Material Force Dictionary

Taurus: The best quality of Taurus is stability. The worst quality is stubbornness. A key phrase is “I have.” The Taurus personality is industrious, sometimes even plodding. It is easy to imagine the Taurus still going, like the Energizer Bunny, when everyone else has quite for the day. Once you get on a roll, you don’t want to stop. Taurus is seen as being reliable and generally consistent. You know the value of money and appreciate material possessions.

The Taurus mentality leans to things practical. Generally careful, you can discriminate quality and tend to be perfectionists. You have enormous energy reserves. You can pursue a single task for a long time, then switch tracks and take on another. You may not know when to rest. Taurus is immovable. Once you have made up your mind, changing it is like moving the whole earth. You may listen to the opinions of others, but you stick to your own. You are interested in the psychic realm as it is so close to the present moment.

Conservative in temperament, Taurus appreciates the traditional way of doing things. You are unlikely to abandon a system just because it has a flaw – you are more likely to capitalize on its strengths and find a way around the problem. Taurus is patient. You can wait for the right time to act, and you allow others the time you need to accomplish your tasks – that is only practical after all! Taurus enjoys a daily routine, a weekly routine, an annual routine. Generally you cannot be rushed into action. You are like a train – you only move as fast as you move. Yet Taurus is usually efficient, not wanting to waste effort, and therefore discovering the most direct path.

Taurus generally has a reserved disposition. You dislike change and are therefore less likely to force change on others. You are possessive and therefore do not demand that others give up your possessions. Taurus, like the bull, is placid, willing to take what comes, as long as it doesn’t irritate overmuch. Taurus’ color is pastels, especially pinks and blues. The part of the body is the throat and lower jaw.

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

Kama (Sanskrit) (from the verbal root kam to desire)

Desire; the fourth substance-principle of which the human constitution is composed: its desire principle or the driving, impelling force. Born from the interaction of atman, buddhi, and manas, kama per se is a colorless force, good or bad according to the way the mind and soul use it. It is the seat of the living electric impulses, desires, aspirations, considered in their energic aspect. When a person follows his lower impulses and centers his consciousness in the body and astral nature, he is directing that force downwards. When he aspires and opens his heart and mind to the influence of his higher manas and buddhi, he is directing that force upwards and thus progressing in evolution.

"This fourth principle is the balance principle of the whole seven. It stands in the middle, and from it the ways go up or down. It is the basis of action and the mover of the will. As the old Hermetists say: 'Behind will stands desire.' For whether we wish to do well or ill we have to first arouse within us the desire for either course. . . . On the material and scientific side of occultism, the use of the inner hidden powers of our nature, if this principle of desire be not strong the master power of imagination cannot do its work, because though it makes a mould or matrix the will cannot act unless it is moved, directed, and kept up to pitch by desire. . . .

"This fourth principle is like the sign Libra in the path of the Sun through the Zodiac; when the Sun (who is the real man) reaches that sign he trembles in the balance. Should he go back the worlds would be destroyed; he goes onward, and the whole human race is lifted up to perfection" (Ocean 45-7).

Cosmic kama or desire, equivalent to the Greek eros, is the source of fohat, the driving intelligent energies of the universe. It is impersonal compassion and sympathy.

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

Sun-Force Adopted by Dr. B. W. Richardson (1828-96) from Metcalfe; also called caloric, to designate a universal active life principle. Starting with the generally held theory that nature results from the interaction of matter and force, Metcalfe denied that force is a mere mode of motion or a vibration in a mysterious fluid, and held that this force is itself a semi-material or ethereal agent, acting within the particles of physical matter. It is in its ultimate simply the universal life principle directed and governed by fohat.

In theosophy every body in space, whether nebula, sun, planet, or galaxy, is a focus or organ of universal life; every sun, as an instance, being the channel -- having nevertheless an individuality of its own distinct from other similar individualities -- through which pour various cosmic forces, combined with the individual jiva of each sun itself. The ancients used to speak of the sun as being seven-rayed -- a forecast of the seven rays of the solar spectrum -- or even ten- and twelve-rayed, the reference being to the septenary, denary, or duodenary forces pouring from it.

See also CALORIC

(See also: Sun-Force , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body mind and Soul)

Crocodile. "The great reptile of Typhon." The seat of its "worship" was Crocodilopolis and it was sacred to Set and Sebak - its alleged creators.

The primitive Rishis in India, the Manus, and Sons of Brahma, are each the progenitors of some animal species, of which he is the alleged "father"; in Egypt, each god was credited with the formation or creation of certain animals which were sacred to him.

Crocodiles must have been numerous in Egypt during the early dynasties, if one has to judge by the almost incalculable number of their mummies. Thousands upon thousands have been excavated from the grottoes of Moabdeh, and many a vast necropolis of that Typhonic animal is still left untouched. But the Crocodile was only worshipped where his god and "father" received honours. Typhon (q.v.) had once received such honours and, as Bunsen shows, had been considered a great god. His words are, "

Down to the time of Ramses B.C. 1300, Typhon was one of the most venerated and powerful gods, a god who pours blessings and life on the rulers of Egypt." As explained elsewhere, Typhon is the material aspect of Osiris. When Typhon, the Quaternary, kills Osiris, the triad or divine Light, and cuts it metaphorically into 14 pieces, and separates himself from the "god", he incurs the execration of the masses; he becomes the evil god, the storm and hurricane god, the burning sand of the Desert, the constant enemy of the Nile, and the "slayer of the evening beneficent dew", because Osiris is the ideal Universe, Siva the great Regenerative Force, and Typhon the material portion of it, the evil side of the god, or the Destroying Siva.

