Prophecy Dictionary

prophetic dream

A prophecy or precognition achieved during state of sleep

(See also: Prophetic dream , Body Mind and Soul)

Parables

• To dream of parables, denotes that you will be undecided as to the best course to pursue in dissenting to some business complication. To the lover, or young woman, this is a prophecy of misunderstandings and disloyalty.

Source: 10 000 Dream Interpretations, by Gustavus Hindman Miller

(See also: Dream Archives, Meaning of Dreams, Dream Interpretation, Dream Dictionary, Dream Dictionary - Parables , Meaning of Dreams about Parables , Dream Interpretation Parables )

Balaam bil`am (Hebrew) (etymology uncertain)

One of the prophets of the Old Testament, last and greatest of the gentile prophets, appearing at the time when the Israelites were completing their forty years of wandering (Numbers 22-4). "The Zohar explains the 'birds' which inspired Balaam to mean 'Serpents,' to wit, the wise men and adepts at whose school he had learned the mysteries of prophecy" (SD 2:409).

(See also: Balaam, bil`am , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Moses de Leon. The name of a Jewish Rabbi in the Xlllth century, accused of having composed the Zohar which he gave out as the true work of Simeon Ben Jacha?. His full name is given in Myer’s Qabbalah as Rabbi Moses ben-Shem-Tob de Leon, of Spain, the same author proving very cleverly that de Leon was not the author of the Zohar.

Few will say he was, but everyone must suspect Moses de Leon of perverting considerably the original Book of Splendour (Zohar). This sin, however, may be shared by him with the Medieval "Christian Kabalists" and by Knorr von Rosenroth especially. Surely, neither Rabbi Simeon, condemned to death by Titus, nor his son, Rabbi Eliezer, nor his Secretary Rabbi Abba, can be charged with introducing into the Zohar purely Christian dogmas and doctrines invented by the Church Fathers several centuries after the death of the former Rabbis. This would be stretching alleged divine prophecy a little too far.

(See also: Moses de Leon , Theosophy, Spirituality, Body mind and Soul, Spiritual Dictionary,)

Centaurs (Greek) Greek mythology preserves legends of monsters, half man, half horse, located in wild spots in Greece. "See, for comparison, the account of creation by Berosus (Alexander Polyhistor) and the hideous beings born from the two-fold principle (Earth and Water) in the Abyss of primordial creation: Neras (Naras)

(Centaurs, men with the limbs of horses and human bodies), and Kimnaras (men with the heads of horses) created by Brahma in the commencement of the Kalpa" (SD 2:65). The centaurs were also said to be the offspring of Ixion, king of the Lapith people, and a cloud shaped like Hera, sent by Zeus to test his wickedness; or as being offsprings of Ixion's son and mares. They were considered a rude, wild race living in the mountains of Thessaly.

From another standpoint, however, Greek mythology represents the centaurs as being wiser than men: thus Chiron, son of Kronos and Philyra, most famous of the Centaurs, is a teacher not only of the heroes, but instructed Apollo and Diana in hunting, medicine, music, and the art of prophecy. Later, centaurs were shown as forming part of the following of Dionysus.

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

Nebo, Nabu, Nabi' nebo (Hebrew) The proclaimer by prophecy; one of the chief deities of the Chaldean or Babylonian pantheon, the god of wisdom, recognized as fully by the ancient Hebrews as by the Chaldeans. The name and function of the divinity correspond to the Greek Hermes, the Egyptian Thoth, and the Hindu Budha, all of which are related to the regent of the planet Mercury.

Mercury throughout antiquity was always called the interpreter, often in the sense of a prophet or of one able to prophesy; Nebo from time immemorial has been the name for an initiate, an adept, particularly among certain Shemitic peoples, such as the Hebrews. Among other Shemites, such as the Assyrians and Chaldeans, this name forms a part of compound proper names, such as Nebuchadnezzar, Nabopolassar, and Nabonassar.

Nebo was among the Chaldeans and other peoples a god of the secret wisdom, and that particular divinity in those lands guiding the inner development of his children or little ones -- names for initiated adepts.

