Book of Dzyan (probably from Sanskrit dhyana intense spiritual meditation, wisdom, divine knowledge)

An archaic work of enormous antiquity upon which Blavatsky based her Secret Doctrine. Dzyan has been variously spelled or transliterated, and under this form is a derivative of the Tibetan. Dzyan, dzen, or ch'an is the general term for the esoteric schools and their literature.

Blavatsky describes the Book of Dzyan, saying: "An Archaic Manuscript -- a collection of palm leaves made impermeable to water, fire, and air, by some specific unknown process -- is before the writer's eye. On the first page is an immaculate white disk within a dull black ground. On the following page, the same disk, but with a central point" (SD 1:1).

"The 'very old Book' is the original work from which the many volumes of Kiu-ti were complied. Not only this latter and the Siphrah Dzeniouta but even the Sepher Jezirah, the work attributed by the Hebrew Kabbalists to their Patriarch Abraham (!), the book of Shu-king, China's primitive Bible, the sacred volumes of the Egyptian Thoth-Hermes, the Puranas in India, and the Chaldean Book of Numbers and the Pentateuch itself, are all derived from that one small parent volume.

Tradition says, that it was taken down in Senzar, the secret sacerdotal tongue, from the words of the Divine Beings, who dictated it to the sons of Light, in Central Asia, at the very beginning of the 5th (our) race; for there was a time when its language (the Sen-zar) was known to the Initiates of every nation, when the forefathers of the Toltec understood it as easily as the inhabitants of the lost Atlantis, who inherited it, in their turn, from the sages of the 3rd Race, the Manushis, who learnt it direct from the Devas of the 2nd and 1st Races. . . . The old book, having described Cosmic Evolution and explained the origin of everything on earth, including physical man, after giving the true history of the races from the First down to the Fifth (our) race, goes no further" (SD 1:xliii).

See also STANZAS OF DZYAN.

(See also: Book of Dzyan, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Magic, Magician (from Persian magus a wise man, great; cf magi)

The great art; a knowledge of the mysteries of nature and the power to apply them. In its true sense it is gupta-vidya (divine knowledge), the aim of those who tread the path of wisdom; but in ages of decline its chief secrets are withdrawn from public access, and what remains passes through transformations and gradually degenerates.

"The ancients believed in the power of man by magic practices to command the services of the gods: which gods, are in truth, but the occult powers or potencies of Nature, personified by the learned priests themselves, in which they reverenced only the attributes of the one unknown and nameless Principle. As Proclus the Platonist ably puts it: 'Ancient priests, when they considered that there is a certain alliance and sympathy in natural things to each other, and of things manifest to occult powers, and discovered that all things subsist in all, fabricated a sacred science from this mutual sympathy and similarity. . . . and applied for occult purposes, both celestial and terrene natures, by means of which, through a certain similitude, they deduced divine virtues into this inferior abode.' Magic is the science of communicating with and directing supernal, supramundane Potencies, as well as of commanding those of the lower spheres; a practical knowledge of the hidden mysteries of nature known to only the few, because they are so difficult to acquire, without falling into sins against nature" (TG 197).

White magic or theurgy is knowledge used for impersonal and beneficent purposes, the bringing into human life of the pattern and powers of nature as these exist on the spiritual planes. Black magic or goetia is knowledge used for selfishly personal or evil purposes. Natural magic is the knowledge and employment of the natural powers, forces, and substances of nature -- practically what today is called science. If the knowledge gained through the study of natural science is distorted in its use to selfish or ignoble ends, it becomes de facto black magic. While a hard and fast distinction may not be applicable to all cults of magic, where the student or practitioner has not yet made a conscious choice between the two paths, yet in the end he must choose the one or the other. For nature's forces must be controlled, either by a pure or an impure will, if the practicer is not to fall victim to them. The motive and use that a person makes of his faculties and will are the deciding factors as to whether the magic is beneficent or maleficent. Any selfish, self-seeking, or selfishly restricted use of nature's laws or powers is against the impersonality and universality of nature:

"The smallest attempt to use one's abnormal powers for the gratification of self makes of these powers sorcery or Black Magic" (Key 346).

In theosophical writings, advanced students of occultism who have acquired some knowledge and use of spiritual powers but misuse them for selfish purposes are called black magicians, Brothers of the Shadow, followers of the left-hand path, or sometimes dugpas. In their highest class they are adepts in spiritual evil.

Whenever the forces of nature are used for selfish purposes, such misuse by anyone marks such person as a black magician, whether conscious or unconscious. Those who follow the pathway of self-renunciation, self-sacrifice, self-conquest, and an expansion of the heart, mind, and consciousness in love and service for all that lives are called white magicians or Sons of Light.

(See also: Magic, Magician, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Maharaja (Sanskrit) [from maha great + raja king]

Great king; in Hindu literature four are spoken of as the mystical regents and protectors of the four quarters of the earth -- north, south, east, and west -- because they are the mystical regents and guardians of cosmic space in our solar system.

In Egyptian temples the parti-colored curtain separating the holy recess from the place for the congregation was drawn over the five pillars symbolizing our five senses as well as the five root-races, while the four colors of the curtain represented the four cardinal points and the four as yet evolved cosmico-terrestrial elements. This grouping, among other things, thus symbolized that it is through the four high rulers of the four cosmic quarters that our five senses become cognizant of the hidden truths of nature. The same mystic symbolism is found in the Tabernacle and the square courtyard prepared by Moses in the wilderness, "in the Zoroastrian caves, in the rock-cut temples of India, as in all the sacred square buildings of antiquity that have survived to this day. This is shown definitely by Layard, who finds the four cardinal points, and the four primitive elements, in the religion of every country, under the shape of square obelisks, the four sides of the pyramids . . . Of these elements and their points the four Maharajahs were the regents and the directors" (SD 1:126).

The four Maharajas correspond to the cherubim, seraphim, the winged globes, fiery or winged wheels, the gandharvas (sweet singers), asuras, kinnaras, and celestial nagas. In Chinese Buddhism the Maharajas are called the four hidden dragons of wisdom: the Regent of the North is called the Black Warrior, of the East the White Tiger, of the South the Vermilion Bird, and of the West the Azure Dragon.

There are profound, highly mystical differences which distinguish the Maharajas from the lipikas. The Maharajas, who are both the protectors of mankind on earth and the agents of karma, are those highly evolved spiritual powers or individualized cosmic beings who belong to the light-side of universal nature, to the hierarchies of compassion representing beings of unfolded evolutionary development who by the very nature of their essence become almost the automatic guardians of light and cosmic order which the semi-intelligent and so-called unintelligent forces and energies of nature automatically obey.

The lipikas, on the other hand, are cosmic spiritual entities who might almost be called the viceroys of the sublime cosmic hierarch of our galaxy. For this reason their actions or functions are of so widely impersonal a character, for they operate not so much from power and consciousness belonging solely to the solar system, but in obedience to the spiritual vital mandates of the galactic sphere, to which they are wholly subservient and of whose flow of intelligent impersonal forces they are but impartial ministers in almost instinctual obedience. They represent what might be called the impersonal flow of cosmic destiny.

(See also: Maharaja, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Stone, Stones There is available numerous testimony as to animated stones, speaking stones, etc. There is the Christ-stone, which followed the Israelites; the Jupiter Lapis swallowed by Saturn; the testimony of Pausanias as to the Grecian worship of stones; the Ophites and Siderites, serpent-stones and star-stones, the former being alleged to have the gift of speech; the baituloi or alleged animated stones mentioned by Sanchoniathon and Philo Byblius; the liafail or speaking stone of Westminster; Pliny's stones which ran away when a hand approached them; the importance attached to stone monuments and rocking stones; etc. (SD 2:341 et seq). Again, we have the vast subject of talismans and of gems with potent properties.

A stone is an organism enshrining a divine spark or monad. The difference between the stone and the man consists largely in the fact that what is expressed in man is latent in the stone. Why then should not the hierophants of genuine magic or occult science have been able to evoke from the stone its latent potencies? Why should not particular stones, like particular plants, animals, or men, possess particular virtues?

Unless modern science is prepared to make of the physical atom a primordial existence, it must seek the origin elsewhere. Physical matter is a concretion of universal light or radiation; but it needs the eye of a seer to perceive what starry virtue lies sleeping in the gem or the talisman; the skill of the magician to known what can be done by placing stones in a particular grouping, perhaps with certain ceremonies, etc.

The word has symbolic uses, as in the white stone with a new name inscribed in it, which is given to him that overcomes in Revelations; the stone that the builders rejected; stones in the Guardian Wall; etc.

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

Jesus (Latin of Greek Iesous from Hebrew Yeshua` contraction of Yehoshua` a proper name meaning savior or helper, or that which is spacious or widespread)

Indubitably a historical character, whose life as narrated in the Gospels is pure allegory, a story of the initiation chamber. There is a story current from medieval times among the Jews, mentioned in the Sepher Toledoth Yeshua` (Book of the Generations of Jesus), to the effect that the Jesus of the Gospels was a Jehoshua ben Panthera, a Jewish adept living about 100 BC. Jesus illustrates the typical sequence in occult history: 1) the coming of a leader or teacher to a people needing to be led and taught; 2) his passing, followed by the adoration, even worship, of his followers; 3) the gradual transformation of historic facts into more or less embroidered legends or mythological tales, which in time cluster so thickly about his memory that his identity as a person, and even his name, are lost; 4) the myth, allegory, or legend; and 5) the efforts of other, later teachers to explain, interpret, and reinstate this earlier teacher, now a purely mythic figure or else materialized and misunderstood.

The Christian Gospels appear to have originated in mystery-dramas, beautiful and often sublime in their inner significances, in which were depicted the experiences of the neophyte and adept in his union with the Logos, and hence such unified individual was called a Logos incarnate as a man, the Logos itself being variously named as Christos or Dionysos, and to have been by stages adapted and given a semi-historical guise, as has happened in other instances besides the Christian mythos. Christ therefore, or the Christos, is not a particular man or an especial incarnation of divinity, but a generic term for the divine as incarnated in all human beings, although Jesus was undoubtedly the name of this great Jewish initiate-avatara as an individual. Hence this universal allegory in its Christian version has a true historical peg to hang from; for there did appear, sometime before the Christian era, a special cyclic messenger who was due to come on the change of the ecliptic point from one sign of the celestial zodiac to another, from the sign of Aries to Pisces. In theosophical literature, Jesus is considered to be an avatara, the messenger for the European Messianic or Piscean cycle. As such, Jesus represented a ray sent from the Wondrous Being or spiritual hierarch of the earth into the soul of a pure human being, while the racial buddha, Gautama Buddha, supplied the intermediate or psychological nature in this act of white magic.

"But it is probable that the theosophic effort which Jesus attempted to initiate did not endure for fifty years after his death. Almost immediately after his passing, his disciples, all half-instructed, and in some cases almost illiterate, men . . . foisted upon the world of their time the forms and beliefs of early Christianity; and had there been nothing but these, that religious system had not lived another fifty years. But what happened? During the oncoming of the dark cycle after Jesus (which began as before said about the time of Pythagoras), the last few rays from the setting sun of the ancient light shone feebly in the minds of certain of these Christian Fathers, Clement of Alexandria for one, and Origen of Alexandria for another, and in one or two more like these, who had been initiated at least in the lowest of some of the then degenerate pagan Mysteries; and these men entered into the Christian Church and introduced some poor modicum of that light, . . . which they still cherished; and these rays they derived mainly from the Neo-pythagorean and the Neoplatonic system" (Fund 486-7).

The Hebrew name Jah or Jehovah became identified in the mind of Christians with the name of Jesus, although Jesus never was in any wise identical with the Jewish Jehovah, but was identified in initiation through his own inner god or Father in Heaven, and the Jewish Jehovah mystically was the regent of the planet Saturn.

The first three letters in Greek make I.H.S. placed at the head of representations of the crucified Jesus, often said to stand for Iesus Hominum Salvator (Jesus the savior of men) or In hoc signo (in this sign), with reference to the alleged vision of a cross of the Emperor Constantine. Jesus is a form of a worldwide mystery-name, whose importance was its meaning, usually given as a three-letter monogram, analogous to the Sanskrit Aum. We find it in the Greek Gnostic Iao and variants are common in ancient Greece, such as Iasios, Iasion, Iason, Iasos; and initiates were known as Iasides or sons of Iaso.

See also AVATARA

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

Loki (from Danish lys, Swed ljus, Anglo-Saxon leoht, Latin lux light; cf liechan, liuhan to enlighten; Greek leukos white.)

In Norse myths, the giant grown to godhood who represents the active human mind: on one hand he is related to Logi (flame), destructive wildfire; on the other he is called Lopt (lofty), when he represents aspiring, elevating intelligence. Like Lucifer, he is the enlightener of humankind who became transformed in popular stories into a culprit guilty of all the ills that can result from the misuse of mind.

Loki is descended from giant stock, but he is accepted among the Aesir (gods) as one of them and is considered a blood brother to Odin. Although as prankster and mischief maker he causes trouble for his brother deities at every turn, nevertheless, when appealed to, it is Loki who with his ready wit saves each situation. The panorama of evolution is thus epitomized: the pure deities must use mind, self-consciousness and free will unhampered, unruly though these properties are, to gain understanding. That is the purpose for which they embody; this means that the human thinking faculty must earn its godhood by freely choosing to cooperate with the divine purpose.

