E Delphicum The Delphic E, a sacred symbol denoting, among other things, the number 5. It is the fifth letter in the Greek and English alphabets, corresponding to he', the fifth letter in the Hebrew alphabet, which signifies a window and, in the Qabbalah, the human womb.

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Ab-e-Hayat or Ab-e-Zendegi (Persian) (from Persian ab, Avestan ap, Pahlavi av, water, purity, brilliance, honor, bliss, fortune)

Water of life or immortality; it is believed that the Water of Life is hidden in the most northern part of the earth in the dark. He who finds and drinks of it will become immortal. Some Persian allegories say that Alexander the Great sought after it in vain. It is also said Khezr, the prophet, found it and that is how he became immortal. Esoterically it represents the universal self and life's principal substance. It corresponds to the use of "water" in Genesis 1:2. The ancient Iranians believed that the first created was Mithra (Mehr), the reflection of Being, the essence of light, in the water of life; so the creation was the synthesis of these two, named Mehrab. Mehrab later became the sacred place of worship in mosques among Moslems. It is noteworthy that the same letters are used in the words Abraham (ABRHM), Bahram (BHRAM), and Brahma (BRHMA).

The water of life is also called Ab-e-Bagha (water of immortality), Ab-e-Heyvan (water of animation), and Ab-e-Khezr (water of Khezr).

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A E I O V These five vowels (V is the classic U) were often inscribed on Roman temples, after the manner of the Greeks, who recorded the number of the root-races in their temples "by the seven vowels, of which five were framed in a panel in the Initiation halls of the Adyta" (SD 2:458).

These five vowels have the same essential meaning as the Oeaohoo of The Secret Doctrine. They are symbolic of the seven kosmic breathings of the universal spirit or primal logos; in other words, of the seven kosmic original fires or energies whose breathings throughout the universe are the life or streams of lives which form the background of the universe.

Consonants were mystically considered to be the vehicles of sounds or breathings or "voices" which were the vowels. Consonants gave the vowels body, in the same way as spirit expresses itself through the rigid structural framework of entities. "The manner of pronunciation depends on the accent. This is an esoteric term for the six in one or the mystic seven. The occult name for the 'seven-vowelled' ever-present manifestation of the Universal Principle" (TG 239).

These five- or seven-voweled voices, sounds, or breathings also represent the seven fundamental fires or energies of the human constitution. All ancient mystical schools had their own way of viewing and explaining these vowels.

(See also: A E I O V, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

E. - The fifth letter of the English alphabet. The he (soft) of the Hebrew alphabet becomes in the Ehevi system of reading that language an E. Its numerical value is five, and its symbolism is a window; the womb, in the Kabbala. In the order of the divine names it stands for the fifth, which is Hadoor or the "majestic" and the "splendid."

(See also: E - Letter E, Theosophy, Spirituality, Body mind and Soul, Spiritual Dictionary, )

Electricity Theosophy regards electricity not as a mere effect but as an entity or cosmic force named fohat, also spoken of distributively as the sons of fohat. In correlating electricity with these cosmic forces, we find the term given either to the one great energy from which the others differentiate, or to a particular one of such differentiations: e.g., kundalini-sakti, which is characterized by spiral or serpentine motion and is thus related to electromagnetic phenomena, although kundalini might better be called vital electricity or magnetism, for electricity and magnetism are alter egos.

Electricity as we know it is the end product of a chain of appearances on various cosmic planes. It is said in old occult works that Father-Mother is the primordial aether or akasa, sometimes called svabhavat, which was homogeneous before the evolution of the Son -- fohat or cosmic electricity. Electricity is also mentioned as a form of cosmic vitality, emanating chiefly from the various suns in the universe, but also in a less degree from all other cosmic entities; and behind all such vital activities is the all-permanent cosmic intelligence unfolding itself into the vital web of the minor cosmic intelligences. Electricity on our earth-plane is one of the lowest forms of spirit-light or daiviprakriti.

The Secret Doctrine states that electricity is atomic, as signifying infinitesimal particles, which obtains confirmation from modern research and theory. Again, the statement that electricity is intimately involved in the manifestations of all forms of life is being elucidated by investigations relative to the currents which accompany vital actions in living organisms.

