Pretaloka: (Sanskrit) "World of the departed."

The realm of the earth-bound souls. This lower region of Bhuvarloka is an astral duplicate of the physical world.

See: loka.

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

Sosiosh, Soshyos (Persian) In Zoroastrianism, the deliverer of the world, who shall come on a white horse in a tornado of fire.

According to the Avesta (Yast 19:89), he will be born from a maid near Lake Kasava; he will come from the region of the dawn to free the world from death and decay, from corruption and rottenness -- ever living and ever thriving, the dead shall rise and immortality commence.

This prophecy corresponds to that of the coming of Maitreya-Buddha, or of the Kalki-avatara of Vishnu, also repeated in the Christian Revelation of St. John.

(See also: Sosiosh, Soshyos , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Adonai 'adonai (Hebrew) (from 'adon lord)

My Lords; through usage, Lord, a plural of excellence. Originally a sort of appeal or prayer to the hierarchical spiritual powers of the earth planetary chain, and more particularly of the planetary spirit of the earth itself; later it became a mere substitute for the unutterable name of God, usually for Tetragrammaton (YHVH).

"As the inner nature of YHVH is hidden; therefore He (YHVH) is only named with the Name of the Shekhinah, Adonai, i.e., Lord; therefore the Rabbins say (of the name YHVH); Not as I am written (i.e., YHVH) am I read. In this world My Name is written YHVH and read Adonai, but in the world to come, the same will be read as it is written, so that Mercy (represented by YHVH) shall be from all sides" (Zohar iii 320a). Adonai is rendered Lord in the Bible, although it means "my Lords"; whereas 'elohim is translated God in the English Authorized Version.

In the Sephirothal scheme, the Divine Name of the Sephirah of Malchuth was 'Adonai. The Gnostics taught that Iurbo and Adonai were names of Iao-Jehovah, who is an emanation of Ilda Baoth. According to Origen the Gnostics considered Adonai the genius of the sun. Blavatsky writes: "Both Aidoneus and Dionysius (Dionysus)

are the bases of Adonai, or 'Jurbo Adonai,' as Jehovah is called in Codex Nazaraeus. . . . Baal-Adonis of the sods or Mysteries of the pre-Babylonian Jews became the Adonai by the Massorah, the later-vowelled Jehovah" (SD 1:463).

See also 'ADON; IAO; JEHOVAH

(See also: Adonai, adonai , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Padma (Sanskrit) The lotus, a flower which has been held sacred from remotest antiquity by the Aryan Hindus, as well as revered in other lands such as Egypt.

Mystically, it was looked upon as an emblem of productive nature growing between the spiritual sunlight above and the water or the astral light below; or in a more general sense between spirit and matter. It has also other meanings, such as in India, of the prolific earth, and even of Mount Meru.

The lotus is "a very ancient and favourite simile for the Kosmos itself, and also for man. The popular reasons given are, firstly, . . . that the Lotus-seed contains within itself a perfect miniature of the future plant, which typifies the fact that the spiritual prototypes of all things exist in the immaterial world before those things become materialised on Earth. Secondly, the fact that the Lotus plant grows up through the water, having its root in the Ilus, or mud, and spreading its flower in the air above.

The Lotus thus typifies the life of man and also that of the Kosmos; . . . The root of the Lotus sunk in the mud represents material life, the stalk passing up through the water typifies existence in the astral world, and the flower floating on the water and opening to the sky is emblematical of spiritual being" (SD 1:57-8).

(See also: Padma, lotus , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Kamadhatu (Sanskrit). Called also Kamavatchara, a region including Kamaloka.

In exoteric ideas it is the first of the Trailakya - or three regions (applied also to celestial beings) or seven planes or degrees, each broadly represented by one of the three chief characteristics; namely, Kama, Rupa and Arupa, or those of desire, form and formlessness. The first of the Trailokyas, Kamadhatu, is thus composed of the earth and the six inferior Devalokas, the earth being followed by Kamaloka (q.v.).

These taken together constitute the seven degrees of the material world of form and sensuous gratification. The second of the Trailokya (or Trilokya) is called Rupadhatu or "material form" and is also composed of seven Lokas (or localities). The third is Arupadhatu or "immaterial lokas". "Locality", however, is an incorrect word to use in translating the term dhatu, which does not mean in some of its special applications a "place" at all. For instance, Arupadhatu is a purely subjective world, a "state" rather than a place. But as the European tongues have no adequate metaphysical terms to express certain ideas, we can only point out the difficulty.

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

Principalities The seventh order of angels in the celestial hierarchy of the pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite. This hierarchy is recognized in the New Testament: "I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, . . . shall be able to separate us from the love of God" (Rom 8:38-9).

Principality here translates the Greek arche (beginning, first principle, province ruled over, ruler, and rule in the abstract); the Latin version gives principatus (beginning, sovereignty). The allusion is to recognized names in the Gnostic hierarchical systems of aeons or emanations. "From Mind proceeded the word, Logos, from the word, Providence [Divine Light, rather], then from it Virtue and Wisdom in Principalities, Power, Angels, etc." (Basilidean teaching). All these various denizens of the sidereal world are copies of archaic prototypes.

