Aanroo (Egypt, Egyptian). The second division of Amenti. The celestial field of Aanroo is encircled by an iron wall. The field is covered with wheat, and the "Defunct" are represented gleaning it, for the "Master of Eternity"; some stalks being three, others five, and the highest seven cubits high.

Those who reached the last two numbers entered the state of bliss (which is called in Theosophy Devachan) ; the disembodied spirits whose harvest was but three cubits high went into lower regions (Kamaloka). Wheat was with the Egyptians the symbol of the Law of retribution or Karma. The cubits had reference to the seven, five and three human "principles

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Sin (Chaldean) The moon; also the Babylonian and Assyrian moon deity called Enzu (the lord of wisdom) and Nannar (the illuminer). The wisdom is that of the lower manas, the reflection of the higher, and this wisdom can all too often become the dark wisdom of evildoing and sorcery.

Temples to Sin were erected in all the principal cities of the two empires, named E-gish-shir-gal (house of the great light). The worship of the moon deity predominated at Ur and Harran, and he was portrayed as an old man with flowing beard, having the crescent as his symbol and 30 as his number. Sin was known as father of the gods, creator of all things; and some of the ancient nations held that the moon was parent of the sun, and that the moon in its turn was once eons ago a sun itself.

The name is likewise found in the Hebrew Sinay, commonly written Sinai -- a moon-mountain, referring indirectly to the fact that all such places in ancient times which were named mountain of the moon or a similar title, were then centers of occult training and initiation, whether good or bad.

Referring to the forming of mankind, the Stanzas of Dzyan say: "Who perfects the last body? Fish, Sin, and Soma." Soma was in Hindustan also a name of the moon, and fish refers to a similar fact -- fishes often being taken as symbols of the productive power of the lunar influence because of their great fecundity. Fish, Sin, and the moon conjointly are the three symbols of the immortal Being (SD 1:263). As these symbols, among other things, stand for Pisces, karma, and the mother of terrestrial life, it would seem that the pilgrimage of the human monad through the halls of experience, and the completing of its evolution thereby, is indicated.

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Sin Evildoing, moral obliquity expressed in thought and act; in its relation to human evolution, it applies especially to the misuse of human creative powers which occurred after the fall into material existence.

The procreative act, for example, in itself is not sinful, for this is but nature's arrangement for the continuing of the human strain, but the abuse of this power, especially for black magical purposes. This truth has been perverted by Christian theology, which regards the procreative act as essentially sinful and permissible only as a concession to the "original sin" stamped upon us by our first parents in the Garden of Eden, and only to be purged by the Atonement.

The fall of man is symbolized in the zodiacal signs of Virgo-Scorpio, and it is mankind who has become the serpent of Genesis and thus causes daily and hourly the fall and sin of the celestial Virgin, who becomes the mother of gods and devils at the same time. But karma in one of its senses would be a better word for this: "Karma . . . means, as a synonym of sin, the performance of some action for the attainment of an object of worldly, hence selfish, desire, which cannot fail to be hurtful to somebody else" (SD 2:302n).

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Samba or Samba (Sanskrit) The reputed son of Krishna by Jambavati. According to esoteric tradition Krishna had no son; therefore Samba is symbolic of some power attained by Krishna. Through a curse of some holy sages, Samba was condemned to produce offspring in the shape of a terrific iron club for the destruction of the race of Yadu. Samba accordingly brought forth as iron club which was pounded and cast into the sea. But one piece which could not be crushed was subsequently found in the belly of a fish, and was used to tip an arrow used by the hunter Jaras (old age) to unintentionally kill Krishna. Thus old age finally overtakes and gathers in all things; and our future karma flows forth from our emotional and mental offspring, and sooner or later overtakes us all through time or old age. The iron club may represent the blows of destiny, based upon the kama of which iron is often a symbol; we may attempt to destroy the effects of our feelings and thoughts, but always there will be one little portion which cannot be crushed, and which is the seed of the future destiny, at least of our lower self.

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Hippopotamus In ancient Egypt, a symbol connected with every goddess, especially Rert or Rertu, Apet, and Ta-urt. It was used as a kindly guardian of the dead in the underworld in the Book of the Dead. In a contrary aspect, the monster Am-mit, which appears in the judgment scene, has the hindquarters of a hippopotamus. It represents the horrors and fear of the astral world awaiting the defunct, which spring into life if that person's karma has brought about awakening self-consciousness in kama-loka.

The hippopotamus, the crocodile, and the frog were all either aquatic or amphibious animals, and as all ancient zoocosmology took its figures of speech from the surrounding world, these animals were chosen as symbolic of the early creative action in the waters of space, out of which arose the world. In an equally important sense, however, the hippopotamus has distinct reference to the astral world, and hence so far as the individual is concerned, to the post-mortem peregrination of the latter in kama-loka.

In another aspect the hippopotamus goddess was the female counterpart of Set and the mother of the sun god, whom she brought into the world at Ombos.

"In Egyptian symbolism Typhon was called 'the hippopotamus who slew his father and violated his mother,' Rhea (mother of the gods). His father was Chronos. As applied therefore to Time and Nature (Chronos and Rhea), the accusation becomes comprehensible. The type of Cosmic Disharmony, Typhon, who is also Python, the monster formed of the slime of the Deluge of Deucalion, 'violates' his mother Primordial Harmony, whose beneficence was so great that she was called 'The Mother of the Golden Age.' It was Typhon, who put an end to the latter, i.e., produced the first war of the elements" (TG 142).

In ancient Persia the hippopotamus appears as a symbol in connection with the twelve-legged steed of Hushang. It also appears as a divine symbol in Mexico.

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Hippopotamus In ancient Egypt, a symbol connected with every goddess, especially Rert or Rertu, Apet, and Ta-urt. It was used as a kindly guardian of the dead in the underworld in the Book of the Dead. In a contrary aspect, the monster Am-mit, which appears in the judgment scene, has the hindquarters of a hippopotamus. It represents the horrors and fear of the astral world awaiting the defunct, which spring into life if that person's karma has brought about awakening self-consciousness in kama-loka.

The hippopotamus, the crocodile, and the frog were all either aquatic or amphibious animals, and as all ancient zoocosmology took its figures of speech from the surrounding world, these animals were chosen as symbolic of the early creative action in the waters of space, out of which arose the world. In an equally important sense, however, the hippopotamus has distinct reference to the astral world, and hence so far as the individual is concerned, to the post-mortem peregrination of the latter in kama-loka.

In another aspect the hippopotamus goddess was the female counterpart of Set and the mother of the sun god, whom she brought into the world at Ombos.

