Six-pointed Star The double triangle or Solomon's Seal; in India called the sign of Vishnu, where it "is the emblem of the Trimurti three in one. The triangle with its apex upward indicates the male principle, downward the female; the two typifying, at the same time, spirit and matter."

(IU 2:270; cf also diagrams in IU 2:264-5, 452-3) The six-pointed star is found in symbolical representations of the earliest cosmogonies. When the six-pointed star is formed of two interlaced equilateral triangles -- one light with the apex pointing upward, the other dark with the apex pointing downward, both triangles being symmetrically placed with regard to one central point -- and the double figure is surrounded by a circle, the sign represents the universe, spirit and matter, the alpha and omega in the cosmos, and involution and evolution. In the Qabbalistic presentation of the figure, instead of a circle surrounding the star a serpent is portrayed as swallowing its tail, as in the seal of the Theosophical Society:

This is the Egyptian symbol of time and eternity, and of ever-recurring cycles: of birth and death, manvantara and pralaya, to which the universe and every entity within it are subject. In theosophy it symbolizes further the six forces or powers of nature, the six cosmic planes, principles, etc., all synthesized by the seventh, or central point within the star.

The apex of the light triangle symbolizes the spiritual-divine monad, having its habitat in the spiritual-divine realms; the apex of the dark triangle, the human monad, having its habitat in the middle realm of conflict between spirit and matter, the apex itself being in the worlds of manifestation, the two sides extending from it reaching upwards towards the spiritual realm and representing evolution through aspiration and efforts towards a spiritual life. On the other hand, the two sides extending downwards from the apex of the light triangle represent the rays streaming from the spiritual-divine monad to enlighten, inspire, and uplift all beings in the manifested worlds. In the case of man, the human monad represented by the apex of the dark triangle is the reflection or child of the spiritual-divine monad or inner god.

The central geometrical point, having neither length, breadth, nor thickness, represents the invisible spiritual sun, the light of the unmanifested deity. Sometimes instead of a geometrical point, a crux ansata with a circle as its zenith appears -- symbol of limitless, uncreated space, as is a cross within a circle.

Again, the pentagram or five-pointed star may take the place of the central point, in which case the pentagram symbolizes the microcosm or man, within the macrocosm or universe. "The double triangle representing symbolically, the Macrocosm, or great universe, contains in itself besides the idea of the duality (as shown in the two colours, and two triangles -- the universe of Spirit and that of Matter) -- those of the Unity, of the Trinity, of the Pythagorean Tetractys -- the perfect Square -- and up to the Dodecagon and the Dodecahedron" (BCW 3:313).

See also SENARY; SEAL OF THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY

(See also: Six-pointed Star, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Pit In theosophy, the pit has a profound and wide range of meaning, in all cases referring to places (lokas) into which sink, because of persistent evildoing, those entities who choose evil, in greater or less degree, as their course of conduct. Hence, the general meaning is loss of spirituality involving a descent or dropping into realms of greater materiality.

Pit is often used for the nether pole of nature, whether geographically as the south pole, or in pure exotericism as hell. In the Bible (Ezek 28), the Prince of Tyrus is cast from the mountain of God into the pit. The mountain and the pit are often contrasted as the north and south poles, or as the heavenly and infernal regions. Pit is abundantly used in the Bible in this sense, metaphorically connected with a place for refuse or dishonored burial. The pit into which Prometheus is hurled is our earth, whither he descended to become mortal man; and the Mahasura, in Hindu legend, is hurled down to Patala.

See also EIGHTH SPHERE

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

Karshipta, Karshift (Pahlavi) The holy bird of the Zoroastrians who brought the law of Mazda into the Vara (man).

"Karshipta is the human mind-soul, and the deity thereof, symbolized in ancient Magianism by a bird, as the Greeks symbolized it by a butterfly. No sooner had Karshipta entered the Vara or man, than he understood the law of Mazda, or Divine Wisdom. . . . With the Kabalists it was a like symbol. 'Bird' was a Chaldean, and has become a Hebrew synonym and symbol for Angel, a Soul, a Spirit, or Deva; and the 'Bird's Nest' was with both Heaven, and is God's bosom in the Zohar" (SD 2:292). The Egyptians also spoke of the spiritual swallow, the soul-bird -- manas.

