Void Dictionary

REALITY

"Reality" is illusion only in the sense that there is more than one version. You can alter this aeon's reality, but there are several million separate Kalpic realities that are also primed for re-adjustment.

Reality does not exist apart from you and me. Although it seems to retain a changeless nature, that is merely the illusory consensus which our society clings to. And of course, our perceptions define reality, as do history and tradition, but we can also alter reality by physical, mental & arcane means. There are the perceptionless reality systems, after all (see below). The psychedelics have also played a tremendous role in changing collective reality, that despite the built-in limitation that all psychedelics can do is restructure ephemeral, subjective consciousness on society's lowest, least influential levels.

Ordinary, right-eyed, aeonic reality depends on our senses, but there are realities interwoven through this consensus that do not derive from the bodily senses, in which (as far as our waking minds are concerned) we act unconsciously -- but deliberately. Sense reality, for all its unreliability, is not very flexible, hence it serves as the final testing field (as well as rubbish heap) of substance. Usually our work in the separate realities is more important than our work in "this" one. As for using one's mental expectations as a reality-set, that would apply strictly to the superzeroeth R-Levels.

Reality is "Non-being," and according to Grant: "...withdraws as the Principle of Consciousness recedes and returns to the point of original absence."

Gurdjieff describes the following while under the influence of an anomalous substance: "I perceived directly now that everything in the universe was directly connected, and that moreover these forms were all connected just because they were all one and the same, repeated to provide the illusion of complexity. When presented with such a multiplicity of images, one can infuse them with differences sufficient to completely deceive oneself even though behind it all, one knows and understands the truth." And then, as the ground began to give way under him, he thought, "Everything, as soon as it is formed, flows into infinity in which it is transformed into the void and reformed as a new formation, which in turn is instantly swallowed."

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BUDDHISM

Since we waste our youth suffering from boundless ignorance and unfulfilled desire and since age is mostly a time of physical hardship and blunted hopes, it seems clear that life, for all its promises, is more a burden than a joy. Since, however, to die is to be instantly reborn into life, death is apparently an even more absolute cheat. Considering also that all things have arisen in the Mind, in the midst of the Void, and since we are ourselves our own creators and gods (in a multiplicity of aspects and a simultaneous gallimaufry of forms), there is no escaping from the inevitability of either the existing or the potential cosmos. Indeed, it is this very weariness which Reality seeks to assuage by confusing itself as to its own identity.

The Buddha, sensing the horror and outrage of life on earth, wants to lead us to the perfection of the Absolute.

He teaches that birth and death (the wheel of Samsara), together with the Karmic burden, can be dropped in enlightenment and we can enter into Nirvana directly. In an even deeper understanding we are shown that Samsara and Nirvana are already one so there is not even any need for enlightenment! (But of course you have to be enlightened before you can understand that you are already enlightened!)

To the average westerner this seems fairly tame stuff and much too intellectual for his taste. He doesnt want contemplation, he wants action. But he should understand that Buddhism is a discipline of conscious mind and is meant to accompany action, not to take its place. It is serenity of the mind which enables creative work to be done and acceptance of life to take place. The other thing the westerner sometimes fails to recognize is that death and reincarnation are as much a part of his belief system as they are that of a Hindu philosopher. What, after all, is Heaven but the prospect of rebirth on a higher plane? What is Hell but the karma of past lives?

(See also: BUDDHISM , Magick, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul,)

Silence Like darkness and space, used in attempts to express the ineffable.

To our minds they often seem negative qualities, yet if we ordinarily call silence the absence of sound, it is also possible to call sound the absence of silence. A maxim bids us learn the fullness of the seeming void, the voidness of the seeming full; and, applying this, we may name silence as a mighty positive power, not a mere emptiness.