The standpoint of occultism is that no cosmic force, or manifestations of any cosmic force, is different from cosmic life itself -- except in its svabhava or characteristic attributes; and furthermore, that no smallest particle or point of infinite space is lifeless, so that the grossest matter is to be looked upon as a dense composite of vital action. From these two postulates it follows that electricity is not only vitality, but vitality controlled by intelligence, and our own inability to sense the intelligence in electric action lies solely in our ignorance of how cosmic intelligence acts, for it is all-permeant and virtually infinite in its manifestations, whereas our own ideas of vital action are limited to the very small compass of our acquaintance with particular units which we call living.

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

Globe In theosophy, a unit in the constitution of every planet or sun, each of which is composed of several globes, in their entirety referred to as a planetary or solar chain. Furthermore, moons, nebulae, and comets also have a seven or twelvefold constitution, even as has man, who is a copy in the small of the universe.

These globes are analogous to the monadic centers in the human constitution. The seven manifested globes on the four lower cosmic planes for purposes of convenience are enumerated as A, B, C, D, E, F, G; but reference is sometimes made more mystically to the globes from "A to Z," plainly hinting at all the globes of the chain. When considering seven cosmic planes, twelve globes are given. These globes are related to the seven (or twelve) sacred planets and to the twelve zodiacal constellations (diagram from FSO 323).

The life-waves, the various hosts or kingdoms such as elemental, mineral, animal, human, or devas, circle around these globes in seven great cycles called rounds. Each life-wave in turn first enters globe A, runs through its life cycle there, and then passes in time on to globe B, the succeeding life-wave meanwhile entering globe A, and so onwards and forwards through the whole series. In our own planetary chain, globe D is our earth. Three globes precede it on the downward arc, and three follow it on the ascending arc of evolution -- referring here to the manifested seven globes. The passing through seven root-races of any kingdom or life-wave on any globe is called a globe-round.

The seven globes can be related to the Qabbalistic worlds and sephiroth, as Blavatsky did (SD 1:200):

See also PLANETARY CHAIN

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God (Gods) and Goddess (Goddesses) A generalizing term signifying all self-conscious entities superior to humankind, most often restricted to the three dhyani-chohanic kingdoms. The gods have differing places in nature's hierarchical scheme, running through innumerable grades of cosmic intelligences. Theosophy teaches that human beings who successfully reach the seventh round on this earth chain will pass, at the conclusion of this last round, into the kingdom superior to the human, that of the lowest dhyani-chohans.

One function of dhyani-chohans (gods or demigods of a lower type) is the watching over of all hierarchies below them, some being guardians of the human host, others guarding and protecting the less evolved kingdoms. The higher hierarchical ranges of gods or divinities in our universe "are Entities of the higher worlds in the hierarchy of Being, so immeasurably high that, to us, they must appear as Gods, and collectively -- God. . . . To the highest, we are taught, belong the seven orders of the purely divine Spirits; to the six lower ones belong hierarchies that can occasionally be seen and heard by men, and who do communicate with their progeny of the Earth; which progeny is indissoluble linked with them, each principle in man having its direct source in the nature of those great Beings, who furnish us with the respective invisible elements in us" (SD 1:133).

These beings belong to two general divisions, the arupa (formless) and the rupa (form) divinities. Those having forms should not be imagined as necessarily having human forms as in the ancient pantheons, yet rupa gods do have highly ethereal forms, some perhaps resembling the present human shape and others of quite different construction. But the arupa divinities are to our power of imagination "beings of pure intelligence and of understanding, pure essences, pure spirits, formless as we conceive form" (Fund 347).

Tradition has it that in the immemorial past, certain lower gods associated intimately with their children, humanity, on this globe; but as time went by and mankind became more immersed in material pursuits, people grew to become increasingly forgetful of their divine origin and of the presence of the shining divinities instructing and guiding their forebears, so that the gods and demigods were remembered only in mythologies and religious metaphors of the various races.

What did the ancients mean by their gods and goddesses? They were intended to represent the guiding intelligences present within or in back of all invisible secrets, as well as astral and physical manifestations of nature. During the third root-race there were beings who were

"endowed with the sacred fire from the spark of higher and then independent Beings, who were the psychic and spiritual parents of Man, as the lower Pitar Devata (the Pitris) were the progenitors of his physical body. That Third and holy Race consisted of men who, at their zenith, were described as, 'towering giants of godly strength and beauty, and the depositaries of all the mysteries of Heaven and Earth.'. . .