This allegory describes the descent of the manasaputras during the third root-race: a high intelligence able to wing its way in the celestial realms entering man's constitution and awakening the faculty enabling him to understand and to recite "the Law" as imbodied in the highest divinities to and for the human species.

(See also: Karshipta, Karshift, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Karmabandha (Sanskrit) (from karma action, activity + bandha bond, fetter)

The bonds of karma or action; the repeated existences of an entity brought about by the karmic bonds of continuation, born of thought, feeling, and action. A being which has no karmabandha has attained freedom from the enthralling chains and attractions of material existence; but such a jivanmukta nevertheless has karma belonging to and suitable to the plane on which it then is. Thus a jivanmukta can rise above karma relative to the lower realms of being; but as long as any entity, however high, endures as an individualized monadic center, it inevitably produces karma of some kind appropriate to its own high sphere of life and activity. For the meaning of karma is action or activity of any kind -- spiritual, intellectual, psychological, astral, or physical. We human beings, living in the lower planes, produce karma corresponding to us and our environment; but the gods, because individualized and active beings in their own spheres, produce of necessity karma corresponding with their own lofty state.

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

Karanatman (Sanskrit) (from karana cause + atman self)

The causal self; the divine source of one's being, from which flow forth in a descending scale in continuously less ethereal grades and qualities the various elements which form the human compound constitution. It is the causal self because from it as the primordial fountain of consciousness and being flow forth all the elements, principles, qualities, characteristics -- the svabhava -- of any entity undergoing its long evolutionary peregrination in the realms of the manifested universe. It is equivalent to atman, called in Hindu literature Isvara (Lord). The various monads in the human constitution -- divine, spiritual, human, animal, and astral-vital -- are derivatives from this fundamental or supreme atman in the constitution, its children or offspring.

These various monads by their reproductive action actually are the causal principles or instruments of the various and unending series of reimbodiments that any entity during the kosmic manvantara is under karmic necessity of undergoing; and it is, therefore, these various monads in their outer or vehicular aspect which are the respective karanopadhis or karana-sarira.

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

Silent Watcher, In theosophy, highly advanced spiritual entities, each the summit of a spiritual-psychological hierarchy composed of beings working under their direct inspiration and guidance. Every hierarchy, high or low, has a Silent Watcher as its own supreme head.

"There are human 'Silent Watchers,' an there is a 'Silent Watcher' for every globe of our Planetary Chain. There is likewise a Silent Watcher of the solar system of vastly loftier state or stage . . ." He is "one who through evolution having practically gained omniscience or perfect knowledge of all that he can learn in any one sphere of the kosmos, instead of pursuing his evolutionary path forwards to still higher realms, remains in order to help the multitudes and hosts of less progressed entities trailing behind him. There he remains at his self-imposed task, waiting and watching and helping and inspiring, and so far as we humans are concerned, in the utter silences of spiritual compassion. . . . He can learn nothing more from the particular sphere of life through which he has now passed, and the secrets of which he knows by heart. For the time being and for ages he has renounced all individual evolution for himself out of pure pity and high compassion for those beneath him" (OG 156).

See also WATCHER

(See also: Silent Watcher, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Surt (Scandinavian) Surtr (Icelandic) [from svartr the black]

Also Surtur, Surter. A Norse fire giant, the world-destroyer in the Edda. In the Norse myths Surt will lead the hosts of Muspellsheim (home of fire) at Ragnarok, when the gods depart the realms of life, and the worlds perish in universal conflagration. Surt himself will slay Frey, the bright god, and when all the combatants are slain, Surt will fling his firebrand, and everything animate or inanimate will be plunged into an ocean of fire, and the nine homes will be no more.

Surtarlogi (flame of Surt) represents the volcanic and cosmic forces which will cause the destruction of our world when its life is over. The world, universe, or solar system becoming an ocean of cosmic flame or light refers to the ending of a manvantara and the opening of pralaya. The ocean of fire is the passing of matter back into its primordial fiery spiritual nature and the nine homes are the nine or ten cosmic planes, the nine grades or divisions of the cosmic hierarchy.

Surtarbrandr (brand of Surt) is the common word for black jet.

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

Sanat-kumara (Sanskrit) [from sanat from of old, always + kumara youth from ku with difficulty + mara mortal]

Eternal youth; the most important of the four groups of kumaras, the mind-born sons of Brahma who "refused to create." These purely spiritual beings, being cosmically youthful, were destined by evolution to pass through the realms of matter.

