Aeshma-Daeva (Avestan) Eesham-Diev, Hesham-Diev (Pahlavi) (from aeshma wrath, ill wish, anger from the verbal root ish desire, passion + daevas evil spirits (originally gods); cf Sanskrit deva, Persian dievs)

The fiend of the wounding spear in the Avesta. The Aryan gods or daevas having become anthropomorphic, they were denounced by the Aryan initiates who had settled in Airya-Vaeja (Eran or Iran). Zarathustra in the Gathas refers to Kavis and Karpans, the leaders of the ancient Aryan faith, as daevas because they had polluted the abstraction of Mazdean philosophy with ritualistic ceremonies.

In Pahlavi and Pazand writing Aeshma-Daeva changed form to Heshm-Diev, from which Asmodeus, the medieval evil spirit, is derived. Aeshma is known to be Sraush's opponent.

(See also: Aeshma-Daeva , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Abhutarajas (Sanskrit) (from a not + the verbal root bhu to be born, produced + rajas passion)

Those not produced by or born with the quality of passion; a class of 14 gods or divinities belonging to the "fifth manvantara," the fifth Manu of which was Raivata (cf VP 3:1). The abhutarajasas are a hierarchy of divine beings, similar to the kumaras and manasaputras, who have passed through the material worlds in previous evolutionary periods. Having risen above all passional attractions to the lower spheres, these three classes of deities are reckoned as exempt from passion -- in the sense of suffering passively, one of passion's original connotations. These divinities are masters of themselves, not passive subjects.

In the theosophical scheme of rounds and races, the fifth manvantara of the Puranas refers to the first half or descending arc of the third round of our present planetary chain, and the fifth manu, Raivata, to the root-manu of this third round; further, the passage of the life-waves through each round of all the globes of the planetary chain -- i.e. from globe A to globe G -- consists of two "manvantaras," and thus it is that the first half or descending arc of the third round is the fifth of these manvantaras.

Moreover, just as in the third root-race on this globe in our present fourth round the manasaputras incarnated in the then relatively intellectually senseless humanity to awaken its self-conscious mind, so in their own way and on their own planes did the abhutarajasas act. In the descending arc of the third round they played the same part, albeit in a more diffuse and less active way, that they later did in the early part of the third root-race of the fourth round on this globe, when the human vehicles were evolutionally ready for a more intensive incarnation.

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

Good. See EVIL; AGATHON, TO

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

Aeon, Aeons (Latin) Aion (Greek) (from aion time)

An age, a period of time; used alone, equivalent to the word logos, but the usual meaning includes a spiritual being considered as an emanation from the divine essence and also a period of time which is brought about by the existence of this spiritual being.

In the Gnostic systems it signified the various creative powers issuing from the demiurgic Logos, and varying in degree from the most spiritual or ethereal planes to the most gross. Valentinus held that a perfect aion called Propator, equivalent to the First Logos, existed before bythos or the spatial deep (equivalent to the Second Logos).

Blavatsky explains that it is "Aion, who springs as a Ray from Ain-Soph (who does not create), and Aion, who creates, or through whom, rather, everything is created, or evolves" (SD 1:349). This twofold use of a word to denote a period of time and a deific power, also appears in Manu, and in the names of the Biblical patriarchs and the periods assigned to their respective lifetimes. (See FSO 194-5 for more detail)

The adjective aeonios occurs frequently in the New Testament, where it is mistranslated as eternal or everlasting.

(See also: Aeon, Aeons , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Adinidana-svabhavat (Sanskrit) (from adi first, primordial + nidana causation + svabhavat self-being, self-becoming from sva self + the verbal root bhu to be, become)

Primordial causation of self-becoming; as in Buddhist thought nidana also signifies primal essence or substance and svabhavat is equated with the Father-Mother of manifestation, the term could be translated "primordial causality-essence Father-Mother." It is the highest portion of the manifesting or Third Logos of our galaxy; and because the Third Logos of every solar system is a reflection of the galactic Third Logos, the adinidana-svabhavat of any solar system is in its reaches the adinidana-svabhavat of the galaxy.

The phrase occurs in the Stanzas of Dzyan: " 'Darkness' the Boundless, or the no-number, Adi-Nidana Svabhavat" (SD 1:98) -- which, as the summit of the Third Logos, can be rendered as darkness and no-number since it is darkness to human intellect and yet the beginning of numeration of all hierarchies that flow forth from it. Hence for all beneath it, adinidana-svabhavat may likewise be called the Boundless, signifying the cosmic essence or spiritual substance without restricting frontiers.