Loki is thus a complex figure of markedly dual character: his giant ancestry, which rightly belongs to the past, suggests the only partly evolved human nature, uninspired by divine wisdom. At the same time he is associated with the divine fire of intelligence. This godlike quality entails free will, which in our human condition is often unwise unless guided by inspiration and brings misfortune when acting on its won.

Loki is closely related to the gem of Freya (human higher intelligence), and to Gullveig (thirst for gold). The latter can represent either wisdom or plain greed for possessions.

With the giantess Angerboda (boding regret) Loki sired three offspring: the Midgard serpent (the equator) which is curled round the earth in the depths of the oceans and which also has larger astronomical applications; the wolf Fenris, which is to devour the sun at the end of its lifetime; and Hel, the queen of the realms of death. According to one tale Loki in the shape of a mare gave birth to Odin's eight-legged steed, Sleipnir (slider), and so provides the mount which enables Odin to enter all spheres of life. In another, Loki and Dvalin, the human "dwarf" (animal) nature, competed with the sons of the giant Ivaldi to produce valuable gifts for the Aesir (gods).

Loki is variously named the son of Lofo (leafy isle, the earth), because it is here that apply the various allegories concerning this at once sacred and naughty figures; the son of Nal (needle); and of Farbuti.

One of the most familiar stories of the Eddas is that in which the sun god Balder was killed by his blind brother Hoder through the machinations of Loki. This brought the golden age to an end and for this the bringer of mind and free will to man is condemned to remain in the underworld, "bound with his dead son's guts" until the end of this world cycle, when he will be released.

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

Chenresi spyan ras gzigs (chen-re-zi, or chen-re-si) (Tibetan) (short for spyan ras gzigs dbang phyug (chen-re-zi-wang-chung) from spyan ras penetrating vision (cf Sanskrit avalokita) + gzigs forms (cf Sanskrit rupa) + dbang phyug lord (cf Sanskrit isvara))

The Lord who sees forms with his penetrating vision; translation of Sanskrit Avalokitesvara. Exoterically Chenresi is the greatest protector of Asia in general and Tibet in particular, mystically considered to have eleven heads and a thousand arms, each with an eye in the palm of the hand, these arms radiating from his body like a forest of rays: the thousand eyes representing him as on the outlook to discover distress and to succor the troubled. In this form his name is Chantong (he of the thousand eyes) and Jigtengonpo (protector and savior against evil).

"Even the exoteric appearance of Dhyani Chenresi is suggestive of the esoteric teaching. He is evidently, like Daksha, the synthesis of all the preceding Races and the progenitor of all the human Races after the Third, the first complete one, and thus is represented as the culmination of the four primeval races in his eleven-faced form. It is a column built in four rows, each series having three faces or heads of different complexions: the three faces for each race being typical of its three fundamental physiological transformations. The first is white (moon-coloured); the second is yellow, the third, red-brown; the fourth, in which are only two faces -- the third face being left a blank -- (a reference to the untimely end of the Atlanteans) is brown-black. Padmapani (Daksha) is seated on the column, and forms the apex" (SD 2:178).

Exoterically the Dalai Lama is often regarded as an incarnation of Chenresi, as a popular legend says that whenever faith begins to die out in the world, Padmapani-Chenresi emits a brilliant ray of light, and forthwith incarnates himself in one of the two great Lamas -- the Dalai and Tashi Lamas. Esoterically he is called Bodhisattva Chenresi Vanchug (the powerful and all-seeing). Chenresi or Avalokitesvara "is the great Logos in its higher aspect and in the divine regions. But in the manifested planes, he is, like Daksha, the progenitor (in a spiritual sense) of men" (ibid.). In China, Chenresi becomes the great goddess of mercy, Kwan-yin, represented by a female figure bearing a child in her arms.

The true significance of Chenresi is the Third Logos of our solar system and the buddhi-manas of the individual human being, the active aspect of the human spiritual monad. The efflux or influence emanating from Chenresi and permeating the lower parts of the human constitution is Padmapani (the lotus-handed); Padmapani therefore is the bodhisattva of Avalokitesvara or Chenresi, and whether cosmically or psychologically the equivalent of the manifested potency of Brahma.

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

Medicine As the healing art, medicine is as old as thinking man. Before the latent fires of mind were lighted in the third root-race, disease and death were unknown. However, with the physicalization of protoplastic humanity, and the separation of the sexes, the unnatural linking with the animals in the third and fourth root-races disordered the harmonious relations between man and nature. In addition, self-conscious man's continued evolution into matter, with the involution of his spiritual nature, brought about forms of disorder, disease, and physical death. Then, beings from higher spheres descended, and dynasties of divine kings and spiritual guides taught men, leading them to the invention of all the arts and sciences, including the medical use of plants (cf SD 2:364).

Medicine was originally a divine science, providing for the well-being of the spiritual, mental, psychic, astral, and physical man. Archaic medicine included a profound knowledge of genuine astrology, of true alchemy, of occult physiology, of the finer forces vibrating as sound, color, form, thought, and feeling, and whatever related man to his home universe of natural law and order. This was the basis of the natural "magic" which tradition has linked with the medical art. This knowledge was dual in its power to work for life or death, for good or evil ends. Its full comprehension required not only a trained intellect, but the intuitive understanding of a pure spiritual nature. Nevertheless, the Atlanteans acquired enough knowledge of the use of dangerous powers that they became -- albeit with numerous and noteworthy exceptions -- a nation of sorcerers. Then, the white magicians established the Mystery schools in which to safeguard the sacred teachings from evildoers and to protect humanity from their influence. Thus, the deeper truths of the healing art have ever since been entrusted only to pledged disciples and initiates. Such fragments of it as have been rediscovered by intuitive physicians from time to time have usually been in keeping with the general cultural level of their civilization. The exceptions have been men who have frequently been too far ahead of their times to be understood. Such a man was Paracelsus in medieval Europe, persecuted for heretical teachings such as the psychoelectric and magnetic play of sidereal forces which linked man with the stars -- the spiritus vitae in man came from the spiritus mundi.

Of the archaic history of medicine -- as of the race -- little is to be found. However, echoes of the primitive wisdom have survived, and every country having a literature of its ancient periods has some account of the healing art. The Hindu sacred scriptures -- the oldest literature extant -- have treatises upon medicine and surgery, showing a profound and intimate knowledge of the subject. This high standard was not maintained when the Vedic writings became misunderstood and mutilated by later commentators. The exclusive Brahmins' assumption of the right to all knowledge also prevented original thought and research. What writings are available today are of little practical value without the lost key. Even our typically matter-of-fact interpretation of legendary and classical beliefs and customs, and of archaeological findings, overlooks that what is known of ancient medical practice is largely exoteric, symbolic of a deeper teaching than we possess.

Records of ancient medicine in Babylonia, Egypt, Greece, etc., tell of the temples being used as hospitals, with priest-physicians supported by the state giving every care to the sick who came, both rich and poor. In addition to material means of treatment -- many of which we have rediscovered -- these devotees of the gods of healing used special incense, prayers, the "temple sleep," invocations, music, astrology, etc., which we regard as harmless superstition of an earlier day. However, such conditions, intelligently adapted to each case, in making a pure, serene, uplifting atmosphere around the sick person, would invoke the influences of wholeness within and without him. By putting the inner man in tune with his body, his disordered nature-forces manifesting as disease would tend to flow freely in the currents of health. Natural magic is as practical as the unknown alchemy which transmutes our digested daily bread into molecules of our living body.

There is a mystic science attached to the caduceus, the classical emblem of medicine. To the priest-physicians in the temples, this symbol was sacred not only to the god of wisdom and healing, but stood for profound cosmic truths, knowledge of which was held in common by all initiates. It symbolized the tree of life and being. Cosmically this symbol stood for the concealed root or origin of universal duality which manifests as positive and negative, good and evil, subjective and objective, light and darkness, male and female, health and sickness, life and death.

(See also: Medicine, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Mystery Schools Adopted in theosophical literature from Classical writings, to designate centers which were consecrated to the teaching of the truths of cosmic Being to those who were found fit and ready for their reception; and this body of teaching or instruction and training is imbodied in the ancient wisdom which is the heritage of humanity.

This wisdom was originally given to mankind during the infancy of the human race by celestial teachers. "The mysteries of Heaven and Earth, revealed to the Third Race by their celestial teachers in the days of their purity, became a great focus of light, the rays from which became necessarily weakened as they were diffused and shed upon an uncongenial, because too material soil. With the masses they degenerated into Sorcery, taking later on the shape of exoteric religions, of idolatry full of superstitions, and man-, or hero-worship" (SD 2:281).

Despite this almost universal degeneration of the original wisdom into dogmatic religious or philosophical forms, the heart of the teaching has always been preserved on earth, and the guardians of this heart have from that immemorial age kept the ancient wisdom whole and undefiled. From this heart esoteric centers were during the ages instituted from time to time in different parts of the earth where the holy truths were taught by hierophants, to use the Greek expression. "Alone a handful of primitive men -- in whom the spark of divine Wisdom burnt bright, and only strengthened in its intensity as it got dimmer and dimmer with every age in those who turned it to bad purposes -- remained the elect custodians of the Mysteries revealed to mankind by the divine Teachers. There were those among them, who remained in their Kumaric condition from the beginning; and tradition whispers, what the secret teachings affirm, namely, that these Elect were the germ of a Hierarchy which never died since that period" (ibid.).

Thus was formed the Great Brotherhood or Great White Lodge, which has remained on earth to this day in its secret retreat, known in Hindu legends as Sambhala. From time to time messengers are sent forth from this Brotherhood into the world, and these emissaries impart the holy doctrine of which they are the carriers to those who prove themselves ready, fit, and worthy to receive it. Such centers of esoteric training and communication have always been called the Mysteries, or Mystery schools; and the emissaries establish new centers or Mystery schools when and where it is found proper to do so.

Every race and nation has had its teachers and their esoteric centers; the one fundamental doctrine of the heart was taught alike in them all, albeit after different manners, in different languages, and by different approaches, according to the psychological readiness and the needs of the people to whom these emissaries came. In later times, when these Mystery schools had to a greater or less degree lost the original impress and inspiration of the first communication, they were called sacerdotal colleges, or even temple-colleges or in ancient Greece the Mysteries. Such esoteric centers, where the original and archaic doctrine is taught, exist even today.

(See also: Mystery Schools, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Avatar, Avatara (Sanskrit) (from ava down + the verbal root tri to cross over, pass)

That which passes down or descends; the passing down of a celestial energy or an individualized complex of celestial energies -- a celestial being -- in order to overshadow and illuminate a human being who, at the time of such connection of divinity with matter, possesses no human soul karmically destined to be the inner master of the body thus born. "Hence an Avatara is one who has a combination of three elements in his being: an inspiring divinity; a highly evolved intermediate nature or soul, which is loaned to him and is the channel of that inspiring divinity; and a pure, clean, physical body" (OG 16).

Sankaracharya, Krishna, Lao-tzu, and Jesus were avataras in differing degrees, of somewhat differing structure. There was a divine ray which came down at the cyclic time of each of these incarnations, and the connecting link or the flame of mind was provided in each case by a member of the Hierarchy of Compassion. Krishna says, "I incarnate in period after period in order to destroy wickedness and reestablish righteousness" (BG ch 4, sl 8). Krishna here represents the Logos or logoic ray which "on our plane would be utterly helpless, inactive, and have no possible means of communication with us and our sphere, because that logoic ray lacks an intermediate and fully conscious vehicle or carrier, i.e., it lacks the intermediate or highly ethereal mechanism, the spiritual-human in us, which in ordinary man is but slightly active. An avatara takes place when a direct ray from the Logos enters into, fully inspires, and illuminates, a human being, through the intermediary of a bodhisattva who has incarnated in that human being, thereby supplying the fit, ready, and fully conscious intermediate vehicle or carrier" (Fund 276).

Blavatsky says that "rebirths may be divided into three classes: the divine incarnations called Avataras; those of Adepts who give up Nirvana for the sake of helping on humanity -- the Nirmanakayas; and the natural succession of rebirths for all -- the common law. The Avatara . . . is a descent of the manifested Deity -- whether under the specific name of Siva, Vishnu, or Adi-Buddha -- into an illusive form of individuality, an appearance which to men on this illusive plane is objective, but it is not so in sober fact. That illusive form having neither past nor future, because it had neither previous incarnation nor will have subsequent rebirths, has naught to do with Karma, which has therefore no hold on it" (BCW 14:373-4).

