Mysteries Dictionary

Ajnana (Sanskrit) (from a not + jnana knowledge from the verbal root jna to know, perceive, understand)

More often absence of knowledge rather than ignorance. An ajnana is a profane, one who is outside the sanctum or inner temples of the Mysteries.

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

Agrae A small town on the banks of the Ilissus near Athens, where in ancient Greece in the spring were celebrated the Minor Mysteries, preliminary to the Greater Mysteries held in the autumn at Eleusis. Those at Agrae were associated with Kore-Persephone and were held about the middle of the month Anthesterion, when the grain crop was young.

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

Merkabah (Hebrew) A chariot, vehicle; used in two senses: first, as a chariot, the Qabbalists saying that the Supreme forms and then uses the ten Sephiroth as a chariot for descending through the various worlds enumerated in the Qabbalah.

These worlds are the ten Sephiroth themselves, and 'Adam Qadmon (the Heavenly Man) is the same as the ten Sephiroth considered as a hierarchic entity permeated by and inspirited by the divine hierarch or Supreme. Here it is generally equivalent to the Sanskrit vahana.

Second, it is secret wisdom or knowledge: "without the final initiation into the Mercaba the study of the Kabala will be ever incomplete, and the Mercaba can be taught only in 'darkness, in a deserted place, and after many and terrific trials.' Since the death of Simeon Ben-Iochai this hidden doctrine has remained an inviolate secret for the outside world. Delivered only as a mystery, it was communicated to the candidate orally, "face to face and mouth to ear'" (IU 2:349).

The secret wisdom or knowledge is envisaged as a vehicle or chariot because what men call esoteric wisdom is the vehicle for the communication to human consciousness of the mysteries of the universe, and consequently of man.

(See also: Merkabah , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Bodhi Tree or Bo Tree The tree of wisdom or knowledge; the tree (Pippala or Ficus religiosa) "under which Sakyamuni meditated for seven years and then reached Buddhaship. It was originally 400 feet high, it is claimed; but when Hiouen-Tsang saw it, about the year 640 of our era, it was only 50 feet high. Its cuttings have been carried all over the Buddhist world and are planted in front of almost every Vihara or temple of fame in China, Siam, Ceylon, and Tibet" (TG 59).

This legend of the enormous height attained by the fig tree under which the Buddha obtained enlightenment, illustrates how soon the spiritual vision of the real meaning of the bodhi tree became involved in mythologic wonder.

While the historical legend of the Buddha obtaining omniscience under the bodhi tree may be correct historically, it is also a usage of the mystical language of the Mysteries -- Gautama attaining supreme wisdom and knowledge under the "wisdom tree" is but another way of saying that through initiation into the highest grades of the Mysteries, he reached the stage of buddhahood because he was already a buddha through inner evolution. Again, in India adepts of both the right- and left-hand were often referred to as trees, the path indicated by whether the tree named was beneficent or maleficent.

See also ASVATTHA

(See also: Bodhi Tree, Bo Tree , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Advent (from Latin ad to, toward + venio to come)

Arrival; in Christianity a period of some four weeks preceding Christmas.

In pre-Christian Greece one of the great seats of initiation was Eleusis, a Greek word meaning coming or advent. All the Mystery schools of antiquity taught and dramatized doctrines dealing with that which is to come: the mysteries of death, rebirth, and initiation -- the birth or awakening of the inner Buddha or Christos in the neophyte. This was called the coming or advent of the god within.

Advent may also be used to signify the serial comings into the human sphere of a nirmanakaya who imbodies a dhyani-buddha -- a perfected human being from a preceding manvantara -- in order to enlighten the humanity of the current cycle. Such nirmanakayas work in the sphere of our earth as invisible or occasionally visible helpers of mankind.

The "second advent," referring to a second coming of Christ, was considered imminent by some early Christian sects, and is still expected by certain sects today. This echoes the archaic teaching concerning the advent of Maitreya-Buddha -- the next great Buddha to appear in the long line of Buddha-succession -- as well as the second coming of Elijah among the Jews, and the coming of the Kalki-avatara among the Hindus.