"In Egyptian symbolism Typhon was called 'the hippopotamus who slew his father and violated his mother,' Rhea (mother of the gods). His father was Chronos. As applied therefore to Time and Nature (Chronos and Rhea), the accusation becomes comprehensible. The type of Cosmic Disharmony, Typhon, who is also Python, the monster formed of the slime of the Deluge of Deucalion, 'violates' his mother Primordial Harmony, whose beneficence was so great that she was called 'The Mother of the Golden Age.' It was Typhon, who put an end to the latter, i.e., produced the first war of the elements" (TG 142).

In ancient Persia the hippopotamus appears as a symbol in connection with the twelve-legged steed of Hushang. It also appears as a divine symbol in Mexico.

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Peratae (Latin) Peratai (Greek) One of the Gnostic bodies or associations, the Naaseni or Ophites, the "Serpent Gnostics," so called because of the mystical prominence of the serpent symbol in their rites and observances.

This Gnostic body is said by scholars to have been founded by Euphrates, who possessed wide astrological knowledge, and because of the teachings which his school followed were they named Peratai -- wanderers, i.e., on this earth of trial and tribulation; or "those of the other side," signifying individuals who regarded themselves as merely wanderers or pilgrims in regions far from their native home, the spirit.

Among other ideas, they held that the celestial bodies in a person's horoscope are the instruments of destiny or karma, which because of causes engendered in other lives bring the individuals to birth on this earth under the destined yoke marked in the celestial spaces by the sun, moon, and planets; and in order to protect themselves from the malignant influence of the genii of the planets they wore serpent sigils or talismans.

C. W. King states that the Ophites were the descendants of the Bacchic Mystae, basing this on the fact that coins of the period bear the Bacchic serpent, which is represented as raising himself out of the sacred coffer, while the reverse side of the coin shows two serpents entwined around torches (Gnostics and Their Remains 225).

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Aanroo, Aanre (Egyptian) More fully, Sekhet-Aanre (the fields of the reeds); more often called Aarru or Sekhet-Aarru; also Aanru, Aaru. The first region of the Afterworlds (Amenti) reached by the deceased in the afterdeath state, which he enters as a khu. "The second division of Amenti. The celestial field of Aanroo is encircled by an iron wall. The field is covered with wheat, and the 'Defunct' are represented gleaning it, for the 'Master of Eternity'; some stalks being three, others five, and the highest seven cubits high. Those who reached the last two numbers entered the state of bliss (which is called in Theosophy Devachan); the disembodied spirits whose harvest was but three cubits high went into lower regions (Kamaloka). Wheat was with the Egyptians the symbol of the Law of Retribution or Karma. The cubits had reference to the seven, five and three human 'principles' " (TG 1).

Beyond Aanroo, in Amenti, are seven halls with guardians, associated with kama-loka by Blavatsky: "Those only of the dead, who know the names of the janitors of the 'seven halls,' will be admitted into Amenti for ever; i.e., those who have passed through the seven races of each round -- otherwise they will rest in the lower fields; and it represents also the seven successive Devachans, or lokas" (SD 1:674n).

See also AMENTI; TUAT

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Scarabeus, In Egypt, the symbol of resurrection, and also of rebirth; of resurrection for the mummy or rather of the highest aspects of the personality which animated it, and of rebirth for the Ego, the "spiritual body" of the lower, human Soul.

Egyptologists give us but half of the truth, when in speculating upon the meaning of certain inscriptions, they say, "the justified soul, once arrived at a certain period of its peregrinations (simply at the death of the physical body) should be united to its body (i.e., the Ego) never more to be separated from it ". (Rougé.) What is this so-called body? Can it be the mummy? Certainly not, for the emptied mummified corpse can never resurrect. It can only be the eternal, spiritual vestment, the EGO that never dies but gives immortality to whatsoever becomes united with it.

"The delivered Intelligence (which) retakes its luminous envelope and (re)becomes Da?mon ", as Prof. Maspero says, is the spiritual Ego; the personal Ego or Kama Manas, its direct ray, or the lower soul, is that which aspires to become Osirified, i.e., to unite itself with its "god "; and that portion of it which will succeed in so doing, will never more be separated from it (the god), not even when the latter incarnates again and again, descending periodically on earth in its pilgrimage, in search of further experiences and following the decrees of Karma. Khem, "the sower of seed ", is shown on a stele in a picture of Resurrection after physical death, as the creator and the sower of the grain of corn, which, after corruption, springs up afresh each time into a new ear, on which a scarab beetle is seen poised; and Deveria shows very justly that "Ptah is the inert, material form of Osiris, who will become Sokari (the eternal Ego) to be reborn, and afterwards be Harmachus ", or Horus in his transformation, the risen god.

The prayer so often found in the tumular inscriptions, "the wish for the resurrection in one’s living soul" or the Higher Ego, has ever a scarabeus at the end, standing for the personal soul. The scarabeus is the most honoured, as the most frequent and familiar, of all Egyptian symbols. No mummy is without several of them; the favourite ornament on engravings, house hold furniture and utensils is this sacred beetle, and Pierret pertinently shows in his Livre des Morts that the secret meaning of this hieroglyph is sufficiently explained in that the Egyptian name for the scarabeus Kheper signifies to be, to become, to build again.

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Maharaja (Sanskrit) [from maha great + raja king]

Great king; in Hindu literature four are spoken of as the mystical regents and protectors of the four quarters of the earth -- north, south, east, and west -- because they are the mystical regents and guardians of cosmic space in our solar system.

In Egyptian temples the parti-colored curtain separating the holy recess from the place for the congregation was drawn over the five pillars symbolizing our five senses as well as the five root-races, while the four colors of the curtain represented the four cardinal points and the four as yet evolved cosmico-terrestrial elements. This grouping, among other things, thus symbolized that it is through the four high rulers of the four cosmic quarters that our five senses become cognizant of the hidden truths of nature. The same mystic symbolism is found in the Tabernacle and the square courtyard prepared by Moses in the wilderness, "in the Zoroastrian caves, in the rock-cut temples of India, as in all the sacred square buildings of antiquity that have survived to this day. This is shown definitely by Layard, who finds the four cardinal points, and the four primitive elements, in the religion of every country, under the shape of square obelisks, the four sides of the pyramids . . . Of these elements and their points the four Maharajahs were the regents and the directors" (SD 1:126).

The four Maharajas correspond to the cherubim, seraphim, the winged globes, fiery or winged wheels, the gandharvas (sweet singers), asuras, kinnaras, and celestial nagas. In Chinese Buddhism the Maharajas are called the four hidden dragons of wisdom: the Regent of the North is called the Black Warrior, of the East the White Tiger, of the South the Vermilion Bird, and of the West the Azure Dragon.