The four groups of kumaras -- Sanat, Sananda, Sanaka, and Sanatana -- as names, "are all significant qualifications of the degrees of human intellect" (TG 289). Personified, Sanat is the oldest of the progenitors of mankind. Although Hindu literature usually speaks of four kumaras, nevertheless it frequently hints at there being seven such mind-born sons. The four kumaras named above are considered exoteric, while three others are considered esoteric, and their names are given as Sana, Kapila, and Sanat-sujata.

(See also: Sanat-kumara, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Kumara (Sanskrit) (from ku with difficulty + mara mortal)

Mortal with difficulty; often used for child or youth, but philosophically pure spiritual beings, unself-conscious god-sparks uninvolved with matter who, destined by evolution to pass through the realms of matter, become mortal, i.e., material, only with difficulty because of their lofty spirituality. They are the classes of arupa or solar pitris, along with the agnishvattas and manasaputras. Of all the seven great divisions of dhyani-chohans, there is none with which humanity is more concerned than with the kumaras, the mind-born sons of Brahma-Rudra or Siva, the inveterate destroyer of human passions:

"it is they who, by incarnating themselves within the senseless human shells of the two first Root-races, and a great portion of the Third Root-race -- create, so to speak, a new race: that of thinking, self-conscious and divine men" (SD 1:456-7). In the Puranas their number varies, given as seven, four, and five. They are often called the Four, because Sanaka, Sanada, Sanatana, and Sanat-Kumara are the names of four important groups of kumaras as they spring from the fourfold mystery. The three secret names of the seven are variously given: Sana, Sanat-Sujata, and Kapila; or Kapila, Ribhu, and Panchasikha; or Jata, Vodhu, and Panchasikha, all of which are but aliases. The patronymic name of the kumaras is Vaidhatra (from vidhatri a title of Brahma as creator of the universe)

These kumaras are sometimes also called rudras, adityas, gandharvas, asuras, maruts, and vedhas. The seven kumaras -- both as groups and as aggregated individuals -- are intimately connected with the dhyani-buddhas who watch over the seven rounds of our planetary chain. The four groups of kumaras generally spoken of are connected equally intimately with the four celestial bodhisattvas of the four globes of our round, and by correspondence with the four completed root-races of our earth. They are identical with the angels of the seven planets, and their name shows their connection with the constellation Makara or Capricorn. Makara is connected with the birth of the spiritual microcosm, and the death or dissolution of the physical universe (its passage into the realm of the spiritual) as are the kumaras.

Mara is the god of darkness, the Fallen one, and death, i.e., death of every physical thing; but through the karmic lessons learned also the quickener of the birth of the spiritual. The kumaras are connected also with the sage Narada. An allegory in the Puranas says that the kumaras, the first progeny of Brahma, were without desire or passion, inspired with the holy wisdom, and undesirous of progeny. They refused to create, but were compelled later on to complete divine man by incarnating in him. The barhishads or lunar pitris formed the "senseless" astral-physical humanity of the early root-races. Those beings possessing the living spiritual fire were the agnishvattas or solar pitris.

The sons of Brahma, the kumaras, being originally themselves unconscious (in our sense) could be of no use in supplying the mental and kamic principles, as they did not possess them: they had attained no individual karmic elevation in merit of their own as had the agnishvattas. The perfection of the kumaras was passive and negative (nirguna). The kumaras eventually "sacrifice" themselves by incarnating in mankind, thus corresponding to the manasaputras and fallen angels cast into hell (material spheres, our earth).

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

Penates (Latin) The household gods, or sometimes gods of the State, among the Romans. They were represented by images, to which honors were paid, and supposedly protected the hearth, home, and family. Aeneas transfers with great solicitude and piety the penates from Troy to his new Italian settlement.

The universe is filled with hierarchies of intelligent beings, ranging from the highest to the lowest, in addition to those representing the organic kingdoms of nature. No nation of antiquity, indeed no people today outside Western civilization, but had or has its protective divinities of the home, field, mart, etc. Even in Western civilization the same undying belief finds expression in a thousand habits, customs, and ceremonies.

