- COLLATION OF THEOSOPHICAL GLOSSARIES
Hi - Hz
- List of Abbreviations for Titles
- TG Hiarchas (Gr.). The King
of the "Wise Men" in the Journey of Apollonius of Tyaria
to India.
- HIERARCHY
- For a fuller description of this topic by articles, excerpts,
and possibly further links, hyperlink to the Teachers, Disciples, and the Hierarchy of Compassion
section of this site.
- OG Hierarchy -- The
word hierarchy merely means that a scheme or system or state of
delegated directive power and authority exists in a self-contained
body, directed, guided, and taught by one having supreme authority,
called the hierarch. The name is used by theosophists, by extension
of meaning, as signifying the innumerable degrees, grades, and
steps of evolving entities in the kosmos, and as applying to all
parts of the universe; and rightly so, because every different
part of the universe -- and their number is simply countless --
is under the vital governance of a divine being, of a god, of
a spiritual essence; and all material manifestations are simply
the appearances on our plane of the workings and actions of these
spiritual beings behind it.
- The series of hierarchies extends infinitely in both directions.
If he so choose for purposes of thought, man may consider himself
at the middle point, from which extends above him an unending
series of steps upon steps of higher beings of all grades -- growing
constantly less material and more spiritual, and greater in all
senses -- towards an ineffable point. And there the imagination
stops, not because the series itself stops, but because our thought
can reach no farther out nor in. And similar to this
series, an infinitely great series of beings and states of beings
descends downwards (to use human terms) -- downwards and downwards,
until there again the imagination stops, merely because our thought
can go no farther.
- The summit, the acme, the flower, the highest point (or the
hyparxis) of any series of animate and "inanimate" beings,
whether we enumerate the stages or degrees of the series as seven
or ten or twelve (according to whichever system we follow), is
the divine unity for that series or hierarchy, and this hyparxis
or highest being is again in its turn the lowest being of the
hierarchy above it, and so extending onwards forever -- each hierarchy
manifesting one facet of the divine kosmic life, each hierarchy
showing forth one thought, as it were, of the divine thinkers.
- Various names were given to these hierarchies considered as
series of beings. The generalized Greek hierarchy as shown by
writers in periods preceding the rise of Christianity may be collected
and enumerated as follows: (1) Divine; (2) Gods, or the divine-spiritual;
(3) Demigods, sometimes called divine heroes, involving a very
mystical doctrine; (4) Heroes proper; (5) Men; (6) Beasts or animals;
(7) Vegetable world; (8) Mineral world; (9) Elemental world, or
what was called the realm of Hades. The Divinity (or aggregate
divine lives) itself is the hyparxis of this series of hierarchies,
because each of these nine stages is itself a subordinate hierarchy.
This (or any other) hierarchy of nine, hangs like a pendant jewel
from the lowest hierarchy above it, which makes the tenth counting
upwards, which tenth we can call the superdivine, the hyperheavenly,
this tenth being the lowest stage (or the ninth, counting downwards)
of still another hierarchy extending upwards; and so on, indefinitely.
- One of the noblest of the theosophical teachings, and one
of the most far-reaching in its import, is that of the hierarchical
constitution of universal nature. This hierarchical structure
of nature is so fundamental, so basic, that it may be truly called
the structural framework of being. (See also Planes)
WW Hierarchies [[This]] is an exceedingly
difficult subject because so much is involved in it. Let us go
backwards instead of forwards. A great many people, preeminently
the Christians themselves (because no people know less about their
religion than do the Christians) do not know that Christian mythology,
or, as I do not wish to be offensive, Christian theology, in those
branches which pertain to the more recondite aspects of their
creeds -- few Christians know, I repeat, that they had, and their
Teacher taught, a hierarchical succession in Nature. As embodied
in the early Christian writings this hierarchical system was divided
into nine classes; these nine classes being further subdivided
into three triads. I will write it on the blackboard very shortly,
so as to make it clear. Their angelical orders, like everything
of value in Christianity, came direct from the pagans, the pagans
in this instance, being the Syrians, Chaldeans, and Arabians,
and the Neo-platonists. A similar series of divine beings, proceeding
from the divinity down to the lowest, has been believed in by
all peoples of all times. From the Scandinavian fjords to the
plains of Arabia, from China to Peru, in all countries, we will
find the same belief in a hierarchical system by which the universe
is governed, a hierarchical system of divine beings, if you please.
The word hierarchy comes from the Greek hieros
(hieros), holy, and archein (archein),
i.e., to be at the beginning, at the head; hence to lead,
to rule. Now these words joined, we have the word hierarchy --
a government by deputation from a divine source. The Deity, to
put it in plain words, governs through deputies, lesser gods in
heaven, and priests on earth; hence the word remaining alive in
its original significance. In the church of Rome exists the Roman
hierarchy, the head of which is the Pope, and the head of him
is the Lord Jesus, since the Pope is the vicegerent of God on
earth. Under the Pope, the cardinals; although according to one
theory in the Roman Church itself, there seems to be a tendency
to believe that the cardinals as a united body, in conclave, are
possibly equal in authority to the Pope himself. In certain of
the Protestant churches, also, there is a hierarchy, as in the
Angelican Church, in which the Archbishop of Canterbury is the
hierarchial head. Under him are the bishops; under these are the
priests; under the priests are the lesser priests, called the
curates; and there are other orders of greater or less dignity,
deans, deacons, and heaven knows what else. There is a somewhat
similar system in the American Episcopal Church which is fundamentally
the same as the Angelican church. This system embodies the principle
of derivation of spiritual authority from another always a step
higher. This hierarchical system is the cause, the basis, of the
power of Rome. Its coherence, the instant communication of orders
from center to circumference, the sense of unity, the recognition
of authority, the feeling of brotherhood, makes the common bond,
which is so strong that all the onslaughts and attacks of science,
logic, reason, history, have been unable at the present day to
do more than shatter the outward fortifications of the Church
of Rome. The Church of Rome, as the great English Rationalist
Hobbes once said, is the ghost of the Roman empire; and it is
still a marvelously powerful ghost. The seeds of its disintegration
must be sown within its own body. The Modernism of today is becoming
a powerful force for progress in it.
Hierarchies is one of the keys to the natural religion of mankind,
which is Theosophy. The religions of the ancient world without
exception not even excepting the Jewish, and the religions of
ancient America, as far as we can know them from the writings
of the prejudiced priests who wrote the books from which we derive
our information -- all these show that the world was governed
on the hierarchical system, the orders or classes of being proceeding
from the Deity 'downwards' ever growing more material. The whole
system of the government of the universe was conceived of as a
deputation of authority. Man was one of the steps; below man were
the animals; below the animals, the plants; below the plants,
the minerals; below the minerals, the elementals -- until another
world begins, which is a very abstruse subject that I cannot touch
upon here. Above man were the Gods, the spiritual beings; above
the Gods, others called Super-Archangels, if you like; above them
were the Thrones, and the Dominations and Powers, all names conveying
the idea of a procession of authority, which we are attempting
to describe.
The 'angelic' hierarchy, as the Christians have it, dates from
the 6th century, and it is first found in a writer who calls himself,
or rather who is known as, Dionysius the Areopagite, from the
Areopagus, the Hill of Athens. He was associated with some legend
connected with the Areopagus. As my memory serves me, according
to the Christian legend he was one of St. Paul's first converts,
an Athenian named Dionysius, and he was converted on the Areopagus,
or belonged to the Council of Mar's Hill, and he took the name
Areopagite or Areopagites, as a surname -- Dionysius the Aeropagite.
