until room is made for its further progress by the passing ahead of the kingdom preceding it.

The beasts, for instance, as indeed all other kingdoms in similar circumstances, are undergoing retardation at the present time in another slightly different sense: because they have not as yet evolved forth human qualities and powers. They will not make the grade into the human kingdom on the ascending arc for all the remainder of the present chain-manvantara, and this is the meaning of the phrase frequently found in theosophical writings that the door into the human kingdom closed at about the midpoint of the fourth root-race.

Contrariwise, when an individual, group, life-wave, or kingdom has been thus retarded because of karmic necessity, when the way is finally opened for them to progress forwards, and if they are ready to do so, there is an immediate acceleration, a quickening or vivifying of the entire life-stream, so that their progress from the beginning of such acceleration is quick and runs rapidly on. Such individuals are prepared, and unfold or develop rapidly when the time comes -- the law of acceleration, just the contrary of the law of retardation.

(See also: Law of Retardation and Acceleration , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Moment of Choice In theosophical literature, the point when the individual, on becoming a buddha, must decide either to renounce the world and its suffering and enter nirvana as a Pratyeka Buddha, or to return as a Buddha of Compassion to help others until all living beings reach nirvana. This decision will be determined by the aspirations and motives of the individual over many lives.

The phrase also refers to the period in the fifth round when human beings will find themselves either able to continue their evolution further up the luminous arc, developing their buddhic qualities; or, if unable to go beyond purely mental or manasic development, forced to enter paranirvana for the rest of the planetary manvantara.

This period for the human kingdom corresponds to the period for the animal kingdom in the fourth round when the "door to the human kingdom" closed. At that time animals unable in this cycle to develop manas and enter the human kingdom reached the limit of their evolution for this planetary manvantara and, in the mass (excepting sishtas), had to enter paranirvana for the remainder of this planetary cycle.

(See also: Moment of Choice , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Mahabharata

"[The Mahabharata] is...probably the longest single poem in the world's literature. Traditionally the author of the poem was the sage Vyasa, who is said to have taught it to his pupil Vaisampayana. The latter, according to tradition, recited it in public for the first time at a great sacrifice held by King Janamejaya, the great grandson of Arjuna, one of the heroes of the story. ...the poem tells of the great civil war in the kingdom of the Kurus, in the region about the modern Delhi, then known as Kuruksetra."

-- A.L. Basham, The Wonder That Was India, p. 407

"The Mahabharata is the creation and expression not of a single individual mind, but of a whole people. ...The whole poem has been built like a vast national temple unrolling slowly its immense and complex idea from chanber to chamber, crowded with significant groups and sculptures and inscriptions, the grouped figures carved in divine or semi-divine proportions, a humanity aggrandised and half-uplifted to super-humanity and yet always true to the human motive and idea and feeling, the strain of the real constantly raised by the tones of the ideal, the life of this world amply portrayed but subjected to the conscious influence and presence of the powers of the worlds behind it, and the whole unified by the long embodied procession of a consistent idea worked out in the wide steps of the poetic story."

"The leading motive is the Indian idea of the Dharma. Here the Vedic notion of the struggle between the godheads of truth and light and unity and the powers of darkness and division and falsehood is brought out from the spiritual and religious and internal into the outer intellectual, ethical and vital plane. It takes there in the figure of the story a double form of a personal and a political struggle, the personal a conflict between typical and representative personalities embodying the greater ethical ideals of the Indian Dharma and others who are embodiments of Asuric egoism and self-will and misuse of the Dharma, the political a battle in which the personal struggle culminates, an international clash ending in the establishment of a new rule of righteiousness and justice, a kingdom or rather an empire of the Dharma uniting warring races and substituting for the ambitious arrogance of kings and aristocratic clans the supremacy, the calm and peace of a just and humane empire. It is the old struggle of Deva and Asura, God and Titan, but represented in the terms of human life."