The principal seat of his worship appears to have been at Borsippa (opposite the city of Babylon) where a temple-school flourished until the end of the neo-Babylonian empire -- even surviving the conquest of Babylonia by Cyrus (538 BC). His original character cannot now be determined and he may have been a solar deity, although associated with water. His consort, Tashmit, is occasionally invoked with him. Nebo's worship flourished before that of Marduk (the Biblical Merodach, probably the planet Mars and its regent), and when the latter was elevated to the chief position of the Babylonian pantheon, Nebo was regarded as his son and the two thereafter are more or less inseparable.

Even in Assyria the worship of Nebo was made more prominent than the chief deity, Assur ('Ashshur) by some of the monarchs (e.g., Assurbanipal, 668-626 BC). His hieroglyph was the stylus, for he was regarded as the god of writing, prophecy, sacred chanting, and hence of song, having charge of the tablets of fate, on which he inscribed the names of men and forecast their destiny. His wisdom was likewise associated with the study of the heavenly bodies, hence the temple-school became famed for its astrologers. "Nebo is a creator, like Budha, of the Fourth and also of the Fifth Race. For the former starts a new race of Adepts, and the latter, the Solar-Lunar Dynasty, or the men of these Races and Round. Both are the Adams of their respective creatures" (SD 2:456).

In the Bible Nebo is the name of a mountain near Jericho whereon Moses dies; also an adjacent city (Deut 32-4). "The fact that Moses is made to die and disappear on the mount sacred to Nebo, shows him an initiate and a priest of that god under another name . . ." (ibid.).

(See also: Nebo, Nabu, Nabi' nebo , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Nabi' (Hebrew) [from naba' to deliver an oracle]

A prophet, one inspired to foretell future events; the name given to prophecy in the Bible. One of the "spiritual powers, such as divination, clairvoyant visions, trance-conditions, and oracles. But while enchanters, diviners, and even astrologers are strictly condemned in the Mosaic books, prophecy, seership, and nobia appear as the special gifts of heaven. In early ages they were all termed Epoptai, the Greek word for seers, clairvoyants; after which they were designated as Nebim [nebi'im] 'the plural of Nebo, the Babylonian god of wisdom.' The kabalist distinguishes between the seer and the magician; one is passive, the other active; Nebirah [nabi'] is one who looks into futurity and a clairvoyant; Nebi-poel [nebi'-po`el], he who possesses magic powers" (IU 1:xxxvii).

Sons or disciples of prophets were called Benei Nebi'im.

(See also: Nabi' , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Baruch A book of the Catholic Old Testament and Protestant Apocrypha; Baruch was a prophet, disciple and secretary of the prophet Jeremiah (650?-?585 BC). For this reason the Catholic Church Fathers considered the book he is said to have written as part of the prophecy of Jeremiah. {BCW 14:319}

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

Zagreus, Zagreus-Dionysos (Greek) Dionysos was an earlier name for Bacchus. The mythos concerning Zagreus belongs to the cycle of teachings of the Orphic Mysteries rather than to mythology, so no references occur in the writings for the people, such as Homer and Hesiod. The references that have come down to our day occur principally in the manuscripts of the ancient Greek dramatists, poets, and in other ancient fragments.

As cosmic evolution was taught in the Orphic Mysteries by allegory, so was the evolution of the individual soul or microcosm, centering in the mythos of Zagreus, later Zagreus-Dionysos, the Greek savior, which the Greek Dionysian Mysteries sought to unfold in dramatic and veiled or symbolic literary form. "Dionysos is one with Osiris, with Krishna, and with Buddha (the heavenly wise), and with the coming (tenth) Avatar, the glorified Spiritual Christos . . ." (SD 2:420).

