Rudraksha: "The Eye of Shiva;" a tree seed considered sacred to Shiva and worn by worshippers of Shiva, Shakti, and Ganeha, and by yogis, usually in a strand of 108 seeds. Also used as a rosary to count the number of mantras repeated in japa.

(See also: Rudraksha, Hinduism, Hinduism Dictionary, Sanskrit Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul)

Purana: Literally "The Ancient." The Puranas are a number of scriptures attributed to the sage Vyasa that teach spiritual principles and practices through stories about sacred historical personages which often include their teachings given in conversations.

(See also: Purana, Hinduism, Hinduism Dictionary, Sanskrit Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul)

E Delphicum The Delphic E, a sacred symbol denoting, among other things, the number 5. It is the fifth letter in the Greek and English alphabets, corresponding to he', the fifth letter in the Hebrew alphabet, which signifies a window and, in the Qabbalah, the human womb.

(See also: E Delphicum, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Triscale or Triskele: A Celtic symbol used by the Druids to represent the sacred number three. It was a cirlce devided into three equal spaces separated by swirling lines which radiate out from the center.

(See also: Triscale, Triskele, Witchcraft, Wicca, Paganism, Pagan Dictionary)

Vedas: the most ancient sacred literature of the Hindus. Most ancient texts revealed to the sages and saints of India which explain and regulate every aspect of life from supreme reality to worldly affairs. Four in number: Rig, Yajur, Sama, Atharava which are further divided into Samhita, Brahmana, Aranyaka and Upanishads.

(See also: Vedas, Hinduism, Yoga, Sanskrit Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul)

Numbers

Interpreting numbers that we see in dreams may be difficult. Their meaning my be very personal, such as a reflection of financial concern or any other area of daily life represented by numbers. One way to interpret numbers is to try to see how they are specifically related to you. (E.g. If you have the number 25 in your dream. Your house number is 12 while your parent's number is 13. Together they make 25, and this dream could have been addressing issues in regard to you and your parents.) On the other hand, numbers in dreams may represent global concepts and point to collective dilemmas.

Some interesting interpretations would include the following:

• even numbers might represent the feminine while odd numbers the masculine.
• Number 2 - psychic development and doubling; something new coming up with the potential for building
• Number 3 - the trinity; it is an active or a process number (something is going on in the psyche).
• Number 4 - completion and femininity
• Number 5 - life force; refers to the five fingers and five appendages of the body.
• Number 7 - sacred number in Christianity and Judaism; the highest stage of illumination and spirituality.
• Number 12 - represents time and may mark the most important cycles in life.

See also: Meaning of Dreams about Zero   Source: Dream Lover Incorporated, http://www.dreamloverinc.com   (See also: Dream Archives, Meaning of Dreams, Dream Interpretation, Dream Dictionary, Dream Dictionary - Numbers, Meaning of Dreams about Numbers, Dream Interpretation Numbers)

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)

P - Letter P. - The 16th letter in both the Greek and the English alphabets, and the 17th in the Hebrew, where it is called pé or pay, and is symbolized by the mouth, corresponding also, as in the Greek alphabet, to number 80. The Pythagoreans also made it equivalent to 100, and with a dash thus ( P) it stood for 400,000. The Kabbalists associated with it the sacred name of Phodeh (Redeemer), though no valid reason is given for it.

(See also: P - Letter P, Theosophy, Spirituality, Body mind and Soul, Spiritual Dictionary, )

Cabeiri or Kabiri (Phœn) Deities, held in the highest veneration at Thebes, in Lemnos, Phrygia, Macedonia, and especially at Samothrace. They were mystery gods, no profane having the right to name or speak of them. Herodotus makes of them Fire-gods and points to Vulcan as their father. The Kabiri presided over the Mysteries, and their real number has never been revealed, their occult meaning being very sacred.

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

Seven The fundamental number of manifestation, frequently found in the different cosmogonies as well as in many religious dogmas and observances of the different ancient peoples.

Although ten was called one of the perfect numbers by the Pythagoreans, seven was unique in their series of numbers because it has all the "perfection of the Unit -- the number of numbers. For as absolute unity is uncreated, and impartite (hence number-less) and no number can produce it, so is the seven: no digit contained within the decade can beget or produce it" (SD 2:582). Seven is the number of the manifested universe, while ten or twelve is the number of the unmanifested universe.