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

Easter (from Eostre or Ostara goddess of spring)

In the northern hemisphere, the time of the renewal of life in nature, and therefore the appropriate season for celebrating the mystery of rebirth and regeneration. Easter day was close to the time of one of the four sacred seasons connected with the equinoxes and solstices, which were individually celebrated in the ancient Mysteries as representatives of the four main phases of the drama of initiation.

It was the second stage of initiation when the awakened person, in whom the Christ had already been born (as celebrated at a winter solstice), was preparing to become a conqueror of self and then a teacher. Easter today is the result of a confusion and compromise between this ancient spring festival (chiefly in its Northern European form) with ecclesiastical legends and the Jewish Feast of the Passover (pesah).

Good Friday, following the Christian version of this ancient theme, commemorates the descent of the Christ into the tomb, and the Sunday following, which is the third day counting inclusively, celebrates the resurrection. Due to a confusion in early Christian thought, there are certain aspects of the Easter celebration which properly pertain to the winter solstice, which the Christians, however, have rightly held as commemorating the birth of Christ.

The Jewish ecclesiastical calendar was lunar, and the attempt to reconcile the solar calendar with the date of the Passover as fixed by the lunar calendar resulted in protracted disputes, ending in the present compromise with its fluctuating date. The use of eggs at Easter is symbolic of rebirth and shows the influence of the ancient rites, especially of Northern Europe.

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

Revelation of John or Apocalypse The last book in the New Testament, a specimen of apocalyptic literature, which in Christianity consists of Jewish Christian mystical books of unknown authorship, attributed among others to Enoch, Ezra, and various apostles. John's Apocalypse is in part based on the Book of Enoch, and is the work of a Jewish Qabbalist who adapted it to Judaean Christianity, and who had a hereditary aversion to the Greek Mysteries.

Like apocalyptic literature in general, it takes the form of visions supposed to be seen by the alleged author, and its burden is the struggle between righteousness and evil, ending in the overthrow of the latter and the establishment of the kingdom of Christ. It marks a stage in the gradual adaption of the original esoteric Christianity to the demands of a creedal and worldly religion.

Several different keys are needed to interpret the Revelations of John: "no less that the Book of Job, the whole Revelation, is simply an allegorical narrative of the Mysteries and initiation therein of a candidate, who is John himself. . . . The numbers seven, twelve, and others are all so many lights thrown over the obscurity of the work" (IU 2:351; cf SD 2:93&n, 516).

(See also: Revelation of John, Apocalypse , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Aeschylus One of the three greatest Greek tragic poets, born at Eleusis (525-456 BC), the seat of the Mysteries of Demeter, into which he undoubtedly was initiated. Of his perhaps 90 plays, only seven survive. Plato accuses him of impiety and Cicero describes him as almost a Pythagorean. He profaned the Mysteries in the eyes of the Athenians (e.g. in the real meaning of the allegories present in Prometheus Bound and The Eumenides) and has been accused of introducing antagonism among the celestial powers, transferring the political radicalism and demagogy of Athens from the agora to Olympus. His works introduced a second actor, thus creating true dramatic dialogue; he also introduced masks and imposing headdresses and costumes for the actors.

His portrayal of Zeus in different dramas is inconsistent, since there were two Zeuses: the abstract deity of Grecian thought, and the Olympic Zeus. While the former represents the head of the hierarchy of divinities, the latter is, in man, the human soul or kama-manas. Prometheus, who steals fire from heaven and brings it to mankind in a fennel-stalk, is buddhi-manas, mankind's savior. Zeus is the serpent, the intellectual tempter of humanity, which nevertheless begets in due time the man-savior, the solar Dionysus (SD 2:419-20).

Harmony results from the equilibrium of contraries, and the drama of evolution as depicted in man shows the clash of descending and reascending cycles, the antimony of law and free will. These dramas have been immortalized for all generations by Aeschylus who, in his daring and self-sacrificing enthusiasm, may himself by styled a Prometheus offending the powers that be in order to bring light to mankind.