Vishnu as the supporter of life is the source of one line of avataras so often spoken of in Hindu legends. These ten avataras of Vishnu are: 1) Matsya the fish; 2) Kurma the tortoise; 3) Varaha the boar; 4) Narasimha the man-lion (last of animal stage); 5) Vamana the dwarf (first step toward the human form); 6) Parasu-Rama, Rama with the axe (a hero); 7) Rama-chandra, the hero of the Ramayana; 8) Krishna, son of Devaki; 9) Gautama Buddha; and 10) Kalki, the avatara who is to appear at the end of the kali yuga mounted on a white horse, inaugurating a new reign of righteousness on earth. A horse has from immemorial time been a symbol of the spiritual as well as vital energies of the inner solar orb. Hence, when the next avatara is said to come riding a white horse, the meaning is that he comes infilled with the solar light or splendor -- an avatara or manifestation of a spiritual and intellectual solar energy which will carry all before it on earth.

Brahmanical esotericism never taught that divinity descended into the animals as given in the legends. These names of different animals and men, like all zoological mythology, were chosen because of certain characteristic attributes. They actually represent ten degrees of advancing knowledge and growth in understanding -- ten degrees in the esoteric cycle -- as well as different evolutionary stages through which monads break through the lower spheres in order to express themselves on higher rungs of the evolutionary ladder of life. These names also represent the technical names given to neophytes in esoteric schools. The lowest chela was called a fish, the chela who had taken the second degree successfully was called a tortoise, and so forth, till the highest of all was called an incarnation of the sun -- a white horse in Hindu legend.

These avataric descents do not appertain solely to a race, root-race, globe, chain, or solar system, because nature repeats itself by analogy, and the same line of enlarging understanding of evolutionary development takes place in all the spheres mutatis mutandis. Thus these avataric descents can be ascribed to the solar system, the planetary chain as a whole, a globe, a root-race, and even to a subrace.

(See also: Avatar, Avatara, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Elemental (Elementals) Used by medieval European mystics, such as the Fire-philosophers, Rosicrucians, and Qabbalists, to signify those classes of ethereal beings evolved in and born of the four elements or kingdoms of nature. Ordinarily they are spoken of as existing in four classes corresponding to the four popular elements air, fire, water, and earth; but theosophy describes these kingdoms of nature as seven or even ten in number: four of the material or quasi-material range, and three (or six) of highly ethereal and even quasi-spiritual substance. They are often described as nature spirits or sprites.

More strictly, the word is confined to those beings who are beginning their evolutionary growth, who have developed in their constitution but one of the four elements -- that one from which they were born -- and who are therefore in the elemental state of growth. It is a generalizing term for all beings evolutionally below the minerals. Nevertheless, by extension of meaning, the mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms are often referred to as families of elemental beings, though in more advanced stages. An elemental, therefore, is a being who has entered our, or any other, universe on its lowest plane or world.

There are three kingdoms of the elementals below the mineral kingdom, each of which has seven (or ten) subdivisions, and every entity high or low has passed through this stage at some time in its career.

There are four commonly recognized great classes of these unevolved beings, called by the medieval European mystics gnomes, undines, sylphs, and salamanders -- elementals respectively of earth, water, air, and fire. These elementals are not only the inhabitants of and born from the respective elements, but really are the elements themselves. They are from one viewpoint simply nature forces, tools of the higher intelligences, and actually perform all the physical work of the world.

From another point of view they may be looked upon as life-atoms in different stages of evolutionary growth; and being in various degrees of evolution they are variously spiritual, ethereal, astral, or material, running through vast ranges on all these planes. Thus they exist everywhere: in the air we breathe, the food we eat, and all the tissues of physical nature. Through their agency we perform all our bodily or mental activities.

The three kingdoms of elementals actually build and form every new planet or world, beginning in serial order with the lowest of the three kingdoms, preparing the globe for the advent of the mineral kingdom, to be followed in turn by the vegetable and higher kingdoms in regular succession. The elementals are not only the matters of nature, but when acting together and used by higher intelligences become the forces or energies of nature, such as electricity, magnetism, light, vitality, etc. Unconsciously, human and other beings use them in the carrying on of all their bodily functions. For example, our bodies cohere through the automatic aid of the elementals of earth; and the elementals of fire give us our bodily heat.

The four kingdoms of elementals, existing in the four elements, are also known under the general designation of fairies and fays in the myths, fables, traditions, and poetry of all nations, ancient and modern. Their names are legion: peris, devs, jinn, sylvans, satyrs, fauns, elves, dwarfs, trolls, nixies, kobolds, brownies, banshees, leprechauns, pixies, moss-people, good people, good neighbors, wild women, men of peace, white ladies, and many more. They have been seen, feared, blessed, banned, and invoked in every quarter of the globe in every age.

These elementals are the principal nature forces used by the disimbodied human dead, very real but never visible "shells" mistaken for spirits at seances, and are the producers of all the phenomena except the purely subjective. They may be described as centers of force having instinctive desires but no consciousness as we understand it. Hence their acts may be what we humans call good or bad, indifferently. They have astral forms which partake, to a distinguishing degree, of the element to which they belong and also of the universally encompassing ether. They are a combination of sublimated matter and a purely rudimental mind. Some remain throughout several cycles relatively unchanging, so far as radical change goes, but still have no separate individuality, and usually acting collectively, so to speak. Others, of certain elements and species, change under a fixed law which Qabbalists explain. The most solid of their bodies are ordinarily just immaterial enough to escape perception by our physical eyesight, but not so unsubstantial that they cannot be perfectly recognized by the inner or clairvoyant vision. They not only exist and can all live in ether, but can handle and direct it for the production of physical effects, as readily as we can compress air or water for the same purpose by pneumatic and hydraulic apparatus; in which occupation they are readily helped by the human elementaries or astral shells.

More than this, they can so condense the ether as to make for themselves tangible bodies which, by their Protean powers, they can cause to assume such likeness as the elementals themselves are at the time impressed to assume, this being caused by their taking automatically as their models the portraits they find stamped in the memory of a person or persons present at a seance. It is not necessary that the sitter should be thinking at the moment of the one represented: the image may have faded many years before. The mind receives indelible impressions even from chance acquaintances. As a few seconds' exposure of the sensitized photographic plate is all that is requisite to preserve indefinitely the image of the sitter, so is it in incomparably greater degree with the mind. Unable to invent anything or to produce anything of itself, the elemental automatically reflects stamped impressions in the memory of human beings to its very depths; hence the nervous exhaustion and mental oppression of certain sensitive natures at spiritualistic circles. The elemental will bring to light long-forgotten remembrances of the past: forms, images, even familiar sentences, long since faded from memory, but vividly preserved on the astral tablets of the imperishable book of life. The elementals are very imitative, having neither developed will nor intelligence of their own which they self-consciously use, and hence tend automatically to copy forms in all the higher kingdoms. They have therefore many shapes or bodies, some of the more advanced taking even a quasi-human form.

Some of the elementals are said to be friendly, others unfriendly, to humanity not because of any deliberate intent on their part, but simply because mankind happens to be in such evolutionary position that it is affected one way or the other by them. Also, as different people contain in their constitution a preponderance of one of the elements over the other, they are more sensitive to the elementals of their predominating element.

(See also: Elemental, Elementals, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Elemental (Elementals) Used by medieval European mystics, such as the Fire-philosophers, Rosicrucians, and Qabbalists, to signify those classes of ethereal beings evolved in and born of the four elements or kingdoms of nature. Ordinarily they are spoken of as existing in four classes corresponding to the four popular elements air, fire, water, and earth; but theosophy describes these kingdoms of nature as seven or even ten in number: four of the material or quasi-material range, and three (or six) of highly ethereal and even quasi-spiritual substance. They are often described as nature spirits or sprites.

More strictly, the word is confined to those beings who are beginning their evolutionary growth, who have developed in their constitution but one of the four elements -- that one from which they were born -- and who are therefore in the elemental state of growth. It is a generalizing term for all beings evolutionally below the minerals. Nevertheless, by extension of meaning, the mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms are often referred to as families of elemental beings, though in more advanced stages. An elemental, therefore, is a being who has entered our, or any other, universe on its lowest plane or world.

There are three kingdoms of the elementals below the mineral kingdom, each of which has seven (or ten) subdivisions, and every entity high or low has passed through this stage at some time in its career.

There are four commonly recognized great classes of these unevolved beings, called by the medieval European mystics gnomes, undines, sylphs, and salamanders -- elementals respectively of earth, water, air, and fire. These elementals are not only the inhabitants of and born from the respective elements, but really are the elements themselves. They are from one viewpoint simply nature forces, tools of the higher intelligences, and actually perform all the physical work of the world.

From another point of view they may be looked upon as life-atoms in different stages of evolutionary growth; and being in various degrees of evolution they are variously spiritual, ethereal, astral, or material, running through vast ranges on all these planes. Thus they exist everywhere: in the air we breathe, the food we eat, and all the tissues of physical nature. Through their agency we perform all our bodily or mental activities.

The three kingdoms of elementals actually build and form every new planet or world, beginning in serial order with the lowest of the three kingdoms, preparing the globe for the advent of the mineral kingdom, to be followed in turn by the vegetable and higher kingdoms in regular succession. The elementals are not only the matters of nature, but when acting together and used by higher intelligences become the forces or energies of nature, such as electricity, magnetism, light, vitality, etc. Unconsciously, human and other beings use them in the carrying on of all their bodily functions. For example, our bodies cohere through the automatic aid of the elementals of earth; and the elementals of fire give us our bodily heat.

The four kingdoms of elementals, existing in the four elements, are also known under the general designation of fairies and fays in the myths, fables, traditions, and poetry of all nations, ancient and modern. Their names are legion: peris, devs, jinn, sylvans, satyrs, fauns, elves, dwarfs, trolls, nixies, kobolds, brownies, banshees, leprechauns, pixies, moss-people, good people, good neighbors, wild women, men of peace, white ladies, and many more. They have been seen, feared, blessed, banned, and invoked in every quarter of the globe in every age.

These elementals are the principal nature forces used by the disimbodied human dead, very real but never visible "shells" mistaken for spirits at seances, and are the producers of all the phenomena except the purely subjective. They may be described as centers of force having instinctive desires but no consciousness as we understand it. Hence their acts may be what we humans call good or bad, indifferently. They have astral forms which partake, to a distinguishing degree, of the element to which they belong and also of the universally encompassing ether. They are a combination of sublimated matter and a purely rudimental mind. Some remain throughout several cycles relatively unchanging, so far as radical change goes, but still have no separate individuality, and usually acting collectively, so to speak. Others, of certain elements and species, change under a fixed law which Qabbalists explain. The most solid of their bodies are ordinarily just immaterial enough to escape perception by our physical eyesight, but not so unsubstantial that they cannot be perfectly recognized by the inner or clairvoyant vision. They not only exist and can all live in ether, but can handle and direct it for the production of physical effects, as readily as we can compress air or water for the same purpose by pneumatic and hydraulic apparatus; in which occupation they are readily helped by the human elementaries or astral shells.

More than this, they can so condense the ether as to make for themselves tangible bodies which, by their Protean powers, they can cause to assume such likeness as the elementals themselves are at the time impressed to assume, this being caused by their taking automatically as their models the portraits they find stamped in the memory of a person or persons present at a seance. It is not necessary that the sitter should be thinking at the moment of the one represented: the image may have faded many years before. The mind receives indelible impressions even from chance acquaintances. As a few seconds' exposure of the sensitized photographic plate is all that is requisite to preserve indefinitely the image of the sitter, so is it in incomparably greater degree with the mind. Unable to invent anything or to produce anything of itself, the elemental automatically reflects stamped impressions in the memory of human beings to its very depths; hence the nervous exhaustion and mental oppression of certain sensitive natures at spiritualistic circles. The elemental will bring to light long-forgotten remembrances of the past: forms, images, even familiar sentences, long since faded from memory, but vividly preserved on the astral tablets of the imperishable book of life. The elementals are very imitative, having neither developed will nor intelligence of their own which they self-consciously use, and hence tend automatically to copy forms in all the higher kingdoms. They have therefore many shapes or bodies, some of the more advanced taking even a quasi-human form.

Some of the elementals are said to be friendly, others unfriendly, to humanity not because of any deliberate intent on their part, but simply because mankind happens to be in such evolutionary position that it is affected one way or the other by them. Also, as different people contain in their constitution a preponderance of one of the elements over the other, they are more sensitive to the elementals of their predominating element.

(See also: Elemental, Elementals, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Medium Anything that serves as an intermediate, especially applied by modern spiritualists to a person who, alleged to be under the "control" of some other being, usually invisible, becomes a transmitting medium for phenomenal messages, feelings, or actions. These entities, mistakenly called spirits of the dead, are no part of the spiritual nature of composite man. On the contrary, these communications come from various entities in the astral world which interpenetrates and surrounds the physical earth, just as our astral model-body and aura surround the interpenetrate our physical form, cell for cell. In our present state of evolution, the astral or model-body acts normally only when conjoined to the physical -- a natural provision for protection from conditions with which we are as yet evolutionally unprepared to deal.

The medium, however, is one who is born with or develops a peculiarly unstable and often actually dislocated state of the elements of his inner constitution. Thereby he becomes at times disorganized physiologically and in his nervous system, which connects the inner man with the outer world, and he suffers, in effect, a psychic dislocation. Then the entranced, unconscious medium functions with magnetic sympathy with currents and entities in the astral light, especially with those in the kama-lokic levels which are nearest the earth.

