Egg One of the most comprehensive symbols, equally suggestive in a spiritual, physiological, and cosmological sense. Among other things, it stands for primordial chaos, the universal matrix, the great Deep, the Virgin Mother, and also for the kosmos or world egg produced from it. As chaos or space, it is the virgin egg, unproduced; this is fructified by the spiritual ray, and from it then issues the Third Logos.

"The Virgin-egg being in one sense abstract Egg-ness, or the power of becoming developed through fecundation, is eternal and for ever the same. And just as the fecundation of an egg takes place before it is dropped; so the non-eternal periodical germ which becomes later in symbolism the mundane egg, contains in itself, when it emerges from the said symbol, 'the promise and potency' of all the Universe . . . The simile of an egg also expresses the fact . . . that the primordial form of everything manifested, from atom to globe, from man to angel, is spheroidal, the sphere having been with all nations the emblem of eternity and infinity" (SD 1:64-5).

As the symbol of generation, birth, and rebirth, it is "the most familiar form of that in which is deposited and developed the germ of every living being" (IU 1:157), used not only on account of the mystery of apparent self-generation, but from its spheroidal shape, the sphere and circle both being symbols of encompassing space.

The egg symbol appears in many cultures. In the Laws of Manu, for instance, it is stated that the Self-existent Lord, becoming manifest, created water alone; in that he cast seed which became a golden egg (hiranyagarbha); having dwelt in that egg for a divine year, Brahma splits it, forming heaven and earth. Brahma thus both fructifies the egg and is produced from it. Again, the female evolver or emanator is first a germ, a drop of heavenly dew, a pearl, and then an egg; the egg gives birth to the four elements with the fifth (akasa); it splits, the shell being heaven, the meat earth, and the white the waters of both space and earth. Vishnu, too, emerges from the egg. In Egypt, Osiris is born from an egg, like Brahma; the egg was sacred to Isis and therefore the priests never ate eggs.

The egg is used in Easter celebrations as the symbol of the renewal of life. The Easter egg derives from the pagan custom of exchanging eggs at the birth-time of the year. Originally it had a deep esoteric hint completely lost sight of today where the custom is still held in the Occident, although commonly candies in the shape of eggs are exchanged. Giving a fellow disciple an egg in the old Mystery schools suggested the rebirth of nature, so apparent in the springtime, or again the initiation ceremonies that prevailed at the spring equinox, thereby expressing the hope that he too might at some time be "reborn," able to free his spiritual nature from the enveloping shell as a chick frees itself from the egg.

Sometimes the word is used for the circle or zero, for the egg combines the senses of fertility and sphericity in one symbol. The egg with its central germ is the circle with the point. In company with the stroke for the masculine power in nature -- sometimes represented as a vertical line -- it makes the number 10, or the figure of relatively perfected or complete emanation. The egg was the symbol of life in immortality and eternity, and also the glyph of the generative matrix. The anatomy of a hen's egg shows a wonderful analogy with the stages in comic evolution and the human principles.

See also BRAHMANDA; WORLD EGG

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

Elohim 'elohim (Hebrew) (from 'eloah goddess + im masculine plural ending)

The monotheistic proclivities, not only of the Jews but of Christian translators, have led to this word always being translated as God; yet the word itself is a plural form, nor is it in any sense necessarily a plural of majesty, as suggested by some monotheistic scholars. A correct rendering should denote both masculine and feminine characteristics, such as androgyne divinities.

In spite of the ideas imbodied in the word itself, the later development of Judaism caused 'elohim to be almost entirely translated in paraphrase as the "one true God"; but in earlier times 'elohim (or rather benei 'elohim or benei 'elim -- sons of gods, members of the classes of divine beings) meant spiritual beings or cosmic spirits of differing hierarchical grades: a collective class of cosmic spirits among whom is found the familiar Jewish Yahweh or Jehovah. Thus, strictly speaking and as viewed in the original Qabbalah, the 'elohim meant the angelic hierarchies of many varying grades of spirituality or ethereality; and in cosmogonic or astrological matters, the 'elohim were often mentally aggregated under the generalized term tseba'oth (fem pl from the verbal root tsaba' a host, an army) as in the expression "host of heaven."