The idea of the penates underwent progressive change and possible degeneration; however, they undoubtedly belong to the great class of genii, whether of a family or of a State, and genius is anything from a planetary spirit to what the simple fancy of Medieval Europe called a fairy. Hence it is easy to understand how names originating in the ancient Mystery schools may pass down into times when people are more concerned with their immediate physical needs, as at present. The consistent testimony of all Roman antiquity shows that the penates were the guardian angels supposed to watch over and, if possible, protect the individuals to whom these guardian angels were attached by karmic bonds.

As men individually and collectively are integral parts of nature, they are connected with spiritual powers of which mankind is not only the offspring, but in a certain sense the representative on earth. The reverence paid to the penates by the Romans is a manner of tacitly stating that every individual and group, such as a people, is under the watchful supervision of their spiritual prototypes in the celestial realms.

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

Amitabha (Sanskrit) (from a not + the verbal root ma to measure + abha splendor, light from a-bha to shine, irradiate)

Unmeasured splendor; mystically, as boundless light or boundless space, one of the five dhyani-buddhas of Tibetan Buddhism, more often referred to as the five tathagathas or jinas (victorious ones). Originally these dhyani-buddhas represented cosmic spiritual attributes and influences emanating from adi-buddhi, but they have become mythologized as gods, ruling over the central realm as well as the four cardinal directions.

Amitabha of the West, whose Tibetan name is Wod-pag-med (O-pa me) is the ruling deity of Sukhavati (the western paradise or pure land) and in China and Japan is universally worshiped as Amida-buddha. Esoterically, there are seven dhyani-buddhas (five only have manifested thus far) who represent "both cosmic entities and the rays or reflections of these cosmic originals which manifest in man as monads" (FSO 507; cf SD 1:108).

The Panchen Lama has been traditionally regarded as the tulku of Amitabha, and the Dalai Lama as the tulku of Avalokitesvara (Tibetan Chenrezi).

Amitabha corresponds to the First Logos, the Father in the Christian Trinity, the Pythagorean monad of monads, and in the human being to atman. From a philosophical-mystic standpoint, Amitabha also means "no color" or the "white glory," the primal spiritual element-principle of the solar system, from which are born the seven differentiated "colors" of the manifested prismatic kosmic hierarchies.

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

Abhava (Abhâva) (Sanskrit) (from a not + bhava being from the verbal root bhu to be, become)

Nonexistence, nonentity, negation; applied to the material universe, noumenal substance, or subjectivity. In Kananda's system of negation of individual beings or objects, abhava is classed as seventh in his categories. In Vedanta philosophy, first of the six pramanas (means of obtaining knowledge), and as such corresponds to the fifth pramana, abhava-pratyaksha, nonperception when applied to the physical, but more accurately apprehension of subjective or spiritual being.

Ordinary usage has attached the meaning of death or annihilation to abhava, but only because to the materialistic mind that which cannot be cognized by the sense organs has no existence. Like other philosophical terms, it has a dual meaning: nonbeing or nonexistence, when taken objectively; mystically, the only true being, that of spirit which is nonbeing to those who do not accept spiritual realms and their life.

According to Sankaracharya: "Those who say that there is such a thing as Abhava on earth, are neither Srotis (those who understand the Srutis), knowers of Sastras, knowers of Truth, nor Sadhus. Listen! both Bhava and Abhava (existence and nonexistence) are also Brahma" (Maha-avakyadarpanam, vv. 129-30). Thus Brahman is essentially the source or foundation of all that is: both becoming or being, and nonbecoming or nonbeing; and because bhava and abhava exist in the universe, both are Brahman.

A more subtle, deeply philosophical concept is the application of abhava to the unmanifest -- that state of the cosmic essence before "becoming" began its work of differentiation into hierarchical orders, thus bringing about bhava.

See also ASAT; BHAVA; SAT

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

Capricorn (from Latin capr goat + cornus horn)

The goat, often mystically connected with the sea; the tenth sign of the zodiac. In astrology, an earthy, cardinal sign, one of the two houses of Saturn, and the exaltation of Mars; its bodily correspondence is the knees. The symbol is a hybrid monster, often with the fore part of a goat or antelope and the hind part of a fish or dolphin. In some systems it is a crocodile. This sign marks the extreme southern limit of the sun.

