Bodhidharma (Sanskrit) (from bodhi wisdom + dharma law, spiritual ethics)

Wisdom-religion, the wisdom involved in the teachings concerning reality.

Also a great arhat Kshatriya (460?-534) who traveled to China, and was instrumental in disseminating Buddhist teachings there. His guru, Panyatara, is said to have given him the name Bodhidharma to mark his understanding (bodhi) of the Law (dharma) of the Buddha.

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

Blood Rites Ceremonies, covenants, and observances in which blood is used as part of the rites or performances.

"The arcane doctrine teaches that the 'blood' rites are as old as the Third-Root race, being established in their final form by the Fourth Parent race in commemoration of the separation of androgynous mankind, their forefathers, into males and females" (BCW 8:251).

Whatever sacred meaning may have entered into this primary memorial of the ethereal forms and forces of androgynous humanity becoming separate, physicalized, warm-blooded bodies, has been forgotten, misunderstood, or perverted in the exoteric rites which have come down to us.

In the ancient Mysteries and in esoteric teachings of the great religions, references to partaking of flesh and blood are purely symbolic figures of speech, the mystical idea being that of partaking of wisdom and gaining understanding through union with the divinity whose name was used, such union being achieved during initiation, the communicant thereby acquiring spiritual strength and nobler life in common with the initiator.

The antithesis of these lofty ideas underlies the widespread prevalence of blood rites. In fact, the many blood ceremonials which mark and mar the records of so many peoples are often gross, cruel, and perverted, violating the sacredness of life by offering animal and human sacrifices. Several groups regard blood as one of the essential elements used in their numerous forms of initiations, oblations, invocations to ancestors and to spirits of various kinds.

Their fixed belief that the demons or spirits invoked by these ceremonies are harmful if not propitiated, but will be gratified and nourished by the immaterial essence, savor, or fumes of the foods, alcohols, and blood offerings is not without some basis of fact; for the earth-bound kama-rupic entities and astral elementaries are attracted by, and do abstract the impalpable kama-pranic life-force from, the fumes and emanations of such offerings.

These beliefs are consistent with much in the tribal customs and rites which attracts and revivifies evil entities in their own astral atmosphere. Customs like poison ordeals for so-called witches, and evil use of nature forces for injuring or destroying personal enemies, added to frequent evocations, make a vicious circle of cause and effect.

(See also: Blood Rites, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Bhutasarga (Sanskrit) (from bhuta has beens + sarga creation, production)

Elemental creation; the second of the seven creations or emanations, popularly given in the Hindu Puranas as mahat-tattva, bhutasarga, indriya or aindriyaka, mukhya, tairyagyonya or tiryaksrota, urdhvasrotas, and arvakstrotas. Bhutasarga cosmically is the first differentiation of universal indiscrete substance, or primordial akasa, the first stage of the differentiation of the pre-cosmic elements; the word bhutasarga itself suggests that this differentiation is according to seeds or germs (bhutas) reappearing anew from the preceding cosmic manvantara. "In astronomical and Cosmogonical language this Creation relates to the first stage of cosmic-life, the Fire-Mist Period after its Chaotic stage, when atoms issue from Laya" (SD 1:453).

The second hierarchy of the manus, the dhyani-chohans or fully self-conscious devas, who are the original producers of form (rupas), appear at this stage of cosmic emanational evolution. In the Vishnu-Purana these beings are called chitrasikandinas (bright-crested), the seven rishis who are the informing souls of the seven principal stars of the Great Bear. These seven rishis represent hierarchies of spiritual beings who preside over and guide the septenary stages of the evolution of the cosmos.

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

Babel babah (Hebrew) The inner meaning of the Tower of Babel, by which it was hoped that divinity might be reached or attained, is a house of initiation, a gate, portal, opening, or entrance to the divine.

The physical tower was both the building set aside to house and protect the initiation chambers, together with the ceremonies that take place in them, and an architectural emblem to signify a raising up towards heaven.

