Yogi yogin (Sanskrit) Feminine yogini. A devotee who practices a full yoga system; the yogi state is that which, "when reached, makes the practitioner thereof absolute master of his six 'principles,' he now being merged in the seventh. It gives him full control, owing to his knowledge of Self and Self, over his bodily, intellectual and mental states, which, unable any longer to interfere with, or act upon, his Higher Ego, leave it free to exist in its original, pure, and divine state" (TG 381).

More commonly, a practitioner of one or more various subordinate branches of yoga. There are many grades and kinds of yogis, and the term has become in India a generic name for every kind of ascetic. "In some cases, yogins are men who strive in various ways to conquer the body and physical temptations, for instance by torture of the body.

They also study more or less some of the magnificent philosophical teachings of India coming down from far-distant ages of the past; but mere mental study will not make a man a Mahatma, nor will any torture of the body bring about the spiritual vision -- the Vision Sublime" (OG 183).

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A Theosophical definition of Gods :

Gods

The old pantheons were builded upon an ancient and esoteric wisdom which taught, under the guise of a public mythology, profound secrets of the structure and operations of the universe which surrounds us. The entire human race has believed in gods, has believed in beings superior to men; the ancients all said that men are the "children" of these gods, and that from these superior beings, existent in the azure spaces, men draw all that in them is; and, furthermore, that men themselves, as children of the gods, are in their inmost essence divine beings linked forever with the boundless universe of which each human being, just as is the case with every other entity everywhere, is an inseparable part. This is a truly sublime conception.

One should not think of human forms when the theosophist speaks of the gods; we mean the arupa  - the "formless"  - entities, beings of pure intelligence and understanding, relatively pure essences, relatively pure spirits, formless as we physical humans conceive form. The gods are the higher inhabitants of nature. They are intrinsic portions of nature itself, for they are its informing principles. They are as much subject to the wills and energies of still higher beings  - call these wills and energies the "laws" of higher beings, if you will  - as we are, and as are the kingdoms of nature below us.

The ancients put realities, living beings, in the place of laws which, as Occidentals use the term, are only abstractions  - an expression for the action of entities in nature; the ancients did not cheat themselves so easily with words. They called them gods, spiritual entities. Not one single great thinker of the ancients, until the Christian era, ever talked about laws of nature, as if these laws were living entities, as if these abstractions were actual entities which did things. Did the laws of navigation ever navigate a ship? Does the law of gravity pull the planets together? Does it unite or pull the atoms together? This word laws is simply a mental abstraction signifying unerring action of conscious and semi-conscious energies in nature.

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A Theosophical definition of Dhyana :

Dhyana

(Sanskrit) A term signifying profound spiritualintellectual contemplation with utter detachment from all objects of a sensuous and lower mental character. In Buddhism it is one of the six paramitas of perfection.

One who is adept or expert in the practice of dhyana, which by the way is a wonderful spiritual exercise if the proper idea of it be grasped, is carried in thought entirely out of all relations with the material and merely psychological spheres of being and of consciousness, and into lofty spiritual planes. Instead of dhyana being a subtraction from the elements of consciousness, it is rather a throwing off or casting aside of the crippling sheaths of ethereal matter which surround the consciousness, thus allowing the dhyanin, or practicer of this form of true yoga, to enter into the highest parts of his own constitution and temporarily to become at one with and, therefore, to commune with the gods.

It is a temporary becoming at one with the upper triad of man considered as a septenary, in other words, with his monadic essence. Man's consciousness in this state or condition becomes purely buddhi, or rather buddhic, with the highest parts of the manas acting as upadhi or vehicle for the retention of what the consciousness therein experiences. From this term is drawn the phrase dhyani-chohans or dhyani-buddhas  - words so frequently used in theosophical literature and so frequently misconceived as to their real meaning. (See also Samadhi)

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SOUTH, MARY ANNE

Born in England, 1817. By marriage, became Mrs. Mary Anne Atwood. Author of A Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Mystery, 1850. This is the book that enlightened Israel Regardie, once he had decided to plough through its opacities until by dint of sheer concentration he should finally fathom the secret of alchemy. No doubt, however, it was Regardie's simultaneous study of Jung's Commentary on the Golden Flower, that provided the key. Mrs. Atwood and her father were dedicated scholars of the occult who got cold feet once A Suggestive Inquiry was published and they tried to prevent its distribution. They felt that its secrets must not be made public.