Pythagoras taught that seven was composed of the numbers three and four, explaining that "on the plane of the noumenal world, the triangle was, as the first conception of the manifested Deity, its image: 'Father-Mother-Son'; and the Quaternary, the perfect number, was the noumenal, ideal root of all numbers and things on the physical plane" (ibid.). Further, seven was called by the Pythogoreans the vehicle of life for it consisted of body and spirit: the body was held to consist of four principal elements, while the spirit was in manifestation triple, comprising the monad, intellect or essential reason, and mind.

There are innumerable instances of sevening -- the seven days of the week, the seven colors of the spectrum, the seven notes of the musical scale -- while special emphasis is placed upon the seven human and cosmic principles; the seven senses (five senses now in manifestation and two more to be attained in the future through evolutionary unfolding); the seven cosmic elements; the seven root-races and seven subraces; the seven kingdoms, human and below; the seven rounds; the seven lokas and talas; the seven manifested globes of the planetary chain; the seven sacred planets; the seven racial buddhas; the seven dhyani-bodhisattvas and -buddhas; the seven Logoi; etc.

Man as well as nature is called saptaparna (seven-leaved plant), symbolized by the triangle above the square {illust}. While the senary was applied to man in all ranges from the physical to the spiritual, when completed by the atman, thus making the septenary, the latter signified the entire range of the constitution, whether of man or nature, crowned by the immortal spirit.

In Hindu literature the number seven continually appears: the saptarshis (the seven sages), the seven superior and inferior worlds, the seven hosts of deities, the seven holy cities, the seven holy islands, seas, or mountains, the seven deserts, the seven sacred trees, etc. In Greece seven was often connected with the gods and goddesses: Mars had seven attendants, seven was sacred to Pallas Athene and to Phoebus Apollo -- the latter with his seven-stringed lyre playing hymns to septenary nature as well as to the seven-rayed sun; Niobe's seven sons and seven daughters, etc.

Apart from mythological considerations, in physical life manifestations of the number seven occur continuously: "if the mysterious Septenary Cycle is a law in nature, and it is one, as proven; if it is found controlling the evolution and involution (or death) in the realms of entomology, ichthyology and ornithology, as in the Kingdoms of the Animal, mammalia and man -- why cannot it be present and acting in Kosmos, in general, in its natural (though occult) divisions of time, races, and mental development?" (SD 2:623n).

Seven is indeed the sacred number of life, and with the circle and the cross it forms a triad of primordial symbols of the ancient wisdom.

(See also: Seven, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

U - Letter U . - The twenty-first letter of the Latin alphabet, which has no equivalent in Hebrew. As a number, however, it is considered very mystical both by the Pythagoreans and the Kabbalists, as it is the product of 3 x 7. The latter consider it the most sacred of the odd numbers, as 21 is the sum of the numerical value of the Divine Name aeie, or eiea, or again aheihe - thus (read backward, aheihe) he i he a 5+1O+5+1=21

In Alchemy it symbolizes the twenty-one days necessary for the transmutation of baser metals into silver.

(See also: U - Letter U, Theosophy, Spirituality, Body mind and Soul, Spiritual Dictionary, )

Z - Letter Z. - The 26th letter of the English alphabet. It stands as a numeral for 2,000, and with a dash over it thus, Z, equals 2,000,000. It is the seventh letter in the Hebrew alphabet - zayin, its symbol being a kind of Egyptian sceptre, a weapon. The zayin is equivalent to number seven. The number twenty-six is held most sacred by the Kabbalists, being equal to the numerical value of the letters of the Tetragrammaton - thus he vau he yod

5 + 6 + 5 + ‘0 =26.

(See also: Z - Letter Z, Theosophy, Spirituality, Body mind and Soul, Spiritual Dictionary, )

M - The thirteenth letter of the Hebrew and of the English alphabets, and the twenty-fourth of the Arabic. As a Roman numeral, this letter stands for 1,000, and with a dash on it (M) signifies one million.

In the Hebrew alphabet Mem symbolized water, and as a numeral is equivalent to 40. The Sanskrit ma is equivalent to number 5, and is also connected with water through the sign of the Zodiac, called Makara (q.v.).

Moreover, in the Hebrew and Latin numerals the m, stands "as the definite numeral for an indeterminate number"(Mackenzie’s Mason. Cyc.), and "the Hebrew sacred name of God app]ied to this letter is Meborach, Benedictus." With the Esotericists the M is the symbol of the Higher Ego - Manas, Mind.