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

Tammuz or Thammuz A Syrian and Phoenician deity corresponding to Adonis. In Babylonia, the Greek story of Venus and Adonis is repeated in that of Ishtar and Tammuz with slight variations. The myth relates that Ishtar wooed Tammuz in the springtime and in the midsummer he met his death. To save her husband from the clutches of the goddess of the nether world Ishtar journeys thither. Her return to earth marks the return of spring.

The Jews took over the name of the deity and in the Old Testament we find: "Behold there sat women weeping for Tammuz" (Ezek 8:14) -- in Hebrew tammuz. "The women of Israel held annual lamentations over Adonis (that beautiful youth being identical with Tammuz). The feast held in his honour was solstitial, and began with the new moon, in the month of Tammuz (July), taking place chiefly at Byblos in Phoenicia; but it was also celebrated as late as the fourth century of our era at Bethlehem, . . . Indeed, in the Mysteries of Tammuz or Adonis a whole week was spent in lamentations and mourning. The funereal processions were succeeded by a fast, and later by rejoicings; for after the fast Adoni-Tammuz was regarded as raised from the dead, and wild orgies of joy, of eating and drinking, as now in Easter week, went on uninterruptedly for several days" (TG 318-9).

That the Tammuz festival was solstitial, began with the new moon in July, and lasted for a week more or less, and that the whole ceremony comprised a dying and resurrection from the dead -- all these facts point directly to one of the mysteries of the four great initiatory cycles of the year, one of which is referred to in the mystical story of Jesus in the New Testament. All the great ancient initiations comprised a purification or preparation (katharsis), a trance followed by a dying, and a later resurrection of the initiant or neophyte as a fully born initiate, adept, or new man.

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

Demeter (Greek) (possibly from Doric da earth + meter mother)

The Earth-Mother; one of the great Olympian deities, in popular mythology specially associated with the earth and its products, patron of agriculture, goddess of law and order, and protector of marriage and the birth of offspring. As the grain goddess, counterpart of the Egyptian Isis, Roman Ceres, and corn mothers, corn maidens, and harvest goddesses of the various native cultures of the Americas today, and of the early Teutonic and Scandinavian races of central and northern Europe.

Popular legend describes Demeter as mother of Persephone, who while gathering flowers on the Nysian plain was seized by Hades and carried to the Underworld. Searching disconsolate for her lost child, Demeter came to the dwelling of Celeus at Eleusis, where she was hospitably received although her identity was unknown. On condition of being given the sole care of the king's son who was ill with fever, she remained and became the child's nurse. Each night she placed the child on a bed of living coals, but the mother, discovering this, snatched the child away in alarm.

Demeter then revealed herself as a goddess and, declaring that had she been left alone she would have made the child immortal, she relinquished her post in wrath. Before leaving Eleusis, however, she founded a mystical school or cult to keep alive certain otherwise secret teachings about human divinity and the life after death. The Eleusinian Mysteries, reputed to have sprung from this earlier effort, dealt particularly with the afterdeath states and the progress and experiences of the soul between earth lives.

The great Eleusinian divinities, as far as is known, were three: Demeter-Thesmophoros as goddess of law and order; Persephone-Kore the divine maid; and Iacchos the divine son (the divine man whom it was the object of the Mysteries to bring forth from the "tomb" of the human man). Probably because of her association with Persephone, Demeter was in one of her aspects a divinity of the underworld and was worshiped as such in Sparta and at Hermione at Argolis.

In the Orphic teachings Demeter is not only the earth goddess, but is also Demeter-Kore the divine maid. This aspect is twofold: as Persephone the Virgin-Queen of the Dead; and as the mortal maid Semele, mother of the mystic savior Dionysos, and later enthroned as Semele-Thyone (Semele the Inspiried). As both maid and mother she is the immortal wife of Zeus, and is also called the mother of Zeus, as an Orphic verse declares: "The goddess who was Rhea, when she bore Zeus became Demeter." In one of her aspects, Demeter is the one to whom, in the Orphic legend, is given the still beating heart of the murdered Zagreus-Dionysus.

