Mysticism Glossary - T

Marriage {SD 1:614-15n; 2:467n; BCW}

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Paleozoic Age, Era.

See GEOLOGICAL ERAS

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Agnus-Castus Plant A species of Vitex, a willow-like tree sometimes called the chaste tree (from hagnos chaste vs agnos willow-like)

. "Prometheus is represented as crowned with the Agnus-Castus plant (logos), the leaves of which formed the Crown of the Victors in the 'Agonia' of the Olympic games; . . . This Agnus-Castus plant was used also in the fete of the Thesmophoria, in honour of Demeter -- the law -- 'nomos' -- bringer, whose priestesses slept on its leaves as encouraging chaste desires. In Christian times this custom survived among Nuns, who used to drink a water distilled from its leaves, and Monks used knives with handles made of its wood with the same intention of encouraging chastity" (BCW 9:267). (also BCW 10:90)

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Cause(s). See KARMA; NIDANA; FIRST CAUSE

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Propositions, Fundamental.

See FUNDAMENTAL PROPOSITIONS

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Tziruph (Heb)A set of combinations and permutations of the Hebrew letters designed to shew analogies and preserve secrets. For example, in the form called Atbash, A and T were substitutes, B and Sh, G and R, etc.

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Mysticism:

Religious or spiritual doctrines which argue that the human mind or soul can directly experience the divine. See also mystical experience, transpersonal psychology.

(See also: Mysticism , Psychic, Psychic Dictionary, Parapsychology, Parapsychology Dictionary)

Adamic Races Used of early humanity after the incarnation of the manasaputras and the full separation of the sexes several million years ago (SD 1:406-7, 2:91n, 289n, 315; IU 1:305).

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Animal Magnetism. See MESMERISM

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Adam Qadmon

See 'ADAM QADMON

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Bliss, Region of. See SUKHAVATA

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Reason The wisdom which ensues from the union of buddhi with manas, as contrasted with the higher immanent wisdom of atma-buddhi; also the human mind, which finds its place in the union of the higher and lower nature through the mediating fourth principle or kama, which itself works through what the Qabbalists call nephesh or the Latins the anima. Again, in some European philosophers, the characteristics of the Logos, which is stated to be cosmic mind or the Third Logos.

In Greek mythology Prometheus is represented as endowing man with reason and the use of the mental faculties, which corresponds to the descent of the manasaputras during the third root-race. In present mankind reason is a quality of manas, and its presence is the chief characteristic distinction between man and animal.

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`Ereb (Hebrew) Evening twilight; equivalent to the Sanskrit sandhya.

See also SANDHI; TWILIGHT (SD 2:252n; see ref from "Crib")

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Akousmatikoi (Greek) Hearers, listeners; probationers in the school of Pythagoras (Wind of the Spirit 309, 111).

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Science [from Latin scientia from scire to know]

In its widest sense formulated knowledge, a knowledge of structure, laws, and operations. The unity of human knowledge may be artificially divided into religion, philosophy, and science. Science and philosophy, as presently understood, have in common the quality of being speculative, as opposed to religion, which in the West is supposed to be founded merely on faith and moral sentiments.

The present distinction between science and philosophy lies largely in their respective fields of speculation. What is known as modern science investigates the phenomena of physical nature and by inferential reasoning formulates general laws therefrom. Its method is called inductive and its data are so-called facts -- i.e., sensory observations; whereas deductive philosophy starts from axioms. Yet a scientist, in order to reason from his data at all, must necessarily use both induction and deduction.

Modern science has limited its field of study to the laws of physical nature; but in the 20th century the illusive and entirely phenomenal nature of matter and energy, formerly assumed to be eternal and indestructible, is better realized by scientists who have traced the chain of physical causation to a point beyond physical limits altogether and admit that the physical world consists of phenomena occurring in an ultraphysical substance.

In modern sciences dealing with biology, evolution, and anthropology, legitimate inference from facts has been much interfered with by preconceived ideas. Modern science suffers from its failure to see the necessity of postulating an astral or formative world behind the physical, this astral world being in itself but one stage in a rising scale or ladder of invisible worlds. To ascertain the facts upon which to build a true inductive system, we must admit the existence in man of means of direct perception other than those afforded by the physical senses.

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Number People usually think of number as merely a varying multiplicity of units, a plurality of individuals, which is correct enough. Yet "Number lies at the root of the manifested Universe: numbers and harmonious proportions guide the first differentiations of homogeneous substance into heterogeneous elements; and number and numbers set limits to the formative hand of Nature" (Blavatsky) -- a strictly Pythagorean vision and conception.

Our reasoning minds lend a spurious reality to abstractions; and from this viewpoint the genuine realities appear in the guise of such abstraction. Number is such an apparent abstraction; we know it only by its effects in that world which seems to us so real, and of which we regard number as an attribute. Yet nothing can be more fundamental than number.