Zagreus has three distinct meanings: 1) the mighty hunter (the pilgrim-soul, hunting for the truth, its aeonic pilgrimage back to divinity); 2) he that takes many captives (the Lord of the Dead); and 3) the restorer or regenerator (King of the Reborn or initiates). Zagreus (later Bacchus or Iacchos) is the divine Son, the third of the Orphic Trinity, the other two being Zeus the Demiurge or divine All-father, and Demeter-Kore, the earth goddess in her twofold aspect as the divine Mother and the mortal maid.

The mythos relates that Zagreus, a favored son of Zeus, aroused the wrath of Hera, who plotted his destruction. First she released the dethroned titans from Tartaros to slay the newborn babe. They induced the child to give up the scepter and apple for the false toys which they held before him: a thyrsos or Bacchic wand (symbol of matter and rebirth into material life), a giddy spinning top, and a mirror (maya or illusion). As the child was gazing at himself in the mirror, they seized him, tore his body into seven or fourteen pieces (as in the Egyptian Mystery tale of Osiris); boiled and roasted and then devoured them. Discovered in this enormity by Zeus, the titans were blasted with his thunderbolt and from their ashes sprang the human race.

The titans with their false gifts symbolize the pursuing energies of the personal, material life, which enchain and delude the soul. They are earth powers which lead the soul from the path by the lure of things of sense. The dismembered body is first boiled in water -- symbol of the astral world; then roasted, "as gold is tried by fire," symbol of suffering and purification and the reascent of the victorious soul to bliss.

Apollo or the Muses, at the command of Zeus, gathered the scattered fragments and interred them near the Omphalos (navel of the earth) at Delphi. The coffin was inscribed: "Here lies dead, the body of Dionysos, son of Semele," as the Zagreus myth was known only to those initiated into the Orphic Mysteries; and the Semele myth was popularly known. The exoteric myth represents the divine Son as the son of Zeus by the mortal maid Semele, Demeter-Kore in the guise of a mortal woman, to whom the still beating heart of Zagreus was entrusted when he was slain, that she might become its mother-guardian.

Hera, however, poisoned the mind of Semele with suspicion when the new-forming body of Zagreus within her reached the seventh month of gestation, and Semele impelled Zeus to reveal himself to her in his true form, whereupon the mortal body of Semele was destroyed by the divine fire. The holy babe was saved from death by Zeus, who sewed the child up in his own thigh until "the life that formerly was Zagreus, was reborn as Dionysos," the risen Savior, at Easter (the spring equinox), while as Zagreus he had been born at Semele's death at the winter solstice. Here we

See the myth's solar significance.

The nymphs of Mount Nysa reared him safely in a cave, and when he reached manhood, Hera forced him to wander over the earth. He overcame all opposition and was successful in establishing Mystery schools wherever he went. After his triumph in the world of men, Dionysos descended into the underworld and led forth his mother, now rechristened as Semele-Thyone (Semele the Inspired), to take her place among the Olympian divinities as the divine mother and radiant queen, and later, with Dionysos, to ascend to heaven.

Zagreus as Dionysos is known as the god of many names, most of which refer to his twofold character as the suffering mortal Zagreus, and the immortal or reborn god-man. Many titles also refer to him as the mystic savior. He is the All-potent, the Permanent, the Life-blood of the World, the majesty in the forest, in fruit, in the hum of the bee, in the flowing of the stream, etc., the earth in its changes -- the list runs on indefinitely, and is strikingly similar to the passage in which Krishna, the Hindu avatara, instructs Arjuna how he shall know him completely: "I am the taste in water, the light in the sun and moon," etc. (BG ch 7).

The philosophers, dramatists, and historians who held the Dionysian mythos to be purely allegorical and symbolic take in the great names of antiquity, including Plato, Pythagoras, all the Neoplatonists, the greatest historians, and a few of the early Christian Fathers, notably Clement of Alexandria; Eusebius, Tertullian, Justin, and Augustine, also write of it.

