North One of the four points of the compass, which mystically correspond with the cosmic four Maharajas, the four supporters of the world, the four sacred animals, etc.

It is the upper pole of the earth and corresponds with the upper pole in the human body. From it, mystically, come light and vital strength. From the north, as the primordial cradle of physical man, came gods, religions, myths. In early human history, surrounding the north pole was the Imperishable Sacred Land, the first continent; and somewhat farther south was the second continent, the so-called Hyperborean.

It is from the north generally that new waves of rough but uncorrupted peoples have invaded decadent civilizations. To the cultures of such civilizations the influence from the north appears as hostile. Greek mythology speaks of the violence and ruthlessness of Boreas, the north wind. The contrast between the north and south poles resembles that between the spiritual and material poles. Mount Meru, in Hindu mythology, is placed at the north pole.

(See also: North , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Physical Body [cf Sanskrit sthula-sarira, annamaya-kosa]

The most material sheath or instrument used by the forces manifesting as the human composite nature. This body is the evolutionary product of the inner man's experience during vast ages of time in and through all the kingdoms of nature. Thus the reimbodying ego, having acquired knowledge of the earth's manifesting forms and forces, combines or correlates the principles and products of the mineral and vegetal life-atoms in its animal body, while evolving through its human incarnations. The atoms of a person's body which are dispersed on earth at death, are karmically drawn to him again in the next life. As the quality of his own thought and feeling has been impressed upon these atoms, their automatic magnetic return to him insures the justice of his self-made physical heredity.

The continuous interchange of the physical material of the earth itself and that of everything upon it, provides for the body's nutrition, endurance, and renewal. The similarity of material, chemically and otherwise, in the earth and in man has prevailed from the time when the filmy presentments of early root-races appeared on the then condensing globe. When the earth reached its depth of materiality during the middle of the Atlantean or fourth root-race, the physical bodies of the Atlanteans were the grossest and coarsest of any before or after this long period. Since then, everything having begun the turn on the upward or luminous arc, matter and man are slowly radiating finer qualities of substance and of force. This progressive refinement of matter reflecting humanity's mental and spiritual evolution, will continue until, in the far distant future, the human encasement will be "relatively transparent, or diaphanous and luminous -- an ethereal body of actually condensed light" (ET 65).

The human body has "Manasic as well as Kamic organs," so that the cells answer to physical, mental, and spiritual impulses. The higher ego cannot act directly on the body, as its consciousness belongs to another plane of ideation; it has to act through its alter ego -- the personal self (BCW 12:368-9; or St in Oc 90-1). The inert physical body is built, cell for cell, upon the invisible substance of the astral model-body or linga-sarira. The latter contains the real organs of the senses and sensations, and it transmits the mental, emotional, and instinctual impulses to which the physical body reacts.

The lower mind acts upon the physical organs and their cells; but only the higher mind can influence the atoms in these cells, and arouse the brain to a mental conception of spiritual ideas. That is to say, ideal, mental, and physiological wholeness depend upon the dominance of the atomic, spiritual impulses over the desires of the selfish kama-manasic nature. The personal nature is limited in action to the material, molecular cell. This subtle but practical interplay of his physical and superphysical nature points to the natural unity of purpose in the trend of ethics and physiology.

With power to know good and evil, and free will to choose, man is responsible for refining and perfecting his material, personal nature into becoming a responsive and powerful medium for manifesting his spiritual and higher intellectual individuality. The inner man is ever acting with the cosmic evolutionary urge toward perfection of type. It is this reincarnating ego which directs the atomic life of the fertilized germ-cells in upbuilding the body according to pattern; this is the mysterious organizer which eludes all analyses of biological researchers. Likewise, the morally and intellectually irresponsible entities evolving in the lower kingdoms are impulsed, in addition to the urge of each individual entity's monad, by the instinctual phase of the universal mind which is directed by celestial beings acting with the so-called laws of nature.

The universe being a living organism functioning throughout consciously, has its analogy in the physiological operation of the human body. Hence, biological scientists who tamper with the natural arrangements of chromosomes or artificially combine different embryonic elements, instead of solving the problem of life, are only dealing with the matter which is manifesting the conscious creative powers of ideation.

(See also: Physical Body , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Disease Broadly stated, disease is a disordered or inharmonious vital state of the organism, with more of less excess, defect, or perversion of functional activity. The condition may be some chemical or mechanical wrong which renders the body unable to respond naturally to the psychoelectric and other forces which play through and sustain the physical person.

Moreover, the material and immaterial elements of the human constitution react upon each other for health or disease, because the mind and emotions on the one hand, and the organs and their functions on the other, are interrelated parts of the same entity. As a rule, this interplay between the material and the conscious person becomes a vicious circle in disease. Mental or emotional shock or strain can so affect function as to result in organic disease. Long continued selfish emotions cause a distorted and inharmonious interaction of the pranic or vital currents of the body, resulting in one or another disorder, according to the type of the emotions and the individual karma.

