E Delphicum The Delphic E, a sacred symbol denoting, among other things, the number 5. It is the fifth letter in the Greek and English alphabets, corresponding to he', the fifth letter in the Hebrew alphabet, which signifies a window and, in the Qabbalah, the human womb.

(See also: E Delphicum, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Guhya-adesa (Sanskrit) (from guhya secret)

Preservation of secrecy in relation to the esoteric doctrines of Hinduism, e.g., the Upanishads. (BCW 6:10)

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

Hotri hotr (Sanskrit) An offerer of an oblation with fire, or burnt offering; hence a sacrificer, a priest. As used in the Rig-Veda, one of the four kinds of officiating priests at a sacrifice: he who invokes the gods by reciting the mantras from the Rig-Veda. In the Anugita the plural is used symbolically for the seven senses, which are represented as being seven priests:

"the senses supply the fire of mind (i.e., desire) with the oblations of external pleasures." Thus these seven are the causes of emancipation (cf TG 146).

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

Grantha (Sanskrit) (from granth to tie, compose)

A tying, binding, stringing together; a verse (particularly one of 32 syllables, i.e., a sloka); a composition, literary production, book -- the ancient Sanskrit manuscript being leaves held together by means of a cord.

The name especially given to the sacred scriptures of the Sikhs. These were originally compiled in 1604 by the fifth Sikh guru, Arjan, and consisted of hymns of the first five gurus and of saints of different religions and castes. In 1705-6 Govindsingh, the tenth and last guru, added the hymns of the ninth guru and enjoined that after him the Grantha would take the place of the guru. The theme of the hymns is the union of the human soul with the divine through transcending of egoism.

(See also: Grand Architect of the Universe, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Hippopotamus In ancient Egypt, a symbol connected with every goddess, especially Rert or Rertu, Apet, and Ta-urt. It was used as a kindly guardian of the dead in the underworld in the Book of the Dead. In a contrary aspect, the monster Am-mit, which appears in the judgment scene, has the hindquarters of a hippopotamus. It represents the horrors and fear of the astral world awaiting the defunct, which spring into life if that person's karma has brought about awakening self-consciousness in kama-loka.

The hippopotamus, the crocodile, and the frog were all either aquatic or amphibious animals, and as all ancient zoocosmology took its figures of speech from the surrounding world, these animals were chosen as symbolic of the early creative action in the waters of space, out of which arose the world. In an equally important sense, however, the hippopotamus has distinct reference to the astral world, and hence so far as the individual is concerned, to the post-mortem peregrination of the latter in kama-loka.

In another aspect the hippopotamus goddess was the female counterpart of Set and the mother of the sun god, whom she brought into the world at Ombos.

"In Egyptian symbolism Typhon was called 'the hippopotamus who slew his father and violated his mother,' Rhea (mother of the gods). His father was Chronos. As applied therefore to Time and Nature (Chronos and Rhea), the accusation becomes comprehensible. The type of Cosmic Disharmony, Typhon, who is also Python, the monster formed of the slime of the Deluge of Deucalion, 'violates' his mother Primordial Harmony, whose beneficence was so great that she was called 'The Mother of the Golden Age.' It was Typhon, who put an end to the latter, i.e., produced the first war of the elements" (TG 142).

In ancient Persia the hippopotamus appears as a symbol in connection with the twelve-legged steed of Hushang. It also appears as a divine symbol in Mexico.

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

Hallucination Commonly, perception of objects without reality or an experience of sensations without external cause, usually thought to arise from a disorder of the nervous system. However, hallucination means something different to an occultist.

"A state produced sometimes by physiological disorders, sometimes by mediumship, and at others by drunkenness. But the cause that produces the visions has to be sought deeper than physiology. All such visions, especially when produced through mediumship, are preceded by a relaxation of the nervous system, invariably generating an abnormal magnetic condition which attracts to the sufferer waves of astral light. It is the latter that furnishes the various hallucinations. These, however, are not always what physicians would make them, empty and unreal dreams. No one can see that which does not exist -- i.e., which is not impressed -- in or on the astral waves.