The tower may have either a divine or evil significance, either haughty pride and self-sufficiency or spiritual aspiration. Similar is the lightning-struck tower of the Tarot cards, and the Arabian Nights story of the man who built a palace completely except only for a roc's egg to hang in the dome, and when the egg is thus hung, the whole palace collapses. The work of the black magician, building from below upwards, is impermanent and, when it strikes the sky, is blasted. If such a tower and system be followed by adepts of the left-hand path for ultimate and foredestined confusion, it is one thing; but if the tower and its inner mysteries be in the charge of adepts of the right-hand path, it is another. The concentration of the narrator in the Bible concerning the Tower of Babel seems to have been entirely upon its aspect of left-hand magic.

The later Atlanteans were noted for their magic powers, wickedness, and defiance of the gods, and this tradition is preserved in many legends, such as the Biblical Tower of Babel, which derived from still older Chaldean scriptures. The legendary stories of wicked antediluvian giants warring against heaven are common in every mythology. The defeat of the giants, in some at least of these legends, results in the confusion of tongues -- the break-up and dispersal of a great racial division of mankind.

(See also: Babel, babah, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Baresma(n) (Avestan), Barsum (Pahlavi), Barsam (Persian) (from the verbal root bares to grow upright; cf Sanskrit barh)

A wand of the Magi, who were instructed in the Vendidad to go to the tree "that is beautiful, high-growing, and mighty amongst the high-growing trees," and after an invocation, to cut off a twig, "long as a plowshare, thick as a barley-corn. The faithful one, holding it in his left hand, shall not leave off keeping his eyes upon it, whilst he is offering up the sacrifice to Ahura Mazda and to the Amesha-Spentas." To this day the Parsis use the baresman, but have replaced the twigs of the scared tree with brass wires.

Blavatsky hints that baresman is taken from the tree created by Ahura Mazda, the tree of occult and spiritual knowledge and wisdom, and so is a symbolic rod of power and wisdom, such as is often ascribed in ancient mythologies to great leaders or teachers of peoples and to high adepts. Baresman symbolically represents a branch of the tree of knowledge, known as Gaokarena in Pahlavi literature, soul healing Haoma (the extract of this tree), and Zavr (its libation). "We praise mighty Vayu, with the Haoma mixed with milk and with Baresman with the tongue of Kherad (Intellect) and the holy word, with words and deeds, with Zavr and the true spoken words" (Ram Yasht 5).

It is said in Zad-Sparam that the tree of Harwisp Tohmag (all-seed-bearing tree) was created in the sea of Farakhkard (the unbounded sea) from which all plants grow, and that the Simorgh (Saena) nests on it. When the Simorgh flies away, all the dry seeds drop into the water which the rain brings down to earth. Next to the All-seed-bearing Tree exists the tree of white Haoma (Gaokarena), the foe of decrepitude, reviver of the dead, and giver of eternal life.

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

Belial beliyya`al (Hebrew) (from beli nothing, not + ya`al worth, profit, use)

Worthless, signifying wickedness; also a wicked man, a destroyer, a waster. A name given by Hebrew and Christian demonologists to the aggregate of evil astral forces or influences, some of them partaking of an individualized type, whose influence is always pernicious to humans, and association with which is invariably immoral because suggestive of evil. It is a name personifying these astral entities of evil.

In the New Testament Belial is associated with Satan (2 Cor 6:15), although "if Belial must be personified to please our religious friends, we would be obliged to make him perfectly distinct from Satan, and to consider him as a sort of spiritual 'Diakka' (Kama-lokic elementary)

. The demonographers, however, who enumerate nine distinct orders of daimonia, make him chief of the third class -- a set of hobgoblins, mischievous and good-for-nothing" (IU 2:482).