In view of the electric nature of matter, physical disorder may be regarded as an electrical disharmony or wrong, since disease always changes the polarity of the body, more or less. The vital currents of human electricity connect the conscious person with his body by the living wires of nerves. The rhythmic motion or natural harmony vibrating in each cell and organ at its own rate, is responsive to the universal vibration or Great Breath which in other modes of motion manifests as heat, light, sound, density, etc. But beyond the electrical and vibrational states of the body, and above the mental influence, is the essential self, the source of all harmony or rhythmic procedures in all below it, keyed to harmony and striving to raise the lower nature to act in unison with its finer and greater powers. When the instinct of the animal body, the mental reasoning faculties, and the reimbodying ego's intuition are functioning together, the person is keyed to health, sanity, and wisdom. Otherwise, the real inner conflict manifests in some form of disorder.

As the human being, then, is a dynamo of balanced forces, some disorder in their operation is the basic wrong in human diseases. Moreover, as all matter is alive, conscious in some degree, and vibrationally responsive to the laws of nature, the same general principle applies also to disease in the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms. In mankind, the organic vital fluid of the reimbodying ego is the cohering factor for the entire constitution, dominating over all minor vital expressions of the life-atoms. The intense and ceaseless activity of these life-atoms builds and composes the body, and as age comes on, and the physical vehicle naturally and normally weakens, the uninterrupted activity of the vital power becomes too strong to be held in check by the gripping influence of the vital-electrical field. Thus the atomic forces, really the vital energies, continuing unabated within the body structure, slowly weaken it and finally destroy it, and this is death.

"It is likewise these internal vital activities of the life-atoms held in insufficient check by the organic vitality which bring about many if perhaps not all of the various forms of disease of a lasting character. Cases of malignant disease are due to the same general cause but on account of specific and unusual circumstances are localized in some portion of the body where the power or control of the organic vitality becomes greatly weakened" (ET 813n).

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

Immortality That which is not subject to death, deathlessness. Death is the dissolution of a compound entity, where the compound itself ceases to exist, though its elements do not perish. Nor does the ensouling entity perish because of the dissolution of its physical, astral, or other vehicle. Hence in a restricted sense certain elements can be said to be immortal, relative to the compound they form.

Theosophy teaches the constant rebirths of the identic spiritual-intellectual individuality throughout the manvantara; and that, even after union into paranirvana, the individuality, precisely because it is then on its own higher plane or sphere of life, is not lost and will reemerge at a new manvantara to pursue its own particular cycle. This eternal monad, the spiritual-intellectual individuality, is the real and truly immortal essence of the person; and within this supreme cycle of immortality are a series of less immortalities, each representing the life cycle of one of the imbodiments of the monad. Death therefore of necessity becomes a recurrent process, precisely like birth or rebirth, and of many degrees, and simply means the dissolution of some group of lower sheaths enclosing the individual in imbodiment.

Viewing the question from the consciousness aspect, death means the exchange of one mode of consciousness for others. We cannot say offhand that we are either mortal or immortal, since we contain various elements of both kinds. The essence of the individuality is unconditionally immortal, its sheaths or bodies are mortal in various and relative degrees.

Immortality is conditional for the human soul: if it aspires to its inner god and allies itself therewith, the human soul becomes immortal because it is at one with its spiritual parent, the upper triad or monad. But if the personal or human soul refuse to recognize its spiritual essence and allies itself with increasing fullness with the complex compound of the lower human nature, it loses its chance of immortality and becomes but a psychological mortal compound itself.

The Buddha's statement that "nothing composite endures and consequently that as man is a composite entity there is in him no immortal and unchanging 'soul,' is the key. The 'soul' of man is changing from instant to instant -- learning, growing, expanding, evolving -- so that at no two consecutive seconds of time or of experience is it the same. Therefore it is not immortal. For immortality means enduring continually as you are. If you evolve you change, and therefore you cannot be immortal in the part which evolves, because you are growing into something greater" (FSO 385). In this sense, portions of an entity may endure for long periods of time, and thus be called immortal; but they are not immortal in the sense of continuing to exist unchanged or in a state identical to what they are now.

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

Agnus-Castus Plant A species of Vitex, a willow-like tree sometimes called the chaste tree (from hagnos chaste vs agnos willow-like)

. "Prometheus is represented as crowned with the Agnus-Castus plant (logos), the leaves of which formed the Crown of the Victors in the 'Agonia' of the Olympic games; . . . This Agnus-Castus plant was used also in the fete of the Thesmophoria, in honour of Demeter -- the law -- 'nomos' -- bringer, whose priestesses slept on its leaves as encouraging chaste desires. In Christian times this custom survived among Nuns, who used to drink a water distilled from its leaves, and Monks used knives with handles made of its wood with the same intention of encouraging chastity" (BCW 9:267). (also BCW 10:90)

(See also: Agnus-Castus Plant , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Chain Used in modern theosophy to designate the visible and invisible globes which form the interior and exterior structure of any celestial body. The kosmos as a whole is a living organism, subdivided into almost innumerable subordinate series of hierarchical units; hence the kosmos is an assemblage of beings of many kinds, each of which is a compound unit, and in order to signify that the elements composing each such unit are linked together as an individual, the word chain is applied to celestial bodies.

