D. Both in the English and Hebrew alphabets the fourth letter, whose numerical value is four. The symbolical signification in the Kabbala of the Daleth is "door". It is the Greek delta D, through which the world (whose symbol is the tetrad or number four,) issued, producing the divine seven. The name of the Tetrad was Harmony with the Pythagoreans, "because it is a diatessaron in sesquitertia". With the Kabbalists, the divine name associated with Daleth was Daghoul.

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

Cecco d’Ascoli. Surnamed "Francesco Stabili." He lived in the thirteenth century, and was considered the most famous astrologer in his day. A work of his published at Basle in 1485, and called Commentarii in Sphaeram Joannis de Sacrabosco, is still extant. He was burnt alive by the Inquisition in 1327.

(See also: Cecco d’Ascoli, Theosophy, Spirituality, Body mind and Soul, Spiritual Dictionary, )

At-teekah D'At-teekeen. See `ATTIQA' DE-`ATTIQIN

(See also: At-teekah D'At-teekeen, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Wallace D Fard

(b. , d. unknown) Known as Master Wali Farrad Muhammad, founder of the Nation of Islam in Detroit in 1930.

(See also: Wallace D Fard, New Age Spirituality, Body Mind and Soul)

Al Sa'd Al Ahbiyah: The 23rd Mansion of the Moon, corresponding to part of the constellation Aquarius.

Influence: Aids the harvest, and plants in general

Spirit: Requiel

(See also: Al Sa'd Al Ahbiyah, Magic, Shamanism, Paganism, Wicca)

Al Sa'd Al Bula: The 21st Mansion of the Moon, corresponding to part of the constellation Aquarius.

Influences destruction and decline

Spirit: Bethnael

(See also: Al Sa'd Al Bula, Magic, Shamanism, Paganism, Wicca)

Al Sa'd Al Dhabih: The 20th Mansion of the Moon, corresponding to the constellation Capricorn.

Influence: Aids the fugitive

Spirit: Kyriel

(See also: Al Sa'd Al Dhabih, Magic, Shamanism, Paganism, Wicca)

Al Sa'd Al Su'ud: The 22nd Mansion of the Moon, corresponding to part of the constellation Aquarius.

Influence: Aids fertility in animals

Spirit: Geliel

(See also: Al Sa'd Al Su'ud, Magic, Shamanism, Paganism, Wicca)

Atma-matrasu (Sanskrit) To enter into the elements of the "One-Self". (See S. D. I.,334 Atmamatra is the spiritual atom, as contrasted with, and opposed to, the elementary differentiated atom or molecule.

(See also: Atma-matrasu, Theosophy, Spirituality, Body mind and Soul, Spiritual Dictionary, )

Superspiritual Those realms and spheres of the cosmic being and life which are the causal noumena even of the spirit; and hence we may speak of the superspiritual as being the divine, out of which the spiritual flows during the course of cosmic evolution.

The spheres of action of the combined forced of evolution and karma are the superspiritual or noumenal, the spiritual, the psychological, the astro-ethereal, the subastral, the vital, and the purely physical.

Man in the first round and first root-race on globe D was a highly ethereal being, nonintelligent in our sense, but spiritual, and the offspring of superspiritual monadic essences; and the same rule applied, but less forcibly, in the first root-race of the fourth round.

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

Neo-platonism. Lit.,"The new Platonism" or Platonic School. An eclectic pantheistic school of philosophy founded in Alexandria by Ammonius Saccas, of which his disciple Plotinus was the head (A.D. 189-270). It sought to reconcile Platonic teachings and the Aristotelean system with oriental Theosophy. Its chief occupation was pure spiritual philosophy, metaphysics and mysticism. Theurgy was introduced towards its later years. It was the ultimate effort of high intelligences to check the ever-increasing ignorant superstition and blind faith of the times; the last product of Greek philosophy, which was finally crushed and put to death by brute force.

(See also: Neo-platonism, Theosophy, Spirituality, Body mind and Soul, Spiritual Dictionary, )

Dabar (Hebrew) plural debarim. Word, speech, frequently a cosmic spiritual conscious energy, thus equivalent to the Greek logos or cosmic spirit; also, an oracle or divine communication; cause, reason. In the Chaldean Qabbalah, equivalent to the Logos, "which Word, though it becomes in fact a plural number, or 'Words' -- D(a)B(a)RIM, when it reflects itself, or falls into the aspect of a Host (of angels, or Sephiroth, 'numbers') is still collectively One, and on the ideal plane a nought -- 0, a 'No-thing'" (SD 1:350).