In the Jewish Qabbalah the 'elohim, however, are the sixth hierarchical group in derivation from the first or Crown, Kether: cosmogonically they represent the manifested formers or weavers of the cosmos. In this Qabbalistic system, Jehovah was the third angelic potency (counting from the first, Kether). Blavatsky calls all these hierarchicies symbols "emblematic, mutually and correlatively, of Spirit, Soul and Body (man); of the circle transformed into Spirit, the Soul of the World, and its body (or Earth). Stepping out of the Circle of Infinity, that no man comprehendeth, Ain-Soph (the Kabalistic synonym for Parabrahm, for the Zeroana Akerne, of the Mazdeans, or for any other 'Uunknowable') becomes 'One' -- the Echos, the Eka, the Ahu -- then he (or it) is transformed by evolution into the One in many, the Dhyani-Buddhas or the Elohim, or again the Amshaspends, his third Step being taken into generation of the flesh, or 'Man.' And from man, or Jah-Hova, 'male female,' the inner divine entity becomes, on the metaphysical planes, once more the Elohim" (SD 1:113).

The opening words of the Bible refer directly to the activities of the 'elohim, for this is the sole divine name mentioned in Genesis 1:1-2. De Purucker translates these verses from the original Hebrew as:

"In a host (or multitude), the gods (Elohim) formed themselves into the heavens and the earth. And the earth became ethereal. And darkness upon the face of the ethers. And the ruah (the spirit-soul) of the gods (of Elohim) fluttered or hovered, brooding" (cf Fund 99-100). He goes on to say that "we see that the Elohim evolved man, humanity, out of themselves, and told them to become, then to enter into and inform these other creatures. Indeed, these sons of the Elohim are, in our teachings, the children of light, the sons of light, which are we ourselves, and yet different from ourselves, because higher, yet they are our own very selves inwardly. In fact, the Elohim, became, evolved into, their own offspring, remaining in a sense still always the inspiring light within, or rather above . . . the Elohim projected themselves into the nascent forms of the then 'humanity,' which thenceforward were 'men,' however imperfect their development still was" (Fund 101-2).

The 'elohim, then, correspond to both classes of the pitris mentioned in theosophical literature: the higher or more spiritual-intellectual of the 'elohim are the agnishvatta-pitris, and the lower groups are the barhishad-pitris. As the agnishvatta-pitris are devoid of the astral-vital-physical productive fire because they are too high and distinctly intellectual, they leave the work of production to the lower 'elohim or barhishads, who "being the lunar spirits more closely connected with Earth, became the creative Elohim of form, or the Adam of dust" (SD 2:78).

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

Faith Healing, Drugless Healing Apart from the regular medical and surgical practice, widespread forms of drugless healing are employed today. Public opinion generally is either frankly skeptical about the whole matter, or believes that such afford safe and easy means of relief and escape from suffering and disease.

As a whole, these forms of faith or magnetic healing depend on the "inborn or inherent, ability of the 'healer' or practitioner to convey healthy life-force from himself to the diseased person. This is the key to success, or the lack of success, in all cases, and in all kinds of healing of whatever so-called 'school'" (SOPh 622). If the practitioner succeeds in conveying the vitality of the pranic fluids from his own healthy body to the diseased body or organ of another person, that healthy life-force "expels" or changes the inharmonious vibrations in the afflicted part and, by restoring harmony there, brings about health. Such cures can be permanent; usually they are temporary, lasting from a few days to a few years.

All these methods were known to the ancients. Unfortunately, the Western lack of any true psychology leaves unexplained the rationale of these healing systems -- whether by hypnotism, magnetism, mesmerism, or healing by faith as practiced by the Christian Scientists and faith-healers -- and gives no hint of their end results. The potential dangers incurred, both physical and superphysical, are unsuspected. The magnetic healer's emanation of his vitality and will-force inevitably carries and implants in the person it affects something of his own quality of mind, heart, and body. The germs of any latent disease, hidden vice, or mental bias will complicate any supposed cure.