There are profound, highly mystical differences which distinguish the Maharajas from the lipikas. The Maharajas, who are both the protectors of mankind on earth and the agents of karma, are those highly evolved spiritual powers or individualized cosmic beings who belong to the light-side of universal nature, to the hierarchies of compassion representing beings of unfolded evolutionary development who by the very nature of their essence become almost the automatic guardians of light and cosmic order which the semi-intelligent and so-called unintelligent forces and energies of nature automatically obey.

The lipikas, on the other hand, are cosmic spiritual entities who might almost be called the viceroys of the sublime cosmic hierarch of our galaxy. For this reason their actions or functions are of so widely impersonal a character, for they operate not so much from power and consciousness belonging solely to the solar system, but in obedience to the spiritual vital mandates of the galactic sphere, to which they are wholly subservient and of whose flow of intelligent impersonal forces they are but impartial ministers in almost instinctual obedience. They represent what might be called the impersonal flow of cosmic destiny.

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Seraphim (Hebrew) [from the verbal root saraph to burn]

Plural of saraph. Fiery, burning, venomous, poisonous. The word came to have the significance of serpents, referring to those beings described in Isaiah 6:2 as possessing six wings, guarding the divine throne, and endowed with a voice with which they praise the deity; "they are the symbols of Jehovah, and of all the other Demiurgi who produce out of themselves six sons or likenesses -- Seven with their Creator" (SD 2:387n). In later Jewish writings they are associated with the Cherubim and 'Ophannim (wheels) of Ezekiel.

They parallel the Hindu nagas -- semi-divine beings of serpent character. "The Seraphim are the fiery Serpents of Heaven which we find in a passage describing Mount Meru as: 'the exalted mass of glory, the venerable haunt of gods and heavenly choristers . . . . not to be reached by sinful men . . . . because guarded by Serpents.' They are called the Avengers, and the 'Winged Wheels' " (SD 1:126) -- avengers in the sense of being the agents of karma. They are the Flames, a class of dhyani-chohans who dried the "turbid dark waters" with which the earth was covered in an early stage of its development (SD 2:16).

In the Qabbalistic hierarchy of angels, the Seraphim correspond to the fifth Sephirah, Geburah. In the ancient Syrian system they are equivalent to the sphere of the nebulae and comets. The celestial hierarchy adopted by Dionysius the pseudo-Aeropagite ranks them first.

In the hierarchy of emanations proceeding from the cosmic monad, the Seraphim precede the cherubim in emanational order, because in the hierarchical scheme the Seraphim stand for the formative or creative fires, the spiritual archetypes, whereas the cherubim are the builders of forms and hence are of the rupa class themselves. Thus the Seraphim belong to the arupa class which works through and in the Cherubim or rupa class. Thus the Seraphim, whose color is the spiritual red or spiritual fire, precede both in time and in hierarchical dignity the Cherubim whose color is blue -- the idea being that before manifestation of both mind and of forms can take place there must be in the cosmic monad the awakening of divine desire, signified as fiery or flamy color, spiritual red. As the Veda has it: "desire first arose in It."

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Pentateuch [from Greek pente five + teuchos books]

A work in five books; the first five books of the Bible, containing stories of creation, of a flood, of the wanderings and settlement of the Hebrews, and the so-called Law of Moses. To these is sometimes added Joshua, sometimes also Judges and Ruth.

Jewish belief in the authorship of Moses was adopted by the Christian Church, but internal evidence has now caused this to be rejected; and the form in which we have the present Pentateuch is usually attributed to Ezra, who reestablished the Jewish religion after the return of the Jews from the Babylonian captivity. If he did not write it, he certainly rewrote it. For Christians, the literal acceptance of this work as being divinely inspired has thrown a dark cloud over their faith.

The Pentateuch forms part of one of the world's sacred scriptures, being preceded by the Hindu, Mazdean, Egyptian, and Chaldean, counting only some of those well known to modern scholarship; so that we find the ancient teachings as they have reached us in a very confused and altered form.

The Pentateuch is, exoterically, a collection of allegorical legends; but, in the light of the Zohar, the main book of the modern Jewish Qabbalah, the first four chapters at least of Genesis are a fragment of a highly philosophical page in archaic cosmogony. "Left in their symbolical disguise, they are a nursery tale, an ugly thorn in the side of science and logic, an evident effect of Karma. To have let them serve as a prologue to Christianity was a cruel revenge on the part of the Rabbis, who knew better what their Pentateuch meant" (SD 1:11).

If the Jehovistic portions are eliminated, the Mosaic books are found full of occult and priceless knowledge, especially in the first six chapters, even changed as they are and often veiled with thick garmentings of allegory. The Elohistic texts were written, according to the ideas of some Biblical scholars, 500 years after the date of Moses, and the Jehovistic 800 years. But these dates seem to be wholly arbitrary and repose upon modern Biblical speculation. Archeological excavations on the Biblical sites may or may not support to some extent the Bible narratives, but such narratives, at least those of the early part of Genesis, are merely the raw material for the later allegory constructed around them.

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Cherub, Cherubim kerub, kerubim (Hebrew) A celestial, sacred, occult being in Hebrew mythology; in the Old Testament various descriptions are given of the Cherubim, the prevailing one being that of winged entities with four faces, those respectively of a man, a lion, an ox, and an eagle. In Genesis, they are the guardians of Paradise; in Exodus (25:18-22) their images are to be placed in the mercy-seat and also in Solomon's temple (1 Kings 6:23-35), but their most frequent association is with the throne or chariot of Yahweh (Jehovah).

 In Ezekiel and the Qabbalah the Cherubim are represented as the four holy living creatures. "These four animals are, in reality, the symbols of the four elements, and of the four lower principles in man. Nevertheless, they correspond physically and materially to the four constellations that form, so to speak, the suite or cortege of the Solar God, and occupy during the winter solstice the four cardinal points of the zodiacal circle" (SD 1:363).

In the ancient Syrian system of enumerating the hierarchies, the Cherubim were equivalent to the sphere of the Stars. In the Jewish Qabbalah a close association is made with them and the four letters of the Tetragrammaton, YHVH; and further with the world of `Asiyyah. In the system of hierarchies propounded by Dionysius the pseudo-Areopagite, the Cherubim rank second in the first trinity: Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones. But the Cherubim have a still more mystical connection: "the four celestial beings are . . . the protectors of mankind and also the Agents of Karma on Earth" (SD 1:126).