A Seer may, however, perceive objects and scenes (whether past, present, or future) which have no relation whatever to himself, and also perceive several things entirely disconnected with each other at one and the same time, thus producing the most grotesque and absurd combinations. Both drunkard and Seer, medium and Adept, see their respective visions in the Astral Light; but while the drunkard, the madman, and the untrained medium, or one suffering from brain-fever, see, because they cannot help it, and evoke the jumbled visions unconsciously to themselves, the Adept and the trained Seer have the choice and the control of such visions.

They know where to fix their gaze, how to steady the scenes they want to observe, and how to see beyond the upper outward layers of the Astral Light. With the former such glimpses into the waves are hallucinations: with the latter they become the faithful reproduction of what actually has been, is, or will be, taking place. The glimpses at random caught by the medium, and his flickering visions in the deceptive light, are transformed under the guiding will of the Adept and Seer into steady pictures, the truthful representations of that which he wills to come within the focus of his perception" (TG 133-4).

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

Holy of Holies Equivalent to the Latin Sanctum sanctorum, referring to the sacred place in temples or churches from which all but the chief priest or hierophant were excluded. In pre-Christian times the ancient temples each had its especial sanctuary, in which was placed an altar or receptacle of some kind, be it ark, box, or some similar thing, perhaps even a sarcophagus.

The Holy of Holies in theory was the seat, residence, or sanctuary of the god or goddess to whom the temple had been consecrated; and piety always considered that the divine power was present there. A similar series of ideas clothes the chancel and its contained altar in Christian Churches even today.

The Holy of Holies, however, must not be confused with initiation chambers also contained in many temples and caves of antiquity, in which during the rites of initiation the neophyte entered, was initiated, and thereafter left the sacred precincts as reborn. In ancient Egypt the holy of holies par excellence of this latter type was the King's Chamber in the Great Pyramid; and the coffer there was the sarcophagus used for initiation purposes. The sarcophagus was symbolic of the female principle, as from the feminine principle of nature, as a mother, was born the new "child" or disciple, now become a twice-born. The idea of the twice-born was that the physical birth came from the human mother, while the mystic birth took place from the womb of nature, of which the initiation chamber was the emblem. Hence at a much later date arose the phallic idea of the Jews that the human female womb was the maqom (the place).

Although part of the Hindu ceremonies necessitated a passing through the golden cow, as an emblem of Mother Nature, the neophyte did this in the same stooping position that was done in passing through the gallery in the ancient pyramids of Egypt.

"The ceremony of passing through the Holy of Holies (now symbolized by the cow), in the beginning through the temple Hiranya gharba (the radiant Egg) -- in itself a symbol of Universal, abstract nature -- meant spiritual conception and birth, or rather the re-birth of the individual and his regeneration: the stooping man at the entrance of the Sanctum Sanctorum, ready to pass through the matrix of mother nature, or the physical creature ready to re-become the original spiritual Being, pre-natal Man" (SD 2:469-70).

Holy of Holies has a specific meaning in connection with the Jewish tabernacle, as explained in Exodus, referring to the inner part, the western division of the tabernacle. Three of the sides of the holy place were the walls of the tabernacle itself, while the fourth or eastern end of the sanctum was closed by a curtain or veil -- upon which were the figures of the cherubim -- suspended from four pillars of shittim wood overlaid with gold. The intention was to have this Holy of Holies in the shape of a perfect cube, the length, breath, and height being each ten cubits. In this sanctuary was placed the Ark of the Covenant or Testament, made of shittim wood overlaid with gold.

Upon the Ark was the golden mercy-seat (the kapporeth), also two golden cherubim facing towards the center. Instead of being a "sarcophagus (the symbol of the matrix of Nature and resurrection) as in the Sanctum sanctorum of the pagans, they had the ark made still more realistic in its construction by the two cherubs set up on the coffer or ark of the covenant, facing each other, with their wings spread in such a manner as to form a perfect yoni (as now seen in India). Besides which, this generative symbol had its significance enforced by the four mystic letters of Jehovah's name, namely ; or  meaning Jod (membrum Virile, see Kabala);  (He, the womb);  (Vau, a crook or a hook, a nail), and  again, meaning also 'an opening'; the whole forming the perfect bisexual emblem or symbol or Y(e)H(o)V(a)H, the male and female symbol" (SD 2:460). However, "the worship of the 'god in the ark' dates only from David; and for a thousand years Israel knew of no phallic Jehovah" (SD 2:469).