This is why the crocodile is also partly venerated and partly execrated. The appearance of the crocodile in the Desert, far from the water, prognosticated the happy event of the coming inundation - hence its adoration at Thebes and Ombos. But he destroyed thousands of human and animal beings yearly - hence also the hatred and persecution of the Crocodile at Elephantine and Tentyra.

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

WILL

Another word for persistence and maintained attention. Will is one of the two natural human powers for altering reality (the other is imagination). When faced with an insoluble problem or great odds against us, it is the Will alone that leads us through to solution and victory. As the imagination is the power of the mind through understanding and enlightenment, the Will is the way of material action. There is no will without physical effort of some kind exerted over physical phenomena.

Colin Wilson says of the will:

"Modern civilization induces an attitude of "passivity." When a  Stone Age hunter set out to trap wild animals, he was aware of his will as a  living force. When the prehistoric farmer scored the surface of the earth with  a crude plough, he knew that his family's survival through the winter depended  on his effort, and his will responded to the challenge. When a modern city dweller walks down a crowded thoroughfare, he feels no sense of challenge or  involvement. This city was built by other people; all these shops and offices  are owned by other people. He can get through an ordinary day's work in a  state approximating to sleep. Most of his routine tasks are carried out by the  'robot.' There is neither the need or the opportunity to use the will."

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

PRANA

the yogic concept of a cosmic energy or life force, similar to the Chinese idea of chi, that enters the body with the breath. Prana is thought to flow through the body, bringing health and vitality. It is considered the vital link between the spiritual self and the material self.

(See also: PRANA , Alternative Health, Healing, Body Mind and Soul)

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,)

radiation

Power existing in various wave rates and lengths. Believed to be the carrier of spirit communication with sensitives. This force is immune to material insulation and passes through solid substances. It is not explained by physical laws and is generally accepted as being of the supernormal

(See also: Radiation , Body Mind and Soul)

Parabrahman (Sanskrit) [from para beyond + Brahman (neuter) universal self or spirit]

That which is beyond Brahman; the self-enduring, eternal, self-sufficient cause of all, the one essence of everything in the kosmos. It is before all things in the kosmos, and is the one sole limitless life-consciousness-substance from which starts into existence a center of force which may be called the Logos. In the Vedic cycle of writing it is referred to as tat (that) as opposed to the world of manifestation called idam (this).

"Parabrahman is intimately connected with Mulaprakriti. Their interaction and intermingling cause the first nebulous thrilling, if the words will pass, of the Universal Life when spiritual desire first arose in it in the beginnings of things. . . . Parabrahman is no entity, is no individual, or individualized being. It is a convenient technical word with conveniently vague philosophical significancy, implying whatever is beyond the Absolute or Brahman of any hierarchy. Just as Brahman is the summit of a kosmic Hierarchy, so, following the same line of thought, the Parabrahman is 'whatever is beyond Brahman' " (OG 121).

The parabrahman of the Vedantists is likewise conceived of as an eternal and periodical law which causes an active and creative force to emanate from the ever-concealed and incomprehensible one principle at the beginning of every mahamanvantara or new cycle of cosmic life.

"Parabrahmam is an unconditioned and absolute reality, and Mulaprakriti is a sort of veil thrown over it. Parabrahmam by itself cannot be seen as it is. It is seen by the Logos with a veil thrown over it, and that veil is the mighty expanse of cosmic matter. It is the basis of material manifestations in the cosmos" (Notes on BG 21). Parabrahman has the same relation to the Logos as our atman does to our karana-sarira; and parabrahman is the very foundation of the highest self.

Parabrahman is identical with the 'eyn-soph of the Chaldean Qabbalah.

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

The Cosmic Force And Shiv-Shakti

Before creation took place there was nothing but a pervading consciousness that had no name. Creation was the result of manifestation of this pervading consciousness.

The first form in which the consciousness manifested was Adi Shakti, Gayatri or power. From her emerged everything else. Once the universe was created there was a need for super forces or energies to look after the governance of the world. To perform this role Adi Shakti manifested herself into the trinity: Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva.

Read more here: » Shiv-Shakti: The Cosmic Force And Shiv-Shakti

Blood The vital fluid circulating through the heart, arteries, and veins, supplying nutritive materials to all parts of the body, and receiving elements of waste for later discharge from the system. Occultism enlarges upon the truism that the blood is the life, by relating it to the spiritual and psychic life-forces circulating in the solar system. Blavatsky says

that (a) the Sun is the store-house of Vital Force, which is the Noumenon of Electricity; and (b) that it is from its mysterious, never-to-be-fathomed depths, that issue those life currents which thrill through Space, as through the organisms of every living thing on Earth. . . .

