Whirling Dictionary

Whirling Souls Used in reference to the Hebrew Gilgulim, the cyclic journeys or whirlings of the monad, and the Qabbalistic teaching that during the course of these peregrinations or transmigrations it enters body after body.

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

Wheel Perpetual gyratory motion; a vortex, a center of revolving force. Matter is not only motion itself in low ranges of the cosmos, but has likewise many modes of motion, although not in the sense in which this phrase was used in the 19th century.

Lord Kelvin's vortex-atoms illustrate the point, for he showed that many of the properties attributed to atoms could be represented by regarding atoms as vortices in a frictionless, incompressible fluid. More recent analysis of the atom has failed to resolve it into anything more than electric particles whose properties are functions of their motions. "Atoms are called 'Vibrations' in Occultism . . . " (SD 2:633). Fohat traces spiral lines and forms wheels or centers of force around which primordial cosmic matter expands and contracts and passes through stages of consolidation ending in globes, and later through stages of etherealization. Vortical motion is a universal law, as seen in the stellar universe and in the electronic constitution of the physical atom, giving a fuller meaning to the word cycle.

Wheel, cycle, globes, and revolutions all pertain to the same fundamental conception of whirling, revolving, or gyratory motion of beings and substances; and as no motion can take place except in matter, space, and time, the whirlings and revolutions of beings and things include likewise the time periods or cyclic returns of beings and events throughout duration. Wherever there is a whirling or turning, whether of matter or of an event in time, it is because it is a being or thing which is active in reproducing itself in cyclic events (cf Ezekiel 1:15-21). This is one of the archaic ways of understanding what is now called the principle of Relativity. Indeed, so intimate and entangled are the actor and the act -- the being and its movements in time -- that it is not always easy to distinguish the actor inherent and moving from the effects in space and time of such movement; so that when we speak of a cycle of time we are perforce obliged to conceive of a moving entity producing the cycle, albeit the moving entity may not be visible to us and indeed may be incomprehensible. Hence, the frequent and often perplexing usage of wheel or wheelings found in ancient occult writings.

See also WINGED WHEEL; GLOBE, WINGED

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

swirl: To move in a whirling, circular motion, like a whirlpool.

(See also: Swirl , Hinduism, Body Mind and Soul)

RUMI

Famous enlightened Muslim/Sufi -- founder of the whirling dervishes. (Note in Arabic rumi (lit. "from Rome") actually means "Grecian or European" and is a synonym generally for "Christian."

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

Pramantha (Sanskrit) [from pra-math to stir about violently]

The upper stick used by the ancient Brahmins to kindle fire. By rubbing it against the arani or under stick, the friction produced the heat and subsequent flame. It would be wide of the inner significance of the pramantha and arani to concentrate attention upon their supposed phallic or sexual significance as these are described both pragmatically and mystically in ancient Hindu works, although unquestionably the language used is at times suggestive.

Mystically, the pramantha stands for the will in man, whirling and unceasingly active in and upon the passive portion of the human constitution, arousing the latter into corresponding activity, bringing about there the fire and flame of animate life. When the will is stilled the being is dormant; when the will acts all portions of the constitution touched by the whirling activity of the will react and spring themselves into corresponding motion.

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

Manvantara (Sanskrit) [from manu + antara between]

Between two manus; a period of activity or manifestation. Manu is the entities collectively aggregated into a unity which appear first at the beginning of manifestation and from which, like a cosmic tree, everything is derived or born. A manvantara, therefore, is the period of activity between any two manus, on any plane, since in any such period there is a root-manu at the beginning of evolution and a seed-manu at its close, preceding a pralaya.