(See also: Adinidana-svabhavat , 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)

Jesus (Latin of Greek Iesous from Hebrew Yeshua` contraction of Yehoshua` a proper name meaning savior or helper, or that which is spacious or widespread)

Indubitably a historical character, whose life as narrated in the Gospels is pure allegory, a story of the initiation chamber. There is a story current from medieval times among the Jews, mentioned in the Sepher Toledoth Yeshua` (Book of the Generations of Jesus), to the effect that the Jesus of the Gospels was a Jehoshua ben Panthera, a Jewish adept living about 100 BC. Jesus illustrates the typical sequence in occult history: 1) the coming of a leader or teacher to a people needing to be led and taught; 2) his passing, followed by the adoration, even worship, of his followers; 3) the gradual transformation of historic facts into more or less embroidered legends or mythological tales, which in time cluster so thickly about his memory that his identity as a person, and even his name, are lost; 4) the myth, allegory, or legend; and 5) the efforts of other, later teachers to explain, interpret, and reinstate this earlier teacher, now a purely mythic figure or else materialized and misunderstood.

The Christian Gospels appear to have originated in mystery-dramas, beautiful and often sublime in their inner significances, in which were depicted the experiences of the neophyte and adept in his union with the Logos, and hence such unified individual was called a Logos incarnate as a man, the Logos itself being variously named as Christos or Dionysos, and to have been by stages adapted and given a semi-historical guise, as has happened in other instances besides the Christian mythos. Christ therefore, or the Christos, is not a particular man or an especial incarnation of divinity, but a generic term for the divine as incarnated in all human beings, although Jesus was undoubtedly the name of this great Jewish initiate-avatara as an individual. Hence this universal allegory in its Christian version has a true historical peg to hang from; for there did appear, sometime before the Christian era, a special cyclic messenger who was due to come on the change of the ecliptic point from one sign of the celestial zodiac to another, from the sign of Aries to Pisces. In theosophical literature, Jesus is considered to be an avatara, the messenger for the European Messianic or Piscean cycle. As such, Jesus represented a ray sent from the Wondrous Being or spiritual hierarch of the earth into the soul of a pure human being, while the racial buddha, Gautama Buddha, supplied the intermediate or psychological nature in this act of white magic.

"But it is probable that the theosophic effort which Jesus attempted to initiate did not endure for fifty years after his death. Almost immediately after his passing, his disciples, all half-instructed, and in some cases almost illiterate, men . . . foisted upon the world of their time the forms and beliefs of early Christianity; and had there been nothing but these, that religious system had not lived another fifty years. But what happened? During the oncoming of the dark cycle after Jesus (which began as before said about the time of Pythagoras), the last few rays from the setting sun of the ancient light shone feebly in the minds of certain of these Christian Fathers, Clement of Alexandria for one, and Origen of Alexandria for another, and in one or two more like these, who had been initiated at least in the lowest of some of the then degenerate pagan Mysteries; and these men entered into the Christian Church and introduced some poor modicum of that light, . . . which they still cherished; and these rays they derived mainly from the Neo-pythagorean and the Neoplatonic system" (Fund 486-7).

The Hebrew name Jah or Jehovah became identified in the mind of Christians with the name of Jesus, although Jesus never was in any wise identical with the Jewish Jehovah, but was identified in initiation through his own inner god or Father in Heaven, and the Jewish Jehovah mystically was the regent of the planet Saturn.

The first three letters in Greek make I.H.S. placed at the head of representations of the crucified Jesus, often said to stand for Iesus Hominum Salvator (Jesus the savior of men) or In hoc signo (in this sign), with reference to the alleged vision of a cross of the Emperor Constantine. Jesus is a form of a worldwide mystery-name, whose importance was its meaning, usually given as a three-letter monogram, analogous to the Sanskrit Aum. We find it in the Greek Gnostic Iao and variants are common in ancient Greece, such as Iasios, Iasion, Iason, Iasos; and initiates were known as Iasides or sons of Iaso.

See also AVATARA

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

Am 'em (Hebrew) Mother; occasionally any female ancestor; also a mother-city, and by the same metaphor occasionally the earth as the common mother of all.

See also AIMA; 'IMMA' `ILLA'AH

(See also: Am , 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)

Aam (Egyptian) (probably from am to eat, devour)

A name for the god Tem, regarded as a form of the sun god, especially at the city of Annu (Heliopolis). A verse from the Book of the Dead associates Aam with the sun god Ra: "I am Ra, I am Aam, I ate my heir"; Blavatsky adds, "an image expressing the succession of divine functions, the substitution from one form into another, or the correlation of forces. Aam is the electro-positive force, devouring all others as Saturn devoured his progeny" (SD 1:674n).