In the Hindu zodiac it is Makara. Subba Row (The Twelve Signs of the Zodiac) says that ma is equivalent to the number 5, and kara means hand; thus the word signifies a pentagram. It may be taken to represent objectively both the microcosm and the macrocosm. Makara is the most mysterious of the signs, connected with the fifth group of the hierarchy of creative powers, and with the microcosmic pentagram -- the five-pointed star representing man (SD 1:219). In Egypt this sign was called the crocodile; with the Peratae Gnostics, it was represented as a dolphin and identified with Chozzar, god of the waters; it is associated with the Leviathan of Job, and with a group of five kumaras in India (SD 2:577).

"Makara is connected with the birth of the spiritual 'microcosm,' and the death or dissolution of the physical Universe (its passage into the realm of the Spiritual) . . . 'When the Sun passes away behind the 30th degree of Makara and will reach no more the sign of the Meenam (pisces) then the night of Brahma has come' " (SD 2:579 & n).

Equating the 12 sons of Jacob in the Hebrew system to the signs of the zodiac, Naphthali is assigned to Capricornus: he is called a "hind let loose."

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

Mediumship Usually, a peculiarly passive state or condition of a person, due to "disease or to the exuberance of nervous fluid," either of which disturbs the normal balance of forces in his or her constitution. Thereby, the man or woman, becoming unconscious at times of his natural senses, is then made the automatic agent of various psycho-astral forces and entities, and these last are of several kinds: elementaries, astral shells or spooks, nature sprites, and astral and even physical elementals.

This entranced state is cultivated in modern spiritualism as a means of inviting spirit-control and of gaining special knowledge. However, the very relation of the seven human principles infallibly and necessarily prevents pure spirit from directly contacting physical matter. In the complete living man on earth, his spiritual nature -- buddhi -- is above, within, or beyond his higher mind (higher manas) yet can only act downwards through it. The spiritual does not directly contact or act through the lower mind and emotions (kama-manas). After death, the higher triad (atma-buddhi-manas) separates from the lower quaternary and ascends to its own realms, entirely beyond the reach of the personal man that was.

Mediumship, moreover, is a negation of conscious selfhood and a reversal of natural evolutionary growth, whereby the reincarnating ego involved in material existence comes forth, step by step, taking positive, conscious control of its body, mind, and emotions. Our racial evolution reached the depths of materiality in Atlantean times, and therefrom made the turn onto the ascending arc. Hence, our future progress consists, not in trying further to materialize spirit, but in progressively spiritualizing matter.

Human mediumship is a voluntary, or more often involuntary, subjection to the lower planes of astral substance which, while more ethereal than ordinary matter, yet are of a quality more gross, more powerful, and usually more malefic. Entrance into these astral realms produces a species of astral intoxication, from the delusion of strange because unknown and often unequilibrated forces, deceptive astral pictures; and the astral intoxication is increased because of considering these experiences as wonder-phenomena. In other words, the conditions and experiences sensed are as genuine, and as unreliable and utterly useless, as are the hallucinations of the delirious or insane.

Only an occultist of masterful will and great purity of life can rise consciously to the spiritual plane and, looking down on the astral levels below, understand, control, and remember what he sees. In untrained mediumship the atoms and molecules of the astrally "controlled" body which the alien astral entity uses to mold into a form and to move with its own desire-impulses, retain this astral psychomagnetic imprint.

With repeated trances, the medium grows continuously and progressively less than his individual self, because of his thoughts and feelings becoming mixed with, overlaid, or blurred by ideas and emotions which per se are abnormal and misleading. He therefore becomes irresponsible as a source of genuine spiritual knowledge and prevision, and still less responsible as a guardian of sacred truths. Because of this, untrained mediumship precludes initiation into the Mysteries as the person's faith in his astral "control" would dominate him instead of the rules of the sanctuary.

(See also: Mediumship, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Polarity The property of having poles; duality throughout nature. Poles are antithetical in quality and yet interdependent; each presupposes the other, as without the other neither can exist. Similar poles repel, dissimilar attract. As long as they are apart, there is force; when they coalesce, they are said to neutralize each other -- the force becomes latent.

The most fundamental polarity is that of spirit and matter, which may also be called positive and negative, active and passive, etc. This is repeated endlessly on every plane and subplane. When the One becomes Two, it becomes polar; when the Two rebecomes the One, it ceases to be polar. The expansive and contractive forces (in themselves constituting a polarity) are seen everywhere in evolution and involution.