See also ARK

(See also: Holy Ghost, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

God (Gods) and Goddess (Goddesses) A generalizing term signifying all self-conscious entities superior to humankind, most often restricted to the three dhyani-chohanic kingdoms. The gods have differing places in nature's hierarchical scheme, running through innumerable grades of cosmic intelligences. Theosophy teaches that human beings who successfully reach the seventh round on this earth chain will pass, at the conclusion of this last round, into the kingdom superior to the human, that of the lowest dhyani-chohans.

One function of dhyani-chohans (gods or demigods of a lower type) is the watching over of all hierarchies below them, some being guardians of the human host, others guarding and protecting the less evolved kingdoms. The higher hierarchical ranges of gods or divinities in our universe "are Entities of the higher worlds in the hierarchy of Being, so immeasurably high that, to us, they must appear as Gods, and collectively -- God. . . . To the highest, we are taught, belong the seven orders of the purely divine Spirits; to the six lower ones belong hierarchies that can occasionally be seen and heard by men, and who do communicate with their progeny of the Earth; which progeny is indissoluble linked with them, each principle in man having its direct source in the nature of those great Beings, who furnish us with the respective invisible elements in us" (SD 1:133).

These beings belong to two general divisions, the arupa (formless) and the rupa (form) divinities. Those having forms should not be imagined as necessarily having human forms as in the ancient pantheons, yet rupa gods do have highly ethereal forms, some perhaps resembling the present human shape and others of quite different construction. But the arupa divinities are to our power of imagination "beings of pure intelligence and of understanding, pure essences, pure spirits, formless as we conceive form" (Fund 347).

Tradition has it that in the immemorial past, certain lower gods associated intimately with their children, humanity, on this globe; but as time went by and mankind became more immersed in material pursuits, people grew to become increasingly forgetful of their divine origin and of the presence of the shining divinities instructing and guiding their forebears, so that the gods and demigods were remembered only in mythologies and religious metaphors of the various races.

What did the ancients mean by their gods and goddesses? They were intended to represent the guiding intelligences present within or in back of all invisible secrets, as well as astral and physical manifestations of nature. During the third root-race there were beings who were

"endowed with the sacred fire from the spark of higher and then independent Beings, who were the psychic and spiritual parents of Man, as the lower Pitar Devata (the Pitris) were the progenitors of his physical body. That Third and holy Race consisted of men who, at their zenith, were described as, 'towering giants of godly strength and beauty, and the depositaries of all the mysteries of Heaven and Earth.'. . .

". . . the chief gods and heroes of the Fourth and Fifth Races, as of later antiquity, are the deified images of these men of the Third. The days of their physiological purity, and those of their so-called Fall, have equally survived in the hearts and memories of their descendants. Hence, the dual nature shown in those gods, both virtue and sin being exalted to their highest degree, in the biographies composed by posterity" (SD 2:171-2).

The primeval human deity worship degenerated during the fourth root-race (the Atlantean), the ideal at first becoming confused with the form, and the latter finally almost superseding the spirit -- thus in the relatively complete materialization of idea into form, the later Atlanteans in time began to worship themselves, what was to them the powers of nature appearing through themselves as human beings; the degeneration of the ideal proceeding so far that ultimately the worst kind of idol worship became relatively universal, except for the seed of the newer and somewhat higher mankind of the fifth root-race then beginning.

"The moderns are satisfied with worshipping the male heroes of the Fourth race, who created gods after their own sexual image, whereas the gods of primeval mankind were 'male and female,' " i.e., hermaphrodite (SD 2:135).

See also DEITY

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

Good Friday Anniversary celebration of the alleged physical crucifixion of Jesus Christ, which has a shifting date, varying between the 20th of March and the 23rd of April, the epoch of the Jewish Passover and the spring equinox.

