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Psychography. A word first used by theosophists; it means writing under the dictation or the influence of one’s "soul-power", though Spiritualists have now adopted the term to denote writing produced by their mediums under the guidance of returning "Spirits".

 
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Postel, Guillaume. A French adept, born in Normandy in 1510. His learning brought him to the notice of Francis I., who sent him to the Levant in search of occult MSS., where he was received into and initiated by an Eastern Fraternity. On his return to France he became famous. He was persecuted by the clergy and finally imprisoned by the Inquisition, but was released by his Eastern brothers from his dungeon. His Clavis Absconditorum, a key to things hidden and forgotten, is very celebrated.

 
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Xisusthrus (Ancient Greek). The Chaldean Noah, on the Assyrian tablets, who is thus described in the history of the ten kings by Berosus, according to Alexander Polyhistor:
 
"After the death of (the ninth) Ardates, his son Xisusthrus reigned eighteen sari. In his time happened a great deluge." Warned by his deity in a vision of the forthcoming cataclysm, Xisusthrus was ordered by that deity to build an ark, to convey into it his relations, together with all the different animals, bird etc., and trust himself to the rising waters. Obeying the divine admonition, Xisusthrus is shown to do precisely what Noah did many thousand years after him. He sent out birds from the vessel which returned to him again; then a few days after he sent them again, and they returned with their feet coated with mud; but the third time they came back to him no more.
 
Stranded on a high mountain of Armenia, Xisusthrus descends and builds an altar to the gods. Here only, comes a divergence between the polytheistic and monotheistic legends. Xisusthrus, having worshipped and rendered thanks to the gods for his salvation, disappeared, and his companions "saw him no more ". The story informs us that on account of his great piety Xisusthrus and his family were translated to live with the gods, as he himself told the survivors. For though his body was gone, his voice was heard in the air, which, after apprising them of the occurrence, admonished them to return to Babylon, and pay due regard to virtue, religion, and the gods. This is more meritorious than to plant vines, get drunk on the juice of the grape, and curse one’s own son.

 
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Orphic Mysteries or Orphica (Ancient Greek). These followed, but differed greatly from, the mysteries of Bacchus.
 
The system of Orpheus is one of the purest morality and of severe asceticism. The theology taught by him is again purely Indian. With him the divine Essence is inseparable from whatever is in the infinite universe, all forms being concealed from all eternity in It. At determined periods these forms are manifested from the divine Essence or manifest themselves.
 
Thus through this law of emanation (or evolution) all things participate in this Essence, and are parts and members instinct with divine nature, which is omnipresent. All things having proceeded from, must necessarily return into it; and therefore, innumerable transmigrations or reincarnations and purifications are needed before this final consummation can take place. This is pure Vedanta philosophy. Again, the Orphic Brotherhood ate no animal food and wore white linen garments, and had many ceremonies like those of the Brahmans.

 
(See also: Orphic Mysteries, Orphica, Theosophy, Spirituality, Body mind and Soul, Spiritual Dictionary,  )

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Via Straminis (Latin) The way of straw, the wispy way; the Milky Way, the name evidently referring to the wisps of light with which the Milky Way is strewn, as straw was often used to strew the roads in ancient times. The ancient Syrians in their system of describing the stages of nature, called the spiritual regents within and behind the Milky Way their First Principle.
 
Theosophy regards the Milky Way as not only the origin of all manifested solar systems but likewise as the repository of these solar systems when they finish their evolutionary course and return to the invisible background of the galaxy for their long pralayic rest. Yet this is but a minor part that the Milky Way plays in the cosmic economy, for that pathway of the gods, as many ancient mystics called it, contains some of the deepest mysteries that the human mind in its endless research for truth and knowledge has unfolded. The Romans used two other expressions to denote the Milky Way: the circulus lacteus (milky circle) and via lactis (milky way).

 
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Yu (Chinese) Being; according to the Yi-shu-lu-chia-lun (translation of Nagarjuna''s Ekasloka-sastra), " ''the Substance giving substance to itself,'' also explain . . . as meaning ''without action and with action,'' ''the nature which has no nature of its own'' " (SD 1:61). Chinese mystics have made it the synonym of svabhavat or Father-Mother, corresponding to the Second Logos of theosophy.
 
Yu evidently refers to the primordial spiritual substance of the universe, which is at once intelligence and spiritual matter, life and consciousness, from which all proceeds as a fountain or source, and into which all will ultimately return when the great cosmic world period or manvantara reaches its end, and the cosmic pralaya begins.
 