(See also: M - Letter M, Theosophy, Spirituality, Body mind and Soul, Spiritual Dictionary, )

Gematria (from Hebrew from Greek geometria cf Aramaic gematrya' geometry)

A Qabbalistic system of interpreting the Bible, consisting in finding the numerical value of a word or words -- the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet each designating a number -- and then substituting another word whose numerical value is equivalent to the one under consideration.

Another method is that of using arithmetical values of words and phrases for interpretation of scriptures. This method forms one of the keys of interpreting sacred scriptures, although a very minor one, and in the hands of one who is inexpert an almost useless method.

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

Dionysia Festivals sacred to Dionysos, especially those held in Attica and Attic-Ionic settlements. The inferior Dionysia were celebrated in December in country places where the vine was grown; the greater, in Athens for six days at the spring equinox.

At this festival the new plays were performed for three consecutive days before immense number of citizens and strangers. The Lenaea (festival of vats) in February-March, the Oschophoria in October-November, and the Anthesteria for three days in February-March were also part of the Athenian cycle of Dionysia. The Dionysiac or Bacchic Mysteries became peculiarly liable to corruption in later times, owing to literal interpretation of the symbolism and the substitution of psychospiritual excitement for pure spiritual inspiration.

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

Decad (sometimes decade) Ten, or a group of ten; a sacred number because the universe is built on the model of the decad, the individual and the universe as a whole being tenfold though septenary in manifestation.

The One or cosmic monad is sometimes spoken of as emanating the nine, and by including the One itself we get the ten rays of the Logos, the Sephiroth, etc., which are spoken of as seven in the manifested universe. The decad may be considered as a double five or as three triangles and a unity. It is represented in ancient Greece by the Pythagorean tetraktys, of which the three upper dots represent the unmanifest universe, and the lower seven the manifest.

The decad is the radix of the denary scale of notation derived from ancient India.

See also TEN

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

Five Because of its being one half of the perfect number (ten), five held the attention and study of all followers of the Pythagorean system of numerals. As we are now in the fifth root-race, the fifth principle (manas) takes an especially prominent position in human evolution. The five-pointed star, or again the pentagon, is the symbol of the microcosm, man, often referred to as a five-limbed man. Five "symbolizes at one and the same time the Spirit of life eternal and the Spirit of life and love terrestrial -- in the human compound; and, it includes divine and infernal magic, and the universal and the individual quintessence of being" (SD 2:579).

The symbol of the kali yuga is the five-pointed star reversed, with the two points or horns of the star pointing upwards. This is also a sign of sorcery.

In the numerical mysticism of ancient Egypt five crocodiles, for instance, were represented as in the celestial Nile, and the emanating deity calls forth these crocodiles in his fifth creation. The number five, as well as other numbers, was sacred to the Gnostics, hence five words signifying the five mystic powers attained by the initiate were written upon the garment in their interpretation at the glorification of Jesus. In classical Greece the E Delphicum, a sacred symbol, was the numeral five. There were five ministers of Chozzar (the Gnostic Poseidon); and in the Hindu mythology Brahma is represented as uttering five words or vowels at the creation. From another standpoint, five is the "universal quintessence which spreads in every direction and forms all matter" (SD 2:583).

See also PENTAGRAM

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

Tetraktys (Ancient Greek) or the Tetrad. The sacred "Four" by which the Pythagoreans swore, this being their most binding oath. It has a very mystic and varied signification, being the same as the Tetragrammaton. First of all it is Unity, or the " One" under four different aspects; then it is the fundamental number Four, the Tetrad containing the Decad, or Ten, the number of perfection; finally it signifies the primeval Triad (or Triangle) merged in the divine Monad. Kircher, the learned Kabbalist. Jesuit, in his Œdipus -Egvpticus (II p. 267), gives the Ineffable Name IHVH - one of the Kabbalistic formule of the 72 names - arranged in the shape of the Pythagorean Tetrad. Mr. I.

Myer gives it in this wise:

. I y = 10

. . 2 The Ineffable hy = 15

. . . 3 Name thus w hy = 21

. . . . 4 hw hy = 26

1O 72

He also shows that "the sacred Tetrad of the Pythagoreans appears to have been known to the ancient Chinese". As explained in Isis Unveiled (I, xvi.): The mystic Decad, the resultant of the Tetraktys, or the 1+2+3+4=10, is a way of expressing this idea. The One is the impersonal principle ‘God’; the Two, matter; the Three, combining Monad and Duad and partaking of the nature of both, is the phenomenal world; the Tetrad, or form of perfection, expresses the emptiness of all; and the Decad, or sum of all, involves the entire Kosmos.