"Thus, there is a regular circulation of the vital fluid throughout our system, of which the Sun is the heart -- the same as the circulation of the blood in the human body -- during the manvantaric solar period, or life; . . . Could the human heart be made luminous, and the living and throbbing organ be made visible . . . then every one would see the Sun-spot phenomenon repeated every second -- due to its contraction and the rushing of the blood" (SD 1:531, 541-2).

The analogy is seen in these streams of solar living fire stepped down into vital electricity on earth, and also in the psychic and astral-physical currents of lunar life which influence generation and all terrestrial growth. In chemical composition, the plasma or fluid part of the blood is said to be identical with that of primordial sea water, ocean water having since become more concentrated.

The blood is actively protean in representing on this plane the streams of higher vitality manifesting in body, soul, and spirit. Thus, its pranic oxygen is the agent of the solar fire; its white and red corpuscles represent the psychic life-force and the red kamic energies, all acting together in their material forms. The leucocytes or white corpuscles are formed in the lymphatic glands, in the spleen, and in bone marrow. They correspond in a sense to the lunar chhayas or builders of the ethereal forms of the second and early third root-races which "needed no warm blood, no atmosphere, no feeding" (SD 1:609). These spherical ameboid cells have both the primordial, changeable pudding-bag form and the autogenerative type of propagation. Their relation to the formation of the red cells typifies that of the early astral forms which, gradually becoming physicalized, evolved into the red-blooded, bisexual, manas-endowed beings of the later third root-race. The red cells, without autogenerative nuclei, are born in special leucocyte cells of red bone marrow, where they are produced at the rate the effete red cells are destroyed.

In human beings the pranic life-currents become impregnated with the manasic quality conferred by the agnishvattas. The lower elements of kama-prana are used in the blood offerings and sacrifices of voodoo rites and other forms of black magic:

"Blood begets phantoms. . . . Paracelsus writes that with the fumes of blood one is enabled to call forth any spirit we desire to see; for with its emanations it will build itself an appearance, a visible body -- only this is sorcery" (IU 2:567).

The old Greeks said that a divine fluid or ichor ran in the veins of the gods. It is also our physical destiny in the far distant future to evolve into bodies without blood as we understand it, in which nobler currents of conscious life will circulate.

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

Life Life per se is conscious, substantial, spiritual force, manifesting in myriad ways as the various lives and as forms of energy, whether macrocosmic, microcosmic, or infinitesimal. Force and substance, or life, are essential aspects of universal reality which in its highest is termed cosmic life-substance-intelligence. As there is a vast scale of substance-forces existing in all-various degrees of ethereality, so "there is life per se, in individuals manifesting as a vital fluid belonging to each one such grade or stage or plane of material manifestation -- and these vital fluids in their aggregate form what we may call the Universal Life, manifesting in appropriate form on any one plane and functioning therefore through the various matters of that plane" (ET 431).

Life as an entity or process is all that is, the basis or essence of all that is -- beginningless and endless. It is the spiritual electricity, or the vital svabhava, of the monad, which it pours forth out of itself and thus produces the individual characteristics of every entity, celestial or terrestrial. As the divine monad is a breath of pure spirit, pure consciousness, life may be called the innumerable manifold phases of consciousness in time and space.

"Consciousness is the Originant, and this Originant by its own inherent powers and energies, faculties and attributes, produces life out of itself: not at any one time specifically, but continuously forever, and coincidentally with its own existing duration. Consciousness and life together originate and produce thereafter from themselves what men call the manifestations of force or energy, which in its turn deposits or lays down, so to say, the matters and substances of the Universe, much as wine will deposit its lees" (ET 749).

Instead of life and death, birth and death are opposites, being different phases of life.

See also JIVA; PRANA

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

Earthquakes Physical phenomena such as earthquakes are generally the end-products of a chain of causation operating not only on the physical plane but also on other cosmic planes.

A study of the geology of the earth's crust as regards the lie of the rocks, the position of faults, the presence of volcanic activities, etc., may indicate the places most likely to be affected, and the relation between earthquakes and the positions of the heavenly bodies is now receiving some consideration from scientists; but they still do not recognize any connection between the cause of earthquakes and events on the mental plane of the earth.

"But when they understand that there is no such thing as accident in the universe, that every event which appears to us as accident, is the effect of a force on the mental plane, then they will be able to understand why the superstitious Hindus look upon earthquakes as the effect of accumulated sins committed by men." (Damodar)

The more subtle forms of force-matter or astral light form the links between the physical earth and the mental state of the living beings upon it; and rapid and more or less violent physical cataclysms may be regarded as the final effects of a sudden release of tension in those higher realms. That unusual psychic conditions perceptible to animals and even to humans precede earthquakes many hours before a shock, and long before the seismographs show the smallest tremor, is well-authenticated.

"It is absolutely false, and but an additional demonstration of the great conceit of our age, to assert (as men of science do) that all the great geological changes and terrible convulsions have been produced by ordinary and known physical forces. For these forces were but the tools and final means for the accomplishment of certain purposes, acting periodically, and apparently mechanically, through an inward impulse mixed up with, but beyond their material nature. There is a purpose in every important act of Nature, whose acts are all cyclic and periodical. But spiritual Forces having been usually confused with the purely physical, the former are denied by, and therefore have to remain unknown to Science, because left unexamined" (SD 1:640).