The teaching is that every celestial body whatever, visible or invisible, forms a unity with companion globes on invisible planes. When referring to the chains of globes forming a solar system, it is customary to call them planetary chains; thus we have the earth-chain, the lunar chain, the Mercury-chain, etc., each consisting of seven such globes on the manifested plane, to which the letters A, B, C, D, E, F, and G are applied.

The globes of a chain are said to be in coadunation but not in consubstantiality, which means that, though of different grades of materiality, they form a catenary unit. Although each chain consists of seven or twelve globes, the only one visible to the human eye on earth is that which is on the same plane of materiality. Of the twelve globes to each chain, seven belong to the manifested worlds and five to the unmanifested. The seven manifested globes are distributed on four planes, and the twelve globes on seven planes, as shown in the diagram.

The left-hand side of the diagram represents the descending or shadowy arc of evolution, the right side the ascending or luminous arc. Our universe is also described as one of a cosmic chain of universes.

In other particular uses of the word, the Hermetic Chain is the succession of teachers of the esoteric wisdom who preserve and pass on the sacred knowledge from generation to generation.

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

Bel (Greek, Latin) Ba`al (Chaldean) (from Semitic ba`al chief, lord)

Lord, chief; one of the supreme gods of the Chaldeo- or Assyro-Babylonian pantheon: the second of the triad composed of Anu, Bel, and Ea. Assyriologists have assumed that Bel was simply the title of a deity, which they have designated as En-lil (the mighty lord). In the division of the universe into heaven, earth, and water, Bel was considered as the lord of the land, and his temple at Nippur was called E-kur (the mountain house), just as Ea's was the watery house.

There have been many Bels, which may be one of the reasons that in The Secret Doctrine Bel is made equivalent to the Sun, Jupiter, Saturn, and Mercury. As Bel or Ba`al means Lord, the title becomes applicable to any of the important celestial bodies.

According to one account, the creation of the world and especially of mankind is ascribed to Bel. He is also called father of the gods; and his consort, Belit, is called mother of the gods. His eldest son in Sin, god of the Moon. Bel also brings about the deluge which destroys humanity, showing his dual aspect of evolver and destroyer.

Bel has been associated with the Phoenician Baal, the supreme god of the Canaanites, conceived also as the protective power of generation and fertility, connected with the moon. His female counterpart, Ashtoreth (Astarte, Ishtar) was considered as the receptive goddess, also a lunar divinity. In later times the rites connected with these deities became degraded into licentious orgies; sacrifices were made, apparently even human sacrifices, but at one time Ba`al was worshiped as a sun god.

His various names in the Old and New Testaments demonstrate the various aspects in which he was regarded. Thus in Exodus he was named Ba`al-Tsephon, the god of the crypt. He was likewise named Seth or Sheth, signifying a pillar (phallus); and it was owing to these associations that he was considered a hid god, similar to Ammon of Egypt. Among the Ammonites, a people of East Palestine, he was known as Moloch (the king); at Tyre he was called Melcarth. The worship of Ba`al was introduced into Israel under Ahab, his wife being a Phoenician princess.

"Typhon, called Set, who was a great god in Egypt during the early dynasties, is an aspect of Baal and Ammon as also of Siva, Jehovah and other gods. Baal is the all-devouring Sun, in one sense, the fiery Moloch" (TG 47). As to the leaping of the prophets of Ba`al, mentioned in the Bible (1 Kings 18:26), Blavatsky writes: "It was simply a characteristic of the Sabean worship, for it denoted the motion of the planets round the sun. That the dance was a Bacchic frenzy is apparent. Sistra were used on the occasion" (IU 2:45).

Bel is also the name for the sun with the Gauls.

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

Solar System Commonly, the Sun with the nine principal planets -- Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto -- their satellites, and the minor planets, comets, and meteors; in theosophy, however, the solar system is a far more complex entity, for many of its worlds manifest on planes of being invisible to our senses.

The planets are individual manifestations of conscious intelligences, their distances from the sun being generally in rhythmical progression and their motions directed by mind and volition, as Kepler declared in his doctrine of Rectors, following the ancient teachings. The nebular hypothesis, once so popular in European scientific thought and now more or less rejected, was first suggested by Swedish seer Swedenborg and German philosopher Kant, and around the beginning of the 19th century was worked out in mathematical detail by the Frenchman Laplace. Though the nebular hypothesis as scientifically presented was unacceptable to theosophical thinkers, it nevertheless was based upon facts of cosmic evolution accepted by the ancient wisdom-religion and approximated somewhat more closely to what theosophy teaches as the facts of cosmogony than do the later tidal or planetesimal theories.