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

Four The square of two, and the second even number, hence feminine in characteristics. It was regarded by the Pythagoreans with especial esteem, for it was the base number of the tetraktys. It corresponds to a solid figure, or a square -- the quaternary although on the spiritual plane, as being the immediate successor of the triad, it became the symbol of immortality, and hence in this sense a perfect number, the ideal root of all subsequent hierarchical numbers on the lower planes including the physical.

Thus there is the spiritual four as the mother-type of all productivity, and there was likewise the material four, the ideal root of all numbers on the astral and physical planes. It was called by the Pythagoreans the key-keeper of nature, but it was only so in union with the number three, for then the sum made seven -- the perfect number of nature in our world. The Hermetists had the same idea: four was the symbol of truth when expanded into a cube, for when this cube is unfolded the production is seven. Four is the number "which affords an arithmetical division between unity and seven, as it surpasses the former by the same number (three), as it is itself surpassed by the seven, since four is by as many numbers above one, as seven is above four" (SD 2:582).

The number four is considered feminine on the planes of matter; it is considered to be masculine and energic only on the highest plane of abstraction. When united with three (spirit), "their union is the emblem of life eternal in spirit on its ascending arc, and in matter as the ever resurrecting element -- by procreation and reproduction" (SD 2:592).

In ancient and modern occultism, 3, 4, and 7 are respectively held sacred as symbolizing light, life, and union -- at least during our present manvantara; for the reckoning was somewhat as follows: unity, the One or the monad, was the generating point of spirit, from which flowed forth the first manifested stream of energy or the duad, which became in expressing itself the triad, the carrier and holder of cosmic wisdom and therefore light to our view. These three expressing themselves in the next stage of differentiation clothed themselves in a vehicle, the square or four, which thus became manifested life. Hence, when light and life conjoin in unitary action we have the complete septenary, the significant number of complete monadic being on this plane -- the septenary individual.

Four also appears in the sacred key-numbers 4, 3, 2 (in this sequence): these are the basic numbers used in esoteric computations, and hence they form the numerical structure of the time periods of the four yugas of ancient India, which likewise were prominent in ancient Chaldean calculations -- for the numerical science was the same in both lands.

"The sacredness of the cycle of 4320, with additional cyphers, lies in the fact that the figures which compose it, taken separately or joined in various combinations, are each and all symbolical of the greatest mysteries in Nature. Indeed, whether one takes the 4 separately, or the 3 by itself, or the two together making 7, or again the three (4, 3, 2)

added together and yielding 9, all these numbers have their application in the most sacred and occult things, and record the workings of Nature in her eternally periodical phenomena. They are never erring, perpetually recurring numbers, unveiling, to him who studies the secrets of Nature, a truly divine System, an intelligent plan in Cosmogony, which results in natural cosmic divisions of times, seasons, invisible influences, astronomical phenomena, with their action and reaction on terrestrial and even moral nature; on birth, death, and growth, on health and disease. All these natural events are based and depend upon cyclical processes in the Kosmos itself, producing periodic agencies which, acting from without, affect the Earth and all that lives and breathes on it, from one end to the other of any Manvantara. Causes and effects are esoteric, exoteric, and endexoteric, so to say" (SD 2:73-4).

As instances of the recurring of the sequence 4, 3, 2: the addition of 3 ciphers produces the length of the kali yuga, 432, 000 years; with 4 ciphers, the total of the four yugas or one mahayuga, 4,320,000 years; with 7 ciphers, the period of 14 Manus or 1,000 mahayugas, which is one Day of Brahma or a period of 4,320,000,000 years. When this latter figure is multiplied by two, in order to add the period of a Night of Brahma, and then multiplied by one year of Brahma (which is equivalent to 360 such days and nights) we have the basic figure of Brahma's Life (which consists of 100 years). When 4320 is halved the result is 2160, which multiplied by 12 is the number of years in one turning of the precessional cycle; again 2160 is the period of the so-called Messianic cycle.

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

Betylos, Baetylus (Latin) (from Greek baitylos meteoric stone)

Also betylus, baetyl, betyles. In Classical antiquity a stone, either natural or artificially shaped, venerated as of divine origin, or as a symbol of divinity. There were a number of these sacred stones in Greece, the most famous being the one on the omphalos at Delphi. Likewise there were the so-called animated or oracular stones. "Strabo, Pliny, Helancius (Hellanicus)

-- all speak of the electrical, or electro-magnetic power of the betyli. They were worshipped in the remotest antiquity in Egypt and Samothrace, as magnetic stones, 'containing souls which had fallen from heaven'; and the priests of Cybele wore a small betylos on their bodies" (IU 1:332). In Persia they were called oitzoe; but their origin was of far greater antiquity, for "Lemuria, Atlantis and her giants, and the earliest races of the Fifth Root-Race had all a hand in these betyles, lithoi, and 'magic' stones in general" (SD 2:346n).