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

Loka (Sanskrit) Place, locality; in Brahmanic literature, heavens; in theosophical literature, world, sphere, plane. Used in the metaphysical systems of India, both in contrast to and in conjunction with tala (inferior world).

"Wherever there is a loka there is an exactly correspondential tala, and in fact, the tala is the nether pole of its corresponding loka. Lokas and talas, therefore, in a way of speaking, may be considered to be the spiritual and the material aspects or substance-principles of the different worlds which compose and in fact are the kosmic universe" (OG 168). The lokas and talas must be thought of by twos: a loka and its corresponding tala can no more be separated than can the two poles of a magnet. They are the two sides of being, the two contrasting forces of nature, the light-side and the night-side.

There are many different divisions of the lokas and talas used in Hindu literature, but many are merely exoteric blinds. Dividing the universe into seven manifested grades or planes of being, which are really worlds, these worlds are polarized into lokas and talas, two by two throughout. The seven lokas and seven talas together form the seven cosmic planes.

Of these seven loka-tala pairs, the three highest belong to the relatively arupa (formless) or spiritual worlds, and are often called arupa lokas and arupa talas. The four lowest pairs belong to the rupa (form) or material worlds, and are often called rupa lokas and talas. These lokas and talas are not placed in nature's structure above each other like steps of a stair, but are within each other, interblending and continually interacting. Each inner one is finer and more ethereal than the next outer one; the inmost of either series is the most ethereal and spiritual of all. The more spiritual the center, the wider is its outflow of radiation and influence, and it therefore reaches far beyond the more material ones. Exoteric Hindu literature details specific limitations or frontiers to the reach of each loka and tala, as for instance when it is said that svarloka and talatala extend to the pole star, or that the reach of influence of bhuvarloka and mahatala extend to the sun.

Our earth, globe D of the earth-chain, is patala if we look at it from the material standpoint; and it is bhurloka if we look at it from the energy-consciousness side. In this globe the loka and tala are equally bipolarized because it is the only globe on the lowest cosmic plane. It is the turning point of our planetary chain where matter and spirit are equilibrated. The field of influence of this loka and tala -- and indeed of all the lokas and talas -- extends little farther than the psychomagnetic region of globe D.

The solar system as a whole has its corresponding cosmic lokas and talas; so has any planetary chain of the solar system and any globe of such chain. Each one of these different scales is built of its own series of lokas and talas on the analogical principle that what prevails in the cosmic whole as its fundamental structure must necessarily prevail in its every portion.

Just as the kosmos is divided into seven planes with its kosmic lokas and talas, its tattvas and bhutas -- its principles and elements -- so is every globe of our planetary chain, and indeed every human being, of necessity divided in a similar manner, with its own seven lokas and seven talas, which in the case of man are the principles and elements of his constitution. Thus,

"the seven principles of our globe are the seven lokas and seven talas belonging especially to earth; and the seven principles of each one of the other six globes of our planetary chain, are the respective lokas and talas belonging to each one of them. Now the two other globes on each plane of the three planes above ours, making thus the other six globes of our planetary chain, receive their respective life force, recieve their respective inflow of intellectual and spiritual energies and beings, from the respective lokas and talas of the sun. There are seven suns, but only one sun on this plane, as our globe is but one on this plane, the lowest of the seven kosmical planes."

"each one of these lokas and each one of these talas produces the following lower one of the scale from itself, . . . The highest of either line projects or sends forth the next lower. It, in addition to its own particular characteristic or swabhava, contains also within itself the nature of the one above it, its parent, and also sends forth the one lower than it, the third in the line downwards. And so on down the scale. So that each one of the principles or elements (or lokas or talas)

is likewise sevenfold, containing in itself the subelements of that or those of which it is the reflection from above" (Fund 472, 481-2).

The lokas, in our present fourth planetary round, are dominant on the luminous arc, while the talas are recessive; whereas the talas are the dominant factors or worlds on the shadowy arc of descent, where the lokas are recessive or involving. Virtue, purity, kindness, compassion are signs that the entity possessing them is evolving the spirit within, and therefore is ascending along the lokas of the luminous arc and thus is a denizen of the lokas as the dominant factors in his evolution. Selfishness, impurity, unkindness, cruelty, and deception are the signs that the entity possessing them is then under the influence or dominance of the talas, and is for the time being on a shadowy arc -- the particular and characteristic effect of the working of the influences of the talas.

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

Vitalism The theory that the phenomena of organic life cannot be explained by the properties of physical matter alone, and that consequently they must be due to some nonphysical vital principle. Attempts to define such a principle have been vague and various. If it is spirit, then what can spirit be, apart from matter, or how can it act on matter? Perhaps it is another kind of matter -- an aether, fluid, or what not.