". . . the chief gods and heroes of the Fourth and Fifth Races, as of later antiquity, are the deified images of these men of the Third. The days of their physiological purity, and those of their so-called Fall, have equally survived in the hearts and memories of their descendants. Hence, the dual nature shown in those gods, both virtue and sin being exalted to their highest degree, in the biographies composed by posterity" (SD 2:171-2).

The primeval human deity worship degenerated during the fourth root-race (the Atlantean), the ideal at first becoming confused with the form, and the latter finally almost superseding the spirit -- thus in the relatively complete materialization of idea into form, the later Atlanteans in time began to worship themselves, what was to them the powers of nature appearing through themselves as human beings; the degeneration of the ideal proceeding so far that ultimately the worst kind of idol worship became relatively universal, except for the seed of the newer and somewhat higher mankind of the fifth root-race then beginning.

"The moderns are satisfied with worshipping the male heroes of the Fourth race, who created gods after their own sexual image, whereas the gods of primeval mankind were 'male and female,' " i.e., hermaphrodite (SD 2:135).

See also DEITY

(See also: God, Goddess, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

God (Gods) and Goddess (Goddesses) A generalizing term signifying all self-conscious entities superior to humankind, most often restricted to the three dhyani-chohanic kingdoms. The gods have differing places in nature's hierarchical scheme, running through innumerable grades of cosmic intelligences. Theosophy teaches that human beings who successfully reach the seventh round on this earth chain will pass, at the conclusion of this last round, into the kingdom superior to the human, that of the lowest dhyani-chohans.

One function of dhyani-chohans (gods or demigods of a lower type) is the watching over of all hierarchies below them, some being guardians of the human host, others guarding and protecting the less evolved kingdoms. The higher hierarchical ranges of gods or divinities in our universe "are Entities of the higher worlds in the hierarchy of Being, so immeasurably high that, to us, they must appear as Gods, and collectively -- God. . . . To the highest, we are taught, belong the seven orders of the purely divine Spirits; to the six lower ones belong hierarchies that can occasionally be seen and heard by men, and who do communicate with their progeny of the Earth; which progeny is indissoluble linked with them, each principle in man having its direct source in the nature of those great Beings, who furnish us with the respective invisible elements in us" (SD 1:133).

These beings belong to two general divisions, the arupa (formless) and the rupa (form) divinities. Those having forms should not be imagined as necessarily having human forms as in the ancient pantheons, yet rupa gods do have highly ethereal forms, some perhaps resembling the present human shape and others of quite different construction. But the arupa divinities are to our power of imagination "beings of pure intelligence and of understanding, pure essences, pure spirits, formless as we conceive form" (Fund 347).

Tradition has it that in the immemorial past, certain lower gods associated intimately with their children, humanity, on this globe; but as time went by and mankind became more immersed in material pursuits, people grew to become increasingly forgetful of their divine origin and of the presence of the shining divinities instructing and guiding their forebears, so that the gods and demigods were remembered only in mythologies and religious metaphors of the various races.

What did the ancients mean by their gods and goddesses? They were intended to represent the guiding intelligences present within or in back of all invisible secrets, as well as astral and physical manifestations of nature. During the third root-race there were beings who were

"endowed with the sacred fire from the spark of higher and then independent Beings, who were the psychic and spiritual parents of Man, as the lower Pitar Devata (the Pitris) were the progenitors of his physical body. That Third and holy Race consisted of men who, at their zenith, were described as, 'towering giants of godly strength and beauty, and the depositaries of all the mysteries of Heaven and Earth.'. . .

". . . the chief gods and heroes of the Fourth and Fifth Races, as of later antiquity, are the deified images of these men of the Third. The days of their physiological purity, and those of their so-called Fall, have equally survived in the hearts and memories of their descendants. Hence, the dual nature shown in those gods, both virtue and sin being exalted to their highest degree, in the biographies composed by posterity" (SD 2:171-2).

The primeval human deity worship degenerated during the fourth root-race (the Atlantean), the ideal at first becoming confused with the form, and the latter finally almost superseding the spirit -- thus in the relatively complete materialization of idea into form, the later Atlanteans in time began to worship themselves, what was to them the powers of nature appearing through themselves as human beings; the degeneration of the ideal proceeding so far that ultimately the worst kind of idol worship became relatively universal, except for the seed of the newer and somewhat higher mankind of the fifth root-race then beginning.