There is no foundation for this legend of his Athenian derivation,
beyond the passage in Acts xvii, 4.
He divided, as I have previously hinted, the hierarchical series
into nine orders, subdivided into three triads. They are as follows
as he gives them:
First Triad
1. First and highest, Seraphim or the Seraphs, a word
derived from the Hebrew [[heb char]] (ShRPh) referring to the
fire, firery essence.
2. Cherubim, also from the Hebrew, the word [[heb char]]
(ChRVB) being of very First doubtful origin; but, as learned and
pious Triad Christian commentators put it, there is no question
of their being of angelical nature, because it is not true that
the Lord God once "rode upon a Cherub and Fly?" ["rode
upon a Cherub and Fly?" See II Sam. xxii,
11. "Fly" is not a noun here, but a verb -- "flew".--
J.D.] (Samuel), xxii, 11, Psalms xviii. 10.)
3. The Thrones; this makes the first triad.
Second Triad
4. Dominations
5. Virtues
6. Powers
Third Triad
7. Principalities
8. Archangels
9. Angels
WW Hierarchies [[W]]e will … remark on the
following nine orders: Gods, angelic orders, daimons, heroes,
men, animals, plants, minerals, and elementals. Before we begin
it might be well to say something about elementals. They form
properly the ninth in the hierarchy which I have just mentioned
because they are at the bottom of the scale; and those entities
which are at the bottom of any scale consisting of nine units
are elemental in their nature. You will remember … we said
that the angels were the ninth in order of the hierarchy or ladder
of beings, as given by Dionysius called the Areopagite. He was
called the Areopagite because he was supposed to be that individual
whom Paul met, converted, and turned to Christianity when he visited
Athens. There is a Dionysius mentioned in the Gospel of the Christians,
in Acts xvii, 34, as being one of the individuals whom
Paul converted; and medieval scholastics supposed that this Dionysius
was later 'Bishop' of the church of Athens, and was still later
transferred to Paris to become bishop of a certain district in
northern France; and it pleased Gallic pride to suppose that their
St. Denis and the writer calling himself Dionysius the Areopagite
were one and the same person. The probability is, however -- a
probability which is almost certainly the fact -- that whoever
the writer may have been who threw his thoughts into the form
of the work which has come down to us ascribed to Dionysius the
Areopagite, drew his inspiration and a source of his knowledge
from the Neoplatonic School. We find the same system of hierarchical
governance of the world set forth; we find the same attributes,
to a large extent, ascribed to the Deity; we find the same general
Neoplatonic way of looking at the world and man, at the beings
between man and the Deity and the beings under man.
Now, coming to our hierarchy:
1st Triad
1. Gods (Any other name would be, probably, as apt; I merely chose
the words angelical order, because angelical comes from the Greek
word meaning messenger, and all things are from the gods.)
2. Angelical order
3. Daimones
2nd Triad
4. Heroes
5. Men
6. Animals
3rd Triad
7. Plants
8. The mineral world
9. Elementals, and a new world begins, a new hierarchy.
You will remember that when we spoke of gods in our last study
we described them as 'spiritual beings'. The objection to this
is that it is not sufficiently definite, because 'spiritual beings'
may be applied to any entity in the universe possessing, as all
entities do, an intelligent spiritual center. Therefore, searching
for a word, this -- Gods -- seemed best. Any other word would
be as good, provided it conveyed the idea of the summit, physical,
intellectual, and spiritual, of any hierarchy under discussion.
The angelical order would be the second in the series, a step
downward from the Gods. It would be, of course, perfectly proper
to call them 'gods one degree lower'; the daimones 'gods two degrees
lower', the heroes three, men four, etc., and thus down to the
end of the scale. But as that is confusing, and as it fixes an
entity in the mind by giving it a name, let us call the next,
the third in order, daimones, from the Greek word
daimones which has many meanings and is used in Greek literature
with many significations.
Hesiod in his Works and Days (121), speaks of the daimones
as being the entities of the first, golden, or Saturnian
race of men [See also The Secret Doctrine, II,
765.-- PLP EDS.] (which would fit in very well with what
we understand by our Third Race in this Round), who exercise a
protecting and beneficent care over men.
The order of Heroes is lower, a word taken from Greek mythology,
philosophy, and literature. Hesiod speaks of the Heroes as the
representatives of his third race of men, "formidable, mighty
... hearts of adamant, unapproachable", which would also
fit in admirably with our Third and early Fourth Races. Hesiod
omits mention of our First Race; and his other races are made
to overlap. The Heroes were greater men, supermen, as they might
be called today. They were men such as Theseus was, and Hercules
too. The Heroes in Greek mythology were conceived as of having
a god for one parent and a human for the other parent.
Men are such as we are, a strange mingling of god and beast, standing
midway betwixt the gods and the elementals, and composing the
middle point of the hierarchy.
The Animals are lesser men, or super-plants, beings with everything
latent in them which we have, beings which are following us as
the world progresses, feeding on what we cast off. Our dead bodies
nourish the plants. Our astral elements after our death, nourish
the animals. The higher parts of the animals are nourished by
those parts of the lower quaternary, the second part of man (conceived
of as a heptad), which he casts off in the postmortem state.
The plants are lesser animals. Sometimes the difference between
plant and animal is small. There are creatures on earth today,
principally marine, in which it is difficult to distinguish whether
they are animal or plant.
The Mineral world composes the hard and rocky substance from which
plants, animals, and men, ultimately draw their subsistence And
the Elementals form both the lowest order of this hierarchical
scale -- which you will remember is merely taken as an example
of any hierarchical scale -- and the commencement of another hierarchical
scale below, another series of nine. They are the super-gods,
so to say, of the lower scale, as the elementals of the hierarchy
above the gods would be the super-gods of our hierarchy, superior
to this as this is superior to the one below it. So much for the
principles of the hierarchical governance of the universe.
Now it was a part of the Neoplatonic technique, and it is also
the technique of Theosophy, more particularly as set forth by
H. P. Blavatsky in The Secret Doctrine, that
every part of nature has its head. Nature is divided into spheres
of activity, planes of action, ruled by deputies, who are the
hierarchical heads thereof. This is also the teaching of Dionysius
the Areopagite. Be it remembered, that his ideas are unsatisfactory
from their vagueness, from the attempt to twist them to suit dogmatical
Christian theology, and from the effort made to stretch them or
to compress them into the proper size to fit that theology. But
the principle is there, of dominance, of governance of the cosmos,
of the universe, by deputies, receiving their power, their authority,
their intelligence from the hierarchical head. In the Scandinavian
Edda there are also the gods in their hierarchies. The
eighth state or order in this scale is called Hel,
that is to say the eighth of the hierarchy, lower or higher,
as we view it than the one corresponding to this I have just written
on the blackboard which we may call the human hierarchy, giving
it the name of that which composes its center. [This statement
is somewhat unclear, evidently referencing some scheme or diagram
on the blackboard not incorporated in the original shorthand transcript.
-- PLP EDS.] The ninth state of this Scandinavian hierarchy was
called Nifelhel [Niflheim].
Now we come to an exceedingly difficult part of this subject,
and that is, tracing the golden thread of consciousness and individuality
running from the summit down. You will remember that Homer (Iliad
viii, 19-24) speaks of the golden chain, by which if necessary
he could drag all the gods and goddesses up from below, or let
them down from Olympus if he so pleased; and this passage in the
divine Homer has exercised the minds of more Greek and Latin philosophers
than any other. Its proper elucidation is found in the writings
of the Neoplatonists. These Neo-Platonists were a wonderful body
of men. The name Neo of course means 'new', and Platonists
is a word indicating the source of their philosophy in Plato.