One has to gather from context what the meaning of the manvantara referred to is, remembering that what is applicable to a lesser period applied also to a greater, and conversely. When speaking of a manvantara of our planet, a period of one round of the planetary chain is usually meant. There is also the manvantara of any globe of the planetary chain. Seven rounds of the planetary chain make a mahamanvantara of a planet, a Day of Brahma. A solar manvantara is a period of seven Days of Brahma. The Life of Brahma is a mahamanvantara or mahakalpa of the solar system. A minor or globe manvantara is the duration of the seven root-races on any particular globe of the planetary chain. Even a root-race is sometimes called a manvantara because there is a root-manu and seed-manu to each race. The period of a human life is sometimes called a paurusha manvantara; the period of a planet's life, a bhaumika manvantara; the life period of the solar system, a saurya manvantara, the life period of the universe, a prakritika manvantara, which last can become synonymous with the saurya manvantara.

When the time arrives for the re-opening of a planetary manvantara, the planet

"descends again into manifestation through the inner divine planetary thirst for active life and is directed to the same solar system, and to the same spot, relatively speaking, that its predecessor (its former self) had, attracted thither by magnetic and other forces on the lower planes. It forms, in the beginning of its course or journey downwards, a planetary nebula; after many aeons it becomes a comet, following ultimately an elliptical orbit around the sun of our solar system, thus being 'captured,' as our scientists wrongly say, by the sun; and finally condenses into a planet in its earliest physical condition. The comets of short periodic time are on their way to rebecoming planets in our solar system, provided they successfully elude the many dangers that beset such ethereal bodies before condensation and hardening of their matter shield them from destruction" (Fund 63).

In a similar manner at the re-opening of a solar manvantara, a cosmic nebula is gradually formed of the principles of the former cosmos with its sun and planets, etc. Then

"this cosmic nebula drifts from the place where it first was evolved, the guiding impulse of karma directing here and directing there, this luminous nebulosity moving circularly, and contracting, passing through other phases of nebular evolution, such as the spiral stage and the annular, until it becomes spherical, or rather a nebular series of concentric spheres. The nebula in space, as just said, takes often a spiral form, and from the core, the center, there stream forth branches, spiral branches, and they look like whirling wheels within wheels, and they whirl during many ages. When the time has come -- when the whirling has developed pari passu with the indwelling lives and intelligences within the cosmic nebula -- then the annular form appears, a form like a ring or concentric rings, with a heart in the center, and after long aeons, the central heart becomes the sun or central body of the new solar system, and the rings the planets. These rings condense into other bodies, and these other bodies are the planets circulating around their elder brother, the sun; elder, because he was the first to condense into a sphere" (Fund 61-2).

In the first half of a manvantara (planetary as well as human) there is the descent of spirit into matter, and in the second half an ascent of spirit at the expense of matter. A manvantara or period of material manifestation is a temporary spiritual death, whereas the dawn of the succeeding pralaya is spiritual birth.

(See also: Manvantara , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Waking State The state of human consciousness when perceiving the physical world, conscious of other people and things. Termed the jagrat state in Hindu philosophy, it is the lowest of the four states into which human consciousness is divided: jagrat, svapna, sushupti, and turiya.

The reason we cannot remain continuously in the waking state, but must seek another aspect of consciousness during sleep, is that "our senses are all dual, and act according to the plane of consciousness on which the thinking entity energizes. Physical sleep affords the greatest facility for its action on the various planes; at the same time it is a necessity, in order that the senses may recuperate and obtain a new lease of life for the Jagrata, or waking state, from the Svapna and Sushupti. . . . As a man exhausted by one state of the life fluid seeks another; as, for example, when exhausted by the hot air he refreshes himself with cool water; so sleep is the shady nook in the sunlit valley of life. Sleep is a sign that waking life has become too strong for the physical organism, and that the force of the life current must be broken by changing the waking for the sleeping state. Ask a good clairvoyant to describe the aura of a person just refreshed by sleep, and that of another just before going to sleep. The former will be seen bathed in rhythmical vibrations of life currents -- golden, blue, and rosy; these are the electrical waves of Life. The latter is, as it were, in a mist of intense golden-orange hue, composed of atoms whirling with an almost incredible spasmodic rapidity, showing that the person begins to be too strongly saturated with Life; the life essence is too strong for his physical organs, and he must seek relief in the shadowy side of that essence, which side is the dream element, or physical sleep, one of the states of consciousness" (TBL 58).

Human beings, animals, and plants die not because of a lack of life, but because their vehicles become finally worn out, precisely because the life-currents within have become too strong, and the building power of the vehicles less able to repair the damages of the life-force. Paradoxically, it is the life-force which itself brings about both sleep and death, and thus life repairs its own damage, both building and destroying.

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

GYROMANCY - divination by whirling in a circle marked with letters and spelling out a prophecy when falling down. (NAD)

(See also: GYROMANCY , Wiccan Pagan, Paganism, Pagan Dictionary)

Whirlwind A gyrating wind; in theosophy, when applied to the movements of a universe, a name for the moving of the Great Breath and for the various functions and activities of fohat.

Motion, the divine breath, becomes the cosmic whirling or whirlwind and sets in motion the particles in space, bringing about now their coagulation and concretion, now their dissipation and dispersion.

Deity thus mystically becomes a whirlwind; pulsatory life assumes a whirling movement. Stages in world formation are described as diffused cosmic matter, then the fiery whirlwind, the first stage in the formation of a nebula, leading eventually to the formation of solar system and more particularly of a globe or group of solar or planetary globes.

The primordial seven forces, the first seven breaths of the cosmic dragon of wisdom or cosmic manifest intelligence, produce from their circumgyrating motions the fiery whirlwind. The first chapter of Ezekiel mentions a whirlwind and other descriptions of cosmic evolution, especially wheels.

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

Dervish. A Mussulman - Turkish or Persian - ascetic. A nomadic and wandering monk. Dervishes, however, sometimes live in communities. They are often called the "whirling charmers".

Apart from his austerities of life, prayer and contemplation, the Turkish, Egyptian, or Arabic devotee presents but little similarity with the Hindu fakir, who is also a Mussulman. The latter may become a saint and holy mendicant the former will never reach beyond his second class of occult manifestations.

The dervish may also be a strong mesmerizer, but he will never voluntarily submit to the abominable and almost incredible self-punishment which the fakir invents for himself with an ever-increasing avidity, until nature succumbs and he dies in slow and excruciating tortures.

The most dreadful operations, such as flaying the limbs alive; cutting off the toes, feet, and legs ; tearing out the eyes and causing one’s self to be buried alive up to the chin in the earth, and passing whole months in this posture, seem child’s play to them. The Dervish must not be confused with the Hindu sanyasi or yogi. (See "Fakir").

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

Dervish (Persian) Driyosh (Pahlavi) Drighu (Avestan) (from Pers darvish seeking doors from dar a door; i.e., those who seek from door to door, beggars)

Poor one; an Islamic devotee, used in mystic Persian literature for one who shows his spiritual grandeur by turning away from the common norms of society and material wealth. Originally a mendicant, but now it generally indicates a member of a religious fraternity, whether mendicant or not, cloistered or lay. In Turkey and Persia it indicates a wandering, begging religious, called in Arabic-speaking countries a fakir. Those whose faith is so great that they have miraculous powers are termed walis.

The dervishes are the practical expounders of Islam. As with the fakirs and sufis, the origin of the dervish fraternities is assigned to either Ali or Abu Bekr. They are divided into two great classes, the ba-Shara (with the law), who govern their conduct according to the principles of Islam; and the be-Shara (without the law), who do not rule their lives according to the formal principles of any religious creed, although they call themselves Moslems. The sufis belong principally to the latter class.

There are reckoned 32 different fraternities of dervishes, with innumerable suborders, but the two principal ones known in the West are the Mevlevits (whirling or dancing dervishes), an order founded by Jelal ud-Din ar-Rumi, author of the great Persian mystical poem the Mathnawi; and the Rifa'ites (howling dervishes), who in ecstasy cut themselves with knives, eat live coals and glass, handle red-hot iron, and devour serpents.

In the symbolism of Hafiz (14th-century mystic Persian poet) dervish is one who has reached the highest degree of spirituality by giving up worldly possessions and in a beggar-like appearance holds the secret of alchemy. In later times, people who did not understand the subtleties of mysticism took the symbolic rejection of the material world too literally and the attitude of certain dervishes also contributed to this misconception, particularly during the Safavids, who were themselves dervishes, followers of the Sharia or Shariat (the outward rituals of religion).

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

Gilgoolem (Hebrew, Jewish) The cycle of rebirths with the Hebrew Kabbalists; with the orthodox Kabbalists, the "whirling of the soul" after death, which finds-no rest until it reaches Palestine, the "promised land", and its body is buried there.

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

Chokmah: In Chokmah is a cloud-like grey which containeth various colours and is mixed with them, like a transparent pearl-hued mist, yet radiating withal, as if behind it there was a brilliant glory. And the Sphere of its influence is in Masloth, the Starry Heaven, wherein it disposeth the forms of things. And Yah is the Divine Ideal Wisdom, and its Archangel is Ratziel, the Prince or Princes of the knowledge of hidden and concealed things, and the name of its Order of Angels is Auphanim, the Wheels or the Whirling Forces which are also called the Order of Kerubim.

(See also: Chokmah , Magic, Shamanism, Paganism, Wicca)

Kavyas or Kavyas (Sanskrit) (from kavi intelligent, wise)

A class of pitris, the descendants of Kavi, closely connected with Sukra, regent of the planet Venus. Connected intimately with the manasaputras or solar pitris, monads of intrinsically spiritual-intellectual type or descent, as opposed to the barhishads or lunar pitris, the lower human ancestors. As the various descents of mind governed by cyclic law are connected with the manasaputras, we see the reason the kavyas are often represented as intimately connected with the whirling cycles of evolutionary time, and as residing over these cycles.

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

VORTEX: the whirling forces of the cone of power.

(See also: VORTEX , Witchcraft, Wicca, Paganism, Pagan Dictionary)

Kether: In Kether is the Divine White Brilliance, the scintillation and corruscation of the Divine Glory--that Light which lighteth the universe--that Light which surpasseth the glory of the Sun and beside which the light of mortals is but darkness, and concerning which it is not fitting that we should speak more fully. And the Sphere of its Operation is called Rashith Ha-Gilgalim--the beginning of whirling (or whirls, or whorls), the Primum Mobile or First Mover, which bestoweth the gift of life in all things and filleth the whole Universe. And Eheieh is the Name of the Divine Essence in Kether; and its Archangel is the Prince of Countenances--Metatron or Metraton, He who bringeth others before the face of God. And the Name of its Order of Angels is called Chaioth ha-Qadesh, the Holy Living Creatures, which are also called the Order of Seraphim.

(See also: Kether , Magic, Shamanism, Paganism, Wicca)

Free Will The inherent power or capacity of choice, divine in its origin, which every being in the kosmos exercises in some degree as, consciously or unself-consciously, it evolves forth its essential self. Every thing and being has its own essential characteristic or svabhava and, the universal urge being towards self-expression and self-consciousness, of necessity each has its relative share of inherent free will with which to work out its destiny. Since evolution is a coming forth of the involved monadic essence, the unfolding of inner capacities and attributes, it cannot be produced, however stimulated, by something outside of itself. The one divine will is the force behind evolution on all planes of manifestation throughout the kosmos. Hence, each entity, as a unit of the divine All, has its portion of free choice and power to bring forth what is within itself.

Free will is manifesting, however feebly, in vegetative or automatic action in the whirling electrons of the atom; also in characteristic actions of matter, such as cohesion, polarity, and electricity; in the varied growths of vegetation; in the range of animal activities; in the evolving human being, and in the perfected humans called gods; and so forth up the scales of being. It acts in the urge which brings the monad to cast off its former garments in the minerals in order to assume new ones in the vegetable kingdom, from which again, after casting off these latter, it progresses to the animal kingdom; and from this again, the monad rejects beast forms and assumes the human shape where it gains in range and momentum because now acting self-consciously in greater or less degree.

The karma which brings to a person conditions which he does not choose or wish for in his present life, is yet consistent with his free will because he is the result of all his previous actions, now expressing themselves in results. These reactions of causes which he set in motion in this or in former lives, being the result which was inherent in his previous choices, is a self-imposed destiny; but it is not fatalism, because he is now free to decide again how he will meet the results of what he previously had chosen for himself. Karma is mathematically exact, both physically and metaphysically, but it is so constantly involved with new elements of choice and of proportion that its effects of necessity are measured on a sliding scale of being, so to say.

There is an automatic phase of free will in the purposeful instinct which marks the various activities of even minute and lowly forms of life. The unself-conscious beasts are protected, and therefore guided, by the wills of celestial beings who make the so-called laws of nature, yet even the beasts instinctively choose to run true to their own inner types or svabhava. They unconsciously will to be themselves and to copy no other. They have free will exactly in proportion to their consciousness, just as any person has it in the higher degrees of his intelligence and more active intuition.

Thus human beings have the power to work out their evolution, for the kingdom of heaven is taken by strength. The gods have gone ahead on the pathway towards omniscience -- so far as our universe is concerned -- by their own individual efforts consciously to act with an ever-enlarging measure of harmony with the one divine will. Thus the volume or power of free will is in strict proportion with the degree in which the entity has brought forth the central spark of divine willing fire which animates all that is. Nevertheless no single being or entity has completely unfettered and perfectly irresponsible free will, because of its relative imperfection and because of its inescapable subordination to greater wills, each such entity ever evolving from its stage of imperfection as it ascends along the scales of being: those on the higher rungs of the hierarchical ladder consciously willing in ever-enlarging degree to follow the greater divine will which holds all in its keeping.

(See also: Free Will , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Sufism

Ancient Persian mystical religious system which has been absorbed by Islam. Rather than focusing on the Five Pillars of Islam, Sufis seek ultimate religious experience through mystic trances or altered states of consciousness, often induced through twirling dances (the Òwhirling dervishÓ). Although the Qur'an is considered scripture, many practitioners have more in common with the New Age movement than with classic forms of Islam.

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

Avaivartika (Sanskrit) (from a not + vi-vrit to turn around, revolve)

Non-revolving, nontransmigrating; in the case of a reimbodying entity, one who is advanced so far on the evolutionary path that he is no longer enslaved by, or enchained in, the whirling waves of samsara. Hence also translated "one who does not revolve any more," applied to seventh round human beings, and therefore strictly referable to one who has reached nirvana. Also applied to every buddha "who turns no more back; who goes straight to Nirvana" (TG 44), for whether nirvana is entered as in the case of the Pratyeka Buddhas, or whether the avaivartika renounces that lofty state and remains in the nirmanakaya as a Buddha of Compassion, both classes of buddhas have passed beyond the necessity of "revolving" any more in this round.

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

Nitya-parivritti nitya-parivrtti (Sanskrit) [from nitya constant, continuous + pari around + the verbal root vrit to turn, revolve, whirl]

Continuously or constantly whirling, revolving, or wandering around in the spheres of manifestation, and sinking constantly lower and farther from the light of spirit. Mystically, a continuous descent towards extinction.

The farther from the sun of spirit a monad or jiva wanders or is whirled, the less of the light of spirit shines through it, so that the monad is lost or extinguished in the whirlpools of material existence. The idea is identical with that of the Hebrew gilgulim (whirlings) of the Qabbalah.

(See also: Nitya-parivritti, nitya-parivrtti , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)