The exoteric literature of Orphism is scanty, while the esoteric teachings were never committed to writing. Outside of the Orphic Tablets and Orphic Hymns, no original material has been discovered to date. Scholars judging from the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, have held that the Eleusinian Mystery-drama was based solely on the story of Persephone; but later researches indicate that, under the influence of Epimenides and Onomakritos, both deep students of Orphism, the Orphic Mystery tale of Zagreus-Dionysos was incorporated in the Eleusian ritual, the divine son Iacchos becoming thus identified with the Orphic god-man, Zagreus-Dionysos.

Cosmically this highly esoteric story refers to the cosmic Logos building the universe and becoming thereby not only its inspiriting and invigorating soul, but likewise the divinity guiding manifestation from Chaos to complete fullness of evolutionary grandeur; and in the case of mankind, the legend refers to the origin, peregrinations, and destiny of the human monad, itself a spiritual consciousness-center, from unself-consciousness as a god-spark, through the wanderings of destiny until becoming a fully self-conscious god. The key to the symbolism of Zagreus-Dionysos is given by Plato in the Cratylus: "The Spirit within us is the true image of Dionysos. He therefore who acts erroneously in regard to It . . . sins against Dionysos Himself," i.e., the inner god, the divinity in man. The legend thus contains not only past cosmic as well as human history, but contains as a prophecy what will come to pass in the distant future.

(See also: Zagreus, Zagreus-Dionysos , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body mind and Soul)

GYROMANCY - divination by whirling in a circle marked with letters and spelling out a prophecy when falling down. (NAD)

(See also: GYROMANCY , Wiccan Pagan, Paganism, Pagan Dictionary)

Premonition:

An experience believed to foretell future events.

See also Prediction, Premonition, Prophecy.

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

Charisma

An extraordinary power of leadership, often regarded as supernaturally bestowed, capable of arousing special loyalty or enthusiasm in followers. In the New Testament (especially 1 Corinthians 12-14) Paul presents a charism as a divine bestowal of power not capable of being induced by human effort.

It manifests itself in spiritual gifts (charismata) such as prophecy, healing, and speaking in tongues (glossolalia). This use of the term is appropriated by the modern Christian charismatic movement, whose members claim to reproduce these powers.

The German sociologist Max Weber (1864-1920) expands this concept into a theory of leadership, both religious and secular, distinguishing charismatic authority from traditional and rational/legal authority. The former is found in the inherited office of kings, the latter in the legally defined and purposive bestowals of power characteristic of constitutional democracies.

The rational/legal and traditional types rely for their authority on extrinsic factors such as the inheritance of position or rationally justified powers of office; charismatic authority rests on the unique attributes of the leader. This individualistic quality results in the leadership of charismatic leaders being a stimulus to dramatic cultural change

(See also: Charisma , New Age Spirituality, Body Mind and Soul)

Mirror. The Luminous Mirror, Aspaqularia nera, a Kabbalistic term, means the power of foresight and farsight, prophecy such as Moses had. Ordinary mortals have only the Aspaqularia della nera or Non Luminous Mirror, they see only in a glass darkly: a parallel symbolism is that of the conception of the Tree of Life, and that only of the Tree of Knowledge.

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

Saturn The sixth planet from the sun in our solar system, the last of the seven sacred planets of the ancients. In theosophy the regent or rector of Saturn exercises its own characteristic influence especially on our earth, globe D, and closely combines in this respect with the influence emanating from the moon; its influences was likewise especially felt over the fourth root-race. In astrology, its zodiacal houses are Aquarius and Capricorn; its day of the week is Saturday.

Family-races also are born under the especial influence or partial regency of Saturn -- as for instance the Jews; but though Saturn in astrology is called the great malefic this is a one-sided view; and indeed astrologers themselves realize that there are influences which Saturn showers from itself, as does every planet, which are of distinctly spiritual and beneficent character.

With the Jews, the tribal deity Jehovah represents the racial divinity or Saturn, and hence it is that the Jews considered Jehovah as their own god, for he is in fact the dominating planetary influence on their race. The mystical type-figure for Saturn in the lands of the Near East was the ass, that patient, faithful animal, as greatly beloved as a companion of man in the Near East even today as the dog is in many parts of the West. One is reminded of the conqueror of Jerusalem who, entering the Holy of Holies in the temple of Jerusalem, stated that all he saw was a golden ass -- nor was there either irony or sarcasm intended, for the ancients recognized all these matters as being allegorical and mystical. One is likewise reminded of the statement made in the New Testament that Jesus rode into Jerusalem on an ass and the foal of an ass.

