Heart, Sacred. See SACRED HEART

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Good. See EVIL; AGATHON, TO

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Age(s). See HESIODIC AGES; YUGAS; AEONS

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Physical, Physicalization The physical plane of matter is that one of the many planes in universal nature which is coordinated with our physical senses; and the physical plane of consciousness is therefore the plane on which our consciousness functions when we are using those senses.

It is characterized by the familiar qualities which science studies under the name of properties of matter. In order to understand biological evolution, it is necessary to admit the existence of the next plane above -- the astral plane. The passage of the astral prototypes of organisms from the astral plane to the physical is called physicalization. Differentiation on the physical plane is caused by the psychological and astral life-agents acting in the protyle of the physical plane. Temporary and abnormal physicalization takes place in a spiritualistic materialization.

The quaternary is said, in the Pythagorean numerical system, to be the ideal root of all numbers and things on the physical plane, because the quaternary is projected downwards, so to speak.

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Khunrath, Henry (c.1560-?) Medieval Qabbalist, chemist and physician, author of Amphitheatre of Eternal Wisdom. (TG 178, BCW)

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Heat In science heat is a class of effects called thermal, and diagnosed as vibratory affections of the particles of bodies, produced by solar radiation, mechanical means, chemical action, or the flow of electric current. In seeking the unity which may reconcile these diversities, science has agreed to call heat a mode of motion or one of the forms of energy.

According to this theory, heat energy and mechanical energy are mutually convertible. Heat in the terms of modern physics cannot be described either as a fluid or as a mode of motion; but like all physical phenomena, whether we call them substantial or dynamic, it is a function of the activities of some substratum whose nature science is still striving to define.

Theosophically, heat is a manifestation of one of seven forces emanating from the fount of cosmic life and manifesting itself by various effects on various planes. It is a form of one of the seven primordial conscious forces emanating from anima mundi, one of the seven sons of fohat, or one of seven radicals -- one aspect of universal motion; in other words, the emanation from a living entity expressing itself on our plane as heat.

The forces of physics are manifestations of elementals, which themselves are manifestations of noumena on a still higher plane. Heat is both substantial and energic in character, and we may speak of it as being actually a fluidic emanation from living bodies; although it is equally possible to produce heat in so-called inanimate matter because of the stirring up of the same fluid in these bodies by means of intelligence acting to that end.

(See also: Heart, Sacred , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Instructors, Divine. See DYNASTIES

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Energy (from Greek energeia possessing + ergon active power)

In physics, energy is treated as a measurable quantity, without reference to its actual nature or source. It used to be considered as distinct from and correlative to either matter, inertia, or mass; but now the conception of mass or matter as distinct from energy has disappeared.

Science admits the existence of vast stores of latent energy in the atoms; and considering everything as a question of physical dynamics, it infers that an equivalent quantity of physical energy must have been expended in creating the atom. Energy or life is a fundamental attribute and function of the universe, which has its manifestations on all seven or ten planes of prakriti, appearing as centers of energy which radiate outwards from within. Also used to denote the female potency or sakti (SD 1:l36); aether too is mentioned as the quintessence of energy. Energy expended on the astral plane is far more productive of results than the same amount expended on the physical plane, according to occult dynamics.

Theosophy makes a distinction between force (or forces) and energy. The former is the name of active monadic essences, each one of which may be considered to be a living, intelligent, self-conscious force; and when this force is actively used, its power to do work or to produce effects is energy.

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Self Theosophical literature distinguishes between self and ego: self is a purely spiritual unit, divine in essence, the same in every being, expressed as "I am"; egos are many, different in different beings, and expressed as "I am I."

Egos are indirect or reflected consciousnesses, seeing themselves as apart from other egos, each having its own individualized characteristics. But the self or atman is the purest and strongest intuition of being as a universal principle and as the summit of the hierarchy called man. It is pure consciousness, the essential principle which gives to every person knowledge of selfhood. As it has no egoic consciousness, it seems to our reason to be unconsciousness. To become self-conscious, a vehicle is needed, so that the self may see itself reflected as in a mirror.