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

Bee(Bees) Greek and Roman writers, having in mind the terminology of the Mysteries, used the term bees (melissai) to denote both priestesses and women disciples. Thus it was used for the priestesses of Delphi and other Mysteries, and by the Neoplatonists for pure and chaste persons. Honey and nectar are symbols of wisdom.

Vergil says that bees have a portion of the divine mind, from which aethereal particles stream, and that divinity permeates the whole earth so that all beings draw from it the streams of life (Georgics 4, 320). The spiritual or monadic consciousness (the nous) manifests itself in innumerable ways, and this same consciousness is in man. A little later Vergil says that bees are born from the carcass of a slain bullock or bull.

The bull or cow is a symbol of the moon, and the moon has always stood as a symbol of the psychic intelligence or lower human mind; thus the meaning is that out of his perfectly subordinated ("slain") bull -- the lunar body or psychic nature -- is born the "bee" of the disciple, the will and the urge to enter into the solar life or the spirit. In the Finnish mythology of the Kalevala, a bee is the messenger between this world and higher realms. In Scandinavian mythology bees again play an important part with the world tree (Yggdrasil).

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

Balder, Baldr (Icelandic) The best, foremost; the sun god in Norse mythology, the son of Odin and Frigga and a favorite with gods and men. His mansion is Breidablick (broadview) whence he can keep watch over all the worlds.

One of the lays of the Elder or Poetic Edda deals entirely with the death of the sun god, also mentioned in the principal poem Voluspa. Briefly stated: the gods were concerned when Balder was troubled with dreams of impending doom. Frigga therefore set out to exact a promise from all living things that none would harm Balder, and all readily complied. One thing only had been overlooked: the harmless-seeming mistletoe. Loki, the mischievous god (human mind), became aware of this, plucked the little plant, and from it fashioned a dart. He approached Hoder, the blind god (of darkness and ignorance) who was standing disconsolately by while the other gods were playfully hurling their weapons against the invulnerable sun god.

Offering to guide his aim, Loki placed on Hoder's bow the small but deadly "sorrow-dart." Thus mind darkened by ignorance accomplished what nothing else could: the death of the bright deity of light. Balder must then travel to the house of Hel, queen of the realm of the dead. Odin, as Hermod, goes to plead with Hel for Balder's return, and Hel agrees to release him on condition that all living things weep for him.

Frigga resumes her weary round and implores all beings to mourn the sun god's passing. All agree save one: Loki in the guise of an aged crone refuses to shed a tear. This single taint of perverseness in the human mind condemns Balder to remain in the realm of Hel until the following cycle is due to begin. Thus death is linked with the active human mind, Loki. As the bright sun god is placed on his pyre-ship, his loving wife Nanna (the moon goddess) dies of a broken heart and is placed beside him, but before the ship is set ablaze and cast adrift, Odin leaned over to whisper something in the dead sun god's ear. This secret message must endure unknown to all until Balder's return, when he and his dark twin Hoder will "build together on Ropt's (Odin's) sacred soil."

The allegory is subject to many interpretations. The sun god dies with every nightfall, to rise again the following morning; with every winter solstice, to return and bring a new year of light and life; and with every planetary cycle, as well as each solar lifetime. The tale also symbolizes the passing of the golden age of innocence which had to be superseded by more conscious and purposive evolution of the human race: Loki, who represents the fire of mind -- human, imperfect, clever, but unevolved, which in time must become perfected spiritual intelligence.

(See also: Balder, Baldr, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Bandhakarana (Sanskrit) (from bandha bondage + karana from the verbal root kri to make, do)

Making or causing bondage; binding, fettering, or a holding back. Subba Row (Notes on BG 71) assumes that mulaprakriti is the real or principal bandhakarana as the originating cause of karmic activity, but this has reference only to the most abstract and spiritual side of things, as in the last analysis even karma itself may be traced backwards and inwards to mulaprakriti as the field of all possible activity.