The planet Saturn in one sense is spiritually farther advanced than is the earth, although in quite different sense it is younger in its present embodiment.

Saturnus [possibly from Latin sero to sow] was one of the oldest Italic deities -- among other things patron of agriculture -- who became assimilated with the Greek Chronos or Kronos. Like Kronos he dethrones his father Uranus and is himself dethroned by Jupiter (Zeus); his mutilation of his father indicates that eternal time becomes limited; his devouring of his children is symbolic of time which both gives birth to events and then destroys them. He presides over the Golden Age of innocent but unprogressive peace, when men are unable to rule themselves and are ruled by genii; his kingdom was Lemuria. The Latins represented him as having, after his dethronement by Jupiter, become king of Italy, which was therefore called Saturnia, and presiding over the Golden Age; and Vergil voices the prophecy that such a Saturnian Age shall one day return.

The same idea underlies the Jewish Sabbath (Shabbath, a period of rest), the Lord's day, and Jehovah in one of its meanings is Saturn, the genius of the Hebrew nation. It was from Saturn that came the teachings revealed to Qutamy in Nabathean Agriculture. Among the many equivalents of Saturn are Chium, Seth, Cain, Ildabaoth among the Egyptian Gnostics, Agruerus, Sydyk (Melchisedec), and Satan -- the girdle about the loins of Satan is the rings of the planet Saturn. In the Biblical list of Gnostic emanations, Saturn corresponds to Thrones.

(See also: Saturn , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Sosiosh, Soshyos (Persian) In Zoroastrianism, the deliverer of the world, who shall come on a white horse in a tornado of fire.

According to the Avesta (Yast 19:89), he will be born from a maid near Lake Kasava; he will come from the region of the dawn to free the world from death and decay, from corruption and rottenness -- ever living and ever thriving, the dead shall rise and immortality commence.

This prophecy corresponds to that of the coming of Maitreya-Buddha, or of the Kalki-avatara of Vishnu, also repeated in the Christian Revelation of St. John.

(See also: Sosiosh, Soshyos , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Charismatic Gifts

According to Christian doctrine, the special spiritual gifts given to members of the Christian church. They are for edifying and building up the church. They are: word of wisdom, word of knowledge, faith, healing, miracles, prophecy, distinguishing of spirits, tongues, interpretation of tongues. Christians use the term to avoid using the term psychic.

(See also: Charismatic Gifts , New Age Spirituality, Body Mind and Soul)

College of Rabbis. A college at Babylon; most famous during the early centuries of Christianity. Its glory, however, was greatly darkened by the appearance in Alexandria of Hellenic teachers, such as Philo Judeus, Josephus, Aristobulus and others.

The former avenged themselves on their successful rivals by speaking of the Alexandrians as theurgists and unclean prophets. But the Alexandrian believers in thaumaturgy were not regarded as sinners or impostors when orthodox Jews were at the head of such schools of "hazim".

These were colleges for teaching prophecy and occult sciences. Samuel was the chief of such a college at Ramah; Elisha at Jericho. Hillel had a regular academy for prophets and seers; and it is Hillel, a pupil of the Babylonian College, who was the founder of the Sect of the Pharisees and the great orthodox Rabbis.

(See also: College of Rabbis , Theosophy, Spirituality, Body mind and Soul, Spiritual Dictionary,)

Seventh Day Adventist Church (SDA)

The largest Adventist church. Founded in 1845 by Ellen G. White, who claimed to have Òthe spirit of prophecy,Ó was an important early leader of the movement and taught a number of distinctive SDA doctrines, including the Investigative Judgment and Sabbatarianism.