Good Friday and Easter Sunday are a borrowing from the ancient Mysteries -- the mystic death and resurrection of the unconquered sun, exemplified by the mystic death and resurrection of the successful neophyte. This celebration is likewise connected with the winter solstice; the wish of the church authorities to accommodate themselves both to Roman and Jewish customs has caused the festival to be split, so that the birth now is celebrated in winter and the death and the resurrection in spring, whereas birth and resurrection are two words for the same mystic truth.

Even in the dogmatic and somewhat mechanical Christian celebration of these originally pagan mysteries, Friday is the day of Venus, a prototype of the organ of the gnostic individuality; Saturday is the day of Saturn, a prototype of the guardian in ancient mystical occultism of the initiatory Ring-pass-not; and Sunday, the day of the rising or resurrection, is the day of the sun, giver of life and light.

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

Guhya-adesa (Sanskrit) (from guhya secret)

Preservation of secrecy in relation to the esoteric doctrines of Hinduism, e.g., the Upanishads. (BCW 6:10)

(See also: Guhya-adesa, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Hotri hotr (Sanskrit) An offerer of an oblation with fire, or burnt offering; hence a sacrificer, a priest. As used in the Rig-Veda, one of the four kinds of officiating priests at a sacrifice: he who invokes the gods by reciting the mantras from the Rig-Veda. In the Anugita the plural is used symbolically for the seven senses, which are represented as being seven priests:

"the senses supply the fire of mind (i.e., desire) with the oblations of external pleasures." Thus these seven are the causes of emancipation (cf TG 146).

(See also: Hotri hotr, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Ens (Latin) (from esse to be, being)

According to scholastic philosophy, being in the most abstract sense, not necessarily existent, requiring the addition of a category to yield reality. Equivalent to the Greek ousia (essence), the essential nature of a thing; or the Hindu sat. In alchemy, an extract containing the essential qualities of a substance; e.g., primum ens melissae (the spirit of balm).

Used for the real or spiritual presence in universal nature, as signifying the Ever-being or Ever-existing.

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

Grantha (Sanskrit) (from granth to tie, compose)

A tying, binding, stringing together; a verse (particularly one of 32 syllables, i.e., a sloka); a composition, literary production, book -- the ancient Sanskrit manuscript being leaves held together by means of a cord.

The name especially given to the sacred scriptures of the Sikhs. These were originally compiled in 1604 by the fifth Sikh guru, Arjan, and consisted of hymns of the first five gurus and of saints of different religions and castes. In 1705-6 Govindsingh, the tenth and last guru, added the hymns of the ninth guru and enjoined that after him the Grantha would take the place of the guru. The theme of the hymns is the union of the human soul with the divine through transcending of egoism.

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

`Eyn Soph (Hebrew) Also Ain Soph, Ayn Soph, Eyn Suph, Ein Soph, etc. No-thing, the negatively existent one, or the no-thing of space corresponding closely in some respects to the mystical sunyata of Mahayana Buddhism. Used in the Qabbalah for that which is above Kether or Macroprosopus, i.e., no-thing.

"It is so named because we do not know, and it is impossible to know, that which there is in this Principle, because it never descends as far as our ignorance and because it is above Wisdom itself" (Zohar iii, 288b).

Strictly speaking, 'eyn signifies abstract Be-ness or the vast spatial deep in which all existences take their rise. Anything that is existent is a production and exists; and the womb of being or Be-ness, from which existences arise, is not only the cause of all existences but likewise their field of action -- the spatial deeps. Often wrongly translated as "nothing"; but Be-ness is certainly not nothing, but essential, full Be-ness itself.

(See also: `Eyn Soph, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Five Because of its being one half of the perfect number (ten), five held the attention and study of all followers of the Pythagorean system of numerals. As we are now in the fifth root-race, the fifth principle (manas) takes an especially prominent position in human evolution. The five-pointed star, or again the pentagon, is the symbol of the microcosm, man, often referred to as a five-limbed man. Five "symbolizes at one and the same time the Spirit of life eternal and the Spirit of life and love terrestrial -- in the human compound; and, it includes divine and infernal magic, and the universal and the individual quintessence of being" (SD 2:579).

The symbol of the kali yuga is the five-pointed star reversed, with the two points or horns of the star pointing upwards. This is also a sign of sorcery.