The polarity of right and left is hard to define absolutely, but gains significance when we consider the right-handed and left-handed groupings of atoms in the molecules of such compounds as dextrose and levulose -- a contrast of similarities. In magnetism, electricity, and chemistry, we have familiar instances of polarity, in which the above general laws are illustrated. In the germinal cell, the One becomes the Two by the extrusion of the polar bodies. The human body is polar; Reichenbach discovered polarity in plants and minerals, as shown by the colors seen by his sensitives.

Benjamin Franklin invented the terms positive and negative to describe the two qualities or attributes of electricity as understood in his day. It has become customary to speak of things which are masculine, expansive, dispersive, etc., as being positive, and to speak of things which are centripetal, contractive, etc., as being negative, with perhaps an unconscious bias of thought in the direction of looking upon the positive as being the active, and the negative as being inactive or passive. Such usage is illogical and misleading, for it is well known that in both magnetism and electricity -- as examples of fields of nature where polarity is native and studied -- the negative can be as "positive" in its action as the so-called positive itself; and that furthermore action and reaction in these fields are equal and equivalent. Furthermore, a thing may be positive on one plane and negative on another plane or in another direction, or again positive at one moment and negative at the next moment -- here using positive and negative according to their common significances.

Adopting such common parlance, it is not uncustomary to speak of the realms of spirit as being negative and the realms of manifestation as being positive; but in nature the masculine is no stronger or weaker than the feminine: they are coequal, reciprocal, interacting, always conjoined during manifestation, and paradoxically during manifestation continuously separate, but always in action and reaction, the one upon the other. Polarity is sometimes defined by the terms male and female; but, while using these symbolically, we must refrain from qualifying them by ideas drawn from merely physiological sex. Hence we

See why it is to be regretted that these two terms have become so fixed in the language, and how much better had it been had the simple term polar been adopted.

However, if it be considered advisable to keep these terms, then one perhaps in the light of the theosophical philosophy, may be driven to say that the north pole of the earth, electrically and magnetically, is the negative pole, and the south pole is positive or dispersive; that spirit is negative and that matter is positive; though it is obvious that these allocations are arbitrary, so far as the words themselves are concerned, but correct enough as regards the facts.

Were we living in the realms of spirit rather than in the realms of material manifestation, we should probably be driven by the logic of circumstance to invert our usage of these terms, and declare the spiritual realms of our domain to be the positive ones, and the material realms to be the negative.

We are thus compelled to see that polarity reigns throughout nature, beginning with manifestation and closing with the beginning of pralaya, where polarity for the time ceases to exist; for polarity is one of the phenomenal products of manifested life. However, in the manifested universe, envisaging now the great cosmic planes, there is a relative homogeneity or vanishing of polarity at the apex or summit of any cosmic plane, that all intermediate parts of that cosmic plane showing polarity merge again into relative homogeneity, and the vanishing of polarity, at the extreme bottom of the said cosmic plane.

In The Secret Doctrine it is stated that fohat, in bringing worlds into being, makes whirls or gyrations in opposite directions, thus starting polarity; and of this we have an illustration in right-handed and left-handed helical or screw motions. Fohat or cosmic electricity, thus inducing polarity into the opening drama of manvantaric life, does so because the polarity unrolls from within fohat itself; fohat thus being instrumental in reproducing the many from out the One, being the steed ridden by cosmic mind.

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

Agnishvatta agnisvatta (Sanskrit) (from agni fire + the verbal root svad to sweeten, taste)

Tasted or sweetened by fire; one of the higher of the seven classes of pitris or progenitors spoken of in the Puranas as those "devoid of fire." They are thus popularly represented as grihasthas or householders who in previous births failed to keep up their domestic fires and to offer burnt sacrifices, etc. In contrast, the pitris "possessed" of fire are the barhishads, those who kept up their household fires (cf VP 1:10).

Mystically the agnishvattas are far higher beings than are the barhishads because they are devoid of the fire of creative passion. Being too divine and pure for this, they are devoid (i.e., freed) of the grosser creative fire, and thus unable to form physical man. They are, on the other hand, possessed of spiritual-intellectual fire and are the endowers of the human conscious, spiritually immortal ego or selfhood. Hence the agnishvatta-pitris are those who are "purified by fire" -- which may be interpreted as either 1) the fire of suffering and pain in material existence producing great fiber and strength of character or spirituality; or 2) from the esoteric standpoint as signifying those entities who have through evolution become one in essence with the aethery fire of spirit.