In humans what is called the personal self is a compound, in which the true selfhood or atmic ray shines dimly through many screens. This causes our various mental states to be regarded as pertaining to our own individuality, though they are actually influences which flow into and out of the mind, and to which we attribute a false sense of ownership, as when we say, "I am angry," instead of "I am experiencing anger." The path of liberation frees us progressively from these false selves; we abandon the heresy of separateness, and at last

See the true self within us as being identical with that self in all beings.

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Existence (from Latin exsisto standing forth, emerging)

Although often used interchangeably with being, in theosophy being refers to abstract continuity in spirit, while existence means the phenomenal manifestation of an entity in the phenomenal worlds. Therefore being is the noumenon and existence is the phenomenon. Hence one can speak of the causes of existence (nidanas), or of all existences being dissolved. The Absolute, a cosmic hierarch, is defined with equal appropriateness as absolute existence and as non-existence.

Non-existence is described as absolute being, existence, and consciousness (SD 1:39). Fichte makes a proper distinction between being (Seyn) and existence (Daseyn), the former being the noumenal One, and the latter the phenomenal manifold through which the One is known.

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Good Friday Anniversary celebration of the alleged physical crucifixion of Jesus Christ, which has a shifting date, varying between the 20th of March and the 23rd of April, the epoch of the Jewish Passover and the spring equinox.

Good Friday and Easter Sunday are a borrowing from the ancient Mysteries -- the mystic death and resurrection of the unconquered sun, exemplified by the mystic death and resurrection of the successful neophyte. This celebration is likewise connected with the winter solstice; the wish of the church authorities to accommodate themselves both to Roman and Jewish customs has caused the festival to be split, so that the birth now is celebrated in winter and the death and the resurrection in spring, whereas birth and resurrection are two words for the same mystic truth.

Even in the dogmatic and somewhat mechanical Christian celebration of these originally pagan mysteries, Friday is the day of Venus, a prototype of the organ of the gnostic individuality; Saturday is the day of Saturn, a prototype of the guardian in ancient mystical occultism of the initiatory Ring-pass-not; and Sunday, the day of the rising or resurrection, is the day of the sun, giver of life and light.

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Brahma's Day, Night, Age, Year, Life A Day of Brahma, a cosmic manvantara or out-breathing of Brahma, represents a period where worlds are evolved and pass through their allotted ages of manvantaric existence.

Each Day of Brahma consists of 1,000 aggregates of four yugas or 1,000 mahayugas (great ages). In a smaller sense it is also a mahamanvantara or kalpa of a planetary chain, composed of seven rounds, a period of 4,320,000,000 terrestrial years. A Night of Brahma, a cosmic pralaya, inbreathing of Brahma, or planetary paranirvana, is of equal length.

Seven Days of Brahma or seven planetary cycles make one solar kalpa. One Year of Brahma consists of 360 Divine Days and Nights, each Day of which is the duration of the imbodiment of a planetary chain, with Nights of equal length.

The Life of Brahma or of the solar system consists of 100 Divine Years (311,040,000,000,000 terrestrial years). The current Life of Brahma is about half completed -- a period of about 155,520,000,000,000 of our years having passed away since our solar system first began its mahamanvantara. There remain, therefore, fifty more Years of Brahma before the system sinks into cosmic pralaya. As only half the grand evolutionary period is accomplished, we are at the bottom of the cosmic cycle, i.e., on the lowest plane.

See also FOUR

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Heart Doctrine In Mahayana Buddhism, the hidden or esoteric teachings as opposed to the eye doctrine, the public or exoteric teachings. In theosophy, the heart doctrine is considered to contain the more profound and compassionate teachings which go beyond the literal interpretation of the publicly given doctrines.

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Light Light ranges from the arcana of cosmic being to the physical light that turns the vanes of some scientific mill.

As the opposite of darkness, evil, ignorance, sleep, and death, it signifies wisdom, goodness, and life. In one sense it is a permutation of mulaprakriti, and as such is that root-substance which can never become objective to mortals in this race or round. It is objective only in relation to that Darkness which is absolute Light. Otherwise it includes both spirit and matter.