In the Hebrew Qabbalah the Kerubim are the class of angels or quasi-spiritual beings corresponding with the lower Shechinah or Malchuth, the lowest or tenth of the Sephiroth. Again, "the word cherub also meant serpent, in one sense, though its direct meaning is different; because the Cherubim and the Persian winged (gryphes)

'griffins' -- the guardians of the golden mountain -- are the same, and their compound name shows their character, as it is formed of (kr) circle, and 'aub,' or ob -- serpent -- therefore, a 'serpent in a circle' " (SD 1:364). The color blue is associated with the Cherubim, as the color red is with the Seraphim.

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Sex As applied to the organism as a whole, the differentiation of the reproductive function and the character of being male and female.

Organisms reproduce their kind in various ways: fission, gemmation, parthenogenesis, hermaphrodite reproduction, and sexual reproduction. In the course of evolution, organisms pass from one method to another; the passage from the hermaphrodite method to the one in which the sexes are in separate individuals took place in the animals in the third root-race of this round on this globe, and shortly afterwards in humanity (SD 2:184), the latter then being in the fifth subrace of the third root-race.

The process of separation did not occur suddenly, but slowly. This is often called the Fall, and is so in one sense, since it is a descent from spirit toward matter, and was an initiation of the beasts. "THEY (the animals) BEGAN TO BREED. The TWOFOLD MAN (then) SEPARATED ALSO. HE (man) SAID: "LET US AS THEY: LET US UNITE AND MAKE CREATURES.' THEY DID" (ibid.). But from another viewpoint, it was simply a following of the natural course of unfolding progress in evolution. The separation is symbolized by a circle with a vertical diameter.

The hermaphroditic state is repeated in the developing embryo where the organs of both sexes arise from the same germinal layer of cells, and the differentiation does not occur until near the middle of the viable period of fetal life. Today, the orderly unfolding of embryonic cells into a human form is due to following the invisible model which, in keeping with the imbodying ego's karma, is directed by creative spiritual entities and forces.

"Before man could become male and female physically, his prototype, the creating Elohim, had to arrange his Form on this sexual plane astrally. That is to say, the atoms and the organic forces, descending into the plane of the given differentiation, had to be marshaled in the order intended by Nature, so as to be ever carrying out, in an immaculate way, that law which the Kabala calls the balance, through which everything that exists does so as male and female in its final perfection, in this present stage of materiality. Chochmah, Wisdom, the Male Sephiroth, had to diffuse itself in, and through, Binah, intelligent Nature, or Understanding" (SD 2:84). After the separation, the third eye began to disappear, and death as we now understand it was not known until then.

Thus the primeval polarity of all things differentiated on the material plane -- including sexual humanity -- was of immaculate origin and purpose. This sublime ancient teaching has been degraded generally in theological interpretations of cosmic sex symbols in crude physiological terms, such as the substitution of a Jehovistic god of generation for an ineffable, unknown deity.

The originating causes of sex are not rooted in the higher principles or elements of the human composite constitution. It is the effect of former thought-deposits, of emotional and mental tendencies and biases given way to in preceding lives on earth. "The predominating and it may perhaps truly be said that the main cause of sex-change in incarnation is strong attraction to the opposite sex during the few -- or in rare cases it may be a fairly large number -- preceding lives on earth. This attraction, which is the instrumental cause of the tendencies and biases spoken of, arising out of thought and emotional energy, feminizes the life-atoms, or masculinizes them, as the individual case may be, and the natural consequence is incarnation in a body of the sex to which attraction leads" (ET 666). Thus a reincarnating ego may have several incarnations in bodies of one sex, and then incarnate in bodies of the opposite sex for a number of times in succeeding incarnations. How many times, therefore, a reincarnating ego may imbody in a male or a female body is not subject to any arbitrary rule but depends solely upon the karmic impulse laid aside in the treasury of psychomental experiences.

Though the distinction of sex is biologically regarded as a profound and nearly universal attribute of organized beings, yet knowledge of composite human nature shows that it does not reach into the roots of the human constitution. Its causes go no deeper than the lower part of the human ego or soul, the psychophysiological nature. It is an evolutionary condition or cycle of the reincarnating ego's development in this present stage of materiality. Therefore, it is a transitory event in its bipolar earthly experience. As sex has been nature's plan for the race for some 18 million years, it will continue to be the natural plan for some ages to come. Some ages hence, sex differentiation will have given way to the activities of impersonal, spiritual creative energies.

(See also: Sex, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

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ASTRAL PLANE

A mental world shared by dreamers, OOBE travelers, perichoretic visitants, newly dead, beings/spirits from other worlds who have lived lives on other planets and so on. Here are also the formidable, native "Kamadevas" and finally the lower devic orders, including the Elementals and those who provide us with the spirit of a place (genius loci). Alchemical "elementals" also exist here, as do all the undispatched, artificial creations of magicians (Tibetan magi, for instance, are adept at creating thought-creatures known as tulpas). Many of the astral creations become powerful symbols or Jungian archetypes - collectively created.

We already exist on the Astral Plane as we exist on the physical plane. We have but to experience it consciously. Marc Edmund Jones says that it is the level of experience for simple individuality or is our "first transcendency of physical cause and effect". The Astral Plane is constructed by the mental imagery of those who travel there. (Xtians think themselves in heaven, others imagine they are wherever their fancy takes them). Astral is the first type of matter, much more subtle than our present version, of course. As far as we're concerned, on the astral plane, there is no "material reality, even though everything vaguely resembles our world. Things behave like the material world, except that the character of things is worn on the outside, rather than hidden inside as on earth. This is because the Astral lies midway between material earth and the spirit worlds, qabalistically on the Yesodic level. Classically, it is characterized (for the newly dead) by a central courtyard or "receiving field" receding into "the hills beyond" - beyond which lies the capital city: Sahasra Dalkenwal. This "courtyard", plaza, precinct, garden or whatever is generally considered to be merely a way-station or transfer point.

Most authorities are agreed that the first experience after death is total and absolute darkness, often accompanied by panic. As in every manifested thing, positive or negative, the mirroring of similarities takes place - so death, being similar to sleep, begins with darkness. Finally, again as in waking, appears a light as the world left behind begins to remember itself. One now enters the "desire world" or Kamaloka. It is in Kamaloka that the spirit creates the idealized world described above. Sooner or later we realize that eating, drinking, sleeping, making love are merely phantom acts because we have no physical body. At this moment comes a second surrender and we recapitulate our lives backward from death to birth, suffering or enjoying the effects of our actions while we lived in the world. So we experience for ourselves, first-hand, the harm we have done and recognize how we must compensate for it. Animals, of course, never get this far, but quickly lose their individuality, such as it is. Family pets may last a big longer because they have been so strongly individualized.