Moreover, the subtle infection on inner lines karmically links for the future both healer and patient in the outcome. Even diseased or evil-minded persons of strong will and animal vitality can displace a disease and, by driving it back onto some inner level of the sufferer's constitution, can make a seeming cure. Howsoever it is displaced out of sight, it cannot be denied out of existence, and sooner or later it will reappear in a more untimely, unnatural, and probably a more dangerous form because of its suppression at the moment of its endeavor to exhaust itself in physical expression. Physical disease, originating in wrong thought in this or a former life, becomes visible on the most material level in working its way out of the system for good. It is positively pernicious for a healer to act upon the will, conscience, or moral integrity of the sick person by hypnotizing his mind, will, and conscience into believing that sickness does not exist, or that he is a victim of fate instead of suffering from his own past actions. Any such control of another's conscious life is a form of suggestion or hypnotism, and falls under what was formerly called black magic.

On the other hand, we are morally obligated to help the sick and suffering in the right ways of treating the body, mind, and soul; right because involving the arousing of the patient's own inner powers of spiritual, moral, and intellectual resistance against the weaknesses in himself. The wrong ways consist in the overpowering -- however good the motive of the practitioner may be -- of the moral instincts, will, and conscience of the sufferer, thereby rendering him weaker than before. In genuine mesmerism the vital emanation from a pure-minded, unselfish, healthy operator arouses the inert or disordered forces of the diseased organ or body, causing them to vibrate harmoniously and naturally. Thus the sufferer makes himself whole or healthy, and has no bad reaction. The best of all drugless healing methods is where the sufferer is brought into a state of hope, self-confidence, and the higher kind of resignation bringing peace and inner quiet, all of which works in harmony with the body's natural resources of health and healing. This is the kind of faith-cure used by Jesus and others of similar spiritual and intellectual stature.

(See also: Faith Healing, Drugless Healing, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Elemental (Elementals) Used by medieval European mystics, such as the Fire-philosophers, Rosicrucians, and Qabbalists, to signify those classes of ethereal beings evolved in and born of the four elements or kingdoms of nature. Ordinarily they are spoken of as existing in four classes corresponding to the four popular elements air, fire, water, and earth; but theosophy describes these kingdoms of nature as seven or even ten in number: four of the material or quasi-material range, and three (or six) of highly ethereal and even quasi-spiritual substance. They are often described as nature spirits or sprites.

More strictly, the word is confined to those beings who are beginning their evolutionary growth, who have developed in their constitution but one of the four elements -- that one from which they were born -- and who are therefore in the elemental state of growth. It is a generalizing term for all beings evolutionally below the minerals. Nevertheless, by extension of meaning, the mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms are often referred to as families of elemental beings, though in more advanced stages. An elemental, therefore, is a being who has entered our, or any other, universe on its lowest plane or world.

There are three kingdoms of the elementals below the mineral kingdom, each of which has seven (or ten) subdivisions, and every entity high or low has passed through this stage at some time in its career.

There are four commonly recognized great classes of these unevolved beings, called by the medieval European mystics gnomes, undines, sylphs, and salamanders -- elementals respectively of earth, water, air, and fire. These elementals are not only the inhabitants of and born from the respective elements, but really are the elements themselves. They are from one viewpoint simply nature forces, tools of the higher intelligences, and actually perform all the physical work of the world.

From another point of view they may be looked upon as life-atoms in different stages of evolutionary growth; and being in various degrees of evolution they are variously spiritual, ethereal, astral, or material, running through vast ranges on all these planes. Thus they exist everywhere: in the air we breathe, the food we eat, and all the tissues of physical nature. Through their agency we perform all our bodily or mental activities.

The three kingdoms of elementals actually build and form every new planet or world, beginning in serial order with the lowest of the three kingdoms, preparing the globe for the advent of the mineral kingdom, to be followed in turn by the vegetable and higher kingdoms in regular succession. The elementals are not only the matters of nature, but when acting together and used by higher intelligences become the forces or energies of nature, such as electricity, magnetism, light, vitality, etc. Unconsciously, human and other beings use them in the carrying on of all their bodily functions. For example, our bodies cohere through the automatic aid of the elementals of earth; and the elementals of fire give us our bodily heat.

