J - Letter J - The tenth letter in the English and Hebrew alphabet, in the latter of which it is equivalent

to y, and i, and is numerically number 10, the perfect number (See Jodh and Yodh), or one. (See also "I".)

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Cardan, Jérome. An astrologer, alchemist, kabbalist and mystic, well known in literature. He was born at Pavia in 1501, and died at Rome in 1576.

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Ragon, J. M. A French Mason, a distinguished writer and great symbologist, who tried to bring Masonry back to its pristine purity. He was born at Bruges in 1789, was received when quite a boy into the Lodge and Chapter of the "Vrais Amis", and upon removing to Paris founded the Society of the Trinosophes. it is rumoured that he was the possessor of a number of papers given to him by the famous Count de St. Germain, from which he had all his remarkable knowledge upon early Masonry. He died at Paris in 1866, leaving a quantity of books written by himself and masses of MSS., which were bequeathed by him to the "Grand Orient". Of the mass of his published works very few are obtainable, while others have entirely disappeared. This is due to mysterious persons (Jesuits, it is believed) who hastened to buy up every edition they could find after his death. In short, his works are now extremely rare.

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Elephanta. An island near Bombay, India, on which are the well- preserved ruins of the cave-temple, of that name. It is one of the most ancient in the country and is certainly a Cyclopeian work, though the late J. Fergusson has refused it a great antiquity.

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I - Letter I. - The ninth letter in the English, the tenth in the Hebrew alphabet. As a numeral it signifies in both languages one, and also ten in the Hebrew (see J), in which it corresponds to the Divine name Jah, the male side, or aspect, of the hermaphrodite being, or the male-female Adam, of which hovah Jah-hovah) is the female aspect. It is symbolized by a hand with bent fore-finger, to show its phallic signification.

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Innocents. A nick-name given to the Initiates and Kabbalists before the Christian era. The "Innocents" of Bethlehem and of Lud (or Lydda) who were put to death by Alexander Janneus, to the number of several thousands (B.C. 100, or so), gave rise to the legend of the 40,000 innocent babes murdered by Herod while searching for the infant Jesus. The first is a little known historical fact, the second a fable, as sufficiently shown by Renan in his Vie de Jésus.

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Jehovah (Hebrew, Jewish). The Jewish "Deity name J’hovah, is a compound of two words, viz of Jah (y, i, or j, Yodh, the tenth letter of the alphabet) and hovah (Havah, or Eve)," says a Kabalistic authority, Mr. J. Ralston Skinner of Cincinnati, U.S.A. And again, "The word Jehovah, or Jah-Eve, has the primary meaning of existence or being as male female".

It means Kabalistically the latter, indeed, and nothing more; and as repeatedly shown is entirely phallic. Thus, verse 26 in the IVth chapter of Genesis, reads in its disfigured translation . . . . "then began men to call upon the name of the Lord", whereas it ought to read correctly . . . . "then began men to call themselves by the name of Jah-hovah" or males and females, which they had become after the separation of sexes. In fact the latter is described in the same chapter, when Cain (the male or Jah) "rose up against Abel, his (sister, not) brother and slew him"(spilt his blood, in the original). Chapter IV of Genesis contains in truth, the allegorical narrative of that period of anthropological and physiological evolution which is described in the Secret Doctrine when treating of the third Root race of mankind.

It is followed by Chapter V as a blind; but ought to be succeeded by Chapter VI, where the Sons of God took as their wives the daughters of men or of the giants. For this is an allegory hinting at the mystery of the Divine Egos incarnating in mankind, after which the hitherto senseless races "became mighty men, . . . men of renown" (v. 4), having acquired minds (manas) which they had not before.

(See also: Jehovah, Theosophy, Spirituality, Body mind and Soul, Spiritual Dictionary, )

Hermetic. Any doctrine or writing connected with the esoteric teachings of Hermes, who, whether as the Egyptian Thoth or the Greek Hermes, was the God of Wisdom with the Ancients, and, according to Plato, "discovered numbers, geometry, astronomy and letters".

Though mostly considered as spurious, nevertheless the Hermetic writings were highly prized by St. Augustine, Lactantius, Cyril and others. In the words of Mr. J. Bonwick, "

They are more or less touched up by the Platonic philosophers among the early Christians (such as Origen and Clemens Alexandrinus) who sought to substantiate their Christian arguments by appeals to these heathen and revered writings, though they could not resist the temptation of making them say a little too much.