See also OPHITES; ROCKING-STONES

(See also: Betylos, Baetylus, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Saptaparna (Sanskrit) Seven-leaves, sevenfold; the man-plant, sevenfold man, or seven-principled human being. The "mysterious number Seven, born from the upper triangle, the latter itself born from the apex thereof, or the Silent Depths of the unknown universal soul (Sige and Bythos), is the sevenfold Saptaparna plant, born and manifested on the surface of the soil of mystery, from the threefold root buried deep under that impenetrable soil" (SD 2:574).

Also a sacred plant spoken of in Buddhist legends; and a name of a famous cave of seven chambers where Gautama Buddha taught esoteric truths to his select circle of arhats, located near Mount Baibhar in Rajagriha, the ancient capital of Mogadha; it was the Cheta cave of Fa-hian (SD 1:xx).

Saptaparna can apply to the entire range of the manifested universe in its seven manifesting planes, hanging like a seven-leaved pendant or jewel from the uppermost triad of the superspiritual, the seven plus the three of the uppermost triad thus forming the sacred cosmic ten. In its human application it signifies the entire range of the sevenfold or seven-principled human constitution, hanging in its turn like a seven-leaved or -faceted pendant from the uppermost triad or divine monad.

It is the unfolding of these seven leaves during manvantara that furnishes the whole course of evolutionary development, from the beginning of the kosmic manvantara to its end, and from the beginning of the cycle of human evolution to its end in buddhahood or human divinity.

(See also: Saptaparna, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Ten One of the most sacred fundamental numbers in occultism, for ten -- or more accurately perhaps twelve, as Plato pointed out -- is the key of the numerical structure upon which the universe is laid and built. Where seven represents the manifested universe or brahmanda, ten or twelve includes the unmanifested aspects as well. Ten is the foundation of the decimal system and because of this is universal in its relations. With the Pythagoreans ten was the most sacred number, the mystical dekad involving and expressing the mysteries of the entire kosmos, "the absolute All manifesting itself in the Word or generative Power of Creation" (SD 2:553); and among certain other schools, as in the Orient, ten was symbolically synthesized by the vertical line traversing the circle.

The early Gnostics also considered ten to contain the knowledge of the universe, both metaphysical and material. The Pythagorean dekad "representing the Universe and its evolution out of Silence and the unknown Depths of the Spiritual Soul, or anima mundi, presented two sides or aspects to the student. It could be, and was at first so used and applied to the Macrocosm, after which it descended to the Microcosm, or Man. There was, then, the purely intellectual and metaphysical, or the 'inner Science,' and the as purely materialistic or 'surface science,' both of which could be expounded by and contained in the Decade. It could be studied, in short, from the Universals of Plato, and the inductive method of Aristotle. The former started from a divine comprehension, when the plurality proceeded from unity, or the digits of the decade appeared, but to be finally re-absorbed, lost in the infinite Circle. The latter depended on sensuous perception alone, when the Decade could be regarded either as the unity that multiplies, or matter which differentiates, its study being limited to the plane surface; to the Cross, or the Seven which proceeds from the ten -- or the perfect number, on Earth as in heaven" (SD 2:573).

A great deal of the highly mystical and occult meanings of the dekad were symbolized by the Pythagoreans in their sacred tetraktys, which was considered by them so holy that their most binding oath was made upon it. Other symbols of the number ten are two interlaced triangles -- for the septenary and the triad are there present at the same time -- and the line within the circle , unity within zero (cf SD 2:581).

"Every Cosmogony began with a circle, a point, a triangle, and a cube, up to number 9, when it was synthesized by the first line and a circle -- the Pythagorean mystic Decade, the sum of all, involving and expressing the mysteries of the entire Kosmos; recorded a hundred times more fully in the Hindu system, for him who can understand its mystic language. The numbers 3 and 4, in their blending of 7, as those of 5, 6, 9, and 10, are the very corner-stones of Occult Cosmogonies. This decade and its thousand combinations are found in every portion of the globe" (SD 2:321).

See also DECAD

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