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

Urdhvasrotas (Sanskrit) [from urdhva upwards, straight + srotas current, channel, canal]

Those whose digestive organs or life-currents are upright. In the Puranas, the sixth of the seven creations of Brahma, or emanations of living beings, being the emanation or spiritual beings or dhyanis. "These (divinities) are simply the prototypes of the First Race, the fathers of their 'mind-born' progeny with the soft bones. It is these who became the Evolvers of the 'Sweat-born' . . ." (SD 1:456). These creations or stages in evolutionary development refer especially to globe D, but have a cosmic significance likewise when the reference is to cosmic time periods.

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

Alchemy ; in Arabic Ul-Khemi, is, as the name suggests, the chemistry of nature. Ui-Khemi or Al-Kimia, however, is only an Arabianized word, taken from the Greek chemeia, (chemeia) from cumoz -  "juice", sap extracted from a plant.

Says Dr. Wynn Westcott: "The earliest use of the actual term ‘alchemy’ is found in the works of Julius Firmicus Maternus, who lived in the days of Constantine the Great. The Imperial Library in Paris contains the oldest-extant alchemic treatise known in Europe;it was written by Zosimus the Panopolite about 400 A.D. in the Greek language, the next oldest is by Eneas Gazeus, 480 A.D."

It deals with the finer forces of nature and the various conditions in which they are found to operate. Seeking under the veil of language, more or less artificial, to convey to the uninitiated so much of the mysterium magnum as is safe in the hands of a selfish world, the alchemist postulates as his first principle the existence of a certain Universal Solvent by which all composite bodies are resolved into the homogeneous substance from which they are evolved, which substance he calls pure gold, or summa materia. This solvent, also called menstvuum universale, possesses the power of removing all the seeds of disease from the human body, of renewing youth and prolonging life. Such is the lapis philosophorum (philosopher’s stone).

Alchemy first penetrated into Europe through Geber, the great Arabian sage and philosopher, in the eighth century of our era; but it was known and practised long ages ago in China and in Egypt, numerous papyri on alchemy and other proofs of its being the favourite study of kings and priests having been exhumed and preserved under the generic name of Hermetic treatises. (See "Tabula Smaragdina"). Alchemy is studied under three distinct aspects, which admit of many different interpretations, viz.: the Cosmic, Human, and Terrestrial. These three methods were typified under the three alchemical properties - sulphur, mercury, and salt.

Different writers have stated that there are three, seven, ten, and twelve processes respectively; but they are all agreed that there is but one object in alchemy, which is to transmute gross metals into pure gold. What that gold, however, really is, very few people understand correctly. No doubt that there is such a thing in nature as transmutation of the baser metals into the nobler, or gold. But this is only one aspect of alchemy, the terrestrial or purely material, for we sense logically the same process taking place in the bowels of the earth. Yet, besides and beyond this interpretation, there is in alchemy a symbolical meaning, purely psychic and spiritual.

While the Kabbalist-Alchemist seeks for the realization of the former, the Occultist-Alchemist, spurning the gold of the mines, gives all his attention and directs his efforts only towards the transmutation of the baser quaternary into the divine upper trinity of man, which when finally blended are one. The spiritual, mental, psychic, and physical planes of human existence are in alchemy compared to the four elements, fire, air, water and earth, and are each capable of a threefold constitution, i.e., fixed, mutable and volatile.

Little or nothing is known by the word concerning the origin of this archaic branch of philosophy; but it is certain that it antedates the construction of any known Zodiac, and, as dealing with the personified forces of nature, probably also any of the mythologies of the world; nor is there any doubt that the true secret of transmutation (on the physical plane) was known in days of old, and lost before the dawn of the so-called historical period. Modern chemistry owes its best fundamental discoveries to alchemy, but regardless of the undeniable truism of the latter that there is but one element in the universe, chemistry has placed metals in the class of elements and is only now beginning to find out its gross mistake.