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

Banyan (Banian) The Indian fig tree (Ficus bengalensis of the Urticaceae), a shade tree remarkable for the enormous area that a single tree often covers, since roots are developed from the branches, which descend to the ground and take root. Inasmuch as each descending root in time becomes a tree trunk with branches of its own, which in their turn send roots to the ground, the gradual spread of the tree is theoretically indefinite and can reach more than a hundred yards in diameter. It was named tree of the merchants, as it was customary in olden times to hold markets under the shelter of these trees, called bar in Hindi, vata (covering) in Sanskrit.

In theosophy, used to express the peak of human evolutionary attainment on the earth-chain, the ever-living-human-Banyan or Wondrous Being (SD 1:207). Members of the hierarchy of Compassion under the Wondrous Being are referred to as tendrils descending from the heights to the lower planes of earth, these themselves aspiring to become like their spiritual superior.

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

Baptism (from Greek baptizein to sprinkle)

Ceremonial of purification with water; one of the sacraments in the Christian churches, by which persons are initiated into the visible Church of Christ. It consists in either immersion in water or sprinkling with water, according to the practice of different churches.

In the Protestant Churches it is "the outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace," accepted as a necessary preliminary to the other sacraments, and even as essential to salvation. In the Roman Catholic Church it carries remission of sin both original and actual. It existed in pre-Christian times among Jews and pagans, practiced in Chaldea, Egypt, India, Greece, Africa, Polynesia, North America, and ancient Europe, among others.

Mystically speaking, there are two baptisms: that of water and that of fire; the former pertaining to the plane of matter, the latter to that of spirit. In the New Testament, John the Baptist says: "I baptize you with water, but a greater than I shall come, who will baptize you with fire." Jesus instructs Nicodemus as to the two births: the birth of water and the birth of the spirit. Baptism was therefore a ceremonial pertaining to an inferior degree of initiation.

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

Brahma (Sanskrit) (from the verbal root brih to expand, grow, fructify)

The first god of the Hindu Trimurti or triad, consisting of Brahma, the emanator, evolver, and creator; Vishnu, the sustainer or preserver; and Siva, the regenerator or destroyer. Brahma is the vivifying expansive force of nature in its eternally periodic manvantaras. He stands for the spiritual evolving or developing energy-consciousness of a solar system which is also called the Egg of Brahma (brahmanda). Brahma is called the creator or Logos, but in the theosophic philosophy creator is simply an abstract term or idea, like army. In Burnouf's words:

"Having evolved himself from the soul of the world, once separated from the first cause, he evaporates with, and emanates all nature out of himself. He does not stand above it, but is mixed up with it; Brahma and the universe form one Being, each particle of which is in its essence Brahma himself, who proceeded out of himself" (q SD 1:380n). The Vishnu-Purana explains that created beings "although they are destroyed (in their individual forms) at the periods of dissolution, yet being affected by the good or evil acts of former existences, are never exempted from their consequences. And when Brahma produces the world anew, they are the progeny of his will . . ." (q SD 1:456n).

Brahman is both masculine and neuter, and therefore has two meanings. In the masculine (Brahma) it is the evolving energy of the cosmic egg, as distinguished from the neuter (Brahman). Brahma is the vehicle or sheath of Brahman. The Vishnu-Purana says that Brahma in its totality has essentially the aspect of prakriti, both evolved and unevolved (mulaprakriti), and also the aspects of spirit and of time. "Brahma, as 'the germ of unknown Darkness,' is the material from which all evolves and develops 'as the web from the spider, as foam from the water,' etc. This is only graphic and true, if Brahma the 'Creator' is, as a term, derived from the root brih, to increase or expand. Brahma 'expands' and becomes the Universe woven out of his own substance" (SD 1:83). Again,

"Here we find, as in all genuine philosophical systems, even the 'Egg' or the Circle (or Zero), boundless Infinity, referred to as It, and Brahma, the first unit only, referred to as the male god, i.e., the fructifying Principle. It is  or 10 (ten) the Decade. On the plane of the Septenary or our World only, it is called Brahma. On that of the Unified Decade in the realm of Reality, this male Brahma is an illusion" (SD 1:333).