The theory amounts to trying to correct one error by means of another. If we suppose the physical universe to be composed of inert particles, how can we explain their activity? Materialistic science has simply shelved the difficulty. It is necessary to postulate an immaterial force, which in its origin is immaterial and in its manifestations substantial or material, but materialistic science does not recognize anything basically immaterial. It speaks of energy and matter as twin in destructibles, but merely assumes the former without explaining its nature. Moreover the words force and energy are used by science to denote effects occurring in matter. Are these effects without causes?

The difficulty encountered by vitalists, as regards the nature of the vital principle and its power of acting upon matter, is fundamental in the entire materialistic philosophy. The matter and force of materialistic science are highly metaphysical abstractions. No such thing as an inert material particle exists or can exist, for all such inert matter is but life or force in one of its multiform phases of quiescence or equilibrium. Nor can there be an absolutely immaterial force, without relation of function or action in the material worlds. The universe consists of living beings, whose activities may be expressed collectively by the word life. The term matter has been applied to the static aspect of life, and the term force to the dynamic aspect. No distinction valid for this purpose can be drawn between organic and inorganic beings. If there is need of a vital principle for animals and plants, working upon yet other than essential stuff or substance, there is equal need in the case of minerals; but there is no need to postulate such divorce between force and matter in either case.

The jiva or prana of theosophy is not an immaterial spirit different from matter acting on a lifeless body; it is itself substantial, consisting in fact of streams of living beings, life-atoms; and so far from acting on something other than itself called the body, it actually composes the body. The minute analysis to which science is now able to subject physical matter has not succeeded in finding anything more rudimentary than living, moving fire, light, and electricity -- in short, the ocean of jiva.

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

Vaisheshika (Sanskrit). One of the six Darshanas or schools of philosophy, founded by Kanada. It is called the Atomistic School, as it teaches the existence of a universe of atoms of a transient character, an endless number of souls and a fixed number of material principles, by the correlation and interaction of which periodical cosmic evolutions take place without any directing Force, save a kind of mechanical law inherent in the atoms; a very materialistic school.

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

MAGIC

From Latin magi, pl. (Greek magoi, pl. of magos, a Magian, one of the Median tribe; also an enchanter, properly a wise-man who interpreted dreams; Old Persian mugh, one of the Magi, a fire-worshipper; Sanskrit maga "a priest of the sun"; maybe related to maha, "great" and maya, illusion; perhaps, ultimately, even the Maya of Central America. Compare Hebrew makeshef, "magician"). Magic is actually short for "Magic Art". The connection between magus and magnus "great" also appears in Hebrew. As in Latin the word for "great", produces "master or teacher" (magister) , so Hebrew rab produces "rabbi". However the confusion in Hebrew does not arise because the word for "magic" (qeshem) is not related to rab".

The word in this form is found with precisely the same meaning (or mystery) in most European tongues and even in Japanese majutsu, (which they no doubt borrowed from the Portuguese). Elsewhere, however, we find different senses altogether, such as the old Teutonic Helliruna (lit. "Hell's secret") which is surely a folk etymology of the Arabic word for "mandrake", albiruhan or alyabruhin, the same word we find in Spanish as the word for "magician", el brujo, because alongside that there is indeed the Old High German word for "mandrake", Alruna. The only question we need ask is which form came first, but we find the Arabic influence extending east as far as Mongolia, where, in passing, we may note ilbi for "magic."

The otherness of ego enwraps each of us like a prison, but the magus takes all of earth as his body. Magic itself is but a symbol of the greater Magic, which is Unity. The Oneness frees us from the dungeon of darkness and the self and resembles the teaching of Buddhism.

From yet another perspective, magic, mind and life are the same thing: living cells are sometimes kept alive in labs. A specialized cell, so protected, fed and allowed to reproduce, eventually turns into a basic and undifferentiated cell. This indicates that life is not only exceedingly plastic but that it is also purposive. If such adaptation were attributable to mindless mechanics, a bone cell would go on reproducing a bone cell and a blood cell a blood cell forever.

Since all things are connected, then experiential reality, which is Mind, can be altered by the implementation of the Will and Visualization. There is no "orthodox" doorway of the "Self" through the various universes, so the magician must build his own bridge, without assistance, across the Abyss, from the otherness of the separate ego to Cosmic Unity. Since the goal and purpose of existence is knowledge, then the magus is obliged to seek experience on numerous planes of being reached via perichoresis and also to effect material changes in the earth's reality. Thinking isn't just the beginning of creation, it is creation itself.

Marc Edmund Jones classifies magic into categories. Divination is the effort to gain knowledge, particularly of the future (in order the better to assist the "Divine" plan). The evocation or invocation of elementals or angelic powers, functioning through the ethers, is another class of magic. Then there is hypnotism, which works through "imitative" magic. Finally, there is tantrism, or the development of supernatural siddhis.

Colin Wilson suggests that magic is simply the development of the Will and the Imagination, Versluis that it is "not a means to an end, but a means to heighten means." Clearly, the object of magic is the raising of consciousness. The magus is empowered to effect events only to the extent that he is able to recognize that inside and outside are one. To transform the world is to transform oneself and vice-versa. Traditional rituals, the using of symbols and the altering of consciousness through herbs, smells, sounds, repetitions and meditation are all inward-directed processes designed to educate, focus and strengthen the faculties of Imaging and Willing. Alchemy is the same endeavor directed outwardly. We fail to control the transformation of our selves to the degree that we isolate ourselves from the world, just as we lose our ability to change the world at the exact moment that we begin to lose touch with ourselves.