Though represented by some clever and interested writers as teaching pure monotheism, the Hermetic or Trismegistic books are, nevertheless, purely pantheistic. The Deity referred to in them is defined by Paul as that in which "we live, and move and have our being" - notwithstanding the "in Him" of the translators.

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Baptism (Ancient Greek). The rite of purification performed during the ceremony of initiation in the sacred tanks of India, and also the later identical rite established by John "the Baptist" and practised by his disciples and followers, who were not Christians. This rite was hoary with age when it was adopted by the Chrestians of the earliest centuries.

Baptism belonged to the earliest Chaldeo-Akkadian theurgy; was religiously practised in the nocturnal ceremonies in the Pyramids where we see to this day the font in the shape of the sarcophagus; was known to take place during the Eleusinian mysteries in the sacred temple lakes, and is practised even now by the descendants of the ancient Sabians. The Mendeans (the El Mogtasila of the Arabs) are, notwithstanding their deceptive name of "St. John Christians", less Christians than are the Orthodox Mussulman Arabs around them.

They are pure Sabians; and this is very naturally explained when one remembers that the great Semitic scholar Renan has shown in his Vie de Jésus that the Aramean verb seba, the origin of the name Sabian, is a synonym of the Greek baptizw.

The modern Sabians, the Mendeans whose vigils and religious rites, face to face with the silent stars, have been described by several travellers, have still preserved the theurgic, baptismal rites of their distant and nigh-for gotten forefathers, the Chaldean Initiates.

Their religion is one of multiplied baptisms, of seven purifications in the name of the seven planetary rulers, the "seven Angels of the Presence" of the Roman Catholic Church. The Protestant Baptists are but the pale imitators of the El Mogtasila or Nazareans who practise their Gnostic rites in the deserts of Asia Minor. (See "Boodhasp".)

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Yod (Hebrew, Jewish). The tenth letter of the alphabet, the first in the four fold symbol of the compound name Jah-hovah (Jehovah) or Jah-Eve, the hermaphrodite force and existence in nature.

Without the later vowels, the word Jehovah is written IHVH (the letter Yod standing for all the three English letters y, i, or j, as the case may require), and is male-female. The letter Yod is the symbol of the lingham, or male organ, in its natural triple form, as the Kabalah shows.

The second letter He, has for its symbol the yoni, the womb or " window-opening" as the Kabalah has it ; the symbol of the third letter, the Vau, is a crook or a nail (the bishop’s crook having its origin in this), another male letter, and the fourth is the same as the second - the whole meaning to be or to exist under one of these forms or both.

Thus the word or name is pre-eminently phallic, it is that of the fighting god of the Jews, " Lord of Hosts" ; of the "aggressive Yod" or Zodh, Cain (by permutation), who slew his female brother, Abel, and spilt his (her) blood. This name, selected out of many by the early Christian writers, was an unfortunate one for their religion on account of its associations and original significance ; it is a number at best, an organ in reality. This letter Yod has passed into God and Gott.

(See also: Yod, Theosophy, Spirituality, Body mind and Soul, Spiritual Dictionary, )

Holy of Holies. The Assyriologists, Egyptologists, and Orientalists, in general, show that such a place existed in every temple of antiquity.

The great temple of Bel-Merodach whose sides faced the four cardinal points, had in its extreme end a "Holy of Holies" hidden from the profane by a veil: here, "at the beginning of the year ‘the divine king of heaven and earth, the lord of the heavens, seats himself’."

According to Herodotus, here was the golden image of the god with a golden table in front like the Hebrew table for the shew bread, and upon this, food appears to have been placed. in some temples there also was "a little coffer or ark with two engraved stone tablets on it". (Myer’s Qabbalah.) In short, it is now pretty well proven, that the "chosen people" had nothing original of their own, but that every detail of their ritualism and religion was borrowed from older nations. The Hibbert Lectures by Prof. Sayce and others show this abundantly.

The story of the birth of Moses is that of Sargon, the Babylonian, who preceded Moses by a couple of thousand years; and no wonder, as Dr. Sayce tells us that the name of Moses, Mosheh, has a connection with the name of the Babylonian sun-god as the "hero" or "leader". (Hib. Lect., p. 46 et seq.)