Even sonic Encyclopedists are now forced to confess that if most of the accounts of transmutations are fraud or delusion, "yet some of them are accompanied by testimony which renders them probable. . . By means of the galvanic battery even the alkalis have been discovered to have a metallic base.

The possibility of obtaining metal from other substances which contain the ingredients composing it, and of changing one metal into another . . . must therefore be left undecided. Nor are all alchemists to be considered impostors. Many have laboured under the conviction of obtaining their object, with indefatigable patience and purity of heart, which is earnestly recommended by sound alchemists as the principal requisite for the success of their labours."

(Pop. Encyclop.)

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

Yehidah (Hebrew) [from masculine yahid the one, the only, the unique from the verbal root yahad oneness, union; cognant with the Hebrew 'ehad one]

In the Qabbalah, the highest human principle, as being the unique or single and indivisible individuality of the constitution, and therefore corresponding to the spiritual monad. Blavatsky places this term in context of the entire person, as presented in the Qabbalistic system: yehidah is

"esoterically, the highest individuality or Atma-Buddhi-Manas, when united in one. . . . At the time of the conception, the Holy 'sends a d'yook-nah, or the phantom of a shadow image' like the face of a man. It is designed and sculptured in the divine tzelem, i.e., the shadow image of the Elohim. 'Elohim created man in his (their) tzelem' or image, says Genesis (i. 27). It is the tzelem that awaits the child and receives it at the moment of its conception, and this tzelem is our linga sharira. 'The rua'h forms with the Nephesh the actual personality of the man,' and also his individuality, or, as expressed by the Kabbalist, the combination of the two is called, if he (man) deserves it, Yeheedah.

This combination is that which the Theosophist calls the dual Manas, the higher and the Lower Ego, united to Atma-Buddhi and become one. For as explained in the Zohar (i., 205b, 206a, Brody Ed.): 'Neshamah, soul (Buddhi), comprises three degrees, and therefore she has three names, like the mystery above: that is, Nephesh, Rua'h, Neshamah,' or the Lower Manas, the Higher Ego, and Buddhi, the Divine Soul. 'It is also to be noted that the Neshamah has three divisions'; says Myer's Qabbalah, 'the highest is the Ye-hee-dah' -- or Atma-Buddhi-Manas, the latter once more as a unit; 'the middle principle is Hay-yah' -- or Buddhi and the dual Manas; 'and the last and third, the Neshamah, properly speaking' -- or Soul in general. 'They manifest themselves in Ma'hshabah, thought, Tzelem, phantom of the image, Zurath, prototypes (mayavic forms, or rupas), and the D'yooknah, shadow of the phantom image. The D'mooth, likeness or similitude (physical body), is a lower manifestation' (p. 392)" (TG 377-8; cf SD 2:633).

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

Alchemists; From Al and Chemi, fire, or the god and patriarch, Kham, also, the name of Egypt.

The Rosicrucians of the middle ages, such as Robertus de Fluctibus (Robert Fludd), Paracelsus, Thomas Vaughan (Eugenius Philalethes), Van Helmont, and others, were all alchemists, who sought for the hidden spirit in every inorganic matter.

Some people -  nay, the great majority - have accused alchemists of charlatanry and false pretending. Surely such men as Roger Bacon, Agrippa, Henry Khunrath, and the Arabian Geber (the first to introduce into Europe some of the secrets of chemistry), can hardly he treated as impostors -  least of all as fools.

Scientists who are reforming the science of physics upon the basis of the atomic theory of Democritus, as restated by John Dalton, conveniently forget that Democritus, of Abdera, was an alchemist, and that the mind that was capable of penetrating so far into the secret operations of nature in one direction must have had good reasons to study and become a Hermetic philosopher. Olaus Borrichius says that the cradle of alchemy is to be sought in the most distant times. (Isis Unveiled).

Alchemy ; in Arabic Ul-Khemi, is, as the name suggests, the chemistry of nature. Ui-Khemi or Al-Kimia, however, is only an Arabianized word, taken from the Greek chemeia, (chemeia) from cumoz -  "juice", sap extracted from a plant.

Says Dr. Wynn Westcott: "The earliest use of the actual term ‘alchemy’ is found in the works of Julius Firmicus Maternus, who lived in the days of Constantine the Great. The Imperial Library in Paris contains the oldest-extant alchemic treatise known in Europe;it was written by Zosimus the Panopolite about 400 A.D. in the Greek language, the next oldest is by Eneas Gazeus, 480 A.D."