However, although those who don't know what they are doing are obliged to perform magic strictly through the observation of rituals, those who understand its real nature and purpose can move directly to its center and act from there, without incantations and conjurations.

Here are some definitions of M/magic(k) by various authorities on the subject:

ANONYMOUS: "Magus Nascitur Non Fit."

ALICE BAILEY: "No man is a magician, or worker in white magic, until his third eye is opened, or is in the process of opening." (That means 'transmission of consciousness to the universal mind').

WADE BASKIN: "The art and science of magic is based on three basic principles. 1) one may communicate with other realms, or planes of existence, through the medium of the Astral Light; 2) the power of the magician is unlimited; 3) external characteristics (signatures) are signs through which everything internal and invisible can be revealed."

MORRIS BERMAN: "Magic is not necessarily gnostic in nature, since it is not particularly dualistic, and it never includes the notion of an outside savior or redeemer, which Gnosticism (particularly in its early forms) sometimes does."

HELENA P. BLAVATSKY: "The art of divine Magic consists in the ability to perceive the essence of things in the light of nature (astral light), and - by using the soul-powers of the Spirit - to produce material things from the unseen universe, and in such operations the Above and the Below must be brought together and made to act harmoniously". (The Secret Doctrine).

"Magic is spiritual wisdom. Arcane knowledge misapplied is sorcery.

"Magic was considered a divine science which led to a participation in the attributes of Divinity itself."

"Magic was the highest knowledge of natural philosophy... and the magician differed from the witch in this, that, while the latter was an ignorant instrument in the hands of demons, the former had become their master by the powerful intermediation of science, which was only within reach of the few, and which these beings were powerless to disobey."

BERNARD BROMAGE: "The word has, more often than not, been used, not for illumination, not as a guide to ascertainable verity, but as a camouflage to conceal a man's ignorance; and, worse, his calculated ineptitude and folly. The word can be said to have ceased to be a word and to have become a byword: a symbol surrounded by an evilly phosphorescent light, of man's infernal capacity for avoiding the issues. . . Magic, tout court, is immensely concerned with the 'Extension of Consciousness'; the widening of frontiers; the increase and development of every variety of sense perception. To be a magician one must learn to investigate all phenomena with the eye of the scientist who scorns no possible hypothesis nor neglects to take into the fullest consideration the complete structure of our actual and potential being. . . it is not a solace for the frustrated, but a reward for the pure of heart. Its final appeal is not to curiosity or greed, but to reverence and acceptance."

PETER CARROLL: "The world is magical but designed to make us believe we are not magi."

"All events are basically magical, arising spontaneously without prior cause. Physical laws are only statistical approximations. Consciousness, magic and chaos are the same thing. Consciousness also makes things happen without prior cause."

ALEISTER CROWLEY: "All Art is Magick"

"The Goal of Magick is the knowledge and conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel."

NEVILL DRURY: "Magic is the technique of harnessing the secret powers of Nature and and seeking to influence events for one's own purpose. If the purpose is beneficial it is known as white magic, but if it is intended to bring harm to others, or to destroy property, it is regarded as black magic."

"High Magic is intended to bring about the spiritual transformation of the person who practices it. This form of magic is designed to channel the magician's consciousness towards the sacred light within, which is often personified by the high gods of different cosmologies. The aim of high magic has been described as communication with one's Holy Guardian Angel, or higher self. It is also known as Theurgy."

"Whereas science deals with empirically observable causes and effects, occultism deals pragmatically with methods of altering consciousness to produce certain effects. One of these is the assimilation within the self of the characteristics of a deity, another is the separation of consciousness from the physical body."

DION FORTUNE: "Magic is the art of changing consciousness at will."

KENNETH GRANT: "Magick is the apotheosis of the Irrational, the acme of the absurd, and the reification of the impossible."

GURDJIEFF: ". . .I decided to call those undertakings which required intentional action of higher centers - those centers which are properly the feeling and thinking centers, capable of emotional sensing and of mentation respectively, but which are ordinarily unformed through absorption of their rightful impressions by the false emotional and intellectual centers of the psyche - objective magic, having as its result the obtaining of real knowledge."

"I thus separated this objective magic from its ordinary counterpart, 'magic of the psyche', in which purely fantastic results are obtained, and self-calming and amusement are the only attainments. Under this category I placed my former endeavors as a medium and psychic, as well as those results obtained by theosophy, occultism and so forth, all of which up to then had quite fascinated and attracted my attention."

WILLIAM JAMES: "We all have a lifelong habit of inferiority to our full self. . ."

MARC EDMUND JONES: "Occult, as distinct from secular, science; Occult as the effort to compel the cooperation of others, as well as deity, nature, in enterprises of self, illustrated by miracle or thaumaturgy, known as white when ethical and black when amoral."

ELIPHAS LÉVI: "The Arcanum of the Magnum Opus is the mastery or government of Ignis."; "Would you learn to reign over yourself and others? Learn how to will. How can one learn to will? This is the first arcanum of magical initiation. . ."