The four kingdoms of elementals, existing in the four elements, are also known under the general designation of fairies and fays in the myths, fables, traditions, and poetry of all nations, ancient and modern. Their names are legion: peris, devs, jinn, sylvans, satyrs, fauns, elves, dwarfs, trolls, nixies, kobolds, brownies, banshees, leprechauns, pixies, moss-people, good people, good neighbors, wild women, men of peace, white ladies, and many more. They have been seen, feared, blessed, banned, and invoked in every quarter of the globe in every age.

These elementals are the principal nature forces used by the disimbodied human dead, very real but never visible "shells" mistaken for spirits at seances, and are the producers of all the phenomena except the purely subjective. They may be described as centers of force having instinctive desires but no consciousness as we understand it. Hence their acts may be what we humans call good or bad, indifferently. They have astral forms which partake, to a distinguishing degree, of the element to which they belong and also of the universally encompassing ether. They are a combination of sublimated matter and a purely rudimental mind. Some remain throughout several cycles relatively unchanging, so far as radical change goes, but still have no separate individuality, and usually acting collectively, so to speak. Others, of certain elements and species, change under a fixed law which Qabbalists explain. The most solid of their bodies are ordinarily just immaterial enough to escape perception by our physical eyesight, but not so unsubstantial that they cannot be perfectly recognized by the inner or clairvoyant vision. They not only exist and can all live in ether, but can handle and direct it for the production of physical effects, as readily as we can compress air or water for the same purpose by pneumatic and hydraulic apparatus; in which occupation they are readily helped by the human elementaries or astral shells.

More than this, they can so condense the ether as to make for themselves tangible bodies which, by their Protean powers, they can cause to assume such likeness as the elementals themselves are at the time impressed to assume, this being caused by their taking automatically as their models the portraits they find stamped in the memory of a person or persons present at a seance. It is not necessary that the sitter should be thinking at the moment of the one represented: the image may have faded many years before. The mind receives indelible impressions even from chance acquaintances. As a few seconds' exposure of the sensitized photographic plate is all that is requisite to preserve indefinitely the image of the sitter, so is it in incomparably greater degree with the mind. Unable to invent anything or to produce anything of itself, the elemental automatically reflects stamped impressions in the memory of human beings to its very depths; hence the nervous exhaustion and mental oppression of certain sensitive natures at spiritualistic circles. The elemental will bring to light long-forgotten remembrances of the past: forms, images, even familiar sentences, long since faded from memory, but vividly preserved on the astral tablets of the imperishable book of life. The elementals are very imitative, having neither developed will nor intelligence of their own which they self-consciously use, and hence tend automatically to copy forms in all the higher kingdoms. They have therefore many shapes or bodies, some of the more advanced taking even a quasi-human form.

Some of the elementals are said to be friendly, others unfriendly, to humanity not because of any deliberate intent on their part, but simply because mankind happens to be in such evolutionary position that it is affected one way or the other by them. Also, as different people contain in their constitution a preponderance of one of the elements over the other, they are more sensitive to the elementals of their predominating element.

(See also: Elemental, Elementals, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Human Monad In the human constitution, the fourth monadic focus or center on the descending scale of individualizing consciousness. It is the basis or root of the human ego from which emanates the human soul -- a temporary or periodic appearance enduring for one incarnation, having for its range of consciousness the ordinary human consciousness of daily life.

At death the essence of the human soul is united to the human ego, which in its turn at the second death is reunited with the upper duad (atma-buddhi); and the human ego thereupon enters into the state of consciousness called devachan.

Having become at one with its spiritual parent, at least for the duration of devachan, the ego rests and digests its garnered store of wisdom, knowledge, and experience, and upon the completion of this period of devachanic recuperation it issues forth again when the karmic hour strikes, once more to become the human ego at its succeeding birth.