Demeter belongs to the class of the kabiria (kabir, kabiri): "beneficent Entities who, symbolized in Prometheus, brought light to the world, and endowed humanity with intellect and reason" (SD 2:363), great beings to whom are credited the invention of the arts of peace -- letters and the alphabet, law, philosophy, science, art, architecture, music, spinning, weaving, and agriculture.

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

Teth teith (Hebrew) The ninth letter of the Hebrew alphabet, standing for the number nine. In the Qabbalah, used as a symbolic device for the cosmic intelligent electric force, in theosophy called fohat, "whose symbol is the serpent which played such a prominent part in the Mysteries. Its universal value is nine, . . . and the ninth door of the fifty portals or gateways that lead to the concealed mysteries of being" (SD 1:76).

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

Masonry Operative masonry, the art of building in stone; speculative and emblematic Freemasonry, called such since 1717 when four English Lodges of operative masons established the Grand Lodge of England of Speculative and Emblematic Freemasonry, so called because building materials, tools, and instruments are symbolically and analogically used in the building of the universe and of man as a temple enshrining a god.

Originally, however, among the ancient Masons, and today throughout the Orient "wherever magic and the wisdom-religion are studied, its practitioners and students are known among their craft as Builders -- for they build the temple of knowledge, of secret science. Those of the adepts who are active, are styled practical or operative Builders, while the students, or neophytes are classed as speculative or theoretical. The former exemplify in works their control over the forces of inanimate as well as animate nature; the latter are but perfecting themselves in the rudiments of the sacred science" (IU 2:392).

Modern Freemasonry includes many Rites and Degrees, all the so-called higher degrees being based upon the three fundamental craft degrees -- 1) Entered Apprentice; 2) Fellow Craft; and 3) Master Mason -- which degrees alone comprise true Masonic secrets and have any valid claim to descent from ancient Masonry. The lessons or keynotes of these three degrees are respectively 1) ethical, to subdue the passions; 2) intellectual, the training of the mind, the seven liberal arts and sciences, and the mounting of the stairway of wisdom; and 3) spiritual, the conquest of death. The lessons in each degree are enforced and illustrated by appropriate symbols and allegories. The central theme of modern Masonry is the building of King Solomon's Temple; the death of Hiram Abif and the consequent loss of the Word; the raising of Hiram Abif, and the communication of a Substitute Word.

"Modern Masonry is undeniably the dim and hazy reflection of primeval Occult Masonry, of the teaching of those divine Masons who established the Mysteries of the prehistoric and prediluvian Temples and Initiation, raised by truly superhuman Builders" (SD III 165).

"The Temple was the last European secret organization which, as a body, had in its possession some of the mysteries of the East. True, there were in the past century (and perhaps still are) isolated 'Brothers' faithfully and secretly working under the direction of Eastern Brotherhoods. But these, when they did belong to European societies, invariably joined them for objects unknown to the Fraternity, though at the same time for the benefit of the latter. It is through them that modern Masons have all they know of importance; and the similarity now found between the Speculative Rites of antiquity, the mysteries of the Essences, Gnostics, and the Hindus, and the highest and oldest of the Masonic degrees well prove the fact. . . .

"Freedom of intellectual thought and the restoration of one and universal religion was their secret object" (IU 2:380, 382).

"The simple truth is that modern Masonry is a sadly different thing from what the once universal secret fraternity was . . ." and "the time has come to remodel Masonry and restore those ancient landmarks, borrowed from the early sodalities, which the eighteenth century founders of speculative Freemasonry meant to have incorporated in the fraternity" (IU 2:387, 377).

Freemasonry in fact was started as a minor theosophical movement as also were the original Order of the Temple, and the Rosicrucian Order, each of which was designed with the purpose of keeping alive in the outer world as far as the times permitted a knowledge of the ancient wisdom-teachings.

(See also: Masonry , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Mystagogy [from Greek mystes an initiated person + agogos a conductor]

Initiation into the Mysteries; also the teachings and practices of the Mysteries. The initiator was a mystagog.

(See also: Mystagogy , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Okhal (Arab.). The "High"priest of the Druzes, an Initiator into their mysteries.