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

Adityas (Sanskrit) (belonging to, issuing from aditi unbounded expanse)

Son of Aditi, space; in the Vedas a name for the sun; also referred to variously as five, seven, eight, and twelve in number. The eighth aditya (Marttanda) was rejected by Aditi, leaving seven son-suns, each manifesting a particular solar energy (cf RV 10, 72, 8-9). " 'The Seven allow the mortals to see their dwellings, but show themselves only to the Arhats,' says an old proverb, 'their dwellings' standing here for planets" (SD 1:100).

The Brahmanas and Puranas generally reckon twelve adityas. In a preceding manvantara they were called tushitas, but when the end of the cycle was near they entered the "womb of Aditi, that we may be born in the next Manwantara; for, thereby, we shall again enjoy the rank of gods." Hence in the present seventh manvantara, they are known as adityas (VP 1:15). When the pralaya (dissolution) of the world comes, twelve suns will appear (MB 3:3, 26; Dict Hind 3). The twelve adityas are the twelve great gods of the Hindu pantheon; also, the twelve signs of the zodiac or twelve months of the year.

The adityas are the sustainers of the solar divine life which exists in all things, and in our present Vaivasvata manvantara they are the divine solar pitris (fathers) -- not the lower or lunar pitris -- which incarnated in early humanity. "The wise call our fathers Vasus; our paternal grandfathers Rudras, our paternal great grandfathers, Adityas . . . " (Manu 3:284).

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

Sarpa-rajni (Sanskrit) [from sarpa serpent + rajni queen]

The queen of the serpents;

"the Aitareya-Brahmana calls the Earth Sarparajni, . . . Before our globe became egg-shaped (and the Universe also) 'a long trail of Cosmic dust (or fire mist) moved and writhed like a serpent in Space.' The 'Spirit of God moving on Chaos' was symbolized by every nation in the shape of a fiery serpent breathing fire and light upon the primordial waters, until it had incubated cosmic matter and made it assume the annular shape of a serpent with its tail in its mouth -- which symbolises not only Eternity and Infinitude, but also the globular shape of all the bodies formed within the Universe from that fiery mist. The Universe, as well as the Earth and Man, cast off periodically, serpent-like, their old skins, to assume new ones after a time of rest " (SD 1:74).

"The Earth is said to cast off her old three skins, because this refers to the three preceding Rounds she has already passed through; the present being the fourth Round out of the seven. At the beginning of every new Round, after a period of 'obscuration,' the earth (as do also the other six 'earths') casts off, or is supposed to cast off, her old skins as the Serpent does . . ." (SD 2:47).

Also, certain verses of the Rig-Veda dealing with this subject.

(See also: Sarpa-rajni , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Abracadabra (possibly from Celtic abra or abar god + cad holy; Blavatsky from an elaboration of the Gnostic Abrasax or Abraxas, a corruption of a Coptic or Egyptian magic formula meaning "hurt me not")

Mystical word used as a charm by the Gnostic school of Basilides. The Gnostic physician Serenus Sammonicus (2nd-3rd century) prescribed it as a remedy for agues and fevers. On amulets the word is often inscribed as a triangle with the point down, beginning with all eleven letters, below which are the first ten, and so on down to the single letter at the point. The power of any charm lies, not in the word itself, but in the hidden science connecting sounds and symbols with the potencies in nature to which they correspond.

See also ABLANATHANALBA

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

Ahu (Avestan) (from the verbal root ah consciousness of life; cf Sanskrit asu)

Sometimes Ahum, Akhum. The most aware and therefore best prepared to rule in the physical world. Fravashi, on the other hand, is least aware of the material world and yet is the source of awareness and closest to the source of absolute Being. According to later Pahlavi writings Ahu's task is to establish order in the human physical body; therefore it can be considered the ruler in the physical world.

Rumi, 13th century Iranian mystic poet, considers ahu (jan) conscious life, in which the immutable divine knowledge is reflected. Molavi attributes three qualities to jan: consciousness; ability to distinguish between good and evil; and an inclination towards good and resentment towards evil (Massnavi bk 6). Ferdowsi, 10th century Iranian poet, considers kherad (intellect) the preserver of ahu, the first creation and the integral part of jan.

In Mazdean literature ahu corresponds to the first of the five life-giving forces or fires namely: ahu, daena, baudha, urvan, and fravashi in the order of awareness; James Darmesteter translates them respectively as: spirit, conscience, intelligence, soul, and fravashi (Yasna 26, 4).

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

Aldebaran A first magnitude ruddy star, the principal star in Taurus the Bull. It is one of the four Royal Stars of the ancient Persians, which approximately marked the solstices and equinoxes about 4000 BC. It represented the spring equinox; the others being Antares in Scorpius (summer solstice), Regulus in Leo (autumnal equinox), and Fomalhaut in the Southern Fish (winter solstice).

