Mysticism Glossary - S

A Theosophical definition of Rebirth :

Rebirth

One of the several aspects or branches of the general doctrine of reimbodiment. A word of large and generalized significance. Signifying merely a succession of rebirths, the definition becomes generalized, excluding specific explanations as to the type or kind of reimbodiment. The likeness between the idea comprised in this word and that belonging to the term reincarnation is very close, yet the two ideas are quite distinct. (For this difference see Reincarnation; also Preexistence, Metempsychosis, Transmigration, etc.)

See also: Rebirth , Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul

ANGELS

Purely mental entities acting as messengers between biodes (flesh-entities) and theodes (spirit-entities)

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

A Theosophical definition of Alaya :

Alaya

(Sanskrit) A compound word: a, "not"; laya, from the verb-root li, "to dissolve"; hence "the indissoluble." The universal soul; the basis or root or fountain of all beings and things  - the universe, gods, monads, atoms, etc. Mystically identical with akasa in the latter's highest elements, and with mulaprakriti in the latter's essence as "root-producer" or "root-nature." (See also Akasa, Buddhi, Mulaprakriti)

[NOTE: The Secret Doctrine (1:49) mentions Alaya in the Yogachara system, most probably referring to alaya-vijnana, but adds that with the "Esoteric 'Buddhists' . . . 'Alaya' has a double and even a triple meaning."  - PUBLISHER]

See also: Alaya , Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul

Cosmic Egg. See EGG; HIRANYAGARBHA

(See also: Cosmic Egg , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

A Theosophical definition of Adept :

Adept

The word means one who is "skilled"; hence, even in our ordinary life, a chemist, a physician, a theologian, a mechanic, an engineer, a teacher of languages, an astronomer, are all "adepts," persons who are skilled, each in his own profession. In theosophical writings, however, an Adept is one who is skilled in the esoteric wisdom, in the teachings of life.

See also: Adept , Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul

REALITY

"Reality" is illusion only in the sense that there is more than one version. You can alter this aeon's reality, but there are several million separate Kalpic realities that are also primed for re-adjustment.

Reality does not exist apart from you and me. Although it seems to retain a changeless nature, that is merely the illusory consensus which our society clings to. And of course, our perceptions define reality, as do history and tradition, but we can also alter reality by physical, mental & arcane means. There are the perceptionless reality systems, after all (see below). The psychedelics have also played a tremendous role in changing collective reality, that despite the built-in limitation that all psychedelics can do is restructure ephemeral, subjective consciousness on society's lowest, least influential levels.

Ordinary, right-eyed, aeonic reality depends on our senses, but there are realities interwoven through this consensus that do not derive from the bodily senses, in which (as far as our waking minds are concerned) we act unconsciously -- but deliberately. Sense reality, for all its unreliability, is not very flexible, hence it serves as the final testing field (as well as rubbish heap) of substance. Usually our work in the separate realities is more important than our work in "this" one. As for using one's mental expectations as a reality-set, that would apply strictly to the superzeroeth R-Levels.

Reality is "Non-being," and according to Grant: "...withdraws as the Principle of Consciousness recedes and returns to the point of original absence."

Gurdjieff describes the following while under the influence of an anomalous substance: "I perceived directly now that everything in the universe was directly connected, and that moreover these forms were all connected just because they were all one and the same, repeated to provide the illusion of complexity. When presented with such a multiplicity of images, one can infuse them with differences sufficient to completely deceive oneself even though behind it all, one knows and understands the truth." And then, as the ground began to give way under him, he thought, "Everything, as soon as it is formed, flows into infinity in which it is transformed into the void and reformed as a new formation, which in turn is instantly swallowed."

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

A Theosophical definition of Absolute :

Absolute

A term which unfortunately is much abused and often misused even in theosophical writings. It is a convenient word in Occidental philosophy by which is described the utterly unconditioned; but it is a practice which violates both the etymology of the word and even the usage of some keen and careful thinkers as, for instance, Sir William Hamilton in his Discussions (3rd edition, p.13n), who apparently uses the word absolute in the exactly correct sense in which theosophists should use it as meaning "finished," "perfected," "completed." As Hamilton observes: "The Absolute is diametrically opposed to, is contradictory of, the Infinite." This last statement is correct, and in careful theosophical writings the word Absolute should be used in Hamilton's sense, as meaning that which is freed, unloosed, perfected, completed.

Absolute is from the Latin absolutum, meaning "freed," "unloosed," and is, therefore, an exact English parallel of the Sanskrit philosophical term moksha or mukti, and more mystically of the Sanskrit term so commonly found in Buddhist writings especially, nirvana  - an extremely profound and mystical thought.

Hence, to speak of parabrahman as being the Absolute may be a convenient usage for Occidentals who understand neither the significance of the term parabrahman nor the etymology, origin, and proper usage of the English word Absolute  - "proper" outside of a common and familiar employment.