At any rate, we are now ready to present this refined and reformed earth-life personality to our higher self (Atma-Buddha-Manas). A separation of "I" and astral body is the Second Death. The self, rid of ego and earth-impedimenta can now ascend to the spirit world, as Osiris. The lower self is cast to the serpent, Urekh, to be consumed, while the spirit enters the clear sky of Sekten. The cast-off, ego-shorn astral husk, still contaminated by desire may hang around the borderland where it masquerades as some famous spirit or makes itself available to mediums and such.

Devachan is a mental plane in a world considerably higher than the astral, where the "I" then proceeds after its "second death."

At the apogee from earth the soul fills with desire (Trisha) for a personality. So we plummet down again through the seven levels. The Dhyan-Choans decide where the wheel of reincarnation will stop - but thereafter it's up to the individual. Gradually, as one falls into materialization, one forgets his old experiences and focuses on the life to come. At this point we call karma voluntarily to help us redress the past imbalances. Passing over into the conditional sphere of Space/Time (Samsara), we reincarnate over and over (Samtana) until ultimate deliverance (Moksha). Life is thus a system of checks and balances between Activity (Pravritti) and Renunciation (Nirvitti).

There is a parallel Battle of Armageddon now taking place on the Astral Plane that is experienced only in shadow on earth - resulting in our breakdown of civilization and planet wide pollution. Eventually, as the war breeches the spirit membrane separating our world from the Astral, the celestial war will break out on earth as well.

A rather interesting analog of the Astral Plane is given by C.S. Lewis in his "Pilgrim's Regress". Another, more satisfying version, is recounted by Tolkien in his story, "Leaf by Niggle". There are also Franz Werfel's "Star of the Unborn" and Sacheverell Sitwell's "Journey to the Ends of Time". Finally, it must be pointed out that there are many planes, of which the astral is only the first. The magician "rises through the planes", the astral, the magician's plane, the alchemist's plane, the Aethyrs, the God-planes, to the highest and innermost dimensions. (See DEVACHAN).

(See also: ASTRAL PLANE, Magick, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul, )

For more dictionary entries, see » Symbol Of Karma Dictionary

Avatar, Avatara (Sanskrit) (from ava down + the verbal root tri to cross over, pass)

That which passes down or descends; the passing down of a celestial energy or an individualized complex of celestial energies -- a celestial being -- in order to overshadow and illuminate a human being who, at the time of such connection of divinity with matter, possesses no human soul karmically destined to be the inner master of the body thus born. "Hence an Avatara is one who has a combination of three elements in his being: an inspiring divinity; a highly evolved intermediate nature or soul, which is loaned to him and is the channel of that inspiring divinity; and a pure, clean, physical body" (OG 16).

Sankaracharya, Krishna, Lao-tzu, and Jesus were avataras in differing degrees, of somewhat differing structure. There was a divine ray which came down at the cyclic time of each of these incarnations, and the connecting link or the flame of mind was provided in each case by a member of the Hierarchy of Compassion. Krishna says, "I incarnate in period after period in order to destroy wickedness and reestablish righteousness" (BG ch 4, sl 8). Krishna here represents the Logos or logoic ray which "on our plane would be utterly helpless, inactive, and have no possible means of communication with us and our sphere, because that logoic ray lacks an intermediate and fully conscious vehicle or carrier, i.e., it lacks the intermediate or highly ethereal mechanism, the spiritual-human in us, which in ordinary man is but slightly active. An avatara takes place when a direct ray from the Logos enters into, fully inspires, and illuminates, a human being, through the intermediary of a bodhisattva who has incarnated in that human being, thereby supplying the fit, ready, and fully conscious intermediate vehicle or carrier" (Fund 276).

Blavatsky says that "rebirths may be divided into three classes: the divine incarnations called Avataras; those of Adepts who give up Nirvana for the sake of helping on humanity -- the Nirmanakayas; and the natural succession of rebirths for all -- the common law. The Avatara . . . is a descent of the manifested Deity -- whether under the specific name of Siva, Vishnu, or Adi-Buddha -- into an illusive form of individuality, an appearance which to men on this illusive plane is objective, but it is not so in sober fact. That illusive form having neither past nor future, because it had neither previous incarnation nor will have subsequent rebirths, has naught to do with Karma, which has therefore no hold on it" (BCW 14:373-4).

Vishnu as the supporter of life is the source of one line of avataras so often spoken of in Hindu legends. These ten avataras of Vishnu are: 1) Matsya the fish; 2) Kurma the tortoise; 3) Varaha the boar; 4) Narasimha the man-lion (last of animal stage); 5) Vamana the dwarf (first step toward the human form); 6) Parasu-Rama, Rama with the axe (a hero); 7) Rama-chandra, the hero of the Ramayana; 8) Krishna, son of Devaki; 9) Gautama Buddha; and 10) Kalki, the avatara who is to appear at the end of the kali yuga mounted on a white horse, inaugurating a new reign of righteousness on earth. A horse has from immemorial time been a symbol of the spiritual as well as vital energies of the inner solar orb. Hence, when the next avatara is said to come riding a white horse, the meaning is that he comes infilled with the solar light or splendor -- an avatara or manifestation of a spiritual and intellectual solar energy which will carry all before it on earth.

Brahmanical esotericism never taught that divinity descended into the animals as given in the legends. These names of different animals and men, like all zoological mythology, were chosen because of certain characteristic attributes. They actually represent ten degrees of advancing knowledge and growth in understanding -- ten degrees in the esoteric cycle -- as well as different evolutionary stages through which monads break through the lower spheres in order to express themselves on higher rungs of the evolutionary ladder of life. These names also represent the technical names given to neophytes in esoteric schools. The lowest chela was called a fish, the chela who had taken the second degree successfully was called a tortoise, and so forth, till the highest of all was called an incarnation of the sun -- a white horse in Hindu legend.

These avataric descents do not appertain solely to a race, root-race, globe, chain, or solar system, because nature repeats itself by analogy, and the same line of enlarging understanding of evolutionary development takes place in all the spheres mutatis mutandis. Thus these avataric descents can be ascribed to the solar system, the planetary chain as a whole, a globe, a root-race, and even to a subrace.