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

Trikaya (Sanskrit) Lit., three bodies, or forms. This is a most abstruse teaching which, however, once understood, explains the mystery of every triad or trinity, and is a true key to every three-fold metaphysical symbol. In its most simple and comprehensive form it is found in the human Entity in its triple division into spirit, soul, and body, and in the universe, regarded pantheistically, as a unity composed of a Deific, purely spiritual Principle, Supernal Beings - its direct rays  -  and Humanity.

The origin of this is found in the teachings of the pre historic Wisdom Religion, or Esoteric Philosophy. The grand Pantheistic ideal, of the unknown and unknowable Essence being transformed first into subjective, and then into objective matter, is at the root of all these triads and triplets.

Thus we find in philosophical Northern Buddhism

(1)  Adi-Buddha (or Primordial Universal Wisdom) ;

(2)  the Dhyani-Buddhas (or Bodhisattvas);

(3)  the Manushi (Human) Buddhas.

In European conceptions we find the same: God, Angels and Humanity symbolized theologically by the God-Man. The Brahmanical Trimurti and also the three-fold body of Shiva, in Shaivism, have both been conceived on the same basis, if not altogether running on the lines of Esoteric teachings. Hence, no wonder if one finds this conception of the triple body - or the vestures of Nirmanakaya, Sambhogakaya and Dharmakaya, the grandest of the doctrines of Esoteric Philosophy -  accepted in a more or less disfigured form by every religious sect, and explained quite incorrectly by the Orientalists.

Thus, in its general application, the three-fold body symbolizes Buddha’s statue, his teachings and his stupas ; in the priestly conceptions it applies to the Buddhist profession of faith called the Triratna, which is the formula of taking "refuge in Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha". Popular fancy makes Buddha ubiquitous, placing him thereby on a par with an anthropomorphic god, and lowering him to the level of a tribal deity; and, as a result, it falls into flat contradictions, as in Tibet and China.

Thus the exoteric doctrine seems to teach that while in his Nirma kaya body (which passed through 100,000 kotis of transformations on earth), he, Buddha, is at the same time a Lochana (a heavenly Dhyani-Bodhisattva), in his Sambhogakaya "robe of absolute completeness", and in Dhyana, or a state which must cut him off from the world and all its connections; and finally and lastly he is, besides being a Nirmanakaya and a Sambhogakaya, also a Dharmakaya "of absolute purity", a Vairotchana or Dhyani-Buddha in full Nirvana! (See Eitel’s Sanskrit-Chinese Dictionary.)

This is the jumble of contradictions, impossible to reconcile, which is given out by missionaries and certain Orientalists as the philosophical dogmas of Northern Buddhism. If not an intentional confusion of a philosophy dreaded by the upholders of a religion based on inextricable contradictions and guarded "mysteries", then it is the product of ignorance. As the Trailokya, the Trikaya, and the Triratna are the three aspects of the same conceptions, and have to be, so to say, blended in one, the subject is further explained under each of these terms. (See also in this relation the term " Trisharana".)

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

Curetes Kouretes (Greek) The priests in the Mysteries of Rhea Cybele in Crete, and in Classical mythology daemons or demigods to whom Cybele entrusted the infant Zeus. Identified with the kabiri, who belong to the septenary creative groups of dhyan-chohans which incarnated in the elect of the third and fourth root-races -- Zeus is said to be the god of the fourth race (SD 2:360, 766, 776).

In connection with the Mysteries of Cybele in Crete, initiation in the temples of the Curetes was extremely arduous, lasting a lunar month (27 days), during which the initiant was left by himself in a crypt, undergoing the severest kind of tests; Pythagoras is stated to have successfully undergone initiation in these rites (TG 91).

(See also: Curetes, Kouretes , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Bee(Bees) Greek and Roman writers, having in mind the terminology of the Mysteries, used the term bees (melissai) to denote both priestesses and women disciples. Thus it was used for the priestesses of Delphi and other Mysteries, and by the Neoplatonists for pure and chaste persons. Honey and nectar are symbols of wisdom.