In a passage relating to the ancient Syrian scheme of hierarchies, the lowest or sublunary world -- Earth -- is ruled by Angels; the sphere of Mercury by Archangels; that of Venus by Principalities; that of the Sun by solar gods termed Powers; that of Mars by Virtues; Jupiter, Dominions; Saturn, Thrones.

The ninefold hierarchy divided into three triads, as given by Dionysius the Areopagite, is but a Christianized copy of ancient occult teaching taken over from Neoplatonic and Neopythagorean thought so widely current in the countries around the Mediterranean around the beginning of the Christian era and for some centuries afterwards.

The ancient wisdom, from which all these various systems of thought originally sprang, likewise has its system of hierarchies which falls naturally into a similar range of nine, ten, or even twelve grades or divisions of cosmic power and substance. These different classes of celestial or angelic beings are the various grades of entities which infill and indeed make our solar system, and to which theosophy gives other titles than those used by Dionysius.

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

SCHIZOPHRENIA

It has been defined as a cognitive handicap in which reason is limited to purely concrete processes and neither symbol nor abstraction can be used or understood. What we see, however, is not necessarily impairment, but misplacement. The schizophrenic demands exactitude because he needs firm guidelines in a world that is arbitrary, hostile and irrational. The world, however, believing itself to be sane, views such allergy as a disease, rather than as the simple, psychic defense that it obviously is.

Far from being despised as socially undesirable, schizophrenia should be hailed as one of mankind's invaluable resources. Functional schizophrenia is not madness but a focussing of consciousness that is simply not sanctioned by ordinary society, except in sleep. Animals also inhabit worlds of their own -- the elephant world, the eagle world, the rattlesnake world, etc. which society misunderstands and condemns. Both "incurable" schizophrenics and "untameable" wild animals, therefore, are systematically crowded out to make room for the breeding, conforming multitudes of homo sap.

Admittedly, the "afflicted" have little or no control over their mental state and often feel themselves to be drowning in raging psychic seas, but that is generally in reaction to the insanity of the consensual world and lack of special training in how to use these precious, divine talents. At any rate, our society's longing to "medicate" it totally out of existence is stupid. We can only wish that schizophrenes were better provided for, even pampered -- and very carefully educated -- so as to help them cast off the miserable and crippling paranoia which is its natural enough accompaniment, given the hostility of our world for anything it fails to understand. Most schizophrenes are as abysmally ill-educated as the rest of our society and so can't take advantage of their talent or defend themselves. Their "madness" is, more often than not, no more than the quite "logical" result of ignorance, confusion and fear. If anything, schizophrenics are superrational beings coping with enormous burdens of logic.

Marijuana produces a similar panic which has to be overcome. It too removes the filter that normally keeps us from experiencing the underlying, fundamental chaos of the world. From a functional (i.e., not physically diseased) standpoint, the paranoia resulting from schizophrenia is a normal and successfully adaptive reaction to an extreme and untenable situation, e.g., contemporary society in its habitually evil and mindless mode. And society, in failing to provide a place for these people, is doing all of us a great disservice.

It is as if we forced athletes to run in lead-soled, lumberjack boots and to keep their hands in their pockets at all times. It is as if we expected Rembrandt to content himself with a monochromatic spray-paint gun and an untagged bus.

Since schizophrenia bypasses the psychic censor, it affords tremendous insight into many metaphysical mysteries and considerably increases the level of extrasensory perception. Moreover, it is out of the same matrix that art, discovery, invention and genius evolve. Even "chemical" schizophrenia (whether naturally or artificially induced), can, to a moderate degree be a positive condition. But it is logic and reason, unhampered by any fawning to authority or family values, that most often lead the schizophrenic person into trouble. That is hardly an "illness" to be "cured." It's a line of inner resourcefulness, originality and survival.

Oddly enough, talk like that doesn't, as you might think, go right over my shrink's head. We both realize that he only nods to the establishment flakes in order to survive professionally.

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

Natural disasters

The radical annihilation of the world is a theme that seems to recur in many of the world's cultures, cults, and religions. Sometimes there is a subsequent reordering and renewal of the world that includes a particular group being placed in supremacy. Other times, there is a mystical translation of chosen inhabitants into a structured paradise. Another option is unrelenting chaos and loss of this world without recourse.

Sometimes, the premonition feeling that you get after these dreams leaves you feeling very eerie. You may be scared that what just happened in dreamland may be about to happen out in waking life. The means may be different for any given dreamer depending on your worldview, but the feeling is roughly the same ? that time seems short for this world.

There can be several different approaches to seeking meaning in this dream. The origins of these approaches are in personal psychology, cultural tensions, and religious or spiritual revelation.

Feeling dramatically out of control in your personal life can trigger apocalypse dreams. This may be caused by hormones in adolescence, the death of a loved one (especially parent), or divorce and other significant relationship losses. The ending world is an escape mechanism to avoid dealing with a world so dramatically changed by new circumstances. This world-ending dream often features the dreamer alone amongst generally unrecognized figures. This reveals that all people close to the dreamer are gone. Cultural cues for world-ending dreams come out of a collective angst about the frailty of our planet or the human race. These dreams may be triggered in times of global hopelessness and unpredictability. A millennial change generates this kind of dreaming for some people. Damaging news about the earth, global warming, and cosmic collision potentials will do it for others.

