Cupunika. See CHUPUNIKA

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

Curbati (Latin) Curved; ancient divinities of the stars and celestial orbs, interpreted as devils by the Catholic Church (SD 1:331)

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Curds In connection with the evolution of a universe, the first differentiation in manifestation of cosmic or primordial matter in its early differentiated forms. Astronomically, the curds are irresolvable nebulae and sometimes, in accordance with older European astronomical views, the Milky Way.

The primordial matter, radical and cool, becomes at the reawakening of cosmic motion scattered through space; appearing in its early differentiated forms in clusters and lumps, like curds in whey. These are the cosmic seeds of future worlds and world systems. Particles of the curds become comets, then stars (the centers of vortices), or solar systems with their individual sun and planets.

See also CHURNING OF THE OCEAN

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

Curetes Kouretes (Greek) The priests in the Mysteries of Rhea Cybele in Crete, and in Classical mythology daemons or demigods to whom Cybele entrusted the infant Zeus. Identified with the kabiri, who belong to the septenary creative groups of dhyan-chohans which incarnated in the elect of the third and fourth root-races -- Zeus is said to be the god of the fourth race (SD 2:360, 766, 776).

In connection with the Mysteries of Cybele in Crete, initiation in the temples of the Curetes was extremely arduous, lasting a lunar month (27 days), during which the initiant was left by himself in a crypt, undergoing the severest kind of tests; Pythagoras is stated to have successfully undergone initiation in these rites (TG 91).

(See also: Curetes, Kouretes, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Cush kush (Hebrew) Black; the eldest son of Ham, grandson of Noah, and father of Nimrod. Also applied to his descendants, usually translated Ethiopians, and to a region vaguely defined as Ethiopia. An old tradition states that Ham stole seven books out of Noah's Ark and gave them to Cush; and Mas'udi, the Arabic historian, says that the Nabathaeans were those descendants of Ham who settled under the leadership of Nimrod.

(See also: Cush, kush, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Cutha Tablets Tablets found at Cutha, an ancient city in Babylonia, containing fragments of the ancient Chaldean account of creation.

(See also: Cutha Tablets, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Cybele Kybele (Greek) A Phrygian goddess of caves and mountains, vines and agriculture, and town life, first worshiped at Pessinus; later throughout Asia Minor and in Greece.

The equivalent in Phrygia and Crete of Rhea, the Magna Mater (great mother), wife of Kronos and mother of Zeus. Her worship was celebrated exoterically, especially in later degenerate times, by wild dances by her votaries. In one of her phases Cybele was closely connected with the moon and its extremely recondite functions.

 The moon is at once a sexless potency, to be well studied because to be dreaded, and a female deity for exoteric purposes. Cybele is "the personification and type of the vital essence, whose source was located by the ancients between the Earth and the starry sky, and who was regarded as the very fons vitae of all that lives and breathes" (BCW 12:214). The breath of Cybele, equivalent in its highest substance to akasa-tattva -- "is the one chief agent, and it underlays the so-called 'miracles' and 'supernatural' phenomena in all ages, as in every clime" (BCW 12:215).

See also CORYBANTES; CURETES

(See also: Cybele, Kybele, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Cycles (from Greek kyklos circle, wheel)

The law of cycles arises out of the ever-unceasing alternations of the Great Breath of spirit in the universe. Abstract absolute motion, as the worlds evolve, assumes an ever-growing tendency to circular movement.

Hence arise the wheels and globes of cosmic evolution and the rounds of the evolutionary life-waves. Motion is repetitive, ever returning to similar, but not identical, points. The geometrical symbol is the helix, which combines the cyclic with the progressive motion; if the axis of the helix is itself a circle, a vortex results, and thus wheels within wheels as the process advances to further degrees of complexity.

"The ancients divided time into endless cycles, wheels within wheels, all such periods being of various durations, and each marking the beginning or end of some event either cosmic, mundane, physical or metaphysical. There were cycles of only a few years, and cycles of immense duration, the great Orphic cycle referring to the ethnological change of races lasting 120,000 years, and that of Cassandrus of 136,000, which brought about a complete change in planetary influences and their correlations between men and gods . . ." (Key 327).

See also BRAHMA'S DAY; HESIOD, AGES OF; ROOT-RACE; ROUND; YUGA; etc.

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

Cycle of Necessity. See CIRCLE OF NECESSITY

(See also: Cycle of Necessity, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Cyclopean Structures Applied by the Greeks to certain architecture of huge stones without mortar, such as found in Tiryns and Mycenae, and attributed to the cyclopes. Cyclopean masonry is found in the platforms of the Easter Island statues, of Lemurian origin; in the vast walls of Tiahuanaco, Peru; in the colossal statues of Bamian, Asia, and many other places.

(See also: Cyclopean Structures, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Crux Ansata (Latin) Cross with a handle ; the handle of this cross may mean that the four terrestrial elements are grasped and controlled. The circle surmounting a tau signified life and immortality as in the Egyptian ankh, the circle denoting eternity and the cross the manifested and limited universe.

In another interpretation, the crux ansata may stand for the universe and signify that the bearer is a universe in embryo. The circle hovers over the cosmic cross as the golden germ or hiranyagarbha, and from this seed drops the perpendicular which crosses and traverses the plane of matter.