Of these many entities, the types usually manifesting are nature spirits or elements of various kinds; kamic remnants, the shells or spooks of the dead; and elementaries or the imperfect astral remains of excarnate human beings who when alive on earth showed marked tendencies to gross and evil living. Being fated, because of their strongly materialistic biases and appetites, to exist in the astral realm, these last are a peculiarly dangerous and demoralizing influence, especially to people of weak will or of mediumistic temperament. Without physical body or real conscience, the elementaries yet are living entities of the unexpended force of their earth-passions and desires, eager to occupy and use a living body, meantime absorbing its vital essence if they can make psychic contact with it. They are psychomagnetically drawn to such conditions as the seance room usually offers.

The delicate tingling on the medium's skin, supposed to come from angelic fingers, is actually an astral emanation of vitality to form an atmosphere or aura for the besieging control. These feathery touches are like the aurae which often precede convulsive epileptic attacks where the pale, cold, unconscious body of the ousted sufferer becomes temporarily possessed. Each time when the passive medium is controlled, his spiritual will is progressively weakened, his higher mind is blurred, and he becomes an open door for all kinds of uncanny astral influences. It is true that psychic sensitives of clean life and honest purpose, may first attract entities belonging to higher kama-lokic levels. But the finest types of supposed spirit faces that they see are generally reflections from their own mental pictures of beloved ones, or of their own innate ideals.

Of the many types of astral elementals, connection with even those friendly to man are injurious, for they all use part of the living for their automatic actions. Moreover, black magicians who live in their kama-rupas -- in the astral world -- relatively few though they are, survive by using many of these nature spirits to vampirize vitality from the living. The elementaries who, unfortunately, are galvanized into a fictitious life by devitalizing the medium and the sitters -- as clairvoyants have often seen -- are making new evil karma, and even inviting final spiritual disaster.

At most, this dealing with the dead is necromancy -- a wrong condemned by the wise in all ages as misleading at the least, very dangerous and ethically demoralizing at the worst. The passive medium under alien astral control, is the very antithesis of the highly evolved human mediator whose awakened spiritual, intellectual, and psychic nature serves as a conscious channel of inspiring influence between lofty spiritual powers and ordinary men, or between mahatmas of the Great White Lodge and men.

(See also: Medium, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

MAGIC

From Latin magi, pl. (Greek magoi, pl. of magos, a Magian, one of the Median tribe; also an enchanter, properly a wise-man who interpreted dreams; Old Persian mugh, one of the Magi, a fire-worshipper; Sanskrit maga "a priest of the sun"; maybe related to maha, "great" and maya, illusion; perhaps, ultimately, even the Maya of Central America. Compare Hebrew makeshef, "magician"). Magic is actually short for "Magic Art". The connection between magus and magnus "great" also appears in Hebrew. As in Latin the word for "great", produces "master or teacher" (magister) , so Hebrew rab produces "rabbi". However the confusion in Hebrew does not arise because the word for "magic" (qeshem) is not related to rab".

The word in this form is found with precisely the same meaning (or mystery) in most European tongues and even in Japanese majutsu, (which they no doubt borrowed from the Portuguese). Elsewhere, however, we find different senses altogether, such as the old Teutonic Helliruna (lit. "Hell's secret") which is surely a folk etymology of the Arabic word for "mandrake", albiruhan or alyabruhin, the same word we find in Spanish as the word for "magician", el brujo, because alongside that there is indeed the Old High German word for "mandrake", Alruna. The only question we need ask is which form came first, but we find the Arabic influence extending east as far as Mongolia, where, in passing, we may note ilbi for "magic."

The otherness of ego enwraps each of us like a prison, but the magus takes all of earth as his body. Magic itself is but a symbol of the greater Magic, which is Unity. The Oneness frees us from the dungeon of darkness and the self and resembles the teaching of Buddhism.

From yet another perspective, magic, mind and life are the same thing: living cells are sometimes kept alive in labs. A specialized cell, so protected, fed and allowed to reproduce, eventually turns into a basic and undifferentiated cell. This indicates that life is not only exceedingly plastic but that it is also purposive. If such adaptation were attributable to mindless mechanics, a bone cell would go on reproducing a bone cell and a blood cell a blood cell forever.

Since all things are connected, then experiential reality, which is Mind, can be altered by the implementation of the Will and Visualization. There is no "orthodox" doorway of the "Self" through the various universes, so the magician must build his own bridge, without assistance, across the Abyss, from the otherness of the separate ego to Cosmic Unity. Since the goal and purpose of existence is knowledge, then the magus is obliged to seek experience on numerous planes of being reached via perichoresis and also to effect material changes in the earth's reality. Thinking isn't just the beginning of creation, it is creation itself.

Marc Edmund Jones classifies magic into categories. Divination is the effort to gain knowledge, particularly of the future (in order the better to assist the "Divine" plan). The evocation or invocation of elementals or angelic powers, functioning through the ethers, is another class of magic. Then there is hypnotism, which works through "imitative" magic. Finally, there is tantrism, or the development of supernatural siddhis.

Colin Wilson suggests that magic is simply the development of the Will and the Imagination, Versluis that it is "not a means to an end, but a means to heighten means." Clearly, the object of magic is the raising of consciousness. The magus is empowered to effect events only to the extent that he is able to recognize that inside and outside are one. To transform the world is to transform oneself and vice-versa. Traditional rituals, the using of symbols and the altering of consciousness through herbs, smells, sounds, repetitions and meditation are all inward-directed processes designed to educate, focus and strengthen the faculties of Imaging and Willing. Alchemy is the same endeavor directed outwardly. We fail to control the transformation of our selves to the degree that we isolate ourselves from the world, just as we lose our ability to change the world at the exact moment that we begin to lose touch with ourselves.

However, although those who don't know what they are doing are obliged to perform magic strictly through the observation of rituals, those who understand its real nature and purpose can move directly to its center and act from there, without incantations and conjurations.

Here are some definitions of M/magic(k) by various authorities on the subject:

ANONYMOUS: "Magus Nascitur Non Fit."

ALICE BAILEY: "No man is a magician, or worker in white magic, until his third eye is opened, or is in the process of opening." (That means 'transmission of consciousness to the universal mind').

WADE BASKIN: "The art and science of magic is based on three basic principles. 1) one may communicate with other realms, or planes of existence, through the medium of the Astral Light; 2) the power of the magician is unlimited; 3) external characteristics (signatures) are signs through which everything internal and invisible can be revealed."

MORRIS BERMAN: "Magic is not necessarily gnostic in nature, since it is not particularly dualistic, and it never includes the notion of an outside savior or redeemer, which Gnosticism (particularly in its early forms) sometimes does."

HELENA P. BLAVATSKY: "The art of divine Magic consists in the ability to perceive the essence of things in the light of nature (astral light), and - by using the soul-powers of the Spirit - to produce material things from the unseen universe, and in such operations the Above and the Below must be brought together and made to act harmoniously". (The Secret Doctrine).

"Magic is spiritual wisdom. Arcane knowledge misapplied is sorcery.

"Magic was considered a divine science which led to a participation in the attributes of Divinity itself."

"Magic was the highest knowledge of natural philosophy... and the magician differed from the witch in this, that, while the latter was an ignorant instrument in the hands of demons, the former had become their master by the powerful intermediation of science, which was only within reach of the few, and which these beings were powerless to disobey."

BERNARD BROMAGE: "The word has, more often than not, been used, not for illumination, not as a guide to ascertainable verity, but as a camouflage to conceal a man's ignorance; and, worse, his calculated ineptitude and folly. The word can be said to have ceased to be a word and to have become a byword: a symbol surrounded by an evilly phosphorescent light, of man's infernal capacity for avoiding the issues. . . Magic, tout court, is immensely concerned with the 'Extension of Consciousness'; the widening of frontiers; the increase and development of every variety of sense perception. To be a magician one must learn to investigate all phenomena with the eye of the scientist who scorns no possible hypothesis nor neglects to take into the fullest consideration the complete structure of our actual and potential being. . . it is not a solace for the frustrated, but a reward for the pure of heart. Its final appeal is not to curiosity or greed, but to reverence and acceptance."

PETER CARROLL: "The world is magical but designed to make us believe we are not magi."

"All events are basically magical, arising spontaneously without prior cause. Physical laws are only statistical approximations. Consciousness, magic and chaos are the same thing. Consciousness also makes things happen without prior cause."

ALEISTER CROWLEY: "All Art is Magick"

"The Goal of Magick is the knowledge and conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel."

NEVILL DRURY: "Magic is the technique of harnessing the secret powers of Nature and and seeking to influence events for one's own purpose. If the purpose is beneficial it is known as white magic, but if it is intended to bring harm to others, or to destroy property, it is regarded as black magic."

"High Magic is intended to bring about the spiritual transformation of the person who practices it. This form of magic is designed to channel the magician's consciousness towards the sacred light within, which is often personified by the high gods of different cosmologies. The aim of high magic has been described as communication with one's Holy Guardian Angel, or higher self. It is also known as Theurgy."

"Whereas science deals with empirically observable causes and effects, occultism deals pragmatically with methods of altering consciousness to produce certain effects. One of these is the assimilation within the self of the characteristics of a deity, another is the separation of consciousness from the physical body."

DION FORTUNE: "Magic is the art of changing consciousness at will."

KENNETH GRANT: "Magick is the apotheosis of the Irrational, the acme of the absurd, and the reification of the impossible."

GURDJIEFF: ". . .I decided to call those undertakings which required intentional action of higher centers - those centers which are properly the feeling and thinking centers, capable of emotional sensing and of mentation respectively, but which are ordinarily unformed through absorption of their rightful impressions by the false emotional and intellectual centers of the psyche - objective magic, having as its result the obtaining of real knowledge."

"I thus separated this objective magic from its ordinary counterpart, 'magic of the psyche', in which purely fantastic results are obtained, and self-calming and amusement are the only attainments. Under this category I placed my former endeavors as a medium and psychic, as well as those results obtained by theosophy, occultism and so forth, all of which up to then had quite fascinated and attracted my attention."

WILLIAM JAMES: "We all have a lifelong habit of inferiority to our full self. . ."

MARC EDMUND JONES: "Occult, as distinct from secular, science; Occult as the effort to compel the cooperation of others, as well as deity, nature, in enterprises of self, illustrated by miracle or thaumaturgy, known as white when ethical and black when amoral."

ELIPHAS LÉVI: "The Arcanum of the Magnum Opus is the mastery or government of Ignis."; "Would you learn to reign over yourself and others? Learn how to will. How can one learn to will? This is the first arcanum of magical initiation. . ."

MACGREGOR MATTHEWS: "To practice magic, both the imagination and the Will must be called into action, they are co-equal in the work. . . The Will unaided can send forth a current. . . yet its effect is vague and indefinite. . . the Imagination unaided can create an image. . . yet it can do nothing of importance, unless vitalized and directed by the Will."

JOHN MIDDLETON: "We may say that the realm of magic is that in which human beings believe that they may directly affect nature and each other for good or ill, by their own efforts (even when the precise mechanism may not be understood by them) as distinct from appealing to divine powers by sacrifice or prayer (i.e. religion)."

JOHN O'KEEFE: "Magic is the defense of the self against the malevolence of society."

PARACELSUS: "The exercise of true magic does not require any ceremonies or conjurations, or the making of circles and signs; it requires neither benedictions nor maledictions in words, neither verbal blessings or curses."

JOHN COWPER POWYS: "Magic is simply the choice between emphasis and rejection."

DIANE DE PRIMA: "Look at the forces behind the things rather than just at the object or event. If I have a working definition of magic it's that behind every single thing in the world an infinite tunnel opens of reference, cross-references, and forces, and how these things interlock in nets. What I basically say is, yeah, learning to see force. . . learning to see the etheric and the astral, etc. to the thinner and thinner layers of stuff. And learning to work off those layers rather than . . . if you want to push that rock you don't necessarily have to go out there and put your shoulder to it."

RIMBAUD: "The Poet transforms himself into a seer through a long, immense and determined, rational disordering of all his sense. Every form of love, suffering and madness he seeks within himself and exhausts in himself all poisons, preserving but their quintessences. Ineffable torture where he will need all of his faith and superhuman strength, making him among men, the great Sick Man, the Thrice-Damned, the Arch-Criminal - and the supreme Savant! - for he arrives at the Unknown! Since he has cultivated his soul, already richer than any other man's, he thereby reaches the Unknown, and, even if, insane in the end, he should lose every shred of understanding gained so laboriously, he will have had his Visions! He may perish in his leap into those innumerable, unnameable things, there will follow other terrible workers. They will begin at the horizons where he fell."

MARTIN DEL RIO: "An art or skill which, by means of a non-supernatural force, produces certain strange and unusual phenomena whose rationale eludes common sense."

ROMULUS: "Magic is living poetry."

"Magic is the invocation and exploitation of synchronicity. All practices build up a momentum of their own. What we desire eventually comes true, with interest."