And they said that as Plato hid his knowledge in metaphor and
symbol, as all ancient teachers did, so their duty was (considering
that the world had arrived at what was called among themselves
a "period of intellectual and spiritual barrenness"
when false ideas were abroad and spreading in the world) -- their
duty was to set forth as much as they dared of the real meaning
of what Plato thought, more or less of the actual teachings taught
in the Mysteries of Greece. And they did so, and they said that
the 'golden chain' signified that procession of conscious being
from the highest we can conceive of, down to the lowest. Every
god had a procession or chain of entities proceeding from him
to the lowest things. Along that magnetic chain, that golden chain,
that series of links between the lowest and the highest, the particular
characteristic or qualities of that particular god were always
manifest. There was the Athentic, or Minervic which is the Latin
term for the same thing, and this is the procession of intellectual
entities. Their chain, down to the lowest, had an intellectual
characteristic or nature. Those gods in which the passion of harmony,
or love, (divine love, please understand) was the characteristic
dominant, as in the celestial Venus, formed the chain connecting
the celestial beings with the lowest of beings in which attraction
below and love above predominated. You will remember that there
were two Venuses, the celestial Venus, the divine Venus, called
by the Greeks Aphrodite Ourania (from the Greek word meaning the
heavens), and the Aphrodite Pandemos, of all people, as we might
say, 'everybody's' Venus. (Cf. Plato, Symposium, 81C).
This Aphrodite Pandemos, was the Venus of animal desire, of animal
love, animal attraction; and the Aphrodite Ourania, the celestial
Aphrodite, was that power in the universe which is best represented
by our human word harmony, or love, pure celestial, impersonal
love.
Therefore, consider if you please, that this hierarchy is removed
seven degrees, seven stages above ours, leaving the relative positions
of these nine orders as they now are. We may take fourteen stages
or fifteen, or any number we may choose, but we will say seven
above, counting upwards from the gods. From the gods of that seventh
degree higher the influence proceeds mystically and wonderfully
through all these others down to the ends of things. The second
order of that degree sends forth in the same way, and the third
and all the other. We are now men. What makes us men? It is the
working in us of the intellectual faculties, the Manas, that which
links us with the above and which enables us to understand the
below. When we come to study Soul, Spirit, Matter, and Maya we
shall be able to go into that subject more fully. Now it will
be better to leave it, merely alluding to the fact that we are
men because we receive as the source of our faculties, of our
inspiration, the influence, the life, the magnetic stream so to
speak, which descends from this particular hierarchy to which
we belong. This composite stream was spoken of in ancient India
under a dual form, as the solar and the lunar strains or inheritance,
because man, mystically speaking, is part sun and part moon. These
are difficult questions. We will go into them later when they
come up. I am now trying to show you how hierarchies work in Nature,
and you really see that the subject is so complex that I can give
no more than the idea as thought by the ancients. That is my duty;
it is the duty of those who wish to study, to investigate for
themselves. H. P. Blavatsky taught us, all our Teachers have taught
us, to take our literature, The Secret Doctrine pre-eminently,
and by searching and reading such works as will enable us to advance
step by step, to realize the grandeur of conceptions such as these:
that the universe is conceived of as an organism, as being a unit;
that there is no creation in the ordinary sense (we will come
to that subject later also). There is evolution, emanation. Strictly
speaking, we Theosophists are evolutionary emanationists. We are
not evolutionists and we are not emanationists, in the popular
sense, when we describe the tremendous activities which we class
under the two names Cosmogony and Theogony.
Therefore, each unit or order of any hierarchical system, giving
its individuality, its life, its principles to all below it, and
all below it aspiring towards it; each hierarchy in turn sending
its principles, its life, its energy, its light, to those lower,
and those lower aspiring to those higher -- we can see what a
majestic system it was which the ancients had, and how, despite
themselves, these Christians with their arrogance and egotism
find themselves drawn back to the old system, not knowing it.
They cannot avoid it. It is in them. It is in the blood of men
because they are men. Instinctively, they are drawn, as the magnet
attracts them. All men are thinking beings, as a Greek philosopher
said, and all heroes are aspiring beings, and all daimones are
intellectual entities, and all angelical orders are orders of
love. And the gods form the apex, those who are perfected. Little
by little the elementals raise themselves into the minerals, the
minerals through ages and ages of time become plants, the plants
raise themselves in turn to the animals, the animals aspire to
the heroes, the heroes are drawn to the animals and man is born!
Heaven above, earth below, man in the middle; below earth the
elemental world. It is a wonderful system, wonderful in the suggestiveness
of every thought. Thoughts come into our minds as we discuss these
things that we cannot follow, as we have not time, but you will
see that in whatever way we look at these truths there is a new
conception. Vaster horizons are opened to our view; new worlds
seem to burst upon our astonished gaze. And how do we enter them?
What is the key? It is Unity Divine, Universal Brotherhood, the
identity of all things that are spiritual, where there is neither
a beginning nor an end, because the end is a beginning and the
beginning is an end. When the great Christian Teacher said: "I
am the Alpha and the Omega", by Alpha and Omega he meant
that which is the beginning and the end -- "I am a hierarchy".
And see how it has been twisted and turned as implying the personal,
irascible, thundering God, the adopted God, the misunderstood
Jewish Lord, the "creator of heaven and earth", and
no more. "I and my Father are one". What is the Father
of man? God, which is myself, yourself -- and yet seven principles
in each of us all, and seven principles to each order of any hierarchy,
each principle with each principle interlinked, and forming an
interminable chain from the lowest up to the very Godhead. And
what is the Godhead? It is the elemental order of that which is
higher. And we talk about 'infinity' and 'eternity' and quibble
quite loosely, scarcely understanding what the words mean!
I could say much more on this subject, but time passes. I would
like to point out one thing. In the Christian New Testament, Paul,
writing to the Romans supposedly, (XI, 36) says (and the English
of it does not carry the force of the Greek): "For of
me and through me and to me are
all things." (of, derivation; through,
procession; from, a source; to,
aspiration). The Old Testament of the Jews has a
remarkable passage. It says "Let us make man in our image,
according to our likeness." You will see the force of that
in a few moments. The Hebrew of it is this: [[heb char]] N'AShH
ADM BTsLMNV ChDMVThNV (Gen. I, 26) The word for man here
is Adam. It is used for man in the sense that
the Germans use Der Mensch, not Der Mann;
as the Latins used the word Homo, not Vir;
as the Greeks said anthropos, not aner.
It means humanity, mankind, not a human pair, Adam and Eve.
The poetic term for man in Hebrew was [[heb char]] (ANVSh) = Enoch.
[G. de P. has Hebrew ANVSh, but English Enoch, which derives from
Hebrew ChNVCh, Haunch. H. P. Blavatsky shows these terms to be
equivalent. See Gen. iv, 17; v. 6, 19. ChNVCh had a life span
of 365 years; ANVSh, by gematria, is 365 x 1 according to Skinner's
Source of Measures methodology. -- J.D.] But in speaking
of a man particularly, as one of the race, an individual man,
the word [[heb char]] Ish, was used. For instance, "a man
said to a man": [[heb char]] AMR AISH LAISH.
Man considered as a genus, as a class is [[heb char]] ADM Adam,
commonly called Adam. Now, we find: --
"Let us make humanity in our image -- so God created man
in his own image. In the image of God created he him; male and
female created he them." (Genesis I, 26-28.)