According to the Aitareya-Brahmana, Brahma as Prajapati (lord of beings) manifests himself first of all as twelve bodies or attributes, which are represented by the twelve gods, symbolizing 1) fire; 2) the sun; 3) soma, which gives omniscience; 4) all living beings; 5) vayu, or ether; 6) death, or breath of destruction -- Siva; 7) earth; 8) heaven; 9) Agni, the immaterial fire; 10) Aditya, the immaterial and invisible sun; 11) mind; and 12) the great infinite cycle, "which is not to be stopped." Brahma in one of his phases therefore is the visible universe, every atom of which is essentially himself.

Brahma "symbolizes personally the collective creators of the World and Men -- the universe with all its numberless productions of things movable and (seemingly) immovable. He is collectively the Prajapatis, the Lords of Being; and the four bodies typify the four classes of creative powers or Dhyan Chohans . . ." (SD 2:60), these four bodies being ratri (night) associated with the creation of the asuras; ahan (day) associated with the gods; sandhya (evening twilight) associated with the pitris; and jyotsna (dawn or light) associated with the creation of men.

In the beginning Brahma was Purusha (spirit) and also prakriti (matter). It is later that he separated himself into two halves -- Brahma-Vach (female) and Brahma-Viraj (male). The term Brahma is not found in the Vedas. Blavatsky correlates Adam-Qadmon, Brahma, and Mars as symbols for primitive or initial generative and creative powers typifying water and earth; also all three are associated with the color red (cf SD 2:43, 124-5).

See also BRAHMA'S DAY

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

Bhuta (Sanskrit) (from the verbal root bhu to be, become)

Has been; as an adjective become, been gone; as a noun, that which is or exists, any living being; entities that have lived and passed on. Applied specifically to "spooks, ghosts, simulacra, the reliquiae, of dead men; in other words, the astral dregs and remnants of human beings. They are the 'shades' of the ancients, the pale and ghostly phantoms living in the astral world, or the astral copies of the men that were; and the distinction between the bhuta and the kama-rupa is very slight.

"Bereft of all that pertains to the real entity, the genuine man, the bhuta is as much a corpse in the astral realms as is the decaying physical body left behind at physical death; and consequently, astral or psychical intercourse of any kind with these shells is productive only of evil. The bhutas, although belonging in the astral world, are magnetically attracted to physical localities similar in type to the remnants of impulses still inhering in them. The bhuta of a drunkard is attracted to wine-cellars and taverns; the bhuta of one who has lived a lewd life is attracted to localities sympathetic to it; the thin and tenuous bhuta of a good man is similarly attracted to less obnoxious and evil places" (OG 17-18).

Blavatsky also speaks of primitive humanity as relatively intellectually senseless bhutas or phantoms: "the word in India now means ghosts, ethereal or astral phantoms, while in esoteric teaching it means elementary substances, something made of attenuated, non-compound essence, and, specifically, the astral double of any man or animal. In this case these primitive men are the doubles of the first ethereal Dhyanis or Pitris" (SD 2:102n).

From another standpoint, bhuta applies in a general way to reproductions in a new existence of entities which "have been" in a former existence. This is the reason cosmic elements are occasionally called bhutas in their connection with the various tattvas, because the elements in any one manvantara are the derivatives or reproductions, and therefore the bhutas, of the same elements in the previous manvantara.

Bhutas are also rudimentary substances or elements. The Vendantists and Sankhyas, when speaking of the six original producers or elements of nature, called them bhutas or prakritis. These are the bases of objective nature, the vehicular or substantial side of the tattvas (the principles of nature) and therefore inseparable from them. The ancients always reckoned four elements, and sometimes five, and called them aether, fire, air, water, and earth. But esoterically there are seven: adi-bhuta (the primordial), anupapadaka-bhuta (the unevolved or parentless), akasa-bhuta (aether), taijasa-bhuta (fire), vayu-bhuta (air), apas-bhuta (water), and prithivi-bhuta (earth). These cosmic elements are not the familiar things which we know under these names, for the familiar physical substances were taken as symbols, through certain appropriate qualities which they possess, of the actual elements of cosmic being. These familiar physical substances of earth, water, air, and fire are the correspondences on earth, in a mystic sense, of the true cosmic elements.