It deals with the finer forces of nature and the various conditions in which they are found to operate. Seeking under the veil of language, more or less artificial, to convey to the uninitiated so much of the mysterium magnum as is safe in the hands of a selfish world, the alchemist postulates as his first principle the existence of a certain Universal Solvent by which all composite bodies are resolved into the homogeneous substance from which they are evolved, which substance he calls pure gold, or summa materia. This solvent, also called menstvuum universale, possesses the power of removing all the seeds of disease from the human body, of renewing youth and prolonging life. Such is the lapis philosophorum (philosopher’s stone).

Alchemy first penetrated into Europe through Geber, the great Arabian sage and philosopher, in the eighth century of our era; but it was known and practised long ages ago in China and in Egypt, numerous papyri on alchemy and other proofs of its being the favourite study of kings and priests having been exhumed and preserved under the generic name of Hermetic treatises. (See "Tabula Smaragdina"). Alchemy is studied under three distinct aspects, which admit of many different interpretations, viz.: the Cosmic, Human, and Terrestrial. These three methods were typified under the three alchemical properties - sulphur, mercury, and salt.

Different writers have stated that there are three, seven, ten, and twelve processes respectively; but they are all agreed that there is but one object in alchemy, which is to transmute gross metals into pure gold. What that gold, however, really is, very few people understand correctly. No doubt that there is such a thing in nature as transmutation of the baser metals into the nobler, or gold. But this is only one aspect of alchemy, the terrestrial or purely material, for we sense logically the same process taking place in the bowels of the earth. Yet, besides and beyond this interpretation, there is in alchemy a symbolical meaning, purely psychic and spiritual.

While the Kabbalist-Alchemist seeks for the realization of the former, the Occultist-Alchemist, spurning the gold of the mines, gives all his attention and directs his efforts only towards the transmutation of the baser quaternary into the divine upper trinity of man, which when finally blended are one. The spiritual, mental, psychic, and physical planes of human existence are in alchemy compared to the four elements, fire, air, water and earth, and are each capable of a threefold constitution, i.e., fixed, mutable and volatile.

Little or nothing is known by the word concerning the origin of this archaic branch of philosophy; but it is certain that it antedates the construction of any known Zodiac, and, as dealing with the personified forces of nature, probably also any of the mythologies of the world; nor is there any doubt that the true secret of transmutation (on the physical plane) was known in days of old, and lost before the dawn of the so-called historical period. Modern chemistry owes its best fundamental discoveries to alchemy, but regardless of the undeniable truism of the latter that there is but one element in the universe, chemistry has placed metals in the class of elements and is only now beginning to find out its gross mistake.

Even sonic Encyclopedists are now forced to confess that if most of the accounts of transmutations are fraud or delusion, "yet some of them are accompanied by testimony which renders them probable. . . By means of the galvanic battery even the alkalis have been discovered to have a metallic base.

The possibility of obtaining metal from other substances which contain the ingredients composing it, and of changing one metal into another . . . must therefore be left undecided. Nor are all alchemists to be considered impostors. Many have laboured under the conviction of obtaining their object, with indefatigable patience and purity of heart, which is earnestly recommended by sound alchemists as the principal requisite for the success of their labours."

(Pop. Encyclop.)

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

Venus The second visible planet from the sun in our solar system, and the brightest orb in the heavens except the sun and moon: regarded by the ancients as one of the seven sacred planets. Astrologically its zodiacal houses are Taurus and Libra; its day of the week is Friday.

"Venus is the most occult, powerful, and mysterious of all the planets; the one whose influence upon, and relation to the Earth is most prominent. . . .

". . .According to the Occult Doctrine, this planet is our Earth's primary, and its spiritual prototype. . . .

"Every sin committed on Earth is felt by Usanas-Sukra [Venus]. The Guru of the Daityas is the Guardian Spirit of the Earth and Men. Every change on Sukra is felt on, and reflected by, the Earth" (SD 2:30-1).

In theosophy the regent or rector of Venus has a particular influence over globe C of the earth-chain, and likewise over the third root-race of the earth's globe D. The sign of Venus (the circle over the cross ) represents the fall of mankind and animal life into sexual generation at the end of the third root-race.

