Tetrad [from Greek tetras four]

The number four; a collection of four. "The Tetrad is esteemed in the Kabala, as it was by Pythagoras, the most perfect, or rather sacred number, because it emanated from the one, the first manifested Unit, or rather the three in one" (SD 2:599).

In chemistry, an atom, radical, or element that has a combining power of four.

See also QUATERNARY; TETRAKTYS; TETRAGRAMMATON

(See also: Tetrad , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body mind and Soul)

CARPOCRATES

A 2nd Century Gnostic, who advocated promiscuity and thereby earned the hatred of orthodox Xtianity, which in turn delighted in distorting his philosophy. What Carpocrates intended to show was that the flesh is of so little importance compared to the soul, that it can be used and abused for a higher purpose. Since the body is a prison, it is necessary to transcend the flesh through experiencing it and thereby free oneself of all desire. Any human experience missed will simply cause reincarnation in another body. If we do not break all the divine laws, we cannot free ourselves to return to the Unbegotten. Carpocrates is credited with having said, "Nothing is evil by nature" and his ideas can be traced to Plato and Pythagoras. Another thing that made Carpocratians unpopular with the orthodox Xtians was their idea of communal property, an early form of Communism.

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

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)

EMPEDOCLES

(5th Century BC, of Acraga). The last of the Presocratic Shamans, whose company included Parmenides, Zeno, Xenophanes, Heraclitus and Pythagoras. He was a healer who sought to reconcile pragmatic this-worldliness and the metaphysical concerns of reincarnation, transcendence, etc.

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

Numa Second of the so-called legendary kings of ancient Rome who, with Romulus, belongs to the class of eponymous ancestors, heroes, and instructors seen by us but dimly, which are met with in the traditional history of so many peoples.

In Numa's case there has undoubtedly been considerable adaptation, even among the ancients themselves, as to dates, localities, and other accessories, due to the requirements of historians who were compiling a consecutive account of their people's ancestry and beginnings. It may even be that Numa is a generic name, standing for a dynasty or class of teachers, much as the names Solomon and Zoroaster did.

The fables and mythoi that have come down to us about Numa show him to be one of those early initiated founders of civilizations and culture. Among all Romans, ancient and later, he was universally respected and regarded almost as the father of Latin civilization. As Romulus represents conquering might, so Numa stands for a succeeding period of consolidation and instruction. He is the teacher, not only of religion but of scientific arts.

Tradition connects him with Pythagoras and the Etruscan hierophants. Romulus suggests the attributes of Aries, the first sign of the zodiac and the house of Mars; while Numa suggests the next sign, Taurus, a quiet sign under Venus and the Moon. He was the lawgiver, representing the second stage in the formation of a culture.

(See also: Numa , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Heliocentric The heliocentric system was universally known in antiquity as a part of the teaching of the Mysteries, and certain eminent sages of those archaic times even taught it more or less openly, among them Confucius in China, Greek philosophers, Egyptian priests, and Hindu astronomical and other writers. Pythagoras veiled the heliocentric theory under the teaching that the planets (and the sun) revolved around a mysterious central fire, invisible to us, but whose light was reflected to the earth by the sun.

At the same time, practically all antiquity adopted the geocentric point of view for public dissemination of their ideas. Secrecy may have been their reason; or they may have wished to represent the mechanism geocentrically for convenience of use, since they and their readers lived upon the earth and not upon the sun. The same secrecy is not necessary today because we no longer recognize the harmony of nature and the universal correspondences: we can be trusted with the key because we have mislaid the lock.

(See also: Helheim, Helhem , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Sol (Latin) Sun; it is said that the Latin solus (the only) was used of the One Good, and that this word afterwards became sol, the sun (SD 2:575). Pythagoras called Venus sol alter (the other sun); Arnobius says that Mercury also is sol -- the vehicle of a solar logos. Every one of the sacred planets is sol in the same manner, for each is, so far as the solar system is concerned, the especial vehicle of one of the seven or twelve solar logoi.