(See also: Avatar, Avatara, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

For more dictionary entries, see » Symbol Of Karma Dictionary

PERICHORESIS

The word is Greek, as you might imagine: peri "around" + choreio "dance." But for the Greeks "dancing" wasn't the aimless shuffling we do. It was more like ballet. "Choreography" is a lot closer to the idea -- in which particular movements are carefully planned and executed. Travel from one dimension to another occurs simultaneously on all levels of reality. We travel in and out of the astral during sleep every night and think nothing of it. And, as you know, when the shaman interfaces with the earth by taking narcotic mushrooms or cacti into his system, he's moving deliberately and consciously between universes.

Parallel worlds stretch horizontally from sinister to dexter, or rather, from increasing shades of darkness to increasing degrees of light. Beings entering from the darkside are perceived by us not as merely ignorant but as demonic, whereas the wisdom of the beings from the lightside stands so far beyond our recognition that we see them simply as angelic beings. Depending on the level of reality that we happen to occupy, the dark and light worlds are perceived as more or less similar to the world we currently inhabit. On some levels of reality, the transfiguration is reversed and we perceive them as inhabiting regions above and below a horizontal plane of reality that stretches into inaccessible temporal limits of Past and Future. In such a world, reality is a given that is perceived as revealing itself only at such Past and Future vanishing points -- Alpha and Omega.

Everywhere horizontal parallel plane meets vertical parallel levels and an Aeon is established, symbolized by a cross. If the cross, however is not circumscribed by a circle (the familiar symbol of cross in circle, representing "earth"), there is no cohesion and the center does not hold. The so-called "extremes," in fact, are not extremes at all, but merely their own opposites in a spinning circle.

Because of the nature of infinity, we have to recognize that we may never stand at any of the four extremities, but always only at the exact center of the omniverse.

Notice also that in any formal religious painting, the god or saint is always placed in the exact center. If he is raised too high from the center, the lower world is given undue importance and power, because, after all, in completely "secular" pictures, the God has been raised so high as to have been left out of the picture altogether! Placing the God too far down divests him of his divinity because his intensity looks, on our level, simply grotesque. Likewise, if the God is placed too far to the left or right, an imbalance is also created.

Thus, uncircumscribed, the ends of the cross stretch unchecked into the infinite four directions and an uncontrollable wickedness is set forth into all manifestations. Without the "earthing" of the cross, there is no manifestation. The extremities lead only into infinite "otherness" and delusion. It is the inner being at the solar plexus that is the heart of the universe. When we nail (i.e., Christianize) the higher spirit of man to an ancient quadratic event, the center is blocked and closed forever. Moreover, the center has been locked in the past, away from the Eternal Now. Until the nail (Xtianity) has been pulled out, no further evolution is possible and Death will prevail.

The way out is toward the central, innermost point.

The parallel world-planes are accessible at all times. We move in and out of them constantly, but are mostly unaware of having done so. Occasionally we get the feeling that "things are suddenly different" or that "something is about to happen" and that means we've inadvertently stepped into a new probable world that is much different from the ones we've hitherto occupied. You can move back into the world you've just left, only if you do so at once.

Whatever can be imagined, exists, will exist or has existed. Whatever has existed or will exist continues to exist now because time is one of the four real dimensions of things. Alongside this Reality there are an infinite number of co-existent realities of equal "solidity" and "substance." There are also an infinite number of "probable" realities and an infinite number of "possible" worlds. A moment's reflection will show that if this is so, then, obviously, available access to them must not be merely possible, but inevitable. Jane Robert's Seth describes the infinite "probable worlds" stretching out in either direction from this one. The closest ones being hardly distinguishable from this, as we progress outward, the probable worlds become stranger, increasingly incomprehensible and frighteningly unpredictable. In the fifth dimensional world, four dimensional objects have their own much more complete and solid "substance" which we cannot perceive so long as we inhabit lower planes of being.

You can, however, willingly and deliberately get up and walk from this world into the nearest adjacency and from there to the next, and the next. The only problem is that you're playing roulette. There's no way of telling what kind of world you are moving into.

If you are seeking to avoid some trouble in this world, be advised that things could be a lot worse in the world next door. Moreover, if you leave unsolved problem behind, your karma will continue to take you back there in future lives until eventually you are forced to solve them. On top of that, if you leave muddy footprints behind you as you run through world after world, you'll have added onto your present karma the extra burden of going back to mop them up.

Actual entrance/exit sites are a matter of intuitive perception. Dimensional doorways are not likely, for instance, to be found in your living room. They need to be places you've never crossed before (except as interdimensional thresholds). It's best to look for two pillars to pass between -- a couple of tall trees in a forest or park make excellent pillars. The more difficult the access the better. And the direction and angle of entrance are crucial. Select a "picture" framed by the trees as most nearly representing the world you want to leave behind you and before you a picture of what intuitively or esthetically looks to be an improvement of that. Make sure that nothing passes across your line of vision as you are actually walking through. If necessary, keep your eyes closed or look down at your feet.

At first the difference between adjacent worlds is scarcely discernible. Variations only become immediately evident at some distance. But if you are observant, you will eventually begin to notice tiny, subtle changes for the better (or worse). By the time these changes become evident, it's already too late to go back where you came from. The metaphors of artistic symbolism, religion and magic can also assist in perichoretic travel. With the enhanced ability to will and to imagine, the human mind can perceive parts of alternate realities with increasing clarity and may begin to see how to transform the reality we normally inhabit. In fact, so many are the pathways to alternate experience, it's a wonder anyone still believes that reality has but a single face!

There is, to be sure, ultimately only the One Plenum in which everything else transpires, but that sphere transcends experience in the Void of Nirvana.

Although, as we've seen above, there are relatively easy methods of interplanary travel (between planes), the ability to discover significant doorways into alternate dimensions, advanced perichoresis, not only requires an out-of-the-ordinary state of consciousness, but is a difficult technique in its own right, mastered properly only by experienced shamans. For instance, travel through time in the past requires us to move "forward" (i.e., towards the Beginning of Time) simply by ignoring vast areas of experience and being -- as we also do in the present -- in order to maintain a strict continuity of our own. Travel from the future (i.e., the End of Time), however, even though employing the same declination, creates an ever-thickening wall behind us, preventing all possibility of return to the starting point.

Kenneth Grant (Outside the Circles of Time) provides us with insights into the sexual avenue of interdimensional perichoresis and at the same time describes the procedure for creating a "moonchild." In his system, the door to our world opens inward in order for us to receive extratellurian immigrants.

Bipolar human sexuality, explains Grant, parallels cosmogenesis and the sacred void corresponds to the female vagina. Everything comes out of and falls back into this same eternal darkness. The creative light is sucked into its bottomless depths where it is swallowed up by vampiric blackness. Therefore, the doorway to the vacuum or zero of space is a priestess who has been chosen for her "master of the art of dream control." By allowing herself to become a mirror of impression-reception, she is able to generate illusions, "for all form is fantasy, and exists only in the dreaming mirror of the mind."