-- Sri Aurobindo, The Foundations of Indian Culture, SABCL Vol.14 pp. 287-88

(See also: Mahabharata , Hinduism, Vedic Scriptures, Yoga, Body Mind and Soul)

Fundamental Propositions In theosophy, the three fundamental religio-philosophic principles or propositions which Blavatsky states in the Proem to The Secret Doctrine are the foundation on which theosophy presents its modern philosophical teachings:

1)    "An Omnipresent, Eternal, Boundless, and Immutable Principle on which all speculation is impossible, since it transcends the power of human conception";

2)    "The Eternity of the Universe in toto as a boundless plane; periodically 'the playground of numberless Universes incessantly manifesting and disappearing'"; and

3)    "The fundamental identity of all Souls with the Universal Over-Soul, the latter being itself an aspect of the Unknown Root; and the obligatory pilgrimage for every Soul -- a spark of the former -- through the Cycle of Incarnation (or 'Necessity') in accordance with Cyclic and Karmic law, during the whole term" (SD 1:14-17). There are also three fundamental propositions in volume 2:

As regards the evolution of mankind, the Secret Doctrine postulates three new propositions, which stand in direct antagonism to modern science as well as to current religious dogmas: it teaches

(a)   the simultaneous evolution of seven human groups on seven different portions of our globe;

(b)  the birth of the astral, before the physical body: the former being a model for the latter; and

(c)   that man, in this Round, preceded every mammalian -- the anthropoids included -- in the animal kingdom. -- 2:1

(See also: Fundamental Propositions , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Beelzebub, Beelzebul ba`al zebub (Hebrew) (from ba`al lord + zebub fly)

Lord of the flies; a god of the Philistines, popularly worshiped as the destroyer of flies, to whom was erected a temple at Ekron. The mythical zoology of the ancients points directly to an inner and mystical significance: "flies" is used not in the sense of the insect, but for a certain class of elementals whose "flying" around and through the earth is governed directly by lunar influences. Thus Beelzebub is in this connection a lunar divinity.

Ba`al-zebul, a form in the Old and New Testaments, is translated as Lord of the High House or Lord of the Habitation, the reference here being to the moon as the habitation or receptacle of these elemental souls at a certain time of their existence.

In Christian demonology, Beelzebub is one of the gubernatores of the infernal kingdom under Lucifer: thus in Milton's Paradise Lost he is second to Satan. In Matthew 12:24, Beelzebub is referred to as the prince of the devils.

(See also: Beelzebub, Beelzebul, ba`al zebub , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Ardhanarisa or Ardhanarisvara (Sanskrit) (from ardha half + nari woman + isvara, isa lord)

Half-feminine lord; a form of Siva, also applied to the first cosmic androgyne, equivalent to the mystically androgynous Sephirah-'Adam Qadmon of the Qabbalah. Cosmic entities are not sexual or sexed in the human sense, for sex as known in the human and animal kingdoms is a transitory phase of evolution.

The application of terms such as androgyne, masculine, or feminine to cosmic divinities has reference to states of cosmic force or energy and substance which may be polarized or unpolarized. Human energies and substances in our present evolutionary stage -- and this applies likewise to the animal kingdom, and to a degree to the vegetable kingdom -- are divided into opposites which bring about sex conditions.

When the forces are partially polarized, the androgynous or hermaphroditic condition results. When the forces or substances are unpolarized during pralayas and at the beginnings and endings of manvantaras, then each entity contains within itself and manifests a state of undivided unity -- a complete and perfect individual.

(See also: Ardhanarisa, Ardhanarisvara , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Beasts. See ANIMAL KINGDOM

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

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

"

Millennium    

See also: Millennium , Christianity, Body Mind and Soul

Sixth Principle Buddhi in the ascending scale of the seven human principles. Cosmically Brahma is called the sixth principle, the seventh being Brahman (SD 1:18).

In the solar system the sun, considered as the ruler of his own kingdom, is because of his spiritual effulgence, the buddhi or sixth principle of that kingdom, being the son of akasa, Aditi, Deva-matri (SD 1:527), three names for the same cosmic generative principle.

That the sun is the buddhi principle in his own kingdom does not interfere with the fact that all the suns together form the kama-rupa of the galaxy or Milky Way.