"It is likewise the old Stoic doctrine, that the elements give birth one to another. Manifestation begins on the spiritual plane, and as the life impulses reach forth into grosser forms, into matter . . . the succeeding elements (bases, rudiments) are born, each one from the preceding one, and from all preceding ones. For instance, earth is born not merely from the element water, but likewise from fire, and air. Furthermore, the seven rounds of a planetary chain, the seven globes of a planetary chain, and the seven root-races of any globe thereof, has each its predominating correspondence with one of these seven elements" (Fund 348).

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

B.C.E.: Before Common Era. Synonymous with B.C. without religious bias.

(See also: B.C.E., Paganism, Pagan, Pagan Dictionary)

B.C.E: Before Common Era, non-Christian version of B.C.

(See also: B.C.E, Paganism, Pagan, Pagan Dictionary)

aryans:

the migrant invaders of india from approximately 1500 b.c; people of spiritual values

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

B.C.E - Before Common Era, non-christian version of B.C.

(See also: B.C.E, Pagan, Wicca Pagan Dictionary)

Aryans: The migrant invaders of India from approximately 1500 b.c; people of spiritual values.

(See also: Aryans, Yoga, Yoga Dictionary)

Bharata, Bharata-varsha bharata-varsa (Sanskrit) (from the verbal root bhri to uphold, bear, carry, supporting, producing + varsha plains, lowlands, land)

The ancient Hindu name for India; Bharata was a name borne also by many divinities as well as great men, heroes, and men of less note. In the Mahabharata, the celebrated hero who was the son of Dushyanta and Sakuntala was named Bharata, the first of twelve Chakravartins.

In theosophical literature Bharata has also been applied to an ancient sacred land. " 'Happy are those who are born, even from the condition of gods, as men, in Bharata-Varsha!' exclaim the incarnated gods themselves, during the Third Root-Race. Bharata is India, but in this case it symbolized the chosen land in those days, and was considered the best of the divisions of Jambu-dwipa, as it was the land of active (spiritual) works par excellence; the land of initiation and of divine knowledge" (SD 2:369).

(See also: Bharata, Bharata-varsha, bharata-varsa, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Boat of the Sun, Seker Boat, Hennu (Egyptian) A frequent Egyptian representation is the boat in which the god Seker is seated. In its center is placed a large coffer, representing the covering of the dead body of the sun god Af or of Osiris.

Oftentimes a hawk, a symbol of the sun, is represented hovering over it with outstretched wings, and the boat was said to be steered by the dead -- a reference both to the spiritual power of those who have passed on to other planes and to the idea of cycles, in that the past or dead produces the present, which in its turn is both the parent and self of the future.

On the day of the festival of Seker, the coffer was lifted off at the moment of sunrise by the High Priest of Memphis, and carried in a procession circling the temple of the deity. This represented the common rotational or revolving movements of all celestial bodies, whether of the sun or planets.

(See also: Boat of the Sun, Seker Boat, Hennu, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Prophecy:

(a) A prediction, usually resulting from a sense of spiritual revelation.

 (b) The ability to receive prophetic revelations.

(See also: Prophecy, Psychic, Psychic Dictionary, Parapsychology, Parapsychology Dictionary)

Subtle Aromatherapy: Form of vibrational healing (vibrational medicine) expounded by Patricia Davis in her book of the same name. Subtle Aromatherapy is any use of essential oils with the aim of: (a) healing the physical body by affecting the subtle body (energetic body), or (b) contributing to personal and spiritual growth.

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