"Every magician's tricks are his own, to help him with own special problems, to get himself over his own inner obstacles. Our Individual tasks are to learn and overcome our own obstacles. That's why the study of great men and women is so very instructional and worthwhile. Not because they teach us to be like them, but because they show us how they became themselves! "

"Self-confident, integrated personalities already are fairly much in control of their powers and are magical to some extent. When circumstances intrude, such as sickness, enmity, financial loss, etc. and self-confidence wanes, the 'magical' side begins to seem spurious. The more 'magical' we try to be, the more charlatanry rises to the surface in us."

FRANCIS KING & STEPHEN SKINNER: "Four basic assumptions of magic: 1. That the [physical] universe is only a part of total reality. 2. The human will-power is a real force, capable of being trained and concentrated, and that the disciplined will is capable of changing its environment and producing paranormal events. 3. That this will-power must be directed by the imagination. 4. That the universe is not a mixture of chance factors and influences, but an ordered system of correspondences, and the understanding of the pattern of correspondences enables the occultist to use them for his own purposes, good or evil.

HUTTON WEBSTER (1948): "As regards purpose, Magic is divinatory, productive and aversive. The magician discovers or foretells what is otherwise hidden in time or space from human eyes; he influences and manipulates the objects and phenomena of nature and all animate creatures so that they may satisfy actual or human needs; and finally he combats, neutralizes and remedies the onslaught of the evils, real or imaginary, afflicting mankind. The range of magic is thus almost as wide as the life of man. All things under heaven, and even the inhabitants of heaven become subject to its sway.

COLIN WILSON: "Human perception is 'intentional.'" (Consciousness is a muscle).

"The great personality-inhibitor is caution. . . even in a few people who seem fairly well integrated. I can suddenly catch a glimpse of a more sophisticated, confident personality that has never succeeded in emerging . . . Even criminality is a form of caution, the desire for immediate and tangible returns, based upon the feeling that the universe has no intention of giving you anything you are not prepared to take by force. In fact, the study of murder leaves one with an impression of weak and crippled personalities who left half their potentialities to stagnate."

"Outside our everyday personality there is a wider self that possesses greater powers than the everyday self. . . When the will is hindered by too much self-consciousness it often produces the opposite effect from the one intended. (Poe called it "the imp of the perverse"). The wider self would be happy to oblige, but the contracted ego is somehow opposing itself, like someone trying to open a door by pushing it instead of pulling it. So it does the next best thing." (Psychokinesis).

"Modern civilization induces an attitude of passivity. When a Stone Age hunter set out to trap wild animals, he was aware of his will as a living force. When the prehistoric farmer scored the surface of the earth with a crude plough, he knew that his family's survival through the winter depended on his effort, and his will responded to the challenge. When a modern city dweller walks down a crowded thoroughfare, he feels no sense of challenge or involvement. This city was built by other people, all these shops and offices are owned by other people. He can get through an ordinary day's work in a state approximating sleep. Most of his routine tasks are carried out by the 'robot'. There is neither the need or the opportunity to use the will."

ZORN ZUCKERMAN: "The 20th Century has been so much a time of everything 'losing its magic, that the only thing left is magic itself."

CONCLUSION:

Is magic simply the search for "ultimate knowledge" without the burden of "worship"? Not exactly. The Golden Dawn used to say, "The aim of religion, the method of science," which was as ambitious as it was inaccurate. The "Transcendental" without religion, as opposed to mere "Revelation" without religion, would be closer to the mark than soulless "Ultimate Knowledge." The latter is a logical, scientific goal, not a magical one. The Scientist is obliged to go wherever his will-o'-the-wisp may lead him, as Mary Shelley pointed out, stopping not even at Frankenstein's monster nor the Hydrogen Bomb nor tailor-made diseases. Thus, the scientist inevitably winds up in Hell, the epitome of "Reason". The Magician knows where he is going, dares to go there and will what he will discover and create. His work (ideally) is the transmogrification of Hell. Moreover, about what he does he can make no statement, because it is always unique, never a repeatable "trick". That is, he is in the business, not as the scientist is of "finding" meaning, but of "creating" it. But we have to remember that the phenomenological world is an illusion, which requires the magician always to remain watchful of the illusory nature of what he is doing.

Life without magic is not possible. Moreover, the important "passages" of life cannot be handled except in a frank context of High Magic: birth, adolescence, marriage, death, etc.

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

NUMEROLOGY

The first thing to remember about numbers is that each number, far from being just an accretion of previous numbers, really is unique. Numbers are the quintessence of symbology, and numerology appeals mostly to the abstract metaphysician, just as, in science, mathematics appeals to the abstract-minded scientist. Numerology, like astrology and palmistry, has a bad reputation because it's so easily misunderstood and misused. Since we can all recognize synchronicity, it's only natural to rush from there to the assumption that coincidence is the same thing as divination. But, synchronicity is nothing more than evidence that there are patterns of many kinds. It would be better if we could de-emphasize the practical side of everything and concentrate on the esthetics. The Egyptians used to teach that the most valuable things are the most useless: the arts, for example, or philosophy, or gold.

Finally, we should remember that it was through the indolent adoption of the easy decimal system (rather than the more perfect and exacting duodecimal system) that Atlantis finally brought itself down. This mathematically lazy way out is exactly the same path for which we have settled.

So numerology is simply the metaphysical side to numbers. One and one, for instance, are two, not because arithmetic says so, but because being equally "unique" they can't be reconciled as one, or "united," and are therefore at odds and in conflict with each other, as opposites in a mutual duality or "duel." Three, on the other hand, is a collection based on some kind of agreement, four a quaternity based on crossed oppositions in perfect balance, and so one.

There are also different ways of dealing with numerology -- theoria and praxis. In gematria, however, the idea is to add up the value of a word and then find other words that add up to the same number. They would thus be equivalents. This works rather well in Hebrew (to a lesser extent in Greek) but rather poorly in English -- simply because of the intrinsic differences between languages. Example: Jehovah has the same value as Chozeh ("seer" or "prophet"). Therefore, to the ancient Jews, God and Prophesy would be practically synonymous.

Numerological reduction is a convenience. It's easier to deal with numbers from 1 to 10 than with great blobs like 847 or 9,556,431. But numerologists also add before reducing. If a room contains 8 people, the numerology lecturer might perhaps decide to deliver his "octave" message. If 3 more people arrived, he'd change that to 11 which has an entirely different meaning from its reduction to 1 + 1 = 2. The higher the number, the more unstable its meaning becomes. For example, 11 stands symbolically for all the higher numbers (above 10), which is why 11 is the number of Sorcery.

The values of the Hebrew letters are: 1-ALEPH, 2-BETH, 3-GIMEL, 4-DALED, 5-HE, 6-VAU, 7-ZAYIN, 8-CHETH, 9-TETH, 10-YOD, 20-KAPH, 30-LAMED, 40-MEM, 50-NUN, 60-SAMECH, 70-AYIN, 80-PE, 90-TZADDE, 100-QOPH, 200-RESH, 300-SHIN, 400-TAV, 500-FINAL K, 600-FINAL M; 700-FINAL N, 800-FINAL P, 900-TZ, 1000-ALEPH (writ large).

In both Arab esoteric studies and in Judaic Cabal, such numbers form anagrams and extend the power of words: e.g., 93=Greek Agape, 398=Neshek, the serpent, and also Messiah.

The meanings of some of the numbers (my own attributions, plus some of Crowley's gematria from Liber 777):

000 Void of Voids, without possibility  of Being.

00 the Double Void

0 Zero, the Void, The Goddess, Infinite Nuit,  the Unmanifest. The "number" out of which everything comes. In the Tarot  it's called "The Fool" because it obey its own mysterious, unknowable rules  and is not subject to analysis. (Although we can and do theorize about it).  It's the Great Mother, the Void, that which lies beyond Alpha and Omega;  Original Mind.

1 Every Creation;  Ultimate Power, God, Hadit the point, Uniqueness; the Manifest (Set, Sirius  B), Pluto; the gods; Kether; Cosmic Consciousness; Yod-Atziluth; Archetypal  world; Aleph; Reason. Egyptian ankh. Fire. The most powerful of all magical  numbers. Number of the individual and the unique. All miracles are possible  once. One is the impossible beginning of everything coming out of the void.  As in music, it bears the stress: ONE-two-three...

2 Matter; The Fall; Opposition; Good & Evil; Neptune;  Chokmah (subject), Moons of Mars, Neptune; Heh-Briah; Dissention. Egyptian  uas; the number of division and opposition, analysis and separation;  Darkness and light; Good and Evil. Mystery.

3 Evolution; Space; Unanimity, Unity, the ALL, multiplication,  Saturn; Binah (object); vav-Yetzirah. Egyptian djed. (Grant assigns 3 to Set  and Satan.) Synthesis, construction. Abundance, fruitfulness. The apparent  "difference" of things in the Gurdjieffian sense -- the template in the  mind. 3 also is the emblem of infinity.

4 Manifestation: the Elements, etc; Jupiter; Chesed;  heh-Assiah. Egyptian nebet. Earth. Number of physical reality, completing  the foundations of things. Practicality. The Authority to be. Command.  Mercy.

5 Consciousness; the hand,  pentagram, man; Mars; Geburah. Moons of Uranus. Chinese elements (Earth,  Fire, Water, Wood, Metal) -- Earth is the fifth element, yellow and central.  The number of mediation, hence: Humanity . Sin, error, but also progress and  knowledge. Without 5 there is no human evolution or purpose. Courage.  Achievement.

6 The Work of Creation;  The Sun; Solar-Phallic energy; Spatial Directions, Harmony; Tiphareth. In  the I Ching, 6 is the number of Yin, i.e., Completion. Time, space  and astronomy. Number of beauty and the power of love.

7 The Totality of Creation; Earth's escape  velocity (M. P. S.); Will; Classical Planets; tones; the inferior power  zones; The Dragon's head; Scorpion; Swastika; Hyena; Serpent, Lion, Ape,  Typhon; Colors in the spectrum; Opportunity (because man develops by 7 year  periods). Number of overcoming, victory, accomplishment. Perfect harmony.  The Virgin, symbol of eternal rather than created things.

8 Infinity (the Lemniscate); Octagon, heaven on  earth or lower sephiroth plus Daath (or 7 planets plus Sothis); Mercury;  Hod, Ogoad, the Buddhist & other 8 path. Perfection. Strength,  fortitude, everlastingness. It is the first cubic number, hence it stands for the cube itself, or earth. Splendor of endurance. The octagon is the  symbol of the meeting of heaven & earth because it is a compromise  halfway between the square (earth) and the circle (heaven).

9 Number of the Moon; Container of all numbers;  Number of known astronomical planets. Eternity; Yesod; Endings, echatology;  Moons of Saturn; Number of Muses; In the I Ching, 9 is the number of  Yang. Arabic Ta (Secret Knowledge ). Number of absolute completion,  perfection and wisdom. Since the ennead is the final limitation, it is the  acceptance of solitude and the beginning of the inward journey to the  Infinite.

10 Earth, Samsara;  Reincarnation; (1 + 2 + 3 + 4) The Tetractys; Yod; number of Sephiroth;  Commandments; planes; Malkuth. This is the number of new beginnings based on  harmonious conclusions to previous activities. It is the lower exponent of  the Monad, the created world. It is the individual, unique power as it  appears in harmonious context with the many other uniquenesses of the world.  It is great fortune.

11 Number of the  years of the sunspot cycle. The general number of magic or sorcery and  magicians -- or energy tending to change. Uranus. Daath (or Egyptian Duat,  Tuat). This is the individual in confrontation with the world. Hence it is  the number of Justice and Balance. It is also the number of war and the  battle with the demonic element.

12  Baptism; Sacrifice; Solar zodiac. The number of the hanged man, i.e.,  sacrifice. This is the individual as he is plunged into the world and at the  same time apart from it.

13 Arachne,  the spider. The scale of the highest feminine unity; easily transformed to  secondary masculine ideas by any male component; or, the unity resulting  from love. Death; Lunar Zodiac; beginning of adolescence; Moons of Jupiter.  Orbits in solar system (including Vulcan, Isis and Osiris). Thirteen is also  the basic Mayan unit of change (13 days to a week) and the number of months  in the Newtime calendar. Number of Death and Metamorphosis -- as the old  life completes, a new life must begin. This is the practical side or physics  of metaphysics. From 13 to 20 may be likened to the stages of an LSD  experience in which the Ego dies and must be totally disintegrated. Then at  20 is reborn and at 21, the Ego is deliberately re-shaped into a new  individual that fits ideally into the world.

14 Number of pieces into which Osiris's body was cut by Set;  Gematria of Zahav. Temperance or Art, it is, the physical means by which one  is able to manipulate and balance the world.

15 Kamea sum of Saturn; Illusion; The Devil. The number of  illusion -- it's the shadow cast by beauty and love. Since it has to do with  darkness as an illusion, the Devil is called Lucifer, the light-bearer. (The  holder of the torch is himself in the darkness.)

16 Number of Eve; Number of human kalas (bodily secretions).  In Egyptian hieroglyphs, 16 symbolized delight because this is the age when  a young man has his first sexual experience. Coitus, thus, is 16 next to 16  = 1616. The Tower of Babel. This is the struggle for Heaven as it erupts in  words -- that is, the understanding of oneself is not always able to  communicate to others.