The point is this: God, 'Elohim, created man in the image of God,
'Elohim; man is a child of God, 'Elohim; he is the image of his
hierarchy, the image of his summit, the apex of the hierarchy.
So careful were the writers of that verse that they repeated "In
the image of God 'Elohim created he him; male and female created
he them." Are we to understand that the Lord God of the Jews
is shaped as a physical man is? In chapter V of Genesis there
is this: -- "Male and female created he them and blessed
them, and called their name Adam." Now I ask your attention
to these things: they are not unimportant. We are told that the
first man, according to the usual interpretation, was called Adam,
and that the first woman was taken from a rib of his body. We
are told in the fifth chapter that their name was Adam.
We have just seen that Adam was the name of humanity, and that
the name for man as an individual was [[heb char]] (pronounced
Ish). What then is the inference? That humanity is spoken of,
not a human pair; that as their name was Adam (called he),
and as his 'wife' is distinguished from that word by the
word Eve, therefore that the nature of the mankind spoken of here
was mystically dual -- a humanity which became ages and ages later
on actually a double-sex race -- bisexual. Bisexual humanity on
earth is symbolic of an equivalent participation of energies in
the hierarchical order from which that bisexual race traced its
source. (The Adam of the first chapter of Genesis,
it should be remembered, is not a physical being
-- rather an 'angel', a semi-spiritual being of bi-polar nature.
We shall come again to this in due time.) We see, then that in
the Hebrew records early humanity (not the physical, fleshly being
we know as man; there is no authority for that) was in the image
of Elohim. Now Elohim is a very curious word. It is a plural;
it comes from [[heb char]] (ALVH) Eloah, a 'divine
being' or 'god', used sometimes as a word for the Deity. It would
mean -- reading it as a word and taking our minds away from theological
misconceptions -- the Gods. "And
the Gods said: Let us make humanity in our image, according to
our pattern." The orthodox answer to that (and it is proper
that we should have the other side before us) is that Elohim is
used in the masculine plural as a plural of majesty, or dignity,
much as an earthly monarch might say: "We, by the grace of
God, Edward, King of Great Britain and Ireland; we the king...."Furthermore
the argument is strengthened against what I have just said by
the usage in this locus of the singular verb (in part only) and
by the singular pronoun (in part, the plural also being used,
'our', 'us', 'we'). But it is according to the genius of the ancient
Hebrew that under certain conditions a plural noun may take a
singular verb, very much as in Greek the neuter plural regularly
takes a singular verb, as for instance [[greek char]] (ta panta
esti agatha), literally, all things is good. A
similar rule prevails in the Hebrew, that plurals sometimes take
singular verbs, sometimes not. So the argument of the monotheists
that Elohim is here only a plural of dignity, and besides that
it takes a singular verb to designate the Deity, disappears. Furthermore,
the sense in our image, our pattern, is very strong in
Hebrew. It has more force than it has in the English. Both words,
both expressions have a plural senrne, and as we know that if
we accept the orthodox interpretation, whether of the Jews or
of the Christians, we must believe that man was made in the image
of the formless Deity, that the Deity is the model of man, we
are led into what seems to a theosophical mind utter blasphemy.
But taking it in the sense of the plural as it stands, not necessarily
as gods with the usual idea of a heterogeneous collection of squabbling
divinities, but as a closely-knit order of hierarchy -- "In
our likeness, in our copy" -- we see that being patterned
after his archetype, man is a hierarchy; the gods are a hierarchy;
the Elohim are any undefined hierarchy which you may choose to
name. The Hebrew books speak of it, and Genesis starts
off with the words as commonly rendered: "In the beginning
God created the heaven and the earth."
SEE ELEMENTALS, BIBLICAL TRANSLATION
- TG Hierogrammatists. The title given to those
Egyptian priests, who were entrusted with the writing and reading
of the sacred and secret records. The "scribes of the secret
records" literally. They were the instructors of the neophytes
preparing for initiation.
- KT Hierogrammatists (Gr.)
The title given to those Egyptian priests who were entrusted with
the writing and reading of the sacred and secret records. The
"scribes of the secret records" literally. They were
the instructors of the neophytes preparing for initiation.
- TG Hierophant. From the Greek "Hierophantes";
literally, "One who explains sacred things". The discloser
of sacred learning, and the Chief of the Initiates. A title belonging
to the highest Adepts in the temples of antiquity, who were the
teachers and expounders of the Mysteries and the Initiators into
the final great Mysteries. The Hierophant represented the Demiurge,
and explained to the postulants for Initiation the various phenomena
of Creation that were produced for their tuition. "He was
the sole expounder of the esoteric secrets and doctrines. It was
forbidden even to pronounce his name before an uninitiated person.
He sat in the East, and wore as a symbol of authority a golden
globe suspended from the neck. He was also called Mystagogus"
(Kenneth R. H. Mackenzie, ix., F.T.S., in The
Royal Cyclopaedia). In Hebrew and Chaldaic the term was
Peter, the opener, discloser;
hence the Pope as the successor of the hierophant of the ancient
Mysteries, sits in the Pagan chair of St. Peter.
- IU Hierophant. -- Discloser of sacred learning.
The Old Man, the Chief of the Adepts at the initiations, who explained
the arcane knowledge to the neophytes, bore this title. In Hebrew
and Chaldaic the term was Peter, or opener, discloser; hence,
the Pope, as the successor of the hierophant of the ancient Mysteries,
sits in the Pagan chair of "St. Peter." The vindictiveness
of the Catholic Church toward the alchemists, and to arcane and
astronomical science, is explained by the fact that such knowledge
was the ancient prerogative of the hierophant, or representative
of Peter, who kept the mysteries of life and death. Men like Bruno,
Galileo, and Kepler, therefore, and even Cagliostro, trespassed
on the preserves of the Church, and were accordingly murdered.
- Every nation had its Mysteries and hierophants. Even the Jews
had their Peter -- Tanaim or Rabbin, like Hillel, Akiba, [Akiba
was a friend of Aher, said to have been the Apostle Paul of Christian
story. Both are depicted as having visited Paradise. Aher took
branches from the Tree of Knowledge, and so fell from the true
(Jewish) religion. Akiba came away in peace. See 2d Epistle to
the Corinthians, chapter xii.] and other famous kabalists, who
alone could impart the awful knowledge contained in the Merkaba.
In India, there was in ancient times one, and now there are several
hierophants scattered about the country, attached to the principal
pagodas, who are known as the Brahma-atmas. In Thibet the chief
hierophant is the Dalay or Taley-Lama of Lha-ssa. [Taley means
ocean or sea.]·Among Christian nations, the Catholics alone
have preserved this "heathen" custom, in the person
of their Pope, albeit they have sadly disfigured its majesty and
the dignity of the sacred office.
- KT Hierophant. From the Greek Hierophantes,
literally "he who explains sacred things";
a title belonging to the highest adepts in the temples of antiquity,
who were the teachers and expounders of the Mysteries, and the
Initiators into the final great Mysteries. The Hierophant stood
for the Demiurge, and explained to the postulants for Initiation
the various phenomena of creation that were produced for their
tuition. "He was the sole expounder of the exoteric secrets
and doctrines. It was forbidden even to pronounce his name before
an uninitiated person. He sat in the East, and wore as symbol
of authority, a golden globe, suspended from the neck. He was
also called Mystagogus." (Kenneth R. H. Mackenzie, IX., F.
T. S., in The Royal Masonic Cyclopoedia.)
- FY Hierophants, the High Priests.