As Balzac said, number is an entity, a divinity; the creative Logos itself is called the Number, meaning number one, arising out of no-number or the zero. After this we have the duad, triad, etc. For the Pythagoreans number was a creative, emanationally formative power, and the Hebrew Sepher Yetsirah (Numbers of Creation) gives out the whole process of evolution in numbers, while in China the I Ching speaks of celestial numbers. All esoteric systems set great store by numbers -- some systems more so than others. For "we see the figures 1, 3, 5, 7, as perfect, because thoroughly mystic, numbers playing a prominent part in every Cosmogony and evolution of living Beings" (SD 2:35).

See also SEPHIROTH

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Antipodes. See PATALA

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Age of Copper See HESIOD, AGES OF

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Christ. See CHRESTES; CHRISTOS; MESSIAH

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Osiris. (Egypt, Egyptian). The greatest God of Egypt, the Son of Seb (Saturn), celestial fire, and of Neith, primordial matter and infinite space.

This shows him as the self-existent and self-created god, the first manifesting deity (our third Logos), identical with Ahura Mazda and other " First Causes". For as Ahura Mazda is one with, or the synthesis of, the Amshaspends, so Osiris, the collective unit, when differentiated and  personified, becomes Typhon, his brother, Isis and Nephtys his sisters, Horus his son and his other aspects. He was born at Mount Sinai, the Nyssa of the 0. T. (See- Exodus xvii. 15), and buried at Abydos, after being killed by Typhon at the early age of twenty-eight, according to the allegory.

According to Euripides he is the same as Zeus and Dionysos or Dio-Nysos "the god of Nysa", for Osiris is said by him to have been brought up in Nysa, in Arabia "the Happy". Query: how much did the latter tradition influence, or have anything in common with, the statement in the Bible, that "Moses built an altar and called the name Jehovah Nissi", or Kabbalistically - "Dio-Iao-Nyssi"? (See Isis Unveiled Vol. II. p. 165.) The four chief aspects of Osiris were - Osiris-Phtah (Light), the spiritual aspect; Osiris-Horus (Mind), the intellectual manasic aspect; Osiris-Lunus, the " Lunar" or psychic, astral aspect; Osiris-Typhon, Da?monic, or physical, material, therefore passional turbulent aspect. In these four aspects he symbolizes the dual Ego -  the divine and the human, the cosmico-spiritual and the terrestrial.

Of the many supreme gods, this Egyptian conception is the most suggestive and the grandest, as it embraces the whole range of physical and metaphysical thought. As a solar deity he had twelve minor gods under him - the twelve signs of the Zodiac. Though his name is the "Ineffable", his forty-two attributes bore each one of his names, and his seven dual aspects completed the forty-nine, or 7 X 7; the former symbolized by the fourteen members of his body, or twice seven. Thus the god is blended in man, and the man is deified into a god. He was addressed as Osiris-Eloh. Mr. Dunbar T. Heath speaks of a Phœnician inscription which, when read, yielded the following tumular inscription in honour of the mummy: "Blessed be Ta-Bai, daughter of Ta-Hapi, priest of Osiris-Eloh. She did nothing against anyone in anger. She spoke no falsehood against any one. Justified before Osiris, blessed be thou from before Osiris! Peace be to thee." And then he adds the following remarks:

"The author of this inscription ought, I suppose, to be called a heathen, as justification before Osiris is the object of his religious aspirations. We find, however, that he gives to Osiris the appellation Eloh. Eloh is the name used by the Ten Tribes of Israel for the Elohim of Two Tribes. Jehovah-Eloh (Gen. iii. 21.) in the version used by Ephraim corresponds to Jehovah Elohim in that used by Judah and ourselves. This being so, the question is sure to be asked, and ought to be humbly answered - What was the meaning meant to be conveyed by the two phrases respectively, Osiris-Eloh and Jehovah-Eloh? For my part I can imagine but one answer, viz., that Osiris was the national God of Egypt, Jehovah that of Israel, and that Eloh is equivalent to Deus, Gott or Dieu". As to his human development, he is, as the author of the Egyptian Belief has it . . . "One of the Saviours or Deliverers of Humanity . . . . As such he is born in the world. He came as a benefactor, to relieve man of trouble . . . . In his efforts to do good he encounters evil . . . and he is temporarily overcome. He is killed . . Osiris is buried. His tomb was the object of pilgrimage for thousands of years. But he did not rest in his grave. At the end of three days, or forty, he rose again and ascended to Heaven. This is the story of his Humanity" (Egypt. Belief). And Mariette Bey, speaking of the Sixth Dynasty, tells us that "the name of Osiris . . commences to be more used. The formula of Justified is met with": and adds that "it proves that this name (of the Justified or Makheru was not given to the dead only". But it also proves that the legend of Christ was found ready in almost all its details thousands of years before the Christian era, and that the Church fathers had no greater difficulty than to simply apply it to a new personage.

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Amen-Ra. See AMMON-RA

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Anupapadaka-bhuta. See Aupapaduka-bhuta

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