Economic uncertainty will make some people extremely anxious. Whenever instability or insecurity becomes themes of cultural awareness, apocalyptic dreams increase. When interpreting this type of dream you should ask yourself, "How is the world ending and who is to blame?" This dream may be a calling for you to protect yourself against a risk that is beyond your comfort zone, become more involved in a particular cause, or to think again about the rationale of your fears.

Religious or spiritual revelation that heralds the end of the world is a powerful image. Usually, the dreamer will see some significant icons of their faith initiating or withstanding the destruction. Another scenario is that adherents to the mysticism are identified in a particular way and survive the destruction because of their association. In these dreams, the world is often reordered. Often, these dreams will accompany a time in the dreamer's life when he or she feels that the entire world is against them and only their association with something larger than themselves can provide a resolution to the struggles being faced. (Or, they may just be receiving an oracle about the conclusion of this world?)

Source: iVillage, http://www.ivillage.co.uk

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

Mahabharata

"[The Mahabharata] is...probably the longest single poem in the world's literature. Traditionally the author of the poem was the sage Vyasa, who is said to have taught it to his pupil Vaisampayana. The latter, according to tradition, recited it in public for the first time at a great sacrifice held by King Janamejaya, the great grandson of Arjuna, one of the heroes of the story. ...the poem tells of the great civil war in the kingdom of the Kurus, in the region about the modern Delhi, then known as Kuruksetra."

-- A.L. Basham, The Wonder That Was India, p. 407

"The Mahabharata is the creation and expression not of a single individual mind, but of a whole people. ...The whole poem has been built like a vast national temple unrolling slowly its immense and complex idea from chanber to chamber, crowded with significant groups and sculptures and inscriptions, the grouped figures carved in divine or semi-divine proportions, a humanity aggrandised and half-uplifted to super-humanity and yet always true to the human motive and idea and feeling, the strain of the real constantly raised by the tones of the ideal, the life of this world amply portrayed but subjected to the conscious influence and presence of the powers of the worlds behind it, and the whole unified by the long embodied procession of a consistent idea worked out in the wide steps of the poetic story."

"The leading motive is the Indian idea of the Dharma. Here the Vedic notion of the struggle between the godheads of truth and light and unity and the powers of darkness and division and falsehood is brought out from the spiritual and religious and internal into the outer intellectual, ethical and vital plane. It takes there in the figure of the story a double form of a personal and a political struggle, the personal a conflict between typical and representative personalities embodying the greater ethical ideals of the Indian Dharma and others who are embodiments of Asuric egoism and self-will and misuse of the Dharma, the political a battle in which the personal struggle culminates, an international clash ending in the establishment of a new rule of righteiousness and justice, a kingdom or rather an empire of the Dharma uniting warring races and substituting for the ambitious arrogance of kings and aristocratic clans the supremacy, the calm and peace of a just and humane empire. It is the old struggle of Deva and Asura, God and Titan, but represented in the terms of human life."

-- Sri Aurobindo, The Foundations of Indian Culture, SABCL Vol.14 pp. 287-88

(See also: Mahabharata , Hinduism, Vedic Scriptures, Yoga, Body Mind and Soul)

Gold The king of metal, symbol of perfection, durability, and purity; of the real sun, the great masculine principle, the Father, the positive side of the solar cosmic life. Alchemists considered gold as being a deposit of solar light, regarding light as the emanative fire from the sun.

The gold of human nature, which has to be purified by fire from its dross, is manas, the self-conscious element, when purified from contamination with the dross of the lower principles and united with buddhi.

While divine alchemy seeks to purify the gold of human nature, physical alchemy seeks to derive gold by transmutation from baser metals. In contrast with gold, brass is mentioned as signifying the baser elements or the world of passional matter; and by another contrast, silver is the analog of the watery or feminine principle, whose planetary counterpart is the moon.

The first and purest of the four Hesiodic races in Greece was golden and gave the name to their age. In Hindu writings the world is evolved from a golden egg or germ (hiranyagarbha).

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

Quaternary A group of four; the number four, fourfold. Many quaternary groupings may be made.

The septenate is divisible into three and four, usually as the higher triad and the lower quaternary; here the quaternary is terrestrial as opposed to celestial, mortal as opposed to immortal, material as opposed to spiritual. It is seen in the four lower human principles, the four lower cosmic elements, the fourfold shapes in physical bodies, etc. It is the square of the number 2; the first of the regular polyhedra is the tetrahedron or triangular pyramid, having four sides and four corners.

The septenate may otherwise be regarded as two triangles and a central point, as in Solomon's seal; and this gives two quaternaries, a higher and a lower, by adding the point to either of the triangles. These two quaternaries are also called the higher and lower -- or celestial and terrestrial -- tetraktys. The higher group is given in Platonism as: to agathon, nous, psyche, and hyle; and the lower group is the four cosmic elements of fire, earth, air, and water. The lower tetraktys is said to be the root of illusion or mahamaya, and this is what the Tetragrammaton, or four-lettered name, becomes in materialized Judaism.

Deity is spoken of as fourfold, the four-faced Brahma, the creative Logos which is a three-in-one with its emanated light as a fourth; or in another system, the ineffable, silence, father, and truth; or again in still another system the three flames and four wicks. Of the seven groups of angels or higher dhyani-chohans, the rupa-dhyanis form a quaternary; often in exoteric writings only four of seven are mentioned, the higher three being esoteric.