A material looking glass is placed above her, slanted to receive the starlight. Now, by her psychic ability she can project whatever star morph the magician requires onto the looking glass. A second mirror, creating an infinite regression reflection is placed 11 feet away, eleven being the number of the famous 11th Pathway of Black Magic. The circle of Daath is the corresponding doorway in the Qabalah.

Thereupon the priest uses his penis as the intergalactic conduit of the astro-seminal energy. His vibrations and invocations encourage the dream-manipulating priestess to focus the desired star-morph entity onto the mirrors. In the ultimate orgasm of priest, priestess and dream-entity, the eldolon rises briefly to life and erupts from the mirror as its starseed transmission runs down from the star to impregnate her. The zygote achieved by this cosmocopulation is a unique blend of human and extraterrestrial "genes."

According to most students, monstrous beings invisible to ordinary consciousness are entering our universe in unprecedented numbers, through this same interdimensional sexual doorway. (Apparently our time is a vector of unique significance.) The fantasy film, Ghostbusters, was a facetious rendering of this understanding, but revealed a good deal more than most viewers realized. Kenneth Grant teaches a heterosexual tantrism by which one may ride out again through the same door on the back of one of these demonic beasts and thereby escape. He calls this, again, the 11th Pathway. Others propose that there are homosexual and even solitary practices what serve this purpose equally well.

Sex and death are the two most common and well-known methods of conveyance between worlds, but such exclusively Scorpionic merkabahs are by no means the only ones. All of these methods follow the horizontal direction of planes to left and right, from darkness into light, or vice versa. There is also travel in the vertical direction from layers of reality and consciousness above and below. These cris-crossing horizontal and vertical planes endlessly extend out and recede into the vastnesses. Some of the planes are commonly thought, by the average person, to be "schizophrenic" because they appear to leave the traveller suspended in his "own little world." But such planes are of great importance to the magician or yogin. Reality, we must understand, is entirely a matter of the manipulation of illusion. The teacher, Gurdjieff, once pointed out that there is only one thing in the entire universe, but it is repeated endlessly in order to provide the illusion of "difference." Even chemistry and physics bear this out. The difference between each element is simply a difference in the number of their atomic electrons: Hydrogen 1, Helium 2, Lithium 3...

Some writers believe that there are denizens of other dimensions who use various perichoretic chariots that resemble the astral projections of those whose time and locality they visit. For Ezekiel and Daniel it was a fiery wheel bearing the tetramorph. For the Dogons it was a star ship. For our great grandfathers in the 19th Century it was frequently an airship. But they aren't just psychic experiences, say the witnesses, ufo's leave evidence behind ... a burned-out circle on the lawn, a map with indecipherable writing, MIBs, etc.

My own interdimensional visits to "the Other Side" have been neither A.D.E.'s nor OOBE's. They have occurred either through true-dreaming or by psychotropic methods, i.e., strictly via astral travel. In all, I have several times visited the "conventional" Astral Plane -- or abode of the (after-dead) spirits, three or four times encountered higher beings (although only at a distance), dwelt in the All-Consciousness of All-Phyla and once visited a previous time. Lately I have begun experimenting with ordinary consciousness as a routine means of perichoresis. The occult path I've travelled (until now) has always been the lonely one of the hermit. The beings I've encountered have been the traditional custodians of the pathways, that is to say, those archetypes hovering somewhere between being and non-being. Else they comprise the angels, Gods and daimones of pantheons we already know. But I have increasingly come under the purview of something more important: the existence of what seems to be an infinite number of Eternal Doorways between worlds. These doorways are available to us, of course, under very special circumstances -- that is to say, in altered psychic states lying clearly outside normal consciousness: Yoga, Tantra, sex magic, primitive rites of passage, repetitive rhythms (micro-events), sensory deprivation or stimulation, pain, extreme trauma, trance, all the multifarious REM/sleep/hypnotic states, rushes of adrenaline or fatigue intoxication, epilepsy, metamorphic anomaly, drug intoxication, illness, psychosis proper, thanatolepsy and death. (See SOLIPSISM.)

(See also: PERICHORESIS, Magick, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul, )

For more dictionary entries, see » Symbol Of Karma Dictionary

Soma (Sanskrit) In Hinduism, the moon astronomically; mystically, a sacred beverage of initiates, "made from a rare mountain plant by initiated Brahmans" (TG 304).

As the moon, Soma is an occult mystery, for the moon as a symbol stands for both good and evil, yet more often a symbol of evil than of good. Astrologically, Soma is the regent of the invisible or occult moon, while Indu represents the physical moon. "Soma is the mystery god and presides over the mystic and occult nature in man and the Universe" (SD 2:45). Soma or lunar worship was once purely occult and its rites were based upon a minute and profound knowledge of nature.

According to Hindu tradition, Soma as a sacred juice gave mystic visions and trance-revelations, the result of which union was Budha (esoteric wisdom). This sacred beverage was drunk by Brahmins and initiates during their mysteries and sacrificial rites.

"The 'Soma' plant is the asclepias acida, which yields a juice from which that mystic beverage, the Soma drink, is made. Alone the descendants of the Rishis, the Agnihotri (the fire priests) of the great mysteries knew all its powers. But the real property of the true Soma was (and is) to make a new man of the Initiate, after he is reborn, namely once that he begins to live in his astral body . . .; for, his spiritual nature overcoming the physical, he would soon snap it off and part even from that etherealized form. . . .

"The partaker of Soma finds himself both linked to his external body, and yet away from it in his spiritual form. The latter, freed from the former, soars for the time being in the ethereal higher regions, becoming virtually 'as one of the gods,' and yet preserving in his physical brain the memory of what he sees and learns. Plainly speaking, Soma is the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge forbidden by the jealous Elohim to Adam and Eve or Yah-ve, 'lest Man should become as one of us' " (SD 2:498-9&n).

"A 'soma-drinker' attains the power of placing himself in direct rapport with the bright side of the moon, thus deriving inspiration from the concentrated intellectual energy of the blessed ancestors. . . .

"This which seems one stream (to the ignorant) is of a dual nature -- one giving life and wisdom, the other being lethal. He who can separate the former from the latter, as Kalahamsa separated the milk from the water, which was mixed with it, thus showing great wisdom -- will have his reward" (BCW 12:203-4).