(See also: Sixth Principle , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Harischandra In the Puranas, a pious king vowed to sacrifice a son to Varuna if one would be born to him. Upon making the sacrifice of another child, he obtained great wisdom and nirvana. He also undergoes extreme hardship, giving away his kingdom, selling his wife, son, and himself, in order to keep his promise to the Brahmin Visvamitra, eventually ascending to heaven with his wife, son, and people of his kingdom because of his truthfulness and patience. (BCW 4:554, 12:179)

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

realm: A kingdom, region or area.

See: loka.

(See also: Realm , Hinduism, Body Mind and Soul)

Millennium

Literally, this word means 1000 years. In the study of end times doctrines (eschatology) the millennium is the duration of Christ's rule over the earth. The debate has been over when the millennium would take place and what it actually is.

 The terms that have arisen out of this debate are premillennialism, amillennialism, and postmillennialism.

Premillennialism teaches that the millennium is yet future and that upon Jesus' return he will set up the divine Kingdom of David again.

Amillennialism teaches that the millennium is a figurative period and that Jesus' rule began when he first became man.

Postmillennialism teaches that through the preaching of the Word of God, the world will be converted and will then usher in Christ and the kingdom of God. There are good arguments for each position.

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

Fourth Root-race Often spoken of as the Atlantean, the name given in theosophic writings to the land-system which it occupied; it followed the third or so-called Lemurian race, not suddenly but with overlapping. During the fourth root-race humanity reached its greatest phases of materiality, especially since it occurred during the fourth round. The fourth root-race was roughly contemporaneous with what towards the end of the last century was called Tertiary times and came to an end in what was then known as the middle Miocene. Its total duration was millions of years.

The stature of the generality of the fourth root-race peoples was what would be gigantic to us today, which is one source of the universal tradition as to giants on the earth in far antiquity. Its earlier language was the monosyllabic type of the latter half of the third root-race, yet the characteristic speech during a large portion of its span was of the agglutinative type, inflected speech coming with the fifth root-race. The mode of reproduction was sexual, as it was in the latter half of the third root-race. After the fourth root-race had reached its zenith, certain unevolved tribes committed miscegenation with the most evolved of the then-existing simians, which were the descendants of a previous miscegenation of representatives of the third root-race with true monkey stocks. This second miscegenation produced a hybrid stock from which the anthropoid apes are descended.

There was an enmity lasting for ages between the benevolent and the selfish portions of the fourth root-race, which continued with the Aryan adepts of the nascent fifth root-race and finally ended in the triumph of the positive; but nevertheless the karma of Atlantean black magic even yet blights our own fifth root-race, for the people of today were imbodied as the humans of Atlantean times. Descendants of fourth root-race humanity even now are among the inhabitants of the earth, together with rapidly dying out remnants of the third root-race, and also various mixtures of all these.

During the fourth root-race on this globe D of the fourth round, evolution reached the middle of its course for this planetary manvantara, and the door to entry into the state of spiritual and intellectual evolution called the human kingdom was closed. All entities beneath the humans (and probably higher anthropoids who were in existence before that epoch) must await until the next succeeding round before even the highest representatives of the beast kingdom can pass on to the human stage. All subhuman kingdoms will show a tendency as time goes on to die out, because the monads of these kingdoms will go into latency for the remainder of the planetary manvantara; their chance for evolution into the human state will come again during the succeeding planetary manvantara.

See also ATLANTEANS

(See also: Fourth Root-race , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

ALCHEMY

Chemistry is the child of the Alchemists. It's the legacy of "the puffers," those charlatan imitators who tried to fake the production of real gold. Alchemy was called "the Hermetic Science" because it supposedly began with Hermes (or Thoth). Paracelsus saw it chiefly as a means of producing medicine. The classical goals of Alchemy, however, have been to transmute lower metals into gold, to prolong life via an elixir, to search for the Mysterium Magnum, to create a homunculus and to find a universal solvent. This was to be accomplished via the manufacture or discovery of the Lapis Philosophorum, The Sophic Hydrolith, "Our Mercury" or "Philosopher's Stone." Other names for the "Stone" (achieved through the hieros gamos "marriage" of opposites) are: Virgin's Milk, Cock's Egg, Dry Water and similar contradictions. Generally, a cryptic vocabulary is used to disguise psychological and materialistic parallels, e.g. "red lion", "nigredo", etc. There are supposedly seven stages of the alchemical Great Work, which are symbolical as well as chemical/metallurgical steps: Calcination, Putrefaction, Solution, Distillation, Conjunction, Sublimation and Philosophic Congelation. There are also minor, intermediary steps, such as Coloratio, Corrosio, Ceratio, Extractio, Separatio etc.