The two principal meanings of the quaternary are summed up in the tetraktys; it has four planes, and the fourth plane is in itself a four. The higher triad with the material world added as a pendant unit makes a quaternary; and this material world unfolded makes a new quaternary. There is a celestial or spiritual quaternary, just as there is a material and physical quaternary; and the element-principles of the universe may be so divided that an intermediate quaternary springs into view.

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

evil: That which is bad, morally wrong, causing harm, pain, misery. In Western religions, evil is often thought of as a moral antagonism to God. This force is the source of sin and is attached to the soul from its inception.

Whereas, for Hindus, evil is not a conscious, dark force, such as Satan. It is situational rather than ontological, meaning it has its basis in relative conditions, not in ultimate reality. Evil (badness, corruption) springs from ignorance (avidya) and immaturity. Nor is one fighting with God when he is evil, and God is not standing in judgment. Within each soul, and not external to it, resides the principle of judgment of instinctive-intellectual actions. God, who is ever compassionate, blesses even the worst sinner, the most depraved asura, knowing that individual will one day emerge from lower consciousness into the light of love and understanding.

Hindus hold that evil, known in Sanskrit as papa, papman or dushta, is the result of unvirtuous acts (papa or adharma) caused by the instinctive-intellectual mind dominating and obscuring deeper, spiritual intelligence. (Note: both papa and papman are used as nouns and adjectives.) The evil-doer is viewed as a young soul, ignorant of the value of right thought, speech and action, unable to live in the world without becoming entangled in maya. -

intrinsic evil: Inherent, inborn badness. Some philosophies hold that man and the world are by nature imperfect, corrupt or evil. Hinduism holds, on the contrary, that there is no intrinsic evil, and the real nature of man is his divine, soul nature, which is goodness.

See: hell, karma, papa, Satan, sin.

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

Theosophy [from Greek theosophia from theos god, divinity + sophia wisdom]

Divine wisdom, the knowledge of things divine; often described as attainable by direct experience, by becoming conscious of the essential, divine part of our nature, self-identification with the inner god, leading to communion with other similar divine beings. Theosophy actually is the "substratum and basis of all the world-religions and philosophies, taught and practised by a few elect ever since man became a thinking being" (TG 328). Also called by such names as the secret doctrine and the esoteric tradition, its teachings have been preserved, checked and rechecked with every new generation of its guardians and adepts.

The word became familiar to Greeks in the 3rd century with Ammonius Saccas and the Alexandrian Neoplatonists or Theurgists, who taught of divine emanations, whereby the entire universe as well as humans and all other beings are shown to be descendants of the highest gods. Theosophist is also applied to mystics in later times such as Eckhart, Boehme, and Paracelsus. It was adopted in 1875 by H. P. Blavatsky and others associated with her at the founding of the Theosophical Society as the name for the modern form of the archaic wisdom-religion which she promulgated. This wisdom-religion "was ever one and being the last word of possible human knowledge, was, therefore, carefully preserved. It preceded by long ages the Alexandrian Theosophists, reached the modern, and will survive every other religion and philosophy" (Key 7-8).

"The Secret Doctrine is the accumulated Wisdom of the Ages, and its cosmogony alone is the most stupendous and elaborate system: e.g., even in the exotericism of the Puranas. But such is the mysterious power of Occult symbolism, that the facts which have actually occupied countless generations of initiated seers and prophets to marshal, to set down and explain; in the bewildering series of evolutionary progress, are all recorded on a few pages of geometrical sign and glyphs. The flashing gaze of those seers has penetrated into the very kernel of matter, and recorded the soul of things there, where an ordinary profane, however learned, would have perceived but the external work of form. But modern science believes not in the 'soul of things,' and hence will reject the whole system of ancient cosmogony. It is useless to say that the system in question is no fancy of one or several isolated individuals. That it is the uninterrupted record covering thousands of generations of Seers whose respective experiences were made to test and to verify the traditions passed orally by one early race to another, of the teachings of higher and exalted beings, who watched over the childhood of Humanity. That for long ages, the 'Wise Men' of the Fifth Race, of the stock saved and rescued from the last cataclysm and shifting of continents, had passed their lives in learning, not teaching. How did they do so? It is answered: by checking, testing, and verifying in every department of nature the traditions of old by the independent visions of great adepts; i.e., men who have developed and perfected their physical, mental, psychic, and spiritual organisations to the utmost possible degree. No vision of one adept was accepted till it was checked and confirmed by the visions -- so obtained as to stand as independent evidence -- of other adepts, and by centuries of experiences" (SD 1:272-3).

G. de Purucker wrote: "There has existed in the world for almost innumerable ages, a completely coherent and fully comprehensive system of religious philosophy, or of philosophical, scientific religion, which from time to time has been given out to man when the world needed a fuller revealing of spiritual truth than it then at such time had. Further, this wonderful system has been for all those past ages in the safe guardianship of the relatively perfected men . . . [the mahatmas]; and, still further, the present Theosophical Movement is, in our age, one of such fuller revelations or renewals of that wonderful System" (ET 33-4).