Silence is that in which sound becomes manifest; it is the container of sound, the privation of sound. It means the rest of all the senses, both external and internal. To the personal man such silence may seem an unutterable horror, or a ring-pass-not; but it must be faced if he is to win to the sublimities beyond. All these words are used mystically: thus, what is a silence to our ears, and on higher planes a silence to our soul, may in either instance be celestial harmonies which our grosser nature cannot take in.

The early Gnostics mystically said that the gnosis rests upon a square whose corners are silence (sige), depth (bythos), divine mind (nous), and truth (aletheia). In the system of Simon Magus, the one root from which the aeons proceed is called silence; in Valentinus' system, silence and sempiternal depth proceed from the one root, depth. The Marcosians viewed God under four aspects: the ineffable, the silence, the father, the truth.

The Stanzas of Dzyan (2:2) speak of a time when there was neither silence nor sound; for these constitute a duality, and before this all was cosmic oneness.

(See also: Silence , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

AMPRODIAS

The qliphotic guardian of the 11th Tunnel, sometimes connected to Nyarlathotep. He's not the "opposite", but a distortion of The Fool. Instead of being about to walk off the edge of a cliff, here he's seated at the bottom of a crater, at the edge of a pit, whence issue inane bubbles of nothingness. Instead of his warning dog, here we see the idiot flute-playing demons seeking not to advise, but to distract and confuse. Worst of all, the Fool is beyond mere "Folly", because as anyone can plainly see, he has no head at all.

 His disease is diarrhea. His path is that of reversal. Since 11 is the general number for magic and since 11 is also the number of Daath on the Tree of Life, i.e. the "non-existent" sephirah and the gateway to the "other side", Amprodias also has The Fool's number. Zero (the Void) is the number that precedes One (Manifestation). The Zeroeth Level is also the level that precedes even the must elementary level of consensual reality. That is it even precedes solipsism and madness.

(See also: AMPRODIAS , Magick, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul,)

Achaitanya Acaitanya (Sanskrit) (from a not + the verbal root cit to be conscious of, understand)

Void of intelligence and consciousness, lack of spirituality. An ancient Sanskrit verse runs: Achaitanyan noa vidyate, Sarvan sarvatra sarvada ("A thing without intelligence or consciousness is not known. All is everywhere at all times").

(See also: Achaitanya, Acaitanya , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Sunyata (Sanskrit). Void, space, nothingness. The name of our objective universe in the sense of its unreality and illusiveness.

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

CREED

My own belief, eminently mutable and if belief it be, is this: I am a God containing within myself all the Gods - because the part is equal to and more than the whole. Both the universe and myself I created and I dwell forever in Eternity, as I was, from the beginning, that very maker of the Original Void whence all Gods flow. The Self, my selves, the ordinary and Higher, the soul and Lower, are but changing, lambent tongues of Spirit. I do not worship, for this is none but myself. Instead, I invoke the presence of the Archetypes at will. I do not repeat, but only create. I metamorphose myself and transform the world.

As a God is not his robes, nor a serpent his cast-off skin - as the Earth itself, in becoming corrupt, is cast out like so much rotten fruit, so this body is subject to corruption and death. Yet I am not this body.

To be is to know. My purpose in coming into existence is to know myself. There is no other reason for birth. Know this, then:

Each God-Person is a center, focus and collection of power-embued matter transforming itself. Within that self-universe, from the star at its center, radiates a confluence of materia, yods, animals, plants, machines, chariots and other orders of being in one Microcosm infinitely opening inward, rising like a bubble within the vast Macrocosm, below as above, the One in dazzling simultaneous parallelism with the All.

COURT CARDS

The royal cards of the Minor Arcana. Pages represent "establishing", Knights stand for "initiation", Queens indicate "desires" and Kings are "controls". Kings are sometimes referred to as Princes - that is, son rather than spouse of the Queen. In addition, the Pages are earth, knights fire, queens water, Kings air.