Vergil says that bees have a portion of the divine mind, from which aethereal particles stream, and that divinity permeates the whole earth so that all beings draw from it the streams of life (Georgics 4, 320). The spiritual or monadic consciousness (the nous) manifests itself in innumerable ways, and this same consciousness is in man. A little later Vergil says that bees are born from the carcass of a slain bullock or bull.

The bull or cow is a symbol of the moon, and the moon has always stood as a symbol of the psychic intelligence or lower human mind; thus the meaning is that out of his perfectly subordinated ("slain") bull -- the lunar body or psychic nature -- is born the "bee" of the disciple, the will and the urge to enter into the solar life or the spirit. In the Finnish mythology of the Kalevala, a bee is the messenger between this world and higher realms. In Scandinavian mythology bees again play an important part with the world tree (Yggdrasil).

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

ANASTASIS

The resurrection of Osiris in the mysteries.

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

Axieros, Axiokersa, Axiokersos, (Greek) Also Aschieros, Achiosera, Achiochersus. In ancient Greek mythology, three divinities whose Mysteries and worship were mainly centered in Samothrace. With Kadmilos, often said to be their parent, they were the kabiri (cf Chaldean gibbor, Hebrew geber beings of power or might, the great ones)

. Frequently Axieros, Axiokersa, and Axiokersos are stated to be the offspring of Hephaestus or Vulcan, the fiery flame of creative cosmic intellect or mahat. The kabiri are equivalent to the four kumaras of Hindu literature -- Sanat-kumara, Sananda, Sanaka, and Sanatana. The functions of both groups was as guardians, guides, inspirers, bringers of illumination and prosperity; and, in the kosmic sense, as divinities intimately involved in the intelligent productive energies of nature. Their number is the same as that of the kosmic elements -- four, occasionally five, and in reality seven or ten. The four named above are the lower quaternary of the kosmic septenary -- those divinities most closely involved in the intelligent building and architectural construction and therefore government of the four lower cosmic planes.

In connection with man, the kabiri are the four lower classes of spiritual entities otherwise known as pitris, kumaras, and agnishvattas -- all children of kosmic mahat. These divinities, although minor gods compared with the twelve great gods, were nevertheless held in the highest veneration particularly by those who were initiated into their Mysteries. Herodotus speaks of them and their functions with great reserve, but refers to them as being fire gods -- which they were because cosmically representing the divine powers of the creative intellectual fire which in humanity works in similar fashion as the intellectual fire- or solar pitris. Their human influence is connected directly with manas and buddhi-manas.

(See also: Axieros, Axiokersa, Axiokersos , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

A Theosophical definition of Christos :

Christos

(Greek) Christos or "Christ" is a word literally signifying one who has been "anointed." This is a direct reference, a direct allusion, to what happened during the celebration of the ancient Mysteries. Unction or anointing was one of the acts performed during the working of the rites of those ancient Mysteries in the countries surrounding the Mediterranean Sea. The Hebrew word for an anointed one is mashiahh  - "messiah" is a common way of misspelling the Hebrew word  - meaning exactly the same thing as the Greek word Christos.

Each human being is an incarnation, an imbodiment, of a ray of his own inner god  - the divinity living in the core of the core of each one. The modern Christians of a mystical bent of mind call it the Christ Immanent, the immanent Christos, and they are right as far as they go, but they do not carry the thought far enough. Mystically speaking, the Christos is the deathless individuality; and when the striving personal ego becomes united permanently with this stainless individuality, the resultant union is the higher ego, "the living Christ"  - a Christ among men, or as the Buddhists would say, a human or manushya-buddha.

See also: Christos , Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul

Astrology Universal analogy provides a key to occult mysteries by studying the nature and motions of the celestial orbs. The heavenly bodies are in essence gods, and the influence they shed is the aura which likewise emanates from all living beings. Ancient astrology taught the absolute solidarity of the universe and of everything within it as an organic entity so that the operations and motions of the celestial bodies and influences flowing forth from them governed or regulated all subordinate beings over which their sway fell.