One of the mahatmas referring to the guardianship of the divine wisdom, wrote: "For countless generations hath the adept builded a fane of imperishable rocks, a giant's Tower of Infinite Thought, wherein the Titan dwelt, and will yet, if need be, dwell alone, emerging from it but at the end of every cycle, to invite the elect of mankind to co-operate with him and help in his turn enlighten superstitious man. And we will go on in that periodical work of ours; we will not allow ourselves to be baffled in our philanthropic attempts until that day when the foundations of a new continent of thought are so firmly built that no amount of opposition and ignorant malice guided by the Brethren of the Shadow will be found to prevail" (ML 51).

See also THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY

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

Pythia or Pythoness (Ancient Greek). Modern dictionaries inform us that the term means one who delivered the oracles at the temple of Delphi, and "any female supposed to have the spirit of divination in her - a witch" (Webster).

This is neither true, just nor correct. On the authority of Iamblichus, Plutarch and others, a Pythia was a priestess chosen among the sensitives of the poorer classes, and placed in a temple where oracular powers were exercised. There she had a room secluded from all but the chief Hierophant and Seer, and once admitted, was, like a nun, lost to the world. Sitting on a tripod of brass placed over a fissure in the ground, through which arose intoxicating vapours, these subterranean exhalations, penetrating her whole system, produced the prophetic mania, in which abnormal state she delivered oracles. Aristophanes in Vestas " I., reg. 28, calls the Pythia ventriloqua vates or the "ventriloquial prophetess", on account of her stomach-voice.

The ancients placed the soul of man (the lower Manas) or his personal self-consciousness, in the pit of his stomach. We find in the fourth verse of the second Nabhanedishta hymn of the Brahmans: "Hear, 0 sons of the gods, one who speaks through his name (nabha), for he hails you in your dwellings!" This is a modern somnambulic phenomenon.

The navel was regarded in antiquity as "the circle of the sun", the seat of divine internal light. Therefore was the oracle of Apollo at Delphi, the city of Delphus, the womb or abdomen - while the seat of the temple was called the omphalos, navel. As well-known, a number of mesmerized subjects can read letters, hear, smell and see through that part of their body. In India there exists to this day a belief (also among the Parsis) that adepts have flames in their navels, which enlighten for them all darkness and unveil the spiritual world. It is called with the Zoroastrians the lamp of Deshtur or the "High Priest"; and the light or radiance of the Dikshita (the initiate) with the Hindus.

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

Marcionites Followers of Marcion, a reformer of Christianity of the 2nd century who, failing to bend the Church to his views, founded a society of his own in Rome, whence it spread to Asia Minor, gaining great influence and for a time seriously competing with the established Church.

Though often described as a Gnostic, he holds a position rather between the Gnostics and those who sought to establish a less philosophical and more concrete system -- a church. He had known Christianity at a time when the Gnostic teachings still formed a recognized element; but he found the existing Church too far along the path of materialization of metaphysical ideas and adaptation to mundane politics, and he sought to restore the doctrine and ritual to an older, purer form.

He favored the teachings of Paul, whom he regarded as the true interpreter of Christianity, and condemned the Old Testament as being a corrupting influence, while regarding the historical view of the Gospels as a literalization and carnalization of metaphysical allegories and symbolic teaching. His teachings contain many Gnostic elements: man is formed by the God of the Old Testament, who lays upon him laws which he cannot obey, so that he falls under the power of the lower Demiourgos. But another God, the God of Mercy, sends his son into the world to save man. Yet this son appears in the reign of Tiberius and is crucified in Palestine. The lower Demiourgos, the adversary of man and of the God of Mercy, is at the same time an agent of that God.

Among the many varieties of Christianity which had vogue, Marcionism was one of the best attempts to find a workable adjustment between the ancient teachings and the conditions of the world at that time. But the spirit of a declining age prevailed in favor of the Church; the influence of Marcion can be traced for a few centuries, but his association finally lost its identity amid divergences and absorptions into other systems, especially Manichaeism.

(See also: Marcionites, Marcion , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

PERICHORESIS

The word is Greek, as you might imagine: peri "around" + choreio "dance." But for the Greeks "dancing" wasn't the aimless shuffling we do. It was more like ballet. "Choreography" is a lot closer to the idea -- in which particular movements are carefully planned and executed. Travel from one dimension to another occurs simultaneously on all levels of reality. We travel in and out of the astral during sleep every night and think nothing of it. And, as you know, when the shaman interfaces with the earth by taking narcotic mushrooms or cacti into his system, he's moving deliberately and consciously between universes.

Parallel worlds stretch horizontally from sinister to dexter, or rather, from increasing shades of darkness to increasing degrees of light. Beings entering from the darkside are perceived by us not as merely ignorant but as demonic, whereas the wisdom of the beings from the lightside stands so far beyond our recognition that we see them simply as angelic beings. Depending on the level of reality that we happen to occupy, the dark and light worlds are perceived as more or less similar to the world we currently inhabit. On some levels of reality, the transfiguration is reversed and we perceive them as inhabiting regions above and below a horizontal plane of reality that stretches into inaccessible temporal limits of Past and Future. In such a world, reality is a given that is perceived as revealing itself only at such Past and Future vanishing points -- Alpha and Omega.