"This Hindu sacred beverage answers to the Greek Ambrosia or nectar, drunk by the gods of Olympus. A cup of kykeon was also quaffed by the mysta at the Eleusinian initiation. He who drinks it easily reaches Brahma, or the place of splendor (Heaven). The soma-drink known to Europeans is not the genuine beverage, but its substitute; for the initiated priests alone can taste of the real soma; and even kings and rajas, when sacrificing, receive the substitute. . . . We were positively informed that the majority of the sacrificial priests of the Dekkan have lost the secret of the true soma. It can be found neither in the ritual books nor through oral information. The true followers of the primitive Vedic religion are very few; these are the alleged descendants from the Rishis, the real Agnihotris, the initiates of the great Mysteries. The soma-drink is also commemorated in the Hindu Pantheon, for it is called King-Soma. He who drinks of it is made to participate in the heavenly king, because he becomes filled with it, as the Christian apostles and their converts became filled with the Holy Ghost, and purified of their sins. The soma makes a new man of the initiate; he is reborn and transformed, and his spiritual nature overcomes the physical; it gives the divine power of inspiration, and develops the clairvoyant faculty to the utmost. According to the exoteric explanation the soma is a plant, but, at the same time it is an angel. It forcibly connects the inner, highest 'spirit' of man, which spirit is an angel like the mystical soma, with his 'irrational soul,' or astral body, and thus united by the power of the magic drink, they soar together above physical nature and participate during life in the beatitude and ineffable glories of Heaven.

"Thus the Hindu soma is mystically, and in all respects the same that the Eucharist supper is to the Christian. The idea is similar. By means of the sacrificial prayers -- the mantras -- this liquor is supposed to be transformed on the spot into real soma -- or the angel, and even into Brahma himself" (IU 1:xl-xli).

The mystical drink has been known in all ages and among all peoples. The ancient Teutonic tribes, whether of the Germanic or Anglo-Saxons, spoke of their divine mead, the drink of the gods. The Hindus spoke of Soma, the direct distillation from the moon and from the overseeing and guiding eye of the sun; the Greeks of the Homeric age spoke of ambrosia or nectar, a drink of the gods which renewed their understanding and gave them inspiration as well. Another branch of the Greeks belonging to the Dionysian and Orphic branches of mystical thought, spoke equally mystically of the mystic wine, and also of the mystic cereal, partaken of during the Mysteries, and it is from this last that the mystical wine and cereal or bread of the Christians was taken over almost completely from the Dionysian Eucharist, only among Christians even from quite early times it became degraded into actual blood and flesh of Jesus.

The evident meaning must be connected with the old occult thought that wine, or the mead of the northern peoples where the grape and soma were unknown or uncultivated, all had the meaning of the inspiration of initiation, a kind of ecstasy of vision and knowledge brought about through initiation, of which the physical intoxication of wine, mead, or the soma juice has all the lower and materialized aspect, every spiritual thing having its material counterpart, every right-hand thought or rule in occultism having its left-hand or sorcerer perversion or counterpart. Thus in the highest initiation, even today and from immemorial time, the holy drink or potation was entirely mystical, and had a dozen of these significances, all bound up together; yet despite this fact, for some of the lower initiations where a student found difficulty in throwing off the physical and astral influences, a harmless -- when administered rightly -- drug or drink was given which temporarily stupefied the lower quaternary; but it is to be noted that this substitute of the physical drink came about when neophytes began to find it very difficult to do what their more spiritual forerunners had done: raising themselves solely by inner aspiration up to inspiration, by inner insight up to the epopteia or vision.

Thus the question whether the mystical drink was an actual drink, or merely a mystical one, cannot be answered by a simple yes or no. Originally it was entirely mystical, later it remained as mystical as ever, but the body with its grossness, and the astral influences with their terrible power over the men and women of the time, were temporarily reduced to quiescence by a preparation known to initiates to have the power of bringing about the condition required, without any permanent or even long after-effect, very much as a sedative will be given by a physician today. It is of course true that if this drink, however relatively innocent in a single instance, were to be constantly repeated, it would have developed into a drug habit.

Some of the later peoples in their initiations actually did use a kind of physical soma which had the effect of bringing about a dulling of the restless brain-mind for the time being, so that the inner powers were temporarily freed from the clogging influences of the astral light and the body.

The use of drugs in initiatory ceremonies of any kind, however, is a relatively late and degenerate practice, and has never at any time been, nor will it ever be, introduced by the Mother-Lodge coming down to us even from the middle of the third root-race. With it the old tradition burns more brightly than ever that the true soma, the true mead of the gods or wine of the spirit, is the raising of the human into the spiritual by aspiration, training, and strict following of the traditional laws of discipleship, so that finally the neophyte feels the sunlight from above stealing through the moon of his mind.

So strongly is this the case, that even today in theosophical occult studies, drug taking of any kind is strictly forbidden, including alcohol, for alcohol is a drug, a product of natural decay and decomposition, and while less spectacular and violent as a rule than drugs such as opium and its derivatives, it is far more easily procurable and is therefore more specifically pointed to as objectionable. The idea of the occult student is to have the body absolutely normal, healthy, clean, and functioning in the smoothness of health, so that even overeating is seen to be a harmful thing, because it clogs the body, dulls the mind, and could even actually lead to physical disability.

There is and has been a great deal of confusion, not only at present but throughout the ages, about these matters, and several mystical schools have even chosen the language of the tavern and drinking house as the cloak for conveying occult or semi-occult teaching. A noted example is the Sufi school with its poems lauding the flowing bowl and the joys of the tavern and the bosom friends therein, and the beloved's breast. Here the tavern was the universe, the flowing cup or wine was the wine of the spirit bringing inner ecstasy, the bosom of the beloved was the raising oneself into inner communion with the god within, of which the Jewish bosom of Abraham is a feeble correspondence. The friends of the tavern are those perfect human relations brought about by a community of spiritual and intellectual interests, and the associations of the tavern are the mysteries of the world around us with their marvels and arcana. Nevertheless in various countries as the fourth root-race ran toward its evil culmination, the mystic became translated into the material, the spiritual degenerated into the teaching of matter, so that indeed in later Atlantean times the drugging of initiates was common, and the results always disastrous, this being one of the sorceries for which the Atlanteans in occult history have remained infamous. Yet even in the fifth root-race, due to the heavy Atlantean karma still weighing on us, many nations as late as historic times employed more or less harmless potations to bring about a temporary dulling or stupefying of the brain and nervous system -- a procedure always vigorously opposed by the theosophic occult school which has never at any time allowed it.

(See also: Soma, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

For more dictionary entries, see » Symbol Of Karma Dictionary

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