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Crux Dissimulata. See SWASTIKA

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Cry from the Cross The cry of the expiring Jesus -- given in the Gospels as "Eli, Eli, lama, sabachthani" (Matt 27:46) (in Mark it is Eloi)

; translated in Greek "Theemou, Theemou, hinati me 'egkatelipes"; and then translated into English as "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" -- is a curious instance of mistranslation, for the Hebrew words as quoted mean, "My God, my God, how thou hast glorified me!" On the other hand, Psalms 22:1 has the words, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" but here the Hebrew for forsaken is `azabtani (forsaken me).

There seems to have been a desire to represent the cry from the cross as a fulfillment of these words of Psalms. What Jesus really uttered, according to the Hebrew, was a cry of ecstasy over the peace of attainment, clarification, and liberation. The cry in Psalms is that of the candidate for initiation left to his unaided resources, to achieve or fail by them and them alone -- which is the only fair and certain test of ability.

(See also: Cry from the Cross, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Cryphius (from Greek kryphios secret, occult)

In the Mithraic Mysteries, the second degree of initiation or the candidate at that state.

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Crystalline Spheres "The Egg of Brahma is composed of concentric spheres centered in the Sun, and each one of these spheres is a cosmic world. . . . The world or sphere of our Earth . . . surrounds the Sun as a sphere of dense substance, and the nucleus in this sphere or egg . . . is what we commonly call our Earth";

"These concentric world-spheres considered as a whole were the crystalline spheres of the ancients, which astronomers have so grossly misunderstood, and therefore have so much derided. . . . The meaning was, spheres of which the center was the Sun and which were transparent to our eyesight. Just as glass is very dense and yet is transparent to our eyesight, so are the ethers of our fourth cosmic plane very dense and yet transparent to us.

To the inhabitants of Earth viewing the phenomena of the solar system from the Earth, the entire system of concentric spheres, due to the Earth's rotation, seems to revolve around the Earth, and hence arises the geocentric way of looking at the apparent movements of the planets and the Sun, Moon, and stars" (Four Sacred Seasons 11, 15-4). (FSO 147-8; 4SS)

(See also: Crystalline Spheres, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Crystals, Crystallization The formation of crystals shows the working of intelligent life forces in the mineral world. The shapes of crystals show, in their harmony and proportion, the mathematical and geometrical principles permeant throughout the universe.

A solution of salt, when evaporated, first crystallizes in triangular shapes and ultimately builds up cubes, both of which are symbolical figures of fundamental importance; and salt is a well-known alchemical symbol of the element of earth, also denoted by the cubical shape. Every salt has a particular form in which it crystallizes, or has perhaps two different forms; but different salts may have the same crystalline form.

Snow crystals show the hexagonal patterns which display the septenate -- a center from which six radii proceed. Cubic, tetragonal, hexagonal, and octagonal shapes occur; but the fivefold forms of the regular dodecahedron and icosahedron are not found. Clairvoyant sensitives see light emanating from crystals, and luminous phenomena are often seen at the formation or disruption of crystals. Blavatsky alludes to the idea that the process of crystallization might be a step in the evolution of the minerals to the next higher kingdom.

(See also: Crystals, Crystallization, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Cteis. See YONI (BCW 6:158)

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

Cube Often mentioned as equivalent to the square, tetrad, or quaternary. The line, square, and cube represent three stages of matter, with the cube derived from the square in the same way as the square is derived from the line.

A cube opened out gives a cross of six squares, four in the vertical line and three in the horizontal, one square being common to both, which is an emblem of the human being with his spiritual and material nature meeting at the intersection.

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

Cup A container, vehicle, upadhi; having in certain connections the same general sense as graal, solar boat, ark, crescent moon, etc.; so that it answers to buddhi among human principles and to mahabuddhi cosmically, as the vahana or container of atman or paramatman.

 It may contain wine, the symbol of spiritual life. The cup figures in the Bacchic and Orphite Mysteries, a sacred cup being handed around; this has become the chalice of the Christian Eucharist. The Grail or Graal cup is well known in European legend.

The cup has always been one means of divination, whether by looking into it, or looking into water in it, or shaking up tea leaves or coffee grounds. These last gestures are physical adjuncts to the use of the clairvoyant vision. In the Tarots, the second suite was the cups, answering to the hearts in playing cards.

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

Cupid (from Latin cupido desire, equivalent to Greek eros)

A being symbolizing desire in the various senses of the term, ranging from that primary formative force which brings about the union of spirit and matter, to erotic passion.

See also EROS; KAMA; PSYCHE

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

Clairvoyance Clear-seeing; generally, the power to use the psychic sense of vision to see things on the astral plane, the imperfect shadows of things to come or the astral records of things past. But this faculty is of restricted scope and very apt to mislead; prematurely developed in an untrained person, it is more likely to lead to error than to benefit.

True clairvoyance is the opening of spiritual vision, called in India the Eye of Siva and beyond the Himalayas the Eye of Dangma; a faculty which enables the seer to see the truth and to recognize it as such. Among the seven saktis (occult powers) is enumerated jnana-sakti, which in its higher aspects is the power of knowing, true clairvoyance, but which on lower planes becomes more or less perfect psychic clairvoyance.

True clairvoyance enables the seer to discern the reality behind its veils, to know right action, and to see what is happening in worlds removed by distance or difference of plane from our own. Retrospective clairvoyance interprets the past through its indelible records in the akasa.

(See also: Clairvoyance, Clear-seeing, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Cleanthes (3rd century BC) Greek Stoic philosopher and poet, native of Asia Minor, who studied under Zeno at Athens for 19 years and succeeded him as head of the Stoic school in 260 BC; a beautiful hymn to Zeus is the only one of his writings that remains today.

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