The agnishvattas signify our ancestral solar selves in contradistinction to the barhishads, our lunar ancestors. The agnishvattas are variously spoken of in The Secret Doctrine as the fashioners of the inner man, manasa-dhyanis (lords of mind), solar devas, sons of the flame of wisdom, givers of human intelligence and consciousness, and fire-dhyanis. In ancient Greece they were collectively personified by the epic figure of Prometheus, and in China by the Fiery Dragons of Wisdom.

The agnishvattas, our solar spiritual-intellectual parts, are those who in preceding manvantaras completed their evolution in the realms of matter; and when evolution had brought the nascent human stock to the state where they had only the physical creative fire, the agnishvattas came to their rescue by inspiring and enlightening these lower lunar pitris with spiritual and intellectual energies or fires (OG 14-15; SD 2:91-2).

In the Puranas, the agnishvattas are identified with the seasons, and are spoken of as one of the classes of deities presiding over the cyclic divisions of the year.

(See also: Agnishvatta, agnisvatta, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Shadows Everything on earth is the shadow or reflection of its prototype in superior and inner spheres; more generally, matter is the shadow of spirit; our sun is the central sun's shadow. The human linga-sarira (model-body) is called the shadow-body, and similarly the astral light is called the shadow of cosmic substance, both representing the nether pole of their respective higher counterparts.

The Gnostics, speaking of good and evil, said that shadow is what enables light to manifest itself by giving to light objective reality; it is the necessary corollary which completes light or good -- their creator on earth. Every deity has its accompanying dark aspect of shadow, frequently called its veil, sheath, of vehicle.

In the plural, used of the first root-race, a chhaya (shadow), reflection, or vehicle of the as yet latent indwelling monad, and hence this race is called amanasa (mindless), and sons of the self-born; they were the shadows in the sense that their spiritual progenitors, the first dhyanis whose evolutionary duty it was to form mankind in their own image, emanated forth or evolved their "shadows" for nature spirits to work upon. These shadows were later endowed with mind by dhyanis of a more highly evolved grade, manasaputras or intelligences.

Also used for the bodhisattvas of the celestial realms who are the shadows or spiritual living and self-conscious projections emanated by the dhyani-buddhas.

(See also: Shadows, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Hierarchy of Compassion, Spiritual-psychological Hierarchy The hierarchy of spiritual beings extending from the highest solar or galactic monad, to the least element forming its vehicles or being.

"It is built of divinities, demigods, buddhas, bodhisattvas, and great and noble men, who serve as a living channel for the spiritual currents coming to this and every other planet of our system from the heart of the solar divinity, and who themselves shed glory and light and peace upon that pathway from the compassionate deeps of their own being. . . .

"On our earth there is a minor hierarchy of light. Working in this sphere there are lofty intelligences, human souls, having their respective places in the hierarchical degrees. These masters or mahatmas are living forces in the spiritual life of the world; and awakened minds and intuitive hearts sense their presence, at least at times" (FSO 467-8). The head of the terrestrial spiritual-psychological hierarchy is a being sometimes called the Silent Watcher, who acts as a channel for all the spiritual forces flowing to and from the earth, and who is connected inwardly with all the beings on earth.

In theosophical literature, the Hierarchy of Compassion of our solar system is sometimes given as:

1)    adi-buddhi (primal wisdom), the mystic universally diffused essence;

2)    mahabuddhi (universal buddhi), the Logos;

3)    daiviprakriti (universal divine light), universal life, the Second Logos;

4)    ) Sons of Light, the seven cosmic logoi, the logoi of cosmic life, the Third Logos;

5)    dhyani-buddhas (buddhas of contemplation);

6)    dhyani-bodhisattvas (bodhisattvas of contemplation);

7)    manushya-buddhas (human buddhas), racial buddhas;

8)    bodhisattvas; and

9)    men.

Here, the Sons of Light or the seven cosmic logoi emanating from the sun and working in its kingdom are the parents of the rectors or planetary spirits of the seven sacred planets. The seven dhyani-buddhas, also called the celestial buddhas or causal buddhas, through their emanated representatives each govern one round of the septenary cycles of evolution on a planetary chain. The seven dhyani-bodhisattvas, or bodhisattvas of the celestial realms, similarly through their emanated representatives each govern one of the seven globes comprising a planetary chain.