(See also: Human Monad, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Hylozoism (from Greek hyle matter + zoe life)

A term used by Ralph Cudworth (1617-88); the doctrine that matter includes its own vitalizing principle. Contrasted in The Secret Doctrine with crude materialism on the one hand and anthropomorphic deism on the other, it is said to be tantamount to a kind of pantheism.

The Stoics, using the word matter to mean something that actually exists, argued that the vitalizing agents in matter, although spiritual in origin, must themselves be material in order to affect matter. The duality between spirit and matter, or the active and passive potencies, they regarded as formal and a concession to Aristotelianism. They recognized the mind and vitality inherent in nature:

"Nature is a habit moved from itself, according to seminal principles," says Laertius, after Zeno. This is equivalent to recognizing the hierarchies of gods, in contrast with the notion that one "Supreme Architect" concerns himself directly with the innumerable details of the inferior ranges of the universe.

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

Hyparxis (Greek) Essential nature; Neoplatonic term for the summit, beginning, or hierarch of a hierarchy:

"this army of beings in any one hierarchy is . . . more than a mere collective entity, because it is united in its apex, in what is actually the fount of that hierarchy. This fount is the hyparxis or spiritual sun from which all the other nine planes or classes of the hierarchy emanate . . . ; even as the hyparxis of any one hierarchy is the lowest class or plane of a superior hierarchy, and so practically ad infinitum" (Fund 108-9). Equivalent to the First Logos.

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

God-parents Christian law, strong in the Greek Orthodox Church, weaker in the Roman Catholic, and forgotten in the Protestant, based in the fact that once a spiritual teacher begins to teach the disciple, he takes on the student's karma in connection with the occult sciences until the student becomes in turn a master.

 The god-parents "tacitly take upon themselves all the sins of the newly baptised child -- (anointed, as at the initiation, a mystery truly!) -- until the day when the child becomes a responsible unit, knowing good and evil" (BCW 9:156, cf 9:285-6).

(See also: God-parents, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Golden Age The first of the four Hesiodic Ages -- Gold, Silver, Bronze, Iron -- signifying the beginning of a new root-race and, on a smaller scale, the beginning of any subordinate racial period. This four-fold division applies not only to root-races but to all their subdivisions.

The Golden Age was under the rule of Kronos (Saturnus) who, according to Plato, not believing that men could rule themselves, caused them to be ruled by gods. It was a time of innocence and happiness: truth and justice prevailed, the earth brought forth without toil all that was necessary for mankind, perpetual spring reigned, and the heroes passed away peacefully into spiritual existence. Equivalent to the Hindu satya yuga.

(See also: Golden Age, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

God-man Mankind after the change in the third root-race when animal humanity became incarnate devas because of the overshadowing incarnations of the manasaputras. Also manas (mind) in alliance with atma-buddhi, as contrasted with manas in alliance with the lower principles -- the latter being simply and merely human.

Sometimes used to describe the avataras appearing in the human race at periodic intervals, or again to describe buddhas or other spiritual-human beings.

(See also: God-man, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Hiranyagarbha (Sanskrit) (from hiranya imperishable substance, golden + garbha womb, embryo, fetus, also the interior of anything, hence a temple)

Golden egg or womb; the matrix of imperishable substance.

"The luminous 'fire mist' or ethereal stuff from which the Universe was formed" (TG 142); applied to Brahma, described in the Rig-Veda as born from a golden egg formed out of the seed deposited in the waters when they were produced as the first vikaras of the Self-existent; according to Manu (1:9) this seed became a golden egg, resplendent as the sun, in which the self-existent Brahman while remaining transcendent in its higher parts, evolved into Brahma the Creator, who is therefore regarded as a manifestation of the Self-existent. Having continued a year in the egg, Brahma divided it into two parts by his mere thought, and with these two he formed the heavens and the earth; and in the middle he placed the sky, the eight regions, and the eternal abode of the waters.