17 Tantric  number of kalas! The masculine unity. (Trinity of Aleph, Vau, Yod). Star of  the magi. The Star is all those striving things -- hope, ambition, faith,  longing, etc. It feeds on itself and re-invigorates all that it touches. It  accomplishes what The Tower cannot.

18  Percentage of the Moon's surface varying from visible to invisible. The Moon  (twice 9). This is the solitary path itself, leading back into the inner  being and one's own enlightenment.

19  Number of the year of the lunar cycle; Xtian "Golden Number"; The feminine  glyph. The Sun. This is the ultimate, true enlightenment itself; the quest  of all our strivings.

20 Number of days  in the Maya month. Kaph. Resurrection. Rebirth.

21 Mystic number of Tiphareth; Age of majority; 3 x 7. The  World (as it is built back up in a better way).

22 Letters in Hebrew alphabet; Major Arcana; Tunnel  Sentinels.

23 The "glyph of (nascent)  life"; Coincidence and Synchronicity.

24 Path of Scorpio (Scarlet Woman) or of the Water Demon.  Letters in Greek alphabet.

26  Tetragrammaton; Numbers of the Sephiroth of the Middle Pillar (without  Maat); Letters in English alphabet.

28  Lunar cycle of days. Solar cycle of years (1st day of week restored to same  day of week). Letters of Arabic alphabet. The numbers from 1 - 7 add up to  28 (1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 6 + 7).

29 The  magic force itself, the masculine current. Days in moon cycle, feminine  current. 29 = 2 + 9 = 1 = 2.

30 Number  of degrees in a sign. Ass; Lamedh.

31  Gematria of AL (God) also means "Not," key number of the New Aeon; The  highest feminine trinity -- zero through the glyph of the circle. (Great  Modulus of Zero.)

32 Number of gravity  increase acceleration (32 feet per second per second); Paths of the  Qabalah.

33 Age of Christ; magical age  in general.

34 Jupiter Kamea  sum.

36 Star sapphire; the Sun; curses.  Platonic duodecimal.

37 111/3; A prime  number; sum of Daath (11) and the 4 Sephiroth of the Middle Pillar (10 + 9 +  6 + 11 + 1). The unity itself in its balanced trinitarian  manifestation.

40 Mem; Babylonian rain  period -- 40 days before festival of New Year, when Pleiades visible. (Thus  Jewish 40 days.) 40 days is the philosophical month and 40 the number of  preparation, waiting, the wisdom of darkness and the natural processes of  solution and disintegration.

41 Percent  of the Moon's surface hidden from earth; the yoni as a vampire force,  sterile. Hispanic number of homosexuality.

42 The completion of the elements experienced via  darkness.

43 A number of orgasm --  especially the male.

44 Cabal; sand;  blood/water; flame; Aquarius.

45  Adam.

47 The yoni as dynamic,  prehensile, spasmodic, etc. Esprit de travail.

49 7 x 7. In Tibetan Bsm. 49 is the number of days spent in  the Afterworld between incarnations.

50  Number of minutes later the moon rises every night.

53 The yoni as instrument of pleasure (Hedonogenous.)

55 Phallos.

56 Word of Nu or Nuit (Abrahadabra as the union of 5 &  6.)

59 The yoni calling for the lingam  as ovum, menstruum and desire.

60  Second and minute units; Machine cycles; Samekh; Greek X.

61 Nia; Ain; the negative positively knowing  self.

64 I Ching patterns.

65 Mars Kamea sum.

66 Mystic number of the Opus Magnum and the Qlipoth.

67 The Womb containing the twins.

70 Biblical "Age" of Death; Ayin;  Omicron.

71 A number of Binah, silence  and nothingess.

72 The mystical  Platonic duodecimal number whose powers and multiples produce the distances  between planets, diameters of orbits, etc. 72 is the Average human life-span  today.

73 The feminine aspect of  Chokmah in his phallic function.

76  Halley's comet orbit in years.

78  Mezla, influence from above; total number of Tarots, Ego, Ape of Thoth,  Aiwass, the Oza (giants or monsters of creation).

80 Peh; pi.

81 Number of  Tetragrams in the T'ai Hsan Ching; Talam; Moon; Witchcraft; Hecate.

82 Compound number; Angel of Venus, beloved  object.

83 Consecration; highest form  of love. Energy, freedom, amrita, aspiration.

87 Number of Lebenah (Frankincense), Aossic; chalice.

88 Khabs, "The Star."

89 A number of sin and taboo. Silence, of Black  Magic.

90 Tzaddi.

91 Number of hairs (paths) in the Supernal  Beard.

93 Thelema, Agape,  Aiwass.

97 A number of Chesed as water  and as father.

99 Ending of endings.  Tithiane; Geburah's infernal abode.

100  Kephalos; Qoph; Rho.

108 A Platonic  duodecimal number.

111 "Ain Sof Aur";  Kamea sum of the Sun; Number of Abra-Melin Servitors.

123 War, plague, pleasure, violation.

131 Samael, Satan, Pan, Baphomet.

156 Zion; Babalon; number of letters for Enochian  tablet.

160 Ipo (name of the sun in a  lower hemisphere); the number of Tonal in Castaneda's world of phenomena  (Nagual is to Tonal as Sirius to Ipo).

164 A compound number; Cleaving; profane, as opposed to  sacred.

177 The Garden of  Eden.

200 Resh, Sigma.

210 The Return; Joining to the Void's original 3  stages; 000.

216 Platonic duodecimal  number.

217 Sigma-eta-theta, Seth; Star  of Babalon (Scarlet Woman); Sirius; Deborah, "the Bee" (Sekhet, goddess of  intoxication and sexual passion).

222  Beyond Good and Evil; Whiteness.

256  Number of poisonous methods of astral projection.

260 The Mayan Tzolkin cycle of change. 260 = 13 x 20  (the mystic numbers); Kamea sum of Mercury; Tiriel, the Intelligence of  Mercury.

261 Meher Baba; Hriliu; Word  of the Dove; "The Abomination of Desolation" (Stele of Reveling).

280 RP, "Terror"; number of squares on the side  of the vault containing the body of Christian Rosenkreutz.

289 PTR, hole, void.

292 The "drug of death"; the raven (black bird of Set);  Chozzar.

300 Shin, Greek tau.

305 Number of Yetzirah.

325 Bartzabel (spirit of Mars).

330 SOR (revolution); hurricane; tempest; circles of  time.

333 "Connection to the Infinite";  Chaos: Shugal-Set, the front half of the beast, which together with  Choronzon or Chozzar, the back, makes 666.

342 Bsm.; Perfume; ambrosia.

353 Hermes.

360 Degrees  in a circle (or zodiac).

365 Days in a  year; number of Abraxas (Greek letters); number also of Mithras.

369 Kamea of Luna.

370 Left hand; Sabbatic Goat; Creation (as matter and spirit);  Foundation.

389 Aossic (ancient  extraterrestrial entity).

393 Blends  the twin forces of Set and Horus (lightside and nightside of the Tree of  Life).

400 Tav.

406 Tav spelled out; also "Thou."

412 Romulus.

418  Abrahadabra.

442 Ends of the  Earth.

444 "The Limits of  Manifestation"; Al-Azif, Alhazred.

474  Gematria of Daath.

500 Phoenix; Kaph  final; psi.

504 Figures in the  formation of circles.

505 Kamea sum of  10 x 10.

511 Head.

535 Kteis.

555 Enlightenment.

600  Mem final; Chi.

612 Zeus.

640 Shamash; realm of the Sun; Mpitzth  (horrible idol); Gematria of Cup of Consolation; menstrual blood.

666 Number of Hatkariel; sum of the square of  The Sun (i.e. the Antichrist). Splendors of Being; Number of the Beast; Beast with two backs; Satanic Trinity (Typhon, Apophis, Besz), opponent of  Michael, Sorath..

671  Thora/Athor/Tharo.

700 Nun final;  Upsilon.

733 "The White Head."

777 Magic, Creation. Dagon; Stauros.

789 Link between Aeon of Horus and  Maat.

800 Peh final, Omega.

801 The sum of "Alpha and Omega"; also  peristera, "a dove."

823  Sahasra; graven idol.

864 Platonic  duodecimal number.

888 Metamorphosis,  Iesous.

900 Tzaddi final.

999 Eternal Evolution (past, present, future);  End of the World; Number of the true Trinity; "Nymphe" or creatures such as the Dols or Dholes; Romulus Hespaeria; Triple 9 Society; 999 C.E. is the  year that Kukulkan (Quetzalcoatl) died. The final resolution of 333 and  666.

1000 The Millenium;  Rab-Aleph.

1060 The Tabernacle  (Meshken).

1061 Sunset.

1296 Platonic duodecimal number.

1461 Sirius Cycle.

1728 Platonic duodecimal number.

1999 Date of Nostradamus' prediction of the Eschaton.

2000 Precessional Change; Year of the  Dragon.

2012 Mayan date of "end of the  world."

2167 Corrected precessional  number.

3168 Important ancient mystical  number used in construction.

5040  Another important ancient number.

12358  Fibonacci series.

26000 Great Year of  the Egyptians.

36000 Ancient Chaldean  Saros Cycle.

114048 Platonic number  thought to have the best factors for making it the number of the  world-soul.

187740489 Nine to the ninth  power.

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

NUMEROLOGY

The first thing to remember about numbers is that each number, far from being just an accretion of previous numbers, really is unique. Numbers are the quintessence of symbology, and numerology appeals mostly to the abstract metaphysician, just as, in science, mathematics appeals to the abstract-minded scientist. Numerology, like astrology and palmistry, has a bad reputation because it's so easily misunderstood and misused. Since we can all recognize synchronicity, it's only natural to rush from there to the assumption that coincidence is the same thing as divination. But, synchronicity is nothing more than evidence that there are patterns of many kinds. It would be better if we could de-emphasize the practical side of everything and concentrate on the esthetics. The Egyptians used to teach that the most valuable things are the most useless: the arts, for example, or philosophy, or gold.

Finally, we should remember that it was through the indolent adoption of the easy decimal system (rather than the more perfect and exacting duodecimal system) that Atlantis finally brought itself down. This mathematically lazy way out is exactly the same path for which we have settled.

So numerology is simply the metaphysical side to numbers. One and one, for instance, are two, not because arithmetic says so, but because being equally "unique" they can't be reconciled as one, or "united," and are therefore at odds and in conflict with each other, as opposites in a mutual duality or "duel." Three, on the other hand, is a collection based on some kind of agreement, four a quaternity based on crossed oppositions in perfect balance, and so one.

There are also different ways of dealing with numerology -- theoria and praxis. In gematria, however, the idea is to add up the value of a word and then find other words that add up to the same number. They would thus be equivalents. This works rather well in Hebrew (to a lesser extent in Greek) but rather poorly in English -- simply because of the intrinsic differences between languages. Example: Jehovah has the same value as Chozeh ("seer" or "prophet"). Therefore, to the ancient Jews, God and Prophesy would be practically synonymous.

Numerological reduction is a convenience. It's easier to deal with numbers from 1 to 10 than with great blobs like 847 or 9,556,431. But numerologists also add before reducing. If a room contains 8 people, the numerology lecturer might perhaps decide to deliver his "octave" message. If 3 more people arrived, he'd change that to 11 which has an entirely different meaning from its reduction to 1 + 1 = 2. The higher the number, the more unstable its meaning becomes. For example, 11 stands symbolically for all the higher numbers (above 10), which is why 11 is the number of Sorcery.

The values of the Hebrew letters are: 1-ALEPH, 2-BETH, 3-GIMEL, 4-DALED, 5-HE, 6-VAU, 7-ZAYIN, 8-CHETH, 9-TETH, 10-YOD, 20-KAPH, 30-LAMED, 40-MEM, 50-NUN, 60-SAMECH, 70-AYIN, 80-PE, 90-TZADDE, 100-QOPH, 200-RESH, 300-SHIN, 400-TAV, 500-FINAL K, 600-FINAL M; 700-FINAL N, 800-FINAL P, 900-TZ, 1000-ALEPH (writ large).

In both Arab esoteric studies and in Judaic Cabal, such numbers form anagrams and extend the power of words: e.g., 93=Greek Agape, 398=Neshek, the serpent, and also Messiah.

The meanings of some of the numbers (my own attributions, plus some of Crowley's gematria from Liber 777):

000 Void of Voids, without possibility  of Being.

00 the Double Void

0 Zero, the Void, The Goddess, Infinite Nuit,  the Unmanifest. The "number" out of which everything comes. In the Tarot  it's called "The Fool" because it obey its own mysterious, unknowable rules  and is not subject to analysis. (Although we can and do theorize about it).  It's the Great Mother, the Void, that which lies beyond Alpha and Omega;  Original Mind.

1 Every Creation;  Ultimate Power, God, Hadit the point, Uniqueness; the Manifest (Set, Sirius  B), Pluto; the gods; Kether; Cosmic Consciousness; Yod-Atziluth; Archetypal  world; Aleph; Reason. Egyptian ankh. Fire. The most powerful of all magical  numbers. Number of the individual and the unique. All miracles are possible  once. One is the impossible beginning of everything coming out of the void.  As in music, it bears the stress: ONE-two-three...