- WG Hierophant (Eng.), an instructor in the
Mysteries, an initiator. (Greek hieros,
sacred; phantes, one
who shows.)
- WGa Higher Ego, Buddhi-Manas.
The spiritual part of the human ego. The god within us,
or our "Father in Heaven."
- TG Higher Self. The Supreme Divine Spirit
overshadowing man. The crown of the upper spiritual Triad in man
-- Atman.
- WGa Higher Self, Atma. The
spiritual essence in man. The supreme Soul, the divine Monad,
overshadowing the human Ego.
- OG Higher Triad
-- The imperishable spiritual ego considered as a unity. It is
the reincarnating part of man's constitution which clothes itself
in each earth-life in a new personality or lower quaternary. The
higher triad, speaking in the simplest fashion, is the unity of
atman, buddhi, and the higher manas; and the lower quaternary
consists of the lower manas or kama-manas, the prana or vitality,
the linga-sarira or astral model-body, and the physical vehicle.
- Another manner of considering the human constitution in its
spiritual aspects is that viewed from the standpoint of consciousness,
and in this latter manner the higher triad consists of the divine
monad, the spiritual monad, and the higher human monad. The higher
triad is often spoken of in a collective sense, and ignoring details
of division, as simply the reincarnating monad, or more commonly
the reincarnating ego, because this latter is rooted in the higher
triad.
- Many theosophists experience quite unnecessary difficulty
in understanding why the human constitution should be at one time
divided in one way and at another time divided in another way.
The difficulty lies in considering these divisions as being absolute
instead of relative, in other words, as representing watertight
compartments instead of merely indefinite and convenient divisions.
The simplest psychological division is probably that which divides
the septenary constitution of man in three parts: an uppermost
duad which is immortal, an intermediate duad which is conditionally
immortal, and a lower triad which is unconditionally mortal. (See
Fundamentals of the Esoteric Philosophy, 1st ed.,
pp. 167, 525; 2nd rev. ed., pp. 199, 601).
- TG 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.
- KT 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 saintly man.
- TG Himachala Himadri (Sk.).
The Himalayan Mountains.
- GH Himalaya The lofty range of mountains
in central Asia. Also known as Himachala and Himadri and personified
as Himavat, mythologically considered to be the husband of Mena
and the father of Ganga (the Ganges river). (Bhagavad-Gita,
W. Q. Judge, p. 74)
- TG Himavt (Sk.). The personified
Himalayas; the father of the river Ganga, or Ganges.
- TG Hinayana (Sk.). The "Smaller
Vehicle"; a Scripture and a School of the Northern Buddhists,
opposed to the Mahayana, "the
Greater Vehicle", in Tibet. Both schools are mystical. (See
"Mahayana".) Also in exoteric superstition the lowest
form of transmigration.
- KT Hinayana (Sans.) The "Smaller
Vehicle"; a Scripture and a School of the Buddhists, contrasted
with the Mahayana, "The Greater Vehicle."
Both schools are mystical. (See Mahayana.) Also in exoteric superstition,
the lowest form of transmigration.
- FY Hina-yana, lowest form of transmigration
of the Buddhist.
- WG Hina-yana, the inferior or lesser vehicle,
a system of Buddhistic teaching. (See Maha-yana.)
- SEE MAHAYANA
- WG Hindu, a Hindoo; the name of the religion
of the Hindus.
- SEE ARYA
- FY Hiong-Thsang, the celebrated Chinese traveler
whose writings contain the most interesting account of India of
the period.
- TG 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.
- HIPPOCRATES
- Oath and Law of Hippocrates
- TG Hippocrates (Gr.). A famous
physician of Cos, one of the Cyclades, who flourished at Athens
during the invasion of Artaxerxes, and delivered that town from
a dreadful pestilence. He was called "the father of Medicine".
Having studied his art from the votive tablets offered by the
cured patients at the temples of Aesculapius, he became an Initiate
and the most proficient healer of his day, so much so that he
was almost deified. His learning and knowledge were enormous.
Galen says of his writing that they are truly the voice of an
oracle. He died in his 100th year, 361 B.C.
- TG Hippopotamus (Gr.). In
Egyptian symbolism Typhon was called the hippopotamus who slew
his father and violated his mother," Rhea (mother of the
gods). His father was Chronos. As applied therefore to Time and
Nature (Chronos and Rhea), the accusation becomes comprehensible.
The type of Cosmic Disharmony, Typhon, who is also Python, the
monster formed of the slime of the Deluge of Deucalion, "Violates"
his mother, Primordial Harmony, whose beneficence was so great
that she was called "The Mother of the Golden Age".
It was Typhon, who put an end to the latter, i.e.,
produced the first war of the elements.
- TG Hiquet (Eg.). The frog-goddess;
one of the symbols of immortality and of the "Water"
principle. The early Christians had their church lamps made in
the form of a frog, to denote that baptism in water led to immortality.
- TG Hiram Abiff. A biblical personage; a skilful
builder and a "Widow's Son", whom King Solomon procured
from Tyre, for the purpose of superintending the works of the
Temple, and who became later a masonic character, the hero on
whom hangs all the drama, or rather play,
of the Masonic Third Initiation. The
Kabbala makes a great deal of Hiram Abiff.
- TG Hiranya (Sk.). Radiant,
golden, used of the "Egg of Brahma".
- TG Hiranya Garbha (Sk.).
The radiant or golden egg or womb. Esoterically the luminous "fire
mist" or ethereal stuff from which the Universe was formed.
- WG Hiranya-Garbha, a name of Brahma, the
creator, said to have been born from a golden egg which was formed
out of the seed deposited by the self-existent Brahma in the waters;
a symbol for universal abstract nature. (hiranya,
golden; garbha, the conceiving
womb, the fruit of the womb: "gold-scion," or "fruit
of the golden [egg].")
- SKs Hiranyagarbha Literally 'the Golden Egg'
or 'the Egg of imperishable matter,' the 'Auric Egg' of a universe,
a solar system, a planet, a god, or a human being. Hiranyagarbha
is a compound of hiranya -- golden,
and garbha -- womb. Legend, which
is verily history of the hoary past, says that Brahman, the Universal
Divinity, cast a seed into the Waters of Space. From this seed,
which became Hiranyagarbha or a golden egg which shone like unto
the sun, was born Brahma, the Solar Self. The Auric Egg of any
being is that radiant sphere which is the source of the being
on all planes. In an article on the Auric Egg to appear in the
forthcoming Encyclopedic Glossary, Dr. de Purucker writes about
the Auric Egg of a human being in the following words:
It ranges from the divine to the astral-physical, and is the seat
of all the monadic, spiritual, intellectual, mental, passional,
and vital energies and faculties of the human septiform constitution.
In its essence it is eternal, and endures throughout the Pralayas
as well as during the Manvantaras; but necessarily in greatly
varying fashion in these two great periods of Kosmic Life.
- In The Complete Works, H.
P. Blavatsky writes that the word Hiranya
does not mean "gold" but the golden light of divine
knowledge, the first principle in whose womb is contained the
light of the eternal truth which illuminates the liberated soul
when it has reached its highest abode. It is, in short, the "Philosopher's
Stone" of the alchemist, and the Eternal Light of the Fire
Philosopher. -- II, p. 76
- TG Hiranyakasipu (Sk.). A
King of the Daityas, whom Vishnu -- in his avatar of
the "man-lion" -- puts to death.
- TG Hiranyaksha (Sk.). "The
golden-eyed." The king and ruler of the 5th region of Patala,
the nether-world; a snake-god in the Hindu Pantheon. It has various
other meanings.