In theosophy the universe is the product of cosmic mind or intelligence, whose all-permeant activities manifest on our material plane as the laws of nature. The universe and all in it, proceeding from cosmic consciousness, is imbued throughout with the qualities and attributes of its divine originators; and as there is but one primordial fundamental life -- and therefore one fundamental law -- energizing and guiding all, the ancient teaching of analogy is the master key to understanding universal nature.

Calling the primordial origins of every being and thing by the term monads, as Leibniz did following Pythagoras, these monads may be looked upon as the seeds of cosmic life, life-centers or energy points, and in such case naught in the universe is the product of chance, but is the offspring of mind. Thus the solar system itself sprang from such a cosmic seed or monad; and the same holds true for the planets, nebulae, comets, and all other individually enduring cosmic bodies.

Comets are coordinated with earlier and later stages of nebular evolution, playing an activating part in the formation of individual celestial bodies. The planets did not emerge from the sun, but the sun is their "co-uterine brother" with the same nebular origin. The sun is the great distributor of light and other radiations, including vital energy, throughout the solar system, and is itself a member of a hierarchy of solar beings.

The ancient wisdom speaks of seven sacred planets which are especially connected with the earth, as indeed our own earth is likewise especially connected with various planetary chains, which mutually assisted in the formation of the seven or twelve globes of the planetary chains. These sacred planets are: the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn -- the Sun and Moon being substitutes for esoteric and invisible planets. The complete number of the planets of a solar system is twelve, which is the number of globes composing a planetary chain. These twelve sacred planets are closely linked with the twelve houses of the zodiac, these links of unity being the energic coordinates tying our solar system in with the life and structure of the galaxy.

Theosophy makes a distinction between the solar system and the universal solar system -- the former has especial reference to the twelve sacred planets, while the universal solar system refers to all bodies belonging to and revolving around a master- or king-sun (raja-sun) and within the latter's far-flung realm on seven or more planes of being. It therefore contains planets and suns invisible to our present range of sense perception. Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto are said not to belong to the solar system (nor are they included among the twelve sacred planets), but are members of the universal solar system.

In the Brahmanical system the solar system was regarded as an Egg of Brahma (brahmanda), the prakritic or prithivi-form of Brahma, so that its life span is equivalent to the length of Brahma's manifested life. A Day of Brahma for a planetary chain consists of a planetary manvantara -- seven rounds of the various life-waves around that chain -- a period of 4,320,000,000 terrestrial years. The ensuing pralaya or Night of Brahma is of an equivalent length, together equaling 8,640,000,000 terrestrial years. Forty-nine such planetary Days and Nights equal one solar manvantara, equivalent to a Year of Brahma; and each such year of Brahma is figured as being 360 of his Days; and 100 such Years of Brahma equal Brahma's Life, a period of 311,040,000,000,000 terrestrial years -- including in this vast time period the various twilights and dawns. Theosophic philosophy states that one-half of Brahma's Life has been spent, or 50 Years of Brahma. At the end of Brahma's Life, the final consummation of the solar system, so far as the planetary chain is concerned, will occur, and everything within the bounds of this system will vanish, and the succeeding solar pralaya will commence.

(See also: Solar System , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Desire A word whose shades of meaning range from mere animal desire to that of cosmic kama or eros which "first arose in It," bringing spirit into union with matter and giving rise to the creation or emanation of various classes of beings.

It can also be lofty spiritual aspiration, the yearning upwards with the undying desire for the divine, or impersonal love, or again, the urge to become united or one with others. Many words overlap it in meaning, such as will, attraction, love, and cupidity, and it is generally used as a translation of the Sanskrit kama.

Philosophically, it is often synonymous with abstract will, as when kama is called sometimes desire and sometimes will, so that will and desire seem to blend into one on the higher ranges. In the saying, behind will stands desire, will is a colorless force set in motion by desire, much as a current is set up by an electromotive force. From another viewpoint, will, as an abstract motor in the human constitution, arises from the higher or spiritual-intellectual ranges of the kama principle itself, for "Will and Desire are the higher and lower aspects of one and the same thing" (BCW 12:702).

See also KAMA; EROS

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

A Theosophical definition of Evolution :

Evolution

As the word is used in theosophy it means the "unwrapping," "unfolding," "rolling out" of latent powers and faculties native to and inherent in the entity itself, its own essential characteristics, or more generally speaking, the powers and faculties of its own character: the Sanskrit word for this last conception is svabhava. Evolution, therefore, does not mean merely that brick is added to brick, or experience merely topped by another experience, or that variation is superadded on other variations  - not at all; for this would make of man and of other entities mere aggregates of incoherent and unwelded parts, without an essential unity or indeed any unifying principle.