Says Mr. J. Myer, "The orders of the priests were divided into high priests, those attached or bound to certain deities, like the Hebrew Levites; anointers or cleaners ; the Kali, ‘illustrious’ or ‘elders’; the soothsayers, and the Makhkhu or ‘great one’, in which Prof. Delitzsch sees the Rab-mag of the Old Testament. . . The Akkadians and Chaldeans kept a Sabbath day of rest every seven days, they also had thanksgiving days, and days for humiliation and prayer. There were sacrifices of vegetables and animals, of meats and wine. . . . The number seven was especially sacred. . . . The great temple of Babylon existed long before 2,250 B.c. Its ‘Holy of Holies’ was with in the shrine of Nebo, the prophet god of wisdom." It is from the Akkadians that the god Mardak passed to the Assyrians, and he had been before Merodach, "the merciful", of the Babylonians, the only son and interpreter of the will of Ea or Hea, the great Deity of Wisdom. The Assyriologists have, in short, unveiled the whole scheme of the "chosen people".

(See also: Holy of Holies, Theosophy, Spirituality, Body mind and Soul, Spiritual Dictionary, )

Thoth (Egypt, Egyptian). The most mysterious and the least understood of gods, whose personal character is entirely distinct from all other ancient deities.

While the permutations of Osiris, Isis, Horus, and the rest, are so numberless that their individuality is all but lost, Thoth remains changeless from the first to the last Dynasty. He is the god of wisdom and of authority over all other gods. He is the recorder and the judge. His ibis-head, the pen and tablet of the celestial scribe, who records the thoughts, words and deeds of men and weighs them in the balance, liken him to the type of the esoteric Lipikas.

His name is one of the first that appears on the oldest monuments. He is the lunar god of the first dynasties, the master of Cynocephalus - the dog-headed ape who stood in Egypt as a living symbol and remembrance of the Third Root-Race. (Secret Doctrine, II. pp. 184 and 185). He is the "Lord of Hermopolis" - Janus, Hermes and Mercury combined. He is crowned with an atef and the lunar disk, and bears the "Eye of Horus ", the third eye, in his hand. He is the Greek Hermes, the god of learning, and Hermes Trismegistus, the " Thrice-great Hermes ", the patron of physical sciences and the patron and very soul of the occult esoteric knowledge. As Mr. J. Bonwick, F.R.G.S., beautifully expresses it: " Thoth has a powerful effect on the imagination . . . in this intricate yet beautiful phantasmagoria of thought and moral sentiment of that shadowy past. It is in vain we ask ourselves however man, in the infancy of this world of humanity, in the rudeness of supposed incipient civilization, could have dreamed of such a heavenly being as Thoth. The lines are so delicately drawn, so intimately and tastefully interwoven, that we seem to regard a picture designed by the genius of a Milton, and executed with the skill of a Raphael." Verily, there was some truth in that old saying, " The wisdom of the Egyptians ".When it is shown that the wife of Cephren, builder of the second Pyramid, was a priestess of Thoth, one sees that the ideas comprehended in him were fixed 6,000 years ago ". According to Plato, "Thoth-Hermes was the discoverer and inventor of numbers, geometry, astronomy and letters". Proclus, the disciple of Plotinus, speaking of this mysterious deity, says: "He presides over every species of condition, leading us to an intelligible essence from this mortal abode, governing the different herds of souls".

In other words Thoth, as the Registrar and Recorder of Osiris in Amenti, the Judgment Hall of the Dead was a psychopompic deity; while Iamblichus hints that " the cross with a handle (the thau or tau) which Tot holds in his hand, was none other than the monogram of his name". Besides the Tau, as the prototype of Mercury, Thoth carries the serpent-rod, emblem of Wisdom, the rod that became the Caduceus. Says Mr. Bonwick, " Hermes was the serpent itself in a mystical sense. He glides like that creature, noiselessly, without apparent exertion, along the course of ages. He is . . . a representative of the spangled heavens. But he is the foe of the bad serpent, for the ibis devoured the snakes of Egypt."

(See also: Thoth, Theosophy, Spirituality, Body mind and Soul, Spiritual Dictionary, )

Triratna, or Ratnatraya (Sanskrit) The Three Jewels, the technical term for the well-known formula "Buddha, Dharma and Sangha" (or Samgha), the two latter terms meaning, in modern interpretation, "religious law" (Dharma), and the "priesthood" (Sangha).

Esoteric Philosophy, however, would regard this as a very loose rendering. The words "Buddha, Dharma and Sangha", ought to be pronounced as in the days of Gautama, the Lord Buddha, namely "Bodhi, Dharma and Sangha and interpreted to mean "Wisdom, its laws and priests ", the latter in the sense of " spiritual exponents ", or adepts. Buddha, however, being regarded as personified " Bodhi" on earth, a true avatar of Adi-Buddha, Dharma gradually came to be regarded as his own particular law, and Sangha as his own special priesthood. Nevertheless, it is the profane of the later (now modern) teachings who have shown a greater degree of natural intuition than the actual interpreters of Dharma, the Buddhist priests.