In the numerical mysticism of ancient Egypt five crocodiles, for instance, were represented as in the celestial Nile, and the emanating deity calls forth these crocodiles in his fifth creation. The number five, as well as other numbers, was sacred to the Gnostics, hence five words signifying the five mystic powers attained by the initiate were written upon the garment in their interpretation at the glorification of Jesus. In classical Greece the E Delphicum, a sacred symbol, was the numeral five. There were five ministers of Chozzar (the Gnostic Poseidon); and in the Hindu mythology Brahma is represented as uttering five words or vowels at the creation. From another standpoint, five is the "universal quintessence which spreads in every direction and forms all matter" (SD 2:583).

See also PENTAGRAM

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

Gates of Wisdom Qabbalistic term meaning, among other things, that a candidate for occult wisdom must pass through successive gates in order to attain the highest knowledge possible to human beings. A common figure of speech in the ancient world, e.g., Egypt. In the Qabbalah fifty gates are enumerated, but

"the number is a blind, and there are really 49 gates, . . . These 'gates' typify the different planes of Being or Ens. They are thus the 'gates' of life and the 'gates' of understanding or degrees of occult knowledge. These 49 (or 50) gates correspond to the seven gates in the seven caves of Initiation into the Mysteries of Mithra (see Celsus and Kircher).

The division of the 50 gates into five chief gates, each including ten -- is again a blind. It is in the fourth gate of these five, from which begins, ending at the tenth, the world of Planets, thus making seven, corresponding to the seven lower Sephiroth -- that the key to their meaning lies hidden. They are also called the 'gates of Binah' or understanding" (TG 120).

(See also: Gates of Wisdom, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

'Ehyeh (Hebrew) (from hayah to be)

I am, I will be; He who exists; an equivalent for the highest name of the Deity, although not uttered.

"Existence. . . corresponds to Kether and Macroprosopus" (TG 11).

"The secret of this word (Hebrew char) Ehyeh, I Am, comprises everything, when the ways are hidden and not separated and together in one place, then it is called Ehyeh, I am, all hidden and not revealed; but after it goes out from its defined line and that river bears in its bosom all things, then He is called Asher Ehyeh, i.e., That I Am" (Zohar iii, 65b).

In The Secret Doctrine (2:468), used in connection with the phrase "I am that I am" ('ehyeh 'asher 'ehyeh), said to have been uttered by Jehovah when Moses inquired as to his name. Likewise a name for the first of the Sephiroth, Kether the Crown.

See also ADONAI.

(See also: 'Ehyeh, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Edom 'Edom (Hebrew) The land and the Kings of Edom are mentioned in the Bible (Genesis 36) in allegorical manner, and treated in the Qabbalah as referring to a period of unbalance before balance or harmony was inaugurated; the Kings, in one meaning of this Qabbalistic allegory, refer to the various attempts (and failures) at the formation of worlds before this one.

However, "the 'Edomite Kings' could never symbolize the 'prior worlds,' but only the 'attempts at men' on this globe: the 'pre-Adamite races,' of which the Zohar speaks, and which we explain as the First Root-Race. . . . the Kings of Edom are the sons of 'Esau the father of the Edomites' (Gen., xxxvi, 43); i.e., Esau represents in the Bible the race which stands between the Fourth and the Fifth, the Atlantean and the Aryan" (SD 2:705).

Interestingly Edom is exactly the same word as 'Adam (man), the only difference being one of vocalization, of changing the Massoretic points. The seven Kings of Edom are therefore the seven races of man, whether the reference be made to the seven subraces of any one root-race, or to the seven root-races themselves.

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

Eclectic (from Greek eklektikos selective, picking out)

Applied to systems of philosophy or religion which cull the best from a variety of systems, with the view of thus arriving at essentials.

It was applied to the School of Ammonius Saccas and other Alexandrian philosophers, implying that they picked out what was best in all faiths in order to make a new system, doing so because they knew that all the major systems of human religion and philosophy fundamentally derive from a common wisdom-religion of remote antiquity, and therefore that each such system contains at least some elements of truth.

Hence they were teaching the wisdom-religion through synthesizing, and by illustrating it from various faiths. The word is also applied to other matters, e.g. schools of painting.

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