Mahabhautic (anglicization of Sanskrit mahabhautika)

Adjective of mahabhutas, the elementary substantial principles of the universe.

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Mahabhutas (Sanskrit) (from maha great + bhuta element from the verbal root bhu to be, become)

Great or primordial element; the gross or vehicular cosmic elements in contradistinction from the subtle or causative cosmic elements (tanmatras) out of which the mahabhutas are evolved. Five are enumerated exoterically -- aether, fire, air, water, and earth -- but in the esoteric enumeration there are seven, ten, or twelve. Also an adjective meaning being great, or relating to the gross elements.

The mahabhutas are so called because they are the karmic fruits or resultants from the preceding cosmic manvantara, so that even these great cosmic elements begin their evolutionary courses in the new cosmic manvantara at the exact point in development which they had acquired when the preceding pralaya began.

The tanmatras are the inner vital cosmic principles, the causal rudiments, which evolve forth the mahabhutas. The distinction between them may be seen by an analogy drawn from the human constitution: the difference between sense as a faculty or power and sense organ as the vehicle of the sense faculty.

The five senses hitherto developed in the human being -- hearing, sight, touch, taste, and smell -- have their five corresponding sense organs, the senses producing through evolution and time their respective organs. Similarly on the cosmic scale, the tanmatras correspond to the senses in the human constitution, while the mahabhutas correspond to the sense organs in the human body.

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

Mahabrahmanda (Sanskrit) (from maha great + Brahma cosmic spirit + anda egg)

The great egg of Brahma or cosmic egg;

"the highest cosmic plane or element of the cosmic Egg" (FSO 178).

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I - Letter I. - The ninth letter in the English, the tenth in the Hebrew alphabet. As a numeral it signifies in both languages one, and also ten in the Hebrew (see J), in which it corresponds to the Divine name Jah, the male side, or aspect, of the hermaphrodite being, or the male-female Adam, of which hovah Jah-hovah) is the female aspect. It is symbolized by a hand with bent fore-finger, to show its phallic signification.

(See also: I - Letter I, Theosophy, Spirituality, Body mind and Soul, Spiritual Dictionary, )

Magnale Magnum (Latin) The great Great; used by Van Helmont for a natural occult principle which connects the souls of men, enabling them to influence each other mutually. It is anima mundi in one restricted, localized sense.

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Magna Mater (Latin) The Great Mother, the mother of the gods, a title given to many Asiatic goddesses at the time when the Romans were in Asia; identified by the Greeks with Rhea, daughter of Ouranos and Gaia, wife of Kronos, and mother of Zeus and other gods. In Asia the name was given specially to Cybele, whose worship later became degraded into licentious rites. Every nation had its own chief goddess, or mother goddess, who was called Great Goddess, exactly as the Latins did with their own Magna Mater.

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Magne (Icelandic) (from magn main, strength)

Thor, Norse god of thunder and lightning, in his capacity as electromagnetism in the infinite reaches of space, has two sons: Mode and Magne.

Both mean power, though Mode has the connotation of anger (as in "mood," German Muth wrath), suggesting a repelling force, whereas Magne connotes power that is granted one. These two sons of Thor may represent attraction and repulsion, or gravitation and radiation on the cosmic level.

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

Magnes (Latin, Greek) Loadstone; used by Paracelsus, medieval theosophists, and alchemists for a mysterious and potent fluid, the spirit of light, whose description answers to the akasa, aether, or the most spiritual parts of the astral light. It thus corresponds to the anima mundi.

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Magnetic Healing Introduced to the West by Mesmer; in it the pranas or general vital powers of the healer are able to help, in many cases, a sufferer to throw off an ailment or disease by arousing the sufferer's own powers of resistance to vital inharmony or disease.

The success of magnetic healing arises from the fact that human or animal magnetism is a fluid, and hence an emanation flowing from the healer to the sufferer. The existence of such human or animal magnetism has now been established by the researches of a multitude of investigators during the last century or more.

All human beings have this magnetic fluid, but some natural-born healers have the instinctive power of projecting or emitting their own magnetism, which flows from different parts of the body, but especially from the tips of the fingers, the eyes, or the hands.

To animal magnetism likewise are to be ascribed the cause of the so-called antagonisms or repulsions, or again affinities and attractions, between human beings.

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Magnetic Masonry Also iatric masonry (from Greek iatrike the art of healing)

A brotherhood of healers, greatly used by the Brothers of Light.

"There appears to be a tradition in some secret Masonic works -- so says Ragon at any rate, the great Masonic authority -- to the effect that there was a Masonic degree called the Oracle of Cos, 'instituted in the eighteenth century BC, from the fact that Cos was the birthplace of Hippocrates.' The iatrike was a distinct characteristic of the priests who took charge of the patients in the ancient Asclepia, the temples where the god Asclepios (Aesculapius) was said to heal the sick and the lame" (TG 199).