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A Theosophical definition of Heaven and Hell :

Heaven and Hell

Every ancient exoteric religion taught that the so-called heavens are divided into steps or grades of ascending bliss and purity; and the so-called hells into steps or grades of increasing purgation or suffering. Now the esoteric doctrine or occultism teaches that the one is not a punishment, nor is the other strictly speaking a reward.

The teaching is, simply, that each entity after physical death is drawn to the appropriate sphere to which the karmic destiny of the entity and the entity's own character and impulses magnetically attract it. As a man works, as a man sows, in his life, that and that only shall he reap after death. Good seed produces good fruit; bad seed, tares  - and perhaps even nothing of value or of spiritual use follows a negative and colorless life.

After the second death, the human monad "goes" to devachan  - often called in theosophical literature the heaven-world. There are many degrees in devachan: the highest, the intermediate, and the lowest.

What becomes of the entity, on the other hand, the lower human soul, that is so befouled and weighted with earth thought and the lower instincts that it cannot rise? There may be enough in it of the spirit nature to hold it together as an entity and enable it to become a reincarnating being, but it is foul, it is heavy; its tendency is consequently downwards. Can it therefore rise into a heavenly felicity? Can it go even into the lower realms of devachan and there enjoy its modicum of the beatitude, bliss, of everything that is noble and beautiful? No. There is an appropriate sphere for every degree of development of the ego-soul, and it gravitates to that sphere and remains there until it is thoroughly purged, until the sin has been washed out, so to say.

These are the so-called hells, beneath even the lowest ranges of devachan; whereas the arupa heavens are the highest parts of the devachan. Nirvana is a very different thing from the heavens. (See also Kama-Loka, Avichi, Devachan, Nirvana)

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Horsusi. See HARPOCRATES; HORUS

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HEAVEN

The positive spiral. The condition of the world as seen through the lens of mysticism or magic mushroom. All infinite connections bespeak a shimmering reflection of the holomovement in the individual points of light. The celestial nature of the lesser worlds is clearly seen to sparkle all the way through to their deepest, richest interiors.

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A Theosophical definition of Buddhism :

Buddhism

The teachings of Gautama the Buddha. Buddhism today is divided into two branches, the Northern and the Southern. The Southern still retains the teachings of the "Buddha's brain," the "eye doctrine," that is to say his outer philosophy for the general world, sometimes inadequately called the doctrine of forms and ceremonies. The Northern still retains his "heart doctrine"  - that which is hid, the inner life, the heart-blood, of the religion: the doctrine of the inner heart of the teaching.

The religious philosophy of the Buddha-Sakyamuni is incomparably nearer to the ancient wisdom, the esoteric philosophy of the archaic ages, than is Christianity. Its main fault today is that teachers later than the Buddha himself carried its doctrines too far along merely formal or exoteric lines; yet, with all that, to this day it remains the purest and holiest of the exoteric religions on earth, and its teachings even exoterically are true  - once they are properly understood. They need but the esoteric key in interpretation of them. As a matter of fact, the same may be said of all the great ancient world religions. Christianity, Brahmanism, Taoism, and others all have the same esoteric wisdom behind the outward veil of the exoteric formal faith. See: exoteric. esoteric

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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.

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EVOLUTION

For the past hundred years or more a war has been going on in academic circles between the theory of evolution and the belief in Creation. Darwinian evolution, however, must not be applied to history. Nor must we think of Creation as anything less than ongoing at all times, including the present moment.

Every plant, every animal, even matter itself is conscious, not merely sentient. Consciousness, however, assumes many modalities, each having the same goal, which is self-transcendance. The difference between an elephant and a fly is not that the one is more conscious or transcending than the other, but that the fly's attention is focused and fixed, whereas the elephant's is generalized and reprogrammable for adapting to new circumstances. Everything is creatively evolving upward in an infinite spiral. All Being necessarily undergoes many transitions and existence must encompass all experience.