"The 'Mundane Egg' is, perhaps, one of the most universally adopted symbols, highly suggestive as it is, equally in the spiritual, physiological, and cosmological sense. . . . The mystery of apparent self-generation and evolution through its own creative power repeating in miniature the process of Cosmic evolution in the egg, both being due to heat and moisture under the efflux of the unseen creative spirit, justified fully the selection of this graphic symbol. The 'Virgin Egg' is the microcosmic symbol of the macrocosmic prototype -- the 'Virgin Mother' -- Chaos or the Primeval Deep. The male Creator (under whatever name) springs forth from the Virgin female, the immaculate root fructified by the Ray. Who, if versed in astronomy and natural sciences, can fail to see its suggestiveness? Cosmos as receptive Nature is an Egg fructified -- yet left immaculate; once regarded as boundless, it could have no other representation than a spheroid. The Golden Egg was surrounded by seven natural elements (ether, fire, air, water), 'four ready, three secret'" (SD 1:65).

In Vedantic philosophy, used somewhat equivalently to sutratman, atman invested with the sukshma-sarira, as well as with the other sariras flowing forth from this and permeating and infilling them all as the thread-self.

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

Higher Manas The aspect of the dual manas or human mental principle, which is attracted to buddhi or the spiritual principle, and which therefore is conditionally immortal. The lower manas is attracted to the kama or desire principle and dissolves after death as part of the kama-rupa.

(See also: Higher Manas, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Higher Self The divine-spiritual essence or essential egoity overshadowing the human being, the atma-buddhi with the efflorescence of manas. The higher self is the god within, the source of all right motive, the fountain of intuition, and the voice of divine harmony seeking to control the individual's life and to transform or transmute all the voices of personal desire.

(See also: Higher Self, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Hierarchies (from Greek hieros sacred + archein to rule)

Primarily the field of influence of a ruler or hierarch of a body of beings -- divine, human, or otherwise -- organically disposed in serial grades or ranks; and secondarily, the power or post of a hierarch or ruler in sacred rites, copied after the cosmic pattern. In theosophy both meanings blend. Hierarchies, or the interpenetrating of beings, is a key teaching regarding the structure and operation of the universe.

This applies not only to the entities comprising a universe but to all its planes and spheres, for these, as well as the entities therein, interblend and interlock in an endless series, one group linking to its superior or inferior in evolutionary grade, in its turn being the link to the ascending or descending group: thus everything exists in and because of everything else. The essential nature or hyparxis of the hierarchy flows forth from the hierarch, and is delegated in proportionate lower degrees to inferior members of the hierarchy, so that all is vitally and organically connected. The hierarchical system is inherent potentially in the cosmic germ or seed from which the entire manifested universe springs; and thus the hierarchical system pervades the manifested universe throughout in all its parts from the highest to the lowest.

Scales of seven, ten, or twelve may be used to define this hierarchical structure. Using the denary scale as an example, we see that the hierarch of any given hierarchy is the lowest member of the immediately superior decad; while the lowest member of the same hierarchy is the hierarch of the immediately inferior decad, so that the scale is a scale of nine. This may explain the use of nine as a sacred number, the difference between ancient inclusive methods of counting and our present methods, and the principle of overlapping cycles.

The generalized Greek pre-Christian hierarchy is:

1)    divine hierarchies;

2)    gods, or divine-spiritual;

3)    demigods;

4)    heroes;

5)    men;

6)    animals;

7)    plants;

8)    minerals;

9)    elementals, to which may be added the supreme source as hyparxis of this hierarchy, which is itself the lowest member of the immediately preceding superdivine hierarchy.

See also LOKAS AND TALAS; CELESTIAL ORDER OF BEINGS

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

Holy Ghost (from Greek hagion pneuma holy spirit or breath)

The Holy Ghost or Spirit in the Occident usually means the Third Person of the Christian Trinity or Triune God. The typical form of the primary philosophic and cosmogonic triad is Father-Mother-Son with the female potency figuring both as mother, wife, and daughter of the Son. The Holy Ghost is strictly speaking the feminine principle in the Christian Trinity, and in primitive Christianity was counted the second in serial order or procession, although in later times the West, led by the Roman Catholic Church, transferred the position of the Holy Ghost from second to third.