We should bear in mind, however, that true alchemists consider the Great Work to be not merely aureofaction or the transmogrification of matter, but rather, as Alice Bailey points out "to transfer consciousness to one of the higher vehicles..." In other words, the integrity of the inner transformation is more important than any flashy theatrical results.

According to some theories alchemy is the raising of vibrations. The vegetable kingdom resonates at the lowest level. In between vibrates the animal kingdom. It is for this reason that the extraction of plant essence is easy, while the extraction of mineral essence is extremely difficult. This is also why man, situated midway between the two kingdoms, can, by simultaneously distilling his own essence, assist the mineral.

From a psychological standpoint, any work, on the most general level, is the process of separating the important from the non-essential and the decision as to whether to continue further to distill that residue to any degree of perfection and finally the determination of when the whole is of a piece and completely finished. This process can apply to a work of art, to self-analysis, to the quest for the elixir of life or even, for that matter, to metallurgy - because (according to the Emerald Tablet) all things are one.

It is no accident or coincidence, for instance, that there is a correlation between the atomic numbers of modern physics and the ancient progression of metals in their metamorphosis into gold:

                Lead          82

                Thallium      81

                Mercury       80

                Gold          79

                Platinum      78

The most important alchemical instruction is "Solve et Coagula", but an even more specific hint is "Flee contraction, seek dispersion."

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

A Theosophical definition of Elemental (Elementals) :

Elemental (Elementals)

Nature-spirits or sprites. The theosophical usage, however, means beings who are beginning a course of evolutionary growth, and who thus are in the elemental states of their growth. It is a generalizing term for purposes of convenient expression for all beings evolutionally below the minerals. Nevertheless, the minerals themselves are expressions of one family or host or hierarchy of elemental beings of a more evolved type.

The vegetable kingdom likewise manifests merely one family or host of elemental beings happening to be in the vegetable phase of their evolution on this earth. Just so likewise is it as regards the beasts. The beasts are highly evolved elemental beings, relatively speaking. Men in far distant aeons of the kosmic past were elemental beings also. We have evolved from that elemental stage into becoming men, expressing with more or less ease, mostly very feebly, the innate divine powers and faculties locked up in the core of the core of each one of us.

An elemental is a being who has entered our universe on the lowest plane or in the lowest world, degree, or step on the rising stairway of life; and this stairway of life begins in any universe at its lowest stage, and ends for that universe in its highest stage  - the universal kosmic spirit. Thus the elemental passes from the elemental stage through all the realms of being as it rises along the stairway of life, passing through the human stage, becoming superhuman, quasi-divine  - a quasi-god  - then becoming a god. Thus did we humans first enter this present universe.

Every race of men on earth has believed in these hosts of elemental entities  - some visible, like men, like the beasts, like the animate plants; and others invisible. The invisible entities have been called by various names: fairies, sprites, hobgoblins, elves, brownies, pixies, nixies, leprechauns, trolls, kobolds, goblins, banshees, fawns, devs, jinn, satyrs, and so forth.

The medieval mystics taught that these elemental beings were of four general kinds:

1. those arising in and frequenting the element of fire  - salamanders;
2. those arising in and frequenting the element air  - sylphs;
3. those arising in and frequenting the element water  - undines;
4. those arising in and frequenting the element earth  - gnomes.

See also: Elemental (Elementals) , Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul

sephiroth (sephirah, singular)

The ten sephiroth of the Tree of Life from the Kabbalah are:

1.    Kether, crown;

2.    Chokmah, wisdom;

3.    Binah, intelligence, "

4.    Superior Mother";

5.    Chesed, mercy;

6.    Geburah, severity and judgment;

7.    Tiphareth, beauty;

8.    Netzach, victory;

9.    Hod, splendor (of the mind);

10.              Yesod, foundation;

11.              Malkuth, kingdom

(See also: Sephiroth (sephirah  singular) , Body Mind and Soul)

Bhagiratha:

Bhagiratha (Bhageeratha). King of Solar Dynasty, son of Amsuman. Gave up his kingdom for enlightenment, but eventually returned as king.