MACGREGOR MATTHEWS: "To practice magic, both the imagination and the Will must be called into action, they are co-equal in the work. . . The Will unaided can send forth a current. . . yet its effect is vague and indefinite. . . the Imagination unaided can create an image. . . yet it can do nothing of importance, unless vitalized and directed by the Will."

JOHN MIDDLETON: "We may say that the realm of magic is that in which human beings believe that they may directly affect nature and each other for good or ill, by their own efforts (even when the precise mechanism may not be understood by them) as distinct from appealing to divine powers by sacrifice or prayer (i.e. religion)."

JOHN O'KEEFE: "Magic is the defense of the self against the malevolence of society."

PARACELSUS: "The exercise of true magic does not require any ceremonies or conjurations, or the making of circles and signs; it requires neither benedictions nor maledictions in words, neither verbal blessings or curses."

JOHN COWPER POWYS: "Magic is simply the choice between emphasis and rejection."

DIANE DE PRIMA: "Look at the forces behind the things rather than just at the object or event. If I have a working definition of magic it's that behind every single thing in the world an infinite tunnel opens of reference, cross-references, and forces, and how these things interlock in nets. What I basically say is, yeah, learning to see force. . . learning to see the etheric and the astral, etc. to the thinner and thinner layers of stuff. And learning to work off those layers rather than . . . if you want to push that rock you don't necessarily have to go out there and put your shoulder to it."

RIMBAUD: "The Poet transforms himself into a seer through a long, immense and determined, rational disordering of all his sense. Every form of love, suffering and madness he seeks within himself and exhausts in himself all poisons, preserving but their quintessences. Ineffable torture where he will need all of his faith and superhuman strength, making him among men, the great Sick Man, the Thrice-Damned, the Arch-Criminal - and the supreme Savant! - for he arrives at the Unknown! Since he has cultivated his soul, already richer than any other man's, he thereby reaches the Unknown, and, even if, insane in the end, he should lose every shred of understanding gained so laboriously, he will have had his Visions! He may perish in his leap into those innumerable, unnameable things, there will follow other terrible workers. They will begin at the horizons where he fell."

MARTIN DEL RIO: "An art or skill which, by means of a non-supernatural force, produces certain strange and unusual phenomena whose rationale eludes common sense."

ROMULUS: "Magic is living poetry."

"Magic is the invocation and exploitation of synchronicity. All practices build up a momentum of their own. What we desire eventually comes true, with interest."

"Every magician's tricks are his own, to help him with own special problems, to get himself over his own inner obstacles. Our Individual tasks are to learn and overcome our own obstacles. That's why the study of great men and women is so very instructional and worthwhile. Not because they teach us to be like them, but because they show us how they became themselves! "

"Self-confident, integrated personalities already are fairly much in control of their powers and are magical to some extent. When circumstances intrude, such as sickness, enmity, financial loss, etc. and self-confidence wanes, the 'magical' side begins to seem spurious. The more 'magical' we try to be, the more charlatanry rises to the surface in us."

FRANCIS KING & STEPHEN SKINNER: "Four basic assumptions of magic: 1. That the [physical] universe is only a part of total reality. 2. The human will-power is a real force, capable of being trained and concentrated, and that the disciplined will is capable of changing its environment and producing paranormal events. 3. That this will-power must be directed by the imagination. 4. That the universe is not a mixture of chance factors and influences, but an ordered system of correspondences, and the understanding of the pattern of correspondences enables the occultist to use them for his own purposes, good or evil.

HUTTON WEBSTER (1948): "As regards purpose, Magic is divinatory, productive and aversive. The magician discovers or foretells what is otherwise hidden in time or space from human eyes; he influences and manipulates the objects and phenomena of nature and all animate creatures so that they may satisfy actual or human needs; and finally he combats, neutralizes and remedies the onslaught of the evils, real or imaginary, afflicting mankind. The range of magic is thus almost as wide as the life of man. All things under heaven, and even the inhabitants of heaven become subject to its sway.

COLIN WILSON: "Human perception is 'intentional.'" (Consciousness is a muscle).

"The great personality-inhibitor is caution. . . even in a few people who seem fairly well integrated. I can suddenly catch a glimpse of a more sophisticated, confident personality that has never succeeded in emerging . . . Even criminality is a form of caution, the desire for immediate and tangible returns, based upon the feeling that the universe has no intention of giving you anything you are not prepared to take by force. In fact, the study of murder leaves one with an impression of weak and crippled personalities who left half their potentialities to stagnate."

"Outside our everyday personality there is a wider self that possesses greater powers than the everyday self. . . When the will is hindered by too much self-consciousness it often produces the opposite effect from the one intended. (Poe called it "the imp of the perverse"). The wider self would be happy to oblige, but the contracted ego is somehow opposing itself, like someone trying to open a door by pushing it instead of pulling it. So it does the next best thing." (Psychokinesis).