(See also: Sol , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Vach vac (Sanskrit) Sound, voice, word, the mystic sound (svara) or essence of spirit of the divine creative activity, the vehicle of divine thought; and of this the Word is the manifested expression. Vach, or its equivalents in other cultures, is always considered feminine. Cosmically she is the carrier or mother of the Third Logos -- the Word or Verbum -- because of carrying perpetually within her the essence of divine thought, the First Logos; and hence Vach is the Second Logos, equivalent to the early Christian Holy Spirit or Holy Ghost -- later transmogrified into a cosmic male. In Hindu mythology Brahma separates his body into masculine and feminine, the feminine becoming Vach, in whom he creates Viraj, who is himself again Brahma. Here we have the three Logoi: Brahma, the First Logos, the divine thought; Vach, the Second Logos, the divine voice; and Viraj, the Third Logos, or the divine word, the philosophical equivalent of the Son of the Christian Trinity.

Hence Vach is associated with the work of creation, with the prajapatis. She calls forth the mayavi form of the universe out of abstract space or Chaos, of which the first cosmogonical stage are the seven cosmic elements. Mystically Vach is masculine and feminine at will, as in the Hebrew Genesis Eve is with Adam. It is through her power that Brahma produced the universe. Blavatsky points out that Brahma produced through Vach in the same way that the incomprehensible assumes a tangible form through speech, words, and numbers (cf SD 1:430). Vach through her productive powers produced what Pythagoras called the music of the spheres. The teachings of Pythagoras also speak of the hierarchies of the heavenly host as numbered and expressed in numbers. Vach is equivalent, in some aspects, to Isis, Aditi, mulaprakriti, the waters of space, chaos, and the Qabbalistic Sephirah.

"Whether as Aditi, or the divine Sophia of the Greek Gnostics, she is the mother of the seven sons: the 'Angels of the Face,' of the 'Deep,' or the 'Great Green One' of the 'Book of the Dead' " (SD 1:434). These feminine logoi are all correlations of light, sound, and ether. In many aspects Vach approaches Kwan-yin, she of the melodious voice. Sarasvati, the goddess of divine wisdom, is a later form of Vach. The Hebrew Lahgash is nearly identical in meaning with Vach as the hidden power of the mantras, the divine sound. "But Vach being also spoken of as the daughter of Daksha -- 'the god who lives in all the Kalpas' -- her Mayavic character is thereby shown: during the pralaya she disappears, absorbed in the one, all-devouring Ray" (SD 1:430-1).

Vach is also called Savitri (the generatrix), the mother of the gods and of all living. She is identical in the human range with Eve, who is also called the mother of all living. Ila or Ida is but the second repetition of Vach in a different period of cosmogony. Vach refers to the cosmic and divine theogony, while Ila refers to a later period in the earth's history when the physiological transformation of the sexes took place during the third root-race. In this last sense Vach corresponds with Eve.

Vach is often called Sandhya (twilight), also Satarupa (a hundred forms) to describe the feminine logos unfolded into the ten planes and subplanes of the universe. The cow is a symbol of Vach, for the cow has always been the emblem of the passive generative power of nature.

Vach is also mystic speech "by whom Occult Knowledge and Wisdom are communicated to man, and thus Vach is said to have 'entered the Rishis.' . . . she is called 'the mother of the Vedas,' 'since it was through her power (as mystic speech) that Brahma revealed them . . . " (SD 1:430). The Rig-Veda and Upanishads give four kinds of Vach -- vaikhari, madhyama, pasyanti, and para -- corresponding to the four cosmic principles: the physical universe, the light of the Logos, the Logos itself, and parabrahman or the infinite.

(See also: Vach, vac , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body mind and Soul)

Pantacle (Ancient Greek). The same as Pentalpha; the triple triangle of Pythagoras or the five-pointed star.

It was given the name because it reproduces the letter A (alpha) on the five sides of it or in five different positions - its number, moreover, being composed of the first odd ( and the first even (2) numbers. It is very occult. In Occultism and the Kabala it stands for man or the Microcosm, the "Heavenly Man", and as such it was a powerful talisman for keeping at bay evil spirits or the Elementals.

In Christian theology it refers to the five wounds of Christ; its interpreters failing, however, to add that these "five wounds" were themselves symbolical of the Microcosm, or the "Little Universe", or again, Humanity, this symbol pointing out the fall of pure Spirit (Christos) into matter (Iassous, "life", or man).

In esoteric philosophy the Pentalpha, or five-pointed star, is the symbol of the EGO or the Higher Manas. Masons use it, referring to it as the five-pointed star, and connecting it with their own fanciful interpretation.

(See the word "Pentacle" for its difference in meaning from "Pantacle".)

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

Manticism, or Mantic Frenzy. During this state was developed the gift of prophecy. The two words are nearly synonymous. One was as honoured as the other. Pythagoras and Plato held it in high esteem, and Socrates advised his disciples to study Manticism. The Church Fathers, who condemned so severely the mantic frenzy in Pagan priests and Pythie, were not above applying it to their own uses.

The Montanists, who took their name from Montanus, a bishop of Phrygia, who was considered divinely inspired, contended with the mavnteiz (manteis) or prophets. "Tertullian, Augustine, and the martyrs of Carthage, were of the number", says the author of Prophecy, Ancient and Modern. "The Montanists seem to have resembled the Bacchantes in the wild enthusiasm that characterized their orgies," he adds. There is a diversity of opinion as to the origin of the word Manticism.

There was the famous Mantis the Seer, in the days of Melampus and Prœtus King of Argos; and there was Manto, the daughter of the prophet of Thebes, herself a prophetess. Cicero describes prophecy and mantic frenzy, by saying, that "in the inner recesses of the mind is divine prophecy hidden and confined, a divine impulse, which when it burns more vividly is called furor", frenzy. (Isis Unveiled.)

(See also: Manticism, Mantic Frenzy , Theosophy, Spirituality, Body mind and Soul, Spiritual Dictionary,)

Universals A philosophical and logical term, used in opposition to particulars. For example, matter may be called a universal, and material bodies may be called particulars; or life may be a universal, and living beings particulars.

The universal is sometimes defined as that which is left when all particularities or differences have ceased to be. The question arises as to which shall be considered real. If the particulars are realities, then the universals become mere abstract ideas: thus mankind would be merely an indefinite number of human beings. But if the universal is real, then we regard particular humans as being each a manifestation on respective lower planes of man, the Heavenly Man or Qabbalistic 'Adam Qadmon. Again, if living beings are real, then life becomes an abstraction. But if life is a real entity in itself, then living beings are its particular manifestations. The philosophy which starts with universals and proceeds to particulars is called deductive: it is that of theosophy and of Pythagoras and Plato.

The inductive philosophy of Aristotle and Francis Bacon proceeds from particulars to universals. Space, motion, duration, intelligence, etc., in themselves abstract realities, are regarded by theosophy as universals, whereas from the opposite viewpoint they appear as only abstractions from experience. The deductive method has its uses in applied science, but in fact it tacitly assumes certain universals and reasons back to them from particulars.

(See also: Universals , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body mind and Soul)

Three-in-One In the order of succession of cosmic principles, as represented by numbers, two Ones are spoken of: the unmanifested One and its offspring, the semi-manifested One. The latter in turn emanates its offspring, a third One, which is often called the Three-in-One. In every cosmogony this triad or trinity is found at the head of cosmic manifestation; it is a unit, yet can be viewed under its three aspects. For when considering the activities taking place at the beginning of a cosmic awakening, our human minds find it exceedingly difficult to conceive complete divine unity, but must intuit it in its triple aspect. Various names are given to this triad, such as non-ego, spiritual darkness, and spirit-matter-life.

There is a Three-in-One within every human being: "Rudimentary man . . . becomes the perfect man . . . when, with the development of 'Spiritual Fire,' the noumenon of the 'Three in One' within his Self, he acquires from his inner Self, or Instructor, the Wisdom of Self-Consciousness, which he does not possess in the beginning" (SD 2:113).

The tetrad was esteemed by the Qabbalists and Pythagoras as a relatively perfect number because it emanates from the One, and is the fulfilled emanational rounding out of the originating One, the first unit or rather the Three-in-One.

(See also: Three-in-One , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body mind and Soul)

Kabalist. From Q B L H, KABALA, an unwritten or oral tradition.

The kabalist is a student of "secret science", one who interprets the hidden meaning of the Scriptures with the help of the symbolical Kabala, and explains the real one by these means. The Tanaim were the first kabalists among the Jews; they appeared at Jerusalem about the beginning of the third century before the Christian era. The books of Ezekiel, Daniel, Henoch, and the Revelation of St. John, are purely kabalistical.

This secret doctrine is identical with that of Chaldeans, and includes at the same time much of the Persian wisdom, or "magic". History catches glimpses of famous kabalists ever since the eleventh century.

The Medieval ages, and even our own times, have had an enormous number of the most learned and intellectual men who were students of the Kabala (or Qabbalah, as some spell it).

The most famous among the former were Paracelsus, Henry Khunrath, Jacob Bohmen, Robert Fludd, the two Van Helmonts, the Abbot John Trithemius, Cornelius Agrippa, Cardinal Nicolao Cusani, Jerome Carden, Pope Sixtus IV., and such Christian scholars as Raymond Lully, Giovanni Pico de la Mirandola, Guillaume Postel, the great John Reuchlin, Dr. Henry More, Eugenius Philalethes (Thomas Vaughan), the erudite Jesuit Athanasius Kircher, Christian Knorr (Baron) von Rosenroth; then Sir Isaac Newton., Leibniz, Lord Bacon, Spinosa, etc., etc., the list being almost inexhaustible.

As remarked by Mr. Isaac Myer, in his Qabbalah, the ideas of the Kabalists have largely influenced European literature. "Upon the practical Qabbalah, the Abbé ,de Villars (nephew of de Montfaucon) in 1670, published his celebrated satirical novel, ‘The Count de Gabalis’, upon which Pope based his ‘Rape of the Lock’. Qabbalism ran through the Medieval poems, the ‘Romance of the Rose’, and permeates the writings of Dante." No two of them, however, agreed upon the origin of the Kabala, the Zohar, Sepher Yetzirah, etc. Some show it as coming from the Biblical Patriarchs, Abraham, and even Seth; others from Egypt, others again from Chaldea.

The system is certainly very old; but like all the rest of systems, whether religious or philosophical, the Kabala is derived directly from the primeval Secret Doctrine of the East; through the Vedas, the Upanishads, Orpheus and Thales, Pythagoras and the Egyptians. Whatever its source, its substratum is at any rate identical with that of all the other systems from the Book of the Dead down to the later Gnostics. The best exponents of the Kabala in the Theosophical Society were among the earliest, Dr. S. Pancoast, of Philadelphia, and Mr. G. Felt; and among the latest, Dr. W. Wynn Westcott, Mr. S. L. Mac Gregor Mathers (both of the Rosicrucian College) and a few others. (See " Qabbalah ".)

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

Enneagram

an ancient system of spiritual psychology used for centuries to understand the development of the soul. Although the familiar symbol was devised by Pythagoras, the Enneagram system originated in the Middle East in 2500BC.

Similar to the Meyers-Briggs personality test, the Enneagram can be used to identify one's strengths and weaknesses among nine major characteristics. As a tool for personal growth and transformation, it goes beyond simple personality "types" by providing compensatory strategies to balance these facets of personality.

(See also: Enneagram , Alternative Health, Body Mind and Soul)

Empedocles (c 490-430 BC) Greek philosopher and poet, whose system was based on the interaction of the four elements (fire, air, earth, and water), called by him rhizomata (roots), under the influence of love and hate (attraction and repulsion). His doctrines, such as transmigration, agree with those of Pythagoras. (BCW, SD 1:497-8; FSO 228)

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

Soulless Beings Men and women who are still connected, but usually quite unconsciously, with the monad, the spiritual essence within them, but not self-consciously so; they live very largely in the brain-mind and in the fields of sensuous consciousness.

"We elbow soulless men in the streets at every turn," wrote Blavatsky. This does not mean that those people have no soul, but that the spiritual part of these human beings is unable to manifest itself through the unawakened brain-mind and feelings.

They are animate humans with an animate working brain-mind, but otherwise soulless in the sense that the soul is insufficiently expressive. This is what Pythagoras meant when he spoke of the living dead, or the spiritually useless portion of mankind. They live in the ordinary mind and in the body, thinking only of and in these small and restricted spheres of consciousness. Such "soulless" people are very numerous. Soulless beings are not to be confused with lost souls.

(See also: Soulless Beings , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Harmony of the Spheres

The cosmos as a vast musical harmony (Pythagoras)

(See also: Harmony of the Spheres , Body Mind and Soul)

Heliocentric The heliocentric system was universally known in antiquity as a part of the teaching of the Mysteries, and certain eminent sages of those archaic times even taught it more or less openly, among them Confucius in China, Greek philosophers, Egyptian priests, and Hindu astronomical and other writers. Pythagoras veiled the heliocentric theory under the teaching that the planets (and the sun) revolved around a mysterious central fire, invisible to us, but whose light was reflected to the earth by the sun.

At the same time, practically all antiquity adopted the geocentric point of view for public dissemination of their ideas. Secrecy may have been their reason; or they may have wished to represent the mechanism geocentrically for convenience of use, since they and their readers lived upon the earth and not upon the sun. The same secrecy is not necessary today because we no longer recognize the harmony of nature and the universal correspondences: we can be trusted with the key because we have mislaid the lock.

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

Pythagoras (Ancient Greek). The most famous of mystic philosophers, born at Samos, about 586 B.C. He seems to have travelled all over the world, and to have culled his philosophy from the various systems to which he had access.

Thus, he studied the esoteric sciences with the Brachmanes of India, and astronomy and astrology in Chaldea and Egypt. He is known to this day in the former country under the name of Yavanacharya ("Ionian teacher"). After returning he settled in Crotona, in Magna Grecia, where he established a college to which very soon resorted all the best intellects of the civilised centres. His father was one Mnesarchus of Samos, and was a man of noble birth and learning.

It was Pythagoras. who was the first to teach the heliocentric system, and who was the greatest proficient in geometry of his century. It was he also who created the word "philosopher", composed of two words meaning a "lover of wisdom" - philo-sophos. As the greatest mathematician, geometer and astronomer of historical antiquity, and also the highest of the metaphysicians and scholars, Pythagoras has won imperishable fame. He taught reincarnation as it is professed in India and much else of the Secret Wisdom.

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

Afterife - Life After Death

An encyclopedia of different cultures mythology  around afterlife, including : Adiri, Ama-No-Hashidate: , Asamando, Asgard, Astral Plane, Avalon, Bralgu, Chalmecacivati, Ching Tu, Chinvato Peretav, Dilum, Djanna, Elysium, Fortunate Isle, Gwenved, Happy Hunting Ground, Hawaiki, Inkolwe, Isle of the Blest, Kevala, Khun-Lun, Ki-Agpga-Pod, Kotluwalawa, Land of the Moon, Lewu Liau, Limbo, Mizumu, Moksha, Mormon Heaven, Mount Kailasa, Mount Meru , New Age Afterlife, New Jerusalem, Nirvana, Otherworld, Sheol, Summerland, Tain, Tamoanchan, The Pole Star, Tlalocan, Tum and Valhalla.

Read more here: » Afterlife: Encyclopedia of Afterlife Mythology in Different Cultures