Thus the original series was Father, Holy Ghost or Mother, and Son, whereas the Occident now reckons the series in the procession as Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; and this difference of opinion which arose in the Middle Ages was one of the great factors splitting the Christian Church into the Eastern or Greek Orthodox and the Western. In Christianity, the Son is said to be God made manifest in a particular man; the Holy Ghost is the divine spirit which works in all men and brings them into conformity with the image of the Son or Christ.

The Holy Ghost is the spiritual ray from the central sun, which passes down through the planes of manifestation, penetrating all hierarchies in its course and therefore likewise the human mind when it is permitted ingress into his soul. It is equivalent to the Light of the Logos, daiviprakriti, the Gnostic Sophia, the Qabbalistic Shechinah (or perhaps Sephirah), the Mother of the Ogdoad, and in Indian thought the feminine sakti. But while daiviprakriti is the Light of the Logos, this is only because the Logos transmits to itself the light from above.

(See also: Holy Ghost, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Horse In the ancient Mediterranean and Northern European mythologies, used in connection with the sun and standing as a symbol for the solar powers or the sun itself. The sun is frequently represented in ancient thought as being drawn along the heavens by means of horses. In ancient Persia and Greece, individual heroes, as for instance Hushenk and Bellerophon, are said to have obtained mastery over and consequent use of wonderful horses with which they were enabled to approach the sun. In Scandinavian mythology, horses were represented as carrying the heroes into the under- and over-world, and as mounts of the Valkyries they bore the fallen heroes to Valhalla.

In this connection, the Kalki-avatara -- stated to be the final incarnation of Vishnu in Hinduism or the incarnation of Maitreya-Buddha in Northern Buddhism -- and the final great hero and savior of mankind of the Zoroastrians called Sosiosh, as well as the Faithful and True one of the Christian book of Revelation, all appear on a white horse. All these heroes or saviors are connected emblematically with horses of power because the horse has been from immemorial time a representation of solar, spiritual, and intellectual energies.

See also ASVAMEDHA

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

Heaven and Hell In Christian theology, the abodes of Deity and the celestial hierarchy on the one hand, and of Satan and his fallen angels on the other hand; the final goal of those who are saved and of those who are damned. The origin of the doctrine is founded in the ancient Mystery teachings concerning the human afterdeath experiences and the corresponding experiences passed through by the candidate for initiation.

Hell may be likened to kama-loka and also avichi, though neither is eternal. Kama-loka is better represented, however, by purgatory. Heaven is a reflection of devachan, blended also with ideas of nirvanic states. Thus heaven and hell should both be used in the plural, as is commonly the case in their non-Christian equivalents: Elysium, nirvana, Paradise, Valhalla, Olympus, and many other names for heaven; and Tartarus, Gehenna, She'ol, Niflheim, etc., for hell.

Heaven and hell may denote states of consciousness experienced in daily life on earth. A rough division of cosmic spheres makes heaven the highest, hell or Tartarus the lowest, with the earth beneath heaven, and the underworld beneath it and preceding Tartarus. The crystalline spheres of medieval astronomy are called heavens surrounding the earth concentrically. Far from being adjudicated by a deity to happiness or torment, after death a person goes to that region to which he is attracted by the affinities which he has set up during his life.

Thus theosophy teaches the existence of almost endless and widely varying spheres or regions, all inhabited by peregrinating entities; and of these regions the higher can be dubbed the heavens and the lowest the hells, and the intermediate can be called the regions of experiences and purgation. All spheres possessing sufficient materialized substance to be called imbodied spheres are hells by contrast with the ethereal and spiritual globes of the heavens. Therefore in a sense and on a smaller scale, the lower globes of a planetary chain may be called hells, and the higher globes of the chain, by contrast, heavens.

All evolving entities go to both the heavens and the hells of our solar system in accordance with their evolutionary necessities, and for the purpose of purgation through the suffering of material experience; but in all cases such peregrinating egos are attracted at the different times of their long evolutionary schooling to those spheres by sympathy or psychomagnetic pull. The immense justice of this idea, from which the heavens and hells of the different religions have come, is readily apparent.