In theosophy evolution means that man has in him (as indeed have all other evolving entities) everything that the cosmos has because he is an inseparable part of it. He is its child; one cannot separate man from the universe. Everything that is in the universe is in him, latent or active, and evolution is the bringing forth of what is within; and, furthermore, what we call the surrounding milieu, circumstances  - nature, to use the popular word  - is merely the field of action on and in which these inherent qualities function, upon which they act and from which they receive the corresponding reaction, which action and reaction invariably become a stimulus or spur to further manifestations of energy on the part of the evolving entity.

There are no limits in any direction where evolution can be said to begin, or where we can conceive of it as ending; for evolution in the theosophical conception is but the process followed by the centers of consciousness or monads as they pass from eternity to eternity, so to say, in a beginningless and endless course of unceasing growth.

Growth is the key to the real meaning of the theosophical teaching of evolution, for growth is but the expression in detail of the general process of the unfolding of faculty and organ, which the usual word evolution includes. The only difference between evolution and growth is that the former is a general term, and the latter is a specific and particular phase of this procedure of nature.

Evolution is one of the oldest concepts and teachings of the archaic wisdom, although in ancient days the concept was usually expressed by the word emanation. There is indeed a distinction, and an important one, to be drawn between these two words, but it is a distinction arising rather in viewpoint than in any actual fundamental difference. Emanation is a distinctly more accurate and descriptive word for theosophists to use than evolution is, but unfortunately emanation is so ill-understood in the Occident, that perforce the accepted term is used to describe the process of interior growth expanding into and manifesting itself in the varying phases of the developing entity.

Theosophists, therefore, are, strictly speaking, rather emanationists than evolutionists; and from this remark it becomes immediately obvious that the theosophist is not a Darwinist, although admitting that in certain secondary or tertiary senses and details there is a modicum of truth in Charles Darwin's theory adopted and adapted from the Frenchman Lamarck. The key to the meaning of evolution, therefore, in theosophy is the following: the core of every organic entity is a divine monad or spirit, expressing its faculties and powers through the ages in various vehicles which change by improving as the ages pass. These vehicles are not physical bodies alone, but also the interior sheaths of consciousness which together form man's entire constitution extending from the divine monad through the intermediate ranges of consciousness to the physical body. The evolving entity can become or show itself to be only what it already essentially is in itself  - therefore evolution is a bringing out or unfolding of what already preexists, active or latent, within. (See also Involution)

See also: Evolution , Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul

Creation (from Latin, cf Greek krainein, Sanskrit kri to make, do)

The Ever-existent, which in its transcendent aspect is the eternally embracing Boundless, is the source as well as the sum total of all beings and things; hence in essence all beings and things are eternal and have never been created in the Christian sense, for they are of the very stuff, essence, and be-ness of the Boundless itself.

Yet the word creation has a legitimate use in the original sense of coming forth from being into existence, not as something produced from nothing but in the ordinary sense of production of something out of something else.

A human being can be said to be created in that he is brought into being as such, not from nothing but from the various elements which when combined form the human constitution, conjoined with the contemporaneous evolution of the powers and substances of the monad by which it acquires its various sheaths; worlds also can be said to be created out of primordial matter, and compound elements from simpler ones.

Hermes says that matter becomes; formerly it was -- profound expressions indeed; and Fichte expresses the same idea in his distinction between Seyn and Daseyn. In this sense, matter or worlds may be said to be brought forth or created, with the significance of becoming.

See also PRIMARY CREATION; SECONDARY CREATION

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

A Theosophical definition of Esoteric Doctrine :

Esoteric Doctrine

The body of mystical and sacred teachings reserved for students of high and worthy character. This body of teachings has been known and studied by highly evolved individuals in all ages. The esoteric doctrine is the common property of mankind, and it has always been thus. In all the various great religions and philosophies of the world, the student will find fundamental principles in each which, when placed side by side and critically examined, are easily discovered to be identic. Every one of such fundamental principles is in every great world religion or world philosophy; hence the aggregate of these world religions or world philosophies contains the entirety of the esoteric doctrine, but usually expressed in exoteric form.

However, no one of these world religions or world philosophies gives in clear and explicit shape or form the entirety of the body of teachings which are at its heart; some religions emphasize one or more of such fundamental principles; another religion or philosophy will emphasize others of these principles; in either case others again of the principles remaining in the background. This readily accounts for the fact that the various world religions and world philosophies vary among themselves and often, to the unreflecting mind, superficially seem to have little in common, and perhaps even to be contradictory. The cause of this is the varying manner in which each such religion or philosophy has been given to the world, the form that each took having been best for the period in which it was promulgated. Each such religion or philosophy, having its own racial sphere and period of time, represents the various human minds who have developed it or who, so to say, have translated it to the world in this or in that particular promulgation.