- TG Hiranyapura (Sk.). The
Golden City.
- TG Hisi (Fin.). The "Principle of Evil"
in the Kalevala, the epic poem
of Finland.
- TG Hitopadesa (Sk.). "Good
Advice." A work composed of a collection of ethical precepts,
allegories and other tales from an old, Scripture, the
Panchatantra.
- TG Hivim or Chivim (Heb.).
Whence the Hivites who, according to some Roman Catholic commentators,
descend from Heth, son of Canaan, son of Ham, "the accursed".
Brasseuir de Bourbourg, the missionary translater of the Scripture
of the Guatemalians, the Popol Vuth, indulges
in tile theory that the Hivim of the Qutetzo
Cohuatl, the, Mexican Serpent Deity,
and the "decendants of Serpents" as they call themselves,
are identical with the descendants of Ham (!!) "whose ancestor
is Cain". Such is the conclusion, at any rate, drawn from
Bombourg's writings by Des Mousseauix, the demonologist. Bourbourg
hints that the chiefs of the name of Votan, the Quetzo Cohuatl,
are the descendants of Ham and Canaan. "I and Hivim",
they say. "Being a Hivim, I am of the great Race of the Dragons.
I am a snake, myself, for I am a Hivim" (Cortes
51). But Cain is allegorically shown as the ancestor
of the Hivites, the Serpents, because Cain is held to have been
the first initiate in the mysteries of
procreation. The "race of the Dragons" or Serpents
means the Wise Adepts. The names Hivi or Hivite, and Levi -- signify
a "Serpent"; and the Hivites or Serpent-tribe of Palestine,
were, like all Levites and Ophites of Israel, initiated
Ministers to the temples, i.e., Occultists,
as are the priests of Quetzo Cohuatl. The Gibeonitcs whom Joshua
assignied to the service of the sanctuary were
Hivites. (See Isis Unveiled,
Vol. II. 481.)
- TG Hler (Scand.). The god
of the sea. One of the three mighty sons of the Frost-giant, Ymir.
These sons were Karl, god of the air and the storms; Hler of the
Sea; and Logi of the fire. They are the Cosmic trinity of the
Norsemen.
- TG Hoa (Heb.). That, from
which proceeds Ab, the "Father"; therefore
the Concealed Logos.
- TG Hoang Ty (Chin.). "The
Great Spirit." His Sons are said to have acquired new wisdom,
and imparted what they knew before to mortals, by falling -- like
the rebellious angels -- into the "Valley of Pain",
which is allegorically our Earth. In other words they are identical
with the "Fallen Angels" of exoteric religions, and
with the reincarnating Egos, esoterically.
- TG Hochmah (Heb.). See "Chochmah".
- TG Hod (Heb.). Splendour,
the eighth of the ten Sephiroth, a female passive potency. [w.w.w.]
- WGa Hod (Heb.), splendor.
The eighth of the ten Sephiroth of the Kabalah. A female potency.
- MO Hoder [[Norse]] (heu-der) [hod
war, slaughter] An Ase: blind god of darkness and ignorance;
brother of Balder
- TG Holy of Holies. The Assyriologists, Egyptologists,
and Orientalists, in general, show that such a place existed in
every temple of antiquity. The great temple of Bel-Merodach whose
sides faced the four cardinal points, had in its extreme end a
"Holy of Holies" hidden from the profane by a veil:
here, "at the beginning of the year 'the divine, king of
heaven and earth, the lord of the heavens, seats himself'."
According to Herodotus, here was the golden image of the god with
a golden table in front like the Hebrew table for the shew bread,
and upon this, food appears to have been placed. In some temples
there also was "a little coffer or ark with two engraved
stone tablets on it". (Myer's Qabbalah.)
In short, it is now pretty well proven, that the "chosen
people" had nothing original of their own, but that every
detail of their ritualism and religion was borrowed from older
nations. The Hibbert Lectures by Prof. Sayce and
others show this abundantly. The story of the birth of Moses is
that of Sargon, the Babylonian, who preceded Moses by a couple
of thousand years; and no wonder, as Dr. Sayce tells
us that the name of Moses, Mosheh, has
a connection with the name of the Babylonian sun-god as the "hero"
or "leader". (Hib. Lect. p. 4 et
seq.) Says Mr. J Myer, "The orders of the priests
were divided into high priests, those attached or bound to certain
deities, like the Hebrew Levites; anointers or cleaners; the Kali,
'illustrious' or 'elders'; the soothsayers, and the Makhkhu
or 'great one' in which Prof. Delitzsch
Sees the Rab-mag of the Old Testament. The Akkadians
and Chaldeans kept a Sabbath day of rest every seven days, they
also had thanksgiving days, and days for humiliation and prayer.
There were sacrifices of vegetables and animals, of meats and
wine. . . . The number seven was especially sacred. . . . The
great temple of Babylon existed before 2,250 B.C. Its 'Holy of
Holies' was within the Shrine of Nebo, the prophet god of wisdom."
It is from the Akkadians that the god Mardak passed to the Assyrians,
and he had been beforc Merodach, "the merciful", of
the Babylonians, the only son and interpreter of the will of Ea
or Hea, the great Deity of Wisdom.
The Assyriologists have, in short, unveiled the whole scheme of
the "chosen people".
- WG Holy Triad, in Buddhism, the Lord (Buddha),
the Law, and the Assembly.
- TG Holy Water. This is one of the oldest
rites practised in Egypt, and thence in Pagan Rome. It accompanied
the rite of bread and wine. "Holy water was sprinkled by
the Egyptian priest alike upon his gods' images and the faithful.
It was both poured and sprinkled. A brush has been found, supposed
to have been used for that purpose, as at this day." (Bonwick's
Egypian Belief.) As to the bread, "the cakes
of Isis . . . were placed upon the alter. Gliddon writes that
they were 'identical in shape with the consecrated cake of the
Roman and Eastern Churches'. Melville assures us 'the Egyptians
marked this holy bread with St. Andrew's cross'. The Presence
bread was broken before being distributed by the priests
to the people, and was supposed to become the flesh and blood
of the Deity. The miracle was wrought by the hand of the officiating
priest, who blessed the food. . . . Rouge tells us 'the bread
offerings bear the imprint of the fingers,
the mark of consecration'." (Ibid,
Page 418.) (See also "Bread and Wine".)
- TG Homogeneity. From the Greek words homos
"the same" and genos "kind".
That which is of the same nature throughout, undifferentiated,
non-compound, as gold is supposed to be.
- KT Homogeneity. From the Greek words homos,
"the same"; and genos, "kind."
That which is of the same nature throughout, undifferentiated,
non-compound, as gold is supposed to be.
- TG Honir (Scand.). A creative
god who furnished the first man with intellect and understanding
after man had been created by him jointly with Odin and Lodur
from an ash tree.
- MO Honer [[Norse]] (heu-ner) One of the creative
trinity; the watery principle
- TG Honover (Zend). The Persian
Logos, the manifested Word.
- TG Hor Ammon (Eg.).
"The Self-engendered", a word in theogony which answers
to the Sanskrit Anupadaka, parentless.
Hor-Ammon is a combination of the ram-headed god of Thebes and
of Horus.
- PV Hor chan "Head of the serpent."
The Chorti Maya caste of elder-chiefs, equated with Gucumatz,
the Agrarian deity of which they are the earthly representatives.
This elder caste is of divine origin, but the individual born
into it must win the right to exercise of the post through his
or her personal merit and exemplary conduct.
- TG Horchia (Chald.). According
to Berosus, the same as Vesta, goddess of the Hearth.