See also LOKAS

(See also: Heaven and Hell, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Hazim hozim (Hebrew) (from plural hazah to see, behold, contemplation as of spiritual or divine things; singular hozeh prophet or seer)

In ancient times there were schools of hozim which were well known, in which occult sciences were taught. Samuel is said to have been the head of such a school at Ramah, while Elisha is said to have had his at Jericho.

(See also: Hazim, hozim, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Heroes (from Greek heros free man, lord, great man)

Classical antiquity speaks of heroes and demigods, of mingled divine and human parentage, who ruled over and instructed mankind in bygone ages. The mingled divine and human parentage has reference to the great human figures of the later third and early fourth root-races who imbodied as individuals the spiritual qualities of their divine ancestors as well as the human attributes which in those days were continuously becoming more dominant, and in time were destined to overshadow the diviner parts.

Such traditions are found everywhere, from Chaldea to Peru and Mexico, and always consistent with one plan. They recount the evolution of mankind through long ages preceding the present kali yuga; and teach that, as mankind proceeded on the descending arc, human beings were ruled successively by gods, demigods, heroes, and finally mortal initiate-kings, who later gave way to ordinary human rulers. Among genuine semidivine heroes who belong to the earliest part of the present root-race, are such names as Orpheus, Hermes, Cadmus, and Asclepois, all of whom revealed true esoteric sciences to humanity, from which sciences have descended to our own times the various arts, knowledges, and sciences.

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

Hermaphrodite (from Greek Hermes + Aphrodite)

The form and typical nature of both the god and goddess in one individual. Androgyne also relates to a dual-sexed human being. Thus, the hermaphrodite imbodies nature's universal polarity on its lower planes, which polarity is an emanation from the non-dual or non-bipolar mental and spiritual realms. In an abstract sense, this is a personification of the universal polarity in nature on its lower planes, wherein the so-called masculine and feminine principles are the opposing but coordinating agencies, often called positive and negative, in their creative and generative aspects.

"The ancients taught the, so to speak, auto-generation of the Gods: the one divine essence, unmanifested, perpetually begetting a second-self, manifested, which second-self, androgynous in its nature, gives birth in an immaculate way to everything macro- and micro-cosmical in this universe" (SD 1:398).

Attention is drawn to the philosophic need of making a sharp distinction between what Blavatsky has called primary creation and secondary creation, the former referring to the one divine unity in which all later manifesting hierarchies primordially inhere as One; whereas the secondary creation or stage in cosmic evolution begins with the fourth stage or fourth cosmic plane beneath the former, where polarity, duality, and the consequent emanational elaboration of the universe into its hierarchical structures begins. Thus through emanational cosmic evolution the One breaks through its two aspects of parabrahman and mulaprakriti into the cosmically androgyne and phenomenal finite manifested universe.

The asexual procreative methods of the early root-races had evolved to the hermaphroditic status in the early and middle third root-race. The present conditions of sex will also pass away in due course of time after ages of experience as man and woman shall have brought forth the innate masculine and feminine aspects of the human ego. The human race in the course of millions of years will become dual-sexed and finally sexless.

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

Gungnir (Scandinavian) (from gunga to swing)

In Norse myths, the spear wrought for Allfather Odin by the giant-god Loki and the dwarf Dvalin. The name seems an allusion to alternating opposites, such as activity and rest, or spirituality and materiality.

Gullveig (thirst for gold, wisdom) was transfixed on it and burned, "thrice burned and thrice reborn, again and again, yet still she lives." It was then that Odin hurled his spear into the throng of gods, thus instigating the war in heaven which caused the aesir (active gods) to be ousted from Asgard, leaving the vanir in possession of their heavenly abode.

The vanir are "water gods": cosmic deities having reference to the mystic void, the waters of space. The vanir do not participate directly in our system of worlds, whereas the aesir are the creative powers in our universe and dwell in its globes, seen and unseen.

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