 The seven sacred planets are correlated with the cosmic and human septenates; learning the natures of these planets provides one key to an understanding of the natures of their correspondences. By their motions they measure cycles and determine epochs. Every being, if we reckon its life cycle, is an event; its nature, its destiny, is shown if we know and can define the epoch of its birth.

Thus the adept, in proportion to his skill, can interpret the past and estimate what is to come; he can define the interrelations of things and arrive at an understanding of the structure of macrocosms and microcosms, which are spread out alike in time and space. "Astrology is a science as infallible as astronomy itself, with the condition, however, that its interpreters must be equally infallible; and it is this condition, sine qua non, so very difficult of realization, that has always proved a stumbling-block to both.

Astrology is to exact astronomy what psychology is to exact physiology. In astrology and psychology one has to step beyond the visible world of matter, and enter into the domain of transcendent spirit" (IU 1:259).

Astrology therefore embraces a science of vast scope, permitting of studies which range from the sublime to the trivial, from the most spacious to the most confined. If astronomy concerns itself with the physical constitution of the celestial bodies, astrology concerns itself especially with what might be called the reasons rather than the mere laws of the universe. Considered in its largest aspect, it includes the entire universe and every being or thing, not only on the physical plane but even more so on the invisible or causal planes -- the physical plane being merely the consequence of the actions and operations of the lives and forces residing in the invisible worlds.

Astrology today is an impaired legacy from Greece and Rome through the medieval art, elaborated by the speculative industry of modern students; and that same medieval astrology was itself no more than a decayed scion of the ancient stock. Modern astrology is too often cultivated in a spirit which binds us to our personality or caters to frivolous curiosity. To the merest tyro, however, it soon becomes evident that the planets cause or indicate character and events; what use the individual makes of this knowledge depends on the motives with which it is sought. Anxiety about personal fate, the desire for influence and notoriety, the need for earning a living, or even knowledge for its own sake -- such motives will qualify his attainments in proportion to the scope of the sphere to which he limits himself. As the old saying attests, the stars impel, they do not compel.

Four branches of astrology are now chiefly studied: 1) mundane, applying to meteorology, seismology, husbandry, etc.; 2) state or civic, regarding the future of nations and rulers; 3) horary, solving doubts arising on any subject; and 4) genethliacal, concerned with the future of individuals from birth to death.

Blavatsky wrote that astrology is the "science which defines the action of celestial bodies upon mundane affairs, and claims to foretell future events from the positions of the stars. Its antiquity is such as to place it among the very earliest records of human learning. It remained for long ages a secret science in the East, and its final expression remains so to this day, its exoteric application only having been brought to any degree of perfection in the West during the lapse of time since Varaha Mihira wrote his book on Astrology, some 1400 years ago. Claudius Ptolemy, the famous geographer and mathematician, founded the system of astronomy known under his name, wrote his Tetrabiblos which is still the basis of modern Astrology in 135 AD . . .

As to the origin of the science, it is known on the one hand that Thebes claimed the honour of the invention of Astrology; whereas, on the other hand, all are agreed that it was the Chaldees who taught that science to the other nations. . . . If later on the name of Astrologer fell into disrepute in Rome and elsewhere, it was owing to the frauds of those who wanted to make money of that which was part and parcel of the Sacred Science of the Mysteries, and who, ignorant of the latter, evolved a system based entirely on mathematics, instead of transcendental metaphysics with the physical celestial bodies as its upadhi or material basis.

Yet, all persecutions notwithstanding, the number of adherents to Astrology among the most intellectual and scientific minds was always very great. If Cardan and Kepler were among its ardent supporters, then later votaries have nothing to blush for, even in its now imperfect and distorted form" (Key 318-19).

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

Pyramid

• To dream of pyramids, denotes that many changes will come to you.
• If you scale them, you will journey along before you find the gratification of desires. For the young woman, it prognosticates a husband who is in no sense congenial.
• To dream that you are studying the mystery of the ancient pyramids, denotes that you will develop a love for the mysteries of nature, and you will become learned and polished.

Source: 10 000 Dream Interpretations, by Gustavus Hindman Miller

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