- TG Horus (Eg.). The last
in the line of divine Sovereigns in Egypt, said to he the son
of Osiris and Isis. He is the great god "loved of Heaven",
the "beloved of the Sun, the offspring of the gods, the subjugator
of the world". At the time of the Winter Solstice (our Christmas),
his image, in the form of a small newly-born infant, was brought
out from the sanctuary for the adoration of the worshipping, crowds.
As he is, the type of the vault of heaven, he is said to have
come from the Maem Misi, the sacred
birth-place (the womb of the World), and is, therefore, the "mystic
Child of the Ark" or the argha, the
symbol of the matrix. Cosmically, he is the Winter Sun.
A tablet describes him as the "substance of his
father", Osiris, of whom he is an incarnation and also identical
with him. Horus is a chaste deity, and "like Apollo has no
amours. His part in the lower world is associated with the Judgment.
He introduces souls to his father, the Judge" (Bonwick).
An ancient hymn says of him, "By him the world is judged
in that which it contains. Heaven and earth are under his immediate
presence. He rules all human beings. The sun goes round according
to his purpose. He brings forth abundance and dispenses it to
all the earth. Every one adores his beauty. Sweet is his love
in us."
- WGa Horus, the son of Osiris and Isis, the
Father and Mother, or spiritual and material aspects of Being,
in Egyptian mysticism. Therefore he is the fount of life, the
germ, the "mystic child of the ark"; that out of which
the whole universe grows or becomes.
- MO Hostage [[Norse]] A Vana god among the
Aesir: an avatara from a higher to a lower world
- TG Hotri (Sk.). A priest
who recites the hymns from the Rig Veda,
and makes oblations to the fire.
- WG Hotri, a priest conversant with the Rig-Veda;
an offerer of sacrifices with fire.
- TG Hotris (Sk.). A symbolical
name for the seven senses called, in the Antugita
"the Seven Priests". "The senses supply the fire
of mind (i.e., desire) with the oblations of external
pleasures." An occult term used metaphysically.
- VS Householder (II 11) [[p. 28]] Rathapala
the great Arhat thus addresses his father in the legend called
Rathapala Sutrasanne. But as all such legends
are allegorical (e.g. Rathapala's father has a
mansion with seven doors) hence the reproof, to
those who accept them literally.
- Hrida tashtan mantran Mantras carved by the heart
- WG Hridaya, the heart; the center or essence
of anything; divine knowledge.
- TG Hrimthurses (Scand.). The
Frost-giants; Cyclopean builders in the Edda.
- WG Hrishikesha, lord of the organs of sense,
or the faculties. (hrishika, any
organ of sense, or indriya; isa,
master, ruler. (See Indriyatman.)
- GH Hrishikesa A name applied to Krishna and
to Vishnu. (Meaning of the word itself: lord of the senses. Bhagavad-Gita,
W. Q. Judge, p. 84)
- MO Hugin [[Norse]] (hoog-in) [bug
mind] One of Odin's two ravens
- TG Humanity. Occultly and Kabbalistically,
the whole of mankind is symbolised, by Manu in India; by Vajrasattva
or Dorjesempa, the head of the
Seven Dhyani, in Northern Buddhism; and by Adam Kadmon in the
Kabbala. All these represent the totality of mankind whose beginning
is in this androgynic protoplast, and whose end is in the Absolute,
beyond all these symbols and myths of
human origin. Humanity is a great Brotherhood by virtue of the
sameness of the material from which it is formed physically and
morally. Unless, however, it becomes a Brotherhood also intellectually,
it is no better than a superior genus of animals.
- OG Human Ego -- The
human ego is seated in that part of the human constitution which
theosophists call the intermediate duad, manas-kama. The part
which is attracted below and is mortal is the lower human ego.
The part which aspires upwards towards the buddhi and ultimately
joins it is the higher human ego or reincarnating ego. The dregs
of the human ego after the death of the human being and after
the second death in the kama-loka, remain in the astral spheres
as the disintegrating kama-rupa or spook.
- OG Human Monad --
In theosophical terminology the human monad is that part of man's
constitution which is the root of the human ego. After death it
allies itself with the upper duad, atma-buddhi, and its inclusion
within the bosom of the upper duad produces the source whence
issues the Reincarnating Ego at its next rebirth. The monad per
se is an upper duad alone, but the attributive adjective "human"
is given to it on account of the reincarnating ego which it contains
within itself after death. This last usage is rather popular and
convenient than strictly accurate.
- OG Human Soul --
The human soul, speaking generally, is the intermediate nature
of man's constitution, and being an imperfect thing it is drawn
back into incarnation on earth where it learns needed lessons
in this sphere of the universal life.
- Another term for the human soul is the ego -- a usage more
popular than accurate, because the human ego is the soul of the
human soul so to speak, the human soul being its vehicle. The
ego is that which says in each one of us, "I am I,
not you!" It is the child of the immanent
Self; and through its imprisonment in matter as a ray of the overruling
immanent Self, it learns to reflect its consciousness back upon
itself, thus obtaining cognition of itself as self-conscious and
hetero-conscious, i.e., knowing itself, and knowing "non-self"
or other selves.
- Just as our higher and highest nature work through this human
soul or intermediate nature of us, so does this last in its turn
work and function through bodies or vehicles or sheaths of more
or less etherealized matters which surround and enclose it, which
are of course still lower than itself, and which therefore give
it the means of contacting our own lower and lowest planes of
matter; and these lower planes provide us with the vital-astral-physical
parts of us. This human soul or intermediate nature manifests
therefore as best it can through and by the astral-physical vehicle,
the latter our body of human flesh.
- In the theosophical classification, the human soul is divided
into the higher human soul, composed of the lower buddhi and the
higher manas -- and the self corresponding to it is the bhutatman,
meaning the "self of that which has been" or the reincarnating
ego -- and the lower human soul, the lower manas and kama, and
the self corresponding to it is pranatman or astral personal ego,
which is mortal.
- PV Hunab ku The Supreme Being of the Maya,
also called Hun Itzamna. Equated with the Quiche's Cabahuil, the
god-Seven of the Popol Vuh.
- PV Hunahpu [[Quiche]] "One Blowgunner."
The Quiche name of the Maya savior deity that incarnates to enlighten
mankind and show the way to divinity; born immaculately at dawn
on the winter solstice. With Ixbalamque, the civilizing hero of
Quiche-Maya culture; god-Five, the young Solar and Maize god,
in Chorti imagery symbolized by a cross (four points plus the
central point); son of the Supreme Being, and alter ego of Hunrakan.
A hypostasis of the Agrarian deity (god-Seven); as the young Maize
god, is born from the foot of Cabahuil in the bowels of the earth.
A twin of Ixbalamque, grandchild of Ixpiyacoc and Ixmucane. God
B of the Maya codices; god of Dawn; compared with Osiris; symbol
of chronological unity; apotheosized with Ixbalamque at the end
of the Third Age in the Popol Vuh; the Fourth
Regent or Ahau; god of the Woods; one of his zoological nahuals
is the fish.
- PV Hun Batz [[Quiche]] "One Big Monkey."
A son of one of the Seven Ahpu, he is a hero and great sage, singer,
orator, engraver, sculptor, etc., of the Third Age of the Popol
Vuh. A cousin or older brother of Hunahpu and Ixbalamque
and Regent of the Third Age. Together with his brother, Hun Chouen,
transformed into a monkey at the end of the Third Age. The monkeys
of the forests are the only record of his existence.
- PV Hun Chouen [[Quiche]] "One Monkey."