"Modern civilization induces an attitude of passivity. When a Stone Age hunter set out to trap wild animals, he was aware of his will as a living force. When the prehistoric farmer scored the surface of the earth with a crude plough, he knew that his family's survival through the winter depended on his effort, and his will responded to the challenge. When a modern city dweller walks down a crowded thoroughfare, he feels no sense of challenge or involvement. This city was built by other people, all these shops and offices are owned by other people. He can get through an ordinary day's work in a state approximating sleep. Most of his routine tasks are carried out by the 'robot'. There is neither the need or the opportunity to use the will."

ZORN ZUCKERMAN: "The 20th Century has been so much a time of everything 'losing its magic, that the only thing left is magic itself."

CONCLUSION:

Is magic simply the search for "ultimate knowledge" without the burden of "worship"? Not exactly. The Golden Dawn used to say, "The aim of religion, the method of science," which was as ambitious as it was inaccurate. The "Transcendental" without religion, as opposed to mere "Revelation" without religion, would be closer to the mark than soulless "Ultimate Knowledge." The latter is a logical, scientific goal, not a magical one. The Scientist is obliged to go wherever his will-o'-the-wisp may lead him, as Mary Shelley pointed out, stopping not even at Frankenstein's monster nor the Hydrogen Bomb nor tailor-made diseases. Thus, the scientist inevitably winds up in Hell, the epitome of "Reason". The Magician knows where he is going, dares to go there and will what he will discover and create. His work (ideally) is the transmogrification of Hell. Moreover, about what he does he can make no statement, because it is always unique, never a repeatable "trick". That is, he is in the business, not as the scientist is of "finding" meaning, but of "creating" it. But we have to remember that the phenomenological world is an illusion, which requires the magician always to remain watchful of the illusory nature of what he is doing.

Life without magic is not possible. Moreover, the important "passages" of life cannot be handled except in a frank context of High Magic: birth, adolescence, marriage, death, etc.

(See also: MAGIC , Magick, Mysticism, Mysticism 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)

A Theosophical definition of Matter :

Matter

What men call matter or substance is the existent but illusory aggregate of veils surrounding the fundamental essence of the universe which is consciousness-life-substance. From another point of view, matter or substance is in one sense the most evolved form of expression of manifested spirit in any particular hierarchy.

This is but another way of saying that matter is but inherent energies or powers or faculties of kosmical beings, unfolded, rolled out, and self-expressed. It is the nether and lowest pole of what the original and originating spirit is; for spirit is the primal or original pole of the evolutionary activity which brought forth through its own inherent energies the appearance or manifestation in the kosmic spaces of the vast aggregate of hierarchies. Between the originant or spirit and the resultant or matter, there is all the vast range of hierarchical stages or steps, thus forming the ladder of life or the ladder of being of any one such hierarchy.

When theosophists speak of spirit and substance, of which latter, matter and energy or force are the physicalized expressions, we must remember that all these terms are abstractions  - generalized expressions for hosts of entities manifesting aggregatively. The whole process of evolution is the raising of units of essential matter, life-atoms, into becoming at one with their spiritual and inmost essence. As the kosmic aeons slowly drop one after the other into the ocean of the past, matter pari passu is resolved back into the brilliant realms of spirit from which it originally came forth. All the sheaths of consciousness, all the blinding veils around it, arise from the matter side or dark side or night side of nature, which is matter  - the nether pole of spirit.

See also: Matter , Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul

Prana: The life force or energy which animates material forms. It is also present in breath. Also Chi, Ki or Mana in other belief systems.

(See also: Prana , Alternative Health, Body Mind and Soul)

A Theosophical definition of Fohat :

Fohat

An extremely mystical term used in the occultism of Tibet for what in Sanskrit is called daiviprakriti, which means "divine nature" or "primordial nature," and which also can be called "primordial light." In one sense of the word fohat may be considered as almost identical with the old mystical Greek eros, but fohat as a technical term contains within itself a far wider range of ideas than does the Greek term.

Fohat may be considered as the essence of kosmic electricity, provided, however, that in this definition we endow the term electricity with the attribute of consciousness; or, to put it more accurately, provided that we understand that the essence of electricity is indeed consciousness. It is ever-present and active from the primordial beginnings of a manvantara to its last end, nor does it then actually pass out of existence, but becomes quiescent or latent as it were, sleeping or dormant during the kosmic pralaya. In one sense of the word it may be called kosmic will, for the analogy with the conscious will in human beings is exceedingly close. It is the incessantly active, ever-moving, impelling or urging force in nature, from the beginning of the evolution of a universe or of a solar system to its end.

H. P. Blavatsky, quoting one of the ancient mystically occult works, says in substance: "Fohat is the steed and thought is the rider." If, however, we liken fohat to what the conscious will is in the human being, we must then think only of the lower or substantial parts  - the pranic activities  - of the human will, for behind the substantial parts stands always the directing and guiding consciousness. Fohat being incessantly active is therefore both formative and destructive, because it is through the ceaseless working of fohat that unending change continues  - the passing of one phase of manifested existence to another phase, whether this manifested existence be a solar system or a planetary chain or a globe or human being or, indeed, any entity.

Fohat is as active among the electrons of an atom and among the atoms themselves as it is among the suns. In one sense it may be called the vital force of the universe, corresponding from this viewpoint to the pranic activity on all the seven planes of the human constitution.

See also: Fohat , Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul