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Showing 20 pages using this property.

F

Farbauti +

A giant in the ''Edda''; lit., “the oarsman”; the father of Loki, whose mother was the giantess Laufey (leafy isle); a genealogy which makes W. S. W. Anson remark in ''Asgard and the Gods ''that probably the oarsman or Farbauti “was the giant who saved himself from the flood in a boat, and the latter (Laufey) the island to which he rowed”—which is an additional variation of the Deluge [[Category: Theosophical Glossary (CTD terms)]] (TG). +

G

Garuda +

A gigantic bird in the ''Ramâyana'', the steed of Vishnu. Esoterically—the symbol of the great Cycle [[Category: Theosophical Glossary (CTD terms)]] (TG). +

D

Deva +

A god, a “resplendent” deity. Deva‐Deus, from the root ''div ''“to shine”. A Deva is a celestial being— whether good, bad, or indifferent. Devas inhabit “the three worlds”, which are the ''three planes ''above us. There are 33 groups or 330 millions of them [[Category: Theosophical Glossary (CTD terms)]] (TG). +

N

Nirriti +

A goddess of Death and Decay [[Category: Theosophical Glossary (CTD terms)]] (TG). +

H

Hillel +

A great Babylonian Rabbi of the century preceding the Christian era. He was the founder of the sect of the Pharisees, a learned and a sainted man [[Category: Theosophical Glossary (CTD terms)]] (TG). +

C

Chhanmuka +

A great Bodhisattva with the Northern Buddhists, famous for his ardent love of Humanity; regarded in the esoteric schools as a ''Nirmanakâya.'' [[Category: Theosophical Glossary (CTD terms)]] (TG). +

Chuang +

A great Chinese philosopher [[Category: Theosophical Glossary (CTD terms)]] (TG). +

H

Hiouen Thsang +

A great Chinese writer and philosopher who travelled in India in the sixth century, in order to learn more about Buddhism, to which he was devoted [[Category: Theosophical Glossary (CTD terms)]] (TG). +

A

Artephius +

A great Hermetic philosopher, whose true name was never known and whose works are without dates, though it is known that he wrote his ''Secret Book ''in the XIIth century. Legend has it that he was one thousand years old at that time. There is a book on dreams by him in the possession of an Alchemist, now in Bagdad, in which he gives out the secret of seeing the past, the present, and the future, in sleep, and of remembering the things seen. There are but two copies of this manuscript extant. The book on ''Dreams ''by the Jew Solomon Almulus, published in Hebrew at Amsterdam in 1642, has a few reminiscences from the former work of Artephius [[Category: Theosophical Glossary (CTD terms)]] (TG). +

I

Iamblichus +

A great Theurgist, mystic, and writer of the third and fourth centuries, a Neo‐Platonist and philosopher, born at Chalcis in Cœle‐Syria. Correct biographies of him have never existed because of the hatred of the Christians; but that which has been gathered of his life in isolated fragments from works by impartial pagan and independent writers shows how excellent and holy was his moral character, and how great his learning. He may be called the founder of theurgic magic among the Neo‐Platonists and the reviver of the practical mysteries outside of temple or fane. His school was at first distinct from that of Plotinus and Porphyry, who were strongly against ceremonial magic and practical theurgy as dangerous, though later he convinced Porphyry of its. advisability on some occasions, and both master and pupil firmly believed in theurgy and magic, of which the former is principally the highest and most efficient mode of communication with one’s Higher Ego, through the medium of one’s astral body. Theurgic is benevolent magic, and it becomes goetic, or dark and evil, only when it is used for necromancy or selfish purposes; but such dark magic has never been practised by any theurgist or philosopher, whose name has descended to us unspotted by any evil deed. So much was Porphyry (who became the teacher of Iamblichus in Neo‐Platonic philosophy) convinced of this, that though he himself never practised theurgy, yet he gave instructions for the acquirement of this sacred science. Thus he says in one of his writings, “Whosoever is acquainted with the nature of ''divinely luminous appearances '''''''fasmata '''''( knows also on what account it is requisite to abstain from all birds (and animal food) and especially for him who hastens to be liberated from terrestrial concerns and to be established with the celestial gods”. (''See Select Works ''by T. Taylor, p. 159.) Moreover, the same Porphyry mentions in his Life of Plotinus a priest of Egypt, who, “at the request of a certain friend of Plotinus, exhibited to him, in the temple of Isis at Rome, the familiar ''daimon ''of that philosopher “. In other words, he produced the theurgic invocation (see “Theurgist”) by which Egyptian Hierophant or Indian Mahâtma, of old, could clothe their own or any other person’s astral ''double ''with the appearance of its Higher EGO, or what Bulwer Lytton terms the “ Luminous Self”, the ''Augoeides, ''and confabulate with It. This it is which Iamblichus and many others, including the mediæval Rosicrucans, meant by ''union with Deity''. Iamblichus wrote many books but only a few of his works are extant, such as his “Egyptian Mysteries” and a treatise “On Dæmons”, in which he speaks very severely against any intercourse with them. He was a biographer of Pythagoras and deeply versed in the system of the latter, and was also learned in the Chaldean Mysteries. He taught that the One, or universal MONAD, was the principle of all unity as well as diversity, or of Homogeneity and Heterogeneity; that the Duad, or two (“ Principles”), was the intellect, or that which we call Buddhi‐Manas; three, was the Soul (the lower Manas), etc. etc. There is much of the theosophical in his teachings, and his works on the various kinds of dæmons (Elementals) are a well of esoteric knowledge for the student. His austerities, purity of life and earnestness were great. Iamblichus is credited with having been once levitated ten cubits high from the ground, as are some of the modern Yogis, and even great mediums [[Category: Theosophical Glossary (CTD terms)]] (TG).