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

Elemental (Elementals) Used by medieval European mystics, such as the Fire-philosophers, Rosicrucians, and Qabbalists, to signify those classes of ethereal beings evolved in and born of the four elements or kingdoms of nature. Ordinarily they are spoken of as existing in four classes corresponding to the four popular elements air, fire, water, and earth; but theosophy describes these kingdoms of nature as seven or even ten in number: four of the material or quasi-material range, and three (or six) of highly ethereal and even quasi-spiritual substance. They are often described as nature spirits or sprites.

More strictly, the word is confined to those beings who are beginning their evolutionary growth, who have developed in their constitution but one of the four elements -- that one from which they were born -- and who are therefore in the elemental state of growth. It is a generalizing term for all beings evolutionally below the minerals. Nevertheless, by extension of meaning, the mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms are often referred to as families of elemental beings, though in more advanced stages. An elemental, therefore, is a being who has entered our, or any other, universe on its lowest plane or world.

There are three kingdoms of the elementals below the mineral kingdom, each of which has seven (or ten) subdivisions, and every entity high or low has passed through this stage at some time in its career.

There are four commonly recognized great classes of these unevolved beings, called by the medieval European mystics gnomes, undines, sylphs, and salamanders -- elementals respectively of earth, water, air, and fire. These elementals are not only the inhabitants of and born from the respective elements, but really are the elements themselves. They are from one viewpoint simply nature forces, tools of the higher intelligences, and actually perform all the physical work of the world.

From another point of view they may be looked upon as life-atoms in different stages of evolutionary growth; and being in various degrees of evolution they are variously spiritual, ethereal, astral, or material, running through vast ranges on all these planes. Thus they exist everywhere: in the air we breathe, the food we eat, and all the tissues of physical nature. Through their agency we perform all our bodily or mental activities.

The three kingdoms of elementals actually build and form every new planet or world, beginning in serial order with the lowest of the three kingdoms, preparing the globe for the advent of the mineral kingdom, to be followed in turn by the vegetable and higher kingdoms in regular succession. The elementals are not only the matters of nature, but when acting together and used by higher intelligences become the forces or energies of nature, such as electricity, magnetism, light, vitality, etc. Unconsciously, human and other beings use them in the carrying on of all their bodily functions. For example, our bodies cohere through the automatic aid of the elementals of earth; and the elementals of fire give us our bodily heat.

The four kingdoms of elementals, existing in the four elements, are also known under the general designation of fairies and fays in the myths, fables, traditions, and poetry of all nations, ancient and modern. Their names are legion: peris, devs, jinn, sylvans, satyrs, fauns, elves, dwarfs, trolls, nixies, kobolds, brownies, banshees, leprechauns, pixies, moss-people, good people, good neighbors, wild women, men of peace, white ladies, and many more. They have been seen, feared, blessed, banned, and invoked in every quarter of the globe in every age.

These elementals are the principal nature forces used by the disimbodied human dead, very real but never visible "shells" mistaken for spirits at seances, and are the producers of all the phenomena except the purely subjective. They may be described as centers of force having instinctive desires but no consciousness as we understand it. Hence their acts may be what we humans call good or bad, indifferently. They have astral forms which partake, to a distinguishing degree, of the element to which they belong and also of the universally encompassing ether. They are a combination of sublimated matter and a purely rudimental mind. Some remain throughout several cycles relatively unchanging, so far as radical change goes, but still have no separate individuality, and usually acting collectively, so to speak. Others, of certain elements and species, change under a fixed law which Qabbalists explain. The most solid of their bodies are ordinarily just immaterial enough to escape perception by our physical eyesight, but not so unsubstantial that they cannot be perfectly recognized by the inner or clairvoyant vision. They not only exist and can all live in ether, but can handle and direct it for the production of physical effects, as readily as we can compress air or water for the same purpose by pneumatic and hydraulic apparatus; in which occupation they are readily helped by the human elementaries or astral shells.