Ultra-Darwinist theories no longer see biological evolution as "survival of the fittest" nor as random happenstance. Alien cells tend, if given time, to merge cooperatively with their host. Variations of species are not preceded by steps, but by quantum "leaps" (punctuations) that suggest recognition of environmental exigencies and co-evolutionary trends. There is also macro-evolution. The entire world is approaching its own evolutionary acme (Moksha). When the Bodhi-culmination transpires, Nirvana will become available to all.

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IMMORTALITY

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

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A Theosophical definition of Avidya :

Avidya

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

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A Theosophical definition of Clairaudience :

Clairaudience

In its largest sense Clairaudience means simply "clear-hearing." True clairaudience is a spiritual faculty, the faculty of the inner spiritual ear, of which the psychical clairaudience is but a distorted and therefore deceptive reflection; neither is it hearing with the physical ear, so imperfect and undeveloped a sensory organ as the latter is. The power to hear with the inner ear enables you to hear anything you will, and at whatever distance, whether on Mars, or on the Sun, or on the Moon, or on Jupiter, or perhaps even on some distant star, or easily anywhere on Earth.

Having this spiritual clairaudience, you can hear the grass grow, and that hearing will be to you like a symphonic musical poem. You can hear the celestial orbs singing their songs as they advance along their orbits through space, because everything that is, is in movement, producing sound, simple or composite as the case may be.

Thus in very truth every tiny atom sings its own note, and every composite entity, therefore, is an imbodied musical poem, a musical symphony. (See also Music of the Spheres)

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TRINITY, CHRISTIAN

The Trinity derives from the Neoplatonic, Gnostic understandings of ancient philosophy in which 3 basic facts prevail:

a) There is one Immutable, Ineffable, Pre-manifestational Reality.

b)  Everything is periodic or cyclic.

c) The cosmos is a hologram in which each  part is a reflection of the whole.

These 3 facts are symbolized in Hinduism by Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva; in Egypt by the Uas, the Ank and the Djed and in Xtianity by "Father, Son and Holy Ghost." In my own system, I sometimes refer to them symbolically as Abraxas, Khronos and Isis.

Spiritus Sanctus est Spiritus in Materia. Id Est Aqua Hydor Theon Hypostatis Metres. The sanctified spirit is that which has been made into matter, that is put into water. Mary impregnated by the Holy Ghost is just another way of saying that many are conceived naturally. To be baptized is to be born into the body, i.e., to manifest.

Speaking out of the "Holy Ghost," which is apparently what all masses, communions, oblations and sacrifices refer to, any sexual act itself joins or reaffirms the "hologram" to the Unity. In the embrace of another, the Holy Ghost re-connects, in a physical way, its separations. The two, formerly separate and opposed, have created a third thing, which is their union. (What happens on the physical level is simple reproduction and is of no metaphysical concern, except insofar as it paralyzes spiritual "reproduction"). The Xtians prefer to do all this symbolically, what with their "brides of Christ" and all. Moreover, when we speak of Mary as "conceived by the Holy Ghost," we simply mean metaphorically that she has conceived "naturally." The Satanists, therefore, assume (incorrectly) that overt, gross public copulation or multiple orgies constitute a defilement of Christ, when in fact, the Son is hardly involved with sex at any level and the Holy Ghost, actually, is exalted by "publicity." The true "sin against the Holy Ghost" is not blasphemy per se, but commercial advertising (including Church propaganda) or special interest exploitation which seeks to use, abuse, pollute, destroy, subvert or pervert the unity, ecology or collective holo-mind/body/spirit of the world for the sake of personal, private gain.

The "sacrifice of the child" -- that is, not the actual, living child, but merely the protoplasm of conception --which is what takes place in redirected or deferred heterosexual orgasm (can we refer to this as "tantric" sex?) should be especially appealing to us in today's crisis of pathological Mega-Birth. That is, it has much needed Neo-Catharist overtones. But the creation of a Moonchild (described by Crowley, Grant, Parsons, et al.) would apparently be the opposite goal, resulting in the "psychic foetus" of an astral entity.