C

Charnook Thomas +

A great alchemist of the sixteenth century; a surgeon who lived and practiced near Salisbury, studying the art in some neighbouring cloisters with a priest. It is said that he was initiated into the final secret of transmutation by the famous mystic William Bird, who “had been a prior of Bath and defrayed the expense of repairing the Abbey Church from the gold which he made by the red and white elixirs” (''Royal Mas. Cyc.''). Charnock wrote his ''Breviary of Philosophy ''in the year 1557 and the ''Enigma of Alchemy'', in 1574 [[Category: Theosophical Glossary (CTD terms)]] (TG). +

A

Ammonius Saccas +

A great and good philosopher who lived in Alexandria between the second and third centuries of our era, and who was the founder of the Neo‐ Platonic School of Philaletheians or “lovers of truth”. He was of poor birth and born of Christian parents, but endowed with such prominent, almost divine, goodness as to he called ''Theodidaktos, ''the “god‐taught”. He honoured that which was good in Christianity, but broke with it and the churches very early, being unable to find in it any superiority over the older religions [[Category: Theosophical Glossary (CTD terms)]] (TG). +

K

Karam +

A great festival in honour of the Sun‐Spirit with the Kolarian tribes [[Category: Theosophical Glossary (CTD terms)]] (TG). +

B

Boehme +

A great mystic philosopher, one of the most prominent Theosophists of the mediæval ages. He was born about 1575 at Old Seidenburg, some two miles from Görlitz (Silesia), and died in 1624, at nearly fifty years of age. In his boyhood he was a common shepherd, and, after learning to read and write in a village school, became an apprentice to a poor shoemaker at Görlitz. He was a natural clairvoyant of most wonderful powers. With no education or acquaintance with science he wrote works which are now proved to be full of scientific truths; but then, as he says himself, what he wrote upon, he “saw it as in a great Deep in the Eternal”. He had “a thorough view of the universe, as in a chaos”, which yet “opened itself in him, from time to time, as in a young plant”. He was a thorough born Mystic, and evidently of a constitution which is most rare one of those fine natures whose material envelope impedes in no way the direct, even if only occasional, intercommunion between the intellectual and the spiritual Ego. It is this Ego which Jacob Boehme, like so many other untrained mystics, mistook for God; “Man must acknowledge,” he writes, “that his knowledge is not his own, but from God, who manifests the Ideas of Wisdom to the Soul of Man, in what measure he pleases.” Had this great Theosophist mastered Eastern Occultism he might have expressed it otherwise. He would have known then that the “god” who spoke through his poor uncultured and untrained brain, was his own divine Ego, the omniscient Deity within himself, and that what that Deity gave out was not in “what measure pleased,” but in the measure of the capacities of the mortal and temporary dwelling IT informed [[Category: Theosophical Glossary (CTD terms)]] (TG). +

J

Jaimini +

A great sage, a disciple of Vyâsa the transmitter and teacher of the Sama Veda which as claimed he received from his Guru. He is also the famous founder and writer of the Pûrva Mimânsâ philosophy [[Category: Theosophical Glossary (CTD terms)]] (TG). +

K

Kapila Rishi +

A great sage, a great adept of antiquity; the author of the Sankhya philosophy [[Category: Theosophical Glossary (CTD terms)]] (TG). +

L

Lao‐tze +

A great sage, saint and philosopher who preceded Confucius [[Category: Theosophical Glossary (CTD terms)]] (TG). +

D

Dravidians +

A group of tribes inhabiting Southern India; the aborigines [[Category: Theosophical Glossary (CTD terms)]] (TG). +

E

Essenes +

A hellenized word, from the Hebrew ''Asa, ''a “healer”. A mysterious sect of Jews said by Pliny to have lived near the Dead Sea '''''per millia sæculorum'''''—for thousands of ages. “ Some have supposed them to be extreme Pharisees, and others—which may be the true theory—the descendants of the ''Benim‐nabim ''of the ''Bible, ''and think that they were ‘Kenites and ''Nazarites''. They had many Buddhistic ideas and practices; and it is noteworthy that the priests of the ''Great Mother ''at Ephesus, Diana‐ Bhavani with many breasts, were also so denominated. Eusebius, and after him De Quincey, declared them to be the same as the early Christians, which is more than probable. The title ‘ brother’, used in the early Church, was Essenean ; they were a fraternity, or a koinobion or community like the early converts.” (''Isis Unveiled''.) [[Category: Theosophical Glossary (CTD terms)]] (TG). +

K

Kandu +

A holy sage of the second root‐race, a yogi, whom Pramlôcha, a “nymph” sent by Indra for that purpose, beguiled, and lived with for several centuries. Finally, the Sage returning to his senses, repudiated and chased her away. Whereupon she gave birth to a daughter, Mârishâ. The story is in an allegorical fable from the ''Purânas'' [[Category: Theosophical Glossary (CTD terms)]] (TG). +