The manushya-buddhas are the buddhas which watch over the root-races in a round, two appearing in every race, one near the commencement and one near the midpoint of each root-race. Gautama Buddha was the second racial buddha of the fifth root-race.

The bodhisattvas of earth are those spiritual and intellectually advanced human beings who leave the nirvana of buddhahood in order to remain on earth for their sublime work of aiding, stimulating, and guiding those hosts of entities, including humanity, trailing behind them.

(See also: Hierarchy of Compassion, Spiritual-psychological Hierarchy, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Ptah (Egyptian) [from to engrave, carve, fashion]

One of the most ancient deities, and in his higher attributes one of the most abstract, whose worship goes back to the earliest part of the dynastic period; the principal deity of Memphis (Men-nefer), also known as Het-ka-Ptah (the city of Ptah). The deity is also called Ptah-neb-ankh (giver of life). He was addressed as the "father of beginnings; creator of the eggs of the sun and moon, he who created his own image, who fashioned his own body"; and was depicted as fashioning the world-egg upon a potter's wheel.

Together with Khnemu, he carried out the commands of Thoth for the creation of the universe. While Khnemu fashioned man and the animals, whether of the cosmos or of earth, Ptah was engaged in the construction of the heavens and the earth. In later times the Greeks associated him with Hephaestos, the Latins with Vulcan; but in addition to the attributes connected with the earth, in the Underworld (Tuat) Ptah was regarded as the fashioner of the bodies for the pilgrims who entered that realm after death.

Ptah is the spiritual side of the demiurgic Third Logos, as Osiris was the more manifest side or aspect -- Ptah being the cosmogonical prototype of Osiris. In his association with Osiris as Ptah-Seker, Ptah represents a personification of the union of the primeval creative power with a form of the inert powers of darkness, the creative powers before manifestation during pralaya. In his connection with the primeval god Tenen, Ptah-Tenen is portrayed as bearing the hook and flail of Osiris and to him is allocated certain regions of the Underworld.

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

Ichthus, Ichthys (Greek) Fish; used in a mystic sense of Jesus Christ, given acrostically by the initial Greek letters of the phrase 'Iesous Christos Thiou Yios Soter (Iesous Christos Theou Yios Soter) meaning Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior.

"The Gnostics had also a nickname for their ideal Jesus -- or the man in the Chrest condition, the Neophyte on trial, and this nickname was Ichthus, the 'fish.'

"With this fish, with the waters in general, and, for the Christians, with the Jordan waters in particular, the whole program of the ancient Mystery-Initiation is connected. The whole of the New Testament is an allegorical representation of the Cycle of Initiation, i.e., the natural birth of man in sin or flesh, and of his second or spiritual birth as an Initiate followed by his resurrection after three days of trance -- a mode of purification -- during which time his human body or Astral was in Hades or Hell, which is the earth, and his divine Ego in Heaven or the realm of truth" (BCW 11:495).

The word was also applied to Bacchus. It is similar to other figures associated with fish symbols, such as Jonas, Oannes, Dagon, Vishnu, etc.

See also FISH; PISCES

(See also: Ichthus, Ichthys, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Buddha (Sanskrit) (from the verbal root budh to perceive, awaken, recover consciousness)

Awakened, enlightened; one who is spiritually awakened, who has become one with the supreme self (paramatman).

"To become a Buddha one has to break through the bondage of sense and personality; to acquire a complete perception of the real self and learn not to separate it from all other selves; to learn by experience the utter unreality of all phenomena of the visible Kosmos foremost of all; to reach a complete detachment from all that is evanescent and finite, and live while yet on Earth in the immortal and the everlasting alone, in a supreme state of holiness" (TG 64-5).

"A Buddha in the esoteric teaching is one whose higher principles can learn nothing more in this manvantara; they have reached Nirvana and remain there. This does not mean, however, that the lower centers of consciousness of a Buddha are in Nirvana, for the contrary is true; and it is this fact that enables a Buddha of Compassion to remain in the lower realms of being as mankind's supreme Guide and Instructor, living usually as a Nirmanakaya" (OG 33-4).

See also GAUTAMA

(See also: Buddha, 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)