Yet this is not the highest in the cosmic hierarchical scale, because over, in, and throughout yu is the super-essential cosmic primordial abstract being, which the Pythagoreans spoke of as the all-embracing cosmic monad.

 
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Tuat (Egyptian) Also Tiau, Tiaou. The region of the underworld or of the dead, though it was not situated under the earth, or answer to the popular conception of the Christian hell, even though the Tuat is often described as a place of retribution. One of the post-mortem states described in The Egyptian Book of the Dead as being situated in the region of the moon.
 
In popular mythology the Tuat was separated from the world by a range of mountains and consisted of a great valley, shut in by mountains, through which ran a river (the counterpart of the Nile, reminding one of the Jordan of the Jews and Christians), the banks of which were the abode of evil spirits and monstrous beasts. As the sun passed through the Tuat great numbers of souls were described as making their way to the boat of the sun, and those that succeeded in clinging to the boat were able to come forth into new life as the sun rose from the eastern end of the valley to usher in another day. Tuat was also depicted as the region where the soul went during night, returning to join the living on earth during the day.
 
Originally it was described as the abode of the night-sun, through which the sun god Ra passed during the night, only to arise renewed in the morning. "What is the Tiaou? The frequent allusion to it in the ''Book of the Dead'' contains a mystery. Tiaou is the path of the Night Sun, the inferior hemisphere, or the infernal region of the Egyptians, placed by them on the concealed side of the moon. The human being, in their exotericism, came out from the moon (a triple mystery -- astronomical, physiological, and psychical at once); he crossed the whole cycle of existence and then returned to his birth-place before issuing from it again. Thus the defunct is shown arriving in the West, receiving his judgment before Osiris, resurrecting as the god Horus, and circling round the sidereal heavens, which is an allegorical assimilation to Ra, the Sun; then having crossed the Noot (the celestial abyss), returning once more to Tiaou: an assimilation to Osiris, who, as the God of life and reproduction, inhabits the moon" (SD 1:227-8).
 
The Tuat was divided into twelve regions, called fields (sekhet), corresponding to the number of hours of the night; or again it was described as being composed of seven circles (arrets), each under the guardianship of a watcher. The realm of Osiris is represented as Sekhet-Aarru or -Aanre (the fields of Aanroo), which was divided into 15 Aats (houses), having 21 Pylons. One of the regions of the Tuat was known as Amenti (Egyptian Amentet, "the hidden place"]
 
, a term often applied to the whole region of the dead.

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

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Vali, Vale (Icelandic, Scandinavian) In Norse mythology, a son of Odin who avenges the death of the sun god Balder; also a son of Loki. This paradox may be resolved in that the son of Loki (mind), being also the offspring of Allfather Odin as all beings are, is the future human race in its character as a redeemer and consummation of human evolution. He also may be a personification of karma-nemesis.
 
Of all the gods, only Vali and Vidar survive the destruction of the world, Ragnarok, when the gods return to their ground, thus preparing the seed for the future world, the child and successor of the present one.

 
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Mitra or Mithra. (Pers.) An ancient Iranian deity, a sun-god, as evidenced by his being lion-headed. The name exists also in India and means a form of the sun. The Persian Mithra, he who drove out of heaven Ahriman, is a kind of Messiah who is expected to return as the judge of men, and is a sin-bearing god who atones for the iniquities of mankind. As such, however, he is directly connected with the highest Occultism, the tenets of which were expounded during the Mithraic Mysteries which thus bore his name.

 
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Sri Sankaracharya (Sanskrit). The great religious reformer of India, and teacher of the Vedanta philosophy - the greatest of all such teachers, regarded by the Adwaitas (Non-dualists) as an incarnation of Siva and a worker of miracles. He established many mathams (monasteries), and founded the most learned sect among Brahmans, called the Smartava. The legends about him are as numerous as his philosophical writings. At the age of thirty-two he went to Kashmir, and reaching Kedaranath in the Himalayas, entered a cave alone, whence he never returned. His followers claim that he did not die, but only retired from the world.

 
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Svabhavat (Sanskrit). Explained by the Orientalists as "plastic substance", which is an inadequate definition. Svabhavat is the world-substance and stuff, or rather that which is behind it - the spirit and essence of substance. The name comes from Subhava and is composed of three words - su, good, perfect, fair, handsome; sva, self; and bkava, being, or state of being. From it all nature proceeds and into it all returns at the end of the life-cycles. In Esotericism it is called "Father-Mother". It is the plastic essence of matter.

 
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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.

 
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