In strict accuracy, therefore, the student should use the word Absolute only when he means what the Hindu philosopher means when he speaks of moksha or mukti or of a mukta  - i.e., one who has obtained mukti or freedom, one who has arrived at the acme or summit of all evolution possible in any one hierarchy, although as compared with hierarchies still more sublime, such jivanmukta is but a mere beginner. The Silent Watcher in theosophical philosophy is an outstanding example of one who can be said to be absolute in the fully accurate meaning of the word. It is obvious that the Silent Watcher is not parabrahman. (See also Moksha, Relativity)

See also: Absolute , Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul

ASPECT

One of the forms or faces of a god (Brahma/Vishnu/Shiva or "Father Son and Holy Ghost). A human being's aspect can be considered one of his traditional roles, as an actor has certain well-chosen "character" parts.

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

EXISTENCE

That which calls itself into being out of the Void. Most metaphysical systems are agreed that matter is "dirt", or at least less perfect than the Void. Just as the manifest world is infinite in its variety of potential forms of matter, so the void is infinite in its parade of anti-potential forms of non-being. From a strictly logistical point of view, the imbalance within the spotless Void arises as one potentiality differentiates itself from another in its degree of anti-substantiation and non-manifestation. Therefore, some of these "nothingnesses" have more "substance" than others, which thereby creates an unevenness from which a negentropic "singularity" has to develop. Thus existence breaks forth, or "falls", in a further effort to maintain the balance, and consequently to know itself. Thereafter, new knowledge necessarily continues to create itself and to expand consciousness to the limits, as it were, of The Infinite.

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

ANARCHS OF THE NEW PARADIGM

(Hakim Bey's term). The quantum social paradigm, with decidedly anti-authoritarian flavor. The old "measuring" consensus of objective reality and relativism must now make way for post-modern, "shamanic" quantum mechanics. Chaos expects an alchemical social order, a world accepting of all alternate universes with ranomicity at the center, particles moving backwards in time, non-locality throughout, etc.

(See also: ANARCHS OF THE NEW PARADIGM , Magick, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul,)

A Theosophical definition of Prajapati :

Prajapati

(Sanskrit) A word meaning "governor" or "lord" or "master" of "progeny." The word is applied to several of the Vedic gods, but in particular to Brahma  - that is to say the second step from parabrahman  - the evolver-creator, the first and most recondite figure of the Hindu triad, consisting of Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva. Brahma is the emanator or evolver, Vishnu the sustainer or preserver, and Siva, a name which may be translated euphemistically perhaps as "beneficent," the regenerator. Prajapati is a name which is often used in the plural, and refers to seven and also to ten different beings. They are the producers and givers of life of all on earth and, indeed, on the earth's planetary chain.

See also: Prajapati , Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul

Race, Races During evolution on each of the globes of the earth-chain, the human life-wave passes through seven evolutionary stages called root-races, of which we are at present in the fifth root-race of the fourth round on the fourth globe. Each root-race is divided into seven subraces, of which we are now in the fourth of the fifth root-race.

These subraces are themselves subdivided into smaller divisions, and these again into still smaller racial units. G. de Purucker divides each root-race into:

1)    primary subrace;

2)    secondary subrace;

3)    family race;

4)    national race;

5)    tribal race;

6)    tribal generation; and

7)    individual man (about 72 years) -- each division containing seven of the succeeding type.

Each root-race reaches its evolutionary maximum at its midpoint, when a racial cataclysm occurs and the race begins to decline. At the same time the seeds of the succeeding root-race appear, and the new root-race in its infancy begins to run parallel with the race that is declining, so that there is continual overlapping.

The complex scheme of major races and their subdivisions -- overlapping each other and in various stages of their evolution, intermingling and crossing with one another -- gives rise to the immense variety of types which we see on earth today.

See also ROOT-RACE(S)

(See also: Race, Races , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

SPIRIT

Soul and body are what the world sees. The mind connects them. The spirit, however, is one's own thing. It can be connected to the Cosmic Spirit or partly to itself and others on a lower level.

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

A Theosophical definition of Atom :

Atom

This word comes to us from the ancient Greek philosophers Democritus, Leucippus, and Epicurus, and the hundreds of great men who followed their lead in this respect and who were therefore also atomists  - such, for instance, as the two Latin poets Ennius and Lucretius. This school taught that atoms were the foundation-bricks of the universe, for atom in the original etymological sense of the word means something that cannot be cut or divided, and therefore as being equivalent to particles of what theosophists call homogeneous substance. But modern scientists do not use the word atom in that sense any longer. Some time ago the orthodox scientific doctrine concerning the atom was basically that enunciated by Dalton, to the general effect that physical atoms were hard little particles of matter, ultimate particles of matter, and therefore indivisible and indestructible.

