ONTOLOGICAL ANARCHISM

Hakim Bey's term for overcoming Taoism's excessive passivity and withdrawal. He feels that to be really different invites repression by the Establishment. One should not think of oneself as a Liberal, but as a criminal.

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

Neo-Confucianism: Broad Confucian movement beginning in the 11th century CE which developed metaphysical doctrines at times borrowing from Buddhism and Taoism; founded by Chou Tun-i, other leading Neo-Confucianists were Chu Hsi, Lu Hsiang-shan, and Wang Yang Ming.

 (See also: Neo-Confucianism , Eastern Philosophy, Body Mind and Soul)

Taoism: A Chinese religion and philosophy that sees the universe as engaged in ceaseless motion and activity. All is considered to be in continual flux. The universe is intrinsically dynamic. The process is described in terms of Yin and Yang that should be balanced or harmonized through yoga, meditation, etc., to promote spiritual wholeness. According to legend, Taoism founder Lao-tzu wrote Tao Te Ching ("The Way and Its Power") about 550 BC. His teaching was developed and spread in the third century BC by Chuang-Tzu, whose writings inspired the Tao Tsang, 1200 volumes of Taoist scripture.

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

Period of 100 Philosophers: period of philosophical creativity in reaction to China's warring states period (403-221 BCE), later classed into six schools: Confucianism, Taoism, Mohism, Yin and Yang School, Logicians, and Legalism.

 (See also: Period of 100 Philosophers , Eastern Philosophy, Body Mind and Soul)

Lao-Tzu: Legendary founder of Taoism and author of the Tao Te Ching, who is said to have been an older contemporary of Confucius.

 (See also: Lao-Tzu , Eastern Philosophy, Body Mind and Soul)

Celestial Masters: Sect of Religious Taoism formed by Chang Tao Ling in the 2nd century CE which holds that divine rulers reward and punish us based on our good and evil actions.

 (See also: Celestial Masters , Eastern Philosophy, Body Mind and Soul)

Tao Te Ching: Literally, "The Way and its Power"; oldest and most important text in Taoism which emphasizes living according to the Tao, the virtuous power (te) we attain from the Tao, the return of everything to Tao, and the principles of non-action, non-mind.

 (See also: Tao Te Ching , Eastern Philosophy, Body Mind and Soul)

Chuang Tzu (Chinese) Chinese philosopher (late 4th century B.C.) who, with Lao Tzu and Kuan Tzu, is regarded as one of the patriarchs of Taoism. He wrote a work under his name which treats of the tao and its relation to the universe and man, and gives directions for the conduct of human life.

(See also: Chuang Tzu , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

HERMETICISM

(From Hermes Trismegistus.) The Hermetic sciences are Astrology, Magic, Qabalah and (ultimately) Egyptology. Hermetic philosophy is to be distinguished from Scholastic philosophy ("scholastic" meaning that which was taught in schools) derived from Aristotle, who believed all questions could be resolved either by reason or by debate stemming from a logic based on never-to-be-questioned premises (axioms). Science as we know it today is neither scholastic nor hermetic, but is founded strictly on empirical evidence. Hermetic science is based on universal symbols present within the collective unconscious and therefore available to inner revelation, rather than to ordinary objective experience. Hermes is, like the metal mercury, the amalgamation and contradiction of scattered opposites, the divine marriage (or hieros gamos) of polarities. As the God of messengers, he is a fitting symbol also of the Western version of Eastern Taoism and Buddhism.

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

Hakomi (Hakomi body-centered psychotherapy, Hakomi Body-Mind Process, Hakomi Body-Oriented Psychotherapy, Hakomi Method, Hakomi Method of Body/Mind Therapy, Hakomi Therapy, Hakomi work): Refinement of Reichian Therapy developed by Ron Kurtz in the mid-1970s.

The Hakomi Method uses the mind/body connection to elicit nonverbal core beliefs. It is based partly on bioenergetics, Buddhism, and Taoism. Hakomi is a Hopi word that means: How do you stand in relation to these many realms? (loosely, Who are you?).

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

MAGIC WORD

The root of all Magic is The Word. Ho Logos . In every culture, the shaman is the person with the largest vocabulary (although, ironically, he may express himself clumsily). He is also the one who sees beyond a person's words to what that person really means. For the magician, as for the poet, words are fluid and changing. Puns, paradoxes and triple/quadruple meanings come and go with varying degrees of exactitude or "correctness". Magical meanings derive from context or intention. Etymology is always strictly, historically, accurate, but usually beyond the safe and unimaginative academic frontiers into the realm of historical intuition. Where history and genuine insight leave off and illusion begins it is sometimes difficult to say.

The Egyptian God of magic, Thoth (or Tahuti, "The Speaker") is self-created and dwells in chaos. As he speaks, each word becomes a created thing (as in Greek a "poem" means anything that has been made). Hunchback: Is Chaos the Void or is it merely the pre-linguistic, Briatic world?

In our time when the television commercial has raped and perverted language for the sake of profit, when words have little more value than the squawking of parrots, it is difficult to imagine that there was once a mighty and living oral tradition. The true magician has not forgotten.

Therefore the adept must be adept with words. The unitiatated believe that Magic is entirely the result of uttering certain catchwords or phrases: "Hocus-Pocus-Dominocus!" or "Hey Presto! Hi Jingo, begone!" Oddly enough, this bit of folk wisdom is not as far off the mark as it might seem. Words do have power. Spells can be evoked. PKD once said that for every individual in the world there exists a special word or phrase, for him alone, which upon his hearing, would result in his death. There is also another word that would heal him of anything. Most of us, however, go through our whole lives without hearing either of these vital words or phrases.

