Ain Aior. See 'EIN 'OR

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Ain. See 'EYN SOPH

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Guides Spiritualistic term for supposed invisible helpers and instructors belonging to the Spirit-land communicating with people either through mediumship or by a receptive capacity of the person communicated with.

While theosophy rejects the explanation offered by spiritualists, it nevertheless teaches that the universe in its webs of being contains many orders of entities existing in all-various grades. Some of these entities can be to any worthy person a source of inspiration. However, the fact that their influence comes from a nonphysical source is no guarantee of the desirability of that influence, but by the very fact of its unknown origin should be scrutinized at once or suspected as to character and source. Nor must we forget in this connection that the possibilities of self-deception are almost infinite.

In general the consensus of all antiquity was that communication or intercourse of any kind with astral entities, whether spooks, shells, elementaries, or what not, was extremely dangerous and often evil in their influence upon human character. In India such astral entities are called bhutas, pisachas, etc.

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Master, Masters Adopted in theosophical literature to designate those human beings further progressed on the evolutionary pathway than the general run of humanity, from which are drawn the saviors of humanity and the founders of the world-religions.

These great human beings (also known by the Sanskrit term mahatma, "great self") are the representatives in our day of a brotherhood of immemorial antiquity running back into the very dawn of historic time, and for ages beyond it.

It is a self-perpetuating brotherhood formed of individuals who, however much they may differ among themselves in evolution, have all attained mahatmaship, and whose lofty purposes comprise among other things the constant aiding in the regeneration of humanity, its spiritual and intellectual as well as psychic guidance, and in general the working of the best spiritual, intellectual, psychic, and moral good to mankind. From time to time members from their ranks, or their disciples, enter the outside world publicly in order to inspire mankind with their teachings.

Two of Blavatsky's teachers became publicly known under the names of Master M (Morya) and Master KH (Koot Hoomi). Some of their correspondence with one of Blavatsky's earlier theosophical helpers has been published as The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett.

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Abyss (from Greek a not + byssos, bythos deep, depth)

Bottomless, unfathomable; chaos, space, the watery abyss which becomes the field of manifestation or cosmos -- a concept found in all mythologies. With the Sumerians, Akkadians, and Babylonians the great Deep gave birth to Ea, the All-wise, unknowable infinite deity, while in the Chaldean cosmogony Tiamat, the female principle, is the imbodiment of chaos. The Abyss or chaos was the abode of cosmic wisdom. Egyptian cosmogony speaks of Nut as the celestial abyss while Scandinavian cosmogony tells of Ginnungagap (chasm of offspring of Ginn), the infinite void or the abyss of illusion (SD 1:367).

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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).

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Air One of the four primary elements which also include fire, water, and earth. It does not denote the earth's atmosphere, since ordinary air is a particular gas, and the gaseous state is only one of the conditions of matter -- it might be called the air division or air condition of earth, since earth denotes physical matter.

The primary elements have secondary derivatives, and these have again other derivatives. In the first round only one element was developed, fire; in the second round the elements were fire and air; in the third, water was added; in the fourth, earth; and ether will appear in the fifth round. Fire is spoken of as the One, air as the Two, water as the Three, earth as the Four. Air is the Father, the creative element. The Vishnu-Purana describes the attributes of air: it corresponds to the sense of touch, and gives bulk.

The states of matter give clues by means of correspondence to the understanding of the primary elements. Gases are indefinitely expansible and their particles have great freedom and range of movement and are always in rapid motion. It would seem by analogy that the solid state corresponds to the physical planes, the liquid state to the astral or psychic plane, air to mind, and fire to spirit. Air may be called the vehicle of fire, as mind is the vehicle of spirit. Fire is analogous to points or foci of energy; air, being number two, suggests lines of force or radiation, motion.

 The air which, according to the teaching of the medieval Fire-philosophers, is the domain of sylphs is certainly not our familiar mixture of oxygen and nitrogen, which is merely a correspondence of the element on our plane; it is when on our own astral air plane that these beings may be encountered.

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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)

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Adinidana (Sanskrit) (from adi first + nidana binding from ni down + dana band, rope from the verbal root da to bind on, fasten)

A binding, halter, fetter; the first and supreme causality or originating link in the succeeding chain of nidanas, called in Buddhist writings the twelve causes of manifested existence; otherwise a chain or concatenation of cause and effect throughout the range of manifested being.

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Beverage, Sacred. See SOMA

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Sarku (Babylonian, Chaldean) Light race; in the Babylonian legends, the name of one of the two first races. While the dark race (Zalmat-Qaqadi) was the first to fall into generation or mortality, the light race remained apart for a long while -- hence was considered to be a race of gods.

The dark race has also been called by Europeans the Adamic race, which was "one of the two principal races that exited at the time of the 'Fall of Man' (hence our third Root-race) . . ." (TG 384).

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Shakya-thub-pa (Tibetan-Sanskrit) Sakya the mighty one; a name of Gautama Buddha in Tibet, equivalent to the Sanskrit Sakyamuni (the Sakya sage); Sakya was Gautama's clan name.

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Ash (Tree). See ASK

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Aguna (Sanskrit) (from a not + guna quality)

Devoid of qualities or attributes (gunas); applied particularly to the supreme divinity -- nirguna (without qualifying attributes). As a noun, a fault -- devoid of good qualities.

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Anima Mundi (Latin) World-soul, world-mother; the divine-spiritual-astral-physical source of emanations, the cosmic generative and animating principle of all beings, the creative Third Logos in its female aspect. In its highest and intermediate portions, it corresponds to the alaya of Northern Buddhism and hence to akasa.

Identified variously with Isis, Sephira, Sophia, the Holy Ghost, mahat, mulaprakriti, etc., but used in a hazy and often materializing sense, so that it cannot be accurately regarded as a synonym for any one of these. "It is in a sense the 'seven-skinned mother' of the stanzas in the Secret Doctrine, the essence of seven planes of sentience, consciousness and differentiation, moral and physical. In its highest aspect it is Nirvana, in its lowest Astral Light. It was feminine with the Gnostics, the early Christians and the Nazarenes; bisexual with other sects, who considered it only in its four lower planes.

Of igneous, ethereal nature in the objective world of form (and then ether), and divine and spiritual in its three higher planes. When it is said that every human soul was born by detaching itself form the Anima Mundi, it means, esoterically, that our higher Egos are of an essence identical with It, which is a radiation of the ever unknown Universal Absolute" (TG 22-3).

Theosophically, anima mundi may be regarded as a synonym of different other words, rather than as indicative of any definite entity or principle apart from others. The higher human egos or manasaputras are essentially identical with the higher portions of anima mundi; and similarly the various life-atoms in the lower spheres may be considered as in essence identical with the lower portions of the anima mundi. It is in short the life-consciousness-essence of the universe from the divine to the physical.

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