These manners or mannerisms of exoteric thinking we may discard if we wish; but it is the fundamental principles behind every great religion or great philosophy which in their aggregate are the universal esoteric doctrine. In this universal esoteric doctrine lies the mystery-field of each great religion or philosophy  - this mystery-teaching being always reserved for the initiates. The esoteric philosophy or doctrine has been held from time immemorial in the guardianship of great men, exalted seers and sages, who from time to time promulgate it, or rather portions of it, to the world when the spiritual and intellectual need for so doing arises. The origins of the esoteric doctrine are found in the mystery-teachings of beings from other and spiritual spheres, who incarnated in the early humanity of the third root-race of this fourth round of our globe, and taught the then intellectually nascent mankind the necessary certain fundamental principles or truths regarding the universe and the nature of the world surrounding us.

See also: Esoteric Doctrine , Mysticism, Body Mind and Soul

Night In ancient cosmogonies night is placed before day because these cosmogonies begin with the secondary cosmic creation; and the light which was then created was contrasted with what seemed, relatively, the eternal darkness of primary creation. For manifested light proceeds from absolute light, which by contrast has to be called darkness.

In a Hindu scheme, the first body of Brahma is called his body of night, and from it proceeded the three highest groups of pitris, the asuras or sons of wisdom; while the four lower classes of pitris proceeded from the body of twilight.

Night also refers to pralaya as in the Day and Night of Brahma. Night thus signifies that which precedes the opening, coming, and fulfillment of manifestation, called the day. These days and nights pertain directly to the coming into being of a universe, of which in boundless space the number is infinite. Thus, when a universe is in pralaya, it can be said to be in its night or time of sleep, yet surrounded by the illimitable kosmos itself infilled with universes in all phases of evolutionary growth.

(See also: Night , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Akupara (Sanskrit) (from a not + kupara ocean)

Unbounded; the mythical tortoise which upholds the earth (sometimes kupara). Also the sea, whether earthly or cosmic; likewise a name for the sun (cf MB Vana-parvan, ch 199).

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

Senses In general, gateways of communication between the perceiving function of the ego and the corresponding elements of the plane where it is functioning. The physical senses appeared in serial evolution in the order of hearing, touch, sight, taste, and smell. These senses were not developed out of nothing but are expressions or reflection on the physical plane of previous latent, inner causal functions residing in the structure of the inner person.

The five physiological senses are modifications or specializations of a general perceptiveness which has different modifications in different animal species where the organs are different, especially in the insects. Sensitives and clairvoyants may be able to receive visual, auditory, or other impressions without the use of the physical organ, or the usual functions of a sense organ may be transferred to another part of the body.

The human senses are actually seven including, besides the usual five already developed, the organ or function of manas (mind) and of buddhi (understanding). These latter two are not senses in the physical significance pertaining to the bodily senses, but the emphasis is laid on organic and functional activities, both being inner and spiritual-intellectual. At the present stage of evolution man has not developed the power of manifesting the sixth and seventh sense functions and organs, but in the fifth round the development of ether will bring forth into relatively full evolution the manasic sense organ with the beginnings of the buddhic.

In exoteric mythologies the bodily senses and functions are said to have their presiding deities, so that there are two septenary sets: the causal spiritual, and their material reflections as effects. The cycles of septenary evolution bring forth the spiritual or divine; intellectual and higher psychological; the lower psychological, including the passional, and the instinctual; and the semi-corporeal and purely physical natures. The senses belong to the last two groups. The astral-vital-physical nature furnishes sensory organs, through which the inner senses can act, thus causing the functioning of the physical senses. These physiological senses develop pari passu with the physicalization of humanity.

In the first human protoplasts, the senses were nonexistent in the sense of being non-functional although latent; as evolution unfolded innate capacity and attribute, the functions and organs followed suit, and appeared in the evolving physical vehicle.

The senses belong to the third of seven creations mentioned in the Puranas, the first three constituting a group known as the prakrita creations:

1)    mahat-tattva creation;

2)    bhuta or bhutasarga; and

3)    indriya or aindriyaka.

These three are not so much senses as the three first or elemental prakrita creations of the cosmos, representing the first three stages of the development of manifestation after a solar pralaya. Nevertheless, as analogy is nature's rule throughout, these creations are equally applicable to the human senses, applying to the generalized development of sense function and sense apparatus more than to the sense organs themselves. The last of the three is, in its human application, a modified form of ahankara, the conception of the egoistic and mayavi "I" in man, the reflection of the spiritual ego or monad; and this third creation is also termed the organic creation or creation of the senses.

(See also: Senses , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Ahriman (Persian) (from ah (Avestan) conscious life + riman the corruptor, disturber of order in the cosmos, the corruptor of mind)

Personification of the evil spirit in the world. According to Mazdean philosophy, life originates from two principles: Ahura Mazda (the light principle) and Ahriman (darkness). Shahrestani, 12th century Islamic scholar, in Al-Melall Va Al-Nehal (Nations and Sects) writes that "Magis were of three sects: Geomarathians, Zurvanians and Zoroastrians. They all shared the view that two principles govern the universe: Ahura Mazda and Ahriman. Ahura Mazda is the being who pre-existed and Ahriman the created one." He further narrates allegorically that "Ahura-Mazda wondered how it would be if he had a rival. From this thought Ahriman, the evil spirit, was born, who revolted against the light and declined to abide by its laws. A battle took place between the armies of the two.