The words used by magicians, when they are not the nonsense syllables of charlatans, tend to be words from archaic languages. Today these are primarily Latin or Greek (in our culture), whereas in the 18th and 19th Century, ritual words were usually taken from Hebrew. Hebrew magic itself borrowed from the earlier Chaldaeans, Babylonians and Assyrians. Finally, there is Buddhism and Yoga from Sanskrit, Tantrism from Tibetan, Taoism from Chinese and Sufism from Arabic.

Says Her Bak , "Do not be negligent in finding and using the right word. Thoth never replies to inexact medus."

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

Jade Emperor

(Yu Huang) Supreme deity of Taoism

(See also: Jade Emperor , Body Mind and Soul)

Crane

Bird that symbolized longevity and wisdom in Taoism.

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

Feng Shui, Fung Shui (Chinese) Wind, rain, or water; the science and art which tends to realize the ideal aim that every human dwelling place -- village or city, fields and surrounding regions, roads, gates, temples; in fact everything connected with human activities upon earth -- must be situated and constructed so that the universe can exercise as completely as possible its favorable influences upon them. The regulators of the fung shui are said to be the three buddhas (triratna). Hence in this aspect Taoism mingles with Buddhism.

Also called khan yu (heaven and earth) in Han literature.

(See also: Feng Shui, Fung Shui , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Yang (Chinese) The bright aspect -- as the sunny side of a hill -- in contrast to yin, the dark side. In mystic Chinese literature and in Taoism, yang is associated with the masculine aspect, while yin refers to the feminine aspect. Thus tao is regarded as the interaction of the revolving changes produced by the yang and yin: yang referring to immaterial, celestial force and substance; yin, to material equivalents.

Popularly everything of a beneficial aspect is associated with yang, while everything of maleficent tendency is related to yin. However, this limits the original conception of yang and yin as forming the two contrasted sides of the universe, for one cannot exist without the other, and each in its own way is as important as the other.

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

Paleopaganism or Paleo-Paganism:

A general term for the original polytheistic, nature-centered faiths of tribal Europe, Africa, Asia, the Americas, Oceania and Australia, when they were (or in some rare cases, still are) practiced as intact belief systems.

Of the so-called “Great Religions of the World,” Hinduism (prior to the influx of Islam into India), Taoism and Shinto, for example, fall under this category, though many members of these faiths might be reluctant to use the term.

Some Paleopagan belief systems may be racist, sexist, homophobic, etc. There are billions of Paleopagans living and worshiping their deities today.

See Mesopaganism and Neopaganism.

(See also: Paleopaganism, Paleo-Paganism , Pagan, Paganism, Pagan Dictionary)

Wu Wei (Chinese) Inaction, inactivity; quiescence, placidity. Used in Taoism in relation to the tao of man, the idea being that "Heaven is emptiness" and by practicing wu wei (inaction) and becoming "empty" one becomes at one with heaven or tao. Reminiscent of the highly mystical import of the Buddhist sunyata (Sanskrit, "emptiness," "void").

In all such words the difficulty is in finding ordinary language to convey the thought. There is not an absolutely empty point of space in all infinitude; what seems to the human senses to be cosmic vacuity is actually complete or absolute fullness, a pleroma as the Gnostics said.

Cosmic sunyata or wu wei is emptiness simply because it lacks the lowest forms of matter -- forms and bodies which are like the spume or bubbles on the sea of cosmic reality, which to human senses is empty because invisible, intangible, and not subject to sense perception.

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

Lao Tse: Also Lao Tzu. Supposed founder of Taoism, and author of the Tao Te Ching.

 (See also: Lao Tse , Buddhism, Body Mind and Soul)

Kwei (Chinese) Also Kuei. Generally, evil spirits or demons; used in Taoism in connection with yin, referring to beings supposed to be connected with the dark side of nature. Yin is regarded as a universal kwei divisible into myriads of particles. Union of the kwei and shen causes life, activity; their separation causes death. Man is likewise composed of a kwei and shen, the kwei representing the dark side of his nature.

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

Way of Supreme Peace (t'ai-p'ing tao): Messianic sect of Religious Taoism founded by Chang Chueh (d. 184 CE) which emphasized based formal fasting ceremonies (chai) involving ritual healing and public confession of fault.

 (See also: Way of Supreme Peace , Eastern Philosophy, Body Mind and Soul)

Shen (Chinese) In Taoism, when employed in relation to yang, it refers to the celestial or spiritual, hence the gods; in relation to man it is generally translated soul. Yang is defined as a supreme, universal shen -- living, creating, dividing itself into an infinite number of shen -- depositing the shen in the various beings of the worlds. "The shen are omnipresent; it is they which perform the unfathomable work of the Yang and the Yin. These two vital breaths (of the universe) create the beings; their peregrinating hwun (or shen) are the causes of the changes (in nature), from which, accordingly, we may learn the actions and manners of the kwei and the shen" (I Ching, Hi-ts'ze 1).

With regard to man, the Li Chi states that "Man is a product of the beneficial operation of the Yang and the Yin, and the union of a kwei with a shen; he consists of the finest breath which the five elements contain" (Li yun 3).

See also KWEI

(See also: Shen , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)