We mustn't overlook the meaning of homosexuality and masturbation, however, since these lead to culminations without any question of issue from outset, and so, constitute refinements on sex magick. Grant, in his Nightside of Eden says that the "qliphotic" version of Arcanum XIII, "Death," is sodomy. In other words, sex which avoids the production of life is absolutely restricted to physical re-union of Self with Other. And the only other "physical" way we can "reunite" is to pass through the gates of Death. Thus heterosexual "tantric" sex and homosexuality are exactly the same thing so far as the physical plane goes. The union of homosexuality, however, extends beyond Eros into brotherhood and thus is closer to the "spirit" of the "Holy Ghost."

Since the union of self with other is specifically what we're concerned with, masturbation would seem to be pointless until we recall that the purpose of union is not orgasm. Orgasm merely affirms the authenticity of the union. Whether the "other" is another person (or thing!) or one's own body, scarcely matters. Mind and body are reunited in all cases. The physical is simply the mirror of the spiritual. For the solitary union of self with other, the orgasm is not just the ultimate and most subtle link, its the only link between the physical and spiritual planes. As a device for astral impregnation, moonchildren aside, masturbation obviously ought to be considerably more effective than sex with a physical partner (provided it doesn't degenerate into sense-gratification). But as a substitute for "transcendental sodomy" it is much less satisfactory.

Finally, I'm bound to say that those who have closed and forever locked the sexual door may still be able to unite self and other in a number of asexual, exotic and abstract ways, some of which may have a certain limited but unique value.

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MYSTERY

From Gk. myein, "to keep the mouth shut". Mysteries are occult truths to be deliberately kept from the uninitiated. "Swine" is a metaphor for the uninitiated. And we are warned not to "cast pearls" before them or at least not to manifest the unmanifest idly. To Keep Silent is perhaps the most important of the tetramorphic commands.

There is a practical reason for keeping silent about private or creative projects, especially while they're still in the planning stage. Any talking about a plan will be a talking out of it, because talking is an action of it own and automatically substitutes for physical action. Those poets and novelists who hang out in coffee shops engaging one another in endless serious discussions should hardly be surprised when they return to their silent rooms only to find they have nothing left over to put on paper!

Plans must also be hidden until the moment comes to act or others will interfere with them.

It has been said that the wise man speaks in riddles as much as possible. Enlightenment is best expressed through ritual, works of art, joking and exotic behavior, rather than through actual messages in so many explicit terms. Esoteric words are used to ensure that the seeker can understand only if he has reached a certain level on his own. For example, to convince an ignorant person that he is a God would be to unleash not merely an intolerable egotism but could even trigger overt psychopathic behavior. The greatest truths are multi-dimensional life-long fonts of revelation, disclosing themselves to successive stages of understanding, little by little, in keeping with one's experiences.

But throughout all of this, notice that the command is "Silence" and not isolation. It is permissible to read and write books at any level, because the reader can exercise selectivity and can stop and start wherever he chooses at the writer's "silent" words on paper (or vidscreen). One is always a captive audience of the spoken word, whereas to read is an outgoing, positive activity taking place in total freedom. Therefore, the reader has proved, by virtue of his persistence and attentionality that he is entitled to instruction - having found the tree he is allowed to extract its fruit. Then, having tasted, he will discover for himself whether or not it is life-sustaining.

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A Theosophical definition of Infinite :

Infinite

A term meaning that which is not finite. The expression is used sometimes with almost absurd inaccuracy, and is one which in all probability representing as it does imperfect understanding could never be found in any of the great religious or philosophical systems of the ancients. Occidental writers of the past and present often use the word infinite as applying to beings or entities, such as in the expression "an infinite personal deity"  - a ludicrous joining of contradictory and disparate words. The ancients rejected the phantom idea that this term involves, and used instead expressions such as the Boundless, or the Frontierless, or the Endless, whether speaking of abstract space or abstract time  - the latter more properly called unending duration. (See also Absolute)

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NEW AGE

The current renaissance of mystical awareness, beginning circa 1968 and now largely given over to commercial enterprises designed to take advantage of a phenomenal growth of popular interest in the occult. Proper term should be "New Aeon."