 The Angels came forward as mediators and agreed upon a truce that the underworld be given to Ahriman for seven thousand years and then to the Ahura-Mazda for another seven thousand years. The creatures who previously existed all vanished. Then Man, Gaeo-Marth, and an animal, taurus, appeared. They both died. From man's head, sprouted a rhubarb and from rhubarb male and female, Mashia and Mashiana, were born, who were mankind's progenitors. From the head of the taurus all animals originated.

Their belief is that light gave mankind two choices: to remain as bodiless spirits keeping away from Ahriman, or to clothe themselves with bodies to fight against him; mankind chose the latter. The destruction of Ahriman's army would be the day of resurrection. Man's reason for clothing himself in a physical body was to enable him to battle against Ahriman; and his salvation depends upon defeating him."

In later Pahlavi writings we find the progeny of Ahriman, six opponents who in their turn stand up against the Amesha-Spentas (the six immortal benefactors).

See also ANGRA MAINYU

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

Siva, Shiva (Sanskrit) The third god of the Hindu Trimurti (trinity): Brahma the evolver; Vishnu the preserver; and Siva the regenerator or destroyer.

Siva is one of the three loftiest divinities of our solar system, and in his character of destroyer stands higher than Vishnu for he is "the destroying deity, evolution and PROGRESS personified, who is the regenerator at the same time; who destroys things under one form but to recall them to life under another more perfect type" (SD 2:182). As the destroyer of outward forms he is called Vamadeva. Endowed with so many powers and attributes, Siva possesses a great number of names, and is represented under a corresponding variety of forms. He corresponds to the Palestinian Ba`al or Moloch, Saturn, the Phoenician El, the Egyptian Seth, and the Biblical Chiun of Amos, and Greek Typhon.

"In the Rig Veda the name Siva is unknown, but the god is called Rudra, which is a word used for Agni, the fire god . . ."; "In the Vedas he is the divine Ego aspiring to return to its pure, deific state, and at the same time that divine ego imprisoned in earthly form, whose fierce passions make of him the 'roarer,' the 'terrible' " (SD 2:613, 548).

Siva is often spoken of as the patron deity of esotericists, occultists, and ascetics; he is called the Mahayogin (the great ascetic), from whom the highest spiritual knowledge is acquired, and union with the great spirit of the universe is eventually gained. Here he is "the howling and terrific destroyer of human passions and physical senses, which are ever in the way of the development of the higher spiritual perceptions and the growth of the inner eternal man -- mystically . . . Siva-Rudra is the Destroyer, as Vishnu is the preserver; and both are the regenerators of spiritual as well as of physical nature. To live as a plant, the seed must die. To live as a conscious entity in the Eternity, the passions and senses of man must first die before his body does. 'To live is to die and to die is to live,' has been too little understood in the West. Siva, the destroyer, is the creator and the Saviour of Spiritual man, as he is the good gardener of nature. He weeds out the plants, human and cosmic, and kills the passions of the physical, to call to life the perceptions of the spiritual, man" (SD 1:459&n).

Though Siva is often called Maha-kala (great time) which, while being the great formative factor in manvantara is also the great dissolving power, to the Hindu mind destruction implies reproduction; so Siva is also called Sankara (the auspicious), for he is the reproductive power which is perpetually restoring that which has been dissolved, and hence is also called Mahadeva (the great god). Under this character of restorer he was often represented by the symbol of the linga or phallus: "the Lingham and Yoni of Siva-worship stand too high philosophically, its modern degeneration notwithstanding, to be called a simple phallic worship" (SD 2:588). It is under the form of the linga, either alone or combined with the yoni (female organ, the representative of his sakti or female energy), that Siva is so often worshiped today in India.

In the Linga-Purana, Siva is said to take repeated births, in one kalpa possessing a white complexion, in another that of a black color, in still another that of a red color, after which he becomes four youths of a yellow color. This allegory is an ethnological account of the different races of mankind and their varying types and colors (cf SD 1:324).

Siva is known under more than a thousand names or titles and is represented under many different forms in Hindu writings. As the god of generation and of justice, he is represented riding a white bull; his own color, as well as that of the bull, is generally white, referring probably to the unsullied purity of abstract justice. He is sometimes seen with two hands, sometimes with four, eight, or ten; and with five faces, representing among other things his power over the five elements.

He has three eyes, one placed in the centre of his forehead, and shaped as a vertical oval. These three eyes are said to denote his view of the three divisions of time: past, present, and future. He holds a trident in his hand to denote his three great attributes of emanator, destroyer, and regenerator, thus combining all the usual qualities or functions attributed to the Trimurti. In his character of time, he not only presides over its beginning and its extinction, but also over its present functioning as represented in astronomical and astrological calculations.