While the church's official theology now appears to be generally in the tradition of evangelical Christianity, but they still cling to the belief that Sunday worship will result in the ÒMark of the Beast,Óand the ÒRemnant ChurchÓ doctrine that implies that the SDA is or will be God's only true church, and the doctrine of the Investigative Judgment.

(See also: Seventh Day Adventist Church , New Age Spirituality, Body Mind and Soul)

Mirror The astral light is often referred to as a mirror, as all manifestations are reflected in it. The Logos is also referred to as a mirror, reflecting divine mind, "and the Universe is the mirror of the Logos, though the latter is the esse of that Universe. As the Logos reflects all in the Universe of Pleroma, so man reflects in himself all that he sees and finds in his Universe, the Earth" (SD 2:25).

The monads are also living mirrors of the universe, every monad reflecting every other one (SD 1:623), as Leibniz taught. "The Luminous Mirror, Aspaqularia nera, a Kabbalistic term, means the power of foresight and farsight, prophecy such as Moses had. Ordinary mortals have only the Aspaqularia della nera or Non Luminous Mirror, they

See only in a glass darkly: a parallel symbolism is that of the conception of the Tree of Life, and that only of the Tree of Knowledge" (TG 215).

(See also: Mirror , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Asrama (Sanskrit) (from the verbal root sram to exert oneself spiritually)

A sacred building, a monastery or hermitage for ascetic purposes; likewise one of the four periods of effort or inner development in the religious life of a Brahmin in ancient times.

These asramas were

1)    the student or Brahmacharin;

2)     the householder or grihastha, the period of married existence when the Brahmin played his due role in the affairs of the world;

3)     the period of religious seclusion or vanaprastha, usually passed in a vana (forest), a period of inner spiritual recollection and meditation on philosophical and religious matters; and

4)    the one who has renounced all the distractions of worldly life or bhikshu who has turned his attention wholly to spiritual affairs, although he may have returned to the world of men for purposes of aiding and teaching.

Ass In the cults of Asia Minor a symbol of Set, Typhon, Satan, Jehovah, or Saturn. Jesus rides into Jerusalem "upon an ass, and a colt the foal of an ass," in accordance with the prophecy in Zechariah (9:9). If the ass is Saturn, and its foal the earth (whose physical globe is governed by the genius of Saturn in connection with the moon), this is an apt symbol of the descent of the Christos into the lower worlds. Plutarch relates that Typhon or Set fled on an ass into Palestine and there founded Hierosolymus and Judaeus (De Iside et Osiride, ch 30).

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

Nazarenes One of two early sects of Christians, the other sect being the Ebionites, which go back in their origin before the Christian era. They were disciples of that Jeshua ben Panthera who was an initiated teacher living in the reign of Alexander Jannaeus, who ruled over the Jews from 104-79 BC, and around whom, some state, that the Gospels story of Jesus was built (cf IU 2:201).

The Greek for this name is Nazoraioi, confused both with Nazarenoi (inhabitants of Nazareth) and with the Jewish sect of Nazarites; for Matthew 2:23 says that Jesus came and dwelt in Nazareth, that the Jewish prophecy that he should be called a Nazoraios might be fulfilled. This word has been translated Nazarene, as is also the case in Acts 24:5, where Paul is said to belong to the sect of the Nararaioi.

It would appear that the Jews claimed Jesus as a Nazarite [from Hebrew nazar to set apart, consecrate; cf nazar] Like the Ebionites, the Nazarenes were followers of true esoteric teachings, and occupied themselves in adapting these to what they found around them; so that scholars cannot make up their minds whether to call them Jews, Christians, Judizing Christians, heretics, or what not.

Other names for them were St. John Christians, Mendeans, or Sabeans. Epiphanius, the 4th century Church Father, speaks of them as dwelling in Coele-Syria, where they had taken refuge after the expulsion of Jews in the siege of Jerusalem in 70 AD. Both his and Jerome's accounts represent them as partly Jewish and partly Christian, accepting the new covenant as well as the old. One of their main texts is the Codex Nazaraeus.

(See also: Nazarenes , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)