Spiritualism. In philosophy, the state or condition of mind opposed to materialism or a material conception of things. Theosophy, a doctrine which teaches that all which exists is animated or informed by the Universal Soul or Spirit, and that not an atom in our universe can be outside of this omnipresent Principle - is pure Spiritualism.

As to the belief that goes under that name, namely, belief in the constant communication of the living with the dead, whether through the mediumistic powers of oneself or a

so-called medium - it is no better than the materialisation of spirit, and the degradation of the human and the divine, souls. Believers in such communications are simply dishonouring the dead and performing constant sacrilege. It was well called "Necromancy" in days of old. But our modern Spiritualists take offence at being told this simple truth.

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

To On (Ancient Greek). The "Being", the "Ineffable All" of Plato. He" whom no person has seen except the Son".

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

Spiritus (Latin) Breath, air, spirit; in medieval European alchemy it corresponds with fire and sulfur in the triad of sulfur, mercury, and salt -- or spirit, soul, and body. With the Nazarenes, the female aspect of the anima mundi, the manifested part as contrasted with its unmanifest or divine aspect.

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

spiritual healing: A form of channeling and energy medicine (vibrational medicine) that involves the transference (commonly through the hands) of healing energy from its spiritual source to one who needs help. Its theory posits a spiritual body.

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

Spiritual Monad The second monadic center in the descending scale of intimately related human monadic centers; in the septenary constitution, atma-buddhi-manas, with an emphasis on the buddhi-manas, atman being the divine monad. It is man's individual monad, the spiritual center of his own stream of consciousness, in the heart of which abides his inner god or "Father in heaven."

"The human constitution is a composite or compound, and may be figurated . . . as a stream of consciousness flowing forth from the deathless Center or Spiritual Monad, which last is at once the immortal Root of the human being and his Essential Self" (ET 718). It corresponds to the spiritual self or jivatman.

After death, when the second death occurs, man's consciousness is withdrawn from the higher astral regions into the next superior sphere or plane -- the human monad is indrawn into the spiritual monad. Then occurs the state of devachan.

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

spiritual psychotherapy: Method promoted by Carol Weidberg, a psychoanalyst and intuitive. It includes dreamwork, and its theory affirms the Jungian theory of synchronicity.

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

spiritual psychology: Healing modality that stems from anthroposophy, archetypal psychology, and Jungian psychology.

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

Spiritual Powers Generally used in contradistinction to psychic powers; for while psychic powers pertain to the intermediate, psychomental part of human nature, the spiritual powers pertain to the higher part. Hence the psychic powers, precisely because intermediaries, may become the instrument either of our higher or of our lower nature, being vehicular products in themselves and subject to influx from above or below.

The spiritual powers cannot be used for selfish and personal ends because their svabhava is universality and impersonality, attributes which link man with the surrounding universe. They emanate from the spiritual monad, atma-buddhi. We are able to use spiritual powers when our manas acts in conjunction with the spiritual monad. Such powers cannot be evoked by personal ambition or any form of acquisitiveness, because they do not rise above the intermediate or psychic nature and make no appeal to the spirit above; in fact, spiritual powers are the fruit of renunciation, of the replacing of the personal with the universal, the resigning of the limited for the virtually limitless, the giving up of the small for the great. Spiritual powers consist in a clear intuition of the truth, leading to right conduct, an ability to help and teach others -- the powers which we attribute to a Buddha or Christ.

The eye of Siva or Dangma, with its all-penetrating vision, must be included among spiritual powers; the siddhis and saktis given in various enumerations comprise some that are spiritual -- in fact the ones of permanent value are all spiritual. Since psychic powers are in themselves intermediaries, veils of what is within and behind them, they should become adjuncts to spiritual powers. Sharp lines of demarcation cannot be drawn in a universe whose very structure involves virtually infinite variety, and interblending, of interacting life and lives.

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

Spiritual Surgery: Form of spirit healing and variation of spirit surgery promoted by Lorna Green. Green is a medium for a team of Spiritual Surgeons, entities of the fifth plain (a plain of Christ Consciousness) who work through God.

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

S - The nineteenth letter; numerically, sixty. In Hebrew it is the fifteenth letter, Samech, held as holy because "the sacred name of god is Samech". Its symbol is a prop, or a pillar, and a phallic egg. In occult geometry it is represented as a circle quadrated by a cross, . In the Kabbalah the "divisions of Gan-Eden or paradise" are similarly divided.

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

Spirituality Considering spirit and matter as contrasted aspects in the evolutionary process, as opposite poles in the kosmos, this word applied to the higher or causal aspect. The course of evolution, the monad begins as an unself-conscious god-spark and ends its evolutionary career in any one universe as a self-conscious god.

The monads pass from spirit into matter, and then back again to spirit with the addition of evolved intellectual self-cognition or self-consciousness. So far as the rounds and races of our earth is concerned, the first two were characterized by direct but non-egoic spiritual qualities of consciousness, while in the third intellectuality and finally materiality began strongly to make their appearances, reaching the final evolutionary point for our planet in the fourth, when spirituality was nearly submerged by materiality. But these terms are relative, having varying meanings as applied to different planes and differing conditions of the rounds and races.