But modern science [1933] has a totally new view of the physical atom, for it knows now that the atom is not such, but is composite, builded of particles still more minute, called electrons or charges of negative electricity, and of other particles called protons or charges of positive electricity, which protons are supposed to form the nucleus or core of the atomic structure. A frequent picture of atomic structure is that of an atomic solar system, the protons being the atomic sun and the electrons being its planets, the latter in extremely rapid revolution around the central sun. This conception is purely theosophical in idea, and adumbrates what occultism teaches, though occultism goes much farther than does modern science.

One of the fundamental postulates of the teachings of theosophy is that the ultimates of nature are atoms on the material side and monads on the energy side. These two are respectively material and spiritual primates or ultimates, the spiritual ones or monads being indivisibles, and the atoms being divisibles  - things that can be divided into composite parts.

It becomes obvious from what precedes that the philosophical idea which formed the core of the teaching of the ancient initiated atomists was that their atoms or "indivisibles" are pretty close to what theosophical occultism calls monads; and this is what Democritus and Leucippus and others of their school had in mind.

These monads, as is obvious, are therefore divine-spiritual life-atoms, and are actually beings living and evolving on their own planes. Rays from them are the highest parts of the constitution of beings in the material realms.

See also: Atom , Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul

Alhim 'elim (Hebrew) (plural of 'el god)

One method of transliterating 'elim, although the insertion of the h is incorrect. The number-values of the letters of 'Elohim, transliterated as alhim are 13514: when used anagrammatically they may be read as 31415, the value of pi.

See also ELOHIM

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

AIR

In physics, vacuum interference. In metaphysics, air is the element that pertains to dimensions and represents the tendency towards dispersion. Alice Bailey describes air as "the bridge between high and low" (I would call all bridges "air"). Commonly, air is the element attributed to the intelligence.

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

Anthropoids The larger or manlike apes. During the period when the fourth root-race of mankind in this fourth round on globe D (our earth) was passing its climax, certain humans as yet only partially conscious miscegenated with the then existing types of simians or monkeys, which were themselves the offspring of an earlier similar miscegenation of the third root-race.

That the anthropoids are a product descended partly from the human stem, and not forms ascending towards man in the sense of earlier Darwinism, is shown by a study of the structural and functional differences and resemblances between anthropoids and man (cf MIE 94-116, 305-12). S

ince the middle of the fourth root-race, no monads from the animal kingdom could any longer enter the human kingdom because from that time the earth started on its ascending arc of evolution. Nevertheless, the monads imbodied in the anthropoids will enter the very lowest and least evolved branchlets of the human kingdom during the fifth round. The monads now in anthropoid bodies will disappear from incarnation during the present fifth root-race to enter their inter-round paranirvana, remaining as astral monads until the next (fifth) round.

A relatively few individuals among the anthropoids, because of having attained the most advanced degree of evolution in the anthropoid stock, will reach quasi-human status, although still in anthropoid bodies, before the fifth root-race has reached its end. Even these exceptional anthropoids will probably have died out before the fifth root-race is ended or by the early sixth root-race -- a period several million years from now.

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

Sight

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

DEATH

The 13th Arcanum, lettered Nun, "The World of Truth". In esoteric philosophy, Death is considered a gateway between modes of being. The Abyss, which all magicians must cross unaided, is part of the path of Death, but not entirely. On the Tree, the gateway to the darkside is the existent/non-existent portal of Daäth, but the pathway of the Death Arcanum lies between Tiphareth (rebirth) and Netzach (the individual). Notice the message, however, which is that the severed heads and limbs ar e the "fruit" which has ripened and fallen from the Tree of Life.

The Egyptians in their preoccupation with death were not being morbid. It is difficult for contemporary man to see the importance of keeping a link to the past. The Egyptian custom of embalming the dead served an existential as well as a metaphysical purpose. It was an indication of their total commitment to the past and their veneration of it.

For Crowley, the Atu is the "Death" of The Son, or His sacrifice, which in our terms is His birth into this life.

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

A Theosophical definition of Evolution :

Evolution

As the word is used in theosophy it means the "unwrapping," "unfolding," "rolling out" of latent powers and faculties native to and inherent in the entity itself, its own essential characteristics, or more generally speaking, the powers and faculties of its own character: the Sanskrit word for this last conception is svabhava. Evolution, therefore, does not mean merely that brick is added to brick, or experience merely topped by another experience, or that variation is superadded on other variations  - not at all; for this would make of man and of other entities mere aggregates of incoherent and unwelded parts, without an essential unity or indeed any unifying principle.