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Magnetism (from Greek lithos magnetes Magnesian stone, magnetic oxide of iron, found in Magnesia in Thessaly)

Scientifically, magnetic force is due to the movement of electric charges. While physics is concerned only with mineral magnetism, older thought saw the analogy between the various planes of nature and used magnetism in a wiser sense. The term animal magnetism is not so fanciful: The Secret Doctrine speaks of biune creative magnetism as acting in the constitution of man and animals in the form of the attraction of contraries as in sexual polarization; of there being seven forms of kosmic magnetism; of electricity and magnetism being manifestations of kundalini-sakti; of the world-soul as represented by a sevenfold cross whose arms are light, heat, magnetism, etc.

Magnetism, like other forces, is a manifestation of the activities of living beings. These forces are at the same time the physical counterparts, reflections, or phases of the universal cosmic electromagnetism, life-energy, or fohat. Magnetism, which is the alter ego of electricity, is that aspect or functioning of cosmic electromagnetism, mainly known to us as causing attraction and repulsion, and distinguished by bipolarity.

Both physical and physiological analogies suggest that terrestrial magnetism is inherent in some of the ultra-physical constituents of our globe, and that it must be powerfully influenced by the magnetism of other globes of the earth-chain, as well as by cosmic sources belonging to the solar system and even beyond. The position of the magnetic poles of the earth varies, and with this variation go variations in the magnetic inclination, declination, intensity, and distribution; which variations have cycles that are under study by scientists. What is called the north pole of a magnet should be called its south pole, since it is attracted and not repelled by the north pole of the earth; thus some writers call the north pole of a magnet the north-seeking pole.

"We know of no phenomenon in nature entirely unconnected with either magnetism or electricity . . . All the phenomena of earth currents, terrestrial magnetism and atmospheric electricity, are due to the fact that the earth is an electrified conductor, whose potential is ever changing owing to its rotation and its annual orbital motion, the successive cooling and heating of the air, the formation of clouds and rain, storms and winds, etc. . . . Science would be unwilling to admit that all these changes are due to akasic magnetism incessantly generating electric currents which tend to restore the disturbed equilibrium" (ML 160).

All electromagnetism is rooted in or takes its rise from the akasa, and the bipolarity of magnetism and electricity is simply a reproduction in our sphere -- and even in human beings when they manifest themselves -- of the fundamental bipolarity in cosmic structure inherent in the akasa, out of the womb of which the worlds are born. Magnetism might be considered the more subtle part of electricity, and electricity the grosser aspect of the fundamental force which is both. Both are fluids, emanations, from the akasa, and are really two aspects of the underlying fohat.

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

Magnetization Influences which one person may exercise on another akin to mesmerism whether of a gross physical nature, to which the term animal magnetism is applied, or of a loftier nature, the action of mind upon mind.

Metallic magnetism is itself one manifestation of subtle natural forces, of which personal magnetism is another manifestation.

Magnetism, whether diffuse or localized or in the form of animal magnetism, is an emanation from the beings which produce it from their own inner vital power, and hence magnetism is a fluid. Those who are especially endowed with the faculty of arousing it in themselves and projecting it, mainly through the tips of the fingers or the eyes, can use it for either corrective, or for evil and destructive, purposes; while all other beings, even inanimate objects, possess it but do not emanate it willfully or consciously. It flows forth from them as an aura, usually unconsciously.

Thus magnetism has an auric efflux or fluid, which finds its foundation in the vitality or pranic sources of the beings or things from which it flows.

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Magnum Opus (Latin) The great work; in medieval and modern times an alchemical term for the making of the philosopher's stone and the elixir of life; an achievement which, as with alchemy generally, may be regarded as being accomplished either in the laboratory of human nature among the elements of man's constitution, or in a brick and mortar laboratory with chemicals.

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Magnus Aether (Latin) Great aether, also called Pater Omnipotens Aether (almighty father aether).

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Madhyamikas (Sanskrit) Belonging to the middle way; a sect mentioned in the Vishnu-Purana, probably at first a sect of Hindu atheists.

A school of the same name was founded later in Tibet and China, and as it adopted some of the esoteric principles taught by Nagarjuna, one of the great founders of the esoteric Mahayana system, it had certain elements of esoteric truth.

But because of its tendency by means of thesis and antithesis to reduce everything into contrary categories, and then to deny both, it may be called a school of Nihilists for whom everything is an illusion and an error in the world of thought, in the subjective as well as in the objective universe.

This school is a good example of the danger of wandering too far in mere intellectual disquisition from the fundamental bases of the esoteric philosophy, for such merely brain-mind activity will infallibly lead to a philosophy of barren negation.

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Madim ma'adim (Chaldean) Strength, force, vehemence; also a Qabbalistic name for the planet Mars.

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Madonna. See MARY

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Mag (Maga) (Sanskrit) A Magian or priest of the sun; in India priests of a certain class serving Surya (the sun) were called Magas. In the plural, magas, a country in Sakadvipa, supposed to have been inhabited chiefly by Brahmins.

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Magadha (Sanskrit) An ancient country in South Behar, India which after the establishment of Buddhism in India, was ruled by Buddhist kings.

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Mage. See MAGI

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Magha (Sanskrit) The 13th day in the dark half of the moon in the month of Bhadra (August-September).

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Maghada. See MAGADHA

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