Everywhere horizontal parallel plane meets vertical parallel levels and an Aeon is established, symbolized by a cross. If the cross, however is not circumscribed by a circle (the familiar symbol of cross in circle, representing "earth"), there is no cohesion and the center does not hold. The so-called "extremes," in fact, are not extremes at all, but merely their own opposites in a spinning circle.

Because of the nature of infinity, we have to recognize that we may never stand at any of the four extremities, but always only at the exact center of the omniverse.

Notice also that in any formal religious painting, the god or saint is always placed in the exact center. If he is raised too high from the center, the lower world is given undue importance and power, because, after all, in completely "secular" pictures, the God has been raised so high as to have been left out of the picture altogether! Placing the God too far down divests him of his divinity because his intensity looks, on our level, simply grotesque. Likewise, if the God is placed too far to the left or right, an imbalance is also created.

Thus, uncircumscribed, the ends of the cross stretch unchecked into the infinite four directions and an uncontrollable wickedness is set forth into all manifestations. Without the "earthing" of the cross, there is no manifestation. The extremities lead only into infinite "otherness" and delusion. It is the inner being at the solar plexus that is the heart of the universe. When we nail (i.e., Christianize) the higher spirit of man to an ancient quadratic event, the center is blocked and closed forever. Moreover, the center has been locked in the past, away from the Eternal Now. Until the nail (Xtianity) has been pulled out, no further evolution is possible and Death will prevail.

The way out is toward the central, innermost point.

The parallel world-planes are accessible at all times. We move in and out of them constantly, but are mostly unaware of having done so. Occasionally we get the feeling that "things are suddenly different" or that "something is about to happen" and that means we've inadvertently stepped into a new probable world that is much different from the ones we've hitherto occupied. You can move back into the world you've just left, only if you do so at once.

Whatever can be imagined, exists, will exist or has existed. Whatever has existed or will exist continues to exist now because time is one of the four real dimensions of things. Alongside this Reality there are an infinite number of co-existent realities of equal "solidity" and "substance." There are also an infinite number of "probable" realities and an infinite number of "possible" worlds. A moment's reflection will show that if this is so, then, obviously, available access to them must not be merely possible, but inevitable. Jane Robert's Seth describes the infinite "probable worlds" stretching out in either direction from this one. The closest ones being hardly distinguishable from this, as we progress outward, the probable worlds become stranger, increasingly incomprehensible and frighteningly unpredictable. In the fifth dimensional world, four dimensional objects have their own much more complete and solid "substance" which we cannot perceive so long as we inhabit lower planes of being.

You can, however, willingly and deliberately get up and walk from this world into the nearest adjacency and from there to the next, and the next. The only problem is that you're playing roulette. There's no way of telling what kind of world you are moving into.

If you are seeking to avoid some trouble in this world, be advised that things could be a lot worse in the world next door. Moreover, if you leave unsolved problem behind, your karma will continue to take you back there in future lives until eventually you are forced to solve them. On top of that, if you leave muddy footprints behind you as you run through world after world, you'll have added onto your present karma the extra burden of going back to mop them up.

Actual entrance/exit sites are a matter of intuitive perception. Dimensional doorways are not likely, for instance, to be found in your living room. They need to be places you've never crossed before (except as interdimensional thresholds). It's best to look for two pillars to pass between -- a couple of tall trees in a forest or park make excellent pillars. The more difficult the access the better. And the direction and angle of entrance are crucial. Select a "picture" framed by the trees as most nearly representing the world you want to leave behind you and before you a picture of what intuitively or esthetically looks to be an improvement of that. Make sure that nothing passes across your line of vision as you are actually walking through. If necessary, keep your eyes closed or look down at your feet.

At first the difference between adjacent worlds is scarcely discernible. Variations only become immediately evident at some distance. But if you are observant, you will eventually begin to notice tiny, subtle changes for the better (or worse). By the time these changes become evident, it's already too late to go back where you came from. The metaphors of artistic symbolism, religion and magic can also assist in perichoretic travel. With the enhanced ability to will and to imagine, the human mind can perceive parts of alternate realities with increasing clarity and may begin to see how to transform the reality we normally inhabit. In fact, so many are the pathways to alternate experience, it's a wonder anyone still believes that reality has but a single face!

There is, to be sure, ultimately only the One Plenum in which everything else transpires, but that sphere transcends experience in the Void of Nirvana.

Although, as we've seen above, there are relatively easy methods of interplanary travel (between planes), the ability to discover significant doorways into alternate dimensions, advanced perichoresis, not only requires an out-of-the-ordinary state of consciousness, but is a difficult technique in its own right, mastered properly only by experienced shamans. For instance, travel through time in the past requires us to move "forward" (i.e., towards the Beginning of Time) simply by ignoring vast areas of experience and being -- as we also do in the present -- in order to maintain a strict continuity of our own. Travel from the future (i.e., the End of Time), however, even though employing the same declination, creates an ever-thickening wall behind us, preventing all possibility of return to the starting point.

Kenneth Grant (Outside the Circles of Time) provides us with insights into the sexual avenue of interdimensional perichoresis and at the same time describes the procedure for creating a "moonchild." In his system, the door to our world opens inward in order for us to receive extratellurian immigrants.