The people see the Triratna in the three statues of Amitabha, Avalokiteshvara and Maitreya Buddha; i.e., in Boundless Light" or Universal Wisdom, an impersonal principle which is the correct meaning of Adi-Buddha; in the "Supreme Lord" of the Bodhisattvas, or Avalokiteshvara; and in Maitreya Buddha, the symbol of the terrestrial and human Buddha, the "Manushi Buddha ". Thus, even though the uninitiated do call these three statues "the Buddhas of the Past, the Present and the Future ", still every follower of true philosophical Buddhism - called "atheistical" by Mr. Eitel -  would explain the term Triratna correctly. The philosopher of the Yogacharya School would say - as well he could - "Dharma is not a person but an unconditioned and underived entity, combining in itself the spiritual and material principles of the universe, whilst from Dharma proceeded, by emanation, Buddha [ Bodhi rather], as the creative energy which produced, in conjunction with Dharma, the third factor in the trinity, viz., ‘Samgha’, which is the comprehensive sum total of all real life." Samgha, then, is not and cannot be that which it is now understood to be, namely, the actual " priesthood"; for the latter is not the sum total of all real life, but only of religious life.

The real primitive significance of the word Samgha or "Sangha" applies to the Arhats or Bhikshus, or the "initiates", alone, that is to say to the real exponents of Dharma - the divine law and wisdom, coming to them as a reflex light from the one "boundless light ". Such is its philosophical meaning. And yet, far from satisfying the scholars of the Western races, this seems only to irritate them; for E. J. Eitel, of Hongkong, remarks, as to the above: " Thus the dogma of a Triratna, originating from three primitive articles of faith, and at one time culminating in the conception of three persons, a trinity in unity, has degenerated into a metaphysical theory of the evolution of three abstract principles "! And if one of the ablest European scholars will sacrifice every philosophical ideal to gross anthropomorphism, then what can Buddhism with its subtle metaphysics expect at the hands of ignorant missionaries?

(See also: Triratna, Ratnatraya, Theosophy, Spirituality, Body mind and Soul, Spiritual Dictionary, )

Trisharana (Sanskrit). The same as" Triratna "and accepted by both the Northern and Southern Churches of Buddhism.

After the death of the Buddha it was adopted by the councils as a mere kind of formula fidei, enjoining "to take refuge in Buddha ", "to take refuge in Dharma ", and "to take refuge in Sangha ", or his Church, in the sense in which it is now interpreted; but it is not in this sense that the "Light of Asia" would have taught the formula. Of Trikaya, Mr. E. J. Eitel, of Hongkong, tells us in his Handbook of Chinese Buddhism that this "tricho-tomism was taught with regard to the nature of all Buddhas.

Bodhi being the characteristic of a Buddha"  - a distinction was made between "essential Bodhi" as the attribute of the Dharmakaya, i.e., "essential body"; "reflected Bodhi" as the attribute of Sambhogakaya; and "practical Bodhi" as the attribute of Nirmanakaya. Buddha combining in himself these three conditions of existence, was said to be living at the same time in three different spheres.

Now, this shows how greatly misunderstood is the purely pantheistical and philosophical teaching. Without stopping to enquire how even a Dharmakaya vesture can have any "attribute" in Nirvana, which state is shown, in philosophical Brahmanism as much as in Buddhism, to be absolutely devoid of any attribute as conceived by human finite thought - it will be sufficient to point to the following  -

(1) the Nirmanakaya vesture is preferred by the "Buddhas of Compassion" to that of the Dharmakaya state, precisely because the latter precludes him who attains it from any communication or relation with the finite, i.e., with humanity;

(2) it is not Buddha (Gautama, the mortal man, or any other personal Buddha) who lives ubiquitously in "three different spheres, at the same time ", but Bodhi, the universal and abstract principle of divine wisdom, symbolised in philosophy by Adi-Buddha.

It is the latter that is ubiquitous because it is the universal essence or principle. It is Bodhi, or the spirit of Buddhaship, which, having resolved itself into its primordial homogeneous essence and merged into it, as Brahma (the universe) merges into Parabrahm, the ABSOLUTENESS - that is meant under the name of "essential Bodhi ". For the Nirvanee, or Dhyani Buddha, must be supposed - by living in Arupadhatu, the formless state, and in Dharmakaya - to be that " essential Bodhi" itself. It is the Dhyani Bodhisattvas, the primordial rays of the universal Bodhi, who live in "reflected Bodhi" in Rapadhatu, or the world of subjective "forms" ; and it is the Nirmanakayas (plural) who upon ceasing their lives of " practical Bodhi", in the "enlightened" or Buddha forms, remain voluntarily in the Kamadhatu (the world of desire), whether in objective forms on earth or in subjective states in its sphere (the second Buddhakshetra). This they do in order to watch over, protect and help mankind.