They have been connected from an early time in India with the legends concerning the four Maharajas (regents of the cardinal points) and the four primitive elements, and have come down to us in connection with Hebrew and Shemitic writings as the archangels Uriel, Gabriel, Michael, and Raphael, as well as in the Christian symbols of the four evangelists: the bull, the eagle (Scorpio), the lion, and the angel or man.

Blavatsky says that the spring equinox was in Taurus at the beginning of the kali yuga (3102 BC), though it was approaching Aries. Aldebaran symbolizes the Hebrew aleph (A or 1).

(See also: Aldebaran , 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)

Airavata (Sanskrit) (from iravat moisture-possessing from ira drink, food)

Son of Iravati; a vast elephant produced at the churning of the ocean and appropriated by the god Indra. When seated upon Airavata, Indra blesses the earth with rain, i.e., with the water that is drawn up by Airavata from the underworld. According to the Matangalila, Airavata was born when Brahma sang over the halves of the shell from which Garuda hatched, followed by seven more male and eight female elephants.

In the Mahabharata (Adi-parvan, ch 66) Airavata guards the eastern zone. Four such "elephants" (sometimes eight, each with its sakti or feminine potency) uphold the structure of the earth. The mighty four-tusked Airavata, therefore, represents one of the lokapalas (world protectors) -- called by Buddhists maharajas (great kings) -- which are the guardians and supporters of the universe. They are also mystically connected with the lipikas, the eternal karmic scribes. In the Bhagavad-Gita (10:2, 7) Krishna, in naming his divine manifestations, says that among elephants he is Airavata.

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

Agnidagdha (Sanskrit) (from agni fire + dagdha burnt from the verbal root dah to burn)

Consumed by fire; a class of pitris (fathers, ancestors) who maintained the household fires and offered oblations with fire. Those who refrained form doing so were called anagnidagdhas (not consumed by fire).

The agnidagdhas, corresponding to the lunar pitris of The Secret Doctrine, are as mysterious as the higher or arupa classes of kumaras or agnishvattas. The agnidagdhas are the vehicles of the arupa classes and, because of their grosser or more materialized essences, are able to coalesce with the forces and substances of nature on more material planes of the solar system. Known also as barhishads, they "kept up the household flame," and thus were conversant with and living with flames of the material or quasimaterial realms. Such "material" flames are the fiery or magneto-electric forces and substances of the lower worlds, which include the flame of desire and passion as well as the electric fire of the physical universe. They not only equipped man with the lower parts of his constitution, but likewise projected their chhayas (shadows or astral vehicles), thus furnishing the astral-physical vehicle of early humanity.

The anagnidagdhas are the more spiritual and intellectual classes of pitris who provided nascent humanity with its spiritual, intellectual, and higher psychic principles. Blavatsky writes: "The first or primordial Pitris, the 'Seven Sons of Fire' or of the Flame, are distinguished or divided into seven classes . . . (VP 3:14; Manu 3:199)

three of which classes are Arupa, formless, 'composed of intellectual not elementary substance,' and four are corporeal. The first are pure Agni (fire) or Sapta-jiva ('seven lives,' now become Sapta-jihva, seven-tongued, as Agni is represented with seven tongues and seven winds as the wheels of his car). As a formless, purely spiritual essence, in the first degree of evolution, they could not create that, the prototypical form of which was not in their minds, as this is the first requisite. They could only give birth to 'mind-born' beings, their 'Sons,' the second class of Pitris (or Prajapati, or Rishis, etc.), one degree more material; these, to the third -- the last of the Arupa class. It is only this last class that was enabled with the help of the Fourth principle of the Universal Soul (Aditi, Akasha) to produce beings that became objective and having a form. But when these came to existence, they were found to possess such a small proportion of the divine immortal Soul or Fire in them, that they were considered failures. . . . The three orders of Beings, the Pitri-Rishis, the Sons of Flame, had to merge and blend together their three higher principles with the Fourth (the Circle), and the Fifth (the microcosmic) principle before the necessary union could be obtained and result therefrom achieved" (BCW 6:191-3).

(See also: Agnidagdha , 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)

Age of Copper See HESIOD, AGES OF

(See also: Age of Copper , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Allah (Arabic) (from al the + ilah god; cf Hebrew eloah)

The one God of Islam, analogous to the Hebrew Jahweh. The pre-Moslem Arabic patron of Mecca, the god Hobal called Al-lahu (the god), was retained as the supreme god in Moslem theology; the other gods were transformed into demons. The unity and singularity of Allah is one of the primary beliefs of Islam. (SD, BCW)

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