More than this, they can so condense the ether as to make for themselves tangible bodies which, by their Protean powers, they can cause to assume such likeness as the elementals themselves are at the time impressed to assume, this being caused by their taking automatically as their models the portraits they find stamped in the memory of a person or persons present at a seance. It is not necessary that the sitter should be thinking at the moment of the one represented: the image may have faded many years before. The mind receives indelible impressions even from chance acquaintances. As a few seconds' exposure of the sensitized photographic plate is all that is requisite to preserve indefinitely the image of the sitter, so is it in incomparably greater degree with the mind. Unable to invent anything or to produce anything of itself, the elemental automatically reflects stamped impressions in the memory of human beings to its very depths; hence the nervous exhaustion and mental oppression of certain sensitive natures at spiritualistic circles. The elemental will bring to light long-forgotten remembrances of the past: forms, images, even familiar sentences, long since faded from memory, but vividly preserved on the astral tablets of the imperishable book of life. The elementals are very imitative, having neither developed will nor intelligence of their own which they self-consciously use, and hence tend automatically to copy forms in all the higher kingdoms. They have therefore many shapes or bodies, some of the more advanced taking even a quasi-human form.

Some of the elementals are said to be friendly, others unfriendly, to humanity not because of any deliberate intent on their part, but simply because mankind happens to be in such evolutionary position that it is affected one way or the other by them. Also, as different people contain in their constitution a preponderance of one of the elements over the other, they are more sensitive to the elementals of their predominating element.

(See also: Elemental, Elementals , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Mammals The highest class of animals produced from man, himself a mammal, in this fourth round. The evolutionary plan, as regards the passing of life-waves around the planetary chain entails that so far as the human and animal kingdoms are concerned, in the fourth round man shall appear before the mammals on globe D of the earth-chain. The other stocks of the animal kingdom were at the beginning of this round represented by their various sishtas, as in fact man himself was. In each round after the first, each one of the kingdoms or life-waves on entering a globe of the chain, does so in its regular serial order.

The man of the second and early third root-race, though distinctly belonging to the human kingdom, was different from the truly human man of today, as much in his inner psychical apparatus as in his astral-vital-physical body. This body was then much more astral or tenuous than that of today, composed of life-atoms of all kinds, seeking manifestation and finding a temporary habitat in the human body, which thus becomes their host. These atoms were continuously entering and leaving the body, just as happens in the human body today, but with this difference -- that the atoms which the human body throws off today are far more stamped with the person's own svabhava (individual, personal characteristics) than formerly, and they are in consequence strongly and continuously attracted back to their human host, who is often their source.

But in those early races the various monadic entities, which in their evolution were far inferior to the human monad, and each of which expressed itself through a life-atom, were in consequence far more free from the human dominating, almost tyrannical control, for then man had not yet acquired his present power of strongly impressing his own stamp on these life-atoms. The result was that in these early times each of these evolving monads with its life-atom vehicle on this plane could, when thrown off from the human entity, become the origin of a line of an animal stock, according to its own innate characteristics and potentialities. Thus were from time to time through the geologic ages generated the various mammalian stocks or phyla, each different according to the nature of the monad-germ thus thrown off, many of which were then able to pursue a course of evolutionary differentiation and specialization along its own particular line -- each one unfolding from within its characteristics, expressing themselves in form and shape.

Thus it is seen how man precedes the mammals in the fourth round; but this does not apply to the non-mammalian animals, which were nevertheless evolved from the human stock in more or less the same manner during the preceding third and second rounds.

Occult biology also teaches that every monad which now has unfolded itself into the human stage, did at some remote cosmic period pass through all the lower kingdoms of nature as they then existed; even as the monads now finding expression in the elemental, mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms are undergoing the same process of evolutionary unfolding from within outwards and therefore are on their way upwards to a state equivalent in characteristic powers to what the human now has reached.

"The mammalia, whose first traces are discovered in the marsupials of the Triassic rocks of the Secondary Period, were evolved from purely astral progenitors contemporary with the Second Race. They are thus post-Human, and, consequently, it is easy to account for the general resemblance between their embryonic stages and those of Man, who necessarily embraces in himself and epitomizes in his development the features of the group he originated" (SD 2:684; cf MIE ch 12).

(See also: Mammals , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)