Thus, it is neither one Buddha who is meant, nor any particular avatar of the collective Dhyani Buddhas, but verily Adi-Bodhi - the first Logos, whose primordial ray is Mahabuddhi, the Universal Soul, ALAYA, whose flame is ubiquitous, and whose influence has a different sphere in each of the three forms of existence, because, once again, it is Universal Being itself or the reflex of the Absolute. Hence, if it is philosophical to speak of Bodhi, which "as Dhyani Buddha rules in the domain of the spiritual" (fourth Buddhakshetra or region of Buddha); and of the Dhyani Bodhisattvas "ruling in the third Buddhakshetra "or the domain of ideation; and even of the Manushi Buddhas, who are in the second Buddhakshetra as Nirmanakayas - to apply the "idea of a unity in trinity" to three personalities - is highly unphilosophical.

(See also: Trisharana, Theosophy, Spirituality, Body mind and Soul, Spiritual Dictionary, )

This is a sitemap for Theosophy - J . Click on a link and you will find multiple definitions and articles related to the word.

J - Letter J, Jabal, Jabalas, Jachin, Jacob, Jacob Boehme, Jacobites, Jacques Aymar, Jacques Cazotte, Jacques Coeur, Jadar-Christna, Jadoo, Jadoogar, Jadookhana, Jadoowalla, jadu, Jadu, jadugar, jadukhana, Jadupati, jaduwala, Jaduwala, Jagaddhatr, Jagaddhatri, Jagad-Yoni, Jagad-yoni, Jagannatha, Jagan-Natha, Jagat, Jagrat, Jagrata, Jah, Ja-Heva, Jah-Havah, Jah-Hovah, Jahnavi, Jahva Alhim, Jah-Veh, Jaimini, Jaina Cross, Jaina Gross, Jainas, Jains, Jakin, Jakob, Jakob Bohme, Jala, Jalarupa, Jamadar, Jamblichus, Jambu-dvipa, Jambu-dwipa, James Bassantin, Jamin, Jam-pe-yang, Janaka, Jana-loka, Janardana, Janarddana, Janarloka, Jangama, Jang-Chhub, Jang-khog bhang-khog, Janman, Janmotsar, Janna, Janus, Jao-Jehovah, Japa, Japheth, Jara-marana, Jaras, Jasher, Jata, Jataka, Jatayu, Jati, Java Aleim, Jave, Javidan Khirad, Javo, Jaya, Jayas, Jean AimŽ de Chavigny, Jean Chiffilet, Jean Collemann, Jean M Charcot, Jebal Djudi, Jebel Djudi, Jebel Judi, Jehoshua, Jehovah Nissi, Jehovah-Tzabaoth, Jehovists, Jen-nang, Jeroboam, JŽrome Cardan, Jerusalem, Jeshida, Jeshu ben-Panthera, Jesirah, Jesod, Jesus, Jetavaniya, Jethro, Jettatore, Jetzira, Jetzirah, Jevo, Jhana, Jhana Bhaskara, JHVH, Jigten Gonpo, Jigten gonpo, Jinn, Jinnee, Jinni, Jinshnu, Jishnu, jisnu, Jiva, Jiva-bhava, Jivanmukta, Jivanu, Jivatma, Jivatman, Jivatmas, Jnana Bhaskara, Jnana Sakti, Jnana Yoga, Jnana-darsana-suddhi, Jnana-devas, Jnana-kanda, Jnanam, Jnana-sakti, Jnana-vidya, Jnanendriya, Jnanendriyas, Jnanesvari, Jnanin, Jnata, Jneya, Job, Jod, Jod-hevah, Jod-he-vau-he, John, John Cremer, John the Baptist, John the Divine, John the Evangelist, Jol, Jonah, Jonas, Jord, Jordan, Joseph, Joseph Francis Borri, Joshua, Josue, Jotun, Jotunheim, Jotunn, Jotuns, Jove, Jubal yubal, Juda, Judah, Judas, Juggernaut, Jul, Juno, Jupiter, Jurassic Period, Jurbo-Adonai, Justinian, Jyotis, jyotisa, Jyotisha, Jyotisham, Jyotsna,

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