(See also: CREED , Magick, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul,)

KETHER

the "Crown" of the Sephir Yetzirah. Corresponds, in Buddhism, to Nirvana (see NIRVANA). It is the very first of the power chakras of the Qabalah and is the link to the "outside," the Ain, or Void, which is "Universe B."

(See also: KETHER , Magick, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul,)

IMMACULATE CONCEPTION

Refers not to a "virgin woman," but to the descent from the Perfect Void.

(See also: IMMACULATE CONCEPTION , Magick, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul,)

Maha Sunyata (Sanskrit). Space, or eternal law; the great void or chaos.

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

LANGUAGE

Maurice Nicoll in Living Time says: "We communicate badly, partly because we never notice how we are doing it, and partly because it is an extremely difficult matter to communicate anything save the simplest observations, without the danger of our signals being misinterpreted. Also, as often as not, we do not exactly know what it is we are trying to communicate. Finally, nearly everything of importance cannot be expressed."

Since this is so, doesn't it stand to reason that we should devote a good deal more time to language than we do? And since the more tongues we learn the better we understand our own, shouldn't learning other languages have a high priority? Part of the teaching we should impart to our chelas is never to stop struggling with language, recognizing that it must always be welcomed as a challenge. In every M/magic(k)al community - whether in a sophisticated modern city or in the midst of a Stone Age tribe, the magician is always the one who knows the longest words and can use them. What is a "spell", after all? What is gematria, but an attempt to dissect words and rebuild them? A "grimoire" was originally a "grammar." "Vedanta" is actually the "grammar" of the Sanskrit Vedas! As we begin to understand more about the Past and the necessity to turn back to it, we see that language looms larger and larger in human consciousness. The ancients understood what we have forgotten - birds fly and lions predate, but language is what man does. It is language that lies behind everything we make, which is why the word "poet" derives from a Greek word meaning "one who makes," the most important thing being, for the Greeks, to make words and which is why in the bible it is said, "In the beginning was the word." Words, like all things that are made, come out of the Void, magically. And words come before the thing! A spider may weave a web but it is always the same web built on the same blueprint resident in her instincts, no different from the eggs she lays instinctively. Compare that to the variety of human works! By the same token, the man who has no language is not just a spider that can't weave webs. He is a frog that can't leap, a seal that can't swim, a deer that can't run.

The reason Latin, Greek and Sanskrit are hard to learn is that they are ancient tongues and our linguistically-diminished consciousness is no longer able to deal with convolutions of thought and esoteric syntax. Nevertheless, it's still true that if you really want to understand Plato or the author of Genesis you must learn Ancient Greek and Hebrew. There was a time when English also used conjugations and declensions as highly structured as Latin. Today we can barely translate Shakespeare. The progress of language always mirrors the deterioration of the human spirit and moves downward from difficult to easy. And in return, as language decays it brings civilization down with it. Already it's virtually impossible for all but a handful of scholars in the world even to attempt to master anything bizarre, like Babylonian cuneiform or Mayan hieroglyphs - although a century ago, when all well-educated people knew Latin and Greek, such studies, had the material been available, would have been relatively common. If the day ever comes that we should actually encounter an extraterrestrial civilization, we will discover to our dismay that our technology is useless. Because we have lost our sense of language, to attempt to learn what they are saying may be completely beyond our capacity. We've traded communication for the ease of machines.

(See also: LANGUAGE , Magick, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul,)

Ymir (Icelandic, Scandinavian) In the Norse creation tale, the primeval frostgiant from whose substance the worlds are formed by the aesir (gods) at the beginning of time. According to the Voluspa (sibyl's prophecy) in the Edda, Ymir was "slain" -- transformed -- by the creative deities Odin Allfather (spirit), Vile (will), and Vi or Ve (awe, sanctity) into the substances that form the worlds in space.