In theosophy evolution means that man has in him (as indeed have all other evolving entities) everything that the cosmos has because he is an inseparable part of it. He is its child; one cannot separate man from the universe. Everything that is in the universe is in him, latent or active, and evolution is the bringing forth of what is within; and, furthermore, what we call the surrounding milieu, circumstances  - nature, to use the popular word  - is merely the field of action on and in which these inherent qualities function, upon which they act and from which they receive the corresponding reaction, which action and reaction invariably become a stimulus or spur to further manifestations of energy on the part of the evolving entity.

There are no limits in any direction where evolution can be said to begin, or where we can conceive of it as ending; for evolution in the theosophical conception is but the process followed by the centers of consciousness or monads as they pass from eternity to eternity, so to say, in a beginningless and endless course of unceasing growth.

Growth is the key to the real meaning of the theosophical teaching of evolution, for growth is but the expression in detail of the general process of the unfolding of faculty and organ, which the usual word evolution includes. The only difference between evolution and growth is that the former is a general term, and the latter is a specific and particular phase of this procedure of nature.

Evolution is one of the oldest concepts and teachings of the archaic wisdom, although in ancient days the concept was usually expressed by the word emanation. There is indeed a distinction, and an important one, to be drawn between these two words, but it is a distinction arising rather in viewpoint than in any actual fundamental difference. Emanation is a distinctly more accurate and descriptive word for theosophists to use than evolution is, but unfortunately emanation is so ill-understood in the Occident, that perforce the accepted term is used to describe the process of interior growth expanding into and manifesting itself in the varying phases of the developing entity.

Theosophists, therefore, are, strictly speaking, rather emanationists than evolutionists; and from this remark it becomes immediately obvious that the theosophist is not a Darwinist, although admitting that in certain secondary or tertiary senses and details there is a modicum of truth in Charles Darwin's theory adopted and adapted from the Frenchman Lamarck. The key to the meaning of evolution, therefore, in theosophy is the following: the core of every organic entity is a divine monad or spirit, expressing its faculties and powers through the ages in various vehicles which change by improving as the ages pass. These vehicles are not physical bodies alone, but also the interior sheaths of consciousness which together form man's entire constitution extending from the divine monad through the intermediate ranges of consciousness to the physical body. The evolving entity can become or show itself to be only what it already essentially is in itself  - therefore evolution is a bringing out or unfolding of what already preexists, active or latent, within. (See also Involution)

See also: Evolution , Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul

DIFFERENCE

All things are one and separation is an illusion, but we are "separated" from reality for the purpose of maximizing experience. The nature of the universe is mind. the purpose of mind is to know itself, and knowing can be done only through particularization.

We must, therefore, respect the differences between one another and honor the wisdom of the individual. Sameness is not an imitation of divinity; it is dross. That which in society is undifferentiated is ugly, evil and dangerous.

The only number of value is One, the number of divinity. No common thread connects things unless it is their complementarity or synergy. Things partake of divinity in proportion to their uniqueness. All power comes from the One, the number of the Magician. All great things, all beautiful or important things reach perfection once and once only. Thus there is no separate "Creator God" apart from his "Creation". That would mean diversity is a lie. Still, diversity is the nature of the One and there is only One. Separation is the illusion, not differentiation. The One mirrors itself, differentiating according to our attention. In Crowley's words, "Every man and every woman is a star."

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

Chnouphis (Ancient Greek). Nouf in Egyptian. Another aspect of Ammon, and the personification of his generative power in actu, as Kneph is of the same in potentia. He is also ram-headed.

 If in his aspect as Kneph he is the Holy Spirit with the creative ideation brooding in him, as Chnouphis, he is the angel who "comes in" into the Virgin soil and flesh. A prayer on a papyrus, translated by the French Egyptologist Chabas, says; ‘ 0 Sepui, Cause of being, who hast formed thine own body! 0 only Lord, proceeding from Noum ! 0 divine substance, created from itself! 0 God, who hast made the substance which is in him! 0 God, who has made his own father and impregnated his own mother."

This shows the origin of the Christian doctrines of the Trinity and immaculate conception. He is seen on a monument seated near a potter’s wheel, and forming men out of clay. The fig-leaf is sacred to him, which is alone sufficient to prove him a phallic god - an idea which is carried out by the inscription: "he who made that which is, the creator of beings, the first existing, he who made to exist all that exists." Some see in him the incarnation of Ammon-Ra, but he is the latter himself in his phallic aspect, for, like Ammon, he is " his mother’s husband", i.e., the male or impregnating side of Nature.

His names vary, as Cnouphis, Noum, Khem, and Khnum or Chnoumis. As he represents the Demiurgos (or Logos) from the material, lower aspect of the Soul of the World, he is the Agathodemon, symbolized sometimes by a Serpent ; and his wife Athor or Maut (Mot mother), or Sate, "the daughter of the Sun", carrying an arrow on a sunbeam (the ray of conception), stretches "mistress over the lower portions of the atmosphere". below the constellations, as Ne?th expands over the starry heavens. (See "Chaos".)

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