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CROSS

Ancient symbol, far predating Xtianity, and taking many forms, such as the swastika and the Egyptian Ankh. It symbolizes, amongst many other things, centrality and the union of male and female in divine conjunction. When circled it symbolizes the earth and serves as an apotropaic. Most of the associations attributed by the Galileans to the cross of their crucified god have been lifted over the centuries from concurrent pagan sources.

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CHRISTIAN, PAUL

French occultist (1811-1877), best known for his Histoire de la Magie (1870). He regarded the "Book of Thoth" as containing, in its 22 arcana, "The Science of Will, the principle of all wisdom and the source of all power."

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A Theosophical definition of Elemental (Elementals) :

Elemental (Elementals)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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A Theosophical definition of Planetary Chain :

Planetary Chain

Every kosmic body or globe, be it sun or planet, nebula or comet, atom or electron, is a composite entity formed of or comprised of inner and invisible energies and substances and of an outer, to us, and often visible, to us, physical vehicle or body. These elements all together number seven (or twelve), being what is called in theosophy the seven principles or elements of every self-contained entity; in other words, of every individual life-center.

Thus every one of the physical globes that we see scattered over the fields of space is accompanied by six invisible and superior globes, forming what in theosophy is called a chain. This is the case with every sun or star, with every planet, and with every moon of every planet. It is likewise the case with the nebulae and the comets as above stated: all are septiform entities, all have a sevenfold constitution, even as man has, who is a copy in the little of what the universe is in the great, there being for us one life in that universe, one natural system of "laws" in that universe. Every entity in the universe is an inseparable part of it; therefore what is in the whole is in every part, because the part cannot contain anything that the whole does not contain, the part cannot be greater than the whole.

Our own earth-chain is composed of seven (or twelve) globes, of which only one, our earth, is visible on this our earth plane to our physical sense apparatus, because that apparatus is builded or rather evolved to cognize this earth plane and none other. But the populations of all the seven (or twelve) globes of this earth-chain pass in succession, and following each other, from globe to globe, thus gaining experience of energy and matter and consciousness on all the various planes and spheres that this chain comprises.

The other six (or eleven) globes of our earth-chain are invisible to our physical sense, of course; and, limiting our explanation only to the manifest seven globes of the complete chain of twelve globes, the six globes other and higher than the earth exist two by two, on three planes of the solar system superior to our physical plane where our earth-globe is  - this our earth. These three superior planes or worlds are each one superior to the world or plane immediately beneath or inferior to it.

Our earth-globe is the fourth and lowest of all the manifest seven globes of our earth-chain. Three globes precede it on the descending or shadowy arc, and three globes follow it on the ascending or luminous arc of evolution. The Secret Doctrine by H. P. Blavatsky and the more recent work, Fundamentals of the Esoteric Philosophy (1932), contain most suggestive material for the student interested in this phase of the esoteric philosophy. (See also Ascending Arc)

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A Theosophical definition of Hermetic Chain :

Hermetic Chain

Among the ancient Greeks there existed a mystical tradition of a chain of living beings, one end of which included the divinities in their various grades or stages of divine authority and activities, and the other end of which ran downwards through inferior gods and heroes and sages to ordinary men, and to the beings below man.

Each link of this living chain of beings inspired and instructed the chain below itself, thus transmitting and communicating from link to link to the end of the marvelous living chain, love and wisdom and knowledge concerning the secrets of the universe, eventuating in mankind as the arts and the sciences necessary for human life and civilization. This was mystically called the Hermetic Chain or the Golden Chain.

In the ancient Mysteries the teaching of the existence and nature of the Hermetic Chain was fully explained; it is a true teaching because it represents distinctly and clearly and faithfully true and actual operations of nature. More or less faint and distorted copies of the teaching of this Hermetic Chain or Golden Chain or succession of teachers were taken over by various later formal and exoteric sects, such as the Christian Church, wherein the doctrine was called the Apostolic Succession.

In all the great Mystery schools of antiquity there was this succession of teacher following teacher, each one passing on the light to his successor as he himself had received it from his predecessor; and as long as this transmission of light was a reality, it worked enormous spiritual benefit among men. Therefore all such movements lived, flourished, and did great good in the world. These teachers were the messengers to men from the Great Lodge of the Masters of Wisdom and Compassion. (See also Guru-parampara)

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