Like his brother Hun Batz, a son of one of the Seven Ahpu and
sage and hero of the Third Age, sharing its regency. Transformed
into a monkey with Hun Batz at the end of their regency, or the
Third Age.
- TG Hun-desa (Sk.). The country
around lake Mansaravara in Tibet.
- PV Hunrakan [[Quiche]] "He of the single
foot." A variant of Cabahuil, having a precise functional
meaning. A nahual of Hunahpu and Ixbalamque. Identified with the
constellation Ursa Major.
- TG Hvanuatha (Mazda.). The
name of the earth on which we live. One of the seven Karshvare
(Earths), spoken of in Orma Ahr. (See
Introduction to the Vendidad by Prof. Darmsteter.)
- MO Hvergalmer [[Norse]] (vayr-yell-mer) [hverr
caldron] Source of the rivers of lives. It rises in Niflheim
and waters one root of the Tree of Life
- TG Hwergelmir (Scand.). A
roaring cauldron wherein the souls of the evil doers perish.
- TG Hwun (Chin.). Spirit.
The same as Atman.
- FY Hwun, spirit; the seventh principle in
man (Chinese).
- TG Hydranos (Gr.). Lit.,
the "Baptist". A name of the ancient Hierophant of the
Mysteries who made the candidate pass through the "trial
by water", wherein he was plunged thrice. This was his baptism
by the Holy Spirit which moves on the waters of Space. Paul refers
to St. John as Hydranos, the Baptist.
The Christian Church took this rite from the ritualism of the
Eleusinian and other Mysteries.
- TG Hyksos (Eg.). The mysterious nomads, the
Shepherds, who invaded Egypt at a period unknown and far anteceding
the days of Moses. They are called the "Shepherd Kings".
- TG Hyle (Gr.). Primordial
stuff or matter; esoterically the homogeneous sediment
of Chaos or the Great Deep. The first principle out of
which the objective Universe was formed.
- MO Hymer [[Norse]] (hee-mer) The first titan
of a life cycle. See Rymer
- TG Hypatia (Gr.). The girl-philosopher,
who lived at Alexandria during the fifth century, and taught many
a famous man -- among others Bishop Synesius. She was the daughter
of the mathematician Theon, and became famous for her learning.
Falling a martyr to the fiendish conspiracy of Theophilos, Bishop
of Alexandria, and his nephew Cyril, she was foully murdered by
their order. With her death fell the Neo-Platonic School.
- TG Hyperborean (Gr.). The
regions around the North Pole in the Arctic Circle.
- WGa Hyperborean, the regions round the North
Pole comprised within the Arctic Circle. The land of the Second
Race.
- TG Hypnotism (Gr.). A name
given by Dr. Braid to various processes by which one person of
strong will-power plunges another of weaker mind into a kind of
trance; once in such a state the latter will do anything suggested
to him by the hypnotiser. Unless produced for beneficial
purposes, Occultists would call it black magic or
Sorcery. It is the most dangerous of practices, morally and physically,
as it interferes with the nerve fluid and the nerves controlling
the circulation in the capillary blood-vessels.
- KT Hypnotism (Gr.) A name
given by Dr. Braid to the process by which one man of strong will-power
plunges another of weaker mind into a kind of trance; once in
such a state the latter will do anything suggested
to him by the hypnotiser. Unless produced for beneficial purposes,
the Occultists would call it black magic or sorcery.
It is the most dangerous of practices, morally and physically,
as it interferes with the nerve fluids.
- OG Hypnotism -- Derived
from a Greek word hypnos, which means "sleep,"
and strictly speaking the word hypnotism should be used only for
those psychological-physiological phenomena in which the subject
manifesting them is in a condition closely resembling sleep. The
trouble is that in any attempt to study these various psychological
powers of the human constitution it is found that they are many
and of divers kinds; but the public, and even the technical experimenters,
usually group all these psychological phenomena under the one
word hypnotism, and therefore it is a misnomer. One of such powers,
for instance, which is well known, is called fascination. Another
shows a more or less complete suspension of the individual will
and of the individual activities of him who is the sufferer from
such psychological power, although in other respects he may show
no signs of physical sleep. Another again -- and this perhaps
is the most important of all so far as actual dangers lie -- passes
under the name of suggestion, an exceedingly good name, because
it describes the field of action of perhaps the most subtle and
dangerous side-branch of the exercise of the general power or
force emanating from the mind of the operator.
- The whole foundation upon which this power rests lies in the
human psychological constitution; and it can be easily and neatly
expressed in a few words. It is the power emanating from one mind,
which can affect another mind and direct or misdirect the latter's
course of action. This is in nine hundred and ninety-nine times
out of a thousand a wrong thing to do; and this fact would readily
be understood by everybody did men know, as they should, the difference
between the higher and the lower nature of man, the difference
between his incorruptible, death-defying individuality, his spiritual
nature, on the one hand; and, on the other hand, the brain-mind
and all its train of weak and fugitive thoughts.
- Anyone who has seen men and women in the state of hypnosis
must realize not only how dangerous, how baleful and wrong it
is, but also that it exemplifies the trance state perfectly. The
reason is that the intermediate nature, or the psychomental apparatus,
of the human being in this state has been displaced from its seat,
in other words, is disjoined or dislocated; and there remains
but the vitalized human body, with its more or less imperfect
functioning of the brain cells and nervous apparatus. H. P. Blavatsky
in her Theosophical Glossary writes: "It
is the most dangerous of practices, morally and physically, as
it interferes with the nerve-fluid and the nerves controlling
the circulation in the capillary blood-vessels." (See
also Mesmerism)
- TG Hypocephalus (Gr.). A
kind of a pillow for the head of the mummy. They are of various
kinds, e.g., of stone, wood, etc., and very often
of circular disks of linen covered with cement, and inscribed
with magic figures and letters. They are called "rest for
the dead" in the Ritual, and
every mummy-coffin has one.
- List of Abbreviated Titles (in alphabetical
order)
FY | Five Years of Theosophy - 1885
| H. P. Blavatsky, ed.
GH | Gods and Heroes of the Bhagavad Gita - 1939
| Geoffrey A. Barborka
IN | An Invitation to the Secret Doctrine - 1988
| Grace F. Knoche, ed.
IU | Isis Unveiled - 1877 |
H. P. Blavatsky
KT | Key to Theosophy - 1889
| H. P. Blavatsky
MO | The Masks of Odin - 1985 | Elsa-Brita Titchenell
OG | Occult Glossary - 1933, 1996
| G. de Purucker
PV | Esotericism of the Popol Vuh | Raphael Girard
(glossary by Blair A. Moffett)
SK | Sanskrit Keys the Wisdom Religion - 1940
| Judith Tyberg
- SKo Sanskrit terms from The Ocean of
Theosophy, by William Q. Judge, 1893.
- SKv Sanskrit terms from The Voice of the Silence, by
H. P. Blavatsky, 1889.
- SKf Sanskrit terms from Fundamentals of the Esoteric
Philosophy, by G. de Purucker, 1932.
- SKs Sanskrit terms from The Secret Doctrine, by
H. P. Blavatsky, 1888.
SP | Sanskrit Pronunciation - 1992
| Bruce Cameron Hall
TG | Theosophical Glossary - 1892
| H. P. Blavatsky
VS | Voice of the Silence - 1889
| H. P. Blavatsky
WG | The Working Glossary - 1892
| W. Q. Judge
- WGa Terms from The Working Glossary Appendix
-
- WW | Word Wisdom in the Esoteric Tradition - 1980 |
G. de Purucker