Bipolar human sexuality, explains Grant, parallels cosmogenesis and the sacred void corresponds to the female vagina. Everything comes out of and falls back into this same eternal darkness. The creative light is sucked into its bottomless depths where it is swallowed up by vampiric blackness. Therefore, the doorway to the vacuum or zero of space is a priestess who has been chosen for her "master of the art of dream control." By allowing herself to become a mirror of impression-reception, she is able to generate illusions, "for all form is fantasy, and exists only in the dreaming mirror of the mind."

A material looking glass is placed above her, slanted to receive the starlight. Now, by her psychic ability she can project whatever star morph the magician requires onto the looking glass. A second mirror, creating an infinite regression reflection is placed 11 feet away, eleven being the number of the famous 11th Pathway of Black Magic. The circle of Daath is the corresponding doorway in the Qabalah.

Thereupon the priest uses his penis as the intergalactic conduit of the astro-seminal energy. His vibrations and invocations encourage the dream-manipulating priestess to focus the desired star-morph entity onto the mirrors. In the ultimate orgasm of priest, priestess and dream-entity, the eldolon rises briefly to life and erupts from the mirror as its starseed transmission runs down from the star to impregnate her. The zygote achieved by this cosmocopulation is a unique blend of human and extraterrestrial "genes."

According to most students, monstrous beings invisible to ordinary consciousness are entering our universe in unprecedented numbers, through this same interdimensional sexual doorway. (Apparently our time is a vector of unique significance.) The fantasy film, Ghostbusters, was a facetious rendering of this understanding, but revealed a good deal more than most viewers realized. Kenneth Grant teaches a heterosexual tantrism by which one may ride out again through the same door on the back of one of these demonic beasts and thereby escape. He calls this, again, the 11th Pathway. Others propose that there are homosexual and even solitary practices what serve this purpose equally well.

Sex and death are the two most common and well-known methods of conveyance between worlds, but such exclusively Scorpionic merkabahs are by no means the only ones. All of these methods follow the horizontal direction of planes to left and right, from darkness into light, or vice versa. There is also travel in the vertical direction from layers of reality and consciousness above and below. These cris-crossing horizontal and vertical planes endlessly extend out and recede into the vastnesses. Some of the planes are commonly thought, by the average person, to be "schizophrenic" because they appear to leave the traveller suspended in his "own little world." But such planes are of great importance to the magician or yogin. Reality, we must understand, is entirely a matter of the manipulation of illusion. The teacher, Gurdjieff, once pointed out that there is only one thing in the entire universe, but it is repeated endlessly in order to provide the illusion of "difference." Even chemistry and physics bear this out. The difference between each element is simply a difference in the number of their atomic electrons: Hydrogen 1, Helium 2, Lithium 3...

Some writers believe that there are denizens of other dimensions who use various perichoretic chariots that resemble the astral projections of those whose time and locality they visit. For Ezekiel and Daniel it was a fiery wheel bearing the tetramorph. For the Dogons it was a star ship. For our great grandfathers in the 19th Century it was frequently an airship. But they aren't just psychic experiences, say the witnesses, ufo's leave evidence behind ... a burned-out circle on the lawn, a map with indecipherable writing, MIBs, etc.

My own interdimensional visits to "the Other Side" have been neither A.D.E.'s nor OOBE's. They have occurred either through true-dreaming or by psychotropic methods, i.e., strictly via astral travel. In all, I have several times visited the "conventional" Astral Plane -- or abode of the (after-dead) spirits, three or four times encountered higher beings (although only at a distance), dwelt in the All-Consciousness of All-Phyla and once visited a previous time. Lately I have begun experimenting with ordinary consciousness as a routine means of perichoresis. The occult path I've travelled (until now) has always been the lonely one of the hermit. The beings I've encountered have been the traditional custodians of the pathways, that is to say, those archetypes hovering somewhere between being and non-being. Else they comprise the angels, Gods and daimones of pantheons we already know. But I have increasingly come under the purview of something more important: the existence of what seems to be an infinite number of Eternal Doorways between worlds. These doorways are available to us, of course, under very special circumstances -- that is to say, in altered psychic states lying clearly outside normal consciousness: Yoga, Tantra, sex magic, primitive rites of passage, repetitive rhythms (micro-events), sensory deprivation or stimulation, pain, extreme trauma, trance, all the multifarious REM/sleep/hypnotic states, rushes of adrenaline or fatigue intoxication, epilepsy, metamorphic anomaly, drug intoxication, illness, psychosis proper, thanatolepsy and death. (See SOLIPSISM.)

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

BAWMING THE THORN: The act of dressing or adorning a living tree with flowers and ribbons and making merry with great celebration afterwards including public games and various amusements. This event usually took place on or near Old Midsummer but the term bawming may include Yule trees as well as the traditional May Pole.

(See also: BAWMING THE THORN , Witch, Witchcraft, Paganism, Pagan Dictionary)

Sanskrit dictionary. From Advaita to Yoga.

Please note that all words in grey, like "enlightenment" or "kundalini" are hyperlinked to archives further explaining the term. At the corresponding archive you will also find articles related to the term.

Samsara

(Buddhist) The opposite of Nirvana. It is the world we live in now - the world of illusion, . passion; attachment to people and things; multiplicity and differentiation.