One version relates that sparks from Muspellsheim (realm of fire) fell among the droplets of water vapor in Niflheim (realm of mists or nebulae) creating vapor in Ginnungagap (the yawning void). From this arose the likeness of a man, Ymir, who was nourished by the four streams of milk flowing from the udder of the cow Audhumla -- symbol of fertility. Ymer represents the frozen immobility of non-existence when the universe is not.

The Vala (sibyl) relates in Voluspa that the frostgiant's two feet mated with each other and that from them arose all the matter-giants from which all physical creation was formed. She describes poetically how the blood of Ymir became the oceans of water, his bones became mountains, his skull the heavenly vault, but "from his brain were surely all dark skies created." Midgard (central court), the earth, is surrounded and protected by his eyebrows and each quarter of space is governed by one of the four ruling powers, named for the four cardinal points, North, South, East, and West.

(See also: Ymir , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body mind and Soul)

shunyavada:

buddhist philosophy that everything is void

(See also: shunyavada , Hinduism, Hinduism Dictionary, Sanskrit Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul)

Sunyata:

Sunyata. The void. The abyss.

(See also: Sunyata , Tantra, Tantra Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul)

Elivagar (Icelandic) (from eli ice + vagar waves)

In Norse mythology the "waves of ice" (glaciers) which flow from the fountain Hvergelmir into all the worlds and which provide the life forms for the embodiment of all beings. In the cosmogony of the Eddas, it was from elivagar, the glacier or unmoving waters of nonbeing, that the frost giant Ymir was formed: the void of non-existence in which there was "no soil, no sea, no waves" (cf Voluspa in the elder Edda).

Into the elivagar massed in Ginnungagap (formless or sacred void) fell showers of sparks from Muspellsheim (home of fire), the energic counterpart of Niflheim (home of clouds, nebulae), creating a vapor -- Ymir, the frost giant from which the gods created worlds. Ymir is then said to have given rise to the race of rime-thurses -- matter giants, for "all their kin is ever evil."

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

Bindu: period, dot, zero, void, seed, semen. Point of potential energy and consciousness, nucleus.

(See also: Bindu , Hinduism, Yoga, Sanskrit Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul)

Plenum (Latin) Full, fullness, as opposed to void or so-called empty space; the plenitude of fullness of matter in space which in fact forms space. Space in this sense is a plenum or pleroma, not a vacuum; yet philosophically, because of the nature of mahamaya, all manifested existence is illusory and hence empty in the mystical sense. Therefore those great systems of thought which have remained most faithful to the ancient wisdom, such as Northern Buddhism, speak of space and all the vast variety of existence as sunyata (the void).

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

Wu

(Chinese, "nonbeing," "nothingness," "void")

A Chinese philosophical concept for a primordial state before the differentiation of distinct phenomena. First intimated in the Lao-tzu (Tao-te ching), the concept was elaborated by third-century Hsuan-hsueh thinkers such as Wang Pi, fourth-century Buddhists such as Tao-an, and twelfth-century Neo-Confucians such as Lu Hsiang-shan.

(See also: Wu , New Age Spirituality, Body Mind and Soul)

Middle Vehicle

Also called Middle Doctrine School or Madhyarnika; one of the two main schools of Mahayana thought; it upholds the Void as the only really real or independent, unconditioned Reality.

 (See also: Middle Vehicle , Buddhism, Body Mind and Soul)

Sunyata: Emptiness or void. Though this sounds negative, sunyata is actually positive, it is an affirmation. Emptiness is not void. Emptiness is not empty. Empty without emptiness.

 (See also: Sunyata , Buddhism, Body Mind and Soul)

Fiat Lux (Latin) Let there be light (Genesis 1:3); the light meant here is the cosmic appearance of the sons of light or the hierarchy of light, the formative logoi in their hierarchical unity.

Fiat lux ex nihilo (Let there be light out of nothing), another Latin phrase, refers to the alleged creation of light out of nothing, which is meaningless unless nothing is understood as the primordial chaos of the universe, the cosmic void or sunyata (emptiness).

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