A crescent or half-moon on his forehead indicates time measured by the phases of the moon; a serpent forms one of his necklaces to denote the measure of time by cycles, and a second necklace of human skulls signifies the extinction and succession of the races of mankind. He is often pictures as entirely covered with serpents, which are at once emblems of spiritual immortality and his standing as the patron of the nagas or initiates. He is often mystically personated by Mount Meru, which esoterically is both the cosmic and terrestrial axis with their respective poles.

According to the belief of most Advaita-Vedantists, Sankaracharya, the great Indian philosopher and sage, is held to be an avatara of Siva.

See also Shiva, Siva

(See also: Siva, Shiva , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Anima (Latin) Air, wind, breath; secondarily life, soul, spirit, mind. A distinction, not generally observed, has been made between anima and animus, where animus is very close to the mentality or manas of theosophical terminology and anima is equivalent to the theosophic usage of prana.

Because equivalent to prana, it exists on seven planes, from the atman to the physical; and consequently there is an anima for every class of celestial being, anima not being limited only to human beings, beasts, and other beings having bodies of material substance. From anima came "animal," a being with a living personal soul. The vegetable and mineral kingdoms do not have it; but the earth has, and the earth was called an animal in consequence.

There was in classical times a distinction between three souls of the defunct: anima (pure spirit) went to the heaven world, while manes went to the nether regions, and umbra hovered on earth (IU 1:37). Anima is spoken of as pure spirit because the essence of prana is indeed spirit, as it is derivative directly form the atma-buddhic monad, although colored on the lower planes by its intimate connection with the personal ego or manes.

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

Andarah (possibly Sanskrit andhakara darkness, blindness from andha blind, dark, turbid from the verbal root andh to make blind + kara making from the verbal root kri to do, make; or possibly Sanskrit antarala midway, intermediate space from antar internal, intermediate + ala probably for alaya dwelling, asylum)

Possibly darkness or intermediate space; used in The Mahatma Letters: "(remember the Hindu allegory of the Fallen Devas hurled by Siva into Andarah who are allowed by Parabrahm to consider it as an intermediate state where they may prepare themselves by a series of rebirths in that sphere for a higher state -- a new regeneration) . . ." (p. 87).

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

Race, Races During evolution on each of the globes of the earth-chain, the human life-wave passes through seven evolutionary stages called root-races, of which we are at present in the fifth root-race of the fourth round on the fourth globe. Each root-race is divided into seven subraces, of which we are now in the fourth of the fifth root-race.

These subraces are themselves subdivided into smaller divisions, and these again into still smaller racial units. G. de Purucker divides each root-race into:

1)    primary subrace;

2)    secondary subrace;

3)    family race;

4)    national race;

5)    tribal race;

6)    tribal generation; and

7)    individual man (about 72 years) -- each division containing seven of the succeeding type.

Each root-race reaches its evolutionary maximum at its midpoint, when a racial cataclysm occurs and the race begins to decline. At the same time the seeds of the succeeding root-race appear, and the new root-race in its infancy begins to run parallel with the race that is declining, so that there is continual overlapping.

The complex scheme of major races and their subdivisions -- overlapping each other and in various stages of their evolution, intermingling and crossing with one another -- gives rise to the immense variety of types which we see on earth today.

See also ROOT-RACE(S)

(See also: Race, Races , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Naga (Sanskrit) Serpent; the symbol of immortality and wisdom, of renewed births, of secret knowledge and, when the tail is held in the mouth, of eternity. The nagas or serpents of wisdom are, therefore, full initiates: "the first Nagas -- beings wiser than Serpents -- are the 'Sons of Will and Yoga,' born before the complete separation of the sexes, 'matured in the man-bearing eggs produced by the power (Kriyasakti) of the holy sages' of the early Third Race" (SD 2:181).

These first nagas were the original human adepts, who were later symbolized by the terms serpents and dragons. "These 'originals' -- called to this day in China 'the Dragons of Wisdom' -- were the first disciples of the Dhyanis, who were their instructors; in short, the primitive adepts of the Third Race, and later, of the Fourth and Fifth Races. The name became universal, and no sane man before the Christian era would ever have confounded the man and the symbol" (SD 2:210).

The early Mexican word nagual, now meaning sorcerer and medicine man, is akin in its meaning, for "Some of the descendants of the primitive Nagas, the Serpents of Wisdom, peopled America, when its continent arose during the palmy days of the great Atlantis, (America being the Patala or Antipodes of Jambu-Dwipa, not of Bharata-Varsha)" (SD 2:182). The Hebrew equivalent is nahash also meaning magic, enchantment, thus showing the same connection of ideas.

Naga may be equated with Ananta-sesha, the seven-headed endless serpent of Vishnu, "the great dragon eternity biting with its active head its passive tail, from the emanations of which spring worlds, beings and things. . . . The Nag awakes. He heaves a heavy breath and the latter is sent like an electric shock all along the wire encircling Space" (ML 73).

(See also: Naga , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

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)