Three kinds are enumerated: the abstract and absolute, which is darkness; the light of the unmanifest-manifest or Second Logos; and the latter reflected in the dhyani-chohans, minor logoi, and thence shed upon the lower and more objective planes. In a high aspect, it is daiviprakriti or the light of the Logos, the synthesis of the seven cosmic forces; descending through the planes of manifestation, it condenses into forms; physical matter itself is a condensation of light. Through light everything is thus brought into being. Being a root of mental self, it also therefore is the root of physical self (SD 1:430).

Light does not necessarily imply heat, as heat is one of the effects produced by the action of light on matter. The term cool radiance has its physical application in the light of phosphorescence. Light becomes relative on manifested planes, its correlative being darkness, which to other beings may be light, while our light may be their darkness. Again, what is light to beings on a higher plane of perception, may be darkness to us, because it does not impress our senses.

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Angels of Darkness The fallen angels, corresponding to the Hindu asuras, whose darkness is that of absolute light. Blavatsky identifies them with the kumaras and other celestial entities who refused to create because they were too spiritual (SD 1:457; 2:489, 506).

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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.

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Secret Science, Wisdom.

See WISDOM RELIGION; OCCULTISM

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Oviform, Ovoid Humanity.

See ROOT-RACE, FIRST

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Future. See TIME; PREVISION

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Archetypal World or Universe (from Greek archetypos original pattern)

Either an abstract type in the divine mind, or a subtle form which is the model for a grosser form. In the processes of cosmic manifestation, forms are built by the builders working on a particular plane from abstract models already existing on a higher plane. In order for ideation to pass from the abstract into the concrete or visible form, the creative logoi see in the ideal world the archetypal forms of all and proceed to build upon these models forms both evanescent and transcendent (SD 1:380).

The Archetypal Man of the Qabbalah is the host of the higher dhyani-chohans collectively called 'Adam Qadmon or the upper triad of the ten Sephiroth, also svabhavat or the fourfold anima mundi, whence proceed the creative, formative, and material worlds. The archetypal world has three planes, corresponding to the First, Second, and Third Logoi, and to parabrahman with mulaprakriti or to Brahman with pradhana. In the human hierarchy, this is paramatman (the supreme self) from which fall the armies of rays which permeate every atom on every plane, constituting the unity in the divine selfhood which is the essence of all. In contrast with the septenary hierarchy below, this upper triad is called arupa (formless).

Archetypal world is also used to designate the fourth cosmic plane.

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Angels of the Presence In Christianity, the seven Virtues or personified attributes of God, which were created by him and became the archangels. Equivalent to the seven manus produced by the ten prajapatis created by Brahma.

"As it is the Lipika who project into objectivity from the passive Universal Mind the ideal plan of the universe, upon which the 'Builders' reconstruct the Kosmos after every Pralaya, it is they who stand parallel to the Seven Angels of the Presence, whom the Christians recognise in the Seven 'Planetary Spirits' or the 'Spirits of the Stars;' for thus it is they who are the direct amanuenses of the Eternal Ideation" or of Plato's divine thought (SD 1:104) (SD 2:237, 573).

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Now A fundamental concept of the theosophical philosophy is the Eternal Now. The past lingers in the memory and the future is ever vanishing from the present into the past: only Now eternally exists.

In the case of man, at any given moment he is the result of what he has fashioned himself to be out of all preceding moments; his future will therefore be the working out of his previous thoughts and actions, and one by one these disappear into what to us is the past, and yet is always present. These philosophical reflections apply universally.

"The three periods -- the Present, the Past, and the Future -- are in the esoteric philosophy a compound time; for the three are a composite number only in relation to the phenomenal plane, but in the realm of noumena have no abstract validity" (SD 1:43).

"Time is only an illusion produced by the succession of our states of consciousness as we travel through eternal duration, and it does not exist where no consciousness exists in which the illusion can be produced; but 'lies asleep.' The present is only a mathematical line which divides that part of eternal duration which we call the future, from that part which we call the past. Nothing on earth has real duration, for nothing remains without change -- or the same -- for the billionth part of a second; and the sensation we have of the actuality of the division of 'time' known as the present, comes from the blurring of that momentary glimpse, or succession of glimpses, of things that our senses give us, as those things pass from the region of ideals which we call the future, to the region of memories that we name the past" (SD 1:37).

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