"The moderns are satisfied with worshipping the male heroes of the Fourth race, who created gods after their own sexual image, whereas the gods of primeval mankind were 'male and female,' " i.e., hermaphrodite (SD 2:135).

See also DEITY

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

Huan (Chinese) Also hwun. Spirit; used in the I Ching, equivalent to atman.

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Huang Ti or Hoang Ty (Chinese) Great spirit; according to a legend, the Great Spirit's sons fall into the Valley of Pain (our earth), by which they acquire new wisdom of the lower spheres, their leader, the Flying Dragon, having drunk of the forbidden ambrosia. They are identical with the Fallen Angels or reincarnating egos (TG 143).

(See also: Huang Ti, Hoang Ty, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Hubilgan. See KHOBILGAN

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Huen. See HOUEN

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Hu Gadarn (Welsh) Hu the Mighty; from the time of Owen Glyndwr to that of Henry VII of England, Hu Gadarn is constantly mentioned in poetry, sometimes identified with Jesus Christ. From the period of Owen Glyndwr comes a hymn to Hu:

The smallest of the small

Is Hu Gadarn. . . .

And he is the greatest of the Great.

An atom of light is his chariot.

Hu led the Cymry into the Island of the Mighty; with his yoke of Exalted Oxen he drew the Afangc out of the Lake of Floods, thus preventing the drowning of the world; these Exalted Oxen, Nynnio and Peibio, had been formerly kings of England and Scotland who, because of their arrogance in claiming kingship of the galaxy, had been deposed by Rhita Giaut, King of Wales, and turned into oxen. Hu Gadarn is also said to have had a white shield -- corresponding in this instance to the shield of Gyan of Persia.

There is no reference to Hu in the Mabinogi or the 6th century poets, though there was a Gaulish god, Hesus, who may be the same individual.

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Hugin (Icelandic) (from hug mind)

One of two ravens which fly daily over the battlefield earth (Vigridsslatten) and report back to Allfather Odin. The word hug connotes thought and thinking, mood, courage, wish, opinion, desire, foreboding; in addition it is used in numerous combinations, such as strength of mind, peace of mind, etc.

Odin's other raven, Munin (memory), is its inseparable companion. Both are indispensable for the growth of consciousness which evolves through the kingdoms from less to greater by means of experience in the realms of life.

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

Huien-Tsang. See HIUEN-TSANG

(See also: Huien-Tsang, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Huitzilopochtli Aztec war god, most important of the gods of Tenochtitlan (Mexico City) and in all Mexico at the time of the Spanish conquest. He accompanied the Aztecs in their wanderings.

"He was believed to be the sun, the young warrior who was born each day, who won a victory over the stars of nights, and who was then carried to the zenith by the souls of dead warriors where he was taken over by the souls of all women who had died in childbirth, to be taken to the west where he fell and died, again to be reborn in the morning" (Funk & Wag Dictionary of Folklore 510). To feed this god, the Aztecs instituted human sacrifice.

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

Hum or Hum (Sanskrit) A mystical syllable used as an interjection or exclamation in sentences in sacred texts such as mantras, closely akin to and virtually identic with the sacred syllables Om and Aum.

In Vedic ritual, used before the singing of the Prastava (prelude), as well as during the chanting of the Pratihara (response). It is present in the well-known Tibetan mystical sentence Om mani padme hum.

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Human Ego The center of human egoity belonging to the higher part of manas. A vehicle or ray of the human monad, its expression is the human soul. It is distinguished from the animal soul or personal ego.

(See also: Human Ego, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Hpho-wa 'pho-ba (pho-wa) (Tibetan) Also Fo-wa. The changing of one's place, the moving of one's self; applied especially to the occult exercise of the inner power by which one is enabled to transfer his consciousness to any desired place on earth, or even to heavenly bodies, while the physical body is left entranced. This occult power was well known among the ancients and is still well known today among those who are acquainted with certain occult laws, and in theosophical writings is called projection of the mayavi-rupa.

Also the yogic practice of the transference of one person's consciousness into the body of another, newly dead, person.

(See also: Hpho-wa, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)