2 Matter; The Fall; Opposition; Good & Evil; Neptune;  Chokmah (subject), Moons of Mars, Neptune; Heh-Briah; Dissention. Egyptian  uas; the number of division and opposition, analysis and separation;  Darkness and light; Good and Evil. Mystery.

3 Evolution; Space; Unanimity, Unity, the ALL, multiplication,  Saturn; Binah (object); vav-Yetzirah. Egyptian djed. (Grant assigns 3 to Set  and Satan.) Synthesis, construction. Abundance, fruitfulness. The apparent  "difference" of things in the Gurdjieffian sense -- the template in the  mind. 3 also is the emblem of infinity.

4 Manifestation: the Elements, etc; Jupiter; Chesed;  heh-Assiah. Egyptian nebet. Earth. Number of physical reality, completing  the foundations of things. Practicality. The Authority to be. Command.  Mercy.

5 Consciousness; the hand,  pentagram, man; Mars; Geburah. Moons of Uranus. Chinese elements (Earth,  Fire, Water, Wood, Metal) -- Earth is the fifth element, yellow and central.  The number of mediation, hence: Humanity . Sin, error, but also progress and  knowledge. Without 5 there is no human evolution or purpose. Courage.  Achievement.

6 The Work of Creation;  The Sun; Solar-Phallic energy; Spatial Directions, Harmony; Tiphareth. In  the I Ching, 6 is the number of Yin, i.e., Completion. Time, space  and astronomy. Number of beauty and the power of love.

7 The Totality of Creation; Earth's escape  velocity (M. P. S.); Will; Classical Planets; tones; the inferior power  zones; The Dragon's head; Scorpion; Swastika; Hyena; Serpent, Lion, Ape,  Typhon; Colors in the spectrum; Opportunity (because man develops by 7 year  periods). Number of overcoming, victory, accomplishment. Perfect harmony.  The Virgin, symbol of eternal rather than created things.

8 Infinity (the Lemniscate); Octagon, heaven on  earth or lower sephiroth plus Daath (or 7 planets plus Sothis); Mercury;  Hod, Ogoad, the Buddhist & other 8 path. Perfection. Strength,  fortitude, everlastingness. It is the first cubic number, hence it stands for the cube itself, or earth. Splendor of endurance. The octagon is the  symbol of the meeting of heaven & earth because it is a compromise  halfway between the square (earth) and the circle (heaven).

9 Number of the Moon; Container of all numbers;  Number of known astronomical planets. Eternity; Yesod; Endings, echatology;  Moons of Saturn; Number of Muses; In the I Ching, 9 is the number of  Yang. Arabic Ta (Secret Knowledge ). Number of absolute completion,  perfection and wisdom. Since the ennead is the final limitation, it is the  acceptance of solitude and the beginning of the inward journey to the  Infinite.

10 Earth, Samsara;  Reincarnation; (1 + 2 + 3 + 4) The Tetractys; Yod; number of Sephiroth;  Commandments; planes; Malkuth. This is the number of new beginnings based on  harmonious conclusions to previous activities. It is the lower exponent of  the Monad, the created world. It is the individual, unique power as it  appears in harmonious context with the many other uniquenesses of the world.  It is great fortune.

11 Number of the  years of the sunspot cycle. The general number of magic or sorcery and  magicians -- or energy tending to change. Uranus. Daath (or Egyptian Duat,  Tuat). This is the individual in confrontation with the world. Hence it is  the number of Justice and Balance. It is also the number of war and the  battle with the demonic element.

12  Baptism; Sacrifice; Solar zodiac. The number of the hanged man, i.e.,  sacrifice. This is the individual as he is plunged into the world and at the  same time apart from it.

13 Arachne,  the spider. The scale of the highest feminine unity; easily transformed to  secondary masculine ideas by any male component; or, the unity resulting  from love. Death; Lunar Zodiac; beginning of adolescence; Moons of Jupiter.  Orbits in solar system (including Vulcan, Isis and Osiris). Thirteen is also  the basic Mayan unit of change (13 days to a week) and the number of months  in the Newtime calendar. Number of Death and Metamorphosis -- as the old  life completes, a new life must begin. This is the practical side or physics  of metaphysics. From 13 to 20 may be likened to the stages of an LSD  experience in which the Ego dies and must be totally disintegrated. Then at  20 is reborn and at 21, the Ego is deliberately re-shaped into a new  individual that fits ideally into the world.

14 Number of pieces into which Osiris's body was cut by Set;  Gematria of Zahav. Temperance or Art, it is, the physical means by which one  is able to manipulate and balance the world.

15 Kamea sum of Saturn; Illusion; The Devil. The number of  illusion -- it's the shadow cast by beauty and love. Since it has to do with  darkness as an illusion, the Devil is called Lucifer, the light-bearer. (The  holder of the torch is himself in the darkness.)

16 Number of Eve; Number of human kalas (bodily secretions).  In Egyptian hieroglyphs, 16 symbolized delight because this is the age when  a young man has his first sexual experience. Coitus, thus, is 16 next to 16  = 1616. The Tower of Babel. This is the struggle for Heaven as it erupts in  words -- that is, the understanding of oneself is not always able to  communicate to others.

17 Tantric  number of kalas! The masculine unity. (Trinity of Aleph, Vau, Yod). Star of  the magi. The Star is all those striving things -- hope, ambition, faith,  longing, etc. It feeds on itself and re-invigorates all that it touches. It  accomplishes what The Tower cannot.

18  Percentage of the Moon's surface varying from visible to invisible. The Moon  (twice 9). This is the solitary path itself, leading back into the inner  being and one's own enlightenment.

19  Number of the year of the lunar cycle; Xtian "Golden Number"; The feminine  glyph. The Sun. This is the ultimate, true enlightenment itself; the quest  of all our strivings.

20 Number of days  in the Maya month. Kaph. Resurrection. Rebirth.

21 Mystic number of Tiphareth; Age of majority; 3 x 7. The  World (as it is built back up in a better way).

22 Letters in Hebrew alphabet; Major Arcana; Tunnel  Sentinels.

23 The "glyph of (nascent)  life"; Coincidence and Synchronicity.

24 Path of Scorpio (Scarlet Woman) or of the Water Demon.  Letters in Greek alphabet.

26  Tetragrammaton; Numbers of the Sephiroth of the Middle Pillar (without  Maat); Letters in English alphabet.

28  Lunar cycle of days. Solar cycle of years (1st day of week restored to same  day of week). Letters of Arabic alphabet. The numbers from 1 - 7 add up to  28 (1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 6 + 7).

29 The  magic force itself, the masculine current. Days in moon cycle, feminine  current. 29 = 2 + 9 = 1 = 2.

30 Number  of degrees in a sign. Ass; Lamedh.

31  Gematria of AL (God) also means "Not," key number of the New Aeon; The  highest feminine trinity -- zero through the glyph of the circle. (Great  Modulus of Zero.)

32 Number of gravity  increase acceleration (32 feet per second per second); Paths of the  Qabalah.

33 Age of Christ; magical age  in general.

34 Jupiter Kamea  sum.

36 Star sapphire; the Sun; curses.  Platonic duodecimal.

37 111/3; A prime  number; sum of Daath (11) and the 4 Sephiroth of the Middle Pillar (10 + 9 +  6 + 11 + 1). The unity itself in its balanced trinitarian  manifestation.

40 Mem; Babylonian rain  period -- 40 days before festival of New Year, when Pleiades visible. (Thus  Jewish 40 days.) 40 days is the philosophical month and 40 the number of  preparation, waiting, the wisdom of darkness and the natural processes of  solution and disintegration.

41 Percent  of the Moon's surface hidden from earth; the yoni as a vampire force,  sterile. Hispanic number of homosexuality.

42 The completion of the elements experienced via  darkness.

43 A number of orgasm --  especially the male.

44 Cabal; sand;  blood/water; flame; Aquarius.

45  Adam.

47 The yoni as dynamic,  prehensile, spasmodic, etc. Esprit de travail.

49 7 x 7. In Tibetan Bsm. 49 is the number of days spent in  the Afterworld between incarnations.

50  Number of minutes later the moon rises every night.

53 The yoni as instrument of pleasure (Hedonogenous.)

55 Phallos.

56 Word of Nu or Nuit (Abrahadabra as the union of 5 &  6.)

59 The yoni calling for the lingam  as ovum, menstruum and desire.

60  Second and minute units; Machine cycles; Samekh; Greek X.

61 Nia; Ain; the negative positively knowing  self.

64 I Ching patterns.

65 Mars Kamea sum.

66 Mystic number of the Opus Magnum and the Qlipoth.

67 The Womb containing the twins.

70 Biblical "Age" of Death; Ayin;  Omicron.

71 A number of Binah, silence  and nothingess.

72 The mystical  Platonic duodecimal number whose powers and multiples produce the distances  between planets, diameters of orbits, etc. 72 is the Average human life-span  today.

73 The feminine aspect of  Chokmah in his phallic function.

76  Halley's comet orbit in years.

78  Mezla, influence from above; total number of Tarots, Ego, Ape of Thoth,  Aiwass, the Oza (giants or monsters of creation).

80 Peh; pi.

81 Number of  Tetragrams in the T'ai Hsan Ching; Talam; Moon; Witchcraft; Hecate.

82 Compound number; Angel of Venus, beloved  object.

83 Consecration; highest form  of love. Energy, freedom, amrita, aspiration.

87 Number of Lebenah (Frankincense), Aossic; chalice.

88 Khabs, "The Star."

89 A number of sin and taboo. Silence, of Black  Magic.

90 Tzaddi.

91 Number of hairs (paths) in the Supernal  Beard.

93 Thelema, Agape,  Aiwass.

97 A number of Chesed as water  and as father.

99 Ending of endings.  Tithiane; Geburah's infernal abode.

100  Kephalos; Qoph; Rho.

108 A Platonic  duodecimal number.

111 "Ain Sof Aur";  Kamea sum of the Sun; Number of Abra-Melin Servitors.

123 War, plague, pleasure, violation.

131 Samael, Satan, Pan, Baphomet.

156 Zion; Babalon; number of letters for Enochian  tablet.

160 Ipo (name of the sun in a  lower hemisphere); the number of Tonal in Castaneda's world of phenomena  (Nagual is to Tonal as Sirius to Ipo).

164 A compound number; Cleaving; profane, as opposed to  sacred.

177 The Garden of  Eden.

200 Resh, Sigma.

210 The Return; Joining to the Void's original 3  stages; 000.

216 Platonic duodecimal  number.

217 Sigma-eta-theta, Seth; Star  of Babalon (Scarlet Woman); Sirius; Deborah, "the Bee" (Sekhet, goddess of  intoxication and sexual passion).

222  Beyond Good and Evil; Whiteness.

256  Number of poisonous methods of astral projection.

260 The Mayan Tzolkin cycle of change. 260 = 13 x 20  (the mystic numbers); Kamea sum of Mercury; Tiriel, the Intelligence of  Mercury.

261 Meher Baba; Hriliu; Word  of the Dove; "The Abomination of Desolation" (Stele of Reveling).

280 RP, "Terror"; number of squares on the side  of the vault containing the body of Christian Rosenkreutz.

289 PTR, hole, void.

292 The "drug of death"; the raven (black bird of Set);  Chozzar.

300 Shin, Greek tau.

305 Number of Yetzirah.

325 Bartzabel (spirit of Mars).

330 SOR (revolution); hurricane; tempest; circles of  time.

333 "Connection to the Infinite";  Chaos: Shugal-Set, the front half of the beast, which together with  Choronzon or Chozzar, the back, makes 666.

342 Bsm.; Perfume; ambrosia.

353 Hermes.

360 Degrees  in a circle (or zodiac).

365 Days in a  year; number of Abraxas (Greek letters); number also of Mithras.

369 Kamea of Luna.

370 Left hand; Sabbatic Goat; Creation (as matter and spirit);  Foundation.

389 Aossic (ancient  extraterrestrial entity).

393 Blends  the twin forces of Set and Horus (lightside and nightside of the Tree of  Life).

400 Tav.

406 Tav spelled out; also "Thou."

412 Romulus.

418  Abrahadabra.

442 Ends of the  Earth.

444 "The Limits of  Manifestation"; Al-Azif, Alhazred.

474  Gematria of Daath.

500 Phoenix; Kaph  final; psi.

504 Figures in the  formation of circles.

505 Kamea sum of  10 x 10.

511 Head.

535 Kteis.

555 Enlightenment.

600  Mem final; Chi.

612 Zeus.

640 Shamash; realm of the Sun; Mpitzth  (horrible idol); Gematria of Cup of Consolation; menstrual blood.

666 Number of Hatkariel; sum of the square of  The Sun (i.e. the Antichrist). Splendors of Being; Number of the Beast; Beast with two backs; Satanic Trinity (Typhon, Apophis, Besz), opponent of  Michael, Sorath..

671  Thora/Athor/Tharo.

700 Nun final;  Upsilon.

733 "The White Head."