As Venus has no satellites, the ancients said that Venus adopted the Earth, the progeny of the Moon. "Every world has its parent star and sister planet. Thus Earth is the adopted child and younger brother of Venus, but its inhabitants are of their own kind" (SD 2:33). The inhabitants of Venus have bodies in one sense more gross than those of Earth-dwellers; yet despite this the former are far more intelligent than are the humans of Earth. Furthermore, Venus is said to be in its seventh round (cf SD 1:602; FSO 327-9).

For the Roman goddess,

See APHRODITE

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

St. Germain, the Count of. Referred to as an enigmatical personage by modern writers. Frederic II., King of Prussia, used to say of him that he was a man whom no one had ever been able make out. Many are his "biographies", and each is wilder than the other.

By some he was regarded as an incarnate god, by others as a clever Alsatian Jew. One thing is certain, Count de St. Germain - whatever his real patronymic may have been - had a right to his name and title, for he had bought a property called San Germano, in the Italian Tyrol, and paid the Pope for the title. He was uncommonly handsome, and his enormous erudition and linguistic capacities are undeniable, for he spoke English, Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Russian, Swedish, Danish, and many Slavonian and Oriental languages, with equal facility with a native.

He was extremely wealthy, never received a sou from anyone - in fact never accepted a glass of water or broke bread with anyone made most extravagant presents of superb jewellery to all his friends, even to the royal families of Europe. His proficiency in music was marvellous; he played on every instrument, the violin being his favourite. "St. Germain rivalled Paganini himself", was said of him by an octogenarian Belgian in 1835, after hearing the "Genoese maestro". "It is St. Germain resurrected who plays the violin in the body of an Italian skeleton ", exclaimed a Lithuanian baron who had heard both.

He never laid claim to spiritual powers, but proved to have a right to such claim. He used to pass into a dead trance from thirty-seven to forty-nine hours without awakening, and then knew all he had to know, and demonstrated the fact by prophesying futurity and never making a mistake. It is he who prophesied before the Kings Louis XV. and XVI., and the unfortunate Marie Antoinette.

Many were the still living witnesses in the first quarter of this century who testified to his marvellous memory; he could read a paper in the morning and, though hardly glancing at it, could repeat its contents without missing one word days afterwards; he could write with two hands at once, the right hand writing a piece of poetry, the left a diplomatic paper of the greatest importance. He read sealed letters without touching them, while still in the hand of those who brought them to him. He was the greatest adept in transmuting metals, making gold and the most marvellous diamonds, an art, he said, he had learned from certain Brahmans in India, who taught him the artificial crystallisation ("quickening") of pure carbon. As our Brother Kenneth Mackenzie has it: - "

 In 1780, when on a visit to the French Ambassador to the Hague, he broke to pieces with a hammer a superb diamond of his own manufacture, the counterpart of which, also manufactured by himself, he had just before sold to a jeweller for 5500 louis d’or". He was the friend and confidant of Count Orloff in 1772 at Vienna, whom he had helped and saved in St. Petersburg in 1762, when concerned in the famous political conspiracies of that time; he also became intimate with Frederick the Great of Prussia.

As a matter of course, he had numerous enemies, and therefore it is not to be wondered at if all the gossip invented about him is now attributed to his own confessions: e.g., that he was over five hundred years old; also, that he claimed personal intimacy "with the Saviour and his twelve Apostles, and that he had reproved Peter for his bad temper " - the latter clashing somewhat in point of time with the former, if he had really claimed to be only five hundred years old. if he said that "he had been born in Chaldea and professed to possess the secrets of the Egyptian magicians and sages ", he may have spoken truth without making any miraculous claim. There are Initiates, and not the highest either, who are placed in a condition to remember more than one of their past lives.

But we have good reason to know that St. Germain could never have claimed "personal intimacy " with the Saviour. How ever that may be, Count St. Germain was certainly the greatest Oriental Adept Europe has seen during the last centuries. But Europe knew him not. Perchance some may recognise him at the next Terreur which will affect all Europe when it comes, and not one country alone.

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

Pragna (Sanskrit) or Prajna. A synonym of Mahat the Universal Mind. The capacity for perception.

(S. D., I. 139) Consciousness.

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