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

Egg One of the most comprehensive symbols, equally suggestive in a spiritual, physiological, and cosmological sense. Among other things, it stands for primordial chaos, the universal matrix, the great Deep, the Virgin Mother, and also for the kosmos or world egg produced from it. As chaos or space, it is the virgin egg, unproduced; this is fructified by the spiritual ray, and from it then issues the Third Logos.

"The Virgin-egg being in one sense abstract Egg-ness, or the power of becoming developed through fecundation, is eternal and for ever the same. And just as the fecundation of an egg takes place before it is dropped; so the non-eternal periodical germ which becomes later in symbolism the mundane egg, contains in itself, when it emerges from the said symbol, 'the promise and potency' of all the Universe . . . The simile of an egg also expresses the fact . . . that the primordial form of everything manifested, from atom to globe, from man to angel, is spheroidal, the sphere having been with all nations the emblem of eternity and infinity" (SD 1:64-5).

As the symbol of generation, birth, and rebirth, it is "the most familiar form of that in which is deposited and developed the germ of every living being" (IU 1:157), used not only on account of the mystery of apparent self-generation, but from its spheroidal shape, the sphere and circle both being symbols of encompassing space.

The egg symbol appears in many cultures. In the Laws of Manu, for instance, it is stated that the Self-existent Lord, becoming manifest, created water alone; in that he cast seed which became a golden egg (hiranyagarbha); having dwelt in that egg for a divine year, Brahma splits it, forming heaven and earth. Brahma thus both fructifies the egg and is produced from it. Again, the female evolver or emanator is first a germ, a drop of heavenly dew, a pearl, and then an egg; the egg gives birth to the four elements with the fifth (akasa); it splits, the shell being heaven, the meat earth, and the white the waters of both space and earth. Vishnu, too, emerges from the egg. In Egypt, Osiris is born from an egg, like Brahma; the egg was sacred to Isis and therefore the priests never ate eggs.

The egg is used in Easter celebrations as the symbol of the renewal of life. The Easter egg derives from the pagan custom of exchanging eggs at the birth-time of the year. Originally it had a deep esoteric hint completely lost sight of today where the custom is still held in the Occident, although commonly candies in the shape of eggs are exchanged. Giving a fellow disciple an egg in the old Mystery schools suggested the rebirth of nature, so apparent in the springtime, or again the initiation ceremonies that prevailed at the spring equinox, thereby expressing the hope that he too might at some time be "reborn," able to free his spiritual nature from the enveloping shell as a chick frees itself from the egg.

Sometimes the word is used for the circle or zero, for the egg combines the senses of fertility and sphericity in one symbol. The egg with its central germ is the circle with the point. In company with the stroke for the masculine power in nature -- sometimes represented as a vertical line -- it makes the number 10, or the figure of relatively perfected or complete emanation. The egg was the symbol of life in immortality and eternity, and also the glyph of the generative matrix. The anatomy of a hen's egg shows a wonderful analogy with the stages in comic evolution and the human principles.

See also BRAHMANDA; WORLD EGG

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

HAGSTONE: A holed stone that symbolizes the Goddess and her Divine Femininity. Often used by prudent Farriers after having a piece of string run through the holed stone and being attached to the door of the stable with the express purpose being to keep the horses within from being hag-ridden. Can also have additional oneiric uses.

*Hang up hooks and shears to scare

Hence the hag that rides the mare,

Till they be all over wet

With the mire and the sweat.

This observed the manes shall be

Of your horses all knot free.* Robert Herrick

(See also: HAGSTONE , Witch, Witchcraft, Paganism, Pagan Dictionary)

Out-of-body Experience

The out-of-body experience can be a dramatic one. Clinically, this falls into a phenomenon called "dissociative experience or disorder."

Often the experiences that create this feeling are powerfully ecstatic or traumatic. In either case, the feeling is similar to watching oneself in a film. Basically, whatever is going on in the dream is so powerful that the dreamer is separating herself from experiencing it directly. The result is a self watching the self in a moment of life. Dreams of this nature can be very revealing about the self at work in the world (see Medard Boss). Lucid dreaming can also create this feeling. In lucid dreaming, the dreamer is conscious of dreaming and may be watching herself in the dream.

Dreams of this nature may create a feeling that the dreamer has projected herself into another sphere of reality, creating a sense of astral projection. This idea has been popularised by certain paranormal studies on perceptions of reality.

Native American cultures view the out-of-body experience as a fuller unity of the soul with nature. As such, it is not surprising that they hold such experiences in high regard. It is in this sense that you can consider the out-of-body experience a brush with great power-in a world of physical limitations you suddenly have the ability to go wherever you wish to go. You have complete control regarding your place in the universe.

Conversely, another possible out-of-body experience involves a complete loss of power: seeing yourself lying on an operating table in a hospital.

Does your out-of-body experience empower or frighten you?

Do you choose your travel destination or do you simply appear somewhere through no choice of your own?

Source: iVillage, http://www.ivillage.co.uk

(See also: Dream Archives, Meaning of Dreams, Dream Interpretation, Dream Dictionary, Dream Dictionary - Out-of-body Experience , Meaning of Dreams about Out-of-body Experience , Dream Interpretation Out-of-body Experience )