777 Magic, Creation. Dagon; Stauros.

789 Link between Aeon of Horus and  Maat.

800 Peh final, Omega.

801 The sum of "Alpha and Omega"; also  peristera, "a dove."

823  Sahasra; graven idol.

864 Platonic  duodecimal number.

888 Metamorphosis,  Iesous.

900 Tzaddi final.

999 Eternal Evolution (past, present, future);  End of the World; Number of the true Trinity; "Nymphe" or creatures such as the Dols or Dholes; Romulus Hespaeria; Triple 9 Society; 999 C.E. is the  year that Kukulkan (Quetzalcoatl) died. The final resolution of 333 and  666.

1000 The Millenium;  Rab-Aleph.

1060 The Tabernacle  (Meshken).

1061 Sunset.

1296 Platonic duodecimal number.

1461 Sirius Cycle.

1728 Platonic duodecimal number.

1999 Date of Nostradamus' prediction of the Eschaton.

2000 Precessional Change; Year of the  Dragon.

2012 Mayan date of "end of the  world."

2167 Corrected precessional  number.

3168 Important ancient mystical  number used in construction.

5040  Another important ancient number.

12358  Fibonacci series.

26000 Great Year of  the Egyptians.

36000 Ancient Chaldean  Saros Cycle.

114048 Platonic number  thought to have the best factors for making it the number of the  world-soul.

187740489 Nine to the ninth  power.

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

Bathroom

• To see white roses in a bathroom, and yellow ones in a box, denote that sickness will interfere with pleasure; but more lasting joys will result from this disappointment.
• For a young woman to dream of a bathroom, foretells that her inclinations trend too much toward light pleasures and frivolities.

Source: 10 000 Dream Interpretations, by Gustavus Hindman Miller

(See also: Dream Archives, Meaning of Dreams, Dream Interpretation, Dream Dictionary, Dream Dictionary - Bathroom, Dreams - Meaning of Dream about Bathroom, Dream Interpretation Bathroom)

Castle

A castle in a dream may be symbolic of the "cavern of the heart." It represents the home of the human spirit (yours) and the natural self. Dreams with castles in them may come from deeper levels of the unconscious, or the collective unconscious. They may represent spiritual transcendence and the mysterious and intangible force that seems to quietly, but firmly, direct our lives. A castle in a dream may also represent feelings of security, protection, isolation or remoteness. You may have a castle dream when you have realized a desire or accomplished a goal. Darkened castles may be symbolic of unconscious or unfocused desires, at times, black castles represent our failures and white, or lighted castles, symbolize achievement and awareness.

Source: Dream Lover Incorporated, http://www.dreamloverinc.com

(See also: Dream Archives, Meaning of Dreams, Dream Interpretation, Dream Dictionary, Dream Dictionary - Castle, Meaning of Dreams about Castle, Dream Interpretation Castle)

Apparel [16]

• Dreams of apparel, denote that enterprises will be successes or failures, as the apparel seems to be whole and clean, or soiled and threadbare.
• To see fine apparel, but out of date, foretells that you will have fortune, but you will scorn progressive ideas.
• If you reject out-of-date apparel, you will outgrow present environments and enter into new relations, new enterprises and new loves, which will transform you into a different person.
• To see yourself or others appareled in white, denotes eventful changes, and you will nearly always find the change bearing sadness.
• To walk with a person wearing white, proclaims that person's illness or distress, unless it be a young woman or child, then you will have pleasing surroundings for a season at least.
• To see yourself, or others, dressed in black, portends quarrels, disappointments, and disagreeable companions; or, if it refers to business, the business will fall short of expectations.
• To see yellow apparel, foretells approaching gaieties and financial progress. Seen as a flitting spectre, in an unnatural light, the reverse may be expected. You will be fortunate if you dream of yellow cloth.
• To dream of blue apparel, signifies carrying forward to victory your aspirations, through energetic, insistent efforts. Friends will loyally support you.
• To dream of crimson apparel, foretells that you will escape formidable enemies by a timely change in your expressed intention.
• To see green apparel, is a hopeful sign of prosperity and happiness.
• To see many colored apparel, foretells swift changes, and intermingling of good and bad influences in your future.
• To dream of misfitting apparel, intimates crosses in your affections, and that you are likely to make a mistake in some enterprise.
• To see old or young in appropriate apparel, denotes that you will undertake some engagement for which you will have no liking, and which will give rise to many cares.
• For a woman to dream that she is displeased with her apparel, foretells that she will find many vexatious rivalries in her quest for social distinction.
• To admire the apparel of others, denotes that she will have jealous fears of her friends.
• To dream of the loss of any article of apparel, denotes disturbances in your business and love affairs.
• For a young woman to dream of being attired in a guazy black costume, foretells she will undergo chastening sorrow and disappointment.
• For a young woman to dream that she meets another attired in a crimson dress with a crepe mourning veil over her face, foretells she will be outrivaled by one she hardly considers her equal, and bitter disappointment will sour her against women generally.
• The dreamer interpreting the dream of apparel should be careful to note whether the objects are looking natural. If the faces are distorted and the light unearthly, though the colors are bright, beware; the miscarriage of some worthy plan will work you harm. There are few dreams in which the element of evil is wanting, as there are few enterprises in waking life from which the element of chance is obviated.
• [16] See Meaning of Dreams about Clothes and Coat.

Source: 10 000 Dream Interpretations, by Gustavus Hindman Miller

(See also: Dream Archives, Meaning of Dreams, Dream Interpretation, Dream Dictionary, Dream Dictionary - Apparel, Dreams - Meaning of Dream about Apparel, Dream Interpretation Apparel)

COLORS

(Source: Myths - Dreams - Symbols)

Related pages: Dream Symbols, Dream Interpretation, Dream Symbol Colors, Dream Dictionary Colors, Meaning of dreams about Colors, Dream Interpretation Colors, Dream Analysis Colors, Dreaming of Colors

Colors, Colour, Color, Colors, Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Grey, Blue, Purple, Black, Brown

Hair

(Source: Myths - Dreams - Symbols)

Related pages: Dream Symbols, Dream Interpretation, Dream Symbol Hair, Dream Dictionary Hair, Meaning of dreams about Hair, Dream Interpretation Hair, Dream Analysis Hair, Dreaming of Hair

Hair, Sexual virility, Seduction, Sensuality, Vanity, Health, Knotted Hair, Tangled Hair, Uncertainty, Confusion, Cutting your hair, Combing hair, Stroking hair, Styling your hair, Long hair, Losing your hair, Smelling your hair, Sensual stimulation, Sexual curiosity, Reaching for someone's hair, Sympathy, Protectiveness, Fraternal love, Wind blowing through your hair, White hair, Bald, Baldness, New ideas, Loss in strength, Censor, New thought, New thinking, Self-image, Appearance, Fear of getting older, Fear of losing sex appeal, Fear of losing virility

Dream FAQ Dictionary: How do various drugs/nutritional components influence dreaming?

How do various drugs/nutritional components influence dreaming?

[Section compiled from answers by various people]

[By turner@remarque.berkeley.edu (Michael Turner)]AMINO ACIDS & SUPPLEMENTSSaw some mention of Taurine recently. B vitamins (6 and 12)?

 I'veused Choline+Inositol combo w/some success.Inositol is a B-vitamin (12?

) that aids in the uptake of Choline,which is a precursor to the neurotransmitter acetylcholine. Cholineis present in lecithin, which is itself present in egg whites, soyproducts, and other sources of protein. One would have to constantlyglut oneself with tofu in order to get the equivalent of 500mg tabletof Choline+ Inositol, however.

FOODSFish contains some substance that also helps, forget what it's called,though. Cheese (esp. cheddar, for some reason) and bananas to alesser extent, contain some stuff that can cause wild dreams. Soy,eggs, etc., as mentioned above.

TEAS and HERBSHave tried various teas and herbs, but most were either ineffective orunspeakably vile. (DON'T like vivid dreams of large bugs burrowingthrough my head, thank you very much.) Would be willing to try againwith some guidance, though.

PRESCRIPTION DRUGSPrescription drugs of various kinds can have dream effects; so much sothat most sleep/dream labs have some kind of funding from pharm.companies, if they aren't owned and operated by them outright. Never-theless, prescription drug labels seldom warn of "nightmares"; perhapsthat all falls under "sleep disturbances."Barbiturates can suppress REM. Don't know about tranqs & anti-depressants, though. New Wave antidepressions (Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil)are serotonin- effecting, so some effect might be expected.

LEGAL PSYCHOACTIVE DRUGSBoth caffeine and alcohol can suppress REM - odd, since one is a CNSstimulant, the other a CNS depressant. Nicotine?

 Don't know.

ILLEGAL PSYCHOACTIVE DRUGSControlled/illegal substances have been studied vis-a-vis dreams, buthazy on the details I learned. (Was high at the time, I guess....)THC can suppress REM somewhat. Various psychedelics effect aspects ofserotonin metabolism. Speed keeps you from sleeping; amphetaminepsychosis might be drug-induced-anxiety + REM deprivation. Newerstuff, such as illegal/controlled "smart drugs", "designer drugs",etc. I don't know about, but it would be surprising if they had nodream effects.

[By pryan@prairienet.org (Pamela Ryan)]Someone posted a while back that a combination of Choline (600 mg,equals 1429 mg Choline Bitartrate) and Pantothenic Acid (Vitamin B5,500 mg) boosts dream recall.

[By pzinken@mswe.dnet.ms.philips.nl (P. ZINKEN)]Point is i am at one side a notorious coffee-addict, and on the otherside one who smokes a joint or a hookah from time to time. I'lldescribe my states of dreaming for both, because they are ratherdifferent.

Caffeine:Under influence of caffeine (and i mean rather much, after drinking,for example, 10 to 15 0.25l cups), i tend to sleep very light. If iget to dream it usually is a lucid dream. Thus, it seems caffeinechanges the conciousness while sleeping. Also, i tend to have morenightmares if i drink too much coffee.

Hasjiesj:There are times when i like to smoke some weed or hasjiesj and then goto bed stoned (on these days i usually smoke between 0.5 and 0.75grams) It does influence the dream state very heavy. Hasjiesj has thetendency of relaxing you, and also has a tendency to make emotionsstronger. While dreaming this results in very real-feeling dreams.Last night i smoked about a half gram of Noorderlicht, a kind of weedgrown here in Eindhoven, and after going to bed and falling to sleep(almost instantly) i dreamt something rather silly, but i couldn'thelp thinking it was the real-world instead of a dream.Thus, hasjiesj makes the dream stronger, more deep. Problem is, anightmare will seem more real too. Also, it seems to make it moredifficult to dream lucid (i am able to dream lucid).

Combination:Well, this one is the one i get at the most. After a long day ofworking and coffee-drinking, i sometimes let myself go and make ablow. This results in a combination of an up-drug and adown-drug. And, strangest of things, this combination does neverresult in no-drug.The caffeine still leaves the property of easily getting into a luciddream, while the hasjiesj makes the sleep very deep and the dreamsvery intense. I've yet to wake up from getting into lucidity whileunder influence of hasjiesj.Overal conclusion from my side thus is, drugs do have a certain effecton dreaming. And there is quite a big difference between uppers anddowners.

[By bsbyun@uswnvg.uucp (Bryan Byun)]

My method isn't the healthiest, so it's not something I want toexperiment on often, although reading your FAQ reminded me of it, andI might try it again sometime.Anyway, this is the exact method I use:1. Stay up late, past your normal sleeping time, until you are very,very tired. Do not get into bed until you are ready to sleep.2. Just before getting into bed, take from 2-4 caffeine tablets of thedosage included in Vivarin brand stimulants (I don't know the exactdosage), depending on your tolerance for caffeine.

It's my personal theory that what happens is that your body fallsasleep and begins the REM cycle...then, the caffeine stimulates yourbrain (or at least irritates it) so that your conscious mind awakens.Normally, so would your body, but if you sleep late enough, your bodywill be so fatigued that the fact of your brain awakening won't beenough to rouse it; and, if you take the right amount of caffeine, thestimulant effect will be just enough to wake up your mind, withoutforcing it completely awake.

Anyway, I don't know if I would recommend this as a method ofattaining lucid dreaming, but it has worked for me.

[By ot]

The Kava Kava root, a traditional drug from the Polynesian islands, islittle known but highly recommendable. It is said to take away stressand tension, very mildly tranquilizing while clearing and sharpeningthoughts. Also told to help dreaming, especially for lucid dreamingexercises. From my own experience, it causes a deeper but shorter(!)sleep with more intense dreams.

[The following holds for Germany, I don't think other countries aremuch different.] Kava Kava root is available from pharmacies, althoughnot a "standard" drug and sometimes it takes time for the pharmacistto obtain supply. At least one company makes capsules with Kava Kavaroot extracts ("Kava ratiopharm"). They are sold as a stress reliever.Though not as effective as the whole root, perhaps the method ofchoice for many - the traditional way of chewing the roots for a longtime does not suit Western people, who typically find the taste ratherbad. Attention: do not combine with alcohol, it increases theundesired effects of the latter (same with barbiturates, etc.)

Source: http://www.faqs.org/faqs/dreams-faq

(See also: Drugs and Dreaming, Dream Interpretation FAQ, Dream Interpretation, Dream Dictionary, Meaning of Dreams)