Absolute spirituality or perfection in its very nature implies the loftiest type of spiritual and intellectual activity, with the relative quiescence of the enshrouding sheaths of consciousness. The distinction is to a certain degree that drawn between absolute thought or the All as opposed to the ratiocinative activity of mental action, which involves limitations and matters (SD 2:490).

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

Spiritual Medicine Path (the Medicine for the Spiritual Direction): Mode of Cherokee healing that includes thanksgiving to the Great One and the Universal Spirit.

(See also: Spiritual Medicine Path, Body Mind and Soul, Alternative Health, Alternative Health Dictionary)

Spiritual practices:

Activities that purify and strengthen the mind and body for the spiritual path. Siddha Yoga practices include chanting, meditation, mantra repetition, hatha yoga, seva (selfless service), and contemplation.

(See also: Spiritual practices, Yoga, Yoga Dictionary, Siddha Yoga, Siddha Yoga Dictionary)

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V X Y Z

Spiritual Counseling: As taught by the National Interfaith Seminary, in St. Paul, Minnesota, a ministerial approach that embraces chakra therapy (chakra healing), inner child work, and Totem Psychology.

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

spiritual midwifery: Childbearing philosophy expounded by Ina May Gaskin in her book of the same name. It posits God; indivision of humanity (We are all One); shakti (divine female energy); and spiritual energy that is Holy. Moreover, it euphemizes contractions as energy rushes and holds that pregnant and birthing mothers are elemental forces and that a husband and wife form a single energy unit.

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

Spiritualism Properly, the philosophy, religion, or pneumatological science held by those who believe in the universal spirit as the cosmic originant of all the hierarchies of evolving monads; its opposite is materialism. Spiritualism is "in philosophy, the state or condition of mind opposed to materialism or a material conception of things.

Theosophy, a doctrine which teaches that all which exists is animated or informed by the Universal Soul or Spirit, and that not an atom in our universe can be outside of this omnipresent principle -- is pure Spiritualism. As to the belief that goes under that name, namely, belief in the constant communication of the living with the dead, whether through the mediumistic powers of oneself or a so-called medium -- it is no better than the materialisation of spirit, and the degradation of the human and the divine souls. Believers in such communications are simply dishonouring the dead and performing constant sacrilege. It was well called 'Necromancy' in days of old" (TG 307).

The modern movement which began about the middle of the 19th century, mainly with the Fox sisters, embraces a large range of differing beliefs, so that any strictures directed against certain phases of it may justly be resented by those to whom such strictures do not apply. But the characteristic doctrine which identifies Spiritualism or astralism as such, is the belief that it is possible for the living to communicate with the departed spirits of the deceased. Theosophy, however, holds that at death the personality disintegrates, the individuality of the person passing into the devachanic state, while its lower components gradually fade out in the kama-loka. It is impossible to obtain communications with the ego in devachan, except when a purely impersonal love of one human being for another reaches into the devachanic condition and comes into spiritual rapport with the devachani. A far lower rapport may be established with the astral or kama-lokic remains which have been left behind to disintegrate in the lower regions of the astral light.

All the apparent proofs of identity of "spirit" can be accounted for otherwise than by supposing the actual presence of the departed individual in the seance room. Such communications as are received evince no knowledge beyond that which we already have, and show no signs of emanating from a high source -- and almost invariably such communications are trifling and paltry. Mediumship and seances are most harmful practice, as they open the door to the entry of pernicious obsessing influences from the lower astral realms. Moreover such practice may obstruct and retard the natural decomposition of the discarded lower elements of the deceased, and thus keep alive his kama-rupa beyond the term of its natural astral death. The appeal of astralism is very powerful to those who feel convinced that they have thereby obtained assurance of immortality and of the continued existence of their lost loved ones.

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

Spiritual Integration Therapy (S.I.T.): Variable, energetically based method developed by Lynida Darbes, M.A. It embraces bodywork, dreamwork, imagery, and meditation.

(See also: Spiritual Integration Therapy, Body Mind and Soul, Alternative Health, Alternative Health Dictionary)

Pratyaksha (Sanskrit). Spiritual perception by means of senses.

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

Trishna (Sanskrit). The fourth Nidana; spiritual love.

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

Spiritual Beauty Care: Subject of a paperback of the same name, by Jacqueline Sinnige. Spiritual Beauty Care either constitutes or is a part of alternative beauty care. Its purpose is to restore the balance of bodily energies.

(See also: Spiritual Beauty Care, Body Mind and Soul, Alternative Health, Alternative Health Dictionary)

Aziluth (Hebrew, Jewish) The name for the world of the Sephiroth, called the world of Emanations Olam Aziluth. It is the great and the highest prototype of the other worlds. "Atzeelooth is the Great Sacred Seal by means of which all the worlds are copied which have impressed on themselves the image on the Seal; and as this Great Seal comprehends three stages, which are three zures (prototypes) of Nephesh (the Vital Spirit or Soul), Ruach (the moral and reasoning Spirit), and the Neshamah (the Highest Soul of man), so the Sealed have also received three zures, namely Breeah, Yetzeerah, and Aseeyah, and these three zures are only one in the Seal" (Myer’s Qabbalah). The globes A, Z, of our terrestial chain are in Aziluth. (See Secret Doctrine.)

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